On Friday, all three network morning shows seized on reports that Sarah Palin and her family were "caught in a massive brawl" during a house party in Anchorage, Alaska. ABC's Good Morning America opened with substitute co-host Lara Spencer declaring: "One witness saying it was like an episode of Jerry Springer, her kids throwing punches. What sparked this rumble in the tundra?" The song Eye of the Tiger was heard playing in the background. [Listen to the audio]
In the full report that followed on GMA, correspondent Paula Faris pushed the tabloid story: "According to the Washington Post, Palin, along with her husband Todd and kids Bristol, Willow, and Track, arriving in a stretch Hummer. The Post also reporting that as the beer started flowing, that's when the fighting started." Supposed eyewitness Eric Thompson proclaimed: "I heard Sarah Palin scream out, 'You know who we are, don't you?' It was like we were just on a Jerry Springer episode."
Sarah Palin
In a Saturday evening story to appear on Page A1 in its Sunday print edition, Pam Belluck at the New York Times tells readers that "paying doctors to talk to patients about end-of-life care is making a comeback, and such sessions may be covered for the 50 million Americans on Medicare as early as next year." This apparently blessed development is occurring "After Sarah Palin’s 'death panel' label killed efforts to include it in the Affordable Care Act in 2009."
Belluck seems fairly pleased that "Bypassing the political process, private insurers have begun reimbursing doctors for these 'advance care planning' conversations as interest in them rises along with the number of aging Americans." (But of course, "private insurers" have really become inside cronies in "the political process" since Obamacare's passage; so their involvement may really prove that behind-the-scenes government pressure to reimburse those "services" is working.)
To close out his MSNBC show on Thursday, Ed Schultz invited on a Native American social activist to discuss the push by liberals and sympathetic members of the sports media to force the NFL’s Washington Redskins to change their name.
In discussing recent supporters of the name in Sarah Palin and former NFL coach and player Mike Ditka, author and Native American activist Gyasi Ross smeared Ditka for being a “segregation-era football player who became, appropriately, a coach of – of a team – a team – an NFL team that was comprised largely of black players that he could dictate his will to.” [MP3 audio here; Video below]
On Thursday, NBC News sources confirmed that Chuck Todd will bump David Gregory from the Meet the Press host chair. And while Todd isn’t as liberal as his predecessor, he has played defense for the Barack Obama administration on a number of fronts.
Most recently he dismissed the IRS-Tea Party scandal by asking “are there any actual real victims?” and diminished Benghazi hearings as “partisan.” The NBC News chief White House correspondent also claimed Benghazi figure Susan Rice was simply a “victim” of conservative media but in the past compared Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin to a “car-wreck.” (videos after the jump)
They had to invent Sarah Palin's supposedly most embarrassing gaffe when she was the vice-presidential nominiee in 2008. She never said, "I can see Russia from my house!" Comedienne Tina Fey did. As noted at NewsBusters several days ago, that hasn't altered the folklore.
You don't have to invent gaffes for Joe Biden, the man who became Vice President after the 2008 election. He generates them continually. The lists seen here and here contain many of the golden oldies through August of 2012. There have been plenty since then. His latest, following the jump, is a doozy. The smart money would be on the establishment press ignoring it, as they have the vast majority of the others.
Judging from reports carried by the three mainstream networks' news programs and most of the low-rated cable news channels, it seems that the Fox News Channel and conservative Republicans are totally consumed by the concept of impeaching Democratic President Barack Obama.
However, a Lexis-Nexis search of transcripts from the July programs on FNC and MSNBC indicated that for every mention of the words “impeachment” or “impeach” on the “Fair and Balanced” channel, the “Lean Forward” network used those words five times.
Nightline co-anchor Dan Harris on Monday night mocked Sarah Palin for her new internet channel and falsely identified the conservative as "the woman who says she can see Russia from her house." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] No, she didn't. It was Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey in 2008 who uttered this line.
In the tease for the report, Harris played the actual quote: "You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska." So what is the point of misleading viewers with something Palin didn't say? Making his contempt clear, Harris derided the Republican as the "former half-term governor of Alaska." He then went on to deride Palin's new channel as too expensive.
Editor’s note: This story contains strong language.
HBO certainly isn’t subtle in their disdain for conservatives. Last week, HBO’s “True Blood” mocked conservatives at a fictional Ted Cruz fundraiser, as “Republic**ts” and this weekend’s cast panel at Comic-Con brought up the episode again.
The actress who uttered the derogatory term, Kristin Bauer van Straten was asked about the conservative reaction to the episode and her response was less than sympathetic.
[Transcript and video below]
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is picking up on the impending trend of Nixon-Watergate anniversaries in media coverage. On her Facebook page, Palin accused The Washington Post of being “a bunch of wusses” compared to their allegedly legendary Watergate days.
Palin threw around the “impeachment” word, which the Post loves in the present days as a sign of Republican extremism. They think the mere mention of the “I word” will lead the Democrats' reliable minority voters back to the polls in the midterms. Here’s the statement in full:
Sally Quinn founded the “On Faith” section of The Washington Post, and she’s shown a repeated pattern of loathing conservative Christians, especially Sarah Palin.
In Saturday’s Post, she went there again, trashing Sarah Palin as selfishly ruining our political culture, insisting she recommends a “long long silent retreat for her.” Rather typically, Quinn was cooing over a feminist Buddhist lecturer named Tara Brach:
On Thursday night's PBS NewsHour, anchor Judy Woodruff interviewed Donna Zaccaro, who has made a new documentary about her mother, Geraldine Ferraro and her historic nomination for vice president in July of 1984. Like Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra, Zaccaro was a longtime producer for NBC News before becoming a filmmaker.
In a film clip, NPR’s Cokie Roberts gushes about the moment at the convention with Ferraro, “Standing up there all in white, looking like this tiny little figure, but looking beautiful and looking female.” Woodruff added she was there, too, and “I remember. It was a special moment for women in — no matter who you were, what party you were in.” But Zaccaro thought Sarah Palin’s nomination in 2008 wasn't a bipartisan moment. It meant nothing:
MSNBC host Michael Eric Dyson on Wednesday lashed out at Sarah Palin, accusing the conservative of committing "treason" against Barack Obama by calling for the President's impeachment. The guest host of the Ed Show first praised the President for "his tireless effort to help [illegal children who have crossed the border]." Dyson then fumed, "The President's push towards positive and crucial change was met with treasonous accusations." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
During the last administration, however, Dyson called for the impeachment of George W. Bush. In a highly edited clip of Palin on Fox News, the Republican insisted, "Impeachment is a message that has to be sent to our President that we're not going to put up with lawlessness... I really want Congress to do its job, the constitutional power that they have to halt an imperial presidency."