Scott Whitlock's blog

Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts bashed her own network, Monday, decrying GMA's obsession with tabloid stories. In a Daily Beast article, she lamented, "I’ll be honest, it’s been an adjustment for me, the lighter fare...I want to be No. 1. I don’t want to sell my soul to the devil to be No. 1."

The Howard Kurtz piece contained several gossipy nuggets, including a possible icy relationship between Roberts and co-host George Stephanopoulos. Kurtz related that the two "almost never chat during the show when the cameras are off, with Stephanopoulos usually tapping on his BlackBerry."

According to Stephen King, conservative "hate" of Barack Obama is similar to the anger that led to the assassination of John Kennedy. Appearing on Friday's Hardball to promote "11/22/63," his new novel, the author compared, "Here is where hate will get you eventually. This is what happens. Finally, it's the barrel of a gun."

Discussing his book, a work of historical fiction about stopping JFK's murder, King asserted, "And also, there's also been this sort of atmosphere of real hate and obstructionism that surrounded both men." He continued, "So, I began to think history repeats itself and at that point I thought to myself, 'You know I really would like to write this book.'" It took liberal anchor Chris Matthews to point out the obvious: Lee Harvey Oswald was no conservative.

ABC and NBC completely ignored a decision by the Obama administration that could kill up to 20,000 jobs. Only CBS's Evening News reported that a proposed oil pipeline from Canada to Texas has been delayed until after the presidential election due to environmental concerns.

Evening News reporter Mark Strassmann explained, "Supporters said the pipeline from Canada's tar sand fields would create more than 20,000 jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East."

Good Morning America's John Berman on Friday made no effort to hide his derision of Rick Perry, noting that former FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh is running his campaign. Berman openly mocked, "...[Allbaugh] ran FEMA. So, he knows how to recover from disasters, Robin."

Earlier in the segment, the reporter made another comparison, joking, "You know, there's no question that Rick Perry is in full-scale political rehab. It's like a 12-step plan." Supposedly objective journalists on Thursday's evening newscasts and Friday's morning shows pounced on Perry's debate flub from Wednesday. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

After 117 stories over ten days, what would it take for the big three networks to ease up on their unending obsession with the Herman Cain sexual harassment story? The opportunity to go after another Republican, this time Rick Perry. From Wednesday night's evening newscasts through the Thursday morning shows, there were only two Cain stories (bringing the total to 119).

Good Morning America, CBS's Early Show and NBC's Today all pounced on Perry's debate performance and an inability to remember a government agency that he wished to eliminate. The three morning shows only offered brief passing mentions to the Cain scandal. Instead, co-host Ann Curry pressed Perry, "Have you thought about ending your campaign? Are you staying in this race, sir?"

During Wednesday night's presidential debate, Newt Gingrich could barely restrain his amusement as co-moderator Maria Bartiromo defended the liberal media's reporting of the economy.    

Bartiromo took umbrage after Gingrich's asserted, "What is amazing to me is the inability of much of our academic world and much of our news media and most of the people on Occupy Wall Street to have a clue about history." The CNBC journalist responded by huffing, "I'm sorry, but what is the media reporting inaccurately about the economy?" An incredulous Gingrich mocked, "I love humor disguised as a question. That's terrific." [ See video below. MP3 audio here.]

According to Chris Matthews, Tuesday's off-year elections were a big win for liberalism. The MSNBC host proclaimed, "From Ohio to Mississippi, from Arizona to New Jersey to Maine and beyond, most voters went the Democrats' way." In fact, Republicans and conservatism won big victories in several states, including Mississippi, Virginia and Ohio.

Matthews could hardly contain himself, opening the show by bubbling, "Leading off tonight, reversal of fortune." What Matthews ignored are these facts: In Virginia, Republicans won 68 state house seats, a super majority and will now effectively control the state senate. In Mississippi, Republican Phil Bryant made history, becoming the first Republican to ever succeed another Republican in the governor's mansion.

[Updated with video. See below.] Good Morning America's Brian Ross on Wednesday played up fears that Herman Cain supporters might physically attack the women who have accused the Republican of sexual harassment. Meanwhile, the total number of Cain harassment stories reached an astonishing 117 stories in less than 10 days.

Reporting for GMA, Ross intoned, "Overnight, [accuser Karen] Kraushaar told ABC News she had tried to stay out of the news, for fear of retaliation by Cain supporters. And now she has hired a security team to guard her home outside Washington." The journalist later added that all four accusers might appear together "so they can all tell their stories of Herman Cain, with the sense of safety in numbers." [MP3 audio here.]

The CBS and NBC morning shows on Tuesday both ignored an embarrassing gaffe committed by Barack Obama: Being caught on an open mic, mocking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Only ABC's Good Morning America covered it with a single news brief.

News anchor Josh Elliott explained, "At last week's G20 summit, the BBC reports that President Sarkozy was overheard calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a liar. In response, President Obama told Sarkozy, and I quote, 'You may be sick of him, but I have to deal with him every day.'"

In only eight and a half days, NBC, CBS and ABC have devoted a staggering 99 stories to sexual harassment charges against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. In comparison, eight days into Bill Clinton's scandal's with Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick, there were a combined eight reports.

Additionally, the three network newscasts on Monday offered scant information about the fact that Cain's accuser, Sharon Bialek, has hired the extremely liberal lawyer Gloria Allred. On NBC's Nightly News, reporter Kelly O'Donnell described Allred as a "high profile attorney." On CBS's Evening News, Jan Crawford referred to her as a "celebrity lawyer."

From Friday night through Monday morning, the big three networks devoted an additional 21 stories to the Herman Cain sexual harassment story, bringing the networks' grand total to 84 in one week.

Even as they continued to pile on, these same networks defensively chided Cain for daring to criticize their coverage. On Sunday's Good Morning America, David Kerley hit Cain for "lashing out" at journalists. On Sunday's Today, David Gregory indignantly suggested Cain has "created this alternate universe" where he says to supporters, "You see...this is what the media does..."

The unrelenting network coverage of the Herman Cain sexual harassment story continued on Thursday and Friday with an additional 13 stories. That brings the total number of reports to a staggering 63 stories in just four and a half days.

Good Morning America offered up three stories on Friday, including a Brian Ross report tinged with anonymous allegations and rumor-mongering. Ross speculated, "Former employees tell ABC News, Cain was a regular on Washington's after-work bar scene, often with young women who worked with him at the restaurant association." Ross hinted, "Some say it was just Cain being personable and gregarious."

Over a period of just three and a half days, NBC, CBS and ABC have developed an insatiable hunger for the Herman Cain sexual harassment story, devoting an incredible 50 stories to the allegations since Monday morning. In contrast, over a similar period these networks mostly ignored far more substantial and serious scandals relating to Bill Clinton.

This pattern continued on Wednesday night and into Thursday as the evening newscasts and morning shows highlighted the story 19 times. On Good Morning America, Brian Ross offered innuendo and slung gossip, recounting, "But behind the scenes, several of the campaigns are still urging reporters to continue to dig, George, saying, there's more to be found in the private life of Herman Cain." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman appeared on Wednesday's Hardball to mock Republican presidential candidates as simplistic. He exclaimed, "But, they're advertising their ignorance is what I'm saying!"

Fineman, who now is the political editor at the more overtly liberal Huffington Post, dripped with condescension as he described the potential GOP nominees. The journalist berated, "What I find fascinating about [Cain's] candidacy, and really the tenor of a lot of what the Republican candidates are saying, including Rick Perry, is they are saying, 'We don't need to know all those fancy facts.'" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The network evening newscasts on Tuesday and the morning shows on Wednesday continued to hype the Herman Cain "firestorm," creating 12 more stories in less than 24 hours. Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos led the show on Wednesday by trumpeting, " Republican front-runner Herman Cain changes his story again as one of his accusers now says she wants to go public on charges of sexual harassment."

On NBC's Today, Chuck Todd hyperbolically announced, "Struggling to move beyond the firestorm that is engulfing his candidacy, Herman Cain again denied he sexually harassed anyone." On that same program, guest Chris Matthews recklessly speculated that the Republican harassed women while drunk.    

Since the Herman Cain sexual harassment story broke late Sunday night, the broadcast networks have covered it extensively: full stories on Monday's morning news shows (ABC's Good Morning America led off their broadcast); full stories on Monday's evening news shows (the CBS Evening News made it their top item) and ABC's Nightline; and the top story on all three Tuesday morning shows.

Cain's accusers are still anonymous. Three women publicly accused Bill Clinton of far more serious instances of sexual harassment in the 1990s, but the networks all but ignored them. The coverage that did exist was often skeptical, insulting and hostile, an astonishing double standard.

While hyping his new book on John F. Kennedy on Friday, Chris Matthews seemed to connect "vicious" "right-wing" "hate" to the assassination of the nation's 35th president. At no time in his Hardball editorial did Matthews admit that the President's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a pro-Communist leftist, who, at one point in his life, defected to the Soviet Union.

Speaking of Kennedy's trip to Dallas in November of 1963, Matthews connected, "[Kennedy] was living the life of an American politician, trying to figure things out politically, trying to figure out what was in the water down there in Dallas that made some people so viciously right-wing. An hour later, he was gone." [MP3 audio here. See video below.]

All three morning shows on Monday hyped a "bombshell blast" against Herman Cain, playing up a story in Politico charging the Republican presidential candidate with sexual harassment back in the 1990s. ABC's Good Morning America led with the allegations.

Co-host George Stephanopoulos, whose former boss, Bill Clinton, repeatedly faced sexual harassment claims, touted, "And this morning, bombshell blast. Major allegations against front-runner Herman Cain. Two former female colleagues accuse him of sexual harassment."

While many on the liberal MSNBC network have attacked Rick Perry's performance in presidential debates, it might be interesting to look back at how one of the network's own cable anchors botched such a performance.

On October 18, 2011, Al Sharpton himself trashed Perry's rhetorical skills: "And then there's Rick Perry, still dancing with the stars, but with every debate his Texas two step is drawing low marks across the country." Yet, on January 22, 2004, while running for the Democratic nomination for President, he confused the Federal Reserve with the International Monetary Fund and struggled through the late Peter Jennings' queries. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC analyst Touré, who is a 9/11 truther, appeared on the News Nation show to denounce Rick Perry as a birther. Speaking of the Republican presidential candidate, he slammed, "...I see Trump and the other birthers, Perry, virtually going to the White House and knocking on the door saying can we see your documentation to make sure you are actually an American?"

It's odd that MSNBC would bring on Touré, who believes in a fringe conspiracy theory, to assert that Perry believes in a fringe conspiracy theory. Talking to host Tamron Hall, the analyst wondered why people would believe such weird ideas: "Why are we even wondering, at this point, is Obama really an American?"

Thursday was Bash Republicans Day on Good Morning America. Reporter Jon Karl highlighted past Mitt Romney statements to spin the candidate as a flip flopper. In a follow up segment, Democrat James Carville appeared to dismiss Herman Cain as a "national distraction" and urge Rick Perry to drop out of the race.

Stephanopoulos, a former Democratic operative and longtime friend of Carville, offered his colleague free rein. Carville excoriated an ad featuring Cain's campaign manager smoking. He berated, "I saw him smoking a cigarette. If that guy wasn't drunk, I haven't taken a drink in my life. He was as high as he could be." (It should be pointed out that, just ten days ago, Pew Research found that Barack Obama was getting far worse coverage than any of his Republican rivals.) [MP3 audio here. Video can be downloaded here.]

MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Wednesday wondered if Herman Cain, who worked for the Department of the Navy during Vietnam, is a "chicken hawk" because he criticized the President's pull out of Iraq.

Talking to professor Michael Eric Dyson, Bashir complained, "And on the issue of Iran, does Cain remind you at all of Dick Cheney and that long roster of chicken hawks who've rabidly pushed for U.S. military action there?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

According to the network morning shows, violent Occupy Wall Street protesters are fighting back against government officials who are trying to rein them in. Early Show's Erica Hill highlighted "this growing crackdown on the anti-Wall Street protests around the country." She added, "In Oakland, California, the protesters are pushing back."

The "pushing back" came in the form of throwing rocks and bottles at police officers who attempted to remove them from a public encampment.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday reiterated his cartoon view of the Republican Party as a political organization that wants to cause "cruel pain on people" and intends to "get rid" of cops and firefighters.

Highlighting a couple of isolated outbursts at GOP debates, Matthews frothed, "They want more people to fry. They love executions. They want people that don't have insurance to die on the gurney in the hospital bed." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Journalistic outlets, which were all too eager to accuse the Tea Party of bigotry, have been mostly silent in response to examples of anti-Semitism at the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests. Incidents caught on tape and the urging of the Anti-Defamation League to stop anti-Jewish bigotry have yielded very little coverage.

Since October 1st, a Nexis search reveals no discussion of anti-Semitism at the protests on ABC, CBS, NBC or during the prime time lineup of CNN and MSNBC. This is despite incidents of anti-Jewish comments at rallies in places such as New York and Los Angeles.

Liberal MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir on Monday compared Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry to former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, citing the fact that both supposedly love guns and "shoot to kill."

After playing a clip of Perry expressing his appreciation for the American tradition of firearms ownership, Bashir bizarrely proclaimed that "Mr. Perry's wild west show calls to mind another world leader. Yes, Vladimir Putin." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Friday interviewed 2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and smeared the rest of the Republican field as "crazy," asserting that the Utah Governor is the only "sane" choice. This prompted Huntsman to reply, simply, "Thank you."

The Hardball anchor knocked Michele Bachmann as "looney tunes" and wondered how Huntsman could "sit next to a person who says there shouldn't be any taxes and have a reasonable conversation with her?"  [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

ABC's Brian Ross on Friday investigated a $500 million government loan to a car company that is now operating in Finland. Ross highlighted how Vice President Joe Biden in 2009 claimed this would create jobs in America. Yet, the Good Morning America reporter left out a key component for the network version of the story: Fisker, the European car company involved, have ties to big Obama campaign bundlers.

Ross began the segment by explaining to viewers: "[Henrik] Fisker got a federal loan two years ago of more than $500 million, with Vice President Joseph Biden saying the company would employ auto workers in his home state, Delaware." Yet, the 500 jobs created are in Finland, not the United States.  [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

An exasperated Barbara Walters on Wednesday aggressively objected to token conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck highlighting the high unemployment under Barack Obama. In a condescending tone, Walters insisted, "Well, darling, he inherited a very bad situation."

Walters' annoyed comments came after this remark by Hasselbeck: "11.7 percent of veterans out of work, no jobs. Right now, we have the black American unemployment rate, 16.7 percent. That's almost double the national rate. That's insane!" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Chris Matthews despises many conservatives, but saves some of his most vitriolic comments for Newt Gingrich. On Wednesday's Hardball, he slammed the Republican presidential candidate as "demonic."

Discussing Gingrich's debate answer to a question on health care, Matthews trashed, "You know, the demonic aspect of the person of Newt Gingrich– and I do mean that– he speaks with a forked tongue where you see both forks at the same time."