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Liddy advises listeners: "[N]o matter what law they pass, do not -- repeat, not -- ever register any of your firearms"

On the November 13 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, G. Gordon Liddy repeatedly advised people not to register their firearms, saying: "The first thing you do is, no matter what law they pass, do not -- repeat, not -- ever register any of your firearms." Liddy added: "Because that's where they get the list of where to go first to confiscate. So, you don't ever register a firearm, anywhere." Liddy's statements came in response to a caller who said: "And I'm also very concerned about the firearm owners in this country. I think we need a bit of general advice from you as to what we can do as a group with our firearms. Do we need to buy up all the Cosmoline in the country and bury our weapons? And I'm -- I'm curious as to -- as to what advice you have for us. I mean, we know what's gonna happen. We know that they can't get their fingers on the brass ring until they've disarmed us." Liddy later said: "[W]hat's gonna happen is, if you register your firearms, you're handing them a list of where to go to confiscate the firearms. So don't do it." Liddy also stated: "[D]epending upon the intensity of the repression by the government, the way they're, you know, seeking firearms and so forth, then I would say, yes, with respect to Cosmoline and, you know, proper wrapping and storage, and then putting them where they will not be findable by metal detectors and things of that sort. I'll leave that up to your imagination, and because it differs from location to location, but that would be the thing to do." As Media Matters for America has noted, during the 1990s, Liddy repeatedly advised listeners on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents. According to an April 26, 1995, CBS News transcript (retrieved from Nexis), Liddy said on his August 26, 1994, radio show: LIDDY: Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. Reporting on Liddy's October 19, 1994, radio show, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported in an October 24, 1994, article: Ursula from Millerton, Pa., tells Liddy she's afraid the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is coming after her gun-owning friend. Liddy calls the bureau "bottom-dwelling slugs ... a pack of nitwits out to make war on those Americans who take seriously the Second Amendment." Liddy allows that calls to "hunt down and kill" such agents is "going too far." But, he says, "shooting back is reasonable... . I have counseled shooting them in the head." According to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, on September 15, 1994, Liddy stated: If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head. According to FAIR, Liddy said to a caller later in the show: When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms thugs come to kill your wife and children, to try to disarm you and they open fire on you. When they come at the point of a gun, force and violence, when you're going to defend yourself, use that Gerand [sic] [M-1 rifle]. That thing is 30-06, and it'll take 'em right out. According to an April 25, 1995, Associated Press article: Talk show host G. Gordon Liddy said Tuesday he gave listeners bad advice when he told them to shoot for the head if attacked by federal agents. Instead, he said, go twice for the body and then the groin. [...] Last August, Liddy counseled "head shots" to respond to an encounter with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, because, "They've got a vest underneath." On Tuesday, he told a news conference held as part of his WJFK program that people should cooperate if authorities come to their homes with search warrants. But they should shoot back if agents shoot their way in, he said. He said experts have told him shooting for the head was a bad idea because heads are hard to hit. "So you shoot twice to the body, center of mass, and if that does not work, then shoot to the groin area," he said. "They cannot move their hips fast enough and you'll probably get a femoral artery and you'll knock them down at any rate." Asked about his ATF comments by right-wing blogger John Hawkins in December 2003, Liddy said they had been misinterpreted: LIDDY: [A]s usual, people remember part of what I said, but not all of what I said. What I did was restate the law. I was talking about a situation in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes smashing into a house, doesn't say who they are, and their guns are out, they're shooting, and they're in the wrong place. This has happened time and time again. The ATF has gone in and gotten the wrong guy in the wrong place. The law is that if somebody is shooting at you, using deadly force, the mere fact that they are a law enforcement officer, if they are in the wrong, does not mean you are obliged to allow yourself to be killed so your kinfolk can have a wrongful death action. You are legally entitled to defend yourself and I was speaking of exactly those kind of situations. If you're going to do that, you should know that they're wearing body armor so you should use a head shot. Now all I'm doing is stating the law, but all the nuances in there got left out when the story got repeated. In addition, according to the April 25, 1995, edition of NPR's All Things Considered (retrieved from Nexis), during a press conference, Liddy admitted that he named shooting targets after then-President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton. From the press conference, as aired by NPR: LIDDY: I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we -- I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn't. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House. From the November 13 broadcast of Radio America's The G. Gordon Liddy Show: CALLER: Good morning, sir. LIDDY: Good morning, Jim. CALLER: I'm honored. I -- I didn't hear the music, but I did note some dead air. Now, that's not a host problem, but an engineer's responsibility, is it not? LIDDY: Well -- CALLER: Anyway, knowing how important your time is, I apologize. And also knowing the evils of Marxism, liberalism, fill in the blank, I am really concerned about the newest version of the brownshirts. And I'm concerned that, you know, almost immediately, that -- that new little group will be formed. And I'm also very concerned about the firearm owners in this country. I think we need a bit of general advice from you as to what we can do as a group with our firearms. Do we need to buy up all the Cosmoline in the country and bury our weapons? And I'm -- I'm curious as to -- as to what advice you have for us. I mean, we know what's gonna happen. We know that they can't get their fingers on the brass ring until they've disarmed us. I don't know -- you know, health care is a concern, but it's not my primary concern, and I think that -- LIDDY: Well, health care, as I warned before, and as [former House Majority Leader] Dick Armey [R-TX] -- who's also, you know, a Dallas, Texas, guy -- CALLER: He's a good man. LIDDY: Yes, a brilliant man. He said, look, it's coming in the guise of health care, but that's not really what it's all about. CALLER: Certainly. LIDDY: What it's all about is acquiring dominion over the individual. CALLER: Absolutely. LIDDY: Well -- CALLER: How do they -- how do they obtain any kind of dominion over an armed populace? I mean, it has to be their number one concern. LIDDY: Yeah, I would think so. And Barack Obama, by his voting record, has demonstrated that he is, you know, totally anti-gun. CALLER: Oh, certainly. LIDDY: Now you say what to do. Well, the first thing people are doing -- the stories were in the news yesterday, and there's more stories today, about how the gun stores are being stripped by everybody going in and buying firearms. CALLER: Yes. LIDDY: And they're -- they're particularly buying handguns and semiautomatic shoulder weapons that look like -- CALLER: Yes, like the M1A, and -- LIDDY: Yeah. They -- they look like -- CALLER: Oh yeah, the black gun. LIDDY: Yes, assault weapons, but they're not. An assault -- an assault weapon, by definition, is capable of fully automatic fire. These are not. CALLER: Yes, sir. LIDDY: But -- but people are buying them. Some because they've always wanted one and think that the Obama administration will try to outlaw them again, the way the Clinton administration did. Others figure, "OK, I'll buy as many as I can get my hands on, and I'll be grandfathered in. And then when they're banned, I will be able to sell them at a very nice profit." So, that's going on. But the main thing is, you know, get them into private hands as quickly as possible. Now, what do you do? The first thing you do is, no matter what law they pass, do not -- repeat, not -- ever register any of your firearms. CALLER: Yes, sir. LIDDY: Because that's where they get the list of where to go first to confiscate. So, you don't ever register a firearm, anywhere. CALLER: Well, on the same hand, you know, if we're -- if we're apprehended with a nonregistered firearm, we're -- you know, we're under the jailhouse there, too. LIDDY: Well, that's -- that's true, but what -- what's gonna happen is, if you register your firearms, you're handing them a list -- CALLER: Certainly. LIDDY: -- of where to go to confiscate the firearms. So don't do it. CALLER: I think that's why we fear them. LIDDY: That's right. CALLER: Because we have so many registered firearms. Out of, probably a dozen or more firearms that I have, I believe I have one 1911 that's not registered, that I procured at, you know, at a gun show many, many years ago. I have an M1A that was purchased for me, much like you, by my lovely spouse. And I'm considering another M1A purchase, only the -- the new SOCOM, the -- the carbine version. Now, where am I gonna find one of those, and -- and have the ability to purchase without registering it, you know? LIDDY: Well, the -- the purchase data will certainly show that you have it. But what I'm speaking of is any firearms you may have that they pass some law saying, you know, bring in your firearms and register them. CALLER: Oh, certainly, yes. I understand now. LIDDY: That's what I'm referring to. CALLER: OK. LIDDY: That's what I'm referring to. And then -- and then, as to -- CALLER: I'm sure -- I'm sure you made that clear. It just went right over my head. LIDDY: OK. Well, at any rate, then, depending upon the intensity of the repression by the government, the way they're, you know, seeking firearms and so forth, then I would say, yes, with respect to Cosmoline and, you know, proper wrapping and storage, and then putting them where they will not be findable by metal detectors and things of that sort. I'll leave that up to your imagination, and because it differs from location to location, but that would be the thing to do.

Media Matters: The Right's "bias" charade

At the end of the 1992 presidential campaign, there was a flurry of news reports about the possibility that the media had favored Bill Clinton over incumbent George H.W. Bush, and that the media's coverage of the race helped Clinton win. Such complaints might seem a little odd, given the media's relentless focus during that campaign on Clinton's alleged relationship with Gennifer Flowers, his youthful marijuana use, and his purported "draft-dodging." Still, complaints from conservatives about the media's coverage of the 1992 campaign worked to their benefit by complimenting their campaign to undermine Clinton's "legitimacy" as president. And they caused reporters, always sensitive to (typically bogus) charges of biased reporting, to bend over backwards to disprove their critics -- an instinct that, no doubt, contributed to the absolutely brutal media coverage Clinton received almost immediately upon his election. How brutal? How quickly? The Los Angeles Times explained in a 1993 look back at the earliest days of the Clinton presidency: Twelve days after President Clinton took office -- with only 1,448 days left in his term -- Sam Donaldson of ABC News was on a weekend talk show, saying, "This week we can talk about, 'Is the presidency over?' " That same day, a Page 1 story in the Los Angeles Times warned, "The President must tighten his grip or risk disaster." Later that week, a Page 1 story in the New York Times said, "The President desperately needs a victory, as soon as possible." And that was barely six months in to Clinton's first term. Sure, by then reporters had suggested Clinton's presidency was over before it reached the end of its second week and inaccurately obsessed over his Air Force One haircut. But they were just getting started; the wall-to-wall coverage of Whitewater and countless other trumped-up faux scandals was still to come. But no matter how hostile, how relentlessly negative, how scandal-obsessed the media were in their coverage of Clinton, conservatives kept right on going with their complaints of liberal bias. On October 26, 1996, The New York Times reported: Sounding like a crusader, Bob Dole implored his audiences today to "rise up" against the nation's news organizations, which he said were protecting the Clinton Administration ... "We've got to stop the liberal bias in this country," he declared ... "Don't read that stuff! Don't watch television! You make up your mind! Don't let them make up your mind for you!" [...] At another point he asked: "When do the American people rise up and say, 'Forget the media in America! We're going to make up our minds! You're not going to make up our minds!' This is about saving our country!" Singling out The New York Times for the second straight day, Mr. Dole went on: "We are not going to let the media steal this election. We're going to win this election. The country belongs to the people, not The New York Times." [...] Mr. Dole's complaints against the news media -- reminiscent of those by President George Bush in the waning days of his losing 1992 campaign -- are greeted with wild cheers. Mr. Dole said today that President Clinton would be losing the election if he was not "getting propped up by the media." A Nexis search yields 539 hits for "Clinton and Whitewater" in the The New York Times between January 1 and October 26, 1996 -- nearly two per day. And that focus hardly let up as the campaign reached the home stretch; there are 42 hits for "Clinton and Whitewater" in the Times from October 1-26. Nor was the Times alone in hammering away at Whitewater during the fall campaign: Expanding the search to all news organizations yields 2,412 hits for the month of October alone. And that's to say nothing of the relentless media focus on Democratic fundraising controversies. Or the various other Clinton "scandals," most of which turned out to exist only in the fevered imaginations of the news media. Or the fact that the news media, having obsessed for years about Clinton's infidelity, buried a story about an alleged Dole affair that his campaign aides considered a "mortal threat" threat to his candidacy. Let's stop there for a second: Just weeks after The Washington Post, which had reported on allegations of infidelity on Clinton's part, spiked a story about an alleged Dole affair, Bob Dole was running around accusing the media of being in the tank for Clinton. That's awfully reckless behavior -- if Dole actually believed the media were against him. Sincere or not, Dole's complaints ring hollow; I can't think of a presidential candidate whose alleged "scandals" received more election-year coverage than Clinton's in 1996. Such coverage isn't the whole story, of course, but it's awfully hard to justify claims that the media were in the tank for Clinton when they were running so many reports about Whitewater and other such nonsense. But Dole's wasn't the most absurd conservative claim of media bias during the Clinton years. For that, we have to look to the pro: Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center. On February 9, 1998, the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an interview with Bozell in which he complained that the media weren't devoting enough coverage to the Monica Lewinsky story. Given that most observers would likely agree that the Lewinsky saga involved the longest, most intense media feeding frenzy in modern American history, Bozell's claim should be self-evidently fraudulent. On the off chance that it isn't: On February 9, the day the Bozell interview ran, there were 529 news reports mentioning "Clinton" and "Lewinsky," according to a search of the Nexis database. Those 529 hits include 59 television transcripts, eight hits in the New York Times folder, and 11 for USA Today. In just one day. And that was a typical day, not an unusual one. Still, Bozell told the Star Tribune, apparently with a straight face, that the media had "stopped" covering the story -- "as they always do." Five hundred news reports a day, and Bozell thought the media had stopped covering the story. This is up-is-down, black-is-white, the-moon-is-made-of-green-cheese stuff. And it is typical of conservative media criticism. Why do they make such absurd claims? Because it is clear that it works. (If, unlike many journalists, you understand what the goal is.) Which brings us to 2008. John McCain's campaign, and its conservative allies, have spent much of the year attacking the news media. No surprise there; that's what conservatives do, even conservatives who have been the beneficiaries of a decade of glowing, fawning coverage from swooning reporters. McCain and his allies were attacking the media back in the Spring, when reporters were obsessively scrutinizing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- and openly acknowledging that they weren't giving McCain similar scrutiny. They attacked the media in late summer, when the media were breathlessly touting the "authenticity" of a Sarah Palin speech that was filled with falsehoods. And they have attacked the media throughout the fall, even as it has become clear that the scrutiny reporters promised back in the spring that they would eventually give McCain isn't coming. It isn't a coincidence that scrutiny never came: it is, in part, an obvious and intended result of the attacks McCain and his allies have been leveling on the media all year. But if, as the polls suggest, Barack Obama is elected next Tuesday, those attacks will have ultimately proven unsuccessful, right? Wrong. First, that's a silly way to assess whether a strategy has "worked"; a candidate can derive benefit from a strategy without winning. Second, it ignores the long-term goals of the attacks: to delegitimize an Obama presidency in the eyes of many Americans, and to browbeat journalists into covering an Obama administration much more critically than they otherwise would. Whether those goals are met depends in part on whether journalists take the attacks seriously, or recognize them as the predictable continuation of a right-wing work-the-refs strategy that is so fraudulent it even involved claiming the media were devoting insufficient attention to Monica Lewinsky. And it depends in part on whether progressives push back on the bogus narrative that the media handed Obama the election, or simply ignore it. Unfortunately, the conservative complaints got some superficial support from a recent study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) that claimed that John McCain has received much more "negative" coverage than Barack Obama during the campaign. The PEJ study quickly got significant attention from the establishment media and blogs. But while the study lends rhetorical support to the conservatives' arguments, it is nearly useless as an actual assessment of how the media covered the campaign. First off, it is worth noting this little nugget about the study's methodology, buried at the end of the PEJ report: "Talk radio stories ... were not included in this campaign study of tone." PEJ offers no justification for the exclusion of talk radio. Not a word. In what surely must be a coincidence, talk radio skews further to the right than any other medium. Now, here's PEJ's description of how it assesses whether a news report is "positive" or "negative": To examine tone, the Project takes a particularly cautious and conservative approach. Unlike some researchers, we examine not just whether assertions in stories are positive or negative, but also whether they are inherently neutral. This, we believe, provides a much clearer and fairer sense of the tone of coverage than ignoring those balanced or mixed evaluations. Second, we do not simply tally up all the evaluative assertions in stories and compile them into a single pile to measure. Journalists and audiences think about press coverage in stories or segments. They ask themselves, is this story positive or negative or neutral? Hence the Project measures coverage by story, and for a story to be deemed as having a negative or positive tone, it must be clearly so, not a close call: for example, the negative assertions in a story must outweigh positive assertions by a margin of at least 1.5 to 1 for that story to be deemed negative. OK ... anyone want to guess what that means in practical terms? Unfortunately, the few actual examples of "positive" and "negative" coverage PEJ offers do little to clarify its methodology, and less to inspire confidence. For example, PEJ notes: Some of that positive coverage was related to evidence that the financial crisis was aiding Obama. "Recent economic woes have given Democrat Barack Obama a clear lead over Republican John McCain," declared a story posted on AOL News on Sept. 24, citing a 9-point lead for Obama in a new Washington Post/ABC News poll. That's what counts as "positive" coverage of Obama? A fairly straightforward report that a poll finds Obama in a "clear lead" over McCain? And, it seems, much of Obama's "positive" coverage consisted of reports like that: The data clearly point in this direction for some of the explanation. Of those stories that focused mostly on polls, a clear majority (57%) were positive for Obama, while less than a quarter (23%) were negative. Similarly, stories about the electoral map, swing states and campaign strategy were even more favorable (77% positive vs. 6% negative). These represent the most positive element of Obama's coverage. So, if a candidate is winning, and the polls show that, and the media report that the polls show the candidate winning, that counts as "positive" coverage. Well, OK, it's true that such a story is "positive," but it tells us nearly nothing about the media. Examples of "negative" coverage of McCain similarly fail to illuminate. Here's the first: On Sept. 24, he announced he was suspending campaigning to return to Washington to work on a rescue bill and advocated delaying the first debate, scheduled two days away in Oxford Mississippi. ... [S]ome of the coverage depicted McCain's decision-making in an unflattering light, such as a Sept. 26 CNN.com piece stating that "some fellow lawmakers said McCain hadn't contributed much to the financial debate, and senior campaign advisors told CNN they believed it was politically crucial that McCain show up in Oxford, Mississippi." Actually, that's the only example of negative coverage of McCain. As Bob Somerby noted, "According to Pew, McCain has been hit with a bunch of 'negative stories' in the six weeks under review ... But what do these 'negative stories' look like? In the age of the simple electronic link, it's incredible that Pew provides no examples." To PEJ's credit, it says only that coverage of the candidates is "positive" or "negative," not "favorable" or "unfavorable" or that coverage is "biased" in favor of a given candidate. As a literal matter, describing news reports such as the CNN.com example as "negative" is defensible, though it doesn't really tell us much. But many people interpret those descriptions as evidence of "bias" -- as PEJ must know they will do. Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, for example: Critics, including many conservatives, say the media have been too easy on Obama, and bias cannot be discounted as a factor. A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that from the end of the conventions through the debates, McCain's coverage was more than three times as negative than Obama's. Such interpretations are simply not defensible. PEJ's explanation of its methodology suggests that a purely factual news report about McCain trailing in the polls constitutes a "negative" report -- as would a report debunking a McCain lie. Again, such a report could defensibly be described as "negative" for McCain, but interpreting that as evidence of media bias is absurd. Debunking a lie isn't "bias," it's what journalists should be doing every day. PEJ made no effort to assess things that actually could give some indication of whether media coverage has been unfair - whether news reports were more likely to uncritically report false claims from one candidate, or whether similar controversies surrounding each candidate received disparate coverage, for example. (Media Matters has documented several such examples of double standards that have benefited McCain.) PEJ did offer this intriguing statement: Much of the increased attention for McCain derived from actions by the senator himself, actions that, in the end, generated mostly negative assessments. In many ways, the arc of the media narrative during this phase of the 2008 general election might be best described as a drama in which John McCain has acted and Barack Obama has reacted. That seems to support my observation that the media have covered precisely what McCain wants them to cover: The truth is that when John McCain says "jump," the media still ask, "How high?" Think about this: When was the last time McCain or his campaign has wanted the news media to focus on something, and they have refused? From "lipstick on a pig" to Bill Ayers, the media have scampered after whatever mud McCain has flung, like a puppy dog chasing a stick thrown by its master. Sure, sometimes they have pointed out that McCain is lying -- and that's tremendous progress for a profession that has spent a decade flatly asserting McCain's honesty. But -- as I've explained in the past -- even as they've debunked McCain's claims, they've too often privileged the lie by allowing those claims to drive their coverage. Unfortunately, PEJ did not explain its assertion that "the media narrative ... might be best described as a drama in which John McCain has acted and Barack Obama has reacted." Examining that idea more fully could have actually told us something useful about whether the media have favored one candidate or the other, in effect, if not intentionally. PEJ's analysis may have only limited academic value. But there's nothing academic about the need to rebut its flawed conclusions. If the media themselves perceive that Barack Obama benefited from favorable media coverage -- as is suggested by their uncritical citation of the PEJ study -- that perception could have ominous implications for the coverage he will receive if he becomes president. As a 1993 Christian Science Monitor op-ed by a University of California-Irvine professor noted: [H]ow the media treat a new president may have less to do with personality, personnel, perks, or pessimism than it does with how the media treated that president as a candidate. Treatment of a new president may be inversely related to their coverage of the president as a candidate for office. The easier the media's treatment of a presidential candidate during the campaign, the harsher will be their treatment once the candidate has become president. Conversely, harsher treatment of a presidential candidate during the campaign may precipitate a much longer media honeymoon for a new president.

Fox News reportedly "now expresses regret for booking" Andy Martin -- but what about Hannity?

In an October 27 article, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz reported that Fox News Channel "now expresses regret for booking [Andy] Martin" -- who, as Media Matters for America has noted, has, among other things, referred to a judge as a "crooked, slimy Jew" and accused African-Americans of being "willing to corrupt and abuse their public offices" -- on the October 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity's America. As Media Matters documented, Sean Hannity hosted Martin -- identified by Hannity as an "Internet journalist" -- to make what Hannity called "the explosive claim that [Sen. Barack] Obama's role as a community organizer was a political staging ground perpetuated by the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers." Kurtz wrote: "[Fox News Senior Vice President Bill] Shine says Hannity disagrees with some of Martin's past comments. 'Having that guy on was a mistake,' Shine says. 'We obviously didn't do enough research on who the guest was.' " But according to searches of the Nexis and Factiva databases, Hannity himself has not expressed regret or acknowledged having made a mistake regarding Martin on either Hannity's America or Hannity & Colmes, both Fox News shows. Indeed, when confronted by Robert Gibbs, an adviser to Obama's campaign, on October 7, Hannity defended Martin's appearance on Hannity's America, even though he acknowledged to Gibbs that Martin's comments about Jews are "despicable." Moreover, as Media Matters noted, at no point during the report featuring Martin did Hannity question any of Martin's assertions or note Martin's history of smears against Obama and his anti-Semitic and racially charged comments. On the October 7 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Gibbs said to Hannity: "On your show on Sunday ... the show that's named after you ... [t]he centerpiece of that show was a guy named Andy Martin." Gibbs added that "Andy Martin called a judge a 'crooked, slimy Jew' " and that "Martin went on to write that he understood better why the Holocaust took place." During the exchange, Hannity said: "When I interviewed Malik Shabazz, when I interviewed Al Sharpton, when I interviewed all these controversial figures -- you see, on Fox, we actually interview people of all points of view, whether we agree or disagree." Gibbs later asked, "Why am I not to believe that you're anti-Semitic? Why am I not to believe that everybody who works for the network is anti-Semitic because Sean Hannity gives a platform to somebody who thinks Jews are 'slimy'?" Hannity, who told Gibbs that Martin's anti-Semitic comments are "despicable," further asserted: "Mr. Gibbs, I'm a journalist who interviews people who I disagree with all the time, that give their opinion. Fox has all points of view. We're allowing you on the program, and I don't agree with hardly anything Obama says." (As Media Matters noted, Hannity has previously said he is not a journalist.) From Kurtz's October 27 article: An early October edition of his weekend show, "Hannity's America," was built around Andy Martin, a conservative writer who maintains an anti-Obama Web site. Martin said on the show that Obama's community-organizing work in Chicago was "training for a radical overthrow of the government." The onetime political candidate has a history of making controversial statements. In a 1983 personal bankruptcy case, according to the Chicago Tribune, he referred to a judge as a "crooked, slimy Jew" and described Holocaust survivors in a filing as "operating as a wolf pack." Martin has denied holding anti-Semitic views. The program drew a blast from [MSNBC's Countdown host, Keith] Olbermann, who called it "Stalinist," "desperate," "panicky" and based on "a transparent nut job." Fox, which initially defended the show, now expresses regret for booking Martin, who was interviewed by a producer. Shine says Hannity disagrees with some of Martin's past comments. "Having that guy on was a mistake," Shine says. "We obviously didn't do enough research on who the guest was."

Boehlert: Drudge unplugged: How his campaign influence has collapsed

I'm not saying that given the choice I wouldn't pick a robust economy and a worry-free global outlook. But circumstances being what they are, I have to say that as the White House campaign hits its final stride under the ominous shadow of the Wall Street meltdown and the deep recession that's hurtling this way, perhaps the only silver lining -- the one unexpected pleasure -- has been watching the Drudge Report be completely neutered by current events. Matt Drudge is still doing his loyal best to boost the chances of the GOP down the homestretch in the form of a blizzard of anti-Obama and pro-McCain links on his site. (Last week, it was the half-baked McCain "comeback" that Drudge hyped relentlessly.) And there's no question that Drudge's Web traffic remains strong and continues to grow, thanks to a burgeoning international audience. But in terms of setting the ground rules -- in terms of setting the campaign agenda -- Drudge has been AWOL since mid-September when the credit crisis erupted. His current spectator status mirrors that of the low-flying right-wing bloggers. Just as the bloggers were hailed for their (pseudo) detective work in undermining CBS' Dan Rather in 2004, Drudge was credited for the way he used his widely read platform to push the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth story into the mainstream press, which helped derail John Kerry's campaign. Four years ago, Drudge and the right-wing bloggers were at the peak of their political power. Today, they're pretty much watching the election pass them by, reduced to the role of frustrated sideline hecklers. But that's sure not the narrative the press enjoys pushing about Drudge. In The Way to Win, the 2006 conventional wisdom-affirming book about campaigning, Mark Halperin and John Harris were wildly impressed by Drudge's acumen and his nearly limitless media power. The authors devoted an entire chapter to Drudge, toasting his "visionary" "insights" and anointing him "the Walter Cronkite of his era." "Matt Drudge rules our world," they wrote. "With the exception of the Associated Press, there is no outlet other than the Drudge Report whose dispatches instantly can command the attention and energies of the most established newspapers and television newscasts." And looking ahead to 2008, the duo warned, "No Democratic politician will survive in the 2008 presidential campaign without understanding the singular power of Drudge, and crafting a strategy to defend against this power." (That wasn't the only thing Halperin and Harris got wrong about 2008.*) That adoration has remained constant among mainstream journalists, who praise Drudge's godlike power and prestige, and then benefit from the high-traffic links he rewards them with. "What nobody who follows the daily cut and thrust of American politics questions is Drudge's continuing power to drive the stories and shape the narratives that define presidential politics," Politico announced this year. [Emphasis added.] Not to be out-Drudged, washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza recently labeled him the "single most influential source for how the presidential campaign is covered in the country." Well, I'm here to call bullshit. And no, this isn't just a wishful, I-don't-like-Drudge-so-I'm-going-to-claim-he's-irrelevant column. This is fact. Because it's obvious that since Wall Street's meltdown commenced five weeks ago, and since America's economic crisis became a tsunami of a news story that's not only dominated the media landscape, but also irrevocably altered the course of the campaign, the Drudge Report has become largely irrelevant in terms of the setting the news agenda for the White House run. That's because a story like the unfolding credit crisis -- sober and complicated -- knocks Drudge completely out of his element of frivolous, partisan gotcha links. Think about it. Since Monday, September 15, when word of emergency government intervention to save the economy began to spread, the presidential race, according to all the available data, has gone through a dramatic fourth-quarter shift, with Barack Obama opening up a comfortable lead. We haven't seen this kind of wholesale shift in voter sentiment this late in a White House campaign since 1980. The race is unrecognizable in terms of where the players are situated now and where they were five weeks ago. (Between September 15 and October 19, there was a 12-point swing in the Gallup daily tracking poll.) Now ask yourself: What role has the Drudge Report played in that burst of campaign movement? The answer, of course, is zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. His trademark flashing red lights have gone missing. The dynamics of the campaign have irrevocably changed, and the mighty Drudge Report, the news site Beltway journalists trip over themselves to genuflect in front of, has been a complete bystander in the closing weeks of the 2008 campaign. (Not that this is the first time Drudge has choked down the stretch of a nationwide election.) The reason is simple. Because of the unprecedented economic turmoil, we're now in serious times. (Fifty thousand home foreclosures this year, in the state of New Jersey alone, is serious business.) And the Drudge Report doesn't do serious. The American public's attention has shifted from the campaign to the economy, and that's why the Drudge Report remains largely irrelevant to that unfolding story. In fact, nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) claimed economic conditions or the stock market drop were the news story they followed most closely during the second week in October, compared with just 24 percent who selected the campaign. Meanwhile, the credit crisis has unleashed waves of voter anxiety. As long as those patterns hold, Drudge finds himself in no-man's-land with no levers of power to pull. For instance, Drudge spent last week going all-in on the McCain "comeback" narrative. But rather than aping the line, most of the press corps demurred, simply because the nationwide polling data did not support the claim. In fact, as Howard Kurtz noted on washingtonpost.com on Monday, the press has pivoted in the opposite direction, with even conservative media commentators declaring the cause lost for John McCain. One of the few times Drudge has come up in the national conversation was when conservative commentator Pat Buchanan almost got laughed off the set of Hardball after citing Drudge's unscientific reader poll to suggest Sarah Palin had been the clear winner of the vice-presidential debate. (See Crooks and Liars for the clip.) And yes, it's true that post-Wall Street meltdown, Drudge did influence the campaign narrative when, on the eve of the vice-presidential debate, he trumpeted information about moderator Gwen Ifill's upcoming book. But that was ostensibly a get-the-media story; it didn't affect the Obama campaign or help to boost the Republican ticket. Most viewers still thought Palin lost the debate. Other than that, Drudge has mostly been shooting blanks and remains unrecognizable from the 2004 campaign, when his site was central in pushing President Bush's re-election. Why the misfires? As Halperin himself noted in 2006, "Matt Drudge is not doing stories on policy, on welfare, on healthcare. He's doing stories on the most salacious aspects of American politics. When that drives the dialogue, that's where the country heads, that's where our political coverage heads." Thanks to our current economic crisis, "the most salacious aspects of American politics," as Halperin put it, have taken a vacation during the closing weeks of this campaign. And the press can't even pretend that those "salacious aspects" are remotely newsworthy, which means the second part of Halperin's claim, about Drudge driving the dialogue, no longer applies. Halperin's writing partner John Harris admitted as much recently while addressing students at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. In an article on Harris' speech, the local paper reported: "The Republican Party's 'Machiavellian' style of attack politics hasn't struck a chord in this election, Mr. Harris said, leaving John McCain to shift strategies nearly weekly." Note that that Machiavellian style of attack politics is pretty much code for the Drudge Report, which has been unplugged down the stretch. Not that Drudge hasn't tried to lay gotcha (Machiavellian) traps on behalf of Republicans: VIDEO: Liberal Outrage: A Pro-McCain March In Manhattan... CBS REPORTER SHOCK CLAIM: OBAMA AIRPLANE SMELLS BAD; CAMPAIGN TREATS PRESS POORLY... RAGE: Burning McCain campaign sign lands men in hot water... JESSE JACKSON PREDICTS CHANGE IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY WITH OBAMA... Joe Biden looks... different... PAPER: Obama's NH event scraps National Anthem... MCCAIN: OBAMA POLICIES SOCIALIST PROBE: OBAMA SUPPORTER STOLE MENTALLY-CHALLENGED MAN'S VOTE? POWELL FOR OBAMA: IT'S NOT ABOUT RACE Not one of those Drudge headlines, all posted within the past week, led anywhere in terms of blossoming into larger, damaging stories for Democrats, let alone full-blown controversies. (The ACORN voter registration story, which Drudge has peddled incessantly, has also failed to take hold in the mainstream as a true campaign scandal.) Yet the sad truth is that in previous campaigns, all those items stood a very real chance of being embraced by the Beltway press and becoming big stories. As Glenn Greenwald wrote last year: The last two presidential elections were overwhelmed by the pettiest and most fictitious "controversies" (things like Al Gore's invention of the Internet and Love Story claims, John Kerry's windsurfing and war wounds, John Edwards' hair brushing and Howard Dean's scream), and our discussions of the most critical issues are continuously clouded by distortive sideshows concocted by this filth-peddling network. Their endless lynch mob crusades supplant rational and substantive political debates, and the most wild fictions are passively conveyed by a lazy and co-opted national media. Still, despite Drudge's power outage this year, you won't see Harris or Halperin or any of the other Beltway players who lust after his attention ever mention that the Drudge Report's cache has been dented. That kind of talk is not allowed. Only constant adoration will do. In fact, just this month, Halperin still counted Drudge among "the five most important people in American politics right now -- who aren't running for president." And while liveblogging the final presidential debate last week, Jonathan Martin at Politico, which is part of Drudge's permanent cheering section, claimed that Joe the Plumber had been inserted into the national debate about taxes because McCain picked up his story from the Drudge Report. " 'Joe the plumber' can thank "Matt theInternetist" for his instant fame," wrote Martin, who noted that "McCain first used this anecdote in his economic speech" on Monday. The problem with that gratuitous hat tip to Drudge was that the Drudge Report didn't highlight Joe the Plumber until Wednesday, two days after McCain started talking about him. So, no, the Everyman does not owe his instant fame to Drudge. But the Drudge fans at Politico ("he has an uncanny ability to drive the national conversation with what he chooses to highlight on his site") sure wanted to push that pleasing line. And today, either Beltway insiders can't see that the media landscape has changed dramatically in recent weeks, or they're too afraid to acknowledge that their online emperor is missing some clothes. *Footnote: I had to chuckle as I paged through The Way to Win for the first time since it was published in 2006. The book is about the blueprint for taking the White House and which politicians were positioning themselves for victory in 2008. I laughed because there was one name that did not appear anywhere in the book about the upcoming campaign, one name Halperin and Harris left out of the index: "Obama, Barack."

In reporting on Letterman appearance, media fail to note other aspects of Liddy's controversial past

Reporting on Sen. John McCain's October 16 appearance on CBS' The Late Show with David Letterman, NPR's Scott Horsley said on the October 17 edition of Morning Edition that "Letterman quizzed McCain about the economy, Sarah Palin, and another famous plumber, G. Gordon Liddy." Horsley continued: "The Watergate break-in figure once hosted a fundraiser for McCain, who told Letterman Liddy has paid his debt to society." But Horsley did not note other controversial actions by Liddy, which McCain did not mention, let alone denounce, on Letterman's show, including multiple instances of reportedly advising his radio show audience on the best way to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents -- statements that were reportedly made long after Liddy left prison. Several other media outlets, including The New York Times' The Caucus blog, The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press, reported McCain's response to Letterman that Liddy "paid his debt, he went to prison." Additionally, the Los Angeles Times reported that Letterman "not[ed] McCain's relationship with Watergate operative G. Gordon Liddy," and USA Today reported McCain said Liddy "served his time." None mentioned other actions by Liddy. Media Matters for America has previously noted McCain's ties to Liddy. Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to kill journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to kill Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) As Media Matters further noted, during the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents. According to an April 26, 1995, CBS News transcript (retrieved from Nexis), Liddy said on his August 26, 1994, radio show: LIDDY: Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. Reporting on Liddy's October 19, 1994, radio show, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz recounted in an October 24, 1994, article: Ursula from Millerton, Pa., tells Liddy she's afraid the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is coming after her gun-owning friend. Liddy calls the bureau "bottom-dwelling slugs ... a pack of nitwits out to make war on those Americans who take seriously the Second Amendment." Liddy allows that calls to "hunt down and kill" such agents is "going too far." But, he says, "shooting back is reasonable... . I have counseled shooting them in the head." According to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, on September 15, 1994, Liddy stated: If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head. According to FAIR, Liddy said to a caller later in the show: When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms thugs come to kill your wife and children, to try to disarm you and they open fire on you. When they come at the point of a gun, force and violence, when you're going to defend yourself, use that Gerand [sic] [M-1 rifle]. That thing is 30-06, and it'll take 'em right out. According to an April 25, 1995, Associated Press article: Talk show host G. Gordon Liddy said Tuesday he gave listeners bad advice when he told them to shoot for the head if attacked by federal agents. Instead, he said, go twice for the body and then the groin. [...] Last August, Liddy counseled "head shots" to respond to an encounter with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, because, "They've got a vest underneath." On Tuesday, he told a news conference held as part of his WJFK program that people should cooperate if authorities come to their homes with search warrants. But they should shoot back if agents shoot their way in, he said. He said experts have told him shooting for the head was a bad idea because heads are hard to hit. "So you shoot twice to the body, center of mass, and if that does not work, then shoot to the groin area," he said. "They cannot move their hips fast enough and you'll probably get a femoral artery and you'll knock them down at any rate." Asked about his ATF comments by right-wing blogger John Hawkins in December 2003, Liddy said they had been misinterpreted: LIDDY: [A]s usual, people remember part of what I said, but not all of what I said. What I did was restate the law. I was talking about a situation in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes smashing into a house, doesn't say who they are, and their guns are out, they're shooting, and they're in the wrong place. This has happened time and time again. The ATF has gone in and gotten the wrong guy in the wrong place. The law is that if somebody is shooting at you, using deadly force, the mere fact that they are a law enforcement officer, if they are in the wrong, does not mean you are obliged to allow yourself to be killed so your kinfolk can have a wrongful death action. You are legally entitled to defend yourself and I was speaking of exactly those kind of situations. If you're going to do that, you should know that they're wearing body armor so you should use a head shot. Now all I'm doing is stating the law, but all the nuances in there got left out when the story got repeated. In addition, according to the April 25, 1995, edition of NPR's All Things Considered (retrieved from Nexis), during a press conference, Liddy admitted that he named shooting targets after then-President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton. From the press conference, as aired by NPR: LIDDY: I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we -- I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn't. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House. From the October 17 edition of NPR's Morning Edition: HORSLEY: From Pennsylvania, McCain dashed back to New York City aboard a helicopter to avoid missing a scheduled appearance on the David Letterman show. Letterman's been teasing McCain nonstop for the last three weeks, ever since the candidate abruptly cancelled on the talk show host, when he temporarily suspended his campaign. The jokes continued last night, even after McCain arrived on stage. [begin video clip] LETTERMAN: Can you stay? McCAIN: Yes, sir. It depends on how bad it gets. [end video clip] HORSLEY: Letterman quizzed McCain about the economy, Sarah Palin, and another famous plumber, G. Gordon Liddy. The Watergate break-in figure once hosted a fundraiser for McCain, who told Letterman Liddy has paid his debt to society. As for [Sam Joe] Wurzelbacher ["Joe the Plumber"], McCain said during the Late Show taping, "Joe, if you're watching, I'm sorry -- about all the unexpected attention." Scott Horsley, NPR News, New York. From the October 17 Los Angeles Times article: Letterman spent most of the 20-minute conversation pressing McCain about his choice of a running mate, the tone of his campaign and his attacks on Democratic rival Barack Obama. He questioned efforts to link Obama to former Weather Underground leader William Ayers, noting McCain's relationship with Watergate operative G. Gordon Liddy. From The New York Times' The Caucus blog: Then Mr. Letterman raised Mr. McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy. "I've met him," Mr. McCain said. After a segment break, he followed up: "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison, he paid his debt." From The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog: Mr. Letterman also raised Sen. McCain's relationship with one-time Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy. "I've met him," Sen. McCain said. After a segment break, he followed up: "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison, he paid his debt." Democrats immediately circulated information documenting the relationship between the two men, including a Liddy-hosted McCain fund-raiser in 1998. Sen. McCain was also asked about his running mate and whether she was his first choice for the job. Sen. McCain said "absolutely" she was. But he confessed, "I didn't know her well at all. I knew her reputation." From the October 17 Associated Press article: "Did you not have a relationship with Gordon Liddy?" Letterman asked about Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy. McCain said he knew him. Then, after a commercial break, McCain said, "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison ... I'm not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy." "You understand the same case could be made of your relationship with him as is being made with William Ayers?" Letterman said. McCain said he has been completely open about his relationship with Liddy. From the October 17 Washington Post article: After discussing Barack Obama's relationship with former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Letterman brought up McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy, convicted in the Watergate scandal. "I met him, you know, I mean," McCain said. "Didn't you attend a fundraiser at his house?" "Gordon Liddy's?" McCain asked. They cut to commercial. Coming back, McCain said, "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison, he paid his debt. ... I'm not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy." From the October 17 USA Today article: He brought up McCain's attempt to link rival Barack Obama with '60s radical Bill Ayers and asked McCain about his attendance at fundraisers for Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy. ("He served his time," McCain said, visibly startled by the question.) And when asked about Palin's assertion that Obama "palled around" with terrorists, McCain replied: "There are millions of words said in a campaign. Come on!"

Armstrong Williams -- who received and didn't disclose Bush administration money to promote NCLB -- criticized Ifill for book deal

On the October 1 edition of Fox News' America's Election HQ, conservative radio host Armstrong Williams criticized vice-presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill over her upcoming book about African-American political leaders, saying she "should have disclosed" it, and that it is "ultimately impossible" for her not to favor Sen. Barack Obama, because she has a "financial stake" in his winning the presidency. However, Ifill's book was publicized before she was chosen to moderate. Moreover, Williams' judgment on the issue of potential conflicts of interest was called into serious question when, beginning in 2003, Williams received $240,000 in Department of Education funds to promote the No Child Left Behind Act, including through his media commentary -- a fact he didn't disclose while he was doing it. The Government Accountability Office later found that the Department of Education's actions constituted "covert propaganda" in violation of the law. During the broadcast, when co-host David Asman asked Williams whether Ifill, a PBS senior correspondent and managing editor of Washington Week, can "be fair and balanced at the forum," Williams replied: WILLIAMS: Listen, all of us respect Gwen Ifill for what she does. But look, when you have a financial stake in a project that could be a great financial windfall for you, how can you not help but root for the person that you're writing about? I just think it's ultimately impossible for her not to have a bias and wanting Senator Barack Obama and Joe Biden to win this presidency. I think for at least -- being the professional that she is, she should have disclosed this before anyone else found it out, to let people know that she has written this book, but it in no way is going to affect her effectiveness in being fair and evenhanded in the debate with vice presidential candidate Palin and Biden. The fact that she did not do that brings her credibility in doing this furthermore into question. In January 2005, USA Today reported that Williams received $240,000 from the Department of Education in December 2003 -- through public relations firm Ketchum -- to promote No Child Left Behind "on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same." The article further reported, "The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams 'to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts,' and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004." An Associated Press article published the following day quoted Williams saying, "Even though I'm not a journalist -- I'm a commentator -- I feel I should be held to the media ethics standard. My judgment was not the best. I wouldn't do it again, and I learned from it." A GAO report concluded in September 2005 that Williams' contract with the Department of Education was unlawful, because it was done "without assuring that the Department's role was disclosed to the targeted audiences. This violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition for fiscal year 2004 because it amounted to covert propaganda." According to the report, the GAO found no evidence that the Education Department directed Williams to disclose the contract. As Media Matters for America has previously documented, Williams has made several conflicting statements about whether he publicly disclosed his contract with the department, variously claiming that he did not recall if he disclosed; that he "made it very clear that we were being paid as advertisers"; that he "consistently" disclosed; and that he "periodically" disclosed. Citing this evidence, the GAO stated that Williams "publicly acknowledged that he did not regularly, if at all, disclose to his audiences or the colleagues he was to influence that he had been hired at the Department's request to promote the NCLB Act." Moreover, the Federal Communications Commission's enforcement bureau, in its July 2007 citation of Williams and his company, the Graham Williams Group (GWG), for violating part of the Communications Act, stated that "[i]n response to our inquiry, GWG has provided documentary evidence, including recorded program material, that details numerous instances where GWG's principal, nationally syndicated broadcast commentator Williams, apparently promoted NCLB during various programs in which he appeared without identifying such comments as being sponsored." The bureau concluded that, because "Williams and GWG received more than nominal consideration from [the Department of Education] to include particular material in programming supplied to and intended for transmission by broadcast stations and that the material was, in fact, aired by various broadcast stations," section 507 of the Communications Act required that Williams "disclose to the [broadcast station] licensees receiving the programming that the NCLB-related broadcast material was sponsored by [the Department of Education]," and that "[t]he record ... establishes that such disclosure was not provided by either Williams or GWG." Later in the October 1 broadcast, Williams said again that Ifill "should have at least disclosed it before someone found this out. The McCain camp just acknowledged they did not know that this book had been written." As Media Matters has noted, the book is available for preview on Amazon.com, and the AP reported that Ifill was the book's author weeks before her selection as moderator. Additionally, a September 4 Washington Post profile of Ifill by media critic Howard Kurtz mentioned that she was working on the book, and Ifill herself wrote about the book in a Time magazine article published August 21, the same day she was announced as moderator. From the October 1 broadcast of Fox News' America's Election HQ: ASMAN: Can Ifill be fair and balanced at the forum? Our fair and balanced panel weighs in: conservative radio talk show host Armstrong Williams and Mark Lamont Hill, Fox News contributor and professor of American studies at Temple University. Good to see you both. Armstrong, first to you: You know what really got me was when I saw Gwen Ifill covering the convention -- the Republican convention? When she was covering the speech by Sarah Palin, she really didn't seem that interested. She actually had a little distain in her voice when she was dealing with -- did you see the same thing, or was it just me? WILLIAMS: No, no, I actually saw that. Listen, all of us respect Gwen Ifill for what she does. But look, when you have a financial stake in a project that could be a great financial windfall for you, how can you not help but root for the person that you're writing about? I just think it's ultimately impossible for her not to have a bias and wanting Senator Barack Obama and Joe Biden to win this presidency. I think for at least -- being the professional that she is, she should have disclosed this before anyone else found it out, to let people know that she has written this book, but it in no way is going to affect her effectiveness in being fair and evenhanded in the debate with vice presidential candidate Palin and Biden. The fact that she did not do that brings her credibility in doing this furthermore into question. MARTHA MacCALLUM (co-host): Mark Lamont Hill, you know, it's hard to imagine -- you know, I always try to put the shoe on the other foot. If there were a moderator, the sole moderator, doing the vice presidential debate and that person had written -- just, you know, finished a book about Sarah Palin and how great it is of a breakthrough for women, would you be OK with that person questioning Joe Biden in this case? HILL: Well, first, you know, Ifill didn't write a book on how great the breakthrough was, she simply wrote a book about the impact of the breakthrough. We haven't read the book, and so we can't say this is some sort of hagiographic, you know, description of Obama. But that said, if someone is a journalist, I respect their ability to be objective. We wear many hats in this world. There are many people who are sort of conservative talk show hosts. I don't doubt, for example, that Armstrong Williams could objectively moderate the debate, even though he's a conservative, because I respect him and I respect the possibility of his objectivity. You know, and so, I think -- same thing with Dave, and you, Martha. Regardless of what your politics are, I don't doubt that you all could on the one hand be sort of ideological in certain spaces and then be objective in others. So, I don't -- let's give her the benefit of the doubt, here. WILLIAMS: But, I gotta say this. In all due respect, if I'm writing a book about McCain and Palin, and the book is scheduled to come out right after the election, just before the inauguration, how can I be objective? I'm conflicted, and when you're conflicted, that brings about a dilemma, and that dilemma is not going to weigh on the side of the person that you want to win versus the person that you want to win. My point is that -- HILL: But here's the -- WILLIAMS: -- I think you will agree is that she should have at least disclosed it before someone found this out. The McCain camp just acknowledged they did not know that this book had been written. The debate committee, when they were voting, she had to be voted on by Republicans and Democrats. ASMAN: All right, Mark, last word. HILL: I'm sorry. There's -- there's two things wrong with that. The first thing is, she didn't hide it. The book is on Amazon.com. Millions of people go to Amazon.com every day. If you Google her name, it comes up immediately, so there's no hiding here. And secondly, to say that she's conflicted because of her investment in this, there are many people who are journalists who want McCain to win very badly, and does that affect the way they do it? George Stephanopoulos -- WILLIAMS: They're not writing books. HILL: No, no, no, but it doesn't matter. If you want McCain -- WILLIAMS: It does matter. HILL: -- if you hate -- no, no, let me finish my point. If you want Barack Obama to win desperately, might that affect the way you moderate? If you want McCain to win, might that affect the way you moderate? Perhaps, it does -- WILLIAMS: We're talking about a financial stake here. HILL: But let me finish, but that's not exhausted at the level of a book, it's also -- it also can happen just because you want someone else to be president.

Fox News' Kelly falsely suggested Ifill's book about Obama was made "public" only after she was announced as debate moderator

On the October 1 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, host Megyn Kelly falsely suggested it was publicly revealed that PBS senior correspondent Gwen Ifill is the author of the forthcoming book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (Doubleday), only after it was announced she would moderate the October 2 vice presidential debate. Kelly said: "Critics are asking how Ifill can pen such a glowing review of Senator [Barack] Obama and still be fair during this debate. Ifill has gone public recently talking about the book and how the path to influence has changed for African-Americans." In fact, media outlets, including the Associated Press, reported that Ifill was the book's author well before the August 21 announcement that she would moderate the debate. Additionally, following an October 1 post on her blog, in which she asserted that "full disclosure to both [candidates] was necessary," Fox News host Greta Van Susteren wrote in a second post that day: I confirmed for us here on GretaWire: the McCain campaign did NOT know about Gwen Ifill's book (I think I told them when I made my efforts -- emails about midnight -- to find out!) I am stunned ... the campaign (actually both) should have been told before the campaign agreed to have her moderate. It simply is not fair -- in law, this would create a mistrial [emphasis in original]. However, in addition to ignoring the AP report citing Ifill's book, published on July 21, Van Susteren did not note in either blog post that a September 4 Washington Post profile of Ifill also mentioned that she was working on The Breakthrough. In an October 1 post on his Politico blog, Michael Calderone wrote of the Post article: "Ifill discussed it [the book] with Howard Kurtz last month in the Washington Post, in the only profile she's done before the debate. (And I'd imagine someone in the campaign should have read it)." Ifill's role as moderator of the October 2 vice presidential debate was announced in an August 21 joint statement from the Obama and McCain campaigns, which is posted on the McCain-Palin website: The two campaigns agreed today on a framework for four General Election debates, to be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Key elements of the agreement are: [...] 2. Vice Presidential Debate - Date: October 2nd - Site: Washington University (St. Louis) - Moderator: Gwen Ifill - Staging/Answer Format: To be resolved after both parties' Vice Presidential nominees are selected. Prior to the joint announcement of the debate schedule and format, the July 21 AP article -- which is also posted on FoxNews.com -- identified Ifill as "author of 'The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,' slated for publication early next year." Additionally, in a May 8 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer -- portions of which were also quoted in a May 13 article in The Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts -- Ifill discussed the book*: Q: What do you do when you're not reporting or moderating? A: Well, I am working on this book now, which is frankly taking almost all of my waking hours when I'm not at work. The book is about an emerging generation of black politicians - in fact, when I'm in town, I'll probably talk to your mayor - including focusing on Barack Obama and [Massachusetts Gov.] Deval Patrick and [Newark, N.J., Mayor] Corey Booker - and trying to talk about what we see happening here, and I think there is something fundamental shifting here, which is shifting before our eyes, that goes beyond Barack Obama. It's my first book, so it's terrifying. But when I'm not working all the time, I'm playing with my godchildren and going to movies and doing things normal people do. Below is a Doubleday description of Ifill's book: In THE BREAKTHROUGH, veteran journalist Gwen Ifill surveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on the impact of Barack Obama's stunning presidential campaign and introducing the emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power. Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and also covers up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on interviews with power brokers like Senator Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict and the "black enough" conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history. THE BREAKTHROUGH is a remarkable look at contemporary politics and an essential foundation for understanding the future of American democracy. From the October 1 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom: KELLY: Also, this developing story from the campaign trail this morning: The moderator for tomorrow night's vice presidential debate is now under fire for a book she has written that's set to hit bookstores on January 20, which just happens to be Inauguration Day. PBS' Gwen Ifill, writing a book called, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. It focuses on Obama and other emerging African-American leaders. Critics are asking how Ifill can pen such a glowing review of Senator Obama and still be fair during this debate. Ifill has gone public recently talking about the book and how the path to influence has changed for African-Americans. IFILL [video clip]: The title of the book is The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. It's taking the story of Barack Obama and extending it to talk about a whole new generation of black politicians who are doing very similar things in very different ways. They're younger, they're more likely to get to power not by marching in marches, the way their parents did, or by leading protests. They have decided to do it by getting educations; basically walking through the doors that their parents opened, then choosing public service in a different way. KELLY: Well, the official promo for the book calls Senator Obama a "power broker," calls his campaign "stunning," and says this is a "pivotal moment in American history." Fox News contributor Juan Williams knows Gwen Ifill well, and he will join us live on this developing story, which is picking up a lot of heat, in our next hour. * Text added to include the original May 8 Inquirer interview.

Despite attacks on media by McCain campaign, case studies show disparate coverage in McCain's favor

The media have for months reported complaints by Sen. John McCain's campaign that they have favored his opponent in their coverage of the presidential race, while making little attempt to assess accuracy of those complaints or to confirm or refute them. Media Matters for America has undertaken a review of the media's coverage of two stories negatively affecting or reflecting on Sen. Barack Obama and two stories negatively affecting or reflecting on McCain and compared the extent of media attention to each. Specifically, Media Matters compared the media's coverage of Obama's association with Chicago developer Antoin Rezko to the media's coverage of McCain's associations with donors for whom McCain reportedly facilitated land deals. Media Matters also compared coverage of Obama's association with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers to coverage of McCain's association with G. Gordon Liddy, whom Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman has described as McCain's "own Bill Ayers." Media Matters found that while the five major newspapers -- the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post -- and the three evening network news broadcasts have frequently mentioned Obama's ties to Ayers and Rezko, they have rarely mentioned McCain's dealings with donors whom he reportedly benefited and have completely ignored McCain's association with Liddy. Indeed, since The New York Times first reported on April 22 that McCain facilitated land deals that benefited major donors, these media outlets have mentioned those deals in only six additional reports, but news reports and editorial and opinion pieces by or in those media outlets have mentioned Obama's ties to Rezko -- who was convicted in June in a case in which Obama was never accused of any wrongdoing -- 44 times during that same time period. Moreover, while these same media outlets have frequently mentioned Obama's ties to Ayers -- 69 mentions so far in 2008 -- they have yet to mention McCain's connections to Liddy, whom McCain has praised and repeatedly associated with in public and in campaign settings. In addition to serving more than four years in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in and the Daniel Ellsberg case, Liddy also admitted that he plotted to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotted to murder fellow Republican operative E. Howard Hunt; and plotted to firebomb the Brookings Institution. Liddy also reportedly gave advice on how to shoot agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and reportedly admitted to naming shooting targets after the Clintons. Media Matters previously conducted a review of coverage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. versus coverage of televangelist James Hagee in The Washington Post and The New York Times and found that, from February 27, the date Hagee endorsed McCain for president, to April 30, the two papers combined published more than 12 times as many articles mentioning Wright and Obama as they did mentioning Hagee and McCain. Media Matters also documented (here, here, here, here, and here) other examples of the disparity between the media's extensive coverage of controversial comments made by Wright and other supporters of Obama and their coverage of controversial comments by Hagee and other supporters of McCain. McCain and land deals vs. Obama and Rezko McCain has reportedly facilitated several land deals that benefited wealthy developers who were major McCain donors. But while several major newspapers published initial articles concerning those deals, the media have devoted far less attention to McCain's land deals than they have paid to Obama's ties to Rezko. According to a Media Matters search of the Nexis and Factiva databases, since The New York Times' initial April 22 article, the land deals have been mentioned in only six additional news articles, editorials, or opinion pieces in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, or The Washington Post, and have yet to be mentioned on any evening network news program. By contrast, during the same time period, 39 news articles, editorials, or opinion pieces in those papers have collectively mentioned Obama and Rezko; and the evening news broadcasts have collectively mentioned Obama and Rezko in five reports. Specifically: The Los Angeles Times has published one news article that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, compared to five news articles mentioning Obama and Rezko. The New York Times has published its original April 22 news article and one editorial that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, compared to seven news articles and one opinion piece mentioning Obama and Rezko. USA Today published one news article that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, compared to two news articles mentioning Obama and Rezko. The Wall Street Journal has yet to publish a news article, editorial, or opinion piece that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, but it has published six news articles and four editorials or opinion pieces mentioning Obama and Rezko. The Washington Post has published three news articles that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, compared to 12 news articles and two editorials or opinion pieces mentioning Obama and Rezko. ABC's World News has yet to air a report that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, but has aired three reports mentioning Obama and Rezko. The CBS Evening News has yet to air a report that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, but has aired one report mentioning Obama and Rezko. NBC's Nightly News has yet to air a report that mentioned McCain-facilitated land deals, but has aired one report mentioning Obama and Rezko. In its April 22 article, headlined "A Developer, His Deals and His Ties to McCain," The New York Times examined McCain's relationship with Arizona developer Donald R. Diamond. The Times reported: In Arizona, Mr. McCain has helped Mr. Diamond with matters as small as forwarding a complaint in a regulatory skirmish over the endangered pygmy owl, and as large as introducing legislation remapping public lands. In 1991 and 1994, Mr. McCain sponsored two laws sought by Mr. Diamond that resulted in providing him millions of dollars and thousands of acres in exchange for adding some of his properties to national parks. The Arizona senator co-sponsored a third similar bill now before the Senate. The article described Diamond as "one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain's current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far." In a May 9 article headlined "McCain Pushed Land Swap That Benefits Backer," The Washington Post reported that McCain "championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers." The Post continued: Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks. When McCain's legislation passed in November 2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Ariz., run by Steven A. Betts, a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never discussed the deal. In the article, the Post also reported that "opponents were baffled by the senator's [McCain] seemingly contradictory positions" on the legislation and quoted Janine Blaeloch, founder and director of the Western Lands Project, asserting, "The bizarre thing to me regarding McCain is, we spent a lot of time with his staff, and we all seemed to be on the same page about the problems with this swap. But somehow, John McCain kept pushing it forward." Additionally, the Post stated: Betts is among a string of donors who have benefited from McCain-engineered land swaps. In 1994, the senator helped a lobbyist for land developer Del Webb Corp. pursue an exchange in the Las Vegas area, according to the Center for Public Integrity. McCain sponsored two bills, in 1991 and 1994, sought by donor Donald R. Diamond that yielded the developer thousands of acres in trade for national parkland. In a May 19 article, USA Today reported on a third McCain-facilitated land deal that benefited his political contributors, writing: McCain, who has made fighting special-interest projects a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, inserted $14.3 million in a 2003 defense bill to buy land around Luke Air Force Base in a provision sought by SunCor Development, the largest of about 50 landowners near the base. SunCor representatives, upset with a state law that restricted development around Luke, met with McCain's staff to lobby for funding, according to John Ogden, SunCor's president at the time. The Air Force later paid SunCor $3 million for 122 acres near the base. It was the highest single land transaction of the private lots purchased by the government -- three times the county's assessed value and twice the military's estimated value. SunCor also donated another 122 acres. Alan Bunnell, a spokesman for SunCor's parent company, Pinnacle West Capital, said the donation was meant to minimize the company's tax bill and enhance the value of adjacent property it owns. USA Today further reported that "McCain's campaigns have received $224,000 since 1998 from donors connected to Pinnacle West, including $104,100 for his current presidential run" and that Pinnacle West's CEO, vice president and lobbyist, and former president, in addition to Betts, SunCor's president, are all McCain fundraisers. McCain and Liddy vs. Obama and Ayers According to a Media Matters search of the Nexis and Factiva databases, between January 1 and September 17, none of the five major newspapers or three evening network news broadcasts mentioned McCain's association with Liddy. By contrast, during the same time period, the five major newspapers, as well as ABC's and NBC's evening news broadcasts, have collectively broadcast or published mentions of Obama's relationship with Ayers in 69 reports, editorials, and opinion pieces. The Tribune's Chapman wrote in his May 4 column, "[B]ack in the 1970s, [Liddy] extolled violence and committed crimes in the name of a radical ideology." Writing that "Liddy's penchant for extreme solutions has not abated," Chapman went on to note that, in 1994, Liddy "gave some advice to his listeners" on how to shoot and ATF officials. Chapman further wrote that "[f]ar from repudiating him [Liddy], McCain has embraced him": What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers -- in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him. How close are McCain and Liddy? At least as close as Obama and Ayers appear to be. In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns -- including $1,000 this year. Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." Incidents in Liddy's past include: Felony convictions. As The Washington Post wrote in its online section about the Watergate break-in scandal, "Liddy was convicted for his role in the Watergate break-in, for conspiracy in the Daniel Ellsberg case and for contempt of court, spending about four and a half years in prison. In 1986, a federal appeals court found Liddy liable for $20,499 in back taxes on Watergate slush-fund money, rejecting his claim that his benefits did not exceed $45,000. As one of the White House 'plumbers,' Liddy spent about $300,000 engineering political dirty tricks and the Watergate break-in." Liddy plotted to murder journalist Jack Anderson. In a 2004 article in the British newspaper The Independent, Liddy was quoted discussing his never-implemented plans to kill Anderson: He [Liddy] is famous in the US as the most fiercely loyal of Richard Nixon's "plumbers", one of the agents sent to illegally burgle, drug and libel the President's internal opponents. "The war in Vietnam was fought on the streets of America too," he says. "It was lost here at home, by people who didn't have the Will to win. We had to get the people who wanted America to lose." Including killing columnists? "If they were traitors as Jack Andersen [sic] was, directly helping the enemy, then yes." In his 1980 autobiography, Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (St. Martin's Press, November 1996), Liddy wrote that he and GOP operative Hunt had become convinced that Anderson had compromised an overseas intelligence source's safety and must be assassinated: I took the position that, in a hypothetical case in which the target had been the direct cause of the identification and execution of one of our agents abroad, halfway measures were not appropriate. How many of our people should we let him kill before we stop him, I asked rhetorically, still not using Anderson's name. I urged as the logical and just solution that the target be killed. Quickly. [...] I submitted that the target should just become a fatal victim of the notorious Washington street-crime rate. No one argued against that recommendation and, at Hunt's suggestion, I gave [then-CIA deputy director of Medical Services] Dr. [Edward] Gunn a hundred-dollar bill, from Committee to Re-Elect the President intelligence funds, as a fee for his services. I took this to be to protect Dr. Gunn's image as "retired." Afterward Hunt and I discussed the recommendation further. It was decided to include the suggestion that the assassination of Jack Anderson be carried out by Cubans already recruited for the intelligence arm of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. [Pages 208-209] According to Liddy, when Hunt worried that his superiors would not trust those operatives to carry out the assassination, Liddy said he would be willing to carry out the plot himself: I thought about the damage Anderson was doing to our country's ability to conduct foreign policy. Most of all, I thought of that U.S. agent abroad, dead or about to die after what I was sure would be interrogation by torture. If Hunt's principal was worried, I had the answer. "Tell him," I said, "if necessary, I'll do it." [Page 210] Hunt confirms the murder plot in his own book, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond (Wiley, February 2007): Liddy and I, feeling that Anderson had done such harm to the country by exposing foreign-based CIA agents who might be imprisoned and/or killed, spent a lot of time concocting ways to get rid of the pesky journalist, even trying to cook up a way to get him to ingest LSD through his skin from his steering wheel so that he would crash his car. A CIA specialist, however, assured me that skin was an inadequate delivery system, so the plan did not move forward. Still, Liddy was primed and ready to go it alone, planning an assassination if [Attorney General John] Mitchell would just give the word. Ultimately, the attorney general aborted the operation and the muckraker in question outlived most of his adversaries, dying in December 2005 at the age of eighty-three from Parkinson's disease. [Page 199] Liddy participated in Ellsberg psychiatrist break-in, prepared to kill someone "if necessary." After military analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, Liddy and Hunt organized a break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in an attempt to obtain files on Ellsberg. Liddy wrote in Will: I can run for miles, and there were numerous deeply shadowed hiding places in the area from which I could pause to warn the men inside with the transceiver. Only if there were no other recourse would I have used the knife, but use it I would, if I'd had to; I had given my men word that I would protect them. For the period of the actual breaking and entering, I posted myself in a narrow space between two buildings concealed by more shrubbery, from which I could see clearly the area of the break-in, all of the private, and much of the public parking lot. [Page 167] [...] I was completely candid with him [Egil (Bud) Krogh] in my report, showing him everything: the suitcase, tools, even the knife I had carried. He asked me, incredulous, "Would you really have used it -- I mean, kill somebody?" "Only if there were absolutely no other way. But yes, I would, if necessary to protect my men. I gave them my word I'd cover them." [Page 169] Liddy also wrote in Will that he and Hunt plotted to drug Ellsberg: According to Hunt, Daniel Ellsberg was scheduled to speak at a fund-raising dinner to be held in Washington, and [Nixon chief counsel] Chuck Colson thought it an opportunity to discredit him. The dinner would be well attended by media opinion-shapers and the speech would get wide coverage. Could ["[o]ur organization"] ODESSA drug Ellsberg enough to befuddle him, make him appear a near burnt-out drug case? Hunt and I studied the matter and developed a plan to infiltrate enough Cuban waiters into the group serving the banquet to be able to ensure that one of our people would serve Ellsberg at the dais. One of the earliest dishes on the menu was soup. A warm liquid is ideal for the rapid absorption and wide dispersal of a drug, and the taste would mask its presence. Hunt was certain that he could provide men from the Miami Cuban community who'd worked at major Florida hotels; the drug, a fast-acting psychedelic such as LSD 25, he said he could get from the CIA together with a recommendation of the dose necessary to have Ellsberg incoherent by the time he was to speak. [Page 170] The drug plan was not carried out because, according to Liddy, "our superiors had waited too long" to approve it and "[t]here was no longer enough lead time." [Page 170] Liddy plotted with "gangland figure" to murder Hunt, a government witness. While in prison, Liddy came to the conclusion that White House officials might want his partner, Hunt, killed rather than risk Hunt cooperating with the Watergate grand jury. Liddy wrote in Will that he made plans to carry out such an assassination order: By now I knew that the fee for a killing in the D.C. jail was two "boxes." I'd be an immediate suspect were Hunt to be killed, so it would have to be a contract sanction and I'd have to arrange an airtight alibi. That would be easy; just have myself put back in deadlock prior to the event. It wouldn't do, however, to go around soliciting Hunt's execution. Prisons are filled with informers. For that reason I sought the advice of a gangland figure I knew and could trust. My friend was sharp and as soon as I began to broach the subject, he nodded his understanding but jumped to the conclusion I was referring to [James] McCord, now free on bond. He offered immediately to have McCord shot. I had to explain that I appreciated his offer but had someone else in mind. [...] I explained carefully to my friend that I had not yet received orders to kill Hunt, and that under no circumstances was he to be harmed without my specific authorization, which I would not give in the absence of unequivocal orders from my superiors. [Page 309] Liddy wrote that after Hunt cooperated with investigators, he awaited an order to kill him, but "because the message never came, Hunt lives" [Page 311]. Liddy plotted to "firebomb[]" Brookings Institution. Liddy and Hunt believed that because of Ellsberg's past association with the Brookings Institution, classified or sensitive documents might be stored in the organization's security vault. Their plan to retrieve these supposed materials involved firebombing the building: We devised a plan that entailed buying a used but late-model fire engine of the kind used by the District of Columbia fire department and marking it appropriately; uniforms for a squad of Cubans and their training so their performance would be believable. Thereafter, Brookings would be firebombed by use of a delay mechanism timed to go off at night so as not to endanger lives needlessly. The Cubans in the authentic-looking fire engine would "respond" minutes after the timer went off, enter, get anybody in there out, hit the vault, and get themselves out in the confusion of other fire apparatus arriving, calmly loading "rescued" material into a van. The bogus engine would be abandoned at the scene. The taking of the material from the vault would be discovered and the fire engine traced to a cut-out buyer. There would be a lot of who-struck-John in the liberal press, but because nothing could be proved the matter would lapse into the unsolved-mystery category. [Page 171-72] According to Liddy, the plan was not approved by the White House because it was deemed "[t]oo expensive" [Page 172]. Liddy borrowed terminology from Nazis in outlining plan to thwart "attack" by "leftist guerillas." Before the 1972 Republican National Convention in San Diego, Liddy met with a group of White House officials, including Attorney General John Mitchell, to discuss ways to thwart an "attack" on the convention by "leftist guerrillas": I proposed to emulate the Texas Rangers by identifying the leaders through intelligence before the attack got under way, kidnap them, drug them, and hold them in Mexico until after the convention was over, then release them unharmed and still wondering what happened. Leaderless, the attack would be further disrupted by faked assembly orders and messages, and if it ever did get off the ground it would be much easier to repel. The sudden disappearances, which I labeled on the chart in the original German, Nacht und Nebel ("Night and Fog"), would strike fear into the hearts of the leftist guerrillas. The chart labeled the team slated to carry out the night and fog plan as a "Special Action Group" and, when John Mitchell asked, "What's that?" and expressed doubt that it could perform as I had explained, I grew impatient. [...] With [then-Nixon deputy campaign director Jeb] Magruder and [then-associate deputy attorney general John] Dean out to lunch, I felt obliged to impress Mitchell with my seriousness of purpose, that my people were the kind and I was the kind who could and would do whatever was necessary to deal with organized mass violence. Both Magruder and Dean were too young to know what I was talking about, but I knew that Mitchell, a naval officer in World War II, would get the message if I translated the English "Special Action Group" into German. Given the history involved, it was a gross exaggeration, but it made my point. "An Einsatzgruppe, General," I said, inadvertently using a hard g for the word General and turning it, too, into German. "These men include professional killers who have accounted between them for twenty-two dead so far, including two hanged from a beam in a garage." [Page 197-98] According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Holocaust Encyclopedia, the Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing units organized by the Nazis for, among other things, the purpose of carrying out "the murder of those perceived to be racial or political enemies found behind German combat lines in the occupied Soviet Union." Their "victims included Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and officials of the Soviet state and the Soviet Communist party. The Einsatzgruppen also murdered thousands of residents of institutions for the mentally and physically disabled." According to Yad Vashem, "Nacht und Nebel" is a "German term used in a secret order issued by Adolf Hitler on December 7, 1941. The order stated that any underground resistance activities against the Reich carried out in Western Europe would be punished in the most severe ways. The term 'Night and Fog' referred to those underground activists from Western Europe who, as a result of this order, were to disappear into the 'fog of the night' without leaving a trace. ... According to the order, special military courts could impose the death sentence without a unanimous decision. If not sentenced to death, the defendants were to be deported to Germany, where they would disappear without a trace into concentration camps or prisons." The judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg described the purpose and effects of the decree: The territories occupied by Germany were administered in violation of the laws of war. The evidence is quite overwhelming of a systematic rule of violence, brutality and terror. On the 7th December, 1941, Hitler issued the directive since known as the "Nacht und Nebel Erlass" (Night and Fog Decree), under which persons who committed offences against the Reich or the German forces in occupied territories, except where the death sentence was certain, were to be taken secretly to Germany and handed over to the SIPO [German state security police] and SD [intelligence division of the German SS] for trial or punishment in Germany. This decree was signed by the defendant [chief of the High Command of the German Armed Forces Wilhelm] Keitel. After these civilians arrived in Germany, no word of them was permitted to reach the country from which they came, or their relatives; even in cases when they died awaiting trial the families were not informed, the purpose being to create anxiety in the minds of the family of the arrested person. Hitler's purpose in issuing this decree was stated by the defendant Keitel in a covering letter, dated 12th December, 1941, to be as follows: " Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminal and the population do not know the fate of the criminal. This aim is achieved when the criminal is transferred to Germany." Even persons who were only suspected of opposing any of the policies of the German occupation authorities were arrested, and on arrest were interrogated by the Gestapo and the SD in the most shameful manner. On the 12th June 1942 the Chief of the SIPO and SD published, through Mueller, the Gestapo Chief, an order authorising the use of "third degree" methods of interrogation, where preliminary investigation had indicated that the person could give information on important matters, such as subversive activities, though not for the purpose of extorting confessions of the prisoner's own crimes. This order provided: " ... Third degree may, under this supposition, only be employed against Communists, Marxists, Jehovah's Witnesses, saboteurs, terrorists, members of resistance movements, parachute agents, anti-social elements, Polish or Soviet Russian loafers or tramps; in all other cases my permission must first be obtained ... Third degree can, according to circumstances, consist amongst other methods of very simple diet (bread and water), hard bunk, dark cell, deprivation of sleep, exhaustive drilling, also in flogging (for more than twenty strokes a doctor must be consulted)." The brutal suppression of all opposition to the German occupation was not confined to severe measures against suspected members of resistance movements themselves, but was also extended to their families. On the 19th July, 1944, the Commander of the SIPO and SD in the district of Radom, in Poland, published an order, transmitted through the Higher SS and Police leaders, to the effect that in all cases of assassination or attempted assassination of Germans, or where saboteurs had destroyed vital installations not only the guilty person, but also all his or her male relatives should be shot, and female relatives over sixteen years of age put into a concentration camp. Liddy's proposed "Special Action Group" for the kidnappings was, in the end, not employed. Liddy's advice for shooting ATF agents. According to an April 26, 1995, CBS News transcript (retrieved from Nexis), Liddy said on his August 26, 1994, radio show: LIDDY: Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. Reporting on Liddy's October 19, 1994, radio show, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz recounted in an October 24, 1994, article: Ursula from Millerton, Pa., tells Liddy she's afraid the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is coming after her gun-owning friend. Liddy calls the bureau "bottom-dwelling slugs ... a pack of nitwits out to make war on those Americans who take seriously the Second Amendment." Liddy allows that calls to "hunt down and kill" such agents is "going too far." But, he says, "shooting back is reasonable... . I have counseled shooting them in the head." According to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, on September 15, 1994, Liddy stated: If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head. According to FAIR, Liddy said to a caller later in the show: When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms thugs come to kill your wife and children, to try to disarm you and they open fire on you. When they come at the point of a gun, force and violence, when you're going to defend yourself, use that Gerand [sic] [M-1 rifle]. That thing is 30-06, and it'll take 'em right out. According to an April 25, 1995, Associated Press article: Talk show host G. Gordon Liddy said Tuesday he gave listeners bad advice when he told them to shoot for the head if attacked by federal agents. Instead, he said, go twice for the body and then the groin. [...] Last August, Liddy counseled "head shots" to respond to an encounter with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, because, "They've got a vest underneath." On Tuesday, he told a news conference held as part of his WJFK program that people should cooperate if authorities come to their homes with search warrants. But they should shoot back if agents shoot their way in, he said. He said experts have told him shooting for the head was a bad idea because heads are hard to hit. "So you shoot twice to the body, center of mass, and if that does not work, then shoot to the groin area," he said. "They cannot move their hips fast enough and you'll probably get a femoral artery and you'll knock them down at any rate." Asked about his ATF comments by right-wing blogger John Hawkins in December 2003, Liddy argued they had been misinterpreted: LIDDY: [A]s usual, people remember part of what I said, but not all of what I said. What I did was restate the law. I was talking about a situation in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes smashing into a house, doesn't say who they are, and their guns are out, they're shooting, and they're in the wrong place. This has happened time and time again. The ATF has gone in and gotten the wrong guy in the wrong place. The law is that if somebody is shooting at you, using deadly force, the mere fact that they are a law enforcement officer, if they are in the wrong, does not mean you are obliged to allow yourself to be killed so your kinfolk can have a wrongful death action. You are legally entitled to defend yourself and I was speaking of exactly those kind of situations. If you're going to do that, you should know that they're wearing body armor so you should use a head shot. Now all I'm doing is stating the law, but all the nuances in there got left out when the story got repeated. Liddy acknowledged naming shooting targets after Clintons. According to the April 25, 1995, edition of NPR's All Things Considered (retrieved from Nexis), during a press conference, Liddy admitted that he named shooting targets after then-President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton. From the press conference, as aired by NPR: LIDDY: I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we -- I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn't. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House. Nonetheless, the five major papers and the network evening newscasts have ignored McCain's association with -- and praise of -- Liddy. For instance: Fundraising. In a March 9, 1998, article (retrieved from Nexis), The Washington Post's Al Kamen reported that Liddy hosted a fundraiser for McCain's 1998 Senate re-election campaign. Kamen wrote: Here's one we wished we hadn't missed. "G. Gordon Liddy and family cordially invite you to a fundraiser reception" at their home in Scottsdale, Ariz., "in support of Sen. John McCain's 1998 re-election campaign." So McCain (R), a bona fide American hero, is having G. Gordon Liddy, a bona fide American felon and, worse yet, talk show host, do a fund-raiser for him? What is this all about? Liddy has a home there and "he called and said he wanted to invite some friends over," McCain said, "and I said okay. I was surprised when he made the offer. I hardly know him." As for the old conviction, McCain noted, "He's a successful talk show host." The affair, which took place over the weekend, was $ 125 per person, but those who ponied up $ 250 a person got to go to the early "VIP reception." There you could have your picture taken with McCain and Liddy. According to a January 23, 2000, Charlotte Observer article (retrieved from Nexis), Liddy was also scheduled to speak at a fundraiser for McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. Discussing the event, McCain's campaign reportedly vouched for Liddy's "character": A presidential candidate who has made character a central issue of his campaign is bringing a Watergate felon to a Rock Hill rally this week. G. Gordon Liddy will speak at a Wednesday fund-raiser to benefit Arizona Sen. John McCain. Liddy served more than four years in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in and later became host of a popular conservative radio talk show. McCain is not scheduled to appear. His campaign officials said Liddy's character will appeal to many voters because he was following orders from President Nixon and kept silent afterward. "His (Liddy's) judgment might be in question, but I don't think his character is," said Ed Walker, the York County chairman of McCain's campaign. "He was following orders just like any good soldier, and he didn't tell on anybody. He felt like he was on a mission and kept his silence." The Herald of Rock Hill, South Carolina, reported on January 26, 2000 (retrieved from Nexis), "Today's fund raiser for Sen. John McCain's Republican presidential bid has fallen victim to the weather. Keynote speaker G. Gordon Liddy, radio talk-show host and a figure from the Watergate era, can't get out of Washington, D.C." Campaign donations. According to a search of the Federal Election Commission's database, McCain has accepted $5,000 in campaign contributions from Liddy, including $1,000 this year for his presidential campaign. Liddy has donated to several of McCain's campaigns: 2/11/2008: Liddy contributed $1,000 to McCain 9/9/2003: Liddy contributed $2,000 to McCain 3/23/1999: Liddy contributed $1,000 to McCain 3/7/1998: Liddy contributed $1,000 to McCain Radio America's The G. Gordon Liddy Show. McCain has made appearances on Liddy's radio show, including as recently as May of this year. An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07" includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program." From the program: LIDDY: Your experience in the Hanoi Hilton is remarkable. I mean, I put in five years in a prison, but it was here in the United States, and they didn't torture -- the only torture that I had was being forced to listen to rap music from time to time. McCAIN: Well, you know, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your family. I'm proud to know your son, Tom, who's a great and wonderful guy. And it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon. And congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great. LIDDY: Senator, congratulations on your surge -- I guess we can call it that. You're coming back with a vengeance. And thank you so much for sharing time with us. Really appreciate it. McCAIN: Thank you. Thanks Gordon, great to be with you. LIDDY: Good to be with you, Senator. Rezko coverage From April 22 to September 18, 44 combined network evening news broadcasts and news, editorials, or opinion pieces covered or mentioned Obama's ties to Rezko: Los Angeles Times (5) Headline Date News or Editorial/Op. Hiding Sarah Palin behind 'deference' 9/9/08 N Barack Obama: Search for identity 8/28/08 N Obama pounces on McCain's gaffe about his homes 8/22/08 N Rezko closing arguments begin 5/13/08 N Antoin Rezko won't take the stand in his fraud trial 5/6/08 N The New York Times (8) Headline Date News or Editorial/Op. Obama and McCain Seek a Common Touch 8/21/08 N UNIONS UNITED; Hitting McCain Where He Lives 8/19/08 N Ex-Obama Fund-Raiser Is Convicted Of Fraud 6/5/08 N Corruption Case Taints Rising Political Star 5/12/08 N Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side 5/11/08 N Republicans Focus on Obama as Fall Opponent 5/8/08 N How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania 4/27/08 E Ex-Official in Illinois Admits Lying About Job for Donation 4/23/08 N USA Today (2) Headline Date News or Editorial/Op. McCain ad: Clinton's 'truth hurt' 8/25/08 N Obama slams McCain's inability to count family residences 8/21/08 N The Wall Street Journal (10) Headline Date News or Editorial/Op. Obama Should Come Clean on Ayers, Rezko and the Iraqi Billionaire 8/30/08 E House Party: Obama Homes In on McCain 8/22/08 N Obama Played by Chicago Rules 8/20/08 E Friends of Barack 6/11/08 E Campaign '08: GOP Starts Recycling Primary Clips Attacking Obama 6/7/08 N Obama Heads to Election With Some Weaknesses 6/5/08 N Rezko Convicted of Wire Fraud, Money Laundering 6/5/08 N Our Collectivist Candidates 5/28/08 E For Obama, Advice Straight Up 5/12/08 N From Their House to the White House 5/9/08 N The Washington Post (14) Headline Date News or Editorial/Op. McCain Strategist Blasts Media 9/3/08 N Romney Leads a Denver Counteroffensive 8/27/08 N Obama Calls His Pick, Biden, Both a Statesman and Fighter 8/24/08 N Extreme Campaign Makeover 8/23/08 E Obama's Judgment Is Questioned 8/22/08 N Houses Add Up to A Snag for McCain 8/22/08 N Can McCain Use Advice Clinton Got on Obama? 8/13/08 N In Obama's Circle, Chicago Remains The Tie That Binds 7/14/08 N Obama Got Discount on Home Loan 7/2/08 N Former Obama Fundraiser Convicted of Corruption 6/5/08 N For Clinton, A Following Of 'Marshans' 6/4/08 N Obama as You've Never Known Him! 5/23/08 N Rezko's Defense Rests Without Calling Witness 5/6/08 N Obama's 'Distractions'? 4/25/08 E ABC evening news broadcasts (3) Show Date World News Sunday 8/24/08 World News with Charles Gibson 8/21/08 World News with Charles Gibson 6/4/08 CBS evening news broadcast (1) Show Date CBS Evening News with Katie Couric 6/4/08 NBC evening news broadcast (1) Show Date Nightly News with Brian Williams 6/4/08 Land deals coverage From April 22 to September 18, seven news, editorials, or opinion pieces mentioned that McCain reportedly facilitated land deals that benefited wealthy developers who were major McCain donors: The Washington Post (3) Headline Date News or Editor