Noel Sheppard's blog

Despite Clint Eastwood's pronouncement Monday that he is "certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama," the President's fans in the media are doing a victory lap over Super Bowl Sunday's Chrysler commercial featuring the Oscar-winning actor and filmmaker.

So excited by this ad was MSNBC's Ed Schultz Monday that he disgustingly asked his audience, "Will voters hold Republicans accountable for trying to kill the American auto industry?" (video follows with commentary):

Oscar-winning actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood has come under some heat for appearing in a Chrysler commercial on Super Bowl Sunday that some feel was pro-Obama.

Eastwood spoke with Ron Mitchell, the producer of Fox's O'Reilly Factor, Monday to set the record straight:

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there he goes again.

On MSNBC's Hardball Monday, host Chris Matthews said Barack Obama's smile "is worth five to ten points" on Election Day (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, Politico's Jonathan Martin, while chatting with MSNBC's Chuck Todd, referred to some of Florida as "cracker counties."

Despite the firestorm this created, Howard Kurtz on CNN's Reliable Sources spent seventeen minutes Sunday - almost half of the show when commercials are taken out - with Martin as one of his guests and never said a word about this controversy.

When I saw CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday tease an upcoming State of the Union segment saying she'd be discussing Friday's unemployment report after a commercial break, I was hoping to see a complete analysis of the data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Much to my shock and dismay, although she and her guests discussed the economy and the jobs market for eight minutes over two segments, there was not one single word said about the declining participation rate or the record 1.2 million one month increase in the number of people not in the labor force (video follows with transcript and commentary):

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there she goes again.

On Sunday's Meet the Press, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow falsely claimed, "Rick Santorum says that he would like states to be able to make contraception illegal' (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, appearing on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, told host David Gregory, "You just managed to precisely repeat the Obama administration's line."

The subject being discussed was the new edict from the Department of Health and Human Services requiring religious organizations to provide contraception to their employees (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

A rather extraordinary thing happened on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday.

The host actually defended Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney from the media's proclivity to take his statements "entirely out of context" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

John King had an unfortunate slip of the tongue during CNN's coverage of the Nevada caucuses Saturday.

While discussing how the various religious groups voted for the different Republican presidential candidates, King called Mitt Romney "Governor Mormon" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The victory lap for Soledad O'Brien's interview with Mitt Romney wherein the Republican presidential candidate uttered the now infamous words "I'm not concerned about the very poor" continued on CNN Saturday.

During the network's coverage of the Nevada caucuses, contributor David Gergen practically blushed when seeing O'Brien - "Love having you on the set here tonight" - as he told her, "You’ve been really much in the news. You’ve been sort of driving the conversation" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"Barack Obama has not put anyone on food stamps."

So hysterically wrote Barbra Streisand at the Huffington Post Friday evening:

CNBC's Suze Orman bills herself as an "internationally acclaimed personal financial expert."

This "financial expert," appearing on HBO's Real Time Friday, said that in 2012, "We are average [sic] 200,000 jobs a month that are being created...[Obama's] done so much in the past four years I can’t even tell you" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Occupy movement lost one of its most ardent supporters in the media Friday night.

On HBO's Real Time, host Bill Maher surprisingly said of the protesters, "As I watch them on the news now I find myself almost agreeing with Newt Gingrich. Like, you know what - get a job...Now it's just a bunch of [d-bags] who think throwing a chair through the Starbucks window is going to bring on the revolution" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning):

In this week's "Is He Really This Stupid or Just a Bald-Faced Liar" segment, HBO's Bill Maher Friday night once again proved that he is either one of the dumbest people on television or is way too dishonest to have his own show.

On the most recent installment of Real Time, the host emphatically claimed, "We've lost 500,000 public sector jobs since Obama took office and added 3.7 million private sector jobs" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It certainly is no surprise the Obama-loving media are doing a jubilant victory lap over the stronger than expected headline figures in Friday's unemployment report.

Also not at all shocking was MSNBC's Martin Bashir falsely claiming on the show bearing his name Friday, "Under this president over three million private sector jobs have been created" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, Politico's Jonathan Martin, while chatting with MSNBC's Chuck Todd, referred to some of Florida as "cracker counties."

This caused a bit of a firestorm for Martin who called the Media Research Center's publicist to address the matter.

In response, I spoke with Martin Thursday, and my first question was somewhat obviously, "What's a cracker?"

UPDATES AT END OF POST: Martin and O'Brien respond.

Should media members congratulate each other for skewering a political candidate?

That's exactly what CNN's Roland Martin did Thursday as he high fived Soledad O'Brien for the previous day's interview with Mitt Romney wherein the Republican presidential candidate uttered the now infamous words, "I'm not concerned about the very poor" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Not surprisingly, the Obama-loving media are having a field day with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comment to CNN's Soledad O'Brien regarding not being "concerned about the very poor."

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell Wednesday decided to make an even bigger deal out of this issue by cherry-picking Rush Limbaugh to make it appear the conservative radio host shared the press's view (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Morning Joe viewers Wednesday were treated to a truly marvelous demonstration of the media's hypocritical double standard concerning negative campaign ads.

As host Joe Scarborough told Donny Deutsch, despite Barack Obama in 2008 running more negative ads "than any other candidate in history...the mainstream media, every network, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, they all covered for him. Nobody wrote that story because they all wanted him to win" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Tuesday asked a Mitt Romney supporting Congressman, “Why do you call the Washington Post a liberal newspaper?”

After the Hardball host told his guest, "It’s the most hawkish paper in the country," Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fl.) marvelously responded, "By your standards the New York Times is a right-wing newspaper” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Monday's Hardball comically used a little known Yiddish term to bash Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

"I'm rooting for Newt of course to stay in this thing. It will create mishegas for the Tea Party world and a compelling political spectacle for us" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's only January and the vitriol being spewed at Republicans by the Obama-loving media is starting to crest.

On Tuesday, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen went after almost every high-profile right-leaning politician in the land in a piece that disgracefully ended "The GOP is brain-dead":

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski on Tuesday gave quite a reaction to the news that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney sang "America the Beautiful" at a rally in central Florida.

"Oh my God," gasped the Morning Joe co-host (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews had some harsh criticism for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney Monday.

In a discussion about the viciousness in the GOP race, the Hardball host said, “I’ve never seen one, but it’s like a snuff movie we’ve been watching here” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The ridiculous media hypocrisy concerning all the fuss over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wealth and income tax rate was perfectly demonstrated on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday.

After claiming that Romney's "tax issue is not remotely" past him, John Heilemann, the National Affairs editor for New York magazine, admitted that he never reported John Kerry's income tax rate during the 2004 campaign (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There was a truly delicious moment on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday as the gang discussed the Republican presidential race from Florida.

When host Joe Scarborough recollected John F. Kennedy buying the West Virginia primary in 1960, Hardball host Chris Matthews, one of JFK's biggest fans, was seen visibly uncomfortable shifting position in his chair (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Thursday, reacting with predictably similar disgust as the rest of the media to the picture of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer pointing her finger at Barack Obama, asked viewers, "Who have you ever seen talking to the president like this?"

Maybe he should have looked in the archives of interviews he did with George W. Bush wherein he was guilty of making the exact same supposedly offensive hand gesture at the President of the United States (videos follow with loads of commentary):

Despite Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, Obama-loving media members love to blame gridlock in Washington on Republicans.

Doing his part Sunday was Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer who asked guest Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), "Has the Tea Party made compromise a dirty word, and is that why Congress can't seem to get anything done?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):