President Obama's health plan announced Monday is little more than the Senate bill with a new tax and federal price control regime, but ABC's Diane Sawyer touted how "Obama today officially put forward his plan" and CBS's Katie Couric hailed "a plan of his own," though she pointed out "it includes no public option." (In contrast, NBC's Savannah Guthrie observed: "This new plan of the President's looks a lot like the old plan, just repackaged.") All three evening newscasts employed terminology congenial to Obama's wish to interfere in the marketplace by trumpeting how Obama would "block insurance companies from unreasonable... continue reading
On Monday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez painted Ann Coulter and CPAC as "hardline." Sanchez also implied that the CPAC attendees were hypocritically cheering Dick Cheney: "I invited Ann Coulter, who exemplifies the hardline spirit of CPAC...and asked her why anti-spend conservatives meeting there...would give a standing ovation to a former vice president whose administration ran up the deficit" [audio clip available here ]. The CNN anchor revisited his Friday interview of Coulter 13 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour: "Do you remember last week when former Vice President Dick Cheney got the loudest ovation at CPAC? So I... continue reading
Good Morning America's John Hendren on Saturday fretted that attendees to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) came "from the right" and "the far right." He allowed that conservative are "on fire" with optimism about the future, but opined that the movement is "fractious." John Avlon, author of Winguts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America , was featured in a sound bite to deride intolerant conservatives: "Reagan's ideal of the big tent, which invited people in, is now seen as code language for liberal." On February 19, Avlon appeared on CNN attacked the "saving freedom" agenda of CPAC as... continue reading
While discussing the Democrats' latest version of health care reform on Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked GOP strategist Ed Rollins: "Are the Republicans better off just saying let the Democrats burn in hell with this, we're going to stay on the sidelines and win the House back this fall?" The segment also featured disgraced ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who Smith earlier asked about an upcoming health care summit: "...this whole notion that the Republicans were saying 'well, we might not show up, now Mitch McConnell over the weekend, the minority head of the Senate, says 'we're... continue reading
Good Morning America's Bill Weir on Sunday trumpeted Barack Obama for "keeping a campaign promise" to broadcast the health care debate on C-SPAN. Counting the upcoming televised summit between Republicans and Democrats on the issue as fulfillment, Weir gushed, "...The revolution will be televised . " He extolled the event, saying, "And for the first time, live in your living room, President Obama keeping a campaign promise set up by a televised summit to try to revive health care reform ." Reporter David Kerley sounded a similar note, asserting, "With health care reform on life support, the President hopes to... continue reading
In an exclusive interview with First Lady Michelle Obama on Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez fretted over the future of ObamaCare: "Deadlines keep getting missed for passing health care. Obstacles keep mounting....Unfortunately at the moment...health care is being held hostage by partisanship." Rodriguez introduced the interview by proclaiming that the First Lady: "acknowledges the many hurdles to passing it [health care reform], but insists it will remain a top priority for the President." In her first question to Mrs. Obama, Rodriguez focused on the President's determination to get something passed: "Will your husband ever give up on trying... continue reading
Hosting Sunday's This Week on ABC, Terry Moran noted during the past week the Obama administration "fanned out across the country" to trumpet how "the stimulus worked," yet President Obama "sounded a little frustrated that people don't get it" as, Moran fretted: "What did they do wrong? They're playing defense on what was one of their major accomplishments." Earlier in his interview with California's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell, whom Moran touted as "two prominent Governors who call it like it is," Moran despaired at the shrinking size of the "jobs bill," worried $15 billion is not enough and... continue reading
Appearing during the "Roundtable" segment on Sunday's This Week on ABC, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington continued her campaign to portray conservatives as promoters of violence as she recounted what she referred to as the "violent imagery" of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's speech at CPAC in which he, alluding to Tiger Woods' troubles, suggested that a golf club should be used to "smash a window out of big government." Huffington connected the Republican governor's remarks to Joe Stack's suicide attack on the IRS building in Austin, Texas, as she noted that Pawlenty's speech came "the day after the pilot had... continue reading
Now that actress Andrea Fay Friedman of the Fox television series the Family Guy has spoken out publicly against Sarah Palin's criticism of the show, ABC News has aired a story on the controversy, which ran on Saturday's World News. The Family Guy episode in question not only treated Down's Syndrome as something to laugh at , but also made a reference to the former Alaska Governor being the mother of a character - voiced by Friedman as both she and the character have Down's Syndrome - presumably to suggest that Palin has a tendency to give birth to such... continue reading
Former President Ronald Reagan would have prosecuted Dick Cheney for war crimes, Seth MacFarlane ( IMDb page ), creator, writer and executive producer of the Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show animated sit-coms which air Sunday nights on Fox, declared Friday night on the season premiere of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher . But President Barack Obama, he rued, is too "chicken s**t" do to it. To affirming applause from the Los Angeles audience, the left-wing MacFarlane - who at another point recalled he campaigned for Obama - pretended he's an expert on Reagan, asserting Cheney's advocacy... continue reading