The fact that “no criminal charges” have been filed against Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin on illegal fundraising did not stop MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and guest Amy Walter, former political director of ABC News and national editor of The Cook Political Report, from writing his political obituary on the June 20 edition of The Daily Rundown With Chuck Todd.
“Regardless of where this ends up,” Walter commented, now “Governor Walker equals scandal.” As NewsBuster executive editor Tim Graham noted, this political “scandal” involves Democratic district attorneys purposefully targeting Walker on his campaign fundraising despite repeated court rulings that there was not enough evidence to validate the investigation. But according to Walter, no matter his innocence or guilt, his name is forever tainted with political scandal, a take the Democrat-friendly network is most happy to accept as they Lean Forward into the early stages of the 2016 campaign season. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
Media Diversity
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart is not known for political fairness in its humor. The Comedy Central show proved no different on the June 19 edition, when Stewart chose to compare the child pornography lobby in Japan to the gun rights lobby in America. He deemed that both industries are “harmful” and “destructive” and “take precedence over the protection of children.”
The ridiculous comparison came after Stewart bashed the Washington Redskins for their politically incorrect name. He claimed that it was “hard to think of any other change that is this long overdue” before settling on a new bill in Japan that outlaws the possession of child pornography. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
On the June 19 edition of NewsNation With Tamron Hall, the MSNBCer and Today news desk anchor interviewed Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) on American intervention in Iraq. When Hall asked the congressman what he believed would be the consequences if Maliki refused to meet American demands for reform, Meeks’s answer morphed into a rant against former Vice President Dick Cheney. Meeks snarled, “how dare he come and even raise his ugly head at this time.”
Violent rhetoric is not new for the Democrat facing multiple allegations of fraud and corruption. Just this past March, Meeks displayed a similar lack of tact towards the former veep, stating “Dick Cheney should just keep his mouth shut and stay at home.” These sentiments were mirrored later in Hall’s interview when he snapped “the guy should just go stay retired, take care of his health and just keep his mouth shut.” [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
In a startling display of bipartisan humor, Jon Stewart made fun of both CNN and Fox's over-hyped "exclusive" interviews with Hillary Clinton on the June 18 edition of The Daily Show. Stewart noted how CNN ridiculously took the time to set the stage and “introduce the chairs” before the interview.
In a later bit, the Comedy Central host played a montage of all the times Hillary promoted the title of her book Hard Choices by cleverly weaving it into her answers to her interviewers. [See video below]
On June 17, John Stewart invited Daniel Schulman, senior editor of left-wing Mother Jones magazine, onto The Daily Show to discuss his newest book, Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty. The liberal Comedy Central host couldn’t end the interview without making his own political opinion of the famous libertarian donors clear, stating, “it is almost at its core, its such an elitist view but portrayed as a freedom agenda.”
Schulman, who is pitching his book as nonideological on the book tour circuit agreed that since the brothers “have not experienced a single solitary moment of financial insecurity in their lives” they are “the worst poster boys” for debates on say the minimum wage or welfare reform. (See video below. Click here for MP3 audio)
CBS This Morning was the only broadcast network news show that covered the latest discovery in the IRS scandal on the morning of June 18. Meanwhile, all three networks devoted at least two minutes to report on Dr. Oz’s appearance before the Senate’s Consumer Protection Committee to discuss the unconsented use of his image to endorse diet products online.
While CBS devoted only 30 seconds to the revelation that the emails of six more IRS employees have been reported lost, the network spent 2 minutes and 32 seconds describing how the celebrity doctor was berated by Democratic Senators for peddling diet products on his show that may not actually work. (See video below. Click here for MP3 audio)
MSNBC The Cycle co-host Krystal Ball enjoyed an extra hour with which to bash Republicans and puff the Obama administration today as she filled in on the 1 p.m. Eastern Ronan Farrow Daily program. Ball questioned whether breaking news of the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, a terrorist wanted for organizing the Benghazi attacks, would “take away a sort of key talking point for Republicans.”
The failed congressional candidate invited Howard Fineman, of the Huffington Post, and Robert Costa of The Washington Post on to Farrow’s program to discuss Republican reaction to the news of the capture. Ball then proceeded to ask if why Republicans “have a huge problem with using our own justice system to go forward and prosecute terrorists,” and are “expressing a lack of confidence in our normal [civilian] justice system.” [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
Ed Schultz, never one to be left behind in radical left wing rhetoric, followed suit with the rest of MSNBC in condemning an intervention in Iraq on the June 16 edition of The Ed Show. Within the first 10 minutes, he had already blamed Republicans for using “dirty scare tactics,” claimed that they were calling for “troops on the ground,” and asked viewers to text in their answers to the utterly ridiculous poll, “are you prepared to send your kid to Iraq?”
Speaking of fear mongering. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
Bill Maher and his guest MSNBC’s Krystal Ball spent the June 13 edition of Real Time With Bill Maher whining that conservatives and liberals are physically and culturally separating themselves in deep red pockets of the country while these “polarizing extremes” lead to political “gridlock” that keep moderates from voting. If they voted, the liberal talk show hosts – who live in the vaunted purple battlegrounds of New York City and Los Angeles, respectively – agreed, “this country would look so different.”
Not to be outdone in left-wing rhetoric, Maher claimed, “Let’s be honest, the only way the Republicans win is they cheat.” [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
Even MSNBC journalists are unable to ignore Hillary Clinton stumbles after unveiling her new memoir Hard Choices last week. On the June 16 edition of Morning Joe, the liberal pundit Donny Deutsch described the first week of her book tour as a “disaster,” and an indication that the American public may be feeling “Hillary fatigue,” quite surprising coming from a network that inaugurated a new book club with Hillary’s memoir first on the reading list.
Former Republican congressman and Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough questioned why Hillary was unable to “stay on message” and deflect any hardball questions. According to Scarborough, Hillary was “selling a book," not “running for president” and should have been able to stay “on message” and avoid scraps with liberal media outlets like NPR. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
From time to time, we at NewsBusters like to highlight things the media actually do right, and so, on this Flag Day, we tip our hats to the CBS Evening News, which two days ago closed its newscasts with a story on the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key's writing of the “Star-Spangled Banner."
Reporter Jim Axelrod narrated a fitting tribute to the “flag and song together, forming the fabric of a nation's identity.” Particularly moving was how R&B singer Brian McKnight, who has performed the anthem at sporting events, spoke about how you cannot properly perform the song publicly unless you appreciate all that it -- and by extension Old Glory -- represents over all these years. [See video below page break]
The panelists of MSNBC’s Morning Joe got a little more than they were bargaining for when they brought Sen. John McCain on their June 13 program.
With the Arizona Republican making the case that the Obama administration was leaving Iraq in a hostile situation in which all of America’s past sacrifices “will have been made in vain,” both host Mika Brzezinksi and Sam Stein of the Huffington Post went above in their efforts to defend Obama’s decision to pull out of Iraq completely.[See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]