Maybe Princeton professor Cornel West should redirect his get off the crack pipe suggestion to MSNBC's Chris Matthews.
On Monday's Hardball, the host actually said with a straight face that John F. Kennedy is "the American president we Americans most want to see joining Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt up there on Mount Rushmore (video follows with transcript and commentary):
It was said of Al Smith, a Roman Catholic, that if he won the 1928 presidential election he would take orders from the Vatican and not uphold the Constitution.
John F. Kennedy famously confronted that anti-Catholic prejudice in a 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Kennedy said in part, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote..."
UPDATE, May 18: NewsBusters commenter "dreamsincolor" has pointed out that CNN "somehow" forgot Democratic New York Congressman Eric Massa, who resigned in 2009 to avoid "an ethics investigation into alleged misconduct toward a male staff member."
(Begin original post)
Chris Ariens filed a report today at MediaBistro's TVNewser that opened with a reader's Tweet, which plaintively asked: "Did CNN really exclude Spitzer from Malveaux package on Sex Scandals & Politics? Hmm.."
The answer: yes it did.
President Obama and the Democrats have spent trillions of dollars in the past two years without successfully growing the economy enough to produce jobs.
Despite this immutable fact, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday's "Hardball" said government spending is a far better stimulus than cutting taxes (video follows with transcript and commentary):
In a recent interview with Matt Frei for BBC Radio 4's January 30 "Americana" program, liberal actor Richard Dreyfuss complained that America has been downcast with a "delusionary despair" since the day his hero President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
"I don't think we'll ever grow up until we face the anguish and face the loss of what we felt that day," Dreyfuss lamented.
[Link to MP3 audio follow page break]
How do we know that grade-school students in Dallas spontaneously cheered the news that President John F. Kennedy was murdered in their city?
Because it's been repeated ad infinitum for almost half a century. Therefore it must be true, right?
It's a belief that's taken on the aura of holy writ to liberals, thanks to propapandists like radio host and lawyer Mike Papantonio in preserving its mythology for each new generation of true believers.
You'd think someone who practices law would know better. Then again, you might not.
Here's a little something I stumbled across today while looking through my Google Calendar settings.
I subscribe to Google's "US Holidays" calendar, which adds to my personal calendar tags for U.S. federal holidays as well as some major non-federal religious or cultural holidays like Easter and Groundhog Day respectively.
On ABC’s World News Saturday, correspondent John Hendren filed a report marking this year as the first time since 1947 that no members of the Kennedy family will hold public office in Washington, D.C. The piece began:
JOHN HENDREN: The sun has set on the Kennedy era. When Congress reconvenes next week, it will be the first time in 64 years that there has not been a Kennedy in office.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, DAUGHTER OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY: I think it's sad. I think that we need a Kennedy.
Hendren went on to recount the death of former Senator Ted Kennedy, "the Lion of the Senate," and the decision of Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy to retire, as well as the shuffling of office space with the arrival of newly-elected Republicans. The ABC correspondent also noted that Tea Party-backed Rep. Ron Paul and Senator-elect Rand Paul are the only family members serving who will be serving concurrently in Congress.
Hendren concluded by offering a ray of hope for those would like to see the Kennedy family in government again:
How about that, there's someone on the airwaves more unhinged than liberal radio talker and MSNBC heat miser Ed Schultz. And go figure, that someone happens to be a frequent Schultz guest.
But between his appearance on Schultz's radio show Nov. 22 and Schultz's MSNBC program several hours later, the caffeine apparently wore off for Mike Papantonio, a lawyer and co-host of the radio show "Ring of Fire," seeing how Papantonio dialed down his remarks from what he initially told Schultz.
Here's what Papantonio said during the first hour of Schultz's radio show Monday between noon and 1 p.m. while complaining about President Obama's upcoming appearance before the US Chamber of Commerce (audio and video below page break) --
For the Today show, Democratic Representative Patrick Kennedy's departure from Congress was something to mourn because it represented, as NBC's Matt Lauer lamented, "The end of an era. There's been a Kennedy in Congress since John F. Kennedy entered the House back in 1947." The nephew of the late President was invited on Monday's Today show to commemorate the occasion with he and co-host Meredith Vieira fondly looking over newly-released photos of JFK from Life.com and reminiscing about his father, the "great" Ted Kennedy.
For the record the Today show got their facts wrong, as the MRC's Rich Noyes pointed out, there was no Kennedy in Congress from January 1961 to November of 1962 as Representative Ben Smith held that seat long enough until Ted Kennedy was old enough to take over.
The following teaser and exchange were aired on the November 8 Today show:
At least Eric Boehlert of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters isn't opposed to all tax cuts. He's just hazy on when it's actually happened.
Appearing on Stephanie Miller's radio show this past Monday, Boehlert praised former president Bill Clinton for cutting taxes on top earners in this country -- when Clinton did just the opposite.
Here's the relevant exchange between Boehlert and Miller, during a discussion of Republicans' Pledge to America which cites a quote from John F. Kennedy on tax cuts (audio here) --
Achtung, Sgt. Schultz -- you're making it up again.
The liberal radio host and MSNBC flamethrower got carried away in his indignation Monday over controversy about whether Obama's speech on education should be shown in classrooms.
My how things have changed, Schultz pontificated (audio here) --
I don't know, when I was a kid, and I was a little dude when John Glenn was flying around the, in outer space, and the president was going to speak to the nation! And all the kids in the elementary school, I remember, we were all so fired up! That we were going to hear from the president! And the president was going to say something about being in outer space and is John Glenn going to get home OK?! The president was going to talk to us, we were kids! We were excited! And then when John Glenn splashed down, we heard from the president and it was so cool! It's just not cool anymore, I guess. It's a different country.