The modern Arab-Jewish conflict has played itself out on many fronts in the last 60 years. Israel has been vastly more successful on the field of battle, but the Arabs have managed to co-opt the media narrative. For a generation, the press has been sympathetic to the cause of those who strive to eradicate Israel. This has shown itself over and over again, not only in editorial decisions, but in the blind acceptance of reports coming from Arab sources in the region.
The problem is that those sources have repeatedly shown that they are not interested in reporting the news but, in many cases, in fabricating it. In many cases, these fabrications have been done with the active participation of “respected” news gathering organizations.

In 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, the term Fauxtography was coined to refer to either the embellishing of existing photographs or staging others for the best effect to discredit Israel. The uncovering of tampering resulted in both Reuters and AP disciplining freelance “reporters” as well as having to kill pictures that they had syndicated.

The staging of news photographs, and news in general, is alive and well in disputed areas of Israel even now.

What remains surprising is how otherwise discerning news operations such as the Wall Street Journal still accept, uncritically, the output of suspect sources. Just this past week the Wall Street Journal, as well as a range of other international news operations, posted a picture submitted by Hazem Bader for Agence France-Presse (AFP).

WSJ's "Photo of the Day," Jan. 25, 2012

The caption on the photo explains that the man seen writhing in pain on the ground was intentionally run over by a tractor driven by an Israeli soldier. That is to say that the international press reported, without questioning, that an official representative of the Israeli Government had, without cause, purposely caused a grave injury to an innocent man.
The only problem is that it never happened. There is no record of anyone being injured. CAMERA, a watchdog group that specializes in following anti-Israel media activity, followed all possible leads to find the injured man.

Yet, after checking with both Palestinian and Israeli sources, it seems that the man was not at all injured, and there is no evidence that he was run over. On the Palestinian side, Tthe Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which provides comprehensive weekly reports about all injuries, fatalities, incursions, and other incidents in both the West Bank and Gaza, makes no mention of this alleged injury in its report for Jan. 19- 25. In addition, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency did not cover the alleged injury, even though it does report on Israeli army activity that day nearby in Tel Rumeida. And Ma’an also reported a hit and run incident, in which a Palestinian teen was hit by an Israeli driver at a checkpoint this morning. Presumably, then, had this worker actually been run over and injured on Wednesday, Ma’an would have carried the story. Nor does it appear that any English-language wire service or other media outlet covered the alleged injury.

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This morning on our CNN panel Will Cain and I discussed the “angry Newt narrative.” The question centered around Peggy Noonan’s latest column wherein she calls Gingrich an “angry little attack muffin“:

Right now Mr. Romney’s taking a beating. He’s everyone’s target, and in a way that speaks of something beyond the usual campaign ferocity. There’s something else going on, a taunting: “If you’re so inevitable how come I’m not afraid of you?” Newt Gingrich, angry little attack muffin, called Mr. Romney a liar.

This is why it has taken Republicans until New Hampshire to vet their leading candidate (and they didn’t vet him in 2008, either): criticize Mitt Romney and you’re called a meanie. Most of the people I’ve witnessed using this argument have been in politics longer than I’ve been alive, so unless the landscape has changed recently and I missed the memo, politics is still a bloodsport. No one is calling Romney an “angry little muffin” for doing exactly what Gingrich is doing; the difference is that Romney has a frillion groups and admirers doing it for him so he can keep his mitts clean and appear above the fray. If the tactic seems familiar, it’s because Barack Obama is famous for it. I’m not comparing Obama to Romney, just simply pointing out that they happen to share more in common besides health care.

The base is crying out for someone, anyone in this primary to stop pretending that Romney doesn’t have the gubernatorial record that he has. Those who pretend it doesn’t exist only kneecap themselves. They criticize ads from primary opponents which address Romney’s record. Instead of asking “Is this what the oppo will look like?” they howl over Gingrich quoting a NYT article.

Most media, and even the candidates themselves, coddle Romney at every debate and behave as though less offensive baggage from other candidates is somehow worse than socialized health care at the state level. I may have had my differences with Gingrich on different issues before, but this much I know: he’s not auditioning for a VP job in the event of a still uncertain Romney nomination.

Newt Gingrich is doing what the GOP would do, if they were smart, and testing the mettle of these candidates before the Obama machine does with good ol’ fashioned primary politics.

- It’s so bizarre to watch this interview considering how Bill Clinton used the IRS to go after people like O’Reilly. Still, the Clinton survival instinct can make them seem almost likable at times, due to the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” rule. That being said, the one thing you can depend on more than Obama’s arrogance is the Clintons’s backchannel maneuvering to circumvent an Obama presidency. If Hillary had any intent on stepping back into the ring, we’d see Bill distancing himself from the president and Clinton cronies in action. Obama’s selection of Hillary as SOS was “keeping his enemy closer.”

- Seth Godin on journalism:

We don’t need paid professionals to do retweeting for us. They’re slicing up the attention pie thinner and thinner, giving us retreaded rehashes of warmed over news, all hoping for a bit of attention because the issue is trending. We can leave that to the unpaid, I think.

The hard part of professional journalism going forward is writing about what hasn’t been written about, directing attention where it hasn’t been, and saying something new.

- Because the gross Sandusky headlines just won’t quit:

Jay Gray, the NBC News reporter covering the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal in State College, Pennsylvania, was arrested on drunk driving charges after he attended a drunken football-watching party at Sandusky’s lawyer’s house, reports say.

The Pennsylvania State Police arrested Gray just before 2am December 12 during a traffic stop.

He was allegedly at the home of Joe Amendola, the eccentric lawyer defending Sandusky against allegations he molested 10 boys over the course of several years …

According to TMZ, Mr Amendola invited Gray and several other reporters over to his house to watch the New York Giants-Dallas Cowboys game.

The reporters, reportedly, were all vying for exclusive interviews with Sandusky, who has only further raised public suspicious about himself in two awkward media appearances, says TMZ.

So reporters get drunk with the creepy lawyer of an “alleged” kid toucher in order to impress him and score an exclusive? Yes, please keep lecturing to new media about “ethics,” MSM.

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- Those supporting the Occupy Wall Street Movement are up in arms as 30-year Democratic Campaign Consultant Doug Schoen reported his polling data in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 18th. Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at Schoen’s firm, polled about 200 OWS members at New York’s Zuccotti Park on Oct. 10th and 11th.

- Schoen described his findings as:

“Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn’t represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence.”

- Here is a breakdown of the polling data gathered by Schoen’s research. Tell me if this sounds like the way in which the Occupy Wall Street, as well as those in cities around the country, are promoting themselves:

• (52%) have participated in a political movement before
• (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals
• (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda
• A vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%)
• An overwhelming majority of demonstrators supported Barack Obama in 2008
• (51%) disapprove of the president while 44% approve, and only 48% say they will vote to re-elect him in 2012, while at least a quarter won’t vote
• (32%) call themselves Democrats, while roughly the same proportion (33%) say they aren’t represented by any political party
• (65%) say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.
• Protesters are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary (49%) or unnecessary (51%)

- Schoen summarized his polling data with this statement:

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

- On the same day Judd Legum at Think Progress came out with his view on Schoen’s polling data. One point of contention was Question 17 where Schoen described 4% of the polled OWS members believing in “radical redistribution of wealth.”

Schoen did not specify in the WSJ article that 35% of those polled would like to “influence the Democratic Party like the Tea Party did with the GOP.” Though I can understand Legum’s concern for that 35% figure not being included in the WSJ article, I am more alarmed by the other answers of the “Open Ended” Question 17. With the exception of a Flat Tax, all the other answers definitely tilt Left. What is even more intriguing is that two words are completely absent from this open-ended question in what the OWS movement wants to achieve; “Constitution” and “freedom.” Oddly enough even “Not Sure” got a greater mention as an answer than either of those two words.

What does this mean? It could be open to interpretation but what it appears to me is that those two words are neither in OWS’ mindset or even their vernacular. This further illustrates the clear difference in the OWS crowd and the Tea Party.

Legum also highlights Question 16, however he misrepresents Schoen’s data as it is presented in the WSJ article.

Schoen did not specifically and solely say that a “large majority express opposition to free-market capitalism.” Instead, Schoen described the information in a list of ideologies that “binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education.” The rest of that list is “support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.”

First off, the polling data already documented that (32%) admitted to being Democratic, while (33%) say they aren’t represented by any political party. In addition, (65%) said they believe “government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.” [my emphasis] In order to defend his argument I can only guess that Legum must believe that these ideologies are something other than “Left-Wing,” because that sure looks like a majority to me.

The article on Think Progress is representative of the radical Left’s frustration in trying to sell the astro-turfed “grassroots” movement as a mass, wide-spectrum People’s movement. In addition to failing to convince many Americans that they share our nation’s goals with some lost souls who are part-time activists & part-time street bums, the quantitative data exposes the facade of just how radical are the views of the OWS groups –and ironically, another WSJ piece shows that 48% of those protesting Wall street would vote for the Wall Street President. Lastly, if you have to call in the “rent-a-thugs” of big labor unions in order to try to give your movement momentum, then you really need to ask yourself, “If you are not motivated enough to leave the park when the owners want to clean it, then why should ANYONE follow you?”

In this weekend’s featured interview in the Wall Street Journal, Juan Rangel, the leader of United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), attempts to sanitize the history of what was once one of the most notorious Alinskyite “community organizing” groups in Chicago.

Rangel paints his group as the moderate, patriotic alternative to the victim-mongerers at the National Council of La Raza and other Hispanic groups.

WSJ: Juan Rangel of UNO

The truth is more complex.

UNO is the Mexican-American ACORN, founded in 1980 by radicals who were tied to the left-wing academic/activist Chicago clique that would later produce Barack Obama. (more…)

The phone hacking scandal that has killed the News of the World will surely engulf the entire Murdoch empire.

Could there by any greater cause for celebration? Could there be any news more gleeful? Is any other news worth reporting?

Let the Geraldos and the Hannitys and the van Susterens keep grasping at the unraveling threads of the Casey Anthony trial. They will not report–but you and I can decide: Fox News is done!

The foot soldiers at Media Matters for America, who did such sterling work in exiling Glenn Beck to the castaway island of Internet television, now have a new mission: to haunt every advertiser on the Fox networks, in every slot.

Do you know that by putting your products and services on Fox, you are subsidizing a global criminal enterprise? (more…)

I haven’t subscribed to the New York Times for several years. Recently, while killing time at a local Starbucks, I bought a copy to see what, if anything, I had been missing.

Answer: not much. On the front page, there was only one hard-news article that actually hit the traditional 5 W’s of journalism up front. The other articles each started out describing broader trends and opinions before reaching the critical news details, often on the inside pages.

WSJ Sports: Animal Gestation vs. Modern Playoffs

Unlike the Wall Street Journal, which includes a helpful news summary on the front page and confines human interest stories to one article at the bottom, the NYT highlights trends and themes rather than events.

The NYT method in reporting news is often to introduce readers to a particular context or viewpoint before telling us what actually happened. It is possible to read the entire first section of the NYT and not have much idea of what is going on in the world, but to have a very clear idea of what attitude its editors want us to adopt towards it.

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Weinergate and Sarah Palin have dominated this space the last couple of days, but another story with major media implications is that Jill Abramson will replace Bill Keller as the New York Times executive editor beginning September 6th.  The headlines have been boasting that Abramson is the Times‘ first female boss since the paper’s inception, but this shake-up is hardly progressive: Abramson was raised in New York, is Harvard educated, has little new media expertise (if any), and has a long history of liberal bias in her reports.  She’s a daughter of the old, biased, liberal MSM.

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto was quick to point out this incredible excerpt from the NYT article announcing the change:

Ms. Abramson said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like “ascending to Valhalla.”

“In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion,” she said. “If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.“

Scary.

Taranto then goes on to demonstrate that Abramson has a history of “trying to tear down” the Times‘ competitors, most notably Fox News.

Newsbusters, which has documented dozens of examples of liberal bias in Abramson’s past, focused a post on Abramson’s support of Anita Hill, the one-time Clarence Thomas colleague who bears major responsibility for the fiasco that was Thomas’s SCOTUS confirmation hearings.  (more…)

Carried in the January 27th edition of the Wall Street Journal was an advertisement/open letter from four-hundred Rabbis organized by a socialist Jewish organization called Jewish Funds for Justice (JFJ), with strong ties to financier George Soros (the full ad is embedded at the bottom of this page).  As discussed the day the ad came out, the rabbis efforts brought shame upon themselves, their holy profession and the entire Jewish people, and even worse have committed a Chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name). A conversation with one of the signers, Rabbi Steven Wernick , the day after my initial post raised more questions (which as of this moment the Rabbi still hasn’t answered).

Over the weekend, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams, graced us troglodytes with his condescending wit in the Wall Street Journal with a piece entitled “How To Tax the Rich.”

Extolling the creative virtues employed by comedy writers to stimulate new story lines, Adams blithely suggested a myriad of “bad ideas” to tax the rich so that We The Lowly might come up with even more novel and “better” ways to soak those who already fund the public coffers to an inordinate degree (Adams has been pondering this for months, having written what amounts to an earlier draft on his blog).

He’ll reprise his WSJ gig next weekend to discuss those lucky few whose ideas amuse him.  Instead, Mr. Adams should retire from comedic political musing, return to his drawing board and stay there.

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As the Torah says: Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people (Lev. 19:16). The ancient Jewish Sages took that passage and said that there are three transgressions that would cause a man to lose his place in the world to come: murder, adultery, and idol worship, and that loshon hora (evil speech) is equivalent to all three (Bab. Erchin 15b). Jews believe that the harm done by telling tales about people is worse than the harm done by something like theft because one can repay stolen money, but harm done by speech can never be repaired.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, four-hundred Rabbis joined with a socialist Jewish organization called Jewish Funds for Justice (JFJ) to bring shame upon themselves, their holy profession and the entire Jewish people, and even worse have committed a Chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name) with an open letter to Fox News against Glenn Beck (the full letter/ad can be seen here).

The letter states, “In the charged political climate in the current civic debate, much is tolerated, and much is ignored or dismissed. But you diminish the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks, and it is not only ‘left-wing rabbis’ who think so.”

Mr. Beck’s three-day series defaming Holocaust survivor George Soros sparked the letter from rabbis. At that time, Mr. Beck claimed Mr. Soros survived the Holocaust as 14-year-old boy by collaborating with the Nazis to send other Jews to the death camps. Mr. Beck said, that Mr. Soros “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here’s a Jewish boy helping send Jews to the death camps.”

Mr. Beck’s three-day attack on Mr. Soros was hardly the first time he has misused the Holocaust to incite viewers. The rabbis’ note Mr. Beck has made “literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom [Beck] disagree[s].” Beck routinely compares American leaders to Nazis, has likened his crusade against progressives to that of “Israeli Nazi Hunters,” and has said that putting the “common good” first leads to “death camps.”

In the face of mounting criticism by Jewish groups, Fox News chief Roger Ailes dismissed criticism of Mr. Beck in an interview with the Daily Beast as nothing more than “left-wing rabbis who basically don’t think that anybody can ever use the word ‘Holocaust’ on the air.”

We respectfully request that Glenn Beck be sanctioned by Fox News for his completely unacceptable attacks on a survivor of the Holocaust and Roger Ailes apologize for his dismissive remarks about rabbis’ sensitivity to how the Holocaust is used on the air.”

Loshen Hora is not permitted even when true, but in this case there is nothing to worry about because it’s not true.

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Yes, the MSM is at it again — and really should do their research before sticking to a narrative floated by the most incompetent White House ever.  While the Obama White House spoon-feeds the narrative that the end-of-life provision first appeared in a 2008  Bush-era law, the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, they forgot that the particular bill they reference was actually VETOED by President George W. Bush and the veto was OVERRIDDEN by the Pelosi-led Democrats and some willing Republicans. The Hill’s Jason Millman, along with the WSJ repeat the false narrative:

The Medicare policy will pay doctors for holding end-of-life-care discussions with patients, according to the Times. A similar provision was dropped from the new healthcare reform law after Republicans accused the administration of withholding care from the sick, elderly and disabled. However, an administration spokesman said the regulation, which is less specific than the reform law’s draft language, is actually a continuation of a policy enacted under former President George W. Bush.

“The only thing new here is a regulation allowing the discussions … to happen in the context of the new annual wellness visit created by [healthcare reform],” Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin told The Wall Street Journal.

In 2003, Medicare added a consultation visit for seniors new to the program, according to the Journal. Another 2008 law, enacted under Bush, said the visit can include “end-of-life” planning discussions.

Now, the WSJ has corrected its earlier version to include the information on the veto, but The Hill has not. Millman did not mention the veto or the veto override and pins the blame right on the Bush administration. That 2008 bill that dealt with doctors’ reimbursements and more, but the Democrats slipped in the end-of-life planning by opening up the Social Security Act, which I have stated many times is dangerous, because once changed, it is difficult to amend again and allows for tinkering with the Medicare fee schedule and covered services definitions and requirements.

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Upon reading Slate writer John Dickerson’s breadcrumbs piece attempting to provide backup to Sudeep Reddy’s shark jump in response to Palin’s QE2 remarks.

Palin’s call yesterday for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to “cease and desist” with a second round of deliberate inflation and simplified the far-reaching effect the devalued dollar has on average Americans:

I’m deeply concerned about the Federal Reserve’s plans to buy up anywhere from $600 billion to as much as $1 trillion of government securities. The technical term for it is “quantitative easing.” It means our government is pumping money into the banking system by buying up treasury bonds. And where, you may ask, are we getting the money to pay for all this? We’re printing it out of thin air.

[...]

All this pump priming will come at a serious price. And I mean that literally: everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so. Pump priming would push them even higher. And it’s not just groceries. Oil recently hit a six month high, at more than $87 a barrel. The weak dollar – a direct result of the Fed’s decision to dump more dollars onto the market – is pushing oil prices upwards. That’s like an extra tax on earnings.

Sudeep Reddy couldn’t tangle with Palin’s correct assertion that the Fed’s choice of inflation (one of a couple ways this administration believes to be the panacea for a recession: inflation, tax hike) actually contributes to the toxic environment which has scared businesses and investors from further revenue growth and job creation, so Reddy relies on straw man to afford the jab.

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Too funny for words:

But go ahead and try. As usual, we’re open all night.

James Taranto in his “Best of the Web Today” column in The Wall Street Journal:

Shirley Sherrod says she plans to sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, the Associated Press reports from San Diego: “Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context”:

Sherrod said she had not received an apology from Breitbart and no longer wanted one. “He had to know that he was targeting me,” she said.

Does she have a winning case? Probably not.

For one thing, the alleged defamation (or, to be precise, the defamation that she would allege if she filed suit) took place while she was a public official and involved claims about the performance of her public duties. Thus she would have to meet the rigorous standard, set forth by the Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), of proving not only that Breitbart published a damaging falsehood about her but that he did so “with ‘actual malice’–that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Even if she proves that Breitbart published false and defamatory statements about her, he wins the case if he did so only negligently. (more…)

How quickly it all happened: five years ago, and certainly ten, the idea that the daily newspaper would no longer be part of our morning routine would have seemed unthinkable to the majority of Americans.  And yet, in retrospect, it was inevitable: the speed and versatility of the internet, plus its inter-activity, made the daily newspaper obsolete, racheted up the speed of news to near the speed of light and put a premium on old-fashioned journalistic virtues that had gotten lost in the “professionalization” of journalism during the latter half of the 20th century.

More about that in a moment, but first this breaking news from the Wall Street Journal:

The Internet is poised to overtake newspapers as the second-largest U.S. advertising medium by revenue behind television, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010 to 2014.

The online ad business, excluding mobile ads, is set to expand to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009, according to the report, which PwC plans to release Tuesday.

Newspapers, meanwhile, continue to suffer from a decline in advertising revenue. According to numbers released by the Newspaper Association of America earlier this year, print advertising revenue dropped 28.6% in 2009 to $24.82 billion. The PwC report estimates that print advertising in newspapers will hit $22.3 billion by 2014.

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The Wall Street Journal must be doing something right, even if it doesn’t have the respect of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

The latest numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations show the Journal with a healthy gain of 3.37 percent over the six-month period that ended March 31. With an average circulation of 2,092,523 during the workweek, it remains the most-read newspaper in America.

Yet success on the newsstands hasn’t translated into recognition among the newspaper’s peers. Even though the Journal continues to innovate — recently launching a local edition to challenge an old rival, the New York Times — the newspaper hasn’t won a Pulitzer Prize since 2007.

In other words, the Journal hasn’t been awarded journalism’s most coveted prize since conservative publisher Rupert Murdoch acquired the newspaper.

As the New York Observer recently noted, former Journal editor Paul Steiger has won more awards running ProPublica, the liberal-leaning nonprofit, than the Journal has since Murdoch bought Dow Jones & Co., its publisher, from the Bancroft family.

What does the 18-member Pulitzer board have against the Journal? (more…)

Tariq Ramadan returned to the United States, six years after his visa was revoked by the Bush administration, in order to either a) continue to his vitally important work as a leading voice of Muslim moderation, or b) continue his vitally important work as a stealth jihadist. You can probably figure out which of these two messages resonates with the MSM.

Starting with the New York Times’s April 13 editorial:

Claiming that it was part of the fight against terrorism, the George W. Bush administration revived the loathsome cold war practice of denying visas to foreign intellectuals, artists and others because of their views.

In January, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lifted the ban on two prominent scholars: Adam Habib, deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, and Prof. Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University. She needs to go further and renounce ideological exclusion.

Moving on to the Los Angeles Times: (more…)

On Tuesday, AP reporter Jesse Washington ran a story on the Phantom ‘N-Word,’ accusing Andrew Breitbart and this site of misleading viewers by running a video of the March 20 protest at Capitol Hill that did not show anyone screaming a racial epithet at the Congressional Black Caucus, as had been widely reported.   And, Washington included a new eye-witness to the supposed hate-speech, Rep. Heath Shuler (D, N.C.):

A fourth Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, who is white, backed up his colleagues, telling the Hendersonville (N.C.) Times-News that he heard the slurs.

Yesterday, James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal actually did some reporting and called Rep. Shuler’s office.  He got a different story:

But when we phoned Shuler’s office this afternoon, press secretary Julie Fishman told us the local reporter misunderstood. According to Fishman, Shuler’s comments to the Times-News referred to the general tenor of the protests, not to the black congressmen’s specific allegations.  Fishman said that Shuler was not walking with Cleaver and did not hear the “N-word.”

(more…)