What Scandal? NYT Digs, Finds Air America's…"Rising Star" Female Hosts!
 

     As financial scandal was breaking at the left-wing radio network Air America (in the blogosphere at least) this summer, the Times could spare just one weak Metro-section story on the network "borrowing" $875,000 from a Bronx Boys and Girls Club, despite the easily exploitable hypocrisy angle (liberals taking money from poor kids!).

     Times Public Editor Barney Calame even made the unusual step of actually chiding his paper for being slow on the uptake.

     Well, at last the Times has another Air America story -- but it's a puff piece on the network's female "rising star" hosts Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow.

     Susan Brenna's story for Sunday's Arts & Leisure is headlined: "They Look Nothing Like Rush Limbaugh -- As women and lefties, Air America's rising stars are rarities in talk radio. But perhaps not for long."

     One point for the Times for getting "lefties" straight -- but where are the features on conservative television and radio hosts like Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley, who've been doing the same thing longer and with more success, judging by ratings? Well, Ingraham and Crowley are relegated to one sentence on "popular conservative radio personalities."

     Brenna gushes: "In their own small way, over at the far end of the AM dial where Air America is broadcast in most of its 72 cities, Ms. Maddow and Ms. Rhodes are changing the world of talk radio. Michael Harrison, editor of the trade magazine Talkers, said that, 'For the most part, political talk radio is male,' dominated by conservative broadcasters like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. 'But in the next 5 to 10 years we're going to see an invasion of talk radio by women of all political and subject stripes. Rachel and Randi are part of a natural evolution,' Mr. Harrison said, along with popular conservative radio personalities like Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley and Janet Parshall."

     Brenna hints obliquely at the anemic ratings and other woes that may sidetrack the inclined paths of these "rising stars": "If the Air America network hangs on long enough to reach the next presidential campaign, Ms. Maddow and Ms. Rhodes can claim some of the credit."

     Not until the seventh paragraph does the Times briefly dip into the scandal: "Since then the network has added and lost stations, dipped in the ratings, then slightly risen again, while lagging far behind conservative talk radio in popularity. Its New York station, WLIB, was ranked 24th in the city in the most recent Arbitron ratings report, compared with WABC, the conservative talk home, at No. 8. Air America's reputation was also shaken by revelations that a founder, now departed, had borrowed $875,000 from a Bronx Boys and Girls Club to finance the network. In a statement, the network's current management said that it had repaid the loan into an escrow account, 'where the money will remain until the city has completed its investigation of the club.'"

     (For actual coverage of the scandal, you have to turn to the blogosphere, especially the intensive tick-tock by Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney.)

     A photo caption in the Times quotes AA's chief executive Danny Goldberg calling Rhodes and Maddow "two people who have emerged in dramatic fashion."

     The Times didn't bring up a less sunny tale about another former female host of Air America, who quit the network abruptly and filed suit against the network in May for $300,000 for failing to pay wages, promotional fees, accrued holiday compensation and severance. Brenna notes in passing Winstead "was replaced" but doesn't go into the dirty details.

     Strangely enough, the Times was happy to promote Winstead (and the rest of the network) when it launched in the spring of 2004, suggesting its readers tune in. The paper has yet to report on Winstead's lawsuit.

To comment on the Times' Air America "coverage," visit MRC's NewsBusters blog.

For the rest of Brenna on Air America's "rising stars," click here.

Bush "Lashed Out" at Anti-War Critics on Veterans Day
 

     President Bush spoke on Friday (Veterans Day) at an Army depot in Pennsylvania, and reporter Maria Newman filed a story for the Times' online "continuous news desk" that afternoon which characterized Bush's defense of his use of intelligence before the Iraq War in harsh terms: "President Bush lashed out today at critics of his Iraq policy, accusing them of trying to rewrite history about the decision to go to war and saying their criticism is undercutting American forces in battle."

     What Bush actually said: "While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction….more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power."

     Newman's online filing was later corrected: "An earlier version of this article today about President Bush's speech on the war in Iraq misstated the subject of a comment he made to Matt Lauer of NBC in August 2004, 'I don't think you can win it.' He referred to the war on terror, not the war in Iraq."

     Strange, how most mistakes made by the Times just happen to break against Bush.

For more Newman, click here. 

Toner Excuses Dems if They Don’t Take Back the House
 

     Reporter Robin Toner nabs the front of the Sunday Week in Review with "Getting Pumped? Get Real," illustrated with a blue Democratic donkey whose air has leaked out.  The subhead: "Democrats have their eye on retaking the House. But redistricting has helped make it a Republican fortress."

     "Across the political landscape, there are signs the nation may be headed toward a sweeping anti-incumbent election next year. The Republican Congressional majority is staggering from one setback to another, the voters seem uneasy about problems at home and the war abroad, and President Bush's approval ratings have reached new lows. Democrats dream of another 1994, with control of the House changing hands, this time to them. All they need, after all, is a net gain of 15 seats, surely an attainable goal in a nation of 435 Congressional districts. Or is it?"

     Toner's caveat: What NewsBusters writer Noel Sheppard calls "the perfect excuse" for failure in 2006 -- Republican-controlled redistricting of Congressional seats.

     Sheppard writes that Toner "raised some hurdles for the Democrats to achieve this goal, none of which included possible problems with their agenda, or the public’s perception of them as not being any better than Republicans as depicted in poll after poll. Instead, Toner created a perfect excuse for failure in 2006: 'Redistricting and other incumbent protections have created a Republican fortress in recent years, with so little turnover that even the party's relatively narrow majority is very hard to crack.'"

To read the rest of Toner on Democratic prospects in 2006, click here.

Marking "Charismatic" Arafat's Anniversary
 

     Greg Myre marks the anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader (and terror advocate) Yasir Arafat in Saturday's story from Ramallah, "A Year After Arafat's Death, A Subdued Homage Is Paid to Arafat."

     Nothing is said about Arafat's support for terror against Israeli citizens. "On the first anniversary of Yasir Arafat's death, a small and subdued crowd of Palestinians paid tribute on Friday at his grave site, where he was buried after a tumultuous funeral. Mr. Arafat was the dominant Palestinian figure for nearly four decades, and his legacy lives on. His photo still hangs in government offices and shops, and many Palestinians describe him as a father figure. Yet public tributes and references to Mr. Arafat tend to be relatively infrequent and low-key. When his name is mentioned, educated Palestinians in particular say any assessment needs to include both his successes and his shortcomings….Mr. Abbas, who won a vote in January to succeed Mr. Arafat, lacks his charisma. His speech on Friday was dry and sober, and received only polite applause."

     Myre's reporting from Israel is typically oblique on Palestinian terror.

For more of Myre on Arafat, click here.

"Conservative Hopes…Are In Tatters"
 

     Edmund Andrews and Carl Hulse pile on Republican congressional woes in Saturday's "Battle Is Drawn in G.O.P. Over How Conservative to Be," which suggests right from the get-go that conservatives are in trouble (naturally).

     "If there was a message to be drawn from this week's Republican meltdown over tax and spending cuts, it was this: Conservative hopes for an economic agenda of big ideas and sweeping change are in tatters for the moment. The failure of House Republicans to agree on painful but modest spending cuts and the inability of Senate Republicans to agree on extending President Bush's tax cuts exposed a deep and increasingly bitter battle between ardent and ideological conservatives and emboldened Republican moderates. The battle is being fueled by fears about the political environment going into next year's elections. Conservatives argue that the best way to secure the Republican base is renewed dedication to fiscal austerity; moderates fear that cuts in social programs could alienate independent voters crucial in swing districts."

     Besides being "ardent" and "ideological," conservatives are "hard-liners" as well: "The upshot of all the chaos could turn out to be smaller spending reductions than hard-liners demand and bigger tax cuts than the moderates want."

For more of Andrews and Hulse, click here.