Please Explain Why Republicans Suck; Candidate Worse than Ebola?
Midterm Softball: Please Explain Why Republicans Suck
Co-host Norah O’Donnell: “You serve in the U.S. Senate. Democrats are in control. The Republicans need six seats. On average, since World War II the opposing party of the President has won about six seats. What’s going to happen if Republicans take control?”
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): “Oh, it’s going to be ugly out there if the Republicans take control.”
O’Donnell: “I guess that was a softball of a question, wasn’t it?”
Warren: “How many ways can we talk about this?”
Co-host Charlie Rose: “She just teed it up for you. Go.”
— CBS This Morning, October 28.
Are Republicans Worse than Deadly Virus?
Bloomberg’s Jeanne Cummings: “[The focus on Ebola] has not been good for the Democratic candidates. You look down in North Carolina, what little bit of a lead that [Democratic Senator] Kay Hagan had held, pretty stubbornly, for months, is now shrinking, in part because Thom Tillis has seized on this and not let go. He was one of the earliest critics of the President. He’s been one of the constant critics.”
Host Chris Matthews: “What’s worse, Thom Tillis or Ebola?”
— MSNBC’s Hardball, October 27.
Nasty Liberal Ad Just Too Good to Fact Check
Correspondent Chip Reid: “Candidates across the country are talking about Ebola and blaming the other side. Republicans are doing their best to tie their opponents to a White House under fire....Some Democrats are firing back, claiming that Republican spending cuts have made the problem worse....An independent liberal group called The Agenda Project has even released a new ad with the tag line, ‘Republican Cuts Kill.’”
Clip from ad showing various Republicans: “Cut..cut...cut...cut.”
— CBS This Morning, October 21.
“One week before Election Day, candidates across the country are trying to use Ebola to their political advantage....One independent liberal group released an ad criticizing Republicans for cutting spending that they say could have led to an Ebola vaccination. Scott, that ad is titled ‘Republican Cuts Kill,’ which shows just how tough the political battle over Ebola has come.”
— Reid on the CBS Evening News, October 27. There was no suggestion in either of Reid’s pieces that there was any factual problem with the Democrats’ charge.
vs.
“On many levels, this line of attack is absurd. Obama’s Republican predecessor oversaw big increases in public-health sector spending, and both Democrats and Republicans in recent years have broadly supported efforts to rein in federal spending. Sequestration resulted from a bipartisan agreement. In some years, Congress has allocated more money for NIH and CDC than the Obama administration requested....This blame game earns Four Pinocchios.”
— Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, October 15.
Longtime Political Hack = Just What Government Needs Right Now
“You know, you’ve got a lot of medical experts working on Ebola right now, but to the extent there is a crisis in the United States, which I don’t think there is, there’s a communications crisis and a management crisis inside the government. Ron Klain is an expert in communications, he’s an expert in management. That’s what the government needs right now.”
— ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America, October 19.
Republicans: Suppressing the Black Vote Since 2011
Chris Matthews: “Michael Steele was chairman of the RNC back before it was dedicated entirely to black voter suppression, and David Corn is the Washington bureau chief with Mother Jones. Both are MSNBC political analysts. I see it-”
Panelist David Corn: “That was the best introduction ever!”
— Introducing a political panel on MSNBC’s Hardball, October 28.
“Killing the black vote. This is Hardball....Good evening, I’m Chris Matthews in Washington. This is rotten stuff, isn’t it? The Republican effort to kill the black vote in state after state: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, Texas. We can all see what they’re doing. Believing they can’t convert the African American vote, they’ve decided to slaughter it....This is murder in broad daylight.”
— Chris Matthews opening MSNBC’s Hardball, October 21.
“Although we know it’s not legally permissible, it feels as though it has been legally permissible to murder Trayvon Martin, to murder Michael Brown, and then, of course, what follows up next is to murder black people’s ability to vote....If you have to provide ID, and you don’t have access to ID, it is another way of killing black America and relegating us to a permanent underclass. It’s awful.”
— MSNBC contributor Michelle Bernard later on the same show.
Slicing Up Joni Ernst: “A Radical Disguised as a Hog Castrator”
“Take a look at Iowa, where the castrator Joni Ernst has a two-point lead there against Democrat Bruce Braley — the margin of error there is three, so they’re tied — but now comes word that Ernst pulled something of a Sharron Angle two years ago. She has talked about killing politicians she doesn’t agree with. Just how radical is that? Pretty radical....How did she go from that radical to this person who is just talking about castrating pigs?”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, October 23.
“Up next, Joni Ernst....She is a radical candidate disguised as a hog castrator.”
— Matthews on Hardball, October 24.
At Least Republicans “Have Had Their Rabies Shots” This Year
“There’s no doubt that this year, Republicans have been far more disciplined. So, they had their rabies shots....No ‘legitimate rape’ talk this time. They’ve got themselves a little better discipline.”
— Ex-Newsweek/The Daily Beast editor Tina Brown on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 20.
“Surprising” and “Distressing” Anyone Would Call This Terrorism
“There are a few folks who in the aftermath of this [attack on the Canadian Parliament] have said, well, wait a second, there is a difference between someone who is a terrorist and someone who is a deranged, unhappy person with a gun. And yet it has been surprising, I think, to see even [White House press secretary] Josh Earnest at the White House say — considered it a terrorist act, and I guess from a sort of constitutional, civil liberties, rights perspective. How distressing is that?”
— Host Alex Wagner on MSNBC’s Now, October 23.
Here’s Hoping Canada Does Better than U.S. Did After 9/11
“Do you fear, do you worry that there is going to be this reaction as, frankly, we had after 9/11?...Do you think this is going to change Canada’s commitment to remain in the military coalition against ISIS or ISIL, whatever you want to call it. It is controversial.”
— Anchor Andrea Mitchell to Canadian MP Charlie Angus on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, October 23.
Lauding Lefty Liz Warren, the “Sharpest Voice in Washington”
“The YouTube Senator: As she fought the big banks, she never expected that Senate hearings would go as viral as cat videos — and make her a political star.”
“As she is not a dyspeptic pop star or a starlet dumping ice water on her head for charity, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is an unlikely Internet sensation....Who says a piercing question about why watchdogs failed to take corrupt mortgage lenders to trial isn’t sexy? Jon Stewart has said he wants to ‘make out with’ Warren....At this moment, Warren possesses arguably the sharpest voice in Washington.”
— Headline and excerpt from profile of Warren by Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, November 3 People.
Bristol Palin Assaulted; CNN Anchor: “Sit Back and Enjoy”
“Okay. I’m just going to come right out and say it: This is quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across — well, come across in a long time anyway. A massive brawl in Anchorage, Alaska, reportedly involving Sarah Palin’s kids and her husband. It was sparked after someone pushed one of her daughters at a party....And now police have released audio of that interview. It does include some rather colorful language from Bristol. Here now is Bristol’s recollection of how that night unfolded. So sit back and enjoy.”
— CNN Newsroom anchor Carol Costello on October 22, introducing audio of Bristol Palin describing how a man shoved her, dragged her on the ground and repeatedly cursed at her. Costello apologized the next day.
Sarah Palin, the Original Bumpkin Republican
“The apotheosis of the modern bumpkin mode has been embodied by Sarah Palin....She also appears to have made little attempt to fill the knowledge gaps she demonstrated in 2008 or to shed her association with reality-TV-style family dramas, like the recent drunken brawl she apparently observed at an Anchorage birthday party. According to Alan Schroeder, a professor of journalism at Northeastern University and an expert on the celebrity aspects of politics, Palin has come to represent ‘a new standard of the slim résumé.’”
— Correspondent Mark Leibovich in a piece for the November 2 New York Times Magazine, “The Bumpkinification of the Midterm Elections.”
Zinging Hillary: At Least One Corporation Created a Job
Clip of Hillary Clinton: “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know that old theory trickle-down economics. That has been tried. That has failed.”...
Washington Post’s Charles Lane: “I don’t know, I thought NBC created a job for Chelsea, so there is at least one corporation that has created a job.”
— From the panel discussion on FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier, October 27.
“History Will Be Very, Very Good to Barack Obama”
Co-host Joe Scarborough: “I will be glad to take bets from anybody across America, if I took bets. Historians are going to be writing, and they are going to lumping together George W. Bush and Barack Obama as two people that don’t-”
MSNBC contributor/Columbia University professor Dorian Warren: “History will serve Barack Obama very, very well....I will be happy to call my friends in Vegas and place that bet right now. I’m serious. History will be very, very good to Barack Obama.”
— Exchange on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 20.
Slamming the Koch Brothers: “Don’t They Have Children?”
“It’s appalling how many climate change deniers there are in this world that are paid to make sure that the Koch brothers can still sell all the stuff to us. And I often wonder, don’t the Koch brothers have children? Don’t they have grandchildren? Don’t they know what they’re doing in this quest for more money? They’re already one of the richest families in the world. How much more do you need?”
— Singer Graham Nash on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 28.
Rosie Uses Parliament Attack to Slam American Gun Rights
“[Model Chrissy Teigen] is sort of getting slammed for her comments, because she put a tweet up about the attack that she said ‘Active shooting in Canada, or as we call it in America, Wednesday.’ I thought it was brilliant....86 people a day are killed in America with guns. And you know what, that is terrorism here.”
— Co-host Rosie O’Donnell on ABC’s The View, October 23.
PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
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