No Charges in Ferguson = Grand Jury 'Failure,' While Time Asks, 'Is Rioting So Wrong?'
No Charges in Ferguson = Grand Jury “Failure”
“The grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, has failed to come up with an indictment for the police officer in the shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown....The bottom line is, this grand jury sitting 25 days, failed to come up with charges after 70 hours and 60 witnesses in all.”
— Anchor Brian Williams during NBC News live coverage, November 24.
Don’t Forget: Obama Still Represents Racial Progress
Anchor Scott Pelley: “In his [Ferguson] address last night, President Obama said America has made enormous progress on race relations over the past several decades. Many would say the best evidence of that is the President himself....”
Correspondent Major Garrett: “America’s first black President has willingly shouldered the burden of a nation fractured along racial lines. An example of genuine racial progress himself, Mr. Obama carries the unrealistic expectations of healing that divide: A President with a singular perspective is tested once more.”
— CBS Evening News, November 25.
As Ferguson Burns, Time Asks: “Is Rioting So Wrong?”
“When a police officer shoots a young, unarmed black man in the streets, then does not face indictment, anger in the community is inevitable. It’s what we do with that anger that counts. In such a case, is rioting so wrong?”
— Writer Darlena Cunha in a November 25 Time.com piece, “In Defense of Rioting.”
Blaming America: A Country Founded on “Racism and White Supremacy”
“The parameters of the conversation are so narrowly defined as to define racism as a personal hatred towards black people. And we’re not then dealing with the systemic ideas that uphold racism and white supremacy in this country....What we refuse to deal with it is the idea — the fact — that our, the foundation of this country is racism and white supremacy and all of our institutions uphold that.”
— The Nation’s Mychal Denzel Smith on MSNBC’s The Reid Report, November 25.
Justifying Obama’s Flip-Flop on Executive Amnesty
Clip of President Obama in 2013: “Young people who have basically grown up here are Americans that we should welcome. We’re not going to have them operate under a cloud, under a shadow. But if we start broadening that, then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that’s not an option....”
Bloomberg’s Al Hunt: “I don’t agree with his analysis back then. I think he’s on pretty solid legal ground [now]....This isn’t a power grab. He’s doing what all of his predecessors did.”
— MSNBC’s Morning Joe, November 20.
Anchor Anderson Cooper: “He said he couldn’t do it in the past. He’s now saying he can do it, and should do it and will do it. What’s the White House spin on this?”
Congressional correspondent Dana Bash: “Well, first of all, we should also remind people that he’s not just the President, he also is a constitutional — he was a constitutional professor and a lawyer, so he speaks with academic knowledge.”
— CNN’s AC360, November 19.
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Host Lawrence O’Donnell: “Can you tell me and has the White House told you what is the legal justification for the President to create a new category of beneficiaries for work documents? How can that be done without legislation?...I’ve been on this for days now. I haven’t found a single elected Democrat. Not one Democrat in Washington who can answer the question that I just put to you. Have you heard it answered by any Democrats?”
Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT): “I haven’t. I haven’t.”
— MSNBC’s The Last Word, November 17.
Chuck Hits GOP Governors with White House Talking Points
Moderator Chuck Todd: “Do you think we will eventually — going to have to have — with the 11 million or 12 million that are here, right? We know the issue — so do you think that eventually — can any of you eventually support some form of a path to citizenship for them?...(to Louisana's Bobby Jindal) Governor, I’m going to get to these issues, but I hear you. Path to citizenship, eventually is there one for these folks or no?... Alright, can I get a path to citizenship? Is there a eventually going to have to be one?”
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal: “Man, you’re stubborn, you stick to that bone.”...
Todd: “Anybody, path to citizenship? Is there eventually, Governor [John] Kasich, is there going to have to be one?”...
Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Here’s what I’m thinking: I’m thinking you’re probably not going to get invited to do a moderation for a presidential debate.”
— From a November 19 panel discussion at a meeting of the Republican Governor’s Association.
Gruber Video Just a Life Raft for Desperate ObamaCare Foes
“Part of the reason this controversy has become such a focal point is that there isn’t a lot of other bad news about ObamaCare....So I think a lot of critics are seizing on this because it’s a sort of life raft for them to maybe say, ‘Maybe we can stir up outrage anew at the way this was originally done and get some more momentum for repeal,’ which at this point does not look like much of a possibility.”
— The Atlantic political writer Molly Ball on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, November 17.
Nasty Conservatives Using Gruber to Destroy Amazing ObamaCare
“It [ObamaCare] is a legislative success story about as likely as landing a tiny rover on moving comet....Now, armed with some tapes of an M.I.T. professor saying some stupid things and potentially sympathetic Supreme Court Justices, conservatives are looking to destroy all of it. To blow it all up, to grind it into dust and raze the Affordable Care Act to the ground, based on no principle other than their implacable ideological opposition to the project of providing health insurance partially through the government.”
— Host Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s All In, November 17.
NBC Political Director Justifies Lack of Coverage
Host Steve Malzberg: “Why did it take nine days once the Gruber video came out? You talked about it on Meet the Press just the other day, but the networks — nine days before they talked about it. And now it’s a huge story.”
NBC News political director Chuck Todd: “I’m not saying it’s not a story. Look, I’m not in charge of any of those network newscasts. But what is the news today of that? It’s a political story. Network news in general hasn’t been covering the political back-and-forths of Washington a lot lately. I don’t think this has to do with Gruber specifically.”
— Exchange on Newsmax TV’s The Steve Malzberg Show, November 18. NBC’s Today ran just one report on the Gruber video in November, while the NBC Nightly News never gave the story any airtime.
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“Nobody covered it [the Gruber video] except for some right-wing outlets....I do think had it been a Republican, the media would be exploding.”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, November 12.
On the Other Hand....
“He called you stupid. He admitted that the White House lied to you. Its officials lied to all of us — Republicans, Democrats, and independents; rich and poor; white and brown; men and women. Liberals should be the angriest. Not only were they personally deceived, but the administration’s dishonest approach to health care reform has helped make ObamaCare unpop-ular while undermining the public’s faith in an activist government....ObamaCare was built and sold on a foundation of lies.”
— Former AP Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier in his November 12 National Journal column, “ObamaCare’s Foundation of Lies.”
“In a lot of ways, this spectacle represents not just everything’s that’s wrong with the Obama administration, it’s everything wrong with liberalism, and a lot that’s wrong with America itself. You’ve got this guy who is pretending to be an objective independent analyst...being touted around through a transmission belt of liberal journalists, who all are all pretending to be objective analysts too, quoting each other, reaffirming each other....And then when caught about it, the same administration tries to dismiss him as if he was just some sort of random White House intruder. The whole thing stinks.”
— National Review’s Jonah Goldberg on FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier, November 17.
Time to Admit Benghazi Was Just a GOP Scam?
“[The] House Republican-led Intelligence Committee released a Benghazi report, and basically it’s pretty exculpatory. The key findings: no intelligence failure prior to the attacks, security at CIA facilities were sufficient. Yes, security at State Department facilities were inadequate, and yes, some of the developments of the talking points that Susan Rice used were flawed, but no wrongdoing, none of the conspiracies found. Is it time for the Republicans to drop the Benghazi conspiracy theories?”
— Moderator Chuck Todd to GOP Senator Jeff Flake on NBC’s Meet the Press, November 23.
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“The thing that strikes you as you read through the report is just how many holes and omissions there are in the report, and where there aren’t holes, where they actually report facts, the facts are rendered in a sloppy fashion, and the report is ultimately unconvincing....You have Michael Morell, who was the acting director of Central Intelligence Agency who was caught red-handed misleading Congress on the question of his role in revising the talking points. For eight months he let members of Congress believe that he had no role....This report relies almost entirely on Mike Morell as a fact witness. They base the entire section of their report on the talking points on what Mike Morell says. He has no credibility on this issue. Why they would rely on him is beyond me.”
— The Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes on FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier, November 25.
Not Sure About Us, But at Least the Chinese Communists Can Be Trusted
“The good news is China is going to keep to those [carbon emission] targets regardless of what the U.S. does....The bigger leap in faith has been taken here by President Obama. And as we’ve seen, even before the ink is dry on this deal, he’s already getting pushback. So there is room for skepticism that the U.S. will keep up its side of the bargain. The Chinese side I think is already baked in.”
— Former Time correspondent Bobby Ghosh on CNN’s New Day, November 12, talking about the climate deal.
As If “Partisan” MSNBC Echo Chamber Is a Hardship for Obama
“The fragmentation and proliferation of political media led to the rise of partisan cable networks that catered to specific ideologies — Fox News on the right, MSNBC on the left, CNN claiming to be presiding over a decreasing share of the viewership in the middle....In the age of Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz — the prime-time lineup on MSNBC — ‘now there’s an entire industry,’ [Obama aide Dan] Pfeiffer said, of liberals who have the audience, and the television time, to assault Obama’s left flank. The whole scene made Obama even less enthusiastic about reaching out to the media — after all, if your friends were betraying you, why bother with anyone?”
— NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd in his new book, The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House.
NBC Sunday Show Host Feels “Nourished” by Obama
Host Larry King: “Do you like him [President Obama]?”
NBC Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd: “Oh, he’s a very likable guy. Yes.”
King: “I agree.”
Todd: “He’s very friendly. I mean, he’s very easy to talk to. You sit there and have these off-the-record sessions with him — you’ve had them — and they’re just very nourishing conversations.”
— Exchange shown on the November 20 edition of Ora TV’s Politicking with Larry King.
Gushing Over Chelsea Clinton, “Mom of the Year”
“When you think about some of the women who’ve been honored in years past, Chelsea — you have [anti-Taliban activist] Malala, you have Melinda Gates, and of course your mom, Hillary Clinton — I mean, it must be so flattering to be added to that list....A woman of the year, and I think it’s safe to say, probably a ‘Mom of the Year.’”
— Katie Couric during a November 12 Yahoo! News interview with Chelsea Clinton, who only became a mother on September 26, after the latter was named Glamour’s “Woman of the Year.”
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