There seems to be a concentrated effort on MSNBC lately to dismiss certain legitimate concerns raised by Republican political figures as loony or unworthy of serious consideration. On Wednesday’s edition of PoliticsNation, Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune killed two birds with one stone by simultaneously linking concerns over Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s health to the “birther” conspiracy theories.
Host Al Sharpton played a clip in which Comedy Central host Jon Stewart mocked Karl Rove’s question about the health of Hillary Clinton’s brain. Stewart dubbed the concern “Brainghazi,” and Page loved the term:
Conspiracy Theories
By Paul Bremmer | May 15, 2014 | 5:13 PM EDT
Sore Losers at MSNBC and American Prospect Play 'Race' and 'Culture' Cards in UAW's VW-Chattanooga Loss
By Tom Blumer | February 18, 2014 | 3:15 PM EST File this under "Pathetic" and "Predictable." On Alex Wagner's MSNBC show yesterday, Wagner set up Timothy Noah, an MSNBC.com columnist, with the latest and most desperate excuse for the UAW's failure to gain the ability to represent VW-Chattanooga workers in a plantwide election last week. She did so by referring to an American Prospect column earlier in the day by Harold Meyerson, who blamed "the politics of race and culture" for the loss.
Noah predictably took the bait, even though "race" was not mentioned once in any coverage I saw in 2-1/2 days after the election until Meyerson went there. Video and a transcript, followed by a couple of jabs at Meyerson by yours truly, follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
By John Williams | January 6, 2014 | 6:17 AM EST
No, NPR didn't accidentally air the paranormal-themed radio show Coast to Coast AM with George Noory (heir to Art Bell's show) on Sunday morning. Instead, it was a credulous interview of psychiatrist Jim Tucker by NPR host Rachel Martin about the supposed science of reincarnation.
And given NPR's classification of the piece as a science piece, their vaunted Science Desk dutifully tweeted "Searching for Science Behind Reincarnation."
By Tom Blumer | November 17, 2013 | 8:52 PM EST
In a pathetic analyis piece at the Politico on Friday morning, Politico's Todd S. Purdum engaged in egregious excuse-making driven by a de facto admission that the Affordable Care Act would never have passed if the public had been told the truth about what was in it.
This is the same Todd S. Purdum who recently, as Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters reported earlier this month, accused Republicans of "calculated sabotage" of Obamacare, and compared their opposition to the "pattern of 'massive resistance' not seen since the Southern states’ defiance of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954." His Friday exercise, which should have been headlined "The Obamacare Scam," was barely less odious (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
By Tom Blumer | November 17, 2013 | 3:05 PM EST
The left will never get over the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald, a self-described Marxist who had previously claimed to be a communist, assassinated John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
The latest evidence of that detachment from reality came online Saturday evening at the New York Times, and appeared in today's print edition. Writer James McAuley, described as "a Marshall scholar studying history at the University of Oxford," wrote that Dallas collectively "willed the death of the president," and that it has prospered disproportionately in the subsequent 50 years because of "pretending to forget."
Bill Maher to Piers Morgan: MSNBC 'Very Rarely Wrong,' CNN Lagging For 'Play(ing) It Down the Middle'
By Tom Blumer | November 3, 2013 | 1:03 PM EST Bill Maher was a guest on Piers Morgan's CNN show on Tuesday night; the interview segment was replayed on Friday (thanks to NB's Noel Sheppard for that catch). Among other things, Maher confirmed that he is a member of the left's unreality-based community when he described MSNBC as "very rarely wrong" and Fox News's Bill O'Reilly as someone who "says something that is insanely off-base and not true" almost every night.
Maher also lamented what he sees as CNN's biggest problem: They're trying to "play it down the middle," and viewers don't want that.
By Sean Long | October 30, 2013 | 12:04 PM EDT
As Halloween approaches, many people devour scary stories and the annual celebration of fear. But the media doesn't reserve frightening tall tales for October, they promote fear all year long, especially over the dangers of climate change, guns and those who promote free-market capitalism.
Media outlets, along with the left, promote widespread fear of many individuals who disagree with them. The Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute came up with this list of five free-market people or groups the media and the left most commonly targeted with scary reports and remarks in the past year.
Juan Williams Explains It All: 'Massive Opposition' From Republicans Forced Rushed HealthCare.gov Rollout
By Tom Blumer | October 23, 2013 | 1:24 PM EDT Last night on Fox News's Special Report, Juan Williams singlehandedly raised the bar for what qualifies as world-class failure in blame-shifting. Williams excused the mind-boggling incompetence of the Obama administration's HealthCare.gov implementation by claiming that "massive opposition (to Obamacare) from the Republicans" caused fearful system architects to "roll it out and see how it works for now." Gosh, the only thing that remains is for President Obama to say that these poor programmers were "held hostage" by GOP press releases and speeches.
Video and a transcript of the relevant segment follow the jump (HT Twitchy via Hot Air; bolds are mine). Especially note the priceless look on the face of Fox panel member Stephen Hayes at the 1:12 mark of the two-minute vid:
Schultz One-ups Harris-Perry's Detroit Delusion: Motor City's Bankruptcy Is 'Thanks to a Lot of Republican Policies'
By Tom Blumer | July 21, 2013 | 3:04 PM EDT Earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry blamed Detroit's bankruptcy on "government (that) is small enough to drown in your bathtub," and claimed that it reflects “exactly the kind of thing that many Republicans would impose on us.”
Nothing can top that, right? Wrong. MSNBC's Ed Schultz did, by more directly blaming Republicans. With an accompanying graphic containing photos of current Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, former President Ronald Reagan, and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney above the words "Conservative Utopia," Schultz claimed that the city's failure is "thanks to a lot of Republican policies" and "is exactly what the Republicans want." The relevant transcript follows the jump (video is at RealClearPolitics; HT Hot Air; bolds are mine):
By Paul Bremmer | June 14, 2013 | 5:06 PM EDT
Cole Sear from The Sixth Sense sees dead people, and Joe Scarborough, like pretty much everyone else at MSNBC, sees racism. That’s just the way it is. On Friday, the Morning Joe crew was chatting about a recent NRA attack ad against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) when Scarborough took issue with the image of President Obama shown briefly in the ad:
"[P]eople called me up and said, what do you think of, do you think that they may have shaded that ad to make Barack Obama look more ominous and black?"
By Matt Vespa | June 13, 2013 | 4:00 PM EDT
On June 11, Slate editor Emily Bazelon whipped out the Nazi card against Congressman Trent Franks. The media site, which is an affiliate of the Washington Post, unsurprisingly went after the Republican legislator for his remarks about rape on Wednesday concerning a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks into a pregnancy.
Of course, liberals tried to tie these remarks to Todd Akin, who made scientifically inaccurate statements about sexual assault and pregnancy last year. Yet, even some notables on the left are saying Franks is no Akin.
By Paul Bremmer | May 15, 2013 | 5:38 PM EDT
Last night on his PBS talk show, Tavis Smiley sat down for a cozy conversation with Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondent for left-wing magazine The Nation. Scahill was critical of the Obama administration, as well as the journalists who fail to hold him accountable, throughout much of the interview. However, he did let his mask of objectivity slip at a few points, revealing the liberal face underneath.
Scahill was outraged over the administration’s secrecy surrounding its national security operations, particularly drone strikes. Smiley asked him why the administration has not been more forthcoming about its use of drones, and Scahill partially blamed congressional Republicans: