Supporting a Traitor: Hollywood Releases ‘I Am Bradley Manning’ Video
With the start of the Bradley Manning court martial, a number of famous and not-so famous Hollywood liberals have released a video in support of their hero.
It includes the likes of Oliver Stone, Russell Brand, Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Moby, Tom Morello, Wallace Shawn, and the perilously liberal so-called journalists Matt Taibbi, Phil Donahue, and Chris Hedges (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Fournier: Obama’s ‘Jihad Against the Press’ Makes it More Likely We’ll Have ‘Dumb Wars’
With each passing day, it's becoming clearer and clearer that many of the current White House resident's followers in the media are really angered by his attack on the Associated Press and Fox News's James Rosen.
On MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday, the National Journal's Ron Fournier said of this issue, "You can't make journalism a conspiracy...The irony here is that President Obama, by raising a jihad against the press, has now made it more likely that we’re going to have what he called 'dumb wars'" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Maher: Rapists Go Into the Military For Same Reason Predators Go Into the Catholic Church
Bill Maher was at it again Friday.
On his HBO Real Time program, during a discussion about sexual assaults in our armed forces, the host said, "The reason why more rapists go into the military is the same reason why predators go into the Catholic Church: it’s a place they know they can get away with it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Bill Maher: Some in Army ‘Are Psychopaths…It’s the One Place Where You Can Kill People for Free’
Bill Maher just can’t resist denigrating those who choose to join our military forces. Catching up with a comment from his Friday night show on HBO, when discussing what motivates soldiers to want to re-join their units and what they miss when back in civilian life, war correspondent Sebastian Junger explained: “The soldiers aren’t psychopaths, they don’t miss killing, they don’t miss getting killed, but what they miss is that sense of meaning and the bond...”
To which, Maher countered: “Well, some of them are psychopaths. I mean, let’s be honest. Some people join the Army because it’s the one place where you can kill people for free. Where you’re not charged with murder.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Columnist: ‘Most Veterans Did Nothing Heroic,’ and Are Undeserving of Military Funeral Honors
St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan is mighty proud of himself this week. Today, he wrote that the negative response to a column he wrote on Wednesday ("One last call to service – end military funeral honors") is "pig heaven for an attention-craving columnist." The porcine parallel McClellan made seems more than appropriate in the circumstances.
You see, Budget-cutter Bill is either too dense to realize or doesn't care that his cost-cutting suggestion to end all military funeral honors except for "men and women killed in combat" would disqualify someone he specifically cited as a hero who was not killed in combat as deserving of such treatment. But first, some lowlights from McClellan's original column (HT The Blaze; bolds are mine throughout this post):
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Columnist: ‘Most Veterans Did Nothing Heroic,’ and Are Undeserving of Military Funeral Honors
St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan is mighty proud of himself this week. Today, he wrote that the negative response to a column he wrote on Wednesday ("One last call to service – end military funeral honors") is "pig heaven for an attention-craving columnist." The porcine parallel McClellan made seems more than appropriate in the circumstances.
You see, Budget-cutter Bill is either too dense to realize or doesn't care that his cost-cutting suggestion to end all military funeral honors except for "men and women killed in combat" would disqualify someone he specifically cited as a hero who was not killed in combat as deserving of such treatment. But first, some lowlights from McClellan's original column (HT The Blaze; bolds are mine throughout this post):
Melissa Harris-Perry Admits: U.S. Military ‘Despised By Many Progressives’
It's hardly a secret. After all, in a letter to a senior officer, no less than a young Bill Clinton openly admitted that many of his cohort "loath[ed] the military." Still, it's stunning to hear a modern-day liberal make a similar admission.
On her MSNBC show today, Melissa Harris-Perry stated that the U.S. military is "despised as an engine of war by many progressives." View the video after the jump.
Despite Justifiable Criticism of Her Book, Rachel Maddow Gets Nominated for Grammy Award
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her book Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. The extremely liberal MSNBC host was recognized in the spoken-word category for the audiobook version of her New York Times bestseller.
Maddow's nomination is an apt opportunity to remind our readers that an assortment of reviewers have critically panned the progressive commentator's polemic about the military-industrial complex for its blatant misrepresentation of history and glaring omissions.
Arianna Huffington Uses the Onion to Support Anti-Petraeus, Anti-’the Generals’ Argument
In her "Sunday Roundup" post at the site which bears her last name, Arianna Huffington supported that notion that "This week, America finally began questioning the judgment of its generals," but lamented that the scrutiny is over "sexual conduct rather than military conduct."
Fine, that's her opinion. But what's really odd is that she apparently thought that referencing a headline found at the Onion would be seen by readers as meaningful support for her argument (HT to a NewsBusters tipster):
CBS Grants Oliver Stone 8-Minute Platform to Spout Far-Left Blame-America-First Ramblings
During a eight minute interview, Tuesday's CBS This Morning helped left-wing radical Oliver Stone promote his latest project - a revisionist documentary and book on World War II and the beginning of the Cold War that credits the Soviet Union for winning World War II and indicting the United States for its supposed "history of aggression."
Anchor Charlie Rose omitted a key part of the New York Times critique of Stone's project when he noted that the liberal newspaper "called your series 'a ten-part indictment of the United States that doesn't pretend to be even-handed'." Reviewer Alessandra Stanley had also charged that the documentary "sounds almost like a parody, a sendup of that filmmaker's love of bombast and right-wing conspiracy." The leftist director flatly denied he wasn't being even-handed. [audio clips available here; video below the jump]
Where Is Maureen Dowd’s ‘Absolute Moral Authority’ Column For Karen Vaughn?
Joel Gehrke at the Washington Examiner (HT Meredith Jessup at the Blaze) reports that Karen Vaughn, mother of Aaron Vaughn, a member of Navy SEAL Team 6 and one of 30 American servicemen, including 21 other SEAL Team 6 members, killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan three months after the May 1, 2011 execution of Osama bin Laden, says in a video released yesterday by Veterans for a Strong America that the Obama administration "put a target on my son’s back and even on my back" by revealing the SEAL Team unit's identity after the Bin Laden raid.
Actually, as seen here in a September 10 Fox News story, Mrs. Vaughn has been saying this for almost a month, which makes me wonder where Maureen Dowd at the New York Times has been. But first, the specifics from the Vaughns (bolds are mine throughout this post):
The MRC@25: The Worst Media Bias of 2006
NewsBusters continues to showcase the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala one week from tonight.
Click here for blog posts recounting the worst of 1988 through 2005. Today, the worst bias of 2006: ABC’s Terry Moran gets a thrill for Barack Obama (“Is he the one?”); AP touts the “comforts” of Castro’s communist dictatorship; and daytime talk show host Rosie O’Donnell declares: “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam.” [Quotes and video below the jump.]
WaPo’s Stuever: ‘Stars Earn Stripes’ Puffs Jingoistic ‘Military-Industrial Complex’; Salon’s Greenwald Slams ‘Military Worship’
A new reality TV show featuring C-list celebrities doing military training exercises to compete for charity was denounced as "empty jingoism" and a modern-day spin on "[a]dding a celebrity quotient to the military-industrial complex," kind of like when Bob Hope entertained the troops during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
That's pretty much the reaction of Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever to the new "Stars Earn Stripes" program, which debuts tonight at 8 p.m. EDT on NBC. "It also feels about five years too late, in both its reality-TV tropes and its message of pride," Stuever huffs. "It harks back to the 'Mission Accomplished!' era of attacks and setbacks in the Middle East":
New TNT Series ‘Perception’ Calls Bush a Liar in Very First Episode
If you were producing a pilot for a new series hoping your show would get picked up for an entire season and beyond, wouldn’t you try not offending half your potential viewers?
On Monday, TNT premiered a new show called Perception that for some stupid reason - in the very first episode! - completely trashed former President George W. Bush as a liar (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
The program’s plotline centers on Dr. Daniel Pierce, a psychologically imbalanced neuroscientist played by Will and Grace’s Eric McCormack who’s enlisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to assist in solving some of its most complex cases.
He works closely with Special Agent Kate Moretti, played by Rachael Leigh Cook, a former student who recruited Pierce to work with the Bureau.
During a session with his psychiatrist after a rather disturbing psychological incident, Pierce explained that in his dream, he was told that a witness involved in the murder he’s investigating is lying.
To determine if she is, Pierce brought in an aphasiac to be a human lie detector.
Pierce explained to Moretti, “Jimmy’s an aphasiac. He’s lost the ability to comprehend spoken language. To compensate, many aphasiacs become highly sensitive to subtle inflections in speech. Now when we lie, those vocal nuances become more pronounced. Most of us wouldn’t notice, but aphasiacs do. And for some reason to them, it sounds funny.”
The aphasiac was shown Bush’s State of the Union address when he said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Not surprisingly, Jimmy broke out laughing.
Without getting into whether Bush lied or not – many believe he was just echoing the intelligence we had at the time – using this as a test-case for prevarications was preposterous, especially in a television pilot.
The producers certainly could have gone in other directions like for instance former President Clinton saying he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.
They also could have shown a video of candidate Barack Obama saying that if elected president, he’d immediately close down the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
Smarter still if you’re trying to maximize your audience by remaining apolitical – which you would think would be the goal of a new series trying to get picked up for a full season! – would be to use a neutral subject that wouldn’t offend anyone.
This could be done by taking a famous movie scene where the star was clearly lying.
Classic examples would be “Scarface” when Al Pacino told Florida immigration officials he was a political refuge. Or Pacino again at the end of “The Godfather” telling his wife that he didn’t have his brother-in-law killed.
Such things would have been extremely effective at proving the aphasiac could accurately detect a lie on a video.
But no, the folks involved in this show felt it was necessary to be highly partisan by making a mockery of the nation’s 43rd president.
Hopefully the show will flop and those involved will learn from their mistake.
(HT NB reader Elaine Michaels)
Bozell Presses Current TV Chairman Al Gore to ‘Repudiate’ Employee Bill Press’s Slam of National Anthem
Update: A similar letter was sent to Comcast Chairman Brian L. Roberts | Editor's Note: What follows is NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's June 13 open letter to Current TV chairman Al Gore.
The Star-Spangled Banner evokes feelings of pride and patriotism in most Americans. But not in Bill Press, who slurred our National Anthem as an "abomination."
The Current TV host hates the National Anthem so much that he is "embarrassed" every time he hears it.
As a former Vice President and Bill Press’s current employer, I haven’t read or heard where you have condemned Bill Press for his hateful, offensive and unpatriotic slurring of The Star-Spangled Banner.
As a left-wing elitist uncomfortable with the idea of American exceptionalism, Bill Press finds the notion that America is the home of the brave “stupid.”
Mr. Press is equally disgusted by the "military jargon" that pervades the defining patriotic song of the nation. Apparently, your employee is dismissing the fact that Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy during the Battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. The so-called military jargon Bill Press finds so deplorable is an ode to American patriots fighting and dying to save our young republic; it is indispensable to the Anthem.
Mr. Gore, Bill Press’s comments were outside the realm of civil discourse. I call on you to promptly condemn and repudiate his vicious slurring of our beloved National Anthem.
Failure to do so would signal tacit endorsement of Bill Press’s comments.
I look forward to your statement. As soon as we get your reply, we will post it on our site.
