Simon on CBS: 'Obama Won Over His Base...the American Media' --3/24/2008

1. Simon on CBS: 'Obama Won Over His Base...the American Media'
Roger Simon, chief political columnist for The Politico and former White House correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and political editor of U.S. News & World Report, acknowledged on Sunday's Face the Nation that Barack Obama won over "his base," which he identified as "the American media," in his Tuesday speech in reaction to Reverend Jeremiah Wright's anti-American rants: "Obama really won over his base, he won over the American media. They loved that speech." Indeed, over on This Week's roundtable, ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman trumpeted: "He gave a great speech, I think it was a brave speech." Fill-in Face the Nation host Chip Reid followed up Simon's observation by fretting about what Republicans, who managed to "swift boat John Kerry" when "many people believed [he] was a war hero," might "do with what Reverend Wright said in the fall?"

2. Here We Go Again: Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (?)
The week after it took the NBC Nightly News until the fourth day of coverage to inform viewers that disgraced then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat, Friday's NBC Nightly News ran a full story on the scandalous behavior surrounding Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, but never identified his political party. Naturally, given the lack of a party identification by the mainstream media journalists, he's a Democrat. Anchor Brian Williams set up the story: "The city of Detroit is in a crisis over government and leadership. The current Mayor is just the latest Detroit Mayor elected on a promise to clean up and revitalize the city. Now he's been caught in a sex scandal, a trail of electronic messages reportedly provides the evidence, it threatens his career and then some." Reporter Kevin Tibbles, also sans any mention of a party affiliation, outlined: "The Detroit city council votes overwhelmingly to ask the Mayor to resign. 37-year-old Kwame Kilpatrick, in his second term of the Mayor of the Motor City, is mired in financial, political, and personal scandal, but refuses to budge."

3. Under Three Weeks Until MRC's 'DisHonors Awards,' Get Tickets Now
Less than three weeks until the MRC's 2008 "DisHonors Awards." The MRC's annual video awards with the "William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence," this year presented to Tony Snow, will take place in Washington, DC on Thursday evening, April 10. Confirmed participants: Ann Coulter, Larry Kudlow, Mark Levin, Cal Thomas and many more since surprise conservative guests will accept the awards in jest. Get your tickets now.

4. 'Top Ten Signs Your Governor's Having Sex With a Hooker'
From the Late Show's "Top Ten Contest," the "Top Ten Signs Your Governor's Having Sex With a Hooker."

Simon on CBS: 'Obama Won Over His Base...the
American Media'

Roger Simon, chief political columnist for The Politico and former White House correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and political editor of U.S. News & World Report, acknowledged on Sunday's Face the Nation that Barack Obama won over "his base," which he identified as "the American media," in his Tuesday speech in reaction to Reverend Jeremiah Wright's anti-American rants: "Obama really won over his base, he won over the American media. They loved that speech."

Indeed, over on This Week's roundtable, ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman trumpeted: "He gave a great speech, I think it was a brave speech."

Fill-in Face the Nation host Chip Reid followed up Simon's observation by fretting about what Republicans, who managed to "swift boat John Kerry" when "many people believed [he] was a war hero," might "do with what Reverend Wright said in the fall?"

Reid's question to Ana Marie Cox of Time magazine: "Now, if the Republicans could swift boat John Kerry on, you know, a guy who many people believed was a war hero, what can they do with what Reverend Wright said in the fall?"

[This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted Monday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

The Politico's bio page for Simon with links to his columns: www.politico.com

Simon is certainly on target about the news media's enthusiasm for Obama's speech. Check these CyberAlert items from last week:

# "'Extraordinary' Speech 'Gift' for 'Confronting Race' w/ 'Honesty.'" Go to: www.mrc.org

# "Chris Matthews Hails Obama Speech as 'Worthy of Abraham Lincoln.'" See: www.mrc.org

# "ABC's GMA Lauds 'Historic' and 'Remarkable' Obama Speech." Go to: www.mrc.org

# "NYT: Obama's 'Nuanced' Race Speech Marks Return of Lincoln, JFK." See: www.mrc.org

The relevant portion of the first panel segment on the Sunday, March 23 Face the Nation:

DOYLE McMANUS, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Every day that goes by that there's not a new scary quote from Jeremiah Wright means that Jeremiah Wright may start to fade. The Clinton campaign has to raise questions about Obama's electability. That's the only way to move those super-delegates, and that's what Bill Clinton was doing.
CHIP REID: But Roger Simon, those scary quotes aren't going away in the fall, are they, even if they go away in the Democratic race?
ROGER SIMON: No, and I'm not sure they're going away in the Democratic race. They might drop off the nightly news and from the front pages of newspapers, but Senator Obama's speech, while I thought was an honest speech and that it's the speech he wanted to give rather than his political team wanted him to give, is still problematical for him in that white, ethnic voters in Pennsylvania may not react to it in the way that -- Obama really won over his base, he won over the American media. They loved that speech.
REID: Right.
SIMON: But they're not the voters. And he is going to face this below the radar screen trouble that Reverend Wright who, let us admit, made extreme statements. Those are still going to be there. And they're, they are still going to be on the minds of people.
REID: Now, if the Republicans could swift boat John Kerry on, you know, a guy who many people believed was a war hero, what can they do with what Reverend Wright said in the fall?
ANA MARIE COX: Well, what'll be interesting is how they do that and don't put John McCain's fingerprints on it. Just this week they fired a low-level staffer who had circulated a sort of video mash-up that included a lot of Reverend Wright's sermons. And they sent out a letter not to just their staff but to those -- their surrogates and supporters that they didn't want people using Barack Hussein Obama in references. And I also know that John McCain is very serious himself about trying to keep this all very civilized, and I'm sure the Obama team appreciates that. But the RNC probably doesn't see it the same way.
REID: Yeah.
COX: And it's going to be a lot like with the swift-boating in the sense that it's going to be somewhere from off center stage this time around.

Here We Go Again: Detroit Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick (?)

The week after it took the NBC Nightly News until the fourth day of coverage to inform viewers that disgraced then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat, Friday's NBC Nightly News ran a full story on the scandalous behavior surrounding Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, but never identified his political party. Naturally, given the lack of a party identification by the mainstream media journalists, he's a Democrat. Anchor Brian Williams set up the story: "The city of Detroit is in a crisis over government and leadership. The current Mayor is just the latest Detroit Mayor elected on a promise to clean up and revitalize the city. Now he's been caught in a sex scandal, a trail of electronic messages reportedly provides the evidence, it threatens his career and then some."

Reporter Kevin Tibbles, also sans any mention of a party affiliation, outlined: "The Detroit city council votes overwhelmingly to ask the Mayor to resign. 37-year-old Kwame Kilpatrick, in his second term of the Mayor of the Motor City, is mired in financial, political, and personal scandal, but refuses to budge."

[This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted Friday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

The Friday, March 14 NewsBusters posting, "Hell Freezes Over? NBC Nightly News Finally Calls Spitzer 'Democratic Governor,'" recounted:

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, substitute NBC Nightly News anchor Ann Curry and reporter Mike Taibbi failed to identify disgraced outgoing New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat, but on Thursday night Curry finally informed NBC viewers of the party affiliation -- a fact network journalists always consider relevant when a Republican gets caught in scandalous behavior. Curry set up a story on incoming Governor David Paterson by uttering the word she's avoided all week: "Now to the fast moving developments in the wake of the revelations that New York's Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer was a client of a prostitution service. NBC's Mike Taibbi now with the man who's to take over for Spitzer on Monday."

But, reverting to her default conduct, in an item about the passing of very liberal ex-Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Curry never mentioned his ideology or party as she hailed his life as "the classic American success story" of a man who "always fought for the little guy, taking on the oil and insurance industries" while he "stuck to his populist principles."

For the March 14 CyberAlert item in full: www.mrc.org

The Friday, March 21 NBC Nightly News story:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: The city of Detroit is in a crisis over government and leadership. The current Mayor is just the latest Detroit Mayor elected on a promise to clean up and revitalize the city. Now he's been caught in a sex scandal, a trail of electronic messages reportedly provides the evidence, it threatens his career and then some. Here is NBC's Kevin Tibbles.
KEVIN TIBBLES: In a city long beset with problems-
VOICE: Seven yeas one nay.
TIBBLES: The Detroit city council votes overwhelmingly to ask the Mayor to resign. 37-year-old Kwame Kilpatrick, in his second term of the Mayor of the Motor City, is mired in financial, political, and personal scandal, but refuses to budge.
MAYOR KWAME KILPATRICK: We have nothing to hide. We have been totally up front.
TIBBLES: It was while testifying under oath last summer in another matter that the Mayor's critics say he did hide something: An affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty.
REPORTER's VOICE: Were you and Mayor Kilpatrick either romantically or intimately involved with each other?
CHRISTINE BEATTY: No.
TIBBLES: The Detroit Free Press examined nearly 14,000 messages from Beatty's city-issued pager, messages critics say may prove the pair lied on the stand. Some of the messages concern city business. But many others were personal and explicit. Now a local prosecutor is considering whether to charge the pair with perjury.
PAUL ANGER, DETROIT FREE PRESS EDITOR: On the one hand, a tremendously talented individual and on the other hand you have an individual who has made really bad decisions.
TIBBLES: When the scandal broke, Kilpatrick, who is married with children, went on television.
KWAME KILPATRICK WITH HIS WIFE, JANUARY 30: I truly apologize to you.
TIBBLES: And has continued to defend himself.
KILPATRICK, MARCH 11: This unethical, illegal, lynch mob mentality has to stop.
TIBBLES: The speech prompted a veteran Detroit anchorwoman from NBC station WDIV to deliver a rare on air editorial calling on Kilpatrick to step down.
WOMAN ON TV: The Kwame Kilpatrick roller coaster has to stop.
TIBBLES: The prosecutor is expected to announce Monday whether charges will be filed. Kevin Tibbles, NBC News, Chicago.

Under Three Weeks Until MRC's 'DisHonors
Awards,' Get Tickets Now

Less than three weeks until the MRC's 2008 "DisHonors Awards." The MRC's annual video awards with the "William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence," this year presented to Tony Snow, will take place in Washington, DC on Thursday evening, April 10. Confirmed participants: Ann Coulter, Larry Kudlow, Mark Levin, Cal Thomas and many more since surprise conservative guests will accept the awards in jest. Get your tickets now.

"It was a terrific show...It was a great, great, great assemblage of people... Everybody just had a blast!" -- Rush Limbaugh, 2007 recipient of the William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence.

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'Top Ten Signs Your Governor's Having
Sex With a Hooker'

From the Late Show with David Letterman Web site, the winning entries in the "Top Ten Contest" posted on Saturday for the "Top Ten Signs Your Governor's Having Sex With a Hooker." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com

10. Starts every speech with "Four whores and seven grand ago..." (Alan F, Imperial)

9. Governor's mansion is a hotel room on the Interstate (Dean C, Sacramento, CA)

8. Always has that lovely cheap perfume smell about him (Jim S, Crown Point, IN)

7. He gives a "State of My Unit" address (Robert B, Raleigh, NC)

6. Second Thursday in April is now "Take a Whore To Work Day" (Bob D, Round Rock, TX)

5. He's smiling...his wife ain't (Jackie D, West, TX)

4. His budget includes line item for "gettin' it on" (Alan G, Versailles, KY)

3. Before every executive decision asks, "What would Charlie Sheen do?" (Richard A, Gravenhurst, ON)

2. Local hookers complaining they can't get that "gubernatorial" taste out of their mouths (Josh K, Fredon, NJ)

1. Leaves a tip for his wife after sex (Chuck M, Newark, DE)

-- Brent Baker