CNN’s Moos Features Grannies for Obama and Clinton, Only One for McCain

Photo of Matthew Balan.
By Matthew Balan | April 30, 2008 - 18:48 ET

NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterCNN correspondent Jeanne Moos, who is known for her light and often humor-tinged reports on a variety of topics, profiled politically-active elderly women in a report which aired on Wednesday’s "American Morning" and "Newsroom" programs, devoting all but six seconds of her two-and-a-half plus minute report to "granny" supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. While the Democratic supporters are seen dancing at rallies and posting YouTube videos, the only McCain supporter who appeared in the segment was McCain’s own 96-year-old mother, who merely stood in a background during a campaign stop.

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Moos (whose name rhymes who "hose") introduced her report, which first aired at the end of the 8 am hour of Wednesday’s "American Morning" by juxtaposing the stereotypical politician kissing babies moment with the politically-enthusiastic seniors. "It's the babies who get the oos and aahs, but it's the grannies who can actually vote.... Whether singing for Obama in a rocker or dancing for Hillary at a rally, the battle of the grannies is on." As she gave her voice-over, clips of the "grannies" cheering on either Clinton or Obama played.

The report featured a total of ten different Democratic "grannies." All of them were energetic, gung-ho supporters of their respective candidates. Moos’s voice-overs reenforced this impression. "There are groovy grandmas for Clinton... grooving to see a woman president." Also, "And it was a woman of a certain age who gave Obama one of his best-known chants, a local councilwoman from South Carolina."

Moos devoted only two sentences to a "granny" supporter of John McCain. "One white head deserves another. That's John McCain, kissing his 96-year-old mother." Unlike the vocal supporters of Obama or Clinton, McCain’s mother is seen only being applauded while standing on a stage with her son.

The full transcript of the Jeanne Moos’s report, which first aired on Wednesday’s "American Morning:"

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the babies who get the oos and aahs, but it's the grannies who can actually vote.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #1: We want Hillary.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #2 (singing): Obama, Obama, you wonderful one, wonderful man.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #1: We want Hillary.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #2: Yay! Yay!

MOOS: Whether singing for Obama in a rocker or dancing for Hillary at a rally, the battle of the grannies is on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #3: Hillary all the way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #4: White-haired women can speak for themselves for Obama.

CROWD: Yes, we can.

MOOS: White hair doesn't disqualify you from YouTube. Check out Grandmas for Obama' 08.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #5: This is a feeling like a mother feels for her son.

MOOS: There are groovy grandmas for Clinton...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #6: I'm Groovin Grannie.

MOOS: ...Grooving to see a woman president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #7: I have lived for 80 years, waited for this to happen.

MOOS: Eighty-two-year-old Jean Weiss didn't just wait. She addressed Barack Obama in person.

JEAN WEISS, OBAMA SUPPORTER: I thank you, sir, but you better be president. You've got to be president.

OBAMA: I tell you what, thank you.

MOOS: And it was a woman of a certain age who gave Obama one of his best-known chants, a local councilwoman from South Carolina.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #8: Fired up!

OBAMA: Fired up!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE #8: Ready to go!

OBAMA: Ready to go!

MOOS (on-camera): You know, we have all these great video moments of Obama with oldsters, but it's actually Hillary who tends to win the older, female vote.

MOOS (voice-over): Ninety-one-year-old Jule Hodges ended up in a Hillary ad with her heartfelt endorsement.

JULE HODGES, CLINTON SUPPORTER: ...And is ready, willing, and able to bring America back up to be polished like gold.

MOOS: When it comes to white-haired supporters...

CROWD: Barack Obama for president!

MOOS: ...One white head deserves another. That's John McCain, kissing his 96-year-old mother. And how about this 104-year-old Hillary supporter? It's enough to inflate even your alter ego.

CLINTON: I think this is quite an amazing accomplishment.

MOOS: Older supporters offer wisdom.

WEISS: Don't hit on Hillary. Bring this all down. Let her do that stuff. Leave her alone. You don't need to do that. You're higher than that.

OBAMA: I just want to know, will you be my running mate?

MOOS: And with that offer, she ran down for a kiss.

OBAMA: Give me a kiss.

MOOS: But who cares about being a running mate? At this age, it's great to still be able to run -- or dance. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.

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What is the media's

What is the media's fascination with "Grannies for..." organizations, like "Grannies for Peace", etc.? Most of these people are usually kooks - I don't care how old they are. Besides, it's rather condescending, like, "Look at these grannies. Aren't these geezers cute with their buttons and banners?"

But they're not biased, you

But they're not biased, you know....

Your kidding right?

For MSM standards, that's damn near the equivalence of Rush Limbaugh :-p

I wonder if the nutroots have lost their mind about the possibility of a major network putting on a Republican supporter.

I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it - Voltaire

Yes, I was being

Yes, I was being sarcastic.

I do believe you're new here...welcome , and enjoy reading and commenting!

Those who know me know I would never say that seriously. I should remember to use the /sarc tag though, for those who don't.

Thanks for the welcome and

Thanks for the welcome and I got the joke, don't worry :-p

I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it - Voltaire

Welcome, Defector01!

Hurray for you! NewsBusters has some of the sharpest posters on the web and I know your brainstem will get tickled here.

LOTS of sarcasm 'round these parts, so ya gotta hitch yer pants up as you wade through.

It's a free service, so eat all you want.We're glad you're with us!

voters need to get this....

  •  the supers will see this (0 / 0)

    Streetcar Line
    Flatbed Hillary
    By Quin Hillyer
    Published 5/1/2008 12:08:24 AM
    One of the more bizarre developments of this campaign season has been to see Hillary Clinton, of all people, turned into an electoral favorite of blue-collar white voters. The reality is that very few people in politics have more contempt for white workers than does this product of Park Ridge, Wellesley, the Senate Watergate Committee, and the super powered Rose Law Firm.
    This is the woman who, according to three, independent, respected, credible witnesses, at least one of them a strong Clinton supporter, responded to Southern whites workers voting Republican in 1994 by telling her husband: "Screw 'em. You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."

    This is the woman who last year insulted the whole state of Mississippi in an interview with Iowa's famous columnist David Yepsen, noting the lack of elected women in both states: "How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi?" she asked. "That's not what I see. That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism, that's not the openness I see in Iowa."
    This is the woman whose mentor and philosophical guiding light, Saul Alinsky, wrote that the white working classes were always "[s]eeking some meaning in life, [so] they turn to an extreme chauvinism and become defenders of the 'American' faith. Now they even develop rationalizations for a life of futility and frustration."

    This is the woman who tried to foist a massively bureaucratic health care plan onto the American people in 1993 and 1994, but when told that her plan would be devastating to the small mom-and-pop shops that provide most jobs in America, dismissed those concerns with these words: "I can't be responsible for every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America."

    (This was the same government-knows-best health plan of which Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that "anyone who thinks [it] can work in the real world as presently written isn't living in it.")
    IN TERMS OF POLICIES, her actions and positions have been directly opposed to the interests of blue-collar workers who pay taxes. Take welfare reform, for instance. Perhaps the single most successful programmatic reform in the past 30 years, it saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, gave people incentives to find jobs, and quite arguably played a big role in a decade of improving statistics in areas ranging from drops in crime to drops in the teen birth rate and the divorce rate. (The old welfare system encouraged divorce by making it in many cases more lucrative to be a single mom.)

    Yet her husband Bill not only vetoed welfare reform twice, but did so in accord with Hillary's fierce advice against reform. (He signed it at the third opportunity only to take the issue off the table in his 1996 re-election campaign.)

    This is also the woman who has spent an entire career supporting legal positions (and judges) that are contrary to the deeply held views of most white workers. Strong support for racial preferences? Check. Support for partial birth abortion? Check. Judges who rule against basic Christmas displays in the public square? Check. Letting the government take working class homes in order to use the land for big corporate developments? Yes again.Her Whitewater-related shenanigans left taxpayers on the hook for tens of millions of dollars, while old folks expecting retirement housing were left high and dry. Her treatment of White House career employees was notoriously nasty. Her profiteering in the cattle-futures market, and her money-grubbing in cases too numerous to mention, gave evidence of a sense of public entitlement completely at odds with the values and the daily concerns of laborers. And her opposition even to the middle-class-heavy Bush tax cuts of 2001, if it had carried the day, would have cost most workers well over $10,000 in the seven years since.

    Yet now Hillary Clinton is depending on white, working-class voters to power her attempted primary-season comeback. They ought to remember that she and her husband Bill once fancied themselves such racial conciliators that Bill welcomed the sobriquet of being "the first black president." Yet in this campaign season we have seen just how quickly the Clintons have fanned racial animus in an attempt to cause a white backlash against Barack Obama.
    Lesson: The Clintons are for the Clintons, and only for the Clintons. They will abandon any voter group the moment such abandonment can gain them an advantage. The Hillary Clinton who is suddenly the champion of white laborers today can just as easily be saying "screw 'em" again tomorrow.

    Their votes for her are votes against their own interests and values.

Correct spelling...

...of Jeanne Moos' last name

Moos - s + nbat = Moonbat!

Drill ANWAR

Grannies and the dry veal?

I didn't see the Moos report on CNN, but I wonder how many other grannies mistook Barack for the cook at their retirement home and wanted to complain about the dry veal?

Or mistook Hillary for the nurse that occasionally visits and answers their Medicare questions again - and again and again and again?

 

Turn it to eleven

Is that the lead singer of Spinal Tap?

A simple explaination......

Republicans do not abuse their children by taking them to political rallies that feature Mr. McPain. I think those grannies should be prosecuted for cruel and unusual punishment. At least contributing to the delinquency of a minor should be looked at. I hear Flitzgerry is looking for a job.

I don't mean to be

I don't mean to be petty....but what is up with this woman's hair, Yikes!

OK, I'm going to jump in

OK, I'm going to jump in and add a "Merrow!" too. LOL

CNN doesn't care about how they look. They have to spruce up a bit if they go to Fox. (Compare Greta now to her CNN days!)

 

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS

What is that woman doing in front of a camera?
Holy Moley!

Moos looks familiar

www.rob-clarkson.com/duff-brewery/jimbo/01.gif

I thought Moos looked familiar in that picture!