Dayhoff Soundtrack: Cyber Alert: ABC Salivates Over ‘Mutiny’ Against Anti-Tax Pledge

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Cyber Alert: ABC Salivates Over ‘Mutiny’ Against Anti-Tax Pledge

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday November 27, 2012 @ 09:42 AM ET

1. ABC Salivates Over ‘Mutiny’ Against Anti-Tax Pledge That’s Been ‘Obstacle to Raising Taxes,’ Hail New ‘Flexibility’
ABC anchor Diane Sawyer and correspondent Jonathan Karl on Monday night salivated over Republicans breaking Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge. “We did see a sign the paralysis may be ending,” Sawyer relayed over “Tax Revolt?” on screen, touting “a Republican mutiny against a man who had convinced them to take a pledge.” She soon trumpeted the “new sign of flexibility.” As if that’s a bad thing, Jonathan Karl fretted “the pledge is the biggest obstacle to any deal that would raise taxes.” But he saw hope ahead in how “with a budget crisis on the horizon and a re-elected President insisting on tax increases, some Republicans are now thinking the unthinkable: Ditching the pledge.”

2. NBC Eager to See Republicans 'Peeling Off' from Tax Pledge, Pressures Rest of GOP to Do the Same
Talking to chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie enthusiastically touted: "...we've seen a few Republicans peeling off from a pledge they signed to Grover Norquist, who, of course, is a lobbyist, an anti-tax lobbyist, who's been very powerful among conservatives. Is that a significant move?" Todd replied by urging the rest of the GOP to similarly abandon core conservative principles: "I'll be impressed when you start seeing House Republicans do it....where it looks like Republicans are softening, it's Senate Republicans. If this deal could be cut between the Senate Republicans and the White House, we wouldn't even be talking about this...the fiscal cliff wouldn't be an issue."

3. CBS Lobbies Senator Corker to Renege on Anti-Tax Hike Pledge, Raise Capital Gains Tax
Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell sung from the same liberal sheet music on Monday's CBS This Morning as they tried to get Republican Senator Bob Corker to commit to higher federal taxes. Rose wondered if the Corker was "prepared, as others are doing, to...say, I'm going to forgo the [anti-tax hike] pledge because it is outdated and the country's problems are too big." O'Donnell asked the Tennessee politician if he was "willing to also raise the capital gains rate." O'Donnell also cited "independent analysis" by the Tax Policy Center, but omitted that it is a project of two liberal organizations - the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

4. CNN Pleads With Republicans, 'Don't Fear the Grover'
CNN broke out the pom-poms on Monday and cheered the Republicans who reneged on Grover Norquist's no-tax hike pledge. CNN contributor John Avlon lauded them as "profiles in courage." Avlon quipped that now "people don't fear the Grover. And that's a good thing, you know." Anchor Carol Costello clearly liked the GOP mutiny, asking "how excited should we really be by all of this talk of throwing Grover Norquist under the bust [sic]?" Later in the day, Brooke Baldwin enthused: "'Don't fear the Grover.' Best quote of the day."

5. Wolf Blitzer Badgers House Majority Whip to Raise Taxes
After smiling on Republicans who stepped away from Grover Norquist's no-tax hike pledge, CNN pressured the GOP House Majority Whip to raise income tax rates on Monday's The Situation Room. Anchor Wolf Blitzer suggested a tax hike on those making over $250,000 a year, noting "those families and those small businesses did quite well during the years of the Clinton administration when the rate was 39.6. Why not go back to that?"

6. Chris Matthews Outrageously Links Unhappy Conservatives to Hitler
Chris Matthews on Monday disgustingly connected conservatives unhappy with the 2012 election to Hitler and the 1936 Olympics. After Huffington Post journalist Howard Fineman mocked the GOP for supposedly considering the African American and Hispanic vote to be "extraterrestrial," Matthews spewed, "The last guy to refer to the black auxiliary was Hitler." Matthews, known for his verbal gaffes, prefaced the Nazi comparison by rambling, "...And these references are always dangerous, but I'll take it anyway." Trying to explain his smear, the Hardball anchor expanded, "During the '36 Olympics, we had Jesse Owens and a couple other guys winning the Olympics and they [the Nazis] were saying, "Well, they had their auxiliary out there." As if this made his comments all go away, Matthews added that his comments have "no bearing on the Republican Party."

7. Meet the Press Panelist Ken Burns of PBS Denounces Tea Party 'Vitriol' Motivated By Racism
During a discussion of the new film Lincoln on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, PBS documentary film maker Ken Burns ranted about one of the supposed lessons he took away from the movie: "Race is always there in America....Do you think we'd have a secession movement in Texas and the other places, faddish secession movement, if this president wasn't African-American? Do you think the vitriol that came out of some elements of the Tea Party would have been at the same level had this President not been Africa-American?"

*****