Olbermann Blasts Rumsfeld as a 'Quack' Pushing 'Fascism' --8/31/2006

1. Olbermann Blasts Rumsfeld as a 'Quack' Pushing 'Fascism'
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday night used his Countdown show to deliver a vitriolic personal attack on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "a reality check of Donald Rumsfeld's incendiary speech, a special comment on his attack on your right to disagree." Olbermann concluded his program with a six-minute diatribe against Rumsfeld: "The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet." Olbermann equated the Bush administration with "the English government of Neville Chamberlain" which "knew that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated." The MSNBC star charged, "The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought." The U.S., Olbermann asserted before concluding with Edward R. Murrow's "we must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," now "faces a new type of fascism." AUDIO&VIDEO [1]

2. ABC on Katrina: White Conspiracy v. Black Conspiracy Theorists
Near the end of Tuesday's World News with Charles Gibson, ABC's "A Closer Look" segment explored racial tensions in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Reporter Steve Osunsami recycled wild black conspiracy theories about how the levees were blown up in a racist plot, complete with a Spike Lee soundbite and documentary footage. Whites were said to be delighted that Katrina would make the city much whiter. Lance Hill, the Tulane University professor ABC selected to describe white opinion, has claimed the government ordered no food and water be distributed to Katrina victims, and spurred local Holocaust-survivor outrage by comparing the government's Katrina response to Hitler's Holocaust. ABC didn't explain any of that.

3. ABC's Raddatz: Katrina a 'Political Disaster'...Just for Bush
On ABC's World News on Tuesday night, a story on President Bush's day in New Orleans aggressively underlined the liberal theme that the response to Hurricane Katrina is a scandalous, indelible black mark on Bush's legacy. Reporter Martha Raddatz told viewers "the slow response was indeed a political disaster for the President, from which he is still trying to recover." Raddatz ended the story with an anecdote about a waitress joking to Bush that he wasn't going to turn his back on her, and Bush reportedly replied: "No, ma'am, not again."

4. CNN's Cafferty: Big Oil Lowering Gas Prices to Help Republicans?
Wednesday's USA Today reported that gasoline prices could be closer to $2 a gallon by Thanksgiving. The paper cited the end of the summer driving season and decreased demand as causes for this predicted decline. Not surprisingly, CNN's Jack Cafferty saw something more sinister at work. Before his daily "Cafferty File" segment during the 4pm EDT hour of The Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon, substitute anchor John King and news reader Zain Verjee discussed this report and cheered on lower gas prices as good news. Cafferty then spouted off the old liberal conspiracy theory connecting Republicans and Big Oil: "You know, if you were a real cynic, you could also wonder if the oil companies might not be pulling the price of gas down to help the Republicans get re-elected in the midterm elections a couple of months away."

5. Geraldo Advocates for 'Courageous' Illegal Immigrant
On the August 28th edition of Fox's syndicated Geraldo At Large, Geraldo Rivera advocated for an illegal immigrant single-mother trying to fight deportation with the help of a Chicago church. The piece cast illegal immigration foes as almost heartless as Rivera asked Pat Buchanan: "Isn't it impossible almost, not to be sympathetic to this mom and her son?" and "Pat isn't it a kind of bait and switch? We lure the illegals here with the promise of work and now we're telling them, either leave or be arrested?"

6. Ex-CBS Reporter: Couric a 'Liberal...in Love With Hillary'
According to a new biography of Dan Rather, one longtime CBSer -- no, not Rather himself -- believes what most CyberAlert and NewsBusters readers believe: Incoming CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric is in the tank for Hillary Clinton. In a Tuesday review for BloombergNews.com of Alan Weisman's book, Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather, Dave Shiflett revealed: "[f]ormer [CBS] congressional correspondent Phil Jones tells Weisman that Couric is 'a liberal Democrat who is so in love with Hillary Clinton' that it could pose a problem if Clinton runs for President."

Olbermann Blasts Rumsfeld as a 'Quack'
Pushing 'Fascism'

Olbermann opened his hour by claiming that during a Tuesday speech before the American Legion convention, Rumsfeld "compared critics of the current war in Iraq to those who tried to appease Adolf Hitler and the Nazis before World War II." In fact, Rumsfeld simply worried about how not all realize how "we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism" from the Islamic world. Olbermann brought aboard DNC Chairman Howard Dean, proposing to him: "Is it, do you know, technically possible to impeach a Secretary of Defense and have we gotten to that stage after these remarks?"

[This item was posted, with video, Wednesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org. The video will be added to the posted version of this CyberAlert, but in the meantime, to watch the Real or Windows Media clip, as well as the MP3 audio, go to: newsbusters.org [5] ]

For the text of Rumsfeld's August 29 speech to the American Legion convention in Salt Lake City, as posted by Defenselink.mil: www.defenselink.mil [6]

Wednesday night on the "Bloggerman" blog page for Keith Olbermann, MSNBC.com posted the full text of Olbermann's closing diatribe on the August 30 Countdown, his first blog posting since June 7: www.msnbc.msn.com [7]

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld's remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis -- and the sober contemplation -- of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld's speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril -- with a growing evil -- powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld's, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the "secret information." It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld's -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England's, in the 1930's.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions -- its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all -- it "knew" that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic's name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History -- and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England -- have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty -- and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today's Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

[Video clip linked above begins here:] Had he or his President perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience -- about Osama Bin Laden's plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina's impact one year ago -- we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their "omniscience" as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have -- inadvertently or intentionally -- profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emperor's New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens'€" must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart -- that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism."

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism -- indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: "confused" or "immoral."

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular."

And so good night, and good luck.

END of Text of Olbermann's rant

ABC on Katrina: White Conspiracy v. Black
Conspiracy Theorists

Near the end of Tuesday's World News with Charles Gibson, ABC's "A Closer Look" segment explored racial tensions in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Reporter Steve Osunsami recycled wild black conspiracy theories about how the levees were blown up in a racist plot, complete with a Spike Lee soundbite and documentary footage. Whites were said to be delighted that Katrina would make the city much whiter. Lance Hill, the Tulane University professor ABC selected to describe white opinion, has claimed the government ordered no food and water be distributed to Katrina victims, and spurred local Holocaust-survivor outrage by comparing the government's Katrina response to Hitler's Holocaust. ABC didn't explain any of that.

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Wednesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [8] ]

Charles Gibson introduced the August 29 segment with a worried tone about the lightening hue of what Mayor Ray Nagin called Chocolate City:
"We are going to take A Closer Look tonight, at a sensitive issue here in New Orleans. How Hurricane Katrina has aggravated racial tensions in this city. The storm disproportionately affected poor and black neighborhoods. Before Katrina, two-thirds, 67 percent of New Orleans was black. Now, 40, maybe 50 percent of the population is black. In short, New Orleans is whiter and richer now. That has triggered suspicion in the black community. Here's ABC's Steve Osunsami."

Osunsami: "Shortly after Katrina, the city of New Orleans enjoyed a relative peace on its streets. But in a few short months, the drug dealers and drive-by shootings returned."
Unidentified black woman: "Police don't let it happen to you. Because it can happen to anybody anywhere."
Osunsami: "Across the city, there are many residents who say they know exactly who to blame."
To white woman: "Do many white folks in this town blame black folks for the crime?"
Joan Matthieu, New Orleans resident: "I would think so. I would think so."

Then came ABC's wild-eyed leftist expert on white opinion:
Lance Hill, Southern Institute for Education and Research: "I think that race relations now are probably worse than they have been for years."
Osunsami: "Tulane professor Lance Hill said many white people here cheered when poor, black residents were evacuated. He believed some white residents saw it as a chance to rebuild New Orleans in their own image."
Hill: "People believed that Katrina was the best thing that happened to the city. Now, the sense among the people the uptown elite and the blue-blood elite, is that they're the victims."
Osunsami: "Victims, he said, because half of the African-Americans who once lived here are back. And dreams of a white New Orleans are dead."

ABC left out a lot about Lance Hill's wild views on the Katrina response. In an August 22 op-ed on his Web page, Hill explained:
"My wife and I remained in New Orleans for more than a month during martial law, for the most part taking care of elderly people in the unflooded areas, and every law enforcement officer and soldier that we met told us the same thing: they had been ordered not to provide citizens with food, water, or medical aid."

Hill pledged his allegiance to Spike Lee's conspiratorial vision, and insisted the United Nations should get involved:
"Spike Lee has asked a question that deserves an answer. The United States is a signatory to the Geneva Human Rights Treaty, which forbids governments from blocking humanitarian relief to refugees of political or natural disasters. At a minimum, our nation's own laws should forbid using food and water as weapon against our own people."

See: www.southerninstitute.info [9]

ABC left out that local Holocaust survivor groups were outraged that Hill would propose an education program making a side-by-side comparison of the Katrina response with Hitler's Holocaust:
"In response to this new reality, the Southern Institute is creating a 'Katrina Oral History Program' for middle and high school students. The program will use oral histories of the Holocaust and Katrina for a comparative study that will increase students' understanding of the causes of prejudice and the power of the individual to remedy injustice. Students will compare the experiences of the Holocaust and Katrina by using the same social and psychological theories that the Southern Institute currently uses to teach the Holocaust, i.e. categories of social behavior including Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders, and Rescuers."

Check: isurvived.org [10]

And: www.southerninstitute.info [11]

Instead of explaining Hill's background, Osunsami merely moved on:
"At the same time, African-Americans who returned are furious with the lack of affordable housing. And they blame their white neighbors."
Ladonne Hills, New Orleans resident: "The rent, the light bills, too high. That's why they try, I know they don't want blacks to come back."
Osunsami: "It's true the government has refused to fully reopen four city housing projects that were home to tens of thousands of black residents. But the co-chair of the region's recovery efforts says black residents deserve better than the old warehouses for the poor."
To Isaacson: "How will this be implemented?"
Walter Isaacson, Vice Chairman, Louisiana Recovery Authority: "I think one thing to do is try to make sure that all new housing developments are mixed income, mixed use, and so that all people can come home to it." [ABC viewers might not know that Isaacson is the former Managing Editor of Time magazine and President of CNN.]
Osunsami: "Among people who have already come home, there's a widening distrust."
Steva Pilato, [white] New Orleans resident: "Well, they're saying that people are racist. It's interesting. They're saying-"
Reporter: "Black folks are saying that the white folks are racist?"
Pilato: "And vice versa."

Then, fresh from the white professor's conspiracy theories, Osunsami turned to Spike Lee's black conspiracy theories:
"In many black neighborhoods, they actually believe that white residents sent the barge that destroyed the levee and flooded their communities."
Unidentified black man, in HBO's film by Spike Lee: "They had a bomb. They bombed that sucker."
Osunsami: "To this day, the conspiracy theories are so widely held, director Spike Lee put them on film. Several thousand black residents recently attended the New Orleans premiere.
Spike Lee, director: "As an African-American in this country, I don't put anything past the government."
Osunsami concluded: "It will clearly take this city much longer than a year to heal. There's a sense here that as residents look back and try to figure out exactly what went wrong, this city becomes even more racially polarized."

But just as Brian Williams and Matt Lauer spread the conspiracy theories without really attempting to decide whether they were inaccurate -- and indeed, that falsehoods should be passed along if victimized groups believe them -- ABC should be asked if the truth matters, or they are merely transmitters of people's feelings instead of facts. Osunsami and ABC ought to provide more skepticism than saying blacks "actually" believe the levees were bombed. If they are going to broadcast the charge, they should also refute the charge if it is inaccurate. With segments like these ABC is doing nothing to alleviate racial tensions, but only to exacerbate them.

ABC's Raddatz: Katrina a 'Political Disaster'...Just
for Bush

On ABC's World News on Tuesday night, a story on President Bush's day in New Orleans aggressively underlined the liberal theme that the response to Hurricane Katrina is a scandalous, indelible black mark on Bush's legacy. Reporter Martha Raddatz told viewers "the slow response was indeed a political disaster for the President, from which he is still trying to recover." Raddatz ended the story with an anecdote about a waitress joking to Bush that he wasn't going to turn his back on her, and Bush reportedly replied: "No, ma'am, not again."

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Wednesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [12] ]

Anchorman Charles Gibson began the August 29 segment, the second story after a general recounting of how New Orleanians commemorated the one-year anniversary, with a brief mention of responsibility at all levels of government. But as usual, ABC had no time for the Democratic mayor or governor and their failures, even as Raddatz highlighted the Democratic senator slamming the federal response. Gibson theorized:
"Katrina, of course, also devastated people's faith in their government. City government, state, FEMA. Even the president has absorbed large measures of blame. Today, President bush, on his 13th trip to the area since Katrina made a rather blunt admission. Our chief White House correspondent Martha Raddatz, is joining us from across town. Martha?"
Raddatz: "Charlie, as you said, the president has been here many times since the last year. But today, on this anniversary, he seemed especially somber and contrite."

Over a graphic in capital letters reading "TAKING BLAME" sat underneath a picture of Bush at a podium, Raddatz continued:
"The President looked forward in his speech today-"
Bush: "New Orleans is calling her children home. I hear it from all the local officials. They have a plan in place and money coming, to me New Orleans a hospitable place."
Raddatz: "And he was also looking back. Remembering the terrible scenes that he said no one ever imagined would happen in America."

Over evocative photographs of suffering African-Americans, ABC ran a clip of Bush: "Citizens drowned in their attics. Desperate mothers crying out on national TV for food and water. The breakdown of law and order. And a government, at all levels, that fell short of its responsibilities. I take full responsibility for the federal government's response."

The President's somber contrition didn't gain him any traction with ABC, as they sought to blacken further his post-Katrina reputation. Raddatz did cite some of the White House claims, but then countered them with gloomy data:
"The slow response was indeed a political disaster for the president, from which he is still trying to recover. Today, the president cited the $110 billion set aside for hurricane recovery. The number of schools that have reopened. And the fact that three-quarters of the debris has been removed. But only $44 billion of the $110 billion has been spent. And the majority of that has gone to emergency response -- trailers, medical care. Fewer than five percent the homes that were destroyed have been rebuilt. And many hospitals and schools remain closed. It is the reconstruction money that has been slow in coming."
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana): "Just sending $110 billion and then having it stuck in federal bureaucracies that don't work has been maddening for the people that are so desperate for the help down here in New Orleans."
Raddatz: "But the President today suggested a way to get tens of millions of additional dollars directly for Louisiana, urging Congress to pass legislation that would give more of the revenue from offshore oil leases directly to the state."

Raddatz concluded the report on a split screen with Gibson:
"And there was one telling moment today, Charlie. The President went to breakfast at a restaurant with local officials. When he turned to talk to them, a waitress said to him, jokingly, mr. President, you're not going to turn your back on me, are you now? And he said, 'no, Ma'am, not again.'"

The ending should remind the public that writing a news story is very selective -- and liberal outlets loved the waitress story. (Raddatz left out Bush's laugh with the waitress, and the hug pictured in some newspapers.) If there is a political upside in Bush leading with his chin on Katrina, as he seemed to do in New Orleans, ABC wasn't offering it to him.

CNN's Cafferty: Big Oil Lowering Gas
Prices to Help Republicans?

Wednesday's USA Today reported that gasoline prices could be closer to $2 a gallon by Thanksgiving. The paper cited the end of the summer driving season and decreased demand as causes for this predicted decline. Not surprisingly, CNN's Jack Cafferty saw something more sinister at work. Before his daily "Cafferty File" segment during the 4pm EDT hour of The Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon, substitute anchor John King and news reader Zain Verjee discussed this report and cheered on lower gas prices as good news. Cafferty then spouted off the old liberal conspiracy theory connecting Republicans and Big Oil: "You know, if you were a real cynic, you could also wonder if the oil companies might not be pulling the price of gas down to help the Republicans get re-elected in the midterm elections a couple of months away."

[This item, by Megan McCormack, was posted Wednesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters: newsbusters.org [13] ]

Cafferty then went on to his question of the day: "Whom do you believe when it comes to whether Iraq has descended into civil war?" Again, it should come as no surprise, that Cafferty was just as cynical on that issue as he was about the falling gas prices:
"Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, says there's no civil war in Iraq, and furthermore there never will be. This is the leader of a government, in a country where the Shia and Sunnis have been fighting and killing each other for hundreds of years. You know, sort of like a civil war...When he was asked over this past weekend how soon American forces would be leaving, he said, within a year, maybe sooner. I'll have whatever he's having."

Cafferty ended the segment the way he started it, with a sardonic view on falling gas prices: "The interesting thing to watch on that story about gas prices is what happens to them right after the midterms, John."
John King: "Always the cynic, Jack Cafferty. We'll check back in a little bit later. Thank you, Jack."

Geraldo Advocates for 'Courageous' Illegal
Immigrant

On the August 28th edition of Fox's syndicated Geraldo At Large, Geraldo Rivera advocated for an illegal immigrant single-mother trying to fight deportation with the help of a Chicago church. The piece cast illegal immigration foes as almost heartless as Rivera asked Pat Buchanan: "Isn't it impossible almost, not to be sympathetic to this mom and her son?" and "Pat isn't it a kind of bait and switch? We lure the illegals here with the promise of work and now we're telling them, either leave or be arrested?"

Rivera noted the deportation stems from a 2002 arrest of her using a fake Social Security number but then tried to justify it by saying she paid the taxes: "One quick note about using a fake Social Security number. The tax is paid into the federal government but it's never paid out. So Elvira was paying taxes." Rivera then went further saying that some compare her "to Rosa Parks and other icons of the civil rights movement."

[This item, by Geoff Dickens, was posted Wednesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [14] ]

Rivera opened Monday's show from the Chicago church:
"On a dark and stormy day I'm here in Chicago's West Side at a neighborhood church, the United Methodist church, where a courageous mother from Mexico, an illegal alien has sought sanctuary along with her seven-year-old son who was born here in the United States. I'll have their story in just a moment. Hi, everybody, I'm Geraldo Rivera here to cover the bitter and emotional battle in which some have actually suggested that the young woman, the illegal alien, abandon her son and go home to Mexico. We'll meet the embattled mother and her boy in a few minutes."

The following is a full transcript of the entire segment:

Rivera: "For more than two weeks this small storefront church on Chicago's West Side has been the epicenter of the emotional immigration debate. Before we meet the mother and child who've sought sanctuary in this holy place to avoid being deported as illegal aliens back to Mexico I'd like you to take a look at the background story that brought the mother and child here to the church. Elvira Arellano, a Mexican immigrant, single mother and a fugitive wanted by the U.S. government."
Elvira Arellano: "I am not terrorist. I am not criminal. I am mom."
Rivera: "Just over two weeks ago the 31-year-old illegal immigrant defied an order to report for deportation refusing to accept the punishment that could have separated her from her son, Saul, a U.S. citizen by birth on American soil."
Reverend Walter Coleman: "She said, 'Pastor I want to fight this. I don't care for myself but I want my son to know that he's a child of God. He's not a piece of garbage that can be thrown away.'"
Rivera: "Reverend Walter Coleman heads a small church on Chicago's West Side where Elvira sought sanctuary. The holy place has become a focal point for supporters rallying against immigration laws that they believe are tearing families apart. Reverend Coleman never thought twice about defying the faith."
Rev. Coleman: "I fear God much more than I fear Homeland Security."
Rivera: "Despite overwhelming support Elvira's stand-off has infuriated the opposition."
Rick Bieseda: "The government should go in there and get her out of there and deport her."
Rivera: "Rick Bieseda is the director of the Chicago Minutemen Project. Because Elvira's deportation order resulted from a 2002 arrest for working with a fake social security number Bieseda believes that it's all the more reason to give Elvira the boot."
Bieseda: "Not only did she enter the country illegally, she, she broke the law. She obtained false documents. So why would you want to give a lawbreaker, a criminal that committed multiple crimes an exception? Why make an exception for her?"
Rivera: "One quick note about using a fake social security number. The tax is paid into the federal government but it's never paid out. So Elvira was paying taxes. But while her disobedience of the deportation order has some comparing her to Rosa Parks and other icons of the civil rights movement many others are unsympathetic, worried that cutting this particular family a break will set a path for other illegals to follow. Still it's hard to see what good could possibly come of deporting this mother and her seven-year-old, who wants only to grow up to be a Chicago fireman."
Rivera to Arellano: "Was the worst thing that you would have to leave your son?"
Arellano, through translator: "Yes I thought I did not have the heart or the feeling to leave him. I cannot leave him. I am his mother and he only has me."
Rivera: "What do you say to the people who say, why don't you take your son home to your own country?"
Arellano: "I could take him, I know, to my country and we won't die from hunger but he will most probably lose his English language and then he can return here in the future but by then he will return in the same way that I came here, without the education, without the same opportunities and he will have to struggle the same way that I did."
Rivera: "What's your dream, your inspiration then?"
Arellano: "For there to be a just and fair legalization for everybody here in the nation. Not just for myself but for everybody, for all families so that they will not go through any separations."
Rivera to child: "Are you afraid that they're gonna try and take your mommy away?"
Saul: "Yes."
Rivera: "Where would you stay? Who would you stay with?"
Saul: "I don't know."
Rivera: "Joining me now is the Reverend Walter Coleman. Reverend Coleman is the pastor here at the United Methodist church. He's the man who took in Elvira and Saul and he is the one who has granted them sanctuary. Via satellite a familiar face who wants the mom and her son, or at least the mom, sent back where she came from, Pat Buchanan joins us. He's the author as you know most recently of State of Emergency: How Illegal Immigration Is Destroying America. Padre thank you for being here. Pat, you as well. Pat to you first. Isn't it impossible almost, not to be sympathetic to this mom and her son?"
Pat Buchanan: "Well certainly you can be sympathetic to them and I surely am. They're in a difficult situation but at the same time, Geraldo, you can't allow the laws of the United States to be flagrantly violated by tens of millions or 12 million illegal aliens and you gotta enforce the laws of the United States. I think she should be returned to the country of origin since she came here by breaking the law."
Rivera: "Pat, let me ask the pastor how you feel. He says maybe not invade your church but get her out, she's an illegal."
Rev. Coleman: "She is one of 12 million people that are part of a system of undocumented labor that has been part of this country's economy and religious life and society for over a century. We have a broken law."
Rivera: "Pat isn't it a kind of bait and switch? We lure the illegals here with the promise of work and now we're telling them, either leave or be arrested?"
Buchanan: "Look the illegals, they knew what they did. They broke in line ahead of other people who have waited in line. They broke the law, they broke into our country, they are here illegally, they know it. And you cannot have people deliberately violating the law at an amnesty otherwise the rule of law itself collapses."
Rivera: "Pat I have to call it quits on that note. We're out of time."

Ex-CBS Reporter: Couric a 'Liberal...in
Love With Hillary'

According to a new biography of Dan Rather, one longtime CBSer -- no, not Rather himself -- believes what most CyberAlert and NewsBusters readers believe: Incoming CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric is in the tank for Hillary Clinton. In a Tuesday review for BloombergNews.com of Alan Weisman's book, Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather, Dave Shiflett revealed: "[f]ormer [CBS] congressional correspondent Phil Jones tells Weisman that Couric is 'a liberal Democrat who is so in love with Hillary Clinton' that it could pose a problem if Clinton runs for President."

[This item is adopted from a Wednesday NewsBusters posting by Tom Johnson: newsbusters.org [15] ]

It would appear that conservatives who read Lone Star will enjoy certain parts (Shiflett noted that in "Weisman's acerbic telling, [Walter Cronkite] is an arrogant blowhard 'who still believes that the anchor chair should have been retired with him in 1981'") far more than they'll enjoy others (in Shiflett's words, Weisman considers Memogate "a fairly minor error that sparked a gross overreaction").

For Shiflett's August 29 review, "Dan Rather Biographer Takes Shots at Hewitt, Moonves, Couric," go to: www.bloomberg.com [16]

Amazon's page for Weisman's book: www.amazon.com [17]

For the MRC's Special Report by Rich Noyes, "Meet the Real Katie Couric: CBS's New Star Adores Liberals, Scolds Conservatives -- And Thinks America Should Be More Like France," with 15 video clips, go to: www.mrc.org [18]

# Richard Engel, the NBC News reporter who covered the Israel/Hezbollah war after spending some years in Iraq, is scheduled to appear Thursday night on NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He should be the second guest, appearing after Ellen DeGeneres.

-- Brent Baker