Open Thread

NB Staff

Olbermann: Limbaugh ‘Hate Radio’ Has ‘Blood on Your Hands’ for

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann used his regular "Worst Person" segment to accuse Rush Limbaugh of having "blood on your hands" for the Oklahoma City Bombing in response to the conservative talk radio host pointing out that, while some liberals have tried to blame talk radio for inspiring Timothy McVeigh to commit mass murder, McVeigh himself actually admitted to being…
Brad Wilmouth

Maddow Worries McVeigh's 'Voice from the Grave' Echoes, as She Plays H

For weeks, MSNBC has advertised Rachel Maddow's two-hour special broadcast about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building. This special, aired on the 15-year anniversary of that bombing, was billed as a way for viewers to see what can happen if anti-government sentiment gets out of control. "So tonight, exactly 15 years later, this special edition of ‘The Rachel Maddow…
Jeff Poor

Behar Links Racist Signs to Tea Partiers, Then Denies Mentioning Race

On Monday’s Joy Behar Show on HLN, when guest Mark Williams of Tea Party Express complained to Behar and fellow guest Ari Melber of the Nation about Tea Party activists being smeared as racist, the HLN host claimed that she had not brought up race during the segment, even though she opened the discussion by referring to stereotypes about Tea Party activists as she cracked that perhaps public…
Brad Wilmouth

Kurtz: Obama 'Has Little Patience' for 'Inflammatory' Bloggers and Tal

In his regular online chat at washingtonpost.com, Post media reporter Howard Kurtz responded to a question about Obama holding more press conferences to give the people "an ongoing view of his intellect, grasp of issues, and moderate temperament and views," but he seems to have "little, if any respect" for the press corps. Kurtz responded: My sense is that the president respects the mainstream…
Tim Graham

Bernie Goldberg Rips Jon Stewart: Your Frank Rich Interview Was a Lap

Bernie Goldberg on Monday accused Jon Stewart of being a gutless comedian that is much harder on Tea Partiers and Fox News personalities than liberal media members.Appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor," Goldberg admitted that "The Daily Show" host was right when he said last week that FNC anchors and hosts often make generalizations about liberals. But "when you had [New York Times columnist] Frank…
Noel Sheppard

Pro-Jihadists Threaten South Park Creators – Only Network to Cover i

Believe it or not, CNN - the same CNN which has recently dismissed the Fort Hood terrorist as lonely, has featured a member of ‘Jihad U' as a teacher of the ‘nuts and bolts of Islam', and which has run three separate stories interviewing the father of radical jihadist, Anwar al-Awlaki - has actually taken interest in a jihadist threat of physical violence upon the creators of South Park. It seems…
Rusty Weiss

Sticking to His Guns: Sedition Charges and the Journalistic Ethics of

One of the things taught in journalism schools, at least when it comes crime reporting, is that when someone charged with a crime, you carefully craft your rhetoric because in the United States, you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. But what if you're journalist and you're making accusations of crime where there's not even a charge? On NBC's April 18 "The Chris Matthews Show," Time…
Jeff Poor

Glenn Beck Strikes Back At Joe Klein: I'm Not Seditious. I Love My Cou

Glenn Beck struck back at Joe Klein and John Heilemann Monday for practically accusing the Fox News host, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh of being seditious.As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Time magazine's Klein and New York magazine's Heilemann made some rather inflammatory comments about the trio this weekend on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show."When Beck saw our piece at the Drudge Report…
Noel Sheppard

CNN's Rick Sanchez Goes After 'Cheap Shot' From NewsBusters

CNN's Rick Sanchez named me and NewsBusters to "the very top" of his daily 'List That U Don't Want 2 Be On' on his Rick's List show on Monday. Sanchez criticized me for apparently not being able to tell he was "joking" during a segment on April 15 where he stated that "you think it's too cold to have a volcano" in Iceland [audio available here].I have been monitoring the anchor since September…
Matthew Balan

MSNBC's Deutsch Frets Over 'Anger in America,' Incorrectly Labels IRS

MSNBC's Donny Deutsch kicked off a week-long segment on Monday about "America the Angry" and hinted that the "rageaholics" in this country could create another Oklahoma City-style bombing. After one guest mentioned Joe Stack, the man who flew a plane into an IRS building in February, Deutsch wrongly derided, "I don't know whether he was Republican or Democrat. I'm assuming he was probably a…
Scott Whitlock

Sun-Sentinel Columnist Urges Charlie Crist to Run for Senate as Indepe

Ka-ching!Whenever a liberal columnist gives some "friendly" advice to a Republican who is running for public office, you can be sure that he almost always has an ulterior motive. Such was the case with columnist Michael Mayo of the ailing Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Not only did Mayo urge Charlie Crist to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, he also cynically advised Crist to open…
P.J. Gladnick

Actress/TEA Partier Janine Turner Promotes Awareness of Nation's Found

The political inclinations of Hollywood actors, when they're publicly disclosed, are almost always reliably left-of-center. As such, it's quite refreshing to learn of another conservative or libertarian in Tinseltown, especially when the celebrity in question is actively working to advance an understanding of constitutional principles and opposing big government. Janine Turner ("Northern Exposure…
Ken Shepherd

WaPo's Kathleen Parker on CBS: Tea Parties 'Dangerous;' Internet Journ

On Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer asked columnist Kathleen Parker about her views on the tea party: "the rhetoric that's coming out from the right side, especially from the tea party....you think it may be dangerous." Parker replied: "this heated rhetoric and some of these words...that are pretty loaded, 'reload,' 'targeting'...there's a danger there."Parker, syndicated with…
Kyle Drennen