In the 10AM ET hour on MSNBC on Tuesday, anchor David Shuster talked with Democratic strategist Craig Varoga, founder of the Patriot Majority political action committee, about efforts to "fight against tea-party-backed candidates." Moments later, a headline on screen read: "Tea Party Targets; PAC Launching Counter-Attack of Tea Party." During the same hour on Monday , Shuster described how in a speech on Sunday, "[Sarah] Palin also took aim at Democrats in the media after she was criticized for posting a map of targeted House Democrats with using rifle cross-hairs." An on-screen graphic showed a picture of the map featured... continue reading
Pivoting off a New York Times column by Frank Rich that accused tea partiers of being more afraid of "a black president and a female Speaker of the House" than by oncoming big government, Chris Matthews, once again, accused tea partiers of sexism and racism, on Monday's Hardball, and even brought on a Princeton professor to buttress his charges. However conservative talk show host Dana Loesch was on hand to rebut, point by point, Matthews and his guests' ugly accusations about the right as she fended off allegations of Birtherism by pointing out the nutty Trutherism that exists on the... continue reading
MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan on Monday eagerly attempted to convict Sean Hannity for the supposed misuse of funds by a pro-troop organization he supports, a claim already investigated and debunked . The anchor highlighted complaints against the Freedom Alliance group by the George Soros-backed Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), but never identified their liberal tilt. Ratigan promoted CREW's assertions that the Freedom Concerts, which the Fox News host promotes, aren't giving all the money they take in to scholarships for the families of fallen soldiers. He sneered, " Hey, what the heck? You come up with a... continue reading
NBC on Monday night squeezed in a few seconds for the arrest of "a Philadelphia man for threatening the life of the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor of Virginia." Yet after the networks led last week with less-immediate threats against Democrats, they weren't so interested in a real case of a death threat against a Republican as neither CBS nor ABC aired a word about the arrest and NBC's Brian Williams gave it short-shrift after leading last Wednesday with Democrats as the victims: "It's getting ugly as anger over health care reform erupts into some... continue reading
On Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked political analyst and writer for the left-leaning blog Slate.com, John Dickerson, if Democrats were "worried" about the "ton of momentum" behind the tea party movement. Dickerson replied: "What Democrats can only hope for is that tea party activists somehow overreach and that that ends up becoming a stain on the Republican Party." Rodriguez agreed and touted Democratic Party talking points on ObamaCare: "Right. And also, if you ask the Obama administration, they'll tell you maybe people will see the few health care changes that are taking effect immediately and actually like... continue reading
The Weather Underground and the Tea Party movement: Same thing? In the wake of Obama-care's passage, New York Times reporter Benedict Carey took the country's political temperature, and found it running a right-wing fever, in a front-page Sunday Week in Review essay. It's ominous title was cribbed from the famous scene in the movie "Network," " RAGE's DNA: Mad As Hell. And... " The online headline is even blunter: "When Does Political Anger Turn to Violence?" The story is accompanied by a photo illustration of an open book of matches, one of them lit. There's also a really strange choice... continue reading
MSNBC's David Shuster on Monday continued to hit Sarah Palin for supposedly inciting hate against liberals and Democrats on her Facebook page. The cable channel's graphic hyperbolically complained, " Sarah Palin's Dem Hit-list ." With no sense of irony, Shuster then brought on the vitriolic Mike Malloy to trash Palin. Malloy is the liberal radio host who said in 2009 that Dick Cheney has "been eating the blood of a Jewish or a Muslim baby ," to cite but one example. And yet the MSNBC anchor queried this purveyor of hate speech about whether Sarah Palin is bad for the... continue reading
Laura Ingraham didn't waste any time getting into it with NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's Today, as the conservative talk show host and author took Lauer, his colleague George Lewis and MSNBC to task for their slanted reporting of Sarah Palin and the tea party. After a Lewis set-up piece, in which the reporter asked if Palin gets "people too riled up?" Ingraham, in her interview with Lauer, charged him with bias: "How do you go from Sarah Palin giving a speech to saying did she rile up the people too much and then talk about death threats? I think... continue reading
Reacting to a newly released ABC News/Washington Post poll which found 50 percent opposed to the just-passed health bill versus 46 percent in favor of it, on ABC's This Week, Mississippi's Republican Governor, Haley Barbour, quipped: I am surprised that the numbers in the Washington Post poll weren't better. I mean, since this thing passed last weekend, we've been seeing the longest wet kiss in political history given to the Obama administration by the liberal media elite and every day it goes by, it's sloppier. That prompted a chuckle from host Jake Tapper, before the other guest, Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor,... continue reading
CNN put "INCITING VIOLENCE?" on screen under video of Sarah Palin earlier in the day Saturday in Searchlight, Nevada, as anchor Don Lemon announced: Sarah Palin takes on one of the highest ranking Democrats right in his own backyard, all while causing another uproar by urging tea parties to quote "reload." And the question is, are comments like that inciting violence and name-calling over the health care bill and the like? In the subsequent segment, titled "DANGEROUS RHETORIC: When heated words incite threats & violence," CNN's panel agreed Obama's political opponents are inciting violence and are motivated by racism -... continue reading