Charlie Crist

MSNBC's Reid Rewrites Crist History, Throws Black Dem Kendrick Meek Under Bus
By Ken Shepherd | November 4, 2013 | 7:09 PM EST

In her closing "Clear the Air" commentary on the November 4 Martin Bashir program, substitute host and longtime Florida resident Joy-Ann Reid rewrote the political history of Republican-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, who announced today that he will run for the governorship in the 2014 election cycle.

Reid suggested that Florida Democrats should get over their suspicions about the turncoat and get behind Crist to better ensure that the governor's chair is flipped over to Democratic control. In doing so, however, Reid virtually threw liberal African-American and loyal Democrat Kendrick Meek under the bus:

AP: Charlie Crist Connects With People Like Bill Clinton Does (Really?)
By Tom Blumer | November 2, 2013 | 7:51 PM EDT

Charlie Crist will formally announce his Florida 2014 gubernatorial candidacy on Monday. He served as Republican Governor of the Sunshine State from 2007 to 2011. He is now running as a Democrat. In 2010, he fell from being a prohibitive front-runner in that year's U.S. Senate race to a virtual afterthought after Marco Rubio's ascendance.

In the course of a fawning writeup about Crist's candidacy, the Associated Press, in a story carried at the Politico, made the following historically questionable claim about Crist:

Former Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist Becomes A Democrat
By Noel Sheppard | December 8, 2012 | 10:26 AM EST

Charlie Crist, the Obama-supporting former Republican governor of Florida announced Friday that he has officially registered as a Democrat.

He did so by tweeting the following:

MSNBC Omitted Dem Party-Jumper Artur Davis, Showcased Ex-GOPer Charlie Crist
By Matt Vespa | September 6, 2012 | 10:07 PM EDT

MSNBC graciously broadcasted Republican exile and former Governor of Florida Charlie Crist’s address to the Democratic Convention during their Thursday night coverage.   However, that courtesy was not given to Democrat turned Republican former Congressman Artur Davis during the Republican Convention last week.

As my colleague Ken Shepherd noted on August 29, Maddow tore into Davis during what was to be only the post speech commentary and portrayed Davis as “bitter” – thus the event that precipitated his departure from the Republican Party:

MSNBC's Maddow: Artur Davis Bitter Because Was 'Absolutely Destroyed' In Party Primary; No Mention Same True of Charlie Crist
By Ken Shepherd | August 29, 2012 | 12:55 PM EDT

As you may be well aware, MSNBC did not air Democrat-turned-Republican Artur Davis's speech last night. Shortly before 10 p.m. Eastern, anchor Rachel Maddow seemed to offer the network's rationale: Davis was a low-profile Democrat who is just bitter because he was "absolutely destroyed" in his primary race for Alabama governor in 2010.

Yet in the very next breath, Maddow seemed positively giddy that the Democrats had landed former Gov. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) to speak at their convention next week. There was no mention that he too was being so thoroughly and "absolutely destroyed" by Marco Rubio in the primary election polls in 2010 that he dropped out of the GOP primary in order to run as an independent. He of course, subsequently lost to Rubio in the general election by 19 percentage points. [MP3 audio here; video embedded below page break]

NBCNews.com Omits Democrat-turned-Republican Artur Davis from List of 'Notable' Speeches at RNC
By Ken Shepherd | August 29, 2012 | 10:42 AM EDT

Most Americans don't watch the coverage of party nominating conventions, and everyone in the media knows it. So as a public service,  "NBC Politics team has curated some of the notable speeches from the first night of the Republican National Convention in Tampa," according to a late night August 28 post on NBCNews.com website.

While NBC has the resources to embed videos of EVERY speech from last night, it decided to judge which ones were "notable." Wouldn't you know it, the speech of Artur Davis -- the former Democratic congressman from Alabama who seconded Barack Obama's nomination for the presidency at the Democratic convention in 2008 -- was not included in the list.

MSNBC Mistakenly Tags Herman Cain As Dem, Laughably Considers Charlie Crist Republican
By Ken Shepherd | January 31, 2012 | 3:20 PM EST

Herman Cain's political affiliation was incorrectly tagged as Democratic in an onscreen graphic during the 10 a.m. Eastern Chris Jansing Reports program today. Jansing was promoting the former Republican presidential contender's appearance on the noon Eastern Now with Alex Wagner program.

It was most certainly an innocent mistake by the graphics designer, but less excusable was yesterday's Hardball with Chris Matthews where former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist appeared as a guest of Matthews's tagged as a Republican. [see screenshots below page break; Update follows at bottom of post]

AP on Rubio Assumes He's Still the One on the Defensive Over Parents' Cuban Departure
By Tom Blumer | October 25, 2011 | 12:12 AM EDT

Despite all the huffing and puffing over Florida Senator Marco Rubio's alleged "embellishing" at the Washington Post, the fact is that his parents were Cuban exiles (meaning number 5 at link: "anyone separated from his or her country or home voluntarily or by force of circumstances"). That fact essentially undercuts everything about the WaPo article except the problem with the opening sentence of the biography at Rubio's Senate web site, which has been corrected.

That didn't stop two Associated Press writers, Brendan Farrington and Laura Wides-Munoz from doing quite a bit of embellishing of their own (a better word would be "mischaracterizing") in an item currently time-stamped early Saturday morning, while pretending that the rebuttal to the Post written by Mark Caputo at the Miami Herald doesn't exist. The AP pair's pathetic prose has two particular howlers which simply must be debunked.

Matthews Mourns 'Death' of the Republican Moderate
By Geoffrey Dickens | November 2, 2010 | 8:45 PM EDT

  Chris Matthews, during MSNBC's live election night coverage, was distressed at what he saw was the "death of the moderate wing of the Republican Party." After his colleague Keith Olbermann ran down the latest results of Republicans leading or winning in specific races Matthews bemoaned how such moderates like Charlie Crist and Arlen Specter were run out of their own party and even bellowed: "Mike Castle getting knocked out by the woman who said she's not a witch...is a joke, it's a joke for the Republican Party to lose people like Mike Castle."

The following November 2, outburst by Matthews was aired during MSNBC's live election night coverage:

 (video after the jump)

MSNBC's Todd, Guthrie Urge Democrat Meek to Quit Florida Senate Race
By Mark Finkelstein | October 11, 2010 | 10:16 AM EDT

Well, they did stop short of presenting him with a ceremonial seppuku sword . . .

But other than that, MSNBC's Daily Rundown duo of Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie did their best to convince Florida Dem Kendreck Meek to get out of the senatorial race to give Charlie Crist a shot against Marco Rubio.

Todd tried the cold-hard-numbers route, while Guthrie made an emotional appeal, literally asking Meek if he "can live" with himself if his continued candidacy resulted in the election of Rubio.  View video here.

Palm Beach Post Misses Own Charlie Crist 'Pinocchio Moment' Scoop
By P.J. Gladnick | October 4, 2010 | 12:01 PM EDT

Updated with correction below.

How embarrassing is it when a senatorial candidate sits down with your own editorial board and issues a statement so absurdly mendacious that the video clip of the "Pinocchio moment" becomes a big hit in the blogosphere yet your own story about the interview completely misses it? Such was the case with the Palm Beach Post. Charlie Crist sat down for an hour long interview with its editorial board and declared that he would still have left the Republican party even if polls had shown that he was running 20 points ahead of Marco Rubio in the race for the U.S. Senate seat from Florida. Here is a transcript of that memorable magic moment:

Q: But if you had been 20 points up in the polls over Mr. Rubio would you have left the party to run as .an independent?

A: Absolutely. Yes. I absolutely would have. Because I think it's that important. Sure. I would have...

ABC Describes Activist Court Ruling as ‘New Hope’ for Gay Adoption in Florida
By Brad Wilmouth | September 26, 2010 | 4:35 PM EDT

On Wednesday’s World News on ABC, anchor Diane Sawyer briefly reported on a court ruling in Florida which struck down a state law banning the adoption of children by homosexual couples. Ignoring the issue of whether an activist court should make such a ruling, Sawyer seemed to frame the story from a sympathetic point of view for would-be same-sex parents in Florida as she referred to the ruling as "new hope" for such couples. Sawyer: "And there is new hope tonight for gay people in Florida who want to adopt a child. A state appeals court ruled that the 33-year-old ban on gay adoption is unconstitutional. And the governor said that the state will allow the adoptions immediately."

But, while ABC News programs have a history of advocating gay rights, it is ironic that the story was immediately followed by a full report about Bishop Eddie Long, a Georgia pastor accused of pushing teenage boys into homosexual sex. Sawyer set up the report: "And trouble is mounting tonight for the pastor of a 25,000-member mega church near Atlanta. Bishop Eddie Long, who lives a lavish lifestyle and has denounced homosexuality, is accused of coercing three young men into relationships. Steve Osunsami has details of the lawsuits."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Wednesday, September 22, World News on ABC: