Scott Whitlock
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CBS used Earth Day 2019 to hype higher taxes as a way of fighting global warming. The entire second hour of This Morning was devoted to climate change and the environment. On the same show, current co-host Gayle King proudly played archival footage of Walter Cronkite in 1970 promoting Earth Day alarmism: “A day set aside for a nationwide outpouring of mankind seeking its own survival.”
Another day and another 2020 Democrat with a high profile media spot to announce a presidential bid. This time, Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos on Monday pushed Congressman Seth Moulton to be more aggressive in supporting impeachment. Stephanopoulos also appeared to minimize Moulton’s military service. The Congressman cited his experience in the Marines (Moulton was awarded two Bronze Stars over four tours of duty in Iraq). Stephanopoulos touted his patriotism and the GMA host waved this away: “You're a patriot, but there are 18 other patriotic Democrats in the race as well. You're the 19th official candidate. What sets you apart?”
The month of April saw some dark days for America. On April 19, 1995, it was the Oklahoma City Bombing. On April 15, 2013, it was the Boston marathon bombing. What do those two have in common? Liberal media outlets smeared conservatives as responsible for both. On the April 19, 2010 edition of Countdown, then-MSNBC host Keith Olbermann went on an unhinged rant, assigning Rush Limbaugh culpability for the actions of domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh:
Disgraced former NBC anchor Brian Williams on Thursday morning compared the Attorney General to a former Iraqi propaganda minister. Williams, who falsely claimed he was shot down over Iraq in 2003, slimed Bill Barr as just like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, better known as Baghdad Bob. Showcasing just how the conventional wisdom goes inside MSNBC, Williams mocked, “It's already been mentioned around here, it would harken back to a conflict decades ago, we would not be surprised if some headline writer somewhere came up somewhere with Baghdad Bill Barr for what we saw today.”
ABC’s Jon Karl on Thursday seems to think he knows better than Robert Mueller when it comes to collusion. Despite the fact that the report concluded no collusion, Karl tried to explain how it could still exist. Regarding material that had only been released an hour earlier, he began, “There's significant material in here we did not know on the question of collusion. Now, of course, there's no finding that anyone in the Trump campaign was guilty of a criminal conspiracy in terms of dealing with the Russians on this.”
Just minutes before William Barr conducted a press conference on the release of the Mueller Report, Chuck Todd on NBC and MSNBC complained about the “buzzwords” of Donald Trump and the Attorney General, lamenting that they have “neutered” any impact. Other journalists on the network still hoped for a “blockbuster.”
The annoyed journalists at ABC on Thursday reacted to William Barr’s press conference by slamming the “unprecedented” spin from the Attorney General, likening it to a Game of Thrones plot line about cleaning up for a king. The journalists at ABC on reacted by repeatedly deriding the press conference previewing the release of the Mueller Report as “unprecedented.” Terry Moran reminded that, just because Donald Trump may not have done anything illegal, there’s still probably something bad in the report: “This is the day, that the conversation shifts though, as I said, from was this criminal to was it right? There's a big difference between what's lawful and what's right.”
The co-hosts of CBS This Morning on Wednesday celebrated Gayle King’s selection for the Time 100 Most Influential People list. John Dickerson read the gushing tribute by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, hailing the “all-time great” King. DuVernay praised, “What most don’t understand about Gayle is that this perfected proximity to others is a superpower that the best journalists possess.”
Even for liberal Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent, this is over the top. “The Plum Line” blogger for the paper spewed hate at conservative Congressman Dan Crenshaw for daring to criticize Representative Ilhan Omar’s dismissal of 9/11 as “some people did something.”
CBS on Monday night and Tuesday morning focused on the Trump administration’s zero tolerance separation policy, blasting it as “cruel” and an example of why journalists need to get beyond “policy” and focus on real world results. Strangely, CBS journalists often skip the equally heart-wrenching impacts of murders and drunk driving killings by those illegally in the United States.
Fox anchor Shepard Smith on Monday melted down when a French guest attempted to explain the ongoing attacks, violence and vandalism against French churches. Talking about the fire engulfing Notre Dame, guest Philippe Karsenty began, “For the past years, we've had churches desecrated each and every week all over France.”
60 Minutes journalist Lesley Stahl on Sunday spent 13 minutes fawning over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “powerful” “giant slayer” and the “patron saint of shade” when it comes to Donald Trump. The segment featured little in the way of criticism or push back, other than to wonder why the Democratic politician hasn’t accomplished more of her liberal goals.
Nothing controversial here. CBS This Morning co-hosts on Thursday breezily questioned 2020 presidential candidate Jay Inslee, offering little in the way of challenges to the Washington governor's plans to end the filibuster and the electoral college and to have Medicare for all. Instead, the journalists offered softballs with little skepticism.
In case it wasn’t clear before, CBS made it very obvious that the journalists are fans of Nancy Pelosi. The This Morning co-hosts on Friday previewed a 60 Minutes interview with the Democrat and gushed over the “feminine,” “steely tough” House Speaker.
MSNBC host Hallie Jackson on Thursday went easy on Rashida Tlaib while asking about fellow Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's cringe-inducing comments about 9/11. The journalist allowed Tlaib to call for civility, despite her profanity-laced tirade in public. Jackson also skipped the Democrat’s meeting with an Israel-hating defender of Hezbollah.
Socialist Bernie Sanders, who has decried millionaires for years, is a millionaire That revelation was ignored by the flagship ABC and NBC morning shows, despite a combined four hours of air time on Wednesday. Only CBS This Morning noticed, offering a scant 49 seconds to the awkwardness of the very wealthy Sanders.
Try not to laugh, but the Kennedy family giving a Profile in Courage award to Nancy Pelosi isn’t a partisan move. That’s the claim CBS Sunday Morning wants viewers to buy. Host Jane Pauley and reporter Martha Teichner previewed the 2019 award with Pauley haughtily insisting, “For 30 years, the Profile in Courage Award has been leading the way, honoring people for taking the high road.”
Stephen Colbert is a comedian and not a journalist. But the Late Night host is clearly becoming an arm of 2020 Democrats as another candidate announced on his show, Monday night. Colbert failed to ask Congressman Eric Swalwell a single tough question. Instead, he offered softballs and even repeated the California Democrat’s attack lines against Trump: “You've been very critical of Donald Trump, as you have been in the past. But you’ve called him a wrecking ball. You called him a Russian agent.”
CBS This Morning on Monday offered a gushing interview to fellow reporters from Politico about the players in Capitol Hill. While Donald Trump is in step of “chaos,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the “steady” hand and the “adult in the room. Politico correspondent Anna Palmer spun the President as having “reverence and respect” for the Congressional Democrat.
Talk about fake history. CBS Sunday Morning did a story on the Reconstruction era after the Civil War and former slaves who entered Congress in the 1870s. The visuals for the CBS segment used the political “red and blue” state graphics. But instead of following actual history, the network made the slave-holding Confederates red and the Union states blue.