Anita Dunn

Glenn Beck Idolizes Adolf Hitler

Posted by on October 19, 2009 at 2:28 am. 35 Comments :

Tonight, more truth. More truth that I, quite frankly, am shocked by. I’m going to show you a quote here in just a few minutes, something that will melt your brain. If you’re a regular reader of this web site, you are going to say, “You got to be kidding me!”

There is information that you’re just not going to see anyplace else. I have to first give you a little bit of history, because the context is so important. So, if you just bear with me for a few minutes, I have to tell you a story.

I don’t want to believe that these things are true. I would love to be wrong. I love my country. I think you do, too. I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat. It’s not about party. It’s about our country. What I am telling you now is that there are Marxist revolutionaries who have dedicated themselves to principles that will destroy our nation as we know it! Now, that is a heavy charge, granted. That’s why I put the phone there.

That phone is directly to Glenn Beck. He is the one that Rupert Murdoch has put in charge to lead the campaign against Barack Obama and this web site.

Call me, Glenn. Call me! I’m begging you – call me, correct me. Tell me what I post here is not true. It would help me sleep at night. It would.

…..I haven’t received any phone calls…..

There was a controversy because people said, “You’re going to put Adolf Hitler up there?” Yes, Adolf Hitler. That’s a pretty hefty charge that people in America, in our media, listen to Adolf Hitler. Well, this person is in love with Adolf Hitler. These are Glenn Beck’s own words:

“Oh, you know who my favorite political philosopher is? Adolf Hitler.”

This week, I pointed out that Beck was a fan of the socialists and of the Marxists. Ask yourself, America, please ask yourself: If I am wrong, how is it possible he has not called? You’d think being labeled a fan of a guy who killed millions of people would make you pick up the darn phone. Don’t you think?

So, the reason why this phone hasn’t rung all week is because the most important political philosopher, for Beck is Adolf Hitler. The guy responsible for more deaths than almost any other 20th century leader is his favorite philosopher. How can that man be your favorite anything? He killed millions of people! It is insanity! This is his hero’s work! Millions dead. His favorite political philosopher. That was a quote.

America, how many radicals is it going to take? How many radicals surrounding our media will it take before you understand that when Rupert Murdoch says he wants to “shape the agenda” of the news – oh, he wants to shape it, all right.

[Editor: With a very few modifications, the preceding are Glenn Beck’s actual words regarding White House Communications Director Anita Dunn]

Speaking Truth To Fox ‘So-Called’ News

Posted by on October 18, 2009 at 10:58 am. 11 Comments :

This is getting to be fun. Last Sunday, White House communications director Anita Dunn said what most rational observers of the news already knew: that Fox News is “the communications arm of the Republican Party.”

Today, another volley has been fired in defense of sanity. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was on CNN and this to say about Fox News:

“It’s not a news organization so much as it has a perspective, and that’s a different take […] And more importantly, it’s important not to have the CNN’s and the others of the world being led and following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization.”

Well said, Rahm. Especially the part about other news organizations and the need for them to avoid mimicking the dishonest methods of Fox. But that’s not all. White House advisor David Axelrod was on ABC’s This Week and said:

“It’s not really a news organization […] We’re going to appear on their shows, we’re going to participate, but understanding they have a point of view.”

That is only partly good news. At least Axelrod recognizes that Fox is platform for a hostile, right-wing point of view, but why would he consent to participate with an enterprise that he concedes is “not really a news organization?” That’s like agreeing to participate with the National Enquirer. What’s the point?

Still, it is encouraging that the White House is aware of what they are up against. And it is even more encouraging that they are willing to openly and accurately characterize Fox as a fraud as regards the business of news.

Now all we need to do is get the rest of the political establishment to get on board. The first thing any Democrat or progressive should say when interviewed by Fox is “Well, if I were on a legitimate news channel I would say…” Properly identifying Fox News should be required in every appearance. Perhaps they could subtly interject reality by saying “Thank you for inviting me to be on Fox ‘so-called’ News,” or “the Fox Opinion Network.”

This new display of courage and honesty should also be taken up by the rest of the media. This is the perfect excuse for introducing a vibrant dialogue about the journalistic malpractice at Fox News and about the responsibilities of ethical journalism in general. Simply hosting segments with balanced discussions of these issues is a positive step. If nothing else, it reinforces the impression that Fox is a fake. The only response that Fox has been able to muster so far is that they believe their audience can tell the difference between news and opinion. That’s, in effect, an admission by Fox that their trade is opinion. It’s a lame defense and it isn’t even true. Studies have shown that Fox News viewers are far more likely to believe things that are demonstrably false than viewers of other news networks.

Fox News has been relentless in their disparagement of their competitors. they have placed advertising on the air and in trade publications that explicitly demeaned other news organizations. They routinely charge them with being biased and unprofessional. They even helped to promote protests against other news networks. For some reason, the targets of Fox’s attacks never seem to fight back. Well now they have an opening to do so in the form of addressing the allegations from the White House. If they miss this opportunity they are either incompetent or have a death wish. Fox has been eating their lunch in the ratings (on the cable side), and they have both a professional and a fiduciary duty to defend themselves.

Undoubtedly, Glenn Beck will do a show Monday accusing Axelrod and Emmanuel of being Marxists (if he hasn’t already). But the more he makes this ludicrous assertion the less power it has. He has already swept up Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Mother Theresa in his paranoid net. So bring it on.

A White House At War With The Media

Posted by on October 15, 2009 at 3:17 pm. 10 Comments :

A few days ago, White House communications director, Anita Dunn, made a rather obvious assertion that Fox News was “a wing of the Republican Party.” That fact shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention. But the fallout from that eruption of honesty was a flurry of accusations that the Obama White House is engaged in an unprecedented war against Fox News. Glenn Beck even thinks that the war is against him personally.

However, this isn’t the first time that a White House has gone to war against the media. The most famous was the Nixon White House who compiled an enemies list that included some journalists. His vice president, Spiro Agnew, famously castigated the press as “Nattering nabobs of negativism.” But there’s a more recent example.

The Bush White House had a presidential counselor named Ed Gillespie. He was also a former chairman of the Republican Party. In May of last year, responding to a question asking why Bush would ever appear on NBC, Gillespie answered “I don’t know why he would.” Not surprisingly, the question was asked by a Fox News anchor, E.D. Hill. Another Fox anchor, Laura Ingraham wondered on air “why would the [Bush] White House agree to do an interview with [NBC reporter] Richard Engel?” This all adds up to a deliberate assault from the White House (and Fox News) on a major news broadcaster.

Fox News is aghast that anyone should challenge their legitimacy as a news operation. They regard the criticism as an effort to suppress their free speech rights. Of course, freedom of speech doesn’t guarantee one a television show (if it does, where’s mine?). It also does not guarantee freedom from rebuttal. It certainly doesn’t guarantee that your opponents will patronize you. Yet Fox believes that Obama and his administration have a some sort of obligation to grace their studios and sit still for some partisan abuse.

I have been advocating for years that all Democrats and progressives stay the HELL off of Fox News (see Starve the Beast). Fox pretends to regard that as inappropriate, but the quotes above demonstrate that they hold the same view in reverse. In fact, in September of 2007, Republicans openly engaged in a boycott of MSNBC. At the time I called MSNBC The Luckiest Network On Television.

So the White House that was at war with the media was the Bush White House. Nobody on the right complained about that at the time. The bottom line is that Dunn was correct about Fox News. They are not a legitimate news enterprise, and should not be treated like one. We can ignore their complaints about the White House waging war against them, because they are so blatantly hypocritical and self-serving. It is long past time to show Fox News for what it is – partisan rightist advocacy – and to behave accordingly.

So I say again: Just stay the HELL off of Fox News. And, note to the media: Call them out for their lies and disinformation. No more complacent toleration of propaganda.

White House: Fox News Is A Wing Of The Republican Party

Posted by on October 12, 2009 at 5:50 pm. 13 Comments :

Perhaps I should just forward this to the Department of Redundancy Department. White House communications director, Anita Dunn, appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz and made some rather obvious, though too often unsaid, remarks about Fox News’ role as a right-wing megaphone.

It is about time that the administration articulate what anyone paying attention already knows. The highlight of Dunn’s comments is simple and straight forward:

“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it is not ideological… what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.”

These remarks were in response to an inquiry by Kurtz about previous comments by Dunn that Fox was “masquerading” as news. Kurtz went further to inquire as to whether Obama would appear on Fox again. Unfortunately, she said that he would. That, of course, would be a mistake for all the reasons she just articulated. Fox News is not a news network, and they no more deserve Obama’s presence than does the National Enquirer. Why would they agree to appear on a network that masquerades as news?

In response to Dunn’s comments, Michael Clemente, Senior Vice President of News for FOX News, said:

“An increasing number of viewers are relying on FOX News for both news and opinion. And the average news consumer can certainly distinguish between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page, which is what our programming represents.”

The problem with that statement is that Fox’s news is as much opinion as their opinion is. Even their top “news” people, like Bill Sammon, Major Garrett, Neil Cavuto, Carl Cameron, etc., are steeped in personal biases to which ethical journalists would never sink. Another problem with Clemente’s statement is that it contradicts Bill Shine, senior VP for programming, who admitted that Fox News is the “voice of opposition.”

Glenn Beck was moved to spend the first 20 minutes of his program on this matter, and another six minutes later in the show. That’s half of his airtime, during which he characterized Dunn’s appraisal as an assault on free speech. Never mind the fact that Obama, and any public figure, has the right to book their own appearances. That does not in any way impose on the free speech rights of Fox News. They can, and do, continue to spew their partisan views. More evidence of this is that Bill O’Reilly also spent about nearly half of his show grumbling about Dunn’s remarks. Beck and O’Reilly are just whining about being left out, the same way Chris Wallace did when he called the Democrats a bunch of “crybabies.”

At one point, Beck makes the ludicrous claim that it is Fox News who is “standing up for the republic and the Constitution.” He later complains that he was corrected by Dunn on a misstatement he made about Major Garret not being called on in news conferences. It was, of course, true that Beck made that statement and that it was false, but he just laughs it off. Then he goes on to make some more mistakes (otherwise known as lies).

Most notable was his mention of Nixon’s enemies list, about which he said, “That whole thing. That was just about who’s not coming to state dinners.” However, Nixon aide John Dean stated the true purpose for the list as “how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” This meant tax audits, grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, and prosecution. For Beck to so cavalierly lie about what was one the most despicable actions by a leader in our nation’s history says so much about Beck. He probably thinks that the Final Solution was a dish washing detergent.

In the end, Fox’s defense is the best evidence that Dunn’s remarks are are all too true.