On Wednesday's NBC Today, a report by correspondent Kerry Sanders featured a series of sound bites of public figures, all of them liberal, reacting to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman. Most of the statements focused on using Martin's death to call for the elimination of Stand Your Ground self-defense laws. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Sanders began the slanted segment by highlighting protests against the verdict: "Four days after George Zimmerman was found not guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter, the number of rallies in memory of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is growing....In Florida's capitol, dozens of demonstrators peacefully occupied the Governor's office....The Governor wasn't there, but they vow to stay until he gets back."
Trayvon Martin
Bloomberg columnist Margaret Carlson tied immigration reform to the shooting of Trayvon Martin on Wednesday’s Morning Joe, claiming Republican voters oppose the Senate immigration bill because they believe “immigrants are, you know, people in hoodies.” While the inflammatory line would no doubt be well-received on a liberal network like MSNBC, it seems somewhat unbecoming of a professional political journalist.
Suffice it to say, Carlson was not called out by her fellow panelists for the hyperbolic comment. Carlson also commended Thomas Friedman’s latest op-ed in The New York Times, entitled “If Churchill Could See Us Now,” in which Friedman – who recently held up China as a paragon of greatness, so long as they don’t emulate the “American Dream” – blasted House Republicans for making this country “un-great”:
It’s too bad for some bloggers that the Internet doesn’t come with an eraser. It would certainly come in handy right now to a whole slew of online “journalists” who seized on the calm before the storm on Sunday as proof that the “white” predictions of riots were way overblown.
Take PoliticsUSA, which prides itself on being a source of “real liberal politics.”
To all too many on the left, America has barely budged since the '50s when it comes to civil rights. As far as liberal radio host Thom Hartmann is concerned, America has barely budged since the antebellum era.
Hard to believe anyone, even a hard-core leftist, can spread such drivel, what with a man of color holding the highest office in the land -- one to which he was just comfortably re-elected -- and the Justice Department being run, go figure, by another man of color. What's truly amazing is that both men are actually slaves, at least in the Amerika that Hartmann finds so primitive and backward. (Audio clip after the jump)
As NewsBusters previously reported, Stevie Wonder on Monday told a Quebec City concert audience that he was boycotting Florida and other states with "Stand Your Ground" laws as a result of the George Zimmerman verdict.
Apparently not to be outdone, Bruce Springsteen on Tuesday dedicated a song to Trayvon Martin during a concert in Limerick, Ireland.
It seems even the CBS Late Show audience is tiring of Bill Maher.
On Tuesday, the HBO Real Time host was booed twice for tasteless jokes about the George Zimmerman verdict (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Just when it seemed that the racial tensions couldn't get any worse after George Zimmerman's “not guilty” verdict regarding the charge of the second-degree murder of black teenager Trayvon Martin, along comes Nancy Grace, the host of a weeknight news/interview program on the HLN cable news network, who did her best to fan the flames even higher.
Responding to lead defense attorney Mark O'Mara's closing argument on Friday night asking the jury to give Zimmerman his life back, the acerbic host growled: “Give Zimmerman back his life? He’s out on bond driving through Taco Bell every night, having a churro.”
On Monday's All In with Chris Hayes, MSNBC political analyst Michael Eric Dyson declared that George Zimmerman has become "a kind of patron saint of the right wing in a very serious way" as he complained that he has "been made an icon" and will receive external support in his freedom.
Host Hayes fretted that Zimmerman would not sufficiently have to face his conscience as he quoted a tweet. Hayes:
You would think that when a demonstration turns violent resulting in damages, robberies, injuries, and arrests, the major newspaper in that city would do a separate possibly front-page story on the event.
Not the Los Angeles Times which despite a highly-violent Zimmerman verdict-related rally erupting on Crenshaw Blvd. Monday evening, the print edition of the paper only included the incident in a page six report about national outrage over the ruling:
George Zimmerman haters throughout the media have carped and whined about the fact that there weren’t any African-Americans on the jury despite the law requiring the accused NOT the victim be judged by his peers.
On CNN Newsroom Tuesday, it was revealed that a potential black juror had been struck by the prosecution for committing the crime of being a Fox News watcher (video follows with transcript and commentary):
In the wake of the jury’s "not guilty" verdict in the George Zimmerman second-degree murder trial, numerous voices in the liberal media have been railing against supposed racism in our justice system and American society in general. But for MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts, the verdict is not merely a message about race relations in America; it is a commentary on the status of all Americans who are different.
Filling in as host on Sunday’s Weekends with Alex Witt, Roberts, an openly gay white anchor, was moderating a discussion of the Zimmerman case when he decided to jump in with commentary of his own. Addressing colleague Melissa Harris-Perry, who hosts a weekend program on the network and who happens to be black, Roberts declared, “I'll say it, honestly, there's a lot of white shame today.”
It's really getting absurd out there.
On Monday evening, Stevie Wonder told a concert audience in Quebec City that he will no longer perform in Florida or any other state with "Stand Your Ground" laws as a result of the George Zimmerman verdict (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):