Seeking to breathe new life into the political damage of unproven sexual harassment charges against him, CNN's Lisa Sylvester presented viewers with a "developing story" in the 4 p.m. hour Wednesday of The Situation Room entitled "Is Cain the Anti-Women Candidate?" Sylvester glommed onto "recent controversial comments" Cain has made, such as referring to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as "Princess Nancy," and saying that "tutti-frutti" is the ice cream flavor that would best describe Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). "Some critics see him as the anti-women candidate," Sylvester insisted of Cain, turning to "CNN contributor Donna Brazile" who "says he... continue reading
CNN guest and "community organizer" Sally Kohn compared the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Boston Tea Party on Wednesday's American Morning. When asked about "fair criticisms" of the movement as one possessing criminal elements, Kohn responded that the Boston Tea Party was viewed as a criminal element in its day, but was vindicated by history. "So, first, you know, when early Americans were throwing boxes of tea from private corporations into the Boston Harbor, they were initially labeled as criminal elements, too," sounded Kohn. "So, history does tend to look more favorably on protests and see the protesters as... continue reading
On Wednesday's Early Show, CBS's Erica Hill pressed Rep. Michele Bachmann during an interview about her attack on Newt Gingrich for his notorious 2008 commercial with Nancy Pelosi on climate change: " Why is that a bad thing, to try to work across the aisle? " This came just two days after the morning show wondered if Gingrich himself needed to " play a little more dirty ... to win the bid ." Hill noted that "the Minnesota congresswoman is criticizing each of her fellow candidates for not being conservative enough" in a new online ad, and first asked Bachmann,... continue reading
Now that Democratic mayors have turned on the Occupy Wall Street crowd , several media outlets have adopted a more critical tone, highlighting crime and squalor at such protests. A front-page Washington Post story on Wednesday wondered, " Is this an occupation or an infestation? "(Although the paper didn't get to the public defecation and rapes until A4.) On Tuesday's World News, reporter Dan Harris interrogated protesters, pointing out that Occupy Oakland has cost the cash-strapped city $2.4 million. He grilled the crowd, wondering, "These protests cost taxpayers a lot of money for police, sanitation. How is that good for... continue reading
On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry asked chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd about Herman Cain's long pause when answering a question about Libya: "How much do you think this new video is expected to add to Herman Cain's current slip already in the polls?" Todd proclaimed: "I think it's close to being the disqualifying moment for his campaign." In a prior report, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell touted how "Herman Cain is finding out that in politics, silence may not be so golden." However, after playing a clip of Mitt Romney going after Obama for calling America "lazy," O'Donnell dismissed... continue reading
CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian made headlines with his ridiculous softball question to President Obama on Sunday. However, as MRC has documented, Lothian has posed such a soft question to Obama before, and has shown some liberal bias in his past reporting. Lothian asked the President at Sunday's press conference in Hawaii if he thought the Republican candidates, who supported the practice of waterboarding, were "uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible." Fox News analyst Bernie Goldberg later called it "the most ridiculous question I have ever heard by a regular reporter from a so-called mainstream news outfit. Ever." However,... continue reading
On Tuesday afternoon's Newsroom, CNN ran a positive segment on Occupy D.C. at Freedom Plaza and touted the protest's "rules and regulations." In what could have passed for an advertisement for the protest, anchor Brooke Baldwin held up to the camera the protest's application for prospective occupiers, remarking "how about that?" over its stipulations. Baldwin noted in the beginning that "you might not have heard too much about Occupy D.C. And as it turned out, that protest is a lot different than a number of others." CNN then interviewed a number of protesters innocently labeled either "organizer" or "protester." As... continue reading
CNN's Poppy Harlow asked an Occupy Wall Street protester on Tuesday if the movement was "at that scale" of the civil rights movement, and if the cause was "as important" as civil rights. In turn, the occupier answered that the Wall Street protests are "much grander" than the civil rights movement. Harlow was interviewing the protester in the aftermath of a New York City judge ruling in favor of the city's crackdown on the protest's encampment in Zuccotti Park. She referenced his earlier comparison of the protest to the civil rights movement and asked him "Do you think that this... continue reading
MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews isn't one for subtlety. On Tuesday's show he summarized the problems with the 2012 GOP presidential field as this: " They hate....They hate so much they are not in the mood to fall in love with a candidate or even fall in behind someone ." The Hardball host continued to smear: "Their brains racked as they are by hatred, they lack the like mode. They are in no mood looking around for a politician they like. The hating is so much more satisfying." Matthews even used a typical liberal journalist move: Complimenting a deceased Republican as... continue reading
CBS's Erica Hill tossed softballs at a survivor of the Tucson shooting and the executive director of a pro-gun control group on Tuesday's Early Show, just hours before they were due to speak at a congressional hearing to promote tighter gun regulations. Hill played up fellow survivor Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's recent interview and asked, " What does that do to you and to this cause that you have now adopted? " The anchor led the 8 am Eastern hour of the morning show by playing a clip of ABC's Diane Sawyer asking the Arizona representative about the January 2011 shooting... continue reading