Brave New Films: Robert Greenwald attacks Fox News "virus"

Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films has a new crusade: trying to stop the Fox News "virus" that supposedly spreads from Fox to the rest of the MSM, specifically as it relates to criticism of Barack Obama. Their foxattacks.com/virus page makes it clear that, if Greenwald had his way, Fox would be off the air:

Fox is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization. Real news organizations must reject Fox's smears of Barack Obama, not parrot them.

Rather than, for instance, simply pointing out issues with Fox's coverage, BNF wants to shut them out of the debate; in fact, they crow about having helped stop a Fox Democratic debate last year. And, their friends over at MoveOn link to that page and have a petition (pol.moveon.org/pac/donate/foxattacksobama2.html), implying that the "real" news organizations include NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and others.

Part 2 of their video is here. Discussing everything wrong with their videos on this topic is left as an exercise, but:

1. That video starts with Julie Banderas (on the Red Eye comedy show) calling Obama a "Halfrican" (urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=halfrican), which can mean someone who's half black, half white or half Puerto Rican, half white. It's not a pejorative, even if BNF wants its viewers to think it is.

2. It continues with Sean Hannity discussing Jeremiah Wright's supposed statement from January 18, 2008 that Louis Farrakhan "truly epitomized greatness", which they then connect with arrows to Tim Russert asking Obama about this during a debate on February 26. This is a perfectly valid question to ask, yet if Greenwald had his way it would not be. Note also that the New York Times article discussed at the last link mentioned Farrakhan, albeit without that specific quote.

However, Hannity misattributed it to Wright himself, when it actually came from Rhoda McKinney-Jones, managing editor of Trumpet Newsmagazine, which is part of Wright's church (tucc.org/trumpet.cfm) [1]. The misattribution may have been accidental or intentional, but in either case it's somewhat minor, considering that at the time Wright was the pastor of that church and ran the magazine. Rather than taking Hannity, Russert, and the others who misattributed it to task for that, their only concern is trying to stop questions like that being asked.

[1] If MMFA is to be believed (mediamatters.org/items/200803030010), Hannity followed by a day the quote's mention in a Washington Post column from Richard Cohen (link):

Barack Obama is a member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama's spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright's daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said "truly epitomized greatness." That man is Louis Farrakhan.

Comments

Today I heard the best comment on why we should be concerned about Obama and his pastor: If Obama cannot discern Wright's radical position after knowing him for 20 years, how will he be able to discern a foreign leader's intentions or subtle diplomatic moves in the short period of time he is likely to have? This issue is about judgement. Obama voluntarily attended this church. He exposed his daughters to the inflammatory rhetoric. His wife seems to believe it and it gives context to her remarks about America a month or so ago.