This guy gets a regular gig on MSNBC too. What does it take to have no credibility over at GE-owned MSNBC?

The Daily Caller is Tucker Carlson's little vanity blog, ostensibly created to be the "HuffPo" of the right in typical grandiose Carlson fashion. When AOL's Politics Daily writer Matt Lewis heard about the AOL/HuffPo deal, he bolted for Daily Caller, perhaps afraid he might actually have to do a lifestyle or celebrity fluff piece or worse, some actual fact-checking *gasp!*.

See, because Tucker doesn't need no stinkin' fact-checking when it comes to his rather pedestrian outlet. Which makes it a perfect fit for Matt Lewis, who only has a glancing relationship with reality, as the video above illustrates. But what do you say about the allegedly credible outlets that just blithely repeat Lewis' lies?

Yesterday afternoon Matt Lewis printed completely without any verification that the Facebook page of a right-wing group shut down the comments section of President Obama's Facebook chat this afternoon because conservatives were so energized that they clicked through the link and went to the Facebook page for the Whitehouse townhall driving so much traffic and comments that Facebook's page went offline.

It seems far-fetched right? A Facebook group (called ForAmerica) produces enough traffic to take down another Facebook page (Obama's national townhall) by itself while the first Facebook page is still up and running and directing traffic to second page. The problem isn't that the Daily Caller or Matt Lewis should have any credibility discussing the power of a conservative group or new media, but that Lewis' story on the Daily Caller was picked up by other reporters, most notably Jake Tapper at ABC News.

Kombiz goes through the mathematical improbability of the Facebook townhall being taken down and shows how easily debunkable the whole premise is.

So, you can't take down Facebook. Even if you tried to instigate a very illegal Denial-of-service attack against Facebook, you can't take down Facebook. It's partly why you never see hackers or Anonymous try to take down Amazon, Google and Facebook. Their infrastructure is too large and redundant to take offline.

These numbers are easily verifiable either by talking to Facebook, doing research on Google or talking to anyone who works in the online space. The problem here isn't that Matt Lewis lies, — he comes from Townhall and Human Events, we know he's a right-wing activist not a real reporter. The problem is that he has enough credibility in Washington, DC for Jake Tapper and Mike Memoli from the LA Times to take him seriously.

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It's interesting to see the two strawmen arguments continually put up by right wingers in response to the tragic shootings in Tucson. The first one is a variation of the "But...but they do it too!", pointing fingers at the left. I've yet to see anyone confront a right winger using that excuse as you would the second-grader equally as apt to employ it: if everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you do that too? Whether or not you agree with the premise that everyone does it (and for the record, I don't agree), that doesn't absolve you of your contribution.

The second strawman tactic is to dismiss any discussion because there's no evidence that accused shooter Jared Loughner was influenced by Sarah Palin's crosshairs map or Glenn Beck's 20+ hours of broadcasting each week, railing at the tyrannical impulses of progress and equality in this country. While it is true that we can't really know the motivation of a troubled brain like Loughner's, can anyone dispute that as soon as we heard about this shooting, our collective minds--left and right alike--went immediately to the state of political debate in this country and think, "it was just a matter of time before it happened"? And why is that? Because the tenor of debate in this country HAS degenerated into "I'm right and I want you to die/get hurt/be eliminated for not seeing it my way."

And surprisingly, David Gregory appeared to have gotten that this Sunday. He asks Sen. Tom Coburn no less than three times if he agrees that the political rhetoric has become dangerously apocalyptic. He even acknowledges that it is especially coming from the right (My goodness!!! What did they put in Gregory's coffee this morning?). But Coburn--the same man who said that doctors who performed abortions should be subject to the death penalty--doesn't think it's a conversation worth having and that we're all missing the real problem. Certainly, he doesn't like the media's role in this, although it's unclear if that is the real problem of which he speaks.

Finally, on his third try, Gregory gets Coburn to acknowledge that yes, there's no place for the kind of ratcheted up rhetoric that we're seeing.

DAVID GREGORY: --its fine to take-- it's fine to take on the media. And-- and a lot of people would support you in that. That's fine. But I asked you a very specific question. Do you reject those who believe that the President wants to injure the country and that will-- that will deny Americans liberty? And do you think-- violent metaphor of any kind is simply over the line in political discourse?

SENATOR TOM COBURN: Of course I reject that. But the point is, is we're spendin' all this time talkin' about-- something that i-- has nothing to do with the events, and what the real problems are, we're not spending time working on.

What a big concession from Dr. No. We're not getting to work on the bigger issues either, thanks to him and his penchant for putting a hold on everything.

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They just don't get it. There's nothing like a bunch of Beltway gatekeepers navel-gazing and completely missing the larger message of the rise of the new media.

Matthews looks at the influence the "new media" has had on politics and where that begins and ends for the Beltway bubbleheads: Drudge. But it's telling how they characterize it: suddenly, DC was turned upside down by the publication on a blog known for sensationalist headlines the rumor that Pres. Clinton was having an affair with a staffer. A rumor that none of the traditional media was ready to touch, because it had not been vetted.

And that's the influence of new media--no filters, no responsibility. Listen as Dan Rather trepidaciously brings up the lynch mob mentality that can be fostered by the new media, where they en masse call out reporters or producers, sending letters to the editors and changing the narrative of a story, irrespective of the truth. And neither Tweety nor Politico's John Harris (who will never be honest about his hard-on for links on Drudge) hear the warning in Rather's morality play.

And so it goes. Even if Katty Kay gushes about the great democratizing effect of the internet tearing down the gatekeepers, the corporate media ignores the true meaning of the rise of the new media: the traditional media stopped doing their job--they stopped vetting stories in the rush to scoop their competition. They stopped practicing journalism. Period. Full stop. And I say this, recognizing my own small cog in the new media machinery. The rise of the new media caused the traditional, corporate media to act like bloggers.

I'm not a journalist, and have never laid claim to being one. I strive to get things accurate, and I try to keep myself intellectually honest about how I cover the stories I do here. But I have never hidden that I come to the posts I do with a bias and an opinion. It's there and you can disagree with me, but what I'm giving you is my slant on stories.

And that's what journalism has sadly morphed into since those days of salacious Drudge headlines about Monica Lewinsky. But they're dishonest enough to deny what I've admitted: they're doing nothing but giving you a slanted story. And half the time, they're simply aping the slant of the source from which they got the story: be it Drudge, or Malkin, or Erickson. I wish I could tell you it's from Amato or Kos or Greenwald, but you and I know it's not. Because Drudge still rules their world and we're still just the lefties on the side, not creating the narratives.

On May 10th, a middle-aged man carried a can of gasoline and a pipe bomb into the Jacksonville Islamic Center of Northeast Florida during evening prayers and detonated it. Fortunately, there were no injuries to people, though the bomb did damage property.

The surveillance video above gives a fairly decent picture of this man, who is clearly white, middle-aged, and on a mission.

The local news is all over it, of course. WOKV.com reports the FBI investigating it as a hate crime and possible domestic terrorism.

"It was a dangerous device, and had anybody been around it they could have been seriously injured or killed," says Special Agent James Casey. "We want to sort of emphasize the seriousness of the thing and not let people believe that this was just a match and a little bit of gasoline that was spread around."

Casey says surveillance video from the Islamic Center shows the arsonist carrying gasoline and the pipe bomb. When the explosive went off, parts of it were found 100 feet away on 9A.

So, a mosque is bombed by a white guy and the bomb isn't exactly small, but the national media sees no value in reporting it? Really? And yet, that is evidently the case.

Anti-Muslim sentiments in Florida have been bubbling to the surface, particularly after Republican Dan Fanelli's campaign commercial was aired asking if a man appearing to be from the Middle East "looked like a terrorist." According to Yahoo News, there were two other ads with even more pointed messages against Muslims:

Another ad has Fanelli saying, "This is a terrorist," as he presents a "Middle Eastern" man strapped with a "bomb" and wearing what appears to be a dish towel "turban."

Yet another ad shows two Arabic-speaking "terrorists" constructing a bomb while discussing "martyrdom" and "killing infidels." The ad also mocks long-standing due process rights such as Miranda warnings and access to lawyers.

These ads air, and a mosque is bombed. The bomb could have killed many people. To further stir the pot, this:

Last month, CAIR reported that a Muslim university professor was appointed to the Jacksonville, Fla., Human Rights Commission despite a prolonged smear campaign by the anti-Islam hate group ACT! for America, whose leader says Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office.

There's a deep pattern of anti-Islam behavior in Florida. CommonDreams.org has the list. It's a story worthy of attention by every single citizen in this country.

I did a quick Google news search. I found lots of local stories. But look what happens when I try major news sites:

FOX News: Nothing

CNN: Nothing

MSNBC: Nothing

CBS News: Nothing.

Why is that?

(h/t Shoq and BaileyMcC)

Please donate to C&L's Fellowship Action Program if you can.

Washington's (and the complicit media) obsession with the Christmas Day underpants bomber and the need to not only find blame, but to demand reactions to "make us safe" made me realize that we collectively have become the five year old who needs his parents to scare away the monsters from under his bed at night. How else can you explain the fear behind the Fox poll showing a majority of respondees wanting to waterboard Abdulmutallab?

It's ludicrous to think that there is any system that could offer us *perfect* security. Forcing us to stay seated for the last hour of a flight? What's to say the next bombing attempt won't be during take-off, or even in a crowded terminal prior to boarding? Richard Reed forced us to remove our shoes; will we now have to strip naked, thanks to Abdulmutallab? And how do we enforce this from foreign airports, since Abdulmutallab boarded a flight in Amsterdam? Or maybe it won't be airline-related at all. Lex at Scholars & Rogues:

What i don’t understand is the idea that Americans are entitled to perfect security. Here we are (and for the record, all the troops stationed everywhere in the world are you and i) crashing around the globe and blowing shit up, yet those of us in God’s country should face no threat. And for the most part, we don’t face any threat. Nobody’s bombed any of the weddings i’ve been to over the last few years. I’ve never thought, “I don’t think i should go downtown, because somebody might suicide bomb where i shop.” I’m convinced that the Canadians will launch their plan for world domination any day, by invading the social and evolutionary cul-de-sac of America where i live. But as of yet i have not had to contend with RCAF close air support in the neighborhood.

Still here we are, gripped by fear and willing to submit to whatever the organs say is necessary to protect us.[..]

I’m not being glib nor am i underplaying all those “very real dangers” that we face in the post-9/11 world. I’m saying that if we don’t want to live with the dangers then we might want to stop provoking them. I’m saying that there is no such thing as perfect safety and security; you are going to die someday and you probably won’t go to heaven. And i’m saying that our government consistently overplays any actual threats (and their probability) in order to control us through fear.

The intent of terrorism is, by definition, to terrorize. If we have reached the point where we can no longer have anything on our laps or use the restroom during the last hour of a flight, then the terrorists have succeeded in doing just what they had hoped.

I still have to--on occasion--chase out the scary monsters from under my little one's bed. I do this by mocking them: I've told her that they can't stand the smell of my perfume, because they know I am a ferociously protective mama and much scarier than any of them could hope to be. So I spray a little bit of my cologne around her room and she feels better, knowing that familiar scent will keep the monsters away. I acknowledge the fear, but minimize its importance. I would much rather not have my government be the parent who focuses on the scary monster so much that it becomes bigger and scarier than anything that could fight it.

Is it so difficult to not be treated like a five year old?

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee asked a few New York comedians, including bloggers Lee Camp and Baratunde Thurston, to deliver to CNBC headquarters a petition with 20,000 signatures asking them to clean up their act and actually try to hold Wall Street accountable, instead of acting as the delivery system for their own public relations efforts.

HuffPo's Sam Stein:

Since the launch of FixCNBC.com, the network has, in fact, made several programming changes. Former DNC Chair Howard Dean was brought on as a regular commentator, and Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington guest hosted CNBC's morning show Squawk Box last week.

"Too often, groups put up online 'petitions' that aren't tied to any larger campaign," Green said of the FixCNBC.com letter. "We wanted to make sure CNBC truly received the message that people want them to do journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. And now we'll focus the energy of over 20,000 people on electing bold progressives to Congress -- candidates who will hold Wall Street accountable."

FixCNBC.com is still accepting signatures...if you haven't signed it yet, please join our campaign. And if you're able in this troubled economy, ActBlue is taking donations to make sure that CNBC hears our voices.

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In the Russert days of Meet the Press, the Bush administration knew that it was the best venue for them to "catapult the propaganda" without taking those pesky follow-up questions or provide context. New host David Gregory didn't appear to be much of an improvement--at least when the administration in power were Republicans. Of course, now that the White House is inhabited with Democrats, Gregory seems to have found a journalistic need to question federal plans, even if it means reaching back to Republican talking points that were thoroughly debunked...by NBC colleague Keith Olbermann.

Gregory asked Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod about the part of the stimulus bill that will allegedly give the government the right to dictate medical practices to doctors, a outright fabrication conceived by Betsy McCaughey and furthered in the mainstream media by Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh. Heather did a post on Olbermann's dismantling of this particularly disingenuous slur against the stimulus bill at Video Cafe.

But even after his own network shows the falsity of the charge, Gregory still asks Axelrod to defend it...Hmmm...where is Gregory getting his sourcing for such a pathetic attempt at being a journalist? Drudge and Limbaugh? David, do you realize what this says about your credibility?

By the way, Betsy McCaughey has gone on record challenging Olbermann to debate her. While that isn't his typical format, I would so love to see that...

Steve Benen noticed the same article as Will Bunch did, but Will took exception to the NY Times' coverage.   AttyTood:

Earlier tonight, I posted Dan Froomkin's piece on I.F. Stone that said, in part, that today's journalists "are encouraged to write in a way that subjugates not only their personality but their judgment." What would be an example? Check out this story set to run in tomorrow's New York Times, with the hard-hitting headline: "Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert":

[..]But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

Greatly oversimplified?

The truth is this: What George W. Bush said to the nation yesterday was a lie, and an easily provable one.

Five years, two unwinnable wars, hundreds of thousands of deaths and life altering injuries and the NY Times STILL gives Bush the benefit of the doubt. You can ask NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt** why by contacting him at public@nytimes.com or (212) 556-7652. Tempting as it might be to direct some rage over the complicit media at Mr. Hoyt, please remember that you have far more credibility and are much more persuasive if you avoid the nasty-gram tactic.

**Changed to reflect current Public Editor

While it's certainly a shame for the family (and frankly, I'd rather not examine stupid choices made by 20 year olds, because truly, how many of us would hold up to the scrutiny?), the thing that will be more interesting to me is how much airtime the complicit media will give to this story that they didn't give to Noelle Bush or Jenna and Barbara's antics.  Not in a Republican "...they did it too" kind of way, but just why Gore's son would be any more newsworthy than a Bush daughter.

Guardian UK:

The good news for Al Gore was that when his son was stopped by the police yesterday morning he was driving an environmentally friendly car, a hybrid Toyota Prius. The bad news was that Al Gore Jr was arrested on suspicion of possessing cannabis and drugs for which he apparently had no prescription.