As Joe Scarborough said, "this is liberal on liberal on liberal violence. I love watching it." He was referring to the intra-squad liberal dogfight, spurred by Rand Paul's filibuster, that broke out on Morning Joe today over the use of drones by the U.S. government. H/t NB reader Ray R.
Though former car czar Steve Rattner played a supporting role, the two main combatants were Sam Stein of the Huffington Post and Richard Wolffe of MSNBC itself. Stein criticized the lack of guidelines that the Obama administration has established for the use of drones on U.S. citizens, supporting Paul's argument that it should be an easy question for the Obama admin to answer. In the other corner, Wolffe was the internationalist, suggesting all terrorists should perhaps be entitled to the same due process, be they Saudi, Kuwaiti or American. Stein and Scarborough had to enlighten Wolffe about the special protections the Constitution extends to U.S. citizens. View the video after the jump.
Steve Rattner
.jpg?itok=7UPLe-Vp)
I hate to criticize a fellow pilot, but when one engages in such sky-high hypocrisy, well . . .
On Morning Joe today, former Obama car czar Steve Rattner, a very successful hedge fund manager, decried "climate-change denier[s]." This is the same Rattner who, at last report, owned a "15,000-square-foot mansion on Martha’s Vineyard, to which [he] flies regularly on a Dassault Falcon 2000 jet [see file photo] he pilots himself." Rattner wrung his hands over the fact that we're "putting millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every day." But just earlier this week, the New York Times ran a story entitled "Your Biggest Carbon Sin May Be Air Travel." View the video after the jump.
Oh those racist Republicans. Did you know that they're hostile to Colin Powell because he's black? Yup, just ask former Obama car czar Steve Rattner. The Morning Joe regular today claimed that poor Powell "feels this hostility toward him from the rest of the party in part because he's a minority."
Really? Colin Powell feels hostility from "the rest of the party" because he's a minority? The Colin Powell appointed to a series of increasingly prestigious positions by a series of Republican presidents? The Colin Powell for whom so many in the GOP were clamoring to run for president in 1995-96? That Colin Powell? Please. View the video after the jump.
For those who want the short answer to the question in this post's title, the answer is almost definitely "no." But in a New York Times op-ed piece in mid-September, former Obama "car czar" Steven Rattner effectively said that the so-called "fact-check" site known as PolitiFact should make amends to former Alaska Governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
In December 2009, PolitiFact's Angie Drobnic Holan outrageously characterized the following statement made by Palin in an August 2009 Facebook post as its "Lie of the Year" (bold is mine):
Certain events in the 2012 campaign make you ask how would the media respond if a particular story was about Mitt Romney rather than President Obama. Take this past Friday, when President Obama was introduced at an Ohio rally by a man accused to stealing trade secrets from his former employer.
According to a local CBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, Daniel Potkanowicz has been ordered to pay $500,000 to his former employer after a judge ruled that Potkanowicz had stolen trade secrets.
With unemployment, gas prices, and the budget deficit stubbornly high, President Obama's fans in the media are having a hard time explaining to people why the current White House resident's job performance is worthy of the reelection they're all working for.
Take former Obama car czar turned Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner who said on MSNBC Tuesday, "I think in a quiet room I could convince you his record is good, but out in the sound bite world of the campaign, it's very hard to explain that record in a positive, clear, persuasive way" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
If Herman Cain has been harshly criticized for his 9-9-9 plan, which includes a 9% national sales tax, should we expect Robert Frank to come under fire? After all, on Morning Joe today, the Cornell University professor proposed a progressive consumption tax that could go to . . . 100% on the rich.
Frank's notion is that the very high rates would discourage the rich from building "mansions" [a term he used multiple times during his appearance]. And the taxes thus collected could go for things he thinks we need. For example, Frank incredibly claimed that in the US, "we don't invest in education," ignoring that we spend more per pupil than any country in the world other than Switzerland. Video after the jump.
As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) set off a liberal firestorm when he called Standard and Poor's U.S. credit rating change the "Tea Party Downgrade."
On Monday's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough told "terminally stupid ideologues" that "really don't understand" anything because they're "so dogmatic [they] can't think for [themselves]" to "stop using the Tea Party as a piñata" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
As NewsBusters previously reported, former Obama administration car czar Steve Rattner last month called Tea Partiers terrorists on national television.
On Sunday's "This Week," George Will took Rattner on for making such an inflammatory statement (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Tuesday mourned the "absolutely dreadful" behavior of journalists and politicians who have compared Tea Party Republicans to "terrorists," among other things. But as NewsBusters previously reported, the "Morning Joe" co-host repeatedly ignored such transgressions when they occurred on his own show.
A trend is emerging on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," whereby guests make inflammatory statements likening conservatives to terrorists, and none of the co-hosts insist on a more elevated level of dialogue.
Following in the footsteps of Newsweek's Tina Brown and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), two MSNBC analysts called conservatives in Congress "economic terrorists" and "crazy" on Friday, yet none of the program's co-hosts questioned the offensive choice of words or called for a more civilized tone.
Disgraced former Obama car czar Steve Rattner went first, framing Tea Partiers as suicide bombers:
Imagine, if you will, that in 2003 Fox News brought on a disgraced Bush administration official who had been barred from Wall Street trading to talk up the president's economic policies. Imagine also that the anchor doing the interview failed to disclose that fact to viewers.
Well, that's pretty much what happened in the 2 p.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC coverage today, when anchor Thomas Roberts interviewed former Obama car czar Steven Rattner.