ABC Exploits Japanese Tragedy To [Try &] Undermine Minor GOP-Proposed Domestic U.S. Budget Reduction

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday March 14, 2011 @ 09:39 AM EDT

1. ABC Exploits Japanese Tragedy to Undermine Minor GOP-Proposed Domestic U.S. Budget Reduction

ABC’s Bill Weir inaccurately lectured Friday night: “Consider Japan's state of the art undersea sensors and tsunami gates, protecting key ports, while just last month, our House of Representatives voted to slash funding for the Hawaiian tsunami warning center that issued last night's alarm.” Then on Saturday’s World News, reporter Clayton Sandell found it newsworthy to highlight how “Democrats accuse Republicans of being irresponsible for proposing budget cuts to NOAA, the federal agency that provides forecasts and early warnings of natural disasters.” Sandell cued up a California Democrat with a loaded question: “NOAA's budget gets cut, are people's lives more at risk?”

2. CBS Uses American Muslim Family to Frame Hearings on Radical Islam as Discriminatory

On Thursday's CBS Evening News, following a report that portrayed congressional hearings on radical Islam as bigoted political theater, correspondent Seth Doane profiled a Muslim family in Tennessee and suggested they were indirect victims of the testimony on Capitol Hill: "The Sbenaty family is getting tired of defending their religion." Anchor Katie Couric introduced Doane's report this way: "...most of the more than two and a half million Muslims living in this country want it known they are patriotic Americans." As if the hearings somehow accused all American Muslims of being unpatriotic.

3. CBS Accuses Peter King of 'Poisoning the Atmosphere' of Radical Islam Hearings

On Thursday's CBS Evening News, congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes implied that the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims was simply a political show put on by committee chairman Peter King: "Ignoring calls from Democrats to cancel his hearing...King embarked on the inquiry in a room newly decorated with fiery images from 9/11." Cordes later declared that "King's own past assertion that most U.S. mosques are run by radicals" resulted in "poisoning the atmosphere" of the hearing.

4. CNN's Velshi: Rep. Peter King Has 'Strange Obsession with Islam'

On Thursday's Newsroom, CNN's Ali Velshi claimed that Rep. Peter King has a "seemingly strange obsession with Islam and Islamists, or whatever you want to call it," given the lead up and the first day of hearings looking into the radicalization of American Muslims. Velshi also bizarrely stated that "I don't quite understand how when you put an -ist at the end of it [Islamism], it changes the subject." The anchor discussed the hearings with former FBI agent Foria Younis, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, and former Catholic turned Episcopal priest Rev. Alberto Cutie during the last segment of the 2 pm Eastern hour. Midway through the panel discussion, Velshi turned to Cutie and made his claim about the New York congressman, along with his doubt about the validity of "Islamist" as a term.

5. 'The Good Wife' Actor 'Wanted to Become a U.S. Citizen So I Could Vote for Obama'

Actor Alan Cumming (IMDb page), who was born in Britain and plays the scheming campaign manager “Eli Gold” on CBS’s The Good Wife, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week: “I wanted to become a U.S. citizen so that I could vote for [Barack] Obama.”