Geoffrey Dickens's blog

Over the weekend Eleanor Clift preemptively accused Tea Party Republicans of using racist language in an effort to undermine passage of the farm bill.

Appearing on The McLaughlin Group the longtime editor for Newsweek and Daily Beast contributor, during the "Predictions" portion of the show predicted that "Tea Party Republicans" would resort to "racial comments about food stamps" in order to stop the farm bill. (video after the jump)

When news broke that IRS agents were abusively targeting conservative groups particularly the Tea Party, it looked at as if this was an Obama administration scandal that would stick. Even reporters like NBC’s Andrea Mitchell counted it as among the “most outrageous excesses I’ve seen.” Obama sycophant Chris Matthews predicted it could be worth “five or 10 points” for Republicans in the next midterm elections. Even the New York Times editorial board proclaimed: “The IRS Audits Are Condemned.”

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks actually jumped to cover the story, filling their evening and morning shows with a total of 96 stories in the first two weeks (May 10 through May 23) of coverage. But after those two strong weeks, the broadcast networks lost interest in the scandal, and the coverage slowed to a crawl -- just 31 stories in the subsequent weeks (May 24 through June 12). This week, the networks have run only one story (June 11 on ABC’s Good Morning America) on the IRS scandal.

Apparently being a liberal is cool nowadays, at least in Chuck Todd's view.

On Monday NBC's chief White House correspondent and host of MSNBC's The Daily Rundown eulogized longtime Democratic New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg as a groundbreaker who advanced liberal ideas like gun control long before it was "cool" to be for them.

Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann’s announcement on Wednesday that she is not running for re-election marks the end of a four-term congressional career full of vicious attacks from liberal journalists. Over those years Bachmann’s outspoken defense of fiscally and socially conservative issues drew the ire of the liberal media elites. From Lois Romano depicting her as a "maniacal" "knife-wielding" ideologue in an unflattering Newsweek cover story to Chris Matthews demeaning her as a "hypnotized" "zombie" so-called journalists have repeatedly bashed Bachmann and the conservative causes she fought for.

The following is a list of the Top 10 Most Vicious Anti-Bachmann quotes from the MRC’s archive:

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow warned her very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very liberal audience that the Virginia Republican Party just picked a slate of "very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very conservative" candidates to run for office this fall.

On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show the host left no doubt in her viewers' minds about how "very conservative" she found the candidates selected by Virginia Republicans to be, as she used the word "very" a total of ten times in just one segment. (video after the jump)

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is under fire for soliciting donations from health care companies to underwrite ObamaCare PR efforts to increase enrollment but you wouldn't know that if you only got your news from ABC and NBC or skipped Sunday's edition of CBS's Face the Nation.

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have effectively buried the scandal that was first broken by the Washington Post on May 10.

While the Big Three (ABC, CBS and NBC) networks have all done stories on the Obama administration's seizure of Associated Press (AP) reporters phone records, what is striking is their reluctance to attach Barack Obama's name to the controversy. In seven total stories aired on their evening and morning shows, since the story broke on Monday afternoon, Obama's name was used only six times. Reporters were much more likely to use the generic term "government." For example, CBS's Bob Orr on Wednesday's This Morning described the controversy this way: "The government just simply came in, got the subpoenas, took the phone logs and then notified the AP after the fact."

The reluctance to put Obama's name in these stories is important because it allows the low-information voter to write off the scandal as one caused by faceless government bureaucrats.

The revelation that the IRS was being used by liberals as a political weapon against conservative groups like the Tea Party makes NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman's 2009 call on the tax agency to investigate Catholic bishops even more chilling.

During an MSNBC November 12, 2009 segment about Catholic bishops' opposition to abortion funding in ObamaCare, Snyderman joined NOW President Terry O'Neill in calling on the IRS to investigate them. (video after the jump)

The admission by the IRS that its workers targeted conservative Tea Party groups was so scandalous even some of the liberals at MSNBC felt compelled to condemn the tax agency. On Friday's edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports substitute host Chris Cillizza exclaimed he was "stunned" by the "dumbness" of the IRS.

Cillizza's Washington Post colleague, Ruth Marcus called the revelations "outrageous." Marcus added: "The absolute worst thing that the IRS can do is make itself look political/ideological and to make it look like it's picking on some political groups and not others. That is terrible." (video after the jump)

The extent of the media's influence to shape public opinion was on full display in a new Pew Research Center poll that shows, even though gun crime has dropped by half since its peak in the mid '90s, most Americans (56 percent) wrongly think gun violence has increased.

In an L.A. Times article that highlighted the poll, Emily Alpert posited "It's unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found."

Tuesday marks the six month anniversary of Republican Ted Cruz’s election to the United States Senate, but rather than the traditional honeymoon, the liberal media have gone on the attack against the Tea Party hero and emerging 2016 presidential candidate and his conservative beliefs. In their own liberal grassroots circles, leftists have even gone as far to openly hope for Cruz’s death, as the Daily Kos screeched: “Give this man enough rope and a tree, please.”  When former Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville, on Sunday, actually credited Cruz for being “talented and fearless,” it marked a rare moment when TV viewers heard something nice about the Senator.  

From CNN’s Wolf Blitzer lecturing him on his responsible fiscal cliff stance: “You’ve got to deal with reality,” to the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart calling Cruz a “jerk,” to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews claiming hate groups “must love Ted Cruz,” the liberal media have assaulted the outspoken conservative over the last six months.

The following is a list of the Top 10 Most Obnoxious Anti-Ted Cruz quotes from the past six months: (video compilation after the jump)

On his PBS show Charlie Rose brought on editors of the Financial Times to discuss various topics, including Barack Obama's legacy, and one of them boldly pronounced he could go down in history as one of the best presidents ever. Appearing on Wednesday's Charlie Rose show Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times, predicted that if the economy grew at 3.5 percent in 2014: "President Obama will go down as one of the top American presidents."

That proclamation of greatness came after the CBS This Morning co-anchor expressed his concern for Obama's legacy, as Rose worried that the President was running out of time to see his "boldness...released." (video after the jump)

During live coverage of Barack Obama's Tuesday press conference Chuck Todd surprisingly pressed the President about Democratic Senator Max Baucus calling ObamaCare a "train wreck." It was surprising because his own network has yet to report on the almost two-week old warning that the Montana senator made to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during an April 17 hearing.

Until Tuesday morning's press conference not one of the Big Three (ABC, CBS and NBC) network reporters or anchors reported on Baucus's criticism. (video after the jump)

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, on Sunday's The McLaughlin Group, slammed the host for daring to use the term "illegal alien" in discussing the new proposed immigration bill.

In her first chance to criticize McLaughlin, after he used the phrase in a pre-taped piece, the long-time panelist griped: "And I would also ask you, John, let's call them undocumented immigrants. Illegal aliens, I think is a rather offensive term." (video after the jump)

The Obama administration has flushed almost $200 million of the American taxpayer's money down the drain on another green company failure but ABC and NBC have yet to report on it. On Monday, the electric car company Fisker Automotive failed to make a $10 million payment on a $192 million federal government loan, bringing it closer to bankruptcy. Only CBS, on Thursday's This Morning, mentioned it - and then only gave it 15 seconds.

Fisker joins Solyndra in what has turned into a long list of Obama administration supported green companies that have turned into boondoggles for the American taxpayer that the Big Three networks have virtually ignored.

On Monday's Charlie Rose show David Remnick exploited the Boston Marathon bombing to push for more gun control as he told the PBS host: "We see yet another act which might have been a Hell of a lot more difficult to pull off with effective gun control."

In a discussion about the Tsarnaevs terrorist plot the editor of The New Yorker and former Washington Post reporter pondered where they got their "pistols from?" and said that while he didn't "want to politicize" the tragedy proceeded to do just that, as he complained: "Within a week's time a very, very, very weak gun control bill gets defeated." (video after the jump)

Four out of five liberal journalists, on Sunday's edition of The Chris Matthews Show, dourly predicted that gun control was "doomed" for the "foreseeable future." When Matthews asked his panel if the NRA would "block wider background checks forever" and if it was a "permanent victory for these guys?" most of the liberal panel begrudgingly agreed.

The lone holdout was CNN's Gloria Borger who predicted the defeated bill is "framing the 2014 midterm elections," and that the Democrats would "eventually" win on the gun issue.
The other panelists were gloomy in their forecasts. (video after jump)

Actor and stand-up comic Jay Mohr used the tragic bombing of the Boston Marathon to attack gun rights. The actor, probably best known for his role as a sleazy sports agent in Jerry Maguire, used the bombing as an excuse to attack guns, as he demanded: "2nd amendment must go."

In later tweets he went on to slam his critics as people with gun "fetishes." The following are just some off Mohr's April 15 tweets: (LANGUAGE WARNING)

For the past couple of weeks there has been a steady drip of bad news for ObamaCare, but you wouldn't know it if you only get your news from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks. From a Society of Actuaries report that determined premium costs will shoot up thanks to a thirty-three percent average increase in claims; to thirty-three Senate Democrats joining Republicans in voting to repeal an ObamaCare tax on medical devices; to a Quinnipiac University poll showing even two-thirds of self-identified Democrats saying the law will either hurt them or have no effect, the recent news has been bad for the President's chief legislative victory. However, not one of these trouble spots for ObamaCare has been mentioned on ABC, CBS or NBC's evening or morning show broadcasts.

The following setbacks for ObamaCare haven't received a single second of air time on the Big Three networks:

NBC's Al Roker was appalled by a poll of conspiracy theories that showed 37 percent of those surveyed believed global warming was a hoax. During a discussion, on Wednesday's Today show, of a Public Policy Polling survey that included respondents' views on everything from the John F. Kennedy assassination to the existence of Bigfoot, co-host Willie Geist reported: "Global warming is a hoax. Thirty-seven percent believe that."

To which Roker responded with an audible, "Wow!" and then later scolded global warming skeptics: "Okay, two words: Superstorm Sandy!" (video after the jump)

The Iowa Democratic caucus is a full thirty-three months away but that didn't stop NBC's Today show from promoting a possible Hillary Clinton candidacy. NBC's Andrea Mitchell, on Wednesday's show, once again hyped a potential Hillary Clinton run for president as she proclaimed the former Secretary of State was a "rock star."

Her colleague Savannah Guthrie declared the former Secretary of State: "Would be a field clearing candidate for Democrats. That is nobody gets in if she's in."

NBC's Andrea Mitchell, on Tuesday's Today show, got a very early start on hyping a Hillary Clinton 2016 run for President as she touted Clinton as a "star attraction."

Acting more like a talent agent promoting her client, Mitchell plugged Clinton's first major public appearances and noted that "one-thousand days from Iowa" the former Secretary of State would be "formidable" if she runs again for President.

Like a concerned parent on a business trip checking in on her unsupervised children, an exasperated Andrea Mitchell whined to fellow Washington reporters Susan Page and Chris Cillizza, that they had "let the assault weapons ban...die!"

Mitchell, who is currently traveling with the President in Israel, delivered a long range lecture from Jerusalem, on Wednesday's Andrea Mitchell Reports, to Page and Cillizza: "Well, while I'm away you guys let the assault weapons ban, you know, die." (video after the jump)

When the guilty verdict was handed down in the Steubenville, Ohio rape trial, on Sunday, CNN's Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow painted the convicted rapists in sympathetic tones. Harlow emoted: "I've never experienced anything like it, Candy. It was incredibly emotional -- incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart."

Crowley pondered: "You know, Paul [Callan], a 16-year-old now just sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, still sound like 16 year olds. The other one, 17. A 16-year-old victim. The thing is, when you listen to it and you realize that they could stay until they're 21, they are going to get credit for time served. What's the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape, essentially?"

The initial sympathetic verdict coverage given to actual rapists stood in stark contrast to the harsher treatment CNN gave to the admittedly ignorant and offensive comments about rape, made by GOP candidate Todd Akin, during the 2012 campaign. (video after the jump)