media figures

Summary: Colorado media outlets published numerous falsehoods, provided misleading commentary, and uncritically parroted Republican talking points during the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Will media figures such as 630 KHOW-AM's Dan Caplis and KCNC CBS4's Raj Chohan correct their inaccuracies, as The Gazette of Colorado Springs did after Colorado Media Matters pointed out an error in one of its editorials?

Colorado Media Matters documented numerous falsehoods, misleading commentary, and uncritical repetition of Republican talking points during the local media's coverage of the Democratic National Convention, held August 25-28 in Denver. For example, as a guest columnist in the Rocky Mountain News and on his 630 KHOW-AM radio program, Dan Caplis smeared Sen. Barack Obama four days in a row by distorting his positions on abortion, energy issues, foreign policy, and funding for the armed forces.

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It's gratifying, somewhat, to find people from Glenn Greenwald at Salon to several bloggers at Firedoglake blogging about the creepy police state tactics that are going on here in the Twin Cities on the eve of the Republican National Convention, aka "The Also-Rans."

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On the side-board, here at RK, I've written about the pro-McCain shill that is David Broder.  Now I'd like to talk about the rest of what passes for a media in this country. As Mediamatters.org has documented here the media persist in pushing every ounce of McCain and far-right spin.  Here are some examples from Media Matters, along with a few more examples I added to Media Matters' list:

•Obama should do whatever McCain wants; otherwise, you deserve whatever...
•Obama is "too fit"because he's not a paunched, beer-swilling (and distributing) couch potato.
•Obama is "elitist" because he's smart(er) than the imbecile fifth-from-the-bottom-of-his-class McCain.
•Obama's not to be trusted because he didn't try to be the biggest screw-up of his entire college class, as another candidate did.
•He gave a great speech in Germanyyou know what that means.
•Unlike John McCain, Obama gets policy, so he's not like everyone else.
•He drinks orange juice for breakfast once, so he's weird (and you are supposed to conjure up an OJ of a different kind).  So, sayeth the babbling fool, Chris Matthews.
*He's been a law professor, so you know he's just like the ridiculous stereotype McCainiacs paint of college professors.

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The McCain campaign has repeatedly attacked Barack Obama as weak on terror, accusing him of a "September 10th mind-set" and hitting him for favoring a law-enforcement approach to terrorists as "criminals," rather than seeing the campaign against terror as a war.

But a study released today by a think-tank that does research for the Pentagon concludes that a law-enforcement approach, rather than a "war on terror" framing, is precisely what's needed to effectively counter terrorism -- a position that's squarely at odds with that of the McCain campaign.

From a summary of the study by the Rand Corporation...

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