Here are a couple of examples, caught by the eagle-eyed Brent Baker, of MSNBC's supposedly more-restrained "news" anchors mouthing the kind of left-wing rhetoric that's a staple of their prime time hosts.
Shortly after President Obama's press conference on Friday, 11am ET anchor Thomas Roberts framed a question about tax policy thusly: "Why do you think the top 2 percent of America has a chokehold on the other 98 percent?"
A few minutes later, 12pm ET anchor Contessa Brewer disparaged the Republican position against raising tax rates: "They ignore the fact that we've been under Bush-era tax cuts and we've seen the unemployment rate skyrocket. The big corporations are sitting on megabucks in cash, they're not spending it on hiring."
White House correspondent Mike Viquiera quickly applauded Brewer's partisan liberal rhetoric: "That's a great point..." (Audio here [1])
Here are fuller quotes of both of those liberal eruptions during MSNBC's post-press conference coverage on July 15:
THOMAS ROBERTS (to MSNBC contributor Karen Hunter, about 11:50am ET): Karen, when we were watching this, we were making comments about the fact that the President laid out something clearly about - we haven't had tax increases over the last ten years. We've had a recession, we've had two wars to fight. Why do you think the top 2 percent of America has a choke hold on the other 98 percent?
CONTESSA BREWER (about 12:04pm ET): You've got these Republicans who keep saying, 'Look, to raise taxes means that it's handcuffing job creators.' They ignore the fact that we've been under Bush-era tax cuts and we've seen the unemployment rate skyrocket. The big corporations are sitting on megabucks in cash, they're not spending it on hiring. So if the GOP is getting all of this push back, especially from the Tea Party, on raising taxes, how can there be a deal in this climate?
CORRESPONDENT MIKE VIQUUIERA: And, that's a great point....
- Rich Noyes is Research Director at the Media Research Center. Click here [2] to follow Rich Noyes on Twitter.