Aided by its simpatico allies at MSNBC, the Obama campaign has swung into action to contain yet another unfortunate outbreak of candor.
That an affinity of soulmates exists between Obamists and MSNBCers was never more evident than yesterday in the wake of Newark mayor Cory Booker appearing on "Meet the Press" and opining that the Obama campaign vilifying Mitt Romney for his work at Bain Capital was as "nauseating" as a proposed GOP ad campaign on President Obama's erstwhile ties to radical cleric Jeremiah Wright. (video clip after page break)
Jeremiah Wright
By Jack Coleman | May 22, 2012 | 3:00 PM EDT
By Clay Waters | May 21, 2012 | 4:02 PM EDT
Political reporter Michael Shear uses a half-baked Times "expose" to accuse the GOP of using racial attacks by bringing up the legitimate issue of the anti-white, anti-American, paranoid ravings of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for decades in Chicago, in Saturday's "Race and Religion Rear Their Heads."
Perhaps the uglier side of politics is always close to the surface.
President Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, have said for months that the 2012 election will be about the economy. But on Thursday, it became -- at least for a brief moment -- about the always touchy issues of race and religion.
By Noel Sheppard | May 20, 2012 | 4:20 PM EDT
The New York Times on Thursday published a front page piece about a Mitt Romney supporting Super PAC that allegedly considered bringing a lot of attention to Barack Obama's America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Conservatives George Will and Laura Ingraham both slammed the Times for this shoddy report on ABC's This Week Sunday with the former saying the truth "didn't fit their narrative" and the latter claiming it "was a shot across the bow that if you are a wealthy person in the United States, you happen to be conservative, you're going to get involved in this election, then we are going to watch everything that you do" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | May 20, 2012 | 12:51 PM EDT
If there was a contest each week for the dumbest comment made by a member of the media, this would likely be last week's prohibitive favorite.
On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show this weekend, during a discussion about Barack Obama's America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page actually said with a straight face, "Right-wing wouldn't have that story if it wasn't for the mainstream media" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Jack Coleman | May 19, 2012 | 11:30 PM EDT
When it comes to his memory of the 2008 presidential campaign, Ed Schultz is either dishonest or ignorant, though he might well be both.
On his radio show Thursday, Schultz made a claim that was demonstrably false -- and refuted by the source he cited to bolster it, the HBO docudrama "Game Change." (video, audio clips after page break)
By Noel Sheppard | May 19, 2012 | 12:15 PM EDT
The Obama-loving media had quite a hissy fit this week when the President's America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright suddenly became a campaign issue despite all their efforts.
So opposed to the mere mention of Wright's name is NPR's Nina Totenberg that on PBS's Inside Washington Friday, she said he's irrelevant because the current White House resident - wait for it! - killed Osama bin Laden (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Kyle Drennen | May 18, 2012 | 11:17 AM EDT
On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams decried a pitch to use President Obama's former radical left-wing pastor Jeremiah Wright in a campaign ad: "...there was an explosive headline this morning. The New York Times reporting that a Republican super-PAC was considering an expensive anti-Obama ad campaign that would have put the issue of race front and center in the campaign..."
Williams conveniently skipped over Wright's vicious anti-American rhetoric in several sermons, preferring to cast the story in racial terms. The only sound bite featured of Wright in the segment was brief and again described in racial terms, as correspondent Peter Alexander explained: "...the plan for a short film to publicize Wright's racially incendiary sermons, including this remark following 9/11." The sound bite that followed showed Wright ranting: "America's chickens are coming home to roost."
By Brent Baker | May 17, 2012 | 8:26 PM EDT
Reacting to Mitt Romney’s discomfort toward proposed independent expenditure ads reminding Americans of President Obama’s connections to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, on FNC Thursday night Charles Krauthammer delivered a rebuke to the media’s presumption raising Wright would be illegitimate. Krauthammer sure didn’t hold back:
I think there is an appalling double standard here. It’s okay for the Washington Post to run a five thousand word front page story on a prank that Romney, at the age of 15, committed. And yet it’s somehow illegitimate, the low road or whatever, for people to bring up the fact that the adult Obama had a 20-year relationship with a racist anti-American preacher whom he considered, spoke about, wrote about as his mentor and spiritual advisor.
By Clay Waters | May 17, 2012 | 6:42 PM EDT
Thursday's New York Times off-lead by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg was intended to cause heartburn for the Mitt Romney camp: "G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighing A Hard-Line Attack on Obama."
The ad strategy, which was aborted after the Times ran with it on Thursday's front page, would have emphasized Obama's controversial Chicago pastor, the racially inflammatory Jeremiah Wright. But the Times as usual described Rev. Wright's anti-white jeremiads in bland terms, burying Wright's 9-11 quote that the attack was “America’s chickens are coming home to roost," and left out his notorious "God damn America!" rant completely. That distanced approach matches the paper's reluctant Wright coverage during the 2008 campaign.
By Jack Coleman | April 22, 2012 | 10:53 PM EDT
Oh how I love when Ed Schultz criticizes anyone else as unhinged.
Schultz did this for much of last week, lashing out at rocker Ted Nugent's gung-ho rhetoric at the NRA convention. (audio clips after page break)
By Jack Coleman | March 15, 2012 | 11:02 AM EDT
Happen to notice if a state senator named Obama was there too ...?
Freshly-minted MSNBC weekend host and purported Tulane academic Melissa Harris-Perry revealed on Al Sharpton's radio show Tuesday that she was in the audience at Trinity United Church of Christ for Rev. Jeremiah Wright's incendiary sermon on the Sunday after the 9/11 attacks. (audio clip after page break)
'Fanning the Flames': NBC Claims Santorum's Mention of Jeremiah Wright A 'New Shot' at Obama's Faith
By Kyle Drennen | February 21, 2012 | 4:36 PM EST
At the top of Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry admonished Rick Santorum for accurately describing President Obama's religious history: "Fanning the flames. Rick Santorum takes a new shot at President Obama's faith by mentioning his controversial former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright."
In a later report, correspondent Peter Alexander announced: "Rick Santorum isn't backing down from what some viewed as a shot this weekend at the President's faith....On Fox News, Santorum may have fanned the flames, when he again insisted he was not questioning the President's Christianity."