Illegal Immigrants Just Victims of Angry Arizonans; Ground Zero Mosque a Defeat for Islamofascists?
Illegal Immigrants: Just Victims of Angry Arizonans...
Diane Sawyer: "Tonight, undocumented immigrants - many working in this country for decades - are fleeing the state, or hiding in fear...."
Bill Weir: "There is a fear-driven exodus going on in Arizona tonight. More vacant apartments, more empty shops, more kids disappearing from school.... Francisco has been in Phoenix without papers for 14 years, but says now he's afraid to walk the streets. So he'll take his family and leave as soon as he can."
- ABC's World News, July 27. [Audio/video (0:38): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Co-host George Stephanopoulos: "Unless the judge acts, the new law will take effect tonight. Nightline anchor Bill Weir is live in Phoenix, where he finds that it is already pitting neighbor against neighbor. Hey, Bill."
ABC's Bill Weir: "That is right, George....It is the lack of immigration reform that's filled so many Arizonans with anger - and now, so many Latinos with fear."
- Good Morning America, July 28. The on-screen headline: "Target: Immigrants; Arizona Law Set to Take Effect."
"The loud and bitter battle over Arizona's immigration law has reached fever-pitch. But Rosario Peralta worries about the quiet exodus - immigrant families already leaving the state in droves. In the past few months, she's seen business and customers at her family grocery store disappear."
- Barbara Pinto on ABC's World News, July 25.
...Rescued by a Liberal Judge's Ruling
Reporter Barbara Pinto: "In a matter of minutes, relief replaced dread, hope replaced fear....Rosario Peralta, who is here legally, watched customers at her family's grocery store disappear, frightened families moving out of state. This afternoon, some of them came back."
Shopkeeper Rosaria Peralta: "I was really worried, you know, for all our customers. It's been slow, but thank God, everything's good."
- ABC's World News, July 28. [Audio/video (0:54): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Reporter Lee Cowan: "But while some were relieved, others fear the crackdown may come anyway."
Unidentified woman: "I'm worried for my family. I'm worried for my friends. I worry for my people."
Cowan: "And there are those who worry about a backlash from those angry the court undid what the people of Arizona largely approved."
- NBC Nightly News, July 28.
Mosque at Ground Zero = Defeat for Islamofascists?
"Time now for our 'Morning Mix,' where we tackle the topics everybody is buzzing about. This week, uproar over that decision to build a mosque at Ground Zero....What better - this is a country founded on the notion of religious freedom. What better way to say they haven't won?"
- George Stephanopoulos to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on ABC's Good Morning America, August 4. [Audio/video (0:44): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Fort Hood Shooter: Just a Guy "With a Gun and a Grudge"?
"Good evening. Another American tragedy tonight, another worker with a gun and a grudge. This time, nine people are dead, the worst rampage since 13 were killed last November at Fort Hood, Texas...."
- Diane Sawyer opening ABC's World News, August 3.
Is Your Record Even Better Than We Journalists Say?
CBS's Harry Smith: "President Obama was in the Motor City to toot his own horn, to tell the story that, without his leadership, things would be worse.
President Obama: "U.S. auto makers have added 55,000 jobs since last June, the strongest job growth in more than 10 years in the auto industry."
Smith to Obama: "Do you feel sometimes like your administration is not given the credit it deserves?"
Obama: "Yes."
- Interview segment shown on CBS's Sunday Morning, August 1. [Audio/video (0:42): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Frustrated Joy: I Can't Fight "Right Wing" Fox All by Myself!
Co-host Joy Behar: "You've really done a lot, I think. I mean, you've signed 200-plus laws into- since you're in office. You have - financial reform has taken place. You got a health care. I mean, you put two woman on the Supreme Court. I could go on and on about your accomplishments. And yet, the right-wing, through Fox News and other outlets, they seem to be hijacking the narrative. Where, on your side, is the narrative? Where is your attack dog to come out and tell the American people, 'Listen, this is what we did?'"
President Obama: "Joy, that's your job."
Behar, over audience applause: "I do it! But, I'm only one woman!"
- Exchange on ABC's The View, July 29. [Audio/video (0:50): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Saluting "Most Powerful and Successful" Pelosi
"You, by all accounts, are one of the most, if not the most, powerful and successful Speakers in the history of the United States. You've passed so much legislation. The President was elected with a significant majority. You had control of both houses of Congress. And yet, now, people are talking about you might lose your majority in the House. The gap seems to be growing wider between what's achieved and what's making an impact with the people. How did this happen?"
- New ABC host Christiane Amanpour to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on This Week, August 1.
Obama Has Taxed and Spent Like Crazy - What More Do People Want?
"They passed job extension benefits again and again. They passed a big health care reform bill that's gonna lower health care costs, it's predicted to, for a lot of people. They've had stimulus spending. They have sent more money to small community banks. What else do people want the President and Congress to do?"
- MSNBC Live 12pm ET anchor Contessa Brewer on July 22, talking about Obama's low approval ratings. [Audio/video (0:26): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Newsweek's Ode to Reverend Al
"No one has a quicker mind or tongue than [Al] Sharpton. His political instincts are unmatched, and his personal charisma has been undimmed since high school....He is out there all alone, still standing on the same principle he first enunciated in his housing project in Brooklyn: poor people have the same rights as rich ones, to justice in the streets and in the courts. If he didn't exist, we might, in fact, need to invent him."
- Newsweek's Allison Samuels and Jerry Adler in their August 2 cover profile: "The Reinvention of the Reverend Al."
Bob's Boast: We "Old Media" Types Always Double Check
"Old Media makes its share of mistakes, but not if we can help it. We still call people involved in a story to get their side; editors fact check; and we never publish or broadcast anything unless we think it's true....I sure don't want to lecture the young folks - even the older ones masquerading as New Media. But hey, if you would just make a call every once in a while to check these things out before you put it on the Web, you could save all of us a lot of trouble."
- CBS's Bob Schieffer scolding conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, July 25 Face the Nation.
"As tempers rose, they hurled racial epithets, even at civil rights icon John Lewis of Georgia....Other legislators said the protesters spit on them and one lawmaker said it was like a page out of a time machine."
- Schieffer on the March 21 Face the Nation. The allegation that Tea Partiers shouted "racial epithets" at black members of Congress has never been substantiated.
Screaming Against GOP = Expressing "Nation's Frustration"
Anchor Diane Sawyer: "Every now and then, someone seems to express the nation's frustration with the endless wrangling and delay in Congress. And we thought you might like to hear New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner. He wanted a vote last night on a $7.4 billion bill, aid for the sick police and firemen who raced to ground zero to rescue people...."
Representative Anthony Weiner: "He is wrong. The gentleman is wrong. The gentleman is providing cover for his colleagues rather than doing the right thing. It's Republicans wrapping their arms around Republicans rather than doing the right thing on behalf of the heroes. It is a shame! A shame!"
- ABC's World News, July 30. [Audio/video (1:45): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Come On, Obama, Take on Your "Enemies" at Fox News
"From the standpoint of Obama and the administration, who are these people that they should pay attention to and be afraid of? Who's Glenn Beck? I mean, who's Bill O'Reilly?...I want to quote another President who also said he had enemies. I'm going to quote: 'A financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionism. They're unanimous in their hatred for me. And I welcome their hatred,' said Franklin Roosevelt, who said, 'I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.' So, President Obama, don't be afraid of them. Take 'em on and let the people judge."
- ABC's Sam Donaldson on This Week, July 25.
U.S. Capitol Shooter = "Near Mythic Freedom Fighter"?
"Lolita Lebrón, a Puerto Rican nationalist known to some as a terrorist and to others as a near-mythic freedom fighter for her violent attack on the U.S. Capitol more than a half-century ago, died Aug. 1 at a hospital in San Juan of complications from respiratory disease. She was 90."
- Washington Post's Emma Brown in an August 2 obituary for Lebron, who led a 1954 attack on the U.S. Capitol building that left five congressmen wounded by gunfire.
Times' Tribute Sugarcoats Schorr's Nasty 1964 Hit Piece
"[Journalist Daniel] Schorr, while at CBS, reported on the enthusiasm of right-wing Germans for Goldwater as he secured the presidential nomination that year. Mr. Schorr noted that a planned post-convention Goldwater trip mainly involved time at an American military recreation center in Berchtesgaden, site of a favorite Hitler retreat."
- New York Times correspondent Robert Hershey, in a July 24 obituary for the 93-year-old National Public Radio commentator, previously a longtime CBS News correspondent.
"'It looks as though Senator Goldwater, if nominated, will be starting his campaign here in Bavaria, center of Germany's right wing' also known, Schorr added helpfully, as 'Hitler's one-time stomping ground.' Goldwater, he went on, had given an interview to Der Spiegel, 'appealing to right-wing elements in Germany,' and had agreed to speak to a conclave of, yes, 'right-wing Germans.' 'Thus,' Schorr concluded, 'there are signs that the American and German right wings are joining up."...Though easily checkable, it [Schorr's report] was false in all its particulars. Goldwater had spoken vaguely of vacationing in Europe but had made no plans to visit Germany...."
- The Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson recounting the same story, from the July 11, 1964 CBS Evening News, in his June 4, 2001 review of Schorr's then-new memoir, Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism.
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