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EmbedAll I can say about this is that Howard Kurtz is a hack. Kurtz pretends he's some arbiter of bias in the media, yet he chose to omit part of what Rachel Maddow said in response to some praise by the White House of herself and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. Shame on you Howard. The end of her response was actually the most important part, which is where she said they can praise her all they want, but it won't keep her from doing reporting they may not be happy with.
Here's Kurtz's edited version of the clip.
KURTZ: But another cable network got a big wet kiss. Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton talking about MSNBC: "If you're on the left, if you're somebody like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, or one of the folks who helps keeps our government honest and pushes and prods to make sure that folks are true to progressive values, then he (the president) thinks that those folks provide an invaluable service."
Rachel Maddow expressed her thanks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: That was very nice. A nice personal -- very flattering, but it's also nice in the sense that in an election year, it is nice for liberals to hear someone from the Democratic- controlled White House talk about liberals without swearing at them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: So is this an attempt by the White House to make up with the so-called "professional left," and will attacks on Fox backfire?
And here's the entire transcript of the clip from Rachel's show.
MADDOW: The Democratic politics fairy came to visit us today. And the Democratic politics fairy brought us here at THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW two gifts. First, a White House spokesman today brought up on a gaggle on Air Force One the issue of those darn liberal cable news hosts on the MSNBC. But he brought us up in order to say something nice about us. This is a nice change.
Spokesman Bill Burton described COUNTDOWN and this program as, quote, “helping to keep our government honest and pushing and prodding to make sure that folks are true to progressive values.” Mr. Burton said the president, quote, “thinks that those folks provide an invaluable service.”
That was very nice. Nice personally. Of course, it‘s very flattering. But it‘s also nice in the sense that in an election year, it is nice for liberals to hear someone from the Democratic-controlled White House talk about liberals without swearing at them. None of that means, of course, that we will stop reporting the news in the way that sometimes makes the Democratically-controlled White House swear at us again, but still very nice.
Rachel Maddow has more journalistic integrity in her little finger than Kurtz does in his entire body. If he'd meant to do any honest reporting on what the White House said about Maddow and her response to that praise, he'd have included her entire statement in the video clip he showed his viewers.
Read this transcript with Milbank on Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz trying with everything he has to help Beck avoid responsibility for his rhetoric. What's interesting about it is that Milbank is a Villager in extremely good standing and he is breaking the rules and being quite shrill about a Real American. It's obvious that Kurtz doesn't want him to go where he's going, but he's doing it anyway, in a pretty serious way, which is unusual in itself.
I'm guessing that the difference between them at this point is that Milbank has actually watched Beck.
MEDIA MATTERS: Milbank: Beck is "dangerous," gives "fringe conspiracy theories" a large audience
October 03, 2010 1:44 pm ETFrom the October 3 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:
KURTZ: Beck says a lot of inflammatory things. That's part of his style. You see him as peddling conspiracy theories and talking about Nazis a lot.
MILBANK: Yes. I think over his first 18 months, "Nazis" came up in his show 200 times, "fascists" another 200 times. Poor Goebbels only got two dozen mentions.
But that's a constant them, but it's also the floating of the fringe conspiracies. Even Bill O'Reilly has said he believes that Beck is successful because he's willing to take it about five steps further than O'Reilly is. And that is by going on "Fox & Friends" and saying, "I can't debunk the idea that our federal government, through FEMA, is operating concentration camps in Wyoming."
KURTZ: But he didn't endorse that, but you're saying he raised it.
MILBANK: He said, "I can't disprove it." Then a month later, he gets on the show and said, oh, actually, it turns out those were doctored photos from a North Korean prison.
KURTZ: So he corrected.
MILBANK: He corrected it a month later, after a rather violent incident related to that.
KURTZ: OK. Well, you talk about going too far, and maybe this is related to this.
There was a 2009 murder in Pittsburgh, and allegedly committed by a guy who believes that the New World Order and government are plotting against our citizens. You say in the book, "It goes a bit too far to blame Glenn Beck for this, but Beck's words are inspiring the fringe."
Now, isn't that guilt by association?
MILBANK: Well, except that the people who are committing these acts often mentioned Glenn Beck themselves. We had another case of a guy shooting at the cops out in San Francisco, attempted to blow up the Tides Foundation, which was mentioned on Beck's show.
KURTZ: But what if somebody committed a violent act and said, you know, I read Dana Milbank's columns and I really think -- I'm --
(CROSSTALK)
MILBANK: That's why I say it goes too far to hold him responsible for that. But when you have a guy who's taking, as the Anti-Defamation League says, these fringe conspiracy theories and giving them an audience of, I don't know, 10 million people a week on the radio, nearly three million a night on Fox News, you're elevating something that has always been on the fringe in American politics and putting it front and center. So while you can't be blamed for any individual act, it is evidence that he is disseminating a very dangerous doctrine.
KURTZ: You think he's dangerous?
MILBANK: Well, I think it's been manifestly true that he's dangerous, but he's very powerful as well.
KURTZ: You haven't proven that he's dangerous. You've proven that -- you've argued that he says a lot of things that you don't like.
MILBANK: Well, and when a man is frequently talking about Hitler and Nazis, and then you see the Tea Party rally with the same quotations of Tea Parties and Nazis, the one-world government, the United Nations taking over civilization, posters of Dachau, you have to say, where does all this come from and why is it suddenly out in the open?
So, yes, that's why I think it's dangerous.
KURTZ: So you mentioned his big audience. I mean, he gets a huge number in the afternoon on Fox, radio audience. So what makes him so popular? What do you make of the people who tune in for inspiration?
MILBANK: I think it is just that. I mean, in a country of 310 million people, two million watching him is not a huge number. But it's a huge number -- a small number of very passionate followers.
Now, I mean, I think some of this is he very cleverly speaks to -- he's a Mormon, very cleverly speaks in terms of Mormon prophesy and conspiracy theories. I think that generates some of his audience. And some of it is also out of fear.
He talks about the world is ending. People advertise for vegetable seeds on his show so you can keep it in a locked box, and when the apocalypse comes, you can plant it and grow vegetables in your back yard. He's pushing gold coins. So, his audience is very frightened people who really think the end is coming.
KURTZ: All right. I'll tune in to see whether he talks about Dana Milbank on his show this week.
