Leftist Media Slam Catholic Church: “Tool of the Far Right”
“These bishops are in Mitt Romney’s pocket and the Republican Party’s pocket, and the Catholic Church has become a tool of the far political right in this country....And Benedict XVI is number one.”
— Former CNN and MSNBC host Bill Press on his Full Court Press radio show, simulcast on Current-TV, May 22, talking about the Church’s lawsuit against Obama’s health care mandates as a violation of religious liberty.
“Do you think they’re all Republican, the bishops?”
— Chris Matthews to liberal activist Sister Simone Campbell on MSNBC’s Hardball, May 21.
Mitt Romney, a Latter Day George Wallace?
Anchor Don Lemon: “The subject tonight: words that come back to haunt you.”
1963 clip of George Wallace: “And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”
Lemon: “Honestly, can you imagine having uttered those words in front of television cameras or being one of those people in the crowd cheering on Alabama’s governor George Wallace? That wasn’t so long ago. It was the 1960s. Now think about how far we have come, and think about what this might sound like a few decades from now.”
Clip of Mitt Romney: “Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.”
— CNN Newsroom, May 13. [Audio/video (1:04): Windows Media [1] | MP3 audio [2]]
Pro-Motherhood Ann Romney = Adolf Hitler?
“In a lot of ways, the op-ed [Ann Romney wrote for USA Today] was totally anodyne, right? You know, yes, motherhood is beautiful. I find that phrase, ‘the crown of motherhood’ really kind of creepy....It’s kind of usually really authoritarian societies that give out, like, the Cross of Motherhood. You know, Stalin did it, Hitler did it.”
— Newsweek/Daily Beast writer Michelle Goldberg on MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes on Mother’s Day, May 13.
Millionaire TV Host Sets Up Millionaire President: Is Romney Out of Touch?
“There are some critics who say that Mr. Romney is a rich man who is out of touch. Is that accurate?”
— Co-host Barbara Walters to President Obama on ABC’s The View, May 15.
John Boehner Wants Spending Cuts? Is He Kidding?
Host Bob Schieffer: “Today on Face the Nation, it was a week when you couldn’t believe your ears. First it was House Speaker John Boehner:”
Clip of John Boehner: “I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase.”
Schieffer: “When he said that last year, Congress tied itself in such a knot that America’s credit rating was downgraded, not to mention Congress’ approval rating, which hit a new low. And now he wants to fight the same battle? Was he kidding?”
— CBS’s Face the Nation, May 20. [Audio/video (3:21): Windows Media [3] | MP3 audio [4]]
Deluded Americans Don’t Realize Their Taxes Are Too Low
“Like anorexics, who think they are grossly fat when they are very thin, the American body politic is suffering from a national version of body dysmorphia, with nearly half the country believing taxes are high, when they are comparatively and historically low.”
— Reuters global editor at large Chrystia Freeland in a column [5] published May 25 in the International Herald Tribune.
Romney’s High School Record Now a Top Network News Story
“Tonight on World News, campaign curve ball. Mitt Romney’s high school classmates accuse him of bullying a vulnerable student. How does the candidate respond tonight?...Good evening. As we begin, there is a surprising turn of events on the campaign trail. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, accused of bullying a very vulnerable fellow student when he was in high school.”
— Anchor Diane Sawyer leading off ABC’s World News, May 10.
“Prep school bully? Mitt Romney responds to a report that as a teenager he led a bullying incident of a classmate who later came out as gay. He says he doesn’t recall it.”
— Co-host Ann Curry leading off NBC’s Today, May 11.
Regressive Republicans: “Clearly Out of the Mainstream”
“I keep hearing we’re a centrist country and that candidates, after they get through their primaries, have to pivot back to the center, because that’s where we all are. And yet, you have a Republican Party that is in no way in the center, in terms of their issues. They’re clearly out of the mainstream on rolling back, on really rolling back 70 years of legislation.”
— CBS’s Lesley Stahl at a May 3 New York Historical Society Forum on 2012 Presidential election, an event broadcast May 12 on C-SPAN.
Williams Smacks “Unrealistic”Romney for Matching Obama’s Promise
“On the presidential campaign trail, back when Newt Gingrich pledged $2.50 a gallon gasoline if elected President, he was called out at the time for an unrealistic number. Today, some of the same thing happened to Mitt Romney when he made a pledge on unemployment....”
— Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News, May 23, talking about Romney’s promise [6] that “over a period of four years, by virtue of the policies that we’d put in place, we’d get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower.” A February 2012 report [7] from President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors forecast an average unemployment rate of 6.5% in 2016 and 5.8% in 2017.
Silly CNN: Bill Clinton’s Arkansas Has “Never” Been a Democratic “Hotbed”
Anchor Carol Costello: “Last night, President Obama only got 60 percent of the primary vote in Arkansas, and 58 percent in Kentucky. At least he wasn’t losing votes to a convicted felon like he did in West Virginia. But the question is, should Mr. Obama be worried about his support among Democrats, Maria?”
CNN contributor Maria Cardona: “No, Carol, he shouldn’t be. Look, Arkansas and Kentucky have never been hotbeds of the Democratic Party....”
— Exchange on CNN’s Newsroom, May 23.
All Chris’s Opinion Anchored by “Fact” and “Analysis”
Host Alex Trebek: “Chris, I’m curious. You host two shows. Do you approach it from the point of view of, ‘I have an opinion about the subject that’s going to be discussed today,’ or you have your researchers look into that subject and then form an opinion?”
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “Here’s how I try to do it. Ready? Fact, analysis and then opinion. That’s the best way to do it. Report the news, figure out what it means, then figure out what your attitude is about it. That’s how I do the show.”
— Exchange on the May 14 Jeopardy!, where Matthews was a celebrity contestant during the show’s “Power Players Week.” [Audio/video (0:56): Windows Media [8] | MP3 audio [9]]
vs.
“If Romney gets to be President, what he’s really offering himself up on the way to the presidency, ‘I’ll be another Boehner.’ In other words, ‘I’m not as crazy as the rest of these cuckoo clocks out there, these 200 Republican Tea Partiers, but I’ll do what they tell me to do.’ You know, ‘I’m not as loony tune as they are, but I’ll act like them.’...Why do Tea Party crackpots keep winning elections out in the country?”
— Chris Matthews on Hardball, May 16.
Poor Katie, “Cheated” and “Mistreated” by CBS Sexists
“One of the problems with being a trailblazer is, sometimes you get burned. In those first few months at CBS, TV critics wrote about my clothes, my hair, my make-up, even the way I held my hands. Some said I lacked ‘gravitas,’ which I’ve since decided is Latin for ‘testicles.’...My story may have played out in the public eye, but it’s by no means unique. Every one of you will at some point be confronted by naysayers and learn that life isn’t always fair. You’ll feel cheated, you’ll be mistreated. You’ll wonder, when will I be loved?’”
— Ex-CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric delivering the commencement address at the University of Virginia, May 20.
“Bully” Limbaugh Like “Miserable” Anita Hill Hearings
“The vulnerability of this woman [Sandra Fluke] who had unwillingly, just by standing up, become part of a national debate where her reputation was being sullied by a bully with a megaphone — that just really touched me....It takes me back to the Clarence Thomas hearings. Some of the most liberal senators behaved miserably because they did not stand up for fair treatment of Anita Hill. I remember when the hearings ended and I was wrapping it up from the Senate. Tom Brokaw said, ‘What have we learned?’ and I said something like, ‘I think we learned that the United States Senate is the last plantation.’ I can’t believe I said that on network television!”
— NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an interview [10] published in the June 2012 issue of More, which bills itself as a magazine “for women of style and substance.”
Letterman Climbs the Grassy Knoll
“The day after the 9/11 attacks, the number one priority in America, if not the world, was we’ve got to get bin Laden, we’ve got to get bin Laden. So eight years go by, we still haven’t got bin Laden. George W. Bush at one point said, well, he doesn’t really think too much about bin Laden. In the interim, we invaded Afghanistan then we invaded Iraq because Cheney wanted to help out his buddies at Brown and Root and Halliburton....and grab up all the oil. I think that they went soft on the project because they were worried about upsetting their Saudi Arabian royalty buddies. So now Osama bin Laden finally is gunned down by Barack Obama, displaying great courage and great intelligence. What more do you want to lead your country than that kind of courage and that kind of intelligence?”
— Host David Letterman to NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on the May 15 CBS Late Show. [Audio/video (1:11): Windows Media [11] | MP3 audio [12]]
“Every Horse’s Ass Right-Winger” Brings Up That Quote!
C-SPAN’s Steve Scully: “Is the thrill still there today?”
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “Well, I had, actually, if you had done your reporting over at C-SPAN, you would have checked that I said the exact same thing in 2004....I’m thrilled as I speak about it now. I think this is the great country and I’m thrilled by it and I’m willing to say this, and I meant to say as part of my reporting, because I felt it. A guy like Tom Brokaw wouldn’t have said it. I’m an un-traditional person, but I have traditional values and I love the country and I said so. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said so because I’ve given a lot of jackasses a chance to talk about it....So I hope you feel satisfied that you raised the most obvious question that is raised by every horse’s ass right winger I ever bump into. And usually they say ‘tingle,’ which tells me about their orientation, but that’s alright.”
— Talking about Matthews’ 2008 comment that listening to Obama speak sends “a thrill up my leg,” during a May 22 panel discussion at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association’s convention in Boston. [Audio/video (1:51): Windows Media [13] | MP3 audio [14]]
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PUBLISHER: L. Brent Bozell III
EDITORS: Brent H. Baker, Rich Noyes, Tim Graham
DEPUTY RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Geoffrey Dickens
TIMESWATCH: Clay Waters
NEWS ANALYSTS: Scott Whitlock, Brad Wilmouth, Matthew Balan, Kyle Drennen and Matt Hadro
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE: Michelle Humphrey