President Obama apparently has 18.5 million Facebook friends which not surprisingly is far more than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
When the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman told his liberal colleagues on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" what a potential advantage this gives the current White House resident, there was much rejoicing (video follows with transcript and commentary):
The BBC's Katty Kay might think Sarah Palin's reality show is a flop, but The Learning Channel is rumored to be talking to the former governor to get her to do a second season.
The gossip website Popeater reported Tuesday:
Chris Matthews on the syndicated program bearing his name devoted an entire segment this weekend to attacking Sarah Palin.
To assist him in the attacks, the host of "The Chris Matthews Show" brought on Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post, the BBC's Katty Kay, Joe Klein of Time magazine, and NBC's Norah O'Donnell (video follows with transcript and commentary):
In a Wednesday interview on BBC World News America, liberal FCC Commissioner Michael Copps told correspondent Katty Kay: "I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now....we are going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions about the future direction of their country."
As TVNewser reported on Thursday, after Kay asked about instituting a "Public Value Test" of media outlets, Copps replied: "What we've had in recent years is an aberration where we have had no oversight of the media. For years and years we had some public interest guidelines...they agreed to serve the public interest and that public interest to me right now is crying 'news and information, news and information, news and information.'"
Appearing as a panel member on Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews Show, the BBC’s Katty Kay suggested that Tea Partiers are willing to go against the "country’s interest" rather than to "deal" with President Obama. Kay: " And if there is going to be a wing of the Republican Party that says, do not on any issue, on any case, even on its merits, compromise with the President, it’s gonna be the Tea Party. And if the Tea Party is driving the energy in the Republican Party ... Republicans in Congress are going to have to look very carefully at how they deal with them. And the Tea Party is saying we don’t care about whether it’s in the country’s interest, in our foreign policy interest, in our economic interest necessarily to deal with the President."
A bit later, as she speculated about whether obstruction by the GOP would be rewarded or punished in 2012, she seemed to suggest that "competence" would involve compromising with President Obama as she used the word as the alternative to standing on "principle" and opposing Obama. Kay: "I think this is the biggest point that, I mean, the point that Dan raises about in 2012. Will voters more reward competence and actions that have been seen to be effective for the country? Or will they reward politicians who stood on principle and oppose the White House expansionist agenda, as they see it?"
On Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews Show, panel member Katty Kay of the BBC claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney had convinced 70 percent of Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, and that he "hoodwinked the American public." Kay’s accusation came as host Matthews had turned the discussion to the topic of how President Obama might have handled the response to the 9/11 attacks differently than President Bush.
Bob Woodward of the Washington Post asserted that "there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq until we invaded, and then they came." But, as previously documented by NewsBusters, before the 2003 invasion, varous news sources - some American, some from other countries - were already citing the governments of several countries as they reported that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq, not only was already in Iraq plotting attacks against targets in Europe, but that he already had an association with Osama bin Laden and had spent time in Afghanistan.
Kay then chimed in, as she suggested that Cheney had convinced most Americans that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, although she seemed to mistakenly use the word "Iraq" instead of "9/11." Kay: "But the, sort of, political ‘extraordinaryness’ of the Bush administration was that Cheney managed to convince 70 percent of American people that Iraq was, that Saddam Hussein was directly behind Iraq and hoodwinked the American public."
Matthews responded: "In the polling, you’re right, it’s in the polling."
Dan Rather this weekend smacked down the entire panel of the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" over the press hyping Pastor Terry Jones's threats to burn Korans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.
"Media in general bear some responsibility here by running so hard with this story so early and putting such comments as you just said not only on the air, but high on the air, giving it play," Rather said.
When everyone on the set - including Matthews, Katty Kay of the BBC, Andrea Mitchell of NBC, and David Ignatius of the Washington Post - disagreed with him, Rather pushed back, "We do have a responsibility, however you want to describe us, as gatekeepers."
He continued, "We could do a better job of putting it in perspective, putting it into context" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
On Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews Show, after host Matthews asked if electing a President whose middle name was "Hussein" had "opened a door to better relations with the Arab and Islamic world. Or has it opened a door to more xenophobic American negativity?" the panel mostly agreed that Obama’s election was more of a "net plus" for America’s relations with the world's Muslim population. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius had a dissenting view that "President Obama raised expectations that there would be a different kind of America. That in itself could be dangerous."
After former CBS News anchor Dan Rather argued that "I think it's opened the door to both, but, on balance, and in the main, it's still a net plus in terms of the country's reputation," the BBC’s Katty Kay agreed and implicated President Bush in damaging America’s relations with the Muslim world. Kay: "I agree that it's a net plus, particularly when you compare it with what came before and the invasion of Iraq and how much of a problem that was for America's relations with the Middle East."
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell concurred: "I agree because after the invasion of Iraq and with this President and his multicultural background, it is a net plus."
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius then weighed in with a more pessimistic take:
Chris Matthews this weekend actually invited a real conservative on to the syndicated program bearing his name, and what transpired was a thing of beauty.
National Review's Reihan Salam did such a fabulous job of educating Matthews and his guests - especially Time's Joe Klein - that I imagine him quickly becoming a NewsBusters favorite.
The initial topic of discussion was Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally scheduled to occur after this was taped.
Between Matthews' disrespectful introduction, and Klein calling the conservative talk show host "a paranoid lunatic," one had the feeling this would have devolved into a full on hate-fest if not for Salam's presence.
Fortunately, the National Reviewer was there to set the record straight (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):
On Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews show, during a discussion of a poll reporting that a majority of self-described Republicans expressed a negative view of Islam, as Time magazine’s Joe Klein recounted incidents of recent violence in America by Muslim extremists, host Matthews asked if "this [anti-Muslim] attitude against them" was to blame for "stirring them up," leading Klein to agree that anti-Muslim attitudes played a role:
JOE KLEIN, TIME MAGAZINE: You’ve had over the last year, two or three major incidents of deranged Muslims, the Army doctor down at Fort Hood, the Times Square bomber, who were Americans, American citizens.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: And what’s stirring them up? This attitude against them?
KLEIN: Yeah. But I also think that there’s a small minority of Muslims in the world who believe this extremist philosophy.
After Matthews questioned whether opposition to the Ground Zero mosque and "apocalyptic talk by people like Glenn Beck" exist because the President is black, Klein painted small-town white Americans as resentful that modern America no longer has the "ethnic purity" of the past, with Matthews responding, "Well said.":
On the syndicated Chris Matthews show over the weekend, Chris Matthews praised Barack Obama for earning another "big feather" in his cap for getting his Wall Street reform bill passed and then went on to ask his panel if all of the other overbearing, big government laws signed in his term would lead to victory for the Democratic Party in the fall. Just before closing his show Matthews posed the following big question to HDNet's Dan Rather, the BBC's Katty Kay, CNN's Gloria Borger and the Politico's John Harris: "Will the President's legislative success with the stimulus, with health care, with Wall Street reform and maybe even an energy bill be a net positive or negative for his party this fall?"
The following are their individual responses as aired on the June 27 Chris Matthews Show:
A truly extraordinary thing happened on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show": the host asked his panel if former Alaska governor Sarah is the most important Republican in the country right now.What made this even more surprising was how his guests -- CNN's Gloria Borger, Politico's John Harris, the BBC's Katty Kay, and former "CBS Evening News" host Dan Rather -- seemed to feel she was.
Most bullish on Palin was Rather who said, "I wouldn't underestimate her...If she decides to run, it would be hard to bet against her for the nomination."
For his part, Matthews played a little bit of a misdirection with his viewers by predictably bashing Palin during the program's introduction (multiple videos follow with highlights and commentary):