The American Jingoist

Main Stream Media Distortions

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday March 11, 2010 @ 09:17 AM EST

1. NBC’s Williams Showcases ‘Gripping’ Kennedy Screaming Against Media from the Left
When conservatives take to the House floor to criticize the news media’s liberal distortions, that’s not newsworthy to NBC, but Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News made time to showcase an unhinged liberal Democrat, Representative Patrick Kennedy, screaming against the media during House floor remarks in favor of a Dennis Kucinich-backed resolution to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, a fringe proposition which was soundly defeated 356 to 65. Left wing blogs, such as Huffington Post, also jumped to publicize Kennedy’s rant, with Talking Points Memo calling it “a must-see moment.” Anchor Brian Williams characterized Kennedy’s yelling tirade as “a gripping moment,” describing how Kennedy railed against “U.S. strategy in the war, then he turned on the news media and how few have bothered to show up to cover the debate.” Williams’ embracing set up, with “Speaking Out” as the on-screen heading.

2. MSNBC’s Shuster Remembers Left-Wing Activist ‘Granny D’ As ‘An American Treasure’
In his “Notebook” segment at the end of the 3PM ET hour on MSNBC Wednesday, anchor David Shuster took a moment to commemorate the passing of a “hero” of his, well-known liberal advocate Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock, a staunch supporter of campaign finance “reform.” Shuster celebrated how she “at the age of 89…decided to walk across the nation….All in all, 3,200 miles to underscore her message that we need to change our current campaign donation system and have publicly financed elections instead.” He proclaimed that Haddock “was committed to fair and open democracy” and declared her to be “an American treasure” for her activism.

3. NY Times: Double Standards on ‘Demonizing’ Justice Dept. Lawyers
In a front-page story on yet another “deep” split among conservatives, the Times stands up for Obama administration lawyers who had previously defended Al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo. The Times fiercely attacks an ad released by a conservative group that makes the service of Obama’s lawyers an issue. Yet the paper did not hesitate in the past to attack Bush administration lawyers accused of greenlighting the “torture” of Al Qaeda terrorists.

4. MSNBC Grilled Conservative Teen, Tosses Softballs to Child Promoting ObamaCare
On Tuesday’s edition of MSNBC News Live, host David Shuster tossed softballs to an 11-year-old supporter of Obamacare. However, back in 2009, reporter Norah O’Donnell grilled a conservative teen and fan of Sarah Palin.

5. Dan Rather Apologizes for ‘Watermelons’ Comment
HDNet’s Dan Rather, in a piece for the Huffington Post, apologized for his use of the word “watermelons” during a segment about Barack Obama’s ability to pass health care, that was aired on the March 8 Chris Matthews Show. In his explanation Rather offers his Texas background as an excuse saying, “I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It’s an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas” but then goes on to plead “I’m sorry people took offense.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday March 10, 2010 @ 10:34 AM EST

1. ABC and CBS Pass Along Sympathetic Anecdotes from Left-Wing Anti-Insurance Protest
ABC and CBS on Tuesday night picked up on the cause of a small anti-health insurance industry protest in DC organized by left-wing labor groups, but instead of denigrating them as the networks with did with much larger Tea Party and anti-ObamaCare rallies, the two newscasts empathized with their cause, each relaying an anecdote about a victim of the current system. “Taking their cue from President Obama, protesters took their complaints about insurance company premiums and excess profits to the insurance industry and the streets,” ABC anchor Diane Sawyer announced. On CBS, Nancy Cordes found “eleven-year-old Marcelas Owens” who “flew here from Seattle” because “his mother Tiffany lost her job and the health insurance that went with it after a prolonged illness caused her to miss work. She stopped going to the doctor and died at 27 of pulmonary hypertension.” The kid [in the screen capture] delivered a perfect soundbite: “She ended up passing away because she didn’t have the equal rights to health care as some people with more money.”

2. MSNBC’s Ratigan Happy GOP ‘Renounced’ Liz Cheney, Unlike ‘Nazi and Racist’ Tea Partiers
On Monday’s The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan dragged out his standard attack against the tea party movement as he also bashed Liz Cheney for criticizing Justice Department attorneys: “Liz Cheney goes so far off the right-wing deep end, that now even some right-wingers are saying she has gone too far. If only the tea party would do the same with its Nazis and racist members.” Ratigan is certainly one to talk about people being on the fringe, considering his numerous rants against the tea parties. In addition to claiming the political movement was full of “Nazis and racists” on Monday, on March 2 he asserted some tea partiers wanted to “kill blacks and jews” and on February 11 he proclaimed “birthers, open racists, and outright Nazis” were part of their make-up.

3. Matt Lauer Gets Combative with Karl Rove on Today
In the final and easily most combative portion of Matt Lauer’s three-part exclusive interview with Karl Rove, the Today co-anchor assaulted the former White House advisor, on Tuesday’s Today, with accusatory charges on the run-up to the war in Iraq to the handling of Hurricane Katrina, to his role in the CIA leak scandal.

4. David Shuster Defends His Attack on GOP for Using Phrase ‘Harlem Democrat,’ Silent on Luke Russert Doing Same Thing
MSNBC Host David Shuster on Tuesday continued to attack the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) for the organization’s reference to Charlie Rangel as a “Harlem Democrat.” He reiterated, “I pointed out the NRCC did not call him a corrupt New York Democrat or just corrupt. Rather, a corrupt Harlem Democrat. And I asked a guest if this was racially tinged.”

5. NBC’s Curry Prompts Ventura to Claim Bush Admin Knew About 9/11
NBC’s Ann Curry invited former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura to promote his new book of conspiracy theories, on Tuesday’s Today show, and pressed the former professional wrestler to throw out the loony charge that the Bush administration had foreknowledge of 9/11.

6. George Stephanopoulos Goes Easy on Gibbs, Shows No Interest in Naked Shower Fight Between Emanuel and Massa
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday showed little interest in grilling Robert Gibbs over serious allegations made by a Democratic Congressman. Talking to the White House press secretary, he could only manage a single question: “[Representative Massa has] made very specific and pointed charges against Rahm Emanuel, Democratic leaders in the House. What’s the White House response?”

7. CBS Touts Soda Tax As ‘Good for Waistline and Bottom Line’
Concluding a report on proposed soda taxes across the country on Monday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Michelle Miller gleefully proclaimed how such a tax would help fight obesity and fill local government coffers: “New York’s mayor estimates a tax would raise a billion dollars, suggesting what’s good for the waistline could be good for the bottom line.” Revealing how bad such a tax would be for the “bottom line” of consumers, Miller explained: “New York has revived a proposal to impose a penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages….[that] would mean this two-liter bottle of coke, which now retails for $1.79, would cost you 68 cents more, for a total of $2.47.” She managed to find one man who was happy to pay an even higher amount: “I think it should be two cents per ounce. I don’t mind paying more for it, it would probably discourage me from drinking it.”

8. E! Talk Show Host Chelsea Handler Calls Sarah Palin ‘Really Stupid’
Late night talk show host and author Chelsea Handler was invited on Tuesday’s Today show to plug her new book Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang and couldn’t leave the show without taking a dig at earlier guest Karl Rove, as well as Sarah Palin who she called “Really stupid.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday March 09, 2010 @ 10:37 AM EST

1. Dan Rather: ‘Articulate’ Obama Couldn’t Even ‘Sell Watermelons’
HDNet’s Dan Rather stepped on one mine after another in the racial minefield that exists when talking about the nation’s first black President as the former CBS anchor, on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show over the weekend, uttered the following take on the President’s ability to get health care passed and how the GOP and independents would view it: “The Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. ‘Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.’ And a version of, ‘Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate’ this is what’s been used against him, ‘but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.’”

2. NBC Applauds Obama’s ‘Fighting’ Mode as He Catches Up with Sawyer’s Insurance Demonization
“During the presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama often used the phrase ‘fired up’ to do just that to the crowd. Democrats have been openly wondering when he was going to bring that campaign energy and fire to an issue like health care reform,” Brian Williams announced at the top of Monday’s NBC Nightly News,” and “today the President chose an event at a quiet Philadelphia suburb to get loud. He made his case and he rallied the troops and now readies to head into battle yet again on this topic.” ABC’s Diane Sawyer noted “the President made a direct attack on the health insurance industry, accusing companies of putting profits before patient care” – which means he was just catching up with Sawyer’s agenda. A couple of weeks ago, Sawyer demanded to know who will “keep insurance companies from jacking up premiums while making huge profits?” and touted “the growing outrage at insurance companies, the ones that raise premiums on ordinary Americans while racking up big profits.” Jon Karl asserted Obama “hopes to tie into some of that Tea Party anger by focusing on a group that the White House believes is even more unpopular than Congress.”

3. MSNBC’s David Shuster Hits Republicans as Racist for Calling Charlie Rangel a ‘Harlem Democrat’
MSNBC’s David Shuster on Monday attacked Republicans as racist for calling embattled Congressman Charlie Rangel a “crooked, Harlem Democrat.” Talking to ex-Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, the host complained about a “racially tinged” press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC): “They could have called him the crooked New York Democrat.”

4. Kyra Phillips Conducts Softball Interview of Woman Who Tweeted Abortion
On Monday’s Newsroom, CNN’s Kyra Phillips sympathetically interviewed a woman who unapologetically Tweeted her chemically-induced abortion as it happened. Instead of offering the pro-life viewpoint, Phillips lamented how her guest received “e-mails and the responses [which] were so brutal.” The anchor later admitted that she “didn’t want to get into a debate about abortion.” During the interview, Phillips tossed softball questions at blogger Angie Jackson, who is known on Twitter as “antitheistangie,” or “Angie the Anti-Theist” on her blog (Phillips didn’t mention her guest’s political or philosophical outlook during the entire segment). After playing a clip of Jackson from YouTube.com, Phillips first asked, “So, Angie- you know, did it take a while to come to a comfort zone, that you wanted to do this? Tell me how you eventually decided, this is how I’m going to do it and I’m going to let everybody see it happen.”

5. Karl Rove Calls Out Stupid Journalists Who Believed the Worst About Him
In part one of his exclusive interview with Karl Rove NBC’s Matt Lauer, on Monday’s Today, plucked out a page from the former White House adviser’s new memoir where Rove went after journalists that called his tactics “‘fear-based” that played on a stupid electorate, to which Lauer questioned, isn’t that “somewhat true?”

6. CBS: ‘Compassion Boom’ in America Result of ‘Obama Effect’
Near the end of Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Erica Hill touted a new Parade magazine survey on volunteerism in America: “it indicates America is in the midst of what some are calling a compassion boom.” Moments later, the magazine’s contributing editor, Emily Listfield, argued: “There’s something we call the ‘Obama Effect.’ People are responding to the President’s call to service.” Interestingly, the Parade article made no mention of an “Obama Effect” in explaining why people are volunteering more. Apparently Listfield only felt the need to make that observation when appearing on CBS.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday March 08, 2010 @ 09:44 AM EST

1. ABC Finally Catches Up with Democratic Scandals; Flashback: 152 Stories on Foley
ABC’s World News on Friday night finally caught up with burgeoning Democratic scandals, though hardly showing the same zeal as when the networks incessantly focused on Republican Congressman Mark Foley back in 2006. On Thursday, the MRC’s Scott Whitlock documented how this week the ABC evening newscast had “devoted almost six times as much coverage to Senator Jim Bunning and his temporary hold-up of an unemployment bill as the program did for the ongoing revelations that Democratic Charlie Rangel violated House ethics with his trips to the Caribbean [38 seconds].” Anchor Diane Sawyer set up the Friday night story: “And in political Washington tonight, Democrats on Capitol Hill capping a bad week have to be saying thank heaven this is Friday. The latest: Democratic Congressman Eric Massa, from upstate New York, announced he’s quitting his seat under a cloud of harassment allegations. What does this mean for the Democratic Party and the future? Here’s Jon Karl.”

2. Lauer Previews Exclusive Sitdown with Karl ‘The Divider’ Rove on Today
On Friday’s Today show NBC’s Matt Lauer offered viewers a sneak peak of next week’s exclusive interview with Karl Rove and if today’s segment is a suggestion of what’s to come expect a lot of shots taken at his former boss’s intelligence and blaming of Republicans and not Democrats for a divided country. In a highlighted portion of the interview Lauer asked Rove if he was pleased by the nickname “Bush’s Brain” (Rove called it “derogatory”) and derisively mused: “If Bush was The Decider, you might say Karl Rove was The Divider.”

3. To Schieffer, Bayh Just a ‘Democrat’ While Lindsey Graham a ‘Conservative Republican’
Not the biggest deal, but emblematic of how the Washington press corps consider anyone to the right of center, no matter if barely so, to be a “conservative,” while anyone who strays at all from a perfect liberal line is not worthy of an ideological label. Setting up Sunday’s Face the Nation, CBS’s Bob Schieffer described guest Evan Bayh simply as “the Indiana Democrat” while tagging Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is every bit, if not more, off the conservative reservation as Bayh is off the liberal one, as a “conservative Republican.”

4. Obama Gets a Warm Embrace from Fox…Well Not FNC, But a Fox Show
It wasn’t on the Fox News Channel (FNC) nor a Fox News production carried on Fox (such as Fox News Sunday), but President Barack Obama received a warm and appreciative session with John Walsh, marking the 1,000 edition of America’s Most Wanted, an entertainment program carried by the network which has failed to air the Obama press conferences shown by ABC, CBS and NBC. Walsh began by offering Obama “congratulations on all the work you’ve been doing since you were President” and proceeded to praise “the work you’ve done with the Recovery Act,” aka the stimulus monstrosity, “but I know first-hand from the rank-and-file cops on the street what you’ve done for law enforcement on the local and state level.” After Obama recounted how the funding prevented layoffs amongst local police departments, Walsh reaffirmed: “I know first-hand the law enforcement community respects you and is appreciative of you getting that bill through in these tough economic times.” The host of America’s Most Wanted on Fox also hailed Obama as “a very loud voice for victims, which is much appreciated from the victim community.”

5. MSNBC Bashes GOP For Using ‘Politics of Fear’
Throughout the day on Thursday, MSNBC hosts repeatedly slammed the Republican Party over an RNC fundraising memo that poked fun at Democrats and their left-wing agenda. Clearly those at the network only needed one Teleprompter to read off of, given that all their attacks were almost identical for over nines hours of live programming.

6. CBS Drama Showcases Blank Book that Mocks Palin as Empty-Headed Dunce
On this past Tuesday’s episode of The Good Wife on CBS, viewers were treated to a scene in which a ballistics expert opens a gift, from a partner of a law firm, to find a book about Sarah Palin made up of, he discovers by thumbing through it, blank pages “satirically representing,” Amazon.com explains, “the mind and thinking of Sarah Palin.” The book, ‘Going Rouge: A Candid Look Inside the Mind of Political Conservative Sarah Palin.’

7. CNN Blog Attacks Black Pro-Lifers, Continues Liberal Trend
Acker, an AC360 and Huffington Post contributor who has ranted against John Boehner and Sarah Palin, and lauded Van Jones in recent weeks on her Twitter account, blasted “anti-choice activists” in the blog entry titled “Thank you very much, but we can think for ourselves: African-American women and choice.” The attorney and Obama supporter (the AC360 blog mentioned this detail at the beginning of her May 9, 2008 entry, but it hasn’t come up since) wasted no time in insinuating that racism motivated a new pro-life billboard campaign noting the high black abortion rate.

8. Michael Moore: 250,000 Killed in Haiti Because It’s an Unregulated ‘Republican’s Paradise’
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore, appearing on Friday night’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO to plug the DVD release of his Capitalism: A Love Story screed, cited the 250,000 killed in Haiti, which he snidely described as an unregulated “Republican’s paradise,” as an apt analogy to justify further regulation of U.S. banks.

9. You Read It Here First: Media Pick-Ups of MRC Studies
Thursday night, Fox News host Sean Hannity picked up on MRC’s study showing ABC’s World News gave six times more attention to the outcry over Jim Bunning’s attempt to slow the deficit than the actual scandal involving Charlie Rangel. That same night, guest host Michael Berry on Mark Levin’s radio show touted MRC’s recently released “Media Bias 101″ as “one of the best reports I’ve ever seen.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday March 05, 2010 @ 11:02 AM EST

1. ABC Devotes Almost Six Times More Coverage to Jim Bunning’s Non-scandal Than to Charlie Rangel’s Actual Scandal
Over the last three days, ABC’s World News devoted almost six times as much coverage to Senator Jim Bunning and his temporary hold-up of an unemployment bill as the program did for the ongoing revelations that Democratic Charlie Rangel violated House ethics with his trips to the Caribbean.

2. George Stephanopoulos Frets Over Bart Stupak and His ‘Mutiny’ Over Health Care
Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Thursday put the responsibility for passing health care on the shoulders of the pro-life Bart Stupak, worrying that the Congressman is “now threatening a mutiny over the issue of abortion.” The GMA host interviewed Stupak and pressed him three times on voting for the legislation.

3. Tom Brokaw Sniffs: Public is ‘Very Confused’ About Obamacare
NBC’s Tom Brokaw, in searching for a reason as to why Obamacare faced so much opposition, on Thursday’s Today show, determined it was because the people can’t quite grasp it, as he sniffed: “The public is very confused.” The former NBC Nightly News anchor, on to promote his CNBC documentary about the Baby Boom generation, also told Today co-anchor Matt Lauer that the GOP was fighting the current version of the health care bill for merely “political” and not principled reasons and depicted the uninsured as victims to the now powerful tea party.

4. CBS ‘Early Show’ Touts ObamaCare On ‘Fast-Track’
Introducing a story on the latest effort pass health care reform on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez proclaimed: “This morning President Obama is putting health care reform on the fast-track, declaring that it’s year-long journey must be completed in Congress quickly.” At the top of the show, co-host Harry Smith had similarly declared: “President Obama says the health care debate is over. He wants a reform bill on his desk in the next few weeks.” A Headline on screen read: “Health Care Fast-Track.”

5. NBC Nightly News Leads with Brush Back Against Rove on Rationale for Iraq War
The night before NBC’s Today show on Friday had an “exclusive” with Karl Rove to plug his new book, ‘Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight’ in which he assured readers President George W. Bush did not “lie us into war,” the NBC Nightly News led by giving him a brush back, regurgitating the arguments the Bush administration went to war in Iraq for illegitimate reasons. Anchor Brian Williams framed his top story: “It will go down in history among the events that shaped our times, the decision by President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq after the United States had been attacked on 9/11 with no direct connection between the two. The United States has paid a heavy price for the war, which will be seven years old later this month. That’s a year longer than all of World War II….”

6. War in Iraq Low on Obama’s Agenda; Compliant Media Move On, Too
“Despite persistent violence and a critical election coming up, President Obama hardly ever mentions the war in Iraq,” Joseph Curl reports in Thursday’s Washington Times, and the news media are largely aiding in this neglect. Curl discloses that “the last time a White House reporter asked about the Iraq war was June 26,” while ABC, CBS and NBC aired just 80 minutes of coverage in all of 2009.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday March 04, 2010 @ 10:09 AM EST

1. CBS’s Schieffer Bashes Bunning: Blocking Bill ‘Unconscionable,’ Just ‘Politics,’ No ‘Substance’
On Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer ranted against Republican Senator Jim Bunning’s opposition to a spending bill: “it’s unconscionable what has happened here….this is about politics. It is not – it was not about anything of substance.” Co-host Maggie Rodriguez began the segment by explaining that Bunning had stopped blocking the legislation and asked Schieffer: “Isn’t this just another example of why it takes so long to get things done in Congress?” Schieffer agreed, claiming: “it’s another example…of why there is so much anger and disillusionment out in the country about Congress.”

2. ABC’s Jonathan Karl Continues to Slam Bunning for Creating a ‘Mess,’ ‘Snapping at Reporters’
ABC on Wednesday continued to berate Senator Jim Bunning for daring to hold up a $10 billion spending bill, despite the fact that the Kentucky Republican has since allowed the unemployment legislation to pass. Reporter Jonathan Karl piled on, “Even after the deal was struck, Democrats lashed out at Bunning for causing such a mess.”

3. NBC’s Lauer to Dem: ‘We’ Versus Republicans
On Wednesday’s Today, NBC’s Matt Lauer, during an interview with DNC Chairman Tim Kaine seemed to overtly take sides with the Dems as he mocked the GOP’s PR strategy of calling reconciliation the nuclear option, as he questioned Kaine: “It does appear, pretty clear now, that the Democrats are gonna have to go it alone in the Senate, what, what we call reconciliation, what the Republicans are calling the nuclear option.”

4. What’s Couric Drinking? She Raises Hypocritical Stands By Obama and Pelosi
What is Katie Couric drinking these days? Who has taken over her body? The CBS Evening News anchor on Wednesday night cited hypocritical positions or actions taken by President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Couric recalled that “in 2007 when President Obama was a Senator, he criticized the use of the reconciliation process in health care reform.” On Charles Rangel: “And yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…stood by him for a year. How does that square with her famous promise ‘to drain the swamp’ and clamp down on ethics breaches?”

5. After Ignoring Tea Party Beginnings, NYT Quickly Fawns Over Lefty Coffee Party: No Anger or Astroturf Here
After ignoring the initial stirrings of the fast-growing Tea Party movement for several weeks, the New York Times quickly jumps on the Coffee Party bandwagon, an alternative gathering that just happens to be filled with Obama supporters. As opposed to the hostile reception the Tea Party movement received in the Times, reporter Kate Zernike finds no anger, “Astroturfing,” or even liberals at the Coffee Party. And she left it up to bloggers to find out that Coffee Party founder Annabel Park campaigned hard for Obama last year and has referred to Tea Party protesters as “tea baggers.”

6. CNN Omits ‘Coffee Party’ Founder’s Past as Obama Volunteer
John Roberts and Kiran Chetry omitted mentioning that Annabel Park, the founder of the so-called Coffee Party, worked as a volunteer for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, during an interview on Wednesday’s American Morning. The anchors also didn’t mention Park’s past work for the liberal New York Times. Roberts and Chetry interviewed the Coffee Party USA founder at the bottom of the 8 am Eastern hour. After an initial question about the origin of the name, the two asked about the principles of the nascent movement and if health care “reform” was going to be a major issue for it. In her last question to Park, Chetry did ask if the Coffee Party had any ties to a political party: “[T]he tea party movement really, in some ways, has been a challenge to Republicans to move more toward fiscal conservative ideals. Are you aligned with a party? I mean, as we know, passing health care reform has been a huge goal of liberal Democrats for decades. Are you aligned with the Democrats, trying to get them more to move to the left when it comes to health care?”

7. ABC Shows Mock Up of Proposed Ronald Reagan $50 Bill
ABC squeezed in a short item Wednesday night on a House resolution to put Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill, a report most notable for the enticing mock-up ABC’s graphics artists created. Anchor Diane Sawyer announced on the March 3 World News: “All right, quick, who is on the $50 bill? If you said Ulysses S. Grant, you’re right. But if some people have their way, that’s going to change soon. There’s a move afoot to put Ronald Reagan on the $50, led by 14 Republican Members of Congress who are sponsoring a new bill calling for the change in honor of the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth next year.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday March 03, 2010 @ 10:13 AM EST

1. ABC Berates Bunning’s ‘Politics of No’ for Causing Unemployed to ‘Struggle’ and Lose Homes
For the second straight night, ABC’s World News scolded Senator Jim Bunning for daring to block a $10 billion spending bill until it is offset by cuts elsewhere, parading out victims as Diane Sawyer and Jonathan Karl painted him as a nuisance “even fellow Republicans” – that would be a liberal one – oppose. Sawyer thundered in teasing her top story: “Tonight on World News, the ‘Politics of No.’ For the second straight day, one Senator stymies Congress, unemployed Americans struggle and we track that Senator down again.” Karl treated the Senator as a child (“Jim Bunning was at it again today”) before he showcased an “unemployed microbiologist in Texas” who, Karl ludicrously relayed — just two weekdays after unemployment benefits were stopped — “says no unemployment check will mean she will have to move out of her house” while “Bret Ingersoll of Denver is an unemployed forklift operator, who has already lost his apartment.” So, “today even fellow Republicans were asking Senator Bunning to relent.” That would be Maine’s Susan Collins.

2. Lauer to Romney: ‘Aren’t We Better Off’ With Obama?
Matt Lauer pressed former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney mostly from the left, on Tuesday’s Today, as he made the case that the economy is doing better thanks to the President as he posited “Aren’t we better off?” and even questioned the relevance of a possible Romney 2012 presidential campaign.

3. CNN’s Rick Sanchez Again Hints Rick Perry is a Racist
On Tuesday’s Rick’s List on CNN, Rick Sanchez again hinted that the Texas Governor Rick Perry is a racist. Sanchez, reacting to the distinct possibility that Perry would win the Republican gubernatorial primary, referenced a comment he made at a tea party rally in 2009: “He was talking about states’ rights. States’ rights is, to most people of color, a racist term.” The CNN anchor discussed the Republican primary with Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News. He asked the journalist, “Perry’s going to win this thing, right?” After Slater noted how Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison lost her early lead in the polls over Perry, Sanchez responded, with some shock, “Why? I mean- you know, when he came out with his comment. Remember, you and I talked about it when he said it. I mean, he was all about secession from the union. He was talking about states’ rights. States’ rights is, to most people of color, a racist term, and I thought he had hurt himself. Why wasn’t she able to, kind of, jump on that and use it?”

4. Sam Champion Nixes Idea That Snow Discounts Global Warming
Liberal weatherman Sam Champion appeared on Friday’s Nightline to attack the idea that global warming could be dismissed because of the snowy winter suffered by much of the country. He complained, “There’s really no way you can connect it to climate change or global warming. This is a seasonal pattern that we’re in.”

5. NBC’s Matt Lauer Celebrates 100th Birthday of Liberal Organization
It’s hard to imagine NBC’s Matt Lauer celebrating the birthday of a conservative organization but the Today co-anchor, on Tuesday’s program, invited on former Democratic Mayor of New Orleans and current president of the National Urban League Marc Morial to cheer the 100th anniversary of the founding of the liberal group. Of course the birthday announcement served as an excuse for Morial to publicize the Urban League’s latest liberal initiative something Lauer eagerly plugged.

6. MSNBC Highlights ‘Right-wing Fringe’ Tea Partiers and Their ‘Threat’ to Mainstream Republicans
MSNBC host David Shuster on Tuesday touted the threat that “right-wing fringe candidates” could pose to “more mainstream Republican” politicians. The segment, which aired on News Live, identified tea party candidates as “fringe” three times.

7. CBS ‘Early Show’: GOP Senator Causing ‘Congressional Quagmire’
Reporting on Republican Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning blocking spending legislation over deficit concerns at the top of Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith proclaimed: “Congressional quagmire. Democrats blame one Republican senator for preventing thousands of federal workers from working.” In a later report, White House correspondent Chip Reid continued to assail Bunning: “The White House is pointing its finger at a single Republican senator who they say is standing in the way of federal aid for hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans….he is single-handedly holding up a routine piece of legislation.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday March 02, 2010 @ 09:51 AM EST

1. Bunning’s Spending Hold Makes Him a Cad to TV Nets, Focus on His Supposed Victims
A retiring Senator not facing re-election stood up last week for principle, insisting new federal spending be covered by a matching reduction elsewhere, but instead of hailing Senator Jim Bunning as a “maverick” making sure the ruling party adheres to its promise new spending will be “paid for,” television network journalists on Monday night painted him as an ogre, focusing on the presumed victims of delayed spending. Teasing World News, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer stressed how he’s “denying” people unemployment benefits so ABC decided to “confront” him. Reporter Jon Karl concentrated on victims as he played video of himself confronting Bunning by an elevator: “We wanted to ask the Senator why he is blocking a vote that would extend unemployment benefits to more than 340,000 Americas, including Brenda Wood, a teacher in Austin, Texas who has been out of work for two years.” That’s not all: “Bunning is also blocking money for highway construction. So across the country today, 41 construction projects ground to a halt, thousands of workers furloughed without pay.”

2. Former and Current Dems Stephanopoulos and Carville Tout Passing Health Care Bill as Only Option
Former Democratic aide turned journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed current Democratic operative James Carville on Monday’s Good Morning America. The two good friends agreed that Democrats simply have to pass a health care bill. Stephanopoulos wondered, “Do the Democrats really have a choice here?”

3. Matthews: Obama Must Summon All His ‘Music and Magic’ to Pass Health Care
These must be really desperate times for the Democrats, if the syndicated Chris Matthews Show that was aired over the weekend is any indication, as both the host and one of the guests claimed Barack Obama would need to tap into military, musical and even mystical powers to get a health care reform bill passed. During the intro of his show, Matthews declared that Obama “must now lead the band with all the music and magic he has in him” and guest panelist Michael Duffy, of Time magazine, reported that Obama is going to unleash “the infantry, the air cover, the artillery” on Congress to get health care passed.

4. CBS’s Plante: GOP Used Reconciliation to Pass ‘Controversial,’ ‘Giant’ Tax Cuts
On Monday’s CBS Early Show, White House correspondent Bill Plante reported on the possibility of Democrats using reconciliation to pass a health care reform bill and noted how Republicans used the procedure when they were in the majority: “In the past it has helped the majority party push through some controversial legislation. In 2001, Republicans used it to pass a giant $1.3 trillion tax cut.” Meanwhile, Plante did not use the “giant” label to describe the massive ObamaCare legislation, simply referring to it as a “sweeping proposal.” According to a Heritage Foundation study by James C. Capretta, the total cost of the bill could add up to $2.5 trillion over ten years.

5. CBS Promotes Arianna Huffington Bashing ‘Dastardly’ Banks
In a segment on the banking industry on CBS’s Sunday Morning, fill-in anchor Anthony Mason cited the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” and wondered: “Who would you say is today’s equivalent of the movie’s villain, the dastardly Mister Potter?” His answer: “If you ask the Huffington Post’s web mistress Arianna Huffington, it’s these guys.” Footage rolled of big bank CEOs. At no point in the segment did Mason refer to Huffington as liberal or point out the government’s role in creating the financial crisis.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday March 01, 2010 @ 09:41 AM EST

1. This Week Host Vargas Pushes Pelosi and Alexander from Left, Agrees Obama Must Be ‘Ruthless’
Quite a contrast in how ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, taking her turn hosting This Week, approached House Speaker Nancy Pelosi versus Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, all before agreeing with Sam Donaldson when he urged President Obama to become “ruthless” to pass his health care reform bill since that’s what FDR and Truman “would have done.” She affirmed: “That’s a good point.” With Pelosi, she forwarded process questions about whether the Speaker has the votes to pass the health bill and whether it would have been “more helpful for you” if Obama had put up his proposal earlier, pressed the Speaker from the left on the size of the “jobs” bill and empathized with her struggles: “Are you frustrated so many bills have been stalled in the Senate? Almost 300 bills passed by the House that are sitting, languishing in the Senate?” Not to mention cuing her up: “How would you rate yourself in the past year?” But with Alexander, the 20/20 anchor did not wonder if he’s “frustrated” by Obama’s intransigence as she challenged him to help pass the Democratic health bill, raised presumed Republican hypocrisy and rued the inability of Congress to pass “sweeping” legislation to provide “the changes we need in the country.”

2. CBS’s Plante Blames GOP For Gridlock at Health Care Summit
A report on the health care summit on Friday’s CBS Early Show featured a clip of President Obama scolding lawmakers for “trading talking points” during the meeting, that was followed by correspondent Bill Plante pointing a finger at the GOP: “But from their first speaker, Republicans never backed down from their opposition to the Democrats’ bill.” Oddly, after displaying the President’s clearly partisan attacks, Plante concluded: “Democrats emerged from the meeting saying they still want bipartisanship. Republicans said they don’t see that happening.”

3. Matthews: GOP Kept Their ‘Crazies in the Closet’ But Still Sounded Like N. Korean Commies
Chris Matthews, during a special post-health care summit two hour edition of Hardball on Thursday night, dissected the GOP strategy as one of keeping their “crazies” like Michele Bachman and Joe Wilson, “in the closet” and mocked that their “rehearsed” phrases made them sound like a “North Korean assembly” and exclaimed it was “an example of Pyongyang democracy, which is “What the Dear Leader told us to recite.”

4. Washington Post Page One: ‘Professor Obama’ Schools ‘Undisciplined Pupils’ of GOP
The Washington Post couldn’t provide a solely objective analysis of the health “summit” in Friday’s newspaper. Instead, they put liberal columnist Dana Milbank on page one to crow that Obama had badly paddled the Republicans. The headline was “Prof. Obama walks tall and carries a big paddle.”

5. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Hypes Democratic Spin on Reconciliation
Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday offered liberal spin for the issue of using reconciliation to pass the health care bill, a process that would allow legislation to go through the Senate with only 51 votes: “Reconciliation has been used for President Bush’s tax cuts, for welfare reform, for other health care bills in the past.”

6. Maher: ‘Brain-Dead’ Palin ‘a Babbling, Barely House-Broken, Uneducated Being’
Sarah Palin sends liberals into irrational frenzies of contempt and, in the case of Bill Maher, fits of condescension which drive him to denigrate anyone stupid enough to see anything good in her. Maher began and ended his Friday night HBO program, Real Time with Bill Maher, with derogatory “jokes” based on the presumption Palin and her supporters are morons. He started with how at the health care summit the attendees recited stories about health care perils: “John McCain told how he once carried a brain-dead woman through an entire campaign.” About 56 minutes later, Maher raised Tiger Woods and his Buddhist beliefs, wrapping up the show by ridiculing the eastern religion, but turned it into a slam at Palin fans: “Thinking you can look at a babbling, barely house-broken, uneducated being and say that’s our leader doesn’t make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter.”

7. No Where Safe from Leftist Bombast: TV Mom Frets GOP House Guests ‘Denying Global Warming’
Demonstrating how Hollywood writers aren’t reticent about inserting gratuitous political points into prime time dramas, on last Sunday night’s (February 21) episode of ABC’s Brothers and Sisters, “Nora Walker,” played by liberal actress Sally Field, walked into her kitchen during a kick-off party for her daughter’s Republican senatorial campaign, and complained to another daughter, a son and his husband: “I can’t believe the three of you are in here drinking while the GOP is out there denying global warming.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday February 26, 2010 @ 10:08 AM EST

1. At ‘Landmark’ Summit an ‘Exasperated’ Obama Succeeded in Proving GOP ‘Party of No’
“The President often seemed exasperated with Republican arguments,” CBS’s Chip Reid empathetically conveyed in reporting on Thursday’s health care policy summit before he declared that President Obama had achieved what he needed to accomplish: “Well, he really did, Katie. What he really wanted to do was convince the American people, and more importantly wavering Democrats in Congress, that the Republicans are the party of no. They won’t compromise and he now has no choice but to move ahead with Democrats alone.” Echoing Reid’s assessment of Obama’s “exasperation,” ABC’s Jake Tapper saw “from the Republicans, some old arguments and new frustrations for the President.” George Stephanopoulos decided Obama had “reinforced his bipartisan bonafides, showed that he was reaching out.”

2. CNN’s Sanjay Gupta Pushes for Price Controls Throughout Health Care
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanja Gupta pressed HHS Secretary Kathleen for price controls in all parts of the health care industry on Thursday’s Newsroom. Gupta stated that insurance companies were “just the tip of the iceberg” of health care costs: “There are a lot of different organizations, groups, people who contribute to health care costs. Are you going to be going after all these folks?” It looked a bit odd for CNN to choose the correspondent, whom Obama chose to be surgeon general before adviser Tom Daschle was forced to resign, to interview other people who signed up to sell ObamaCare. Gupta’s question came during an interview 26 minutes into the 9 am Eastern hour, in which both he and CNN anchor Kyra Phillips asked the Obama administration official about the health care summit later in the day at Blair House. Gupta also hinted at the possibility of going after the profits of health care suppliers in his last question to Sebelius (who was sympathetic to Gupta’s proposal in her answer).

3. Matthews: GOP Worried About Obama Standing Over Them ‘Like God’
Even when Chris Matthews attempts to side with the conservative/Republican position on an issue, he ends up either bashing them or praising Democrats, something he did three times on Wednesday’s Hardball. First up Matthews raised a GOP concern that Barack Obama should not speak in an “elevated” position, by using a podium, at the health care summit because it would present Obama as “standing up there like God” over them. Later on Matthews appeared to defend tea partiers when he scolded Salon’s Joan Walsh for using the term “teabag” which has a “sexual connotation” but just moments earlier accused conservatives of “leaping up and down orgasmically” over Scott Brown’s win.

4. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Plays Up Divisions Between Republicans, Cites Facebook as Proof
Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Thursday interviewed Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and attempted to play up divisions within the Republican Party over new Senator Scott Brown. He first proclaimed that the FNC anchor has been sounding “more and more like Ross Perot” and asserted that the host is appealing to “this angry middle in the country.”

5. CBS’s Smith to Schwarzenegger: Can GOP ‘Exist Without Moderates’?
Speaking to California Governor Arnold Schwarzengger on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith noted the success of the tea party movement, but spun it as a negative for the Republican Party: “There are winds of change blowing in the Republican Party. The tea party has met. There’s a – it feels like a significant shift to the Right. Can the Republican Party exist without moderates?” Prior to that, Smith asked if Schwarzenegger had any helpful advice for President Obama: “His approval ratings are dropping. He’s under fire from all kinds of quadrants. If you’re going to give him some advice as to how to stay his course, what would you tell him?”

6. ABC’s Diane Sawyer Touts Rachel Maddow, Hypes Objectivity: ‘No One Knows My Politics’
World News anchor Diane Sawyer touted her objectivity in an interview for the February 28 Parade magazine. The ABC journalist seriously asserted, “I think no one knows my politics.” Continuing to hype her journalistic integrity, she proclaimed, “I hope first of all that everyone knows that the facts are what I care about.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday February 25, 2010 @ 09:30 AM EST

1. ABC Pushes Obama’s Insurance Demonization; Couric Asserts Summit ‘Much-Anticipated’
A night after ABC anchor Diane Sawyer demanded to know who will “keep insurance companies from jacking up premiums while making huge profits?”, on Wednesday night she again put ABC into service for the liberal spin machine the night before President Obama’s health summit, teasing: “Big insurance executives forced to answer why they’re raising your premiums while raking in big profits.” World News devoted a full story to a hearing held by House Democrats to demonize WellPoint: “We turn to the growing outrage at insurance companies, the ones that raise premiums on ordinary Americans while racking up big profits. Today, executives of the company that insures the most Americans had to answer for big bonuses and lavish retreats while socking clients with a double-digit increase in fees.” ABC viewers were treated to demagogic Democrats railing against the salaries and profits of WellPoint. Then, as if it were a coincidence, Sawyer acknowledged “this anger erupts on the eve of President Obama’s health care reform summit tomorrow.” Over on CBS, Katie Couric insisted Thursday would bring “that much-anticipated summit at the White House” to “try to save health care reform.”

2. HuffPo’s Ryan Grim: ObamaCare 2.0 Really A ‘Conservative’ Plan
Appearing in the 3PM ET hour on MSNBC on Wednesday, Huffington Post writer Ryan Grim claimed that President Obama’s latest version of health care reform was actually a conservative approach: “We actually already have a Republican bill, and it’s the one that Obama has proposed….It’s all about choice. Everything in it is a Republican kind of free market-based idea.” Speaking to anchor David Shuster, Grim continued his bizarre argument: “The idea that this is a Democratic bill, you know, that this is some left-wing plot, some government takeover that they’re going to ram through the Senate, is the part that’s the problem. This is a very centrist, leaning conservative health care reform bill.”

3. ABC Touts Mostly Liberal Examples of ‘Enraged’ and ‘Livid’ Health Care Protesters
Good Morning America’s Claire Shipman on Wednesday highlighted “enraged” and “livid” health care protesters, but mostly offered examples of angry liberals lobbying for a bill. After video of demonstrators chanting “Stop Blue Cross!” played, Shipman touted, “California demonstrators, livid over a huge increase in insurance rates.”

4. NYT’s Roger Cohen Wants Gov. Health Care: ‘It Would Involve 300 Million People Linking Arms’
New York Times columnist Roger Cohen: “The public option, not dead, would amount to recognition of shared interest in each other’s health and of the need to use America’s energies and resources better. It would involve 300 million people linking arms. Or we can turn away from each other and, like Narcissus, perish in the contemplation of our own reflections.”

5. Olbermann: Palin & Other ObamaCare Critics are ‘Ghouls,’ ‘Fiends,’ ‘Subhumans,’ ‘Damns’ Them ‘to Hell’
On Wednesday’s Countdown show, in his latest “Special Comment,” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, after recounting some of the heartrending details of his father’s current health problems, went on to slam Sarah Palin, Betsy McCaughey, and ObamaCare critics, especially those who have used the term “death panels,” calling such national health care opponents by the names “subhumans,” “ghouls,” and “fiends.” He went on to “damn” to “hell” those who use the term “death panels.” Olbermann: “It’s a life panel, and damn those who call it otherwise to hell!”

6. MSNBC’s David Shuster Links IRS Plane Bombing to Unease Over Big Government
MSNBC news anchor David Shuster on Tuesday linked the terrorist act of flying a plane into an IRS building with growing concern over big government. After describing the horrific crime last week of Joseph Stack, Shuster connected, “…A recent NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll found that when it comes to the federal government, 46 percent of Americans say it is not working well and needs large reforms.”

7. CBS’s David Edelstein Praises ‘Victim and Victimizer’ Roman Polanski
On CBS’s Sunday Morning, movie reviewer David Edelstein heaped praised upon The Ghost Writer, the latest film by director, and indicted child rapist, Roman Polanski: “Whatever you say about this man, a victim and a victimizer, he’s an artist to the end. He can conjure up on screen his inner world. However, malignant.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday February 24, 2010 @ 09:04 AM EST

1. Sawyer Pleads: Who Will ‘Keep Insurance Companies from Jacking Up Premiums While Making Huge Profits?’
Advancing the Obama administration’s efforts to impugn private insurance companies, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer set up a Tuesday night story on who will “keep insurance companies from jacking up premiums while making huge profits?” Reporter Jonathan Karl explained “the idea from the White House is to keep premiums down by simply limiting how much insurance companies can raise them,” before he relayed the White House spin: “The Obama administration is putting the heat on insurance companies, accusing them of placing profits ahead of health care.” Karl reported “the top five insurance companies took in $12 billion in profit last year,” as if that’s shameful or excessive, and gave short-shrift to how Republicans would control costs.

2. ABC’s Sawyer Celebrates ‘Bipartisanship’ of GOP Senator Scott Brown Voting with Dems
On the Monday, February 22, World News on ABC, host Diane Sawyer seemed to rejoice in the “bipartisanship” of newly elected Republican Senator Scott Brown’s willingness to vote with Democrats on a “job creation bill,” as she passed on the “fresh sign” of bipartisanship, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s expression of hope that it is the “beginning of a new day” in the Senate. After correspondent Jake Tapper concluded a report on the ongoing debate over health care reform by noting the unlikelihood that President Obama and Republicans will reach an agreement, Sawyer read a short item on Senator Brown.

3. Matthews: Do Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity Honestly Believe What They Say?
Chris Matthews gave his old Philly talk radio show host friend Michael Smerconish a platform, on Tuesday’s Hardball, to boldy proclaim what anybody who’s paid attention to Smerconish for the past few years has already known, that he is no longer a Republican. In explaining his decision to register as an independent Smerconish insisted he couldn’t “play wind-up talk radio” and “read the GOP talking points” like the much more successful Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Glossing over the fact that the aformentioned hosts have repeatedly criticized the GOP when they betrayed conservative principles, Matthews pondered: “Do you think they honestly believe what they say?”

4. CNN Brings on Two Liberals to Push Latest ObamaCare Proposal
CNN’s Kiran Chetry’s two guests — Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty and Wendell Potter of the liberal Center for Media and Democracy — promoted the latest health care “reform” proposal by President Obama on Tuesday’s American Morning. Chetry also omitted the left-of-center political affiliation of Potter’s organization. The CNN anchor began the segment, which aired just after the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour, by focusing on the cost of President Obama’s latest health care plan: “[Obama] laid out his own vision online yesterday. It would cost an estimated $950 billion over 10 years, and it would extend coverage to about 31 million uninsured Americans. It would also expand Medicaid and close the so-called ‘doughnut hole’ in Medicare, where seniors have to pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs. So where does all the money come from?”

5. MSNBC Regular Donny Deutsch Slams Marco Rubio With Racially Charged Attack: He’s a ‘Coconut’
MSNBC and CNBC contributor — and professed Charlie Crist admirer — Donny Deutsch used racially charged language on Monday night, smearing Republican senatorial candidate Marco Rubio as a “coconut.” Deutsch appeared on HLN’s Joy Behar Show and used the word, which the Urban Dictionary define as a “person who is tan on the outside” and “white on the inside.” Rubio is the son of Cuban exiles.

6. CBS’s Rodriguez to Michelle Obama: How Does President ‘Unwind’ Amid ‘Partisan Attacks’?
In part two of her exclusive interview with First Lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez worried about the toll the presidency takes on Barack Obama: “Your husband is the target of so many of these partisan attacks….He must get frustrated?” Rodriguez later wondered: “Amid all these frustrations, how does he unwind, how does he let that all go?” Rodriguez asked about Mrs. Obama’s reaction to criticism of her husband: “How often do you have to bite your tongue?”

7. Zombies Ate My News Judgment: NYT Critic on ‘Plausible Premise’ of Lefty Horror Flick
Embracing left-wing environmental alarmism, New York Times movie critic John Anderson considers the new (purposely left-wing) zombie movie “The Crazies” to be “socially progressive cinema” made in “the public good.” It’s not just a horror flick, but a cautionary tale on “weapons security and the purity of water.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday February 23, 2010 @ 10:05 AM EST

1. Nets Provide Friendly Reception for Obama’s Plan and Why It’s Needed
President Obama’s health plan announced Monday is little more than the Senate bill with a new tax and federal price control regime, but ABC’s Diane Sawyer touted how “Obama today officially put forward his plan” and CBS’s Katie Couric hailed “a plan of his own,” though she pointed out “it includes no public option.” (In contrast, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie observed: “This new plan of the President’s looks a lot like the old plan, just repackaged.”) All three evening newscasts employed terminology congenial to Obama’s wish to interfere in the marketplace by trumpeting how Obama would “block insurance companies from unreasonable rate increases” while CBS and NBC both advanced Obama’s effort to disparage insurance companies by showcasing sympathetic victims of a health insurance rate hike – pregnant women.

2. ABC’s John Hendren Derides: CPAC Attendees Represent the Right and ‘the Far Right’
Good Morning America’s John Hendren on Saturday fretted that attendees to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) came “from the right” and “the far right.” He allowed that conservative are “on fire” with optimism about the future, but opined that the movement is “fractious.”

3. Rick Sanchez: Ann Coulter ‘Exemplifies the Hardline Spirit of CPAC’
On Monday’s Rick’s List, CNN’s Rick Sanchez painted Ann Coulter and CPAC as “hardline.” Sanchez also implied that the CPAC attendees were hypocritically cheering Dick Cheney: “I invited Ann Coulter, who exemplifies the hardline spirit of CPAC…and asked her why anti-spend conservatives meeting there…would give a standing ovation to a former vice president whose administration ran up the deficit.” The CNN anchor revisited his Friday interview of Coulter 13 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour: “Do you remember last week when former Vice President Dick Cheney got the loudest ovation at CPAC? So I invited Ann Coulter, who exemplifies the hardline spirit of CPAC, I believe, and I asked her why anti-spend conservatives meeting there at CPAC would give a standing ovation to a former vice president whose administration ran up the deficit to $1.2 trillion, even though they were handed a surplus. I thought it was a fair question.”

4. ABC’s Bill Weir Touts: Obama Is ‘Keeping a Campaign Promise’ to Air Health Care Debate on TV
Good Morning America’s Bill Weir on Sunday trumpeted Barack Obama for “keeping a campaign promise” to broadcast the health care debate on C-SPAN. Counting the upcoming televised summit between Republicans and Democrats on the issue as fulfillment, Weir gushed, “…The revolution will be televised.”

5. CBS’s Rodriguez: Health Care Being ‘Held Hostage’ By Partisanship
In an exclusive interview with First Lady Michelle Obama on Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez fretted over the future of ObamaCare: “Deadlines keep getting missed for passing health care. Obstacles keep mounting….Unfortunately at the moment…health care is being held hostage by partisanship.” In her first question to Mrs. Obama, Rodriguez focused on the President’s determination to get something passed: “Will your husband ever give up on trying to find a compromise?” After Obama replied that “we can’t afford to give up,” Rodriguez concluded: “You can’t imagine a scenario where he would not finish the job on health care?” Obama declared: “My hope is that the country understands that we need to do this.”

6. CBS’s Smith: Will GOP Tell Dems to ‘Burn in Hell’ On ObamaCare?
While discussing the Democrats’ latest version of health care reform on Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked GOP strategist Ed Rollins: “Are the Republicans better off just saying let the Democrats burn in hell with this, we’re going to stay on the sidelines and win the House back this fall?” The segment also featured disgraced ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who Smith earlier asked about an upcoming health care summit: “…this whole notion that the Republicans were saying ‘well, we might not show up, now Mitch McConnell over the weekend, the minority head of the Senate, says ‘we’re going come, but we think the Democrats are arrogant.’ Is this doomed from the get-go?”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday February 22, 2010 @ 09:45 AM EST

1. ABC’s Moran Shares Frustration Public Doesn’t Appreciate ‘Stimulus’ Benefits
Hosting Sunday’s This Week on ABC, Terry Moran noted during the past week the Obama administration “fanned out across the country” to trumpet how “the stimulus worked,” yet President Obama “sounded a little frustrated that people don’t get it” as, Moran fretted: “What did they do wrong? They’re playing defense on what was one of their major accomplishments.” Earlier in his interview with California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pennsylvania’s Ed Rendell, whom Moran touted as “two prominent Governors who call it like it is,” Moran despaired at the shrinking size of the “jobs bill,” worried $15 billion is not enough.

2. Huffington Repeats Charge of ‘Disturbing’ & ‘Violent Imagery’ at CPAC on ABC’s This Week
Appearing during the “Roundtable” segment on Sunday’s This Week on ABC, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington continued her campaign to portray conservatives as promoters of violence as she recounted what she referred to as the “violent imagery” of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s speech at CPAC in which he, alluding to Tiger Woods’ troubles, suggested that a golf club should be used to “smash a window out of big government.”

3. At CPAC, NY Times Foreshadows Republican Troubles, Leaves Off Initial Racial Stereotype Charge
Reporter Kate Zernike’s accusations of racial stereotyping by Jason Mattera, a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference, didn’t make it into the print version of her story from CPAC. But Zernike and fellow reporter Adam Nagourney did suggest some at the conference advocated “positions that might be problematic for more mainstream Republicans.”

4. Daily Beast’s Avlon: CPAC’s ‘Saving Freedom’ Theme ‘A Little Extreme’
CNN regular and Daily Beast columnist John Avlon labeled “saving freedom,” the theme for CPAC 2010, as “a little extreme” and “a little far out” on Thursday’s Campbell Brown program and Friday’s American Morning. Avlon went further, bashing conservatives’ criticism of President Obama: “When they say ’saving freedom,’ they’re confusing, at heart, losing an election with living under tyranny.” The Daily Beast writer appeared during a segment 20 minutes into the 8 pm Eastern hour of Brown’s program with Red State’s Erick Erickson and CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley. The CNN anchor asked Avlon, who attended the first day of CPAC, “What was your take on what was going on?” It didn’t take long for this self-appointed voice of independents to criticize the theme of the annual conference for conservatives.

5. ABC Gives Credibility to Claim ‘Queen of Fake Outrage’ Palin ‘Overreacting’ to ‘Irreverent’ MacFarlane
Now that actress Andrea Fay Friedman of the Fox television series the Family Guy has spoken out publicly against Sarah Palin’s criticism of the show, ABC News has aired a story on the controversy, which ran on Saturday’s World News. The Family Guy episode in question not only treated Down’s Syndrome as something to laugh at, but also made a reference to the former Alaska Governor being the mother of a character – voiced by Friedman as both she and the character have Down’s Syndrome – presumably to suggest that Palin has a tendency to give birth to such children and that doing so would be funny.

6. Fox Animator MacFarlane on HBO: ‘If Reagan Were President, He Would Try Dick Cheney for War Crimes’
Former President Ronald Reagan would have prosecuted Dick Cheney for war crimes, Seth MacFarlane (IMDb page), creator, writer and executive producer of the Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show animated sit-coms which air Sunday nights on Fox, declared Friday night on the season premiere of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. But President Barack Obama, he rued, is too “chicken s**t” do to it. To affirming applause from the Los Angeles audience, the left-wing MacFarlane — who at another point recalled he campaigned for Obama — pretended he’s an expert on Reagan, asserting Cheney’s advocacy of water-boarding terrorists means: “If Ronald Reagan were President, based on Ronald Reagan’s assertion that no matter who it is — if it’s the Japanese in World War II, if it’s Pol Pot, if it’s us and we’re just scared — torture is torture and you prosecute that. I have to believe if Ronald Reagan were President, he would try Dick Cheney for war crimes.”

7. Maddow Shows Newsweek’s Adler Reading Anti-Filibuster Poem
On Friday’s Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Newsweek contributor Jerry Adler was shown reciting a poem in which he lamented all the agenda items that are unpassable because of the Senate filibuster rule that gives Republicans the power to block action by the Democratic majority. Host Maddow set up the clip: “Every week, Jerry Adler turns a story from the news into a verse for Newsweek. So now, without further ado, we present Newsweek`s Jerry Adler reading his latest opus, ‘59 to 41: Filibuster this Poem,’ with a special assist from our own Kent Jones.”

8. Olbermann Incorrectly Cites MRC’s Bozell & Lumps w/ ‘Racists in Right Wing’
On Thursday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann mixed up the Media Research Center with the group Accuracy in Media, as he linked MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell to an article written by AIM’s Roger Aronoff. In the article, titled “Olbermann’s Fuzzy Math on Race,” Aronoff had responded to Olbermann’s Monday “Special Comment” in which he asserted that a scarcity of minorities at Tea Party events amounts to evidence of racism by Tea Party activists. The MSNBC host mistakenly referred to Aronoff and AIM editor Cliff Kincaid as “henchmen” of Bozell, and associated all three men with “racists in the right wing.”

9. NBC Notes Obama Made Dalai Lama Sneak Out of White House Past Trash Bags
Uniquely among Friday’s broadcast network evening newscasts, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams gave his viewers a glimpse into the undignified exit from the White House endured by the Dalai Lama, who was made to walk past a number of trash bags as President Obama sought to keep the Chinese government from noticing the meeting. A photograph of Tibet’s exiled Buddhist spiritual leader walking past the bags was shown as the NBC host read the piece.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday February 19, 2010 @ 10:02 AM EST

1. CBS Contends Democrats Victims of ‘Incumbent Backlash,’ Not Anti-Big Government Mood
Though polls and recent election results illustrate public antipathy to big government deficit spending and a preference for right-leaning Republicans, Thursday’s CBS Evening News foresaw an “incumbent backlash” in which Democrats are only more vulnerable because more of them hold national office. Katie Couric asserted “a lot of incumbents are in trouble” before reporter Chip Reid declared it’s “an election year that’s looking more and more perilous for incumbents” since “the mood in the country is increasingly ‘throw the bums out.’”

2. NYT’s Gail Collins on Morning Joe Frets About ‘Scary,’ Angry Conservatives at CPAC
New York Times columnist Gail Collins appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Thursday, to worry about “scary,” fringe conservatives who will be appearing at CPAC in Washington D.C. Picking out certain panels at the three day event, she fretted, “But, suddenly, we’re back to nullification. All this sort of succession stuff. That part of it is very scary.”

3. Confused Matthews: What Does Patriot Mean These Days?!
On Wednesday’s Hardball Chris Matthews brought on his liberal compatriot from Salon.com Joan Walsh to double team Let Freedom Ring’s Colin Hanna and slander the tea partiers as racist nuts that represent the new face of the conservative movement, and dismissed those who seek to reassert the country’s founding principles, like those who signed the Mount Vernon Statement, as increasingly irrelevant. However it was the two liberals who received a lesson on the Constitution from Hanna who left Matthews so bewildered he blurted: “What does a patriot mean these days?”

4. Newsweek: Chinese Oppression Good For Tibet
In a February 17 online article entitled “Charity Case,” Newsweek’s Issac Stone Fish declared: “Whether they like it or not, China has been very good for Tibetans.” Fish’s outrageous claim came on the eve of President Obama’s Thursday meeting with Tibet’s religious leader, the Dalai Lama. Fish implied the Tibetans should show more gratitude to their foreign oppressors: “In exchange for an astronomical rise in living standards, the government requires citizens to relinquish the right to free worship and free speech. The Chinese government has kept its end of the deal. Even if Tibetan residents never signed the contract, they have benefitted from its enforcement – a fact Obama might keep in mind when he meets the Dalai Lama.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday February 18, 2010 @ 09:02 AM EST

1. ABC, CBS and NBC Verdict: Obama’s ‘Stimulus’ a Success, CBS Frets Public Refuses to See It
On the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration’s “stimulus” spending bill, ABC, CBS and NBC all eagerly corroborated the White House’s claims about how it “saved or created” many jobs and staved off economic disaster, though they all offered a range of numbers and definitions (ABC: “800,000 to 2.4 million new jobs,” CBS: “about 1.8 million” jobs “saved or created” and NBC: “1.6 to 1.8 million jobs have been created so far.”) ABC and CBS touted anecdotes about companies and government agencies which asserted the spending had prevented layoffs or allowed them to hire new staff. ABC’s Jake Tapper cited buses for Santa Monica, construction jobs in Baltimore, “63,000 green jobs” (with a solar panel-maker’s CEO declaring “it is working and we’re proof of that”) and a school system superintendent who told Tapper the funding “ helped save 61 jobs and create 73 new ones.” On CBS, Chip Reid began with how “this highway paving equipment company in California canceled plans to lay off 40 workers because of demand created by stimulus projects,” before trumpeting how on a road project the manager “calls the stimulus a lifesaver.” Though “many independent economists put the number of jobs saved or created at about 1.8 million,” Reid relayed that “to the great frustration of the White House, most Americans simply refuse to believe it.”

2. The NY Times Goes AWOL on Latest ‘Climate Change’ Revelations
Notorious climate scientist Phil Jones recently confessed that the earth could well have been warmer in the past than today, and admitted there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995. The Times has skipped that revelation, instead featuring leading green columnist Thomas Friedman renaming global warming “global weirding,” enabling supporters to call any odd weather event “climate change.”

3. Newsweek Asserts ‘Terror Begins at Home’ – With Republicans
Newsweek managing editor Daniel Klaidman asserts in the latest issue that “Terror Begins at Home” – with fearmongering Republicans who score cheap political points “at the expense of the American people.” Their “ritualistic hazing” of Democrats comes from the “infantilizing” rhetoric of the Bush-Cheney years.

4. CBS’s Smith Spends ‘Quality Time’ With Joe Biden; Helps Sell Stimulus ‘Success’
On Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith teased an interview with the Vice President: “We got a great chance yesterday to spend some quality time with Vice President Joe Biden. He’s got a lot to say on a lot of different topics.” During the interview, Smith shilled for the failed stimulus package: “The Vice President says the stimulus created or saved 2 million jobs. Many of them green.” Traveling with Biden in Saginaw, Michigan on Tuesday, Smith touted one employer who was helped by the stimulus: “At Fuzzy’s Diner, a local businessman, Paul Furlo, told us government-backed loans helped him expand and add hundreds of new employees.” No critics of the stimulus were featured in the segment.

5. NBC Hits Obama From the Left on Nuclear Power: What Is the President ‘Up to?’
NBC’s Nightly News and ABC’s World News on Tuesday provided drastically different reports on the Obama administration’s announced plans to build the country’s first new nuclear power plant in 30 years. Nightly News host Brian Williams showcased liberal concern and fretted, “…[Obama's] critics are openly wondering what it is he’s up to.”

6. Vieira Aids James Cameron in Whitewashing Anti-Military ‘Avatar’
Director/producer James Cameron was invited on the Today show Wednesday, for a second time, to promote his movie Avatar (as if the top grossing movie of all-time really needed it). Co-host Meredith Vieira allowed Cameron to brag about screening his anti-military sci-fi flick to servicemen and women on an aircraft carrier but never brought up the criticism, coming from the enlisted, that his movie portrays them as villains.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday February 17, 2010 @ 10:47 AM EST

1. MSNBC’s Ratigan: Palin A Hypocrite For Criticizing ‘Family Guy’ But Not Quitting FNC
On Tuesday, MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan suggested Sarah Palin was hypocrite for criticizing a Sunday episode of the Fox show “Family Guy,” that tangentially mocked her son with Down Syndrome, but not quitting her job as a Fox News contributor. Ratigan observed: “If Palin really wanted to make a statement, she would reject her paycheck from Fox and remove herself from the network, wouldn’t she?”

2. ABC Dismisses the Idea That 2010 Will Be Trouble for Dems: ‘A Tempest in a Teapot’
Good Morning America on Sunday derided the idea that Democratic retirements in Congress spell bad news for the party in 2010. John Hendren, a day before Evan Bayh announced he’s leaving the Senate, dismissed, “But, for now, despite all the passionate, anti-incumbent tea parties, the math suggests limited changes on Capitol Hill. A tempest in a teapot.”

3. NY Times Goes to Idaho to Explore Paranoid Tea Party Movement
New York Times investigative reporter David Barstow goes to Idaho to understand the paranoia of the Tea Party movement, and brings up past anti-government and racist extremists in a 4,500-word front-page takeout. Too bad the Times never tried to probe the paranoid psyche of Bush-hating left-wing groups in similar fashion. Just the opposite in fact: In 2007 the paper gave anti-war MoveOn.org a deep discount on an incendiary ad mocking Gen. David Petraeus.

4. CBS and ABC Claim Bayh’s Reelection Would Have Been ‘A Lock’
On Tuesday, both CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez and ABC Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos lamented the announced retirement of Democratic Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and proclaimed that his reelection would have been a virtual certainty. Rodriguez described it as “a lock,” while Stephanopoulos asserted that it was “almost assured.” In reality, A January 25 Rasmussen poll showed Bayh losing to Republican Congressman Mike Pence, 44% to 47%. While Pence has since decided against running, the poll also showed former Republican Congressman John Stutzman, who has formerly announced his candidacy, getting close at 41% to Bayh’s 44%. Numbers like that certainly do not suggest Bayh’s reelection was anywhere close to being “a lock.”

5. NBC News Notes Malfunctioning ‘Environmentally Friendly’ Machines Frustrate Olympics
In a Tuesday NBC Nightly News story, reporter Ron Mott actually acknowledged that the decision to use “environmentally friendly” ice resurfacing machines “that kept breaking down” had led to lengthy delays for speed skating competitions at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In the piece on problems at the games, Mott reported: “In the past two days, men’s speed skating was slowed to a standstill because of poor ice conditions, further complicated by the environmentally friendly machines, used in place of the tried and true Zamboni, that kept breaking down. A Zamboni is being brought in from Calgary.”

Monday, February 15, 2010

Questions continue to mount over the science behind years of studies that say humans are chiefly to blame for global warming. But reflecting a trend that has been going on for more than a year, just 35% of U.S. voters now believe global warming is caused primarily by human activity.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% think long-term planetary trends are mostly to blame, down three points from the previous survey in January. Eight percent say there is some other reason, and 10% aren’t sure.

But 56% say President Obama still believes that human activity is the main cause of global warming. That’s the highest finding on that question since last March.The president went to a United Nations summit in Copenhagen in December in hopes of reaching an international agreement that would limit human activities that some scientists say contribute to global warming.

Belief that human activity is the primary cause of global warming has declined significantly. In April 2008, the numbers were nearly the mirror image of the current numbers. At that time, 47% blamed human activity and only 34% named long term planetary trends as the reason for climate change.

Since July, the number who believe long-term planetary trends are the chief culprit have ranged from 47% to 50%. Those who blame human activity have ranged from 34% to 42% in the same period.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters still regard global warming as at least a somewhat serious problem, including 31% who say it’s very serious. But December marked the first time in 2009 that the overall level of concern fell below 60%. Forty-one percent (41%) now say global warming is not a serious problem, up seven points from early November of last year. That number includes 19% who say climate change is not at all a serious problem.

In early January, voters were evenly divided over whether global warming was linked to the extreme weather conditions this winter.

Republicans are more than twice as likely as Democrats to believe that long-term planetary trends are the pirimary reason for global warming. Adults not affiliated with either major party are more closely divided.

A majority of voters (61%) say finding new sources of energy is more important than reducing the amounts of energy Americans now consume, while 32% feel the opposite is true. The latest findings have remained fairly consistent since early June 2009.

Sixty-four percent (64%) say investing in renewable energy sources like solar and wind is a better long-term financial investment for America than investing in fossil fuels like coal, gas, and oil, up six points from late January. Just 27% disagree with that assessment, down three points from the previous survey.

But 46% continue to believe there’s a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, up four points from this time last year. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say there is no conflict between the two.

Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.

See survey questions and toplines. Crosstabs are available to Premium Members only.

Praise For In Search of Self-Governance by Scott Rasmussen

California Senate: Boxer Still Holds Narrow Leads Over GOP Hopefuls

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

COUNTRY Financial Security Index Loses Ground in February (Video)

Consumer Confidence Climbs to Highest Level in Two Weeks

The Coolness of Old Florida By Froma Harrop

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday February 16, 2010 @ 09:55 AM EST

1. Hardball Spins: Bayh Quitting Because There’s No Room for ‘Centrists’
Since the announcement of his resignation from the Senate the common label (from CNN to MSNBC) of Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh seems to be that of a “centrist.” On Monday’s Hardball both Chris Matthews and his guest panelist NBC News’ Chuck Todd called Bayh a “centrist,” which is an inaccurate label for someone who has a lifetime ACU rating of 20 and ADA of 70.

2. CNN Insists Evan Bayh is ‘No Liberal;’ GOP ‘Should Be Sad to See Him Go’
On Monday’s Rick’s List, CNN’s Rick Sanchez and Jessica Yellin both tried to portray liberal Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh as a centrist. Yellin insisted, “Republicans should be sad to see Evan Bayh go because he is one of the centrists who worked very hard to work with Republicans.” Sanchez replied, “Evan Bayh is no liberal!” Before the CNN anchor raised Bayh’s retirement with his colleague 18 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour, he brought up Congressman Joe Wilson’s response on Twitter to his Democratic colleague’s decision. Wilson wrote, “Great news of Senator Bayh’s retirement, good prospects of change in Indiana has now become much brighter! I am happy for Hoosiers.” Sanchez all but condemned the Republican’s Tweet: “It’s not like he’s dancing on his grave because the guy’s not dead. He’s…just retiring. But wouldn’t you think, just from the standpoint of being collegial, that, most of the time, somebody would say something like- ‘boy, I hate to see Jessica Yellin leaving CNN. She really was good’- as opposed to- ‘boy, am I glad Jessica Yellin’s leaving. Now, we can get a competent reporter in there.’”

3. Olbermann Appeals to Tea Partiers to Admit Racism, Real Socialists Would Support ‘Stupid Tax Cuts’
On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann delivered a “Special Comment” aimed at Tea Party activists in which, rather than rhetorically bludgeoning them with his usual name calling, he came across as trying to reason with Tea Partiers, appealing to them to admit to having racist motivations against President Obama as the Countdown host suggested that he felt sorry for them. Before a commercial break, he plugged the segment, relaying that he would ask questions to Tea Party activists “sincerely and with sympathy.” At one point, Olbermann even seemed as if he were on the verge of expressing remorse for his history of using terms like “Tea Klux Klan” and “tea baggers,” which he referred to as “incendiary.”

4. CBS’s Smith: Is Cheney Criticism of Obama ‘Theater’ or ‘Real’?
On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith wondered if there was any credibility to Dick Cheney’s criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the Christmas Day bomber: “…the point that he seems to be trying to make…that this administration, the Obama administration, is not taking terrorism seriously enough. Is this theater or is there a real point to be made?” Smith later incredulously asked: “Can an actual argument be made, though…that the Obama administration is weak on terrorism?”

5. Geraldo Rivera to Ann Coulter: ‘Is Cheney Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy?’
Geraldo Rivera, on Fox News’ Geraldo At Large on Sunday, essentially accused Dick Cheney of treason for criticizing the Obama administration over the weekend, as he asked panelist Ann Coulter if the former VP was “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” For her part the conservative author slammed back: “To be hearing that from liberals after eight years of relentless attacks on George Bush, when he was waging the war on terror, is comical.”

6. CBS ‘Early Show’ Touts 2nd Grader’s Get Well Card to Bill Clinton
On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez reported on a 7-year-old boy who tried to hand deliver a get well card to former President Bill Clinton: “When Bill Clinton returned home from the hospital after a heart procedure on Friday, there were lots of reporters waiting, and one second grader named C.J. Williams, who just wanted to get a get well card to him and some candy.” Throughout the fawning segment, a headline on-screen read: “Get Well Soon, Mr. President; 2nd Grader Attempts To Deliver Message to Clinton.”

7. ABC Celebrates the Adulterous Affair of JFK as a ‘Torrid’ ‘Love Story’ Involving ‘American Royalty’
Good Morning America on Monday touted an adulterous affair John F. Kennedy had in the early 1950s as a “love story” and a “torrid and fleeting romance.” Co-host George Stephanopoulos lauded the Kennedys as “American royalty” and the show offered no hint of criticism over the infidelity.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday February 15, 2010 @ 09:22 AM EST

1. CBS’s Schieffer to Biden: Doesn’t George Bush ‘Also Need a Little Thanks for That?’
Words never spoken before by a CBS News journalist: “Do you think also that George Bush would also need a little thanks for that? I mean, does he share in the credit or not?” That very unusual quest to credit former President Bush came from Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, since even for him Vice President Joe Biden’s claim — “Iraq, I think, is going to be one of the great achievements of this administration” — was too much. Cuing up a retort from former VP Dick Cheney on ABC’s This Week aired just over an hour earlier, Schieffer challenged Biden: “You said the other night to Larry King in an interview that you thought Iraq could be one of the ‘great achievements’ of this administration. And I must say a lot of people, when you said that, said their response was ‘what?’ This administration didn’t have very much to do with Iraq and your friend, Dick Cheney, had a thought about that, as well.”

2. NYT Shows Obama’s Favorability, Approval Plummeting, Yet Stresses ‘Edge Over G.O.P. With Public’
Give the New York Times points for nerve: Chief political reporter Adam Nagourney managed to take the paper’s new poll, full of bad news for President Obama and Democrats, and changed the subject, twisting its findings to suggest Republicans were in trouble: “Obama Has Edge Over G.O.P. With Public.” Nagourney glossed over several interesting tidbits which reflected badly on the prospects of Obama and the Democrats, including his falling favorability rating and plummeting prospects for health care.

3. CBS ‘Early Show’ Skips Part of Poll Finding Most Americans Want Smaller Government
Touting the latest CBS News/New York Times poll on Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer concluded that Americans were upset with President Obama and Congress simply over the influence of “special interest groups,” without mentioning massive government spending or ObamaCare as other possible reasons. Neither Smith nor Schieffer brought up the part of the poll that showed the desire by a majority of Americans for smaller government: “59% of Americans think the government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals….56% would choose a smaller government providing fewer services over a bigger government providing more services, up from 48% last spring and the highest percentage in more than a decade.”

4. Washington Post’s King Disparages Palin as ‘Simple-Minded’ and ‘Mediocre’
Sarah Palin “doesn’t have any substance there behind her” and her remarks at the Tea Party convention were “embarrassing at points” since she delivered “simple, simple thoughts, very simple-mindedly expressed,” Washington Post columnist Colby King charged on Inside Washington. Jumbling the famous “most of the American people are mediocre. And they have a right to be represented” quote and its source, King, the Post’s deputy editorial page editor from 2000 to 2007, applied the “mediocre” label to Palin: “Just as the Supreme Court nominee who was defeated said, you know, ‘everybody needs to have a little mediocre representation and that’s what I am.’ That’s what she is.”

5. CBS and ABC Lament Patrick Kennedy’s Exit as ‘End of an Era’
Reporting Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s decision to not run for re-election this fall for his House seat representing Rhode Island, CBS and ABC on Friday night bemoaned the impending lack of a Kennedy in the House or Senate as the “end of an era.” CBS even created a chart to display the timeline for Kennedys in office, as fill-in CBS Evening News anchor Maggie Rodriguez announced: “It is the end of an era, the Kennedy era. Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy has decided not to seek re-election in November. So early next year there will be no Kennedy holding elected office in Washington for the first time since 1947, more than 63 years.” Over on ABC, Diane Sawyer plugged the upcoming story: “End of an era. The last Kennedy in Congress calling it quits.” Getting a bit carried away, Sawyer asserted: “There has always been a Kennedy in Washington.”

6. CNN: President Made ‘Pants on Fire’ Claim on Health Care; AP: ‘Hyperbole’
CNN refreshingly called out President Obama on Friday’s Newsroom concerning his false claim that “for the first time…you saw more people getting health care from government than you did from the private sector.” CNN’s Suzanne Simons and anchor Tony Harris both used the “pants on fire” expression to describe the President’s statement. The AP, on the other hand, merely labeled it “hyperbole.” President Obama delivered this line at his February 9, 2010 White House press conference. Harris played the sound bite of this statement 20 minutes into the 12 pm Eastern hour, and asked Simons, who is an executive producer with CNN’s “Fact Check Desk,” to verify its accuracy: “Tell us, is that an accurate statement from the President?”

7. On MSNBC, HuffPo Reporter Backs Biden Claim Iraq Will Be Obama’s ‘Great Achievement’
Appearing during the 2pm ET hour of MSNBC Live on February 11, Huffington Post political reporter Ryan Grim not only agreed with Joe Biden’s remark on CNN the previous evening that Iraq may be a “great achievement” for President Obama but — going further than Biden — also asserted that victory in Iraq would be a “great achievement” for the anti-war movement. Both Biden and Obama were strenuous opponents of President Bush’s 2007 “surge” strategy marked the turning point in the war.

8. ABC Gushes Over the ‘Genuine Love and Respect’ of ‘True Valentines’ Joe and Jill Biden
Two years after fawning over the romance of John and Elizabeth Edwards, Good Morning America found another Democratic couple to tout. As the song Everlasting Love played in the background, news anchor Juju Chang profiled Joe and Jill Biden and their “famous Washington love story.”

9. NBC Showcases Martin Short Championing How Being ‘Progressive’ Makes Canada ‘Very Hip’
People around the world view Canada as “very hip” because of its “progressive” health care and environmental policies, actor/impersonator Martin Short contended in a soundbite featured in a Thursday NBC Nightly News story looking at how, on the eve of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canadians perceive themselves: “As a Canadian, when I travel the world I find that people find being Canadian to be very hip because we have been progressive in health care, and we have been progressive in environmental issues. And I think that we now wear that with great pride.”

10. Flashback, Gumbel: Lack of Blacks Makes Winter Olympics ‘Look Like GOP Convention’
On the eve of the Winter Olympics four years ago, Bryant Gumbel couldn’t resist taking a racial shot at the Republican Party in a commentary at the end of his Real Sports magazine show on HBO. The former NBC and CBS morning news host concluded by telling viewers that as for the Winter Olympic games, “count me among those who don’t like ‘em and won’t watch ‘em.” He condescendingly suggested viewers “try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday February 12, 2010 @ 09:30 AM EST

1. Obama’s Disapproval Jumps, Couric Instead Stresses: ‘Most Think His Priority is Serving the People’
In a new CBS News/New York Times poll, President Barack Obama’s disapproval level jumped five points, to 45 percent since the last survey in mid-January, with approval now at just 46 percent, but Thursday’s CBS Evening News skipped that bad news for Obama and instead highlighted some better news for the President. Though 80 percent said “members of Congress more interested in serving special interest groups” than the American people, “the President gets better marks on that score,” Katie Couric touted, as “most think his priority is serving the people.” Reporter Nancy Cordes relayed how “only 29 percent think the GOP is trying to work with the President, while 62 percent think Mr. Obama is reaching across the aisle.”

2. MSNBC’s Ratigan: Tea Party Includes ‘Birthers,’ ‘Open Racists,’ and ‘Outright Nazis’
On Monday’s ‘The Dylan Ratigan Show’ on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan began the program by ranting: “The tea party has a bit of an integrity problem, as everybody from birthers, to open racists, to outright Nazis are actually on the team. And no one involved, including its leadership, seems to mind that fact.” To justify his outrageous smear of the political movement, Ratigan cited one woman who attended the weekend tea party convention in Nashville, Tennessee: “I just couldn’t sit down anymore and not do anything. Because it reminded me of what happened during the rein of Hitler.”

3. ABC Highlights Joe Biden to Deride ‘Out There’ Comments by Sarah Palin
Good Morning America’s Kate Snow on Thursday highlighted a clip of Joe Biden for a piece on Sarah Palin and her “out there” comments. The Vice President, who has made several verbal gaffes of his own, derided, “Some of the comments made are just so far, sort of, out there, I just don’t know where they come from.”

4. NYT’s John Broder Calls Climate Change Skeptics ‘Deniers,’ Some Are ‘Relatively Uninformed’
New York Times reporter John Broder talks about his front-page climate change story in a nytimes.com podcast: “Well, naturally the skeptics and those who are, you know, relatively uninformed about the climate debate will look out the window and see two or three feet of snow and more coming down, and ask themselves, ‘What’s with all the global warming?’” Broder also termed those who don’t believe that man is causing the planet to dangerously overheat “deniers” — a hostile term in the running debate.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday February 11, 2010 @ 12:07 PM ET

1. Health Reform a Key to a Rebound for Obama, Stephanopoulos Contends: ‘People Want That’
Though 53 percent disapprove of Obama’s handling of health care and more are opposed to than in favor of the congressional Democrats/Obama plan, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asserted a health care bill would help Obama rebound since “people still want that” passed: “What the White House can do — what they’re trying to do — is to achieve a health care bill. People still want that.”

2. Chris Matthews Rants: ‘Clowns’ and ‘Hyenas’ Like Sean Hannity ‘Don’t Care’ What Happens to Earth in the Future
Hardball host Chris Matthews on Wednesday ranted that “clowns” and “hyenas” like Sean Hannity “don’t care” about the awful things global warming will do to the planet. The Fox News host on Monday highlighted the winter storms that the D.C. area has been suffering and then mocked Al Gore.

3. CBS vs. CBS: Is Obama “Open to Ideas” or Demanding “Surrender”?
On Tuesday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric and White House reporter Chip Reid cast President Obama’s push for “bipartisanship” in a favorable light, with Obama “working hard,” “following through on a promise” and “open to ideas from Republicans.” But in an item posted on CBSNews.com, Reid’s fellow CBS White House correspondent, Mark Knoller – who has covered every President since Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s – was far more skeptical: “When a sitting President calls for bipartisanship by the opposition – he really means surrender.”

Media Research Center CyberAlert Newsletter
February 10, 2010 16:11 ET

Latest Notable Quotables

As a bonus for CyberAlert subscribers, below is the text of the February 8 edition of Notable Quotables, the MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media. It was compiled by the MRC’s Rich Noyes.

To read it online, posted with ten videos with matching MP3 audio:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/nq/2010/20100205022639.aspx

Those marked below with an * have accompanying audio and/or video.

The three-page PDF which matches the hard copy version: http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/uploads/Feb82010.pdf

(To subscribe to NQ via e-mail:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/subscriptions/subscribe.aspx

As a CyberAlert subscriber, you will receive a text version of NQ. Use the subscribe address above to receive an e-mail every other week with images and direct links to videos that are part of the latest NQ edition.)

Now the quotes from recent weeks, as featured in the February 8 Notable Quotables, Vol. 23; No. 3:

Hailing Barack Obama’s “Command Performance”

* “It was extraordinary. And it was a command performance by the President. In fact, some Republicans are wondering if they made a mistake by allowing TV cameras in the room….The President demonstrated intimate knowledge of the issues….Here at the White House, some believe this could be a game-changer for the President. As one official put it, this is the best thing the President has done in a very long time.”
— White House correspondent Chip Reid on the January 29 CBS Evening News, talking about Obama’s televised meeting with House Republicans.

“Most Conservative” Obama: Ready for Mount Rushmore

* “If presidential leadership were only about giving speeches, the jackhammers would already be at work on Mount Rushmore. I thought the guy dominated the room, used humor, occupied the middle ground….In many, many ways, this is one of the most conservative speeches that a Democratic president has given since, I think, the middle of Bill Clinton’s time.”
— Newsweek’s Howard Fineman on MSNBC after President Obama’s State of the Union address, January 27.

Like a Stimulus Package for Our Brains

“President Obama is so much better when he takes a heated, knotty issue, like civil rights or banking reform, and talks to the country like adults. He is so much better at making us smarter than angrier.”
— The New York Times’s Thomas Friedman in a January 27 column.

CBS’s Jeff Greenfield: “This was very much like he was in the campaign. He went five or ten minutes without a single applause line. He said ‘let me tell you how we got into this mess,’ he reached out and said to people ‘I’m not giving up my idea that we can change the tone of politics.’…”
Katie Couric: “Well, as Tom Friedman said, ‘He’s better at making us smarter than making us angry.’”
— From CBS’s live coverage following the State of the Union, January 27.

“On this much, President Obama’s friends and foes could agree: He eludes simple labels. Yes, he’s a liberal, except when he’s not. He’s antiwar, except for the one he’s escalating….In a world that presents so many fast-moving and intractable problems, nuance, flexibility, pragmatism — even a full range of human emotions — are no doubt good things. But as Mr. Obama wrapped up his State of the Union address on Wednesday night with an appeal to transcend partisan gamesmanship, he was plaintively testing a broader proposition: Is it possible to embrace complexity in a political and media culture that demands simple themes and promotes conflict?”
— New York Times political editor Richard Stevenson in a January 31 “Week in Review” item.

NBC: Keeping Hope Alive

“‘Never More Hopeful’: Obama’s Renewed Message of Hope for America.”
— On-screen headline January 28 during Today’s coverage of the previous evening’s State of the Union address.

Finally, An Hour When Chris Isn’t Focused on Race

* “You know, I was trying to think about who he was tonight, and it’s interesting: He is post-racial by all appearances. You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews during live coverage following the State of the Union address, January 27.

How Would Teddy Feel About You Destroying His Dream?

* “Massachusetts requires that all residents purchase health insurance. You voted for that plan. So why doesn’t it make sense that all Americans have health insurance? Why isn’t what’s good for Massachusetts good for the whole country?…How do you think that Senator Ted Kennedy would feel about your election? Do you think he’d be disappointed?”
— ABC’s Barbara Walters to Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown on This Week, January 31.

Sorry Scott Brown, You Have No Chance

“Well, we’re almost here, aren’t we? The end of a long, arduous, four-month campaign for a Senate seat that you have approximately the same chance of filling as you did the pilot’s chair of the Starship Enterprise….The notion that Massachusetts would elect a Republican to fill the seat left vacant by Edward Kennedy was the property of people who buy interesting mushrooms in interesting places. You might as well expect the House of Windsor to be succeeded on the British throne by the Kardashian sisters.”
— The Boston Globe Magazine’s Charles Pierce in a January 10 column addressed to GOP candidate Scott Brown.

Court Decision = “Murder of Democracy”

* “This is a Supreme Court-sanctioned murder of what little actual democracy is left in this democracy. It is government of the people by the corporations for the corporations. It is the Dark Ages. It is our Dred Scott. I would suggest a revolution, but a revolution against the corporations? The corporations that make all the guns and the bullets?”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on the January 21 Countdown reacting to a Supreme Court decision saying it was an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech to ban independent groups from advertising prior to a federal election.

Spanking Obama With His Own Olive Branch

* President Obama at State of the Union: “We face big and difficult challenges, and what the American people hope, what they deserve, is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences.”
MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan: “If the President thought that meant Republicans would start jumping onboard his boat, he thought wrong. They’ve taken his olive branch [begins menacingly swinging an olive branch back and forth] and are now using it to hit back against his agenda.”
— MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan during his 4pm ET The Dylan Ratigan Show, January 29.

Need to Make Republicans “Pay” for “Being Against Everything”

* “What they need to do, in my personal view, is they need to ditch all of this talk of bipartisanship, of post-partisanship. That hasn’t worked for them. What they need to do is start calling Republicans out on this, and he [President Obama] started doing that on Wednesday night….He needs to, perhaps, bully Republicans into doing that, rather than doing this careful walk around them.”
— Newsweek White House correspondent Katie Connolly on The Chris Matthews Show, January 31.

“How you do get a guy like [Senate GOP leader] Mitch McConnell, who sits back there pompously laughing at him, and John Cornyn and those guys — how do you make them pay for being against everything that tries to solve the country’s problems?”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on the Feburary 2 Hardball.

Today’s GOP = “Cambodian Re-Education Camp”

* “What’s going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of a frightening, almost Cambodia re-education camp going on in that party, where they’re going around to people, sort of switching their minds around saying, if you’re not far right, you’re not right enough.”
— Chris Matthews during an MSNBC primetime special about President Obama’s Q&A with House Republicans, January 29.

Touting Brilliant Obama’s Theory of Legal Relativity

“When he turns to solving problems through policy, he reveres facts, calling for data and then more data. He looks for historical analogues and reads voraciously. ‘This is someone who in law school worked with [Harvard professor] Larry Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity,’ said senior adviser David M. Axelrod. ‘He does have an incisive mind; that mind is always put to use in pursuit of tangible things that are going to improve people’s lives.’”
— Washington Post reporters Anne Kornblut and Michael Fletcher in a January 25 front-page story about Obama headlined “The Seeker as Problem-Solver.”

Selfish Massachusetts Voters Squelched Health Care for Rest of America

“My fellow Americans, the state of our union is, well, quite wretched at the moment….Massachusetts, which for nearly half a century proudly sent a senator to Washington to fight for social justice and universal health care, has chosen as his replacement someone who campaigned in effect on the slogan ‘We’ve got ours, so the hell with everyone else.’”
— Washington Post business columnist and former business reporter Steven Pearlstein in a January 27 piece detailing the speech he wished President Obama would deliver that night.

Twisted MSNBC: Does “Conservative” = “Birther”?

* “When you say conservative, I know you know that much has been made of this conservative litmus test to be a true conservative in this country. For example, one of the questions was, do you think the President was born in the United States? Is that your definition of conservative, or is it in the perimeter of a conservative?”
— MSNBC 11am ET anchor Tamron Hall to Illinois Republican Senate candidate Patrick Hughes, February 1.

Blame Bad Deficit on Failure to Pass ObamaCare

“As for these deficit projections, these are just that, projections. And it’s assuming the economy is continuing to recover. If it does not, these deficit projections that we see today — 1.6 billion [sic, trillion] this year, 1.3 billion [trillion] next year — those numbers could go way up. And if health care doesn’t pass, because this budget assumes health care will pass, that’s yet another $150 billion that would be tacked on to the deficit.”
— NBC’s Chuck Todd on the February 1 Nightly News.

“Absurd” to Say Government Health Care Is Worse

“I’m on Medicare. People who’ve been in the military are on a government health program. And yet the Republicans were able the make the idea that being on a government health program is terrible. How absurd.”
— Longtime ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson on This Week, January 24.

Pro-Life Tebow Could Have Been “Rapist Pedophile”

* Whoopi Goldberg: “A commercial scheduled to air during the Super Bowl has women’s groups outraged. It’s about a mom who ignores recommendations for her to abort her baby, and how that baby grows up to be a Florida Gators football star, Tim Tebow….”
Joy Behar: “He could just as easily become some kind of a rapist pedophile. I mean, you don’t know what someone’s going to be. In this case, he turned out to be great, but it’s not an argument about abortion or not abortion, it’s just, this particular case, this particular woman decided not to do it, and this is the wonderful result. There are others who decide to do it, and they’re glad that they did it.”
— Exchange on ABC’s The View, January 26.

PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III

EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham

NEWS ANALYSTS: Geoff Dickens, Brad Wilmouth, Scott Whitlock, Matthew Balan, and Kyle Drennen

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Michelle Humphrey

END Reprint of February 8 Notable Quotables

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday February 10, 2010 @ 10:19 AM EST

1. MSNBC Host Lambastes FNC Exec for Daring ‘Undermine’ the MSM
NBC White House correspondent and MSNBC daytime host Chuck Todd called it “crazy” for Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon to say “the mainstream media hates the tea party movement almost as much as it hates Sarah Palin.” Todd condemned Sammon’s opinion as part of a cynical strategy by Fox News to “undermine the ‘mainstream media’ because it’s good for their business.” But an MSNBC host routinely attacks “Fixed News” in an attempt to climb out of the ratings cellar.

2. New Yorker’s Remnick: ‘Palin’s Career Would Be Eliminated’ If ‘Preposterousness Were Disqualifying’
On Tuesday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC, on the same show in which host Joe Scarborough had earlier complained about FNC’s Bill Sammon claiming the media “hate” Sarah Palin, guest David Remnick of the New Yorker magazine – formerly of the Washington Post – declared that “Sarah Palin’s entire career would be eliminated” if Americans were influenced by seeing “preposterousness” on public display.

3. Olbermann Paints ‘Tea Klux Klan’ as Wanting to Bring Back Jim Crow Laws
On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann highlighted suggestions by former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo that there should be civics literacy testing for registered voters made by Tancredo at the recent Tea Party convention, which Olbermann referred to as the “Tea Klux Klan,” and painted Tea Party activists as wanting to deny minorities the right to vote using the tactics of the Jim Crow South.

4. An Emotional George Stephanopoulos Coos: Murtha Made Congress ‘Work,’ Skips Smear on Marines
Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday became emotional over the passing of John Murtha, named by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as one of Congress’ most corrupt politicians. He lauded the Democrat as “one of those guys who make the [House of Representatives] work.”

5. CBS Cites Left-Wing Advocate of Infanticide to Encourage Charitable Giving
In a story on American charitable giving on CBS’s Sunday Morning, correspondent Mark Strassmann cited liberal Princeton University bio-ethics professor Peter Singer on how much people should give: “[He’s] worked up a giving guide. The more you make, the more he believes you should give….He believes it’s within our power to virtually end world poverty.” While Strassmann simply introduced Singer as a bio-ethicist, in reality, the professor has a history of promoting radical ideas, such as justifying infanticide. In an excerpt of his 1993 book Practical Ethics, entitled “Taking Life: Humans,” Singer concluded: “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday February 09, 2010 @ 08:46 AM EST

1. Painting Palin as Hypocrite for ‘Crib Notes’ and GOP as ‘Party of No’ While Letting Obama Pontificate
From Monday’s broadcast network evening newscasts: CBS and NBC found hypocrisy in Sarah Palin scolding President Obama’s incessant use of a Teleprompter while she had “crib notes” written on her hand during her Saturday Tea Party convention appearance, CBS followed by giving Obama two-straight minutes to explain why the public will come around to “connect” with him again and, meanwhile, ABC devoted a full story to “whether Republicans want action or are just the ‘Party of No’?” CBS’s Nancy Cordes reported, over a helpful graphic showing the words written on Palin’s hand, that while Palin “dismissed the President Saturday night as a ‘charismatic guy with a Teleprompter,’ she may have been relying on some crib notes of her own.” Cordes concluded: “Her supporters called it an endearing sign that Palin’s a real person, while detractors argue it’s proof she doesn’t know her facts.” On NBC, Brian Williams led the Palin story with how “it happened after a speech where she criticized the President for relying too much on a Teleprompter.”

2. CBS’s Rodriguez: Critics ‘Having Fun’ with Palin’s Hand Notes
While discussing Sarah Palin’s Saturday Tea Party Convention speech with political analyst John Dickerson on Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez remarked: “She was really scrutinized because she wrote those notes on her hand during her speech….I want to show real quick….boy, are her critics having fun with that one.” While Rodriguez made sure to point out Palin’s gaffe to viewers, during an interview last February, Rodriguez glossed over an obvious gaffe made by Vice President Joe Biden.

3. Salon.com’s Kaplan on CNN: Tea Parties Don’t Amount to Much; Blasts GOP, Palin
On Monday’s Rick’s List program on CNN, Salon.com’s Fred Kaplan attacked Republicans for politicizing national security, accused the GOP of being in an alternate reality, and blasted Sarah Palin for “talking…complete and utter nonsense.” Kaplan also wrote off the tea parties as not a “mass movement,” and, along with anchor Rick Sanchez, accused Palin of forwarding “anti-intellectualism.” The Salon.com national security columnist, who is also a former correspondent for the Boston Globe, appeared as a guest during the last ten minutes of Sanchez’s program, just before the top of the 5 pm Eastern hour. Before introducing Kaplan, the CNN anchor set up the discussion by referencing the political debate over the granting of Miranda rights to attempted airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after his Christmastime arrest. Sanchez first asked the Salon.com writer, “Who’s doing the politicizing here?”

4. On Today: Should GOP Be Afraid of Palin and Her Tea Party Supporters?
NBC’s Matt Lauer, along with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, spent a whole segment on Monday’s Today show wondering if Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party supporters she appeals to, posed a problem for the GOP, with the Today co-anchor going as far to boldly state: “Republicans are afraid of Sarah Palin. Republicans have a right to be afraid of some of the people she was talking to also.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday February 08, 2010 @ 10:11 AM EST

1. ABC Finds What It Looked for at Tea Party Confab: ‘Anger’ and ‘Harsh Rhetoric’
“The business of this first ever national Tea Party convention is the nuts and bolts of politics, like voter registration,” ABC’s John Berman began his Friday night World News story from Nashville, “but barely scratch the surface, and there’s a tone of anger and confrontation.” Specifically: “The convention’s first speaker, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, said that people who voted for Barack Obama could not pass a basic civics literacy test.” Tancredo’s offensive remark: “People who could not even spell the word vote put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.” Berman pounced on the rhetoric as out of bounds: “The President a socialist, his supporters illiterate? Today, Tancredo stood by those comments.”

2. Time Disparages Tea Party as Impotent; Smears Palin’s ‘Anti-Intellectual Drivel’ as ‘Anti-American’
Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement “both have far less support in the country at large than a gullible Old Media seems to understand or suggest,” Time magazine senior political analyst Mark Halperin asserted on “The Page” while colleague Joe Klein, on Time’s “Swampland” blog, showed fear of the supposedly impotent coalition as he denigrated her Saturday night convention speech as “anti-intellectual drivel,” scolding as “anti-American” those dumb enough to like her: “Those who celebrate Sarah Palin’s lack of knowledge as a form of ‘authenticity’ superior to Barack Obama’s gloriously American mongrel ethnicity and self-made intellectuality are representatives of a long-standing American theme – the celebration of sameness, and mediocrity, in a country that has succeeded brilliantly because of its diversity and restlessly eccentric genius. Happily, it has almost always been a losing theme. And, indeed, in the truest sense, it can be called anti-American.”

3. For Third Time in Less Than a Week, MSNBC Tries to Link Conservatives and Birthers, Touts Embarrassing Video of Sarah Palin
On Thursday, MSNBC continued its quest to link conservatives with the birther movement- people who don’t believe Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President. Previewing an unrelated segment on this weekend’s tea party convention, Norah O’Donnell played a clip of Obama criticizing those who raise the issue. She then compared, “President Obama sends a message to those who question his citizenship, this as the tea party movement gets ready for its first big convention.”

4. Rick Sanchez Omits Party of Convicted Democrat, IDs Tancredo’s Party
CNN’s Rick Sanchez failed to mention the party affiliation of former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon on Friday’s Rick’s List program, but made every effort to identify former Congressman Tom Tancredo as a Republican. Sanchez ranked Tancredo higher on his “List You Don’t Want to Be On” for his remarks at the Tea Party Convention, despite Dixon’s conviction for illegally using donated gift cards for the needy. The CNN anchor gave the number three and number two spots on his “List You Don”t Want to Be On” just before the top of the 4 pm Eastern hour. Sanchez chose Dixon as his number three, and gave a brief on her resignation from office and how she received two years probation for her crime. He didn’t mention her Democratic Party affiliation during his brief, nor was it mentioned in the accompanying on-screen graphic.

5. Editor Tina Brown Admits: Obama ‘Got the Best Press Known to Man’
Two prominent journalists appeared on Friday’s Good Morning America and casually admitted that Barack Obama has received glowing coverage from the press. Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown announced, “No, [Obama] got the best press known to man. Let’s face it.” Howard Kurtz, host of Reliable Sources on CNN and a Washington Post columnist, corrected, “In the history of civilization.” The liberal Brown quickly agreed, “In the history of civilization, incredible.”

6. CBS: Global Warming Science Sound, ClimateGate Just a PR Problem
On Thursday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric lamented the impact ClimateGate and other recent scandals involving fraudulent global warming data have had on the climate change debate: “Experts insist the overall conclusion remains the same, that climate change is real, but…such errors provide ammunition to skeptics.” In a report that followed, correspondent Mark Phillips explained the real problem facing global warming advocates: “The scientists may still believe they’re winning the scientific argument, but they’re in danger of losing the public relations war.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday February 05, 2010 @ 10:31 AM EST

1. FNC’s Baier Corrects Washington Post’s Claim Obama ‘Rare’ Product of Middle Class
File under: you read it here first. “The Washington Post ignored a few historical facts when it proclaimed in a front page article Wednesday that President Obama is quote, ‘a rare President who comes from the middle class,’” FNC’s Bret Baier pointed out during his Thursday “Grapevine” segment. Baier explained what escaped Post reporter Eli Saslow: “There have actually been many Presidents who hailed from the middle class…”

2. CBS’s Rodriguez Asks Fla. Gov. Charlie Crist About RINO Label
In an interview with Florida Governor Charlie Crist on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez turned to the hotly contested Senate race: “your opponent in the primary, fellow Republican Marco Rubio, and you…are in a dead heat in this race. Critics say that it’s because he is a true conservative and you are…a RINO, a ‘Republican In Name Only.’ How do you respond to that criticism?” Rodriguez followed up: “So why do you think this race is so tight and why is he so close?” Crist dodged the question: “200 days from the race…Let’s see what it is when we get to game day.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday February 04, 2010 @ 09:15 AM EST

1. Worried Lauer Presses First Lady On Health Care: ‘Can Your Husband Get It Done?’
Michelle Obama sat down for an exclusive, multi-part interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer on Wednesday’s Today show and as expected with any QandA with a First Lady the co-host tossed the perfunctory softballs on topics like family life in the White House and her cause of childhood obesity, but Lauer also extended the favorable treatment when discussing health care reform as he pressed: “Will it pass? Can your husband get it done?”

2. Obama’s a ‘Rare’ Middle-Class President, Claims Washington Post’s Saslow
Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow befuddled readers on Wednesday by claiming Barack Obama “is a rare president who comes from the middle class” and yet “nearly two-thirds of Americans believed that his economic policies had hurt the country or made no difference at all.” Did the Post forget the humble origins of Clinton, Carter, Reagan, and Nixon?

3. CNN’s Acosta: Tea Partiers are ‘Recession-Raging Conservatives’
CNN’s Jim Acosta continued his network’s bias against tea party protesters on Wednesday’s American Morning by depicting them as “recession raging,” and questioned one participant over her depiction of President Obama as the personification of death: “Do you think having the President dressed up as the Grim Reaper is a little over-the-top?” Acosta then asked, “You think it’s appropriate?” The correspondent’s report on Wednesday was the first in a series titled “Welcome to the Tea Party.” During his presentation, which first aired 39 minutes into the 7 am hour, Acosta followed his network’s model of focusing on the negative depictions of President Obama at tea party gatherings and painting the protests in a negative light. Over 5 months earlier, his colleague Jim Spellman followed the cross-country caravan of the Tea Party Express organization before the massive 9/12 rally in 2009, and zeroed-in on the protesters who labeled the President a Nazi, brought firearms to rallies, or held “outlandish conspiracy theories.” He labeled all these “a dark undercurrent.” Much more infamously, former CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen took personal offensive at a depiction of the chief executive with a Hitler mustache, while three years earlier, she thought a similar portrayal of President Bush was “comic.”

4. ABC’s Robin Roberts Lauds Pay Czar for Slamming CEOs: ‘We Can Feel the Fire in Your Belly”
Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts didn’t even try for objectivity on Wednesday when she talked to pay czar Kenneth Feinberg about his attempts to stop AIG CEOs from receiving bonuses. “We can feel the fire in your belly,” she enthused after Feinberg touted the administration’s efforts at reining in bonuses. “And that’s great to see,” Roberts opined.

5. Washington Post’s Thomson the 14th Journalist to Join Obama Administration
Not a move by a political correspondent, but it counts nonetheless. “Former Washington Post film critic Desson Thomson will join the Obama administration and head to London as a speechwriter for Ambassador Louis Susman,” a big Obama fundraiser, Washington Post “Federal Eye” blogger Ed O’Keefe reported on Monday in a post I saw highlighted on DCRTV.com. O’Keefe elaborated: “Thomson, who grew up in Surrey, England, worked for The Post from 1983 to 2008, most recently as a film critic for the Weekend and Style sections.” By O’Keefe’s count, “Thomson is one of at least 14 journalists to join the Obama administration, with virtually all of them serving in a communications capacity,” and, intriguingly, O’Keefe asserted “other reporters at national outlets are known to be considering similar roles.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday February 03, 2010 @ 10:18 AM EST

1. Matthews: How Do You Make Pompous Republicans ‘Pay’ for Being Against Everything?
Chris Matthews demanded Republicans be punished for their, as he put it on Tuesday’s Hardball, opposition to “everything that tries to solve the country’s problems.” During a discussion about White House strategy, Game Change co-author John Heilemann suggested to the MSNBC host that Barack Obama should make “Republicans pay for their intransigence,” which prompted Matthews to question how best to target Republicans — specifically Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn –who “pompously” laugh at the President, while opposing, “everything that tries to solve the country’s problems?”

2. MSNBC’s David Shuster Smears: ‘Most Republicans’ Are Birthers
MSNBC’s David Shuster on Tuesday used a poll by the liberal website Daily Kos to assert that “most Republicans” don’t believe Barack Obama was born in America and, thus, are birthers. Shuster marveled, “…As the Democrats try to talk about working with Republicans, given those numbers of Republican supporters, how is that possible?”

3. ABC Cheers ‘Dramatic’ and ‘Truly Historic’ JCS Opposition to ‘Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell’
ABC, CBS and NBC all aired full stories Tuesday night on Admiral Mike Mullen’s testimony against “don’t ask/don’t tell” before the Senate Armed Services Committee, but only ABC led with the comments from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) as anchor Diane Sawyer called it “a dramatic day on Capitol Hill” and reporter Martha Raddatz trumpeted: “This will be dramatically-debated for days to come, but what we heard today from the military on Capitol Hill was truly historic.”

4. CBS’s Smith: Can Military ‘Handle the Truth’ on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’?
Quoting from the film A Few Good Men, on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked openly gay Army Lieutenant Dan Choi if the U.S. military was prepared for the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy to be overturned by the Obama administration: “Older members of the military are not very interested in seeing this policy changed at all….Do you think the military can handle the truth?” Smith began the segment by proclaiming “the beginning of the end” of the policy as Defense Secretary Robert Gates began to reexamine it. A headline on-screen read: “Do Ask, Do Tell? Pentagon Plan To Be Unveiled Today.”

5. NBC’s Guthrie on Deficits: $100 Billion Spending Plan No Big Deal, Blame Bush Instead?
Reporting Tuesday morning on the Obama administration’s push for another $100 billion in spending, supposedly for “job growth,” NBC’s Savannah Guthrie chose not to amplify critics who argue we can’t afford more massive spending when the previous “stimulus” was so expensive and ineffective. Instead, Guthrie on NBC’s Today saluted the President for making a “judgment call” that “all economists” could support. Moments later on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Guthrie pooh-poohed Obama’s $100 billion in new spending as like “the proverbial deck chair off the Queen Mary, in terms of deficits,” but castigated Bush-era policies: “It’s the 2001, 2003 tax cuts that weren’t paid for, the prescription drug benefit — that adds a lot to the deficit.”

6. CBS ‘Early Show’: ‘Cute and Cuddly’ Animals Threatened by Climate Change
In the 8:30AM ET half hour on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased an upcoming animal segment: “…we have some visitors to the studio of the animal variety. Some of them are cute and cuddly….But they’re all in trouble due to climate change and you’re going to see these animals from the San Diego Zoo and hear about their precarious situation ahead this morning.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday February 02, 2010 @ 09:53 AM EST

1. Not Passing ObamaCare Will Boost Deficit by $150 Billion, NBC and ABC Presume
Cautioning the Obama administration’s “deficit projections…are just that, projections,” NBC’s Chuck Todd on Monday evening bought into the White House’s claim that Democratic health care reform bills that would add millions to the system are actually spending reduction measures, as he warned: “If health care doesn’t pass, because this budget assumes health care will pass, that’s yet another $150 billion that would be tacked on to the deficit.”

2. MSNBC’s Tamron Hall: Is Birtherism the Definition of Conservatism?
MSNBC’s Tamron Hall on Monday interrogated a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and tried to associate conservatism with believing in a conspiracy theory. Talking to Patrick Hughes of Illinois, she challenged, “For example, one of the questions was, do you think the President was born in the United States? Is that your definition of conservative or is it in the perimeter of a conservative?”

3. CBS ‘Early Show’ Touts Woman Willing to Marry For Health Insurance
On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith introduced a bizarre story designed to show how desperate the situation is for people lacking health insurance: “A California woman has launched a unique online search for a husband. Not for love, but for health care.” Earlier, co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased the story by proclaiming: “I don’t know if you would think it’s sad or if you would think it’s admirable – but it’s definitely a position no one wants to be in. It’s an extreme to get health insurance.”

4. Chris Matthews Compares Conservatives to Murderous Khmer Rouge
Appearing on the January 29 Rachel Maddow show, fellow MSNBCer Chris Matthews compared Republican conservatives to the Khmer Rouge, the murderous Communist regime that racked up a body count of some two million during its reign of terror in the 1970s: “What’s going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of a frightening, almost Cambodia re-education camp in that party, where they’re going around to people, sort of switching their minds around saying, if you’re not far right, you’re not right enough.”

5. Newsweek Reporter Urges Obama to ‘Bully’ Republicans
Newsweek’s Katie Connolly, on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show over the weekend, determined that Barack Obama, even in the face of the stunning loss in Massachusetts, needs to become more entrenched in his liberal ways and not bother working with the GOP as she advised the President to “bully Republicans.”

6. CNN Seeks Out Stimulus ‘Believer’ Cited by President Obama
On Saturday’s Newsroom, CNN’s Don Lemon deferentially took President Obama’s advice and interviewed a stimulus “skeptic” turned “believer,” whom the Democrat cited as an example of the success of the stimulus during his recent State of the Union address. Lemon talked up the stimulus and the Obama administration’s energy efficiency tax credit with his guest Alan Levin, whose company produces windows. Before playing his taped interview with guest Alan Levin, CEO of Northeast Building Products, the CNN anchor played the relevant clip from the President Obama’s address: “Talk to the window manufacturer in Philadelphia, who said he used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act, until he had to add two more work shifts just because of the business it created.” After asking Mr. Levin if he was excited by this mention by the President, Lemon inquired about this previous skepticism: “You know what, here’s the interesting thing. You were skeptical about this process- about the stimulus. You weren’t exactly sure that it was going to get you the right people and help at all. And now?”

7. ABC Devotes Over 60 Minutes to John Edwards, Avoids Labeling Him a Democrat
Since Friday, ABC has devoted 60 minutes and 23 seconds to interviews covering the most salacious details of John Edwards’ sex scandal. Yet, the network’s anchors have refrained from referring to him as a Democrat. 20/20 on Friday spent the entire hour talking to Andrew Young, a former top Edwards aide who allegedly holds a sex tape involving the politician. Reporter Bob Woodruff never used the D-word.

8. Washington Post Details Conservative Surge on Internet, Features MRC’s Bozell
In a lengthy front-page article, the Washington Post details how conservatives, including the Media Research Center, have capitalized on new media innovations over the past few years to become a more formidable movement. The Post relayed how MRC President Brent Bozell now “operates a mini-empire with seven Web sites, including Eyeblast.tv, a conservative version of YouTube. ‘When you are on the outs, and we [conservatives] are completely on the outs in Washington, we’ve got nothing to lose,’ Bozell said. ‘It’s a heckuva lot more fun.’”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday February 01, 2010 @ 09:56 AM EST

1. Walters Pushes Brown from the Left, Wonders if Kennedy ‘Disappointed’ by His Victory?
Barbara Walters began her This Week interview with Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown by reciting his “fascinating resume,” including how “at 12 you were arrested for shoplifting” and “at 22 you posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine,” before she proceeded to press Brown from the left to distance himself from, or denounce, the Republican Party positions on abortion, same-sex marriage and “don’t ask, don’t tell.” She pushed him: “Are you out of step with your party, or do you think that the party has to broaden and change its platform?” Given “Massachusetts requires that all residents purchase health insurance” and “you voted for that plan,” a befuddled Walters wondered: “So why doesn’t it make sense that all Americans have health insurance? Why isn’t what’s good for Massachusetts good for the whole country?” When he affirmed opposition to the national Democratic plans, an astonished Walters pleaded: “Goodbye to the whole plan?” She soon informed Brown that “you replaced a beloved figure,” as she ruminated: “How do you think that Senator Ted Kennedy would feel about your election? Do you think he’d be disappointed?”

2. CBS Hails Obama’s ‘Command Performance’ and ‘Intimate Knowledge of the Issues’
“Tonight, the President takes on his Republican opponents face to face and fact by fact,” Katie Couric teased at the top of Friday’s CBS Evening News in setting up an anti-Republican zinger from President Barack Obama: “That’s factually just not true. And you know it’s not true.” Reporting on Obama’s appearance before GOP House members at their retreat in Baltimore, Chip Reid was in awe of Obama and delivered lines that might as well have been formulated by White House Press Secretary Roberts Gibbs: “It was a command performance by the President….Throughout what was essentially a policy debate, the President demonstrated intimate knowledge of the issues.”

3. MSNBC’s Ratigan: Obama Offers ‘Olive Branch;’ GOP Uses It to ‘Hit Back’
At the top of Friday’s Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, the show announcer teased a story on President Obama speaking a meeting of House Republicans in Baltimore: “What will Republicans do with President Obama’s olive branch? He’s reaching out to the GOP yet again, despite a year of push backs and criticisms. Is he being naive or crazy like a fox?” After playing a clip of the President calling for bipartisanship in the State of the Union speech, Ratigan argued: “So if the President thought that meant Republicans would start jumping onboard his boat? He thought wrong. They’ve taken his olive branch and are now using it to hit back against his agenda.”

4. Behar and Goldberg: First Year of Obama Presidency ‘Traumatic’ For Whites
On HLN’s Joy Behar Show on Thursday, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg gave a racial explanation for Chris Matthews’ recent “I forgot he was black” remark about President Obama. Goldberg cracked that “this has been quite a year for the white man.” Behar replied, “Traumatic,” and Goldberg continued it was “traumatic in many ways because…you have to think before you speak.” The HLN host brought up Matthews post-State of the Union comment during her interview of her colleague from The View. After playing the clip of the MSNBC host, Behar asked Goldberg, “What do you think he was driving at there? Because he’s a lefty- you know, he’s liberal, and he likes Obama. And yet, he says something stupid like that- you know, I forgot he was black. He would never say I forgot he was white if he was looking at Bush.”

5. CBS: GOP A ‘Tough Crowd’ For Obama; No Mention of President’s Partisanship
At the top of Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith declared: “President Obama meets with GOP leaders as he tries to tackle the growing employment problem. Will it be a monologue or a dialogue?” White House correspondent Bill Plante later reported: “The President is also reaching out to Republicans today, speaking to the GOP House retreat. But it could be a tough crowd.” Plante concluded: “And the Republicans have already signaled that the President’s new temporary tax cut for small businesses is not where they’re going to find that common ground. So it may be a tough crowd indeed.”

6. Matthews: Obama Policies ‘Conservative,’ Dems ‘Created’ Middle Class
On Wednesday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, shortly before the beginning of the State of the Union address, as Keith Olbermann discussed the speech with Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, after Olbermann brought up the possibility that President Obama would give a divisive FDR-style speech, Matthews seemed to lament that such a speech would “spook” the middle class, and, as he credited the Democratic party with actually “creating” the middle class, he argued that Democrats are a victim of their own success. After claiming that it would have been “unpatriotic” not to increase government spending in time of recession, he went on to describe President Obama’s economic policies as “conservative”: “Everybody who studies economics knows if you have no business spending, no consumer spending, the government has to spend. That is reasonable and I would argue conservative economics.”

7. Nine Days Before Election, Boston Globe’s Pierce Ridiculed Notion Brown Could Win
In a contribution to the Boston Globe Magazine published nine days before the January 19 Senate election won by Republican Scott Brown, veteran Globe Magazine writer Charles Pierce ridiculed the idea Brown could win, in a piece formulated as a letter to Brown: “Well, we’re almost here, aren’t we? The end of a long, arduous, four-month campaign for a Senate seat that you have approximately the same chance of filling as you did the pilot’s chair of the Starship Enterprise.” The cocky Pierce wasn’t done, writing in his weekly “Pierced” column toward the front of the January 10 magazine: “The notion that Massachusetts would elect a Republican to fill the seat left vacant by Edward Kennedy was the property of people who buy interesting mushrooms in interesting places. You might as well expect the House of Windsor to be succeeded on the British throne by the Kardashian sisters.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday January 29, 2010 @ 10:09 AM EST

1. Newsweek’s Fineman Applauds Obama’s “Most Conservative” SOTU Speech
Despite President Obama’s laundry list of liberal initiatives, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman declared Wednesday’s State of the Union address “one of the most conservative speeches that a Democratic president has given,” and he was giddy over Obama’s showmanship: “If presidential leadership were only about giving speeches, the jackhammers would already be at work on Mt. Rushmore.”

2. Media Praise President Obama’s ‘Humility’ In State of the Union
Immediately following President Obama’s State of the Union address Wednesday night, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos got reaction from Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, who observed: “There were at least three moments where he expressed explicit humility. ‘I’m not – I know that people aren’t sure I can deliver this change. I take my share of the blame for not explaining health care.’” On NBC’s Today on Thursday, Matt Lauer cited Obama’s “humility” to press former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Republicans not supporting the President’s agenda: “…you said about the President quote, ‘if he does show humility and does try to find common ground, there are Republicans who will sign up for that.’ He showed humility….will you now get behind this president and will other Republicans?”

3. Morning Shows Tout Risk to Republicans for ‘Continuing to Say No,’ Vieira Corrects Biden Gaffe
The three morning shows on Thursday reacted to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address by highlighting the risk Republicans run in continuing to oppose the President’s agenda. On NBC’s Today, Meredith Vieira fretted to Joe Biden, “What risk do the Republicans run by continuing to say no, by being the party of no?”

4. Washington Post’s Tom Shales: Obama ‘Snatched Humility from the Jaws of Hubris’
Washington Post TV writer Tom Shales was glowing for Obama at the keyboard again in his State of the Union review on Thursday. Obama had the ability to “snatch humility from the jaws of hubris.” He was as honest and direct as “the guy next door.” He was so enthralling, “they could have had a live shot of purple people-eaters watching from Mars and not upstaged Obama.”

5. GOP Senator Rips Into MSNBC Host For ‘Absurd,’ ‘Dishonest,’ Statements
On the soon-to-be canceled ‘It’s the Economy’ program on MSNBC on Thursday, co-host Contessa Brewer grilled Republican New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg on his calls to reduce out-of-control government spending: “Which programs are you willing to cut? Are you willing to tell schools, no money for you?” Gregg shot back: “What an absurd statement to make. And what a dishonest statement to make.” Gregg called out Brewer for her unfair framing of the issue: “…nobody’s saying no money for schools….On it’s face you’re being fundamentally dishonest when you make that type of statement.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday January 28, 2010 @ 08:49 AM EST

1. Couric on Obama: ‘Better at Making Us Smarter than Making Us Angry,’ 83% Back Obama
Following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, on CBS Katie Couric revealed her reading interests as she endorsed the take on Obama from a liberal New York Times columnist: “Well, as Tom Friedman said, ‘he’s better at making us smarter than making us angry.’” (Friedman’s actual assertion in his January 27 column: “He is so much better at making us smarter than angrier.”) Then, after the Republican response, Anthony Mason recited as relevant the very skewed findings of a CBS News/Knowledge Networks online poll only of those who watched Obama, nonetheless touting how 83 percent approve of Obama’s “proposals made in his speech,” with disapproval from a piddling 17 percent. As evidence Obama “may have made up sound ground” with the public, Mason juxtaposed how for “shares your priorities for the country” Obama jumped to 70 percent for viewers of his speech compared to the 57 percent determined in an earlier national survey.

2. While CBS’s Couric Gets Ferocious, ABC’s Sawyer Lobs Softballs to Rahm Emanuel
Both ABC’s Diane Sawyer and CBS’s Katie Couric interviewed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as part of their networks’ run-up to Wednesday’s State of the Union address, but while Sawyer attempted to feel Emanuel’s pain over the setbacks for health care legislation (“Two times you have rolled the health care rock up the hill….and two times you have seen it crash back down”), a much feistier Couric interrogated Emanuel over the White House’s political failings, at one point demanding to know “Where were you when Massachusetts was going down in flames?”

3. ABC’s Terry Moran Laughs at George Will’s Critique of Obama
Nightline anchor Terry Moran started laughing Wednesday night just as George Will finished his critique of President Obama’s State of the Union address while Democratic activist Donna Brazile was also not impressed by Will’s assessment. Leading into the chortling from Moran, who is reportedly under consideration to take over This Week, Will wrapped up: “Finally, he said at one point that we are going to freeze government spending for three years. That’s just not true. We’re proposing to freeze one-sixth of government spending for three years. Finally, the motif of his talk was Washington is tiresome, annoying and dysfunctional – and Washington should have more of the nation’s revenue and a bigger role directing its affairs.”

4. Brown’s Win Evidence of ‘Wretched’ State of the Union, Whines Washington Post’s Pearlstein
Scott Brown replacing Ted Kennedy in the Senate really irritates the Washington press corps, as evidenced by Washington Post business section columnist Steven Pearlstein, who in Wednesday’s paper cited Brown’s victory as an example of the “wretched” state of the nation while he scolded Massachusetts voters for selfishness in picking Brown to replace Kennedy who had fought “for social justice.” In “The State of the Union speech Obama would give in a more honest world,” Pearlstein, a former reporter who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, recommended President Obama begin: “My fellow Americans, the state of our union is…well, quite wretched at the moment.” Amongst the “wretched” indicators: “Massachusetts, which for nearly half a century proudly sent a senator to Washington to fight for social justice and universal health care, has chosen as his replacement someone who campaigned in effect on the slogan ‘We’ve got ours, so the hell with everyone else.’”

5. Networks Pounce on ‘Louisiana Watergate’ Story After Only 17 Hours, Buried ACORN Scandal
All three morning shows on Wednesday highlighted the revelation that a conservative activist had been arrested in connection to an attempt to tamper with the phones of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. Despite jumping on the “Louisiana Watergate” story only 17 hours after it was first reported, the networks took five days to file full reports on James O’Keefe and his expose of ACORN.

6. AP Lede on O’Keefe Raises Watergate Specter: ‘What Did the Right Wing Know?’
The Associated Press on Wednesday insinuated there might be a wider conservative plot behind James O’Keefe’s alleged misdeeds at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office, and invoked the Watergate scandal in their lede: “Was it an attempt at political espionage? Or just a third-rate prank? How high did it go? And what did the right wing know and when did they know it?” AP writers Michael Kunzelman and Brett J. Blackledge, in their article titled, “Phone-tampering case: Prank or political spying?,” got even more explicit about the Watergate comparison in the subsequent paragraphs.

7. NYT Jumps on Arrest of ACORN ‘Pimp’ – Yet Waited 6 Days to Report ACORN Revelations
When the ACORN scandal broke, the Times dragged its feet for six days before issuing a story on the devastating footage from conservative activist James O’Keefe, who caught on video the left-wing housing group giving advice to a “prostitute” and “pimp” on how to shelter illegal income from taxes. But the paper wasted no time issuing a story on the arrest of O’Keefe for attempting to tamper with the phones of Sen. Mary Landrieu. Reporters even tracked down conservatives who had dared say approving things of O’Keefe’s ACORN investigation to get their response to the new allegations.

8. CBS’s Smith Calls Out Fmr. Obama Comm. Director As Not ‘Honest’
Previewing the State of the Union on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith spoke with former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who claimed the GOP “made a decision a year ago that they weren’t going to cooperate on anything.” Smith replied: “I don’t think you can say what you just said and look at what happened with health care, especially in the last month, and be honest about it.”

9. Joy Behar: Tim Tebow Just As Easily Could Have Been ‘Rapist Pedophile’
Discounting the pro-life argument of a planned Focus on the Family Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow’s mother, Joy Behar told the audience of the January 26 “View” that the Florida Gators quarterback just as easily could have been a “rapist pedophile.” “In this case, he turned out to be great, but it’s not an argument about abortion or not abortion [sic], it’s just, this particular case, this particular woman decided not to do it, and this is the wonderful result,” Behar insisted.

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday January 27, 2010 @ 10:13 AM EST

1. Fox News Bests CNN As “Most Trusted Name In News”
After years of CNN touting itself as “the most trusted name in news,” a survey released Tuesday from Public Policy Polling (PPP) discovers that among major news sources, only the Fox News Channel enjoys a plurality of respondents (49%) saying they “trust” the network (vs. 37% who disagree). For CNN, only 39% trust the network’s news product, vs. 41% who do not, and the distrust is even higher when the public is asked about the broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBC.

2. Study: Only Fox News Offered Obama Historically Normal Scrutiny in 2009
A new study from the Center for Media and Public Affairs found President Obama fared far better on ABC, CBS and NBC during his first year in office than did Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush. But the Fox News Channel was about as tough on Obama as the broadcast nets were on the GOP Presidents.

3. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Frets to McCain: Tax Cuts Will ‘Increase the Deficit’
Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos played defense for the White House on Tuesday. While talking with John McCain about Obama’s 2010 proposals, he sounded annoyed that the Senator’s ideas for job creation would include tax cuts: “But, those tax cuts are going to increase the deficit, aren’t they, sir?”

4. CBS Touts Obama’s ‘Big Spending Freeze;’ Focus On Middle Class
At the top of Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez highlighted the latest attempt at populism by the Obama administration: “President Obama calls for a big spending freeze and focuses on plans to help the struggling middle class, but does he have the political support he needs?” Writing for the Heritage Foundation blog, The Foundry, Alison Fraser pointed out the problem with Obama’s supposed “spending freeze”: “If it applies to last year’s supercharged spending on stimulus steroids baseline, it’s no freeze at all, but a locking in of spending that was supposed to be temporary.”

5. NY Times Wrote Up Four Immigration Protesters, All But Ignored Tens of Thousands Against Abortion
The Times recently offered up a 780-word article on a protest for illegal immigrants – with four marchers walking from Miami to Washington. But on Saturday, tens of thousands of Americans gathering in Washington for Friday’s annual March for Life received – part of a sentence. By contrast, the Washington Post carried a calm story on the March for Life including color photos.

6. Rosie O’Donnell Lectures George Stephanopoulos: Don’t Grill Me; He Doesn’t
Rosie O’Donnell appeared on Tuesday’s Good Morning America and lectured host George Stephanopoulos, “You just have to relax and remember that not everyone’s a politician. And you don’t have to grill them.” The liberal comedienne needn’t have worried. Stephanopoulos only gently approached O’Donnell and the topic of her new gay-themed HBO documentary.

MRC

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday January 26, 2010 @ 10:15 AM EST

1. Sawyer Asks Obama to Time Travel: What Would You Say to the Obama of a Year Ago?
Diane Sawyer’s interview with President Barack Obama wasn’t nearly as sycophantic as the one conducted last Wednesday by George Stephanopoulos, with Sawyer posing mostly informational inquiries about the direction he’ll set out in the State of the Union speech as she also raised the huge deficits and whether all future meetings about health care will “be on C-SPAN” as he had pledged? But she also presumed some of the anger at him wasn’t his fault — “People think you must say at the end of the day, this is not who I was in 2008, these deals with Nebraska, with Florida” — and empathized with the “buzz saw bruising” he gets, so: “Ever in the middle of all that’s coming at you, do you think maybe one term is enough?” In a second segment aired at the end of Monday’s World News, she wondered whether he favors the Colts or Saints in the SuperBowl and “what’s been the most important and useful thing” Michelle Obama has “said to you?” In her “if you were a tree, what kind would you be?” moment, a beaming Sawyer held up photos of Obama at the inauguration and his first congressional speech and wondered: “What would you say to him?”

2. Washington Post Connects Obama to Einstein: ‘In Decision-Making, a Diversity of Inspiration’
The front page of Monday’s Washington Post featured an adulatory tribute to President Barack Obama’s brilliance in gathering information so he can take care of the little people, a tribute enabled by sycophantic assessments from friends and those on Obama’s payroll which reporters Anne Kornblut and Michael Fletcher eagerly advanced. “The seeker as problem-solver,” read the front page headline which carried this sub-head: “In his decision-making, Obama turns to both the famous and the unknown.” Headline across the top of the jump page: “In his decision-making, a diversity of inspiration.” A “president who persists in seeking his own information, beyond what is offered to him,” the Post’s reporting duo noted, “has created an impression that Obama is cool and detached.” But, “it is an image his advisers and friends reject” as “they paint” a “portrait of a president who is deeply moved by the struggles of average citizens who stand up at town hall meetings or write thousands of letters to the White House – 10 of which he reads each day.” And, the “reporters” gushed: “When he turns to solving problems through policy, he reveres facts, calling for data and then more data. He looks for historical analogues and reads voraciously.” In fact, his brain-power is on Einstein’s level…

3. NY Times Manages to Spin Resurgent Conservative Movement as Problem for GOP in 2010
Two front-page New York Times stories suggest (hope?) the Tea Party movement may turn on the G.O.P.: “But the deeper intramural divisions are within the Republican Party, a sign of the intensity and unpredictability of the grass-roots conservative movement. Across the country, Republican candidates are running as outsiders with the backing of conservative Tea Party groups, challenging Republicans identified with the party establishment. Several analysts said the victory in the Massachusetts Senate race of Scott Brown, a Republican who ran with Tea Party support, could encourage more challenges and drive incumbents further right.” In two front-page stories the Times uncovered all sorts of potential problems for the GOP less than a week after the titanic upset:

4. Chris Matthews Spins: MSNBC Delivers ‘Context’ and ‘Excitement’ That ‘You Don’t Get Elsewhere’
In an appeal for viewers to watch MSNBC’s coverage of the State of the Union, Chris Matthews on Monday enthused that his network is a “great place to watch.” He added, “You get a lot of context when you watch on MSNBC you don’t get elsewhere.” Of course, this is the same cable outlet that featured Keith Olbermann ranting that a campaign finance ruling was “Supreme Court sanctioned murder” of “democracy.”

5. CBS’s Schieffer: Mass. Brown Voters Opposed to ‘Process,’ Not Democrats
On Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer twisted the meaning of a recent Washington Post poll on the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts: “Three-fourths of those voters…said they wanted Brown to work with Democrats to get Republican ideas into legislation….the vote for Brown was not so much a vote for or against policy or party, as it was a vote against the process itself.” Schieffer tried to spin the data as evidence that voters were upset with both parties: “People don’t like the political games….if the two sides could somehow pay less attention to the voices on the fringes of the Left and the Right, take the Massachusetts voters’ advice, sit down together and see what they can agree on, who knows? They might get something done.”

>> Online with Brent Bozell on Wednesday night: Join our MRC Live discussion with MRC President Brent Bozell, moderated by CNSNews.com Editor-in-Chief Terry Jeffrey, this Wednesday, January 27 at 7:00pm EST. To participate, go to: http://live.mrc.org a few minutes before 7pm EST on Wednesday. Questions will be taken in advance (via MRCAction@mediaresearch.org) and live during the show. <<

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Monday January 25, 2010 @ 10:03 AM EST

1. ABC Panel: Brown Just ‘Throw the Bums Out,’ Fret ObamaCare Not Pushed More ‘Vigorously’
With the exception of George Will, the panel on ABC’s This Week (hosted by Terry Moran) roundtable insisted Scott Brown’s Massachusetts Senate seat victory was less an anti-liberal or anti-Obama vote than simply a “pox on both your houses” and “throw the bums” out choice when Democrats happened to be in power. (On Face the Nation, Nancy Cordes described Brown as a “true Republican moderate” and dreamed he “could make being a moderate cool again.”) Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson also contended people really want ObamaCare and so the White House, Donaldson asserted, should have pushed it more “vigorously” and he despaired that “Republicans were able the make the idea that being on a government health program is terrible. How absurd.”

2. NBC Trumpeted the Launch of Liberal ‘Counterweight’ Air America, Skips Demise of Radio Network
When the liberal radio network Air America debuted on March 31, 2004, NBC trumpeted it as the “counterweight” to the “right-wing bent” of talk radio. Katie Couric enthused that Al Franken and his colleagues hoped “to break into what has been a conservative lock on the radio.” However, when the beleaguered Air America announced bankruptcy on Thursday, both the Nightly News and Friday’s Today skipped the story.

3. CNN’s Rick Sanchez Not Sure Who’s Protesting At Annual Pro-Life March in D.C.
Near the end of the 3PM ET hour of CNN’s Rick’s List on Friday, host Rick Sanchez couldn’t seem to figure out who was protesting at the March for Life in Washington D.C.: “It’s the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade case….both sides being represented today, but it does appear to me, as I look at these signs that – which side is represented the most….Do we know?” Sanchez clarified that most of the protestors “seem to be” pro-life, but still seemed completely unfamiliar with the annual event: “As far as we can tell, following this protest on this day, the bulk of the protesters…seem to be anti-abortion activists.

4. CBS’s Smith: Some Are ‘One Medical Catastrophe Away From Bankruptcy’
Speaking to former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean on Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith urged Republicans and Democrats to quickly pass some form of health care reform: “…to help the 40 some million that don’t have insurance or the vast majority of other folks who are one medical catastrophe away from bankruptcy.” Smith began the interview by bluntly wondering: “Is health care dead?” Dean replied: “I don’t think so. I think the American people want health care reform….[they] really do want us to do something about this.”

5. ABC Fawns Over Elizabeth Edwards as an ‘Adored,’ ‘Passionate’ ‘Heroine,’ Downplays Negative Portrayal
On Friday’s Good Morning America, Claire Shipman gushed over Elizabeth Edwards as a “smart, passionate, sometimes fierce woman with many different sides to her personality.” She lauded the wife of John Edwards as a complex “heroine” who is “increasingly hard to define.” At the same time, Shipman downplayed the negative portrayal of Mrs. Edwards in a new campaign book.

6. Krauthammer Quips: ‘Best Week I’ve Had Since Spring Break in Medical School’
Quip of the day, from columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday’s (January 22) Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC. Baier wondered: “Conservatives, pretty good week?” Krauthammer affirmed: “You know, this is an amazing week. Massachusetts goes Republican, health care dies and the Supreme Court unshackles the First Amendment. It’s the best week I’ve had since spring break in medical school – and I don’t even remember it [laughter from other panelists]. And there was another item which you mentioned: Air America, the liberal talk show network went out of business – which is a redundancy because nobody was listening anyway.”

>> Online with Brent Bozell on Wednesday night: Join our MRC Live discussion with MRC President Brent Bozell, moderated by CNSNews.com Editor-in-Chief Terry Jeffrey, this Wednesday, January 27 at 7:00pm EST. To participate, go to: http://live.mrc.org a few minutes before 7pm EST on Wednesday. Questions will be taken in advance (via MRCAction@mediaresearch.org) and live during the show. <<

Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday January 21, 2010 @ 09:45 AM ET

1. Vieira to Scott Brown: You’re Derailing Cause of Teddy’s Lifetime
NBC’s Meredith Vieira, on Wednesday’s Today show, rained on Scott Brown’s parade as she wondered if the Senator-Elect’s post-victory call to Ted Kennedy’s widow Vicki was an awkward moment since, as the Today co-anchor pressed, “You plan to do whatever you can to derail…the cause of his lifetime?”

2. CBS’s Rodriguez: Scott Brown Will ‘Derail’ Ted Kennedy’s ‘Passion’
Speaking to political analyst John Dickerson on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show about Republican Scott Brown winning the Massachusetts Senate race, co-host Maggie Rodriguez lamented: “When it comes to health care, I think it’s so ironic that the late Ted Kennedy’s passion was health care. He dedicated his career to it. And the man who will replace him could be the one to derail it.” Interestingly, Rodriguez’s concern over Kennedy’s health care legacy was almost identical to a question NBC’s Meredith Vieira asked Senator-elect Brown on Wednesday’s Today: “…you plan to do whatever you can to derail what Ted Kennedy called, called ‘the cause of his lifetime,’ which is health care reform?”

3. Stephanopoulos Frets Obama Too Ambitious, Seeks Confirmation He’s Had ‘Most Fulfilling’ Year
The day after President Barack Obama’s policies were rebuked by the voters of one of the most liberal states when Massachusetts picked a Republican to replace Ted Kennedy, the White House turned to former Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos as their preferred vehicle to forward their spin as Obama sat down for an interview with the ABC News journalist. An accommodating Stephanopoulos, in the excerpt run on Wednesday’s World News, failed to consider Obama’s policies were too liberal as he asked the chastened President to confirm he was “surprised and frustrated by the vote” and to agree “this has been about the most packed year of your life” and “the most fulfilling?” Obama, naturally, concurred with the puffball inquiry. The toughest Stephanopoulos got was to advance the notion Obama was a victim of his own ambition: “In your inaugural address, you said then, ‘there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.’ Looking back now, don’t those critics have a point?”

4. Carol Costello: Republicans Fomented ‘Fear and Confusion Among Voters’
CNN’s Carol Costello reminisced enthusiastically about President Obama’s inauguration a year ago on Tuesday’s American Morning, highlighting how, at the time, “the hearts of millions of Americans were ready to burst- with a Woodstock kind of love.” Costello also took a shot at Republicans, stating that they “used the President’s strategy [on health care] to create fear and confusion among voters.” Anchor Kiran Chetry set the gushing tone for the correspondent’s report, which aired at the bottom of the 6 am Eastern hour: “It was a year ago that love was in the air. America seemed to come together behind the nation’s first African-American president.” Costello lead the segment with footage of the enthusiastic crowd at the inauguration and her reporting inside the crowd, accented with a graphic of President Obama’s head inside a beating Valentine’s heart and Cupid’s arrow: “Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2009….The hearts of millions of Americans were ready to burst- (unidentified women singing) with a Woodstock kind of love.”

5. Bitter David Shuster Rants About Hitler Posters of Tea Partiers, ‘Far Right Elements’
MSNBC’s David Shuster on Wednesday used the victory of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts as another opportunity to trash the tea party movement. Teasing an interview with one of the organizers, he smeared, “The first anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration. The Hitler mustaches and the Joker and everything else.”

6. Factcheck: Olbermann Repeats Incorrect Anti-Scott Brown Claims of Racism and Vulgarity
On Wednesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann defended his recent attacks on Massachusetts Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown by insisting that some of the incorrect claims he made are true when, in fact, two are factually without merit while the third represents one of Olbermann’s typical episodes of distorting the words of a target.

7. ABC Fawns Over ‘Every Woman’ Michelle Obama Who ‘Wows’ the World
Good Morning America’s Yunji de Nies on Wednesday used the one year anniversary of Michelle Obama’s tenure as First Lady to file a fawning look at the “every woman” who is “wowing the world.” And while many were focusing on the crushing Democratic defeat in Massachusetts, de Nies gushed, “He may have won the presidency, but when she set foot on Pennsylvania Avenue, Michelle Obama captivated the country.”

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 09:46 AM ET

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday January 19, 2010 @ 09:46 AM ET

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
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Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
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***Media Research Center Notable Quotables Newsletter***

3:20pm EST, Monday January 11, 2010

Here is the text of the January 11 edition of Notable Quotables, the MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.

To read it online, posted with five videos with matching MP3 audio: http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/nq/2010/20100108052522.aspx

Those marked below with an * have accompanying audio and/or video.

The three-page PDF which matches the hard copy version: http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/uploads/Jan112010.pdf

Now the quotes from recent weeks, as featured in the January 11 Notable Quotables, Vol. 23; No. 1:

Once Morons “Understand” ObamaCare, They’ll Be Thrilled

“A lot of people are going to like [the health care bill] a whole lot once they see what’s in it. For the first time, it’s got some long-term care in it, which everybody is desperate for as the population gets older. It’s paid for, totally paid-for long-term care insurance. So, I think that there’s a lot in the bill that people are going to like. It’s just a question of understanding it.” — ABC’s Cokie Roberts on This Week, December 20.

Okay, but Preferred Even More Left-Wing Approach

Anchor Charles Gibson: “Tim, where this stands now, the question that I hear most often is, is this bill, without a public option, without an expansion of Medicare, is it better than nothing?” ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson: “I would say absolutely, Charlie. We have to remember that doing nothing leaves us with the status quo, a non-system that is headed for financial and health care disaster….I would personally prefer to have the public option and/or Medicare expansion directly challenging private insurance. But what’s left is not insignificant.” — Exchange on ABC’s World News, December 18.

Shame on “Mean” and “Grinchy” Republicans

Reporter Nancy Cordes: “As he was wheeled into the Senate chamber shortly after 1 AM, 92-year-old Robert Byrd made it clear how he felt about being pulled out of bed to vote.” Byrd, with words on screen as senators applaud: “Shame, shame.”

Cordes: “His ire was directed at Republicans who intentionally dragged out debate on a defense spending bill….It’s one of several stalling tactics Republicans have employed in recent days, and they’re not apologizing.” — CBS Evening News, December 18.

“You guys are going to probably be there late on Christmas Eve….A lot of people say it’s the Republicans’ fault, that you could easily go ahead and move forward with this legislation. Are you the Grinch that stole Christmas?” — MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell to Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) during the 1pm ET hour of MSNBC Live, December 22.

“Is it just, at this point, being mean to keep all the staffers here, to force this thing out until Christmas Eve?” — Daytime anchor Contessa Brewer to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) on MSNBC Live, December 22.

* Why Can’t We All Get Along — and Pass ObamaCare?

“I feel like right now, in many ways, we’re a very angry nation….Maybe I’m naive and idealistic, but you would hope that there could be some conversations taking place where people, you know, really respected one another and talked about the different goals that they had, because I think providing health care for people who can’t afford it is something that most people do agree with — that there has to be some kind of alternative other than our national, our nation’s emergency rooms for people who need health care. And I read somewhere — I think it was in The New Yorker — that 45,000 people died needlessly because they simply don’t have access to health care, and that just seems so unfair and so undemocratic.” — Katie Couric in a December 22 Facebook video chat. The statistic Couric cited, which she also touted on the September 17 CBS Evening News, was generated by the left-wing Physicians for a National Health Program.

* Ridiculous of Rush to Say American Health Care Is “Dandy”

Clip of Rush Limbaugh after his heart-attack scare: “Based on what happened to me here, I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine, just dandy.” Fill-in host Terry Moran: “Now, the delightful irony about that is that Hawaii mandates that employers provide health insurance to their employees….” National Journal’s Ron Brownstein: “What Rush was saying, Limbaugh was saying was great, except for the 47 million people who don’t have health insurance….and don’t have access.” — Exchange on ABC’s This Week, January 3.

* Limbaugh = “Like the Bad Fairy at Sleeping Beauty’s Christening”

“It’s got to be that incredible inauguration of Obama….You started the year with this huge festival of hope and renewal and everything is going to be so different now, and then, like the bad fairy at Sleeping Beauty’s christening, Rush Limbaugh utters the words, ‘I hope you fail.’ ‘I hope he fails,’ he said, and from that moment, the sort of the Pandora’s box opened, and the rest of the year has been just this big discord and toxic atmosphere in politics and partisan divide and people shouting at each other and the Tea Parties and death panels.” — The Daily Beast’s Tina Brown announcing her choice for the most important moment of 2009 on NBC’s Today December 31, a few hours after Limbaugh went to the hospital with chest pains.

ObamaCare Opponents Are the Real Terrorists

“What would you do, sir, if terrorists were killing 45,000 people every year in this country? Well, the current health care system, the insurance companies, and those who support them are doing just that….Because they die individually of disease and not disaster, [radio host] Neal Boortz and those who ape him in office and out, approve their deaths, all 45,000 of them — a year — in America. Remind me again, who are the terrorists?” — MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann in a “Quick Comment” on Countdown, January 5.

Frightened by “Not Fact-Based” Anger of Tea Parties…

“There’s an anger out there, and I have not seen it since my very first campaign, which was 1968 and George Wallace. And that is the angry populism which is not fact-based, it’s just furious at everybody; angry at Democrats, at Republicans. The Tea Party has higher numbers in our last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll than either of the other traditional parties. And that is what I think this news cycle which you referred to is feeding into, and that is what does frighten me. This spirit of America is so large and embracing, but there is an angry subtext because of economic dislocation that is very, very worrisome.” — NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell on Meet the Press, December 27.

…But Delighted by So-Far Invisible Success of Obama’s “Doctrine”

“I think the doctrine of engagement, on which he [President Obama] campaigned, has borne fruit, but it is not perceived yet. I mean, what he has done is united the world behind the United States.” — Mitchell on the same program.

See George Lobby: “Why Not Tax” Bankers’ Bonuses?

Co-host George Stephanopoulos: “Let’s talk about the bonuses you mentioned. Is the President going to tell them [bankers], flatly, ‘Don’t take them?’” White House advisor David Axelrod: “Well, I think he’s going to talk to them about the implications of those bonuses….But our principal focus is how do we get the economy moving again? How do we create jobs? And that means getting credit to small businesses and medium-sized businesses.”

Stephanopoulos: “David, why not tax the bonuses? Britain last week announced that they’re going to have a big windfall tax, a one-time tax on these big bonuses this year because the banks got so much help. Why not do that?” — ABC’s Good Morning America, December 14.

Obama “a Certified Intellectual” but Palin’s a “Blight”

“After all this, there’s still more remarkable: The election of a certified intellectual as President. Not to mention an African-American one. There was the ascent of the digital realm with our happy surrender to the omnipotence of Google. And what of those other unlikely innovations and unforeseen blights of the era: small plates, Sarah Palin, Chinese dry wall, jeggings?” — New Yorker magazine staff writer Rebecca Mead in a commentary about events of the last decade, on CBS’s Sunday Morning, January 3.

“Hated in ‘09: Flabby Thighs…Sarah Palin”

“It’s the crossroads of the world. People flock here for the shows, the shopping and the shredding? Right smack in the heart of Times Square, they are purging like mad. This is ‘Good Riddance Day,’ where before you ring in the new, you say adios to the old….Whatever you hated in ‘09 — flabby thighs, cheap men, rude people or Sarah Palin — just write it down and rip it up.” — NBC’s Jenna Wolfe on Today, December 29, reporting on an end of the year paper-shredding tradition.

For Terrorists, It’s Either Miranda Rights or “Torture”

ABC’s David Wright: “Do you really feel like President Obama has made the country less safe?” Former Bush aide Marc Thiessen: “I absolutely do….Why are we taking a terrorist who just tried to bring down a plane and telling him, ‘You have the right to remain silent’? That’s insane.”

Wright: “So you say waterboard him? Torture him?”

— Story about attempted underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on ABC’s World News, December 30.

* Horrified by Hume’s Pro-Christian Opinion

“Is it ever, ever a wise idea for a political analyst to essentially anoint themselves somebody’s spiritual adviser, denigrate that person’s religion, and do so on a Sunday political talk show?…Doesn’t it also denigrate Christianity when you do that on a Sunday political talk show. This isn’t church, this isn’t some sort of holy setting, this is a political talk show….I do think it diminishes the discussion of Christianity….This wasn’t Theocracy Today. ” — MSNBC Live anchor David Shuster January 4, talking about Brit Hume’s suggestion on Fox News Sunday that Tiger Woods would find forgiveness in Christianity.

Movie Critic Awards Five Stars to “Rock Star” Gore

“7. An Inconvenient Truth (2006) – Rock star Al Gore takes on climate change. How did this guy not get to be president?” — Boston Herald movie critic James Verniere designating the ten best movies of the past decade, December 29.

* ABC News: So Proud of Their Boy Genius

David Pomerantz, high school friend: “George is incredibly smart.” Alexandra Wentworth, wife: “Incredibly smart.” Nancy Brunswick, former high school teacher: “Intellectual.” James Carville, Democratic operative: “I once said, ‘If you converted his IQ to Fahrenheit, you could boil water.’” — From a January 4 Good Morning America profile of new co-host George Stephanopoulos, as explained by the “people who know him best.”

PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III

EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham

NEWS ANALYSTS: Geoff Dickens, Brad Wilmouth,

Scott Whitlock, Matthew Balan, and Kyle Drennen

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Michelle Humphrey

INTERN: Mike Sargent

MEDIA CONTACT: Colleen O’Boyle (703) 683-5004

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