Again with the madrassa nonsense?

April 13, 2007

Reason #1,684,349 why I do not watch television news. This was CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric in last night’s “Notebook” segment:

“Hi, everyone. Is America ready to elect a president who grew up praying in a mosque?

“Barack Obama has arguably the most diverse religious background of any candidate ever. He was raised in Indonesia by a Christian mother and Muslim stepfather and attended a Catholic school — but while growing up, also studied Islam. That background sparked rumors that he had studied in a radical madrassa, or Quranic school — rumors his campaign denied, declaring that Obama is now a practicing Christian. Last month, the Los Angeles Times interviewed people who grew up with Obama. “We prayed in the mosque,” one of them said, “but not seriously,” noting that Obama also prayed with his Catholic schoolmates.

“It’s too soon to know what America will decide about Barack Obama or his background, but it’s not too soon to wonder if America will see that as an asset or a liability.”

This nonsense was debunked in January. There have been zero new revelations, details, or discussion. What on earth is Couric thinking?

By the time Couric said that Obama’s campaign “denied…rumors” about the senator having “studied in a radical madrassa,” I had to check to make sure Couric wasn’t cribbing from right-wing talking points. The madrassa nonsense didn’t just get a “denial” from campaign staffers; it was entirely debunked. It has no basis in reality — a tidbit that Couric felt no need to share with her viewers.

As Media Matters noted, the rest of the report was equally unreliable.

Couric also cited a March 15 Los Angeles Times article, claiming that the Times “interviewed people who grew up with Obama,” and that it quoted “one of them,” Zulfan Adi, saying, “We prayed in the mosque … but not seriously.”

However, in a March 25 article, the Chicago Tribune challenged much of the Times’ reporting. The Tribune noted that Adi — who the Times claimed “describe[d] himself as among Obama’s closest childhood friends” — said “he was not certain” about his claim that Obama “regularly attended Friday prayers” at the mosque with his stepfather and that he “only knew Obama for a few months, during 1970, when his family moved to the neighborhood.” The Tribune further reported: “Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia.”

So what are we left with? A leading anchor, in one of journalism’s premier positions, rehashing months-old nonsense for no reason and with no accuracy.

“Is America ready to elect a president who grew up praying in a mosque?” I don’t know; is America ready to watch an anchor who doesn’t know what she’s talking about?

There’s an analogy for this. Bear with me for a second.

Back in mid-late ’03, there was this argument that opposition to the US occupation in Iraq was really a matter of people hedging their bets – if Saddam got back in power, he’d reward his supporters & punish collaborators, so no one wanted to collaborate to openly. Of course, this turned out to be bullshit, because we were alienating, angering and (not least of it) torturing people even faster than we were neutralising Saddam and his dead-enders. But it was kind of a plausible argument at the time.

Maybe the US media are doing the same thing now that the Iraqi populace (allegedly) was doing then: hedging their bets by winking and nodding towards a defeated, unpopular conservative movement, just in case those guys worm their way back into power someday and go back to showering goodies on their erstwhile allies and contempt on their enemies. After all, the left is nowhere near as good at punishing their enemies. Look at the CBC’s collaboration with Fox for chrissake.

So that’s why Couric digs out the madrassa story, the WaPo deliberately misunderstands the purge story, etc. Just hedging their bets.

Our response, of course, should be twofold: make it clear that playing footsie now will have costs, and make it clear that the wingnuts really are permanently out of power.

  • Practically the only people left in America whose bullshit detectors aren’t set off whenever a Republican talks are elite MSM journalists — i.e., people who are supposed to be skeptical about political operatives for a living.

  • If it were anyone but Katie and WaPo Ed Board, I’d agree with you BC, but I think it more has to do with the fact that folks like Couric and those on the WaPo Editorial Board are just ass kissing sycophants who do what comes naturally to them.

    When the puppet master sez dance, they dance. When the puppet master sez assume the position, they assume the position no questions asked.

    But then again, I’m going on the assumption that Katie is a perky pretty dim bulb with limited reasoning capacities. So far, I haven’t seen anything from her that has changed my mind.

  • Thanks for highlighting the great work on this by Media Matters.

    The real question is, though… How do we get the rest of America to stop watching television news?

    Relentlessly shining a light on how bad it is seems like a good place to start, however.

  • What on earth is Couric thinking?

    Well, there’s the problem — assuming that empty-headed, vacuous, plagiarizing twit actually thinks.

    The woman merely reads what’s thrown on the teleprompter. Thought isn’t part of the equation.

  • Time for CBS to fire another producer who wrote something for this idiot to read off a teleprompter. She’s truly the Ron Burgundy of network news. “I’m Katie Couric. Go f*ck yourself America.”

  • Shouldn’t the lying gasbag be fired for plagiarizing, anyway?

    Is this what we tolerate now? Stolen essays and outright lies?

  • This is one of my pet peeves – ‘reporters’ saying so-and-so denies the story – without being even interested in acknowledging the existence of such a thing as the truth, let alone trying to find the truth.

    This kind of drivel always reminds me of the classic Daily Show exchange:

    CORDDRY: I’m a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called “objectivity”–might wanna look it up someday.

    STEWART: Doesn’t objectivity mean objectively weighing the evidence and calling out what’s credible and what isn’t?

    CORDDRY: Whoa-ho! Well, well, well–sounds like someone wants the media to act as a filter! [high-pitched, effeminate] “Ooh, this allegation is spurious! Upon investigation this claim lacks any basis in reality! Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Listen buddy: not my job to stand between the people talking to me and the people listening to me.

  • “Is America ready to elect a president who grew up praying in a mosque?” I don’t know; is America ready to watch an anchor who doesn’t know what she’s talking about?

    I suppose it’s legitimate to tie this to Couric, since she’s the personification of her network news organization, but the danger is in thinking that getting rid of her would do one tiny thing to improve the situation. Just as Dan Rather didn’t do the first-level investigation of the National Guard papers fiasco, you can bet your life that Katie Couric didn’t come up with the patently false madrassa story, nor was it her idea to put it on the air. Like Dan Rather in his anchor years, she’s a figurehead.

    The real problem is the whole lot of smug, crack-brained suits who somehow got it into their tiny heads that they are journalists. These are the same folks who for the last couple of days have been preoccupied with telling us why they are so morally superior to their highly paid employees, like Mr. Imus, who they hired and retained for years.

    Where have you gone Walter Cronkite? The nation turns its lonely eyes to you — woo woo woo.

  • She’s just doing what she’s paid to – repeat RNC talking points. Just keeping the narrative out there in case he’s the Democratic presidential candidate. A little taste of how the republicants are going spin an Obama candidacy.

  • Just curious, if a candidate went to church with family when he was a child and never went again after age 18, is he still a practicing Christian in the eyes of the average American if he attends a mosque NOW?

    It doesn’t say much for Christian people’s faith in their faith to truly covert people and save people’s souls if they buy into the idea that Obama is a Muslim and always will be because his father dragged him to a mosque as a kid.

  • I don’t know if there is much to be gained by trying to sanitize Barack Obama’s Muslim background. I suspect not. Let it be. It’s how it was.

    Presenting it as some kind of terrible extremist blight, of course, is completely unjustified and completely unprofessional (though sadly typical) for a leading anchor. Nevertheless, I think the question of whether “[..] America will see that as an asset or a liability.” is interesting.

    Personally, I would see it as an asset. At least, the prospect of meaningful, conflict-resolving communication would again appear to shimmer on a distant horizon.

  • Yes, only in winger land is more education to be looked at suspiciously. He studied several religious. Why, he must have been brainwashed by the Muslims. She’s really asking if the American people are too dumb to know that you can study someone else’s religion without converting – are we too dumb to know that we won’t be electing a terrorist who will turn the country over to osama bin laden. How can she even ask that with a straight face? She must know she’s being disingenuous?

  • “Navy SEALS ” (from “Fahrenheit 9/11”)

    Katie. Couric. Is. A. Moron. Katie. Couric. Is. A. Moron. Katie. Couric. Is. A. Moron. (repeat as necessary)

  • … is America ready to watch an anchor who doesn’t know what she’s talking about?

    I’m having a hard time trying to think of one that does. I’m going to go with “yes” on that one. America has definitely poven that we’re ready for that.

  • Obama – the “Manchurian Candidate”!

    As resolute as the Peanut Farmer: as traitorous as Hanoi Johnny; as amoral as Impeached Slick Willy!

    The new Wally Moandale and a landslide over the terrorist coddling libbies again in 2008!

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