Our official wall of shame: Journalists who won't tell the truth.

Please check back here regularly, as this page will be updated.

This post will be a whole directory of journalists, politicians, academics, prominent blogs, and other prominent figures who either:

--Ignore basic facts;

--Omit important information;

--Tells lies about Iraq.

If anybody tries to use such sources on me, I will simply reply that their source is not credible because they do not have their facts straight. Therefore, why should we believe them when they make their case? Anybody is entitled to their own opinions. However, people are not entitled to their own facts when trying to make arguments. Here are the people who, for one reason or another, make my wall of shame for not telling the truth about Iraq:

David Asman, FOX News:

--On February 24th, 2006, Asman claimed that the civil war might be a good thing. This is disgusting conduct from a so-called impartial observer. This is a graphic illustration of the fact that many Bush administration propagandists disguised as journalists will say anything to advance the Bush administration's propaganda aims.

Wolf Blitzer, CNN:

--Blitzer has shown a repeated track record of holding Democratic guests to higher standards than Republican guests. For example, on October 31st, he repeated unsubstantiated rumors and presented them as facts to Joe Wilson. On the other hand, he let Mary Matlin's false claim on October 14th, 2004 of the US capturing 75% of Al-Qaeda operatives go unchallenged. In order to be an objective reporter, one must challenge Republican guests in the same way they challenge Democratic guests.

Max Boot, LA Times:

Max Boot is a complete clone of the right who has no original ideas whatsoever. Listed are some prime examples of factual errors, doublethink, and unattributed items:

--In the November 2nd issue of the LA Times, Boot made the following factual errors, doublethink, and unattributed items:

• He repeated the false and debunked claim that Fitzgerald's investigation was almost over, implying Rove was almost out of the woods. This was debunked by a slew of articles, including the November 3rd Post, Jonathan Alter's column in this week's Newsweek, and Fitzgerald's own statement that the investigation would not be over any time soon when he said he would continue during the press conference until he had gotten to the bottom of the matter; 


• He repeated almost word-for-word John Tierney's assertion that no crimes had been found and therefore, the perjury Fiztgerald charged Libby with was trivial; this was debunked by Fitzgerald's point at his press conference that Libby's obstruction of justice prevented him from getting at the truth;


• Boot made the factual error that because Plame worked at a desk job, she was not a covert agent. But there is no such exception in Sections 793 and 794;


• Boot makes the factual error that Plame sent Wilson to Niger; however, as had been asserted by many CIA people, including Larry Johnson and the CIA itself, Plame was not in a position of authority to do so;


• Boot makes the factual error that Wilson's Niger report bolstered the case that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger; then, he contradicts himself and says that there were still questions about the evidence;


• Boot engages in doublethink when he says the evidence for Niger's uranium sales was inconclusive and then implies that therefore, Bush was right to say there was. 

David Brooks, NY Times:

--In the October 30th New York Times, David Brooks wrote a column that ignored basic facts about Plamegate and contained several omissions that could have been corrected by reading the indictment or listening to the press conference:

• He referred to any attempt to go beyond the current indictment as a "wild theory" by the Democrats. Our goal in any investigation is to get to the bottom of what people know and when they knew it. In so doing, he deflects attention away from the crime. It is the Bush administration being investigated, not the Democrats.


• He erroneously stated that the everybody had cooperated with Fitzgerald when the latter said it was "all agencies." This did not mean "all individuals." Libby lied to the Grand Jury according to the indictment; therefore, he did not cooperate.


• Brooks falsely claimed that the case was over when Patrick Fitzgerald made it clear that he would continue the investigation as long as necessary and that Rove is a continued target.


• Brooks engages in doublethink when he says the White House collectively lied and then claims that it is not a conspiracy. If the White House as a group lied, then it is a conspiracy, as a conspiracy involves two or more individuals.


• Brooks condemns Democratic anger and outrage over Plame, but refuses to condemn similar Republican anger and outrage.

--On the November 4th, 2005 broadcast of Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Brooks made the false claim that Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan dropped into the 20's in approval rating along with Richard Nixon. In fact, their lowest approval ratings were around 35%.

Tucker Carson, CNN:

--On the January 19th, 2006 Situation Room, Tucker Carson echoed Chris Matthews' hysterical comparison of war critics to Bin Laden. However, we have opposed Bin Laden before anybody else; when we were in power, we delayed his rise to power by several years through bringing down the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, his chief financial source. It is Bin Laden who is hijacking left-wing propaganda to suit his own evil purposes, not the other way around.

Ann Coulter:

No comment.

Ben Domenech, Washongton Post:
Domenech is a known plagiarist who copies other people's work wholesale in his writings. In addition, he has made numerous racist remarks. In addition (same link), he thinks, like Scrooge, that the poor and Blacks are a drag on society.

Peter Feaver, Duke University:

Feaver has allowed his professional judgement to be impaired by political opportunism. He found that Americans would support the Iraq War even with a high number of casualites, a finding that flies in the face of American opposition to Vietnam and Korea as those wars ground into stalemates. He subsequently wrote the plan that Bush used for his so-called strategy for victory on Iraq. It is a conflict of interest for an academic to be recieving money from the same people that he is supposed to be studying objectively. He is not an academic, but a political propagandist working for the Bush administration.

Jonah Goldberg, LA Times:

--Jonah Goldberg has written a book called "Liberal Fascism" and has publicly expressed support for racist theories such as "The Bell Curve." Think Progress documents some of his more blatant comments:

• He supports Senator Joe McCarthy;


• He supports the removal of books from libraries. Do I support the censorship of books such as "Liberal Fascism?" No. But I have every right to point out views and statements that are extreme.


• He told the New Orleans residents trapped in the Superdome to fend for themselves in a struggle for survival of the fittest.


• He supports "The Bell Curve," a debunked work which claimed that Whites are genetically superior to Blacks.


• He has accused Cindy Sheehan of pandering to Nazis.

Fred Hiatt, Washington Post:

--On November 13th 2005, Hiatt engaged in doublethink and made a factual error when discussing the Democrats' positions on Iraq:

• In interviewing an Iraqi government official, he allowed some doublethink to go unchallenged. The Iraqi government official, on the one hand, talked about the terrorism infesting Iraq. On the other hand, he talked about how all these good things were happening. But if there were all these good things going on, then why are we still there?


• Hiatt made a factual error when he characterized the Democratic position as "withdraw now." Even Russ Feingold and Barbara Boxer, the first Democrats to call for an exit plan, would favor a withdrawal no sooner than the end of 2006.

Update: It seems Hiatt can't make up his mind whether the Democrats are soft or too tough on National Security. Here, he blasts them for wanting more weapons systems than George Bush would ever dream of wanting. 

David Horowitz:

--David Horowitz was a lapsed radical who abandoned his old roots and has become one of the foremost right-wing thinkers today. His favorite tactic is McCarthyism against political opponents. For example:

• He is a champion of the "academic bill of rights" which manufactures a crisis by claiming that our college campuses are left-wing havens and that right-wingers don't have access.


• Repeatedly and falsely accuses Blacks of racism in his book "Hating Whitey."


• On the death of ABC news anchor Peter Jennings, he accused him of having "sympathy for jew-hating terrorists and their supporters."

Laura Ingraham, Talk show host:

--On the December 11th edition of CNN's "Reliable Sources," Ingraham said that all the media did in Iraq was stay in the Green Zone and never get out and do actual reporting. She was debunked on the spot by the other panelists. This reflects the Bush administration propaganda line that all the media does is stay inside the Green Zone and never get out and report The Good News. But if she had bothered to read the December 12th Washington Post, you see a typical example of a journalist who actually got out and talked to the Iraqi people about their attitudes towards the government and the Bush administration. 

Michelle Malkin, columnist:

--On March 29th 2006, Malkin wrote a smear against the immigration protestors. She lumped them together with White Supremacists. She wrote that the protestors believe in breaking away a significant chunk of territory from the Southwest US and Northwest Mexico and create a nation of Atzlan when in fact, this belief is only held by a few White Supremacists and fringe groups.

Chris Matthews, MSNBC's Hardball:

--On the October 24th edition of Hardball, he gushed over George Bush, saying that he "glimmers with shining nobility."

--On October 31st, 2005 Matthews lied on Hardball by calling a Democratic fact sheet on Judge Samuel Alito "disgusting." In so doing, he fell in with a right-wing smear campaign against Democrats by accusing them of racism. However, the Democratic fact sheet, posted here, contains no ethnic slurs; however, it does contain a detailed record of the problems with Judge Alito. Political parties publish fact sheets like this all the time; for a news anchor to call such a document "disgusting" is hypocritical, given that he has not done so with a Republican document.

• Update: Armando at Daily Kos documents that this smear came from Kenneth Ciongioli, a long-time Republican who violated The National Italian-American Foundation's non-partisan status for propaganda purposes.
  
  
  
  • Cingoli's son worked for right-wing AG John Ashcroft; he also clerked for Alito.
  
  
  
  

--On November 28th, 2005 Matthews falsely claimed that Bush was a really nice, likeable guy, despite the fact that his popularity is around 35%. That is unprofessional conduct for a journalist to inject their personal feelings about a President into a newscast.

--Since then, Matthews has continues his blatant sucking up to Bush:

• He prostitutes his vocation by trading access for omitting important news. For instance, he was recently invited to a White House Christmas party.


• After that party, on the December 16th Hardball (same link), he compared Bush to Santa Claus.


• He suggested (link above) that Bush might belong on Mt. Rushmore if he successfully promoted democracy in the Middle East. But even if the Middle East does beome democratic in the next 10 years, Bush might not have anything to do with it. In fact, it might be a reaction against Bush, a possibility that Matthews does not consider.


• On the November 30th Hardball, Matthews gushed over Bush before a speech, calling his speech a "brilliant political move" and called the Democrats "carpers and complainers."

--On the January 19th Hardball, Chris Matthews responded to a Bin Laden tape with a hysterical attack on left-wing gadfly Michael Moore. By Matthews' logic, Michael Moore is the President of the US and he has just invited Bin Laden for a state dinner.

--Matthews is involved with disgraced GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff. In 2003, he was involved in an event in which was supposedly a charity event, but which really funneled money to front companies that Abramoff set up for the purposes of donating money to GOP candidates.

Judith Miller, NY Times:

--On Sepember 8th 2002, Miller wrote a propaganda article, disguised a news, which claimed that we had intercepted alumunum tubes which could have been used to make uranium. These articles were debunked five days later. The same link points out that Miller, by the NYT's own admission in 2004, wrote five factually inaccurate articles that were propaganda pieces disguised as news during the leadup to the war.

Bob Novak, Chicago Tribune:

--Printed the notorious article outing Valerie Plame. This was an unethical act, as it placed people's lives in danger and damaged our national security by forcing the CIA to shut down an operation that was monitoring WMD proliferation.

Bill O'Reilly, FOX News:

--Bill O'Reilly always casts himself as a non-partisan. However, he repeatedly uses GOP talking points and repeatedly refuses to consider alternative views different than his own.

--He says he was in combat in Vietnam, when in fact, he was merely a reporter.

--O'Reilly is guilty of unprofessional conduct. For example, Paul Krugman, in the November 4th New York Times, noted that O'Reilly had threatened to stalk a caller's house after that caller had challenged his facts.

--On November 10th 2005, Bill O'Reilly said that he would leave the city of San Francisco open to terrorists if he were President of the US. This was after the City of San Francisco passed a resolution banning military recruiters from their schools.

"If you want to ban military recruiting, fine. But I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money," O'Reilly said. "If I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, `Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds.'"

That statement probably didn't surprise those familiar with O'Reilly. But his rant didn't end there.

"If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it," he continued. "We're going to say, `look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." 

--A whole list of hysterical tirades by O'Reilly can be found here.

Kitty Pilgrim, CNN:

--On December 19th, as guest host of the Lou Dobbs Show on CNN, Pilgrim made an unprofessional comment accusing the Democrats of undertaking a "risky strategy" of opposing Bush on the NSA when she says terrorist attacks may strike this country any minute. In fact, the Bush administration is spying on groups that have nothing to do with terrorism. Failure for her to state this important fact is an example of GOP propaganda, not real news.

Wes Purden, Washington Times:

Cokie Roberts, ABC News:

--On October 30th, Cokie Roberts repeated factual errors and GOP propaganda on This Week:

• Roberts repeated the worn-out lie that no crime was committed;


• Roberts defended Judith Miller when she claimed that the Plamegate case was all about the rights of a reporter to have conversations with a government source, ignoring the fact that this resulted in the shutting-down of a major WMD-monitoring project and damaging our national security.

--On This Week after the third debate in 2004, a gleam in Roberts' eyes was evident as she repeated news that she saw as good for Bush. This was unprofessional conduct by Roberts; journalists are not supposed to show their personal feelings for or against a candidate;

--Roberts, after the second debate, claimed falsely that Bush stayed behind to shake hands with undecided voters, while Kerry left.

Bill Sammon, Washington Times:

--Bill Sammon wrote a book which was a hatchet job on the Gore campaign in 2000; he accused Gore of trying to steal the election, not Bush. The book launches into ad homenims against Gore, calling him names. It is unethical for a reporter to write partisan political propaganda or write a book or article without getting Gore's side of the story.

Joe Scarborough, CNN:

--On the January 19th, 2006 Scarborough Country, Joe Scarborough echoed Chris Matthews' hysterical comparison of war critics to Bin Laden. However, we have opposed Bin Laden before anybody else; when we were in power, we delayed his rise to power by several years through bringing down the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, his chief financial source. It is Bin Laden who is hijacking left-wing propaganda to suit his own evil purposes, not the other way around.

Tony Snow, FOX News:

--Snow was involved in a fundraiser for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2003. It was supposedly a charity fundraiser; in fact, it funneled money to front companies Abramoff was using to funnel money to GOP candidates.

John Tierney, NY Times:

--In the November 1st, 2005 issue of the New York Times, Tierney contradicted himself and made basic factual errors while defending Libby:

• He falsely accused Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald of being a Democratic Party operative;


• He falsely implied that the Plamegate investigation was closed; Fitzgerald specifically said in his press conference that it was still open;


• He contradicted himself when he said that Joe Wilson brought back "scant evidence" that bolstered the Niger uranium connection to Iraq; scant evidence cannot be used to prove a case.


• Tierney makes an ad homenim attack against Valerie Plame when he slams her for posing for Vanity Fair. This has nothing to do with the case, as it was the fact that she was a CIA agent that was classified, not her identity. This is a propaganda device designed to portray elitism.


• He blames the CIA for being cavalier about protecting Plame. But that does not make outing her as an agent legal.
  

--In an October 30th, 2005 editorial, the Journal claimed that Patrick Fitzgerald spent millions of dollars investigating Plamegate, when in fact, he had only spent $700,000. In the same editorial, there were these other factual errors:

• They falsely claimed that Libby had not leaked Plame's name to the media, when in fact he had;


• They claimed there was no evidence for a conspiracy when the indictment clearly spelled out one;


• They lack basic knowledge of the law when they claim no laws were broken; the investigation was over Sections 793 and 794. These laws specificly deal with the outing of CIA agents and the actions committed by Libby.


• They make a factual error when claiming that Wilson was a Democrat; in fact, he was a Republican and Bush I's ambassador to Iraq before Gulf War I.

Bob Woodward:

--On the October 28th, 2005 night Larry King show, Woodward told a blatant lie and made several basic factual errors:

• Woodward made an ad homenim argument by calling Patrick Fitzgerald a "junkyard dog prosecutor."


• Woodward claimed that Joe Wilson's written report was ambiguous, when in fact, as pointed out by his fellow panelists, Wilson gave an oral report on his return from Niger. This meant Wilson's conclusion that there were no Niger-to-Iraq Uranium sales was so obvious, there was no need for a written report.


• Woodward claimed Plamegate had nothing to do with the Iraq War.


• Woodward lied when he said the CIA did a damage assessment and found there was no damage. In fact, the CIA shut down Brewster-Jennings, a front company, as the result of the outing of Plame. In addition, one agent may have lost his life when the outing occured. In addition, R.J. Eskow of Huffington Post writes that Woodward could not possibly have had the access necessary to read such a document.

--The November 16th, 2005 Washington Post reported the following:

• Woodward testified that a Bush administration official told him about Valerie Plame a month before her outing.


• Given his known attitudes towards Fitzgerald, this suggests that Woodward is actively defending Libby and others from indictments by claiming that Plame's CIA status was a matter of public gossip.


• Woodward lied when he testified that he told Post reporter Walter Pincus about Plame; Pincus denies such a conversation ever took place.

John Yoo, American Enterprise Institute:

--On October 31st, 2005 UPI reported that Yoo declared that only the President can declare war. This is a basic factual error. The Constitution specifically states that only Congress can declare war. Mr. Yoo is entitled to his own opinions defending the Bush administration. However, he is not entitled to his own facts about the Constitution.

tags: bush  journalism  iraq  

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