Let's Not Forget that Barack Obama Is Extraordinary
Please, Let’s Not Forget How Wonderful Barack Obama Is
“With all the talk about the President entering this period where ‘lame duck’ has been tossed around, this period in his second term, it was David Remnick in The New Yorker magazine, a long, long article, a long, sustained-access interview with the President over many stops, who put a sentence in the middle of the article to reset everyone’s expectations and remind us what it took to get here. And I’m going to quote from it. ‘A President who after all,’ quote, ‘won two terms as only 17 of 44 presidents have, and did so as a black man with an African father and a peculiar name one consonant away from that of the world’s most notorious terrorist.’ Something I think everybody forgets in the day-to-day game here.”
— NBC’s Brian Williams during live coverage of the State of the Union, January 28.
Fretting the Public’s Lack of Love for the Great Obama Economy
“One of the real puzzles the President has to solve tonight, the economy, doing about as well as it’s ever done in his presidency, as he comes into the chamber tonight, but most people don’t believe it and don’t give him credit for it.”
— ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to former Obama advisor David Plouffe during live coverage of the State of the Union speech, January 28.
Anchor Brian Williams: “How much longer do we put up with, you know, a decade of pessimism about our direction? What’s going to happen?”
Meet the Press host David Gregory: “Well, and it’s so interesting because, look, the economy’s getting better. That’s what this President had to do. He had to make the economy better. And, yet he’s not getting a lot of credit for it.”
— During NBC’s live coverage of the State of the Union, January 28.
If Said About Hillary Clinton, Liberals Would Be Furious
“Living room. Lady on a settee. Where’s the needlepoint?”
— MSNBC host Alex Wagner in a January 28 tweet about Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers as she delivered the Republican response to the President’s State of the Union address.
“Take a Bow” for Pushing Liberal Agenda Item
“Equal pay for women, Maria — you went and you talked to the President about — before his State of the Union, when he was still writing it, and he delivered in terms of addressing that....Maria Shriver, take a bow.”
— NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell to Shriver on her MSNBC show Andrea Mitchell Reports, January 30.
Hail to the President, a “Chest-Pumping... Go-It-Alone Terminator”
“This was a stare-down, chest-pumping President, angry and resentful about a Congress determined to log-jam his ideas. This was President Obama, the go-it-alone Terminator, mindful he has only three years left.”
— ABC correspondent Jim Avila on Nightline, January 28, reporting on the State of the Union speech.
Goal of “Fizzled” Tea Party: Be “Annoying and Inflammatory”
Host Lawrence O’Donnell: “Richard, I think the Senate would be surprised to learn that Mike Lee has been a leader of any kind in the United States Senate, but the Tea Party is sure happy with him.”...
MSNBC.com editor Richard Wolffe: “You know, this is a movement that has fizzled....And the response here is not the point. What they want to do is be annoying and inflammatory, and I’m sure they’ll find someone to do that.”
— MSNBC’s The Last Word, January 22, talking about Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) giving the Tea Party’s response to Obama’s State of the Union address.
Before Bush Blew It, the Ayatollah Was an “American Ally”
“Those words, ‘Axis of Evil’ — and I was standing right here in Congress, and when I heard those words I called the control room and I said, ‘This is a big deal.’...With all due respect, Colin Powell and the State Department did not focus enough on those words and get them taken out of the State of the Union. Because up until that moment, Iran was cooperating with the United States on the border of Afghanistan, it was post-9/11, Iran was more or less an American ally. By being included in the Axis of Evil, it turned the Iranian government in a completely different direction. It was a turning point in American politics and in foreign policy.”
— NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, January 28, recalling President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address when he referred to Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “Axis of Evil.”
Chris Gets Tingles Over Prospect of a Massive Hillary Landslide...
“2016 could be a crazy year. This could be like the 1964 election, with Lyndon Johnson being portrayed this time by Hillary Clinton, grabbing 60 percent of the vote because she grabs the middle. She is a bit more hawkish than Obama. She is more establishment Democrat. She could grab the middle. The Republicans run a wacko bird, as John McCain calls them. We have a sweeping election. It might mean something. Who knows?”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, January 22.
...MSNBC Refuses to Drop Their Bogus “War on Women” Mantra...
“Just when you thought the Republican Party’s open antagonism toward women and their reproductive organs couldn’t get any more hostile, hours ago, talk show host, former governor, and failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee took it upon himself to ‘mansplain’ to the women of America how one party wants to tame their wild libidos.”
— Host Alex Wagner on MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner, January 23.
“I hear what Mike Huckabee had to say today, and I recall a basic, too-often-ignored fact of American politics: There are more women voters than there are male voters. And given that, what is it in the Republican DNA that makes them talk as if they’ve never talked with women? Why do they speak as if they’re the party of cave dwellers who come out of their habitats every four years or so to grunt something so retro, so awkward, so Cro-Magnon as this?...Didn’t he learn from Akin and Mourdock, the rape-rappers, to avoid getting too up close and personal on the boy-girl front?”
— MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Hardball, January 23.
...Leaping to Defend Wendy Davis for Fudging Her Life Story...
Host Andrea Mitchell: “[Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis is] being forced to answer media reports down there that she had slightly altered her resume or focused on the single mom aspects of it and didn’t really give the timeline correctly....”
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus: “Sure. She did live in a trailer for some time, she was a single mom for some time, but she did acknowledge being a little bit loosy goosy with the facts.... She needs to just make sure from now on that she gets her story precisely straight because the — she didn’t need to really amplify it that much. It would have been fine just on its own.”
— MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, January 21.
...Using Any Excuse to Smear Conservatives as Racist...
“Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family.”
— A January 29 posting to MSNBC’s official Twitter page. After many outraged responses, the post was removed and replaced by an apology: “It does not reflect msnbc’s position and we apologize.”
...But Ideology at MSNBC? Never!
“We’ve never had an ideology. An ideology is a single thought across all programs. We’ve never had that.”
— MSNBC President Phil Griffin in a January 30 interview with The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove.
Slamming Pro-Lifers as Having “No Interest” in Children
“This is the logical extension of what the anti-abortion woman — movement wants. They want women to have no control over their own bodies....All they care about is forcing women to deliver babies that they don’t want, but they have no interest in taking care of those children once they are actually born. And I think that’s a relevant factor in this debate.”
— CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on AC360 Later, January 22.
Touting Obama: “Huge” Achievements and “No Major Scandal”
The New Yorker’s David Remnick: “The fact that this country didn’t fall into a depression, an economic depression, which it could easily have done; the fact that we are out of Iraq for all the problems in Iraq, getting there in Afghanistan; the auto industry saved; gay rights more and more ensured, not without help from the President of the United States; the fact that there’s been no scandal, major scandal, in this administration, which is a rare thing in an administration; the fact that science is now discussed as science; the fact that climate change, however woefully inadequate the measures for it, is now-”
Host Charlie Rose: “Does this measure up to greatness for you?”
Remnick: “Well, let’s wait ’til the end....[But] I think those achievements are huge.”
— PBS’s Charlie Rose, January 20, talking about Remnick’s cover story on Obama’s presidency.
New Jersey Traffic Jam Worse than Watergate?
Host Chris Matthews: “Christie, by the way, might be able to weather the political storm, but he can’t escape evidence. If you want proof, take a look at President Nixon’s approval ratings during Watergate....”
Republican consultant John Feehery: “Bridgegate is no Watergate. They’re completely different....There were high crimes and misdemeanors with President Nixon.”
Matthews: “A break-in was worse than this? If you were in that traffic, would you rather have a break-in or-”
Feehery: “Traffic is annoying. Doing something to the Constitution is really kind of breaking the law.”
— Exchange on MSNBC’s Hardball, January 16.
Acting as If Democrats Share No Blame for Shutdown
Host Bob Schieffer: “You became a celebrity when you led the drive to shut down the government over ObamaCare, but afterward your fellow Republicans said you led them over a cliff. Can you conceive of any situation in which you would do that again, try to shut down the government in exchange or in demand for some action by the President?”
Senator Ted Cruz: “Well, Bob, with all due respect....I didn’t shut down the government the last time. I don’t think we should ever shut down the government. I repeatedly voted to fund the federal government.”
Schieffer: “Well, Senator, if you didn’t threaten to shut down the government, who was it that did?”
Cruz: “It was Harry Reid and President Obama.”
— CBS’s Face the Nation, January 26.
Gushing Over Chance to “Boogie with the First Lady”
“First of all, it was like — it was literally a house party. It was a house party that happened to be in the White House. My wife [ABC’s] Deborah [Roberts] and I went. And it was — yeah, there were all these stars, which was kind of terrific....There’s the President just wearing a sport coat and a shirt, an open shirt, and so was Joe Biden. But, you know, it was — I actually got to boogie a little with the First Lady....And I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m dancing with the First Lady.’”
— NBC’s Al Roker on Today, January 20, recounting his experience at Michelle Obama’s birthday party.
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PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
NEWS ANALYSTS: Scott Whitlock, Brad Wilmouth, Matthew Balan, Kyle Drennen and Matt Hadro
INTERNS: Paul Bremmer, Jeffrey Meyer
