Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Media CyberAlert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media CyberAlert. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

MRC Alert: ABC Touts Bloomberg's 'Personal Fortune' Funding Gun Control Ads, But Warned of 'Billionaire' Conservatives


Media Research Center
Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday March 26, 2013 @ 08:41 AM ET

1. ABC Touts Bloomberg's 'Personal Fortune' Funding Gun Control Ads, But Warned of 'Billionaire' Conservatives
Good Morning America on Monday hyped Michael Bloomberg using his "personal fortune" to promote gun control with new ads. Reporter Jim Avila used three clips of either Bloomberg or the commercials he's now running in 13 states. Just one pro-Second Amendment voice was featured in the segment. In contrast, when the Koch brothers supported the Tea Party with commercials, GMA's journalists warned of the "billionaire boosters." On Monday, Avila approvingly explained, "Mayor Michael Bloomberg has something many other big city mayors don't, a personal fortune he is willing to spend." Avila then played a clip of Bloomberg's new commercial featuring a man sitting on a pickup truck, holding a shotgun. He insisted, "I believe in the Second Amendment and I'll fight to protect it. But with rights come responsibilities. That's why I support comprehensive background checks."


2. NBC's Gregory to Bloomberg: Will You 'Target' Gun Rights Supporters With 'Lots of Money'?
In an interview with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory invited the anti-gun advocate to issue a political threat to gun rights supporters in Congress: "Will you target people, Republicans and Democrats, who do not support a weapons ban, an assault weapons ban, who do not vote for background checks? Will you spend money, lots of money, to target them in 2014, in the midterm race?"  Bloomberg responded by enlisting Gregory in the gun control crusade: "I think I have a responsibility, and I think you and all of your viewers have responsibilities, to try to make this country safer....And if I can do that by spending some money and taking the NRA from being the only voice to being one of the voices...then I think my money would be well spent..."


3. Former WH Reporter for NY Times Calls CPAC "Aviary for Far-Right 'Wacko Birds'"
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, a former White House reporter for the Times, followed Sen. John McCain in mocking attendees of the latest Conservative Political Action Conference (aka CPAC) as "wacko birds" in his column Sunday on gay marriage at the Supreme Court.


4. NBC Reporter Parrots Concerns Obama 'Went Too Far to Embrace Zionism' During Mideast Trip
At the top of Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel forwarded anti-Israel sentiment during a segment about President Obama's trip to the Middle East: "I think the President went there to give Israel a big hug. Some people in the region think that he went too far, that he went too far to embrace Zionism as an ideology, not just the State of Israel."  Engel declared: "Israel feels very threatened, very unsure about its future. That's obvious by the way they are walling themselves in psychologically and physically....the idea was to make Israel feel secure in an increasingly insecure region." He lamented: "The Palestinians generally were disappointed with the trip, nothing concrete coming out of it."
*****

Friday, March 08, 2013

Wednesday March 6, 2013 Media Research Center Alert Special: Latest Notable Quotables

Media Research Center


Wednesday March 6, 2013 Media Research Center Alert Special: Latest Notable Quotables

Related:

http://www.mrc.org/notable-quotables/journalists-adopt-obamas-sequester-hysteria

http://www.mrc.org/media-reality-check/sequester-scare-two-thirds-news-stories-devoted-hyping-budget-hysteria

http://www.mrc.org/biasalerts/cnn-catches-obamas-falsehood-sequester-networks-barely-report-it

http://www.mrc.org/biasalerts/cnn-gives-8-times-coverage-beyonces-lip-sync-obamas-falsehood

http://www.mrc.org/biasalerts/abcs-jon-karl-skeptically-questions-obamas-ending-white-house-tours

http://www.mrc.org/biasalerts/krauthammer-obama-charm-offensive-because-media-could-no-longer-cover-him

MRC Alert Special: Latest Notable Quotables

    As a bonus for CyberAlert subscribers, below is the text of the March 4 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.

    Highlights from this issue: The media freak out over the puny budget sequester, with CNN panicking over it’s “draconian” effect, while ABC ridiculously warns of “jobs vaporizing, flights delayed, even criminals walking free” and CBS threatens that U.S. troops “could pay with their lives.” On his radio show, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz foams about how the sequester would cut “damn near a third” of the budget -- in reality, the cuts amount to barely 2 percent of total spending.

    Also: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews spends President’s Day dreaming about Barack Obama showing up on Mount Rushmore; NBC’s Chuck Todd frets about conservatives not going on liberal talk shows because their staffers “actually believe” the “mythology” that the media have a liberal bias; and a Hollywood screenwriter scolds the Tea Party for wanting to return to the “psychotic individualism” of the “Reagan era.”

    To read it online, posted with five videos with matching MP3 audio:  http://www.mrc.org/notable-quotables/journalists-adopt-obamas-sequester-hysteria

    Quotes marked with [VIDEO] have an accompanying video file that you can access by visiting the online version.

    The three-page, fully-formatted, full-color PDF good for printing:http://www.mrc.org/sites/default/files/documents/Mar42013.pdf

------------------------------

CyberAlert and all the media bias documentation it recites is free to you, but it takes a research and monitoring operation to produce. Support the Media Research Center: http://mrc.org/donate/
------------------------------

    Now the quotes featured in the March 4 Notable Quotables, Vol. 26; No. 5:

As Expected, Journalists Adopt Obama's Panicky Hype

  Host Chris Wallace: "The White House has already put out — there's going to be kids, thousands of kids thrown out of Head Start; we won't have food safety inspectors to make sure our food is safe — you know, all kinds of dire things.... They are saying we will make it hurt."
  Panelist Juan Williams: "Oh, yeah. And I think the news media will play into that at every level."
— Exchange on Fox News Sunday, February 17.

vs.

[VIDEO] "Deadline day. Hours, now, until massive government cuts go into effect that could impact every American: jobs vaporizing, flights delayed, even criminals walking free."
— Fill-in co-host Josh Elliot at the top of ABC's Good Morning America, March 1.

"Time is up. In just hours, President Obama will order $85 billion in cuts. The Army's chief of staff tells us why he fears troops could pay with their lives."
— Co-host Charlie Rose teasing an upcoming segment on CBS This Morning, March 1.

"It sounds like a disaster movie: Childcare canceled for tens of thousands of kids, long airport security lines, flight delays with a shortage of controllers, and military cuts that will leave us ‘second rate,' according to the Defense Secretary."
— ABC's David Kerley on World News, February 24.

"Deep impact: The new fight over money in Washington. Another deadline rapidly approaching, along with deep budget cuts poised to have a major impact on the military, law enforcement, even food inspection...."
— Brian Williams opening the February 19 NBC Nightly News.

[VIDEO] "Watch out! Like the asteroid headed to earth, they're coming: $86 billion in automatic budget cuts. And don't bother trying to duck....So we let these draconian budget cuts take place. You know who's going to suffer the most? It's not going to be Congress. It's not going to be the President,... it's going to be us."
— CNN anchor Carol Costello on Newsroom, February 19.


Say Bye-Bye to Beef Jerky

"For more than three decades, Western's Smokehouse, a family-run meat processing operation in rural northeastern Missouri, has specialized in the art of jerky. Its varieties include smoked Mandarin teriyaki beef, smoked pepper beef and smoked original beef. But now, there is concern at the plant. The automatic federal spending cuts have raised the possibility that the United States Department of Agriculture will have to furlough some of its meat inspectors.... ‘I'm nervous about it,' said Kevin Western, the owner of the company, which is based in Greentop, Mo., and was started by his father, Sam, in 1978. ‘The livelihood of our business depends on meat inspection.'"
— New York Times reporter John Eligon, February 26.


Math-Challenged Ed Fumes: You Can't Cut "Damn Near a Third" of the Budget

[AUDIO] "Now you've got a budget of three and a half trillion dollars in this fiscal year. This will take $85 billion out of it. That's damn near a third....You can't take 30, you can't take 30 percent of operational money out and expect to have the same product. You can't do it! It's impossible!"
— Radio host and MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz on his February 25 radio show. In fact, $85 billion is a puny 2% of the $3.5 trillion annual federal budget, not 30%.


It's "Dumb" to Investigate Who Proposed the Sequester

  [VIDEO] Anchor Chuck Todd: "So Republicans, they spent the day yesterday passing around this video of a Montana Democratic Senator, Max Baucus, by the way who's up for reelection in 2014, who was saying this about the sequester."
  Clip of Senator Max Baucus: "The President is a part of this. The White House recommended it, frankly, back in August of 2011. And, so, now we're feeling the effect of it."
  Todd: "Of all the dumb things Washington does, this ‘who started it' argument has proven to be one of the dumber ones, especially since we're so close to the actual cuts going into place."
— MSNBC's The Daily Rundown, February 21.


Blame Boehner's Language, Not Obama's Obstinance

"A few weeks ago, you said that the President didn't have the guts to do what needed to be done on the budget. Today, you said the Senate has to get off its ass. Those don't sound like the words of a man seeking to bring people together to compromise."
— Anchor Scott Pelley to House Speaker John Boehner in an interview shown on the February 26 CBS Evening News.


Fantasizing About Obama on Mount Rushmore

"Is Barack Obama going for it? Is he set on becoming one of the great presidents in history? I'm not talking about Mount Rushmore, but perhaps the level right below it. I'm talking, to use his word, ‘transformational.'... If he [Obama] were hearing us talking about him, maybe, mounting Mount Rushmore, getting up there with the great presidents, secretly, not what he would say to other people, what would he be thinking — ‘that's exactly what I'm doing'?"
— MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Hardball, February 18.


MSNBC Brain Trust Volunteers for Hillary 2016

[VIDEO] Salon's Joan Walsh: "I think if she [Hillary Clinton] runs again, she really can't run as that front-runner. It cannot be that inevitability campaign that she ran in 2007, and she knows that. She's got to be about the future."
Host Chris Matthews: "If you're watching, Madam Secretary, all three of us have brilliant ideas. All of us have great ideas. And I especially put myself in that group with Joan and David [Corn]. We know how to do this, we'll get you in there."
— MSNBC's Hardball, February 25.


"Red-Baiting" at the Hagel Hearings

"Do you have any regrets about the way that [Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's] confirmation battle was undertaken by his critics?...I mean, wasn't there a lot of Red-baiting and other kinds of, really unfair questions asked in a public forum?"
— Anchor Andrea Mitchell to GOP Senator Roger Wicker, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, February 27.


Scolding Ted Cruz: A "Potentially Dangerous Demagogue"

  NPR's Nina Totenberg: "I actually know Cruz because he, for many years he argued cases for Texas in the United States Supreme Court. He is very smart. He is very glib, and he made sure that the attention was focused on him. This was not a distraction. This was Ted Cruz doing this [going after Chuck Hagel]."
  Politico's Evan Thomas: "You need to watch this guy, because there are a lot of demagogues out there, but not that many who are that smart. He is really, really smart, and that makes him potentially dangerous."
— Exchange on Inside Washington, February 22.


Can't Confuse Him With a "Fair and Balanced" Journalist

"That's not my slogan, to be ‘fair and balanced.' My thing is about accuracy and the truth. Just because someone has another point of view or opinion, I don't believe in false fairness. I just believe in the truth."
— CNN anchor Don Lemon in a January 25 interview with the Dallas Voice.


Dumb Conservatives Actually Believe Liberal Bias "Myth"

[VIDEO] "There are fewer and fewer Republicans who will go on non-Fox shows....I think that the mythology of the big, bad non-conservative media has gotten into some offices...and then these guys, they actually believe the spin that's out there, ‘Oh, my God, that's what the mainstream media does, they do anything to disrupt the conservative agenda.' And so literally, you only — Lindsey [Graham], John McCain, you know, that's been my — I just fear that it's sort of like this whole — there's this whole sort of this, the mythology of this, the media's out to get conservatives is believed among more and more actual staffers."
— NBC political director Chuck Todd on MSNBC's Morning Joe, February 19, talking about why so few conservative members of Congress are willing to go on liberal talk shows.


Obama vs. "Hard Right," "Hamas" Republicans

[VIDEO] "It is the hard right. Every time the President — you talk to people at the White House. They say, ‘This President, whatever you think of the politics, doesn't know who to talk to on the Hill.' There is no Boehner, he's just a front man. Eric Cantor has his got wet finger in the air trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing. Who is the President talking to? Is it just a clique of, a bunch of right-wingers who don't want to talk to anybody? Are they Hamas? Who are they out there?"
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball, February 20.


You're Either With Obama, or With the Killers

[VIDEO] "I personally don't want to be part of a movement to keep those semi-automatics flying into the hands of all sorts of people as they are today, the hoarders, the survivalists, the paranoid, the criminal and downright politically nutty. Why? Because the next mass shooter could well emerge out of this pack. Check the shooters of John F. Kennedy and Jerry Ford, who got shot at twice. Look at the men that shot Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and George Wallace. They all had political motives and they all had guns. Got them easy and put them easily to use. And if you're not against this movement, you're with it."
— Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball, February 27.


Imaginary Conservative on Reagan: "I Hope the Bastard Bleeds to Death"

[VIDEO] "Frankly, I hope the bastard bleeds to death on the operating table."
— "Charles Duluth" of the Conservative Statesman magazine, who is a KGB operative in Washington, DC, in the February 20 episode of FX's The Americans drama, set on the 1981 day when President Reagan was shot.


A "Frightening" Return to "Psychotic" Reagan-Era Values

"So you have people like these Tea Party people protesting government and then asked if they really want to give up their Social Security payments. And they don't seem to know that, that is actually part of what government is. There's a rejection of the sort of basic idea of human community behind the Reagan, behind Reagan-era ideology that is really frightening. And it leads us to terrible, terrible places. And now that we're facing challenges like climate change that absolutely demand a global collective response, an organized global collective response. We have no hope for survival as a species if we continue down the path of this kind of psychotic individualism."
— Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner on PBS's Charlie Rose, February 14.


PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
TIMESWATCH: Clay Waters
NEWS ANALYSTS: Scott Whitlock, Brad Wilmouth,
Matthew Balan, Kyle Drennen and Matt Hadro
INTERNS: Jeffrey Meyer, Matt Vespa and Paul Bremmer

    END Reprint of the March 4 Notable Quotables
*****

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

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

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

Advertisement
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?"
*****

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

MRC Alert Special: Latest Notable Quotables

Media Research Center

Monday May 14, 2012

MRC Alert Special: Latest Notable Quotables

    As a bonus for CyberAlert subscribers, below is the text of the May 14 super-sized 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.

    Highlights from this issue include the media "getting chills" upon hearing President Obama utter the "historic words" that he's flip-flopped in favor of gay "marriage," even as NBC's Savannah Guthrie dares to state the obvious, that everyone in "the media seem to uniformly support same-sex marriage."

    Also, reporters blame conservatives for the defeat of Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar in a primary, with CBS's Bob Schieffer suggesting the GOP "has moved too far right for its own good," while NBC's Brian Williams helps the Obama campaign spike the football one year after the death of Osama bin Laden, admiring the "even keel" Obama kept while at the White House Correspondents Dinner amid fears that a botched mission would be "a Waterloo" for his presidency. And, ABC's Diane Sawyer does a little pro-Obama campaign work, too, oozing over the pretentious poetry Obama wrote to a girlfriend decades ago: "Oh, we were all so romantic when we were young."
 
    To read it online, posted with five videos with a matching MP3 audio: http://www.mrc.org/notable-quotables/media-uniformly-back-obama-gay-marriage-getting-chills-upon-hearing-obamas-histori

    Quotes marked with [VIDEO] have an accompanying video file that you can access by visiting the online version.

    The four-page, fully-formatted, full-color PDF good for printing:http://www.mrc.org/sites/default/files/documents/May142012.pdf

------------------------------
NewsBusted: The green light for conservative laughter!

Check out the MRC's two-minute long twice a week comedy video show where we make fun of the liberal media and liberal politicians.

Two new episodes were posted last week and a fresh one will go up tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. You can watch the latest episode on this page where you can also sign up for an e-mail alert which will deliver links to new episodes direct to your in-box: https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:Join/signupId:1361583/acctId:1358864

Enjoy all the episodes on the MRC's own MRCTV: http://mrctv.org/channels/newsbusted

------------------------------

    Now the quotes from recent weeks, as featured in the May 14 Notable Quotables, Vol. 25; No. 10:

"Getting Chills" Upon Hearing Obama's "Historic Words"

  [VIDEO] Co-host George Stephanopoulos: "What a watershed moment. You know, whatever people think about this issue, and we know it's controversial, there's no denying when a President speaks out for the first time like that, it is history."
  Co-host Robin Roberts: "And let me tell you, George, I'm getting chills again. Because when you sit in that room and you hear him say those historic words — it was not lost on anyone that was in the room."
— ABC's Good Morning America, May 10.


Too Obvious to Deny: Media "Uniformly" Back Obama on Gay Marriage

"So many people in the media seem to uniformly support same-sex marriage. Do you think that this dialogue we're having nationally doesn't adequately recognize that for many people, this is an issue that they struggle with and don't believe in?"
— Savannah Guthrie on NBC's Today, May 10.

"I think that the media is as divided on this issue as the Obama family — which is to say not at all. And so he's never going to get negative coverage for this....When you have almost the entire media establishment on your side on an issue in a presidential campaign, it's very hard to lose politically."
— Mark Halperin on MSNBC's Morning Joe, May 10.


Watch Out for Evil "Wolves... Giggling With Delight"

[VIDEO] "It is a pretty profound statement by our President. I don't want to get past that too quickly. That's the good news for everybody in the country in terms of freedom and the long march towards liberalism in the country.... But there has always been another army out there that feeds on those who resent it. That army has been out there during Jim Crow. It was out there during abolition, during suffrage. There's always an army that feeds on change and feeds against it — the wolves, and they're being released right now and they're probably giggling with delight at how they're going to use this."
— Chris Matthews during MSNBC live coverage during the 3pm hour, May 9, shortly after ABC released clips of Obama's statement on same-sex marriage.


The "Too Far Right" GOP vs. "Voice of Bipartisanship"

"Do you think that the Republican Party has moved too far right for its own good? I mean, when you see the situation that's happened out in Indiana, where Richard Lugar, who's probably passed more significant legislation than any single member of the Senate right now, I would say — that I can think of — he might actually get beat in the primary because they think he's not conservative enough."
— Bob Schieffer to Peggy Noonan on CBS's Face the Nation, May 6.

  Anchor Erin Burnett: "This is pretty tragic that we have gotten to this point where working together is a negative thing...."
  CNN Contributor John Avlon: "If you are frustrated with the way Washington isn't working, with the division and dysfunction, this primary is an important reason why. Right now reaching across the aisle to try to solve a problem is a hanging offense in the Republican Party primaries."
— From CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront, May 8.


Loving Lugar's "Prescient" Anti-Conservative Manifesto

"Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar did not go quietly, after losing his primary contest Tuesday in Indiana to a Tea Party-backed challenger, Richard Mourdock. And if there is one thing the American people need to read today, it is his farewell missive, which may prove to be as prescient and long lasting as Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 exit speech warning of the coming military industrial complex."
— Time magazine White House correspondent Michael Scherer in a May 9 post for the magazine's "Swampland" blog.

"Not only was it a manifesto, it was an incredibly eloquent manifesto. There have been a number of people who've been chased out of the party now, and none have either had the courage or the position [of Lugar]."
— Scherer on MSNBC's Daily Rundown, May 10.


"Diverse" Democrats vs. "Conservative White Guys"

"Do you have a problem with being inclusive, because most people do look at Republicans, going ‘They're a conservative bunch of white guys who want to protect Big Oil.' And now you're even hearing Republicans saying, ‘It's not big enough. We haven't opened up the tent door.'...It's not as diverse as the Democratic Party. You'd concede that."
— Host Candy Crowley to former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on CNN's State of the Union, May 6.


Can We Blame Obama's Woes on the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

"We've talked before. I've asked you about the — the fact that Washington doesn't work very well right now, and hasn't for now a number of years that coincides with — Obama-Biden being in the White House. And you've been very critical of Republicans. Do you think that there is a modern right-wing conspiracy that has aligned against this President?"
— Moderator David Gregory to Vice President Biden on NBC's Meet the Press, May 6.


CBS Entranced by Liberal Plea for More Massive Spending

  New York Times columnist Paul Krugman: "If we could get our politicians to move and do the right thing, we could be out of this [bad economy] very fast....The right thing is, actually, to spend more. Right now, you know, we have a long-term budget problem, but now is not the time to be slashing. Now is not the time to be laying off school teachers...."
  Co-host Gayle King: "But you say that it could take seven years if we keep going the way we're going. And if we follow your advice, it would take-?"
  Krugman: "Eighteen months, two years."
  King: "So why aren't people listening to you, Paul Krugman? I love that President Obama, in Rolling Stone — did you see that? — he called you one of the smartest economic reporters?...I have a feeling, Paul Krugman, they might take your call if you called up the White House and said, hey, guys, I've got an idea."
— CBS This Morning, April 30.


Which Way Is It?

"Economy Continues on Path of Growth"
"Americans have ratcheted up their spending on cars, clothes and furniture, new figures show, and their fortitude at the cash register is energizing the recovery."
— Headline and lead sentence of a front-page Washington Post story by Peter Whoriskey, April 28.

vs.

"Economic Growth Slows Unexpectedly to 2.2%"
"The economic recovery slowed more than expected early this year, raising fears of a spring slowdown for the third year in a row and giving Republicans a fresh opportunity to criticize President Obama's policies."
— Headline and lead sentence of a "Business Day" section item by Shaila Dewan in the New York Times, same day.


Awed by Obama's "Even Keel" Amid Fears of a "Waterloo"

  [VIDEO] "Keeping this secret also meant going on about the business of the presidency. Touring that awful storm damage in Alabama, while knowing at that very moment U.S. Navy SEALs were already on the move halfway around the world. (to Obama) You had to go to Tuscaloosa. You had to go have fun at the Correspondents' Dinner. Seth Meyers makes a joke about Osama Bin Laden. How do you keep an even keel? Even when we look back on the videotape of that night, there's no real depiction that there's something afoot."...
  "If this had failed in spectacular fashion, it would have blown up your presidency, I think, by all estimates. It would have been your Waterloo and perhaps your Watergate, consumed with hearings and inquiries. How thick did the specter of Jimmy Carter, Desert One hang in the air here?"
— Brian Williams to President Obama during his May 2 Rock Center special on the first anniversary of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.


A Campaign Between "Gordon Gekko" and "Henry V"

"Well, that's great stuff. I was so proud of the President there, I must say. This has nothing to do with partisanship. This is a commander-in-chief meeting with the troops, as it was right out of Henry V, actually, a touch of Barry in this case in the night for those soldiers risking their lives over there....I was so proud of him there, because I imagine being a soldier over there, this is what you want to hear, that the troops are backed up by the people at home, and there you had your commander-in-chief there with you personally. It's great stuff."
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball, May 1, after live coverage of Obama's speech to troops in Afghanistan.

  The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "He is pitching himself as a guy who has spent his life fixing the problem, which is turning things around. You can agree or disagree with this concept, but turning things around: the Salt Lake City Olympics; companies with Bain he would put in there; he would put Massachusetts in there, though many people would disagree. Turning things around, that he is a fix-it artist."
  Host Chris Matthews: "Chris, how's that different than Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, greed is good?"
— MSNBC's Hardball, May 7.


Don't Pick on Jimmy

  Host Ed Schultz: "I think he [Mitt Romney] owes Jimmy Carter an apology. I mean, Jimmy Carter put lives on the line and made a tough call....It's low rent, it's a cheap shot...."
  MSNBC contributor Richard Wolffe: "Here's a President who had a ten times better job record than President Bush did. He was responsible for Camp David. That's not a bad record for anyone, certainly for someone who's had one term as a Massachusetts governor. It's time to pay a little bit more respect than that."
— MSNBC's The Ed Show, April 30, talking about Romney's statement that "even Jimmy Carter" would have ordered last year's raid on bin Laden.


How Low Will MSNBC Stoop?

"We know that Ann Romney has herself had some suffering in the form of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). She's also suffered with breast cancer. Do you think that he's intentionally using her to close the gender gap?"
— MSNBC's Martin Bashir, April 25.


"Toxic" Fox News Exploiting America's "Suckers"

"At least for Americans — Fox News is Murdoch's most toxic legacy....I doubt that people at Fox News really believe their programming is ‘fair and balanced' — that's just a slogan for the suckers....We [other news organizations] try to live by a code, a discipline, that tells us to set aside our personal biases, to test not only facts but the way they add up, to seek out the dissenters and let them make their best case, to show our work. We write unsparing articles about public figures of every stripe — even, sometimes, about ourselves. When we screw up — and we do — we are obliged to own up to our mistakes and correct them. Fox does not live by that code."
— Former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in a May 6 column.


Oozing Over "So Romantic" Obama's Pretentious Poetry

[VIDEO] "One of the perils of being President: Everything you ever wrote will become public. And today, Barack Obama, age 22 — long before he met Michelle — new letters and diary entries revealed in Vanity Fair from a biography out soon....The future president writes adoringly about life in New York. Quote, ‘Moments trip gently along over here. Snow caps the bushes in unexpected ways. Birds shoot and spin like balls of sound. My feet hum over the dry walks.' Oh, we were all so romantic when we were young."
— Diane Sawyer on World News, May 2.


Bizarre Bashir: Plan to Cut Spending Makes Romney a European Socialist?

"Now we know that Mitt Romney loves to paint the President as a European-style socialist, which is incredible. And he weighed in today....How does Romney do that when he knows that it's him who supports rank austerity measures? He supports Paul Ryan's budget. He wants to go cut, cut, cut. It's not [the] President, it's him. He's the European socialist."
— Host Martin Bashir on MSNBC's Martin Bashir, May 7.


Scolding a Play "Straight Out of a Far-Right Handbook"

[VIDEO] "Ever since that failure [of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion], exploiting anti-communist fears to portray Castro as a monstrous boogeyman has been a cottage industry in Florida and Washington. While many have certainly assailed Fidel and still do for very legitimate reasons, others simply hate that he overthrew their dictator, Fulgencio Batista, whose corrupt government helped enriched privileged Cubans and American interests at the expense of the country's poorest people....Whipping up a frenzy over slights real and imagined is a play straight out of a far-right handbook, and Florida's electoral cloud has often given Fidel's critics far more leverage than their arguments merit."
— HBO Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel, April 17, talking about the uproar over Florida Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen telling Time magazine "I love Fidel Castro," a comment for which Guillen later apologized.


Family Turned Out Fine, Except for Brother Who "Became a Republican"

  MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski: "It happened overnight, and all of a sudden we were going to the White House all the time and traveling around the world...."
  Host David Letterman: "What about the brothers? How did they fit into this? Did they take it in the stride?"
  Brzezinski: "Well, one became a Republican, so I don't think he turned out so well."
— Brzezinski on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman, May 8, talking about her childhood after her father, Zbignew Brzezinski, became President Carter's National Security Advisor in 1977.


As America Deteriorates, Celebrities Like Obama "More and More"

"I've grown to like him more and more. You know, I was always — I've just been a fan of his, if you could say that about a President. So that's the other kind of good part of it, is you know, getting to like him more and more."
— Saturday Night Live's Obama impersonator Fred Armisen on NBC's Meet the Press "Press Pass" segment, April 29.


Mitt Just a Puppet of "Women Hating Tea Baggers"

"If ROMNEY gets elected I don't know if i can breathe same air as Him & his Right Wing Racist Homophobic Women Hating Tea Bagger Masters"
— Actress/singer Cher in a May 8 Twitter posting that was later deleted (grammar and punctuation as in the original).


PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
TIMESWATCH: Clay Waters
NEWS ANALYSTS: Scott Whitlock, Brad Wilmouth, Matthew Balan, Kyle Drennen and Matt Hadro
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Michelle Humphrey
INTERNS: Jeffrey Meyer, Josh St. Louis and Lillian Smith

    END Reprint of the May 14 Notable Quotables
*****

Friday, January 13, 2012

MRC Alert: NBC Touts Gordon Gekko Impersonator Greeting Romney in South Carolina


Media Research Center
Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday January 13, 2012 @ 01:25 PM ET

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1. NBC Touts Gordon Gekko Impersonator Greeting Romney in South Carolina
In a report for Thursday's NBC Today, correspondent Peter Alexander promoted attacks on Mitt Romney: "There's been no let-up in the barrage of criticism over Romney's record as the former head of Bain Capital." Alexander pointed out: "This Gordon Gekko impersonator greeted Romney's arrival in South Carolina." A scene from the movie "Wall Street" was played with actor Michael Douglas depicting the corrupt Gekko and uttering the famous line: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." The impersonator following Romney, dressed in a suit with a name tag reading "Gordon Gekko" and chomping on a cigar, repeated the line for NBC's camera.

2. CBS's King Goes Gaga Over Obama Family; No Questions About Lavish Expenses
Gayle King made it clear that she is in the tank for the Obama campaign on Thursday's CBS This Morning, specifically vouching that Michelle Obama apparently is "passionate," and that the First Lady is "looking forward to returning for another four years. They're going to work very hard to make that happen." King continued tossing softballs at her admitted friend, at one point gushing, "Do you ever just sort of marvel at your life?" She completely omitted asking her guest about controversial aspects of her time in the White House, such as Mrs. Obama's travel expenses, or how the First Lady wore $540 designer sneakers as she fed the poor in Washington, DC in 2009.

3. NBC's Brokaw Hypes GOP 'Jihad' Against Romney; Confuses Mitt and George 3 Times
Appearing on Thursday's NBC Today, special correspondent Tom Brokaw touted GOP presidential candidates attacking Mitt Romney's business experience at Bain Capital: "It's the Republican Party equivalent of a jihad....the real danger for the Republicans is that it will deeply divide the party at a time when they want it to be united." While promoting the Republican infighting, Brokaw repeatedly confused Mitt Romney with his father and former Michigan Governor George Romney: "[Senator Jim DeMint said] George Romney is going to win this primary in South Carolina....They're going hard after George Romney....George Romney seems to be holding his own and the momentum continues for him..." At one point, co-host Ann Curry corrected him: "Mitt Romney." Brokaw explained: "His father was George Romney, that's my generational slip."

4. Matthews Preposterously Claims Obama Added 'Only 13 People' to Federal Workforce [UPDATED: Matthews Re-Records Audio]
On Thursday's Hardball, Chris Matthews preposterously insisted that Barack Obama added "only 13" people to the federal workforce in 2009 and that the total number of individuals working for the U.S. government (as of 2010) was 4,443. Two hours later, in the otherwise identical 7 PM EST re-play, MSNBC inserted a new graphic and a new audio overlay in which Matthews corrected his incompetence without noting any change from his first broadcast: Video below features both versions. In the 5 PM EST hour, Matthews claimed “the federal workforce totaled forty-four hundred and thirty people in 2009 when Obama took office. In 2010, a year later, the number increased to forty-four forty-three people – a difference of only thirteen people.” In the re-do, Matthews realized “the federal workforce totaled four million, four hundred and thirty thousand in 2009...”

5. Washington Post Veteran Disparages Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin as 'Right-Wing Nutjobs' with 'Wacky Conspiracy Theories'
Another bit of evidence emerged Thursday about how deeply ingrained anti-conservative hatred is inside America’s newspapers, even amongst those who don’t cover politics. John Kelly, a Washington Post lifestyle columnist inside the “Metro” section best-known for raising money for Children’s National Medical Center and Sunday “Answer Man” columns about DC-area history, used the passing of a local radio legend to disparage syndicated radio hosts as “right-wing nutjobs unspooling their wacky conspiracy theories.” The gratuitous slam came in a short item marking the passing of Bill Trumbull, half of the “Trumbull & Core” afternoon radio show of light-banter and pop music carried by WMAL-AM (630) from 1976 to 1996.

*****

Friday, December 30, 2011

CyberAlert MRC Alert: 3rd Runners-Up Quotes in MRC's Best of NQ Annual Awards for Year's Worst Reporting; NBC Takes on Santorum


Media Research Center
Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday December 30, 2011 @ 11:48 AM ET

CyberAlert is free to you, but it takes a research and monitoring operation to produce.
Support the Media Research Center: donate
1. Third Runners-Up Quotes in the MRC's Best of NQ Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting
The third runners-up quotes in the MRC's “Best Notable Quotables of 2011: The Twenty-Fourth Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting.” To determine this year’s winners, a panel of 48 radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and expert media observers each selected their choices for the first, second and third best quote from a slate of five to eight quotes in each category. Some categories: "Hopeless Dopes Award for Discrediting Obama’s Opponents," "Damn Those Conservatives Award," "The Grim Reaper Award for Saying Conservatives Want You to Die," "The Ku Klux Con Job Award for Smearing Conservatives with Phony Racism Charges," "Refusing to Acknowledge the Obvious Award for Denying Liberal Media Bias" and "The Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity."

2. NBC Presses Santorum on Abortion, Contraception, and Electability
As GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared as a guest on Thursday's Today show on NBC, substitute co-host Savannah Guthrie focused on the former Pennsylvania Senator's views on abortion and contraception, and whether he would be able acceptable to "middle of the road voters."

3. NBC Reflexively Refers to Gingrich Wife as His 'Third Wife'
It's no secret that the media have spent significant attention focusing on GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's history of marital problems and whether this facet of his past will undercut him with socially conservative Republican voters, but on Friday's Today show on NBC, correspondent Peter Alexander went so far as to refer to Gingrich's wife as his "third wife" in a story that otherwise had nothing to do with his marital history.

4. CNN Honors Same-Sex Couple, Suggests Obama Could Benefit From Supporting Same-Sex Marriage
In lieu of President Obama's Hawaiian vacation, CNN highlighted the plight of a Hawaiian same-sex couple that will legally celebrate a civil union come January 1st, but desires federal marriage benefits that do not apply to same-sex couples. In a one-sided and sympathetic report, White House correspondent Brianna Keilar painted the picture of a President who could make a gain at the voting booth if he legalizes same-sex marriage. CNN analyst and National Journal's Ron Brownstein strongly hinted that Obama could be alienating some of his liberal base by sitting on the fence over the gay marriage issue. He made the case that Obama may be losing socially-conservative Democrats anyway, and could "mobilize" voters by supporting same-sex marriage.


>>> Last chance for a 2011 tax deduction. Just a day until the end of the year. Step up now and make a donation to the Media Research Center to support CyberAlert and all we do to counter-act liberal media bias. Contribute now: http://mrc.org/donate <<<


Third Runners-Up Quotes in the MRC's Best of NQ Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting

The third runners-up quotes in the MRC's “ Best Notable Quotables of 2011: The Twenty-Fourth Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting.” As announced in a CyberAlert Special, the awards issue was posted, with videos, on Monday, December 19, but following tradition, the last weekdays of the year MRC.org’s BiasAlert and corresponding CyberAlert e-mail newsletter will run the winning quotes followed on succeeding days by the runners-up. Tuesday’sBiasAlert/CyberAlert featured the winners, Wednesday’s ran the first runners-up and Thursday’shighlighted the second runners-up.

The page linked above also has links for the text of the entire issue in MS Word, OpenOffice Writer or WordPerfect formats. You can also download a colorful and easily read-able PDF version.

(Tip: There’s an extra quote in most categories in the online version over the PDF one.)

To determine this year’s winners, a panel of 48 radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and expert media observers each selected their choices for the first, second and third best quote from a slate of five to eight quotes in each category. First place selections were awarded three points, second place choices two points, with one point for the third place selections. Point totals are listed alongside each quote. Each judge was also asked to choose a “Quote of the Year” denoting the most outrageous quote of 2011.

The MRC’s Michelle Humphrey distributed the ballots and was assisted in their tabulation by Melissa Lopez. Alex Fitzsimmons helped produce the numerous audio and video clips included in the Web-posted version. Rich Noyes and Brent Baker assembled this issue and Brad Ash posted the entire package to the MRC’s Web site.

The list of the judges, who were generous with their time, is posted online and was also listed in Tuesday’s BiasAlert/CyberAlert.

Now, the third runners-up quotes in the 17 award categories, plus Quote of the Year (see the “ Best Notable Quotables of 2011” pages for video and audio clips -- 57 have them -- for the quotes):


The Tea Party Terrorists Award [third runner-up]

“There’s a nihilist caucus which is, ‘Listen, we want to burn the place down.’ I mean, they’re not, they’ve strapped explosives to the Capitol and they think they are immune from it. The Tea Party caucus wants this crisis, and do we want to do this again six months from now?”
— Bloomberg columnist and former Time reporter Margaret Carlson on Inside Washington, July 29. [26 points]


Tying Granny to the Train Tracks Award for Condemning Budget Cuts [third runner-up]

“Budgets are moral documents. You can say what you say, but you are what you are. And when you put your budget on the table, that’s when we learn who you really are. And I’m not so sure that this is not anything more than an immoral document where the poor are concerned....We avoided a shutdown of government, but we effectively locked out the American people, namely, the poor. And I don’t understand why it is in this town that every debate about money always begins and ends with how we can further reward the rich and more punish the poor.”
— PBS’s Tavis Smiley talking about the budget deal that prevented a government shutdown, NBC’s Meet the Press, April 17. [43]


The Obamagasm Award [third runner-up]

“Is President Obama a baby whisperer? The leader of the free world worked his magic on this munchkin a few days ago at the White House. Now, watch as the First Lady tries to quiet down the fussy little friend....She then hands the bawling baby to the big man and, presto, the tot is simply transfixed.”
— “Lifestyle anchor” Lara Spencer on ABC’s Good Morning America, June 22. [29]


Hopeless Dopes Award for Discrediting Obama’s Opponents [third runner-up]

“Critics say these debates promote extremism within the Republican Party, and show that the mean season is upon us. They fault the candidates themselves for not stamping out the behavior when it happens. And they should. Also, some suggested the booing or cheering could turn off moderate and swing voters in the general election. And it should. Here’s the question: Are Republican debate crowds bloodthirsty?”
— CNN’s Jack Cafferty on The Situation Room, September 27. [47]


Damn Those Conservatives Award [third runner-up]

“The House began debating a spending bill today that cuts $833 million from the WIC nutrition program, which provides healthy food to low-income women and their children....Now what was it that Jesus said? ‘Give me your poor and needy, and I’ll go tell them to pound sand.’ That’s at least the Republican vision of Jesus.”
— Anchor Cenk Uygur during the 6pm ET hour of MSNBC News Live, June 14. [33]


The Media Millionaires for Higher Taxes Award [third runner-up]

“Finding a way to raise taxes may well be the central political problem facing the United States.”
— New York Times chief economics writer David Leonhardt, April 13. [31]


The Grim Reaper Award for Saying Conservatives Want You to Die [third runner-up]

“John Boehner and his Republican majority decided to gut the FDA’s food safety and inspection service. First, slashing $87 million from its budget and then another $35 million from the USDA for good measure. Cut, cut, cut. And now the results are in. Sixteen people have lost their lives. Close to 100 are sick. Republicans in Congress talk proudly of their commitment to laissez-faire economics, where government gets out of the way and everything works perfectly. You try telling that to those who ate melon with a side of listeria.”
— Host Martin Bashir on MSNBC’s Martin Bashir, September 30. [31]


Occupy My Heart and Soul Award for Left-Wing Protest Promotion [third runner-up]

“The images from Wisconsin — with its protests, shutdown of some public services and missing Democratic senators, who fled the state to block a vote — evoked the Middle East more than the Midwest. The parallels raise the inevitable question: Is Wisconsin the Tunisia of collective bargaining rights?”
— New York Times reporters Michael Cooper and Katharine Seelye, February 19. [40]


The Media Hero Award [third runner-up]

“We talked to Cory Booker, the Mayor of Newark. This is a tweet he sent out last night, yes, on Saturday: ‘Heading on a pizza run. I’m going to deliver 10 pizzas to those staying in our shelter at JFK.’ So, I mean, you have the contrast, Michael Eric Dyson, between President Bush regretting the fact he had a flyover of the storm zone [after Hurricane Katrina] and Mayor Booker personally delivering pizzas.”
— David Gregory talking about Hurricane Irene on NBC’s Meet the Press, August 28. [31]


Flunk the Founding Fathers Award [third runner-up]

“The reality is that the Framers — posed in paintings as though frozen on an American Olympus — they were not gods, they were guys: guys who didn’t give women the vote, and who let slavery stand for the time being, and who, by the way, were trying to create at the time a stronger central government (of course, not too strong), leaving to us a Constitution that we could fix as needed (sorry, make that amend), which we’ve now done 27 times.”
— ABC’s John Donvan in a report for This Week, July 3. [29]


The Poison Tea Pot Award for Smearing the Anti-Obama Rabble [third runner-up]

“Some people say that the Republican Party has been held hostage by the Tea Party. One of our Facebook followers sent in an interesting analogy and said, ‘Why are Republicans allowing freshman congressmen to control this debate?’ and this person said, ‘It’s like letting the teenager in the family run the family budget.’ I mean, there’s some truth in that.”
— Moderator Bob Schieffer to GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell on CBS’s Face the Nation, July 31. [36]


MSNBC = Mean-Spirited, Nasty, Belligerent Chris Award [third runner-up]

“Is the Republican Party willing to risk economic Armageddon in the name of religion, that is the religion of no taxes? Well, the GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government, willing to risk bringing down the whole country in the service of their anti-tax ideology....The Party’s being driven by fanatics and they’re determined to bounce America’s savings bonds and have the United States begin to become like Greece.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, July 5. [29]


The Ku Klux Con Job Award for Smearing Conservatives with Phony Racism Charges [third runner-up]

“I’ve had a lot of guests on recently getting very hot under the collar about the Tea Party....black Americans, leading black Americans who say the Tea Party is racist. And I know that your fairly humorous response is to say, ‘I looked in the mirror and I appear to be a black man, and I’m in the Tea Party,’ which I get and you’re perfectly entitled to say that. But you all know there are elements of the Tea Party who are racist. It’s a trade secret. How do you deal with that as a black man who is now leading the Tea Party charge?”
— Host Piers Morgan to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, October 19. [40]


America Is the Real Evil Empire Award [third runner-up]

“At the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, thousands of people — most of them college-aged and in requisite flip-floppy collegiate gear — whipped up a raucous celebration right outside the White House gates that was one part Mardi Gras and two parts Bon Jovi concert....It felt a little crazy, a bit much. Almost vulgar....When I saw that folks were celebrating in the streets at the news of bin Laden’s death, my first reaction was a cringe. Remember how we all felt watching videos of those al-Qaeda guys dancing on Sept. 11?”
— Washington Post “Metro” section columnist Petula Dvorak, May 3. [36]


Refusing to Acknowledge the Obvious Award for Denying Liberal Media Bias [third runner-up]

NPR’s Nina Totenberg: “There is a reason that we are the only news organization, other than Fox, with a growing audience. It is because of our product which is straight-shooting, factual, and spends an enormous amount of money gathering news from all over the country and the world. Judge us by our product. The people in the newsroom were probably more mortified than Charles or anybody in the Tea Party, or any, any anybody else. I mean, we were just horrified, and not by the political incorrectness of what he [fired NPR executive Ron Schiller] said, but by the fact that he even thought this way.”
Moderator Gordon Peterson: “Well, this plays right into the belief that you’re a bunch of lefties.”
Totenberg: “I know it does, but it’s not true.”
— Exchange on Inside Washington, March 11. [38]


The Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year [third runner-up]

“Your colleague in New York, Gary Ackerman, said the Republicans invited the President, quote, ‘to negotiate at a strip poker table, and he showed up half naked.’ And then liberal columnist Paul Krugman calls the deal an ‘abject surrender.’ Would the President be better off running as a conservative in 2012?”
— Fill-in anchor Don Lemon to Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva, CNN’s In the Arena, August 1. [31]


The Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity [third runner-up]

“The scale of Right Wing sociopolitical sabotage necessitates a Nuremberg-scale trial for all the corporate agents and treasonous capitalisto-fascist architects of our democracy’s current and most pressing misery. From the blatant Republican policy doublespeak emanating from think-tank sponsored word doctors to the outright obstruction and lies expectorated by Republican congressional representatives and senators, the very concept of governance can only be considered once the culprits are removed. Driven to real madness by unadulterated greed they have embraced an ideology, the success of which hinges upon the very ruin of this nation.”
— Actor Steven Weber (from the 1990s NBC sitcom Wings) writing at the Huffington Post, October 24. [36]
On Tuesday: The fourth runners-up.

-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.




NBC Presses Santorum on Abortion, Contraception, and Electability

As GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared as a guest on Thursday's Today show on NBC, substitute co-host Savannah Guthrie focused on the former Pennsylvania Senator's views on abortion and contraception, and whether he would be acceptable to "middle of the road voters."

After her first question dealt with whether Santorum would just be the latest candidate to surge and then fade, the remaining three questions she asked focused on whether his social conservatism would appeal to mainstream voters.

Below are all of the questions asked by Guthrie from the Thursday, December 29, Today show on NBC:

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Well, we've seen this surge in the latest poll. You are now in third place. There is really just one person who predicted this all along - you. I guess the question now, though, is there have been so many frontrunners.

RICK SANTORUM: My wife, hold on, hold on, my wife, too. My wife predicted this, too. Not just me.

GUTHRIE: Fair enough. Outside of the Santorums, how can you be sure you're not just the latest frontrunner du jour. I mean, there have been five or six of them. [SANTORUM]

At the same time, you have campaigned in Iowa tirelessly really tailoring your message to social conservatives in Iowa, but does that message, does your campaign have viability outside of Iowa, in New Hampshire, with mainstream voters? [SANTORUM]

Yeah, but, Senator, you yourself have said you will not make these social issues backburner issues. You want them to be front and center. Your views on abortion are well known. You make no exception for abortion in the case of rape or incest. Other Republican candidates have now adopted that view. But somewhat lesser known are your views on contraception. You have said it is not okay, that it's dangerous, and you've said you're the only presidential candidate willing to talk about your views against contraception. For voters not familiar with you, what are they? [SANTORUM]

You know as well as anybody else, having run in Pennsylvania - won a couple of times, but also lost - that the general election will come down to those  middle of the road voters - moderate, persuadable, independent voters. Many of them are women. Should Republicans sizing up your candidate today be concerned about this issue of electability should you be the nominee against Barack Obama? [SANTORUM]
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center




NBC Reflexively Refers to Gingrich Wife as His 'Third Wife'

It's no secret that the media have spent significant attention focusing on GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's history of marital problems and whether this facet of his past will undercut him with socially conservative Republican voters, but on Friday's Today show on NBC, correspondent Peter Alexander went so far as to refer to Gingrich's wife as his "third wife" in a story that otherwise had nothing to do with his marital history.

Below is the relevant portion of Alexander's report from the Friday, December 30, Today show on NBC:

PETER ALEXANDER: Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, whose support has recently plummeted in Iowa, is struggling to keep his campaign alive, symbolized by this blunt exchange with a voter Thursday.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN IN AUDIENCE: Do you really want to be President?

NEWT GINGRICH: I think it's my duty as a citizen and as a grandfather to try to help serve my country at a time when I think we're in real trouble.

ALEXANDER: Gingrich is increasingly promoting his third wife, Callista, as a key campaign asset. Mrs. Gingrich appears in this new campaign video promoting music education in schools, drawing on her own experience as a musician.
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center




CNN Honors Same-Sex Couple, Suggests Obama Could Benefit From Supporting Same-Sex Marriage

In lieu of President Obama's Hawaiian vacation, CNN highlighted the plight of a Hawaiian same-sex couple that will legally celebrate a civil union come January 1st, but desires federal marriage benefits that do not apply to same-sex couples. In a one-sided and sympathetic report, White House correspondent Brianna Keilar painted the picture of a President who could make a gain at the voting booth if he legalizes same-sex marriage.

CNN analyst and National Journal's Ron Brownstein strongly hinted that Obama could be alienating some of his liberal base by sitting on the fence over the gay marriage issue. He made the case that Obama may be losing socially-conservative Democrats anyway, and could "mobilize" voters by supporting same-sex marriage.

"Monica and Donna are part of that coalition," Keilar said referring to the coalition Brownstein said Obama "could mobilize" in the coming election. "They voted for President Obama in 2008, and while they think he now privately supports their desire for a federally-recognized marriage, they say that's not enough," Keilar added.

At the center of the story was a Hawaiian same-sex couple that desires the legal rights of married couples, and is waiting on President Obama to support same-sex marriage. CNN interviewed no one from the other side of the debate opposing gay marriage.

[Video below.]





"We don't want to keep waiting and waiting," one of the subjects told CNN at the end of the sympathetic report. "What good does it do if you support it personally, but you don't put it out there for everybody to know that this is your stand?"

Keilar herself sounded almost hopeful as she analyzed Obama's "evolving" stance on gay marriage. "As a candidate, Obama supported civil unions, though he said the issue of marriage is best left up to the states. But this year, he's signaled he may change his mind," she reported.

A transcript of the segment, which aired on December 29 at 4:44 p.m. EST, is as follows:


BRIANNA KEILAR: (voice-over) When President Obama and his family ring in the new year here on Oahu, many same-sex couples in Hawaii will celebrate for a different reason. Civil unions become legal here on January 1st.

MONICA MONTGOMERY, planning civil union ceremony: Now our state has finally said we support you, and that leaves us a really good feeling.

KEILAR: Monica Montgomery is from Kailua, the town where the Obamas are vacationing. Her partner of 33 years, Donna Gedge, went to the same high school as President Obama. Shortly after midnight on New Year's Day, Gedge and Montgomery plan to seal their civil union with a ceremony.

(on camera) Why is it so important to do it at that very moment?

MONTGOMERY: Because we've waited so long.

Normally I wouldn't be functioning at 12:30 in the morning. That's not a time I would choose, but we want to do it, and do it right away.

KEILAR: (voice-over) They call it a step in the right direction. Because there's a big difference between states allowing civil unions or marriages, and the federal government condoning marriage. Same-sex couples do not qualify for federal rights afforded to heterosexual married couples – like social security benefits, immigration rights, or the ability to file federal taxes jointly. Even in Hawaii, marriage is defined by law as between a man and a woman – a position shared by Hawaii's most famous native son.

RICK WARREN, pastor, Saddleback Church: Define marriage.

President BARACK OBAMA: I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now for me as a Christian –

(Applause)

KEILAR: As a candidate, Obama supported civil unions, though he said the issue of marriage is best left up to the states. But this year, he's signaled he may change his mind.

President BARACK OBAMA: As I've said, my feelings about this are constantly evolving. I struggle with this.

KEILAR: The majority of Democrats and even independent voters support same-sex marriage. Observers like political analyst Ron Brownstein say the President appears to be playing to socially conservative Democrats who tend to be rural, older white voters without a college education.

RON BROWNSTEIN, senior political analyst: But the paradox is that he's already losing those voters in big numbers. He lost about three-fifths, for example, of both non-college whites and white seniors in 2008. They voted even more heavily for Republicans in 2010, and by avoiding these issues, he may be disappointing the actual coalition that he could mobilize in 2012.

KEILAR: Monica and Donna are part of that coalition. They voted for President Obama in 2008, and while they think he now privately supports their desire for a federally-recognized marriage, they say that's not enough.

DONNA GEDGE, planning civil union ceremony: What good does it do if you support it personally, but you don't put it out there for everybody to know that this is your stand?

We don't want to keep waiting and waiting.

(End Video Clip)
KEILAR: Now the White House is very sensitive to the suggestion that President Obama has not fully delivered for gay and lesbian Americans – pardon me, Wolf – you'll frequently hear White House officials touting what he has delivered on, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and of course the Justice Department has stopped defending that federal ban on same-sex marriage, questioning the constitutionality of it. But ultimately, Wolf, it seems like this will be a decision for the courts. There's a number of legal challenges winding their way through the system right now, but it's very possible, advocates think, that they won't see a resolution to this until after the election.

-- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center

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