Wall Street protests

ABC stepped up its promotion Sunday night on behalf of the far-left protesters, which they failed to label, making a special effort to explain and frame their grievances – a service they never provided to the Tea Party. “Tonight, the anger spreads,” anchor David Muir hailed in teasing World News on Sunday night. “Those Wall Street protests now going global. This evening here, we learn about the lives behind the protesters here in this country, showing up in cities coast to coast.”

Muir pointed viewers to a sign he liked: “Look at the images coming in tonight, spelling out the anger. This sign in New York, ‘The rich get bailed out, the poor get sold out.’” He relayed ABC’s goal, “We ask a simple question: What’s happened in the lives of the Americans who’ve joined these protests. What was it that set them off?”

It seems New York Times columnist Paul Krugman thinks the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been better behaved than Tea Party attendees.

Read the following paragraph from Monday's "Panic of the Plutocrats" and you be the judge:

Despite most media outlets gushing and fawning over the Occupy Wall Street protests, MSNBC's Chris Matthews and the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman see risks to President Obama and the Democrats supporting the movement.

The host of The Chris Matthews Show is even concerned this could be a return to 1968 when riots outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago played a huge role in Richard Nixon's victory that November (video follows with transcript and commentary):

David Gregory on Sunday's Meet the Press asked former Obama Chief of Staff turned Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel a rather surprising question about his previous boss's support for the Occupy Wall Street protests.

"Is demonizing Wall Street the way to create an environment to get the banks to hire? Is this not a reverse Tea Party tactic?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Offering the kind of respect, admiration and promotion ABC News has yet to offer Tea Party activists, Christiane Amanpour on Sunday asserted the far-left protesters are a “populist movement” representing a “revolution,” cited how it has “finally” been recognized by politicians, characterized it as an answer to the Tea Party and included an “Occupy Wall Street activist” on her roundtable.

“The revolution is being televised and tweeted and Facebooked,” she trumpeted in plugging the roundtable, proclaiming: “The Occupy Wall Street protests are suddenly all that Washington can talk about. Are we witnessing the birth of a new kind of Tea Party?”

On Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN, host Howard Kurtz and guest Erik Wemple of the Washington Post both took exception with FNC's Bill O'Reilly for recently calling some of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters "far-left loons" and "anarchists." Kurtz noted the contrast in how MSNBC and FNC have responded to the protests:

Dan Rather on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" exposed the person that is believed to be behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"The real moving force behind this, what's happening in the Wall Street protesters and the efforts to spread it around the country, is a woman operating out of her apartment in New York" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Occupy Wall Street crowd squatting in lower Manhattan and elsewhere while the rest of us are working has a not-at-all surprising ally: Arianna Huffington.

The limo liberal epitomized, Huffington is embroiled in a lawsuit with former bloggers who alleged she stiffed them on decent compensation for content at her site.

Friday’s NBC Nightly News once again promoted the left-wing/anti-capitalist protests which Brian Williams non-ideologically described as “a protest against economic and social inequality” that “has now spawned organized marches in 45 states.”

Reporter Chris Jansing featured a man whose “frustration brought him to lower Manhattan” and he pronounced: “I think it's our Arab Spring.” Jansing next trumpeted how “‘Occupy Wall Street’ is drawing historical comparisons,” a quest for historic impact the networks never sought for the Tea Party. Her expert, Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin, whom she failed to note is co-editor of the far-left quarterly, Dissent.

Occupy Wall Street might not just be for smelly hippies any more. Major unions and some high-priced Hollywood stars and starlets are throwing their support to the protest. But that’s not enough.

During the live video feed of the protest Thursday afternoon, a woman who identified herself as “Beth Bogart,” stopped by the media table and expressed concern they would get “overwhelmed.” She offered her aid as a former “journalist” and experienced media expert to deal with the media inquiries. Could it be the same Beth Bogart who worked for decades handling lefty PR at Fenton Communications?

In a report filed at the Los Angeles Times's Politics Now blog earlier today, Washington Bureau reporter James Oliphant relayed a number of whoppers delivered by Vice President Joe Biden without anything resembling a challenge. In Part 1, I noted how Biden, who in August described Tea Party sympathizers as "terrorists" and in September as "barbarians," today spoke in complimentary terms of how much the Occupy Wall Street crowd has in common with them.

This part will deal with Biden's hit at Bank of America and its $5 monthly fee for debit-card use. The relevant excerpt from Oliphant's writeup follows the jump (bolds are mine throughout):

In a report filed at the Los Angeles Times's Politics Now blog earlier today, Washington Bureau reporter James Oliphant relayed a number of whoppers delivered by Vice President Joe Biden without anything resembling a challenge.

Breaking Biden's bilge into three sections, they involve his claim about the historical origins of the Tea Party, which Biden characterized as a collection of "barbarians" only a month ago (and as "terrorists" two month ago); his hit at Bank of America and its $5 monthly fee for debit-card use; and the nature of the "bailouts" which followed the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the fall of 2008. In this first part, I will go after what Biden said about the Tea Party. An excerpt from Oliphant's writeup follows the jump (bolds are mine throughout):

The left-wing, anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street camp-out in Lower Manhattan stretched into its third week, bolstered by an influx of labor unions. The story made the front of Thursday’s New York Times along with a large photo of protestors in Foley Square, “Seeking Energy, Unions Join Wall Street Protest.”

It’s a far cry from the paper’s coverage of the first major Tea Party rally in Manhattan. The paper’s hostile reporting of the nationwide Tea Party rallies on April 15, 2009 (Tax Day) virtually ignored a supportive crowd of thousands, citing in a single sentence an Associated Press report on Newt Gingrich speaking at the Manhattan rally. The report made Page 16.

New York Times columnists Gail Collins and David Brooks talked about “The Long Stagnation” in their weekly online chat posted Wednesday.

When Brooks, the paper’s idea of a conservative columnist, said he wasn’t impressed by the numbers participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest, compared to the figures generated at Tea Party rallies, Collins, the paper’s former editorial page editor, indignantly replied the Tea Party had no principles besides a "crazed" refusal to accept the idea of Democrats in power:

CBS and NBC led Wednesday night with glowing stories about the growth and diversity of the far-left “Occupy Wall Street” protests, though without any ideological label applied nor any critics allowed, a promotional approach the networks never provided in Tea Party coverage.

“We begin tonight with what has become by any measure a pretty massive protest movement,” NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams announced. “While it goes by the official name ‘Occupy Wall Street,’ it has spread steadily and far beyond Wall Street, and it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era.”

ABC’s Cecilia Vega touted how “it is a crowd that grows daily in size and diversity,” CBS’s Michelle Miller heralded “they’re gaining momentum and new recruits” and NBC’s Mara Schiavocampo trumpeted “the largest crowd yet, and more varied in age and background.”

And if you laughed at those remarks, you're a criminal too. Or at the very least, a thought criminal. Yes, you.

Liberal radio host Thom Hartmann is peeved that media outlets such as Fox News and CNN are covering the so-called Occupy Wall Street movement and allegedly interviewing only the most "politically unsophisticated" protesters, after searching all of nanoseconds to find them. (audio after page break)

During the 1 p.m. hour of Tuesday's Newsroom, CNN's Randi Kaye touted the potential for the "Occupy Wall Street" protests around the country to morph into a "left wing Tea Party." Kaye reported that the group is "gaining momentum" and hosted one of the protestors for a soft interview.

"The scene from Wall Street as the numbers multiply and the message gets louder, it seems the 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters have the potential to grow into a political party, sort of a left wing Tea Party," Kaye hyped. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

At the top of the 8 a.m. ET hour of Wednesday's NBC "Today," fill-in news anchor Tamron Hall proclaimed: "Today could be the biggest day yet for the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests in lower Manhattan." Correspondent Mara Schiavocampo followed by gushing: "Three weeks in, and no signs of slowing. The 'Occupy Wall Street' protest growing in size and scope."

Schiavocampo touted how the "coalition is growing quickly, as several labor unions have now vowed to join demonstrators in their protests against corporate interests....demonstrations spreading to more than 50 cities, from Boston to Los Angeles." The headline on screen throughout the report cheered: "Gaining Ground; 'Occupy Wall Street' Protests Spreading."

In Tuesday’s “Anti-Wall Street Protests Spreading to Cities Large and Small,” New York Times reporters Erik Eckholm and Timothy Williams bolster the “populist” left-wing activists protesting against greedy bankers (among other items of the standard left-wing wish list) in Lower Manhattan.

While the Times’s coverage of conservative Tea Party rallies pointed out the most extreme and “fringe” elements present, the paper has thus far eschewed labels like "far-left" or even "liberal," and ignored the cadre of Communists and offensive posters decrying “Nazi bankers” in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan.

As the Washington Post expected when it published it's pathetic, racially charged, 3000-word, front page hit piece on Texas governor Rick Perry Sunday, America's media outlets have largely taken the bait by expressing outrage over this non-story.

Curiously bucking the trend was Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" Monday which used black contributor Wyatt Cenac to humorously demonstrate how many places across the country have names like N-ggerhead (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Very much unlike how they greeted the Tea Party protests in early 2009, the networks are embracing the new left-wing/anti-capitalist protests, even failing to condemn their unruly behavior which resulted in 700 arrests in New York City over the weekend, conduct for which they would have condemned Tea Party activists. 

“Is there about to be a nationwide movement building right now to point a finger at Wall Street on greed?” ABC’s Diane Sawyer hopefully cheered Monday night, touting how “protests are spreading across the country.” NBC anchor Brian Williams trumpeted how “the movement that started here in New York about a month ago...now has thousands of people joining in and it's spreading across the country.”

Occupy Wall Street, the floating leftist protest in Manhattan that’s camped out in downtown Manhattan in an endless protest against...something, attempted to migrate to Brooklyn this weekend, blocking vehicle traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and resulting in mass arrests.

The New York Times, whose attitude toward Tea Party rallies was invariably hostile, blasted support throughout the weekend for the vague leftist “occupation” of Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. Sunday’s National section picked up on the arrests: “About 500 Arrested as Demonstrators Try to Cross Brooklyn Bridge” by Al Baker and Colin Moynihan, with additional reporting by Natasha Lennard and William Rashbaum (Lennard will play a role later).

As young, foolish, unemployed Americans Occupy Wall Street, liberals in the media have predictably cheered the protests.

Some, like schlockumentarian Michael Moore, participated in the goings on, telling the crowd last week that the folks inside the buildings surrounding them were solely responsible for the nation’s economic woes (video follows with transcript and extensive commentary):

Trust him--he might be young, but he's a "professional sociologist."  So did Harrison Schultz, an organizer of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, describe himself to Al Sharpton on MSNBC this evening.  And he wants Al and us to know that "a lot of the people that are here are in fact anarchists, are in fact revolutionaries.  . . . We don't really want to fix [the problems]. It's revolution, not reform."

There are also some amusing factoids about Harrison.  When he's not out fomenting revolution, Schultz is an . . . analyst for a marketing firm. Oh yeah, and in his oh-so-bourgeois LinkedIn profile, Harrison wants people to know he worked at Bank of America providing "assistance for several investment bankers." Oh, the horror! Video after the jump.

On Monday's NBC "Today," correspondent Michelle Franzen reported on the left-wing "Occupy Wall Street" protests in New York and proclaimed: "Protesters fed up with the economy and social inequality turned out en masse over the weekend....Voicing their discontent and marching for change."

Touting the protest as "a movement that has taken off in the past few weeks with protests spreading to other cities around the country," Franzen declared: "Labor experts say uprisings overseas have empowered protesters to speak out." A sound bite was included of Columbia University's Dorian Warren arguing: "Those movements, those revolutions led by young people [in the Middle East]...I think that's another, let's say, inspiration for why they are sitting-in now."

The folks at the New York Times aren't happy with just reporting the news. They want to be a part of it.

Such is quite apparent given the arrest of Times freelancer Natasha Lennard during an Occupy Wall Street protest Saturday: