Washington Examiner’s ‘Mainstream Media Scream’ with the MRC’s Assessment (Jan 2012-June 2013)

Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday and then printed in the Tuesday newspaper, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five).

This post contains all the “Mainstream Media Screams” through June 11, 2013, the last to appear in the printed Washington Examiner which switched to an online-only publication as of June 17, 2013.

(Newer “Mainstream Media Screams,” from June 17, 2013 forward.)

Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week.

(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the MRC's Notable Quotables with an every other week compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)

♦ June 10/11, 2013: Mainstream Scream: Martin Bashir accuses Obama scandal critics of racism

(Washington Examiner post; jpg of printed page)

This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC's Martin Bashir, in his "Clear the Air" segment ending his Wednesday show, calling criticism of President Obama over the IRS probe of Tea Party groups racist.

"The IRS is being used in exactly the same way as they tried to use the president's birth certificate. ... Despite the complete lack of any evidence linking the president to the targeting of Tea Party groups, Republicans are using it as their latest weapon in the war against the black man in the White House. ... This afternoon, we welcome the latest phrase in the lexicon of Republican attacks on this president -- the IRS. Three letters that sound so innocent, but we know what you mean."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "MSNBC hosts are obsessed with race, but it's shameful Bashir would stoop to such tactics to distract from the facts of what happened at the IRS. Bashir is really showing paternalistic racism towards Obama, acting as if Obama can't stand up to criticism."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ June 3/4, 2013: Mainstream Media Scream: Maher blasts W's bike ride with troops

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features HBO's Bill Maher calling former President George W. Bush's bike ride with wounded warriors "nauseating."

On his Friday night show, Maher said, "George Bush, over the Memorial Day weekend, held the Wounded Warrior 100K, which was a kind of a celebration for wounded warriors who came back from Iraq and I guess they walked or ran or something on their prosthetic limbs. And I found this to be nauseating. I mean, first he sends them off to war to get their limbs blown off and then he has them over for a barbecue. This is like the Cleveland guy having a pizza party for those girls he had in his basement."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "It seems Bill Maher never got over his Bush Derangement Syndrome, but this was a particularly virulent and nauseating stream of it. A reminder of the anger and hatred too many on the left have towards those with whom they disagree."

Rating: Five out of five screams.

 

♦ May 27/28, 2013: Mainstream Media Scream: Matthews calls Cruz ‘face of the wild, nasty hard-right fringe’

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews denouncing Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Matthews ended his show Friday by saying, "Let me finish tonight with this: Ted Cruz of Texas is a disaster, not least for the party that ran him for the Senate. He says he doesn't trust his fellow Republicans. Neither, he said, does he trust Democrats. He's putting himself on the national stage as the enemy of compromise, of reasonable comity between the parties, of bipartisan agreement itself. No, Senator Cruz wants all-out political war. He wants to bring down the budget, forfeit any congressional control on spending or taxation. He prefers a chaotic order on Capitol Hill where he can stand in the middle of the legislative traffic yelling stop, where he can derail any reasonable budget control in order to bring attention to himself. He's come to Washington to start fights, to disrupt any chance of ending this dysfunction because dysfunction is what he dearly hopes to someday challenge.

"Pay attention to Senator Cruz because he is the unsmiling contemptuous face of the wild, nasty hard-right fringe of a party that once competed with the Democrats to be the country's governing party. All Cruz wants to do is prove that self-government is evil or impossible, or whatever else will justify his existence as a hard-right political bomb thrower."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Cruz must really scare liberals. How else to explain Matthews' feigning such concern for the welfare of the republic over how Cruz is so dangerous? When a bomb thrower as nasty and hard left as Matthews derides you as a 'bomb thrower' symbolic of the 'nasty hard right,' you must be pretty effective."

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ May 20/21: Mainstream Media Scream: ‘Today’s’ Savannah Guthrie questions GOP ‘overreach’

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie and NBC chief political correspondent Chuck Todd discussing GOP "overreach" in probing White House scandals.

On Thursday's show, Guthrie said, "I read a headline yesterday that said Republicans see blood in the water -- that they see a president who's very vulnerable politically. Is there a danger that they will overreach?"

Todd: "There is. I mean, that's what happened to Republicans in 1998 with Bill Clinton. And if all of Congress is focusing on hearings to do scandals, the voters will punish them. They've done it in the past."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "I'm so touched by their concern for Republicans. More like crocodile tears as they're using such faux worries to push back at Obama critics within days of the IRS scandal breaking and the Benghazi one getting some traction. How about a little more interest in digging into Team Obama's dissembling?"

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ May 13/14: Mainstream Media Scream: MSNBC’s Chris Hayes belittles ‘Benghazi day’

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC host Chris Hayes on "All In" delighting in how the Cleveland kidnappings and the Jodi Arias murder conviction overshadowed the Benghazi hearings:

"Today was set up to be a big day, a very big day for Roger Ailes, the Fox Network, Drudge Report readers, the denizens of Michelle Malkin's website Twitchy, Sean Hannity's radio audience and Congressman Darrell Issa. Why? Because today was 'Benghazi day.'... Fox was all teed up, promos had been made, hosts were properly outraged, the coverage plan was in motion -- and then the cable news apocalypse happened."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Hayes reflected the epitome of MSNBC's mission of protecting President Obama, showing a disdain for real news as he snickered in delight over how a tabloid murder trial, of little significance, drowned out a political scandal of true import. Hayes is more a political gadfly than any kind of journalist."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ May 6/7: Mainstream Media Scream: Rather hits Obama critics

(Washington Examiner post; jpg of printed page)

This week's Mainstream Media Scream features ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather slamming President Obama's critics as savages.

Appearing on "The Chris Matthews Show" over the weekend, Rather said, "All of these things we've said about what the president could do, should do, might have, could have, but the central thing to keep in mind is his opponents -- you talk about taking them out to dinner, making nice with them -- these people, politically, want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "As if liberals didn't have the same level of animus toward George W. Bush. It's just that Rather took part in that animosity and so only applies his colorful 'Danism' metaphors to discrediting Obama's critics in order to rationalize Obama's failures."

Rating: Three out of five screams

♦ April 29/30: Mainstream Media Scream: Matthews calls McConnell ‘an SOB’

(Washington Examiner post; jpg of printed page)

This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews ranting about Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

On his April 24 show, he noted McConnell's low unfavorable rating while rapping the Kentucky senator's vote against stricter background checks for gun buyers.

"Somehow, I have a different attitude towards the Republicans and Democrats who voted on this thing. I don't know why it is -- because I'm not always partisan -- but I really do have a problem with Mitch McConnell. I would like to see him get stung hard on this one. So, why do I think like that? Because he tends to be an SOB, generally. Does anybody like that guy?"

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Matthews should have given his 'I'm not always partisan' line to Conan O'Brien for a joke about himself at Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Even Matthews' colleagues would have laughed at such a claim."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ April 15/16: Mainstream Media Scream: Today show dubs Reagan ‘liberal’

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features "Today Show" hosts rewriting history to call Ronald Reagan liberal by today's political standards.

Co-host Willie Geist: "Three in four Americans today thought our country was better off in the '80s than it is now. Three in four. ... If a presidential election were held today, according to this survey, 58 percent would vote for Ronald Reagan over President Barack Obama." Weatherman Al Roker: "But the interesting thing is a lot of people probably -- I mean Ronald Reagan probably would be seen almost liberally today as opposed to being a conservative." Co-host Natalie Morales: "Totally." Roker: "I mean, he did a lot of great things. But, I mean, things have shifted." Geist: "Relative to what you see now, absolutely."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Trying to turn a conservative hero into some kind of liberal, in order to discredit current conservatives as irrational extremists, may pass for political insight inside NBC's liberal bubble, but Al Roker should stick to the weather. Geist and Morales should stick to expert comment on Justin Bieber."

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ April 8/9: Mainstream Media Scream: Maher calls some soldiers murderers

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features HBO talk show host Bill Maher calling soldiers murderers.

Brushing off war correspondent Sebastian Junger's claim that "soldiers aren't psychopaths," Maher countered Friday night: "Well, some of them are psychopaths. I mean, let's be honest. Some people join the Army because it's the one place where you can kill people for free. Where you're not charged with murder. I'm not saying that's the main component of it, but I mean that is some attraction."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "To think that even 'some' join the military because they are 'psychopaths' who delight in getting away with murder shows the level of contempt Maher has for those the rest of America, outside of the Hollywood Left, see as heroes."

Rating: Five out of five screams

♦ April 1/2: Mainstream media scream: NYT’s Bruni on ‘albatross’ Rand Paul

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features New York Times columnist Frank Bruni's slap at Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Bruni wrote last week, "When you've got loons the likes of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin fluttering about, I suppose it's easy not to seem like such a wacko bird yourself. Is that why Rand Paul is flying high right now? Or is it because he followed his 13-hour filibuster -- that knee-defeating, bladder-defying moment in the Senate sun -- by showing a few of his less florid feathers? Either way, he has managed, with remarkable speed, to migrate to the foreground of Republican politics. You could almost lose sight of what an albatross he really is."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Paul must be doing something right if he instills so much fear in a New York Times liberal, if that's not redundant, that he feels compelled to resort to such cheap insults to degrade a senator who captured such public respect for taking on the president over using drones to kill Americans."
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Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ March 25/26: Mainstream media scream: Matthews says Tea Party wants to return to slavery

(Washington Examiner post; jpg of printed page)

This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC's Chris Matthews on a rant about the racist Tea Party. To Christopher Parker, author of the book, "Change They Can't Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America," Matthews asked:

"Is it sort of a resumption of the Old South, of the way things were before the Civil War for example? Is it like that old dreamy nostalgia you get in the old movies, you know, Gone With the Wind? Is it that kind of America they want to bring back or what? When there were no gays, where blacks were slaves, Mexicans were in Mexico. I mean, is this what they want?"

His guest, Parker, responded, "That's precisely the case, Chris."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "I dream of a time when Matthews tires of smearing an entire grassroots groundswell as he puts everyone into two camps: The enlightened who, like him, get tingles over the brilliant President Obama, and those who don't and thus he feels obligated to discredited as racists."

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ March 18/19: Mainstream scream: Krugman hits ‘fanatical’ GOP

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features New York Times columnist Paul Krugman sneering at the GOP on Public TV's Tavis Smiley Show.

When asked why the public is not "outraged" by the sequester Krugman said, "The public hasn't really fully appreciated just how radical the Republican agenda is and that may take longer. When? I think we probably have to wait several months. I think people who thought that there were going to be - there was going to be a mass uprising against the sequester the moment it kicked in were misjudging. This is a much more, if you like, more fanatical Republican Party than most people have yet seemed to realize."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Talk about chutzpah. A columnist who has charged that Congressman Paul Ryan wants to 'let some' Americans 'die so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income,' is calling someone else fanatical?"

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ March 11/12: Mainstream scream: Post’s Robinson on ‘Hugh’ Chavez

(Washington Examiner post; jpg of printed page)

On MSNBC's Hardball, Robinson recalled meeting Chavez. "He's very quick-witted. It was a visit he made to Washington shortly after he became president, and I remember he came to the Washington Post and there were several of us waiting to greet him. I didn't know if he spoke English at the time, so I introduced myself to him in Spanish, when he got to me in the line, and he shook my hand and looked up at me and kind of grinned and said, 'hello, my name is Hugh.' And it just kind of cracked everybody up. He was very loose and very quick in that way."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "The press corps have a strange affinity for tyrants - so long as they are on the left and all the better if, like Chavez, they ridicule President George W. Bush whom journalists also despised."

Rating: Two out of five screams.

♦ March 5: Mainstream scream: CBS’ Schieffer on GOP ‘hostages’

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This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features Bob Schieffer, host of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” asking Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham if the GOP is being held hostage by antitax advocates.

“Do you all feel that your party is somehow being held hostage? The president has talked about kind of a ‘common-sense caucus,’ and we hear reports this morning that he started calling around, calling some Republicans to see what can be done. Are people on the extreme ends of your party holding the rest of you hostage here?” asked Schieffer.

Media Research Center Vice President for Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Only a member of the Washington press corps, like Schieffer, could be so out of touch as to denigrate as ‘extremist’ hostage-takers those opposed to another tax hike just two months after Republicans acceded to one. How about the obstinance of those against cutting anything?”

Rating: Three out of five screams.

 

♦ February 25/26: Mainstream scream: Matthews says Obama just short of Mt. Rushmore greatness

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC's Chris Matthews of Hardball discussing President Obama greatness.

"Is Barack Obama going for it?" Matthews asked on his show. "Is he set on becoming one of the great presidents in history? I'm not talking about Mt. Rushmore, but perhaps the level right below it. I'm talking, to use his word, transformational. And is he using the country's historic demographic shift to do it? Can he combine the new American power of Hispanics and other minorities with the immediate aspirations of women to lob himself into the highest level of presidential greatness?"

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Given Matthews gets a thrill up his leg whenever he hears Obama's voice, I guess we should be appreciative that he still puts Obama below Mt. Rushmore level. But how many more months before Matthews considers Mt. Rushmore too modest a tribute to Obama?"

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ February 18/19: Mainstream Media Scream: CNN on Rubio’s water bottle

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features CNN's Wolf Blitzer half-joking about the sip of water GOP Sen. Marco Rubio took during his State of the Union rebuttal.

"So, can a drink of water make or break a political career? A U.S. senator, possible presidential candidate. We're going to find out, whether he likes it or not," said Blitzer.

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Those thirsting for substance from CNN and Blitzer got an extreme example of the D.C. press corps' shallowness in obsessively focusing on Rubio's sip of water instead of the points Rubio actually made in his speech. Blitzer's silliness advanced liberal efforts to discredit an up-and-coming conservative."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ February 11/12: Mainstream Scream: CNN host sees global warming blame for snow, asteroid

(Washington Examiner post; jpg of printed page)

Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features CNN afternoon anchor Deborah Feyerick asking if global warming played a role in the East Coast snow storm and the upcoming pass by of asteroid.

Leading into an interview Saturday with Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," she referenced the snow. "Every time we see a storm like this lately, the first question to pop into a lot of people's minds is whether or not global warming is to blame? I'll talk to Bill Nye, 'the science guy,' about devastating storms and climate change." After a commercial, she added, "Talk about something else that's falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What's coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, of global warming or is this just some meteoric occasion?"

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Is there anything that a CNN journalist won't blame on global warming? It's become a universal culprit. Sadly, Feyerick is likely unaware of how foolish she looks in making such an absurd suggestion. I blame global warming for sending CNN's viewers to other networks."

Rating: Five out of five screams

 

♦ February 4/5, 2013: Mainstream scream: Matthews hits Hagel critic McCain’s Vietnam ‘Flashbacks’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features MSNBC's Hardball host Chris Matthews slamming Sen. John McCain, a former Vietnam War POW, for criticizing Pentagon nominee Chuck Hagel.

"Forty years after the Vietnam POWs came home, the most famous of them is angrier than ever. Why is America, why are we fighting the Vietnam war all over again in the United States Senate?" asked Matthews. "Tonight, we dig into the deep well of resentment burning in John McCain's patriotic heart," said Matthews, adding, "A nightmare by the way whose flashbacks must haunt still the mind and heart of John Sidney McCain."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Instead of addressing Hagel's hearing performance many saw as possibly the worst ever by a nominee for a major cabinet post, Matthews put Obama's interests first by impugning McCain when all McCain did was the basic journalism Matthews failed to do: document Hagel's contradictions and misstatements."

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ January 28/29, 2013: Mainstream scream: CNN’s Piers Morgan calls Clinton critics ‘misogynists’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features CNN's Piers Morgan slapping down critics of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

He said: "I'm getting a little bit weary, I'll be honest with you, with the relentless attacks - first on [United Nations Ambassador] Susan Rice and now on Hillary Clinton. There's a whisper of misogyny to it, I think, and it's getting pretty, I think, incestuous and very Washington-orientated rather than in the national interest of America."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "If you don't agree with him on gun control, he ridicules you as 'stupid,' and if you dare to hold the Obama administration accountable on Benghazi, he slurs you as a 'misogynist.' And Morgan, a British citizen, is appalled some Americans want him deported for abusing his position on CNN to belittle Americans."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ January 21/22, 2013: Mainstream scream: NYT’s Maureen Dowd on ‘brilliant’ Obama

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday.

"I can visualize, on this show, in about five years from now," she said, "you guys are going to be here and you're going to be discussing Obama's memoir, which he will have written, and it's going to be the most brilliant political memoir outside of Ulysses Grant."

It prompted Obama fan and co-host Mika Brzezinski to remark, "Now that's love."

Dowd: "Yeah, you are going to be saying we are trying to figure out who this guy is and he has these amazing insights. Why couldn't he apply that super-brain to Washington and gotten it to work better?"

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "When an Obama sycophant like Mika Brzezinski calls you out for being in 'love' with the president, you have reached a new level of infatuation that should embarrass even a New York Times staffer. But Dowd is likely oblivious to how silly she appears."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ January 15, 2013: Mainstream scream: NYT’s Krugman hits GOP budget ‘hostage-taking’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on ABC’s “This Week” using terror-like language to lash out at Republicans for using the debt ceiling as leverage to reduce spending.

He said, “We should not allow this to become thought of as a legitimate or normal budget strategy. This is hostage-taking. This is walking into a room saying, ‘I’ve got a bomb, give me what I want or I’ll blow up this room.’ This is not something —this has never happened before and should not be allowed to happen.”

Media Research Center Vice President for Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Krugman employed just the kind of scorched-earth language to delegitimize an opponent that the press corps denounces those on the right for supposedly using against President Obama. You can’t rationally address spending when a leading liberal media figure calls you a terrorist. But maybe that’s his intent.”

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ January 7/8, 2013: Mainstream scream: Tina Brown on Hillary Clinton critics

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Newsweek/Daily Beast editor Tina Brown who in an online post slapped Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's critics like conservative John Bolton after she fell ill.

"The idea of losing Hillary has seemed especially unbearable at this political moment. It's as if she has become, literally, the ship of state," she wrote. "What a disgrace that John Bolton and his goaty Republican ilk accused Her Magnificence of inventing a concussion to get out of testifying at the Benghazi hearings. Bolton is not fit to wipe her floor with his mustache."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "'Her Magnificence?' It's no wonder she drove Newsweek into the ground with that kind of fawning over a liberal hero while denigrating a respected conservative foreign policy expert. Brown just shows that as soon as Hillary Clinton announces for president, the press corps is ready to move smoothly from Obamagasms to Hillary-gasms. Brown just got a head start."

Rating: Four out of five screams

♦ December 10/11, 2012: Mainstream scream: ‘Morning Joe’ blasts talk radio hosts as ‘cowards’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough lamenting how talk radio bullies prevent Republicans from acting like "compassionate conservatives."

He said on Monday, "These type of people who have the ability to make what Bush called the compassionate conservative argument, they're thrown to the side because they don't sound enough like Glenn Beck or a blogger....What do you do to a schoolyard bully? You punch him in the face. You think any of these people in talk radio, if they're punched in the face by a Republican nominee, do you think they would push back? No, they're cowards, they're bullies. Punch them in the face and they back off."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Classic hypocrisy. While journalists lament the decline in political discourse, Joe Scarborough's reaction to a policy dispute is name-calling and urging immature schoolyard violence to silence those who don't share his policy prescription."

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ December 3/4, 2012: Mainstream Scream: Cokie on Grover

(Washington Examiner post; jpg of printed page)

♦ November 26/27: Mainstream scream: Klein says Benghazi not terrorism

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Defending United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice even more than the White House, Time's Joe Klein Monday declared on MSNBC that not only was terrorism not part of the initial attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, but that slain Ambassador Chris Stevens had enough security despite reports he had begged for more.

"The talking points were accurate," he said of Rice's initial claim that the attack and slaying were sparked by an an anti-Muslim movie, not terrorism, a claim later revised by the administration. On the issue of more security, Klein said of Stevens, "he wasn't requesting -- the level of security that existed in Benghazi was the level of security that the ambassador wanted."

Klein later Monday doubled down on his "Morning Joe" comments with an entry in his "In the Arena" blog. "What you had was a local street gang-a radical militia-using the excuse of the anti-Islamic film and the cover of riots in Cairo to stage a spontaneous attack on the consulate. When the thugs realized that security at the consulate didn't exist, they came back, less spontaneously, with heavier weapons," he wrote.

His comments prompted host Joe Scarborough to mock Klein. He asked Klein if Obama had recently invited him to play golf, a very rare offer, "because you are just gobbling up the talking points like Thanksgiving turkey."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "I wish I could blame this on Klein becoming delusional from the tryptophan in eating too much turkey. Sadly, however, ignoring all the evidence -- and even how the administration has disavowed Rice's storyline - proves the election hasn't faded Obamamania amongst his sycophantic journalists eager to discredit any roadblocks on Rice's way to becoming Secretary of State."

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ November 12/13: Mainstream scream: Author compares Obama to Jefferson

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features former Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham comparing President Obama to the subject of his new book, "Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power." When asked on the Today show how Jefferson is relevant today, Meacham said, "He was a tall, cool, cerebral president who won re-election, who was actually really good at politics even though he didn't want to act as though he was. So there's some similarities with President Obama."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Journalists never tire of likening their hero Barack Obama to 'cool' and 'cerebral' cultural icons. During Meacham's tenure at Newsweek, the magazine asserted: 'Spock's cool, analytical nature feels more fascinating and topical than ever now that we've put a sort of Vulcan in the White House.' At least Meacham kept his adulatory comparison within our solar system."

Rating: Two out of five screams.

♦ November 5/6: Mainstream media scream: Post’s King on Mitt

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream features Washington Post editorial writer Colbert King comparing Mitt Romney to impeached former President Andrew Johnson in his weekly column.

"Johnson stood by as Southern states enacted 'black codes,' which restricted rights of freed blacks and prevented blacks from voting," King wrote, adding, "Romney stood by last year as Republican-controlled state legislatures passed voter-identification laws, making it harder for people of color, senior citizens and people with disabilities to exercise their fundamental right to vote."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "King couldn't be more vituperative. Fearing a Romney victory, he resorts to discrediting it as a win for racists. To compare mainstream conservative policies with armed government officials enforcing segregation and a systemic denial of basic civil rights in the years after slavery is a new low. King has outdone Chris Matthews."

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ October 29/30: Mainstream scream: Matthews says some Romney backers driven by racial hatred

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, after the last presidential debate, claiming that “racial hatred” motivates Romney voters.

“They hate Obama. They want him out of the White House more than they want to destroy al Qaeda. Their number one enemy in the world right now, on the right, is their hatred -- hatred for Obama. We can go into that about the white working class in the South, and looking at these numbers we’re getting in the last couple days about racial hatred in many cases. This isn’t about being a better president. They want to get rid of this president. That’s their number one goal and they’re willing to let Romney go to the hard center, even if it’s to the left on issues, as long as they get rid of this guy,” said Matthews.

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Matthews has perfected his tired rationale in case Obama loses. Blame racial hatred. As if liberals didn’t hate Reagan or George W. Bush and want to get rid of them. Matthews should grow up, cease with the name-calling invective and look at how Obama disappointed those who voted for him four years ago.”

Rating: Four out of five screams.

 

♦ October 22/23: Mainstream scream: CNN's Yellin on ‘binders full of women’

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♦ October 15/16: Mainstream Scream: Brokaw sees no Colbert-Stewart bias

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features NBC News veteran Tom Brokaw saying that Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert satirize conservatives and liberals in equal amounts.

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Brokaw said, "What these two do - so brilliantly - is that they cut through the hypocrisy and they say, 'hey, wait a minute' on both sides and they do play it pretty much down the middle." He later added: "I never miss 'em."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "If Brokaw really thinks Stewart and Colbert are just as aggressive in making fun of Obama and liberals as conservatives and Romney, then no wonder he has no qualms about lending his prestige to MSNBC's prime time shows. He probably thinks they're also 'down the middle.'"

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ October 8/9: Mainstream Scream: Todd ‘disses Rasmussen as ‘slop’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features NBC political director Chuck Todd dissing Rasmussen Reports, the big polling firm that was among the closest to call the the 2008 presidential election correctly.

On Wednesday's Squawk Box on CNBC, Todd said: "We spend a lot more money polling than Scott Rasmussen does. We spend a lot more money on quality control....I hate the idea that their [NBC News/Marist] polling, which is rigorously done, has to get compared to what is, in some cases, you know, slop."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "In the midst of questions about whether NBC and other mainstream media polls have tilted the playing field in favor of Obama by over-sampling Democrats, it takes a lot of gall to impugn a pollster who dares to defy the media's uniformity, especially a pollster who was right on target in 2008. Let's see which poll looks like 'slop' come election day."

Rating: four out of five screams.

♦ October 2: Mainstream Media Scream: Mika on Hillary

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features MSNBC "Morning Joe's" Mika Brzezinski cooing over Hillary Clinton's call for more taxes during a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Said Brzezinski: "Let's get to Hillary Clinton, who was fantastic. And she totally went there yesterday. She was talking taxes." The show cut to Clinton, who said, "One of the issues that I have been preaching about around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites in every country." Clinton added, "The elites of every country are making money. There are rich people everywhere. And, yet, they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries."

Concluded Brzezinski: "I love her. She's right."

Brent Baker, vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: "If you think the media are infatuated with Barack Obama, wait until Hillary Clinton runs for the Oval Office. Brzezinski is Exhibit A in how female journalists will swoon over her liberal pronouncements."

Rating: Two out of five screams

♦ September 25/26: Mainstream Media Scream: Gibson blasts Grover Norquist

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This week's mainstream media scream features ex-ABC anchor Charles Gibson rapping the conservative Americans for Tax Reform anti-tax pledge that President Grover Norquist demands candidates take.

Addressing students at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, he said: "Republican congressmen have told me if they don't sign it they're dead, they're gone. Well that's absurd, absolutely absurd. In one of the debates I thought there was a very good question asked about what kind of proportion would you take between tax cuts and revenue raising taxes. Would you take $5 of revenue cuts for every dollar of new taxes? No, they said. How about ten-to-one? No. Twenty-to-one? No. Fifty-to-one? No. That's absurd, that's just absurd. You cannot tie yourself down that way, and I think it's just a very good example of what's wrong with the Congress right now."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "Norquist is a hero to conservatives, but an ogre to liberals bent on spending ever more. Gibson made clear his contempt for Norquist and a popular conservative prescription."

Rating: Three out of four screams.

♦ September17/18: Mainstream scream: Pelley lauding Obama’s ‘candor’

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♦ September 10/11: Mainstream Media Scream: Post’s King on GOP

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♦ August 20/21: Mainstream media scream: NYT’s Dowd on Ryan

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This week's Mainstream Media Scream goes to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd who rapped GOP running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.

She wrote, "Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans? He's Scrooge disguised as a Pickwick, an ideologue disguised as a wonk. Not since Ronald Reagan tried to cut the budget by categorizing ketchup and relish as vegetables has the G.O.P. managed to find such an attractive vessel to mask harsh policies with a smiling face." She added, "Ryan should stop being so lovable. People who intend to hurt other people should wipe the smile off their faces."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explained our pick: "I'd suggest people who are so unhinged, that they consider emotional screeds about imaginary spending cuts to be cogent news analysis, shouldn't be columnists. Dowd's irrationality is Exhibit A in how journalists impede a rational discussion on entitlements."

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ August 13/14: Mainstream media scream: Matthews on Ryan

♦ August 7/8: Mainstream media scream: Romney’s gaffe patrol

♦ July 30: Mainstream Scream: ABC ignores bad economy

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♦ July 23/24: Still thrilled, Hardball’s Matthews calls Obama ‘perfect’ 3 times/Mainstream scream: Matthews on Obama

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That thrill isn’t gone for Hardball host Chris Matthews when it comes to President Obama. Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Matthews, flustered by current criticism of Obama, calling the president the perfect man. He said on his show:

“This guy’s done everything right. He’s raised his family right. He’s fought his way all the way to the top of the Harvard Law Review, in a blind test becomes head of the Review, the top editor there. Everything he’s done is clean as a whistle. He’s never not only broken any law, he’s never done anything wrong. He’s the perfect father, the perfect husband, the perfect American. And all they do is trash the guy!”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Matthews’ level of infatuation with Obama makes him too easy to ridicule, so I’ll just point out the all too obvious: He’s become a parody of himself and an embarrassment to self-respecting journalists.”

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ July 17: Mainstream Scream: Pelley on Obamacare

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley who last week fretted the “cost to taxpayers” of the time the House used to repeal Obamacare. “How much it cost taxpayers for the House to repeal the law again and again?” Pelley said, citing a report that the House “costs us $24 million a week. So with two weeks spent repealing the law, that comes to a little under $50 million.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Obamacare will cost $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years, but CBS is more upset by the cost of the House debating its repeal? Since that $50 million would have been spent no matter what issue the House works on, Pelley's point seemed more political than factually illuminating.”

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ July 10: Mainstream Scream: Time-MSNBC's Halperin on Obamacare

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Mark Halperin, editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time magazine, who on MSNBC's Hardball last week rued that conservative opposition to Obamacare is a political winner for Republicans. "I think we shouldn't be the only industrialized democracy that doesn't have universal health care," he said, adding that the GOP doesn't "pay much of a price for" opposing it.

♦ July 2/3: Mainstream Scream: David Gregory both ways on Obamacare

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features NBC’s David Gregory. On Thursday’s Today show before the Supreme Court's Obamacare ruling, he warned of dire consequences if it were struck down 5-4: “Would that not underscore how dysfunctional our government is, the major institutions of our government are? That is a real nightmare scenario, I think, for the political class in this country.” Yet three hours later when it was upheld 5-4, Gregory applauded Chief Justice John Roberts for "taking a big step here" in not allowing the court to be “too polarized.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Gregory beautifully illustrates the hypocritical lens through which the Washington press corps view politics. 5-4 decisions are bad when they go against liberals but are inspired when they go against conservatives. And journalists wonder why the public sees them as partisan players.”

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ June 25/26: Mainstream Scream: Post's Milbank

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features popular Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank talking about the media's disinterest in the “Fast & Furious” gun scandal at the Justice Department on Sunday’s CNN's Reliable Sources.

“It’s not a political scandal” but “a scandal of government,” he said, and so “it’s not an ideological thing. I think the media would love to have an Obama scandal to cover.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Let’s cue the laugh track. Milbank unintentionally defined irony in claiming he’d love to cover an Obama administration scandal at the very moment he’s dismissing the relevance of an Obama administration scandal the mainstream media have refused to pursue. And it’s not as if there aren’t other scandals to cover, starting with the damaging deliberate leaks of national security secrets.”

Rating: Five out of five screams.

 

♦ June 18/19: Mainstream Scream: MSNBC Mika’s cheerleading

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Morning Joe co-star Mika Brzezinski who last week exposed her clear allegiance to President Obama. When Joe Scarborough asked her on his MSNBC show if she thinks Obama’s effort, to blame George W. Bush for the poor economy, will work, she blurted: “Well, I’m hoping” before fretting "I think it’s a tough sell.” Scarborough guffawed at the admission. She added, "We should have taxed people who actually could have afforded it, but we didn’t do that either. That leaves me very disappointed."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “So much for hope and change, now it's help arrange the blame. An exasperated Brzezinski is just desperately hoping the public will buy Obama's blame-shifting, but even she realizes that most won't buy it. A tough spot for an Obama sycophant.”

Rating: Two out of five screams.

♦ June 11/12: Mainstream scream: Bill Press calls national anthem stupid, embarrassing

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features syndicated radio host Bill Press who said he’s embarrassed by the Star-Spangled Banner, saying on his show:

“I mean when you think about it, it’s ‘bombs bursting in air,’ ‘rocket’s red glare,’ it’s all kinds of -- you know a lot of national anthems are that way, too -- all kinds of military jargon, and the land -- there’s only one phrase ‘the land of the free,’ which is kind of nice, and ‘the home of the brave'? I don’t know....Are we the only ones who are brave on the planet? I mean 'all the brave people live here.' I mean it’s just stupid, I think. I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed every time I hear it.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Could Bill Press better reflect a conservative caricature of a liberal, mocking and ridiculing the defining patriotic song of the nation because it's too militaristic and dares to praise Americans as ‘brave?’”

Rating: Three out of five screams

 

♦ June 4/5: Mainstream scream: Rather says liberal media bias claim a sham

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features former CBS anchor Dan Rather who rejected Comedy Central Jon Stewart’s claim that the media leans left. “Haven't most journalists, haven't their politics been somewhat more liberal?" asked Stewart.

Said Rather on Stewart’s Daily Show, "I know that it's widely believed that CBS, NBC, ABC -- chock full of liberals. Not true. What it's chock full of are people who wanted to give honest news, straightforward news, and voted both ways in many elections.” Rather added, “Frequently what happened, people who were described as conservatives want to say, 'I worked at CBS News, and you know, almost everybody there was liberal.' What they really mean is not everybody there agreed with them all the time. This is a sham. It's a camouflage."

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Dan Rather is as delusional as ever. He is blind to liberal media bias, bias so obvious and near-universally accepted that even liberal gadfly Jon Stewart was surprised by Rather's denial. The only ‘sham’ is Rather seeing himself as a journalist worthy of respect.”

Rating: Four out of five screams

♦ May 29: Mainstream scream: Couric pleas, When will I be loved?/Mainstream scream: Couric’s ‘testicles’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features former CBS News anchor Katie Couric, giving the commencement at the University of Virginia, claiming to have been cheated by sexists.

She said, “One of the problems with being a trailblazer is, sometimes you get burned. In those first few months at CBS, TV critics wrote about my clothes, my hair, my makeup, even the way I held my hands. Some said I lacked ‘gravitas,' which I've since decided is Latin for ‘testicles.'...My story may have played out in the public eye, but it's by no means unique. Every one of you will at some point be confronted by naysayers and learn that life isn't always fair. You'll feel cheated, you'll be mistreated. You'll wonder, when will I be loved?’”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Apparently, $15 million a year to read off a teleprompter didn't show enough ‘love’ to satisfy Couric. Maybe she would've earned more gravitas if she pursued the harder news path instead of fluff exemplified by giggling along with Nancy Pelosi, as she did one night. And Tuesday she'll host a two hour special on ABC: The Jubilee Queen with Katie Couric.That kind of celebrity news doesn't take cojones.”

Rating: Two of five screams.

♦ May 21/22: Mainstream scream: Letterman’s adoration of Obama

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features CBS funnyman David Letterman who, when interviewing NBC newsman Brian Williams last week, praised President Obama for killing Osama bin Laden and asked what more could the voting public ask for. “So now Osama bin Laden finally is gunned down by Barack Obama, displaying great courage and great intelligence. What more do you want to lead your country than that kind of courage and that kind of intelligence?”

Minutes later, Letterman pleaded: “What more do we want this man to do for us, honest to God?”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “People watch late night comedy shows for comedy, not to hear far-left paranoia and infatuation with Obama's brilliance for personally gunning down bin Laden. They can get that in newscasts.”

Rating: Five out of five screams.

 

♦ May 14/15: Mainstream media scream: Matthews on gay marriage ‘wolves’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features MSNBC’s Chris Matthews rapping critics of President Obama’s flip-flop to back gay marriage.

Matthews said, “That’s the good news for everybody in the country in terms of freedom and the long march towards liberalism in this country. ...But there's always been this other army out there that feeds on those who resent it. That army's been out there during Jim Crow. It was out there during abolition, during suffrage. There’s always an army that feeds on change and feeds against it — the wolves, and they’re being released right now and they’re probably giggling with delight at how they’re going to use this.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Matthews typifies the liberal media's inability to deal rationally with this issue. Instead of considering the concerns of the majorities which consistently favor keeping marriage as it has always been defined, he stoops to impugning their motives in the most vile way by saying they are no better than those who wanted to keep slavery.”

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ May 7/8: Mainstream scream: NBC Rock Center in “awe” of Obama

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams, which went inside the White House Situation Room to review President Obama’s part in killing Osama bin Laden a year ago. “How did you keep an even keel?” asked Williams.

On the show he told Obama, “If this had failed in spectacular fashion, it would have blown up your presidency, I think, by all estimates. It would have been your Waterloo and perhaps your Watergate, consumed with hearings and inquiries. How thick did the specter of Jimmy Carter, Desert One hang in the air here?”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Brian Williams' approach proves there's no daylight between NBC News and the Obama re-election team. Excerpts could be played in the Democratic convention's Obama tribute video and they'd fit right in.”

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ April 30/May 1: Mainstream Media Scream: Washington Post vs. NY Times

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features the Washington Post propping up economic data for President Obama while the New York Times slapped it down. On Saturday, the Post spun anemic 2.2 percent GDP growth in the first quarter under the headline “Economy Continues On Path Of Growth,” with a story talking about how Americans are spending and “energizing the recovery.”

The New York Times took a different approach with the headline, “Economic Growth Slows Unexpectedly to 2.2%.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “It should be a pretty embarrassing day at the Post when they come off as more in the tank for Obama’s reelection efforts than even the New York Times where the public editor Arthur Brisbane last week conceded the paper ‘basked a bit in the warm glow of Mr. Obama’s election.’”

Rating: two out of five screams.

♦ April 23/24: Mainstream Scream: Olbermann is back

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Keith Olbermann, ousted from MSNBC and even Al Gore's Current TV, suggesting Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that rising gas prices are a conspiratorial effort to damage President Obama.

"The lowest price in the last six years – the nadir of gas prices at the pump – was the day of this president’s inauguration in 2009. There has to be some connection between that being the least busy political moment of a president’s career – where you’re not going to hurt him, you’re not going to harm him that way – and the price of gas. There has to be an almost deliberate, or at least a side effect quality to that. There must be,” he said.

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Olbermann is too crazy for MSNBC and Al Gore, but ABC News decided he'd bring a worthwhile perspective to their Sunday show, thus giving the far-left ex-cable ranter his biggest platform yet to share his delusions.”

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ April 16/17: Mainstream scream: Today’s Curry on heartless GOP budget

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Today show co-host Ann Curry who last week used a liberal group's talking points to discredit Rep. Paul Ryan's 2013 budget. Citing a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities study critical of the Ryan budget, she said, “Where is the empathy in this budget?... Do you acknowledge that poor people will suffer under this budget, that you have shown a lack of empathy to poor people in this budget?”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Ryan’s budget blueprint would increase Medicare spending by 70% over the next 10 years and Medicaid and other health spending by 31%. Curry epitomized how TV news is an impediment to fiscal sanity: Suggest a slight reduction in the rate of spending increases and TV hosts pile on the emotional demagoguery to paint you as an ogre.”

Rating: Five out of five screams.

♦ April 10: Mainstream Scream: CNN’s Toobin defending Obama

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin who on Thursday derided the appeals court judges who wanted an explanation for President Obama's contention it would be "unprecedented" for the Supreme Court to overrule a law passed by Congress. He insisted "what President Obama said was entirely appropriate" and called the judges a "disgrace" as he charged "some of these Republican judges are just deranged by hatred of the President."  Days before, on The Situation Room, he called it "a judicial hissy fit.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “The president, who purports to be a constitutional law expert, denies the basic judicial review role of the Supreme Court as he tries to intimidate the Court from daring to overrule ObamaCare. Yet CNN's legal expert insults and impugns the judges who just wanted some clarification -- putting discrediting of Obama's critics ahead of basic reporting. Another amazing Obamagasm moment.”

Rating: Four out of five screams.

♦ April 2/3: “Mainstream scream: Heartless Cheney attack from NewsBeast”

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Allison Yarrow of the Newsweek/Daily Beast online show “NewsBeast” sniping over former Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart transplant. “Can you imagine being that organ donor?” she asked. “I would never do it. I would say, ‘Give me my heart back,’” she said of Cheney, who, she added, “may be one of the most evil people in the world.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Yarrow verbalized publicly what I’m sure much of the national press corps believe, the ridiculous notion that Cheney defines evil in a world of mass murdering dictators. They’re so overtaken by their disgust for him that they are unable to see that his national security policies, which they so revile, are being largely followed by their beloved President Obama.”

Rating: Five out of five screams.

 

♦ March 27: Mainstream scream: CBS’ Charlie Rose on GOP budget

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features CBS This Morning host Charlie Rose who, when interviewing Rep. Paul Ryan about his House budget, pulled out a Democratic horror poster with the warning: “Just when you thought Medicare was safe, THEY’RE Back. This time they want to finish it for good.”

Rose said, “Democrats have tried...to portray you as someone who wants to destroy Medicare, and they have a poster in which you are, in a sense, the poster boy of that.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “So much for CBS’s promise that their new morning show would be high-brow. Rose’s decision to hit a guest with the other side’s cheap theatrical demagoguery on such a serious issue meant he’s adopted the tactics of MSNBC more than those he displays on his sober PBS interview show.”

Rating: Three out five screams.

♦ March 19/20: Mainstream Scream: Politico editor on ‘stupid voters’

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris who ranted about “stupid voters” and their uninformed answers to pollsters as he explained why he assigned a staffer to write about how polls prove voters are ignorant.

He said on C-SPAN and NewsChannel 8, “To me, some of these poll results, they just seem stupid. So I asked Alex Burns to...do a piece that looks at the question of whether voters are stupid and a lot of the things that they say in these polls are just plain stupid...”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “In one short rant, Harris fully encapsulated the condescension too much of the Washington press corps have for Americans who don’t live in Manhattan or inside the Beltway. Sure, voters are misinformed on some issues, just as are many journalists, but I don’t recall Harris being so upset when those misconceptions were about President George W. Bush.”

Rating: Five of five screams.

 

♦ March 12/13: Mainstream Scream: Matthews on Obama’s Fluke call

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features MSNBC’s Chris Matthews equating the controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s verbal assault of Georgetown University student and contraception advocate Sandra Fluke to civil rights history.
 
Said Matthews, “I think the call from the president to Sandra Fluke will be remembered perhaps not as dramatically as the call from President Kennedy, then Sen.-Kennedy to Mrs. King, to Coretta King after her husband was hauled off into the backwoods of Georgia in Shackles, but it will have a character to it that people will remember.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “To place Obama in JFK's league is the ultimate tribute the MSNBC host can offer. It certainly encapsulates Matthews' 'thrill up my leg' grandiose view of Obama--comparing a call to a civil rights leader threatened by physical violence to a politically-opportunist call to a woman famous because of an insult.”

Rating: Four of five screams.

 

♦ March 5/6: Mainstream media scream: Post on the ‘Other’ Washington

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features last Friday’s Washington Post story about how residents of Washington, Oklahoma aren’t into hope and change three years after President Obama's election. Reporter Eli Saslow found “the same ‘In God We Trust’ posters still hang at the public high school, which serves the same pizza pockets on Mondays and throws the same Christmas party that is never called a holiday party, and where no extracurricular events are scheduled on Wednesdays or Sundays because those days are reserved for Church.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick this way: “The whole thing read like some kind of travelogue to a zoo with exotic animals from other continents. Saslow treated everyday Americans earning a living, taking care of their families and not embarrassed to hide their religious beliefs as an alien culture. And it certainly is to the Washington press corps.”

Rating: Two of five screams.

♦ February 27/28: Mainstream media scream: Schieffer's bow to Obama

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer talking President Obama’s reelection to Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “How do you go after Barack Obama, though, right now? I mean, the stock market is up. It looks like the unemployment is going down. David Axelrod in his campaign said the other day Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. It’s going to be a tough job for you, is it now?”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick this way: “Schieffer’s befuddlement over how anyone could see any shortcomings with Obama’s record sadly reflects how out of touch the Washington press corps are with much of America, which is distressed by Obama’s quest to grow government power. Things may be getting a little less bad, but that hardly vindicates Obama or means there aren’t plenty of holes in his record.

Rating: Two of five screams.

 

♦ February 20/21: Mainstream scream of the week: Matthews on Limbaugh

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features Chris Matthews barking at Rush Limbaugh. After playing a clip of Limbaugh saying Democrats “are aborting their own people, the vast majority of people having abortions are Democrat voters,” MSNBC host Matthews condemned the radio rival. “That sounds like hatred of women. That’s a weird kind of message...an astounding assault on women’s rights that he’s playing to there.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Unable to address Limbaugh’s point about the irony that abortion likely leads to fewer liberal Democrats, Matthews chose to defame Limbaugh as some kind of anti-woman hater even though he’d allow more baby girls to be born. Matthews demonstrates the over-the-top vitriol aimed at delegitimizing conservatives that makes Hardball more of a left wing circus than a forum for reasoned political discussion.”

Rating: four out of five screams.

 

♦ February 13/14, 2012: Mainstream Scream: Economist hit on Santorum

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media this week features Economist staffer Zanny Minton Beddoes on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher discussing GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

She said, “The fact that you say that you think he might win the nomination completely terrifies me. I mean, how many decades back, how many centuries back does he want to take us? I read a little bit of his book this week, which is terrifying--logical, but terrifying--and there was a review of it, I think it was the Philadelphia Inquirer when it first came out and it said that Santorum would be a fine mind for the 13th Century. And it’s kind of right.”

Brent Baker, Media Research Center’s vice president of research, explains our pick this way: “Terrifying? The level of journalistic hostility to Santorum is terrifying to anyone who expects members of the press corps to be tolerant and accepting of diversity, the very values they condemn conservatives for supposedly not holding. But at least she’s opened a window into the wider journalistic mindset about Santorum.”

Rating: Three out of five screams.

♦ February 6/7, 2012: Mainstream Scream of the Week: Today's Matt Lauer

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features the Today Show’s Matt Lauer interviewing President Obama before the Super Bowl. He served up this gem: “Mitt Romney is the guy who’s running for your job. He may eventually become the nominee. He’s a guy who’s been incredibly successful in his life and career. He’s made a lot of money. It’s not a crime. It’s part of the American Dream. Do you think though that Mitt Romney can identify with the middle class and the underclass in this country?”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick this way: “While Lauer did proceed to remind Obama that last Friday ‘You raised $900,000 in a couple of hours’ from ‘25 wealthy individuals,’ journalists should not be cuing up elected officials to reiterate a caricature of their opponent. We await the time when Lauer prompts Romney to affirm an anti-Obama talking point.”

Baker’s rating: Two out of five screams.

♦January 31, 2012: Mainstream Scream of the Week: Bob Schieffer

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Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features CBS chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer in addressing the confrontation on a tarmac between President Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer last week.

Reporting last Thursday for the Evening News, he said, “This is just another sign of the growing incivility and really vulgarity of our modern American politics in campaigns...I can never recall a president stepping off Air Force One, which is itself a symbol of the presidency in American democracy, and being subjected to such public rudeness. I think really we’re a better people than this little incident illustrates.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “While those not in the tank for Obama recognized the incident as hardly worth any such angst - Fox's Brit Hume properly dismissed it by saying ‘the whole thing is much ado about not very much’ - Schieffer, the chief Washington correspondent for CBS News, was outraged anyone would dare point their finger at the media's idol. Apparently, the Washington press corps reserves to itself the right to be rude to elected officials.”

Baker's grade: Three out of five screams.

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