In a July 1Politico op-ed, James Kirchick, assistant editor of The New Republic, falsely asserted that retired Gen. Wesley Clark's comments about Sen. John McCain on CBS' Face the Nation were part of a "pattern of attacks meant to insinuate that McCain's Vietnam experience not only shouldn't count as meaningful 'experience,' but rendered him psychologically unfit for presidential office." In fact, Clark did not "attack[]" McCain's Vietnam experience or suggest that it "rendered him psychologically unfit for presidential office." Rather, Clark praised McCain as a "hero" for "his service as a prisoner of war," while, as Zachary Roth wrote at the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk blog, "question[ing] the relevance of McCain's combat experience as a qualification to be president of the United States." Moreover, Kirchick wrote: "Clark said that McCain is 'untested and untried,' and elaborated that, 'I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.' " However, Kirchick did not note that, in making the "getting shot down" comment, Clark was repeating Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer's words. As Media Matters for America has noted, Clark's comment came in response to Schieffer's statement that, unlike McCain, Sen. Barack Obama has not "ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down." Referring to Clark's comments and those of others, Kirchick also asserted that "one would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility they were coordinated by the Obama campaign." However, belying Kirchick's suggestion of possible coordination by the Obama campaign is the fact that Clark has for months been saying that McCain's military service alone does not make him qualified to be president, including while speaking on behalf of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Indeed, in a July 1 New York Sun article, Josh Gerstein reported: General Clark has for months demonstrated a willingness and propensity to question the notion that Mr. McCain's wartime service would be of much use to him as president. Answering a question from The New York Sun in March, the former NATO commander said he believed Mrs. Clinton had more useful national security experience than Mr. McCain. "Having served as a fighter pilot -- and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam -- doesn't prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn't give you the experience firsthand of the national strategic issues," he said. Further, in a March 3 New York Sun article, Gerstein reported that during a March 2 conference call arranged by Clinton's presidential campaign, in response to a question from The New York Sun, Clark praised McCain's "service as a fighter pilot" and "his courage as a prisoner of war," but added that "having served as a fighter pilot ... doesn't prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved." Gerstein also reported that McCain's campaign "did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment for this article." From the March 2 conference call (audio recording available here): GERSTEIN: Hi, it's Josh Gerstein with The New York Sun. I wanted to ask, if when people were saying that Senator Clinton had the most experience in the race, they're including Senator McCain in that, and if somebody could just expand on why she would be preferable to Senator McCain on national security issues. Thank you. HOWARD WOLFSON (Clinton campaign spokesman): Is there anybody -- CLARK: I'd like to do that. To start, I'm not the only one who's going to have an answer on this. I know that. I don't want to hog the call, but it's an issue that I've given a lot of thought to. You know, in the national security business, the question is, do you have -- when you've served in uniform -- do you really have the relevant experience for making the decisions at the top that have to be made? Everybody admires John McCain 's service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There's no issue there. He was -- he's a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot -- and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam -- that doesn't prepare you to be commander-in-chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn't give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues. If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as First Lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, representing the United States abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think she's the most experienced and capable person in the race, not only for representing America abroad, but for dealing with the tough issues of national security. Kirchick also asserted: In May, Newsweek published a cover story confirming the Obama campaign's fears, declaring that "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968." Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe [sic] concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. "It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as 'the other' -- as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters." But has it been a "sure bet?" Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged "scare" tactics in which Republicans -- and, apparently, only Republicans -- have been perfecting [sic] since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it's that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears. There have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain have done anything approaching what Thomas and Wolfe predicted those dastardly, conniving Republicans would inevitably do. In February, a conservative talk radio host speaking at a McCain rally made reference to "Barack Hussein Obama." McCain immediately condemned the statement, leading the embittered and embarrassed professional yacker to complain that McCain "threw me under the bus." The only other smear-worthy episode occurred in March, when the McCain campaign suspended a low-level aide who provided a link on his Twitter account to a video featuring the rants of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Heavy stuff, to be sure. But Kirchick's assertion that "[t]here have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain" have engaged in "smear-worthy" attacks on Obama is false. While Kirchick noted that a McCain campaign aide reportedly distributed a video smearing Obama, he did not note that the McCain campaign also reportedly circulated to reporters an op-ed, in which NewsMax.com chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler wrote that "Obama's close association with Mr. [Jeremiah] Wright ... raises legitimate questions about Mr. Obama's fundamental beliefs about his country," which "deserve a clearer answer than Mr. Obama has provided so far." McCain's campaign later reportedly said it sent the Kessler op-ed "in error." Further, Republican state parties have attacked or promoted smears of Obama. The Tennessee Republican Party issued a February 25 press release titled "Anti-Semites for Obama" that stated in its original form: "The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States." The press release included the picture of Obama in traditional Somalian clothing that Kirchick identified in his op-ed as being a part of a smear campaign against Obama. As Media Matters previously noted, McCain "condemned" the Tennessee GOP's press release, but later touted the endorsement of the group's chairman, who was quoted attacking Obama in the press release. Moreover, a television ad aired by the North Carolina Republican Party shortly before the May 6 North Carolina primary showed footage of controversial comments by Wright and attacked Obama as "too extreme." As Media Matters noted, several supporters listed on McCain's website were listed as having leadership positions on the North Carolina Republican Party's website as well, and some had also donated money to both the North Carolina GOP and McCain's presidential campaign. In addition, on May 1, FoxNews.com reported that McCain said "he wouldn't have run the GOP ad, 'but I am not going to referee, I am just going to run my own campaign.' " Further, in a June 12 article, the Boston Herald quoted McCain saying, "I can't be a referee of every spot run on television," and described his comments as "a softening of his view on the negative campaign tactic [of using 527 organizations]" that "opens the door to a no-holds-barred five-month scramble." Kirchick also repeated a mischaracterization of Clinton's response during an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes, when correspondent Steve Kroft asked whether she "believe[d] that Senator Obama is a Muslim." Kirchick wrote that when Clinton was "[a]sked if there was any truth to the smear that Obama is a Muslim, she infamously replied, 'As far as I know,' it wasn't the case." In fact, Clinton's first three words in response to the question "You don't believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim?" were, "Of course not." Clinton also likened the rumors about Obama's religion to false rumors about her: "Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors. I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time." From Kirchick's July 1 Politico op-ed: The only obstacle between Barack Obama and the presidency is the mountain of smears that will no doubt come his way. That's the narrative that Obama supporters -- and his swooning chroniclers in the mainstream media -- would have us believe. Obama himself set up a website, fighthesmears.com, correcting some e-mail chain letters that allege he "can't produce his birth certificate," is "secretly a Muslim" and that he "won't say the Pledge of Allegiance." In May, Newsweek published a cover story confirming the Obama campaign's fears, declaring that "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968." Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe [sic] concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. "It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as 'the other' -- as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters." But has it been a "sure bet?" Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged "scare" tactics in which Republicans -- and, apparently, only Republicans -- have been perfecting [sic] since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it's that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears. There have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain have done anything approaching what Thomas and Wolfe predicted those dastardly, conniving Republicans would inevitably do. In February, a conservative talk radio host speaking at a McCain rally made reference to "Barack Hussein Obama." McCain immediately condemned the statement, leading the embittered and embarrassed professional yacker to complain that McCain "threw me under the bus." The only other smear-worthy episode occurred in March, when the McCain campaign suspended a low-level aide who provided a link on his Twitter account to a video featuring the rants of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Heavy stuff, to be sure. Contrast the absence of smears from the McCain camp with some of the outlandish remarks made by high-ranking Obama supporters. In April, West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV said that because McCain "was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet," and "was long gone when they hit," the Arizona senator who spent five and a half years in a Vietcong tiger cage having his arms repeatedly broken didn't really understand the carnage of war. "What happened when [the missiles] get to the ground?" Rockefeller asked a crowd at an Obama rally. "He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues." That the great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller would impugn the wartime experience of John McCain is especially rich, given that the only "battle" Rockefeller has seen is when he hunts wild game at his 80-acre ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Rockefeller's smear was the first salvo in a pattern of attacks meant to insinuate that McCain's Vietnam experience not only shouldn't count as meaningful "experience," but rendered him psychologically unfit for presidential office. In May, Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of McCain, "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous." Over the weekend, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said that McCain is "untested and untried," and elaborated that, "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." Clark, you may remember, ran for president in 2004 on his record as a career military officer, so his comment, which he has not retracted, was not just morally offensive but self-discrediting. The smears didn't stop there. On Monday, Obama foreign policy adviser Rand Beers unfavorably compared McCain's POW experience with "the members of the Senate who were in the ground forces or who were ashore in Vietnam," and who "have a very different view of Vietnam and the cost ... than John McCain does because he was in isolation essentially for many of those years and did not experience the turmoil here or the challenges that were involved for those of us who served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War." It's curious how anyone could argue that a man with such visceral understanding of the capacity for what America's enemies will do to our men and women in uniform doesn't fully appreciate the cost of war. But even more troubling is the unmistakable pattern of these smears, all of them unsubtly alleging that McCain is an unhinged, mentally unstable warmonger who would deploy soldiers capriciously because he hasn't truly experienced the horrors of ground battle. Indeed, the claims of these four men -- and the short period of time in which they were all uttered -- are so similar in tone that one would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility they were coordinated by the Obama campaign. Nevertheless, the fears of Obama supporters that their candidate lies eternally vulnerable to GOP smears exists [sic] only in their fevered imaginations. The evidence of dirty Republican tricks has been utterly absent this campaign season. And if anyone has tried to smear Barack Obama in the way that Thomas, Wolfe and other Democratic partisans allege, it was not the Republican National Committee, but rather Hillary Rodham Clinton and her surrogates. In February, the Drudge Report claimed that the Clinton campaign circulated photos of Obama in a traditional East African turban and robe, with the message that the images showed him "dressed." Asked if there was any truth to the smear that Obama is a Muslim, she infamously replied, "As far as I know," it wasn't the case. After the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, she said the results showed that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." The belief that "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968" is a comforting salve for Democrats. After all, it's much easier for them to demonize conservatives than consider that the reason for their electoral defeats may lie with liberal ideas. Please don't take that as a "smear."

During the June 25 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume stated: "When [Sen.] Barack Obama declined to join [Sen.] John McCain's invitation to appear at a series of joint town hall meetings, he not only went back on an earlier indication that he would do that ... he also contradicted what he wrote in his book." Hume then quoted from Obama's book The Audacity of Hope: " 'One of my favorite tasks of being a senator is hosting town hall meetings. I held 39 of them in my first year in the Senate.' Obama said they are like, quote, 'A dip in a cool stream. I feel cleansed afterward, glad for the work I have chosen.' " Earlier in the show, Hume had teased his report by claiming that Obama has "changing positions" on town hall meetings. In fact, in the passage Hume quoted from the book, Obama was not referring to appearances with his political opponents, as Hume suggested. Rather, he wrote: One of my favorite tasks of being a senator is hosting town hall meetings. I held thirty-nine of them my first year in the Senate, all across Illinois, in tiny rural towns like Anna and prosperous suburbs like Naperville, in black churches on the South Side and a college in Rock Island. There's not a lot of fanfare involved. My staff will call up the local high school, library, or community college to see if they're willing to host the event. A week or so in advance, we advertise in the town newspaper, in church bulletins, and on the local radio station. On the day of the meeting I'll show up a half hour early to chat with town leaders and we'll discuss local issues, perhaps a road in need of repaving or plans for a new senior center. After taking a few photographs, we enter the hall where the crowd is waiting. I shake hands on my way to the stage, which is usually bare except for a podium, a microphone, a bottle of water, and an American flag posted in its stand. And then for the next hour or so, I answer to the people who sent me to Washington. Attendance varies at these meetings: We've had as few as fifty people turn out, as many as two thousand. But however many people show up, I am grateful to see them. They are a cross-section of the counties we visit: Republican and Democrat, old and young, fat and skinny, truck drivers, college professors, stay-at-home moms, veterans, schoolteachers, insurance agents, CPAs, secretaries, doctors, and social workers. They are generally polite and attentive, even when they disagree with me (or one another). They ask me about prescription drugs, the deficit, human rights in Myanmar, ethanol, bird flu, school funding, and the space program. Often they will surprise me: A young flaxen-haired woman in the middle of farm country will deliver a passionate plea for intervention in Darfur, or an elderly black gentleman in an inner city neighborhood will quiz me on soil conservation. As I look out over the crowd, I somehow feel encouraged. In their bearing I see hard work. In the way they handle their children I see hope. My time with them is like a dip in a cool stream. I feel cleansed afterward, glad for the work I have chosen. (Page 101) According to washingtonpost.com's Campaign Tracker, Obama has hosted at least 18 town hall meetings since May 1, including one in Las Vegas the day before Hume's report: June 24: Las Vegas, NV June 23: Albuquerque, NM June 12: Kaukauna, WI June 5: Bristol, VA June 2: Troy, MI May 31: Rapid City, SD May 28: Thornton, CO May 22: Boca Raton, FL May 21: Kissimmee, FL May 19: Billings, MT May 18: Pendleton, OR May 17: Roseburg, OR May 16: Watertown, SD May 14: Warren, MI May 13: Lexington, KY May 10: Bend, OR May 9: Albany, OR May 2: Munster, IN From the June 25 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume: HUME: A little later on "The Grapevine," Barack Obama says now that he does not want a lot of town hall meetings about the election, but what has he said in the past? [...] HUME: And we'll examine Barack Obama's changing positions on town hall meetings when we come back. [...] HUME: When Barack Obama declined to join John McCain's invitation to appear at a series of joint town hall meetings, he not only went back on an earlier indication that he would do that, but -- that is, attend them -- but he also contradicted what he wrote in his book. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes, in quotes, "One of my favorite tasks of being a senator is hosting town hall meetings. I held 39 of them in my first year in the Senate." Obama said they are like, quote, "A dip in a cool stream. I feel cleansed afterward, glad for the work I have chosen."

During the June 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume issued a correction following his false claim on June 16 that Sen. Barack Obama's half brother had told The Jerusalem Post that Obama had a "Muslim background." On the June 24 program, Hume stated: "[L]ast week, we quoted The Jerusalem Post in the story about Barack Obama's half brother Malik Obama. The Post reported that in an interview with Israeli Army Radio, Malik Obama said his brother would be a good president despite his Muslim background. It now turns out that the Post did not quite understand what Malik Obama was saying in the interview and paraphrased him incorrectly. Malik Obama did not say that his older brother has a Muslim background. The Jerusalem Post has since removed the story from its website, and we regret the error." But while Hume acknowledged an "error," he understated its extent. Suggesting that his only "error" was in repeating a flawed report in the Post, Hume did not acknowledge that he had falsely claimed Malik Obama had spoken with The Jerusalem Post. The Post did not, in fact, claim that Malik Obama spoke to the newspaper. As Media Matters for America documented, the article indicated that Malik Obama gave an interview to Israel's Army Radio, not the Post. Hume did not mention Israel's Army Radio in his June 16 report. ABC senior national correspondent Jake Tapper -- who reported that ABC News had obtained audio of the Malik Obama interview, which he posted online -- wrote that the Post article "was a sloppy paraphrase that emerged as false evidence." Media Matters also noted that on the June 19 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Laura Ingraham Show, guest host Monica Crowley falsely asserted that Malik Obama "went on the record to The Jerusalem Post, of all places, and said, 'Oh yeah, Obama's got a really solid Muslim background.' " During her discussion, Crowley played an audio clip of Hume's June 16 remarks about Malik Obama. From the June 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume: HUME: And finally, last week, we quoted The Jerusalem Post in the story about Barack Obama's half brother Malik Obama. The Post reported that in an interview with Israeli Army Radio, Malik Obama said his brother would be a good president despite his Muslim background. It now turns out that the Post did not quite understand what Malik Obama was saying in the interview and paraphrased him incorrectly. Malik Obama did not say that his older brother has a Muslim background. The Jerusalem Post has since removed the story from its website, and we regret the error. From the June 16 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume: HUME: Barack Obama is a practicing Christian, married in a Christian church, whose children were also baptized in that church. His campaign has emphasized his faith in part to dispel what the campaign calls an online smear campaign which contends among other things that Obama was raised a Muslim. There is even a statement on his official campaign website reading, quote, "Obama has never been a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." But Obama's half brother is not so sure. Malik Obama tells The Jerusalem Post that "if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background." The article was also accompanied by an image of Malik Obama holding a photo of him and Barack Obama both in Muslim dress, reportedly taken when the two first met back in 1985.

On the June 24 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh stated: "I will guaran-damn-tee you there will not be a terrorist attack before the election. And you know why there won't be one? Because they want Obama elected." He later asserted, "Hamas has endorsed Obama. Hamas has endorsed Obama. Do you think they're going to do anything to upset the apple cart of Obama's election? Why do you think they've endorsed Obama? Because they want a very strong ally for Israel in the White House?" In fact, Obama stated his support for Israel in a speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on June 4, in which he said: "Those who threaten Israel threaten us. ... And I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel's security." Moreover, contrary to Limbaugh's assertion that Hamas endorsed Obama, while Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the prime minister of Hamas, reportedly said in an April 13 interview with conservative radio host John Batchelor and WorldNetDaily.com Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein that he liked Obama and hoped he would win the election, a Hamas official responded to Obama's remarks to AIPAC by saying, according to Reuters, "Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win." Limbaugh also asserted that "every time I hear [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad speak, every time I hear a tape from [Al Qaeda leader] Ayman al Zawahiri or a so-called dispatch from [Osama] bin Laden, whenever I hear from any of these Middle East Al Qaeda terrorists, I think I'm hearing Democrat [sic] Party talking points." As Media Matters for America has documented, Limbaugh has previously made similar assertions, as well as claiming on the April 15 edition of his program that "Islamofascists are actively campaigning for the election of Democrats." From the June 24 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: Somebody made a prediction. I can't remember who it is, but they're right, whoever it was. There will not be -- oh, no, no, no, take it back. It was John Bolton. John Bolton said there will not be an attack on Iran by Israel before the election, but there will be between the election and the inauguration. That's what John Bolton said. Said it in an interview with the UK Telegraph. And he started, he said, I just -- I'm beside myself that the Americans, the United States have lost the will to take care of this. They seem happy to farm it out to the Israelis. They Israelis will do it, but they won't do it in a way that will affect our election. But they will do it to protect themselves after the election. So, he's on record with that prediction. Let me make one of my own. Precisely because every time I hear Ahmadinejad speak, every time I hear a tape from Ayman al Zawahiri or a so-called dispatch from bin Laden, whenever I hear from any of these Middle East Al Qaeda terrorists, I think I'm hearing Democrat Party talking points. I will guaran-damn-tee you there will not be a terrorist attack before the election. And you know why there won't be one? Because they want Obama elected. They wanted John Kerry elected. They wanted the Democrats elected in the 2006 midterms. Am I politically incorrect for saying this? We all know it to be true. Just listen -- they've said as much. We hear stories -- we read stories in the drive-by media about how some of these despots like [President Hugo] Chavez in Venezuela, others, are looking forward to the election of Obama. Hamas has endorsed Obama. Hamas has endorsed Obama. Do you think they're going to do anything to upset the apple cart of Obama's election? Why do you think they've endorsed Obama? Because they want a very strong ally for Israel in the White House? Do [laughter] -- And I saw the stupidest poll. What was the poll? I don't even know what the poll was -- I got a glance of it on television. It's the kind of poll I don't believe; it's supposed to dispirit Republicans. Something like 48 to 43, Americans prefer Obama to McCain on foreign policy. Now, that's just absurd. That is just -- it's just -- it might have been a Newsweek poll because I think it was PMSNBC. You know, they're in bed with Newsweek. They're not only in bed, they're under the covers with Newsweek.

A week after saying that "it's a hard thing for someone like [Sen.] Barack Obama" to express a "gut sense of Americanism," MSNBC host Chris Matthews said that Obama should pick as his running mate "[s]omeone who's palpably patriotic, who sort of exudes it." Matthews was commenting on NBC political director Chuck Todd's assertion that "[i]f you figure out a way to pick a running mate, for instance, that passes that character test, it's -- say it's a Joe Biden or somebody in a military uniform that has a whole bunch of ribbons, that gives you that security, that gives these men saying, you know what, I'm not sure about Obama, but, you know what? He's got somebody there." The exchange took place on the June 11 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, during which Matthews hosted Todd to discuss an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released that day. Referring to Sen. John McCain's 6-percentage-point advantage among suburban white women in the poll (Obama leads among women overall, 52-33), Matthews asserted, "[W]omen are low-hanging fruit, though, in the terms of politics. You can reach up and say, 'I'm pro-choice, he's not.' " He then added, "But you're playing for a close election. If you want to reach up for the higher, for the harder ones to reach, you can win big." Matthews' comment about women voters recalled generalizations Matthews has made about other constituencies. On the April 16 edition of Hardball, Matthews said, "[I]f you're a Jewish voter probably you care about Israel, that's a safe bet. You have one key concern. " He continued, "I can't think of other groups that would make it that simple. But clearly, if you're African-American, you care about civil rights. You care about certain programs of the federal government. That's a generalization, but probably true. You're more progressive." Of the NBC/Journal poll's finding that McCain leads Obama among white men, Matthews asked Todd, "Is their concern with Obama that he's more an elitist or that he's African-American? Is there any way to distinguish that?" Todd responded, "You can't distinguish between it." Todd then repeated a claim that Matthews made the previous week and that Obama directly rebuts in his autobiography -- that Obama has never been in the middle class. Todd asserted, "The values question, I think, takes it -- that, you know, goes to what you, I think, have put very eloquently, when you say, you know, Obama does well with rich and poor because he's been both, but he's never been anything in between and he's not connecting on that in-between with these folks." On June 3, Matthews said of Obama: "He's gone from being a poor kid, growing up in Hawaii, in Indonesia, part of his youth, mixed family background, had to struggle, worked with community organizations; went to these incredibly elite schools, Columbia and Harvard Law, making Law Review and all that. He missed the middle part." However, as Media Matters for America noted following Matthews' June 3 remarks, Obama makes clear in Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Crown, 1995) that he has life experience in the middle class. As Media Matters noted, on June 10 Matthews asked if Obama is "too University of Chicago or too South Side Chicago" for working-class voters. On April 1, Matthews asked Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO): "Let me ask you about how he -- how's he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?" From the June 11 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews: MATTHEWS: Why do men tend -- let's go to this men question here. Among white men, here we go, really breaking it down, McCain's killing Obama, 55-35. Your thoughts about that category? TODD: Well, this is already at Bush levels. But what should really frustrate the Obama people is that these white men believe the country's headed in the wrong direction, believe the country -- that there should be a change president over sorta somebody that keeps things not necessarily status quo but smaller changes and security. They just - they don't like Obama. Obama's upside down. They don't believe Obama shares their values. They believe McCain shares their values. MATTHEWS: Is their concern with Obama that he's more an elitist or that he's African-American? Is there any way to distinguish that? TODD: You can't distinguish between it. The values question, I think, takes it -- that, you know, goes to what you, I think, have put very eloquently, when you say, you know, Obama does well with rich and poor because he's been both, but he's never been anything in between and he's not connecting on that in-between with these folks. So, I think when you look at this, and our experts, our pollsters said, boy they would worry about the suburban women thing. If they were Obama they'd worry about the suburban women thing first, before the men. They say, you know what? Hey, Bush won men by this much; you can still win it by losing men by that much. I'd argue and say if he slices men from 20 to 15, and you assume those women come home, then that's how he wins a big win. And he forces McCain to play defense. MATTHEWS: But in a political [unintelligible], women are low-hanging fruit, though, in the terms of politics. TODD: Correct. MATTHEWS: You can reach up and say, "I'm pro-choice, he's not." TODD: But you're playing for a close election. MATTHEWS: But you're playing for a close election. If you want to reach up for the higher, for the harder ones to reach, you can win big. TODD: And you can make the argument that if you figure out a way to pick a running mate, for instance, that passes that character test, it's -- say it's a Joe Biden or somebody in a military uniform that has a whole bunch of ribbons, that gives you that security, that gives these men saying, you know what, I'm not sure about Obama, but, you know what? He's got somebody there. MATTHEWS: Someone who's palpably patriotic, who sort of exudes it. TODD: It's not just patriotic, but exudes competence. I think there's a competence thing here that Obama has a threshold that Obama hasn't passed.

In a June 4 appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Hardball host Chris Matthews criticized Sen. Barack Obama's expression of patriotism, asserting that Obama "thank[s] America" because he "got certain things from it," rather than, Matthews claimed, "express[ing]" "that gut sense of Americanism," which, Matthews said, is "a hard thing for someone like Barack Obama, as sophisticated as he is ... to express." Responding to host Joe Scarborough's question on how Obama can connect with "the regular soddy buster guy," Matthews said, "[O]ne thing you don't do is you don't do what he does. You don't thank America for giving you what you got." Matthews then likened Obama to a child thanking his parents: "You don't thank them for giving you a nice school and education. You thank them because they're your parents. ... You love your country -- it's called patriotism." Matthews went on to say: "And that gut sense of Americanism is deeper than the values we share. It's deeper than democracy. It's deeper than opportunity or freedom. It gets down to your sense of connection. And I think ... it's a hard thing for someone like Barack Obama, as sophisticated as he is ... to express that." Again purporting to distinguish Obama from "regular" Americans, Matthews said: "People that don't have anything, including beautiful families and Ivy League degrees, know what they got. They're Americans." Matthews also asserted that Obama's "background doesn't include that struggling middle-class experience." As Media Matters for America documented in response to similar comments Matthews made the evening before during MSNBC's election coverage, Obama's autobiography, Dreams from My Father (Crown, 1995), contradicts Matthews' statement that Obama's "background doesn't include that struggling middle-class experience." As Media Matters has also documented, Matthews has a history of purporting to identify actions by or characteristics of Obama that he has suggested demonstrate that he is not a "regular guy," including playing pool, ordering "weird" beverages like orange juice, and his bowling skills. From the June 4 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe: SCARBOROUGH: So, does all of that follow him into the fall or does he figure out a way to pick up these Hillary Democrats? MATTHEWS: I think he's got a huge challenge and I don't know if he can meet it. John Kerry couldn't do it. Paul Tsongas couldn't do it. Al Gore couldn't do it. SCARBOROUGH: How does he do it? MATTHEWS: It's the connection with the regular person. SCARBOROUGH: How does he do it? What does he need to do? MATTHEWS: It is Ronald Reagan -- probably didn't hang out with regular people for 40, 50 years once he got to Hollywood, but he knew how to connect with the regular person. Nixon, in his own way, could connect with the resentments of the regular person. SCARBOROUGH: They did. So, how -- MATTHEWS: Sometimes, elite liberal Democrats have a problem connecting with the regular soddy buster guy who's got to work his butt off just to pay the bills. SCARBOROUGH: They do. MATTHEWS: They leap from poor to rich and skip 80 percent of the country. SCARBOROUGH: The two guys that -- MATTHEWS: And by the way, his background doesn't include that struggling middle-class experience: tuition bills -- SCARBOROUGH: The two guys -- PAT BUCHANAN (MSNBC analyst): Jack Kennedy and FDR -- both were patricians. Jack Kennedy rolled through West Virginia. MATTHEWS: And he knew how to do it. BUCHANAN: FDR of course -- MATTHEWS: He knew how to do it. BUCHANAN: -- was a Hudson Valley patroon or whatever you want to call it, and he did it. SCARBOROUGH: Well, Pat, Hillary's worth $100 million -- BUCHANAN: And Hillary's done it. SCARBOROUGH: -- but she knows how to do it. BUCHANAN: Hillary is one person that did it. SCARBOROUGH: So, the question is: How does he do it? Bill Clinton did it. Jimmy Carter -- MATTHEWS: OK, one thing you don't do is you don't do what he does. You don't thank America for giving you what you got, like, I got all these degrees, I got all these advantages, so I thank America. Love of country is not because you got certain things from it. It's not a transaction. You don't thank people for giving you stuff. It's like loving your parents. You don't thank them for giving you a nice school and education. You thank them because they're your parents. They're your parents. You love your country -- it's called patriotism. It's love of fatherland, of country. I will tell this story I told last night. When I was a Capitol policeman -- my first job on the Hill. It was a patronage job. I hung out with this guy from West Virginia, Leroy Taylor, a real country guy. He had been an MP. He was double-dipper. He was working as a Capitol cop. And he called me aside one time. We would sit around and smoke together, talk about everything together. He said, "You know, Chris," because he figured out I was a college kid, he was right. He said, "Chris, you know why the little guy" -- he meant like himself, the little guy, the guy with not a lot going for him -- "you know why he loves this country? Because it's all he's got." That is so deep. When the guy is broke, and he's hanging around, he loses his wife, his family, everything is going wrong in his life, everything -- not his fault, some things are. And he's got one thing when he gets up in the morning: He's got his country. BUCHANAN: All right, Chris -- MATTHEWS: And that gut sense of Americanism is deeper than the values we share. It's deeper than democracy. It's deeper than opportunity or freedom. It gets down to your sense of connection. And I think -- SCARBOROUGH: Connects him with the country. MATTHEWS: -- it's a hard thing for someone like Barack Obama, as sophisticated as he is -- BUCHANAN: You're exactly right. SCARBOROUGH: I think you're right. MATTHEWS: -- to express that. SCARBOROUGH: I think you're right. BUCHANAN: It goes beyond ideology and philosophy and all that stuff. MATTHEWS: Right. It's gut. BUCHANAN: But does Barack Obama, and do Michele and Barack have it? MATTHEWS: If they have it, they better show it. And I'm not talking about whether he's a good American, because I'm sure he fights for his country, do all the right things. It's this sort of gut thing, that the average guy in Northeast Philly gets, a woman gets -- in Scranton they get it. People that don't have anything, including beautiful families and Ivy League degrees, know what they got. They're Americans.

During the 7 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC's June 3 special election coverage, anchor Chris Matthews asked Democratic Leadership Council chairman Harold Ford Jr. if there was "something missing" in Sen. Barack Obama's "biography that people can identify with." Matthews continued: "He's gone from being a poor kid, growing up in Hawaii, in Indonesia, part of his youth, mixed family background, had to struggle, worked with community organizations; went to these incredibly elite schools, Columbia and Harvard Law, making Law Review and all that. He missed the middle part. Most Americans don't know anything about being dirt poor and don't know anything about the Ivy League. They're sort of in this struggling class. The people in the middle worried about paying bills, for whom going to the movies, paying 35, 40 bucks for the whole cost of going to the movies with your wife, is just too much money, OK?" Matthews went on to state: "Does he have that experience that people -- most Americans have? Does he connect on the basic struggling-class level? And I'm not sure he does." But Obama's biography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Crown, 1995), directly rebuts Matthews' assertion that Obama "missed the middle part." Matthews himself noted that Obama worked with "community organizations." Indeed, in describing in Dreams from My Father his work as a community organizer in Chicago prior to attending Harvard Law School, Obama wrote that his salary started at "ten thousand dollars the first year, with a two-thousand-dollar travel allowance to buy a car [Page 142]." According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator, Obama's 1985 starting salary translates to $19,964.96 in 2008 dollars, with an additional $3,992 travel allowance. Obama also wrote in the 2004 preface of Dreams from My Father that since the book's initial publication in 1995, "[m]y wife and I bought a house, were blessed with two gorgeous, healthy, and mischievous daughters, and struggled to pay the bills." Additionally, in his biography of Obama, Obama: From Promise to Power (Amistad, 2007), Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell wrote of Obama's middle-class upbringing: Beyond his advice not to be loose with his money, Lolo imparted a store of tough-minded, masculine wisdom to young Barry. Amid the widespread privation of Third World Indonesia, Lolo had lived a hard existence, extremely different from the relatively comfortable, middle-class American experience to which Obama and his mother were accustomed. [Page 33] [...] Obama's grandparents maneuvered him into Punahou; his grandfather's boss, an alumnus, intervened to have Obama accepted. And Madelyn's job at the bank helped pay the steep tuition. By living in a modest apartment and sending Obama (and eventually Maya) to private school, his grandparents had sacrificed their own prosperity for the sake of Obama and his sister. "We never suffered," Madelyn answered when I asked what specific things were given up to send her grandchildren to Punahou. "As you can see, we live in an apartment instead of a house. ... But I think we could have done the other if we had wanted. But I traveled, you know, and spent money on the kids -- the kids and traveling were priorities. We're not poverty-stricken." [Page 36] From the 7 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC's June 3 special election coverage: FORD: The beginning of his speech in New Orleans tonight, he lays out that you will hear a lot of speeches, you'll get a lot of press releases, and you'll get a lot of talk from the Obama campaign that he, John McCain, represents a third term for George Bush. He says that's false. He makes clear that he's a reformer and that can actually implement change. Tim's last point, and I hope the Obama campaign listened closely: You have to identify those three big themes and wrap some real substance -- simple, understandable substance -- but you've got to wrap some substance around that. He has time to do this over the next several months. We ran out of time in Tennessee, and hopefully we'll get another shot at it in the coming years, but he has an unbelievable opportunity, Senator Obama does, over the next five months to make this case to the American people. Not along black lines, white lines, Hispanic lines, Asian lines, Native American lines, but as an American. In his story and his biography, there's not been a story as quintessential as his, a biography that is quintessential as his, running for the presidency, and he has this great opportunity. MATTHEWS: But isn't there something missing -- isn't there something really missing in his biography that people can identify with? He's gone from being a poor kid, growing up in Hawaii, in Indonesia, part of his youth, mixed family background, had to struggle, worked with community organizations; went to these incredibly elite schools, Columbia and Harvard Law, making Law Review and all that. He missed the middle part. Most Americans don't know anything about being dirt poor and don't know anything about the Ivy League. They're sort of in this struggling class. The people in the middle worried about paying bills, for whom going to the movies, paying 35, 40 bucks for the whole cost of going to the movies with your wife, is just too much money, OK? FORD: Senator Obama a few years -- MATTHEWS: Does he have that experience that people -- most Americans have? Does he connect on the basic struggling-class level? And I'm not sure he does. FORD: Before he wrote these two terrific books, he still owed money on his student loans. Barack Obama and his wife understand, his children understand in many, many ways the plight and the reality of an overwhelming majority of Americans. I might add Senator McCain may make this case, but he is married -- and this is no disrespect or slight to his wonderful wife -- but he married into a wonderful beer fortune. The reality is Barack Obama finds himself not only able to relate throughout his political life, but in his formative years, in his early years. And I might add, who in their right mind would not root for their child, does not want their child to go to the very best schools? When you look at how Barack was born, where he was born, the conditions he was born, here's a young man who lived around the world who has not only the -- a global DNA, but lived the world in many ways. And at a time in which America's standing and credibility is questioned in many ways and misunderstood, his candidacy and his presidency, in many ways, will answer many of those questions. And, again, I don't mean to slight senator McCain, but to your question, Chris, just a few years ago, he and Michelle both, Mrs. Obama, still owed on their student loans. So, this is a young man who, although has lived an American life and has been afforded the opportunity to go to some of the great universities and great learning centers in this country, he worked his way there. MATTHEWS: So it's Saul Alinsky against the beer baron. I have to tell you -- I know, I know -- FORD: No, no, no. Again, I want to say -- it's a fortune, it's a fortune -- MATTHEWS: It's so funny, I never heard it put together he married into a beer fortune and he doesn't know how what it's like to sweat. FORD: And I don't -- no, no, don't get me wrong. Whatever fortune, this -- her family worked their way also, but understand, we cannot at any moment suggest he doesn't understand middle-class America. He gets it, understands it, lives it, has worked and has tried his hardest as a senator from Illinois to represent and help improve the lives of those. And what I hope he and John McCain will debate about in this campaign is where they want to take the country. And do it well. MATTHEWS: OK, Harold Ford -- Harold Ford Jr., thanks, that's all the time we have this time. FORD: Thank you. MATTHEWS: We'll be back with you later.

On the May 21 edition of MSNBC Live, host Norah O'Donnell falsely asserted that James Baker, former secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush, has taken the position that there must be preconditions before the United States enters into talks with Iran. During a discussion between O'Donnell and former Rep. David Bonior (D-MI) about attacks by Sen. John McCain on Sen. Barack Obama's position in favor of talks with Iran without preconditions, Bonior cited Baker as one of the "top Republicans" who "suggest that we ought to have discussions with Iran," and added that Baker "has really run contrary in his comments to what McCain and Bush have said." O'Donnell then interjected, "But not without precondition. There is a distinction on that very issue. Even Senator [Joseph] Lieberman [I-CT], writing an op-ed today that says ... without preconditions, that this blanket policy is not a good one." In fact, according to a partial transcript of a March 27 forum in Athens, Georgia, Baker said that he favors the United States negotiating with Iran "without preconditions" over how to handle Iraq, just as the United States had engaged Iran in discussions "about our common interest in a stable Afghanistan" from 2001 to 2003. Baker stated: "[T]here's every incentive on their [Iran's] part to help us the same way they did in Afghanistan, if we're willing to approach them without preconditions. Now, they may not do it, but what do you lose by giving it a shot?" Moreover, by asserting that "[e]ven Senator Lieberman" opposes meeting with Iran "without preconditions," O'Donnell suggested that there was something anomalous in Lieberman's opposition to Obama's position. But Lieberman is an independent who has endorsed McCain and campaigns for him. Indeed, as Media Matters for America has noted, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has also reportedly said of meeting with Iran: "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage ... and then sit down and talk with them. ... If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us." From a transcript of an "edited one-hour" video of the March 27 conference titled "The Report of the Secretaries of State: Bipartisan Advice to the Next Administration," sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center at the University of Georgia's School of Law and the Southern Center for International Studies: TERENCE SMITH (PBS senior producer): Let me turn to Secretary Baker and quote something from the Iraq Study Group which you co-chaired, in which the report read: Of all the neighbors of Iraq, Iran has the most leverage in Iraq and could help bring about stability. The report recommends that Iran be actively engaged without preconditions. So should the new administration approach Iran and how? BAKER: Our report recommended that we start talking to Iran in the same way we talked to Iran about Afghanistan. [PAPERS SHUFFLING] This administ -- current administration, Colin was probably Secretary of State, talked to Iran about our common interest in a stable Afghanistan after we went in there, and Iran helped us and cooperated a little bit with us. Colin can amplify on it. We need to do the same thing with respect to Iraq. That's what our Iraq Study Group Report suggested. Because a dysfunctional Iraq, chaotic Iraq is not something that is in the interest of Iran. They don't want that. They'll have a ton of refugees, so there's every incentive on their part to help us the same way they did in Afghanistan, if we're willing to approach them without preconditions. Now, they may not do it, but what do you lose by giving it a shot? SMITH: All right. Does - does anyone disagree with that? HENRY KISSINGER (former secretary of state): I agree with Jim that one has to talk to adversaries but one should not treat it as a psychiatric problem, so that it's just a question of going into a room and creating goodwill. How well we negotiate with Iran depends in part on the objective balances that exist in the region. The reason it worked when Colin was secretary is because we had a force in Afghanistan. We were changing the situation, but we recognized that Afghanistan could not be solved without the participation of the neighbors, and in that context, it was possible to get an agreement with Iraq. If Iran considers itself a significant country that wants to be respected, we ought to find a mode of negotiation, because if things get tougher, we have to be able to tell the American people that we have done everything we can to explore a peaceful evolution. SMITH: Secretary Christopher, you wanted to say something else? WARREN CHRISTOPHER (former secretary of state): I have a few scars trying to negotiate with Iran over a 14-month period, and one of the lessons I bring back from that is that there are many vectors of power. Too often we think of Iran in terms of President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and we fail to take into account the importance of the clerics, leaders like [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini and long-time leader like [Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani. So I think we need to explore every one of those vectors of power to try to find an opening and over time we need to have a comprehensive dialogue with Iran because if we talk about only those things we want to talk about, that might freeze the negotiations. SMITH: Secretary Powell. COLIN POWELL (former secretary of state): I would like to align myself of the position that we should reach out and begin talks with Iran. In the first term of the administration I was talking to the Syrians on a regular basis. I went to Damascus several times. They're not always pleasant visits, but you've got to do it. And sometimes you achieve an objective; sometimes it was just an exchange of views, but you stayed in touch with these folks, and we kept low level conversations going on with the Iranians through 2003, and then subsequently that fell apart and then we stopped talking to the Syrians. The Syrians and the Iranians live in that neighborhood. They're an essential part of any solution and we have to find ways of talking to them. On Iraq itself, if I may, the United States Army and United States Marine Corps cannot keep up this level of deployment. It is a serious problem. And so my best judgment is that no matter what is being said right now, the drawdowns will have to continue if for no other reason it is not sustainable with the size military that we have. The other thing that I would like to say is that we have to have a clear understanding of what the problem is. Al Qaeda is in Iraq. It wasn't there before, but it is now. But even if you got rid of Al Qaeda totally you have the basic underlying problem which is not Al Qaeda. There is a conflict taking place between the Shias and the Sunnis and within the Shias for power and survival and for control of the country. And there's just so much we can do with the United States' armed forces to resolve that conflict or even contain it. The Baker-Hamilton report discussed this in considerable detail and advocated a policy of let's start disengaging somewhat, not go away, not cut and run, and no president will find that to be a acceptable policy. I don't think it's sustainable for 140 or 150,000 American soldiers to just sit there forever fighting Shias one day, fighting Sunnis the next day. It has to be passed off to the Iraqis. Because all the crises we are talking about now are from this administration to the next. I can assure you that there are several crises awaiting the new administration shortly after they take over. SMITH: Secretary Albright? MADELEINE ALBRIGHT (former secretary of state): I teach a course and I say to my students that foreign policy is just trying to get some other country to do what you want, and that you basically -- the new president will come in and open the national security toolbox, And then figure out what is the appropriate blend of force and diplomacy. Because as Secretary Powell was saying, it's very hard for us to stay there. But we also have to figure out what our -- how to use the United Nations on the sanctions, how to find what we have in common with the Iranians because we do. It's a big lesson as how we dig ourselves out of this hole of Iraq and a bad reputation has to do with using all the tools in the toolbox. From the 11 a.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live on May 21: O'DONNELL: We have now seen for two straight days an attack by John McCain on Barack Obama on the issues of Iran and Cuba. Foreign policy is clearly going to be one of the top issues in this campaign, I think as well as the economy, since we've seen the exit polls, that's the number one issue. How is the campaign -- the Obama campaign -- going to deal with these attacks from McCain that suggest that Obama is inexperienced? BONIOR: Well, he's taking him head-on, Senator Obama is, as you can tell from the debate we've had over the last week on these issues. It's very clear that Senator McCain is stuck in the past. He's adopted the McCain-Bush policies with respect to what's happening in Iraq, what's the future is for Cuba. But even if you look at some of the top Republicans, the people who served on the committee to -- judge 9-11 Committee, they suggest that we ought to have discussions with Iran. Jim Baker for instance, the former secretary of state, has really run contrary in his comments to what McCain and Bush have said. O'DONNELL: But not without precondition. There is a distinction on that very issue. Even Senator Lieberman, writing an op-ed today that says, you know, without preconditions, that this blanket policy is not a good one. So there are some differences on that. BONIOR: Yes, but what Senator Obama is saying is not that -- we're not going to have -- that we're doing this unconditionally. Of course we're going to have preparations, talks, low-level discussions at the proper place and time with these leaders. But do we want to continue the same policies that have yielded us nothing? Look at Cuba, for instance. Talk about a failed policy. For 50 years -- I mean, what Senator Obama wants to do is allow families here to go back and visit with their families in Cuba, to allow remittances so we have ambassadors in Cuba that are actually advocating for the change, and then pressure diplomatically the Cuban government, Raul Castro and the people in power there, to open up the democracy process: free more press, let go of political prisoners, and all the things that, you know, our values are demanding that we advocate and do. O'DONNELL: It is going to be a strong debate moving forward.

On the May 14 edition of NBC's Today, during an interview with former CIA agent Michael Sheehan about his new book, Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Ourselves (Crown, May 2008), host Matt Lauer said, "You say we've got to use more undercover agents, informants, wiretapping, email surveillance, the works. The sound you just heard, Michael, is the far left, grabbing for their remote controls, 'cause they say, you're going to do this, you're going to trample civil liberties." In fact, despite Lauer's suggestion that it is only "the far left" that is concerned about "trample[d] civil liberties," Americans across the political spectrum have denounced the Bush administration for alleged violations of civil liberties, including conservatives such as former congressman (and current Libertarian Party presidential candidate) Bob Barr, former Reagan administration associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein, other members of the conservative American Freedom Agenda, and members of the libertarian Cato Institute. In addition, Lauer did not challenge Sheehan's assertion that the wiretapping and investigative authorities of the CIA, FBI, and NYPD have not "been abused over the last seven years." Sheehan stated: "What you need is good oversight involved. You need oversight within the agencies; you need congressional oversight; oversight from the press -- and make sure that when we give our CIA or FBI or NYPD the authority to do wiretaps or do investigations, that they're not going to abuse it. I don't think it has been abused over the last seven years." Lauer did not point to any of the reports of abuses of authority by the Department of Justice inspector general or to the reports of dissent from within the administration regarding the warrantless domestic surveillance program run by the National Security Agency (NSA). As Media Matters for America has noted, in a March 2007 report, the Justice Department inspector general (IG) found many "instances of illegal or improper use of national security letters [NSLs]" by the FBI between 2003 and 2005. NSLs, the report explains, "are written directives to provide information" and "are issued by the FBI directly to third parties such as telephone companies, financial institutions, Internet service providers and consumer credit agencies, without judicial review." The IG's report stated that its investigation "found that the FBI used NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies" and identified multiple ways that the FBI had done so. Further, the report also found that the FBI acquired information in some cases without obtaining grand jury warrants or even issuing NSLs. As The Washington Post reported in a March 9, 2007, article: The inspector general's report discloses that on 739 occasions, the FBI obtained telephone toll or subscriber records without first having a required national security letter or grand jury subpoena, according to an unclassified version. Instead, the report says, the FBI used a tactic called "exigent letters" that claimed there were emergencies that warranted getting the information immediately. Many times, no such emergencies existed, the inspector general found. "On over 700 occasions the FBI obtained telephone billing records or subscriber information from three telephone companies without first issuing national security letters or grand jury subpoenas," the report says. It notes that many times the FBI supervisors who approved such requests did not even have the legal authority to sign national security letters. The IG report stated that the FBI's use of such "exigent letters" "circumvented the ECPA [Electronic Communications Privacy Act] NSL statute and violated the Attorney General's Guidelines for FBI National Security Investigations and Foreign Intelligence Collection (NSI Guidelines) and internal FBI policy." Lauer also could have pointed to reports of dissent within the Bush administration over the legality of the NSA's domestic surveillance activities. In their December 16, 2005, New York Times article on NSA "eavesdropping," Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen wrote: "Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight." In a March 30 Times article adapted from his book, Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice (Pantheon, April 2008), Lichtblau wrote: In one previously undisclosed episode, [then-]Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson refused to sign off on any of the secret wiretapping requests that grew out of the program because of the secrecy and legal uncertainties surrounding it, the officials said. With the veil of secrecy around the program, Mr. Thompson was not given access to details of the N.S.A. operation, and he was so uncomfortable with the idea of approving this new breed of wiretap applications that he had a top adviser write a memorandum assessing the legal ramifications. The adviser warned him not to sign the warrant applications because it was unclear where the wiretaps were coming from. In addition, as Media Matters documented, Lichtblau and Risen reported on another instance of dissent over the NSA program in a January 1, 2006, Times article. Lichtblau and Risen noted that in March 2004, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey was serving as acting attorney general while then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital. Lichtblau and Risen reported that Comey objected strenuously to the continuation of the NSA program, prompting Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, White House counsel at the time, to visit Ashcroft's hospital room to obtain Department of Justice approval for "aspects of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program." At a May 15, 2007, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Comey testified that after the hospital meeting, the program under discussion at the hospital "was reauthorized without us and without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality." He also said of the attempt to get Ashcroft to sign off on the program: "I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me." Concerns over the legality of the domestic surveillance program also reportedly extended to members of the judiciary. Lichtblau reported in a January 10, 2006, Times article that "the Justice Department held an unusual closed-door briefing Monday for judges on a secret foreign-intelligence court in response to concerns about President Bush's decision to allow domestic eavesdropping without warrants." He added that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), "raised objections in 2004 to aspects of the program and instructed for a time that no material obtained by the N.S.A. without warrants could be presented to the court in warrant applications." In addition, according to media reports, Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISC in December 2005 in protest of the NSA's eavesdropping program. From the May 14 edition of NBC's Today: LAUER: The third point -- and this is really the crux of your book here -- is that: "Only spying works." And when you talk about spying, let me just go through some of the things you call for -- demand. You say we've got to use more undercover agents, informants, wiretapping, email surveillance, the works. The sound you just heard, Michael, is the far left, grabbing for their remote controls, 'cause they say, you're going to do this, you're going to trample civil liberties. SHEEHAN: Well, I hope not, and actually, I believe very firmly you can do both. What you need is good oversight involved. You need oversight within the agencies; you need congressional oversight; oversight from the press -- and make sure that when we give our CIA or FBI or NYPD the authority to do wiretaps or do investigations, that they're not going to abuse it. I don't think it has been abused over the last seven years. And even when President Bush pushed the NSA wiretapping thing, I think as people began to understand what he was doing, they became -- they understood it more. It's just the way he went about it. I think if we have a little bit more dialogue between the executive branch and the Congress with the American people, we can get through that. LAUER: And it takes us to the title of you book, which is Crush the Cell, and your thought here is, once you see a cell forming, you break it up before that gang has a chance to dream big.

In a May 2 post on his ABC News blog Political Punch, ABC News senior national correspondent Jake Tapper republished a May 1 post he had temporarily taken down, in which he asserted: "Bill Clinton's Trade Representative, a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and an informal adviser to her campaign -- once seemed to have some not-so-nice things to say about the Hoosiers his chosen candidate is working so hard to pursue. As seen in The War Room, watching election returns come in, [Mickey] Kantor seems to say in hushed tones to James Carville, 'Look at Indiana, wait, wait -- look at Indiana. 42-40. It doesn't matter if we win. Those people are s---. Excuse me.' " After noting that both Kantor and War Room director D.A. Pennebaker have reportedly denied that Kantor called people from Indiana "shit," Tapper added: "Were I not currently eating a chicken sandwich at Liberty East Restaurant in Charlotte, NC, while working on a World News piece about the economy and the candidates, I would go to Blockbuster, rent a copy of The War Room and settle this matter as much as possible." Media Matters for America did obtain a digital copy of The War Room and downloaded the relevant section. It is provided here and clearly indicates that Kantor is not saying, "Those people are shit"; he is, in fact, saying, "Those people are shitting," presumably referring to the Bush campaign's reaction to the poll numbers he was reading. In the film, a 1993 documentary about former President Bill Clinton's campaign staff during his 1992 presidential campaign, Kantor is seen discussing poll numbers with Clinton advisers James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. Subtitles from the original movie erroneously state that Kantor says, "Those people are gonna shit," followed by "[Whispering]." According to a May 2 blog entry by Politico senior political writer Ben Smith, Pennebaker asserted that in The War Room, "He [Kantor] says they must be shi**ing in the White House": He said the initial expletive referred to the anticipated reaction in the Bush White House to the fact that Ross Perot's polling numbers were holding strong. "What he says is he's surprised Perot's numbers are holding," said Pennebaker in a brief phone interview. "He says they must be shi**ing in the White House." After Tapper published his May 1 post, the Drudge Report linked to it under the headline: "FLASHBACK: Clinton Informal Adviser on Hoosiers in 1992: 'S**t'..." The Drudge Report also linked to Pennebaker's assertion, from Smith's blog entry, that Kantor was being misquoted, under the headline: "Clip Said Doctored..." A version of the video from The War Room, which Tapper did not post, but that has circulated widely online, suggests that Kantor also called the people of Indiana "white n---rs." According to Smith's blog post, Pennebaker said that remark "appeared to have been entirely fabricated, with new audio dubbed onto the original movie." In the original, Kantor appears to be asking Stephanopoulos, "How would you like to be Charlie Black at this point?" Black was one of the primary spokesmen for the Bush-Quayle campaign. In a May 2 interview with The Huffington Post, Kantor said of the remarks in question: "And I was talking about the polling and not the people ... If you look at The War Room, this is not the way Carville or George interpreted my statement. This is frankly libelous." From The War Room: CARVILLE: It looks good. Now, let's just say: I like the text here. STEPHANOPOULOS: Can you beep Wendy, please? KANTOR: Oh, you got it. STEPHANOPOULOS: Looks pretty good. Looks pretty good. KANTOR: Look at -- look at Indiana. Wait, wait. Look at Indiana, 42-40. It doesn't matter if we win. Those people are shitting. Oh, excuse me. [inaudible] How would you like to be Charlie Black at this point? Look at Texas. Go down to Texas. CARVILLE: Even? KANTOR: Yeah, 39-39. CARVILLE: Perot's kind of holding, isn't he? KANTOR: Yeah, he held. His numbers held. CARVILLE: I'm sort of surprised, frankly. STEPHANOPOULOS: This could be a landslide. UPDATE: As Media Matters was finalizing this item, Tapper posted an update in which he acknowledged that "Kantor Never Impugned Hoosiers."

In her April 25 OpinionJournal.com column, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan claimed that "Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama's problem. America is Mr. Obama's problem," and asked if Obama has "ever gotten misty-eyed over ... the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter's Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills?" Continuing with this line of inquiry, Noonan asked of Obama: "What does he think about all that history? Which is another way of saying: What does he think of America?" and "Who would have taught him to love it, and what did he learn was loveable, and what does he think about it all?" While Media Matters for America did not identify specific instances of Obama's getting "misty-eyed" over the Wright brothers, the 1944 Allied invasion of Europe, George Washington, the 1849 California Gold Rush -- or Henry Ford, for that matter -- the title of his latest book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, suggests that Noonan should have looked there before suggesting that Obama has yet to address "[w]hat ... he think[s] of America." She needn't have read past the prologue to find this: I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the world; I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP. Or she could have just skipped to Obama's final sentence: "My heart is filled with love for this country." From Noonan's April 25 column: Main thought. Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama's problem. America is Mr. Obama's problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous, ambivalent candidate from Men's Vogue, the candidate who loves America because of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But has he ever gotten misty-eyed over ... the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter's Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? There's gold in that history. John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa's knee. Mrs. Clinton learned at least its importance in her long slog through Arkansas, circa 1977-92. Mr. Obama? What does he think about all that history? Which is another way of saying: What does he think of America? That's why people talk about the flag pin absent from the lapel. They wonder if it means something. Not that the presence of the pin proves love of country - any cynic can wear a pin, and many cynics do. But what about Obama and America? Who would have taught him to love it, and what did he learn was loveable, and what does he think about it all? Another challenge. Snooty lefties get angry when you ask them to talk about these things. They get resentful. Who are you to question my patriotism? But no one is questioning his patriotism, they're questioning its content, its fullness. Gate 14 has a right to hear this. They'd lean forward to hear. This is an opportunity, for Mr. Obama needs an Act II. Act II is hard. Act II is where the promise of Act I is deepened, the plot thickens, and all is teed up for resolution and meaning. Mr. Obama's Act I was: I'm Obama. He enters the scene. Act III will be the convention and acceptance speech. After that a whole new drama begins. But for now he needs Act II. He should make his subject America.

In an April 17 article, the Associated Press compared a generic AP/Yahoo presidential poll from November 2007, showing an unnamed Democrat holding a sizable lead over an unnamed Republican, to a new AP/Yahoo survey showing that Sen. John McCain "has pulled even with the two Democrats still brawling for their party's nomination." In doing so, the AP baselessly suggested that the new poll indicates momentum for McCain. In fact, while AP/Yahoo did not poll head-to-head matchups in November, two other November surveys that polled both head-to-head and generic matchups found that an unnamed Democrat's lead in the generic ballot was significantly larger than the lead either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton held over McCain in a head-to-head match-up at that time. Indeed, as with AP/Yahoo's April poll, numerous head-to-head polls conducted in November showed McCain "even" or close to "even" with Obama and Clinton. From the April 17 AP article: Republicans are no longer underdogs in the race for the White House. To pull that off, John McCain has attracted disgruntled GOP voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats who shunned his party last fall. Partly thanks to an increasingly likable image, the Republican presidential candidate has pulled even with the two Democrats still brawling for their party's nomination, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo! news poll released Thursday. Just five months ago -- before either party had winnowed its field -- the survey showed people preferred sending an unnamed Democrat over a Republican to the White House by 13 percentage points. According to an AP/Yahoo poll conducted November 2-12, 2007, and a corresponding November 20, 2007, AP article, 42 percent of respondents said that "[i]f the 2008 general election for President were being held today," they would vote for "the Democratic candidate," compared with 27 percent who would support "the Republican candidate" -- a difference of 15 percentage points. Beginning with the published results of a poll conducted December 14-20, 2007, AP/Yahoo reported the results of its November survey as 40 percent to 27 percent in favor of the Democratic candidate, the 13-point difference the April 17 AP article referenced. In AP/Yahoo's head-to-head survey conducted April 2-14, when choosing between McCain and Clinton, 37 percent of respondents supported McCain, while 36 percent backed Clinton. In the Obama-McCain matchup, 36 percent of respondents supported McCain, compared with 34 percent who backed Obama. According to the listed polls on Yahoo.com, AP/Yahoo did not poll head-to-head matchups from November through March, and in its full results for the April survey, AP/Yahoo did not include polling on a generic matchup. By contrast, in two polls that did test both head-to-head and generic matchups in November, the Democrat's lead in the generic ballot was significantly larger than in the head-to-head matchup: In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted November 1-5, 2007, Clinton led McCain 47 percent to 43 percent, a difference of 4 percentage points. The poll did not include data on an Obama-McCain matchup. In a generic matchup, 50 percent of respondents chose an unnamed Democrat, while 35 percent chose an unnamed Republican -- a difference of 15 percentage points. In a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll conducted November 13-14, 2007, Clinton led McCain 46 percent to 45 percent. The poll did not include data on an Obama-McCain matchup. In a generic matchup, 43 percent of respondents chose an unnamed Democrat, while 34 percent chose an unnamed Republican -- a difference of 9 percentage points. The most recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics and NBC/Journal polls do not include generic matchup polling. Several other head-to-head polls from November also showed McCain running much closer to Clinton and Obama than the lead an unnamed Democrat held over an unnamed Republican in the generic poll that the AP article cited. For example, a Gallup poll conducted November 11-14, 2007, found Clinton leading McCain 50 percent to 44 percent, while a Rasmussen poll conducted November 7-8, 2007, found McCain leading Clinton 47 percent to 45 percent. According to Real Clear Politics, three November polls surveyed an Obama-McCain matchup. A Rasmussen poll conducted November 28-29 found Obama and McCain tied at 44 percent. A Rasmussen poll conducted earlier in November found Obama leading McCain 46 percent to 43 percent. And a Gallup poll conducted November 11-14 found Obama leading McCain 47 percent to 44 percent. Neither Gallup nor Rasmussen included generic matchup polling. Additionally, a poll conducted March 25-27 by Democracy Corps/Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that "Democrats widened their lead in a generic presidential ballot to 12 points (53 to 41 percent)," but "both of the Democratic candidates for president, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, trail[ed] behind McCain." From the April 17 Associated Press article, by reporters Alan Fram and Trevor Tompson: Republicans are no longer underdogs in the race for the White House. To pull that off, John McCain has attracted disgruntled GOP voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats who shunned his party last fall. Partly thanks to an increasingly likable image, the Republican presidential candidate has pulled even with the two Democrats still brawling for their party's nomination, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo news poll released Thursday. Just five months ago -- before either party had winnowed its field -- the survey showed people preferred sending an unnamed Democrat over a Republican to the White House by 13 percentage points [sic]. Also helping the Arizona senator close the gap: Peoples' opinions of Hillary Rodham Clinton have soured slightly, while their views of Barack Obama have improved though less impressively than McCain's. The survey suggests that those switching to McCain are largely attuned to his personal qualities and McCain may be benefiting as the two Democrats snipe at each other during their prolonged nomination fight. [...] The findings of the survey, conducted by Knowledge Networks, provide a preview of one of this fall's battlegrounds. Though some unhappy Republicans will doubtless stay with McCain, both groups are teeming with centrist swing voters who will be targeted by both parties. The poll shows that McCain's appeal has grown since November by more than the Democrats' has dwindled. McCain gets about 10 percentage points more now than a generic Republican candidate got last fall; Obama and Clinton get about 5 points less than a nameless Democrat got then. [...] For now, more than one in 10 who weren't backing the unnamed Republican candidate in last November's survey are supporting McCain, a shift partly offset by a smaller number of former undecideds now embracing Obama or Clinton. Of those now backing McCain, about one-third did not support the generic GOP candidate last November.

On the March 21 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, guest host John King said of campaign donations from the securities and investment industry, "It appears [Sen.] Barack Obama and [Sen.] Hillary Clinton are getting the lion's share, but some wonder if that might make them too cozy with the financial services sector should either of them become president," and correspondent Brian Todd asserted that Obama and Clinton "may have some questions to answer about credibility and just how beholden they might be to those responsible for the home mortgage crisis." Todd then cited the Center for Responsive Politics' data on contributions from the "securities McCain Obama Clinton Contributions from the "securities & investment" industry $2,589,936 $6,026,529 $6,295,407 Total Contributions Through January 31, 2007 $49,210,685 $138,229,289 $120,980,180 Percentage 5.26% 4.36% 5.20% Todd also contrasted Obama's and Clinton's positions on "the home foreclosure crisis" with their campaign donations, asserting: "But while they were talking tough, new information shows Wall Street was underwriting them." CNN has previously baselessly suggested that Democrats are somehow being hypocritical or inconsistent if they take positions that are at odds with those advocated by their donors. As Media Matters for America noted, on the November 26, 2007, edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer suggested Democratic presidential candidates were "trying to have it both ways" by expressing support for the strike by the Writers Guild of America despite having accepted contributions from entertainment executives. During the report itself, general assignment correspondent Kareen Wynter stated: "They're speaking out for writers, but the Democratic front-runners have previously accepted donations from senior executives at some of the very companies the writers are striking against." After Todd's taped report, King asked Todd: "Brian, put this into context for us. Out of the overall contributions to both of these candidates, who have raised tens of millions of dollars, what is the significance of the Wall Street money?" Todd replied by stating "[i]t can be very misleading" before noting that the money "is a drop in the bucket," adding "It doesn't represent very much." Nevertheless, King asserted: "It's still worth watching." From the March 21 edition of CNN's The Situation Room: KING: Amid the presidential race, another race we're following concerns the bulls and bears of Wall Street. Which presidential candidates are they donating the most money to? It appears Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are getting the lion's share, but some wonder if that might make them too cozy with the financial services sector should either of them become president. CNN's Brian Todd joins me now. Brian, you've been looking into this. What are you finding? TODD: Well, John, it's interesting that among the Democrats, the consistent message is look to them for relief. But the two remaining Democratic candidates both may have some questions to answer about credibility and just how beholden they might be to those responsible for the home mortgage crisis. [begin video clip] TODD: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both say they'll take the lead in solving the home foreclosure crisis, and they have tough words for the financial giants who underwrote it. OBAMA: Some will say it's anathema to come to Wall Street and call for shared sacrifice. CLINTON: Wall Street helped create the foreclosure crisis, and Wall Street needs to help us solve it. TODD: But while they were talking tough, new information shows Wall Street was underwriting them. The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that tracks campaign donations, says during the year ending in late January, Senator Clinton got nearly $6.3 million from donors in the securities and investment industry, most of it from individuals who worked for the big firms. Senator Obama got just over $6 million. Both dwarf Senator John McCain's take of over $2.5 million. SHEILA KRUMHOLZ (Center for Responsive Politics executive director): The concern is that these candidates will be less willing to call for the necessary regulation of financial markets because of their reliance -- their heavy reliance on Wall Street for campaign cash. TODD: Both campaigns counter that vigorously. An Obama aide says his record of calling for Wall Street accountability in the foreclosure crisis is clear, and it won't change in the White House. A Clinton spokesman says it would look much worse if she had taken the money from Wall Street and not been as tough as she has with a far-reaching, aggressive plan for reform. The spokesman points out many of these contributions are natural byproducts of her representation of New York in the Senate. But analysts say this does signal that the days of the Republicans being the party of Wall Street are long since over. JIM VANDEHEI (Politico executive editor): Most of the establishment of the Democratic Party is now very cozy with Wall Street and very aware of their concerns here in Washington. [end video clip] TODD: Now, the Clinton campaign reflects this double-edged sword more than any other, possibly. A top economic adviser to Mrs. Clinton is Robert Rubin, a Wall Street titan who's still a top official at Citigroup. But a Clinton spokesman points out, it's Rubin, who as Treasury secretary oversaw one of the greatest economic expansions in U.S. history. If anybody can figure out how to deal with the Wall Street bailouts, it is Robert Rubin, John. KING: Robert Rubin back with us. Brian, put this into context for us. Out of the overall contributions to both of these candidates, who have raised tens of millions of dollars, what is the significance of the Wall Street money? TODD: It can be very misleading. By category, it's the third -- the financial sector represents kind of the -- according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the third-leading contributor to all the candidates. Fifty-five percent of that, they say, goes to the Democrats. But if you look at it among each individual candidate, and the money they have raised over the past year overall, this is a drop in the bucket by most accounts. It doesn't represent very much. KING: It's still worth watching. Brian Todd -- thank you very much, Brian.

While commenting on Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race in America, during the March 18 broadcast of his Fox News Radio show, Tom Sullivan asked, "Is that his second part of his message today is, 'Hey, vote for me, and we'll get past this racist thing'?" Sullivan continued: "Let me put it to you a different way. What if Barack Obama is not -- does not win the Democratic nomination, or he does win it, and loses in the presidential race against John McCain? Is black America going to throw their hands up and say, 'Man, you know, I thought we were getting somewhere in this country, but this is just a bunch of racial bigots in this country and they still hate blacks and, I mean, if Barack Obama can't get elected, then we're never gonna have anybody that's a black that's gonna be elected president.' And will there be riots in the streets? I think the answer to that is yes and yes." Later in the broadcast, while discussing his remarks with a caller, Sullivan stated that he was outside the courthouse on the day the O.J. Simpson verdict was announced, "And the police, LAPD, have probably, I'm not exaggerating, a hundred police on horseback, plus they had barricades up. And the police came over to us, on the other side of the street there must have been a couple of thousand African-Americans. And the police came over to us, and they said if this goes a certain way, we cannot protect you. They were ready to riot if O.J. was found guilty. That's why I go there's still a mistrust of the system and a certain of level of wanting to break things if it doesn't go their way." As Media Matters for America noted, during the February 11 broadcast of his show, Sullivan took a call from a listener who stated that when listening to Barack Obama speak, "it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell." Sullivan replied: "Oh, yeah, yeah ... I presume you're not saying he's Hitler, but I understand your point." Sullivan later played a "side-by-side comparison" of a Hitler speech and an Obama speech. Sullivan mimicked the crowd during both speeches, yelling, "Yay! Yay!" When a later caller complained that Sullivan was "denigrating" Obama with the comparison, Sullivan said he wouldn't play it again, then begged: "Can I, please, one more time? Just one more time? Then I won't do it again. ... Until the next time." Discussing the February 11 comments on his February 14 show, Sullivan said: "I wasn't trying to make a comparison. There isn't any comparison. There was none yesterday, there was none Monday, there will not be any in the future. It's nonsense." From the March 18 edition of Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan Show: SULLIVAN: Second point is that Pastor [Jeremiah] Wright's error is that he thinks that we haven't moved on since Jim Crow. But, will we, if we elect Barack Obama president? Is that his second part of his message today is, "Hey, vote for me, and we'll get past this racist thing"? Let me put it to you a different way. What if Barack Obama is not -- does not win the Democratic nomination, or he does win it, and loses in the presidential race against John McCain? Is black America going to throw their hands up and say, "Man, you know, I thought we were getting somewhere in this country, but this is just a bunch of racial bigots in this country and they still hate blacks and, I mean, if Barack Obama can't get elected, then we're never gonna have anybody that's a black that's gonna be elected president." And will there be riots in the streets? I think the answer to that is yes and yes. Regardless, people should vote, obviously, their conscience. I'm interested to see if this story keeps legs going for five more weeks until Pennsylvania. [...] CALLER: Well, and, can I just make a quick comment -- SULLIVAN: Sure. CALLER: -- on your last point, about the riots, of African-Americans -- SULLIVAN: Yeah! CALLER: Yeah, I don't think that that's the case. I think that that's, you know, sort of a bit much to say, "Oh, if he doesn't get it, we're going to throw up our hands and" - no, I don't think that's the case. I think we just want to, if he's going to lose, it'd be great if he just lost by the votes, as opposed to a smoke-filled room. But that being said, I do think that Barack still has to roll up his sleeves and get to hitting the ground and campaigning and get back on message. SULLIVAN: I say that because, and forgive me, it was 10, 12 years ago this happened, 13 years ago: I was outside the Los Angeles County courthouse on the day the verdict was coming for O.J., and myself, and the media, we were all shuffled together on the sidewalk outside the courthouse. I was standing right next to, in fact, shoved up against Maria Shriver. So we're standing out there, and the police, LAPD, have probably, I'm not exaggerating, a hundred police on horseback, plus they had barricades up. And the police came over to us, on the other side of the street there must have been a couple of thousand African-Americans. And the police came over to us, and they said if this goes a certain way, we cannot protect you. They were ready to riot if O.J. was found guilty. That's why I go there's still a mistrust of the system and a certain of level of wanting to break things if it doesn't go their way.

During the March 12 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume and a panel that included The Beltway Boys co-host and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes discussed the controversy over the awarding of a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract to Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS), the parent company of Airbus, over the American company Boeing. According to Reuters, the contract was described as a "surprise blow" to Boeing, which had previously been the "Pentagon's sole supplier of aerial tankers." In purporting to explain Sen. John McCain's role in the controversy, Barnes stated, "[H]ere's what he asked for: He asked for the Air Force to take into consideration, which he thought the Air Force regulations required, aircraft -- taking into consideration maximizing cargo and passenger capacity, which are important in a supertanker. Well, they did. And now Northrop Grumman and Airbus won the contract." But McCain reportedly asked for more than what Barnes said. His request was reportedly not merely for what the Air Force should take into consideration, but what he reportedly said it should not take into consideration. McCain reportedly urged the Defense Department to -- in the words of The New York Times -- "not proceed with a plan to consider" the potential effects of a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute between the United States and the European Union over whether Airbus and Boeing received illegal subsidies f