Bill O'Reilly challenged Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) Tuesday for bashing Fox News at a town hall meeting in early April.
"The intention is not to put anybody in jail," the Senator told an attendee who asked a question about penalties for folks who don't purchase health insurance once ObamaCare kicks in.
"That makes for good TV news on FOX, but that isn't the intention."
O'Reilly challenged Coburn for this slight (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) got himself in some hot water this weekend when he said that Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is a nice lady while seeming to take a shot at Fox News.
With this in mind, the folks at Daily Caller decided to interview the Senator to see if "the famously ferocious conservative from Muskogee [has] gone soft."
"If we're gonna win things, we have to look at other side," said Coburn.
"But if we're going to win debates we have to win on facts and caring attitudes, not demonize people."
The Senator then used a perfect example:
Democratic congressional efforts to steer the economy not working as advertised. The $787-billion stimulus passed back in early 2009 failed to curb unemployment as promised, and there are other risks of putting a blind trust in government to solve the nation's economic woes.
And to give credit where credit is due, CNN's Christine Romans is pointing these risks out. On the April 5 broadcast of "CNN Newsroom" hosted by Ali Velshi, Romans was asked about the politics of extending unemployment benefits, which were held up through the Easter recess by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. According to Romans, there is a tug-of-war going on in the Senate.
"The Senate Democrats say they are going to plug ahead and plow forward," Romans said. "The issue here is the same issue as last month basically. You have some Republicans - one in particular, Sen. Tom Coburn from Oklahoma - saying, ‘Look, we've got to be able to pay for this. Let's pay for it. Let's do it. It's the right thing to do to help people. Let's find a way to pay for it.' And you have Democrats who are saying, ‘No, this is emergency spending. This is an emergency. The jobless situation is an emergency. Let's just do it right now quickly without finding another way to pay for it.'"
Jon Stewart said Thursday press reporting of President Obama's healthcare summit was so bad that if he had to score it like an Olympic event, he'd disqualify the contestants for sucking.
The comedian devoted a full ten minutes to the bipartisan meeting on Thursday's "Daily Show," and was largely an equal opportunity offender.
After taking what some would consider to be a cheap shot at "Senator Tom 'Killing Abortion Doctors Might Not Be Such A Terrible Idea' Coburn," Stewart quipped moments later, "That's Senator Chuck 'If I Was Any More Liberal and Jewish I'd Have T*ts and Be Barbra Streisand' Schumer."
But much of his attack was about the media coverage, especially toward the end (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):
Of course Shuster ignored the unambiguously inflammatory remarks, also made on Sunday on the Senate floor, by freshman Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. The Rhode Island Democrat insisted that Republicans were "destined to break this president" and were in league with "ardent supporters" from among the ranks of "the birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militias and Aryan support groups" to whom it was "unbearable... that President Barack Obama should exist."
Yet even after his MSNBC colleague Mika Brzezinski aired Whitehouse's comments on the December 22 "Morning Joe", Shuster failed to give his "Big Picture" viewers the, well, big picture, by showing Whitehouse's rant, even though he aired a clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) which hardly makes sense unless you know that Graham is referring back to and rebutting Whitehouse's charge. See for yourself by clicking play on the video embed above.
In a story posted on nytimes.com Sunday night, reporters Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn found that the “Senate Debate on Health Care Exacerbates Partisanship.” As usual, the Times only finds partisanship taking place on behalf of the Republican Party. Most incredibly, the two reporters either missed or ignored the most inflammatory comments issued on the Senate floor on Sunday, when Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island comparing some Republican opponents of Obama care to Jim Crow-era lynchers, and Nazis: “History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrils have rolled through taunting crowds, broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner waving secret lists."From Hulse and Herszenhorn's report, with its emphasis on Republican nastiness:
Nasty charges of bribery. Senators cut off midspeech. Accusations of politics put over patriotism. Talk of double-crosses. A nonagenarian forced to the floor after midnight for multiple procedural votes.
The "nonagenarian" is of course Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Hulse and Herszenhorn returned to the sad plight of Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd later.The Times actually quoted a portion of Whitehouse’s nasty speech chiding the GOP, but without mentioning the odious comparisons to Nazis and Jim Crow racists Whitehouse had made less than four minutes previously:
<p>When it comes to freedom of speech, liberal journalists are the staunchest of defenders, right? Not so much when it comes to blasting Republican senators opposed to ObamaCare for "borderline sedition" that "comes dangerously close to inciting violence."</p><p>That was the complaint of Time's Joe Klein, who <a href="http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/12/21/coburn-heartburn/?utm_source=... target="_blank">griped today on the magazine's Swampland blog</a> about Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) saying:</p><blockquote><p>"The crisis of confidence in this country is now at an apex that has not seen in over 150 years, and that lack of confidence undermines the ability of legitimate governance," he said. "There's a lot of people out there today who...will say, 'I give up on my government,' and rightly so."</p></blockquote><p>Of course, many liberals said similar things about losing faith in their government during the previous administration, one with which Klein had many disagreements, most if not all of which he took to Time's pages or Web site to bluster about. I don't recall any concern from Klein about seditious liberals or Democrats when George Bush or Dick Cheney was the object of harsh rhetoric. </p><p>But leave it to a Republican senator to criticize the pork barreling and special exemptions Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has given to fellow Democrats to buy a cloture vote, and it's damn near seditious to Klein:</p><blockquote>
COBURN: What the American people ought to pray, is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight. That’s what they ought to pray.This, of course, is political gamesmanship. But it goes further than that. In the entirety of Morning Joe, I did not note a single mention of the following statement from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) -- hat tip to Kerry Picket for catching this:
[...]
DURBIN: I don’t think it’s appropriate to be invoking prayer to wish misfortune on a colleague. And I want him to clarify that. I’ve invited him, I’ve tried to reach out to him. He is my friend, and I have worked with him, but this statement goes too far. The simple reality is this: We are becoming more coarse and more divided here [...].
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told people on Sunday they should pray someone misses Monday morning's crucial healthcare vote, and media members predictably gasped as if he was hoping a Senator would take ill or worse.
Somehow all those hyperventilating missed that there was a major snowstorm over the weekend closing airports and snarling traffic, and that travel impediments might have acted to prevent those not already in the nation's capital from getting there.
Likely with this in mind, Coburn said Sunday, "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight. That's what they ought to pray."
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank gruesomely took issue with this in his piece "An Ugly Finale For Health-care Reform" (video of Coburn's remarks embedded below the fold):
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey absolutely ripped Rachel Maddow at Tuesday's anti-healthcare reform rally in Washington, D.C.
Speaking to hundreds of protesters, Armey lambasted the MSNBC host -- who he incorrectly referred to as "Maddox" -- for having the nerve to lecture Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) about healthcare.
Armey was clearly referring to August 16's "Meet the Press" when, as NewsBusters reported, Maddow's behavior in a panel discussion that included Armey and Coburn was absolutely atrocious.
For her part, Maddow chose to defend herself on her show Tuesday by misrepresenting the truth (video that includes Armey's comments embedded below the fold with full transcript):
<p><img src="http://media.eyeblast.org/newsbusters/static/2009/07/ilovelucy.jpg" vspace="3" width="240" align="right" border="0" height="161" hspace="3" />Might Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) have some "'splainin' to do" about racial insensitivity? Both Associated Press editor <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl701;_ylt=AlEqEJDXv.ZFcssKoeHkMRms0... target="_blank">Michael Giarrusso</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0709/Coburn_might_have_some_sp... target="_blank">Politico's Glenn Thrush</a> raised the question in blog posts filed this morning. </p><p>Shortly before noon, Giarrusso noted that "Sen. Tom Coburn evoked a 1950s TV show in a quip responding to Sonia Sotomayor’s scenario about what he might do if she -- hypothetically, of course -- attacked him."</p><p>For online readers unaware of the half-century-old pop culture reference, Giarrusso explained:</p>
Some of America's leading bloggers had an opportunity to talk with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) Friday morning.For those unfamiliar, Coburn is a true conservative and straight-talker who is always a treat on these conference calls due to his hold no punches, tell it like it is style. Beyond the agenda items of the expanding federal deficit, earmarks, and bailouts, the Senator offered participants his must-hear view of who should be recruited by the Republican Party to return it to its conservative, fiscally responsible roots (audio available here).
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