Ebola in America: Democrats Shouldn't Let a Crisis Go to Waste, but GOP Practicing 'Politics of Fear'
Democrats Should Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste...
“Well, we’ve got to get our base going. The other thing, too, is that we can’t let the Republicans get away with some of the stuff they’re doing this week, just trying to bash Obama. Hey, you know, government is always your enemy until you need a friend. This Ebola thing is the best argument you can make for the kind of government that we believe in.”
— CNN Crossfire co-host Van Jones on ABC’s This Week, October 5.
...But It’s “Irresponsible” When Republicans Mention Ebola
“Republican Senate candidates from Georgia’s David Perdue, who called the Ebola response ‘government incompetence at the highest levels,’ to South Dakota’s Mike Rounds, who said it’s ‘the latest example of how White House inaction is putting all of us at risk,’ to Iowa’s Joni Ernst calling for travel restrictions or a total travel ban.... Now, Mark, this is the politics of fear. It’s irresponsible. But, will it work?”
— Fill-in anchor Craig Melvin to NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, October 16.
GOP Candidate Peddling “Nightmarish Ball of Fear”
“He [Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown] shouldn’t be in the race. She [Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen] should be clobbering him. It’s only a race because he’s kind of the test bed for fear-mongering among Republican candidates....Now he’s on both ISIS and Ebola, and he’s rolling it up into one sort of nightmarish ball of fear that he’s trying to sell to New Hampshirites.”
— The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman on The Tony Kornheiser Show, a Washington, D.C.-area sports radio show, October 15.
“No Accident” First Death Happened in “Rick Perry’s Texas”
“Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to develop Ebola in the U.S. — four other people are being treated in American hospitals — is the only patient to die of the disease here....It’s probably no accident, either, that it happened in Rick Perry’s Texas. More than 1.5 million Texans, with a median income of $833 [as written], are going uninsured because Perry rejected Medicaid funding.”
— Salon’s Joan Walsh in an October 9 article headlined, “Republicans are Ebola hypocrites: What they really think of public health.”
Blame the “Devilish” NRA if Ebola Wipes Us Out
“Thanks to Senate dysfunction and NRA opposition, we don’t have a Surgeon General right now. In fact, we haven’t had a Surgeon General for more than a year now — even though the President nominated the eminently qualified Dr. Vivek Murthy back in November 2013....Murthy’s nomination has been held up by Republicans and a few red state Democrats due to this surprisingly controversial stance: He believes that guns can impact your health....So thanks to NRA power and Senate cowardice, we are left with no Surgeon General during a time when, we not only have Ebola arriving on our shores, but are also dealing with the mysterious Enterovirus, which is infecting and contributing to the deaths of children in the U.S.”
— NBC reporter Anne Thompson and MSNBC The Cycle co-host Krystal Ball in an October 2 MSNBC.com piece, “How the NRA is making the Ebola crisis worse.”
“The NRA is a bunch of cowardly bullies. They have tons of money and are willing to spend it against candidates who would dare support a doctor who believes in gun control. Wow, that is so bad for America....[The Obama administration should] use him [Dr. Murthy] as the poster child for a nasty, devilish lobbying group being the de facto fourth branch of government.”
— Ex-CNN commentator Roland Martin writing for The Daily Beast, October 9.
Media Rush to Defend Obama from Panetta’s Tell-All
“There are those who say, you know, he appointed you to two of the highest positions that this country has to offer, just wait until he’s out of office before criticizing.”
— Host Charlie Rose to Panetta on PBS’s Charlie Rose, October 7.
“I loved your last question because some people would say, what about loyalty to the President? The question that you raised. Interesting time for that book to come out now.”
— Co-host Gayle King to Rose on CBS This Morning, October 8, after watching a clip of his interview of Panetta.
“Seriously, this is just unbecoming of a supposed, quote, ‘wise man.’ I can’t imagine — I personally cannot imagine me undercutting a Commander-in-Chief that I worked for as Secretary of Defense with a tell-all book in a time of war. I can’t imagine it. It shows a lack of discretion, I think, at least. But unfortunately, more likely, it shows a lack of character.”
— Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 9.
Obama = “One of the Most Successful Presidents in History”
“Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history....I don’t care about the fact that Obama hasn’t lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn’t quite say, a big deal.”
— New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writing the cover story for the October 23 edition of Rolling Stone, “In Defense of Obama.”
Why Are Republicans “Trying to Screw the Black Voter?”
“This weekend in North Carolina, I asked Kay Hagan whether Republicans are out to cut the Democratic vote or simply screw the black vote. Here’s her answer. [to Senator Hagan] So is this based on racial — racism, or on partisanship? Why are they trying to screw the black voter, to put it bluntly? Is it because they don’t like blacks, or because they don’t like Democrats?”
— Chris Matthews talking about voter ID laws on MSNBC’s Hardball, October 13.
Slamming Clarence Thomas’s “18th Century” Views
“It has been an eventful nine terms for the Court and its chief. Samuel A. Alito Jr., Justice O’Connor’s eventual replacement, is well to her right and has provided Chief Justice Roberts with a reliable if narrow majority for the court’s steady regression on race and its deregulatory hijacking of the First Amendment....In contrast to Justice Scalia’s ‘my way or the highway’ and Justice Clarence Thomas’s full-steam-back-to-the-18th-century, Chief Justice Roberts is adept at modulating both his tone and his ambitions to fit the situation at hand.”
— Longtime New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse writing at nytimes.com, October 1.
Piers Desires Even More Media Advocacy
“I couldn’t see, for me, how a great country like America — and it is a great country, great people — how you could let 20 first graders be shot dead in their classrooms, and the reaction would be absolutely nothing? So I don’t regret standing up for trying to affect change....I wish more American media people, American news anchors stood up. Because so many of them privately, to me, would say, ‘I love what you’re doing. Keep going, it’s really important.’ But I never heard that on air. And I think there’s a certain moral cowardice in the media in America that needs to be addressed about guns.”
— Ex-CNN host Piers Morgan on NBC’s Today, October 6.
Bill Clinton’s Hands Are “Like the Paintbrushes of Picasso”
Co-host Mark Halperin: “The wagging finger.”
Co-host John Heilemann: “That’s a great way to start it....The hands, they’re like the paintbrushes of Picasso. He just uses them as an artistic expression mode....The thing about Clinton is, everybody thinks he’s a great improviser, and he is a great improviser, but he also hones these speeches....He’s like a great editor in addition to being a great spontaneous orator.”
— On Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect, October 7, watching a clip of Clinton campaigning in Arkansas.
“The Greatest Threat to Civilization”
Co-host Joe Scarborough: “What’s a greater threat to civilization, Christian extremism, Jewish extremism or Muslim extremism?”
NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin: “To civilization?...I would not say any of those. I would not say radical Islam is the greatest threat to civilization today.”
Scarborough: “What is?”
New York Times political reporter Nicholas Confessore: “Global warming.”
— MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 6.
ABC Can’t Wait to Hype Potential 2016 “Rising Star”
“And now we hit the road with HUD Secretary Julian Castro. He’s just 77 days into his new job, but ever since his swearing in, so many Democrats have skipped ahead trying to figure out what’s next for the rising star? Could he be on a presidential ticket in 2016?”
— Guest host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s This Week, October 12.
Non-Existent Fox News Pushed “Stodgy” Networks During ’87 Hart Scandal?
“[Author] Matt Bai is right to see the story of Gary Hart’s downfall as a singular moment in American politics....In those days ‘the press’ meant, to all intents and purposes, newspapers. By 1987, though, things were beginning to change. CNN and Fox had recently arrived on the scene, jazzing up the news in ways unfamiliar to the stodgy big three of ABC, CBS and NBC....”
— Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley, reviewing Bai’s All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid. In fact, Fox News did not launch until the fall of 1996, more than nine years after the Hart scandal.
Blame America for ISIS Savagery
“Don’t you think the reason ISIS was created was because when [makes air quotes] Saudi hijackers attacked us, we invaded a different country that had nothing to do with it? That would incite people to radicalize, right?...I think we have to be responsible for our actions. And if Saudi hijackers did what they did on 9/11, you don’t invade Iraq and kill innocent people in the process.”
— Co-host Rosie O’Donnell on ABC’s The View, October 7.
ABC’s Fictional Republican President Pushes Liberal Agenda
“The right to bear arms, set in stone in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers. So was slavery, by the way. The right to bear arms seems indisputable until the shooter comes, until you’re Lisa Elliot, covered in blood, watching a little girl take her last breath, watching the light go out of her eyes. And that, that is where the argument ends. That is when the debate is over...How many other people’s children are we going to let die before we put a stop to this?”
— Fictional GOP “President Fitzgerald Grant” giving his State of the Union speech on ABC’s Scandal, October 2.
Let’s Give “Handsome” Obama “All the Power He Needs”
“I am one of your biggest fans, if not the biggest, and have been since the inception of your campaign....It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass...You’re so handsome that I can’t speak properly.”
— Actress Gwyneth Paltrow introducing President Obama at an October 9 DNC fundraiser held at her Los Angeles home.
Another Glowing Testimonial
“I get all my news from MSNBC. Which is probably not wise.”
— Actor/author Ron Perlman on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 3.
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