Matt Hadro's blog

On Monday's The Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked a female guest if she had a "problem" with Herman Cain's comment about a "manly" man not eating pizza loaded with vegetables.   

Cain made the remark in an interview with GQ magazine -- a men's magazine -- where he was asked specifically "What can you tell about a man by the type of pizza that he likes?" Cain then answered what pizza he thought a "manly man" would like – not what a woman should or shouldn't like. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Multiple times on Tuesday, CNN touted a musician who quietly played a song about Occupy Wall Street at an APEC dinner attended by President Obama and other world leaders.

Hawaiian musician Makana performed in the background during Saturday's APEC dinner and wore a t-shirt that read "Occupy With Aloha." He sang softly and repeated the song over and over that was a tribute to Occupy Wall Street protesters. "We'll occupy the streets, we'll occupy the courts," Makana sang in a brief clip provided by CNN. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

In a recent interview, Time magazine's Richard Stengel asked former President Bill Clinton why he was not a Tea Party "hero." Stengel's "criteria" were that Clinton oversaw a balanced budget and cuts to the rate of growth of the federal government.

However, as CNN's Wolf Blitzer pointed out to Stengel on Thursday, Clinton did so at the behest of a Republican Congress. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Wolf Blitzer – who will be moderating CNN's Republican presidential debate on November 22 – played a highlight reel of largely negative moments from the past GOP debates on Thursday afternoon's The Situation Room.

The "Top 10" video consisted of bloopers, controversial statements, and heated exchanges, all of which Blitzer innocently deemed "memorable moments." Rick Perry's most recent "brain freeze" was listed as the number one moment. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]
 

In a Wednesday interview with the White House communications director, CNN's Piers Morgan gushed over President Obama's "extraordinary" demeanor and praised Obama as "confident" and "assured."

"Does he know something we don't? Or is he just quite cool under pressure?" Morgan slobbered to Dan Pfeiffer. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

The same network that treated then-candidate Obama with kid gloves about Reverend Wright demanded Rick Perry to explain how his campaign wasn't finished, in his interview on CNN's American Morning on Thursday.

Co-host Christine Romans scrutinized Perry over his forgetting one of the federal agencies he had promised to get rid of. However, she seemed to believe that his campaign was over because of the gaffe. "So my question to you is how is this not the end? Convince us that this is not the end of your – of your candidacy," she demanded of Perry during the 7 a.m. hour of CNN. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

During Wednesday’s post-election coverage, CNN largely ignored conservative ballot victories in Mississippi and Ohio and Republican gains in Virginia, rather focusing on two conservative ballot measures which were defeated at the polls. They followed the three major networks in doing so.

The network relentlessly touted the defeat of Mississippi’s “Personhood” initiative – which would define life as beginning at conception – as they reported it 14 times in 9 hours. CNN also highlighted the failure of a measure pushed by Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich that limited the rights of unions to collectively bargain, as that story appeared 11 times in 9 hours of coverage. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

For information on one of Herman Cain's accusers, CNN interviewed her former boss on Wednesday – who just also happened to be a former Clinton advisor and a  Democratic strategist at present. Not surprisingly, interviewee Maria Cardona gave the accuser, Karen Kraushaar, a giant thumbs-up and told CNN that Kraushaar had referred to her old boss Herman Cain as a "monster."

Anchor Kyra Phillips never mentioned that Cardona was a Democratic strategist or a former Clinton advisor, and failed to question her if she had any underlying political motive in the case. CNN flashed the title of "Democratic Strategist" under Cardona's name for nine seconds during the interview which lasted over four minutes. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Does a former GOP congressman who voted to impeach President Bill Clinton now support a third term for him? MSNBC's Joe Scarborough lauded Clinton on Tuesday's Morning Joe and asked him why he shouldn't be able to run for office again.

However, he didn't once bring up Clinton's impeachment for lying under oath about his sexual misconduct while in office, during Tuesday's media firestorm over GOP candidate Herman Cain's accusations of misconduct.

Scarborough, a self-described "conservative," blamed Republicans for the 22nd Amendment – which enacts a two-term limit on every President – and touted that he would be "flooded" with requests from people wanting Clinton to run again. [Video below the break.]

CNN on Monday provided a rosy look at President Obama's efforts to campaign for re-election, touting that the President is distancing himself from Washington in an "anti-Rose Garden" campaign. Ironically, a few minutes later Obama was scheduled to speak in the Rose Garden itself.

In reporting on Obama's efforts to wash his hands of Washington, CNN had ignored his harsh partisan rhetoric toward Republicans in October as he was promoting his jobs bill in the heartland. Obama said Republicans want "dirtier air" and "dirtier water" on one particular tour stop, and has been regularly hitting Republicans for not supporting his jobs bill. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Did MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell ignore President Obama's previous calls for civility? The late-night host, in a five-minute Thursday night tirade, called for violence by specifically telling Occupy D.C. protesters to bring a "firestorm" to the National Restaurant Association (NRA) headquarters nearby, as well as to the NRA's corporate sponsors which include Starbucks and 7-11.

O'Donnell insisted that the organization release presidential candidate Herman Cain's accuser from her confidentiality agreement and let her bring the allegations against Cain to the public. If by Friday they still refused to do so, "then a firestorm should be visited upon the 1200 17th Street Northwest and the members of the National Restaurant Association," ranted O'Donnell. [Video available shortly. Click here for audio.]

HLN's Joy Behar condemned Clarence Thomas as "demonic" on her Monday night show, saying that he was "in trouble with his wife" and in danger of impeachment.

"Talk about demonic, Clarence Thomas is demonic," she insisted to conservative guest Ann Coulter. The two were in the middle of a lengthy and heated spat. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

When Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain briefly raised his voice at reporters on Wednesday and his staff moved them aside, CNN reported the incident hour after hour in the afternoon as another addition to the candidate's negative coverage.

CNN condemned the ordeal as "nasty," and a "melee," that Cain got "very testy" and "lashed out at reporters." Readers can view the video below to determine if the confrontation was indeed a "melee." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN used an "In Depth" segment on Tuesday to emphasize the diversity among protesters at Occupy Seattle, featuring a rapper, a group of "Raging Grannies," drummers and more. The report during the 12 p.m. hour was one of multiple segments that ran on Tuesday afternoon giving viewers a close-up look at the Wall Street protests.

The sympathetic look at the protesters can be contrasted with CNN's initial coverage of the Tea Parties in 2009, when reporter Susan Roesgen slammed the Chicago Tea Party as "anti-government" and "anti-CNN" and anchor Anderson Cooper smeared the protesters with an obscene label.  [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Liberal Columbia University professor Dorian Warren compared the Occupy Wall Street protests to the NBA lockout on CNN Monday, saying that the players are using their "voice" and "bargaining power" to air their grievances with the owners like the protesters are doing with the banks.

"Record profits last year in the NBA, yet the owners are saying they don't have enough money to share with the players," Warren said of the lockout. "And so, the players are, unlike most American workers, staying strong in their union to say, no, we actually have a voice here and we have bargaining power and we're not going to let you get away with that." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Don Lemon hosted radical leftist and former Communist Party member Angela Davis on Sunday night's Newsroom for what he called a "blast from the past." Davis hit President Obama from the left and praised the Wall Street protests as a continuation of the movement that swept "a black president who identified with a black radical tradition" into office.

CNN labeled Davis as a "political activist" but did not report that she was a prominent Communist Party member and twice its vice presidential candidate in the 1980s. As a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, she was urged by the state's then-Governor Ronald Reagan not to be allowed to teach at the state's universities because of her Communist Party membership. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN put Republican candidate Herman Cain in the spotlight on Friday for his apparent lack of knowledge, accusing him of "dodging" tough questions. Cain had multiple times answered tough foreign policy questions by saying he would need to consider "all of the facts" before making an well thought-out decision.

"One of the things that I've always prided myself on is making an informed decision based upon knowing all of the facts," Cain stated during the May 5 Republican presidential debate. [Video clip below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Carol Costello, on Thursday's American Morning, scolded the editor of conservative publication Human Events for not providing the same critical coverage of both Republicans and Democrats. Costello – who has her own history of liberal bias – interviewed Jason Mattera of Human Events over his confrontation with Vice President Joe Biden, and asked him why he wasn't tougher on Republican candidates.

"So you're tough with Joe Biden. So why not be a bit tougher with Republican candidates, even though you work for a conservative web site?" Costello posed, apparently unaware that since Human Events is a conservative publication it markets itself to a more conservative Republican audience. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore dismissed the accusation that some Wall Street protests have grown violent, telling CNN's Piers Morgan on Tuesday that the "Occupy" protesters are, in fact, "a nonviolent peaceful group" and the real rioters are the police.

"There's no violence coming from the 'Occupy' protesters," Moore insisted. "What we've – what we've seen across the country are a series of police riots, where the police are rioting, where the police have gotten violent." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN tried to tie Jesus to a liberal movement on Wednesday as correspondent Carol Costello labeled various religious authorities as supporters of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests – even as she reported that protests became violent at "Occupy Oakland."

"'Occupy Oakland' protesters hurled paint at riot police, and riot police hurled tear gas. Jesus, here?" Costello asked during the 11 a.m. hour. "Yes. And the Vatican seems to be backing them up," she added. [Video below the break.]

Although interviewee Harry Connick Jr. was unwilling to cast blame towards any specific person or agenda over the failed response to the Hurricane Katrina in 2005, CNN's Piers Morgan thrice tried to bait him into doing so on Monday.  

Connick stated on Piers Morgan Tonight that "at this point, what good is it going to do to blame local or state or federal government?" Yet Morgan emphasized the "scandalously slow" response to the disaster by authorities, and even noted liberal conspiracy claims that "surreptitious racism" was involved. [Video below the break. Click here for audio]

While reporting on the cash flow for "Occupy Wall Street" on Monday, CNN's Poppy Harlow glossed over the fact that one of the organizations processing donations to the protest is a left-wing non-profit that originated in support of the communist Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.

Harlow's segment focused on where the donations to the Wall Street protest were coming from and how the incoming money was managed. In her soft interview with the movement's "money man" Pete Dutro, she asked him softball questions like "What are things like these days?" and "You call yourself chief financial officer or something else?"
 

CNN released a poll last month where 61 percent of Republican respondents believed abortion should be legal in "certain" cases and 11 percent believed it should be always legal, while only 27 percent opposed its legalization in all cases. Don Lemon cited this poll and touted that an overwhelming number of Republicans now support the legalization of abortion "under all or certain circumstances."

"So Will, 72 percent, 72 percent of voting Republicans think abortion should be legal under all or certain circumstances," Lemon emphasized to conservative guest Will Cain of TheBlaze.com. "So how does such a minority of Republicans come to play such an influential role in choosing the GOP nominee?" [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

As the Media Research Center has documented, CNN's Anderson Cooper has been targeting Republicans far more than Democrats with critical "Keeping Them Honest" investigative reports – and Cooper continued that trend Wednesday night. The CNN host scrutinized Republican presidential candidates for statements they made in Tuesday night's debate, but has not reported controversial statements made this week by President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Cooper also hit candidate Herman Cain with a "Keeping Them Honest" on Monday night, the third time he has focused such a report on Cain in the last two weeks. In contrast, President Obama has been the target of three such reports in the last three months. [Video below the break.]

CNN's Piers Morgan claimed on Wednesday that "elements" of the Tea Party are "racist" in an interview with GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. "You all know there are elements of the Tea Party who are racist," he insisted to Cain.

Morgan again stated it as a matter of fact, in his question to Cain: "How do you deal with that element in the Tea Party that is overtly racist?"

The CNN host also cited black liberals Harry Belafonte and Morgan Freeman as bona-fide experts about the matter, and pressed Cain to respond to them and other "leading black Americans" who think the movement is racist. [Video below the break.]

To discuss presidential candidate Herman Cain's views on race and racism, CNN's Don Lemon aired the opinions of two African-American liberals, in addition to analysis from conservative blogger Erick Erickson.

Lemon, himself an African-American anchor who has shown his own liberal bias in the past, hosted leftist LZ Granderson of ESPN and played a clip of Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher slamming Cain as a racist at the end of CNN's 12 p.m. hour of Newsroom. [Video below the break.]

[UPDATE at end of post: Cooper responds via Politico.]

Tuesday night’s Republican debate in Las Vegas will be moderated by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. The CNN promo urges viewers to “See if what happens in Vegas gets them closer to the White House.” But Cooper’s nightly Anderson Cooper 360 often looks like it’s trying to keep Republicans away from the White House.

CNN advertises Cooper’s regular segment, “Keeping Them Honest,” with the question: “Who's Anderson keeping honest tonight?” Apparently, CNN and Cooper find Republicans are much more dishonest. Since July, a review of “Keeping Them Honest” segments found 24 reports tagging the Republicans with dishonesty, compared with just three for Democrats – a ratio of eight to one.
 

CNN's Anderson Cooper opened his Monday night show hitting GOP candidate Herman Cain for his comments on immigration, which Cain claimed were meant in jest. Cooper continued lock-step with his trend of hitting Republicans with critical "Keeping Them Honest" reports at a much higher rate than Democrats.

It was Cooper's third "Keeping Them Honest" report on Cain in less than two weeks, which equals the same number of those reports that President Obama has received in three full months.

"He says he's only joking and said it again just this evening," Cooper spoke of Cain's comments that as President, he would install an electric fence on the Mexican border with a moat full of alligators. "But new polling shows him to be a serious candidate at this point....So people are now taking everything he says seriously whether he likes it or not." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Erin Burnett argued that, according to a Pew study, tax hikes and spending cuts together would be more effective in trimming the deficit than spending cuts alone, and asked Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) if tax hikes weren't "part of a rational independent strategy here?"

Burnett also pressed the conservative presidential candidate as to why she stuck to her positions on social and fiscal issues. "Why are you so adamant on that?" she asked Bachmann on her opposition to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. [Video below the break. Click here for audio]