Donald Trump

Mika On Trump Muslim Plan: I Blame George W. Bush
By Mark Finkelstein | December 8, 2015 | 8:08 AM EST

One of James Taranto's tongue-in-cheek tropes at his Best of the Web Today column is "We Blame George Bush." As Wikipedia describes it, the trope "is a play on the perceived tendency for many of his detractors to lay the blame for pretty much anything" on Bush. In a recent example, "We Blame George W. Bush" was placed over a headline reading “Slipping Into a Food Coma? Blame Your Gut Microbes.” 

And lo and behold, from today's Morning Joe comes a real-life example of the phenomenon. Mika Brzezinski blamed Donald Trump's proposal to ban all Muslims from the US, on in part—you guessed it—George W. Bush. In fairness, Mika did also blame the Obama admin. She argued that foreign policy blunders not just by the Obama administration but "by the George W. Bush administration"  created feelings that Trump is tapping into. For Mika to reach back to blame Bush for Trump's proposal, when even liberals praise him for going out of his way, for example, six days after 9-11, to declare "Islam is peace," etc. is something between outrageous and hilarious.

Zakaria Oozes: ‘Cool’ ‘Fireman’ Obama Used Speech ‘to Douse’ Donald Trump’s ‘Flames’
By Curtis Houck | December 8, 2015 | 2:41 AM EST

In the latest analogy put forth by a member of the liberal media to praise President Obama, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria opined on Monday’s CNN Tonight that the President used his speech to the nation on Sunday to come across as the “cool” “fireman” who will “douse” the “flames” started by Donald Trump. Additionally, Zakaria hailed the speech as “vintage Obama” as he conducted “an adult conversation” with the American people about ISIS and forced them to accept his ISIS strategy since “not a lot of people have come up with an alternative.”

Heilemann: Some Say Trump Muslim Plan 'Fascist,' I Say 'Reactionary'
By Mark Finkelstein | December 7, 2015 | 6:57 PM EST

For a moment there, it looked like John Heilemann might go Absolut Olbermann and call Donald Trump a "fascist" for his proposal which would for the time being bar the entry of all Muslims into the United States.

But Heilemann backed off that f-word. While noting "some will say fascist" about Trump or his policy, Heilemann declared "I'm not saying that." Instead, he settled for asserting that there are "many voters in the country who are in fact reactionary" and that there is no way to describe Trump's policy "other than reactionary." 

NYT Sunday Front Page Likens Trump to Fellow 'Demagogues' McCarthy, Wallace, Pat Buchanan
By Clay Waters | December 7, 2015 | 11:55 AM EST

Reporters Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman made Sunday's New York Times front page with a deep and deeply fear-mongering analysis of “demagogue” Donald Trump’s stump speeches: "95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, From Trump’s Tongue." But things that two Times reporters find “ominous” may not scare a more moderate reader, such as pointing out that ISIS chops off the heads of their victims.

PBS's Ifill Sees GOPers Trying to Be 'More Alarmist Than the Last Guy' After Terrorism
By Brad Wilmouth | December 6, 2015 | 11:25 PM EST

Appearing as a panel member on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, PBS host Gwen Ifill made a negative characterization of GOP presidential candidates' reactions to recent terrorist attacks as she declared that, "For Republicans, it's going to be a variation of what we've seen so far, which is, 'How can we be more alarmist than the last guy?'"

She then moved to take jabs at GOPers Chris Christie and Donald Trump as she suggested that the discussion was moving away from, "What can you really do about it?"

Trump Spokeswoman Stumps 'Reliable Sources' Brian Stelter on MSM Bias
By P.J. Gladnick | December 6, 2015 | 10:20 PM EST

The original title I thought of for this story used the word "Schools" but considering the total beatdown Donald Trump spokewoman Katrina Pierson methodically administered to Brian Stelter of CNN's Reliable Sources, "Stumps" seems much more appropriate. Perhaps even "Stomps" could have been used but watch the video below and judge for yourself. Rarely has a representative of the mainstream media been subjected to such a beating as poor Stelter received today.

NBC, CBS Promote NY Daily News's 'Terrorist' Smear of the NRA's CEO
By Matthew Balan | December 5, 2015 | 12:35 AM EST

Friday's NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News both spotlighted the New York Daily News's latest anti-conservative front page, which denigrated Wayne LaPierre of the NRA as a "terrorist." CBS's Nancy Cordes touted how "the always-heated gun debate has gotten personal. The New York Daily News...called the head of the National Rifle Association a 'terrorist.'" NBC's Hallie Jackson played up the liberal newspaper's attack, as well as The New Yorker's "provocative" cover targeting gun owners.

Blogger Charles Pierce: Reagan Established GOP Tradition of Being ‘As Full of Crap As the Christmas Goose’
By Tom Johnson | December 4, 2015 | 9:05 PM EST

“There'll be scary ghost stories,” sang Andy Williams on a Christmas album of long, long ago. In a Monday post, Esquire’s Pierce suggested that “ghost stories” of a sort -- “obvious lies,” as he also put it -- have become part and parcel of Republican campaigning, and that “as with so many things, this all began with Ronald Reagan.”

Pierce argued that Donald Trump is “the logical end product of almost 40 years of conservative politics. Reagan was as full of crap as the Christmas goose, and in the same way that Trump and [Ben] Carson are. Trump has dancing Muslims. Reagan had the fictitious welfare queen in Chicago…Trump has weaponized Reagan's fabulism and that seems to make a difference to some people. But nothing that has happened in this campaign, up to and including the latest spasm of outright bigotry and fear-mongering, is new in the recent history of Republican politics. It always is the person who tells the best ghost stories who wins.”

NYT's Healy: 'Some Voters' See GOP as 'Stoking the Recent Violence and Threats Against Mosques'
By Clay Waters | December 4, 2015 | 7:28 PM EST

Patrick Healy reported in Thursday's New York Times that "Skittish Over Terrorism, Some Voters Seek a Gutsy Style of Leader." "Skittish" [excitable, easily scared] is a pretty condescending way to characterize the American public's legitimate fears of terrorism. But far worse is Healy's inference that Republican rhetoric on Syrian refugees had stoked threats against mosques. He also linked the rough treatment of a Black Lives Matter activist who disrupted a Trump rally to a shooting at a BLM protest in Minneapolis

NBC Nightly News Runs Report Attacking Prayer, Praising Gun Control; Cheers Lefty Pundit
By Curtis Houck | December 3, 2015 | 9:18 PM EST

Following the liberal media’s strategy of attacking God-fearing people for offering their “thoughts and prayers” concerning the San Bernardino shooting, Thursday’s NBC Nightly News joined that chorus with a unrelenting report from NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell that also lamented the lack of Democratic gun control proposals. She touted: "Liberal blogger Igor Volsky set off a tweet storm, calling out lawmakers who offer prayers but oppose new gun laws, pointing out how much money they received from the NRA."

Vox's David Roberts: Decades of Feeding ‘Fear and Paranoia’ to the GOP Base Paved the Way For Trump
By Tom Johnson | December 3, 2015 | 12:41 AM EST

Though a great many on the right don’t consider Donald Trump one of their own, he’s the Republican presidential frontrunner in large part because he’s exploited an ideological and media environment designed to increase the power of movement conservatives, contended Roberts in a Tuesday piece.

According to Roberts, Trump appeals to “a faction of the electorate that has been primed to respond to someone like him…Republican billionaires and political operators have spent decades building a self-contained epistemic bubble in which they could pump up the right-wing base with fear and paranoia. Now the Frankenstein's monster has lumbered off the table and crashed into the cocktail party. It no longer heeds the GOP establishment, and it utterly disdains the media. All Trump does is give it voice. He is what happens when conservatives stop being polite and start getting real.”

Nicolle Wallace Accuses Trump Supporters of 'Sinister Sentiments'
By Mark Finkelstein | December 2, 2015 | 7:17 AM EST

UPDATE:  Later in the show, Scarborough quoted from this item on the air. Wallace sarcastically commented "Finkelstein likes me a lot." Video clip at foot.

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If Nicolle Wallace wants to attack Donald Trump, there's nothing wrong with that.  And the way she "pre-tweeted" Trump's counter-attack on her, saying she was too stupid to keep her job at The View, was actually rather witty.

But on today's Morning Joe, Wallace made a bad mistake. Rather than focusing her fire on Trump, she attacked the millions of decent Americans who support him.  According to Wallace, Trump is "tapping into the most sinister sentiments in the country."  Joe Scarborough pushed back, pointing out that Wallace's own father is an avid Trump fan. "My father is listening to his dark angels," replied Wallace.