Jack Coleman's blog

Hard to believe there are people who think along these lines, but that's left-wing radio for you.

One of its ditziest inhabitants, the habitually juvenile Randi Rhodes, resents that she's far less talented and influential than Fox's Bill O'Reilly, so she responds with insipid analysis. (Audio after the break)

The signs keep accumulating that the IRS scandal is worse than liberals are willing to concede.

On Bill Press's radio show yesterday, a reporter with left-leaning Politico told Press that the Internal Revenue Service dragging its feet on applications for tax-exempt status from tea party groups probably affected the outcome of last year's election. (Video after the jump)

Ah, seems like old times.

Way back when, it was Congressman Jim McDermott's apologia for Saddam Hussein that earned McDermott the enduring nickname "Baghdad Jim." (Audio after page break)

Sometimes it's what they neglect to mention that's more revealing than that was.

Disgraced former CBS anchorman Dan Rather, now broadcasting from obscure AXS TV on the high triple-digit end of the cable dial, told Rachel Maddow of an incident back when he was a reporter devoted to hounding Richard Nixon. (Video after page break).

When Lyndon Johnson lost CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite during the Vietnam War, or so the legend goes, he knew his days in the White House were numbered.

If President Obama hears what previously stalwart liberal ally Ed Schultz said on his radio show yesterday, he may feel a similar chill down his spine. (Audio after page break)

In likely the only time she'll ever publicly utter the name of convicted baby killer Kermit Gosnell, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow ended her self-imposed blackout of the abortionist's trial and told her viewers he'd been found guilty of murder.

Media coverage of Gosnell's two-month trial was "polarizing," Maddow sniffed, perturbed that so many lesser evolved beings remain unconvinced about the necessity or niceties of abortion on demand. (Video after page break)

Leave it to Ed Schultz to conjure up the most deranged spin yet in response to the Internal Revenue Service admitting to undue scrutiny of tea party groups.

While many liberals have been critical of the Obama administration in the wake of the hardly surprising revelation, Schultz on his radio show yesterday was full-throated in his defense of the IRS -- even to the point of making the absurd claim that it showed how conservatives should support President Obama's plan to "simplify" the tax code. (Audio clips after page break)

Hard to believe, but Rachel Maddow once engaged in something resembling journalism in response to the attack in Benghazi.

It came on her MSNBC show only two days after the jihadist onslaught that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans last September, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. Maddow described how security in Benghazi had deteriorated for months-- while she inadvertently damned the Obama administration for not providing adequate protection as conditions worsened.

Never let it be said that Ed Schultz isn't bravely willing to thrust his finger high in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

Schultz did this on his radio show yesterday, citing a new Gallup poll as justification for Democrats to end their obsession for more gun laws in the six months since the Sandy Hook massacre and focus instead on the economy. (Audio clip after page break)

For sheer entertainment on MSNBC, few things rival the spectacle of its marquee host, Rachel Maddow, in the throes of high dudgeon.

There she was again last night, the full shtick, wide eyed, arms waving, sentences ending with exclamation points, the fact checkers at PolitiFact the target of her wrath. (Video after page break)

Yes, MSNBC has booted Ed Schultz from its primetime lineup to the the penal colony that is the network's weekend schedule.

Now MSNBC wants to show you how popular Schultz is -- and what better way to do that than record the first weekend broadcast of "The Ed Show" before a live audience of rowdy liberals in Madison, Wisc., one of the most left-wing towns in the country. While MSNBC viewers will be none the wiser, everyone else will see through the ruse. (Audio clips after page break)

Coming up next on MSNBC, further evidence of the link between global warming and the National Rifle Association, which the gun lobby inexplicably continues to deny ...

How reassuring it is for liberals to trot out their various all-purpose boogeymen to blame for whatever frustrates liberals at any given moment.

Wow, the unintended hilarity just keeps coming from "The Rachel Maddow Show."

Last night a genuine rarity occurred when one of Maddow's guests, Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell during George W. Bush's first term, ridiculed an earlier guest, former CIA and FBI official Philip Mudd. (Video clip after page break)

More potential jihadist attacks against American civilians in the wake of the Boston bombings? Not worthy of further attention from Rachel Maddow. Instead, Maddow is more concerned with that "real crisis" down at Guantanamo, of prisoners starving themselves.

If future media critics ever want a quintessential example of the Maddow show, they could do worse than watch her program from April 30, 2013. And after cringing through it, they'll want a bleach bath. (Video clip after page break)

Back in the mid-1990s I went to a public forum in Boston to hear ex-adman Earl Shorris talk about his new book, "A Nation of Salesmen: The Tyranny of the Market and the Subversion of Culture."

In one of his many anecdotes on working in advertising, Shorris told of being hired by Nestle after it was discovered that one of their infant formulas was sickening and killing newborns in Africa. What should we do, a nervous Nestle's exec asked Shorris. "Stop killing babies," he suggested. For this Shorris was dubbed the "conscience of the company." (Video after page break)

Say, did you happen to see that commercial for Elizabeth Warrren in the guise of an interview on "The Rachel Maddow Show"?

Those six minutes of scintillating chit-chat would have cost Warren big time if she and MSNBC went by the book, seeing how in-kind contributions to politicians don't get more obvious. (Video after page break)

These Rocky Mountain right wingers, Rachel Maddow complained last night, there they go again, trying to thwart voting rights.

Seems that a conservative group in Colorado mailed out a flier in response to a Democrat state lawmaker filing a bill that would make it easier to vote. (Video clip after page break)

Yeah, good thing. Come to think of it, when could that have even happened, Mr. Pierce?

One of the more bizarre observations in media after the capture of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhav Tsarnaev came courtesy of Charles Pierce, Esquire magazine political blogger. (Video clip after page break)

Not to worry, horribly misunderstood jihadist community, Rachel Maddow's got your back.

Doing her part for MSNBC's weekend coverage of the capture of marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhav Tsarnaev, Maddow appeared peeved that the Miranda warning usually extended to criminal suspects had been waived after Tsarnaev was taken into custody, the FBI justifying the waiver under a public safety exception. (Video clip after page break)

That month-long hiatus enjoyed by Ed Schultz since MSNBC put "The Ed Show" on hold has made him unusually perceptive, if only momentarily.

On his radio show Friday, Schultz made a suggestion about handling the crisis on the Korean peninsula that will have many liberals spitting up their decaffeinated double lattes. (Audio clip after page break)

The mayor of Fargo, N.D., sure knows what he's talking about.

Dennis Walaker was one of three city and school officials quoted in a Forum of Fargo-Moorhead newspaper story rebuking liberal radio host Ed Schultz for his churlish criticism of local eighth-graders being recruited for sandbagging to help stem spring floods. (Audio clip after page break)

"Teach your children well," sang Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in a syrupy overplayed hippie anthem from 1970. (Not to worry, I won't link).

Teach them to say "screw you" to their community, Ed Schultz instructs the children now. While he waits and waits and waits for "The Ed Show" to make its transition from primetime to the penal colony that is MSNBC weekends, Schultz continues spewing his trademark buffoonery through his radio show. (audio clip after page break)

Guess this hinges on how one defines "threaten." As far as Rachel Maddow is concerned, anyone who disagrees with her, and who owns a firearm, is inherently threatening. And boy would she love to make a citizen's arrest.

Continuing in her efforts to exploit the murders at Sandy Hook into political advantage for liberals, Maddow on her MSNBC show last night deceitfully accused Indiana gun owners of threatening to shoot a group of mothers protesting in favor of more restrictive gun laws. (video clip after page break)

Rare is the "pro-choice" liberal who admits that abortion kills an unborn human being.

The Rev. Al Sharpton made this seldom-witnessed acknowledgement -- or as close as he's likely to get -- on his radio show while drawing an analogy to his views on the Defense of Marriage Act.  (audio clip after page break) --

Nearly three weeks after MSNBC announced that Chris Hayes would replace Ed Schultz at 8 p.m. weeknights and that Schultz would host late-afternoon weekend versions of "The Ed Show," the network has still not given a start date for the weekend show.

This has led to speculation on Twitter that Schultz is being eased out at MSNBC, to the point that Schultz addressed the rumors on his radio show yesterday. (audio clips after page break)