There was, understandably, plenty of outrage this week upon hearing MSNBC host Touré accuse Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of what he called the "niggerization" of President Obama.
On Thursday's The Cycle, Touré responded to Romney's charge that the President can "take [his] campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago” in the following unhinged manner:
Politico's Patrick Gavin on Monday hyped the evolution of a 13-year-old conservative to a 17-year-old liberal in an article trumpeting, "CPAC's Boy Wonder Is All Grown Up." Grown up equals liberal? The headline proved too much even for Politico. It was quickly changed to "CPAC's Boy Wonder Swings Left."
Gavin breathlessly recounted what a difference four years makes: "[Jonathan] Krohn is bucking the received wisdom that people become more conservative as they get older, a shift he attributes partly to philosophy."
60 Minutes journalist Lesley Stahl is apparently concerned about how such "out of the mainstream" Republicans ran in the 2012 presidential primaries, given what a "centrist" country America is.
Stahl moderated a New York Historical Society discussion on the state of the race. Time journalist Joe Klein appeared at the May 3 event to smear conservative groups as racist. After noting that he attended a Tea Party rally in Arkansas, Klein mocked the organization's fears at this: "And there are Mexican Americans all over the place and their grandchildren are marrying out of their race or becoming gay. The President of the United States doesn't have the good sense to be either black or white and his middle name is Hussein."
After an address to AIPAC supporters yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress today to discuss the importance of continued support to Israel in attempts to create peace between Israel and Palestine. His speech at AIPAC yesterday may be something of a preview of his address to Congress today. Check out the video below the break.
Earlier this morning, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) president Brent Bozell sat down with C-SPAN's Libby Casey for an interview on "Washington Journal."
Among other topics, Bozell addressed media coverage of the Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) shooting.
"Where's the harm in having this discussion about civil discourse?" Casey asked Bozell.
"I think it's a very good discussion, don't get me wrong.... But don't tie it to what happened [in Arizona]," Bozell answered. "Don't say it's because Sarah Palin and the crosshairs [on her PAC's targeted midterm race map]."
For the excerpt, check out the video embedded below the page break or click here for MP3 audio.
With recent controversial race topics entering the spotlight, such as the voter intimidation incident and Shirley Sherrod story, the media has been more than willing to open their arms and turn on their cameras to hear the opining of the National Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz. Shabazz has appeared on Fox News, issued a statement through CNN, and done exclusive interviews for various media outlets. The Anti-Defamation League has described Shabazz as anti-Semitic and racist, trying "to recast himself as a serious civil rights leader in recent years by cloaking his bigotry and intolerance in religious and civil rights principles and inserting himself in high profile, racially charged issues around the country." This certainly seems to be the case as he has made an increasing number of appearances in the media, in which the audience is to suspend belief and assume this man is an evenhanded voice on race relations in America.
In fact, Shabazz used his statement at CNN to accuse the ‘Republican or right wing tea party strategists' of ‘stir(ing) up racial fears'.
The editor of the Wall Street e-tabloid Dealbreaker on Wednesday actually asked CNBC anchor Trish Regan, "How does it feel to be classified as a MILF?"
For those unfamiliar with the term -- as was Regan! -- it means "Mom I'd Like to," well, let's say have sex with.
Nice thing to ask an Emmy-nominated 37-year-old mother of two, wouldn't you agree?
Yet that wasn't even the worst of Bess Levin's questions (Levin in bold, h/t TVNewser):
While defending the Obama administration as a champion for small business owners, MSNBC host Ed Schultz revealed that his construction company more than doubled its number of employees in the past year – thanks to the stimulus bill.
"We've gone from eight employees to 20 employees in the past year, because of the stimulus package," he said of his construction company. "We've put some people back to work. There is some growth."
[UPDATE, June 26: Schultz lashes out at NewsBusters's Hadro on his June 24 radio show]
Schultz made that revelation as a guest on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" Wednesday morning. In a segment of the show where he was discussing corporations shipping jobs overseas and skimping on benefits to regular workers and labor union members, Schultz stepped up and defended President Obama.
"This President, and this administration, has done more for small business than any other President has in the last thirty years," he claimed.
It's a topic that would probably make the average individual's eyes glaze over, but will have a profound impact on the economy - for better or worse. The topic - financial regulation reform.
With Senate Banking Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., setting his proposal out for the public, the take away on the reporting from two of the country's major newspapers - The New York Times and Wall Street Journal can give readers a view where their reporters' loyalties lie.
On CNBC's March 15 "Squawk Box," co-host Joe Kernen raised this point - the Journal with its more pro-Wall Street point of view and the Times with a liberal pro-Democratic Party one.
"You - I like the way you highlighted the Journal's take, ‘Ohh, this thing is ahh, much worse,' but The New York Times - ‘consensus-building,'" Kernen said. "But The New York Times is talking about consensus-building within the Democratic Party, I think, right? I mean, normally that's who they're speaking to, isn't it?"
In an unfortunate choice of articles, MSNBC earlier had a featured set of headlines in their politics section regarding the stimulus package and its effect on the troubled job market. One article touts the recent White House claim that the stimulus package had saved 2 million jobs.
But the other article explains why a new method of accounting adopted by the White House will make it "impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money."
The screenshot below leads viewers to two very different reports:
Given the generally sycophantic attitude of the White House Press Corps, Robert Gibbs may have been caught off guard when he started facing some tough questions on President Obama's apparent flip-flop regarding his many promises to broadcast health care negotiations on C-SPAN. Gibbs stubbornly refused to answer multiple questions about the broken promises (h/t Byron York).
The White House might want to rethink its position on Fox not being a real news network after what happened during Saturday's historic debate and vote on healthcare reform.
Consider that as far as cable is concerned, with the exception of C-SPAN, only Fox aired House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speech live as it was happening.
You're not going to believe what CNN and MSNBC thought was more important according to TVNewser: