25 years ago, Newsweek published a controversial cover story titled "Bush Battles the 'Wimp Factor.'"
On Monday, newsstands will carry an equally controversial albeit derivative Newsweek cover story titled "Mitt Romney: A Candidate With a Serious Wimp Problem":
The Sunday newspaper supplement Parade magazine is showing its liberal bias again...but this time, it's helping the Bush family whacks anti-tax conservatives again. Just as Jeb Bush slammed the Grover Norquist tax pledge last month, George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush unload for this Sunday's papers. George asks: "Who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?" Barbara thinks he should "go back to Alaska."
Parade puffs Bush up by claiming he was "vindicated in many respects" for scrapping his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge -- although you certainly cannot claim it reduced the deficit as he promised during his one term:
Liberal media's love for higher taxes is a thing of legends.
On Inside Washington Friday, PBS's perpetually pandering pundit Mark Shields told viewers that since 1991, "21 years, Republicans have not voted for a single broad-based tax increase, and that’s become the theology of the party, the ideology of the party, the definition of the party, and that is irresponsible" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
On Friday's World News on ABC, anchor Diane Sawyer cited a recently hyped quote from former Governor Jeb Bush as the Florida Republican theorized that President Ronald Reagan "would be criticized" by Republicans today "for doing some of the things that he did."
As Sawyer recalled it, during a piece on former President George H.W. Bush, she asserted:
I have a serious question for MSNBC's Chris Matthews: How many lies are you willing to tell on national television to get Barack Obama reelected?
On Friday's Hardball, the host gave viewers a plethora of falsehoods and half-truths to giving us an idea of just how far he's prepared to go this election cycle to make sure the objection of his affection remains in the White House (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Unemployment is stubbornly high, mountains of debt are burying the nation, and gas prices appear to be bringing the tepid economic recovery to a halt.
Yet MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday actually spent five minutes bashing Ann Romney for wearing a $990 shirt on television (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Tom Brokaw is the man that our Brent Bozell recently described as having "used NBC and [his] anchor chair as a platform to promote Democratic agendas and delight in Republican setbacks for more than 20 years." But every once in awhile, perhaps out of Greatest Generation nostalgia, Brokaw has something kind to say about a Republican.
As was the case on Morning Joe today, when, after reciting a list of the 41st president's accomplishments, Brokaw called George H.W. Bush "the most underrated modern president of our time." Video after the jump.
As NewsBusters reported, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh issued an apology to Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke Saturday.
Rather then congratulate Limbaugh for doing what it believed was the right thing to do, the liberal Huffington Post ridiculed him with a front page headline "RUSH CAVES: 'I Sincerely Apologize To Ms. Fluke'" (photo courtesy Getty):
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Sunday claimed Ralph Nader helped elect "the wrong person" in 2000 - George W. Bush.
Although he praised Ross Perot's third party run in 1992, Friedman failed to mention how that helped elect "the wrong person" that year:
It's astonishing that someone whose profession is to talk politics still has not heard that the alleged gaffe of President George H.W. Bush being unaware of the existence of checkout scanners as he visited a grocery store during the 1988 campaign has been disputed, as the veteran MSNBC host repeated the alleged Bush gaffe while opening his syndicated Chris Matthews Show which aired on Sunday.
After guest Andrea Mitchell of NBC tried to correct him, he was still unconvinced and declared, "I'm still not letting him off on that."
A Sunday New York Times column on politicians and wealth from Frank Bruni, who was a White House reporter during the administration of George W. Bush, treated as factual a likely urban legend (well circulated in the liberal media, as shown by Newsbuster Jack Coleman) about the first President Bush: “Running From Millions.” It came after criticizing Mitt Romney as a rich phony:
And Republican or Democrat, they often go to laughable lengths to play that down. A recurring theme from just about every election cycle is the economic altitude of candidates who insist on playacting that they’re less loftily removed from the so-called common man than they really are. Time and again we’re treated to a comedy of manners with predictable pratfalls and a clear take-away: although there has long been a significant economic disparity between the rulers and the ruled, neither group can get entirely comfortable with it.
MSNBC resident Victorian gent Rachel Maddow must have felt so dutiful for correcting an inaccurate statement by one of her guests.
Which made it all the more amusing that Maddow during the same show perpetuated a hoary media myth created two decades ago. (video after page break)