Protests "Orchestrated" by the "Brooks Brothers Brigade"
Charles Gibson: "Members of the House of Representatives are already back in their districts on summer recess, most holding town hall meetings to find out what's on the voters' minds, and what they're hearing is criticism over health care reform. And some of that criticism appears to be orchestrated...."
Correspondent Jake Tapper: "Clearly, some of it is organized. Bob MacGuffie, a grass roots conservative activist wrote a widely circulated memo advising others at town hall meetings to put the Congressman quote, 'on the defensive with your questions and follow up.'"
- ABC's World News, August 4.
"Everywhere a congressperson holds a meeting, apparently, these people show up. Well-dressed, middle-class people in pinks and limes if you will. Who are they? They've been called the 'Brooks Brothers Brigade.' Who are these people?...Do you think the health insurance companies that have made money for years on health care are the bad guys here? Do you think they're behind these so-called Astroturf demonstrations? That they're not really grassroots, these Brooks Brothers attacks on these congressional meetings?"
- MSNBC's Chris Matthews talking about the negative public reaction that some Democratic members of Congress have faced at local town hall meetings, August 4 Hardball.
Evil "Blue Dogs" Owned by Killer Insurance Companies
"Hundreds of Democrats have taken campaign money from the health care sector without handing over their souls as receipts. But conveniently, the ones who are owned have made themselves easy to spot in a crowd. They call themselves 'Blue Dogs,' and they are out there, hand in hand with the Republicans - who they are happy to condemn day and night on everything else - throatily singing 'Kumbaya' with the men and women who are bought and sold to defend this con game of an American health care system....
"Without the competition of a government-funded insurance company, in one hour the health care industries can make so much money that they would kill you for that extra hour of profit. I could call them all out by name, but I think you get the point. We do not need to call the Democrats holding this up 'Blue Dogs.' That one word 'dogs' is perfectly sufficient."
- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in a "Special Comment" on Countdown, August 3.
Touting "Liberal Lion" As Inspiration for ObamaCare
"Senator Edward Kennedy is the missing man in the battle for health care reform. On Capitol Hill, nearly everyone agrees things would be different if the liberal lion were here....Today, the health care reform he calls 'the cause of my life,' is stalled....When health care reform comes to a vote, friends say, if Kennedy has the strength, nothing will stop him from returning to the Capitol."
- ABC correspondent John Hendren on World News, July 26.
Perfect Distillation of Liberal Media Mindset
"Health Reform Threatened by Conservatives' Anti-Tax Fantasy"
"Nothing has been more damaging to rational discourse about economic policy than the notion, peddled relentlessly by Republican conservatives and accepted by too many centrist Democrats, that raising taxes is always and everywhere bad for the economy."
- Headline and first paragraph of Steven Pearlstein's Business section column, July 29 Washington Post.
'90s "Boomer Buddy Team" Now "International Superstars"
NBC's Andrea Mitchell: "Clinton and Gore, back in the international spotlight again. A reminder to some of a different time, almost two decades ago, when the two campaigned across the nation, a Boomer buddy team....For years, the two men went their separate ways. But when Gore called Clinton to ask for help, to free the two American journalists, the former President didn't hesitate."
The Politico's John Harris: "There is a fraternal-like character to this relationship. They're like brothers who don't always get along, but at the end of the day they're still brothers...."
Mitchell: "Both are now international superstars, Gore a Nobel laureate. But the homecoming that they engineered together this week has to remain one of their best joint ventures."
- NBC's Today, August 6. [Audio/video (0:54): Windows Media [1] | MP3 audio [2]]
CNN Distorts Democratic Scandal as Tarring "Both Major Parties"
Anchor Wolf Blitzer: "Dozens of public figures, including mayors, are caught in a stunning corruption sweep. They belong to both major parties...."
Reporter Deborah Feyerick: "Nearly 30 politicians and public officials, Democrats and Republicans, were rounded up in what prosecutors called the largest sweep of its kind...."
- CNN's The Situation Room, July 23.
"Among the 44 people arrested were the mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus, Jersey City's deputy mayor, and two state assemblymen. A member of the governor's cabinet resigned after agents searched his home, though he was not arrested. All but one of the office holders are Democrats."
- Associated Press Writer David Porter in a July 23 dispatch.
Katie Pouts: Gates-Gate Harming Health Care Push
"The timing could not be worse. Just as he [President Obama] was pushing so hard for health care reform and having some pretty serious setbacks....How do you think the President can, if he can, resuscitate this whole effort?"
- CBS's Katie Couric to Bob Schieffer, referring to the flap over Obama's crack that police acted "stupidly" in arresting Henry Gates, July 24 Evening News.
NYT Ethicist: Gates Should Sue Cops as a Public Service
"We Americans are often mocked for being overly litigious, but we are not nearly litigious enough. In the right circumstances, filing suit can be a way to pursue social justice, and that makes it thoroughly ethical....Social change proceeds through the combination of many forces - legislation, litigation and public discourse among them. For Gates to contribute to this effort would be laudable."
- New York Times "The Ethicist" columnist Randy Cohen, in a July 27 blog item on NYTimes.com.
Media Liberals Assault Rush: "Moron" Who "Incites Riots In the Public Mind"
"Ronald Reagan abolished the [Fairness] Doctrine in 1987, but mention it today and the Rush Limbaughs of the world still scream like martyrs being stretched on the rack. These people earn millions inciting riots in the public mind. If they were required to be fair, they would soon be penniless, out on the street, cup in hand."
- PBS's Bill Moyers on his Bill Moyers Journal, July 24.
"Is right-wing racism on the rise?...You know, obviously we have got morons like Limbaugh calling Obama an angry black man....I think they are hurting their party and I think we are in a nation tired of hate....I'm going to throw a Jewish slur and call Mr. Limbaugh a putz."
- Fill-in anchor Donny Deutsch on MSNBC News Live, July 30.
Limbaugh Declares: "The Press Has Met Their Waterloo and It's Obama"
"Jim DeMint said that health care is Obama's Waterloo. The press has met their Waterloo and it's Obama. They have sacrificed whatever integrity, character, professionalism, ethics that they've had. It's all gone....The mainstream media has cashed in its chips, they have become nothing more than stenographers for Rahm Emanuel."
- Rush Limbaugh on FNC's On the Record, July 23. [Audio/video (1:35): Windows Media [3] | MP3 audio [4]]
Katie Sees "Hope" In Obama's Shrinking Economy...
"Tonight, that glimmer of hope just got a whole lot brighter. New figures show the economic decline has slowed dramatically....Good evening, everyone, we're beginning tonight with the economy because the bad news is actually getting better. The government reported today that the economy continued to shrink in the second quarter of this year, but only one percent this time and that's a big improvement."
- CBS's Katie Couric on the July 31 Evening News.
...But Growing Economy Last Year Was "Disappointing"
"The government now says the economy was receding, not growing, in the final quarter of last year. It picked up a bit in the first quarter of this year, but look at this: In the second quarter, when all those rebate checks were supposed to stimulate the economy, it grew less than two percent [onscreen graph shows 1.9%]. Jeff Glor has more about the disappointing numbers."
- Couric on the July 31, 2008 CBS Evening News.
CBS "Exclusive" - We're PR Tools for the White House
Co-host Harry Smith: "The Obama administration is giving Americans a behind-the-scenes look into the inner workings of the White House. This morning we have an exclusive look at how the letters of every day Americans make their way to the President's desk...."
Co-host Maggie Rodriguez: "All part of Obama's promise of transparency in the people's White House, an inside look, and all you have to do is go to WhiteHouse.gov/video."
Co-host Julie Chen: "Sounds like transparency is definitely in motion here."
- Discussion on CBS's The Early Show, August 3, before and after playing a lengthy excerpt from a White House-produced video, with the show's "Early Exclusive" logo in the upper corner of the screen. [Audio/video (1:38): Windows Media [5] | MP3 audio [6]]
Uncle Walter's Liberal Machinations Revealed
"In the late 1960s, just after he returned from a long visit to Vietnam, [then-CBS anchor Walter] Cronkite had sought a meeting with Sen. Robert Kennedy. I sat in as Kennedy's press secretary. The meeting was understood to be off the record, and no one else was present. Cronkite began with an acknowledgement of Kennedy's desire not to run for president but pleaded with RFK to change his mind and to announce his intention to seek the White House right away, even though the election was more than a year off. You must announce your intention to run against Johnson, Cronkite urged, to show people there will be a way out of this terrible war."
- Former Kennedy aide Frank Mankiewicz in a July 26 Washington Post "Outlook" piece.
HBO's Maher: America "Gets Dumber and Dumber By the Day"
CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "We're getting flooded with e-mail already....People are already complaining that you're calling the United States a stupid country. I'm giving you a chance to clarify."
HBO's Bill Maher: "I don't need to clarify. It is."
Blitzer: "Well, tell me why you think the United States is a stupid country."
Maher: "Because Sarah Palin could be President. Please, do I need to expand on that anymore?...This country just gets dumber and dumber by the day, and I don't think I have time on your show to list all the reasons."
Blitzer: "But this country did elect Barack Obama President of the United States."
- Exchange on CNN's The Situation Room, July 27. [Audio/video (1:15): Windows Media [7] | MP3 audio [8]]
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