The Top 8 Nastiest Liberal Media Quotes Blaming the GOP for the Shutdown
The liberal media have taken sides in the government shutdown debate and not surprisingly holds only one party to blame - the GOP. In the last week liberal anchors, reporters and writers have depicted fiscal conservatives in terms usually reserved for terrorists as they’ve hyperbolically charged that Republicans were being run by a “suicide caucus” that is holding America “hostage.”
The following is the Top 8 list of the Nastiest Liberal Media Quotes Blaming the GOP for the Shutdown:
8. MSNBC’s Ball: GOP Taking Government ‘Hostage’ and Threatening ‘Constitutional Balance’
Al Sharpton, host: “Tropical Storm Karen, which is forming near the Gulf of Mexico, may make landfall this weekend. FEMA and the National Hurricane Center have both been affected by the shutdown. This is just another reminder of where government is important.”
Krystal Ball, MSNBC co-host: “That’s exactly right. And the longer that the shutdown goes on, the more examples that we’re going to have like that. And I think, as E.J. [Dionne] was pointing out, people already realize and were already very much against shutting the government down. And let’s not forget what this is over. It’s over the Affordable Care Act. It’s over ObamaCare. It’s over providing health insurance to millions of Americans who desperately need it. That is what they’re trying to prevent. And to do so they’re willing to take the whole government hostage and threaten the very constitutional balance on which our democracy rests.”
— Exchange on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, October 3.
7. CNBC’s Harwood to Barack Obama: Will You Use Shutdown to ‘Break the Fever’ of the GOP?
“Before the election last year, you said you thought there was a possibility your re-election would break the fever within the Republican Party. Didn’t happen. Do you see this moment as a chance, through this political confrontation, to break the fever now?”
— Question from CNBC’s chief White House correspondent John Harwood to President Barack Obama aired on Closing Bell, October 2.
6. Carl Bernstein’s Complaint: Media Too Fair To ‘Hateful’ Republicans!
“This is about the Republican party and what it’s going to be. Is it going to conduct a fact-based, philosophical argument in our political system or is it going to be a nihilistic, hateful, asymmetrical in terms of facts and the truth part of the party, as in Joe McCarthy? This is about media as well....We need to start covering this story -- not 50/50, this much on this side, that on the other -- we need to cover it factually. Because there are facts here that will show what this event is about, and where, in fact, is this anger, hatred of Obama coming from? What is the root of this?”
— The Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 8.
5. On CNN: Republicans Driven by Belief that Government Must Be ‘Destroyed’
“It seems like the game has changed down there. It used to be that the two sides went at it, but at the end of the day, they all believed in government. It seems now that what’s motivating the Republican Party is a belief that government has to be destroyed. You know, that it’s just bad in and of itself.”
— CNN’s Chris Cuomo on New Day, October 7.
4. Washington Post’s Colby King: The Tea Party ‘Must Be Making Jefferson Davis Proud Today’
“The New Confederacy, as churlish toward President Obama as the Old Confederacy was to Lincoln, has accomplished what its predecessor could not: It has shut down the federal government, and without even firing a weapon or taking 620,000 lives, as did the Old Confederacy’s instigated Civil War....But don’t go looking for a group by the name of New Confederacy. They earned that handle from me because of their visceral animosity toward the federal government and their aversion to compassion for those unlike themselves. They respond, however, to the label ‘tea party.’ By thought, word and deed, they must be making Jefferson Davis proud today.”
— Washington Post columnist Colby King in his October 5 column headlined: “The Rise of the New Confederacy.”
3. Politico’s Roger Simon: ‘Extreme Right-Wing’ Is Taking the GOP ‘Hostage’
Roger Simon, Politico: “I was here for the last shutdown and I’m more pessimistic this time. I think there’s sort of a meanness of spirit that has crept into our politics and into our daily lives that’s become the new normal. And people are going to say, well, 800,000 people are out of work. That’s okay. I‘ve got my job. Let’s just keep it this way.”
Carol Costello, host: “Really, you’ve become that cynical?”
Simon: “Well, you know, I don’t think it’s cynical this time. I really think it’s realistic. I mean look at one of the few things this House has actually done. A week before last, they passed a bill to cut $40 billion from food stamps. Food stamps! I mean, do we really need to use food as a political weapon? That makes me pessimistic about who we’re dealing with....The extreme right-wing of the Republican Party has taken that party hostage, at least in the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is a decent man. He’s not an extremist. But he’s a weak man. The old phrase comes to mind, I could carve a better man out of a banana. He is not going to challenge the extremists in his own party because he wants to hang on to his job....We are a system when both houses of Congress have to agree to pass things, including a budget. And this isn’t the dilemma we are in. The Republicans are saying, ‘give in to us because we don’t want – we would rather shut down the government than extend health care to 11 million people. That’s our position.’”
— Exchange on CNN Newsroom, October 1.
2. Tina Brown: GOP Donning ‘Suicide Vests,’ Boehner a ‘Rallier of These Crazy People’
“Maybe Vladimir Putin can break the logjam here. We need a mediator like him. It is just incredible to me to watch these Republicans putting on their suicide vests and thinking this is going to have some kind of outcome for America. It is just absolutely preposterous. And what is the most depressing thing really, is to see how John Boehner's job insecurity, his terror of losing his Speakership means that he’s just become this rallier of these crazy people, when only a few months back he said after the election, right after the re-election of Obama, he said Obamacare is the law of the land, he said at that time. He later on said that he didn’t believe in the government shutdown.’”
— Tina Brown, co-founder, TheDailyBeast.com on CNN’s AC360 Later, October 1.
1. Brian Williams Tells David Letterman GOP ‘Suicide Caucus’ ‘Cabal’ to Blame for Shutdown
Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News anchor: “Yeah, I think this is not a profile in courage for our country right now. I think it’s a very, very dark time.”
David Letterman, host: “Now we’ve been through this in the past. Everybody invokes the Tip O’Neill, the Ronald Reagan, there were shutdowns. People say, ‘Oh, those were just procedural.’ I don’t know what this means.”
Williams: “Well, this one is pretty targeted, this one is over health care. It’s about the results of the last election. It’s about a standing law for three years. It’s about a small – they’ve been called the suicide caucus in the U.S. House, about 80 members. They come from districts where Obama lost by an average of 23 points. They come from districts where they won by an average of 34 points. Very safe seats. They tend to be more white, more conservative districts than other congressional districts. And right now they have a hold on the House of Representatives. Certainly on the Speaker, John Boehner. And that is what is doing this right now.”
Letterman: “Is this – a friend of mine was saying today that this is classic obstructionism, is that correct?”
Williams: “You can label it that. It’s been called a political hostage taking, it’s been called political extortion. You've heard the vitriol and the rhetoric this week. But right now, because of this caucus, this cabal, nothing moves.”
— Exchange on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman, October 3.
— Geoffrey Dickens is Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter.
