David Axelrod Agrees: Lincoln Built an ‘Intercontinental Railroad’

-By John Sexton of Verum Serum

When I caught the President talking about President Lincoln’s “intercontinental railroad” in an interview he gave in February, I thought it was just an off-the-cuff gaffe. But it turns out his former chief political adviser made the same mistake just this weekend at the Aspen Ideas Festival (full video here):

It’s not surprising that both men would occasionally misspeak. It is surprising that both would use the same example, i.e. Lincoln’s “intercontinental railroad” as an example of big government stimulus spending, and make the same verbal gaffe while doing so.

You have to wonder if both the President and Axelrod got the same talking points memo from someone at the Center for American Progress or another friendly progressive think tank. And assuming they did get the handy political illustration from a common source, you have to wonder why neither of them caught the error (replacing transcontinental with intercontinental).
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David Axelrod Agrees: Lincoln Built an ‘Intercontinental Railroad’”


Obama’s Lincoln/Railroad Gaffe, why Did Old Media Ignore This?

-By Warner Todd Huston

In keeping with the many dozens of gaffes that Obama has made over the years, Verum Serum found another one from last February that has, with the help of the Old Media, slipped under the radar. Just more proof that Obama’s constant gaffes go unreported by the Old Media while they search high and low for the same sort of misspeaking from Republicans and conservatives.

Apparently the smartest president in history thought that Abe Lincoln built an intercontinental railroad in the midst of the Civil War.

Listen, Abraham Lincoln helped build the interstate, er the intercontinental railroad in the middle of the Civil War because he understood this was going to be important.

For being the smartest person in human history, Obama sure can be a dope sumtimes, kain’t he?
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Obama’s Lincoln/Railroad Gaffe, why Did Old Media Ignore This?”


The Gaffe that Time Forgot: Lincoln’s Intercontinental Railroad

-By John Sexton of Verum Serum

I came across this the other day and thought it was a perfect example of the sort of silly verbal gaffe which is ignored by the media when the left makes the error, but which is elevated to national importance when a conservative does it.

Thanks to Warner Todd Huston for making this clip. Have a look:

Listen, Abraham Lincoln helped build the interstate…the intercontinental railroad in the middle of the Civil War because he understood this was going to be important.

Of course, there was no “intercontinental railroad” being built during the Civil War. We did not build a trestle across the Bering Strait or lay tracks to South America. Abraham Lincoln did support the building of a transcontinental railroad connecting the East Coast to the West Coast.

Is this a big deal? Of course not. It’s obvious the President stumbled, probably thinking of our modern interstate road system and transposed that onto the transcontinental railroad. But if Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann had said this, you can bet there would be lots of people pointing out what an embarrassing historical gaffe it was. Paul Revere’s ride and John Quincy Adams are the most recent examples of this trend. Those gaffes were national news. The intercontinental railroad was not.

People misspeak. Sometimes they say things that are wrong. The difference is, the right doesn’t capitalize on everyone of these and try to form a narrative around them about the stupidity of, say Barack Obama. The left can’t seem to help itself, especially when it comes to conservative women.
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John Sexton of VerumSerum.com and I have been double teaming this Obama “intercontinental railroad” gaffe and the subsequent refusal of the media to take any notice at all. Here are our previous stories:


New ‘Reality’ TV Show To Focus On Race for 2012 Election

-By Warner Todd Huston

An interesting ad has recently appeared at the New York Craig’s List website which shows exactly how the left will be framing the upcoming 2012 presidential election. The ad asks for a family that represents “racial minorities” to be pitted against a family of “white conservatives.” It’s pretty clear they intend to make this whole election about race.

A new “reality” TV show is being planned as a “television documentary” centered around the 2012 elections. The company that put up the ad proves that race is their central theme. These would-be filmmakers are looking for “families that have profiles similar to the potential 2012 candidates.”

A television documentary is looking for participants in a future project concerning the 2012 Presidential elections.

That is to say one family that loosely resembles the Obama family (racial minority [can be any non-white racial or ethnic group], recent immigrant [1 or 2 generations], liberal, etc.) and one family that loosely resembles a potential Republican contender (white, conservative).

So, it is apparent that this “television documentary” project is going to focus on race with this. They want America to see this presidential campaign as a contest between white and black America. They don’t want this to be about issues at all.
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New ‘Reality’ TV Show To Focus On Race for 2012 Election”


‘Sabotage’: Media Matters Dumpster Diving for Dirt Against Fox News Employees

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico has a story up about Media Matters that shows just how illegitimate, how low down, how filled with vitriol and hate its efforts to push George Sorros’ left-wing agenda is. Media Matters, you see, has quietly revamped its operations to go from mere media criticism to outright enemy and saboteur of Fox News. They are even going to far as to research the lives and financial holdings of even the lowliest Fox employees in order to “sabotage” Fox and to blackmail employees.

Ben Smith recalls that Media Matters, a left-wing blog funded to the tune of $10 million a year by folks like billionaire financier George Soros, originally started its life on the Internet as the sort of media opposition to right of center blogs, talk radio hosts, and TV newsers like Fox News. But Smith reports that Media Matters is now retrenching and starting a new direction: saboteur of Fox News.

I don’t say “saboteur” in hyperbole, either. Media Matters founder David Brock himself casts Media Matters’ new role as the official saboteur of Fox.
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‘Sabotage’: Media Matters Dumpster Diving for Dirt Against Fox News Employees”


Denial: Obama Nat’l Sec. Advisor Says ‘Many Different Faiths’ Turn to Terrorism

-By Warner Todd Huston

What do they say about denial, that it isn’t just a river in Egypt? That old quip constantly is brought to mind as President Obama and his administration prove over and over again that they are in complete denial about the danger we are facing in radical Islam.

This time it is the woefully absurd claim made by Denis McDonough, Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, who said that members of many different religions “succumb to terrorist ideologies.” McDonough said this in an address given on March 6 at the Islamic ADAMS Center in Sterling, Virginia.

With his remarks at the headquarters of this Muslim organization, McDonough proved that he simply refuses to recognize reality concerning radical Islam and is even willing to minimize that threat by pretending that all religions contain “terrorists.”
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Denial: Obama Nat’l Sec. Advisor Says ‘Many Different Faiths’ Turn to Terrorism”


Palin Gives Time A Few Minutes of Her Time About Its False ‘Reporting’

-By Warner Todd Huston


The media is so sure that only the worst about Palin could possibly be true that false stories, out right lies, and even comedy bits are constantly presented as actual news. Time Magazine is the latest to fall into that trap by reporting a satirical Internet posting about Sarah Palin as hard news. It all just goes to prove that Sarah Palin lives in the heads of the Old Media and it must be awfully cramped up there.

Last week on Time Mag’s Celebrity Newsfeed, Nick Carbone reported satire as fact only to make a “correction” days later. Carbone had fallen for a “tongue-in-cheek” Internet posting that joked that in an interview with Fox News personality Sean Hannity Palin said she wanted to deport Christina Aguilera for screwing up the National Anthem at the opening of the Superbowl.
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Palin Gives Time A Few Minutes of Her Time About Its False ‘Reporting’”


Helen Thomas ‘Spirit of Diversity’ Award Canceled After Latest Anti-Semitic Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few days ago the miserable Helen Thomas, famed long-time Washington correspondent, let her hatred for Jews get the best of her once again. At a workshop held in Dearborn, Michigan dedicated to fighting anti-Arab bias in the United States, Thomas came out forcefully against the “Zionists” in Israel and the United States and refused to back away from anti-Jewish comments she’s made in the past.

It seems that Thomas’s latest anti-Jewish comments have caused her to lose support of at least one institution: her own alma mater, Wayne State University. The school from which Thomas graduated in 1942 announced this week that it will no longer be awarding its Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media Award to journalists that “stand out in their field.”

As Wayne State once described the award: “The award was established to recognize her leadership role in promoting diversity in the media and the issues of race in America.”
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Helen Thomas ‘Spirit of Diversity’ Award Canceled After Latest Anti-Semitic Comments”


Terrorism, Sure. Oh, but it’s ‘Not a Conspiracy’!

-By Warner Todd Huston

How many terror attacks or attempted terror attacks have occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11? Five? Six? Ten? According to our government each and every one of these attacks, whether failed or not, have had one thing in common: “they are not part of a conspiracy.”

Clearly, however, our officials are lying to us on this count.

Just to name a few of these incidents, in no certain order we’ve had Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber; Richard Reid, the shoe bomber; Michael Finton (calling himself Talib Islam), the creep in Illinois that wanted to bomb a federal building; Derrick Shareef, the other guy in Illinois planning an attack on a shopping mall and also Major Hassan’s Fort Hood massacre that actually came to fruition. There have been others, too. Just this week, for instance, we got Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the Christmas tree bomber.
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Terrorism, Sure. Oh, but it’s ‘Not a Conspiracy’!”


In Which I Come to Meghan McCain’s Defense… Sort Of

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico must feel it has a delicious little story of media feuding to report upon. Recently Meghan McCain shook her head in amazement that President Obama would stoop so low as to appear on a Ryan Seacrest show. Seacrest has shot back at McCain snarking that McCain herself tried to get on his show, so what’s the deal with her criticism he wonders? For its part Politico is lapping it all up. But the whole story misses an important point, one that mitigates in favor of McCain’s point.

When it was announced that President Obama was going on Seacret’s show, McCain was somewhat aghast at it all. Of the plans, McCain said, “there is something so unbelievably desperate and sad about the president going on Ryan Seacrest -exactly WHO is on his communications staff?” She went on to say, “it is belittling to The Office of The Presidency. But at the end of the day, it’s all good things for Republicans…”
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In Which I Come to Meghan McCain’s Defense… Sort Of”


Old Media Shields Rahm Emmanuel From Conservative Reporter, Threaten Violence

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is really outrageous. William Kelly, who has a program on the weekends on Chicago’s WIND radio, went out with the rest of the media shadowing Rahm Emanuel as he walked around meeting and greeting Chicago voters yesterday. The outrageous part was that Kelly, a conservative, was pushed away by one self-professed “real” reporter and threatened with violence from another simply for asking Emanuel if he thought the stimulus was a failure.

I am very familiar with William Kelly as I’ve worked with him off and on for the last year since his run for State Comptroller in the primary. Certainly Kelly is somewhat of a gadfly in Republican politics in Chicago, but for the Old Media to push him around and threaten to “deck” him is way out of bounds. Further, Kelly is just as much a “real” journalist as they are and has just as much right to ask candidate Emanuel a question as they do.
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Old Media Shields Rahm Emmanuel From Conservative Reporter, Threaten Violence”


Chicago News Outlets Miss That FBI Targeted Protester is Chief Steward for SEIU

-By Warner Todd Huston

One might think it would be big news that a Chief Steward for a Local chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is being investigated by the FBI for possible connection to overseas terror networks. Apparently, though, several Chicago news outlets didn’t see a reason to add this little fact to their stories. And even if it wasn’t big news that the FBI is investigating a union member, one would think that his profession would at least make an appearance somewhere in properly formulated coverage of the story… right?

Over the weekend the FBI announced that it was investigating Joseph Iosbaker for possible connections to overseas terror groups. Iosbaker and his wife Stephanie Weiner, both anti-war activists, are suspected of activities “concerning the material support of terrorism.”

The Chicago news has been all over the demonstrations that left-wing groups have mounted in Chicago to protest the FBI’s investigation of the anti-war activists. These stories are filled with all sorts of facts, dates and names. But in a significant handful of stories one little fact seems to have escaped the notice of these hardnosed journalists. Iosbaker is an SEIU union member. And not just a rank and file member but an official.
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Chicago News Outlets Miss That FBI Targeted Protester is Chief Steward for SEIU”