2012 Convention Watch

A day after CNN salivated over Michelle Obama's DNC address, ABC hyped the enthusiasm at the Democratic Convention as hitting unprecedented levels on Wednesday night.

"Look, I have never seen a Democratic convention like this," insisted commentator Cokie Roberts. "When the President, the former President, comes out, they – it is going to be a moment like no moment you've seen." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

If you have tickets for the Democratic National Convention and wanted to see President Barack Obama deliver his acceptance speech this Thursday at Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium, you’ll be greatly disappointed.  Despite the official excuse of severe weather -- forecasters put the chance of storms at 20-30 percent -- the change in venue really seems to be because Obama campaign officials fear they can't fill the 74,000-seat stadium.

Reporting that, of course, is unfathomable for the lapdog broadcast media, but some print and online reporters are skeptical.

When CNN's Piers Morgan argued that President Obama needed time to fix the economy, Paul Ryan answered him on Wednesday that Obama slowed what should have been a quick recovery.

"You have to give President Obama a bit of time just to get things back on track," the liberal CNN host pushed. Ryan countered that "usually when we have a deep recession in America, we come bounding out of it with fast economic growth and quick job creation," before adding "We're limping out of this recession right now." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

MSNBC's Chris Matthews this evening finally got the chance to interview Julian Castro, the Democratic mayor of San Antonio, Texas, whom Matthews insisted had given one of the "greatest" political speeches he ever heard Tuesday night.

It was, of course, a thoroughly softball interview, but it concluded on an odd note, with Matthews delving into his unhealthy obsession with "birtherism" to ask Castro why his home state is so chock full of people who don't believe President Obama is a natural-born citizen [MP3 audio here; video follows page break].

Shortly after 5 p.m. Eastern today, it took three attempts for Democrats to reinstate the words "God" and "Jerusalem" into their party platform, drawing some reactions of despondency from the more liberal members of the party. Over on MSNBC, for example, Chris Hayes called it a "craven capitulation."  

This shift from the original platform that omitted God and did not explicitly express support of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital wasn’t mentioned once during ABC World News September 5 broadcast. Below is video from C-SPAN of the actual vote on the matter, which, you can tell was unlikely an actual 2/3rd vote for the rule change.

During the Today's Professionals panel segment on Wednesday's NBC Today, fill-in co-host Tamron Hall promoted an online petition to get 90-year-old actress Betty White to appear at the Democratic National Convention, noting that the creator of the petition, "is concerned that Clint Eastwood gave elderly people a bad name with what he did" at the Republican convention.

Advertising executive Donny Deutsch declared that "Republicans still have egg on their face from the Clint Eastwood thing" and urged the Democrats not to do it. NBC medical editor Nancy Snyderman added: "I would not counter something that didn't go well." Attorney Star Jones rounded out the discussion by calling on Democrats to "Let the stench stay over there," meaning on the Republican side.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appeared on all three morning shows, Wednesday, but faced no questions about the city's skyrocketing murder rate. Instead, NBC, CBS and ABC treated the former chief of staff to Barack Obama as a political pundit and not someone responsible for dealing with the 350-plus slayings in his city. (August was the deadliest month yet in 2012.)

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos did note that Emanuel would be leaving the Democratic National Convention in Chicago after Wednesday. He cited "real, real problems" in the city." However, the host and friend of Emanuel didn't mean murder. Stephanopoulos, who worked with the now-Mayor back in the Clinton White House, quizzed, "Potentially the first teacher's strike in 20 years. You going to be able to prevent it?"

All three network morning shows on Wednesday ignored a move by Democrats to delete references to God from the party's 2012 convention platform. NBC skipped another controversial decision, removing an assertion that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. (CBS and ABC, however, did cover this decision.)

Some top Democrats appear touchy about the decision to avoid mentioning God. Senator Dick Durbin became visibly angry when Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked about it, Tuesday. Baier reminded, "In 2008, God was mentioned once. In 2004, it was mentioned seven times. In 2000, God was mentioned four times. Just a question. The question is why take it out in this time?" [See video of the heated exchange below. MP3 audio here.]

Instead of Americans asking if their country is better off now than four years ago, CNN's Piers Morgan thinks they should compare the present situation to "three and a half years ago" since President Obama's first half-year was "hell on earth." He aired his liberal points early Wednesday morning at the Democratic National Convention.

 "This whole mixed picture we've been getting about is America better off than it was four years ago, would it have been more honest for everyone to get together and say look, here's the reality: 'We're better off than we were three and a half years ago, but for the first half of that first year it was hell on earth'," he posed to his Democratic guests former governors Bill Richardson (N.M.) and Ed Rendell (Penn.). [Video below the break.]

Last week, MSNBC steadfastly refused to dip into a speech by newly-minted Republican and former Rep. Artur Davis (Ala.), who just four years ago was not only a Democrat but an Obama campaign co-chair.

But on Tuesday night, MSNBC showed in full the speech of Maria Ciano, whom anchor Rachel Maddow tagged a "former Republican talking about her conversion to Democratic politics, particularly on the issue of choice." Ciano launched into a misleading, error-laden diatribe, which of course was NOT fact-checked by MSNBC panelists afterward. Also left unmentioned was that Ciano has been a Democrat since at least two years prior to Obama's election to the presidency. From the conservative Power Line blog [emphasis mine]

CNN's Monday night special "Obama Revealed" included some glowing coverage of the "candidate of hope" Barack Obama and a thumbs-up to his controversial auto bailout that cost taxpayers $14 billion.

Correspondent Jessica Yellin began the special by touting the "candidate of hope" that "inherits a nation in crisis." She added that Obama is a "leader driven to make history" and "cool under pressure." [Video below the break.]

For MSNBC's Chris Matthews, every speech from a person of color who is a member of the Democratic Party is historic – or the best speech he's ever heard. After the Keynote address, on Tuesday night, by San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, Matthews claimed that it was one of the greatest speeches he's ever heard. It's becoming a nasty habit.

On Monday night, at the conclusion of Matthews's Barack Obama: Making History, he said "President Obama is the product of our turbulent history, all that came before led to him." Yes, not hyperbolic in the slightest.

"No one's ever going to nominate Joe Biden to be the chairman of MENSA --  he's not Albert Einstein," MSNBC political analyst John Heilemann told Chris Matthews on the Tuesday edition of Hardball. "But what he's always been a master of is applied intelligence," he added, remarking on the vice president's preparation for the October 11 debate with policy-wonky Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Heilemann enthused about Biden's role in 1987 in scuttling President Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert Bork, "supposedly one of the smartest guys in all of the history of conservatism, of conservative legal theory."

"There's not many debates Joe Biden lost in his career," the New York magazine writer added of the Delaware Democrat who "goes to school" by preparing heavily, whether its to take on Sarah Palin or Robert Bork. Completely omitted by Heilemann, of course, was the revelation during the 1988 presidential campaign of Biden's having plagiarized a speech by then-British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock, which, of course sank his run for the presidency. [video embed follows page break]

While folks at MSNBC are calling Republican vice presidential nominee a "compulsive liar" for, among other things, his factually accurate statement about then-Sen. Obama's February 13, 2008 visit to a now-shuttered Janesville, Wis., General Motors plant, it's worth noting that, well, the video doesn't lie.

Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com has Obama's pledge on video here [You can also watch the video below the page break.] What's more, a search of the Nexis database reveals that David Wright of ABC News showed Obama's pledge in a story on the February 13, 2008 World News (emphasis mine):

A calendar that compares Barack Obama to Jesus Christ may not get too much media play. It could be an uncomfortable reminder of the time when journalists, such as Evan Thomas, compared the President to "God." 

One of the hottest selling items at the Democratic National Convention is a 2013 calendar titled "Keep the Dream" that features 16 flattering photos of the First Family and their dogs. In honor of the President's birth month, a picture of Obama's birth certificate was used for August. The caption read "Heaven Sent" and proceeded to quote John 3:16 underneath, as if he were the actual Messiah.

In a softball interview with Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie recited Democratic attack lines against Mitt Romney perfectly: "You have made a career of railing against Wall Street....Is it your job here, as you understand it, to argue that Mitt Romney is the personification of that Wall Street greed and excess?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

After Warren gushed about being "delighted" to have prime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention and ranted about the middle class getting "hammered," Guthrie again urged her to bash Romney: "Do you think Romney's Wall Street background disqualifies him from caring about the middle class or knowing what to do about the middle class?"

For six days and counting (including this morning), the broadcast networks entertained the idea that Paul Ryan was lying in his convention speech last week. Yet the problem for journalists was that Ryan’s speech was accurate, even if they didn’t like the implications. NBC’s Chuck Todd on Thursday evening’s Nightly News, for example, even conceded that “what he [Ryan] said many times was technically factual,” but grumbled that “by what he left out,” he “actually distorted the actual truth.”

Such a sensitive standard means journalists could endlessly complain, since even truthful speeches or TV ads necessarily omit information detrimental to their campaign objective. The question is, will journalists be so sensitive when liberal Democrats take liberties with their campaign rhetoric?

At the top of Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie teased an upcoming interview with Paul Ryan by slamming the Republican vice presidential candidate: "Paul Ryan joins us to talk about where he thinks the presidential race is headed and criticism that he's played fast and loose with the truth." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Beginning the interview with Ryan minutes later, fellow co-host Matt Lauer parroted Guthrie's attack: "There are some people who are claiming that you played a little fast and loose with the truth on certain key elements. And I'm not just talking about Democratic analysts, I'm talking about some independent fact checkers. Would you concede that while many of the things you said were effective, some were not completely accurate?"

The hosts of the three network morning shows on Tuesday grilled Paul Ryan, questioning the Republican's facts and citing Joe Biden as a policy expert. Former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos highlighted a quote from the Vice President touting the last four years.

Good Morning America's Stephanopoulos interrogated, "When [Biden] says Osama bin Laden is dead, General Motors is alive, you say?" Using remarkably similar language, CBS This Morning anchor Charlie Rose pressed Ryan on Obama's first term, parroting, "...Vice President Biden has come back and said, as you know, General Motors is alive and Osama Bin Laden is dead."

Of the three morning shows, only ABC's Good Morning America on Monday highlighted two drunken delegates at the Democratic National Convention, one of whom was forced to leave North Carolina. Fill-in host Lara Spencer touted the story, asserting that "things are already off to a shaky start."

Reporter Cecilia Vega explained, "Two California Democratic delegates partied into the wee hours of Sunday morning. In the lobby of their Charlotte hotel, one was so drunk he apparently passed out and was taken to the hospital." She added that the unidentified delegate was "belligerent" and threatened with arrest for impersonating a congressman. ABC reported the story in the 7am and 8am hour. CBS This Morning and NBC's Today, however, skipped it.

Immediately after Paul Ryan concluded his acceptance speech for the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination on Wednesday, the media sought ways to tear down the Wisconsin Congressman's indictment of the failures of the Obama administration. In particular, networks and newspapers attempted to knock down Ryan's accurate claim that President Obama promised to keep open a GM plant that closed in 2009.    

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and PolitiFact quickly labeled Ryan's criticism as "false," claiming Obama made no such promise and that the plant closed before he took office. But as The Examiner's Conn Carroll detailed on Thursday, that supposed "fact check" was false:

The network morning shows on Friday slammed conservative actor Clint Eastwood's "bizarre," "rambling" endorsement of Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention. Good Morning America, CBS This Morning and NBC's Today dissected the speech in 11 out of 12 segments about the convention.

GMA guest host Amy Robach mocked, "The good, the bad and the ugly." She hyperbolically added, "Did Clint Eastwood derail Romney's big night with a bizarre warm up speech?"  CBS This Morning co-anchor Norah O'Donnell spit out a similar critique: "It was the 'no good, the bad and the ugly.'" CBS obsessed over Eastwood the most, in five out of five segments on the GOP's convention. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Once again the folks at NBC News have "curated some of the notable speeches" from a night at the GOP convention. As I noted here and here, NBC left out some compelling speeches by minority politicians who started out in life as Democrats. This time, among the speeches that didn't make the cut was that of Tom Stemberg, the founder of Staples. Staples is one of the wildest success stories of Bain Capital, the much-maligned private equity firm that Mitt Romney co-founded.

In his brief speech, Stemberg praised Romney's tenure at Bain and blasted the Obama/Democratic Senate's handling of the economy:

CNN's Piers Morgan fell on his face Thursday trying to fact-check Paul Ryan's RNC speech from the previous night. He was proven wrong not only by CNN's own report, but also by his guest Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Challenging Ryan's point that a GM plant closed under Obama after he said it would stay open for years if it cooperated with the government, Morgan said the plant "closed down under George Bush, in December of that year," in agreement with the Obama campaign. [Video coming soon.]

Piers Morgan said on Thursday that the Todd Akin controversy supports "the argument that the Republican Party is anti-women," playing into the Democratic playbook.

"I suppose the problem is what it does is it lends again succor to the argument that the Republican Party is anti-women," he stated after bringing up Akin's remarks in an interview with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his wife Cindy. [Video below the break.]

The liberal media can’t seem to help themselves. While counter-arguments are occasionally acknowledged, most journalists of the progressive persuasion are not interested in fair and balanced coverage of politics. Facts and figures are seemingly subjective in the whole scheme of things. Severely limited studies and polls seem to provide them with all the information they need. Oh, and almost everything is racist.

The Washington Post has been one of most reliable offenders, as far as daily publications are concerned. For example, Rosalind Helderman, Jon Cohen and Aaron Blake collaborated on a report that was published today suggesting the “Republican Party base is white, aging and dying off.” This is according to an “extensive analysis" by David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

In an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer worried that the Republican National Convention was not appealing to a broad audience: "When you talk about the conservatives and we talk about the gender gap and how important women are...do you think this convention is reaching out to the people who are going to decide this election, independents, moderates and women?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Earlier in the show, Lauer hyped the same concern while talking to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, wondering if Paul Ryan's "staunchly conservative views on topics like abortion" created a "fear" among Republicans that female voters would be turned off.

CBS News has talked quite about their latest poll released Tuesday, especially how Mitt Romney is trailing Barack Obama by 10 points among women voters -- bad news for the Republican, of course. But unstated in the network's on-air coverage is the rest of the story: that Barack Obama trails Mitt Romney among men voters by 9 points, by a 49 to 40 margin.

How come no discussion of how poorly Obama is doing with men? Is it because the Democrats have cooked up a "war on women" theme for this campaign, and talking about the male vote doesn't do anything to further that partisan objective?

Once again, the NBC Politics team at NBCNews.com cobbled together what they consider the most "notable" of the speeches from last night's Republican convention. Once again, a dynamic Democrat-turned-Republican speaker was left out of the "curated" selection: Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, a woman of Hispanic ethnic heritage.

Yesterday I noted how the website omitted video of Artur Davis's speech. In her speech Wednesday night, Martinez noted that although she grew up a Democrat, the daughter of Democrats, her values were always conservative. She shared with convention goers the story of how she came to the realization that the Republican Party, not the Democrats, best shared the values that her hard-working, business-owning parents instilled in her. You can watch Martinez's speech at Breitbart TV here.