Media Matters Daily Summary

Here are today's news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story. Rove advances "glaring misstatements" and "distortions" in criticizing Obama speech Purporting to examine President Obama's health care speech, Karl Rove claimed that while discussing "the so-called lies and misstatements about his proposal," Obama "made a series of very glaring misstatements or distortions." In fact, it was Rove who was advancing falsehoods and distortions. Read More Hannity falsely claimed Obama called insurance execs "bad people" On his Fox News show, Sean Hannity falsely claimed that President Obama said during his health care speech that insurance company executives are "bad people," and that Obama's remarks "took [Hannity] back because it was so harsh." In fact, as was made clear by the video Hannity himself showed, Obama said just the opposite -- that "[i]nsurance executives don't [treat their customers badly] because they're bad people; they do it because it's profitable." Read More Fox News' partisans accuse Obama of "partisan hackery" Responding to President Obama's September 9 speech to Congress on health care reform, in which Obama denounced "bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform," Sean Hannity, Karl Rove, and Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. asserted that the speech was, in Hannity's words, "full of partisan hackery." But Hannity, Rove, and Johnson have each repeatedly fearmongered or advanced false attacks while discussing health care reform, including the charges that reform would deny care for the elderly or that the administration is encouraging military veterans to end their lives. Read More Fox & Friends advanced false suggestion that DOJ is "stand[ing] idly by" in alleged "outing of" CIA operatives While discussing the John Adams Project -- an ACLU initiative that allegedly took pictures of CIA interrogators and allowed defense lawyers for detainees at Guantánamo Bay to show them to detainees -- frequent Fox News guest and former CIA operative Wayne Simmons claimed that the Justice Department will "stand idly by and allow this illegal outing of potentially covert CIA operatives," to which Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed that the "White House, the administration, should move against" the group. In fact, the Justice Department reportedly already opened an investigation into the allegations, which was not mentioned by any Fox & Friends host. Read More Wash. Times' Curl claims Obama "cut out" bipartisanship line he actually delivered In a September 10 article, The Washington Times' Joseph Curl falsely claimed that President Obama "cut out" a line about "bring[ing] the best ideas of both parties together" from his prepared remarks during his September 9 address to the joint session of Congress. In fact, not only did Obama not "cut out" the line about working in a bipartisan manner to achieve health care reform, Curl's own paper quoted Obama as delivering it. Read More Hannity advances dubious claim that Koh "advocates Sharia law in America" In the past four editions of his Fox News program, Sean Hannity has claimed that State Department legal adviser Harold Koh "advocates the use Sharia law in America." In fact, that characterization -- originated by a lawyer who claimed that at a 2007 event, Koh said that Sharia law "could, in an appropriate instance ... govern a controversy in a federal or state court in the US" -- has been disputed by both the host of the event where Koh purportedly spoke about Sharia law and by Koh himself. Read More Witch hunt continues: Fox goes after Sunstein with false smears Continuing Fox News' witch hunt against Obama administration nominees and officials whom they have labeled "czars," Glenn Beck falsely claimed that Cass Sunstein, President Obama's nominee to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has said "you must be an organ donor" and "you should not be able to remove rats from your home if it causes them any pain," and Fox News reporter James Rosen also distorted Sunstein's writings about organ donation and animal rights. In fact, Sunstein advocated for reforms to the organ donation system, but not for mandatory donation, and he did not advocate against rat removal. Read More Following Beck's instructions, Fox News attempts to change story from health care to ACORN On September 9, Glenn Beck said that while the media "says they're going to be talking about health care" the next day, he didn't "think so," later suggesting that a video of Baltimore ACORN employees would instead be the top story. Apparently taking their cues from Beck, through 7 p.m. the following day, Fox News devoted at least 17 segments on six programs to airing and discussing portions of the video. Read More You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.