“MEDIA MATTERS Watch” : Media Matters’ Falsehoods Exposed!

An August 29, 2006, post by Media Matters falsely claims that columnist and commentator George Will "misrepresented a reported scientific breakthrough."

Mr. Will clearly did no such thing. Media Matters’ bogus attack stems from an announcement from a company called Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) that claimed it "successfully generated human embryonic stem cells (hES cells) using an approach that does not harm embryos."

In fact, as George Will correctly pointed out, ACT’s lead researcher Robert Lanza "destroyed all 16 of the embryos he used, just as in conventional embryonic stem cell research" (source)! Even Media Matters had to concede that Will was 100 percent correct on this point!

In addition, in their bogus attack on Will, Media Matters cites the Washington Post, whose editorial on this story has been simply debunked. (Read this.)

The bottom line: Will did not "misrepresent" anything. If there’s any "misrepresenting" by anyone, it’s by Media Matters. ACT hardly made a "scientific breakthrough." As one official put it, "All they showed was that you can kill an embryo at an earlier stage than they did before."

For more on the "sham" of ACT’s announcement, which Media Matters bogusly touted as a "scientific breakthrough," check out:

"Pro-life official: New stem-cell announcement is a sham," by Nancy Frazier O’Brien,
"Science by Press Release," by Wesley J. Smith, and
"The Real Good News on Stem Cells: Beyond the hype, some real hope," by Robert P. George.

Here is another classic case in which readers must investigate themselves the veracity of claims made by Media Matters.

An August 22, 2006, post makes the follwing false claim:

The truth? Colson did no such thing. In making their false claim, Media Matters cites an August 16, 2006, "BreakPoint" commentary by Mr Colson.

Colson "blamed American ‘decadence’"? Uh-uh. Here’s what Colson actually said (emphasis mine),

"The hard truth is that members of Islam’s radical branches have no interest in coming to terms with non-Muslims, or even moderate Muslims. To put it bluntly, they don’t care whether we’re nice or not. To this breed of radical Muslim, there are only two options: convert or die …

"September 11 has roots in an irrational hatred of the West …

"There was a brilliant but paranoid Egyptian writer by the name of Sayyid Qutb, imprisoned in Egypt in 1956. In 1970, he published a book, In the Shade of the Koran, attacking the West as totally corrupt … And he read all the anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic literature.

"Qutb’s In the Shade of the Koran unequivocally advocates the killing of ‘infidels’."

Colson clearly stated that, "September 11 has roots in an irrational hatred of the West." He then cited the "paranoid" writer Qutb who "read all the anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic literature."

Colson "blamed American decadence"? No. Not even close.

Another baseless smear by Media Matters.

This is PART II (here’s PART I) of debunking Media Matters’ August 7, 2006, post, which executes a bogus attack on Ann Coulter’s endnotes in her book, Godless. As we clearly show, MMatters falsely asserts that Ann deliberately "misrepresented" or "distorted" her sources or information.

Let the debunking continue:

4. (MMatters #9) MMatters takes issue with endnote 4 in Chapter 9.

First of all, the text of the passage with the note says the following:

On the basis of this intriguing fact, psychology professor Roger Fouts of Central Washington University argues that humans "are simply odd looking apes"⁴ in a book titled Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me About Who We Are.

Got that? Well, here’s what the endnote in the back of the book says:

4. Ibid. (quoting Roger Fouts, Next of Kin: What Chimpanzes Have Taught Me About Who We Are [1997]).

MMatters takes issue with the "Ibid," which is supposed to mean it came from the source in note 3, an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper. Ann, however, clearly cites that the "humans ‘are simply odd looking apes’ line" comes from Fouts’ book, and it does. The exact quote is on page 57. (Want to see for yourself? Go to Amazon; find the book, and use the "Search Inside!" function.)

Ms. Coulter used the quote, and then she cited the book that it came from. That’s what an author does!

Again, this is a trivial clerical error over an extraneous "Ibid"! If anyone’s misleading anybody, it’s Media Matters, who imply that Coulter is somehow deceiving her readers. We have shown clearly that she is not.

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5. (MMatters #5) Media Matters takes issue with endnote 39 in Chapter 5.

First, here’s the text of the passage, with the notation, in question:

After [former Rep.] Tom DeLay [R-TX] joked to a Republican audience, "I certainly don’t want to see Teddy Kennedy in a Navy flight suit," [Vietnam war veteran and former Sen. Max] Cleland [D-GA] fired off a nasty letter — a letter, no less! — to DeLay saying, "This country deserves more patriots like Senator Kennedy, not more chickenhawks [sic] like you who never served."

Most Democrats shy away from citing Kennedy’s "military service" with such bravado. The "military service" at issue consisted of Kennedy’s spending two years in NATO’s Paris office after he was expelled from Harvard for paying another student to take his Spanish exam.³⁹

OK. Coulter cites a 2003 Roll Call article that doesn’t say anything about Kennedy serving in Paris and cheating at Harvard. But, as Media Matters relunctantly admits, the DeLay-Cleland exchange two sentences above the note does appear in the 2003 piece. It simply appears that the ‘39′ was placed after the wrong quote. (As for the stories of Kennedy serving in Paris and getting temporarily booted from Harvard for cheating on his Spanish exam, these events have been widely and well documented. See The Education of Edward Kennedy: A Family Biography by Burton Hersh.)

File under: Big whoop.

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6. (MMatters #1) Media Matters takes issue with endnote 9 in Chapter 7.

You’d think that the #1 example in Media Matters’ post would really be a doozy against Coulter. Instead, it’s a vicious out-of-context attack.

Media Matters gives the false and misleading impression that Coulter has accused liberals of "foisting" "anal sex, oral sex, fisting, dental dams, [and] ‘birthing games’" on kindergarteners. Here’s the passage that Media Matters took out of context and reproduced:

But in contrast to liberal preachiness about IQ, there would be no moralizing when it came to sex. Anal sex, oral sex, fisting, dental dams, "birthing games" — all that would be foisted on unsuspecting children in order to protect kindergarteners from the scourge of AIDS. As one heroine of the sex education movement told an approving New York Times reporter, "My job is not to teach one right value system. Parents and churches teach moral values. My job is to say, ‘These are the facts,’ and to help the students, as adults, decide what is right for them."

But here is the entire paragraph from which the passage comes. As you’ll see, the topic of the passage is not about teachers foisting sex on kindergarteners. It’s something entirely different! (Emphasis mine:)

Among the most absurd results of liberals’ unbridgeable commitment to nondiscrimination was their insistence on suppressing the truth about AIDS and scaring Americans into believing that heterosexuals were as much at risk for acquiring AIDS as gays and intravenous drug users. Once again, the science had to be lied about so no one’s feelings got hurt. But in contrast to liberal preachiness about IQ, there would be no moralizing when it came to sex. Anal sex, oral sex, fisting, dental dams, "birthing games" — all that would be foisted on unsuspecting children in order to protect kindergarteners from the scourge of AIDS. As one heroine of the sex education movement told an approving New York Times reporter, "My job is not to teach one right value system. Parents and churches teach moral values. My job is to say, ‘These are the facts,’ and to help the students, as adults, decide what is right for them."

Gee. The passage has a new meaning in light of its full context, doesn’t it! The point of the paragraph is "liberals’ unbridgeable commitment to nondiscrimination," not "foisting" sex on kindergarteners.

In this instance, the folks at Media Matters have committed two offenses: 1. They are woefully ignorant of Ann Coulter’s frequent employment of hyperbole and humor. (Hey, guys: Lighten up! Get out and get some air!) 2. They have deliberately and maliciously taken the passage out of context and deceived their readers.

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7. (MMatters #8) Media Matters takes issue with endnote 1 of Chapter 8.

At issue is the following passage and notation that Media Matters reproduces from Coulter’s book:

Although God believers don’t need evolution to be false, atheists need evolution to be true. William Provine, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell University, calls Darwinism the greatest engine of atheism devised by man. His fellow Darwin disciple, Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, famously said, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."¹ This is why there is a mass panic on the left whenever someone mentions the vast and accumulating evidence against evolution.

The endnote cites a 2005 Washington Post feature by Michael Powell, but the article doesn’t contain the direct quote by Dawkins. However, the article does contain the following passage (emphasis mine):

One day while browsing in a bookstore, [Dr. Phillip] Johnson picked up a copy of "The Blind Watchmaker" by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins argued that life was governed by blind physics, that free will was illusion, that religion was a virus.

It is inside Dawkins’ well-known Blind Watchmaker book that his famous "intellectually fulfilled atheist" line is found. (It’s on page 6.)

Again — This is a "big whoop" (roll eyes) clerical mistake. It’s hardly an example of an intentional "misrepresentation" or "distortion" that Media Matters wants you to believe it is.

Are you sensing a pattern here?

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8. (MMatters #13) Media Matters misleads their readers! This post has NOTHING to do with an endnote!

Was Media Matters so desperate to find "errors" that they felt that they needed to slip this one in and mislead its readers as to the nature of its post? It appears so.

By the way, here’s the "error" caught by MMatters:

On Page 211, Coulter falsely attributed the quote, "[t]he probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd," to Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA’s double-helix structure … [H]owever, the quote actually belongs to Fred Hoyle, a British mathematician and astronomer.

MMatters is correct on its fact, but, again, we can file this minor blooper under, "Big whoop."

Also … Here’s what Media Matters fails to tell its readers: Up until the very paragraph of this quotation, Coulter spends more than a page writing about the work of Sir Hoyle.

Folks, what we have is another simple clerical error, not intentional "misrepresentation" or "distortion."

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Readers: When this endeavor of debunking MMatters’ attack on Ann Coulter’s endnotes started, one long post was planned. Then it doubled into two. As it stands, there is still more fallacious and misleading information from MMatters. A third post on this issue can be created!

Whether or not a third post will be published depends on whether time permits. However, one important point has been clearly illustrated: Media Matters has purposefully misled its readers (again) in a bogus and fallacious attack on Ann Coulter.

Until next time …

As duplicitous as Media Matters has been in the past, a post on August 7, 2006, attacking Ann Coulter is especially low for the organization.

Staffers at Media Matters spent considerable time combing through the text and endnotes of Ann Coulter’s latest book, Godless. MMatters has examined her book with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. They exert a depressingly desperate attempt to discredit her, but the one who ends up getting discredited is Media Matters. 

As it turns out, and as we illustrate here, most of the examples that Media Matters claims are "misrepresentations" by Coulter are nothing of the sort. In fact, Media Matters itself misrepresents the sources that it cites!

Let another debunking of MMatters begin! (We address MMatters’ issues in order of simplicity:)

1.  (MMatters #3) MMatters takes issue with endnote 14 in Chapter 4 of Godless.

The relevant notes in the back of Coulter’s book read exactly as follows:

12. David D. Kirkpatrick, "For Democrats, Rethinking Abortion Position Meets with Mix of Reactions in Party," New York Times, February 16, 2005.
13. Gloria Febit (President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America) "Doctors’ Opinions," Chicago Tribune, July 1, 2004 (letter to the editor).
14. Ibid.

Endnote 14 should refer to the source that cites fundraising numbers of pro-life’s NRLC ($1.7 million) and pro-abortion’s Emily’s List ($34 million), but it doesn’t. Endnote 14 says, "Ibid," and it gives readers the wrong impression that the fundraising numbers that Coulter cites come from a 2004 letter to the editor written by Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt.

What’s the truth? Quite simply, the correct notes should read as follows (emphasis mine):

12. David D. Kirkpatrick, "For Democrats, Rethinking Abortion Position Meets with Mix of Reactions in Party," New York Times, February 16, 2005.
13. Gloria Febit (President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America) "Doctors’ Opinions," Chicago Tribune, July 1, 2004 (letter to the editor).
14. David D. Kirkpatrick, "For Democrats, Rethinking Abortion Position Meets with Mix of Reactions in Party," New York Times, February 16, 2005.

The fundraising figures that Coulter cites clearly come from Kirpatrick’s New York Times article (read the article yourself), a source she already cited in endnote 12. Due to an apparent mixup/error/foul-up/whatever, an "Ibid" was printed instead of a repetition of the NYTimes citation from endnote 12. Got it? Is this really a big deal? No.

This is an example of a simple clerical error. It’s hardly evidence of any "distortion," "misrepresentation," or "inventing facts" on Coulter’s part.

Media Matters wants you to believe there is something more deceptive going on here, but, as we’ve shown, there isn’t.

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2. (MMatters’ #6) Media Matters takes issue with endnote 7 in Chapter 6.

The relevant notes in the back of the book read exactly as follows:

6. Richard Vedder, "Comparable Worth," Education Next, 2003.
7. Michael Podgursky, "Fringe Benefits," Education Next, 2003, http://www.educationnext.org/20033/71.html
8. Ibid., 63.6 years old for women and 63.7 for men.

Again, only a simple error has been made in the listing of the sources. By checking Coulter’s text with the text of the two articles above, we see the correct citations should be:

6. Richard Vedder, "Comparable Worth," Education Next, 2003.
7. Ibid.
8. Michael Podgursky, "Fringe Benefits," Education Next, 2003, http://www.educationnext.org/20033/71.html

Is this an example of some kind of intentional "distortion" by Coulter? Of course not! Again, it appears that only a simple editing error has been made. Media Matters is deceiving its readers by giving the false impression that something sinister is going on.

By the way, MMatters writes, "It is unclear where Coulter arrived at her ‘60 percent less’ figure, but it certainly did not come from the source she cited." Well, if the folks at Media Matters took the 20 seconds that we did to look at Richard Vedder’s "Comparable Worth" (cited in endnote 6), they would have gotten their answer! See?

The last comprehensive analysis, performed during the mid-1990s, indicated that average private school salaries were slightly less than 60 percent of average salaries in the public schools (though the gap between public and private schools narrows substantially when religious private schools are excluded from the analysis. See Michael Podgursky’s article, “Fringe Benefits,” on p. 71 of this issue).

Again, Media Matters’ claim that Coulter has maliciously misrepresented anything is flat-out wrong.

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3.  (MMatters #14) In addressing endnote 39 from Chapter 3, Media Matters makes the following false claim:

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The 9-11 Commission "found" no such thing, and MMatters’ own source shows this! Here is what the commission actually says in its "Report Notes" section at the end of its report (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf, p. 480, emphasis mine):

President Clinton, in a February 2002 speech to the Long Island Association, said that the United States did not accept a Sudanese offer and take Bin Ladin because there was no indictment. President Clinton speech to the Long Island Association, Feb. 15, 2002 (videotape of speech). But the President told us that he had “misspoken" and was, wrongly, recounting a number of press stories he had read. After reviewing this matter in preparation for his Commission meeting, President Clinton told us that Sudan never offered to turn Bin Ladin over to the United States. President Clinton meeting (Apr.8, 2004).

The commission simply relayed what President Clinton had told them. They did not "[find]" or conclude that Clinton had "misspoken." Media Matters is simply wrong on this. For the eye-opening truth about how the Clinton administration missed an opportunity to have bin Laden seized, read this: "How Clinton Kept Bin Laden Free," by Richard Miniter, Washington Times, September 8, 2003.

In addition, MMatters’ claim that NewsMax "distorted" Clinton’s tape is outright baseless and false. NewsMax did nothing of the sort. Listen to the Newsmax tape (.mp3 file) yourself. Here’s what Clinton actually said in February 2002:

"Mr. Bin Laden used to live in Sudan … And we’d been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again. They released him. At the time, ‘96, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."

It is clear that Clinton clearly impled that he at least had the option to have bin Laden sent to the United States from Sudan. Media Matters is wrong.

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Due to the numerous distortions and deceptions by Media Matters in their attack on Ann Coulter’s endnotes, this site plans to post even more examples in a second post ("PART II"). Look for PART II of this post in the next week or so (before August 19, 2006).

Thanks for reading!

An August 2, 2006, post from Media Matters contains a false claim and erroneous information.

1. Erroneous information: Media Matters claims that the allegation that Hillary Clinton made an anti-Semitic slur in 1974 has been "discredited." This is simply false. As this 2000 CNN article clearly reveals, three principle witnesses, including the object of the attack, report that Hillary uttered the hateful remark. The article reports that Hillary spewed the slur at campaign adviser Paul Fray after an election loss.

From the CNN article (emphasis mine):

Paul Fray told CNN that Rodham had indeed uttered the slur. "You’ve got to understand, it was the heat of the moment. We knew we had lost. It was a case of people lashing out at one another, and it just got to that point," he said.

Asked his immediate reaction, he said, "I was a little defensive about it. I looked to the floor, thinking, ‘How do I respond?’ I didn’t mind being called an SOB to my face, but when it comes to attacking my culture, that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame."

So, who does Media Matters use as a source to claim the allegation has been "discredited"? Hillary’s biographer Gail Sheehy! Ha! That’s a reliable source?! LOL!

The only one who has been "discredited" is Media Matters.

2. False claim: Media Matters falsely claims that radio host Dennis Prager, in the August 1, 2006, appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball, "seek[ed] to deflect criticism" of Mel Gibson. However, a cursory look at the transcript of the broadcast shows that this is flat-out untrue. Along with Mr. Prager, a guest on the segment was attorney Raoul Felder. Mike Barnicle was the guest host. Look at this:

MIKE BARNICLE: Dennis, you know, I mean, there is a school — there is a school of thought here that the tequila, or whatever you — he [Gibson] was drinking in this case could well be a truth serum. I mean, that this is who Mel Gibson really is.

DENNIS PRAGER: I believe that. I believe it, too. I believe that. I believe that. I believe that in wine there is truth. I’m not denying it at all …

…

RAOUL FELDER: And I — and I naively thought private remarks reveal more about the people —

BARNICLE: Yeah.

FELDER: — than what they say in a scripted public appearance. And this is what happened here. This is what — this man’s heart has hatred towards the Jewish race.

PRAGER: That’s right. That’s right, except — that’s right –

Does that sound like a man "deflecting criticism" of Gibson? Not at all. MMatters is wrong again.

And there you have it! Another bogus post from Media Matters!

We have already shown, in this post, that Media Matters has cited two bogus scientific studies to bolster their fallacious claim that there is a "consensus" on global warming. However, that has not stopped them in this August 1, 2006, post from referring to these sources again to propagate this falsehood!

Honesty, anyone?

The two studies, a 2001 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report and a 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, have been flat-out discredited. For information on how they have been debunked, read this, this, and this.

The 2001 IPCC study, "has been thoroughly discredited by scientists on both sides of the debate," (emphasis mine):

"Facts and science are showing that the catastrophic global warming consensus doesn’t exist. The IPCC has been exposed as a political arm of UN’s Kyoto Protocol, with a mission to prop up its flawed scientific conclusions.

"The Mann hockey stick, the flagship of the IPCC’s claims that global warming is real, has now been thoroughly discredited in scientific circles."

Media Matters is deceiving its readers, but now you know the truth!