Newsweek commentator David Graham recently declared the Philadelphia Voter Intimidation controversy to be a non-story: “it’s not about a real investigation; it’s about staging an effective piece of political theater that hurts the Obama administration.”  He also meandered into the assertion that the ACORN scandal was “minimal” and “discredited.”  Graham’s career-long track record of suppressing news (without troubling himself with investigation) follows him way, way back to his college years at Duke University.  Why bring up such ancient history?  Well, because he graduated from Duke last year, in 2009.

One of the greatest media frauds in modern history, the Duke Lacrosse Hoax was once a story of violent, racially motivated gang rape by supposedly privileged white men (many were actually on significant financial aid).  Finally, here was the evidence verifying the far-left narrative of America as a deeply oppressive, racist society – evidence that had been missing, in the opinion of one Duke Professor, since the murder of Emmitt Till more than fifty years earlier.  Radical leftists throughout the campus and the nation came out of the woodwork to demand the alleged incident be used as a pretext for a comprehensive discussion on the roles of race, class, and gender in our society.

By the time David Graham took over as editor of the Duke Chronicle, the story was quickly becoming a story of the extraordinary bigotry of segments of the far left and their perverse willingness to exploit an obvious hoax to advance a political and cultural agenda.  The story became the willingness of the Duke Faculty and Administration to burn their own students at the stake in the advancement of, and in fear of, this same leftist narrative.

All of a sudden, none of these individuals at Duke wanted to talk about the matter anymore, least of all the administration.  It was time to put it all behind us.  Enter David Graham.

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In November of 2007, with support from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, Live from the New York Public Library presented the conference, “There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America.”  The conference brought together noted journalists, linguists, political consultants and others to discuss the practice of deceptive political speech in the arena of public discourse today, or as the conference referred to it, “propaganda and the new face of American politics.”

The title itself was a blend of the quote made famous by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 presidential debate retort to Jimmy Carter, and George Orwell’s writings and their application to media in politics today.

George Soros presented a session at the conference that in hindsight draws some striking parallels to what we have been witnessing in politics and the media today.  When viewed consecutively in their entirety, the three videos in which Soros makes his presentation are compelling and bring clarity to where so much of the rhetoric on the left has been bred over the years.

It starts with Soros’ description of how propaganda has taken root in American politics and replaced truth with strategic deception.  Yet, considering the blatant manipulation of the truth in so many of today’s news stories, it reads more like a psy-ops manual for the left-wing media, labor unions and community organizers of today: (more…)

On Sunday the Washington Post ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, issued an interesting apology for his paper’s failure to write about the Department of Justice’s handling of the Philadelphia New Black Panther Party case.

After summarizing the case and the controversy over it, Alexander admitted,

The Post didn’t cover it. Indeed, until Thursday’s story, The Post had written no news stories about the controversy this year. In 2009, there were passing references to it in only three stories.

That’s prompted many readers to accuse The Post of a double standard. Royal S. Dellinger of Olney [Maryland] said that if the controversy had involved Bush administration Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, “Lord, there’d have been editorials and stories, and it would go on for months.”

“To be sure,” Alexander said, “ideology and party politics are at play,” although he seemed to be referring only to liberal bloggers, “Fox News and right-wing bloggers,” “Congressional Republicans,” Sarah Palin, etc. No admission, that is, of ideology or party politics at the Post.

To his credit, Alexander chastises the Post for not covering the controversy and concludes by telling his colleagues, “Better late than never. There’s plenty left to explore.” He even suggests some topics: (more…)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense:

Transcript from Newsbusters:

KURTZ: Let’s start with the obvious question. Why did you not ask Eric Holder in that interview about this former Justice official’s allegation that a case against the New Black Panther Party was dropped because of racial politics?

SCHIEFFER: Well, it’s certainly a question that is a legitimate question to ask. And basically what happened was this all really became a story when the whistleblower came out and testified that he’d had to leave the Justice Department and so on. And, frankly, had I known about that, I would have asked the question.

I was on vacation that week. This happened — apparently, it got very little publicity. And, you know, I just didn’t know about it.

I mean, you know, God knows everything, but I’m not quite that good. Every once in a while, something will slip by me. And in this case, it just slipped by me. If I’d have known it, I would have asked about it.

This is, of course, Howard Kurtz interviewing Bob Scheiffer on Reliable Sources.

Bob Schieffer marginalized the DOJ/New Black Panther controversy first by not asking the Attorney General about it, and then again with his phony “it got very little publicity” line.  Of course “it got very little publicity,” Mr. Scheiffer; you’re the guy in charge of publicity!  When a mainstream media authority whines that something wasn’t covered in the MSM, it’s the definition of a circular argument.  (more…)

My name is Hippocritico and I’m here to help my friends in the mainstream media protect their journalistic legacies by making sure they don’t come off as brazen, biased, hypocrites by covering a particular story that hurts one political party and not covering a similar story that hurts a different one.

Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane of The Washington Post are obviously concerned with issues of discrimination in America. Here’s their coverage of an event that’s now famous for never really happening:

Black lawmakers said some protesters hurled racial epithets at them, and in one instance, spit upon them.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said that he was walking into the Capitol to vote when a protester spat on him. Police quickly responded and detained the protester, Cleaver said in a statement, but the lawmaker declined to press charges.

Others hurled epithets at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a former civil rights leader, and Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) as they left the Capitol after Obama’s speech.

“They were shouting the N-word,” Carson told reporters. “It was like a page out of a time machine.”

However, if Lorie and Paul  are looking for what could be a real story and scandal involving discrimination, I’ve laid it all out for them below. (more…)

It’s easy to make fun of Geraldo Rivera, but in this interview with the posturing radical Malik Zulu Shabazz he reaches back to the glory days of “Willowbrook,” filled with righteous indignation:

For those who’ve seen this movie before — back in the late sixties — Shabazz is (so to speak) a pale imitation of his fiery forebears, but still spouting the same tiresome, second-hand communist-inspired separatist resentment and hate that could only be expressed by someone who has never had any real obstacles put in his way. (He’s a lawyer, for crying out loud.) It’s an act, a sham, but a dangerous one, and Geraldo is right to call him out on it.

In case you’re interested, here’s what the real Black Panthers — led by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale — looked like back in the day:

And here’s the party platform: (more…)