Throughout much of last year’s presidential campaign, and right on through the first weeks of Barack Obama’s administration, the media has persistently peddled the falsehood that America is a center-right nation, politically and socially. Now Media Matters has published a study (full pdf here) that thoroughly debunks this notion, and they do it by using surveys and facts that realistically portray the ideological character of the country – something the media may want to check in to.

The Media Matters study is a comprehensive look at the American electorate. It covers virtually every one of the most debated subjects of public discourse: Size of government; health care; taxes; abortion; gay rights. It also examines the demographics of age, ethnicity, gender, and geography. And every case the evidence shows that America is a progressive, and yes, a center-left nation.

And nowhere is this more misunderstood than in the media…

Glenn Beck’s program on Fox News is a daily cavalcade of crazy and yesterday was no exception. Beck’s guest was Scott Levenson, the national spokesman for ACORN. As ACORN is a perennial target of Fox News paranoiacs like Beck, there was bound to be a major train wreck looming. And Beck didn’t disappoint (video).

The occasion for the visit was a recent report that ACORN employees in Nevada had been charged with violations related to voter registration. This is where panicky right wingers rush to mischaracterize such charges as voter fraud, when in fact, none occurred. So Beck was true to form as he asserted the same old tired lies in his signature juvenile style – substituting funny faces and noises for rational debate.

The real comedy came when Beck attempted to offer an analogy that was ludicrous on its face. Levenson defended ACORN as a victim of employees who failed to comply with the organization’s standards. Beck sought to argue that ACORN was responsible for the misbehavior of their employees and ran a tape of the infamous Burger King bather (who had his buddies shoot a video of him bathing in the restaurant’s sink) to make a point that must have made sense somewhere in his cartoon brain.

Actually, Beck’s point had something to do with ACORN’s management being deficient because fourteen or so ACORN employees, out of some 13,000, were alleged to have submitted fake registration forms. Beck contended that this proves it was not a case of a rogue employee, but an unacceptable pattern of malfeasance. And after telling Levenson to “pipe down” and cutting off his mic, Beck said:

“If you had that many employees at Burger King bathing in the sink, would you ever eat a burger there? Ever? No. This is unreasonable to believe he had that many bad employees.”

Well, I did a quick Google search looking for criminally wayward Burger King employees and found this:

• Burger King employee arrested in homicide
• Burger King employee arrested for giving away free meals, stealing
• Burger King Employee Arrested After Jumping Through Drive-Up Window to Attack a Customer
• Burger King employee arrested for serving pot
• Burger King employee arrested for alleged identity theft
• Ex-Employee, Pal Arrested in Burger King Kidnap Case
• Burger King employees arrested for faking robbery
• Coke Being Sold At Burger King
• Burger King Franchise Pays $400,000 for Alleged Sexual Harassment of teens
• 27 illegal aliens working at seven Delaware Burger Kings

Granted murder, drugs, robbery, etc., are not exactly in the same league as unlawful bathing, but some people might consider those to be serious offenses too. It should also be noted that the Burger King violators represent only those with the sort of criminal profile likely to be written up in the news. There are surely corporate personnel who have engaged in more mundane activities ranging from pilfering office supplies to extortion or other financial improprieties.

Ever since October of 1996, Fox News has been regarded by serious media analysts as a somewhat less than objective mouthpiece for conservative propaganda. From the start they adopted a posture that appeared to be bent on shilling for Republicans by drenching their reports with partisan disinformation.

       (Stickers of the above image can be purchased at Crass Commerce)

The intent couldn’t have been more transparent. This was a network birthed by the planet’s most notorious practitioner of tabloid piffle, Rupert Murdoch, who adorned it with a spritz of soft-core porn, and masqueraded it across America’s TV screens as if it were actually news.

But the real intent was something else altogether…

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Now that Tax Day has come and gone, we can take an objective look at what all the excitement over the so-called “grassroots” Tea Party movement has wrought.

For an alleged phenomenon that was sweeping a nation of angry revolutionaries, it has left us with no more than a resounding thud.

Nate Silver has produced what appears to be the only comprehensive estimate of national attendance, based on authoritative sources like law enforcement and local reporting. His figures conclude that about 262,000 people gathered in over 300 cities across the country to wave tea bags and denounce taxes. That is pretty close to the estimate by the conservative Pajamas Media (sources not disclosed), who place the figure slightly higher at 278,000. Considering the fact that twice as many people will attend a Major League Baseball game on a typical Saturday, every weekend, that doesn’t seem like much to brag about.

    America’s Barack

It may be a little early, but I’m already getting ready to celebrate. But first, a short story about media cronyism.

Tomorrow is election day, children. It is one of the most cherished privileges of being an American citizen, and one of the most solemn responsibilities as well.

Many people take great pleasure from having the ability to help to choose who will lead our great nation, and they believe that by voting they are playing an important role in that choice. However, most are unaware that sometimes this process is not as straight forward as one might think.

After millions of well intentioned consumers citizens have gone to the polls to cast their votes, our friends in the media spend many minutes, and millions of dollars, figuring out who really won the election. They add up numbers given to them from computers and pollsters and other pundits, and when they are certain that they can make a reasonably close guess – BAM! – they announce it on television and America has a new president.

So where does this abundant and unregulated power reside?

With a brilliant smile and a confident swagger, Sarah Palin faced Joe Biden, and America, in the first and only vice presidential debate. But the face she presented was that of shallow Pollyanna with a woefully insufficient grasp of issues and facts.

Brought to you by…

News Corpse

The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.

Much of the focus of John McCain’s campaign for president has been on his reputed experience (and just as often, the alleged lack of same for his opponent). But there has been sparse actual examination of how that argument should be measured. Is spending five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp 40 years ago preparation to run the largest governmental bureaucracy in the world? If so, then, as Jon Stewart said, “Guantanamo Bay isn’t a prison, it’s a leadership academy.” Is 36 years in Congress the yardstick for executive readiness? Or is it two years as governor of the third smallest state in the nation, preceded by the mayoralty of a frosty township of 6,000? McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, appear to disagree on this issue:

The bottomless fount of hilarity that is Bill O’Reilly has erupted once again. After MSNBC displayed humorous text on screen during a story about John McCain’s inability to remember how many houses he owns, Bill O’Reilly went nuts declaring that it was…

“…one of the most outrageous things that I’ve ever seen in my 35 years of journalism.”

Never mind that O’Reilly hasn’t spent 35 seconds in journalism, he still selectively ignores the much more offensive (and not humorously intended) examples of Fox News’ broadcasts:

A NewsCorpse.com Video:

As if there weren’t already enough examples of John McCain’s dishonesty and hypocrisy, he has delivered another strikingly brazen illustration of just how far he will go to promote himself and to demean his opponent, Barack Obama. And it’s all captured on video:

Brought to you by…

News Corpse, The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.