The Liberal Media

Check out the headline and first sentence in this new AP story: "Missouri's leading US Senate candidates join movement against congressional earmarks."

When did Roy "proud and prolific earmarker" Blunt say he was "against earmarks?" Yesterday, he made a weak proposal to make $30 billion in unspecified cuts to  the federal budget -- but how does such a response constitute a "movement against earmarks" in any way?

Compare the AP's summary of Blunt's position to the following, printed yesterday in Politico:

Blunt has defended the process of earmarking, following the lead of retiring Sen. Kit Bond, whose prolific appropriating has delivered millions for Missouri roads, bridges, airports and housing projects. In 2010 alone, Blunt requested $153 million in earmarks, a record Carnahan was eager to take a swipe at.

Ozarks First:

SPEAKER DEFENDS ALLOCATION OF EXPECTED STIMULUS FUNDS

State House Speaker Ron Richard says Republicans in the House did not use $300-million in unappropriated stimulus money to balance the budget.

The folks running The Star's Prime Buzz have a peculiar practice of copying entire articles from other news outlets, pasting them on their political blog, and then rewriting the headline of the original author or editor in a snarky or amusing way to suit their own tastes. 

I'm not criticzing the paper's decision to republish other's work.  But I don't understand the practice of rewriting headlines in a way that introduces the personal beliefs of the Prime Buzz staff without explaining the change. 

For instance, a story published today by Kaiser Health News is originally titled "Will Health Care Savings Be Used To Reduce The Deficit?"

But when it's republished at The Star, the headline is transformed to "Health care reform's bait-and-switch?"

Southeast Missourian columnist and publisher Gary Rust is outraged -- outraged! -- about the fact that the Post-Dispatch printed a photo of Peter Kinder standing next to Rod Jetton in a recent article about Jetton's fall from power. In Rust's mind, the photo choice was "an obvious attempt to associate Kinder with Jetton"

The Post-Dispatch is perfectly capable of explaining their own editorial decisions, but if they choose to respond to Rust's complaints, I hope they point out the irony in Rust's complaints about bias. 

The Kansas City Star's Bill Dalton must have thought he'd found a hilarious story this morning on the right-wing CNSNews.com (The company's slogan is "The Right News. Right Now."). So he copied and pasted it to the Prime Buzz blog, under the headline, "Pelosi snowed out of global warming rally."

The story was actually published by CNSNews in March 2009, but that didn't bother Dalton any.  Librul Nancy Pelosi can't get to a global warming rally because of the snow! HAHAHAHA!* 

Nor did it bother Dalton any that the story he copied and pasted actually referenced the 2009 Power Shift Conference -- twice.

 You may have thought the controversy surrounding last year's "Modern Militia" report from the state highway patrol had died down, seeing how it wasn't nearly as evil as Peter Kinder and GOP state legislators were alleging.  If so, you'd be wrong.

Today, Media Matters catches the ridiculous Fox Nation website cribbing an article from World Net Daily, and alleging that Jay Nixon "links Christians with violence." 

If this absurd attack sounds familiar, it's because Kinder tried it (unsuccessfully) last March.  The report in question actually talked about the radical Christian Identity sect, not "Christians." And, much to the Republicans chagrin, the report was actually developed when Matt Blunt was governor. 

Steve Walsh is no longer working as a reporter for Missourinet. In a message posted Tuesday on his personal blog, Walsh specifically references this post I wrote on Fired Up! last Friday, and this related post by Media Matters, as evidence that "the left wing blogosphere got hold of" an ill-informed tweet "and went nuts." 

I wasn't sure how or if I'd respond to the news in this space.  I don't regret writing the post, and would do so again without hesitation. His tweet and "I'm outta here ... For now" blog post reveal his belief that accepting the facts of climate change is akin to "religion" of "the American Left." Any professional journalist who remains willfully ignorant of the actual science and parrots right-wing talking points about the matter deserves the criticism.

Can you tell which one works for the fake news channel? 

I'm at a complete loss here. What in the world is this tweet from Missourinet reporter Steve Walsh supposed to mean? 

Is it the position of Missourinet and Steve Walsh that only members of the "American Left" "buy into global warming"?  And either way, what does a mass murdering terrorist have to do with it? 

Roy Blunt shouldn't really be considered a consummate Washington insider because he inaccurately predicted he'd be elected to replace Tom DeLay as Majority Leader in February 2006.  That's the argument made by columnist Bill McClellan in today's Post-Dispatch. He writes:  

When DeLay announced he would not seek to regain the position, Blunt announced he would run for the job. He issued a press release saying he had the support of the majority of the caucus, but when the secret ballots were counted, Blunt had lost.

That does not sound like an insider to me.

This doesn't make any sense, and completely ignores the actual reasons why Blunt lost the confidence of the GOP Caucus in 2006, and why they chose John Boehner of Ohio instead.  It also ignores that Blunt campaigned for the job by emphasizing his many years in the GOP leadership and "links to the [existing] leadership's system of power and favors." 

An amusing/horrrfying welcome video from our friends at Media Mattters.

It's almost the end of 2009, which means it's time for family, bowl games, personal reflection and Top 10 09 lists.

We're very proud of our stories that made their way to other corners of the interwebs, into print and out onto the airwaves in 2009. The Post-Dispatch, Star, News-Leader and Beacon have picked up on Fired Up! stories -- and so have The Rachel Maddow Show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Colbert Report, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, Think Progress, Wonkette, Gawker, Washington Monthly, Daily Kos and many others. It's been quite a year!

After more than 830,000 clicks in 2009 here are the posts that rise to the top.

KMBC has the scoop: Ike Skelton is running for reelection. Who knew?

This blog post from Missourinet's Steve Walsh seems like a bit of a cheap shot (emphasis added):

In our never-ending effort to highlight examples of symbolism over substance ... we bring you what had been scheduled as Planned Parenthood's "Stop Stupak!" bus tour.

But the "Stop Stupak!" tour never gained much traction ... because of the rain...

Doesn't this remind you of the recent decision by students at Westminster College in Fulton? They had planned on spending time in cardboard boxes to raise awareness of the plight of the homeless ... but the weather got bad so they called it off.

Ahhh ... convictions of convenience ... aren't they special?

Would any reasonable person believe that Planned Parenthood or the Westminster students don't care about defeating the Stupak Amendment or helping the homeless?  Of course not.  But the implication of Walsh's post is that members of both groups aren't really dedicated or interested in their issues when it's 'inconvenient.'

I don't live or work in the 7th District to know if Billy Long is "clearly the most visible candidate" running for Congress there, but this line from the KY3 "7th District Power Rankings" does not make sense:

The auctioneer is also clearly the most visible candidate in the field, in part due to his prolific Tweeting of his whereabouts. (He's the @clairecmc of the GOP).

First: the Twitter world is not the real world.  It's certainly a useful tool, especially for political news -- but a subset of the already small population of reporters and political junkies is not representative of the larger voting public.

Second: Bill Long has exactly 236 followers, many of whom are not 7th District voters.  That's it.