We began detailing the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015” yesterday with the awards for the gooiest Obamagasms of the year. Today, we have the perennial “Damn Those Conservatives Award,” our annual look at the nasty rhetoric that liberal journalists fling at conservatives. (Thanks to our 39 judges who patiently reviewed dozens of quotes to select the very worst of the worst.)
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By Rich Noyes | December 22, 2015 | 9:23 AM EST
By Mark Finkelstein | December 22, 2015 | 8:19 AM EST
In the past, Joe Scarborough hasn't exactly hidden his disdain for Marco Rubio, saying he reminds him of an eager student government candidate and questioning his integrity. But things have now escalated to open warfare between the two.
Scarborough, responding to an ad in which Rubio speaks of feeling "out of place in our own country," tweeted an attack accusing Rubio of playing a "crass, offensive, nativist" [read xenophobic/borderline racist] card. Rubio has fired back, putting out a fundraising message in which he slams Scarborough as an "elitist."
By Curtis Houck | December 22, 2015 | 7:50 AM EST
Seeking to join in on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens hype, MSNBC’s Hardball kicked off Monday’s show with a spoof of the famous franchise’s opening credits that told of a “period of civil war within the Republican party” and “President Obama, Hillary Clinton, & the Republican establishment appear to have formed a coalition rejecting [Donald] Trump’s appeal to the DARK SIDE.”
By Tim Graham | December 22, 2015 | 6:52 AM EST
James Warren at Poynter MediaWire noted that last week, Bernie Sanders picked up the endorsement of the Communications Workers of America, a 600,000-member union that includes 26,000 members of the NewsGuild – representing “journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury News, digital start-up Truthout and the digital operations at many, but not all, big print publications, such as Philly.com.”
Warren protested: “For those who believe nearly all journalists not on the Fox News payroll must be knee-jerk lefties pushing an agenda, be informed that the Guild heeded a nearly reflexive tradition and abstained in its parent's endorsement vote.”
By Dylan Gwinn | December 21, 2015 | 11:34 PM EST
Apparently the Doug Gottlieb Constitutional Law/Anti-2nd Amendment forum has now closed. As we wrote last night, CBS Sports’ Doug Gottlieb launched into one of the more bizarre and insanely dumb twitter rants you’re ever going to see.
By Tom Blumer | December 21, 2015 | 10:55 PM EST
Did you hear about the university which advertised for "a tenure-track Assistant Professor position that will be filled by a White American or Asian American"? Of course you didn't, because it didn't happen. But it's not difficult to imagine the outrage which would justifiably ensue if such an ad were ever placed.
Well, last week it became widely known that the University of Louisville placed an ad for a "tenure-track Assistant Professor position" which specified the racial/ethnic makeup of who would be considered eligible. It was removed after appearing for almost two months. Thanks to the wonders of Google cache, readers can see the relevant portion below (HT Progressives Today):
By Mark Finkelstein | December 21, 2015 | 9:15 PM EST
Spine of Steele! Where has this feisty Michael Steele been? In this NewsBuster's view, the former RNC chairman has too often been the voice of the mushy Republican middle.
But on MSNBC's All In this evening, Steele forcefully advanced the GOP cause. For starters, Steele shocked guest host Alex Wagner when he said Donald Trump would beat Hillary Clinton in a debate. Steele then took on Howard Dean, mocking the former DNC chairman when he claimed Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz "know nothing" about foreign policy. For good measure, Michael accused Dean of "shilling for Hillary." Say it, Steele!
By Clay Waters | December 21, 2015 | 8:54 PM EST
New York Times White House reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis is sending Barack Obama into 2016 in style, with three successive stories focusing on various flattering angles of the president, who is shedding the lame duck stereotype and laying down accomplishments -- at least according to Davis -- although the poor president can’t enjoy a holiday getaway without world events intruding. On Monday she penned “Relishing a Respite in Hawaii, but Reality Is Never Far Away,” which portrayed as a burden the president’s visit with families of the victims of the San Bernardino attacks
By Tom Johnson | December 21, 2015 | 8:48 PM EST
Though Steve Benen, who's also the primary blogger for the MSNBC program's website, is a true-blue liberal, he thinks highly of the foreign-policy chops of some recent Republicans. In a Thursday post, Benen wrote that GOPers such as Richard Lugar and Brent Scowcroft were “learned” and “approached international affairs with [a] degree of maturity.”
That was then; this is now. Benen touched on, among other things, Ted Cruz’s pledge to “carpet bomb” ISIS and Marco Rubio’s remark that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was “not a mistake” to build a case that today’s Republican party “approaches foreign policy…with all the maturity of a Saturday-morning cartoon…The national GOP candidates are speaking to (and for) a party that has no patience for substantive details, historical lessons, nuance, or diplomacy.”
By Tom Blumer | December 21, 2015 | 8:41 PM EST
Rosalind Brewer is CEO of Sam's Club, the wholesale division of Walmart. Sam's claims that it is "committed to being the most valued membership organization in the world."
Brewer is apparently "committed" to a cause which has become quite a distraction from Sam's core commitment. Last week, she told CNN of a meeting she had with a supplier. Was she interested in getting the best prices and terms to save her members money and otherwise deliver "value"? Apparently not. Instead, she obsessed over the fact that the subject firm's executive team happened to consist exclusively of white men. On Wednesday, David Boroff at the New York Daily News called those who have objected to Brewer's dance on the edges of overt racism stupid white people, i.e., "white meatheads." The far-below-genius white guy here is actually NYDN home page editor Boroff himself. You see, the video posted at the paper's web site is from The Black Sphere, a site operated by Kevin Jackson, a definitely not-white guy.
By Tim Graham | December 21, 2015 | 8:04 PM EST
On Monday morning, NPR Morning Edition anchor Steve Inskeep aired some of his end-of-year interview with President Obama (also recorded on video). Obama drew ten minutes of air time, and Inskeep only aired five of his own questions in that time span, about one every two minutes. Often, he explained Obama’s viewpoint on the world in between the quotes. Compare that to the recent Inskeep interview with Ted Cruz. In 7 minutes and 19 seconds, Inskeep challenged Cruz at least 12 times.
By NB Staff | December 21, 2015 | 6:16 PM EST
"Let's pretend that Marco Rubio were a Democrat." Members of that party would, "in a New York second," slam the Washington Post for the "bigotry and racism" in today's front-page hit piece, "Rubio's aloofness on stump unnerves GOP activists," the Media Research Center's (MRC) Brent Bozell noted in his appearance on the Dec. 21 edition of Fox News Channel's Your World w/ Neil Cavuto.
By Matthew Balan | December 21, 2015 | 5:08 PM EST
CNN's New Day on Monday actually spotlighted Hillary Clinton's false claim on Saturday that ISIS is "showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists." Chris Cuomo asserted that "it's very hard to translate it any other way...we can't find the videos." When liberal pundit Errol Louis speculated that Clinton's campaign would "migrate towards some kind of clarification," Cuomo replied, "How could you clarify it? How is it anything but wrong?"
By Curtis Houck | December 21, 2015 | 4:43 PM EST
Both of the media-centered programs on CNN and FNC covered on Sunday the move by the New York Times from Friday to delete a line from an article about President Obama not fully realizing “the anxiety” of Americans following terror attacks due to his lack of exposure to cable news. Other than NPR TV critic Eric Geggans rushing to Obama’s defense on CNN’s Reliable Sources, the other panelists both denounced the Times for what they described as “outrageous,” “perplexing,” and “potentially damning.”
By Kyle Drennen | December 21, 2015 | 4:24 PM EST
Talking to NPR’s Steve Inskeep on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, fill-in anchor Luke Russert congratulated the Morning Edition host for teeing up the President to slam Republican critics as racist in a recent interview. A clip played of Inskeep asking the President: “Do you feel over seven years that you’ve come to understand why it is that some ordinary people in America believe or fear that you are trying to change the country in some way that they cannot accept?”