PUBLIC MARKS with tags bush & media

A WND interview in which Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., called Miami a "Third World country" has ignited a war of words with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and other lawmakers insulted by the remark, which is now being echoed in news media across America. "Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country," Tancredo told WND in a Nov. 19 story as he lamented how the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration. "You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

Faced with the unappetizing reality of Iraq, Bush and Rove are relying on that grand old reliable strategy—attack the media. It doesn’t play as well as it used to. Everyone who wants an alternative reality is already watching Fox News.

Critics of the Bush administration have promoted video of an Aug. 28, 2005, teleconference between emergency management officials and the president as proof that the White House was warned that levees around New Orleans would likely fail against Hurricane Katrina. But a closer examination of the recording and transcript shows no mention that the Crescent City's levees would be breached.

But reporters still ignore free market advocates who predicted it. Media coverage of problems facing the new Medicare prescription drug plan focused on elderly patients left in the lurch by bureaucracy, producing what CBS’s Bill Plante called a “political headache” for the Bush administration. But in the Jan. 16 reports on the “Evening News” and “World News Tonight,” both networks ignored conservative critics who had argued the plan was doomed to fail because it was a typical big government solution that ignored the free market.

Los Angeles activist Jesse Lee Peterson has questioned the sanity of entertainer Harry Belafonte for meeting with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and, in local media, calling President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world."

Media Matters presents the top 12 myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on President Bush's spying scandal stemming from the recent revelation in The New York Times that he authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on domestic communications without the required approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court.

So apparently Bush authorized the NSA to listen in on phone calls to and from numbers with known terrorists ties. Great. It was about time. Why is this controversial? I come home and the Democrats and the press are acting like Bush declared himself dictator-for-life and had Alan Dershowitz publicly executed. This episode got me thinking, and in the spirit of the year-in-review round-ups everyone likes to do in December, I would like to present: Media Manufactured Scandals — the Year that Was:

Prepare your mind and body for a trip into the Twilight Zone. Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives said yesterday that the Democrats will offer no unified position on Iraq in 2006. Despite claims by Democrats and the media that the Bush administration has no plan, Pelosi said that differing opinions within her party regarding Iraq are “a sign of strength.”

Journalism and films

According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, in response to a question of who is to blame for New Orleans' problems after the hurricane: 13 percent said Bush...

Our beloved mainstream media are complaining that President Bush is spending too much time at the "Western White House" in Crawford, Texas. Their stories about his "vacation" make it seem as if he's not doing a whole lot. But a closer look reveals that the president is working hard -- the Fourth Estate just doesn't bother to cover what he's really doing.