During his 19-year tenure as host of the Hardball cable TV political talk show, Chris Matthews has made several mistakes, but the one he will probably be remembered for most was his 2008 off-the-cuff remark that “I felt this thrill going up my leg” while listening to a speech given by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Even though he has been razzed about it many times over the years, when the situation calls for it, Matthews isn't above repeating that statement, as he did on Wednesday's edition of his weeknight program. “At least I got my thrill up my leg from Obama,” he told former John McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt. “You got it from Sarah Palin.”
Sarah Palin
By Randy Hall | December 13, 2013 | 10:40 AM EST
By Tim Graham | December 12, 2013 | 8:28 AM EST
Liberals are going to be mad at Dan Zak today. The Washington Post Style section writer who nastily dismissed the Biden-Ryan debate last year as “a man debating a boy” sounded like he went head over heels for Megyn Kelly in a Thursday profile. The Post headline even oozed: “The Essential Megyn Kelly: Her new prime-time show is a swift hit. Buoyed by intelligence and intensity, is she poised to challenge O’Reilly?”
The Post had to pretend that this alleged competition was the controversy since she crushes Piers Morgan and Rachel Maddow in the ratings...combined. “Poor Piers,” she said as she eyed the numbers. Zak was comparing Kelly to classic movie stars:
By Ken Shepherd | December 7, 2013 | 12:32 AM EST
When Rush Limbaugh caused a stir with his comments about feminist activist Sandra Fluke, the media were whipped into a frenzy, with the Big Three broadcast networks devoting 32 stories to the row in two weeks' time. Yet there were a grand total of zero stories devoted to former MSNBC host Martin Bashir expressing on his November 15 program that he would like to see someone defecate into the former Alaska governor's mouth.
"It was 100-fold more serious than anything Rush Limbaugh has ever said about anyone in 30 years on his show. Yet [there were] 32 stories, which is a tsunami, on Rush Limbaugh, nothing, crickets about Martin Bashir," Media Research Center founder and president Brent Bozell told Fox News host Megyn Kelly on the December 6 edition of The Kelly File. Bozell added that Bashir was symptomatic of "a real misogyny" at MSNBC against conservative women [WATCH video below page break; LISTEN to MP3 audio here]:
By Kyle Drennen | December 5, 2013 | 11:43 AM EST
After Martin Bashir announced his resignation from MSNBC on Wednesday following his vile attack on Sarah Palin, NBC, ABC, and CBS refused to make any mention of his disgraceful exit. The networks had already skipped any mention of his wildy offensive November 15 rant calling for Palin to be urinated and defecated on.
As Media Research Center deputy research director Geoff Dickens reported early Wednesday – just hours before Bashir's resignation – such a media blackout stood in stark contrast to the two-week period after Rush Limbaugh called left-wing activist Sandra Fluke a "slut" in early 2012, prompting 32 network segments lambasting Limbaugh for the comments and even demanding that advertisers pull their sponsorship of his nationally syndicated radio show.
By Noel Sheppard | December 5, 2013 | 10:55 AM EST
As NewsBusters revealed Wednesday, Martin Bashir has resigned from MSNBC due to vile comments he made in November about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin first reported here.
Palin responded on Thursday's Fox & Friends saying amongst other things, "I just hope that unprovoked attacks like that don't result in people being hesitant to jump in the arena anyway, to get out there and serve the public or, you know, start a business, or really commit themselves to changing within their family, their community, their world, doing whatever that they can, despite the fact that in this world, you are going to be hurt and attacks will come your way" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | December 4, 2013 | 5:37 PM EST
As NewsBusters revealed earlier, Martin Bashir has resigned from MSNBC due to vile comments he made in November about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin first reported here.
Moments after the announcement, Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik said MSNBC president Phil Griffin is just as responsible as Bashir:
By Noel Sheppard | December 4, 2013 | 4:38 PM EST
As NewsBusters revealed earlier, Martin Bashir has resigned from MSNBC due to vile comments he made in November about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin first reported here.
Real estate mogul Donald Trump took to Twitter moments ago to offer his opinion in an Instagram video saying, "Martin Bashir, you're a total loser! You're fired!"
By Geoffrey Dickens | December 4, 2013 | 10:15 AM EST
UPDATE: Bashir Resigns
When Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks went ballistic, making the conservative talk show host a centerpiece in their campaign to tarnish Mitt Romney and the GOP as engaging in a “war on women.” However when MSNBC’s Martin Bashir launched his own war on women against Sarah Palin, not a single anchor or reporter from the Big Three said a word about his vile attack.
In the two weeks (February 29, 2012 - March 14, 2012) after Limbaugh made his crude Fluke joke, that he apologized for, the Big Three networks aired a total of 32 stories or interview segments that were full of calls for Limbaugh to apologize to the liberal activist Fluke, to get advertisers to abandon the show and demand that Republicans condemn the talk show host. NBC, who employs Bashir, aired the most Limbaugh stories with 14. ABC and CBS each aired 9 stories a piece. The number of Big Three network stories in the two weeks (November 15, 2013 - November 29, 2013) after Bashir suggested that Palin would be an “outstanding candidate” for excretory punishments? Zero. The hypocrisy from the supposed civility cops in the liberal media is stunning.
By Tim Graham | December 4, 2013 | 6:53 AM EST
This week's list of New York Times best-selling books proves as usual that the Times doesn't review conservative best-sellers. The nonfiction list was topped by "Things That Matter," a collection of columns by Charles Krauthammer and then by "Killing Jesus" by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. The children's middle-grade list is led by Rush Limbaugh's "Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims." There has been no Times review of these books.
All were mentioned by Gregory Cowles in his "Inside the List" briefs. O'Reilly drew this barb in the October 13 newspaper: "Bill O'Reilly's killing machine shows no signs of letting up -- ''Killing Jesus,'' his latest collaboration with Martin Dugard (after ''Killing Lincoln'' and ''Killing Kennedy''), jumps right to No. 1 in its first week on the hardcover nonfiction list." Fox host Brian Kilmeade was at number eight with "George Washington's Secret Six" and Sarah Palin was at number nine -- no reviews. But Cowles slammed Palin in this Sunday's paper:
By Noel Sheppard | December 2, 2013 | 5:29 PM EST
When I noticed about 90 minutes ago that Joy Reid was once again filling in for MSNBC's Martin Bashir after having done so last week, I started wondering if this wasn't a vacation at all, and if the man who last month suggested someone should defecate and urinate in former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's mouth was actually being punished for it.
Almost on cue, Politico's Dylan Byers wrote moments ago:
By Noel Sheppard | December 1, 2013 | 7:18 PM EST
Alec Baldwin can't make up his mind.
After complaining Tuesday about MSNBC's Martin Bashir still being on the air despite his vile comments about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Baldwin said Sunday he's glad Bashir still has a show:
By Noel Sheppard | December 1, 2013 | 4:01 PM EST
There haven’t been a lot of members of the media that have come out in support of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir's suggestion a few weeks ago that someone should defecate and urinate in former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s mouth.
Seemingly bucking that trend Sunday was the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank who appearing on Fox News's MediaBuzz actually compared those remarks to Bill O’Reilly joking three years ago about beheading him (video follows with transcript and commentary):