CNN broke out the pom-poms on Monday and cheered the Republicans who reneged on Grover Norquist's no-tax hike pledge. CNN contributor John Avlon lauded them as "profiles in courage."
Avlon quipped that now "people don't fear the Grover. And that's a good thing, you know." Anchor Carol Costello clearly liked the GOP mutiny, asking "how excited should we really be by all of this talk of throwing Grover Norquist under the bust [sic]?"
[UPDATE BELOW] CNN's Christine Romans and Soledad O'Brien teamed up on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Tuesday's Starting Point, pressuring him to renege on his pledge not to raise tax rates.
"So would you be fine doing a compromise where you would go against your signature on that pledge?" O'Brien pressed Chaffetz over Grover Norquist's pledge not to hike tax rates and not to increase tax revenues without enacting equal tax rate cuts. She asked him if he would "say this to the pledge" while tearing up a piece of paper.
After the last jobs report before the election, CNN's Soledad O'Brien tried to be positive even with high underemployment and unemployment rates. On Friday's Starting Point, she ridiculously cast underemployment moving down one tenth of a percent to 14.6 as "improving."
"Underemployment which was 14.7 percent, now 14.6; labor force participation, as well, that's better. Are you feeling encouraged at all?" she asked conservative guest Grover Norquist. "No. This is not even a dead cat bounce," he replied.
Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist had himself quite a day on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday dispelling liberal media myths.
In the course of about five minutes, Norquist gave a much-needed education to CNN political contributor Hilary Rosen and the Washington Post's Bob Woodward on which political party in Washington is obstructionist (video follows with transcript and commentary):
The Sunday newspaper supplement Parade magazine is showing its liberal bias again...but this time, it's helping the Bush family whacks anti-tax conservatives again. Just as Jeb Bush slammed the Grover Norquist tax pledge last month, George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush unload for this Sunday's papers. George asks: "Who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?" Barbara thinks he should "go back to Alaska."
Parade puffs Bush up by claiming he was "vindicated in many respects" for scrapping his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge -- although you certainly cannot claim it reduced the deficit as he promised during his one term:
MSNBC's Chris Matthews is clearly scared to death Barack Obama won't be reelected in November.
On Monday's Hardball, the host upped the attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney ending his program with a hate-filled monologue about how the former governor of Massachusetts is a "dangerous," unthinking puppet controlled by neo-cons, the religious right, and Grover Norquist (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Did Erin Burnett just blow off the recall election results in Wisconsin? Even though the Governor Walker won his recall election by seven percentage points, the CNN host questioned the popularity of his "hard-line" tactics on Wednesday because of Obama beating Romney in the exit polls.
Burnett even admitted the exit polls aren't completely reliable, but still asked conservative guest Grover Norquist "So do you think some of these hard-line tactics, you know this kind of my way or the highway, if you don't like it, go jump off a cliff, is not the way to do it?"
Former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wy.) went on quite an anti-GOP rant Sunday after admitting on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, "I guess I’m known as a RINO now which means Republican In Name Only."
Before taking a shot at tax advocate Grover Norquist - who "[wanders] the earth in his white robes" - Simpson said, "Abortion is a horrible thing, but for heaven sakes, it’s deeply intimate and personal decision, and men legislators shouldn’t even vote on it" (video follows with transcript):
On Thursday’s edition of his eponymous program, MSNBC afternoon anchor Martin Bashir continued his shtick of using vile language to attack people with whom he disagrees, wishing a co-founder of the Facebook social network to go "play with the traffic."
Bashir's death wish on Eduardo Saverin came at the end of a segment in which he criticized conservative activist Grover Norquist. Norquist, an advocate of lower taxes and tax reform, had sharply criticized an "exit tax" bill authored by Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) The senator churned up the legislation as a left-wing populist response to Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin for renouncing his American citizenship to avoid burdensome U.S. taxes. Saverin lives in Singapore and plans to live and conduct business there for the foreseeable future, his attorney has told the press.
Is there anything liberals won't blame on conservatives?
On HBO's Real Time Friday, host Bill Maher actually accused the Right of being responsible for the obesity problem in the country (video follows with transcript and commentary):
April 15, Tax Day, fell on a Sunday this year. American taxpayers get a two-day reprieve on the deadline this year thanks to Monday being a public holiday in the District of Columbia. But all the same, it was the perfect occasion for the Washington Post's On Faith feature to give readers a liberal homily on taxes.
Liberal theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite had the honors. "There’s nothing more hypocritical today than the kind of political gamesmanship we have about paying taxes," the former Chicago Theological Seminary president groused, explaining:
Apparently, Grover Norquist and the Republican Party are to blame for the rising debt, according to CNN's Fareed Zakaria. In his Sunday interview with Norquist, Zakaria argued that the GOP tax-cutting agenda failed to also cut spending, which led to the country's increase in borrowing.
Zakaria's sloppy logic also revealed itself later when he posed to Norquist that tax cuts didn't necessarily lead to economic growth.