"Sometimes you do wonder if [Republicans] are moles, Manchurian candidates for I don't know who, if their real job is to bring down America."
So said New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on MSNBC's Martin Bashir show Friday (video follows with transcript and commentary):
David Corn, the perilously liberal Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, got a much-needed civics lesson from the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday.
After Corn carped and whined about House Republicans blocking Barack Obama's fiscal agenda, Noonan replied, "When a President wants to make something happen, he can make it happen, and he can't sit back and say, 'Oh, they wouldn't talk. They wouldn't do this. I'm so sorry.' You make it happen if you are President" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on Friday might have said the wisest thing he’s ever uttered on television.
Speaking with two Democratic members of Congress about goings on in the House Friday, Bashir said referring to Republicans, “If there isn’t a war on women most of us must be ignorant” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Charlie Rose did his best to forward liberals' talking points about Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, during an interview of House Speaker John Boehner. Rose played up Mitt Romney's endorsement of the Ryan plan and how the former governor "talked about, perhaps, abolishing H.E.W. [sic]- I mean, HUD, as well as Department of Education."
The anchor even went so far to tout how "Catholic bishops today said that the Ryan budget fails to meet moral criteria and disproportionately cuts programs that serve the poor and the vulnerable, which sounds like the President." By contrast, Rose didn't even bring up Nancy Pelosi's notorious dissent from Catholic doctrine during a recent interview of Boehner's immediate predecessor on PBS.
On Thursday's Morning Edition, NPR's Peter Overby slanted towards a left-wing coalition targeting the conservative group ALEC. Overby trumpeted how Coke and Pepsi succumbed to pressure from the "campaign to put a spotlight on companies that sell products to a public that might object to hardline conservative policies, such as 'stand your ground' laws or requirements that voters show a photo I.D."
The correspondent featured representatives from two of the groups in the coalition- ColorOfChange and Common Cause- and labeled them as a "civil rights group" and a "good government group" respectively. He also made only one passing reference to their political ideology- that they were part of "progressive groups and shareholder activists."
Matt Bai, chief political correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, delivered Sunday a 10,000-word epic cover story on last summer's failed debt negotiations between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner: "Who Killed the Debt Deal?" Bai, who appeared on ABC's This Week on Sunday to say the public was missing "all the good things" Obama-care will do for them, and sees a racial element in virtually every GOP attack on Obama, basically sided with the president in his epic tick-tock on the debt negotiation imbroglio that captured D.C. last summer.
It follows the Washington Post's 4,600-word effort on March 17, which leaned toward Obama as the chief culprit in the failed negotiations: "Obama, nervous about how to defend the emerging agreement to his own Democratic base, upped the ante in a way that made it more difficult for Boehner -- already facing long odds -- to sell it to his party. Eventually, the president tried to put the original framework back in play, but by then it was too late. The moment of making history had passed."
In an interview with House Speaker John Boehner aired on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer depicted the November election as a futile effort for the GOP: "[The economy] does put some Republicans in a difficult position. You've got better job numbers, you've got better manufacturing numbers. Consumer debt is down. Consumer confidence is up. Isn't it hard to run against a recovering economy?"
Moments earlier, Boehner explained: "I would argue that it should be doing a lot better. It's doing better in spite of what Washington is doing to the economy." Later, Lauer quipped: "Is that – and I hate to, you know, condense things to bumper stickers – is that the slogan, 'It can be better'?"
Charlie Rose surprised Rep. Paul Ryan on Tuesday's CBS This Morning by promoting the latest smear from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Rose displayed their fake horror-movie poster with Ryan's face beside House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner. It included the caption, "Just when you thought Medicare was safe, THEY'RE BACK. This time, they want to finish it for good."
Rose told the Wisconsin Republican, "Democrats have tried...to portray you as someone who wants to destroy Medicare, and they have a poster in which you are, in a sense, the poster boy of that. And their argument is that you will, in fact, by a voluntary system, lead to the destruction of something that seniors have come to depend on" [audio available here; video below the jump].
It didn't take long for Republicans to get bashed during David Letterman's interview with Michelle Obama Monday night.
In the middle of an election year, the CBS Late Show host actually asked the First Lady, "Has your husband ever come home and said to you, 'Oh, that John Boehner, what an idiot?'” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
CNN's Erin Burnett on Monday did a segment correctly castigating Congress for not passing a budget in over 1000 days.
The only problem was that while she did this, pictures of House Republicans were shown on the screen despite the blame resting solely with Senate Democrats (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Bill Press has a new book out called “The Obama Hate Machine.” To read the blurbs, you might wonder if Press thinks no one should be allowed to criticize the president. Here’s Nancy Pelosi touting the book: "In a poisoned political climate, negative personal attacks on President Obama must have no place in our public discourse."
What’s next? A mandate forbidding inappropriate free speech? These tolerant liberals are out of control.
The lack of current events knowledge demonstrated by today's anchors and political commentators is often breathtaking.
On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory actually told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), "Democrats haven't put together a budget in a year." Actually, it's been almost three years (video follows with transcript and commentary):