Administration on wrong side of CNN freedom of conscience poll.

And BOOM goes the Dynamite.

Here is something that needs to be pointed out (as Hot Air did): this poll on the public reaction to the Obama’s administration’s attack on freedom of conscience is skewed toward the liberal position in at least two ways.  First, it polls adults, which traditionally skews things a couple points towards the Democrats; second, it took place after the administration/mainstream media blitz touting Obama’s compromise.  And said poll still shows a majority of respondents opposed to the Obama administration requiring religious organizations from funding procedures that violate those organizations’ religious beliefs.  50/44 opposed/for, and anybody out there willing to take a bet on those numbers changing in the administration’s favor when it comes to likely voters? Or even registered ones?  Actually, we already know; Rasmussen polled likely voters, and came up with 50/39 opposed/for.  Pew polled adults, but also polled Catholics (48/44 and 55/39 for exempting religious organizations, respectively).

CNN is left scratching its metaphorical head at its own results, given that the poll results also show extremely broad support (81/17 for/against) for birth control among Americans, including American Catholics (77/22).  Speaking as somebody who himself in opposition to the Church on this, let me explain the divergence between the two questions: yes, I and many other American Roman Catholics are functional if not formal heretics of the Church* over contraception.  We are, in fact, engaged in a long-term and probably ultimately unresolvable conflict over the doctrine involved. Continue reading Administration on wrong side of CNN freedom of conscience poll.

RS Interviews: Heritage/AEI Post-debate reactions.

I talked with several folks from Heritage and AEI after the debate, in order to get their reactions to how the debate went, how it came off, and how they felt the debate came across to watchers.

As you can see, spin rooms are kind of noisy; they’re also pretty focused places. Everybody in there – including probably you – needs a specific piece of information and/or quote to finish up their own material, and the sooner they get it, the sooner they can get somewhere about ten to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit cooler. This is actually conducive to good manners; after all, arguments and shouting matches eat into time. Should you ever participate in one of these, I recommend patience, waiting your turn, and hitting the restroom on your way in.

And business cards. They’re highly useful in these situations.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

The CNN/Heritage/AEI debate, the day after.

My post-debate take, which is of course made vastly more relevant by the fact that… I followed it onsite rather than online.  Well, online at onsite.  Generally, these events are a bit different from the inside, including (surprisingly) less chances to schmooze with the candidates than you’d expect.  A ‘spin room’ is there primarily to get access to raw material for the article that you need to write the next day; if you were thinking that candidates would hold court there, well… no.  Still useful for getting access to campaign managers and press liaisons, though.

Anyway, my take, alphabetically: Continue reading The CNN/Heritage/AEI debate, the day after.

Crosshairs in the crosshairs.

This is starting to get old.

Byron York is a very smart guy, and he’s done yeoman work in cataloging CNN’s horrible, horrible use of ‘crosshairs’ terminology in days gone past.  But I’d just like to hammer this point home: said use of the term by CNN did not cause the following groups:

  • PETA
  • People who don’t like MasterCard
  • Mystical nature spirits responsible for flooding conditions in California*
  • People who don’t like the suspects in a missing-person case
  • The FDA
  • An unnamed US military commander who doesn’t like an Afghan warlord
  • People who don’t like Obamacare
  • People who don’t like Michelle Bachmann

Continue reading Crosshairs in the crosshairs.

#rsrh Giant oily super-hurricanes of DOOM.

(Via AoSHQ) So, CNN wants you to know that SOMETHING COULD HAPPEN:

A predicted busy hurricane season this summer is on a collision course with an unprecedented oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the results are anyone’s guess, weather experts say.

…and then they proceed to guess the three or four worst-case scenarios, ranging from destruction of the undersea life to and oily super-hurricane of DOOM aimed straight at Haiti. Which, admittedly, is a possible scenario; that it’s also a scenario guaranteed to increase hitcount for CNN is not really addressed.

And, shoot, it worked, didn’t it?

Moe Lane

The CNN estimate of the Searchlight Rally.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers. So I am, so I am.

(H/T: Instapundit) Guess how many people CNN reported showed up here:

Go on, guess.

Nope. Lower than that.

Nope. Lower than that.

Nope. Still lower. No, really.

Give up?

Hundreds of people, at least dozens of people – we haven’t gotten a count of how many people turned out there…

Video confirmation at link.

Well, now we know why CNN gave my RS colleague Erick Erickson a job: they clearly need at least one person in the lineup who can do math.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Gasoline on the fire of Erick’s CNN gig.

A group’s got to know its limitations.

You may have noticed that a lot of the people being most virulent about Erick’s CNN gig are folks who don’t have, won’t have, and probably can’t have CNN gigs, or anything like that (the highest that they aspire to is to get on Maddow once) and it’s not unreasonable to assume that this probably bugs them. They’re in the Left-sphere, remember? Beyond a certain point, there’s no advancement; the activist Left have all the tame blogs that they need, thanks, and they’d prefer to develop the ones that they have than let new ones be created.

But if you’re in that position you don’t want to think about it, I suppose. I certainly wouldn’t, if I was in their shoes*. So they’ve told themselves that it’s because they’re too edgy for the MSM. Too in-your-face. It’s the price that they pay for keeping it real with their rough language and uncompromising style. So it’s OK, really; they can’t be blamed for being too hardcore for television. So when Erick gets a CNN gig, after calling David Souter a goat-f*cking child molester? Well, they can start screaming about the situation, or they can dispassionately admit to themselves that the real reason why they’re not on TV is because they suck.

You tell me which is a more attractive option to these people.

Moe Lane

PS: Jim Geraghty was thinking along the same lines. Which you’d already know, if only you subscribed to his Morning JoltContinue reading Gasoline on the fire of Erick’s CNN gig.

#rsrh On Hell Freezing Over.

As you’ve probably heard by now, my RS colleague/Dear Leader/most visible target (and friend) Erick Erickson has landed a nightly gig with CNN.  I’ve been saving my commentary for Twitter because you can pretty much take it as a given that I approve of this move by CNN and Erick, so why bother writing it out all formal-like?

But thanks to RS McCain’s article in The American Spectator, I do have something to note.  Specifically, Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly*, who came up with this gem:

This is easily the worst decision CNN has ever made.

Oh, really?

Over the last dozen years I [former CNN Chief News Executive Eason Jordan] made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN’s Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard — awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.

Via Transterrerstial Musings.  Not that this would really count, for the Online Left.  But I don’t feel up for another round of “Try to convince netrooters that non-Europeans are actually real” this afternoon.

Moe Lane

*I should pretend that I take no enjoyment at comparing RedState’s and WM’s relative traffic positions, but… well, that would be a lie, lie, lie.

I don’t think that this video *has* a context.

It’s just a broom. That made CNN.

Via Breitbart TV.

I actually like video shorts like this: while they are admittedly taking up resources that CNN might use to report on real news, I’m not precisely impressed with the way that CNN reports on real news. At least this way the Alabama lady maybe gets a few more customers for her shop…

Moe Lane

Anti-Tea Party Susan Roesgen out at CNN.

You may remember Susan Roesgen as the woman who rather notoriously played the role of Obama stimulus apologist while carrying a CNN microphone at the April 15th Chicago Tea Party (she was also the subject of some now-vanished Jon Stewart scorn over her coverage of a Fargo flood, but that’s a different story). Well, it seems that she’s become an unemployment statistic:

Breaking: TVNewser has learned CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen‘s contract will not be renewed and she will be leaving the network.

[snip]

When TVNewser asked whether Roesgen’s comments at the Chicago tea party rally had anything to do with her not being renewed, a CNN spokesperson said, “I can’t comment on personnel matters.”

In other words, Roesgen’s comments at the Chicago Tea Party had something to do with her not being renewed. See also Ed Driscoll, who revisited Ms. Roesgen’s adventures in advocacy in his report on the July Tea Parties; Founding Bloggers, who had the video that CNN rather badly wanted to go away; and Hot Air, which is openly wondering when MSNBC will offer her a job. Given the way that the two networks are hacking each other into bloody gobbets to claim the #2 spot in cable news, they may have already.

I don’t know who gets to keep this (metaphorical) scalp; but I think that the Tea Party movement can certainly claim it.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.