On the January 25 edition of KSFO's Morning Show, hosts Melanie Morgan and Lee Rodgers continued their discussion of a debunked accusation, first made by InsightMag.com, that “researchers connected to” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) have said that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) “spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia.” Rodgers acknowledged that the story had been “discredited” by CNN but in turn purported to discredit CNN by claiming that the network is “the propaganda mouthpiece for the political left. They're the Democratic Party's Al Jazeera.” Morgan then said that “certain left-wing websites seem to believe that they can fit the facts to their agenda, and their agenda is to destroy us personally and to get us fired and thrown off the air.” Rodgers added that the “left-wing websites” are “full of bovine excrement” and they “lie in their teeth just for the fun of it,” to which Morgan replied, “Exactly.”
As Media Matters for America has noted, Morgan previously wrote a column in which she linked to a Media Matters item and complained about “liberal bloggers [trying] to get me fired.” On the air, Morgan has also read portions of a letter from Media Matters President and CEO David Brock in which Brock implored KSFO's owner, ABC/Disney, to stop airing violent rhetoric and racist fearmongering. Morgan then attacked “the hate from David Brock at Media Matters” and warned that she and her co-hosts “would not be intimidated by your thuggish tactics.”
Rodgers and Morgan referred to the CNN debunking, but they could have also noted that the Associated Press, in a January 24 article, found that the school Obama attended in Jakarta is “a public and secular institution that has been open to students of all faiths since before the White House hopeful attended in the late 1960s.” Similarly, ABC News national correspondent Jake Tapper referred to the InsightMag.com article on January 25 as “since-discredited,” noting that InsightMag.com “cited [only] unnamed sources.” Tapper also noted that, since the article's publication, media figures have “repeat[ed] the false charges” against Obama “while bemoaning the notion that the Clinton campaign was investigating Obama's past, a charge that remains unproven and unsubstantiated.”
During the segment, Rodgers also stated: "[I]f you are the offspring of a Muslim father, according to Islamic law, you're a Muslim for life. That's what the Quran says." Rodgers has previously made similar statements.
Morgan and Rodgers were among the first to spread the smear against Obama and Clinton on their January 19 program. Their baseless accusations continued on January 23 when Morgan added a new, equally baseless accusation that the story came from the campaign of former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC).
From the January 25 edition of KSFO's Morning Show:
RODGERS: I'm not going to mention any names because I don't want to give them any more publicity, but Mel called to my attention one of these left-wing bloggers she was talking about, who seemed to be upset because we have said some things they interpreted as being unpleasant toward the world's largest Muslim nation population-wise. That would be Indonesia. And did this thing about “Indonesia, it's a -- they're a tolerant form of Islam, blah, blah, blah.” This is the Indonesia where these guys blew up over 200 tourists, mostly Australian, a few years ago on Bali, which is part of Indonesia, and where they got a slap on the wrist for doing it. The guy who dreamed up the whole thing is already out of prison, and he was laughing and joking at his trial because he knew nothing was going to happen to him under the Indonesian government. This is where Muslim mobs regularly murder Christians -- have just recently beheaded some Christian schoolchildren. Oh yeah, this is tolerant Islam. And they quoted as their source for, quote, “discrediting” the Insight magazine about the Indonesian school that Barack Obama attended, saying that --
CNN had discredited the story. Excuse me, this would be the CNN that admitted lying about by omission and covering up for Saddam Hussein for years so they could keep their little office open in Iraq. Now, if you invest any credibility in CNN, you're a dope, because the reason the left loves them is, they're the propaganda mouthpiece for the political left. They're the Democratic Party's Al Jazeera. So, I find myself unconvinced by that argument. I don't know about the school; I didn't go over there, one way or another. But they also ridicule the idea that, if you are the offspring of a Muslim father, according to Islamic law, you're a Muslim for life. That's what the Quran says. You are a Muslim for life. It is not optional. You can't renounce it as far as they're concerned, so it doesn't make any difference what you say.
MORGAN: Well, the fact --
RODGERS: If daddy was a Muslim, whether he was a practicing Muslim or hadn't for generations, makes no bleeping difference, under --
OFFICER VIC: The Quran.
RODGERS: -- under Islamic law, sharia, yeah.
MORGAN: Well, they seem to, at certain left-wing websites, seem to believe that they can fit the facts for their agenda, and their agenda is to destroy us personally and to get us fired and thrown off the air, so --
RODGERS: Well, they're full of bovine excrement and I don't mind saying so, and we're not going to let them permit it. So if you read any of that crap, just remember, these people lie in their teeth just for the fun of it.
MORGAN: Exactly.