Goerge W. Bush

Nicolle Wallace: During 2000 Florida Recount, Cruz Tops for 'Hubris and Egomania'
By Mark Finkelstein | December 29, 2015 | 6:41 PM EST

Judging by Nicolle Wallace's performance on today's With All Due Respect, it looks like establishment Republicans are going full bore against Ted Cruz. Here was Wallace talking about her personal experience with Ted Cruz: "I worked with him on the [2000 Bush/Gore] recount in Florida, and the recount was sort of ground zero for the biggest egos in both parties in the whole country, and he rose to the top in terms of hubris and egomania."

Co-host John Heilemann was flabbergasted: "you're saying that among all of your colleagues in the recount effort, that he was the biggest ego?  Is that really what I heard you say? Wow! That is an incredible thing to say."

Brokaw: Benghazi? We Really Needed Investigation of Iraq Invasion and Non-existent WMD
By Mark Finkelstein | October 23, 2015 | 10:06 AM EDT

Say, Tom, maybe you could lead a movement to retroactively impeach George W. Bush . . . On today's Morning Joe, Tom Brokaw, downplayed the significance of Benghazi, suggesting instead that what we really needed was "a big congressional investigation about the decision to go to war in the first place in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist."

Brokaw also underlined that more lives were lost in terrorist attacks on the US Marine barracks in Lebanon, the USS Cole and Khobar Towers than in Benghazi.  Brokaw made a point to mention that the attack on the Marine barracks happened during Ronald Reagan's presidency, but failed to disclose that the USS Cole and Khobar Towers attacks happened during the presidency of Hillary Clinton's husband.  Simple slip by Brokaw, no doubt.

Iran Deal: Andrea Mitchell's Mushy Softball to Kerry About Vietnam
By Mark Finkelstein | July 17, 2015 | 8:29 AM EDT

Andrea Mitchell had the chance to ask John Kerry, on live national TV, any question she wanted about the Iran deal. She could, for example, have confronted him over the lifting of the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes that were included as a nice little parting gift to Iran.

Instead, in a moment of media malpractice, Mitchell lobbed up the mushiest of softballs on today's Morning Joe, asking Kerry "what that moment meant to you" when at the final negotiation meeting, he reminisced about going to Vietnam as a 22-year old "and that you never wanted to go to war without having exhausted the diplomacy."  A shame Andrea and John weren't in the same room so they could have exchanged a heartfelt hug.

Chris Matthews Claims 'There Was No Intelligence Saddam Had WMD. Never'
By Mark Finkelstein | May 15, 2015 | 8:53 PM EDT

It's easy for people--with the possible exception of Jeb Bush--to say that they would not have supported the invasion of Iraq knowing what we know now about WMD there.

But Chris Matthews took things a foolish step further on this evening's Hardball, actually claiming that "there was no intelligence they had a weapon. Never was."  Really?  So Hillary, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy et al. were collective fabricators when they issued dire warnings, based on the intelligence they had seen, about Saddam's WMD?

Michael Moore Defends Brian Williams by Trashing George W. Bush for Committing ‘Iraq War Lies’
By Curtis Houck | February 10, 2015 | 6:02 PM EST

Michael Moore took to his Facebook account on Sunday night to unleash a lengthy post lamenting how “a man with integrity” in Brian Williams was being punished for “committing the crime of Faux Macho due to his claim of being on the wrong chopper,” while members of the Bush administration “roam free” and get away with being “the real liars who were responsible for the Iraq War.” 

CBS Blasts GOP Campaign Ads on ISIS As 'a Tricky Campaign Issue' Since Obama 'Does Have a Strategy Now’
By Curtis Houck | October 7, 2014 | 11:55 PM EDT

On Tuesday evening, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley was the only broadcast network newscast to have any coverage of the upcoming midterm elections, which are four weeks away from Tuesday. 

While that was the case, the just over two-minute-long segment wasn’t free of liberal bias, as it criticized Republican candidates for running ads on the issue of fighting the Islamic terrorist group ISIS since President Obama “does have a strategy now” for confronting the group in Iraq and Syria.

CBS’s Plante: President Bush Takes ‘Slap at Barack Obama’
By Kyle Drennen | May 15, 2008 | 1:32 PM EDT

Still Shot of Bill Plante, May 15 On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show" correspondent Bill Plante reported on President Bush’s speech before the Israeli Knesset and suggested the president was going after Barack Obama: "The president today is slamming Iran, embracing the Israelis, barely mentioning the Palestinians, and he's suggesting, without naming any names, that anyone who's in favor of talking to Iran, like say, Barack Obama, is in favor of appeasement." [audio available here]

Later in the report, Plante again claimed that the president was attacking the Democratic candidate: "The president is also taking what some will interpret as a slap at Barack Obama. He's saying that those who believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, and he calls that appeasement." Plante then dismissed the comments as nothing more that President Bush pandering to voters during an election year: "White House officials deny that Mr. Bush had Obama specifically in mind, but it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see this as reaching out to American Jewish voters in an election year."

On the June 7, 2004 CBS "Evening News,"after Ronald Reagan’s death, Plante attacked the former president for what he saw as Reagan’s appeasement of terrorists during the Iran-Contra scandal:

CNN's O'Brien Defends Gore Movie, Global Warming Debate Over
By Brad Wilmouth | October 15, 2007 | 1:24 AM EDT

CNN viewers on Friday saw a relatively rare acknowledgement of those who are skeptical of Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," including a British judge who recently ruled that there are nine inaccuracies in the movie. But CNN's Miles O'Brien dismissed the views of dissenters, and downplayed the importance of the errors cited by the judge.

As he made several appearances on various CNN shows on Friday, O'Brien tagged dissenters with such labels as "dead-enders," a "tiny fraction of a minority," and a "very small fringe," as he linked skeptics to fossil fuel companies. He also repeatedly declared that the scientific debate on global warming is over. Notably, on the July 20 "The Situation Room," O'Brien had curtly lectured former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts with similar comments on the subject. O'Brien: "You're not paying attention to the science, J.C. You're definitely not paying attention. ... The scientific debate is over, J.C., we're done." (Transcript follows)