Double Standards

Moderators at CNBC, Which 'Graded' Debaters' Speech Patterns, Scored At or Below Every GOP Candidate
By Tom Blumer | October 30, 2015 | 9:34 PM EDT

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. And people who ridicule the level of others' speech patterns should check theirs first.

CNBC didn't do that. Instead, on Thursday, as I noted in a previous NewsBusters post, it childishly rushed out a grade-level evaluation of the Republican presidential candidates' speech patterns during the first three debates, including the Wednesday train wreck it rudely hosted, and created a graphic with the title, "Are you smarter than a GOP candidate?" Payback is sweet (bolds are mine):

Morning Joe: Carson a Leader, Right about the Need to Reform Debate
By Michael McKinney | October 30, 2015 | 12:01 PM EDT

Friday's Morning Joe featured a discussion by the roundtable on the subject of the debates and the fairness needed for them. While Newsbusters previously discussed Morning Joe's discussion on the bias of moderators, Morning Joe also discussed their surprise and support of Dr. Ben Carson, who has come out leading the change to reform these debates.

CNBC Rates Grade Level of GOP Candidates' Speech Patterns; Childish Moderators Not Taken Into Account
By Tom Blumer | October 29, 2015 | 3:50 PM EDT

It would appear that CNBC isn't going to take the criticism of its debate panelists' awful conduct last night lying down.

In what appears to be an all too predictable immature response to the dressing-downs several Republican presidential candidates administered to certain of their moderators as a result of their juvenile behavior and insulting questions — particularly John Harwood and Carl Quintillana — the network has rushed out ratings of the top ten GOP candidates' speech patterns during the first three debates, with an obvious undertone: Ignore these candidates; they're just a bunch of dummies.

AP Reporter: It's 'Media's Job' to Act As CNBC Panel Did in GOP Debate
By Tom Blumer | October 29, 2015 | 2:37 AM EDT

Wednesday night, an Associated Press reporter told us that it's the press's job to ask "tough, impertinent" questions like the ones moderators at Wednesday night's CNBC-hosted Republican debate were asking.

Ken Dilanian, who is apparently the AP's Intelligence Writer — seriously — really needs to consult a dictionary before he makes such a complete fool of himself. Here is what Dilanian tweeted at 10:32 p.m.:

NYT: Smart Liberals Love Complexity, Simplistic 'Conservatives Prefer Certainty and Clarity'
By Clay Waters | October 28, 2015 | 10:01 PM EDT

Wednesday's New York Times featured "Ted Cruz as Beowulf: Matching Candidates With Books They Sound Like," in which the Times measured the candidates’ debate rhetoric by complexity and eagerly forwarded some unchallenged stereotypes of "simplistic" conservatives: "'Trump has the language of the board room, the language of entertainment,' [professor Sharon] Jarvis said. 'He really speaks to the conservative base who would prefer not to hear complex arguments.'"

Sen. Ted Cruz Takes CNBC Debate Panelists to Task for Bias
By Ken Shepherd | October 28, 2015 | 9:07 PM EDT

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took CNBC debate panelists to task for their liberal bias: “The questions that have been asked so far at this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media....The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every thought and question from the media was, which of you is more handsome and why?...And nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators has any intention of voting in a Republican primary.”

AP's Crutsinger: 3rd Quarter Economy Was 'Subpar,' But Future 'Outlook Brightens'
By Tom Blumer | October 28, 2015 | 8:31 PM EDT

Preparing the battlespace for tomorrow's report from the government on third-quarter Gross Domestic Product growth, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger early this afternoon told readers that we're likely to see "a subpar pace by any standard."

But we shouldn't worry, because the AP reporter contends that tomorrow's news will just be a temporary trough in this year's "dizzying roller coaster ride," and that the fourth quarter will once again bring the economy up to acceptable heights. To make his claim, Crutsinger naturally ignored myriad warning signs that a serious slowdown may be on the horizon. A decade ago, he was hyping other far less serious factors as evidence that the economy would be lucky to avoid a recession.

Why Does the Media Hate (Poor) People Having Cheap Food?
By Seton Motley | October 28, 2015 | 12:48 PM EDT

The media are, of course, almost uniformly Leftist - which means they just about always toe the Party line.  Including the belief that in order to help the poor - government must perpetually grow.  Of course we conservatives also want to help the poor - we just think shrinking government is the way to actually do it.

When things get more expensive - the poor get hammered hardest.  But the media misses the obvious - the more government there is, the more things cost.  It is axiomatic - in (at least) two ways. 

Journalists vs. the 'Far Right,' 'Hardline' and 'Ultra-Conservative' House GOP
By Rich Noyes | October 28, 2015 | 10:05 AM EDT

Over the past four weeks, as the broadcast networks have covered the House leadership contest, reporters have gone out of their way to relentlessly paint House Republicans, especially the Freedom Caucus, as ideologues who are outside the American political mainstream.

From September 25 to October 23, MRC analysts reviewed all 82 ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news stories about John Boehner’s resignation as House Speaker and the race to succeed him. The coverage included a whopping 106 ideological labels of Republicans, including 35 casting conservatives as extreme: “far right,” “hardline,” “very conservative” or “ultra-conservative.”

'Irrelevant Clackery of the Clacking Class': Nicolle Wallace Slams Politico 'Cheap Shot' at Jeb
By Mark Finkelstein | October 28, 2015 | 8:32 AM EDT

Whatever Nicolle Wallace had for breakfast this morning, Jeb should down a double order . . . On today's Morning Joe, former Bush communications chief Wallace slammed a Politico story in which former McCain staffers rejected parallels between Jeb's campaign and that of McCain, who came back from the political wilderness to win the nomination in 2008.

Calling the story a "cheap shot," "low blow" and "irrelevant clackery of the clacking class," Wallace repeatedly pointed out that the sources for the story were McCain staffers now working for other candidates in the current GOP race.  Such folks would obviously have a vested interest in scotching the notion of a Jeb comeback.  

Matthews Mocks Rubio: 'Little Mr. Firecracker of the Bombs-Away Set'
By Mark Finkelstein | October 26, 2015 | 9:12 PM EDT

Can you imagine if in 2007 some conservative had dared call Barack Obama the "Little Mister" of anything?  The cries of racism would be ringing to this day.

But on his MSNBC show this evening, Chris Matthews didn't hesitate to denigrate Marco Rubio as "the little Mister Firecracker of the bombs-away set."  For good measure, Matthews claimed that "Cruz hates as well as any Republican in modern history."

Jeffrey Toobin Trashes Jim Jordan as ‘the Worst,’ ‘Most Unprofessional,’ ‘Most Misleading’ in Benghazi Hearing
By Curtis Houck | October 23, 2015 | 1:01 PM EDT

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin trashed Republican Congressman Jim Jordan (Ohio) during Thursday’s Anderson Cooper 360 for being “the worst” in his questioning of Hillary Clinton and acting “unprofessional,” “misleading,” and “demeaning.” Reacting to Jordan speaking with CNN’s Dana Bash moments beforehand, Toobin began his diatribe by whining that the conservative member of Congress “was clearly the worst, the most unprofessional, the most misleading, the most really demeaning to the Congress in terms of his questioning.”