BrendanNyhan Keith Olbermann makes a vicious reference to Bill O'Reilly's physical abuse as a child http://j.mp/biNexrKeith Olbermann - Bill O'Reilly - Jennifer Aniston | Mediaite Last night, Bill O'Reilly made a flimsy argument that Jennifer Aniston (of all people) is a threat to America for encouraging little girls to consider single parenthood. In an unprecedented move, Keith Olbermann made O'Reilly one of today's Worst Persons in the World. This near-daily occurrence would usually merit little more than a yawn, except the crux of Olbermann's argument was that O'Reilly made this point because he was abused by his father as a child.- BrendanNyhan Salon's Alex Pareene engages in some needed naming and shaming of cable news crime "expert" Wendy Murphy http://j.mp/cYwXfdWhy cable news never punishes liars - Media Criticism - Salon.com "Crime expert" Wendy Murphy routinely makes up facts and figures, without consequences -- because she's good on TV
- BrendanNyhan Quantitative analysis of the most important plays in Super Bowl history http://j.mp/aGoN6l
- BrendanNyhan Reader proposes next book in Goldberg/Kos genre: Moderate Khanism -- Why centrists are like Genghis Khan http://j.mp/bhbFSxKos seeks to become the Jonah Goldberg of the left - Brendan Nyhan Markos Moulitsas, also known as "Kos" and the founder of the Daily Kos website, has a new book coming out in the Michael Moore/Ann Coulter genre called American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical...
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August 13, 2010
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About Me
I am Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Duke University and have served as a RWJ Scholar in Health Policy Research and a faculty member in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I also tweet at @BrendanNyhan, contribute to The Upshot at The New York Times, and am a co-organizer of Bright Line Watch. Previously, I served as a media critic for Columbia Journalism Review, co-edited Spinsanity, a non-partisan watchdog of political spin, and co-authored All the President's Spin. For more, see my Dartmouth website.
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Brendan cites an article in Salon that's worth a closer look. The article refers to "a 'Daily Show' montage on efforts to repeal the 14th Amendment." The Daily Show piece isn't the only one recently to attack those who want to repeal the 14th Amendment. In The Progressive, David Love writes about "[t]he call by some conservative lawmakers to repeal the 14th Amendment . . . ." In the Huffington Post, we learn that "[o]n Sunday, Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) became the highest-ranking Republican to suggest support for the repeal of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." Ditto Wonkette. Ditto the Colbert Report's interview (starting around 5:00) with a Yale Law professor.
There's only one problem with all this heated concern about Republican efforts to repeal the 14th Amendment. It's a lie. No Republican has proposed repealing the 14th Amendment. There has been discussion about changing the portion of the 14th Amendment that confers birthright citizenship, but that's not a repeal of the 14th Amendment. It wouldn't change the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. It wouldn't change the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Those are the two clauses on which a plethora of rights have been based. Changing birthright citizenship would leave those rights completely unaffected--not just for citizens, but even for illegal immigrants and their children.
Treating the discussion about birthright citizenship as an attempt to repeal the 14th Amendment is a fairly obvious attempt to mislead the public and obscure the issue, much like the effort to tar anyone who's opposed to illegal immigation as being anti-immigration. Brendan's been vigilant about how essential it is that media debunk any claim that the health care law could lead to death panels. One hopes he'll be equally outraged about the misleading talk about repeal of the 14th Amendment and that he'll demand that media debunk any such assertion. He could start with the Salon article he cites, which refers to the Daily Show segment about repeal of the 14th Amendment but fails in any way to debunk that lie.
Posted by: Rob | August 13, 2010 at 09:32 AM
Leave it to Brendan Nyhan to suck all the fun out of football.
Posted by: metrichead.blogspot.com | August 13, 2010 at 06:30 PM