Matt Ortega

John Gibson slammed Anderson Cooper for covering Iraq over the death of Anna Nicole Smith, calling him a “snob.”

The attack was on Gibson’s radio show and it relied on the timeless right-wing theme of “liberal elitism.”

GIBSON: Now I submit to you that that is a real, honest-to-God drama. Now it may not fit the high-minded views of a lot of news professionals, people who think that their news program is just another part of Foreign Affairs Quarterly. That only a certain kind of news is worthy of their discussing. Those people are snobs. They’re people who, when they see a story, go, “Ew, icky. I don’t want to do that.” I did this for years. I’ve been doing a long time. I’ve approached many stories and said, “That story isn’t worth our trouble.” It has always been a mistake. Always. Every single time I did it. So when I see people like this guy —

[CLIP ANDERSON COOPER] There’s a war on, there’s a war on, there’s a war on.

GIBSON: Oh, there’s a war on, there’s a war on. Maybe, just maybe, people are a little weary, Mr. Cooper, of your war coverage, and they’d like a little something else. Maybe that’s why they all thundered to this story.

[CLIP ANDERSON COOPER] There’s a war on, there’s a war on, there’s a war on.

GIBSON: My complaint about this is what you’re listening to when you hear that guy lecture the audience, is you’re listening to news-guy snobbery. Essentially saying, “I’m better than you. I know what you want to hear about, but I’m better than that story. I’m too high class for that story. I won’t stoop to what you want to hear about.” [emphasis added]

I’m not playing that. People want to hear about the Anna Nicole story, I’m happy to tell them.

If you read carefully, Gibson called himself a “snob.”

Think Progress (with video):

In a recent interview on CNN, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) claimed that it was “absolutely untrue” that he once said we should “take out Mecca in order to send a message.”

After airing Tancredo’s remarks, host Anderson Cooper said, “As always, we care about the facts on 360″ and proceeded to display Tancredo’s statements from an interview he conducted with Pat Campbell in July 2005. A review of the transcript showed Tancredo arguing that if terrorists were to use nuclear weapons in the U.S., we should respond by nuking the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

The transcript from July 2005:

Tancredo: “Well, what if you said something like, if this happens in the United States and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist, Muslims, um, you know, you could, you could take out their holy sites.”

Host: “You’re talking about bombing Mecca?”

Tancredo: “Yeah. I mean what if you said, what if you said that this is the, we recognize that this is the ultimate threat to the United States therefore this is the ultimate threat, this is the ultimate response. I mean, I don’t know, I’m just playing, throwing out there some ideas because it seems to me you, at this point in time, or at that point in time you’d be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could possibly imagine and other than that all you could do is tighten up internally.”

-Pat Campbell Show, WFLA 540, Thursday, July 14, 2005. [original emphasis]

Free Republic readers, sharing their sentiments on the original story, agreed with the comments of Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado).

The race for the White House in 2008 received plenty of ink and pixels as of late. Here’s a quick rundown of the past few days’ news.

Christian Conservative Crisis: “A group of influential Christian conservatives and their allies emerged from a private meeting at a Florida resort this month dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn.” [New York Times, 2/25/07]

Huge Suck-Up: “‘I’m probably going to get in trouble, but what’s wrong with sucking up to everybody?’ — John McCain, as quoted by Maureen Dowd, after being asked at a lucheon in Seattle why he was cozing up to the religious right.” [TPM Cafe | Election Central, 2/24/07]

Romney Misstates Bush on Abortion: “Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said this week that President Bush ‘was pro-choice before he became pro-life,’ an assertion the Romney campaign now acknowledges was inaccurate. The remark was based on a magazine article Romney had read, his campaign said.” [The Politico, 2/24/07]

Romney Family Polygamist History: “While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.” [Associated Press, 2/24/07]

Read more »

Strategic Vision released a poll that shows former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ahead of the GOP pack in Iowa. The Iowa Caucuses are less than a year away.

The poll was conducted February 16-18 with 600 likely Republican caucus goers with a margin of error at ±4 percent.

1. If the 2008 Republican presidential caucus were held today between, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, George Pataki, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson for whom would you vote? (Republicans Only; Names Rotated)

Rudy Giuliani 29%
John McCain 22%
Newt Gingrich 11%
Mitt Romney 9%
Chuck Hagel 5%
Tommy Thompson 3%
Tom Tancredo 2%
Sam Brownback 2%
Mike Huckabee 2%
Jim Gilmore 1%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Undecided 13%

Giuliani increased his numbers by four percent. Others include: McCain +1, Gingrich -2, Romney +1, Hagel -2, Thompson +1, Tancredo ±0, Brownback ±0, Huckabee +1, Gilmore ±0, Hunter ±0, Undecided -3.

President Bush’s image as a conservative continues to crumble. In January, 11 percent believed him to be a “conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan” with 77 percent disagreeing and 12 percent undecided. This month, only 8 percent believe that is true with 78 percent opposed. Thirteen percent are undecided.

It would be of interest to speculate how Giuliani’s numbers would fare if his opponents began tying the former mayor to President Bush on the conservative plane. Earlier this month, Giuliani, while praising Bush in California, said he would be a president just like the current Republican occupying the White House.

… America, he added, is “very fortunate to have President Bush.”

“Presidents can’t do nonbinding resolutions. Presidents have to make decisions and move the country forward, and that’s the kind of president that I would like to be, a president who makes decisions.”

McCain has taken measured shots at Bush in recent days, despite his staunch support of the President on Iraq.

In response to alleged biases at the user-edited Wikipedia, conservatives built their own called Conservapedia. (The culture of conservative victimhood continues.)

The fantasy-based reality constructed by conservatives has a new home on the web, in addition to right-wing blogs.

The main page explains:

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian “C.E.” instead of “A.D.”, which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of “political correctness”.

The tagline? “A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.”

Nevermind that reference texts, like the encyclopedia, are meant to stick to facts only and be free from biases. Creating an educational resource that “favors” anything by design seizes to be a reference tool altogether.

In a way, it is a lot like the Chappelle’s Show skit where host Dave Chappelle explores what the internet would be like if it was a real place.

More: Gavin M. takes a couple looks at Conservapedia.