Howard Kurtz gave the lion's share of his Monday "Media Notes" column to MSNBC, which "has seen the future, and it is politics. Delivered with plenty of opinion." Except that opinion is usually liberal, sometimes fiendishly so. Near the end of his piece, Kurtz captures all of the recent MSNBC spin lines, proving these are no fluke, especially MSNBC chief Dan Abrams reciting his horror-movie line about Keith Olbermann's Countdown:
Scarborough Country
By Tim Graham | November 20, 2006 | 6:56 AM EST
By Noel Sheppard | November 11, 2006 | 2:06 PM EST
On Thursday’s “Scarborough Country,” the host admitted that MSNBC looped the Dittocam video of Rush Limbaugh gesticulating like Michael J. Fox to make it look like it went on longer than it did (hat tip to NB reader ‘DG”, and audio link here with comments by Limbaugh):
I mean, the thing is, he moved around for a couple of seconds, and as you and I have both said, we all screw up, we all make mistakes. This guy talks three hours a day. We made a mistake -- and I`ll say it right here. We made a mistake. When I was out in Las Vegas doing a show, we actually ran that on a loop for probably five, ten seconds, making it look like he was doing it for a longer than he did. And we weren`t alone, of course. When we came back and found out it had happened... we didn`t do it again.
Here was Limbaugh’s comment about this Friday:
By Rich Noyes | November 7, 2006 | 10:02 PM EST
Winding up the 8pm EST hour of election coverage on MSNBC, “Scarborough Country” host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, indignantly lectured Chris Matthews about how he has “spent the past two years trying my best to be very critical of my party. In fact, if you look at my transcripts you will see that I have been bashing my party more than the Democratic party because I want to make sure that I am fair and down the middle.”
So “far and down the middle” means hitting Republicans harder than Democrats? Too bad Matthews, a former staffer to Democratic President Jimmy Carter and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, doesn’t routinely attack Democrats to prove how “fair and down the middle” he is.
Video clip (3:25): Real (5.6 MB) or Windows Media (6.4 MB), plus MP3 audio (1 MB)
By Noel Sheppard | October 26, 2006 | 10:40 AM EDT
Just in time for election season, Time magazine’s Joe Klein went on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country Tuesday to give Americans a heapin’ helpin’ of some fine hypocrisy. Sorry, Jed. In the space of a couple of minutes, Klein bashed Rush Limbaugh with some (isn’t this stuff getting old?) typical drug references, castigated Vice President Dick Cheney for “[legitimizing] a guy like Rush Limbaugh,” praised Michael J. Fox’s ad for Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), and slammed the ad made in Missouri by famous athletes and actors to counter Fox’s (video link to follow). Of course, Klein also had time to praise what some Democrat candidates are doing to woo voters, while chastising Republicans for doing virtually the same thing.
The festivities started with host Joe Scarborough showing Michael J. Fox’s recent campaign ad for Claire McCaskill, then an audio clip of Rush Limbaugh’s response, and finally asking Klein for his opinion – as if the viewers couldn’t predict what Klein would say:
By Noel Sheppard | September 15, 2006 | 1:59 PM EDT
As hard as it might be to believe, the liberal defense of Rosie O’Donnell’s anti-theistic comments on Tuesday’s “The View” has become almost as absurd and offensive as the remarks themselves. First a media analyst on Wednesday night claimed that "Radical Christianity" is just as bad as radical Islam because abortion clinics in the past have been attacked as reported here. Then, on Thursday’s “Scarborough Country” (hat tip to Hot Air), Huffington Post media analyst Rachel Sklar suggested that Christians opposed to abortion and condom use are just as dangerous to America as Islamic extremists (video link and full transcript to follow).
So, in the course of 24 hours, the definition of "Radical Christianity" has miraculously expanded to include anyone that is pro-Life and/or is against the use of condoms. Here’s the amazing exchange:
By Noel Sheppard | September 15, 2006 | 10:28 AM EDT
As most of you are sadly aware, new “View” commentator Rosie O’Donnell made some truly absurd statements Tuesday concerning what she perceived as “Radical Christianity” being just as bad as radical Islam as reported by NewsBusters.
By Brad Wilmouth | September 3, 2006 | 2:11 AM EDT
On Friday night, MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Joe Scarborough featured opposite takes on a Friday Washington Post editorial proclaiming that the recent revelation that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the original leaker of Valerie Plame's identity discredits Joe Wilson's accusations about a White House conspiracy to punish him by ruining his wife's career.
By Tim Graham | August 27, 2006 | 7:33 AM EDT
Last Sunday morning, I threw up a blog on the Sunday Washington Post publishing a story based on MSNBC host Joe Scarborough airing a segment on his show titled "IS BUSH AN ‘IDIOT’?" A few days later, Joe Scarborough granted an interview to the hard-left website Salon.com, ostensibly to discuss how conservatives can't handle dissent well. At interview’s end, interviewer Alex Koppleman threw NewsBusters at him:
By Tim Graham | August 20, 2006 | 7:13 AM EDT
Well, MSNBC and Joe Scarborough have clearly figured out how to get their show mentioned in a liberal newspaper. Inside Sunday's Washington Post, reporter Peter Baker wrote an article about conservative disillusionment with Bush on Iraq headlined "Pundits Renounce the President: Among Conservative Voices, Discord." Baker began:
By Open Thread | August 4, 2006 | 5:42 PM EDT
MRC President Brent Bozell appeared Friday night on MSNBC's Scarborough Country to discuss the media's coverage of Mel Gibson and religion as well as Hollywood's hypocrisy in condemning Gibson while otherwise ridiculing religious believers. Use this thread to post your comments about the show.
MRC President Brent Bozell appeared Friday night on MSNBC's Scarborough Country to discuss the media's coverage of Mel Gibson and religion as well as Hollywood's hypocrisy in condemning Gibson while otherwise ridiculing religious believers. Use this thread to post your comments about the show.
By Mark Finkelstein | July 7, 2006 | 9:10 PM EDT
Does Norah read NewsBusters? Could it be pure coincidence that Hardball's 'What'd You Say?' audio highlights of the week just happened to select the two items we had highlighted
By Mark Finkelstein | July 7, 2006 | 9:23 AM EDT
A Republican senator who makes a remark with insensitive racial connotations? Toast. Ask Trent Lott. A Democrat? Hey, no problem! Then again, woe betide the Republican senator who offers an awkward description of the workings of the internet. It will 'haunt' him.