The MSM’s persisent inability to add two and two is on display today as the Associated Press reports on President Obama’s visit to the Pentagon:

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama on Saturday recalled “that awful morning” nine years ago when “a sorry band of men” who perverted religion attacked the U.S. in hopes of demoralizing and dividing the country.

“Today we declare once more we will never hand them that victory … for our cause is just, our spirit is strong and our resolve unwavering,” the president said at the Defense Department’s headquarters, where a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, killing 184 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

“We will not given in to their hatred,” Obama said, despite the terrorists’ efforts to spark conflicts among faiths. “As Americans, we will not or ever be at war with Islam.”

This year’s remembrances of the 2001 attacks took place with growing public suspicion of Muslims, an emotional dispute over an Islamic community center and mosque planned near ground zero in New York City, and a Florida pastor’s threat to burn Qurans.

“This is a time of difficulty for our country,” Obama said before the ceremony, in his radio and Internet address. “And it is often in such moments that some try to stoke bitterness—to divide us based on our differences, to blind us to what we have in common.

(more…)

Recently, I was one of the featured speakers at the inaugural statewide Tea Party Convention in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. This was despite efforts by the unindicted co-conspirator, terror-tied Muslim Brotherhood front group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), to get me dropped from the speaker list. They issued a press release full of lies about me. That’s what I’d expect from CAIR, but the mainstream media quickly jumped in – and there followed some textbook examples of exactly how liberal media bias works.

Associated Press reporter Erik Schelzig contacted me for comment on CAIR’s libel. He wrote this to me: “I’m a reporter with The Associated Press doing a story on CAIR’s demands that Panel [sic!] Geller be dropped from this weekend’s Tennessee Tea Party Convention in Gatlinburg. They say SIOA is a hate group and should not be represented. Any response?”

Here is what I wrote to Schelzig: “

Erik, Stop Islamization Of America [SIOA] is one of America’s foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator (Holy Land trial), Hamas-linked front for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

Schelzig came back with this: “Thanks for contacting me. Was hoping to get a comment from you on CAIR’s allegation that yours is a ‘hate group.’ I assume you reject this, but wanted to get direct response.” (more…)

The Associated Press has a famous book on grammar and style that its news writers use to govern their work, a book that is also popular with the whole American news industry. It has served as a standard for many years. The AP, however, seems to have no style or rule for reporting history. Or rather, perhaps it does and the rule is to purposefully garble American history, always skewing it.

The APs recent report on a re-creation of the famous 19th-century, two-masted schooner La Amistad, famous for its connection to America’s slave trade history, is a case in point.

As it happens a replica of the famous ship was built to highlight history of the slave trade as part of UNESCO’s Slave Route Project, “to remind the world of the consequences of slavery and to promote cultural exchanges.” The problem with APs coverage, though, is that it does not mention the facts about La Amistad leaving the impression that the ship was an American slave trader. In truth it was not an American slaver, though. On top of that misimpression the AP seems to think the ship was “made famous in a Stephen Spielberg movie” instead of made famous by the trial that resulted in its seizure by U.S. authorities in 1839. (more…)

Here is one of the sneaky tricks that the Old Media plays in order to support a cause. In this case it’s the Associated Press coming to the aid of Obamacare with “news” that a “Catholic” hospital group is coming out in support of Obamacare. Of course, the AP does not inform the reader that this purported Catholic group is not associated with the Church and is not authorized to speak for Catholics but it conflates this “Catholic” group with Catholics as if they do anyway.

With a headline that screams, “Catholic Hospitals Support Health Care Bill,” the AP’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reports that the Catholic Health Association has come out in support of Obamacare despite its hidden provisions for the federal funding of abortion.

Naturally this report of Catholics in support of Obamacare is meant to fool readers into thinking that the Catholic Church itself, or some important segment of Catholics, are in support of Obamacare. If all you read is the headline and the first two paragraphs you might come away thinking that “Catholic Hospitals” support Obamacare.

Later in the story, after the lede, Alonso-Zaldivar does delve into some of the controversy amongst Catholics concerning the federal funding for abortion in Obamacare and states that the Church itself is still not supporting Obama’s takeover of our healthcare — this is good — but he never does fully explain that the group he is discussing is not a real “Catholic” organization.

You see, the Catholic Health Association is a for-profit company that works for some Catholic hospitals as a sort of trade association. It isn’t part of the Church nor does it represent any official group of religious Catholics, nor does it serve as a source of Catholic teachings. (more…)

Tim Tebow and his mom, Pam, are going to be in a Super Bowl ad. For those who aren’t college football fans, Tebow is the quarterback for the University of Florida Gators. He was the first underclassman to win the Heisman Trophy and led the Gators to two BCS championships. He’s also headed to the NFL draft, where he’s likely to be the top quarterback pick.

All right, you say, so a college football star is going to be in a Super Bowl ad. Big deal. But wait! The ad was purchased by the dreaded Dr. James Dobson’s pro-life  Focus On the Family! And Tim’s mom will discuss her decision not to abort Tim when he was in her womb. (more…)