Ezra Klein

WaPo's Ezra Klein Pulls Out Tired 'Bush Tax Cuts Cost Us Trillions' Graph
By Tom Blumer | August 30, 2012 | 8:35 AM EDT

Ezra Klein, the "former" head of the Journolist news coordination conspiracy (given the evidence of coordination seen during the Republican convention, it's hard to believe it hasn't continued in some form), rolled out a graphic yesterday at the Washington Post which he touted as "the one graph you need to see before watching" the Republican convention.

To show would be to give it more attention than it deserves. Its core contention, delivered via the lefty-driven Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is that "Tax Cuts, Wars Account For Nearly Half of Public Debt by 2019." They could have changed the title to "we're going to blame Bush for eight more years." Some of Klein's clanking follows the jump; I'll deal with the "Blame Bush's tax cuts" mantra after that (the "wars" claim has been addressed several times before, and is just as dumb):

Chris Matthews Slams Paul Ryan Budget as 'Screwing' Needy People
By Brad Wilmouth | August 11, 2012 | 8:45 PM EDT

On a special Saturday edition of Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews twice claimed that Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's budget "screws" needy people. During a segment with Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen, as he asked what it was like to work with Rep. Ryan as his colleague, the MSNBC host asserted that the plan "really screws the people who desperately need Medicare and programs like that."

NBC Desperately Scrambles to Claim Romney Told Olympians 'You Didn't Build That'
By Kyle Drennen | July 24, 2012 | 1:34 PM EDT

In an article for NBCNews.com's First Read on Monday, Domenico Montanaro eagerly proclaimed to readers: "Mitt Romney has criticized President Obama for his 'you didn't build that' line, when it came to businesses....But in 2002, during his speech at the Opening Ceremonies at the Winter Olympics....Romney made a similar argument about Olympians."

Romney simply told the Olympic athletes – many in their teens and twenties – that they achieved their individual success with help of parents, coaches, and their local communities. However, by Monday night, The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, filling in for MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, wildly misconstrued the comment to slam Romney: "Got that, Olympians? You didn't build it....It's like David Axelrod went back in time and put the precise words he needed into Mitt Romney's mouth."

WashPost's Ezra Klein Laments a 'Radical and Discredited' Constitutional Theory Could Doom ObamaCare
By Ken Shepherd | June 26, 2012 | 11:47 AM EDT

I will give this to Ezra Klein: unlike other liberals in the media -- Michael Tomasky and James Fallows come to mind -- the Washington Post economic and domestic policy columnist is decidedly less histrionic about the Court likely striking down as unconstitutional the ObamaCare "individual mandate" on Thursday. But all the same, Klein is seeking to dismiss the intellectual and legal credibility of the Court's ruling should a majority rule on Thursday that the individual mandate violates the Constitution's limits on federal power.

In a June 26 column, Klein sought to explain how "a radical and discredited reading of the commerce clause" came to be popular with American voters and palatable to a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court, all thanks to conservatives erecting a "permission structure" that overrode previous conservative backing for the idea of a health-care mandate.

Ezra Klein Describes Soros-Funded Brennan Center as 'Non Partisan'
By Jack Coleman | June 15, 2012 | 5:00 PM EDT

Whenever a liberal labels an organization "non partisan," consider yourself duly alerted that it is nothing of the kind.

Here is what said liberal is actually saying if he or she could stomach the candor -- This is an organization that shares my views. I call it "non partisan" in a feeble attempt to provide legitimacy it would otherwise not possess. (video after page break)

Chris Hayes Equates Gingrich Worker Committing Voter Fraud With 70 ACORN Convictions For It
By Jack Coleman | December 31, 2011 | 7:22 PM EST

Not just fuzzy math, shabby too.

Chris Hayes, guest hosting on "The Rachel Maddow Show" Thursday, opened a segment with the words, "From the Department of Shameless Schadenfraude." Department of Feeble Attempts at Moral Equivalence would be more accurate. (video after page break)

America the Generous? Not According to the Media
By Paul Wilson | December 21, 2011 | 1:17 PM EST

The media and liberals tend to portray Americans as selfish Scrooges, only interested in their own gain - why else would taxes be unpopular? But America has shown its generosity time and again, and this Christmas season, new proof of it has emerged. A report from the Charities Aid Foundation America, the World Giving Index 2011, finds that the United States is the most generous country in the world.

The World Giving Index 2011 measures generosity on three levels: giving money as a percentage of income, giving time, and helping strangers. Only the United States ranked in the top 10 nations of the world in each category. Charities Aid Foundation director Richard Harrison praised American charitable giving: "This research confirms that when we look at giving in a rounded way, including the extent to which we volunteer and help strangers, America is the most generous country in the world. America is the only country that ranks in the top ten globally on each of these three perspectives, and this first place ranking should be seen as source of real pride for people across America."

The Best Notable Quotables of 2011: Battle of Our Readers vs. Media Experts
By Rich Noyes | December 20, 2011 | 8:55 AM EST

It's always interesting to see how the several thousand readers who voted in the MRC's "public ballot" differed from the 48 media experts who selected our Best Notable Quotables of 2011 (a panel which included talk radio hosts Mark Levin and Neal Boortz, Human Events editor-in-chief Tom Winter and Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby). This year, there were six categories where our readers and the judges disagreed -- although sometimes the margins were extremely close.

Let's start with the biggest disagreement, in the "Media Millionaires for Higher Taxes Award." By a healthy margin (68 to 53), our judges chose an April 17 quote from CBS's Bob Schieffer, as he was questioning Rep. Paul Ryan on Face the Nation: "Why do these rich people need another tax cut? I mean, they’re already rich....Why cut their taxes some more?"

WaPo's Ezra Klein Briefed Senate Democrat Staffers About Super Committee
By Noel Sheppard | November 24, 2011 | 5:14 PM EST

Washington Post columnist and JournoList creator Ezra Klein actually briefed a group of Senate Democrat chiefs of staff last Friday about the Super Committee.

Fishbowl DC reported Wednesday:

Occupy 15th Street: The Washington Post Anti-Business Section
By Tim Graham | October 10, 2011 | 8:51 AM EDT

Leftist media critics resent that newspapers have a "Business" section or that PBS used to show "Wall Street Week," as if reporting on business automatically means you're pro-business. The Washington Post on Sunday seemed to be working overtime to publish an Anti-Business section, with two columns endorsing the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, an enormous article by liberal Post wunderkind Ezra Klein on how the Obama "stimulus" was too tiny, and a whole page devoted to the Bloomberg expose of the Koch brothers' shenanigans in Iran.

Steven Pearlstein wrote a column on how "Obama can learn from Wall St. protest." Michelle Singletary's column was titled "Rage, rage against Wall St." and compared the protesters to Rosa Parks fighting racism on the bus.

MSNBC Raises Fears of Looming Govt. Shutdown, Blames Conservatives for 'Hostage-taking'
By Ken Shepherd | September 22, 2011 | 12:41 PM EDT

A new poll is out showing a majority of Americans blame Barack Obama for the poor state of the U.S. economy.

It's no surprise, then, that MSNBC is hard at work trying to turn the public's fire on GOP-run House.

WaPo's Ezra Klein: Reagan 'Would Have Been Destroyed' at Debate
By Tim Graham | September 8, 2011 | 3:03 PM EDT

If there is a standard liberal line on Ronald Reagan today, it is this bizarre notion that Reagan is so far left of the current Republican contenders that they'd rip him to pieces if he were alive.

Today's case in point: Washington Post columnist/blogger Ezra Klein insists Reagan "would have been destroyed" on the stage last night, since he had such a deep pragmatic streak as president. Yes, that's the same president the media often portrayed during his two terms as an ultra-conservative nut. (Not so much Ezra Klein, who was born in 1984.)