On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, the Shields and Brooks week-in-review segment began with mutual sensitivity about the Ferguson situation – the word or concept of riots never quite emerged.
But what was really surprising was liberal Mark Shields unloading on the Obama White House over the dumping of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, which anchor Judy Woodruff tried to soft-pedal as Hagel “steps down.”
NPR and PBS have finally touched the Gruber brouhaha, but neither showed any enthusiasm for it. On Sunday morning’s Weekend Edition, anchor Rachel Martin and reporter Mara Liasson dismissed it in 59 seconds.
On the PBS NewsHour Monday, anchor Judy Woodruff brought in two liberal journalists to discuss Gruber, but first Woodruff asked six questions about how open enrollment was going.
PBS NewsHour seemed upset at Leon Panetta's apparently questionable loyalties to Democrats from the beginning of her interview segment on Thursday. She incorrectly stated that Panetta served as "President Reagan's chief of staff." She meant President Clinton.
She scolded Panetta (and other Obama administration officials) for daring to write memoirs before Obama concludes his presidency, wondering why they couldn't be loyal:
Like the other networks, the PBS NewsHour has been very slow to offer any stories or interviews to the midterm elections. In October, the closest thing to a candidate interview was a chat with Rep. Paul Ryan on October 1. On Tuesday, anchor Judy Woodruff promoted liberal Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a potential presidential candidate if you listen to the pundits -- but she's not on the ballot this year.
Woodruff was two weeks late to the party relaying Gillibrand’s claims that she was “harassed” by other Senators who made remarks about her appearance. However, Woodruff asked something rare. Reporters always underline Republicans have trouble with women voters, but who asks Democrats about their problems with men?
Look no further for an example of why police in Ferguson, Mo., don't trust the media.
USA Today reporter Yamiche Alcindor appeared on MSNBC shortly before midnight on Aug. 18 for an interview with Rachel Maddow on the chaotic situation in Ferguson since the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old black man by a white police officer two weeks ago. (Video after the jump)
A common theme among liberal journalists is to blame a “do-nothing Congress” when liberal policies fail to become law. Such was the case during a panel discussion on Sunday’s Meet the Press when moderator David Gregory and his entire panel lamented the lack of legislative action on Capitol Hill, mainly in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Gregory summed up the panel’s sentiment when he bemoaned how “until the incentives are changed, a desire for some compromise or even meeting challenges that Americans want dealt with, will not get done. Because nobody will give the other side even a small win in this climate.” [See video below.]
On Thursday night's PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff interviewed Donna Zaccaro, who has made a new documentary about her mother, Geraldine Ferraro and her historic nomination for vice president in July of 1984. Like Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra, Zaccaro was a longtime producer for NBC News before becoming a filmmaker.
In a film clip, NPR’s Cokie Roberts gushes about the moment at the convention with Ferraro, “Standing up there all in white, looking like this tiny little figure, but looking beautiful and looking female.” Woodruff added she was there, too, and “I remember. It was a special moment for women in — no matter who you were, what party you were in.” But Zaccaro thought Sarah Palin’s nomination in 2008 wasn't a bipartisan moment. It meant nothing:
In the Friday PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff lamented the current impasse in Washington: "I don’t know what else to call it, war between congressional Republicans and the president."
She sounded shocked that Speaker John Boehner filed suit to protest the president's constant end-runs around Congress and legislating from the White House on Obamacare, immigration, and other issues. Shields called the suit "absolutely bogus" and compared it to impeaching Bill Clinton in 1998:
On Thursday’s NewsHour, PBS ran a full-length segment on the new special committee created by House Republicans to investigate the September 2012 Benghazi attacks. However, anchor Judy Woodruff and her guest, Robert Costa from The Washington Post -- formerly of the National Review -- pushed the idea that Republicans are exploiting the tragedy by fundraising off of it. The thing is, the network didn’t seem to care back in 2012 when President Obama gave a brief Rose Garden statement after the attacks and then dashed off to Las Vegas for a campaign fundraiser.
Woodruff brought up the issue of fundraising near the end of the interview:
On Monday’s PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff sat down for a conversation with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and she tried to get the amiable, elderly jurist to criticize his more conservative former colleagues. Stevens, to his credit, didn’t take the bait.
The interview focused on Stevens’ new book about six amendments he would like to see added to the Constitution. Near the end of the discussion, Woodruff sought to make waves by getting Stevens to charge conservatives on the court with a partisan agenda:
While HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius was getting a polite shove out the door, PBS NewsHour analyst Mark Shields offered a note of disclosure: “Well, first of all, let me just admit up front, Kathleen Sebelius has been a personal friend. For 46 years, I have known her.” He even oddly said she “stepped up manfully, to use a bad adverb” in taking the blame for Obamacare.
But Shields and his usual echo-chamber David Brooks disagreed. Brooks said she wasn’t a “dynamo” at HHS, which caused Shields to start touting her. Anchor Judy Woodruff had gently asked, like a good feminist, “What’s her legacy?”
Barack Obama has taken a few soft-soap interviews on the PBS NewsHour, so anchor Judy Woodruff didn't want to say he was sell Obamacare in less than dignified forums -- like prank interviews with the schlub from "The Hangover" movies.
Pseudoconservative analyst David Brooks and liberal Mark Shields typically agreed that Obama has oodles of dignity and cannot be mocked. Brooks said only if Obama's riding "with Miley Cyrus on the wrecking ball" -- where she rode naked in a video -- would it be "going a little too far." That's hardly a visual you'd expect from PBS: