In failed bid to salvage O'Keefe's credibility, Wallace attacks Media Matters
On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace helped videographer James O'Keefe defend his dwindling credibility by advancing several of O'Keefe's claims without noting that they are contradicted by readily available evidence. Wallace suggested that O'Keefe "denies reports" by Media Matters that O'Keefe, in Wallace's words, "got any money from conservative backers" -- without noting that the evidence Media Matters highlighted consisted of public statements by conservatives that they had funded O'Keefe in the past or planned to raise money for O'Keefe and his partner, Hannah Giles, in the future.
Wallace attacks Media Matters on conservative funding of videographers, ignores Media Matters' evidence
Wallace: O'Keefe "denies reports on left-wing blogs he got any money from conservative backers." Wallace said: "O'Keefe wants to set the record straight. He denies reports on left-wing blogs he got any money from conservative backers." During that statement, Fox displayed an image of Media Matters' home page followed by an image of a Media Matters item that documented statements by conservative media figures that they were raising money for O'Keefe's and Giles' legal defense or that they would be willing to do so in the future.
From Fox News Sunday:
Wallace ignored reported admission by conservative investor -- noted by Media Matters -- that he funded an earlier O'Keefe video released this year. In attacking Media Matters, Wallace ignored a September 22 Village Voice report -- noted by Media Matters -- that the spokesperson for conservative investor Peter Thiel acknowledged that Thiel had contributed "about $10,000" to an earlier video that O'Keefe released in February 2009. As Media Matters noted, The Village Voice reported that Thiel's spokesperson denied that Thiel had "any involvement with the ACORN videos." [The Village Voice, 9/22/09]
Wallace ignored evidence -- documented in Media Matters item Fox displayed -- of conservatives currently fundraising for videographers. As Wallace uncritically repeated O'Keefe's denial that "he got any money from conservative backers," Fox showed an image of a September 25 Media Matters item headlined, "Hannity, Breitbart lead conservative media fundraising for activist videographers sued by ACORN." Wallace completely ignored the evidence Media Matters included in the item, which consisted of the below statements -- some of them made on Fox News -- by conservatives that they were fundraising or would fundraise for O'Keefe and Giles.
- Hannity: "Hannah, if you get in trouble ... we can help you. We'll put out the word." After interviewing Giles and her attorney about the lawsuit, Sean Hannity stated, "Well, listen, Hannah, if you get in trouble and you need the lawyer, I'll tell you what, we can help you. We'll put out the word. I'm sure there's a lot of people that may want to help you with a legal defense fund. And if you get to that point, let us know, and we'll be glad to bring you back on." [Hannity, 9/24/09]
- Breitbart on O'Reilly: "We will be advertising Hannah and James' legal defense fund." After Bill O'Reilly asked, "[D]o you have lawyers helping you with it because, you know, this is expensive," Breitbart stated, "We're -- we're working on that right now. And I want everybody to know that we will be advertising Hannah and James' legal defense fund at BigGovernment.com. The amount of -- the responses so far in e-mail form are overwhelming." [The O'Reilly Factor, 9/24/09]
- HotAir's Allahpundit: "Dig deep: Hannah Giles defense fund launches." In a September 24 HotAir.com blog post titled, "Dig deep: Hannah Giles defense fund launches," Allahpundit wrote that Giles' father -- conservative activist Doug Giles -- "sent out a blast e-mail about it a little while ago and I'm told the link's posted on his Facebook page, so fire away. Not that she'll need the money: The lawsuit's weak, the jury will be on her side, and apparently Hannity's set to beam this link out to America on tonight's show, which means she'll be swimming in dough come morning." Allahpundit further promised, "I'll post the info for O'Keefe's defense fund once it's available." HotAir.com was founded by Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin. [HotAir.com, 9/24/09]
- NewsBusters: Breitbart "Reveals Defense Fund Initiative." Promoting Breitbart's O'Reilly Factor appearance, the Media Research Center's NewsBusters blog quoted Breitbart's promotion of the legal defense fund and included a link to Breitbart's BigGovernment.com. [NewsBusters, 9/24/09]
Wallace ignored Fox reporting that some ACORN employees "did the right thing"
Wallace: O'Keefe "says he'll release all the tapes soon to show if any ACORN offices did the right thing." Wallace reported: "O'Keefe wants to set the record straight. ... And he says he'll release all the tapes soon to show if any ACORN offices did the right thing." Wallace then added, "Why not release all the tapes at the start?" and proceeded to air video of O'Keefe saying, "We knew that they would lie and they would say, 'Oh, you've got nothing,' or 'You're dubbing your voice in.' But you release a little bit at a time, and they get caught in their lie."
Wallace ignored Fox's own reporting -- backed up by police -- that "some" ACORN "workers did the right thing." On September 22, Fox News' Megyn Kelly reported: "[I]t appears that not every ACORN worker did go along with it. ACORN had been saying that the purported pimp and prostitute had failed in certain offices to actually convince the ACORN workers for help, and police in California say one ACORN worker at one office out there did, in fact, contact them after the filmmakers approached him about this human smuggling ring, or this trafficking ring. That worker realizing several days later that the whole thing was a hoax, but as ACORN pointed out when this thing first broke, some of their workers did the right thing."
Indeed, the Associated Press reported:
Police say a worker with the activist group ACORN who was caught on video giving advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute had reported the incident to authorities.
National City police said Monday that Juan Carlos Vera contacted his cousin, a police detective, to get advice on what to with information on possible human smuggling.
Vera was secretly filmed on Aug. 18 as part of a young couple's high-profile expose.
Police say he contacted law enforcement two days later. The detective consulted another police official who served on a federal human smuggling task force, who said he needed more details.
The ACORN employee responded several days later and explained that the information he received was not true and he had been duped. [AP, 9/22/09]
Wallace ignored report that ACORN employee says she attempted to help videographer "prostitute" go to women's center. Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey reported:
And visits to other ACORN offices have gone almost entirely unmentioned. Lavelle Stewart, a fair-housing coordinator in the group's Los Angeles office, told me this week that she tried to get the "prostitute," who claimed she had been beaten by her pimp, to go to a women's center.
"The fact she was not taking the help I offered her made me think something was not right," Stewart said. "It raised a red flag." [Rainey, Los Angeles Times, 9/23/09]
Wallace relayed O'Keefe's denial that Philly ACORN "called the cops" without noting ACORN released police report
Wallace: O'Keefe "denies" that Philly ACORN "called the cops." Wallace reported: "O'Keefe says in a few days he'll release video of their undercover visit to ACORN's Philadelphia office, and he denies the charge ACORN threw the two of them out of the office and called the cops. We'll see."
Wallace didn't note that ACORN released a police report naming O'Keefe. In relaying O'Keefe's denial that the Philadelphia ACORN office "called the cops," Wallace didn't mention that ACORN has publicly released a July 24, 2009, Philadelphia police report stating that an ACORN employee complained to police that O'Keefe had created a "verbal disturbance" at ACORN's office.
Other news outlets have reported on police report. On September 11, CNN's Abbie Boudreau reported that an ACORN spokesperson "told us today that the filmmakers made similar efforts in Philadelphia, and in that case, ACORN workers actually reported the filmmakers to the police. ACORN provided a copy of that police report to us." The Washington Post reported on September 17 that "[a]n ACORN spokesman said they [the videographers] were turned away in Miami, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where workers called police and filed a report." The Post further reported on September 18 that "ACORN emailed a copy of a Philadelphia police report dated July 24 to The Post to verify its account that police were called and the couple was shown the door. O'Keefe is named on the report." The Philadelphia Daily News reported on September 16 that Philadelphia ACORN president Carol Hemingway "e-mailed copies of the incident report to the news media."
Randy
Hey Chris Wallace...
The next time you want to go after MMfA...
You had better pay close attention to us posters!!
Most of us help make MMfA the thorn you feel in your side!
Hey, The Swap Creature was on high moral ground, he was fighting the oil companies.
FOX News, well, they live in a fantasy land, that is almost the same as movie land.
I suppose the only real difference there is that OTA was supposedly at a very high level in the Bush Administration and the ACORN workers were at the ground level of an NGO.
I wish you guys had been around in the last 8 years when there was real corruption going on, you are handling the petty-ante stuff terrifically. Where were you?
But better to paint the entire organization as corrupt and unethical, than to admit there are simply a few people with bad judgment, who were set up by people who have the same low ethical standards they attribute to ACORN.
James O'Keefe has no moral ground to stand on. He used Rovian dirty tricks to set somebody up. After multiple tries, he finally found somebody to play his dishonest game. He deserves at least as good as he gave.
I guess that means lie and be deceitful, and even violate the law, but do it in hopes that your target violates a bigger law, that way your violation looks inconsequential...
I hope his boldness in stating ignorance of the law as a right to break it gets him in hot water. This guy is scum.
--------------------
The Midnight Review
Mum Is The Word
Speaking of destroying ACORN, this article is a good history of the WHY of what's going on by the Republicans. The do want to destroy ACORN. They do want to supress the vote of disenfranchised people since they tend to vote for Democrats. And they want to delegitimize (their words)Obama's presidency.
This is a long article, but it's worth reading. I'll excerpt if briefly:
The Republican War Against ACORN
http://www.truthout.org/092709A?n Jason Leopold, Truthout: "In recent days, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other major news outlets have recounted the 'troubled' history of the poor people's advocacy group ACORN, but left out the five-year anti-ACORN campaign led by White House adviser Karl Rove and other Republican operatives. Dropped down the memory hole is the fact that ACORN was at the center of the so-called 'prosecutor-gate' scandal, when the Bush administration pressured US attorneys to bring indictments over the grassroots group's voter-registration drives, then fired some prosecutors who resisted what they viewed as a partisan strategy not supported by solid evidence."
I had already read Jeremy Scahill's article about this very subject.
But I do really wish everybody would still read the article as well, since it goes way back to the Bush era AG firing scandals. That's where this all originated.
"...The attacks on ACORN for allegedly signing up phony voters served as a cover for Republican efforts to purge real voters from the voting roles, a tactic that became infamous in the battleground states of Florida and Ohio..."
Did you enjoy Sam Tanenhaus on Bill Moyer's Journal?
The conservatives are loud and I think part of that is desperation and a realization that they are dying party with ideas that don't mesh with 21st century needs. Government has to be involved in solving the problems we face today. I do have to catch up my journal I'am actually 11/2 behind and I think he had a guest host this last week. Thanks for the discussion. :-)
a usually political policy designed to recover lost territory or status
The conservatives are loud and I think part of that is desperation and a realization that they are dying party with ideas that don't mesh with 21st century needs. Government has to be involved in solving the problems we face today. I do have to catch up my journal I'am actually 11/2 behind and I think he had a guest host this last week. Thanks for the discussion. :-)
The conservatives are loud and I think part of that is desperation and a realization that they are dying party with ideas that don't mesh with 21st century needs. Government has to be involved in solving the problems we face today. I do have to catch up my journal I'am actually 11/2 behind and I think he had a guest host this last week. Thanks for the discussion. :-)
The conservatives are loud and I think part of that is desperation and a realization that they are dying party with ideas that don't mesh with 21st century needs. Government has to be involved in solving the problems we face today. I do have to catch up my journal I'am actually 11/2 behind and I think he had a guest host this last week. Thanks for the discussion. :-)
which in fact leads right back to Karl Rove's crimes.
But no, in fact the NYT actually apologizes for not 'covering' the idiotic ACORN game because 'they appear to have a liberal bias' for not supporting the hysteria *which in fact* starts at the Bush WH.
Yes, it's a bias to not report this story starting with the actual context of firing US Attorneys for not supporting Rove's anti-ACORN witch hunt of which this 'expose' is a very stupid footnote and it sure ain't a liberal bias!
Thanks.
An opinion based on fictional underage Salvadoran sex slaves and fictional voter fraud. Have you any outrage about the ACTUAL importing of REAL LIVE underage sex slaves by executives of Blackwater so their contractors can get $1 bj's?
Ratings have nothing to do with journalistic integrity.
Let me try to help you understand how silly the notion is that ratings = better using a very simple metaphor.
Think of the Press as Baskin Robins. 31 flavors, right?
Now the most popular flavor might be Vanilla, and for the purposes of this metaphor, lets say that Fox News is vanilla ice cream and enjoys the most customers.
The other thirty flavors are what you guys like to refer to as "the liberal media." Now seperately, no one flavor will sell as much as vanilla ice cream does, but as a collective they serve many more people who have different varities in taste. MSNBC is chocolate, CNN is Rocky Road, ABC is coffee, CBS is pralines & cream, and so on.
Just pulling numbers out of the air for the purpose of this metaphor, lets say that vanilla serves a 10% share of the customers taste and the other 30 flavors share the remaining 90%. You would be right that the most popular flavor is indeed vanilla, but it in no way suggests that the only ice cream that is worth eating is vanilla. In fact, a much broader customer base of Baskin Robins does not like vanilla.
I understand how much your side wants everyone to eat only vanilla ice cream, but if its all the same to you, I prefer to experiment with flavors. You know, try a little of everything. Maybe even get some toppings. Crushed Oreo cookies or M&M's maybe.
Besides, I think the cream in the vanilla that Fox news is trying to sell, went bad a long time ago.
By the way, I'm not a fan of Baskin Robins. The ice cream may taste good, but it's not good for ya. Take it in small doses;)
o'reilly regularly draws 3.5 to 4 million.
beck about 3 million.
couric 5.5 to 6 million.
williams and gibson 7.5 to 8 million.
baier would be a fairer comparison with ABC, CBS and NBC as he goes head to head against them, probably in the 2 to 2.5 million range.
but broadcast news ratings are not what they once were and they're dropping annually, while cable news is trending upward...
If we assume (as Fox would have us assume) that all the other media outlets are hopelessly liberal, then we can safely say that the 2.6 million people who watch Fox are hopelessly in the margin.
Too bad - you just can't possibly claim that the media is liberal and then claim some sort of majority - can't have it both ways.
furthermore, i never claimed some sort of majority other than fox's cable news ratings vs other cable outlets...
Only reporters, not editors.
Btw, have you ever thought that maybe massive conglomerate corporations might not have the greatest incentive for their news stations to have a liberal bias? But then again, evidence was never needed for a charge of liberal media bias, it's one of them articles of faith on the right.
And anyways, Fox news grabs about 3 million viewers per night. That's out of how many people in this country? Oh yeah, 320 million. That vanilla analagy was probably an understatement.
as for vanilla, it would be an understatement only if there were 320 million cable viewers... of course, in this entitlement society, i can envision millions of newborns screaming "I want my MTV!"...
Finally, my point about ratings was that although Fox is the highest rated cable news network, that market is quite small compared to the size of the general population.
And thankfully so, because cable news viewers, particularly Fox viewers, have been shown to be strikingly uninformed by study after study.
Fox News is the king of the midgets, and nothing more.
Having said all that, I think we can agree then that we badly need to do something about our insane (and growing) media concentration and our rotted campaign finance laws. No?
Otherwise, I don't understand why you would complain about a conglomerate corporation using its news orgs and political clout to further its financial interest.
So what do you say? Lets rise against all our puppet masters, be they Fox or some other corporate owned network. Lets not have six corporations own every major outlet. You in?
maybe the quicker route is to just let bill gates buy EVERYTHING and get it over with...
Well, I guess that's something.....
Thumbs up for not wiggling away from the question.
Mainly because so many conservatives don't know how to read...
Intellectually, Faux News compares with Spongebob's friend Patrick.
I don't actually remembering a single left-wing blog calling for the exoneration of individual transgressors. Nor have I seen any evidence that these recent problems with individuals is systemic. In fact, the evidence that most left-wing advocates ask to be released would seem to indicate that the problems are not systemic - which is one of the reasons that failure to release the unedited videos is very suspicious.
I think you fail to give most Americans any credit for common sense or even a sense of fair play. Most Americans would like to see all of the evidence - not just the selectively edited videos that obviously present ACORN representatives in the worst possible light - before casting judgment upon an organization that has clearly benefited a segment of society that is grossly unrepresented in political and economic processes.
You mean, like excusing the corruption of KBR, Blackwater, Haliburton, and Abramoff, so that we can go after an Organization that's primary function is the enpowerment of the poor and receives a tiny fraction of what has been spent on corrupt millitary contractors, guilty of negligence, misspending, murder, and ACTUAL child prostitution?
And what is the corruption that you believe ACORN is guilty of exactly?
In 2003, 63 percent of voter registration cards submitted by ACORN in St. Louis were invalid. In 2005, ACORN submitted as many as 3,000 potentially bogus signatures on a minimum wage ballot in Albuquerque.
Last year, election workers found that only six of the 1,800 voter registrations the group submitted in Seattle were legitimate. Only six. The complete list of ACORN’s incriminating voter-drives could fill this page.
Acorn failed to pay its own employees the minimum wage. What’s more, in 1995 ACORN sued the state of California, seeking an exemption from the minimum wage law so it could legally pay under that rate.
ACORN confirmed it cannot be trusted when it was revealed that founder Wade Rathke may have concealed his brother’s embezzlement of nearly a million dollars from ACORN and its affiliates in 1999 and 2000.
Enough said the most recent scandal is a continuation of fraud and corruption. Go look up the many dozens of convictions.
It is no excuse for Acorn as you make to allege fraud which has gone unpunished by others you happen to dislike. If there were real fraud then Obama can make those investigations. If he doesn't it might mean they were alleged for political convenience. You are very disingenuous. Try to moderate your beliefs they are on the fringe.
http://rottenacorn.com/activityMap.html
Now, I just read all of these allegations, but I found that, out of all of this "mis-conduct" they were only able to list a total of 6 convictions. That is weak, don't you think?
Conspicuously absent from all of this is the FACT that ACORN is required by law to turn in all forms that are filled out and that ACORN self-identified the majority of the fraudulent voter registrations.
Facts have a funny way of making things look different, don't they?
You would think if your "fair & balanced", you would report both equally at the least, never mind that the Halliburton/KBR and Blackwater scandals are far more serious since deaths were involved.
I think you need to wake up ... period.
And where does Wallace "attack" media matters?
i agree if theres wrong doing them take it to a trail. But then again lets also do the same for the real perpetrators that have KILLED Americans.
So you have to be for that as well right?? I hope so cause if your not that just makes you a ding-dong repeater of the wrongs side talking points.
Stunningly absent from your post is the admission that the things done by these ACORN employees were perhaps unethical, but were not illegal.
On the other hand, this videographer has delivered evidence of his own CRIMINAL wrongdoing. Do you not care about law and order?
So, you are, in fact, an apologist for a criminal while harping about a handful of unethical EMPLOYEES of an organization that has done a lot of good for poor Americans. That smacks of hypocrisy.
The de-funding of ACORN by Congress is not a permanent injunction - it is pending an investigation. Just because a handful of obnoxious right-wing ideologues won the day doesn't mean they have won the war. In fact, they may have shot themselves in the foot - since many defense contractors will probably be caught up in the same net.
I'll let the law deal with the videographers. They'll see no jail time, but perhaps they'll receive a fine. In this case, the alleged crime of videotaping the willingness of those scumbags to use taxpayer money to aid and abet the activity discussed in the tapes, was worthy of commission. Otherwise, we would have continued supporting, with taxpayer funds, this unsavory organization. We all should be thankful that our hard-earned money will no longer go to waste . ..
There's no hypocrisy here. I simply don't want the government financing an organization that is so utterly corrupt and incompetent.
What are you guys waiting for??
Okeefe engineered a step in the right direction in this regard, and hopefully there are others with the courage to follow his lead. Maybe some from your side the aisle will cast aside their petty partisanship, and help expose the corruption which we witnessed in the videos . . .
That is what we have suspected all along. It is engineered.
Liar. ACORN registered everybody, including Mickey Mouse and Harry Potter, just like the law mandates. Just because those registered by ACORN tend to vote democratic is exactly whose fault?
You're also free to start your own voter registration group. You could call it NUTJOB and register all the obtuse teabaggers and anti-government paranoid separatists/secessionists.
Any outrage over the ACTUAL importing of underage sex slaves by Blackwater execs so their contractors could get $1 bj's?
You need to get your facts straight.
From the factcheck.org article quoted in my post above:
It is an incomplete record, at best, and it is a hatchet job. The videographer's reluctance to release all of the un-edited tapes ought to set off all sorts of alarms, but, since you are pre-disposed to hate ACORN, you are blind to all of the inconsistencies and all of the possibilities for out-right fraud on the part of Okeefe.
You will never convince pongo that isolated incidents aren't the totality of an organization. When you mention Halliburton, Kellogg-Root and the deaths they caused in favor of profit, it soars over pnogos' head.
This little tidbit concerning ACORN is giving the Fauxers a feel of importance since nothing else has gone right for them.
So using a possible illegal gathering of evidence concerning imaginery people is a big win for the shhep of Faux.
Personally, I would not argue with pongo because this is the ONE thing they going for themselves. The pongo is wrong but I will give him a partial victory because being winless must really hurt.
"...The irony of all of this is that the Congress is attempting to accomplish an unconstitutional act: singling out and punishing ACORN, which is clearly a "bill of attainder" that the Constitution explicitly prohibits -- i.e., an act aimed at punishing a single party without a trial. The only way to overcome that problem is by pretending that the de-funding of ACORN is really about a general policy judgment (that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding). But the broader they make the law in order to avoid the Constitutional problem, the more it encompasses the large corrupt corporations that own the Congress (and whom they obviously don't want to de-fund). The narrower they make it in order to include only ACORN, the more blatantly unconstitutional it is. Now that they have embraced this general principle that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding, how is anyone going to justify applying that only to ACORN while continuing to fund the corporations whose fraud and corruption is vastly greater (not to mention established by actual courts of law)?..."
Glenn Greenwald went on to put this in perspective:
"...Before being elected to Congress, Grayson worked extensively on uncovering and combating defense contractor fraud in Iraq, and I asked him to put into context ACORN's impact on the American taxpayer versus these corrupt defense contractors. His reply: "The amount of money that ACORN has received in the past 20 years altogether is roughly equal to what the taxpayer paid to Halliburton each day during the war in Iraq."
Hmmmmmm...
And it doesn't hurt that most of ACORN is mostly run by and helps mostly minorities, which brings out the racist hatred as well.
Investigate and do what is right.
And no, you are the idiot here. Everyone at MMFA feels that if crimes were commited that the culprits must pay.
But since when is a "corporation/organization" guilty of the crime if commited by an employee?
Didn't Dow Chemical kill thousands of Indians due to a chemical leak? Which employee went to jail? Did Blackwater employees murder people? Did the company get shut down?
From now on, why not come here with some facts and without the talkingpoints of two weeks ago.
You mean Halliburton?
You accept the things you are pre-disposed to believe because of your ideology. I do not.
If you see a cockroach in a McDonalds, do you stop going to every McDonalds in the whole world? If so, then you would not belong to any political party, you would not shop at any grocery store, you wouldn't drive cars made by any manufacturer that has had a recall. If you paint an entire organization with the brush that is earned by a handful of its members, you are up a creek without a paddle.
By your reasoning, the entire country is corrupt. Heck, the whole world is corrupt.
BLACKWATER kills people. Good!
World...upside down....help
I can't wait for him to release some more heavily edited video tapes that he says prove something that they do not.
Granted, ACORN is a small by constant thorn in the side of the GOP and it may end up be a scacrifical lamb, but can you imagine if the Bill is expanded to all contractors found guilty (instead of alleged - which is witch hunting at the highest level of gov't, instead of the right tin hatters paid for by Fox)....how will the right survive without kickback and fraud protection from all of the defense contractors. Hey, it may pay for HCR!
Enough with the logical...FOX has done what all Right Wingers have done...attack the messenger...because they are incapable of a rational debate on Issues, in which FACTS would be required vs attack with loud by meaningless rhetoric.
and wallace, next time you probably shouldnt pick on MMfA when they expose your BS all the time. mentioning them just gives viewers more reason to check out MMfA and see the kind of spin doctor you area.
look at how much effort was put into exposing halliburton, KBR, blackwater, torture techniques, abu gharib, etc, and it didnt involve any illegal attempts of video taping someone.