Wednesday, July 05, 2006

"Balance" in Action:
Is Ann Coulter "Liberally Biased"?

Far from it. But assuming we can take Rupert Murdoch's New York Post at its fair-and-balanced word, the red-baiting, peroxide pundit-darling of the mainstream media "may be 'liberal' in at least one respect." As Editor & Publisher explains:

The New York Post reported Sunday that author/columnist Coulter "cribbed liberally in her latest book" and also in several of her syndicated columns, according to a plagiarism expert.

John Barrie, creator of the iThenticate plagiarism-probing system, claimed he found at least three examples of what he called "textbook plagiarism" in the new Coulter book "Godless" after he ran its text through the program.

He also discovered verbatim copying in Coulter's weekly column, which is syndicated to more than 100 newspapers by Universal.
Now, if only one of Coulter's countless, mainstream-journalist targets could muster the courage to ask her about it...

Kill 'Em All! (Part 1)

KSFO-AM talk-show host -- and MSNBC/Hardball regular -- Melanie Morgan opines in the San Francisco Chronicle:

"'If [New York Times editor Bill Keller] were to be tried and convicted of treason, yes, I would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber,' Morgan... told The Chronicle on Wednesday. 'It is about revealing classified secrets in the time of war. And the media has got to take responsibility for revealing classified information that is putting American lives at risk.'"
That's right. As the Huffington Post's Greg Sargent observes:

Melanie Morgan wouldn't simply countenance the prosecution, jailing, and even execution of Keller. She'd happily countenance him dying a horrible, excruciating death.
Sadly -- if not unexpectedly -- Morgan's "liberal" patrons at MSNBC couldn't care less. Which, as Sargent writes, is enough to make you wonder:

Is there anything at all that Morgan could say which would render her unwelcome at MSNBC or on any other network? If Morgan openly advocated for a second Holocaust or the re-enslavement of black Americans, would she be a guest on Hardball or any other major network's show? Of course not. There are of course certain limits somewhere; there are obviously certain things she could say that would make her too radioactive to be welcomed by MSNBC or others again.

The question is, Why isn't saying she'd happily accept the slow and agonizing execution of a journalist one of them?
Good question...

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Test

Kindly ignore...