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UN Official Advises Against Voting for Romney: Will the Media Report?
By Ryan Robertson | | October 22, 2012 | 8:40 PM EDT

According to the initial report in The Canadian Press, UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights Ben Emmerson has an urgent message for the American people which essentially adds up to a presidential endorsement for Barack Obama. 

A Romney/Ryan administration, Emmerson warned, would use torture on enemy combatants detained at U.S. facilities, and could point to their election as evidence the public approves of torture. Even so, the broadcast networks have failed to pick up on what seems to be an unprecedented attempt by a United Nations official to influence a presidential election.

Chris Matthews to Romney Supporter: Benghazi WAS All About YouTube Video, 'Read the Newspaper!'
By Ken Shepherd | | October 22, 2012 | 7:53 PM EDT

Going around the rope line at the bottom of his 7 p.m. Eastern edition of Monday's Hardball to ask folks whom they are supporting in the presidential race, Chris Matthews found a young man who said he was backing Romney because, unlike Obama, "he doesn't cover up scandals in the Middle East."

"What was the scandal? Get to it, nail it, what was the scandal?!" Matthews rudely barked at the Romney backer. Upon the young Romney supporter answering that he was referring to Benghazi and the administration's early dogged insistence that the fiasco was the result of a spontaneous demonstration over a YouTube video, Matthews barked back (emphasis mine), "Yeah, it was about the video. Read the newspaper. Thank you. Everybody knows it's about the video. It's all about the video." [video follows page break]

'Ultimate News Goof?' Two Stations Call Presidential Race for Obama Weeks Before Election
By Randy Hall | | October 22, 2012 | 7:50 PM EDT

If you're a Democrat who's been stressed out regarding the electoral battle between Democratic incumbent President Barack Obama and his GOP challenger, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, you can now rest easy because KPHO, the CBS affiliate in Phoenix, and WCPO, the ABC TV station in Cleveland, have already called the election with Obama as the winner.

During Friday's edition of "The People's Court" at 3:30 p.m. on the Phoenix station, a "lower-third graphic" scrolled across the bottom of the screen and stated that Obama had won with 43 percent of the nationwide vote, compared to Romney's 40 percent with 99 percent of all precincts reporting.

NB Chat: Final Presidential Debate
By NB Staff | | October 22, 2012 | 7:21 PM EDT

Will you be tuning in to tonight's presidential debate which starts at 9pm ET? If so, please join fellow NewsBusters readers here for a live chat about the contest.

UPDATEII: Our regular chat server has been having problems today. Please click here to visit our chat room for the night. We've also got a live feed of the debate that you can watch on your computer if you can't watch it on TV for some reason. Our version also allows you to rewind and watch segments again just like a DVR.

MSNBC's Harris-Perry Softly Hits Obama from Left on Gun Control
By Matt Vespa | | October 22, 2012 | 7:15 PM EDT

On the October 20 broadcast of the Melissa Harris-Perry show, her ‘Dear, Mr. President’ segment touched upon an issue that is glorified amongst liberals: gun control.  In her segment, Harris-Perry is alluded to the question about assault weapons that was included in last week’s town hall style presidential debate.  Here, the Tulane professor insinuated that the mentally disabled are unjustly criticized, like her transgendered constituency, and tried to say that the problem with gun violence is access – not the mentally ill.

Bizarre: CNN's Costello Says She's 'Proud' to Be 'Card-Carrying Member' of 'Gay Gestapo'
By Matt Hadro | | October 22, 2012 | 6:55 PM EDT

CNN's Carol Costello agreed with a guest whom she cut off last week in mid-interview after he addressed health risks of homosexual behavior. He claimed her tactic was the "gay Gestapo" "in action."

"Well, Mr. Fischer if that's the definition of the 'gay Gestapo,' then I'm a proud card-carrying member," Costello professed on Monday morning. She had defended "Mix It Up at Lunch Day" against claims from her guest, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, that it promoted homosexuality. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Unhinged Chris Matthews Assails Conservative 'Birth Control Nazis'
By Scott Whitlock | | October 22, 2012 | 6:27 PM EDT

Talking to two fellow liberals on Monday, an unhinged Chris Matthews trashed conservatives and Republicans who opposes Barack Obama's birth control policies as "Nazis." Matthews smeared, "Is it in society's interests for [a young woman's] boss to be able to be the birth control Nazi to decide who gets it and who doesn't?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Matthews has previously railed against calling one's political opponents Nazis. On April 28, 2010, the liberal host ranted, "But let's agree, can we, to drop the Nazi stuff?" On Monday, Matthews invented a hypothetical woman: "A young woman who works in her 20s or 30s and is not ready to have a child, that's her decision, I think we all agree on that. She wants birth control. Isn't it in society's interest for her to get that as part of her health care?"

Will Schieffer Ask Obama About That ‘Cancer’ Called Guantanamo?
By Tim Graham | | October 22, 2012 | 5:24 PM EDT

During the last administration, CBS anchor Bob Schieffer was a red-hot advocate of closing the terrorist holding pen at Guantanamo. "This is just a boil. It's a cancer. This thing is not doing anybody any good,” he ranted on MSNBC’s Imus In The Morning show on June 9, 2005.

Schieffer’s ardor cooled considerably once Obama was elected. Will Schieffer bring up the “cancer” of Gitmo in tonight’s debate? Back in the Bush years, he repeatedly suggested it made us just like the terrorists we were fighting.  Here’s how the Imus rant continued:

On CNN, Dan Rather Barely Talks Libya But Questions Romney's Tough Talk
By Matt Hadro | | October 22, 2012 | 4:23 PM EDT

When asked by CNN what "one foreign policy question" he would ask the President, Dan Rather didn't mention Libya and instead asked a generic question about a threat to world peace. Is he a journalist or a Miss America contestant?

CNN's Brooke Baldwin inquired of Rather on Monday, "what is the one foreign policy question that you are absolutely dying to ask of the President?" His answer: "What is, in your opinion, the single biggest threat to world peace and our own national security? And in a second term, if you're re-elected, what would you do to alleviate that threat?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Cher: 'I’m Praying Obama Kicks Mittens Ass 2 the Curb!'
By Noel Sheppard | | October 22, 2012 | 4:19 PM EDT

Cher went on another anti-Mitt Romney Twitter rant Monday hours before the last presidential debate.

She began, "Tonight is final debate & I’m praying Obama Kicks mittens ass 2 the curb!"

Just When You Thought Ed Schultz Couldn't Get More Deranged ...
By Jack Coleman | | October 22, 2012 | 3:25 PM EDT

... the bellowing voice of liberal belligerence outdoes himself again.

Managers at radio stations that carry Ed Schultz's radio show were surely rethinking the rationale for that after his rage-filled and bizarre remarks on Friday, clear evidence of desperation on the left at the specter of Mitt Romney defeating President Obama (audio clips after page break).

NYT's Excruciatingly Effusive Profile of Pro-Gay Vikings Punter Chris Kluwe, 'the Most Interesting Man in the NFL'
By Clay Waters | | October 22, 2012 | 3:18 PM EDT

Tony Gervino's long, embarrassingly effusive New York Times profile of gay-marriage activist and Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe was sufficiently over the top to embarrass Kluwe himself, if he's as self-aware as Gervino painted him on the front of the Saturday Sports section. According to "The Punter Makes His Point," Kluwe, "the most interesting man in the N.F.L.," with a "perfect verbal score on the SAT," has done tangible good for "lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in the Twin Cities and elsewhere" with his "ability to turn a memorable phrase."

By contrast, Times columnist Harvey Araton wasn't nearly so nice to Tim Tebow, an active Christian athlete, in a January 2012 column begrudging the time Tebow spent with a brain-damaged locker-room visitor after a playoff loss.

Reporter Says Obama/Biden Campaign Tried to Keep Him From Talking to Attendees at Canton, Ohio Rally
By Ken Shepherd | | October 22, 2012 | 3:10 PM EDT

Updated below | Not only has the Obama administration failed to live up to its promise of "transparency," it appears the president's reelection campaign shares the same issue. Politico media reporter Dylan Byers noted this morning that "Joe Vardon, a reporter with the Columbus Dispatch, says campaign aides stopped him from speaking to voters at a rally featuring Vice President Joe Biden in Canton, Ohio, today."

"Reporters NOT ALLOWED to talk to voters at Biden/Canton event," Byers quoted a Vardon tweet, "Saddled up to two 'Scotts' — both white, mid-50s — campaign tapped me on shoulder, said I wasn't allowed." In an update subsequently filed a mere eight minutes later, Byers noted that "Amy Dudley, a spokeswoman for Vice President Biden, emails" the following:

GOP Strategist Beats the Press: 'Media Assumes There's No Such Thing in the World as a Pro-Life Woman'
By Kyle Drennen | | October 22, 2012 | 3:03 PM EDT

Appearing as a panelist on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, Republican strategist Mike Murphy called out journalists for refusing to provide balanced coverage of abortion: "It's always amazed me how the media assumes there's no such thing in the world as a pro-life woman, it's the most under-represented, you know, group in the world, we never talk about them." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Murphy's observation was prompted by former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers proclaiming that Romney has "been all over the map on every issue that's important to women in this election," meaning contraception and abortion. Her comments followed moderator David Gregory declaring: "...understanding women's choices today, pressures they face, about access to contraception, about abortion...the President wants to – to drive up that wedge and get women to vote for him."

NYTimes Forwards Fog-of-War Excuse for Obama's Botched Libya Response, Ignores His UN Speech
By Clay Waters | | October 22, 2012 | 2:20 PM EDT

Is the New York Times engaging in some front-page pre-debate inoculation Monday on behalf of Obama regarding his administration's contradictory reaction to the Benghazi massacre? Reporter Eric Schmitt gave the administration the benefit of the doubt in its contradictory responses to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which it first blamed on a YouTube clip: "How the Gap Arose Between Talk and New Intelligence."

Schmitt forwarded fog-of-war-style excuses for the administration, but failed to mention Obama's United Nations speech on Sept. 25, a full two weeks after the attacks, in which the president still blamed the uprising on an anti-Mohammed YouTube clip.