Brad Wilmouth's blog

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, former CBS News anchor expressed agreement with GOP presidential candidate  Ron Paul in opposing U.S. involvement in the civil war in Syria to protect the civilian population from the terror regime of authoritarian ruler, President Bashar Assad. After describing what he believes should be done to put pressure on Assad, he brought up Congressman Paul's left-leaning views on the Middle East:

On Thursday's The Last Word, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell disproved claims by liberals that eight states already have regulations that require Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage of contraceptives for their employees, as the liberal host informed viewers that his staff had looked into the laws of these states and found the assertions to be untrue. (Video below)

O'Donnell declared to his viewers:

During a syrupy interview with Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on Monday's The Last Word, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell was so impressed with her that he concluded the segment by declaring that she is worthy to be ambassador to the United Nations. O'Donnell:

On Sunday's Chris Matthews Show, after panel member Richard Stengel of Time magazine argued that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is an example of a wealthy President who connected with average Americans more effectively than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Rommney does, NBC Andrea Mitchell praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for donating $250,000 to Planned Parenthood, arguing that it helped him "connect to people" in his "constituency." After an anecdote from Stengel about Roosevelt, Mitchell injected:

It's astonishing that someone whose profession is to talk politics still has not heard that the alleged gaffe of President George H.W. Bush being unaware of the existence of checkout scanners as he visited a grocery store during the 1988 campaign has been disputed, as the veteran MSNBC host repeated the alleged Bush gaffe while opening his syndicated Chris Matthews Show which aired on Sunday.

After guest Andrea Mitchell of NBC tried to correct him, he was still unconvinced and declared, "I'm still not letting him off on that."

On Saturday's Fox News Watch, regular panel member Jim Pinkerton of The American Conservative magazine cited an article by MRC analyst and NewsBuster Matthew Balan, who recounted the media obsession with the Komen foundation's decision to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, while the same media have completely ignored the brewing conflict between President Obama and the Catholic Church as the Obama administration tries to force Catholic employers to go against their religious beliefs and provide coverage for contraception in its health insurance plans. Pinkerton:

On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, as the panel discussed the new Obama administration rule that requires even Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraception to their employees, both liberal columnist Mark Shields and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer hit Obama for the decision, while NPR's Nina Totenberg claimed that there were valid arguments in both directions as she made a flawed analogy between contraception and immunization as a defense of the Obama position.

But the blunt criticism directed at Obama by the liberal Shields, who is also a longtime regular on the PBS NewsHour, was the most surprising part of the show. After host Gordon Peterson noted that some Catholic leaders had supported Obamacare, and asked if they are "being hung out to dry," Shields responded:

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, ABC's Christiane Amanpour characterized conservatives as several years ago "frog-marching" the U.S. to war with Iraq as she and host Colbert discussed the likelihood Israel will soon attack Iran to prevent the Islamic state from producing nuclear weapons. (Video below)

The absurd media double standard in labeling Republicans - even moderate Republicans - as conservative while omitting the liberal label for Democrats was on display again Wednesday as CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes filed a report for the CBS Evening News recounting the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation's decision to cease funding for Planned Parenthood.

A few years ago, when FNC's Fox and Friends substitute co-anchor Peter Johnson, Jr., accidentally referred to left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as "Cesar Chavez," the famous American labor and civil rights activist, the flub received attention from some of FNC's left-wing critics, even though the FNC host corrected himself moments later.

But Tuesday's World News on ABC demonstrates that you don't have to be a target of the left to make the same flub. (Video below)

On Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, host Maher repeatedly made jokes about conservatives being racists, and at one point even acknowledged that the main criticism that conservatives make about him is his tendency to make cracks about them being racists.

Maher also defended liberal hatred of President Bush, claiming that the left hated Bush for what he actually did, in contrast with conservatives, whom he claimed mostly make up complaints about President Obama.

As he spoke during the panel segment, the left-wing comedian brought up complaints about his labeling of conservatives as racists:

After Newt Gingrich recently proclaimed that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any President in American history," presumably referring to the straightforward statistic that a record number of Americans now receive food stamp assistance, FactCheck.org set out to prove him wrong. (Video below)

Last Friday saw two high-profile liberal pundits - one on Bloomberg News's Political Capital and the other on PBS's Inside Washington - repeating the story that Newt Gingrich divorced his first wife while she was being treated for cancer, without either of them noting that one of Gingrich's daughters - Jackie Gingrich Cushman -  last May specifically disputed the account that her mother, who is still alive, ever had cancer, or that her father initiated the divorce during a hospital visit.

On Bloomberg News's Political Capital show, host Al Hunt only vaguely noted that Gingrich's daughter had disputed some of the commonly believed details of her parents' divorce as he dismissed her account as "demonstrably false." After Bloomberg News columnist Margaret Carlson called the former House Speaker a "lout," Hunt asserted:

On the Monday, January 9, Imus in the Morning, as he was interviewed by phone, New York magazine's Frank Rich - formerly of the New York Times - argued that he believes President Obama should be reelected, and seemed befuddled when host Don Imus, who plans to vote for Mitt Romney, asserted that Obama's foreign policy has been "disastrous." The liberal columnist then tried to give President Obama credit for the death of Osama bin Laden.

After Imus asked, "So you like President Obama, don't you? I mean, you'll vote-"

Rich responded: (Video below)

As he appeared on Friday's The O'Reilly Factor, FNC's Geraldo Rivera complained that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney never mentions that his father, George Romney, was born in Mexico while campaigning as the "most virulent anti-illegal immigration person ever," and ended up calling the former Massachusetts governor a "hypocrite." (Video below)

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Chelsea Lately show on the E! network, HBO comedian Bill Maher declared that he recently told former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, who will be appearing as a guest on tonight's Real Time show on HBO, that "I don't, like, hate your f------ guts,"  soon adding, "like I hate Newt Gingrich," inspiring agreement on hating the former House Speaker from host Chelsea Handler.

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Chelsea Lately show on the E! network to promote his book, The New New Rules, HBO's Bill Maher denied that a sexual joke he made last February about ABC's Elisabeth Hasselbeck and CBS's Lara Logan was a reference to the rape of Logan in Egypt from that month, as he recounted that he actually made the joke on his Real Time show before Logan's sexual assault occurred.

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, Arizona Senator John McCain complained about ABC's George Stephanopoulos because the ABC host asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney if states have the constitutional power to ban contraceptives.

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, ABC's George Stephanopoulos responded to host Stephen Colbert's question of why he - as debate co-moderator last Saturday - asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney about whether states have the constitutional power to ban contraceptives, as he argued that the question revolved around the "right to privacy."

He then suggested that a bet with co-moderator Diane Sawyer motivated him to be so persistent in asking Romney followup questions on the subject. After Colbert asked what it felt like when Romney called it a "silly thing" for Stephanopoulos to ask such a hypothetical question, the ABC anchor responded:

During Tuesday's live coverage of the New Hampshire Primary on MSNBC, at about 6:53 p.m., Chris Matthews asked guest Tom Ridge why it is that "crazy neocons" and Republican "chickenhawks" always want to "go to war with other people's children."

As he began the interview, Matthews listed several Republicans who have not served in the military and whose children have not served, and then posed: (Video below)

On Friday's CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley tagged Rick Santorum as the "very conservative Pennsylvania Senator" as he introduced a full report on the GOP presidential candidate's views on gay rights, abortion, and contraception, with correspondent Dean Reynolds warning that the GOP candidate's views on social issues that helped him in Iowa "have energized his opponents here in New Hampshire."

After noting a recent poll shows Santorum "coming on strong" in the Granite State since his near win in the Iowa caucuses, Pelley, applied the "very conservative" label to the Pennsylvania Republican:

On Thursday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, citing a recent article by conservative columnist George Will in which he asserted that Republicans "crave fun" in their presidential campaigns, host Stephen Colbert found amusement in GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's concerns about partial-birth abortion as the Comedy Central host joked about playing a drinking game based on the former Senator's attention to the egregious abortion procedure.

After reading from Will's article, Colbert declared:

During Saturday's Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, hosted by ABC, co-moderator George Stephanopoulos bizarrely pressed candidate Mitt Romney on whether the former Massachusetts governor believes the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn a 1965 ruling that a constitutional right to privacy bars states from banning contraception. (Video below)

During Saturday's GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire hosted by ABC, after two of the moderators - World News anchor Diane Sawyer and local ABC affiliate anchor Josh McElveen - had devoted six minutes to a discussion of what the candidates would say to a gay couple "sitting in your living rooms" about same-sex marriage and adoption, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich highlighted the double standard in the media's left-leaning sympathy toward gay rights issues but lack of concern about anti-Christian "bigotry" from the left. Gingrich complained: (Video below)

Appearing as a panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas - formerly of Newsweek - made claims about the existence of "angry, white, middle class" men in the Republican Party who are "seething."

And fellow panel member and Washington Post columnist Colby King accused GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum of "pandering" to a racist view "that black people are just shiftless, lazy and hands out" because of a recent comment in which Santorum appeared to bring up "black people" who receive welfare benefits, although the former Pennsylvania Senator denies that he used the word "black." (Video below)

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, New York magazine's John Heilemann - also an MSNBC analyst and formerly of The New Yorker - made a gay joke about GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as he described the competitive election in Iowa. (Video below)

After host Stephen Colbert, playing the part of committed conservative wanting to pump up Santorum, asked of the Iowa results, "So, Santorum, this is a victory, right? He may have lost, but it's a victory," Heilemann took a shot at the former Pennsylvania Senator in his response:

On Tuesday's The Daily Show on Comedy Central, as he recounted the racist newsletters that were published in the 1990s under the name of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, host Jon Stewart mocked other GOP candidates after clips of them attacking Paul for not taking seriously the threat of a nuclear Iran, suggesting that the candidates were not so concerned about racism. (Video below)

Moments later, as he mocked Republican voters for adding former Senator Rick Santorum to the list of candidates they are willing to consider, Stewart took another race-based shot at the Republican Party as he used a box of Whitman's chocolates as a prop and pronounced the brand name as if it were "White Man's."

After showing clips of the candidates criticizing Paul's willingness to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, Stewart cracked:

During MSNBC coverage of the Republican Party Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, shortly after 8:30 p.m, MSNBC's Chris Matthews lumped "neocons" and the socially conservative Moral Majority movement in with segregationist Dixiecrats as he asserted that Republicans had picked up the "droppings" and the "effluent" of the Democratic Party, causing the Republican Party to be too "junk laden" to open their minds to Ron Paul's far-left anti-war views. (Video below)

As he interviewed Iowa Republican Governor Terry Branstad on Monday's The Early Show on CBS, substitute co-anchor Bob Schieffer naively wondered why someone does not act to put an end to negative ads in political campaigns.