CNN’s Night of Liberal Questions
Will from Boston: “[Are] African-Americans ever going to get reparations for slavery? I know y’all gonna run around this question, dipping and dodging, so let’s see how far y’all can get.”
Mother of U.S. soldier: “Is the reason that we are still in Iraq — and seemingly will be for some time — due to the Democrats’ fear that blame for the loss of the war will be placed on them by the Republican spin machine?”
Animated snowman with falsetto voice: “Hello, Democratic candidates. I have been growing concerned that global warming, the single most important issue to the snowmen of this country, is being neglected. As President, what will you do to ensure that my son will live a full and happy life? Thank you.”
— Three of the questions posed to the Democratic presidential candidates during CNN’s YouTube debate, July 23. Of the 38 video questions selected by CNN, 17 reflected a liberal or far-left agenda, compared to just six that emphasized a conservative perspective. (With WMV video [1]/MP3 audio [2])
PBS’s Push for Impeachment
“When September comes, you can count on more appeals for delay or excuses. That’s the formula for perpetual war — what our Founders most feared, because it would turn our Constitution on its head, throwing off the checks and balances so crucial to liberty, and leaving all power in an imperial executive....Impeachment hearings are one way to go....In the meantime, those of us in public television have an obligation to make sure viewers like you stay in the loop....When we broadcast teach-ins on the Vietnam War, and the Watergate hearings during the trial of Richard Nixon, it was a real public service — the reason PBS was created. We should keep Iraq in prime time every week — the fighting and dying, the suffering, the debate, the politics, the extraordinary costs. It’s months until September. This war is killing us now, body and soul.”
— PBS’s Bill Moyers on his Bill Moyers Journal, July 13. (With WMV video [3]/MP3 audio [4])
“The list of Bush administration crimes is very real, but I have not paid much attention to the blogs, petitions and other efforts to promote impeachment, on the theory that they are diversionary to the more important efforts to end the war in Iraq....The crimes are real and probably impeachable, and the monarchial arrogance of the Bush-Cheney administration is monumental. But the timing is wrong.”
— Former NBC and CNN newsman Ken Bode, now the ombudsman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in a July 20 column published in the Indianapolis Star.
McCain’s Woes: Blame Iraq...
“No public figure has supported the President’s Iraq policy more than Senator John McCain, and he’s paid a heavy price for that. His presidential campaign is struggling and today, Jeff Greenfield reports, there was a big shake-up.”
— CBS’s Katie Couric on the July 10 Evening News.
“Arizona Senator John McCain has been one of the President’s staunchest allies when it comes to the war in Iraq and now that support may be partly responsible for dwindling poll numbers and a big shake-up among top campaign staffers on Tuesday.”
— NBC’s Matt Lauer on the July 11 Today.
Reporter David Gregory: “Just back from Iraq, Senator John McCain, whose presidential campaign has been undermined by his support for the war, gave the President a big boost.”
Senator John McCain: “From what I saw and heard while there, I believe that our military, in cooperation with the Iraqi security forces, is making progress...”
— NBC Nightly News, July 10.
...Or His Many Liberal Positions?
“Conservatives don’t like him, haven’t liked him for a long time. No matter how conservative he tries to talk, they just do not trust him, and no matter how much of a hawk he’s going to be on Iraq, that doesn’t buy him any wiggle room because of what he did on McCain-Feingold [campaign finance] and because of what he did on Kennedy-McCain [immigration]....and those things are killers with the conservative movement.”
— The Politico’s Jim VandeHei, Inside Washington, July 13.
Bush’s “Spa” for Osama
“There have been some really blistering editorials this morning and statements from people about the [National Intelligence] report, saying that it is grim, that it shows the administration has a failed strategy, that al Qaeda has not only strengthened and reconstituted, but this is Richard Clarke, the former terrorism czar who said, quote, ‘al Qaeda has been recovering and it’s on President Bush’s watch.’...One columnist this morning said, in effect, that he has given a spa to Osama bin Laden and also Ayman al-Zawahiri to refresh themselves and get back in shape.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer, quoting liberal columnist Maureen Dowd, to White House homeland security advisor Fran Townsend on Good Morning America, July 18.
Terror Threat = Smoke & Mirrors
“The fact that al Qaeda has reorganized itself through the war in Iraq that America handed it on a silver platter...is old news. We saw that happen back in 2004.....We must be aware of the spin — the smoke and mirrors from the administration, trying to reshape the message on Iraq being specifically about al Qaeda, America’s lingering, most familiar fear, trying to invoke some Pavlovian response from the American public, to fear them into again supporting the war. That doesn’t quite hold water.”
— CNN’s Michael Ware on The Situation Room, July 17. (With WMV video [5]/MP3 audio [6])
Lectures from a Liberal Gasbag
“Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff reveals this ‘gut feeling’ about an increased risk of terrorist activity here this summer. His ‘gut feeling.’ How about my gut feeling that Mr. Chertoff said this so that the lead story on the newscast on ABC would not be Iraq or Alberto Gonzales or that USA Today poll, but that it would be this, you know, ‘gut feeling’ of his, plus a vague sky-is-falling story about an al Qaeda cell?...The ‘gut feeling’ has been described as breaking news. Actually, a ‘gut feeling’ would be closer to breaking wind.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Countdown, July 10.
“Let your minions try to spread the blame to the real patriots here, who have sought only to undo the horrors you have wrought since 2002. Let them try it, until the end of time....This, sir, is your war....Take it into your own hands, Mr. Bush. Go to Baghdad now and fulfill, finally, your military service obligations. Go there and fight your war. Yourself.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann in a “Special Comment” on Countdown, July 19.
Next Step: War Crimes Trials
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “Russ Feingold wants to censure the President, the Vice President...”
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore: “Good idea....Per-sonally I’d like to see a perp walk coming out of the West Wing of the White House.”
Matthews: “Do you think they’re guilty of war crimes?”
Moore: “Absolutely....I think we need a trial, in this country, where Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush would be brought up on charges for causing the deaths of so many people....”
Matthews: “It’s interesting if you go back....the Nuremberg Trials weren’t about the genocide, it was about waging an aggressive war. I love reading some of that language. It’s interesting.”
— MSNBC’s Hardball, July 23. (With WMV video [7]/MP3 audio [8])
Good News = Time to Worry
Fill-in anchor Elizabeth Vargas: “The Dow Jones stock index reached new heights today, gaining another 82 points to close above 14,000 for the first time. There’s a good deal of worrisome economic news these days — from sky-high gas prices to America’s gaping trade deficit — yet the market keeps marching on....”
Reporter John Berman: “The Dow went from 13 to 14,000 in just three months. And this, despite those serious jitters about the U.S. economy: $3 gas, a major housing slump — a drag on the U.S. economy, but not enough to darken moods on Wall Street today.”
— ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson, July 19.
Touting the New Moral Majority
Reporter Jeff Glor: “A recent CBS News poll shows a large majority of voters want their candidates to have strong religious beliefs. Typically this would benefit Republicans, but this year we could be in for a change....”
Time’s Amy Sullivan: “We have never seen this many Democratic politicians who are both so sincerely religious and also very comfortable with the language of faith.”
Glor: “...So far in this campaign, the Democratic front-runners are being more vocal about faith than their Republican counterparts.”
Sullivan: “I don’t think Republicans can get back their monopoly on religion, if only because the only reason they had it in the first place was that Democrats ceded that ground to them. Now that Democrats have kind of turned a corner, this is a completely different game.”
— CBS’s The Early Show, July 16.
Blame Reagan for Tammy Faye?
“For many, the TV image of then-Mrs. Bakker forgiving husband Jim’s infidelities, tears streaking her cheeks with mascara, became a symbol for the wages of greed and hypocrisy in 1980s America.”
— Associated Press reporter Steve Hartsoe in a July 22 dispatch on the death of the former PTL co-host Tammy Faye Messner.
Journalists Fair? Ha, Ha, Ha!
“You know, I wanted to sit on a jury once and I was taken off the jury. And the judge said to me, ‘Can, you know, can you tell the truth and be fair?’ And I said, ‘That’s what journalists do.’ And everybody in the courtroom laughed. It was the most hurtful moment I think I’ve ever had.”
— Co-host Diane Sawyer joking on ABC’s Good Morning America July 12, following a report on how some people try to avoid serving on a jury. (With WMV video [9]/MP3 audio [10])
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