Media Matters Both Ways

Media Matters you can't have it both ways! Jacks clients' also gave money to Democrats. One week you can't harp on the media for saying Democrats received money from Jack Abramoff when it was just from clients and then the next week accuse John MacCain of not being "untainted" because he received funds from clients. If McCain and certain leading Democrats received funds from Abramoffs clients' then they are all just as at fault. You can't defend Democrats rights to receive money from clients and then accuse John McCain of being tainted for doing the same thing.

From the McCain item --

"While simply receiving campaign contributions from Abramoff clients is not an indication of corruption, news reports have portrayed such contributions as 'tainting' lawmakers -- lawmakers other than McCain, that is."

We are not saying that McCain did anything wrong. We are saying that the media are hailing McCain as an unblemished reformer while suggesting that Democrats who did what McCain did are somehow tainted in the scandal.

Read the headline to the item

The headline of the item speaks a lot louder than does any selected paragraph therein:

Media tout McCain as "untainted" reformer in Abramoff scandal, ignoring client contributions he received

...a headline clearly implying that 'client contributions' are 'tainted'.

I care nothing for Sen. John McCain, and everything for seeing an end to the fumbling and stumbling of the People's Democratic approach to this fall's elections.

If you can't see the folly of pointing out that Sen. John McCain accepted money from Abramoff clients, as opposed to the wisdom of pointing out that Democrats received no money at all from Abramoff, then find someone who can please, and have them write the headlines to the items; because whoever wrote...

Media tout McCain as "untainted" reformer in Abramoff scandal, ignoring client contributions he received

...would be better off sticking to 'queer cowboy' and 'wal-mart' stories; stuff that People's Democrats don't care about on the way to this fall's elections.

It's all about the 'client contributions', I guess

I've just seen the new headline...

Despite media hailing McCain as "untainted" reformer, like many Dems he took money from Abramoff clients

... it seems less an implication that 'client contributions' are 'tainted' (as the previous headline clearly implied), but mostly by way of vagueness: 'Despite media hailing' (sounds meteorological), 'like many Dems' (just have to make reference to 'client contributions', eh?).

I'd have written it...

Media casts McCain as 'untainted' Reformer for never having accepted contributions from Abramoff, begrudge Congressional Democrats same praise

...EVERY SINGLE CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRAT, WITHOUT EXCEPTION!

(I'd have left out the 'cheerleading' subtitle though: it exposes my 'People's Democrat' slant just a wee bit too much, as We the People approach the fall elections.)

It's the hypocrisy.............

That's just the point Rounder. When discussing Democrats, the right wing media want to gloss over the very important distinction between money stolen by Abramoff from his clients and given to Republicans and money donated directly by Abramoff's clients while he happened to be representing them. When it comes to McCain, however, they want to rely on this distinction to establish that he is "untainted." They can't have it both ways. If McCain is untainted then so is every Democrat in congress.

For once, I would like to see a federal prosecutor with experience in prosecuting corruption cases, who is not a partisan hack ( that would exclude media faves Toensing and DiGenova right off the bat) interviewed for his or her opinion on whether or not the distinction between money that come from Abramoff and money donated by his clients is important or whether, to quote the latest nonsense from Deborah Howell it "amounts to foolish semantics." I am pretty confident it would be the former.

Headline/Summary Paragraph need changing

I believe MMFA should change the headline and perhaps rewrite the summary paragraph. Certainly the headline makes it look like MMFA is hypocritical, and clearly insinuates that McCain should be considered tainted. You have to read the article to realize that MMFA is trying to say that if the media is going to taint Democrats that have the same links as McCain, then they should consider McCain tainted also. My take on that is that they got it right with McCain, so use that to say Democrats should get the same correct treatment; not McCain should get incorrect treatment.

Kudos to MMFA

Kudos for changing the headline and summary.

Close the door, before the Guilty walk

In a court of law, when the advocate's of one side of the action bring up a point of discussion (otherwise not the focus of the action), and the other side's advocates, seeing something advantageous to themselves, exploit that point of discussion; and when the side that first brought it up objects to that point, claiming it's not the focus of the action, they're almost always over-ruled: for it was they that...

opened the door

...through which now any may walk, including even perhaps the Guilty Party; the Gulity may walk, through that opened door.

I thought the focus here was on which lawmakers received campaign contributions from Abramoff, and not on who may have received contributions from his clients.

I thought that was the very point of many MMFA items of late; the point (or focus) that only Republicans have received money from Abramoff, and that the issue of who may have received money from his clients was, so to speak, a closed door?

Or at least a door that appeared so, unless someone whishes to open it.

that's not the point

Neither of you seem to get the point, which is that these media figures, sometimes in the same breath, are asserting that "abramoff linked" dontations "taint" Democrats but not Republicans.

MMFA is spot on in pointing out this hypocracy

Missing the point:

MMFA points out misinformation in the media. It is extremely hypcoritical and biased and slanted for the media to have one standard for Republicans and a completely different standard for Democrats.

MMFA reported that the media was accusing Democrats of taking money from Abramoff himself. The media was reporting this and it isn't true. Yet the media's excuse was they are still right because Democrats took money from Abramoff clients. The media is desperately trying to take heat off the Republicans by making it out as both parties being a problem...that is false, pure and simple. In fact, under Abramoff's rule, Casino/Tribe donations to Democrats DECREASED.

NOW here we have the media reporting the same thing as MMFA...that unless someone got money directly from Abramoff then they are clean. Well if that was the case then why did they fight this so hard when people were standing up for the Dems? Why did they continue to insist their errors were actual fact by spinning it this way? Why did they continue to bundle Dems into the mix when it is purely a Republican scandal?

Most importantly, why is there no retractions and/or apologies on the part of the media going out to all the Democrats they smeard up until this point. Surely, if the media is changing their viewpoint, then they should issue a retraction on all charges against the Dems.

Of course, they won't do that because the media is in the pocket of the right. Their "news stories" are nothing more than Rove press releases and their investigative journalist is nothing more than "he said she said" tripe.

Sorry, but you know as well as I do that the media is going to be running with this latest speaking point for at least a week on every single talking head show. They must either address their previous error and retract it, or they continue being hypocrits.

So..

MM is saying that if Republicans want to say that the Dems were included in this scandal because some Dems received indirect contributions, then Mccain would also be included? So MM is saying that Republicans are being unfair because they omited the fact Mccain was somewhat involved? I agree, that's like higlighting conservative misinformation but ignoring liberal misinformation.Wait!! Liberal misinformation doesn't exist, and if it does it is so minimal that there is no use in bringing it up. My bad:)

Liberal misinformation is not this sites stated mission

IF you think there is a pressing need to bring liberal misinformation to light buy yourself some bandwidth and start yourself a website and have at it. Good luck with that.

Changing the argument.

You are trying to change the argument. MMFA is not commenting on what Republicans are saying. MMFA are describing a double standard here by the media.

I think McCain is "not tainted" by the legal contributions, but by the same standard the people often described as "tainted" by the media (the Democrats) are "untainted" as well. To say that one is "untainted" and the other isn't is hypocrisy, no matter which party you prefer. MMFA was making this fairly obvious point.

MMFA's mission

Has nothing to do with pointing out who is guilty of what in the context of political scandals. Rather what sort of media misinformation is coming from the right side of the ledger. This is obviously within that mandate. The press slanting this to the right has tried to have it both ways. DEMS who got money from Abramoff clients are tainted but Republicans who got money from Abramoff clients are not. McCain is my Senator, and while he is far to conservative for me, I dont believe he is corrupt and overall, besides carrying water for an administration that slandered him personally and shamelessly he had integrity. I dont see MMFA as painting him guilty of anything only pointing out the dichotomous treatment of the issue

I got to go with Rounder on this one.

McCain has his issues but being on the take is not one of them. He was on the Congressional Interior Committee, if I remember correctly, he was going to get some contributions from tribal concerns. Second, in some of case I believe it was McCain committe and McCain himself questioned people about their Abramoff ties, see Interior Dept. employees see Griles, not what you do when you are on the take.

This is why this is important..

McCain is seen as squeaky clean, and, from what I know of him, he deserves the reputation. But if the media reports this, then taking money from Abramoff clients wouldn't seem so bad--as it really isn't. Even taking money from A. himself isn't illegal, only sleazy.

New slogan for the Dem. party: It's the bribery, stupid.

Anyway, the headline is very accurate and is careful to make the distinction between clients of A and A himself, a distinction the media cannot seem (or does not want) to grasp.

more made up answers to non-existent statements

no one said mccain was "on the take", and if you got that out of this story you need to return to class. the point of this is that a lot of these same media jerks have been falling all over each other to say the democrats have been taking "abrahamoff-related" money, as if they are guilty of something. but they are proclaiming mccain some paragon of virtue when he is in the exact same situation. there is no hypocrisy or double standard here by mmfa. they've said all along that just getting money from abrahamoff's clients means nothing. mmfa is pointing out, quite correctly, the double standard of those in the media. is this not clear?

Clear?

As crystal.

Sorry MMFA, you should rewrite the Tag Line for this one

Although the content of the article is spot on, the tagline is misleading. It implies that there is something wrong with “Abramoff Related/Clients” money. There is no evidence that Abramoff directed(at least to my knowledge) any of his clients to give money to Dems or Mccain. In fact, donations to Dems dropped after Abramoff took on the tribes as clients. It is not a crime for someone or their campaign to accept money from donors. The Abramoff scandal is about systemic corruption and bribery.

The main point is, MM should not synopsize an article by using the same implications being thrown about by the MSM. They should be above that. It is the sensationalism of “headlines” that stick with the reader. The press does it and we don’t like it, so please don’t stoop to their level. Again, the article, itself was well done… tone down the rhetoric.

We've edited

the headline and the summary to more clearly represent the content of the item. Thanks for your comments.

Good job MMFA

Thank you for revisiting and editing this headline. It makes it much clearer and much more fair. You guys/gals do a great job here. I like to see it when mistakes are made that they are acknowleged and corrected.

Thanks again

My question

Solon, your right, I wasn't being serious.

Mccain and some Democrats both took indirect contributions and I understand what MM is saying about the reporting in the press. What interests me more is which of the indirect contributions was the result of bribery if any? If they were all innocent, then the should be portrayed as so. If not, then let's see solid evidence. Until then, only Republicans are a part of this scandal.

McCain had me at hello...

...And lost me shortly thereafter.

I had contemplated Mccain as a probable candidate for my vote at one point. That point was as brief as the time it took for the Republican smear machine’s full frontal attack on Mccain’s character to the point when Bush got the nomination. I figured he might be a good Independent candidate. Sadly, he took the road less admirable. He sold out and prostituted himself to that shameful excuse for a party. I lost a lot of respect for the man. How much did he get to sell his soul? He may have been told he would be a shoe in for the ’08 spot, but you know the whacky right can’t stand him. Mary Matalin doesn’t even see him as the inside favorite. All that a$$ kissin’ and nothing to show for it but a dirty mouth. I still feel bad for the way he was treated, but if was truly his own man, he would not have so readily jumped into the Bush boat.

SO THE MEDIA HAS ONE STANDARD FOR McCAIN ...

and another for other Republicans? Yet the media also tries to equate the Democrats with other Republicans corrupted by Abramoff? That's one messy soup of contradiction. And yet, that appears to be exactly how it is!

here's the question to be answered

Was there a quid-pro-quo arrangement - where recipients were expected to vote a certain way, or push a bill in committee?

The Democrats are not giving the money they received from the Indian tribes, because there was no such arrangement. Patrick Kennedy has a long standing relationship of helping Indian tribes, as does Harry Reid.

The facts so far show that the only quid-pro-quo arrangements, to influence the votes in Congress as associated with Republicans.

Someone needs to ask John McCain why he was so quick to return the funds. Someone needs to ask John McCain if he knows Jack Abramoff.

Perhaps, McCain felt that in light of his previous problems {Keating Five}, even if he was not involved in this attempt to bribe Congress, he would be better off to return the money than risk appearance of impropriety.

So far, not a single person in the press, to my knowledge, has.

The Title and Summary MUST be changed!

If the purpose of this article is to show media hypocrisy and double-standards, the headline does not portray that whatsoever. The headline implicates media matters as completely hypocritical, I was actually shocked when I first read it. I'm an avid reader/supporter and normally never post a comment but feel a need to right now. Honestly, change it. It clearly insinuates that McCain is tainted for taking client donations. Actually I'm still not so sure taking client donations is so irrelevent for democrats, I'd like to see a better explanation why that distinction matters.

MMFA Headline should be revised

Sorry to jump on the bandwagon here but the headline for this topic should be revised. Donations to politicians are not illegal or "tainted". Even donations from Abramoff himself may not be illegal.

I understand MMFA's frustration that the media is clearly showing a double standard here. Democrats who received money from Abrahmoff clients = bad. John McCain = the media's favorite moderate Republican.

But the most frustrating part about this whole coverage is how these media personalities spin the coverage. Democrats are not in the majority. They can only suggest reform. And they DID. When O'Donnell states "The Republicans have beaten [the Democrats] to the punch" in seeking lobbying reform, she is just flat out incorrect. It was Democrats who wanted to come back early in January to discuss reform.

These talking heads like to paint Democrats into a corner. They can't speak out against corruption if any of their own received money from Abramoff's clients. But then they are criticized for not speaking out.

But notice what happens when Democrats do speak out - the media jumps all over Howard Dean or Hilary Clinton or John Kerry or Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi whenever they challenge anything. And when they do, Republican's now have people who actually "cry" on cue.

Its like we're being manipulated by a codependent lover.

Huh?

I don't really see all of the fuss over the headline and summary. To explain all of why this is misinformation the headline would have to be a paragraph. This is why you need to READ AN ARTICLE rather than just the headline. This goes for any article here, or anywhere else. This is why the majority is fooled into thinking things that aren't true. Many want a 10 second news clip to tell the whole story, or a headline to give them all of the information. It just does not work that way in the real world. The press and the republicans do continue to blur the line of legal and illegal acts involving Abramoff, and this article shows that they do it only at the expense of the democrats. It shows that the blurring of the line is not just lazy, but an act with intent. Great job MMFA.

Kudos MMFA for addressing the headline issue

Military Husband,

The problem with sensationalized or overstated headlines is that it is misleading to the reader. Although MM’s intentions were clearly borne out through the article, the headline left a different impression. I would like to think that all people in this county would read deeper into things to find the truth, but they don’t. There are way too many intellectually incurious people in the US, which was proven by two straight elections and the leader that was chosen as a result. This is a fast paced society, and unfortunately it seems that those who do take ANY time at all to become aware of critical issues (which is way too few), that many just scan the headlines or listen to a synopsis or clip/sound bite, and use that as the foundation of their understanding. Media Matters provides a critical service to counter these small but all too prevalent abuses in the media, which in time and with persistence become the accepted general understanding of the uninformed nation. All one need do is to see the polls to know that people don’t have a clear understanding of complex issues. Hell, it was a long time before two thirds of the nation finally realized that Iraq didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. That is why the people here, who truly view this as a bastion of misinformation filtration, take the content of this web page so seriously. Again, my hat’s off to MMFA for realizing the confusing headline and being honest enough to fix it.

another suggestion

I see the problem with the old headline, and even the new headline misses the mark a bit. I think the headline is important because it sets the tone for the article;it influences the mindset of the reader.

For something less cumbersome and more in the spirit of the article, I would personally have written "If McCain is 'untainted', why aren't Dems?"

Good one

Brab,

That is a fitting headline. Concise and to the point.

A little unclear

I understand MMFA's point, but think it could have been worded better.

Not to be a show-off or anything, but…

…I completely understood the meaning and intent of both MMFA’s headline and article, i.e.: that the media was being hypocritical in saying Dems were somehow “tainted” by Abramoff’s clients’ contributions while at the same time proclaiming Sen. McCain, while equally “guilty” of receiving the same contributions, was somehow “untainted.” Perhaps MMFA just has to dumb it down a little more for some of the contributors to this blog.

When did you first read this?

MMFA changed the headline and summary early this morning. If you didn't read it until after that, your argument is moot. If you did read it earlier, you'd understand that the criticism was directed at the intimations which could easily be extrapolated from the wording. All (most) of those who expressed concerns about the phrasing, did it out of the deep respect for MMFA and its mission. We didn't want people perusing by to think MMFA could be called out as hypocritical for pontentially confusing phrasing.

A thought...

…it occurs to me that it’s just possible that those in the media proclaiming McCain “untainted” by Abramoff’s clients’ contributions have (as per usual) not done their homework and have no idea that McCain took Abramoff’s clients’ money. It certainly seems to be the MO of today’s media to make statements without knowing the facts, to reinforce the image they believe rather than deal with reality. I don't think McCain is "guilty" of anything here, but the media can't imagine McCain guilty of anything.