all the changes mentioned in the article can happen overnight does president meet the beauty of planning to run for second term to see through all the reforms he envisions. i don't think that's the right way to look at it the point is not just the second term the point is that like you said it will take more time than just a year or two to implement the plans declared by the president. the modernization engendered put forward by the head of state is supported by both the majority of society and the government that is why solving this problems goes beyond the framework of one presidential term this is gender is not just some program that has been put together haphazardly it deals with serious urgent problems that have to be addressed and i tell you think you very much for doing this was the press secretary of the president of russia that it's in our core.

wealthy british style. that was. the. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. is a report on our. morning news today. these are the images the world from the streets of canada. operations are.

one thirty am in moscow good to have you with us here on r t these are your headlines a new arena for new ideas president medvedev tells the global policy forum in

jaroslav hold that the u.s. shouldn't be jealous about russia's proposed new security treaty for europe as it would help everyone he also rebuffed criticism of democratic standards in russia saying that adoption of a parliamentary democracy for the country would be a quote catastrophe just as it had been for kyrgyzstan. nor said that north a sessions had been lighting candles across the republic to mourn seventeen victims of a suicide car bomb attack on thursday the first funerals already taken place well some of the one hundred sixty injured are being treated. and r.t. investigates the rapid growth of islam in america with a number of converts since the nine eleven line eleven terror attacks increasing despite claims the media fuels anti a muslim sentiment. cross talk as you're heading your way next today our guests debate the influence of the us media on the country's politics stay with us here on our team through. it.

was. however. this industry still keeps its secrets but now it's time to reveal that the soviet files the chance in case ever log on to. the k.k.k.

can. still. love him welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle it's angry and all pervasive right wing media particularly television and radio are enormously influential in the u.s. for some shock jocks reflect public opinion others see it differently right wing media is full of hate and intensely biased. if you. discuss america's media wars and politics i'm joined by matthew vacuum in washington he's a senior editor at capital research center in new york we cross to alexander's i check he's a journalist and author of the book common nonsense glenn beck and the triumph of ignorance also in new york we have steve rendall senior analyst at fairness and accuracy in reporting and another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger all

right steve i'd like to go to you first in preparing for this program i came across an amazing article in the washington post a few days ago. majority of g.o.p. thinks obama wants to impose islamic law now tell me where did that come from because it sounds like it comes came from the blogs fear that you go from the blog sphere into the mainstream and now everybody's talking about it and it seems quite amazing that we can hear these things repeated over and over again and then people start believing it i think that's right i think you're exactly right peter i think what you have is you have these rumors that began in the in the right wing fever swamp so the blogosphere they sleep upwards into into the world of talk radio and fox news and other murdoch outlets like the new york post and they are amplified they enter this right wing media app echo chamber in which they raise doubts now as with other bits of right wing propaganda they don't have to succeed

you don't have to get most of americans believing that obama is in fact a sleeper agent for for islam but if you can toss that you can throw some smoke out there and muddy the waters if you will to mix metaphors you can create doubt and this is bad for your opponent and it's a it's a tried and true we have this with this with boats i think we're seeing this now with the ground zero mosque as well i'll xander you've written a book on glenn beck i mean is there any accountability for these types of people in the media they go around and repeat these kinds of things and very hateful speech here i mean you know in the blogs theory but he thinks it's really a fair game and why not ok everyone can be a journalist if they want but i mean and once it goes into the mainstream this is really about politics and it really has a lot to do about people's welfare and it feeds off an enormous amount of anger that is in the united states right now and maybe for good reason so is people like

glenn beck ever held accountable or is it just their advertisers that are finally making him come to own up to his words and opinions. well there has been a pretty successful campaign against glenn beck organized by online activists that's the closest thing to accountability that we've really seen. come from is more extreme comments but his employers stand by him both affiliates on radio and the fox news channel all the way up to rupert murdoch of course have his back and have defended him and his more outlandish comments so the question of accountability is an interesting one there doesn't seem to be the same sort of. people held to account the way they used to be with this sort of standard you know what they already structure in a standard kind of shared reality where there's truth and there's fiction and if you say something that's blatantly false and outrageous you are immediately called out and held up to be

a fraud and not someone who's trustworthy that world has disappeared and it doesn't seem to we're going to be returning to it anytime soon you have this alternative reality that basically consists of fox news and the talk radio hosts who pretty much can create their own truths and maintain them amplify them and as the previous speaker said stephen said they take on a life of their own and you only need to really get a quarter of the public believing it and it has a massive massive impact on the quality of matthew franco to you is this is this really the media of fear of looking for scapegoats for trying to explain what's wrong in society i mean there's a lot of things wrong like i said there's a lot of reasons for people to be angry but people are being scapegoated i mean this stuff going on with with people believing that obama is going to bring islamic religious rule to the united states i mean that's just pure ludicrous for anyone that is looking at reality but it's scapegoating and it's going after politicians

and again never being held accountable is the politics of scapegoating. i think that when a public figure is disliked all sorts of rumors are likely to stick to him but i don't think contrary to what you've been suggesting that what glenn beck and other . segments of the talk radio. sector are doing is scapegoating i think that there has been a genuine grassroots reaction to the radical policies of the obama administration and the democratic controlled congress and people are upset about it president obama presented himself more or less as a moderate as a pragmatist during the two thousand and eight election campaign and then americans were shocked to find out that he was very radical once he got into office he forced all sorts of policies on the american people that they didn't want particularly his obamacare his plan that is going to eventually lead to

a single payer health care system which the american people overwhelmingly reject so you know there might be some people out there who are scapegoating but i don't think that opposition to the left wing agenda is necessarily scapegoating steve we do certainly that's usually i would totally reject going to germany i mean if i could just say one thing i mean characterizing that is the agenda as radical i mean that in itself as you're naming it already you've already described it in and i want to talk about other days i want to talk about if we can have a dialogue when we get to the point it's radical ok go ahead steve. well first of all let me just say that the series of policy initiatives that obama has taken have been very corporate friendly very very centrist if you look at from the obamacare which is which which basically was created by the pharmaceutical and and

insurance industries in this country this is a centrist what is creating what is creating insecurity in the country is you have two parties both of them mostly own by corporations yes the democrats are a little closer to wall street but the republicans are nearly fully owned by corporations including the oil industry what you have is the need for an f.d.r. you have the need for some economic populism and there's no candidate there's no major candidate or party that is carrying that water so you have a lot of restlessness you have nonsensical things like glenn beck and the tea party movement which don't make any sense they're totally in the pocket of corporations and yet they're out fronting this supposed. economic populist movement that are going to you know take back things for the little guy when they're fully there fully own by by corporations so you have this polity that that is sort of at loose ends because there is no f.d.r. there is nobody that is that is really pulling for the little guy republicans are

owned by corporations and the democrats are nearly fully owned by corporations and obama is no exception to that you know matthew i could just jump back to you real quick that i mean i'm not i don't want to tell a lot of debt a lot of goading no no matthew and i go back two years and a lot of liberals are very disappointed with obama because he isn't radical enough we go stay with the word i mean he's an empty suit he's and he's still too close to corporations he compromises on everything we how can you say that's a radical agenda because i mean if i guess if the right wing media doesn't say it's radical then they're not going to be able to sell their media right i mean you have to always say he has a nationalized part of the financial services industry he's nationalized. part of the automobile industry he's increased government spending. that that is not and that's not really an answer and it's typical of leftist always want to change the topic when they get into trouble and this scapegoating of corporations simply doesn't work the american people are rejecting this right now

certainly corporations were a lot of corporations insurance companies were on board with the obamacare plan and and it's unfortunate they were but this is not you know this is the argument that corporations are to blame for all of america's ills this is a form of of left wing populism and scapegoating in and of itself ok and i'm going to say that it's the left that stewing the scapegoating not the right ok i'm going to try and go to you let's give i'll give you a hypothetical let's say hillary clinton had won the democratic nomination and was elected later or mccain had won the election do you think that would have been any of this tea party movement that people like glenn beck's like dr. i think if a clinton had come back to the white house absolutely i mean all you have to do is remember what happened the last time there was a clinton in the white house you had a lot of the same sort of hysterics you had the same conspiracy theorizing on the right the same smear tactics so i think you would see

a lot of it i think i don't think it would be quite as hysterical if there wasn't a black man named barack obama that has seemed to add an extra edge to what we're seeing today i don't think you can quite explain the anger or otherwise that you've seen just explode since the election of obama i mean i'm not going to reduce it just to that i don't think that's fair or accurate but clearly there's something else going on here that has made it extremely it has made it a fundamentally different kind of anger at sort of liberal establishment that we saw the last time a democrat was in power it's it was infused with something else because it went from nothing to all of a sudden this. extremely irrational just fire across the land so i think obama's election gave it a different spin but yes if clinton had been elected you would see something similar mccain probably not so much although that clearly there would still be discontent with some of the policies that he would have carried over from from the

bush years but nothing like nothing like you're seeing now. do you do you think that when i look at right wing media i look at fox and all that it seems to me their only purpose is to destroy the obama presidency it doesn't matter has nothing to do with policies whatsoever it's to show that they can do it it has nothing to do with policies. if you just want to destroy well i thought the purpose i thought the purpose of the media was to. was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable the purpose of the media is to be critical of the government. and it seems that most of the mainstream media is not doing its job right now they've all uncritically accepted obama's policies and they go to bat for him on a regular basis so if the media is being very critical of the obama administration if the fox news is and and talk radio is that doesn't necessarily have to mean anything i'm going to jump in here. after

a short break we'll continue our discussion on political discourse in the us state with our. taking. a close up game has been to the our hangal speech. where the first russian fleet was. goes to the area which holds top position in the gas resources. where the biggest russian salmon can be are processing factories located . where unique species of sauna can be found.

should close up on our teeth. every month we give you the future we help you understand how we'll get there and what to bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join acknowledging update on our jeep. if you. want to. welcome our new crosstalk i'm curious about remind you we're talking about america's media and domestic politics. but before let's see what russians think about the us today political discourse in the united states often goes to extremes with the economy unlikely to dip into another recession and the government to peering polis people are seeking answers

from other sources the recent protests in washington organized by t.v. and radio host glenn beck was seen as an indirect challenge to barack obama's policies but what do russians think about the u.s. today according to a recent russian public opinion research center poll fifty nine percent of the respondents have a good attitude towards the united states in september two thousand and eight the number was follett's and mia twenty two percent and another twenty seven percent of russians have a negative attitude towards the u.s. back to you joe. all right gentlemen stephen i have to go back to you on again i mean what we can use a bomb because that's their right wings favorite lightning rod it seems to me i mean i don't see the common sense in a lot of media expression the right wing is that you know obama is for abortion rights he's for gay rights he's for sex education in schools you know the typical

liberal and but at the same time the right whispers and they and i so i will i will say they tell lies how can the same man then support secretly imposing a very strict rule islamic religious law i mean doesn't anybody in the mainstream say you can't have both but i never see that being said at least on television and on radio no one wants to make the logical conclusion you can't have both at the same time go ahead steve. well i think there is the mainstream media does do some challenging of these rumors and of these as you put it lies which i would agree with that term as well but i think it can't do enough you have major propaganda outlets that are spewing i mean rush limbaugh regularly refers to the president as a boy in the context of american racial history that's a racist remark you have tea party polls polls of tea party members that show that they have they have views that are considerably more hostile to blacks than the

average american you have racism going on here i think alexander is right that there is a certain flavor to the opposition that can only happen because he's black had hillary clinton come into office i think you would have seen some of the same opposition but also a different flavor probably including sexism certainly her husband bill clinton ran into a rabid irrationalist movement that claimed. some of them claim that he was responsible for fifty four murders in the united states so the. the the right always will gen up of some kind of campaign it usually doesn't come from official party members but these outside organizations that are not exactly discouraged and are not to get back to your question are not sufficiently challenged by the mainstream media which is constantly looking over its shoulder worried about being called liberal media because the right has pressed this case for years that the media are liberal or socialist or even communist and so they're constantly looking over their

shoulder skittish about taking on a lot of right wing myths own center if i go to you i mean you wrote a book about the man i mean in your opinion after watching this rally on the mall i mean what is his agenda do you think i mean is he doing it for money for the celebrity or does he really believe he reflects the views of a significant amount of people in the united states what makes him taken your opinion. well it's more complicated than just one answer i think clearly he's a businessman and he has a self image of himself as an entertainer and he enjoys making money he's very good at that but i also think his politics are deeply held i think he genuinely believes in god and the devil you know heaven and hell and all of this stuff that he talks about and i believe that based on what i know of his mormonism he had here is to a very far right interpretation of history that is a strain within the mormon church not the official view of the mormon church but it's a strain within the mormon church that sees america as having

a divine origin and a divine destiny in which people like himself mormon men play a historical role and sort of leading america through the fire to some sort of redemption and you can understand what happened on the mall without understanding that that's really how glenn beck sees himself and the united states and i think a lot of the people that were watching him share his belief in god and divine destiny although they're probably they would probably be a lot more uncomfortable with the mormon flavor and back zone view then they are because they just don't know about it but yeah i think a lot of people connected is religious interpretation of this country and he connects to a very deep level and they're not going anywhere regardless of how irrational his political read on things are outside of this very devout sort of p.s. world that he lives in matthew fine go to you and we we've heard different views

here you very much differ with with steve here when we're just where is dialogue in all of this here because the country has a lot of problems and i think for the third time i'll say there's a lot of reasons why people should be angry i don't know why they necessarily have to be angry with obama he inherited a terrible mess but where is the dialogue here i see when i see these right wingers they're not interested in dialogue they're just interested in hate and and just pushing an agenda that doesn't allow it. any kind of interrogation if you interrogate them you're considered you know and an anti you are just an evil person and that word evil i use specifically i mean because of what we've just heard you're putting things into a religious context and things like that is there any room for dialogue as we go through this crisis because maybe a dialogue is what is necessary all this is this is quite this is quite a caricature of the tea party movement that you have been painting and i'm not sure that i understand the question this need for a dialogue what the sound. people in america it's part of the democratic process

people are talking what's wrong with people being angry from time to time i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing it's not like people are rioting. in the street you know burning cities down i don't think there's anything wrong with people blowing off steam i also and i would agree with you i would have to agree with you that i would definitely agree with you but at the same time if you say that obama is a closet muslim i mean that's you know that's going into irrationality ok that's irrational do you think he's a muslim. no i don't think he's a muslim but that's the a no i think that. he's been very careful in downplaying and hiding parts of his past and this has allowed the rumor rumors to flourish so i think a lot of that is his own fault but. i'm pretty sure he is a christian and that he was born in the united states. i want to say that i think

that this characterization of opposition to obama as racist is quite tiresome and this is something that the left has been waiting to fall back on for some time if america was so racist how come all sorts of millions of white people voted for him in two thousand and eight and helped to elect him. particularly the white male population which the left likes to make fun of on a regular basis likes to attack. if america is so racist how could he have gotten a like they did now all that to say he's not doing so well they fall back on the argument that america's races are silly because they're alexander go ahead jump in there this is going to sing nobody ever sees the same just what it really is you go i was on you first of all go to steve go ahead alexander well just really quickly no one has reduced the tea party movement just to racism i don't again and no one

has done that here i don't think most people still feel you don't have and you haven't were many around the obama as in any case the people who are carrying the obama witch doctor posters are not the people that voted for him it's possible for there to be a segment a large segment of the modern republican party that is racist and to have obama elected by democrats and block of the independent vote which is what happened ok steve go ahead you want to jump to are not incompatible. i think alexander just took the words out of my mouth i'm a white man i am not attacking white man exactly the people who the people who are caring the witch doctor posters the people who are referring to a grown african-american man as boy which has a very deep racist context in the us dialogue are not the people who voted for him there is that there is no doubt at there are polls that show that the tea party movement in its view of black people is more hostile to black people than the

average american is these are these are fact i don't believe that hearing i don't believe that for us and you know we're getting we're getting such a partial view of things from matthew first of all he says that obama is a leftist because he bail out the financial industries bush started that does that make bush a leftist does that make him bush was a left wing is well guarded that. isn't the media supposed to isn't the media supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable and shouldn't the media be challenging the president when we just got through with eight years of a fox news and talk radio wet kiss with the bush administration they wanted afflicting the comfortable come on you have to you have to look at this more than handedly there is a lot harder it is a lot of bush. had matthew jump in it's not a partisan if you in the last six months not a partisan view it's in the latter it isn't much like rats from a sinking ship yes that's true in the last six months there was criticism of bush

for spending too much like rats from a sinking ship yes they were they didn't want to be tied down republicans didn't want to be saddled with all of the baggage that bush had delivered to them. which they're now trying to put on obama and well no again i actually watching a sense we've been watching very closely no they're trying to put it on bill clinton. back it goes do you want to respond to me about matthew i think the idea that fox news is this. secret you know this shadow government this powerful entity that is pulling the strings in american society is ridiculous he said that it is a straw man well it is well you the left says that all the time whether you're saying it or not i don't know if you've read daily kos lately but the we think is quite representative of the american left fox news that is just one media outlet.