Unemployment is stubbornly high, mountains of debt are burying the nation, and gas prices appear to be bringing the tepid economic recovery to a halt.
Yet MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday actually spent five minutes bashing Ann Romney for wearing a $990 shirt on television (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
As NewsBusters reported, Jimmy Kimmel at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner made totally disgraceful jokes about how large President Obama’s penis is.
Three days later on his own program, Kimmel took a different tack with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying, “He looks like every guy in every erectile dysfunction commercial” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Via Real Clear Politics: It's clear that MSNBC host Martin Bashir enjoys making fun of Republican candidates who have sick family members. First, he jabbed Rick Santorum for caring for his daughter, complaining about Santorum's small amount of donations to charity. Last week, he took a jab at Ann Romney, claiming that Mitt Romney is exploiting her health issues to gain votes. [Audio here. Video below the jump.]
"There is no slur against conservatives that's off the table" for the so-called journalists at MSNBC, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity last night. The Media Research Center president made that remark after viewing a clip of Hardball host Chris Matthews calling the GOP the "Grand Wizard crowd," a not-so-thinly veiled suggestion that conservatives are violent racists.
What's more, "Chris Matthews is lying," Bozell argued, pointing back to a January 13 quote about Romney wherein Matthews called Romney a "moderate." "Even Chris Matthews doesn't believe that lie that he told." Also addressed on the April 26 "Media Mash" segment was how Matthews's colleague Martin Bashir callously suggested that Mitt Romney was "intentionally using" his multiple sclerosis-suffering wife to close a "gender gap." [watch the full Media Mash segment video below page break]
Come November, there's no way Mika Brzezinski will be pulling the lever for Mitt Romney. But the MSNBC co-host had some sincere praise for the Republican standard-bearer this morning.
Expressing frustration with Rudy Giuliani--the latest in a string of Republicans to have offered only a tepid endorsement of Romney--Brzezinski said that when she meets with Mitt and Ann, she comes away "excited," because they're "good people" and a "good family." "What's wrong with these people? It's just ridiculous," a palpably peeved Mika said of Giuliani and others who have emitted only muted praise of Mitt. Video after the jump.
For the second week in a row, HBO's Bill Maher went after Ann Romney, the wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
On Friday's Real Time, the host said, "I'm not attacking Ann Romney. She's brought up five very shiny and remarkably lifelike boys" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
It's quite clear that on MSNBC, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's family is not going to be considered off-limits to commentator attacks during this campaign season.
On Tuesday's Martin Bashir show, in a closing segment about rock star Ted Nugent's endorsement of the former Massachusetts governor, the host attacked Ann Romney as being "fake" and "two-faced" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
On Monday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Peter Alexander played up comments Mitt Romney made at a fund-raiser in Florida about cutting government programs as if the GOP presidential candidate's proposals were politically damaging, with the NBC correspondent asserting that Romney's remarks "out of the view of cameras have caused a stir." Alexander also suggested that the Romneys had been deceptive in their handling of Democratic strategist Hilary's Rosen's recent attack on Ann Romney as never having "worked a day in her life." (Video below)
Alexander began his report:
Virtually everything said and done in a presidential election year distorts the truth, much like concave and convex mirrors in a carnival attraction alter one's true reflection.
That kind of distortion occurred in the recent dustup over whether women who choose to stay at home can completely understand the economic challenges and personal struggles faced by women who choose, or need, to work outside the home while raising children.
Comedienne Roseanne Barr took to the Daily Beast Monday to offer her vulgar opinion on the Ann Romney-Hilary Rosen dustup.
Not surprisingly, she wasn't taking the side of the Republican wife (vulgarity warning):
Liberal radio hosts were furious with the Catholic League for mocking Hillary Rosen after she attacked Ann Romney for not working. Their tweet said “Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own.” This was seen by liberals as signaling Rosen’s children adopted with former partner Elizabeth Birch were “less valid, less worthy of respect” and homophobic.
On Friday, Bill Press confused the Catholic League with the nation’s bishops (they are not connected), but on Thursday, rabid atheist Mike Malloy was nudged into erupting about "child-raping" Catholics and their scummy "Nazi pope":
Can NBC's Chuck Todd be any more obvious about being a White House shill?
On Sunday's Meet the Press, he actually said of the Ann Romney-offending Hilary Rosen, "This is not an Obama surrogate. This is a paid CNN commentator" (video follows with transcript and commentary):