Benghazi: Media Blackout

Obama's media mouthpieces are on the same page, ignoring Benghazi.

From Joel B. Pollak, Breitbart's Big Journalism:

The mainstream media's silence on the Benghazi disaster reached deafening levels on Sunday, as hosts of four out of the five major news shows--with the exception of Fox News Sunday--failed to raise the issue. Only Bob Schieffer of CBS gave it serious consideration, and only after it was raised by Sen. John McCain.

When the Benghazi issue did surface, other than on Fox, it was invariably brought up by Republican guests, and then deflected by the hosts, who largely ignored new stories this week that implicated the White House in the decision not to intervene to save the life of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and other American staff.

It is clear that Obama's media allies are doing his bidding, shirking professionalism and journalistic responsibility in the process.

Protecting Obama is more important to them than doing their jobs as members of the press.

They aren't journalists. They're serving as political operatives for Obama.

David Gregory and Jimmy Fallon (Video)

The Late Night with Jimmy Fallon assault on Mitt Romney continues.

David Gregory was Fallon's guest on Wednesday.

Late Night is getting way too political.

Of course, David Letterman has been a Leftist hack for well over a decade.

Jay Leno no longer pretends to be on the fence politically. He's officially on Team Obama.

Fallon's show had steered clear of political discussion. How refreshing! How entertaining!

That's over.

The show is now just another platform for pushing the Democrats' agenda and trashing Republicans, like the other late night shows.

Entertainment takes a backseat to campaigning for Obama.

It was a relatively brief segment with David Gregory, but not brief enough.

No surprise, Gregory and Fallon took shots at Romney and Republicans. They said nothing remotely negative about Obama, absolutely nothing.

Fallon's first question for Gregory, his major emphasis, was about last Sunday's Meet the Press and Mitt Romney's comments about health care.

JIMMY FALLON: Let's talk about Meet the Press. This last Sunday, was all over the world. It was like crazy quotes because Mitt Romney misspoke, should I say?

DAVID GREGORY: Well, I mean, I don't know if he misspoke or not. He certainly did make a lot of news. We asked him a lot of detailed questions. We've been trying to get him on the program for a long time. One of the things that came up is, you know, that he wouldn't completely throw out ObamaCare out the window, which is what he's been preparing to do, promising to do.

FALLON: That was weird.

GREGORY: So that raised a lot of eyebrows.

FALLON: He was like, 'I won't throw all of it away. I like some of the things.'

GREGORY: I do think part of it was that he wanted to appear to be a more middle-of-the-road candidate. I think he's under a lot of pressure right now, still trying to deal with the base but also realizing there's a small band of swing voters who are gonna make up their minds and they're really hungry for people who are gonna make Washington work a little bit better.

...

FALLON: It feels like the GOP, for me, like I don't know if they are really embracing Mitt. Like, 'Oh, he's our right choice. He's the...'

GREGORY: You know, there's still a feeling, after the convention I talked to a Republican who said 'You know, I feel like Republicans are really starting to warm up to Romney.' And the problem with that...

FALLON: At this point, you gotta be warm, man. You gotta be hot.

GREGORY: Right. Exactly. And I think this is the problem. You know, this was a Massachusetts moderate who championed abortion rights until he changed his mind, and universal health care, and then he campaigned as a severe conservative. So, he's still sort of a little bit at a war with himself about how he manages what I think is a much more pragmatic streak as somebody, how he would govern, with you know, all the demands from the Republican party.

"Severe conservative"?

No mention of Obama being a "severe liberal."

There was also no mention of the crisis in the Middle East. It was as though the show was taped on September 10th.

They went on to talk about President George W. Bush staying out of the spotlight.

Fallon mentioned Bill Clinton being at the DNC and his rave reviews "from everybody," and wanted to know, "Where's my man, George W. Bush?"

Gregory said Bush is done, eight years was enough. Fallon responded, "He's hiding out?"

Gregory does his Bush impression every chance he gets.

They went on to mock Bush's endorsement of Romney, made as elevator doors were closing.

It's incredible that the two would talk politics and leave Obama, the president, out of the discussion.

How is that possible?

I really can't stand all the partisan political crap being pushed on Fallon's show.

David Gregory, Part 1 (9/12/12)

David Gregory, Part 2 (9/12/12)

David Gregory and Jay Leno: Mitt Romney's 'Mormon Core' (Video)

The Tonight Show continues to go political, naturally swinging to the Left.

This is really getting annoying.

Jay Leno's lead guest on Wednesday's show was David Gregory.

Politico highlights Gregory's appearance. The article is actually propaganda disguised as reporting, just as Leno's show is propaganda disguised as entertainment.

NBC's David Gregory was a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight, where he shared his opinions on the Republican primary, a Hillary Clinton 2016 bid ("Hillary could certainly do it"), and the divisive nature of Washington politics.

But the host of Meet The Press shared his most candid opinions while discussing Mitt Romney, who he described as a "weak frontunner" who isn't comfortable with his religion.

"Romney is the nominee at this point," Gregory said. "If you look at it from Santorum's view, he's got almost nothing." But, Gregory added, "Romney is fundamentally a weak frontrunner."

Of Romney's religion, Gregory said Mormonism was at the core of Romney's character, but suggested he was afraid to talk about it.

"Let's be honest, this is the core of who Mitt Romney is," he said. "He was a missionary in France for two years. He has been a bishop in the church, which, in the Mormon church, is effectively like a a priest. Philanthropically, he's made huge contributions. He's had a big impact on the church. And yet he doesn't talk about it. It's the core of who he is, and yet he doesn't feel like it's safe to talk about."

Video.



Nauseating.

Prepare for the allegedly tolerant Leftists to push the Mormon issue to attack Romney.

Let the displays of religious intolerance begin.

Paul Ryan, 'Meet the Press': Contraception and Obama's Political Philosophy

God, I want Paul Ryan to run for president.

Ryan has the ability to get to the heart of an issue and express it in a way that's concise and clear.

He's not abrasive. He doesn't have a grating delivery. He's confident without appearing arrogant.

In short, he's a very effective communicator.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Ryan schooled host David Gregory, Leftist. Ryan didn't permit Gregory to define the debate on the Obama contraception mandate as a "faith-based broadside and an attack against the president's leadership."

Ryan explained the roots of the concern about the mandate. He defused Gregory's attack on Rick Santorum and Obama contraception mandate opponents by politely but firmly directing the discussion's focus to be about Obama's violation of our founding principles.

Gregory tried to paint Obama as a victim, being demonized by his detractors.

Ryan turned that around and showed that we are the victims.

Obama's violation of the Constitution is an attack on us.

Video.

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Transcript

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI): Well, I couldn't hear all of that clip from Rick Santorum, but what I would say is what we're getting from the White House with this conscience issue, it's not an issue about contraception, it's an issue that reveals a political philosophy that the president is showing that basically treats our constitutional rights as if they're revocable privileges from our government, not inalienable rights by our creator. And so what I would simply say is we're seeing this new government activism, sort of a paternalistic, arrogant political philosophy that puts new government-granted rights in the way of our constitutional rights. And so what I think it really is is that it's an argument for freedom, for our founding principles and for protecting those constitutional rights which right with his new mandate from HHS, like I said, it's really not about contraception, it's about violating our First Amendment rights to religious freedom and of conscience. That's what I think he's trying to get at.

DAVID GREGORY: You think it's an appropriate part of the debate for a Republican contender for the White House to say the president has a phony theology as part of his agenda and say things like, "Well, if he says he's a Christian then he's a Christian." Haven't we been through all of this before trying to demonize the president?

RYAN: Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't characterize it that way. I would simply say that he has a political philosophy that believes that he can mandate certain benefits and activities of the American people which conflicts with their constitutional rights. He believes that these new government-granted rights trump our constitutional rights such as our First Amendment rights to conscience, to freedom of religion. So I would, I would go after him on his political philosophy, which violates our founding principles.

...


GREGORY: Congressman Ryan, do you think this is an issue that's legitimate for the presidential campaign? Do we have to come to a point where the country reconciles different views about this and we have a consistent way of looking at same-sex marriage?

RYAN: Actually, I came on to talk about the debt crisis we have and the budget and I think that's really the driving issue of this, this election.

GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

RYAN: But I supported the Wisconsin amendment to define marriage between a man and a woman. Look, Bill Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act. If I recall from the last presidential campaign, President Obama, Vice President Biden said that they support marriage as being between a man and a woman. So you know, I don't know why we're spending all this time talking about this. We've got a debt crisis coming and the administration just gave us a budget that just simply charts another path to debt and decline. It's an unserious budget that just fails at tackling these challenges and I think that's what we ought to be talking about right now.

Ryan emphasizes the debt crisis. He's not interested in yapping about issues not at the forefront of the people's concerns.

The Leftists, naturally, don't want to talk about the fiscal mess, the horrible economy.

In spite of Gregory's idiocy, Ryan remains cool.

The 2012 election is not about contraception.

Good grief.

He isn't bombastic or pompous. He's reasonable. He makes sense. He conveys his message in a manner that's very palatable.

He's smart. He's likable. He's conservative.

If only...

Michele Bachmann and NBC Apology

UPDATE: NBC apologizes to Bachmann for Fallon song choice

GOP Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann received an apology from an NBC executive after an off-color song was played during her appearance on Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night," her spokeswoman said late Wednesday.

The Minnesota congresswoman received a personal letter from NBC's vice president for late night programming, Doug Vaughan, a day after she appeared on the show. As Bachmann walked onstage, the show's band had played a snippet of a 1985 Fishbone song entitled "Lyin' Ass B----."

Vaughan wrote that the incident was "not only unfortunate but also unacceptable," Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart told The Associated Press. She said Vaughn offered his sincerest apologies and said the band had been "severely reprimanded."

...One of Bachmann's congressional colleagues, New York Democrat Nita Lowey, had called on NBC to apologize for its "insulting and inappropriate" treatment of its guest.

I wonder what "severely reprimanded" means.

Probably something like, "Guys? Try not to do that again, OK?"

Whatever, all the apologists on the Left claiming Bachmann was wrong to make an issue of the incident look pretty stupid.

At least Democrat Nita Lowey had the decency to call on NBC to apologize. It really was a no-brainer.

As Doug Vaughan wrote, the song choice was "not only unfortunate but also unacceptable."

It was also unfortunate and unacceptable that it took NBC so long to apologize to Bachmann.

I suppose the network was getting a lot of negative feedback and was shamed into action.

A forced apology is better than none I guess.

Or, maybe someone at NBC genuinely has a sense of decency and knows the difference between right and wrong.
________________

Michele Bachmann plans to speak with Jimmy Fallon today about the "Lyin' Ass Bitch" insult she received when she was a guest on Monday's Late Night.

She believes an apology from NBC is in order.

Here's video:



I agree with Bachmann.

I don't know why NBC is dragging its feet on this.

If the victim of the attack had been a liberal female, or any other female, an apology would have been issued immediately.

Apparently, NBC doesn't follow the rules of the "new civility" when it comes to conservative women.

Do you think David Gregory, political civility crusader, will make this an issue on Meet the Press?

Osama: Obama, Democrats - Hypocrites

I've had enough of the Democrats and the Leftists strutting around praising Obama for HIS success in achieving the death of Osama bin Laden.

For years, they attacked and attempted to undermine President George W. Bush and the Bush administration. They vehemently objected to the methods utilized to deal with the terrorist threat and protect us.

Their assault was relentless, accusing President Bush and Vice President Cheney of being war criminals.

WATERBOARDING.

ENHANCED INTERROGATION.

SECRET PRISONS.

WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING.

Obama was adamant about closing Guantanamo Bay.

He and the Democrats opposed the very methods that allowed for bin Laden to be killed.

Here's a sampling of video, via Mark Levin:

FORMER Sen. Russ Feingold lies and rails against collecting intelligence.



David Gregory lectures President Bush on the interrogation bill.



Matt Lauer accuses President Bush of using illegal methods to obtain information.



Obama signs his first executive order - to close Gitmo.

OBAMA: Guantanamo will be closed no later than one year from now.

Of course, that didn't happen.



Dick Cheney defends President Bush and the interrogation methods used to protect the country. This is must-see.



Obama chastises Dick Cheney for objecting to Obama's plan to close Gitmo.



Obama says he "fundamentally disagrees with Dick Cheney."

So, Obama and his Democrat comrades mercilessly attacked the Bush administration, while now they're hoping to take sole credit for getting bin Laden, and wallowing in the news of his death.

It's absurd.

It's a disgrace.

Democrat Gwen Moore wanted President Bush impeached.

Yesterday, she touted the mission, military action within the borders of a sovereign nation. She didn't call for Obama's impeachment because he gave the kill order to get bin Laden in Pakistan.

Moore's statement:

"I applaud our military, our President, and his national security team for ridding the world of the dark presence of Osama bin Laden. He has held the world captive, and his death ends a tragic chapter in a horror story where extremists target innocent civilians with murder, mayhem and fear.

"Bin Laden’s death brings a sense of relief to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 and indeed every American. Our global partners and allies and peoples all over the world – regardless of race, creed, color, country, or religion – stand vigilant and unified with us today to rebuke this extremism and break free from the bondage of fear."

Personally, I don't feel a sense of relief. I'm glad bin Laden has been brought to justice, but I don't feel safer at all. This war, and it is a war, is not over.

In sum, Obama and the Democrats are shameless in their hypocrisy.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been vindicated.

Without their efforts and their tireless battle against Obama and the Democrats, bin Laden would be alive today; and Obama wouldn't be planning a 2012 election photo-op at Ground Zero on Thursday.
_________________

UPDATE: During the afternoon White House press briefing, Jay Carney insists that Obama hasn't changed his mind about the Bush policy interrogation methods.

Of course, Obama kept the vast majority of those policies in place, reneging on his promises.

Reza Aslan - 'Meet the Press'

Reza Aslan is pissed off.

Video.

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Transcript

DAVID GREGORY: I want to talk the economy, but I do want to talk about 9/11 and this tumultuous week, a surreal week in many ways, with the threats from the Florida pastor and this ongoing debate about what's going on in lower Manhattan. And, and we look at this, the views of Islam in The Washington Post poll, unfavorable now at 49 percent. Look at that, eclipsing even the unfavorable rating in October of 2001. And you look at the, the flag burnings, some of the reactions that we've seen to the debate we've been having here going on in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, burning flags, you see this kind of thing. This is a hearts and minds campaign that General Petraeus is waging in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Pakistan, and there are setbacks to it.

Reza, you wrote this as part of an NPR commentary at the end of the summer, "The fear is that this [Islamaphobia] may lead to the same kind of radicalization among Muslim youth in the U.S. that we've seen in Europe. It has already played into the hands of al-Qaeda, which has for years been trying to convince American Muslims that the unfettered religious freedoms they enjoy is a mirage. ... Are we in danger of proving al-Qaeda right? I am a liberal, progressive, secularized American Muslim. But when I see that bigotry against my faith - my very identity - has become so commonplace in America that it is shaping into a wedge issue for the midterm elections, I can barely control my anger. I can't imagine how the next generation of American Muslim youth will react to such provocations." What's behind this?

REZA ASLAN: Well, look, I think part of it has to do with the controversy surrounding the Islamic community center in lower Manhattan. And while it's true that there are those who oppose the project because they do believe that it will disturb the sensitivities of some 9/11 victims--though I, I, I do want to remind everyone that in this country we do not define our constitutional rights by how they disturb people's sensitivities--you only had to spend a few minutes at Ground Zero yesterday and to take in this international cabal of anti-Muslim zealots that had gathered together to spout the most vile racist bigotry to know that this is about something more. Anti-Muslim sentiment in this country is at unprecedented levels. We all know this. But what's truly disturbing is how mainstream it's becoming with politicians on both sides--and I would have to include the former mayor in this, in this category--openly and explicitly associating American Muslims with al-Qaeda. I mean, what I'd like to know from, not just the former mayor but from, you know, the people who, who keep talking about this Islamic community center, is that what is it that this multifaith, multistoried community center being led by an American imam that two presidents, Republican and Democrat, have used as a--as an ambassador to the Muslim world, cultural ambassador to the Muslim world, what does that have to do with al-Qaeda? The answer is kind of simple, actually: Islam. But let's call a spade a spade for a moment. If you are painting 1.5 billion people with the same brush of violence and, and, and extremism, you're a bigot. And I think what's, what's disturbing is the way that that's become part of the, the, the natural discourse now.

"[I]nternational cabal of anti-Muslim zealots that had gathered together to spout the most vile racist bigotry"?

Wow.

Aslan doesn't hesitate to paint those at the protest in opposition to the Ground Zero mosque with the same brush. He's not drawing any distinctions.

No, he has no problem calling all the protesters bigots.

Furthermore, Aslan doesn't have a problem insinuating that bigotry underlies most any opposition to the Ground Zero mosque.

He wants to call a spade a spade. OK, let's call a spade a spade.

Is this "Islamic community center in lower Manhattan" that Aslan talks about really a "community center"?

That implies it will be a place where ALL in the community are welcome and accepted. Can Jews and Christians and other infidels freely use the facilities without restrictions? Will they be allowed to freely roam ALL the spaces in the center? Will it be like the Y?

Aslan also doesn't acknowledge the views of those behind the project. For example, Feisal Abdul Rauf is on the record as being unwilling to label Hamas a terrorist organization.

Some Americans are uncomfortable with that.

Then, there's the issue of funding. What's the source of the money to build it? Will it come from terrorist groups or groups that bankroll terrorists?

Especially when we're talking about Ground Zero, those are legitimate questions.

I think Aslan is being disingenuous or he's blinded by his own zealotry.

Either way, it's bad.

Rand Paul and David Gregory - Mark Levin

Mark Levin challenges David Gregory, host of Meet the Press, to invite him on the Sunday morning show. That, of course, will never happen. Gregory is not about to go one-on-on with Mark Levin. It would be suicide for Gregory.

Levin also extends an invititation to Gregory to be a guest on his radio show. Gregory, of course, would never accept.

Levin is ticked off about the way Gregory and others in the liberal media are reacting to Rand Paul's cancellation of his scheduled appearance on Meet the Press.

Audio.

Bill Clinton, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (Video)

Bill Clinton was yapping nonsense on Meet the Press this morning. According to him, there's a virulent vast right-wing conspiracy afoot in the country.

David Gregory really dropped the ball by not challenging Clinton about the virulence of the left-wing. The Democrats took incivility to new heights when President George W. Bush was in office.

Fair and balanced?

Not even close.

Transcript

MR. GREGORY: Your wife famously talked about the vast right wing conspiracy targeting you. As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama, is it still there?

PRES. CLINTON: Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him--you know, it's like when they accused me of murder and all that stuff they did. He--but it's not really good for the Republicans and the country, what's going on now. I mean, they may be hurting President Obama. They can take his numbers down, they can run his opposition up. But fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America. Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail, and that's not a prescription for a good America. We actually need a credible debate about what's the right balance between continuing to expand the economy through stimulus and beginning to move back to fiscal balance. We need a credible debate about what's the best way to get to universal coverage.

Now, the one Republican who's come up with a good idea is Senator Snowe. She deserves a lot of credit for saying when we did this Medicare prescription drug bill, instead of giving the government the power to negotiate for lower prices we gave the drug companies a chance to offer them, but we held the power in reserve. And if there was any state in America where there was no competition, you could do it. So let's do that for health care. That's a good idea. That's, that's the kind of debate the country needs, and I hope that the Republicans will come forward with it. These...

MR. GREGORY: But do you worry about a repeat of '94 politically?

PRES. CLINTON: It, it--there's no way they can make it that bad, for several reasons. Number one, the country is more diverse and more interested in positive action. Number two, they've seen this movie before, because they had eight years under President Bush when the Republicans finally had the whole government, and they know the results were bad. And number three, the Democrats haven't taken on the gun lobby like I did, and they took 15 out of our members out. So I don't think it'll be--whatever happens, it'll be manageable for the president.

Gregory's initial question assumes that there was, in fact, a vast right-wing conspiracy. He asks, "is it still there?"

Clinton doesn't make any sense, talking about demographic changes.

Does Clinton think it was good for the Democrats to charge Bush with murder and war crimes and call for his impeachment? Was that good for the country, especially during wartime?

Gregory lets all that stuff slide by.

I think that may be due to the fact that Gregory is afraid of a repeat of 1994.

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Biden and Unemployment: Meet the Press, June 14

Joe Biden was on Meet the Press this morning, trying to explain why the Obama administration screwed up so royally on the economy and the stimulus package.



Transcript

MR. GREGORY: Right. But the, but this package was sold on the premise that it would in fact keep unemployment at 8 percent. It's exceeded that...

VICE PRES. BIDEN: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

MR. GREGORY: ...with the recovery plan.

VICE PRES. BIDEN: It wasn't sold on that. It was sold on it would create...

MR. GREGORY: That's what the report said, Mr. Vice President.

VICE PRES. BIDEN: ...or--no, it said it would--what would happen was it would save or create jobs. It's doing that. It is doing that. Everyone guessed wrong, at the time the estimate was made, about what the state of the economy was at the moment this was passed. Now, we're going to recalibrate this in terms of what we've inherited, what in fact is going on out there. But look, the bottom line is that jobs are being created that would not have been there before. All you've got to do is go into New York City. There's 14,000 teachers working who got their, got their notices. Go with me up to New Flyer bus company up in Minnesota, come--I mean, there--it's--throughout the country, it's creating jobs.

MR. GREGORY: Regardless, though, the economy is worse off with or without this stimulus plan that this administration expected.

VICE PRES. BIDEN: The economy was worse off when we made the assessment than anyone thought it was. The economy is actually getting better, things are getting better. We have a long, long way to go. But now you see what's happening. We're having a, a situation where housing is starting to improve, where lending is starting to come forward, where we have a situation where we've gained some control of the automobile companies who otherwise would have had to been liquidated in terms of them staying in business and having a prospect of growing. So I think if you ask out there, look--and look at what the, you know, these measures of confidence in the economy are. Everyone feels mildly better about where the economy's going.

MR. GREGORY: One more point about the stimulus, and that is you said when this thing was being debated, most of it would get out the door right away, $800 billion. And yet just this week there were reports about the fact that only 6 percent of that money has been spent so far.

VICE PRES. BIDEN: No, I don't know who said...

MR. GREGORY: Where are the projects?

VICE PRES. BIDEN: ...we're going to get $800 billion out the door in 100 days. We have over 2,000 projects approved. We have now a situation where you have people--you're going to see in the next--and let me--this is an important point. You let a contractor build a highway. It's $42 million, like I was just--did one in the state of Kansas, $42 million dollars. Now what's happened? The governor, the governor gets that approval. What's he doing? Puts it out to bid, competitive bid. It took somewhere between a month and three months to get those bids back. Now the spades are in the ground. Now it's working. That's why we're confidently going to predict that we will increase fourfold what went--and now $150 billion--$140 billion has been obligated now. But obligation requires, then, the states to go forward and get the contracting done according to the rules that they have within the state for competitive bidding.

I give some credit to David Gregory for even posing these questions to Biden. It's so unlike anyone in the lib media, especially those at NBC and MSNBC, to note the Obama administration's failures.

When Biden says, "Everyone guessed wrong, at the time the estimate was made, about what the state of the economy was at the moment this was passed," I hear echoes of the past administration and the way they slammed President Bush for faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Apparently, Obama and Biden, overseer of the stimulus, and their Dem cohorts had faulty economic intelligence.

And EVERYONE did not guess wrong.

No Republicans in the House and only three Republicans in the Senate voted for that bloated, useless stimulus package, and one of them, Arlen Specter, later switched parties.

The stimulus package is the Dems' baby and it hasn't helped the economy.

One day Obama will say we've turned the corner. The economy is improving. Then he'll say that many more painful, difficult days lie ahead.

It's ridiculous.

That fact is Obama and the Democrats did not deliver. The stimulus was snake oil. The Republicans didn't buy it.

Biden tries to use the tired, old excuse of what they "inherited."

Obama and the Dems did not inherit the stimulus. They created it. Their strategy has failed.

Remember the stimulus was sold as an emergency tactic to jump-start the economy.

(Oh, yes, it was an EMERGENCY. That was used as justification for not posting the bill online 48 hours before the vote.)

Obama wrote in his February 5, 2009, op-ed piece in the Washington Post that the stimulus was necessary to prevent disaster.

Obama warned of dire consequences if the stimulus did NOT pass.

"This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."

Obama and the Dems rammed the emergency stimulus package through and it didn't do what Obama promised.

It makes you wonder about this same crowd ramming through health care reform, doesn't it?

Meet the Press: Arlen Specter

DEMOCRAT Arlen Specter was on Meet the Press this morning.

It seemed that David Gregory left him rather shaken.

Specter wants the world to know that he's a Dem, but he's not a "loyal" Dem.

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Transcript

MR. GREGORY:All right, let me ask you about this switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Back in April of this year on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" you said this: "So I'm trying to bring back those voters to the Republican Party. We need balance and I'm trying to get people to register Republican. We need a second party. Look here, our country is built on checks and balances. The only check and balance in America today are the 41 Republican Senators who can talk and filibuster, otherwise, the White House, the House of Representatives will be a steamroller." Well, Senator, you've now decided to join that steamroller. What changed?

SEN. SPECTER: Well, well, since that time I undertook a very thorough survey of Republicans in Pennsylvania with polling and a lot of personal contacts, and it became apparent to me that my chances to be elected on the Republican ticket were, were bleak. And I'm simply not going to subject my 29-year record in the United States Senate to that Republican primary electorate. I'm not going to do that.

Now, with respect to the steamroller, I have shown repeatedly my independence, willing to cross party lines when I thought the interests of the American people in Pennsylvania were required it. Take one example: There's a bill on employees choice known as Card Check, which would take away the secret ballot and impose mandatory arbitration. I said when I made the switch I'm still against that bill. Democrats are all for it, Republicans are all against it and I'm the critical vote. And if see that there are other issues where I feel as a matter of conscience, I will continue a filibuster against legislation.

MR. GREGORY: Are there other issues right now that you can name where you don't see eye to eye with this president?

SEN. SPECTER: Well, I'm not going to start to explore a long range of issues. I, I'm not going to do that to...

MR. GREGORY: All right. Well...

SEN. SPECTER: You don't, you, you don't have enough time, David.

MR. GREGORY: Well, hey, we can make time. We're going to get to a few issues in a couple of minutes, but I want to stick to this point, what you're saying, this was politics. This was a cold, hard political reality check. This is what David Broder wrote in his column in the Washington Post, and it was pretty pointed. Look at the headline: "Specter the Defector. The one consistency in the history of Arlen Specter has been his willingness to do whatever will best protect and advance the career of Arlen Specter. ... So, once again, Specter is likely to reap political rewards from his maneuvering. But the Democrats should be open-eyed about what they are gaining from his return to his original political home. Specter's history shouts the lesson that he will stick with you only as long as it serves his own interests--and not a day longer." You're about to stand for re-election as a Democrat. Do you think that reputation hurts you?

SEN. SPECTER: I think it's a, a misreading. I do not think it is true. I can pick up any of the issues and tell you what my reasons were, and I think I have very strong reasons for all of them. There's more than being re-elected here. There's the factor of principle. The Republican Party has gone far to the right since I joined it under Reagan's big tent. When I came to the Senate, you had a roomful of moderate Republicans, Hines and Weicker and Stafford and Chafee and Danforth and on and on. And in recent times I have diverged materially from the Republican line. And the critical factor, David, as most--many people know, was the stimulus package.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

SEN. SPECTER: I bucked the Republican line, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe and I, and that created a schism. My approval rating dropped 30 points with Republicans as a result of that vote, so that as the pictures has evolved I felt a lot more comfortable as a matter of principle with Democrats than with Republicans.

MR. GREGORY: All right.

SEN. SPECTER: Let me mention...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

SEN. SPECTER: ...one other important point, and that is my work in the Senate on medical research. I've been a major--maybe the major spear carrier for the National Institutes of Health. And I'm trying to get more federal funding. I've opened up a Web site, specterforthecure.com. If we had pursued the war on cancer which President Nixon declared in 1970, Jack Kemp might be alive today. This medical research has prolonged or saved many lives, including mine. And The New York Times today has a column, when you compare my work on medical research it makes party allegiance look pretty small.

What an idiotic thing to say!

Why exploit the death of Jack Kemp?

Specter knows from his personal experience that tremendous strides have been made in treatment of the disease since the Nixon era.

I certainly don't know the details of Kemp's illness, but I'm sure Kemp benefited from the medical advancements of the past forty years as much as Specter did.

UPDATE, May 4, 2009: The Washington Times has picked up on this.

MR. GREGORY: I want to move on, though, to the question of what it took for the Democrats to get you. What were you offered? What inducements have you been given to switch parties?

SEN. SPECTER: None.

MR. GREGORY: None.

SEN. SPECTER: None.

MR. GREGORY: You won't retain your seniority, as you move over, on, on key committees?

SEN. SPECTER: Well, that is, that is, that is true. But...

MR. GREGORY: That's not an inducement, Senator?

SEN. SPECTER: Well, no, that's an entitlement. I've earned, I've earned the seniority. I was elected in 1980. And I think that's, that's not a bribe or a gift or something extraordinary. I will be treated by the Democrats as if I'd been elected as a Democrat.

But Specter wasn't elected as a Dem, so why should he be treated as a Dem?

Obviously, Specter was in negotiations with the Dems.

The way he talks about his alleged entitlement sure makes Specter sound like a Dem to the core.

Spoken like a dyed-in-the-wool lib.

MR. GREGORY: What about how you stand for election? Has the Democratic Party--Leader Reid, Governor Rendell in Pennsylvania and the president himself--seen to it, have they seen to it that you will not face a primary challenger?

SEN. SPECTER: They have not. Flatly not.

MR. GREGORY: But the president said he's going to campaign for you.

SEN. SPECTER: Well...

MR. GREGORY: Who's going to step up against you when the president's declared his intention in the primary?

SEN. SPECTER: Well, well, that's a different question. You asked me if they've cleared the field, and they have not. There, there are two candidates in the field and there are others on the sidelines; one other, specifically, who's talking about running. I didn't ask them to clear the field. The reality is you can't tell other people what to do. I'm prepared to run in a contested primary. But I don't want to run against a stacked deck like I would have had to against the Republican primary electorate.

MR. GREGORY: You know that Tom Ridge, former secretary of Homeland Security and governor of Pennsylvania, is thinking about getting into the Republican primary race. Do you think he could win what you couldn't?

SEN. SPECTER: Well, I think former Governor Ridge is a very able fellow, and I have a lot of respect for him.

MR. GREGORY: One potential challenger is Congressman Joe Sestak, and he was interviewed in the Los Angeles Times talking about exactly what kind of Democrat you would be. And this is what he said: "[Sestak] said that Specter would have to answer a series of questions in the coming weeks, such as why Democratic voters should view him as a leader in their party when he failed to prevent the GOP from moving to the hard right. `What are you running for, Arlen?' Sestak asked. `How are you going to use your leadership to shape the Democratic Party? Is it to the way we believe Pennsylvania should be helped? And the platform we should follow? Are you a Democrat, an independent or a Republican?'" You always talked about core conservative values when you ran for president. What are your core political beliefs now?

SEN. SPECTER: My core views are freedom, a woman's right to choose, consistently voted for increasing the minimum wage, for expanding unemployment compensation, for the nuclear test ban treaty, where I broke with Republicans. I got into politics, David, as the result of the inspiration of my father, who was a Russian immigrant, who was a veteran in World War I. The government broke the promise to pay World War I veterans a bonus. And Harry Specter was a little guy. And you take a look at my record in the Senate, or my record in public life generally, I've always been for the little guy. I say in a sense that I, I'm on my way--I was on my way to Washington to get my father's bonus. I haven't gotten it yet, so I'm running for re-election. But I've helped the veterans. I've broken with the party on, on funding for veterans. I've broken with the party on voting for Social Security increases. My record has been issue-oriented, one at a time. And I think as a matter of principle--listen, the stimulus vote was a mighty big test. It cost me dearly with the Republicans. And I stood with the Democrats because I thought it was right. I thought otherwise this country might have been on the verge of a 1929 Depression. And I knew it was politically problemsome, perhaps disastrous. I represent the people of Pennsylvania, not any political party.

Clearly, Specter's main core belief is saving his sorry political career.

MR. GREGORY: It was reported this week that when you met with the president you said, "I will be a loyal Democrat. I support your agenda." Let me test that on probably one of the most important areas of his agenda, and that's health care. Would you support health care reform that puts up a government-run public plan to complete with a private plan issued by a private insurance company?

SEN. SPECTER: No. And you misquote me, David. I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat. I did not say that. And last week, after I said I was changing parties, I voted against the budget because the budget has a way to pass health care with a 51 votes, which undermines a basic Senate institution to require 60 votes to impose cloture on, on key issues. But I...

MR. GREGORY: All right, just to be clear, Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal Jonathan Weisman and Greg Hitt reported that when you met with the president you said, "I'm a loyal Democrat," and, according to people familiar with the White House, "I support your agenda." So that's wrong? You didn't say those things?

SEN. SPECTER: I did not say I'm a loyal Democrat. You know, I read once another mistake in the newspaper, some newspaper.

MR. GREGORY: Let me--I just want to turn, then, to the issue of health care. You would not support a public plan?

SEN. SPECTER: That's what I said...

MR. GREGORY: OK.

SEN. SPECTER: ...and that's what I meant.

Gregory obviously has Specter a bit rattled.

"Problemsome"? Not a word.

Specter is not a loyal Dem.

"I did not say I'm a loyal Democrat."

That's very clear. The White House can't be happy about that statement.

I wonder if Rahm Emanuel has sent Specter a dead fish yet.

Larry Summers on Meet the Press: Taxes

Larry Summers was on Meet the Press this morning.

The way he danced around and parsed words on Obama's tax increases was embarrassing.

I give David Gregory credit for at least pointing out that allowing President Bush's tax cuts to expire IS a tax increase.

Summers, of course, disagreed.

Summers said, "Well, let--I think, I think one, I think one wants to distinguish--respectfully, David--very sharply between a new piece of legislation that raises taxes and simply allowing the laws that were signed into place when the Bush administration was in power and when there was a Republican majority in both houses, simply allowing those laws to play out."

A tax increase by any other name or via any other means is still a tax increase.

Video here.

Transcript

MR. GREGORY: Dr. Summers, Republican critics say--as they had these so-called TEA parties around the country this week to protest tax policy in this administration, Republican critics say they only way you're going to fund these priorities is by raising taxes. One of the organizers of these protests was former Texas congressman Dick Armey. He's going to be on our roundtable discussion coming up here. His views were described in The Washington Post this week, and I'll read it to you: "Armey said the real target of the protestors' ire is not the current tax rate but the much higher one that will be needed to pay for trillions of dollars in financial-sector bailouts; the stimulus package...and Obama's ambitious health-care and education initiatives, which are projected to raise the debt by trillions of dollars more. `There's no way he can do the spending he does and cut taxes for most people.'" Does he have that wrong?

DR. SUMMERS: I think he does. I think he does, David, and, you know, I think the record speaks for itself. What the president's proposed is a tax cut for 95 percent of all Americans. You know, I don't know that much about politics, but I've been surprised by these TEA parties a bit. The president is the one who's proposing cutting taxes on virtually all Americans, so I'm not sure who these TEA parties see as being King George.

MR. GREGORY: But he is raising taxes as well. He's allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire and he wants to increase the marginal rates on, on upper-income Americans.

DR. SUMMERS: Well, let--I think, I think one, I think one wants to distinguish--respectfully, David--very sharply between a new piece of legislation that raises taxes and simply allowing the laws that were signed into place when the Bush administration was in power and when there was a Republican majority in both houses, simply allowing those laws to play out. Yes, the president does believe that it's right to let those laws play out and when the tax cuts expire to allow them to expire, given the magnitude of the debt burdens that, that we face. That seems to him and I think to most Americans to be the right judgment, rather than enabling a benefit that only goes to about 1 percent of the population to leave the children of 100 percent of Americans facing a much larger debt burden.

MR. GREGORY: But, but just to be clear, if there's a tax cut that expires, taxes go up. Might--you know, a lot of Americans' taxes will go up.

DR. SUMMERS: Well, not a lot of Americans. No Americans whose incomes are under $250,000, actually, David. And way under 5 percent of Americans will actually see their tax, will see their taxes go up. And when they go up, they'll still be taxed at lower rates than they were taxed during the 1990s when our economy did, did extraordinarily well. So I find this argument that somehow some huge burden is going to be placed on the economy from carrying through on the Republican Congress' law that leaves taxes where they were in our most prosperous period in history, seems to me to be an argument that isn't the strongest argument in light of the magnitude of the problems we face.

MR. GREGORY: Is the president pledging that he will not raise taxes on anybody paying less than $250,000? I'm sorry, less than--earning less than $250,000?

DR. SUMMERS: President's made, president's made clear what his policy is, and the, and the budget is an articulation of the president's policy, and what it actually does is reduce tax burdens for those making $250,000. And it has contained--the stimulus bill contains a tax cut for 95, 95 percent of all Americans.

MR. GREGORY: And he won't reverse that at any point to fund these priorities?

DR. SUMMERS: I think I've made very clear where the, where the president is and where the president is going. I mean, he's made it completely evident during the presidential campaign and since he took office that the focus is going to be right there on raising the incomes of middle income families.

When Gregory asked point blank if Summers would guarantee that Obama would not reverse his vow to not raise the taxes of those making less than $250,000, Summers gave a non-answer.

"I think I've made very clear where the, where the president is and where the president is going."

We've seen where the president is going and that's the problem.

The tobacco tax is a tax increase that hits people making less than $250,000.

That's a broken promise.

Obama did what he said he wouldn't do.

On September 12, 2008, Barack Obama was in Dover, New Hampshire, on the campaign trail.

OBAMA: And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase - not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

That was a lie.

Under the Obama administration, those families earning less than $250,000 will see an increase in their taxes. Period.

If Republicans were still in control, President Bush's tax cuts would most likely not have been allowed to expire. Period.

Inauguration Coverage and Media Bias

The wall-to-wall coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration was historic. Viewers were treated to some of the most ridiculous statements and outrageous behavior of all time from the on-air personalities. (I don't think it's appropriate to call the personalities "journalists.")

The swooning was amazing.

Some examples:

NBC special correspondent Tom Brokaw reached back two decades to Eastern European countries' struggle to throw off Soviet domination. "It reminds me of the Velvet Revolution — I was in Prague when that happened, and Vaclav Havel was a generational leader," Brokaw said. "The streets were filled with joy."

CNN's John King turned to a regime change he witnessed in South Africa: the final sloughing off of the oppressive racial apartheid rule, with the election of Nelson Mandela. "As people watch this moment today," King told viewers, "You see African-Americans young and old — tears of joy streaming down their faces — that was very much what I saw in the streets of South Africa."

..."I think we're going to be hearing a lot of superlatives today," CBS' Katie Couric said early on, "but I think it's almost impossible to be too hyperbolic about the significance of this moment in our nation's history, if you think about Barack Obama's journey."

..."All of the buildings in Washington just seem a little brighter. I think Abraham Lincoln just sits a little bit straighter today," said ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, who spent much of his youth in the nation's capital. "There's an ebullience, a happiness, an enthusiasm and a joy that is really extraordinary and I think transcends anything I've seen on one of these inauguration days."

These statements are so over the top. They're positively goofy.

It must be understood that NBC cannot be considered a reliable hard news outlet.

Tom Brokaw was really in rare form.

From NewsBusters:

TOM BROKAW: You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the Velvet Revolution. I was in Prague when that happened. And Vaclev Havel was a generational leader and was in the square in Prague and the streets were filled with joy. And we're not overthrowing a communist regime here, obviously, but an unpopular president is leaving and people have been waiting for this moment. And there's that same sense of joyfulness and possibility even though, as in Czechoslovakia, they had enormous problems and we do as well.

That is positively buffoonish.

"We're not overthrowing a communist regime here, obviously, but an unpopular president is leaving and people have been waiting for this moment. And there's that same sense of joyfulness and possibility even though, as in Czechoslovakia, they had enormous problems and we do as well."

Has Brokaw been hanging out with Dick Durbin? How dare Brokaw compare being freed from the oppression of a communist regime to the end of President Bush's second term!

That is really inexcusable.

More from Brokaw, also via NewsBusters:

BROKAW: Listen, I just want to say one thing. Having been in the South in the '60s and Los Angeles, in Watts and northern urban areas, when we were evolving as a country, I'm thinking of all the bigots and rednecks and people I met along the way. I'm saying to them, "Take this." You know?

Good grief.

Spare us the self-righteousness!

One more from Brokaw:

TOM BROKAW: It's unfortunate for Vice President Cheney to have had this accident obviously, because there will be those who don't like him, who will be writing tomorrow that he had a Dr. Strangelove appearance as he appeared today in his wheelchair. It's not something he’ll be happy about going out in a wheelchair because he prides himself on his robustness.

That's so completely out of line, certainly not befitting a supposedly distinguished journalist.

Then there was Chris Matthews declaring that the crowd in Washington was made up of MSNBC viewers.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: This is the network that has opened its heart to change -- to change and its possibilities. Let’s be honest about it. These -- these people watch this network out here.

MATTHEWS: This is the network of the 21st Century -- MSNBC, and I think we’re open to it and that’s why this crowd knows us and I think --

MATTHEWS: We’re not crotchety about change -- stuffy.

MSNBC -- UNFAIR AND UNBALANCED AND PROUD OF IT.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- I think that Chris Matthews is mentally unstable.

While I caught a bit of Barack and Michelle Obama walking the parade route, I heard David Gregory, so-called moderator of Meet the Press, unabashedly declare his allegiance to Obama.

DAVID GREGORY: Tom [Brokaw] has talked about the momentousness of this day for so many Americans to see the first African American president, but I also think there's another view, too, which is for members of my generation.

I think about the mayor of Washington, D.C. -- and Tom, you talked about this -- Adrian Fenty, he's 38-years-old. I think for a lot of people in this generation their first thought is not, 'Wow, this is the first African American president.' That seems more natural. It's just that he represents change, that he's a cool guy, that he's got some really good ideas.

OK. So for Gregory, Obama's race isn't what impresses him. It's that Obama is not President Bush, or John McCain. Obama is a cool guy with good ideas.

That's great coming from the MODERATOR of Meet the Press.

After Gregory's remark, Brokaw started talking about his boyhood hero, Jackie Robinson. Brokaw choked up. There was silence as he composed himself.

Al Roker, reporting along the parade route, nearly lost it when he managed to get Obama to acknowledge him. While Obama and Michelle walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, Roker shouted from behind the barricades, hoping that Obama would agree to a quick interview.

Of course, Obama didn't come to Roker. According to Roker, Obama shouted to him, "It's warm."

Roker went nuts. You would have thought the heavens had opened and God spoke to him.

Just now, I heard Brian Williams on NBC's primetime special, discussing Michelle Obama and fashion.

This may not be an exact quote, but it's very, very close.

Williams said:

Is it possible that this woman [Michelle Obama] will single-handedly rejuvenate the fashion industry because she looks great in clothing?

Oh, my God.

Williams thinks that Michelle Obama looks "great in clothing."

Unbelievable. Really.
_______________

From the Los Angeles Times:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials sometimes let it be known that they stuck with Fox News for their informational needs. And on Tuesday, Fox News returned the favor, even as the rest of Washington remained gripped by Obama fever.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Fox News was the only major national TV outlet that carried a live telecast of former President Bush's homecoming speech to cheering supporters in Midland, Texas.

"Sometimes what I did wasn't popular," a smiling Bush told the crowd. "But that's OK. I always did what I thought was right."

The rest of the networks, however, did not see the Bush address as news fit to broadcast. At 6:40 p.m. EST, MSNBC was in the middle of "Hardball," with host Chris Matthews and guests batting around the meaning of Obama's swearing-in. CNN was carrying live ongoing coverage of the final moments of the inaugural parade, with the Obamas beaming from the White House reviewing stand.

The broadcast networks likewise did not cover the Bush speech. At least in Los Angeles, both KCBS-Channel 2 and KNBC-Channel 4 had returned to regular syndicated programming ("Judge Judy" and "Deal or No Deal"). KABC-Channel 7 was airing local news.

I remember watching the networks' LIVE coverage of Bill Clinton's slow-motion departure from Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2001.

CNN, January 20, 2001:

Shortly after Bush's inaugural address, former President Clinton departed the Capitol with his family. In a lengthy farewell at Andrews Air Force Base, he told supporters gathered inside a hangar that public service "is a process, not a destination."

"The work of this country will never be over, and no one will get to do it forever. And that's not all bad," he said.

"If you really believe in what we did these eight years, you do not have to be in a position of power, in government, to advance those causes," he added.

Clinton said he and his family -- former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, now New York's junior senator, and daughter Chelsea -- would spend the weekend at their new home in Chappaqua, New York. "Then," he said, "Hillary will show up promptly so as not to miss any votes -- and to fulfill the oversight function of the United States Senate."

In a final reminder of his love of crowds, Clinton lingered in a hangar at the base for more than an hour, shaking hands with the invited guests and clearly enjoying the moment.

Liberal bias? What lib bias?

David Gregory, Barack Obama, and the "Huxtable Effect"

This past Sunday, Bill Cosby was a guest on Meet the Press.

David Gregory actually raised the notion that The Cosby Show played a role in getting Barack Obama elected.

Transcript

MR. GREGORY: It's interesting, Bill Cosby, to tie a couple of these things together. There's actually been some research done by the so-called "Huxtable effect"; referring, of course, to your program "The Cosby Show," which we all watched in, in the '80s. There was something you said about this that, that comes together, which is what this family demonstrated is that they were in control of their kids, they weren't losing to their kids, which is something I said to my wife last night. I said--or actually, I said to my six-year-old. I said, "No, son, I'm the boss here."

MR. COSBY: That's exactly right.

MR. GREGORY: How important was that show, do you think, in paving the way for Obama's success?

MR. COSBY: I, I, I don't know. I--look, that show's always--it was 25 years ago, so certainly it should have hit somebody before it hit Obama.

So Gregory thinks that The Cosby Show played a role in paving the way for Obama's success?

That's quite a stretch there, Stretch.

What did Gregory think Cosby would say?

"Yes, without my show, Obama would never be days away from being inaugurated the 44th president of the United States. I helped make Obama. He'd be nothing without me."

That's ridiculous.

No disrespect to The Cosby Show, but the Huxtables aren't responsible for Obama's success.

Anyway, I thought the "Huxtable effect" had something to do with middle-aged men wearing very colorful, patterned sweaters.

Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann

Breaking news before the lib media, Drudge had this story posted before it was available on the New York Times site.

"MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat"

MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election.

That experiment appears to be over.

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.

"Perceived shift to the political left"?

I think "perceived" should be replaced with "obvious."

Like other mainstream media outlets, MSNBC already leaned to the Left. Lately, the channel went off the deep Left end.

“The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into what’s supposed to be straight news programming,” said Davidson Goldin, formerly the editorial director of MSNBC and a co-founder of the reputation management firm DolceGoldin.

Executives at the channel’s parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBC’s coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBC’s news division, and quite possibly alienating viewers. Although MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions, its competitive position did not improve, as it remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news networks. In prime time, the channel averaged 2.2 million viewers during the Democratic convention and 1.7 million viewers during the Republican convention.

...When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC.”

That was a glorious moment when the delegates chanted "NBC."

I'm sure that had to bother the NBC execs. Talk about a wake-up call!

In Cedarburg on September 5, where John McCain and Sarah Palin held their first rally following the convention, the crowd was openly hostile to the press, loudly booing the busses carrying the members of the media.

After what they did to Sarah and her family, and how they belittled conservative women like Sarah, I think people were fed up. They were no longer going to be silent. They were mad as hell and letting the press know that they weren't going to take it anymore.

In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. “MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,” one senior staff member observed. “They’re living from fix to fix and swearing they’ll go into rehab the next week.”

MSNBC needs more than a stint in rehab.

The NBC News division has to shut down the MSNBC drug house.

...NBC Universal executives are also known to be concerned about the perception that MSNBC’s partisan tilt in prime time is bleeding into the rest of the programming day. On a recent Friday afternoon, a graphic labeled “Breaking News” asked: “How many houses does Palin add to the Republican ticket?” Mr. Griffin called the graphic “an embarrassment.”

Here's the screen grab of that embarrassment:



Disgusting!

While I applaud MSNBC's move to oust Olbermann and Matthews, I don't consider their replacement, David Gregory, to be a fair and balanced journalist.

As biased and Left-leaning as he is, Gregory is an improvement.

Having hacks like Olbermann and Matthews anchoring hard news was a terrible idea, not a "bold experiment."

On Friday, September 5, Matthews was on The Tonight Show, campaigning for Barack Obama again and dissing the Republicans.

Matthews lectured the audience:

Everybody in this room and everybody in this country has got a test coming up in two months. We gotta decide who we think is gonna lead this country into the 21st century and we only get one shot at this. And we better get it right. We better not do it on the basis of stupidity or prejudice or fear. We ought to pick the smartest person we can find to run this country because it's high stakes stuff.

Matthews has delivered similar speeches on The Tonight Show. In an appearance on the show in July, Matthews couldn't have been more biased.

Matthews declared:

[Obama] has seen us as the world sees us. I just think it's inspiring. I admit it, OK? You can call it what you want. I was inspired by it and I said so at the time. And I took some heat for it, but I'd rather be honest and say what I feel than sit there like some kind of statue and say, 'Oh, that was noteworthy.'

You know, I mean, I'm a frickin' American. I do have a reaction to things. I do react emotionally to my country. I care about this country. I want to look out for it. It's my job. I'm not just some umpire. I take a side -- us. That's who I'm rooting for.

It was ridiculous to put Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews in the anchor chairs for election coverage.

When Olbermann trashed Republicans during their convention for a video about 9/11 and Islamic terrorism, he was doing hard news coverage.

After the video, Olbermann said:

I'm sorry, it's necessary to say this and I wanted to separate myself from the others on the air about this. If at this late date, any television network had of its own accord showed that much videotape, and that much graphic videotape of 9/11, and I speak as somebody who lost a few friends there, it, we, would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize. It is a subject of great pain for many of us still and was probably not appropriate to be shown. We'll continue in a moment.

That was so out of line.

There is no question that it was the right decision to remove Olbermann and Matthews from their roles as anchors.

However, I think it's too little too late. It will be a long, long time before MSNBC and NBC will be able to undo the damage done to their credibility by these extremely partisan "journalists."

I think the news division is a joke.

The problem goes beyond Olbermann and Matthews.

When John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate on August 29, NBC cut into regular network programming to carry the breaking news.

Brian Williams told viewers that McCain had selected the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his VP. He said something to the effect that she has been governor for just two "short years," commenting on her experience.

There are big problems at NBC, and they run deep.
________________

David Gregory and Jay Leno

The writers' strike is really taking a toll on the Tonight Show's guest lineup.

NBC is dragging out any of its news division personalities that it considers to be even remotely amusing.

Tonight, Jay Leno filled time with David Gregory (aka Stretch).

Leno and Gregory talking presidential primary politics -- Wow. How entertaining. I'm thrilled.

They discussed the "nastiness" between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in Monday's debate.

Leno asked if Obama's "Wal-Mart" jab and Hillary's "Rezko, slum landlord business" remark had any truth to them.

LENO: Both of them seemed like such exaggerations. Is there any truth to either of those arguments?

GREGORY: Well, you know, in Obama's case, he did have some dealings with a guy who had some shady investments, this guy Rezko; and he returned those contributions. You know, there's usually grains of truth that they get sort of, you know, extrapolated, and they become magnified. And it's the heat of battle right now.

After a clip of Hillary and Obama from the debate, they babbled a bit more about the primaries.

Gregory didn't address Obama's Wal-Mart shot at all, and he completely dismissed the Rezko (or as CQ Transcripts prefers: "Resco") stuff as no big deal.

What a partisan hack!

They also talked about President Bush.

Gregory said, "He's a total smart aleck."

Leno said, "I'll tell you something I never told anybody before."

Then Leno proceeded to tell the story of when he was attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner and as he passed President Bush to get to the podium, "somebody gooses me."

He said it had to be the work of the President.

Leno said, "It just struck me as so odd... I'm flattered I guess."

What an idiot!

Leno has told that exact same story before, almost word for word, same set up.

He told it when Matt Lauer was a guest on the Tonight Show, on January 16, 2007.

Gregory then went on to tell a story about being in Poland, reporting on the President.

Gregory said that the President "goes out of his way to say, 'Gregory, you're lookin' mighty nice today by the way.' What are you supposed to do with that? 'Well, thank you. You look kinda good, too, actually.' "

Yeah. Ha, ha. President Bush is a weirdo.

God, I hope this writers' strike ends soon.

David Gregory: Lord of the Dance

I think David Gregory learned his moves from Gene Gene, the Dancing Machine.

Gene dances better. He'd probably be a better journalist, too.

Bush Press Conference on Iraq Benchmarks

This morning, President Bush held a news conference that ran about an hour. He started out with a heartfelt statement on the death of Ladybird Johnson.

Before taking questions, he discussed the war in Iraq and the benchmark report, areas of progress and lack of progress.

The focus of the news conference can be summed in three words --- IRAQ, IRAQ, IRAQ.


Some observations:

---Someone should hold a retirement party for Helen Thomas.

---The press was especially hostile and combative. The first four questions were phrased in a condescending, "Why can't you understand?" manner. I stopped counting after that.

---Was this a news conference with members of the press or a meeting with the Michael Moore fan club?

---Martha Raddatz is a major league whiner, asking Bush to speculate on what David Petraeus' assessment of the situation in Iraq will be.

---Cheerleading for the Dems, Jim Axelrod of CBS asked if Bush was concerned that Congress would take away some of his powers as Commander in Chief by passing legislation. He didn't seem to realize that he was talking about Congress overstepping its powers granted under the Constitution.

---The shameless David Gregory referenced a Washington Post column that called Bush stubborn. In a follow-up, Gregory asked if Bush thinks he's being realistic. What a stupid question!

---Shrill Sheryl Stolberg of The New York Times interrupted Bush while he was in the middle of a sentence. Very inappropriate.

---Mike Abramowitz of The Washington Post was the first and only person to bring up Scooter Libby. He asked about the "morality" of someone in Bush's administration leaking the name of a covert CIA agent. It wasn't a question. It was a sermon.

---Wendell Goler of FOX asked about troop levels. Bush said that the generals all told him they had what they needed.

---Bush is as committed as ever to protecting the homeland and defeating terrorists and tyrants that wish to do us harm. He didn't seem embattled or beaten.

---Mark Silva of The Chicago Tribune asked what Bush's gut is telling him, referencing Michael Chertoff's remark about his gut feeling that a terrorist attack in the U.S. is near. Bush responded by saying that his gut tells him al Qaeda wants to hit us again. Silva's self-serving question gave Bush the opportunity to speak quite eloquently on freedom and the hope for peace in the Middle East.

---Ed Chen of Bloomberg News asked, "How hard is it for you to conduct the war without popular support?" He basically accused Bush of undermining the "essence of Democracy." Bush responded with poise and class.

---Breaking with form, after Bush ended the news conference and was walking out of the room when he actually returned to the podium to respond to a question yelled out by Martha Raddatz. Bush said that al Qaeda is NOT as strong as it was prior to 9/11. They are still a serious threat, but they are weaker today than they were in 2001.

---It doesn't bother me at all when people disagree, and disagree strongly, with President Bush. It bothers me greatly when they paint him as heartless and clueless.

---President Bush is a patient, principled, decent man.

________________________

Transcript

Shifty Chuck Schumer

Are Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer Democrats or Americans first?

I think it's clear.

They put party before principle.

They put personal political opportunity ahead of the good of the nation.

There is no question that Dems hope to make political hay in Iraq.


This morning on FOX News Sunday, I caught the very end of a segment with Chuck Schumer and Arlen Specter.

Chris Wallace was asking Schumer to comment on Harry Reid's comment: "I believe ... that this war is lost."

Schumer was an absolute buffoon, trying to explain that Reid didn't really mean that the war is lost.

He tried to say that Dems aren't about throwing their hands up in surrender.

Schumer said that if the mission is redefined, if it becomes just a series of small operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq, then the war is not lost.

He floundered around, insisting that Reid meant the war as it's now defined is lost, but he never meant to say that the war is lost.

Schumer did more dodging and lame rationalizing than Bill Clinton at his slickest.

Wallace challenged Schumer with his own words as well as Reid's. He questioned whether it was appropriate for Dems to be attempting to capitalize politically on the war in Iraq.

For instance:

Reid: We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.

Schumer: Look at the poll numbers of Republican senators, and the war in Iraq is a lead weight attached to their ankles.

Schumer brushed it off.

Specter rather impotently called Schumer on his hypocrisy. It wasn't much of a rebuttal, but at least he didn't just sit there while Schumer played semantical games.

Schumer claimed that the Dems are pro-victory in Iraq.

That, of course, isn't the case.

Schumer has made the Dems' intentions very clear.

Look at the poll numbers of Republican senators, and the war in Iraq is a lead weight attached to their ankles. They know that, and we've just been at this a couple of months and we're going to keep at it. It's not an accident that the ones who are squirming the most are the ones who are up in '08.

Defeat in Iraq is in the Dems' self-interest.

How can they be on the same page as America's enemies?

How can they live with themselves?

Seriously. It's nauseating.
______________________________

On another Sunday morning show note:

I want to watch the podcast of today's Meet the Press.

A number of guests were on the program to discuss the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus. University president Charles Steger was interviewed.

Did Tim Russert bring up the Cho "manifesto" and NBC's role in promoting it?

I'd like to know.

I only saw a little of the roundtable discussion, including panel members Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Gregory, Jon Meacham, and Pete Williams. Russert did launch the Virginia Tech topic. I heard a few bits about gun control and Seung-Hui Cho's "manifesto," but I didn't hear the NBC group talk about NBC's disgraceful glorification of the killer.

Perhaps I missed it.

I saw enough to notice that Doris Kearns Goodwin had work done on her eyes. She never struck me as the type that would do that.

Kenny Rogers, yes. Kearns Goodwin, no.

Honorary Iranians David Gregory and Ed Henry

Although it's been two months since President Bush held a news conference, he was in top form yesterday.

The usual suspects of the White House press corps behaved the way they usually do -- acting as mouthpieces for our enemies and doing the bidding of those wishing us harm.

Naturally, David Gregory was a standout of stupidity. He pressed the president on the administration's assertion that Iran is supplying IEDs being used to harm our troops in Iraq.

Q = David Gregory

Q Thank you, sir. I'd like to follow on Iran. Critics say that you are using the same quality of intelligence about Iran that you used to make the case for war in Iraq, specifically about WMD that turned out to be wrong, and that you are doing that to make a case for war against Iran. Is that the case?

THE PRESIDENT: I can say with certainty that the Quds force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops. And I'd like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds force was ordered from the top echelons of government. But my point is what's worse -- them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening? And so we will continue to protect our troops.

David, our strategy is comprehensive in order to resolve problems that will affect our own peace and the peace in the world. And the biggest problem I see is the Iranians' desire to have a nuclear weapon. As you know, we've been dealing with this issue ever since you've been covering me, and pretty much ever since I've been the President. And we've made it very clear to the Iranians that if they would like to have a dialogue with the United States, there needs to be a verifiable suspension of their program. I would hope that they would do that. I would like to be at the -- have been given a chance for us to explain that we have no desire to harm the Iranian people.

But my focus is on making sure that this weapon is dealt with, the program is dealt with in a constructive, peaceful way. And we'll continue to work toward achieving our common objective with other nations in the world in a peaceful way.

Sheryl.

Q -- using faulty intelligence to provoke Iran?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I heard your question, and I told you, I was confident that the Quds force, a part of the Iranian government, was providing weaponry into Iraq. And to say it is provoking Iran is just a wrong way to characterize the Commander-in-Chief's decision to do what is necessary to protect our soldiers in harm's way. And I will continue to do so.

Gregory is so combative.

After President Bush fully answered Gregory's idiotic, loaded question, he was off mike as he continued to harass the president.

What an egomaniac!

He seems to get off by taking on the leader of the Free World and treating him like a peon.

"Critics say..."

Yeah, critics like the NBC News lib brigade -- Gregory, Brian Williams, and Tim Russert, to name a few.

Gregory charged the President with using faulty intelligence about the IEDs to provoke Iran.

Good grief.

It's as if Gregory intended to suck up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.

I'm not suggesting that Gregory should be a cheerleader for Bush and the United States, but he shouldn't be an advocate for Ahmadinejad and the Quds force.

A while later, Ed Henry of CNN took up where Gregory left off.

Q = Ed Henry

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I want to follow up on Iran one more time. You saying today that you do not know if senior members of the Iranian government are, in fact, behind these explosives -- that contradicts what U.S. officials said in Baghdad on Sunday. They said the highest levels of the Iranian government were behind this. It also -- it seems to square with what General Pace has been saying, but contradicts with what your own press secretary said yesterday.

THE PRESIDENT: Can I -- let me -- I can't say it more plainly: there are weapons in Iraq that are harming U.S. troops because of the Quds force. And as you know, I hope, that the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. Whether Ahmadinejad ordered the Quds force to do this, I don't think we know. But we do know that they're there, and I intend to do something about it. And I've asked our commanders to do something about it. And we're going to protect our troops.

Q But given some of contradictions, Mr. President --

THE PRESIDENT: There's no contradiction that the weapons are there and they were provided by the Quds force, Ed.

Q What assurances can you give the American people that the intelligence this time will be accurate?

THE PRESIDENT: Ed, we know they're there, we know they're provided by the Quds force. We know the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said to the Quds force, go do this, but we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government.

What matters is, is that we're responding. The idea that somehow we're manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs is preposterous, Ed. My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we're going to do something about it, pure and simple.

Now David says, does this mean you're trying to have a pretext for war? No. It means I'm trying to protect our troops. That's what that means. And that's what the family members of our soldiers expect the Commander-in-Chief and those responsible for -- responsible for our troops on the ground. And we'll continue do so.

The President was exceedingly patient with these buffoons.

Gregory and Henry were accusing the President of dispensing outright lies in order to the lay the groundwork for war with Iran.

Both Gregory and Henry appear to be more concerned with protecting the "good name" of Iran, the nation supplying IEDs to kill our troops than with protecting our troops from harm.

They assume that President Bush is lying, or they want you to think that he is.

Their news conference performance reveals that they consider him guilty until proven innocent. Doesn't everybody?

These two aren't disinterested, objective members of the press. They're anti-Bush shills, champions of the Left. It seems they would rather stand shoulder to shoulder with Ahmadinejad than President Bush.

I think their pro-enemy slant may stem from their frustration over Patrick Fitzgerald's failed investigation. They so badly wanted Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney to be tarred and feathered, but that didn't work out.

I guess that has to hurt. They're deranged.

Their upset manifests itself in conspiracy theories and irrationality -- the libs' modus operandi.

Pathetic.