Michael Gaynor
Hannity bias special's big mistake: omitting NYT killing an Obama/ACORN expose before election day 2008
By Michael Gaynor
At best, the Hannity special whet the appetite for an Obama/ACORN/liberal media bias expose while focusing on old news, including how The Times misreported for the benefit of Stalin's "socialist utopia" in the 1930's, racist Southerm Democrat senators, Rathergate, the Valerie Plame affair (she wasn't a covert CIA agent), and shameless Times reporting on the Duke lacrosse "no rape" case in 2006 and Senator McCain's unproven romantic relationship with a female lobbyist in 2008.
Yes, the premise of Sean Hannity's hyped Good Friday special — "Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media" — is valid: the liberal media is biased.
Promos for the special declared "Double standards? Groundless attacks? Blatant bias? Sean Hannity exposes the shocking truth." and "Double standards? Groundless attacks? Blatant bias? Sean calls out the mainstream media! Don't miss 'Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media.'"
Clips from the special are available at www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/index.html.
The subtitle there is "How the mainstream media's double standards have shaped American politics,' but nowhere in the special is it reported that the mainstream media's double standards and bias are responsible for the Obama presidency."
To his credit, Hannity warned America about Obama in 2007, and even interviewed Obama's longtime pastor and friend, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on his television show soon after Obama announced his presidential candidacy. But Hannity's campaign against Obama was a case of first too little and then too late. Hannity interviewing Rev. Wright was insufficient. It was not until about a year later that Hannity broadcast the now notorious excerpts from Rev. Wright's sermons. By then the videos that could have torpedoed the Obama presidential campaign if they had been aired in the spring of 2007 could not keep Obama from winning the Democrat presidential nomination.
In the special Hannity highlighted the point that liberal media bias has allowed Democrats to bury their racist history, citing Senators Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Al Gore Sr. of Tennesses and Sam Irvin of North Carolina, while lamenting that Trent Lott ended up resigning his position as Republican Senate Majority Leader for saying in 2002, at a 100th birthday party celebration for Senator Strom Thurmond, that Mississippians had voted for Thurmond for President in 1948 and were proud of it.
Unfortunately, instead of keeping his eyes of the enormous prize — the Presidency of the United States now held by candidate-for-reelection Barack Obama — and focusing on Obama's unfitness to be President, Hannity focused on the unchangeable and no longer particularly relevant past. Byrd, Gore Sr., Irvin and Thurmond are all dead, and Lott chose not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2006 — and ignored the greatest problem posed by liberal media bias today — how liberal media bias put Obama in the White House and threatens to keep him there until 2117.
There are generally favorable comments on the Hannity Forum thread titled "Hannity's 'Behind the Bias' Is BRILLIANT!!!" (http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?p=89492501). Conan commented, "They really knocked it out of the ballpark!!"Aaron 1122 assured, "Its worth it. They really lay it all out ...when and how it all began. The clips they have are irrefutable!" Skittles1 lamented, "I'm watching it now-and getting very angry and frustrated with what we as conservatives are up against when getting our message out at election time." Kid-Dundee opined, "Mainstream Media is the only reason Obama got elected and the MM is the one that got on Bush all the time. O'Donnell, Matthews and Maddow are joke journalists. Fox doesn't get everything perfect but darn good."
Frankly, the special was disappointing, because the most important example of liberal media bias was omitted.
Instead of reporting on the effect of liberal media bias on the 2008 presidential election, the special focused on soft targets, like scoundrels Dan Rather and Mary Mapes trying to help Al Gore win the 2004 presidential election with forged documents purportedly pertinent to President Bush's military service.
That's an excellent example of liberal media bias, to be sure, but it is an example of liberal media bias failing: President George W. Bush was re-elected.
It is the role of the liberal media in the 2008 presidential election that cries out for scrutiny, and that is an example of liberal media bias succeeding.
Ironically, a significant portion of the special was devoted to bias at The New York Times and bold Fox contributor and Culture of Corruption author Michelle Malkin appeared several times. Malkin is an expert on the Obama/ACORN relationship and the killing of an Obama/ACORN expose before the 2008 election, but she was not asked about it for the special.
There are sins of omission as well as commission, and Hannity never mentioned that in October 2008 The New York Times, fearing that it could be a game changer, killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which Times reporter Stephanie Strom had been working with the former ACORN/Project Vote insider now known as the ACORN whistleblower, Anita MonCrief.
Malkin's reporting prompted MonCrief to confirm the relationship between ACORN and the Obama campaign to Strom. See "The Answer Is...Michelle Malkin's ACORN Reporting" (www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=090622).
After Malkin and MonCrief connected in 2009, MonCrief revised her book (while it was at the printer) to add the story of The Times killing an Obama/ACORN expose.
Malkin's book immediately became the best selling book. I wrote about it and her interviews by Hannity and Glenn Beck, as follows:
"Michelle Malkin's latest fantastic book is called The Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies.
"On July 27, it was released and Sean Hannity interviewed Ms. Malkin on both his radio and television shows.
"The next day, Glenn Beck did the same on his shows.
"Hannity focused on the chapter on Michelle Obama ('the First Crony').
"Beck focused on the chapters involving ACORN and SEIU, the connection between them and their roles as providers of the 'civilian soldiers' to implement the Obama plan to remake America.
"The following excerpt from Beck's radio interview highlights the importance of ACORN in understanding how President Obama came to be elected and to his plan to transform America from a capitalist country into a socialist country:
MALKIN: ...the book has only been out a day and there's been a lot of traditional interest in looking at the cabinet and looking at the czars. But there are two important chapters on ACORN...as well as the SEIU, their twin, and
GLENN: Yeah, they are one and the same.
MALKIN: And the family with Barack Obama that dates back...20, 25 years really needs...much more mainstream public light. You've done a fabulous job of that and I think that including these two chapters of the book and putting it in the context of the larger Culture of Corruption and the Chicago way is a good start towards helping people enlighten them about it.
GLENN: Michelle, you and I talked about this during the election.
MALKIN: Yes.
GLENN: I mean, you knew what was coming, I knew what was coming. I didn't realize it would come this fast. I mean, this guy is amazing....most people don't understand....You they look at ACORN and they are like, it's a stupid group and everybody knows what it is. No, no, no. Community organizers are so unbelievably well funded. When you see how much distance we have made here or how much distance has been put between us and the Constitution since Obama got into office, are you as concerned as you were for our country or more so? And if so, how much time do you think we have before you just are not turning this car around?
MALKIN: I think we're already at an inflection point, Glenn, and I think that it calls for fueling even more curiosity and scrutiny on these meadow organizations. I quote Andy Stern, the president of the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union on his organizing philosophy and it is this: We prefer to use the power of persuasion but if that doesn't work, we use the persuasion of power. And it is the same theme and like motif that infuses the ACORN MO, the persuasion of power, the muscle for money program that whistle blower and, you know, Moncrief blew the whistle on. And I dedicate the book to the whistleblowers out there. You know, it's not just us on the right who are exposing this.
GLENN: Oh, no. Oh, yeah.
MALKIN: The fact is that we owe. We owe so much to very brave people on the other side, some of them who have come over, ex liberals like Anita who understand the depths and the intricacy and the intimacy between and among those groups. But also between them and Barack Obama.
"EXACTLY!
"In the book's acknowledgements, Ms. Malkin gave 'special thanks to Anita MonCrief for her enormous courage and vigilance on ACORN corruption.'"
Subsequently MonCrief appeared twice on Hannity's radio show, first to be interviewed by a substitute host and later to be interviewed by Hannity himself.
Unfortunately, when the liberal media bias was prepared, Obama, ACORN and The New York Times were given a pass as the most egregious (and successful) example of liberal media bias — The Times and others ignoring Obama's lies about his relationship with ACORN and the illicit relationship between ACORN/Project Vote and the Obama presidential campaign — was omitted.
Andrew Breitbart, in his new book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save The World!, wrote that he had offered the ACORN "Pimp and Pro" story to ABC before offering it to Fox News, but that ABC declined to report it.
That was less than a year after MonCrief's story had been offered to ABC News and ABC declined to report it.
That's liberal media bias helping to put Obama in the White House and promote his political agenda by keeping the ugly truth from the public.
MonCrief also gave an interview to CNN in October 2008 that never aired.
Is anyone surprised?
Bottom line: Team Obama has to be delighted that Hannity did not put his spotlight on the relationship between Obama and ACORN, about which Obama lied in the final presidential debate, and the illicit relationship between ACORN/Project Vote and the Obama presidential campaign.
At best, the Hannity special whet the appetite for an Obama/ACORN/liberal media bias expose while focusing on old news, including how The Times misreported for the benefit of Stalin's "socialist utopia" in the 1930's, racist Southerm Democrat senators, Rathergate, the Valerie Plame affair (she wasn't a covert CIA agent), and shameless Times reporting on the Duke lacrosse "no rape" case in 2006 and Senator McCain's unproven romantic relationship with a female lobbyist in 2008.
Unfortunately, the whole story of liberal media bias has not yet become common knowledge.
Hannity should remedy that ASAP, by scrutinizing the secretive Obama and highlighting the Obama/ACORN/Project Vote relationship on which Malkin fearlessly reported in Culture of Corruption instead of targeting dead Democrat racists and hasbeens like Rather and Mapes.
© Michael Gaynor
April 25, 2011
At best, the Hannity special whet the appetite for an Obama/ACORN/liberal media bias expose while focusing on old news, including how The Times misreported for the benefit of Stalin's "socialist utopia" in the 1930's, racist Southerm Democrat senators, Rathergate, the Valerie Plame affair (she wasn't a covert CIA agent), and shameless Times reporting on the Duke lacrosse "no rape" case in 2006 and Senator McCain's unproven romantic relationship with a female lobbyist in 2008.
Yes, the premise of Sean Hannity's hyped Good Friday special — "Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media" — is valid: the liberal media is biased.
Promos for the special declared "Double standards? Groundless attacks? Blatant bias? Sean Hannity exposes the shocking truth." and "Double standards? Groundless attacks? Blatant bias? Sean calls out the mainstream media! Don't miss 'Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media.'"
Clips from the special are available at www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/index.html.
The subtitle there is "How the mainstream media's double standards have shaped American politics,' but nowhere in the special is it reported that the mainstream media's double standards and bias are responsible for the Obama presidency."
To his credit, Hannity warned America about Obama in 2007, and even interviewed Obama's longtime pastor and friend, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on his television show soon after Obama announced his presidential candidacy. But Hannity's campaign against Obama was a case of first too little and then too late. Hannity interviewing Rev. Wright was insufficient. It was not until about a year later that Hannity broadcast the now notorious excerpts from Rev. Wright's sermons. By then the videos that could have torpedoed the Obama presidential campaign if they had been aired in the spring of 2007 could not keep Obama from winning the Democrat presidential nomination.
In the special Hannity highlighted the point that liberal media bias has allowed Democrats to bury their racist history, citing Senators Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Al Gore Sr. of Tennesses and Sam Irvin of North Carolina, while lamenting that Trent Lott ended up resigning his position as Republican Senate Majority Leader for saying in 2002, at a 100th birthday party celebration for Senator Strom Thurmond, that Mississippians had voted for Thurmond for President in 1948 and were proud of it.
Unfortunately, instead of keeping his eyes of the enormous prize — the Presidency of the United States now held by candidate-for-reelection Barack Obama — and focusing on Obama's unfitness to be President, Hannity focused on the unchangeable and no longer particularly relevant past. Byrd, Gore Sr., Irvin and Thurmond are all dead, and Lott chose not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2006 — and ignored the greatest problem posed by liberal media bias today — how liberal media bias put Obama in the White House and threatens to keep him there until 2117.
There are generally favorable comments on the Hannity Forum thread titled "Hannity's 'Behind the Bias' Is BRILLIANT!!!" (http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?p=89492501). Conan commented, "They really knocked it out of the ballpark!!"Aaron 1122 assured, "Its worth it. They really lay it all out ...when and how it all began. The clips they have are irrefutable!" Skittles1 lamented, "I'm watching it now-and getting very angry and frustrated with what we as conservatives are up against when getting our message out at election time." Kid-Dundee opined, "Mainstream Media is the only reason Obama got elected and the MM is the one that got on Bush all the time. O'Donnell, Matthews and Maddow are joke journalists. Fox doesn't get everything perfect but darn good."
Frankly, the special was disappointing, because the most important example of liberal media bias was omitted.
Instead of reporting on the effect of liberal media bias on the 2008 presidential election, the special focused on soft targets, like scoundrels Dan Rather and Mary Mapes trying to help Al Gore win the 2004 presidential election with forged documents purportedly pertinent to President Bush's military service.
That's an excellent example of liberal media bias, to be sure, but it is an example of liberal media bias failing: President George W. Bush was re-elected.
It is the role of the liberal media in the 2008 presidential election that cries out for scrutiny, and that is an example of liberal media bias succeeding.
Ironically, a significant portion of the special was devoted to bias at The New York Times and bold Fox contributor and Culture of Corruption author Michelle Malkin appeared several times. Malkin is an expert on the Obama/ACORN relationship and the killing of an Obama/ACORN expose before the 2008 election, but she was not asked about it for the special.
There are sins of omission as well as commission, and Hannity never mentioned that in October 2008 The New York Times, fearing that it could be a game changer, killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which Times reporter Stephanie Strom had been working with the former ACORN/Project Vote insider now known as the ACORN whistleblower, Anita MonCrief.
Malkin's reporting prompted MonCrief to confirm the relationship between ACORN and the Obama campaign to Strom. See "The Answer Is...Michelle Malkin's ACORN Reporting" (www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=090622).
After Malkin and MonCrief connected in 2009, MonCrief revised her book (while it was at the printer) to add the story of The Times killing an Obama/ACORN expose.
Malkin's book immediately became the best selling book. I wrote about it and her interviews by Hannity and Glenn Beck, as follows:
"Michelle Malkin's latest fantastic book is called The Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies.
"On July 27, it was released and Sean Hannity interviewed Ms. Malkin on both his radio and television shows.
"The next day, Glenn Beck did the same on his shows.
"Hannity focused on the chapter on Michelle Obama ('the First Crony').
"Beck focused on the chapters involving ACORN and SEIU, the connection between them and their roles as providers of the 'civilian soldiers' to implement the Obama plan to remake America.
"The following excerpt from Beck's radio interview highlights the importance of ACORN in understanding how President Obama came to be elected and to his plan to transform America from a capitalist country into a socialist country:
MALKIN: ...the book has only been out a day and there's been a lot of traditional interest in looking at the cabinet and looking at the czars. But there are two important chapters on ACORN...as well as the SEIU, their twin, and
GLENN: Yeah, they are one and the same.
MALKIN: And the family with Barack Obama that dates back...20, 25 years really needs...much more mainstream public light. You've done a fabulous job of that and I think that including these two chapters of the book and putting it in the context of the larger Culture of Corruption and the Chicago way is a good start towards helping people enlighten them about it.
GLENN: Michelle, you and I talked about this during the election.
MALKIN: Yes.
GLENN: I mean, you knew what was coming, I knew what was coming. I didn't realize it would come this fast. I mean, this guy is amazing....most people don't understand....You they look at ACORN and they are like, it's a stupid group and everybody knows what it is. No, no, no. Community organizers are so unbelievably well funded. When you see how much distance we have made here or how much distance has been put between us and the Constitution since Obama got into office, are you as concerned as you were for our country or more so? And if so, how much time do you think we have before you just are not turning this car around?
MALKIN: I think we're already at an inflection point, Glenn, and I think that it calls for fueling even more curiosity and scrutiny on these meadow organizations. I quote Andy Stern, the president of the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union on his organizing philosophy and it is this: We prefer to use the power of persuasion but if that doesn't work, we use the persuasion of power. And it is the same theme and like motif that infuses the ACORN MO, the persuasion of power, the muscle for money program that whistle blower and, you know, Moncrief blew the whistle on. And I dedicate the book to the whistleblowers out there. You know, it's not just us on the right who are exposing this.
GLENN: Oh, no. Oh, yeah.
MALKIN: The fact is that we owe. We owe so much to very brave people on the other side, some of them who have come over, ex liberals like Anita who understand the depths and the intricacy and the intimacy between and among those groups. But also between them and Barack Obama.
"EXACTLY!
"In the book's acknowledgements, Ms. Malkin gave 'special thanks to Anita MonCrief for her enormous courage and vigilance on ACORN corruption.'"
Subsequently MonCrief appeared twice on Hannity's radio show, first to be interviewed by a substitute host and later to be interviewed by Hannity himself.
Unfortunately, when the liberal media bias was prepared, Obama, ACORN and The New York Times were given a pass as the most egregious (and successful) example of liberal media bias — The Times and others ignoring Obama's lies about his relationship with ACORN and the illicit relationship between ACORN/Project Vote and the Obama presidential campaign — was omitted.
Andrew Breitbart, in his new book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save The World!, wrote that he had offered the ACORN "Pimp and Pro" story to ABC before offering it to Fox News, but that ABC declined to report it.
That was less than a year after MonCrief's story had been offered to ABC News and ABC declined to report it.
That's liberal media bias helping to put Obama in the White House and promote his political agenda by keeping the ugly truth from the public.
MonCrief also gave an interview to CNN in October 2008 that never aired.
Is anyone surprised?
Bottom line: Team Obama has to be delighted that Hannity did not put his spotlight on the relationship between Obama and ACORN, about which Obama lied in the final presidential debate, and the illicit relationship between ACORN/Project Vote and the Obama presidential campaign.
At best, the Hannity special whet the appetite for an Obama/ACORN/liberal media bias expose while focusing on old news, including how The Times misreported for the benefit of Stalin's "socialist utopia" in the 1930's, racist Southerm Democrat senators, Rathergate, the Valerie Plame affair (she wasn't a covert CIA agent), and shameless Times reporting on the Duke lacrosse "no rape" case in 2006 and Senator McCain's unproven romantic relationship with a female lobbyist in 2008.
Unfortunately, the whole story of liberal media bias has not yet become common knowledge.
Hannity should remedy that ASAP, by scrutinizing the secretive Obama and highlighting the Obama/ACORN/Project Vote relationship on which Malkin fearlessly reported in Culture of Corruption instead of targeting dead Democrat racists and hasbeens like Rather and Mapes.
© Michael Gaynor
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
