Obama's Biggest Fan Gets an Early Christmas Gift; "From Superman to Sisyphus"
Obama’s #1 Fan Gets an Early Christmas Gift
“I’ve got the Christmas Eve
excitement brewing right here at Hardball.
Because tomorrow night at precisely this time, 7:00 Eastern, the President of the United States is going to join us....Big night, big questions, big
opportunity. I hope the President names — or actually, makes the best of
tomorrow night.”
— MSNBC host Chris Matthews on the December 4 Hardball, previewing his interview with
President Obama.
“I’m not sure what Chris
Matthews was doing with President Obama yesterday, but it wasn’t hardball. It
wasn’t even softball. It was more like wiffle ball....It was as though Matthews
was channeling Jay Carney.... Maybe he was getting a reprise of the famous
thrill up the leg. This was clearly a home game for Obama.”
— Longtime Washington
Post and CNN media critic Howard Kurtz, writing at FoxNews.com, December 6.
Drooling Over Obama: “He’s Gone from Superman to Sisyphus”
“I would like to say, Chris,
that you and the students here from AU [American University] got a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see in person a President talking about what
it’s like to be President while he’s actually President. Now, he’s gone from
Superman to Sisyphus.”
— Longtime Newsweek
political correspondent Howard Fineman, now a Huffington Post writer, on MSNBC’s
Hardball, December 5, following MSNBC’s
interview with Obama.
Insisting Web Site “Fix” Will Cause Repeal Effort to “Fizzle Out Completely”
“Time for my Tuesday
Takeaway: With 750,000 visitors to the site yesterday without a crash and the
Obama administration now confident that the Web site is functioning — at least
for consumers the way it was intended to, not necessarily yet for the health
insurance companies — the Republican repeal movement may actually now fizzle
out completely.”
— NBC political director Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, December 3.
Using Lame Talking Points to Suggest ObamaCare Not a Calamity
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan): “They’re trying to make this a political fight. When
you have somebody who just lost their insurance, and by the way, there are
millions of people who got cancellation notices. And the next go-round on the
business side is 80 to 100 million people will get cancellation notices....They’re
making a horrible mistake by trying to make this political. Real people are
getting hurt by this.”
Host David Gregory: “But Congressman, you talk about confiscation. The reality is there’s
also a lot of people who are going to have the potential to get insurance who
never had insurance. And you have a small piece of the market where people may
lose plans. Many of those will get better plans in the individual market. The
insurance companies recognize those are there.”
Rogers: “But David, that’s not true....”
— Exchange on NBC’s Meet the Press, December 1.
Obama Like a “Brilliant Writer” with “Bad Handwriting”
“I think I would compare it
[the ObamaCare fiasco], Andrea, to a brilliant writer, perhaps, with a great
theme who turns in a paper with a lot of misspellings, or bad handwriting. It’s
a bad way to roll out something. With all the great strengths, potentially, of
a national health care system along these lines, the way it was rolled out has
hurt it. It hurt its reputation. It’s given the other side a lot of talking
points to use against the President generally in terms of his competence.”
— Hardball
host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Andrea
Mitchell Reports, December 3.
If You Oppose ObamaCare, You’re “Anti-American”...
“Apparently the Queen of the
Tea Party is delighted about ObamaCare’s rocky rollout. Congresswoman Michele
Bachmann said ObamaCare’s problems are the opportunity of a lifetime because
liberalism is crumbling right in front of our eyes. I’m glad to see Michele
Bachmann is so happy about a law’s problem. I think it’s fair to call Michele
Bachmann’s attitude anti-American....Under ObamaCare, people’s lives will be
saved. It’s an absolute. And I think it’s fair to say that Michele Bachmann
wanting to deny 30 million Americans health care is anti-American. I think it’s
also fair to say Michele Bachmann wanting a law to fail is anti-American.”
— Ed Schultz hosting MSNBC’s The Ed Show, November 20.
...And God Won’t Be Too Happy, Either
“I’ll tell you what I think
God thinks of the Affordable Care Act — it’s a big ‘amen.’”
— Ed Schultz answering viewers’ questions on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, December 4.
Don’t Worry, Obama’s Lies Are for Our Own Good
Clip of columnist Peggy Noonan on ABC: “That is another reputation changer, and I think that’s
problematic for the President going forward.”
Fill-in anchor Rosa Flores: “So, L.Z., is Peggy Noonan right?”
CNN contributor L.Z. Granderson: “You know, Peggy Noonan has made a living scrubbing
clean President Reagan’s administration and all the atrocities that it’s
committed....Now with President Obama, it is true. He should have been more
forthright with how the Affordable Care Act was going to impact the country.
But with that being said, all Americans know politicians lie. The question is,
which lies can you live with? And, time and time again, Americans have said we
can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us because we believe in his
heart, he has the best interest for the American people.”
— Exchange on CNN’s Newsroom, December 1.
Always Blaming Those Rascally Republicans
CBS contributor Nancy Giles: “It really irks me when people who hate government
get elected into government to then dismantle the government and then say, ‘Look
at how bad government is.’”
Host Chris Hayes: “But in this case, but in this case, though, here’s the thing. In this
case, though, right, it wasn’t, there were all sorts of ways in which
Republicans sabotaged HealthCare.Gov.”
— MSNBC’s All In
with Chris Hayes, November 27.
Like Auburn, ObamaCare Scores an Electrifying Last-Minute Touchdown!
“If you’re for ObamaCare, you’ve
got to play like Auburn. You got to play every play. You can’t ever give up.
You just got to keep going....[over video of real football game] Holy smokes,
we’ve got a return by ObamaCare! This is Chris Davis. He’s a believer! He’s got
all those Obama blockers out there. He’s going to go all the way! It’s going to
work! It’s going to work! Look at ObamaCare! It’s going to work! They ain’t
giving up. 109 yards in Jordan Harris Stadium! 87,000 fans loving every bit of
it, and guess what? Four times that many people went to the website and signed
up today.”
— Ed Schultz on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, December 2. NBC News subsequently reported only 29,000
people signed up during the first two days of December, not the 348,000 Schultz
implied.
MSNBC Analyst Admits: Media “Failed to Scrutinize” ObamaCare
Fill-in host Laura Ingraham: “These are real concerns that were expressed frankly
back in 2008, 2009 and into 2010. And forgive me, but I don’t think Time magazine was doing cover stories on
a lot of the concerns that were raised back then that were routinely dismissed
by many in the media, as ideological, as just mean-spirited. Turns out most of
the Republican concerns about ObamaCare were right.”
Time/MSNBC political analyst Mark Halperin: “Laura, there is no doubt that the press failed to
scrutinize this program at the time of passage and during the context of the
President’s re-election. I think any reporter who would argue otherwise would
be putting their head in the sand.”
— Exchange on FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor, November 21.
Blame the Tea Party for JFK’s Assassination?
“To find the very roots of
the Tea Party of 2013, just go back to downtown Dallas in 1963, back to the months and weeks leading to the
Kennedy assassination. It was where and when a deeply angry political
polarization, driven by a band of zealots, burst wide open in America....But here we are in 2013 and the echo is painfully
clear: The ad hominem attacks against a ‘socialist president.’ The howling
broadcasters. The mega-rich men from Texas funding the political action campaigns. There is even
another charismatic, Ivy-educated ideologue: Sen. Ted Cruz would have been
quite comfortable in Dallas 1963.”
— Essay by University of Texas journalism professor
Bill Minutaglio, in a special JFK assassination section in the November 22 Washington Post, titled: (online) “Essay:
Tea party has roots in the Dallas of 1963,” (in print) “In 1963, the roots of a
paranoid right.”
Barack Obama, the “Perfect Physical Specimen”
“Chris Christie, is his
weight a genuine issue for the American people after a fit athletic president
who turned out to be not quite what people thought?...After the perfect Barack
Obama — who’s a perfect physical specimen to many people’s eyes — does it
matter?”
— CNN host Piers Morgan talking to crisis management
expert Judy Smith on Piers Morgan Live,
December 1.
ABC Asks: Will Marriage Be Better with Four in a Bed?
“Is this the end of marriage
as we know it? More couples opting to become triples or fourples. Live in
lovers spicing up the marital bed, even helping raise the children....Most
marriages in America do end in divorce, so maybe adding other lovers to
the mix could improve the odds.”
— Nightline
co-anchor Dan Harris setting up a November 26 story on families where the
marriages consist of multiple partners.
“Embarrassing” How Americans Don’t Embrace Obama’s Wonderfulness
“This is the only the country
in the world where we don’t have health care. Countries embarrass us around the
world. And this is the only country in the world, we don’t have a gun law. I
watched you, you know, talk about that. You know, quite frankly it’s
embarrassing. Obama is not embarrassing. The country is embarrassing.”
— Movie producer Harvey Weinstein on CNN’s Piers Morgan Live, November 15.
“Millions of Lives” Already Saved by ObamaCare
“For over 100 years we have
tried to reform our healthcare system, and EVERY president before Barack Obama
FAILED! Yes, we initially wanted single payer, and we had to compromise back in
2009 for the Affordable Care Act. But, it is a damn good piece of legislation
that has already saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. So, let
us not give up now.”
— Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons in a November 21
article at HuffingtonPost.com.
NBC Drama Pontificates on the Joy of Voting for Obama
“Casting my ballot for Obama
in ’08 was one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done. You know, like
thinking about how far we’ve come, and that I helped to elect the first black
President. I mean, I never thought that would happen in my lifetime.”
— “Jasmine Trussell,” played by actress Joy Bryant, in
a scene from the November 21 episode of NBC’s Parenthood.
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