2012 Congressional

Thursday's Early Show on CBS provided free air time to Rep. Steve Israel of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and three of his top candidates for the 2012 election. Correspondent Nancy Cordes trumpeted how the Democratic Party is "determined to bounce back from their big losses" to Republicans during the 2010 cycle and highlighted that the three were "running against Tea Party members."

Anchor Chris Wragge teased Cordes's report by touting how Democrats were "finding their own outsiders to run against the Washington status quo. We're going to talk to some of those new recruits, including a former astronaut and a former police chief, who they say with Congress more unpopular than ever, they've got a good chance to make the kind of change in Washington that they feel Washington needs."

New York Times reporters Jennifer Steinhauer and Steven Yaccino unfurled a hit piece (accompanied by a severely unflattering photo) on Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois, conservative freshman congressman and Tea Party favorite, on the front of Tuesday’s National section: “G.O.P.’s Freshman’s Fiscal Message Clashes With His Finances.” It’s not the first time the paper has gone after a Tea Party conservative on such personal terms.

Yesterday, in a different post about long-term unemployment, I wrote: "Of all the reality-denying aspects of Obama administration press coverage, the usually implicit but occasionally explicit assertion that he and his people are just helpless bystanders in an economic calamiity is easily among the most annoying."

Bloomberg's Mike Dorning triggered the annoyance meter today with an "analysis" contending that President Obama's move from being a "conciliator" (quoting an alleged "expert") to supporting "populist causes" and sympathizing with the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street assemblage "may provide some inoculation" against the continuing bad economy -- as if Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the their party bear no conceivable responsibility for current economic conditions. Here are the first seven paragraphs of Dorning's dreck (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

Most liberal media members and prominent Democrats including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took great offense to Sen. Scott Brown's (D-Mass.) joke concerning rival Elizabeth Warren not posing naked when she was in law school.

Quite surprisingly, when this matter came up on ABC's The View Monday, the ladies sided with Brown (multipart video follows with transcripts and commentary):

The headline this afternoon at the Associated Press to a report by Sam Hananel attempted to create the impression that complaints by many who have been unemployed for an extended time period that many employers are reluctant to consider and sometimes even refuse to consider their employment inquiries and applications equals support for provisions in President Obama's American Jobs Act which would for all practical purposes make them another protected class.

No doubt there is some support for the (in my opinion) misguided notion, but Hananel's underlying report never quoted an actual long-term unemployed person supporting the idea. Additionally, as I will cover in Part 2, the AP reporter also failed to tell readers why the problem has reached an unprecedented post-Depression level, namely that the economy, largely due to failed public policy choices, has thus far taken three times as long to recover from its recession than it did during any other post-recession period after World War II. Here are key paragraphs from Hananel's dispatch concerning the problem:

At the top of Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wondered if a joke by Republican Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown in response to a jab by Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren was a "comeback or insult" and noted that "women's groups are giving him a big dressing down today."

In a later tease of the story, fellow co-host Ann Curry proclaimed: "A senate race in Massachusetts has turned ugly and personal." Lauer summed up the situation this way: "...during a debate, a potential Democratic challenger took a shot at Republican Senator Scott Brown for saying that he had to pose nude in Cosmopolitan magazine way back in 1982 to pay for school. Brown's response is now what's drawing a lot of heat."

CBS's Erica Hill let DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz bash congressional Republicans unopposed on Thursday's Early Show. Hill also failed to ask the Florida Democrat about her eye-opening claim on Wednesday that "anyone" can see that the economy is improving "and now, we've begun to turn the corner."

The anchor brought on Wasserman Schultz, the morning show's only political guest, for a softball interview on the recovery of her friend and colleague, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Near the end of the segment, though, Hill raised President Obama's jobs bill: "Is there anything that you found, in talking with your colleagues on either side of the aisle, that you think can bring lawmakers together in Washington, to find some sort of compromise that will satisfy as close to everyone as you can get?"

Did David Gregory realize just how much he was letting down the mask and revealing his liberal bias?   On today's "Meet The Press,"  Gregory stated as a simple declarative fact that Republicans have a "harsh stance" on immigration reform.

Did Gregory simply forget the "some say" fig leaf so favored by the MSM?  Or is the MTP moderator so lost in the liberal media cocoon that he can't imagine anyone disagreeing with his assertion that the GOP view is "harsh"?  View the video after the jump.

David Lewis is running for Congress as a Republican in Ohio's Eighth Congressional District for the seat House Speaker John Boehner currently holds. To be kind, Lewis doesn't stand a chance. To be not as kind, the establishment press is using Lewis's candidacy as an excuse to attempt to cast doubt on the ability of Tea Party activists and the GOP establishment to get along. To be clear, there's plenty of reason for the existence of such doubts, but David Lewis's candidacy is certainly not one of them.

To the chagrin of the GOP establishment, I'm a fan of serious primary efforts, especially against incumbents who may have lost their way. But Lewis's effort is not serious. It is fundamentally flawed in its premise and completely miscasts Boehner's current prolife record. It also has given the press an opportunity to distort the priorities of the Tea Party movement.

On Friday's Early Show, CBS's Bob Schieffer wildly spun Congress's 12% job approval as good news for President Obama, despite his own low poll numbers: "My heavens! He's 20 points ahead of the members of Congress....I mean, I think that probably some car thieves have a higher approval rating." But in 2010, when Democrats led Congress, The Early Show ignored a poll which showed low numbers for Nancy Pelosi.

The morning program led its 7 am Eastern hour with the ultra-low poll numbers for the Republican-led Congress. Anchor Erica Hill noted that "President Obama's job approval rating is reaching all-time low, but he is still miles ahead of Congress, when you look at the numbers. A CBS News/New York Times poll out just this morning shows only 12% of Americans say Congress is doing a good job. That is the worst showing in the history of our polling."

New York Times White House reporter Jackie Calmes and Binyamin Appelbaum reported Wednesday on Obama’s latest big-spending “stimulus” proposal, “Bigger Economic Role for Washington,” enthused that the chance of some of it coming law “could have a substantial effect on economic growth and unemployment....could add 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month over the next year, according to estimates from several of the country’s best-known forecasting firms.”

Calmes had consistently hyped the administration’s stream of vague, liberal spend-now-pay-later economic “plans,”only to see the proposals die in Congress. This front-page headline from her July 20 story captures her typical cheerleading tone: “Bipartisan Plan For Budget Deal Buoys President – House Republicans Face Intensifying Pressure to Avoid Isolation.” (It has not aged well.)

Is there no double-standard depths to which the liberal media won't sink when it comes to provocative political speech? No—judging by the pitiful performance of two MSMers on today's Morning Joe in defending James "Take 'Em Out" Hoffa.  

Newsweek editor Tina Brown brayed that we must not "sanitize" political speech or take the "juice" out of it--all the while condemning Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck for some of their remarks.  And the preposterous Mike Barnicle somehow defended Hoffa on the basis of the "context" of his remarks. Say what?  Hoffa was introducing the President of the United States!  And don't miss Barnicle logic-defyingly defending the double-standard when it comes to Sarah Palin on the basis that everyone knows the MSM will attack her. Video after the jump.

Exactly what country does New York Times columnist Paul Krugman actually reside in?

Before you answer, consider the following sentence from his article Monday:

On MSNBC's Political Nation Friday evening, host Al Sharpton interviewed Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post.  They spoke about House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH):

GRIM: So, you`re right, the record that he is amassing is probably one of the most extreme records that a House Speaker has put up in decades.

SHARPTON: Well, based on your last statement, he being probably the most extreme Speaker we`ve seen in decades, should President Obama even bother negotiating with him?

GRIM: No, he probably shouldn`t. He should do the opposite approach.

If these guys really think Boehner is probably the most extreme speaker in recent history, they must have mighty short memories.  Does the name Nancy Pelosi sound familiar, Reverend Al?

I sure hope Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne as well as other unapologetic Obama-loving media members were watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Thursday.

After Mika Brzezinski read a snippet of Dionne's "Obama's Paradox Problem" wherein he basically blamed all that ails the nation on GOP obstruction, Joe Scarborough accurately noted, "the President owned – OWNED! – Washington, D.C., in 2009 and 2010" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Sometimes I wonder how liberal media members could possibly live in the same country as I do and hold such startlingly absurd ideas about it.

Take for example Fareed Zakaria who on the CNN program bearing his name this Sunday is going to tell viewers that America would likely still have a AAA credit rating if we had a parliamentary system of government with a prime minister rather than a president (video follows with transcript and commentary):

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus got into a somewhat testy exchange over the President's lack of a jobs plan with CNN's Christine Romans on today's American Morning. "Sounds like you're the one with the talking points," Priebus replied to Romans's assertion that he was just repeating GOP talking points.

Priebus also noted that only congressional Republicans had offered any solutions to the nation's economic problems.  "I don't know if you're paying attention to what is happening in Washington, but it was the Republicans that offered a budget plan that addressed the out of control spending and out of control debt that is looming in regard to Medicare. It was Paul Ryan who presented a plan," said Priebus.

Yo, Rev Al: thanks to Al Gore, we've got the internets.  We can look things up.  So when, on your MSNBC show this evening, you ripped Republican Paul Ryan for holding a $15-a-head fundraiser, of course we're going to check out how much President Obama pulled in per head at a recent do.  Turns out it was . . . $38,500!  So what's your point?

View video after the jump.

Remember the good old days when political commentators were governing their tongues and offering Americans a far more civil tone in the wake of the tragic shootings in Tucson?

Well, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday demonstrated just how bygone those days are when he gleefully reminisced about Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) sticking his neck out with a bold budget proposal months ago only to have President Obama "[punch] his head off" (video follows with transcript and commentary):