CNN analyst "Distort D'Newsa": "Reagan didn't reject blacks, blacks rejected Reagan"
Following his debut as a "CNN analyst" on that cable channel on June 6, right-wing pundit and author Dinesh D'Souza appeared again as a "CNN analyst" on a special edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° on June 9. D'Souza (known by some as "Distort D'Newsa," according to 1985 and 1991 articles in The Washington Post) also answered questions regarding Ronald Reagan's presidency in a June 9 washingtonpost.com "Live Online" discussion titled "Reagan: Biographer."
| Thursday June 10, 2004 | more... |
"Real, live bigot" David Horowitz on "liberal bigots"
In response to PBS's April 26 FRONTLINE® report The Jesus Factor -- which, according to PBS, focused on "[h]ow George W. Bush became a born-again Christian -- and the impact that decision has had on his political career" -- FrontPageMag.com editor-in-chief David Horowitz, in a May 3 article (titled "Guided by God, or Guided by his Gonads?"), wrote that The Jesus Factor was a "not-so-subtle election year effort to scare the PBS audience into believing that the President is a religious fanatic, hostage to faith-driven and (therefore) mindless evangelicals." Horowitz concluded ...
| Tuesday May 4, 2004 | more... |
Hannity followed other media; overstated Reagan expansion
On the June 9 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity echoed numerous other media outlets in overstating the magnitude of the economic growth that occurred under former President Ronald Reagan, asserting that it was "the greatest period of peacetime economic growth in history."
| Thursday June 10, 2004 | more... |
Limbaugh on Abu Ghraib photos: "[T]his is what he's [Kennedy's] doing at home"
Commenting on the Senate Judiciary Committee's questioning of Attorney General John Ashcroft about the Bush administration's position on torture as an interrogation technique, radio host Rush Limbaugh ridiculed committee member Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and said the following, in response to a clip of Kennedy at the hearing holding the prison abuse photos: "He's [Kennedy has] got these pictures at home, folks. ... I mean, this is what he's doing at home." Responding to Kennedy's questioning about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the "forced nakedness," Limbaugh said, "[A]re we to believe, here, Senator Kennedy is a stranger to forced nakedness? Ah -- no."
| Thursday June 10, 2004 | more... |
O'Reilly distorted Scheer on Reagan's AIDS policy; said The Factor has a "patent" on "bombast"
Less than one week after Media Matters for America exposed FOX News Channel host Bill O'Reilly doctoring a quotation by progressive financier, philanthropist, and political activist George Soros, O'Reilly distorted another quotation -- this time by syndicated columnist Robert Scheer, whose commentary appears in the Los Angeles Times.
| Thursday June 10, 2004 | more... |
U.S. News' Barone smears, "MoveOn.org folks were cheering when they heard of Reagan's death"
During a June 8 Hudson Institute "Panel Discussion: Iraq and Its Impact on the U.S. Elections," Michael Barone -- U.S. News & World Report senior writer and FOX News Channel political contributor -- claimed, "[T]he MoveOn.org folks were cheering when they heard of [former President Ronald] Reagan's death."
| Thursday June 10, 2004 | more... |
"Distort D'Newsa" now a CNN analyst
Controversial right-wing pundit and author Dinesh D'Souza has a new title -- "CNN analyst." On June 5, during coverage of former President Ronald Reagan's death, D'Souza (known by some as "Distort D'Newsa," according to 1985 and 1991 articles in The Washington Post) appeared on a CNN breaking news segment; on June 6, D'Souza appeared on three CNN programs: Lou Dobbs Tonight, American Morning, and Anderson Cooper 360. On the latter two programs, the anchors -- Soledad O'Brien and Anderson Cooper, respectively -- identified D'Souza as a "CNN analyst."
As an undergraduate in the early 1980s at Dartmouth College, D'Souza gained national notoriety as co-founder and editor of the conservative newspaper The Dartmouth Review. During D'Souza's tenure as editor of the Review, according to a September 22, 1995, article in The Washington Post, "[T]he off-campus newspaper [The Dartmouth Review] published an interview with a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, using a mock photograph of a black man hanging from a campus tree, and 'outed' at least two gay students."
From 1987 to 1988, D'Souza served as the senior domestic policy analyst at the White House under Reagan. Since then, backed by right-wing foundations (which have supported his work as a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and currently support his work as the Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution), D'Souza has written several books, including the racially charged The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society in 1995.
According to a dossier by Media Transparency: The Money Behind the Media, "The book argues that low-income black people are basically 'pathological' and that white racism really isn't racism at all, just a logical response to this 'pathology.'" According to D'Souza's personal website, in The End of Racism, D'Souza "argues that the American obsession with race is fueled by a civil rights establishment that has a vested interest in perpetuating black dependency." D'Souza also argued, in a September 1995 Wall Street Journal op-ed, that "[t]he best way for African-Americans to save private-sector affirmative action may be to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964."
On August 22, 1999, The Washington Post reported, "[E]fforts by conservatives to build support among blacks were set back by the angry reaction of African-American conservatives Glenn Loury and Robert Woodson to books on race by two conservative authors, neither of whom is black: Charles Murray ("The Bell Curve") and Dinesh D'Souza ("The End of Racism"). In a highly publicized decision, Loury and Woodson resigned in protest in 1995 from the American Enterprise Institute, where Murray and D'Souza [were] fellows."
D'Souza's writings have appeared in major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He has also appeared on such TV programs as ABC's Nightline, CBS's Face the Nation, FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, and CNBC's Dennis Miller.
Posted to the web on Tuesday June 8, 2004 at 5:52 PM EST
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