Tim Carney

MSNBC's Hall: I'm Not Afraid of Different Opinions; Last Year She Cut Conservative Guest's Mic for Espousing Different Opinion
By Ken Shepherd | January 23, 2013 | 5:40 PM EST

In a January 23 interview at MediaBistro, MSNBC NewsNation host Tamron Hall addressed the (accurate) perception that her program is not exactly objective journalism. Asked by MediaBistro about whether CNN's attempt to be "objective" was dragging it down in the ratings or if the left-leaning MSNBC was simply a better news network, Hall insisted that the primetime news coverage was definitely opinion based but that "That's not what we do on NewsNation.... [F]or me, our show is not an opinion show, but it's not a show that's afraid of opinions." [h/t TV Newser]

Hall is unafraid of divergent opinions? That's a good one. Someone should tell conservative columnist Tim Carney, whom Hall chewed out on air on her May 11, 2012 program, ultimately cutting off his microphone for daring to challenge the network's liberal bias. As my colleague Scott Whitlock reported at the time (emphasis his):

CNN's Howard Kurtz Slams MSNBC's Tamron Hall for 'Insulting' Treatment of Conservative Tim Carney
By Noel Sheppard | May 13, 2012 | 1:45 PM EDT

As NewsBusters reported Friday, MSNBC's Tamron Hall threw a hissy fit when her conservative guest, the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney, called her network's coverage of the Washington Post's hit piece on Mitt Romney "ridiculous" and "absurd."

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, host Howard Kurtz came down strongly on her asking, "Does Hall only want guests who agree with her handling of every story?" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Tim Carney: Media Reluctant to Note Chinese Dissident Chen Is Protesting Abortions, Sterilization
By Ken Shepherd | April 30, 2012 | 11:29 AM EDT

Tim Carney has an excellent post this morning at the Washington Examiner about how the media are reluctant to note the reason that Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng -- who is believed , but not confirmed, to be in hiding in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing -- is in hot water with the Communist government. Chen "has exposed the horrors of China’s one-child policy, including forced abortions and forced sterilizations," Carney noted.

Yet that fact was curiously missing from today's "1300-word Washington Post story." Indeed, "Of the five Post news articles I found discussing Chen, only one of them has the word 'abortion,'" Carney noticed. And the Post isn't alone in its bias by omission:

Eleanor Clift & Clarence Page Can't Simply Admit U.S. Done More for Global Peace & Prosperity Than Anyone Else
By Noel Sheppard | April 8, 2012 | 3:48 PM EDT

John McLaughlin on the PBS show bearing his name asked his guests this weekend, "Has America done more to spread peace and prosperity than any other power in human history, yes or no?"

The conservatives on the panel - syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan and the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney - were quick to say "Yes" as their liberal colleagues - Newsweek's Eleanor Clift and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page - both equivocated (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Dylan Ratigan vs Tim Carney: How Much Does Big Labor Spend on Political Campaigns?
By Alex Fitzsimmons | August 15, 2011 | 6:14 PM EDT

On the August 15 "Dylan Ratigan Show," MSNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan and the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney sparred over the extent to which Big Labor impacts the political process relative to other industries.

Ratigan, who has made a career out of bemoaning the influence that the energy, banking, health care, defense, telecom, and agriculture sectors exert on politics, omitted organized labor from his exhaustive (exhausting?) list. After Carney pointed out that labor unions collectively direct more campaign contributions to political candidates than any other industry in the country, Ratigan sternly corrected him: "That's not right. You can't invent facts...that's a great distortion of facts to make it look like labor controls the government."

So who's right?

Clift Slapped Down By Tim Carney: Obama Will Talk to Eva Longoria but Not Arizona Gov. Brewer
By Geoffrey Dickens | May 16, 2011 | 4:15 PM EDT

On this weekend's McLaughlin Group Newsweek's Eleanor Clift used the occasion of Barack Obama's immigration speech to opine that Hispanics "know which side, which party is on their side" and implied it's not the GOP as she declared Republican Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has "negative attitudes" towards them. During a discussion about Obama's immigration speech last week Clift even bragged: "This president has done far more in terms of security crackdown than George W. Bush did."

This was all too much for the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney to bear as he wittily retorted that instead of having an open dialogue with the governor of a major border state like Brewer, the President chose to talk about the vital issue with Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, as seen in the following May 15 exchange:

Anderson Cooper Fact-Checks Abortion Foes – But Not Planned Parenthood
By Matt Hadro | April 13, 2011 | 5:48 PM EDT

On last Friday and on this past Tuesday night, CNN's Anderson Cooper ran fact-checks against the claims of two anti-abortion members of Congress against Planned Parenthood – but did not bother to conduct similar fact checks on the claims of Planned Parenthood and its Democratic supporters.

During his Tuesday segment of "Keeping Them Honest," Cooper countered the claims of conservative Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) that Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the U.S. "They are a big abortion provider, although that's only a small fraction of what they do," he stated.

Media Hail Pro-ObamaCare 'Bipartisanship,' Ignore Frist's, Daschle's Blatant Conflicts of Interest
By Lachlan Markay | January 20, 2011 | 5:26 PM EST

"Bipartisanship" is one of those buzzwords that proponents of a policy will invoke whenever possible. But a rush to demonstrate that the policy appeals across party lines can often obscure partisans' real motives in endorsing it.

Since former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Tom Daschle teamed up to endorse ObamaCare this week, plenty of media outlets have touted the "bipartisan" backing of the law.

Daschle is of course a Democrat so his support isn't as newsy as Frist's. But when a credentialed Republican, a former Senate GOP leader comes out in favor of a piece of landmark liberal legislation, the keen observer is a bit suspicious. Why the ideological shift? In Frist's case - and this fact has amazingly gone unmentioned in reports by MSNBC, NPR, and Politico - it seems to be due to his significant financial stake in ObamaCare's preservation.

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter Demands Evidence of White House Corruption, Gets It
By Lachlan Markay | January 7, 2011 | 3:11 PM EST

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, who last year wrote a lengthy book on the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, looked very displeased on Dylan Ratigan's MSNBC program earlier this week when other guests concurred with accusations of corruption against the White House.

The Ratigan segment centered on a statement by Rep. Darrel Issa, R-Calif., incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Goernment Reform Committee, that Obama's is "one of the most corrupt administrations ever."

"There is zero evidence" of corruption, he insisted. When fellow guest Tim Carney, a Washington Examiner columnist, disagreed, Alter demanded Carney produce evidence. So he did (video below the fold).

After Obsessing Over Enron's Political Friends, Media Mostly Ignore Much Deeper Obama-Goldman Sachs Connections
By Lachlan Markay | April 20, 2010 | 5:02 PM EDT
President Obama has extensive ties to Goldman Sachs. Yet even given record-breaking financial contributions and sketchy relationships between Goldman executives and Obama officials at the highest level, the mainstream media will not afford Obama the same scrutiny it gave to George W. Bush during the collapse of Enron.

Obama's inflation-adjusted $1,007,370.85 in contributions from Goldman employees is almost seven times as much as the $151,722.42 (also inflation-adjusted) that Bush received from Enron. Goldman was one of the chief beneficiaries of the TARP bailout package -- supported by then-Senator Obama -- and has been a force for -- not against -- Democratic financial "reform" proposals currently under Senate consideration.

Despite the extensive connections between President Obama and Goldman Sachs, the same media that vaguely alleged unseemly connections between the Bush administration and Enron after its 2001 collapse have barely noticed the Obama administration's prominent ties to Goldman (h/t J.P. Freire).
Fineman: Private Campaign Financing More 'Sordid' Than Spending Money at Risque Nightclubs
By Ken Shepherd | April 14, 2010 | 11:53 AM EDT

In Howard Fineman's mind, the real "sordid" story behind the now infamous RNC/Voyeur Club kerfuffle is not the inappropriateness of the venue or the expensing of the outing on the donors' dime, but the whole system of raising money from large-dollar private donors in the first place.

The Newsweek writer complained in the April 19 print edition:

Talk about bondage. It feels like we are in thrall to cash and the pursuit of it as never before. I know senators in both parties who spend every spare minute in the soul-shrinking exercise of dialing for dollars. Donors are just as trapped. Once they're on a list, they're on every list. 

Fineman went on to add a new boilerplate complaint from the Left as well as to mourn the demise of the media's favorite Republican "campaign finance reformer":

NewsBusters Interview: Tim Carney, Author of 'Obamanomics'
By Lachlan Markay | January 22, 2010 | 11:08 AM EST

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Americans were treated to a number of populist sermons on the "special interests" who would oppose "reform" at any cost to maintain the "status quo" from which they "profit financially or politically." The drug companies, the energy companies, the Wall Street bankers, and the health insurers were the corporate enemies of a just and harmonious America, or so one might have gathered.

Obama was at the vanguard of this populist charge. But since his election, he has proposed health care legislation that would subsidize Pfizer and PhRMA, a cap and trade plan that would drive profits to General Electric, and Wall Street bailouts that lined the pockets of the same Goldman Sachs bankers he so reviled during the campaign. What happened?

Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney exposes and investigates this monumental disconnect in his new book "Obamanomics: How Barack Obama is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses." Carney explores the "political strategy of partnering with the biggest businesses in order to create new regulations, taxes, and subsidies." Those measures, he argues, actually benefit the biggest businesses by crowding out competition, consolidating market share, or giving billions in subsidies directly to those companies.