Rachel Maddow

Alec Baldwin, at NY Mag's Vulture.com: 'It’s Good-bye to Public Life'; Equates Fox and MSNBC As 'All About Hate'
By Tom Blumer | February 23, 2014 | 11:58 PM EST

In a lengthy item "as told to Joe Hagan" at NYMag.com's The Vulture, actor, commercial pitchman, and brief MSNBC host Alec Baldwin makes it very clear that he is fed up with a lot of things.

There is plenty of material for discussion in his writeup. I want to focus on what he sees as his mistreatment at the hands of MSNBC and the self-described "progressive" community. Unfortunately, after said mistreatment, it's clear that he still doesn't get the difference between legitimate if strident criticism and expressions of over-the-top hatred, as the excerpts which follow will show (bolds are mine):

Maher to MSNBC - Enough Already With Your Bridgegate Fetish, 'It's Not Watergate'
By Jack Coleman | February 23, 2014 | 6:39 AM EST

You know that MSNBC has leaned too far forward into abject hackery masquerading as journalism when it gets slammed by Bill Maher, otherwise one of its most fervent defenders.

On his HBO show Friday night, Maher used the occasion of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow appearing as one of his guests to tell Maddow that her network's obsession with the Bridgegate scandal has become too much even for him. Maddow, not surprisingly, defended the coverage and, equally unsurprising, made a dishonest analogy in the process. (Video after the jump)

Maddow's Shabbiness in Selective Citing of Party ID Apparently Boundless
By Jack Coleman | February 14, 2014 | 9:27 PM EST

Can MSNBC's Rachel Maddow go a single day without descending into laughable hackdom?

Any previous doubts about this were erased by her show last night. Mere seconds after she was introduced by colleague Chris Hayes, and after Maddow offered a chirpy "happy snow day" to viewers (this during one of the most brutal winters in memory), Maddow began her show with this -- "The administration of Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has just been subpoenaed in conjunction with a federal criminal investigation." (Video after the jump)

Maddow Dares Not Utter Dreaded Party Affiliation of Convicted Mayors
By Jack Coleman | February 13, 2014 | 5:03 PM EST

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow briefly departed from her Ahabesque obsession with Bridgegate last night to mention two relatively picayune matters -- a potentially "catastrophic" storm bearing down on the East Coast and two mayors getting convicted on corruption charges.

Anyone familiar with MSNBC's modus operandi knows what to expect from its, uh, "reporting" on political corruption -- if the politician is a Democrat, a viewer will wait in vain for any mention of party affiliation, while if said corrupt pol is a Republican, the affiliation will be cited repeatedly in the first sentence. (Video after the jump)

MSNBC Completely Ignores Latest ObamaCare Delay in Prime Time, Spends Nearly One-Fourth On Chris Christie
By Jeffrey Meyer | February 11, 2014 | 1:54 PM EST

At 4:57 on Monday afternoon, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner hyped “Breaking news from the Treasury Department. The White House has announced a second delay to part of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate. Details on that are next.”  But the next “details” did not come for 12 and a half hours at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday morning during MSNBC’s Way Too Early broadcast.

In between, MSNBC ran 9 full stories on Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) and the “Bridgegate” scandal surrounding his administration. Rachel Maddow, devoted nearly half of her broadcast, 29 minutes to the Christie scandal. The rest of her primetime colleagues similarly couldn’t be bothered to inform their viewers of the latest ObamaCare delay, despite Wagner’s promise: “details on that are next.”

AP Admits It: MSNBC's Leftist 'Loose Lips' Offer Plenty of Ammo to Critics
By Tim Graham | February 8, 2014 | 1:09 PM EST

The notion that MSNBC is now the most controversial gaffe-a-minute cable news network has been ratified by the Associated Press. AP media reporter David Bauder wrote a story headlined “Loose lips give ammunition to MSNBC foes.”

“Since MSNBC is in the political ring, its opponents are always on the lookout for things to attack,” Bauder wrote. “Lately, NBC's left-leaning cable news sister has offered plenty of ammunition.”

Ed Schultz Proudly Displays His Shabby Contempt for Constitutional Rights
By Jack Coleman | February 5, 2014 | 7:47 PM EST

One of my favorite memories from watching MSNBC -- not that there are many -- came a few years back when Rachel Maddow in full-blown, arms-waving smarm insisted that the Constitution does not have a preamble. "That would be the Declaration of Independence," Maddow declared emphatically.

It's one thing for an MSNBC pundit to publicly reveal her ignorance of the Constitution (and Maddow made the gaffe, not incidentally, in response to a similar one by House Speaker John Boehner). It's quite another for one of her MSNBC colleagues to reveal his contempt for the Constitution. That's what Ed Schultz did on "The Ed Show" last night. (Video after the jump)

Maddow Praises Obama’s SOTU Tribute to Afghan War Vet; Witt Tries to Get Her to Criticize War
By Paul Bremmer | February 3, 2014 | 6:00 PM EST

How do MSNBC hosts feel about the war in Afghanistan? Well, it may depend on who’s in the White House at the moment.

On Saturday morning’s Weekends with Alex Witt, Ms. Witt talked to fellow MSNBC host Rachel Maddow about President Obama’s tribute to Army Ranger Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg at last Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Maddow, who is certainly no fan of our wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, nonetheless reflected on the moment in a mostly positive way. Referring to the extended applause for Sgt. Remsburg, Maddow said:

Phil Griffin Claims MSNBC 'Has Never Had an Ideology,' But Fox News Does
By Randy Hall | January 30, 2014 | 10:09 PM EST

During an interview with Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast website, MSNBC president Phil Griffin strained at gnats when he stated that his network “has never had an ideology” but insisted that the dominant Fox News Channel does.

 “An ideology is a single thought across all programs,” he said. “We’ve never had that.” However, Griffin asserted, MSNBC instead has “a progressive sensibility,” which he claimed is not the same as an ideology. “Obviously, I hire people who fit the sensibility” because “we do stay true to facts. You have to build your argument. That's why I call it a sensibility.”

Matthews: GOP 'Throwing Stones at the Window of the American Republic' Before Obama's 'Historic' Address
By Matthew Balan | January 28, 2014 | 11:28 PM EST

Chris Matthews blasted the GOP's apparent "bad manners [and] lack of dignity" minutes before Tuesday's State of the Union address. Matthews expressed his outrage moments after MSNBC's Chris Hayes spotlighted a Republican congressman's attack on President Obama on Twitter: "The very idea that they would do this, in what is a historic occasion, just tells you that there are no rules."

The Hardball host continued by targeting the "right wing – sort of, revolutionary thinking...We're throwing stones at the window of the American republic. That's fine, because somehow, we're so angry that anything goes." [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

PolitiFact Rates Maddow's Recent Smear of Koch Brothers 'Mostly False'
By Noel Sheppard | January 10, 2014 | 11:29 AM EST

As NewsBusters previously reported, the Koch brothers on Monday accused MSNBC's Rachel Maddow of misrepresenting their political contributions to falsely claim that they have been pushing for the drug testing of welfare recipients.

On Thursday, fact-checking website PolitiFact largely agreed with the Kochs - and NewsBusters - rating Maddow's assertions "Mostly False":

Kochs Accuse MSNBC’s Maddow of Misrepresenting Their Donations and Refusing to Retract
By Noel Sheppard | January 7, 2014 | 5:29 PM EST

As NewsBusters has reported for years, the conservative-leaning Koch brothers are a routine target of the liberal media for their contributions to causes that don’t fit the left’s agenda.

On Monday, Koch Industries accused MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow of misrepresenting its donations to falsely assert the billionaire brothers are supporting laws in Florida to drug test welfare recipients.

In researching this accusation, NewsBusters has discovered that neither Maddow nor anyone at MSNBC bothered to contact the organization the Kochs are alleged to be connected to.

Maybe even worse, Maddow didn't bother informing viewers that Comcast, the media conglomerate that owns NBC Universal which includes MSNBC, is actually a contributor to the same alleged conduit the Kochs are.