FAIR - ‘America Was Safer Under Bush’ - Journalists accept GOP’s screwy terrorism scorecard

[TomCADem]

I came across FAIR, which is a magazine that is similar to Media Matters, except that it also publishes a print version. Here is a recent article:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4019

That George W. Bush kept America safer from terrorism than Barack Obama is a conservative article of faith these days—and corporate media seem little inclined to challenge the blatant falsehoods used to advance this childish GOP talking point.

The most prominent example came on Good Morning America (ABC, 1/8/10) during a discussion of the failed Christmas Day “underwear bomb” plot, when former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told anchor George Stephanopoulos: “We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.”

Get that? So-called terrorism expert Giuliani, who can barely finish a sentence without mentioning September 11 (Extra!, 5–6/07), managed to scrub the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history from Bush’s record.

Stephanopoulos failed to challenge the former mayor’s screwball claim. Though he later acknowledged this failure as a “mistake” on his blog (1/8/10), it was not apparently important enough to mention to the roughly 5 million Good Morning America viewers originally subjected to the falsehood.

In addition to the 9/11 attacks, the former mayor’s tally scrubbed from Bush’s watch the September/October 2001 anthrax attacks, which killed five people, and the two people murdered in the July 2002 attack on the L.A. airport’s El Al ticket counter. Next to 9/11, Giuliani’s strangest omission was the December 2001 “shoe bomb” plot, which was strikingly similar to the incident under discussion—another failed attempt by a passenger to bring down an American airliner headed into the U.S. (New York Daily News, 12/23/01).

[mucifer]

1. Rachel Maddow exposed fair as having lots of white supremacists in the upper ranks of their

organization.

[TomCADem]

2. Wrong FAIR: You Are Referring The Immigration FAIR, Not Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

I was talking about this FAIR:

http://www.fair.org/index.php

Not that FAIR:

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer

[2Design]

3. not safer under Bush, we had the towers go down n/t

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. Didn't you hear? Bush inherited 9-11 from Clinton

According to Mary Matlin:

"We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history." link

Of course, how can they have inherited something that didn't happen?

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term." Dana Perino

Does anyone else think the Republicans live in Bizarro World?

[OHdem10]

4. Fair (Media Watch Org) is oh so right wing. At one time they came

across as on the Right but trying to be "fair". Now
they almost appear to be another Partisan Group on the
on the Right. I mean really partisan.







r

[Jim Lane]

10. FAIR is not at all right wing. They do great work.

You seem to understand the distinction between FAIR (media watch) and FAIR (immigration), as per #2 above. I can only surmise that you're confusing FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) with AIM (Accuracy in Media). AIM is indeed a right-wing organization, which at one point criticized Fox News -- for being too favorable toward President Clinton.

If you look just at on FAIR's website, you can skim the summaries featured there and see that FAIR is not a right-wing group.

[Ardent15]

5. No one was safer under Bush

[Enthusiast]

7. What do you expect from Giuliani.

He's an ignorant useless fuck.

And I would hardly characterize those that accepted this nonsense as "journalists". These are hacks, one and all.

[malaise]

8. FAIR - Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[blogslut]

12. There are two organizations using the acronym F.A.I.R.

One is Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting - a group with a stellar left-wing reputation:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fairness_%26_Accuracy_In_Reporting

The other is the Federation for American Immigration Reform - a group steeped in white separatist history:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Federation_for_American_Immigration_Reform

[Festivito]

9. And Bush sacrificed our soldiers into the murderous volcano of war.

But, he got his UNOCAL pipeline.

[G_j]

11. what a shame that people get the two FAIRs confused

the good FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Media) has been around far, far longer than the tea-bagger, anti-immigrant FAIR.