Brent Baker's blog

Melinda Henneberger, who in 2009 proclaimed “Ted Kennedy has been a huge inspiration to me” and boasted of a “longtime political crush on the man who either in spite of his flaws and losses or because of them accomplished more than anyone else in my lifetime for causes that liberals (and other Americans) care about,” has joined the Washington Post where, per a Thursday announcement posted by Poynter’s Romenesko site, Henneberger “will write portraits of key political players and crucial campaign moments. She also will anchor a new blog on politics and culture.”

Friday’s NBC Nightly News once again promoted the left-wing/anti-capitalist protests which Brian Williams non-ideologically described as “a protest against economic and social inequality” that “has now spawned organized marches in 45 states.”

Reporter Chris Jansing featured a man whose “frustration brought him to lower Manhattan” and he pronounced: “I think it's our Arab Spring.” Jansing next trumpeted how “‘Occupy Wall Street’ is drawing historical comparisons,” a quest for historic impact the networks never sought for the Tea Party. Her expert, Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin, whom she failed to note is co-editor of the far-left quarterly, Dissent.

CBS and NBC led Wednesday night with glowing stories about the growth and diversity of the far-left “Occupy Wall Street” protests, though without any ideological label applied nor any critics allowed, a promotional approach the networks never provided in Tea Party coverage.

“We begin tonight with what has become by any measure a pretty massive protest movement,” NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams announced. “While it goes by the official name ‘Occupy Wall Street,’ it has spread steadily and far beyond Wall Street, and it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era.”

ABC’s Cecilia Vega touted how “it is a crowd that grows daily in size and diversity,” CBS’s Michelle Miller heralded “they’re gaining momentum and new recruits” and NBC’s Mara Schiavocampo trumpeted “the largest crowd yet, and more varied in age and background.”

Very much unlike how they greeted the Tea Party protests in early 2009, the networks are embracing the new left-wing/anti-capitalist protests, even failing to condemn their unruly behavior which resulted in 700 arrests in New York City over the weekend, conduct for which they would have condemned Tea Party activists. 

“Is there about to be a nationwide movement building right now to point a finger at Wall Street on greed?” ABC’s Diane Sawyer hopefully cheered Monday night, touting how “protests are spreading across the country.” NBC anchor Brian Williams trumpeted how “the movement that started here in New York about a month ago...now has thousands of people joining in and it's spreading across the country.”

Three comments that caught my attention on the Sunday morning interview shows:

> ABC News White House reporter Jake Tapper recounted that whenever he has dinner with liberal friends “you can hear them making their peace with Romney,” saying “‘he seems centrist,’ or ‘you know, he’d be good at jobs,’” so “that's a problem for President Obama.”

> On the killing of terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. admitted: “You’ve got to be honest and say, what would liberals say if George Bush had done this?”

Matching the pattern set in coverage of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, the broadcast network evening newscasts on Thursday night all framed their stories on Alabama’s “severe” new law around its victims, with ABC anchor Diane Sawyer and NBC anchor Brian Williams both describing it as “Arizona on steroids.” They didn’t mean it as a compliment. Sawyer mischaracterized it as an “anti-immigration law.”

ABC was the most one-sided, with reporter Steve Osunsami not mentioning a reason for the new law until his very last sentence. Instead, Osunsami intoned, “Across Alabama today, demonstrators were furious, calling this the Arizona law with an Alabama twist,” before showing a man who charged that “it says that our government promotes racism.”

Actor Alan Cumming (IMDb page), who was born in Britain and plays the scheming campaign manager “Eli Gold” on The Good Wife which has its season premiere tonight on CBS, contended on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight that the U.S. is “full of such hatred in terms of politics.” The bi-sexual actor conceded the Tea Party has “some quite sensible notions,” but he charged “that kind of seems to be an umbrella thing that just covers up a lot of real homophobia and racism.”

Referring to opposition to same-sex marriage, Cumming insisted: “I just think the Tea Party is out of touch with America, actually. That’s the sad thing for them to have to come to terms with.”

Appearing Friday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the CEO and CFO of Solyndra both invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.

But instead of highlighting the cover-up in the scandal of the $535 million federal loan trumpeted by the Obama administration to the solar panel manufacturer which went bankrupt, neither ABC nor NBC mentioned the development Friday night and CBS allocated a mere 25 seconds.

Interviewing former Vice President Dick Cheney at the Reagan library, CNN’s John King recalled how former President George H.W. Bush “made an incredibly tough personal and political choice” to raise taxes. King touted how Bush “had the courage knowing it might cost him re-election.”

As he and Cheney sat overlooking the Air Force One Pavilion, King pointed to Bush as a model for Republicans today: “There are some people now saying that we need a moment like that and that the Republicans should give President Obama some tax increases as long as they get from him significant spending cuts and a big deficit reduction package. Should Republicans learn from George H.W. Bush and sit down with the President and cut a deal?”

“President Obama has declared it is time to take action on taxes because people in the middle class are paying a larger percentage of income tax than the super-rich,” ABC anchor Diane Sawyer announced Monday night without bothering to note, as neither did CBS nor NBC, that the super-rich are already paying a disproportionate share of income taxes.

ABC reporter Bianna Golodryga, who is married to former Obama OMB chief Peter Orszag, assured Sawyer that Obama would not raise taxes immediately, but insisted “the more secure a plan is right now the better it will be in the long run.” (For who?) Sawyer, as if there is a rebound now: “So let the recovery continue?” Golodryga: “Continue now, but have a plan in place to raise taxes over the next few years.” Sawyer related: “They say for fairness.”

Meet the Press host David Gregory contented the fact a Republican presidential debate audience applauded Texas Governor Rick Perry for allowing the death penalty for murders, and three in an audience of hundreds shouted “yeah” to the idea a man who decided to not buy health insurance may be allowed to die, are “really a challenge to the notion that the Republican Party is the party of life and supports a culture of life.” (video after jump)

“The Republican Party is split right down the middle between Tea Party movement supporters and those who do not support the two-and-a-half-year-old movement, according to a new national survey,” a Thursday CNN.com “Political Ticker” post asserted in recounting the findings of a CNN/ORC poll which were cited on air by both Wolf Blitzer and John King.

Monday’s NBC Nightly News featured Brian Williams’ questions from the left to President Barack Obama about liberal exasperation with the President and on Thursday night Williams re-purposed that interview again, this time as a hook to devote nearly six minutes to how African-Americans are disappointed with Obama as Williams advanced the agenda of two left-wing activists, one of them from PBS.  

“A lot of African-Americans in this country are getting flat out crushed in this economy,” Williams noted before fretting over how instead the “DC debate is often admittedly about tax cuts for the wealthy.”

A few days after he hit Republicans from the left when he moderated a presidential candidates debate on MSNBC, NBC’s Brian Williams pressed President Barack Obama with the concerns of Obama supporters to the President’s left (“Members of your base are asking: ‘When are you going to get your Harry Truman on?’” and “What do you say to those Americans who voted for that man on the poster that said ‘Hope’?”).

In between, he empathized with how Obama had to deal with an irrational House Republican caucus, ie the Tea Party members. (Video after the jump)

“A Tribute to the Media,” a ten-minute video, honoring television coverage of the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. This was shown at the Media Research Center’s “DisHonors Awards” held in Washington, DC on January 17, 2002 when we took a time-out for a few minutes to pay tribute to the patriotic work of journalists during the national crisis.

Back in May, actor/comedian Martin Short celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden by singing, on the Late Show with David Letterman, “Bastard in the Sand,” a parody set to the tune of Elton John's “Candle in the Wind.”

With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 on Sunday, I thought I'd re-post video of the entertaining song (original May 30 NB post).

NBC’s Brian Williams and Politico’s John Harris peppered the NBC News/Politico debate inside the Air Force One pavilion at the Reagan Library with questions from the left, repeatedly pressing the Republican presidential candidates with liberal talking points and Democratic agenda items.

That’s time which could have been better spent advancing issues and concerns of Republican primary voters interested in differences amongst the candidates, not in forcing the candidates to defend conservative positions despised by MSNBC viewers and hosts. (Compilation video after jump)

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace displayed to former Vice President Dick Cheney how NBC’s Today show on Tuesday had ended Matt Lauer’s interview with him by pulling back to highlight an Amnesty International protest sign (“TORTURE IS A CRIME: INVESTIGATE CHENEY”) in the crowd on the street.

Wallace wondered: “What do you make of that? I mean, I somehow doubt that if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were speaking, they would have taken the shot and then suddenly a person with a sign would have been putting their picture up. I mean, simply, do you think there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media?”

In the midst of the failure of President Obama’s $800 billion or more “stimulus spending” program, ABC on Friday night asserted the solution to the devastating report, of zero jobs created in August, is...more stimulus spending. Since “the debt, say most economists, is only a long-term concern and the U.S. can borrow money right now at practically no interest,” reporter Jim Avila contended the federal government “should launch a stimulus program as big as the one that was launched in World War II.”

Avila insisted “the non-political, overwhelming answer from a dominant majority of economists” as to what the government should do “is spend and build. Roads, bridges, schools. A $200 billion a year investment would produce two million jobs and lower unemployment by a point.”

Following Wednesday’s NBC News/Politico Republican presidential debate which will last one hour and forty five minutes, MSNBC will devote more time, two hours and fifteen minutes, to a group of ten left-wing commentators – with a mere two non-liberals mixed in – to analyzing what the Republicans and conservatives said.

The far from fair and balanced line-up of those with a history of hostility toward conservatives will showcase MSNBC's prime time anchors: Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O’Donnell and Al Sharpton. Plus, Eugene Robinson, Howard Fineman, Michael Eric Dyson, Melissa Harris-Perry of the far-left The Nation and Huffington Post’s Alex Wagner.

If only George W. Bush had ordered home delivery of some pizzas during Katrina. On Meet the Press, David Gregory relayed how, before the tropical storm arrived on Saturday, Newark Mayor Cory Booker delivered a few pizzas to a shelter, then Gregory marveled at the “contrast...between President Bush regretting he had a flyover of the storm zone and here's Mayor Booker personally delivering pizzas.”

Gregory soon cued up far-left guest Michael Eric Dyson with “a larger point” of how “we're having a big debate over the budget in this town, the federal budget and deficit, and also the need for infrastructure improvements” and “the East coast is not prepared” for earthquakes nor “the kind of damage to our infrastructure that storms like this point up.” So, “what does it do to that debate?”

Taking advantage of the east coast hurricane displacing all political news this weekend, a chance for me to catch up with something from July 4 when, as part of the Ronald Reagan Centennial celebrations, a ten-foot tall bronze statue of Reagan was unveiled in London.

Only CBS’s Early Show aired a full story on the event, and video of that is below, in which reporter Elizabeth Palmer concluded that in Britain he’ll be remembered “for a rare combination of skill, luck and courage that gave him a giant’s role in modern history.”

President Barack Obama continues to benefit from a fawning media of which past Presidents could only dream, yet on Sunday’s This Week two journalists fretted he’s not getting enough credit for his accomplishments, a lack of recognition they blamed on his staff’s poor public relations efforts.

Since he’s taken office, FBN’s Liz Claman asserted, “almost every sector in the S&P is up double digit percentages” and “this is also the President under whom we got Osama bin Laden. Those two things are not getting him any gravitas at the moment.” So, she despaired, “whoever’s running PR for him needs to work on that part of it.” (video below)

CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, filling in on Face the Nation, just couldn’t comprehend how a candidate espousing true conservative views could possibly capture the White House. Referring to Rick Perry, she demanded: “Can the Republican Party elect someone President who doesn't believe in global warming?”

She described Perry’s fairly conventional conservative assessment of Social Security as “controversial,” citing how in his book he described the program as “a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal,” a “bad disease” and that “it was set up like a, quote ‘illegal Ponzi scheme.’” Repeating her earlier formulation, O’Donnell wondered: “Can you elect a Republican to the White House who thinks Social Security is a bad disease?”

Another entry in my semi-regular series of Saturday night humor postings for NewsBusters drawn from the clips Bret Baier runs at the end of FNC’s Special Report which he and his staff usually select from video montages picked up off the late night comedy shows.

Tonight, a fresh one from Friday night’s program which comes from the Colbert Report on Comedy Central in which Stephen Colbert contrasted Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s safari adventures with what excited Barack Obama during a stop at a store during his bus trip.