CNN's Hatchet Job on Scott Ritter: "Over on MSNBC, Curtis & Kuby co-host Curtis Sliwa compared him to 'a sock puppet' who 'oughta turn in his passport for an Iraqi one.' But the nadir came later on CNN when makeup job Kyra Phillips interrogated him, implying that he was being paid by Iraq and all but calling him a quisling.I sent countless messages complaining about Kyra Phillips to CNN's feedback email addresses, but she is still employeed there so I gave up and changed the channel.
'Ha! Excuse me; I went to war against Saddam Hussein in 1991. I spent seven years of my life in this country hunting down weapons of mass destruction. I believe I've done a lot about Saddam Hussein,' he replied. 'You show me where Saddam Hussein can be substantiated as a threat against the United States and I'll go to war again. I'm not going to sit back idly and let anybody threaten the United States. But at this point in time, no one has made a case based upon facts that Saddam Hussein or his government is a threat to the United States worthy of war.' "
More recently bloggers have exposed Kyra Phillips' rightward tilt and Wikipedia documents her bias:
The organization Media Matters for America, a media research center, has highlighted her July 12, 2005 statement that there was "definitely a major smear campaign going on" against White House adviser Karl Rove. [1] Others have criticised her for a segment on April 21, 2005, in which one of her guests said that research showed that it was "a proven fact" that "children in same-sex couple homes are 11 times more likely to be abused sexually." Instead of challenging the assertion, she called it a "bold statement." [2]Maybe she is on the White House payroll.
While interviewing House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Phillips was accused by Pelosi of repeating the views of the Bush administration. Pelosi said "if you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll." [3]
The really sad aspect of this is that Kyra Phillips replaced Natalie Allen who, unlike Phillips, was a class-act.
Update: On November 30, 2005 Dada noted:
I was watching CNN's Kyra Phillips repulsion of the video of protestors who had surrounded a media bus in Denver, CO yesterday. Following the president, their progress had suddenly been detained by protestors against Bush's war.
Unable to dismount the bus, Kyra Phillips spoke with CNN's Elaine Quijano on board as cameras relayed images of the angry citizens outside, some flipping Bush the finger. This obviously made Kyra Phillips uneasy, as she apologized for the images being flashed across her network. Phillips was apparently embarrassed by the anger of citizens being manifested in the form of a simple gesture alongside the signs they were carrying.
Keep in mind the simple flipping of the bird in anger at Bush's policies is shameful and embarrassing to CNN, while their *Rah-rah* lead-up to Bush's war and the subsequent attrocities are not. A squeamish Phillips concluded the interview with Quijano and her repulsive images thusly, "Once again Elaine Quijano.... I just....get off this video, Elaine Quijano, thank you so much, some protestors there, obviously anti-war protestors comin' up on the media bus there as the president arrives there in Denver, CO..."
Dada would suggest if Kyra Phillips finds such gestures of the protestors offensive, she get help having her head extracted from her bodily orifice too "embarrassing and offensive" to mention here so that she'll be able to report objectively before a background of tortured Iraqis, of tens of thousands of maimed and murdered Iraqi women and children; of over 2,100 dead American soldiers and thousands more wounded.
Oh wait, never mind. CNN doesn't show us those gruesome images. Fingers of angry protestors already tests the limits of what they can report. So disregard my previous suggestion, Kyra Phillips. You can leave your head up that bodily orifice.
