Gabrielle Giffords

As NewsBusters previously reported, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday Republican freshmen in the House "are here to kill women."

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, host Howard Kurtz correctly wondered why this didn't cause any media outrage (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews has clearly forgotten all the concern over violent rhetoric he and his colleagues expressed in January after the tragic shootings in Tucson.

On this week's syndicated program bearing his name, Matthews began the show saying, "Going for the kill! This week's shutdown fight is just the beginning. The young Republican turks want to fight to the death!" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Despite it being only three months since Democrats and their media minions sharply criticized "violent rhetoric" and imagery in the wake of the tragic shootings in Tucson, left-leaning elected officials have been regularly using such language in regards to the budget battle without the slightest outrage from America's so-called journalists.

On Friday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin took to the airwaves to challenge "Meet the Press" host David Gregory to report on Sunday's program what these Democrats have been saying (YouTube audio follows with commentary):

"In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts," claimed senior Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter at a pro-choice rally on the National Mall Wednesday. "Now they're here to kill women." Slaughter, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, went on to compare proposed GOP proposals on abortion, bizarrely, to "show-me-your-papers" policies in the Third Reich.

It's been two days since Slaughter made these incendiary and baseless remarks, yet there has been a virtual media blackout. So once again we have to ask, as did the Washington Examiner's David Freddoso, what if a Tea Partier had said it? [Disclosure: I also write for the Examiner]

The story was initially reported by NewsBusters sister site CNSNews.com, and aside from the Examiner, no other news organization has reported on Slaughter's absurd statement thus far. It's safe to assume that if a conservative Republican had made similar remarks, coverage would be significantly greater (check out the video of Slaughter's remarks below the break).

Remember all that fuss two months ago about violent rhetoric and imagery following the tragic Tucson shootings that almost killed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)?

Apparently the folks at Time magazine have forgotten, for on Saturday, they actually published an article with the following headline:

A Wisconsin Democrat Assemblyman turned to a Republican Assemblywoman in the middle of a legislative session Friday and said, "You are f--king dead."

Despite the following report from the Northwestern at 12:53 PM Monday, no major media outlet other than Fox News has covered this disgusting story:

James Taranto, who writes the “Best of the Web” column for the Wall Street Journal online, continues to be on fire on the subject of New York Times hypocrisy over “violent” political rhetoric. His Monday column opened with another moral excoriation of the Times, based on its Saturday editorial endorsing the latest cause from Common Cause, a left-wing advocacy group. An excerpt:

The New York Times editorial page, a division of the New York Times Co., on Saturday endorsed Common Cause's personal attack on Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. As we explained Friday, Common Cause, a Washington-based corporation, is complaining about Scalia and Thomas's having joined Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the 2010 decision that overturned a law criminalizing certain political speech by corporations.

After arguing that “Common Cause's complaint is not only meritless but frivolous,” Taranto quoted a damning excerpt from the Times editorial.

Justice Scalia, who is sometimes called "the Justice from the Tea Party," met behind closed doors on Capitol Hill to talk about the Constitution with a group of representatives led by Representative Michele Bachmann of the House Tea Party Caucus.

Then he really got tough on the Times.

Andrea Mitchell, for a second day in a row, pushed for more gun control on her MSNBC show as she encouraged Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, "You and Mike Bloomberg...have all been yelling and screaming," about more restrictive anti-gun measures, "Somebody's got to listen in Washington." Initially invited on Thursday's Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss the Obama administration's push for more green jobs, Nutter wasn't allowed to finish the segment without Mitchell pressing him: "As a big city mayor, what are you saying to the White House about waiting for this gun control speech we keep hearing about?"

On yesterday's show Mitchell expressed disappointment, to the aformentioned New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, that Barack Obama had "absolutely nothing, not one word....not even a sentence" in his State of the Union speech about gun control.

(video, audio and transcript after the jump)

Within minutes of the tragic shootings in Tucson, the Left and their media minions were sure that violent rhetoric and gun imagery were responsible for inciting Jared Lee Loughner to that heinous act.

Now, just 23 days since that horrible event and after all kinds of calls for a toning down of such rhetoric, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has issued a press release entitled "DCCC Launches 'Drive to 25' Ad & Grassroots Campaign in Targeted Districts" (image courtesy World Net Daily:

The media couldn't pin the Gabrielle Giffords shooting on conservatives, but that doesn't mean they've stopped trolling for proof that conservatives are racist and violent. In California, a liberal state senator running for Mayor of San Francisco named Leland Yee received an indirect death threat after he attacked Rush Limbaugh. Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Tony Beard said he and the California Highway Patrol are looking into the letter, which includes a drawing of a noose. The  Los Angeles Times managed to start connecting dots to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting:

Yee, who is running for mayor of San Francisco, had recently accused radio personality Rush Limbaugh of mocking the Chinese language and culture during his radio program.

The fax received by Yee’s office Wednesday uses racist language about Yee and Obama and goes on to say: "Without exceptions, Marxists are enemies of the United States Constitution! Death to all Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!"

It appears NBC's Matt Lauer is not happy about Barack Obama's failure to exploit the Tucson shooting to push for more gun control as on Wednesday's Today show, he seemingly expressed disappointment to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that the President "missed" an "opportunity" to address it in his State of the Union speech.

Lauer's anti-gun question to Giuliani came on the heels of his pushing White House senior advisor, on yesterday's show, to reveal if Obama would join current NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg in making a push for more gun control. On this morning's Today show, Lauer went even further, as he, in addition to throwing Bloomberg's words in Giuliani's face, also read directly from a Brady Center press release, as seen in the following January 26 exchange:

(video, audio and transcript after the jump)

Mike Huckabee on Sunday demonstrated to his Fox News audience how politically correct, violent rhetoric-free speech can work on television if you try hard enough.

He also showed how absurd it will be if the liberal media reaction to the Tucson shootings goes too far (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As media quickly accused conservatives of inciting the tragedy in Tucson two weeks ago, they ignored the fact that one of those they were pointing fingers at was a friend of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.).

On Monday, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly what it was like for her that fateful Saturday morning to not only find out that someone close to her had been shot, but also that she was being accused of causing it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 On Monday’s the Last Word show, in its new 8:00 p.m. time slot, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell referred to the manufacturers of high-capacity magazines as "merchants of death" who purchase "their political protection from the NRA." As he continued his push for a ban on magazines with 30 bullets in light of the Tucson shootings, O’Donnell dismissed a statement from the NRA which argued that such magazines are useful in self-defense, and went on to make his latest attack on the manufacturers:

So the merchants of death are buying their political protection from the NRA and leave us to stare at our children and wonder: Who among them will be the next nine-year-old their high-capacity magazines unload on? The next Christina Taylor Green.

He went on to plead with President Obama to talk about gun control in the State of the Union Address, or otherwise "become part of the problem." O’Donnell:

If the President follows Republican and Democratic tradition tomorrow night and says not a word about gun and ammunition control, if he does not use this moment of his increasing popularity, if he does not believe he has the communication skills to convey the necessity to control the capacity of automatic weapons, then I, for one, will become disappointed in him for the first time. And he will become part of the problem.

Every two weeks, the Media Research Center compiles the most outrageous liberal media quotes for our Notable Quotables newsletter. For the issue dated Monday, January 24, it’s a special edition, “Conservatives in the Crosshairs,” documenting the smarmy attempt by the liberal media to link conservatives — especially Sarah Palin, talk radio and the Tea Party — to the horrific shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords that left six others dead.

After the jump, you'll find some of the choicer quotes we’ve uncovered, including three video clips. The full issue will be is now available at www.MRC.org by 9am Monday:

Chris Matthews on Thursday actually showed a graphic image of the Capitol building with a red target on it and crosshairs in the foreground.

This hypocritically occurred moments before a lengthy segment on "Hardball" about violent rhetoric wherein he complained about "over-the-top references to guns all the time by people like Sarah Palin" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords could have been averted if America had government-run health care, according to left-wing comedian Bill Maher.

That's just the first instance of liberal media advocacy that NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell touched in the January 20 "Media Mash" segment on FNC's "Hannity" program.

"This is the desperation that they're in to sell ObamaCare, that they know the American people don't want," Bozell argued.

Video embedded after page break or click here for MP3 audio.

Charles Krauthammer on Thursday attacked the media's recent bogus call for civility in politics.

"The worst in uncivil discourse that we have had in the last decade occurred in the Bush years when the President was vilified, attacked, he was demonized, compared to Nazis," he told Chris Wallace on Fox News's "Special Report." "I do not remember the Times or the mainstream media all of a sudden wagging a finger and pulling a chin about the rise of uncivil discourse at the time" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Palm Beach Post columnist Jose Lambiet (photo) is so desperate to defend the indefensible that he is now basically telling his readers that what they saw they didn't see. In this case, Lambiet is claiming that his column wasn't political even though that is exactly what it was from playing the class resentment card against the parents of  neurosurgeon Michael Lemole who treated Represenstative Gabrielle Giffords  by revealing the value of their homes to snarking about how they contributed to Tea Party candidates.

Here is Lambiet now protesting that his politically charged column wasn't political:

A recently-released analysis by the Pew Research Center reveals some interesting facts about the online conversation regarding the Tucson massacre. Most notably, it lends statistical weight to the claim that the left accused its ideological opponents of fostering a "climate of hate" to a far greater degree than did the right.

Though that may not be altogether surprising, the Pew study also revealed that the three news networks - the self-styled objective and responsible journalistic gatekeepers - were far more likely to blame conservatives alone for the tone of the national debate than even liberals in the blogosphere and twitterverse.

After days of relentless attacks by media across the fruited plain, Sarah Palin's unfavorable rating hit an all-time high this week.

A look at the assault by television and radio news organizations since bullets were fired in Tucson will give you an idea how the press accomplished their mission (image of Palin was found via a Google search and was not created by NewsBusters or the Media Research Center):

Two of the conservative opinion world’s heavyweights, humorist P.J. O’Rourke and Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto, both have responded in passionate, even moral fashion to the New York Times’s often disgraceful coverage of the Tucson shootings, in which six people were killed and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured.

In their view, the Times used the tragedy to play political blame games against conservative politicians and talk show hosts. O'Rourke condemned the Times for "shameful," "ugly and offensive" reporting, while Taranto accused the Times of "reckless disregard for the truth."

First, some highlights from P.J. O’Rourke’s scathing take on the Times’ decline in the January 24 edition of The Weekly Standard, “The Times Loses It.”

Ever since the Tucson shooting, MSNBC's Chris Matthews has been on a tirade accusing conservatives of creating a climate of hate that led to an attempt on Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' life. Yet on Wednesday's Hardball, Matthews himself insulted GOP Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, as he blared that she was: "a screamer, and in many cases pretty close to a nut case."

What was the great affront from the Minnesota Congresswoman that caused Matthews to spew such vitriol? She dared to openly root for a Republican presidential victory in 2012.

The following consecutive exchanges Matthews had about Bachmann, with Republican Congressman Bobby Schilling and Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were aired on the January 19 edition of Hardball:

(video, audio and transcript after the jump)

In a fine example of the new civility at MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell on Tuesday actually yelled at an Arizona Congressman who didn't agree with him about the need for gun control following the shootings in Tucson.

The discussion on "The Last Word" really got heated after the host made the case to Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) that additional security at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) Congress on Your Corner event wouldn't have mattered because "The overwhelming majority of bullets fired by police officers always miss their target" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Metaphors are only acceptable in the hands of trained New York Times journalists:

“Republicans say they do not intend to change the name of the proposal, titled the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. Some Democrats have suggested that the ‘job-killing’ language was particularly offensive after the shootings, but Republicans rejected that notion.” -- Congressional reporter Carl Hulse, January 14.

 On Saturday, both ABC and NBC ran stories fretting over the Crossroads of the West Gun Show that was held over the weekend in Tucson, Arizona. On ABC, at one point, correspondent David Wright seemed surprised that the large number of people showing up at the event were customers instead of protesters. After relaying that some members of Congress want more gun control laws and cautioning viewers that they should not "hold your breath for them to pass," he continued: "If you wonder why, just check out the crowd at today's gun show. These aren't protesters, they're customers."

Over on the NBC Nightly News, correspondent Kristen Welker noted that it is legal to carry concealed weapons in Arizona, "just as Loughner did last Saturday," as if a person with homicidal intent would decide to obey a law against carrying concealing weapons:

KRISTEN WELKER: Guns are permissible almost anywhere in the state, including many public buildings, and it is legal for people to conceal those weapons and carry them around, just as Loughner did last Saturday.

PAUL HELMKE, BRADY COMMISSION PRESIDENT: Arizona is only the third state in the country to allow people to carry loaded, hidden guns without any permitting process at all.

On Monday, Keith Olbermann cherry-picked a Daily Kos/PPP poll to bash the Tea Party as a violent threat to America's elected officials.

On the following day's "Countdown," the MSNBCer misrepresented an Opinion Research/CNN poll to tie Sarah Palin to the Tucson shootings (video follows with transcript and commentary):