On Saturday's Melissa Harris-Perry show, MSNBC host Harris-Perry made an over the top analogy about the liberal fight against laws restricting abortion as she invoked the art of judo and asked if the political effort was similar to a woman physically fighting off an attacker. (Video follows)
Speaking to Nancy Northrup from the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, Harris-Perry posed:
Call it Melissa Harris-Perry's "corpse-man" moment . . .
In a segment on the role of the US military during her MSNBC show this morning, Harris-Perry, quoting the Marine Corps motto, pronounced it Semper "Fee." Marines of course pronounce it "fye" [scroll over phrase at link to hear pronunciation.] Harris-Perry surely meant no disrespect. But it is a mark of just how detached she and so much of the liberal media is from military culture that she could make such a mistake. Video after the jump.
Phil Griffin, head of the MSNBC cable television channel, told Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter that he accepts responsibility for recent embarrassments that led Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir to leave the network and Melissa Harris-Perry to offer a tearful on-air apology.
"These were judgment calls made by some of our people. We handled them. We were transparent. That is our philosophy: Be factual, and step up when you make a mistake,” Griffin asserted. “We took responsibility for them and took action. They were unfortunate,” but “I don't think it hurt us in any way.”
I kept looking for any sign that Ta-Nehisi Coates, described as "a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues," was kidding in his Monday afternoon column about Melissa Harris-Perry when he called her "The Smartest Nerd in the Room." He wasn't.
When last seen here at NewsBusters, Coates was pretending that the wealth gap between blacks and whites has consistently widened during the past 20 years, when the reality is that almost all of the widening has occurred during the past five years for which data is available. That delusion is nothing compared to his assessment of Harris-Perry, excerpted after the jump (bold is mine):
Sometimes I think people at MSNBC have Sarah Palin on the brain.
In a Morning Joe segment about Melissa Harris-Perry’s apology to the Romney family for mocking their adopted black grandson, and former Governor Mitt Romney’s classy acceptance of said apology, host Joe Scarborough for some reason decided to take a totally unprovoked and unnecessary cheap shot at Sarah Palin (video follows with transcript and commentary):
As NewsBusters previous reported, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry issued a heartfelt apology to the Romneys at the beginning of her show Saturday for mocking their adopted black grandson last weekend.
On Fox News Sunday, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney – showing the class we’ve all grown accustomed to from him – said, “I think it's a heartfelt apology, and I think for that reason, we hold no ill will whatsoever” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
As NewsBusters reported earlier, MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry began her Saturday show with a heartfelt apology to Mitt Romney's family that included her tearing up.
This prompted former MSNBC host Alec Baldwin - terminated in November for a homophobic rant towards a paparazzo - to write on Twitter hours ago, "If I cry, will I be forgiven all of my transgressions?":
As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry and a panel of comedians last weekend senselessly mocked a picture of former Governor Mitt Romney’s family because it included his adopted black grandson.
Although she’s already apologized on Twitter, Harris-Perry began her show Saturday with a heartfelt apology much of the time fighting through a lump in her throat and tears (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Following Melissa Harris-Perry's smear on Mitt Romney's adopted black grandson - the third in a series of recent high-profile faux pas by MSNBC hosts - Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz asked a question Friday whose answer appears to definitively be "Yes."
"[H]as the channel developed a culture in which harsh personal attacks are encouraged, or at least tolerated?"
Full disclosure: I never heard of Dean Obeidallah before his name came up in connection with the dustup over an MSNBC panel’s ill-chosen reactions to a Mitt Romney family photo. Obeidallah, who self-identifies as a comedian, was on the panel, and if his commentary was any indication of his sense of humor, I haven’t been missing much.
He has a piece at the Daily Beast defending himself against criticism for a “joke” (his term) he made in reaction to the photograph of some two dozen Romneys, all of whom are white except for the black infant on the former GOP presidential hopeful’s right knee.
MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry lined up a panel of alleged comedians to mock the Christmas picture Mitt Romney posted on Twitter. In a segment with the on-screen question "What's So Funny About 2013?" Harris-Perry announced: “This is the Romney family. And, of course, there on Governor Romney’s knee is his adopted grandson, who is an African-American, an adopted African-American child, Kieran Romney.”
To which comedian and actress Pia Glenn sang the old Sesame Street ditty “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn’t the same … “And that little baby, front and center, would be the one.” Laughter ensued. The black website NewsOne reports Glenn issued sincere apologies on Twitter for her insensitivity to transracial adoptions. (Video below)
For the 25th consecutive year, the Media Research Center has recognized the absolute wackiest media quotes in our annual “Best Notable Quotables of 2013,” as selected by our panel of 42 expert judges.
The first time this prize was offered, in 1989, then-CNN pundit Linda Ellerbee won for comments delivered on the June 2, 1989 edition of PrimeNews: “‘These boat people,’ says the government of Hong Kong, ‘they all want to go to America.’ Well, I swear I don’t know why, do you?...Why would any Vietnamese come to America after what America did for Vietnam?”
This year’s winners and video highlights of the “Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year” after the jump.