Mark Sanford

Media Recap: Credulous Press Ate Up Spin From Sanford's Office

Zachary Roth | June 25, 2009, 11:20AM

Now that the dust has settled -- at least for a few hours -- on the tale of the love-struck guv, it's worth focusing on another angle: the shockingly credulous news coverage of the story.

Throughout Monday and Tuesday, there were pretty good reasons to be skeptical of the ever-changing official line that Sanford's office was putting out.

After all, here's how things went down, in a nutshell:

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John Ensign

Report: Fox Got Ensign Letter Three Days Earlier Than It Admitted

Zachary Roth | June 24, 2009, 6:50PM

Just as we were all getting sidetracked by one GOP sex scandal, there was an interesting development in another.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Fox News received Doug Hampton's bizarre letter -- about the affair between Hampton's wife Cindy and Sen. John Ensign -- three days earlier than the right-wing news channel had previously acknowledged.

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John Ensign

Fox: We Didn't Tip Off Ensign About That Crazy Letter To Kelly

Zachary Roth | June 19, 2009, 1:31PM

Fox News has denied tipping off Sen. John Ensign after receiving that bizarre letter from Doug Hampton, in which Hampton asked for Fox anchor Megyn Kelly's help in exposing Ensign's affair with Hampton's wife Cynthia.

Tom Lowell, the senior producer of Kelly's show, has told the Huffington Post that a booker for the show did get Hampton's letter, via email, the day before Ensign went public about the affair. Lowell said a producer followed up with Hampton, but he seemed "evasive and not credible," so Fox didn't pursue it -- which, frankly, sounds reasonable.

But more importantly, Lowell said no one at Fox had let Ensign's camp know about the letter. "I categorically deny that we ever reached out to the senator in any way shape or form prior to him making his announcement," Lowell said.

So that still leaves a big mystery: Ensign has now said clearly that it was the threat to go to a TV news show that prompted him to go public. So how did Ensign know about that?

Right-wing extremism

SHOCKER: Buchanan Prefers "The Old Bigotry" To Affirmative Action

Zachary Roth | June 12, 2009, 1:55PM

OK, we know it's not exactly breaking news that Pat Buchanan holds some views that are borderline racist, to put it mildly. But this one is just too blatant to pass up.

In his latest column for Human Events -- a forum he often uses to air opinions that wouldn't fly during his regular gigs as a commentator on MSNBC -- Buchanan writes that he "prefers the old bigotry" to the Ivy League affirmative action policies that may have benefited Sonia Sotomayor, because "at least it was honest."

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Racism

Latest Right-Wing Meme: Von Brunn's A Lefty

Zachary Roth | June 11, 2009, 4:19PM

It's hardly been 24 hours since James Von Brunn allegedly walked into the Holocaust Museum and shot museum guard Stephen Johns. But already conservatives from Rush Limbaugh to Red State have started advancing their latest up-is-down meme: Von Brunn -- a white supremacist consumed by hatred of Jews and blacks, who has called for President Obama to release his birth certificate -- isn't really a right-winger -- in fact, he's a lefty.

Let's count off the examples:

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Media

Report: Before Congressional Run, Scarborough Represented Killer Of Abortion Doctor

Zachary Roth | June 5, 2009, 6:07PM

Over the last week, MSNBC has led the cable-news charge in covering the George Tiller murder -- and the questions it's raised about how implicated the wider anti-abortion movement is in the violence. Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews have all covered the story -- Maddow with particular distinction. But until today, one MSNBC show has been conspicuous for its reluctance to touch this major story. That would be Morning Joe, hosted by Joe Scarborough.

This morning, Scarborough publicly addressed the story, for what appears to be the first time. But what he talked about was his own past ties to an anti-abortion killer. And his comments -- which seemed designed largely to minimize those ties -- appear to conflict with other reported facts about the incident.

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