A great job by MMFA for putting this smear in great format with outstanding context that includes dates and sources.

Great Job Media Matters!

Keep up the excellent work.

Sam I Am

"planted, as Insight magazine said, by somebody close to the Clinton war room... it's an accurate description of their tactics."

How does Dick Morris know these things about Hillary Clinton's campaign. Granted, he worked for Bil Clinton a long time ago (and was fired), but how does he know what's going on iside the present Clinton campaign?  And on what does he base his claim that "it's an accurate description of their tactics"? Has Dick Morris ever cited examples of what these tactics are? Has anyone on FOX News ever asked Morris to cite specific examples of these sorts of tactics employed by Hillary Clinton? If so, are his responses credible?  Why doesn't someone call out Dick Morris on this?

Irony,

Because Dick Morris lives to slam the Clintons any which way he can......he is insulated in his cushy paid job at Fox and if he is ever aksed for concrete proof or examples, he just twists his chair towards Sean's direction for rescue.

Yes, Tommy, that's so true.  And the FOX/Morris tactic reinforces what I've been saying lately.  FOX viewers (and Limbaugh listeners) have been so indocrinated to believe anything bad about Democrats and to disbelieve anything a Democrat says that they don't require proof anymore. Their critical judment 9if it ever existed0 is suspended when they tune in.  As I've also said, FOX exists simply to reinforce the fears, prejudices and beliefs of the lunatic right wingers... when they hear something (anything0 that reinforces their beliefs it's taken as gospel. A truly sad commentary on this great country of ours...

The MSM may be in for a surprise this election cycle because smears of this nature can no longer be bandied about without fear of finding a smoking gun. Underhanded and lazy journalism is under increasing scrutiny thanks to sites like MMFA. Fact-checking is increasingly becoming a powerful tool for campaigns. That's a good thing, because I think we know which side seems to have trouble grasping and even uttering the facts.

What does this have to do with anything? You sure sound like a troll.

This whole smear incident reeks of bigotry on so many levels...

I thought we were past that in 2007, but I guess not.

I think Kerrys mistress was behind this smear.  I saw that on Drudge before he removed it.

Nah, it was Saddam, back from the grave, who planted the story.

He's mad that Obama stole his name.

 (While we're wildly speculating...)

Excellent work! And a great service to all of us Obama media watchdog folks...

And all praises due to the Obama specific RSS feed!

-Neil Jensenhttp://vermontersforobama.org

Nice work, MMFA.

Awesome job.

Obama and Clinton aren't my favorite candidates, but I will defend to the death their right to run and be treated fairly.

Absoultely, you will witness how unfairly Senator Clinton will be attacked like she seems to be daily on MSNBCs Matthews show.

goodjob

Superior article-should be required reading in all journalism schools.  Great job.  Bravo.  Here here.

Great work here by Media Matters.

Hopefully, this will be like an ice cold shower wake-up call for Obama.  Because if he does get the nomination, this will seem like a love tap, compared to the filth the Cons will unleash on him.

Any Democrat who runs for President and doesn't have a clear and aggressive strategy to neutralize right-wing filth, is doomed.

Agreed. R.D. is the man. Or person. Consistently excellent.

The swift boating has begun.  It is our duty to not only attack such crap but remind all our friends and acquaintances that this crew is nothing but slimers.  They are slime, they love slime, they throw slime and yet, they talk as if they are moral.  Go figure.

Amazing to look at, laid out all linear -like, even when you know what's going on. I felt like I was back in school studying the Soviet Union propaganda machine, those examples we'd be shown and ,laughing, say "how could people have fallen for this"?

I'm printing out the entire item for a co-worker who has been "concerned" all week about Obama's radical Muslim childhood.

Barack understands such scurrilous reporting and it's infectous spin all too well. In his recent book, "The Audacity of Hope" he writes in the chapter on Politics, "Every reporter in Washington is working under pressures imposed by editors and producers, who in turn are answering to publishers or network executives, who in turn are poring over last week's ratings or last year's publication figures and trying to survive the growing preferrance for PlayStation and reality TV. To make the deadline, to maintain market share and feed the cable news beast, reporters start to move in packs, working off the same new releases, the same set pieces, the same stock figures. Meanwhile, for busy and therefore casual news consumers, a well-worn narrative is not entirely un-welcome. It makes few demands on our thoughts or time; it's quick and easy to digest. Accepting spin is easier on everybody." pgs. 124-125

I see this as someone clapping his hands in the echo chamber to see if it's still echoing.  Obviously it is, loud and clear.  But I estimate the damage to Obama's anc Clinton's campaigns to be approximately zero and zero, respectively.   The MSM is beginning to show some remorse (see the PBS item).  And the public, I think, is growing weary of such crap.  So it may have been a strategic blunder on the part of the echo chamber tester.  Call me hopelessly idealistic, but that's the way I see it.

Including the Virginia Buckinghham piece was somewhat misleading.  Yes, it was lazy journalism (obviously she didn't hear strong denials from the Obama camp because she didn't listen, or ask), but it was an opinion piece, about the "electability" of John Kerry versus Obama, about whom relatively little is known, not an attempt to trash anyone.  I strongly disagree with her  conclusion: I think Kerry squandered all his electability and credibility in 2004, and that of the three candidates under discussion (Kerry, Clinton, Obama) Obama is the most electable, having opposed the Iraq debacle from the start.  The link to the Buckingham piece may explain the apparently unrelated post by Color Coded.