Shocker: Lying weasel Jay Carney caught lying like a weasel about #Benghazi

US Consulate, Benghazi

And I think the shocking thing is that it’s the MSM exposing him (emphases added):

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict* what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

*(MSM-speak for “Jay Carney is a lying weasel.”)

We already know from The Weekly Standard that State and a failed fiction writer now working as an Obama national-security aide were heavily involved in “editing” the initial CIA talking points. This ABC report shows how many iterations they went through before the bowdlerized version was handed to Ambassador Rice for her role as designated mouthpiece the following Sunday. Then, when the talking points were shown to be a fiction, Carney went before the public to lie about their origins. The only question is was he knowingly lying, or was he played for a sap?

But, annoying as it is to have yet another example of the administration’s dishonesty over Benghazi (1) come out, the real story in my opinion here isn’t that a press secretary lied to cover his boss and his top aides. No, the real story here is that the MSM is finally getting interested in Benghazi, finally “uncovering” all these shocking revelations only after Obama has been safely reelected.

They’ve done their job, you see. They pushed Obama over the finish line twice, so now they can go back to pretending they’re objective journalists. There’s no need to “play Pravda” anymore, at least in this case. Now they can break news of things they could easily have discovered back in September, October, and November, except that it might have hurt Obama’s reelection chances.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad they’re finally doing their jobs. Benghazi is a huge scandal and the story has to be told. But don’t expect me to praise them for “holding the powerful accountable,” when their self-serving cynicism (2) is so dazzling.

RELATED: The Right Sphere reaches back in time to remind us that Carney’s boss was telling the same lies on a national stage just before the election.

Footnote:
(1) Remember, the administration knew what happened that night from their people on the ground. The jihadis themselves knew what happened; it was their operation. The only people being deceived here were us.
(2) There are a few exceptions, of course, but the corruption of the MSM as an institution is spread far and wide.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

You know the liberal media is desperate to support Obama when…

“Under state control”

They misquote their own stories to spread administration propaganda:

This morning on Politico’s Playbook, [Mike] Allen quoted a story from his own website:

“Monday, the bulk of the furlough notices will start going out. … [E]stimates include 12 furlough days at the Bureau of Prisons, 13 at the Environmental Protection Agency and 15 at the Agriculture Department. Forced days off will mean cuts in annual pay of about 10 percent. Uniformed military personnel as well as employees … ‘Everything hits the fan on April 1,’ said Scott Lilly, former Democratic staff director to the House Appropriations Committee.“

From reading that, you’d imagine that uniformed military and employees will be furloughed. There’s only one problem. The original article at Politico, by Darren Samuelsohn and Ginger Gibson, says precisely the opposite:

“Uniformed military personnel as well as employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Postal Service are exempt from the furloughs.”

The bold portion had been replaced by an ellipsis, totally changing the meaning of the sentence. That’s not journalism, that’s a memo from the Ministry of Truth.

Is it any wonder that the public’s trust in the major media is tanking?

RELATED: Consider this another example of what ST noted yesterday about “media lapdogs.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The progressive war on the middle class: Kansas vs. California

A few days ago, reactionary liberal E.J. Dionne wrote a piece in The Washington Post, part of which he devoted to bashing states that implement conservative fiscal and governance policies. And he singled out Kansas, the state with perhaps the most “Tea Party” government, for a ritual “two minutes hate:”

In some states where Republicans control all the levers of power, they are rushing ahead with astonishingly right-wing programs to eviscerate government while shifting the tax burden toward the middle class and the poor and away from the wealthy. In trying to build the Koch brothers’ dystopias, they are turning states in laboratories of reaction.

As Neil King Jr. and Mark Peters reported in a Wall Street Journal article on the “Red State model,” Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has slashed both income taxes and spending. This drew fire from moderate and moderately conservative Republican legislators, whom he then helped purge in primaries.

Note the requisite invocation of the demon Koch brothers, lest any of the progressive faithful miss the clue that these conservative reforms are EVIL!!!

Anyway, Washington Examiner columnist Conn Carroll read Dionne’s screed and did something increasingly unusual for journalists these days: he looked for facts before turning on his word-processing program. Imagine that.

So, first looked at how things are going in Mordor Kansas:

If Dionne were to bother to visit Kansas, he would find a state with an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent, a full 2.5 points below the nation’s 7.9 percent average. Despite “eviscerated” state government spending, Kansas’ fourth- and eighth-graders beat the national average in both math and reading scores. The state’s 11.2 percent poverty rate is also well below the national 15.8 percent national average. And despite all those evil tax cuts for the rich, the gap between Kansas’ wealthiest and poorest citizens is also much smaller than the national average.

The most recent Jayhawk Poll showed Brownback enjoying a 55 percent to 37 percent approval rating. But I’m sure the backlash Dionne predicted is just around the corner.

Then he compared it to the progressive Paradise, my beloved California, where Democrats control the governor’s office and have super-majorities in the legislature:

At 9.8 percent, unemployment is a bit higher in the Golden State then in Kansas — or the rest of the country, for that matter. Despite California spending far more per student than most states, its fourth- and eighth-graders perform far worse on reading and math proficiency scores than the average American students. A third of all the welfare recipients in the United States live in California, and the Census Bureau reports that the state also has the nation’s highest poverty rate. Almost one-quarter (23.5 percent) of Californians live below the poverty line.

And there is plenty of wealth to go around in California, but it also has one of the nation’s highest levels of income inequality. According to the Census Bureau, it is getting more and not less unequal.

Oh, and Governor Brown’s claims that our budget is at last balanced turned out to be a total lie, too. No word about Kansas’ budget, but I’m willing to bet they’re in better far fiscal shape than we are. Even Albania is.

Anyway, based on just this brief comparison of two states that most embody, respectively, what Walter Mead has called the Red and Blue models of government, if anyone is waging a war on the middle class, it’s the liberal/progressive/statist Democrats. Instead of looking at conservative states and shrieking “My God, what are you people doing,” Dionne should look to places where “his way” rules and ask “My God, what have we done?”

PS: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. That California isn’t yet in flaming ruins after decades of progressive misrule is evidence of just how powerful this state’s natural economy was and could be, again, if only the oligarchs in Sacramento would pull their heads out of their collective backsides — and their hands out of our wallets.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Media scrubs left-wing manifesto of fugitive cop-killer — Updated

You may have heard there’s a manhunt underway in California and Nevada for Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer who’s gone on a rampage that’s left at least three dead:

As authorities scoured Southern California for an ex-Los Angeles police officer suspected of shooting three officers, killing one, officials broadened the alert to include the entire state Thursday morning, and authorities in Nevada were warned.

The California Highway Patrol originally issued a “blue alert” for nine Southern California counties, warning that suspect Christoper Jordan Dorner, 33, was considered “armed and extremely dangerous,” early Thursday. Shortly after 9 a.m. that alert was broadened to the include the entire state.

A statewide “high alert” was sent out about 8:30 a.m. across Nevada for Dorner, authorities with the Nevada Highway Patrol said.

Arizona authorities were aware of the situation but had not issued any formal alerts, said Officer Carrick Cook with the state’s Department of Public Safety.

Local, state and federal authorities are involved in the search for Dorner, who threatened “unconventional and asymmetrical warfare” against police in an online manifesto. Dorner is also wanted in connection with a double homicide Sunday in Irvine, where the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her fiance were killed.

The search intensified early Thursday after three police officers were shot in Riverside County and Dorner was identified as a possible suspect.

This is terrible news, and I hope they catch this mad dog before he kills anyone else. If he should be killed in the process, I’ll not mourn.

What’s scandalous, though, is the media’ scrubbing of a killer’s online “manifesto” leaving out significant portions that announce a left wing, pro-Obama, pro-gun control belief system. Multiple TV, radio, and newpaper outlets have suppressed this information. Ostensibly, it’s to protect other potential targets named in the manifesto, but the information about his agenda could be given out without releasing the names. But that wouldn’t serve The Narrative.

Read Sooper Mexican‘s post for the full story, but here’s an example:

Pro Gun Control:

Who in there right mind needs a [...] silencer!!! who needs a freaking SBR AR15? No one. No more Virginia Tech, Columbine HS, Wisconsin temple, Aurora theatre, Portland malls, Tucson rally, Newtown Sandy Hook. Whether by executive order or thru a bi-partisan congress an assault weapons ban needs to be re-instituted. Period!!!

Mia Farrow said it best. “Gun control is no longer debatable, it’s not a conversation, its a moral mandate.”

Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB. Never again should any public official state that their prayers and thoughts are with the family.

Loves Obama:

You disrespect the office of the POTUS/Presidency and Commander in Chief. You call him Kenyan, mongroid, halfrican, muslim, and FBHO when in essence you are to address him as simply, President. The same as you did to President George W. Bush and all those in the highest ranking position of our land before him. Just as I always have. You question his birth certificate, his educational and professional accomplishments, and his judeo-christian beliefs. You make disparaging remarks about his dead parents. You never questioned the fact that his former opponent, the honorable Senator John McCain, was not born in the CONUS or that Bush had a C average in his undergrad. Electoral Candidates children (Romney) state they want to punch the president in the face during debates with no formal repercussions. No one even questioned the fact that the son just made a criminal threat toward the President. You call his wife a Wookie. Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama.

The guy is obviously a lunatic, just as was Jared Loughner, the man who shot Congresswoman Giffords. If we apply the same standards in Dorner’s case that the Left applied to Loughner’s, then it would make as much sense to say all the people he praises are as to blame for Dorner’s rampage as Sarah Palin was for the shooting of Giffords.

Which, of course, would be nuts to do, something we leave to progressives.

But, again, the real scandal here is the MSM’s apparent suppression of genuine news in what can only be described as agenda journalism: in this case, hiding anything that might harm or confuse the effort to a) press for needless new restrictions on the right to bear arms, and b) the narrative about dangerous right-wing extremists.

Thought experiment: If Dorner had been a populist conservative, a second amendment supporter, or an Obama-hater, would any of those ten pages cut from his manifesto been left out, other than the names of his targets?

No, I don’t think so, either.

Good work by Sooper Mexican for bringing this to public attention!

UPDATE: The LA Times is now hosting 18 pages of the 21 page document, including much of the ranting that had earlier been excised.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

MSM bias against the 2nd amendment quantified

There’s an interesting item at PJ Media reporting on a Media Research Center study about MSM hysteria over the “gun violence” crisis (1). MRC took a look at the broadcast networks’ news coverage after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, and what they found is intriguing:

MRC analysts reviewed all 216 gun policy stories on the Big Three networks’ evening (ABC’s World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News) and morning show programs (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, NBC’s Today), beginning with the evening of the shooting through January 17, the morning after Obama made his speech surrounded by children who had sent him letters pushing for more gun control.

The results show staggering imbalance:

    ■ Stories advocating more gun control outnumbered stories opposing gun control by 99 to 12, or a ratio of 8 to 1.
    
    ■ Anti-gun soundbites were aired almost twice as frequently than pro-gun ones (228 to 134).
    
    ■ Gun control advocates appeared as guests on 26 occasions, compared to 7 times for gun rights advocates.

CBS was the most stridently anti-gun rights network. By a whopping 22 to 1 ratio, CBS aired more stories that favored gun control (44) to those that supported gun rights (2), with 37 neutral pieces. ABC aired almost six times as many stories that favored gun control (29) to those that favored gun rights, with 25 neutral stories. NBC pushed for more gun control in 26 of their stories to just 5 that tilted in favor of gun rights for a 5 to 1 ratio, with 43 neutral segments.

That’s not news reporting, that’s agenda journalism at its worst. And I’m willing to bet many at the “alphabet networks” don’t even realize they’re doing this and would be appalled to be faced with the reality. They live and work in left-liberal echo chambers while thinking of themselves as guardians of the truth.  (2)

Of course, on the other hand, I’m sure we can all point to reporters who see agenda journalism as the whole point — it’s a crusade, not a straight reporting of facts. Bernard Goldberg (formerly of CBS) has written a  great book on this.

The problem is that so many people still get the majority of their information from the broadcast networks, the range of opinion on which is so slanted, that they themselves are trapped in that same echo chamber — a captive audience. It’s small wonder that so many people think more gun control is the answer, when they rarely get to hear intelligent advocates for the pro-2nd amendment argument, instead being shown kooks like Alex Jones. (3)

It’s a tremendous hill to climb to try to overcome this cacophony of media-generated hysteria, where facts are less-valued than feeling, but we have to try nonetheless.

Footnotes:
(1) As in that progressive favorite, “never let a crisis go to waste.” Even if you have to make one up.
(2) And there are some who really do play it straight, but far too few, sadly.
(3) Dear CS monitor: Alex Jones is not “ultra-conservative.” He’s a conspiracy-theory loon, and that’s it.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Journalistic integrity at CBS? Not when it comes to competitors…

Or their innovative technology:

Recently, I found myself thrust in the middle of a kerfuffle when CBS ordered its subsidiary CNET to remove a product from consideration for a “Best of CES” award at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. I can never recall any major media company, much less a top-tier First Amendment protector like CBS, publicly mandating an editorial decision based on business interests. The bizarre aggressiveness of CBS executives against the Hopper Sling disturbed me as it not only tainted the CES awards, but it hurt one of the world’s classiest media companies.

The controversy started when Dish introduced the Hopper, a product that allows Dish subscribers to skip through TV commercials under certain conditions. CBS and other networks sued Dish to stop the sale of the Hopper, despite a landmark 1984 Supreme Court decision that innovative products like the Hopper cannot be blocked by copyright owners if the product has many uses. Broadcasters never even challenged the legality of the TiVo personal video recorder back in 1999, which allows easy commercial fast-forwarding.

While the CBS legal challenge to the Hopper case chugs along, Dish used the 2013 International CES, to introduce the Hopper Sling, which allows Dish subscribers to stream one channel over the Internet while another is playing on the home TV. As owners of CES, we had an agreement with CNET to cover the show and recognize the best products. The CNET editorial team identified the Hopper Sling as one of the most innovative products of the show, but CBS brass ordered the CNET editors to remove it from CNET’s website.

For a top media company to impose editorial control so publicly for business reasons created a firestorm, resulting in stories in USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal and several tech blogs. CBS’ actions are puzzling, and troubling, on many levels.

One CNET reporter has already resigned over this, and there may be more on the way. While this is business and not politics, it should serve as a reminder to us all that the MSM is willing to bend or even alter the news to meet its goals. CBS’ “classy reputation” was already tarnished by Rathergate, and NBC News’ president has resigned “under controversy.” (1) And the major media reporting on so-called man-made climate change has been nothing short of disgraceful, agenda journalism at its worst.

Thanks to the space the Internet provides alternative voices, the “gatekeeper of what’s news” function of the MSM is dying, though they still need to be watched like a hawk. As Democratic pollster Pat Caddell recently said, the media has become an “enemy of democracy.” (2)

via Instapundit

Footnote:
(1) For a devastating and nauseating example of NBC’s (and other MSM) dishonesty, have a look through my blog-buddy’s Sister Toldjah’s Trayvon Martin archive, about the persecution of George Zimmerman. She moved mountains exposing their perfidy.
(2) With exceptions for certain individual reporters. But the overall MSM “culture” stinks with corruption.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

High-ranking CBS staffer calls for destruction of Republican party

Well, at least he’s being honest about his biases:

The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.

(…)

Obama’s only remaining option is to pulverize. Whether he succeeds in passing legislation or not, given his ambitions, his goal should be to delegitimize his opponents. Through a series of clarifying fights over controversial issues, he can force Republicans to either side with their coalition’s most extreme elements or cause a rift in the party that will leave it, at least temporarily, in disarray.

New tone?

That’s John Dickerson writing at Slate.  But he’s not just a frothing, nigh-ecstatic fan of Obama writing for a lefty web-zine.  As John Nolte points out at Breitbart, he’s also CBS’ political director:

Dickerson is merely being Dickerson, and  there’s no doubt he speaks for legions upon legions of those in the media today.

What is worthy of note, though, is that a CBS News’ political director is now comfortable openly calling for the destruction of the Republican Party. He obviously fears no admonitions from his colleagues or his employer. And why should he? Earlier this week, Bob Schieffer, a CBS News “living legend,” was perfectly comfortable publicly comparing the NRA to Nazis.

Ladies and gentlemen, your neutral, thoughtful Fourth Estate.

“Media bias?” What’s that?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#GunControl Has LAPD produced fake “rocket launchers” before?

Following up on this story. It seems the press conference at which LAPD Chief Charlie Beck produced supposed rocket launchers as evidence of the need for stricter firearms regulations wasn’t the first time. They may even have been the same pieces:

But upon looking into this story further, it appears that Chief Beck has played this game at least once before and with what may have been the exact same device.

Back in May, Beck again paraded before the media with a “rocket launcher” he claimed his department had received during a gun buyback program. That piece, too, was clearly marked “trainer” and was incapable of ever firing any rockets.

All this raises many questions. Did the police really ever receive any such devices in its gun buyback programs? Is this just a repeat tactic that Chief Beck is using to scare the public and make it seem as if his program is working? Do the Chief and his department understand at all the the devices he keeps claiming are “rocket launchers” are really nothing but harmless plastic tubes? Why do these “rocket launchers” keep showing up in L.A. buyback programs but not anywhere else in the country? Finally, why hasn’t the media questioned Chief Beck about his repeated rocket launcher claim?

That last question is easy to answer: the LA Times, which should be the lead source for investigative journalism in the City of the Angels, is a liberal paper heavily invested in, among other leftish dogma, the necessity and wisdom of gun control. It would never occur to them (nor to our pathetic local news stations) to even slightly question Beck’s claims, because it fits their preferred narrative.

As to Huston’s other questions, I’d love to see the answers, but I’m not holding my breath.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Pat Caddell: the MSM has become an “enemy of democracy.”

Harsh words from the former Democratic pollster and analyst in the wake of the massacre in Benghazi:

…but I fear he’s much more right than wrong.

via Legal Insurrection

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Tweet of the Day: “You wrote that with a straight with a straight face?” edition

From left-wing “pundit” Oliver Willis, a “senior fellow” at that notably unbiased paragon of journalistic integrity, Media Matters for America:

conservative media is largely about punditizing, limbaugh style, while liberal media leans much more towards actual reporting.

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) September 21, 2012

Tell me another funny one, Ollie.

Look, I don’t mind journalists advocating a point or expressing an opinion, but don’t insult my intelligence by pretending a) that you aren’t when you are and b) that the MSM isn’t heavily biased toward the progressive-statist (PDF) end of the spectrum, the political and cultural Left.

via RBPundit on Twitter

PS: Hi, Oliver. I guess blocking me wasn’t all that effective. Darn.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The MSM has its own open-mic moment

Shades of Journolist. MSM reporters are caught on tape coordinating their questions for Mitt Romney at today’s press availability on the North African crisis:

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: …pointing out that the Republicans… *unintelligible* …Obama….

CBS REPORTER: That’s the question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: *unintelligible*

CBS REPORTER: Yeah that’s the question. I would just say do you regret your question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Your question? Your statement?

CBS REPORTER: I mean your statement. Not even the tone, because then he can go off on…

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And then if he does, if we can just follow up and say ‘but this morning your answer is continuing to sound…’ – *becomes unintelligble*

CBS REPORTER: You can’t say that..

**Later**

CBS REPORTER: I’m just trying to make sure that we’re just talking about, no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you stand by your statement or regret your statement?

Odd. Secretary Clinton and President Obama weren’t forced to answer questions, coordinated or not, at their press “conference.”

Must be an oversight.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Media bias? What media bias? Surely not at ABC… Updated: unbiased observer identified

It’s not just public figures who can have embarrassing open-mic moments that reveal truths they’d rather keep hidden. Sometimes the “unbiased professionals” behind the scenes forget where they are, too.

And that’s when they show who the really are — propagandists, not journalists:

During live coverage of the Republican National Convention here in Tampa, an ABC News employee provided the perfect example of the pervasive anti-Republican bias Mitt Romney faces in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

In video broadcast Monday night by ABC over the internet, an ABC News employee can be heard claiming that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann are unconcerned about the fate of residents of the New Orleans area who are currently being hit by Hurricane Isaac.

“They aren’t concerned at all,” the person says on tape. “They are happy to have a party when black people drown.”

That line elicits laughter from several employees listening in on the joke.

Shades of Kanye.

Of course, media bias against Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians isn’t some shocking revelation these days; I’m sure we can all think of egregious moments going back to Reagan’s time, at least. (1) In the enclosed, mutually reaffirming echo chamber that’s the modern MSM (and the broader entertainment media), these are the beliefs you’re supposed to have. These are the jokes you’re supposed to tell in order to be part of the club, showing others how smart and progressive you are, even if you don’t necessarily believe it.  You want to be accepted don’t you?

Not that I think this unnamed joker at ABC was covering for his real beliefs. Far from it. The echo chamber is not only self-reinforcing, but it’s also a magnet for the like-minded, people who see journalism as a way to fight for “noble causes,” and not as a way to present all the relevant facts — just those the “gatekeepers of information” deem relevant.

The real lesson of this incident (other than checking to see if any nearby mics are on) is not to ignore the MSM, however good that might be for one’s blood pressure, but to diversify sources of information so that we, ourselves, don’t get trapped in the echo chamber. Don’t stop watching ABC (they do occasionally say something useful), but also watch PJTV. Don’t stop reading the NYT –they do have some good individual writers, even if the paper is hopelessly biased– but also scan the Real Clear sites. Even if you disagree with someone, reading or listening to what they have to say will sharpen your own arguments — and sometimes they might even know something useful. (Admittedly, I wouldn’t expect that from Jesse Jackson or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz…)

Just don’t let yourself become a smug, laughing jackass like the ones they hire to produce the news at ABC.

Footnote:
(1) My blog-buddy Sister Toldjah did a fantastic job exposing media bias in the Zimmerman-Martin case.

UPDATE: According to Mediaite, the professional and open-minded journalist caught slagging the Romneys and all Republicans is Yahoo News’ Washington bureau chief David Chalian. Heckuva job, Davey. Yahoo news was doing a joint webcast with ABC. (via sdo1)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#Trayvon Third NBC employee fired for doctoring 911 tapes

Via PJMedia’s “The Tatler” blog, yet more evidence of the corruption of the mainstream media:

TV Newser reports that a third NBC employee has been fired for dishonestly editing George Zimmerman’s 911 call. The fired employee’s name is Lilia Luciano. The edit that she created is, if anything, even more deceptive than the NBC edit that stirred racial angles in the story of Trayvon Martin’s fatal shooting, and which has resulted in the firing of two other NBC employees.

“In a story for the “Today” show on March 20, Luciano used part of the George Zimmerman 911 call in which an entire phrase (italicized below) was taken from a later part of the conversation:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good or on drugs or something. He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male.
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Dispatcher: Okay, we don’t need you to do that.”

But here is how Zimmerman’s conversation with the 911 dispatcher actually went:

“Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.
Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he white, black, or Hispanic?
Zimmerman: He looks black.”

Luciano’s firing makes three employees fired for dishonest edits in this story at NBC; Lilia Luciano, who joined NBC from Univision 18 months ago; Jeff Burnside, the reporter and environmental activist at NBC’s Miami owned-and-operated affiliate; and another producer at NBC whom the network has not named. Their edits consistently played up race as the driving motive in George Zimmerman’s actions.

This looks like what’s called “noble cause corruption.” Assuming these “journalists” weren’t just out to gin up the most shocking story they could to boost their network’s ratings and their own careers, then it’s reasonable to speculate that they committed these crimes against ethics and trashed their own integrity because they felt they were serving a higher purpose — perhaps “fighting racism” or “the Right-wing,” or pursuing some vague, ego-stroking sense of “justice.”

Whatever.

What these fools really accomplished, however, was to do harm on two levels: first, they further degraded the already terrible reputation of the major news networks — why should anyone have a shred of trust in NBC’s news offerings after this, if they still did?

Even more important, however, is the harm done to the judicial process by these agenda-journalists.  Both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, victim and accused, deserve justice: a fair hearing, an impartial jury, and, if need be, punishment for one and justice for the other. But how is that supposed to happen when NBC and other MSM outlets spread fantasies that can only have the effect of winding up the mob?

I’m not a fan of Sean Hannity, but he was spot on in 2008 when he said that journalism was dead. And the exposure of Ms. Luciano’s misdeeds is yet another baring of its rotted face.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

(Video) Bil Whittle: Man bites dog

Busy day today, but I wanted to share the latest Firewall with you. In it, Bill looks at the silliness regarding Romney “dog on the car roof” story and “Obama ate a dog,” and explains why it matters. First, because it illustrates in bright, neon colors yet another example of mainstream media hypocrisy: the New York Times disapprovingly mentions the Romney story 56 times, but dismisses Obama’s self-confessed chow-down on a Chow as a distraction. Typical.

But his larger point is the more important one: Obama eating dog meat, in addition to all the other elements of his early life, shows how he just isn’t one of us. Not in the silly sense of being a “sekrit Mooslim” or the equally nonsensical birther fantasies, but that the sum total of his life experience leaves him unable to understand or empathize with his “fellow” Americans. While Bill focuses on Obama’s early life, I’d toss in his collegiate years and his life in Chicago within the echo chamber of Socialist community organizing and leftist academia. Bill Clinton feeling our pain, he isn’t.

Enjoy:

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Palin. Breitbart. Nightstick. Boom.

Sarah Palin took to the electronic pages of Breitbart.com, both to pay tribute to the late Andrew Breitbart and to support Breitbart’s last mission: to “vet the Prez.” In it, she not only praises her friend, but also lambastes the corrupt media he so despised for doing anything but vetting Obama. It’s Palin at her best:

Barack Obama and I both served in political office in states with a serious corruption problem. Though there is a big difference between serving as the CEO of a city, then a state, and regulating domestic energy resources, and being a liberal Community Organizer, bear with me on the comparison. The difference between my record and Barack Obama’s is that I fought the corrupt political machine my entire career (and I have twenty years of scars to prove it) on the local, state, and national level. But Obama didn’t fight the corruption he encountered. He went along with it to advance his career. Graft, cronyism, and quid pro quo are the methods of the Chicago political machine from which he emerged.

You would think the media – those watchdogs of the public trust – would be interested in this. But they refused to vet Barack Obama. With tingles up their legs, they shielded him.

If the media had done their job of vetting him, we wouldn’t have been shocked that within days after Obama’s election, his close political associate Rod Blagojevich was caught trying to sell Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

If the media had done their job of vetting him, we wouldn’t be astonished to see all the billion dollar green energy kickbacks going to his campaign cronies as the nation heads towards bankruptcy.

If the media had done their job of vetting him, we wouldn’t be surprised that Obama brought these same Chicago “pay-to-play” practices to the White House.

This corruption was entirely predictable. But the mainstream media, who work under our Constitutional right of freedom of the press which our sons and daughters fight in war zones today to protect, dropped the ball and failed America by refusing to vet their chosen candidate.

So, as Breitbart declared in his last CPAC speech, we – the everyday patriotic citizens of the United States – will do the vetting the media refused to do.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)