On Monday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose hinted that Republicans needed to go further in decrying Rush Limbaugh's slam of radical feminist and law student Sandra Fluke. Rose asked Senator John McCain, "Are you satisfied that those Republican officials have gone far enough in condemning these statements?" McCain replied, "Oh, I'll leave that up to pundits like you, Charlie" [audio available here; video below the jump].
The morning newscast also highlighted how "seven companies have pulled commercials from Limbaugh's nationally syndicated show. Online data company Carbonite said the on-air attack crossed the line....Limbaugh had some defenders, but they were drowned out by those protests on the left, and critics on the right."
Erica Hill
By Matthew Balan | March 5, 2012 | 4:10 PM EST
By Matthew Balan | February 24, 2012 | 3:10 PM EST
CBS This Morning on Friday boosted left-wing comedian John Oliver's smear on Rick Santorum, and conservatism in general, where he equated the GOP presidential candidate with a hardcore drug like crack cocaine: "America likes its conservatism cut with plenty of baking powder because one hit of the pure stuff, and you'll wake up with Eric Stoltz...having just plunged an adrenaline needle into your heart."
Anchor Charlie Rose praised the offensive crack, which aired on Thursday's Daily Show: "Don't you love John Oliver?" Erica Hill agreed with her co-anchor, and added, "Always gives us a good laugh. We like that." Later that morning, a post on the far-left website Daily Kos praised Oliver's entire rant as "brilliant," as it supposedly "tells the truth about what the GOP really wants to do" [audio available here; video below the jump].
By Matthew Balan | February 9, 2012 | 4:14 PM EST
After almost three weeks, CBS finally brought on a member of the Catholic hierarchy on Thursday's CBS This Morning to discuss the Obama administration health care mandate that forces Catholic institutions, like hospitals and colleges, to violate their consciences and pay for abortion-inducing drugs and contraception [audio clips available here; video clips below the jump]. On Good Morning America, ABC ignored the controversy for the second straight day.
It was also the second straight day that the CBS morning newscast brought on a Catholic cleric for his take about the prominent issue. By contrast, on Tuesday, NBC 's Today turned to their in-house radical feminist, Rachel Maddow, who blasted the completely warranted opposition to the new policy as a "pretty far-right perspective" and "an extension of anti-abortion politics."
By Matthew Balan | February 1, 2012 | 5:26 PM EST
On their Wednesday morning shows, the Big Three networks continued their trend of all but ignoring the Obama administration trying to force religious institutions to include coverage of sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraceptives in their health care policies without a co-pay. The new mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services would force Catholic hospitals and schools to decide whether to submit to the new policy or follow the Church's teachings against birth control.
Instead of covering this growing dispute between the Catholic hierarchy of the United States and the federal government, CBS This Morning brought on Rev. Edward Beck, a Catholic priest, to respond to a story that might cast the Church in a bad light with regards to how it manages the donations it receives.
By Matthew Balan | January 31, 2012 | 1:50 PM EST
Scott Pelley simply got it wrong on Tuesday's CBS This Morning, when he claimed that the Republican presidential candidates "have finally arrived in a state that was very hard hit by the great recession and has been suffering for a very long time. The unemployment rate here is about 10%." In reality, South Carolina, the state that held the last GOP primary, has about the same unemployment rate, at 9.9% [audio available here; video below the jump].
Two weeks earlier, on the January 17 edition of his CBS Evening News program, Pelley introduced a segment with John Dickerson, who was in the Palmetto State, which referenced the national unemployment rate. But neither on-air personality mentioned the specific unemployment rate inside the state:
By Matthew Balan | January 24, 2012 | 6:58 PM EST
On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Erica Hill played up the "overwhelming majority" that apparently support raising taxes on the rich, and urged Rep. Paul Ryan to consider supporting such a tax hike: "68% of people support raising...taxes on incomes of $250,000 and higher. Is that something that you could, perhaps, at least have a conversation about?" [audio available here; video below the jump]
Co-anchor Charlie Rose also suggested that Ryan and congressional Republicans had refused to work with President Obama, and that the Democrat needed to try to bring them on board. Rose asked White House advisor David Plouffe, "What can the President say this evening that might bring Paul Ryan to work with him on issues that concern the country?"
By Matthew Balan | December 21, 2011 | 12:44 PM EST
CBS's Erica Hill invoked an infamous Christmas season villain on Wednesday's Early Show, stating that "[House] Republicans...risk looking like the Grinch here four days before Christmas" for their refusal to sign onto the Senate's proposed two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday. Hill made that claim during an interview of Rep. Michele Bachmann, and pressed her about the payroll tax issue.
The anchor brought on Rep. Bachmann to discuss her presidential campaign's swing through Iowa during the lead-up to that state's caucuses at the beginning of January. However, Hill devoted the first half of the segment to the dispute over extending the tax holiday, and led with a question that included her "Grinch" label:
By Matthew Balan | December 20, 2011 | 6:25 PM EST
Former New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton brought his pro-gun control agenda into a segment about the FBI's latest crime statistics on Tuesday's Early Show on CBS, blaming the "the insanity of the lack of gun control laws in this country" for an increase in police deaths during 2011.
Anchor Erica Hill introduced Bratton as the "chairman of Kroll, a worldwide investigative company. He's also the former chief of police in Los Angeles, New York City, and Boston." During most of the segment, Hill and co-anchor Chris Wragge asked their guest for his take about the overall decrease in violent crime, according to the FBI statistics.
By Matthew Balan | November 23, 2011 | 5:16 PM EST
CBS's Early Show on Wednesday boosted a claim by Democrats that a recent Mitt Romney ad takes a line from a 2008 speech by then-candidate Barack Obama out of context. However, CBS noted at that time that Obama was using that line to counter a McCain campaign ad which played up the Democrat's association with left-wing terrorist Bill Ayers.
Anchor Erica Hill raised the controversy over the Romney ad towards the end of a segment with political correspondent Jan Crawford about the most recent Republican presidential debate. After playing the relevant part of the commercial, which includes a clip of Obama stating that "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose," Hill asked, "A lot of controversy over that ad, Jan. Why?"
By Matthew Balan | November 21, 2011 | 5:33 PM EST
CBS's Erica Hill urged "conservative activist" Grover Norquist to influence the members of Congress who have signed his no tax hikes pledge to consider raising taxes during an interview on Monday's Early Show: "There's still not a lot getting done in Washington, even with some of the compromise. So why not push those people to maybe do a little bit more?"
Hill pressed the idea of compromise from the very start of her interview of Norquist. She first asked the Americans for Tax Reform leader, "As we look at Congress and the way the approval rating has continued to plummet...for a lot of people, this is a failure, the fact the super committee cannot come to some sort of agreement on what to cut here. To you, though, is it a success, in that your side, technically, that you're backing, or either side, didn't give in?"
By Matthew Balan | November 16, 2011 | 1:31 PM EST
On Wednesday's Early Show, CBS's Erica Hill pressed Rep. Michele Bachmann during an interview about her attack on Newt Gingrich for his notorious 2008 commercial with Nancy Pelosi on climate change: "Why is that a bad thing, to try to work across the aisle?" This came just two days after the morning show wondered if Gingrich himself needed to "play a little more dirty...to win the bid."
Hill noted that "the Minnesota congresswoman is criticizing each of her fellow candidates for not being conservative enough" in a new online ad, and first asked Bachmann, "In that ad, there's...a clip of Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi talking about the importance of working together. Why attack Newt Gingrich on that point, when so many Americans...really want their lawmakers to start working together in Washington to- finding some sort of way that they can work out a bipartisan answer to so many of the issues?"
By Matthew Balan | November 15, 2011 | 4:55 PM EST
CBS's Erica Hill tossed softballs at a survivor of the Tucson shooting and the executive director of a pro-gun control group on Tuesday's Early Show, just hours before they were due to speak at a congressional hearing to promote tighter gun regulations. Hill played up fellow survivor Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's recent interview and asked, "What does that do to you and to this cause that you have now adopted?"
The anchor led the 8 am Eastern hour of the morning show by playing a clip of ABC's Diane Sawyer asking the Arizona representative about the January 2011 shooting. Hill then gushed over Giffords's recovery as she introduced her guests- Patricia Maisch, who helped subdue Jared Loughner, and Mark Glaze of Mayors Against Illegal Guns: "I know that watching the recovery...has been encouraging in ways that are probably tough to describe."