Obama Has Republicans Dusting Off ‘Liberal’ Attacks

From Bloomberg News today:

Karl Frisch, spokesman for Media Matters for America, a Washington-based media watchdog organization, criticized the rating, saying it is “remarkably misleading” to count Obama votes such as those he cast in favor of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations and ethics overhaul as “liberal.”

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April 30, 2008 | Filed Under Media Matters | Comment 

Hunter Allen (11/17/78 – 04/24/08)

Hunter Allen

On Friday I received a phone call at work with news that my friend Hunter Allen had passed away.

Prior to moving out to Vermont to work on the Dean campaign, Hunter was one of my closest friends in Los Angeles. He’s actually the person who got me involved with Dean in the first place. In late 2002 he invited me to a press conference where Rob Reiner endorsed Howard Dean — to say I was impressed with the then-Vermont Governor would be an understatement. Just a few months later Hunter moved to Vermont to work on the campaign and, thanks in large part to his urging, I followed along a few weeks later.

We had a blast together — two Los Angeles gays roughing it in the outback of Vermont (and Canada), then, just as we were about to sign a lease and move in together for the rest of the campaign, he was shipped off to Iowa for the caucuses.

After the Dean campaign, Hunter moved back to Los Angeles and I moved to DC. We lost touch for a while but in the last year we’d started talking again — I’d planed on seeing him this summer when I’m out in California. When we spoke three weeks ago I don’t think I ever would have guessed it would be the last time I would hear his voice.

I’m still raw from the news. I’m trying to make sense of it, though I don’t know that I ever will. What I do know, is that I’m going to miss Hunter and wish I could have told him how much I valued our friendship before he passed away.

Photo compliments of Michael Silberman.

April 26, 2008 | Filed Under Personal | Comment 

Paul Waldman discusses McCain’s Free Ride on Cowntdown

April 26, 2008 | Filed Under Breaking Media Matters, Video | Comment 

US network faces backlash after Democratic debate

From today’s Guardian UK:

A spokesman for media monitoring organisation Media Matters said the network missed an opportunity to “offer the American people a frank discussion of the issues that we all face and how these candidates plan on tackling them.

“Instead, those that tuned in saw a veteran news team clearly out of touch and more interested, frankly, in gaffes and gotchas than health care, the war in Iraq, and our failing economy,” said the spokesman, Karl Frisch.

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April 17, 2008 | Filed Under Media Matters, News Mentions | Comment 

Bill O’Phobia

“I think everybody’s got to relax on all this gay stuff.” - Bill O’Reilly, The O’Reilly Factor, August 15, 2007

April 14, 2008 | Filed Under Breaking Media Matters, Video | Comment