State of the Union

SNL Rips Dems: 'Martha Coakley Couldn't Beat Dick Cheney for Mayor of Berkeley'
By Noel Sheppard | January 31, 2010 | 10:15 AM EST

Last evening, NBC's "Saturday Night Live" marvelously mocked President Obama's recent State of the Union address.

In the opening sketch, Fred Armisen as Obama began by talking about last Tuesday's surprising victory in the Massachusetts special senatorial election.

"Our nominee Martha Coakley was the single most incompetent candidate ever to seek public office in this nation's history," said Armisen to thunderous applause.

"Martha Coakley, you are a disgrace," he continued. "You couldn't beat Dick Cheney for mayor of Berkeley" (video embedded below the fold):

'Bones' Pushes Prime Time Propaganda on 'Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell'
By Matt Philbin | January 29, 2010 | 1:55 PM EST

Maybe it’s just happy coincidence. Maybe Hollywood really is taking White House suggestions for its scripts. Or maybe liberal group think has evolved to the point where they don’t just think the same things, they think them at the same time.

Whatever the case, just a day after President Obama’s “surprise announcement” in his State of the Union speech that he intends to overturn the military’s “Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell” policy, the issue surfaced again in prime time. And the inclusion of propaganda in a TV drama was even more incongruous and gratuitous than Obama’s sop to his left wing.

The Jan. 28 episode of Fox’s forensics-based crime drama, “Bones,” centered on the murder of a gay man, and the writers took the opportunity to inject some standard talking points about the inequity of gays being unable to marry and the threat of physical violence from straight men.
Paranoid Much? Robert Reich Imagines that Fox News Was Around in 1994
By Tom Blumer | January 29, 2010 | 11:56 AM EST

RobertReich2009Robert Reich must have nightmares about Fox News. Shoot, he must have triple locks on his doors and sleep under his bed out of fear that Roger Ailes will come and take him away.

In a Monday column at Salon.com ("Is the President Panicking?"), Reich excoriated President Obama's proposed discretionary spending "freeze" -- a "freeze" that NewsBuster Julia Seymour noted fails to offset the spending proposals Obama brought up in his State of the Union speech -- for "invok(ing) memories of (Bill) Clinton's shift to the right in 1994," especially because "it could doom the recovery."

That was absurd enough, but in the process of recounting his fevered view of 1990s history, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of Labor threw in this whopper, revealing that for Reich, as Buffalo Springfield told us so many years ago in their 1960s hit song "For What It's Worth," paranoia really does strike deep:

In December 1994, Bill Clinton proposed a so-called middle-class bill of rights including more tax credits for families with children, expanded retirement accounts, and tax-deductible college tuition. Clinton had lost his battle for healthcare reform. Even worse, by that time the Dems had lost the House and Senate. Washington was riding a huge anti-incumbent wave. Right-wing populists were the ascendancy, with Newt Gingrich and Fox News leading the charge. Bill Clinton thought it desperately important to assure Americans he was on their side.

There's one "little" problem:

Washington Post Gives Obama Great Grades for Promises 'In Progress'
By Amy Menefee Payne | January 28, 2010 | 5:11 PM EST

The Washington Post launched an interactive page this week to profile President Obama's record on his campaign promises after one year in office. The Post put promises into three categories: "To Do," "In Progress" and "Completed."

Based on the president's record, most people would be surprised to learn the Post put most of the promises in the "In Progress" category -- and didn't even include a "Broken Promises" category. Many recent promises made as president would belong in that category. 

"In Progress" according to the Post includes "reversing" the Bush tax cuts, while the "To Do" list includes "enact a windfall profits tax" on oil companies. 

James Valvo, government affairs manager for Americans for Prosperity, offers the following additions to the Post's analysis:

CNN's Liberal Panelists Run to Obama's Defense on Supreme Court Rebuke
By Matthew Balan | January 28, 2010 | 5:02 PM EST
During CNN’s post-State of Union coverage on Wednesday night, three  liberal commentators- Paul Begala, James Carville, and Roland Martin- put up an energetic defense of President Obama’s rebuke of the Supreme Court during the address. Begala and Carville took issue with Republican panelist Alex Castellanos’s reproof of the President, while Martin rebuked Justice Samuel Alito’s reaction.

Anchor Wolf Blitzer played a clip of the relevant portion of the President’s speech, where Mr. Obama condemned the Court for its recent decision on campaign finance regulations, and highlighted how Justice Alito shook his head and mouthed “not true” in response. Blitzer then turned to the panel for its take on the moment. His fellow anchor Campbell Brown, who was moderating the panel, first questioned Castellanos on Alito’s reaction: “Was that appropriate, Alex Castellanos, to have that kind of reaction from Alito when he said that?”
Forget Sham Spending 'Freeze,' Obama's SOTU Proposals Would Cost $70.5 Billion
By Julia A. Seymour | January 28, 2010 | 3:37 PM EST

NTU logoPresident Barack Obama's plan to "freeze" a tiny portion of the federal budget hit Washington with a "thud" Jan. 26.

Conservatives argued that the spending freeze Obama would highlight in his State of the Union address Jan. 27 wasn't enough. Liberals, including New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called it "appalling on every level."

Krugman denounced the plan as "bad long-run fiscal policy." Of course, this is the same columnist who argued for a much larger stimulus package than the $787 billion one that was signed into law.

After Obama's State of the Union address the spending freeze seemed all but forgotten - and no wonder since the speech was full of proposals to spend, spend, spend.

The National Taxpayers Union Foundation, part of a non-profit citizen's group that works for lower taxes and smaller government, analyzed all those proposals and found that despite the so-called spending freeze Obama's proposals would cost more than $70 billion.

Establishment Media Negligence in '08 Campaign Enables Obama Foreign Campaign Contribution Chutzpah
By Tom Blumer | January 28, 2010 | 3:24 PM EST
ObamaSOTUIn his State of the Union address last night, President Barack Obama had this to say about the Supreme Court's recent ruling on campaign finance:
With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections. I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people.

Brad Smith at National Review Online has already delivered the definitive debunking of the president's statement, while offering two choices as to what that statement represents. Whichever it is (I pick "demagoguery"), the fact that Obama could even have the nerve to make such a statement exemplifies how establishment media-enabled negligence enables over-the-top political chutzpah.

Here is Smith's response: 

Today Show Skips Any Mention of Bob McDonnell’s GOP Response to State of the Union
By Scott Whitlock | January 28, 2010 | 12:36 PM EST

Of the three morning shows on Thursday, only NBC’s Today show skipped any mention of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s Republican response to the President’s State of the Union address. Both ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’s Early Show gave McDonnell’s rebuttal at least minor attention.

On the Early Show, Chip Reid explained, "Virginia's newly inaugurated governor Bob McDonnell gave the Republican response. He echoed the sentiment of many in his party who believe big government is not the solution." Reid then featured a clip of McDonnell calling for limited government.

ABC co-host George Stephanopoulos only referenced McDonnell as an intro to a question for former Governor Mitt Romney: "Jobs. That's the President's number one priority. In the Republican response last night, Governor McDonnell said the same thing."

McCain Said 'Blame It On Bush' When Obama Claimed He Inherited Deficit
By Noel Sheppard | January 28, 2010 | 10:50 AM EST

CRITICAL UPDATE AT END OF POST: Obama praised the 2009 budget when the Senate passed it!

After President Obama told the nation during Wednesday's State of the Union address that he inherited the huge budget deficits befronting the country, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) turned to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and said, "Blame it on Bush."

In reality, this was one of many Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) moments last night as the President once again played fast and loose with the facts in a nationally televised address.

Sadly, media are deeply at fault here, for if they wouldn't allow the White House to repeatedly blame the nation's current fiscal problems on the previous Administration, Obama would be forced to be more truthful. As NewsBusters has regularly shown, America's so-called journalists have been aiding and abetting these falsehoods for quite some time.

But before we get there, here's what Obama said last night (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript includes McCain saying "Blame it on Bush," file photo):

Olbermann Touts Man Who Created 50 Green Jobs with $99 Million Stimulus Cash
By Julia A. Seymour | January 28, 2010 | 10:29 AM EST

Keith Olbermann should keep a calculator on hand during his broadcasts. If he'd had one, the liberal MSNBC host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" could have run the numbers on Jan. 27 following the State of the Union address.

Olbermann was recapping President Obama's speech and told viewers: "Among those seated with the first lady in the visitor's gallery ... a man from Arizona whose company received $99 million from the stimulus and used it to create at least 50 permanent clean energy jobs."

ABC’s Terry Moran Laughs at George Will’s Critique of Obama
By Brent Baker | January 28, 2010 | 8:40 AM EST
Nightline anchor Terry Moran started laughing Wednesday night just as George Will finished his critique of President Obama’s State of the U
Couric on Obama: 'Better at Making Us Smarter than Making Us Angry,' 83% Back Obama
By Brent Baker | January 28, 2010 | 1:00 AM EST

Following President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, on CBS Katie Couric revealed her reading interests as she endorsed the take on Obama from a liberal New York Times columnist: “Well, as Tom Friedman said, 'he's better at making us smarter than making us angry.'” (Friedman's actual assertion in his January 27 column: “He is so much better at making us smarter than angrier.”)

Then, after the Republican response, Anthony Mason recited as relevant the very skewed findings of a CBS News/Knowledge Networks online poll only of those who watched Obama, nonetheless touting how 83 percent approve of Obama's “proposals made in his speech,” with disapproval from a piddling 17 percent. As evidence Obama “may have made up sound ground” with the public, Mason juxtaposed how for “shares your priorities for the country” Obama jumped to 70 percent for viewers of his speech compared to the 57 percent determined in an earlier national survey. (The online posting contends both numbers are just for those who watched.)