John McCain

One of the unwritten rules of comedy is to always attack the people in power. Apparently, that concept has mostly eluded Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who have staunchly defended the reaction by President Barack Obama and his administration to the death of four Americans in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Instead, the hosts of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” have, on a regular basis, harshly criticized Republicans and other critics of the Democrat in the White House.

On the Friday, May 3, Politics Nation, MSNBC host Al Sharpton fretted over the video that was played at Friday's NRA convention in Houston to introduce Rick Perry which shows the Texas governor firing at targets with an AR-15. Sharpton began the segment:

Thursday's CBS This Morning singled out the FBI's pursuit of three persons of interest who could provide information on the September 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Margaret Brennan touted how "what happened that night is still the topic of debate in Washington", and noted that members of Congress "want to speak to those Americans evacuated from Benghazi, but claim the White House won't release the names."

ABC devoted a news brief to the FBI's investigation on Wednesday's World News, but didn't cover the development the following morning on Good Morning America. NBC apparently didn't find the story newsworthy, as they failed to cover it on their evening and morning newscasts.

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Chip Reid forwarded the talking points of "some Democrats [who] say less vocal victims of the budget slashing have been left out in the cold ". Reid asserted that "millions of Americans harmed by the sequester [are] wondering what Washington plans to do for them" after Congress expedited the passage of a bill that ended the furloughs of air traffic controllers.

CBS News political director John Dickerson also spotlighted how "these across-the-board cuts have affected...all kinds of things – kids getting their Head Start, meals for poor people, even cancer treatments for Medicare patients – but they haven't been able to put the pressure on lawmakers that happened in this case."

Bill Maher on Friday proved once again that when it comes to insulting Republicans, there's no floor to his indecency.

During the New Rules segment of HBO's Real Time, the host joked about Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) being gay lovers (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NPR's David Welna stacked his Thursday report on Morning Edition full of liberal politicians and activists who support granting citizenship to illegal immigrants. Welna aired sound bites from a representative of the left-wing SEIU, three Democratic politicians, and a woman who has illegal immigrant family members. He only included one clip from a Republican – Senator John McCain, who has long been a supporter of "comprehensive" immigration reform.

The correspondent also spent much of the segment spotlighting a recent Capitol Hill demonstration in favor of a so-called path to citizenship, where many of his liberal talking heads spoke.

In an item about how Arizona Senator John McCain is sticking to his characterization of illegal immigrants as "illegal," Kevin Cirilli at the Politico relayed without the least bit of skepticism a claim by illegal-immigrant advocates that those who enter the country illegally should only be called "illegal" if they have previously been deported, and that those who illegally overstay their visas really aren't acting illegally at all.

McCain's current position (who knows what it will be tomorrow or a week for now?), as quoted by Cirilli, is that "Someone who crosses our borders illegally is here illegally. You can call it whatever you want to, but it’s illegal. I think there’s a big difference between someone who does something that’s illegal and someone who’s undocumented. I’ll continue to call it illegal.” Illegal-immigrant advocates -- incorrectly, as will be seen -- don't see it that way (bolds are mine throughout this post):

MSNBC’s propensity to selectively edit video to smear conservatives has reached a new low.  Speaking on her self-titled show on February 21, host Rachel Maddow openly admitted to playing edited footage of Senator John McCain to smear the Arizona Republican.

Speaking last week, Maddow aired footage of McCain addressing a constituent whose son was killed last year at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, who spoke to Senator McCain about her belief that “These assault weapons allow a shooter to fire many rounds without having to reload. These weapons do not belong on our streets.”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Syndicated columnist George Will on ABC's This Week Sunday made a marvelous observation about the upcoming Academy Awards.

In his view, “Zero Dark Thirty” should win as best picture as a “rebuke to Senators Levin, Feinstein, and McCain who have enough to do without being movie critics and falsely accusing that movie of taking a stand on torture it does not take” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Chuck Todd can't imagine what could ever have given conservative politicians the idea that the MSM is unfriendly to them. C'mon Chuck: we know you're a NewsBusters reader.  Every day here, we document the liberal media's hostility to conservatives.

On today's Morning Joe, NBC political director Todd repeatedly spoke of a supposed "mythology" among conservative politicians and their staffs that the "big, bad non-conservative media" is "out to get conservatives."  That in turn explains why, according to Todd, conservative officials are reluctant to appear on non-Fox shows.  View the video after the jump.

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked NBC's David Gregory a question Sunday that should be asked of virtually every media member in this country.

During a heated exchange about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year, McCain said to his Meet the Press host, "Do you care whether four Americans died?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberal anchor Chris Matthews on Friday stooped to new low, smearing John McCain as an "angry" Vietnam veteran who is having a "flashback." Resorting to the cheapest of stereotypes, the Hardball host attempted to explain why McCain so aggressively opposed Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense.

Matthews opened the show by sneering, "Why is John McCain so angry? Forty years after the Vietnam POWs came home, the most famous of them is angrier than ever." Regarding Thursday's congressional hearings, the journalist asserted that Vietnam "flashbacks must haunt still the mind and heart of John Sidney McCain." Dredging up the cliches of the unstable Vietnam veteran, Matthews declared, "...But I'm absolutely convinced we're watching a flashback." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Sure, Chuck Hagel might have been a bumbling, stumbling mess at his confirmation hearing yesterday.  But the real story was how awful were the Republicans who questioned him.  That was the collective judgment of today's Morning Joe panel.

For example, so contemptuous was Joe Scarborough of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, that the Morning Joe host announced that he would not even mention him by name.  "Clown show" was the panel's operative phrase for the Republican performance.  Andrea Mitchell, Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle et al. joined in the Republican roasting.  View the video after the jump.

Yet another example of why I've long referred to Mike Malloy as the Voice of the Guard in the Gulag.

Bad enough that this most creepy and vampiric of men can barely let consecutive sentences pass without reference to carnage and bloodshed. On his radio show Tuesday, Malloy slandered Sen. John McCain as a war criminal who murdered civilians during the Vietnam War and was justifiably tortured for doing so. (audio clip after page break)

Surely without intending to do so, liberal radio host Bill Press has providing a compelling argument against renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.

On his radio show this morning, the easily piqued Press sniffed in disdain at the sheer effrontery of Republican senators asking pointed questions of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. (audio clip after page break)

The media's sickening love affair with Hillary Clinton has gone so over the top that Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) took issue with it Thursday.

Discussing the Secretary of State's recent testimony on Capitol Hill with the gang at Fox & Friends, McCain said, "She was called feisty according to the mainstream media. She obviously has an adoring media. She really didn't answer any questions" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Wednesday's New York Times front page featured Susan Rice's failed attempt to assuage concerns of three Senate Republicans on her false statements about the Benghazi massacre in "Rice Concedes Error on Libya: G.O.P. Digs In." Inside was an unflattering photo of a peeved-looking Sen. John McCain. Posing Republican senator and Rice critic McCain as the bad guy, an on-line text box accompanying the article highlighted a reader comment from "Them or Us": "If you think these three Senators walked in with open minds and no agenda, I'd like to sell you a bridge that crosses the East River into Brooklyn. McCain's little kangaroo court is about as transparent as his anger." Meanwhile, on the back pages, two liberal Times columnists disagreed on Benghazi's significance.

In the front-page story, reporters Mark Landler and Jeremy Peters minimized the import of the policy scandal by focusing on the personal, portraying Rice, who may be nominated by President Obama to the post of UN ambassador, as offering an olive branch that "hostile Senate Republicans" rejected.

Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren has reached her boiling point after seeing yet another person at MSNBC hurl a gratuitous, objectively false charge of "racism" at Arizona Senator John McCain for having the gall to believe that Susan Rice would not be a good choice to be the next Secretary of State.

She let it rip in a blog post Monday afternoon:

Well, at least he isn't shy about it.

According to Dylan Byers at Politico, the National Journal's Ron Fournier is going to "step down as editor-in-chief" and moving to "a role as editorial director." Before joining that publication in June 2010, Fournier worked at the Associated Press for a total of over 20 years in two different stints. In an email response to Politico yesterday, Fournier elaborated on the motivation behind his move (bolds are mine throughout this post):

America has created almost six trillion dollars in new debt in the past four years and Time magazine's Joe Klein wants to "bring back earmarks."

On ABC's This Week Sunday, Klein also said, "I think John McCain did a tremendous disservice to this country by making such a huge campaign about earmarks" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

From Joe Scarborough to John Heilemann, Katty Kay to Mark Halperin to Willie Geist, it was unanimous on today's Morning Joe.  Whatever the substance, whatever the policy, Republicans would be making a massive political mistake by opposing the possible nomination of Susan Rice as Secretary of State.

Summed up Scarborough the MJ zeitgeist: "do a bunch of old white guys want to make their first big battle, post-election, a battle going up against a younger woman of color?" View the video after the jump. H/t reader cobokat.

Former top Newsweek journalist and current MSNBC.com editor Richard Wolffe on Monday smeared Senator John McCain as a racist. According to Wolffe, there's no legitimate reason for the Republican to oppose Susan Rice's confirmation for Secretary of State. Appearing on Hardball, the journalist sneered that it was "outrageous" the way McCain was acting, raging against "this witch hunt going on the right about these people of color, let's face it, around this president. Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, now Susan Rice." [See video below.]

Such a charge seemed to shock even Chris Matthews. He sputtered, "McCain, who had his own daughter attacked, was accused of having an illegitimate child when, in fact, he adopted a young girl from South Asia. You're saying that McCain's being driven by racial prejudice here?" Wolffe confirmed, "There is no other way to look at this..." Of course, McCain opposes Rice's nomination because of her dissembling on the issue of the terrorist attack in Libya.

The liberal media cheerleading for United Nations ambassador Susan Rice to become Secretary of State despite her repeated claims that September's attack on our consulate in Libya were a reaction to an anti-Muslim video are becoming nauseating.

On PBS's Inside Washington Friday, Politico's Roger Simon actually said, "John McCain named Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency but he won’t vote for Susan Rice ’cause he can’t trust her. That’s absurd" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell took turns hammering Senator John McCain on Wednesday's CBS This Morning over his promise to block any potential nomination of Susan Rice to be secretary of state. Rose grilled McCain after the Republican slammed Rice for blaming a "spontaneous" mob for the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi: "Didn't Susan Rice say that...all the information was not in, and she did not know everything there was to be known....what should she have said, based on what she knew at the moment?"

O'Donnell also tried to shift blame away from Ambassador Rice to a "failure with the intelligence coming out of the CIA." She later pointed a finger at former CIA Director David Petraeus and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. When the Arizona senator confirmed that Petraeus and Clinton deserved scrutiny, Rose interjected, "But why not wait for them before you make a judgment about Susan Rice?" [audio available here; video below the jump]

We hear this from the liberal media every single time the Republicans don’t win something. They have only one solution for the Republican Party: don’t be conservative. It’s never about the failures of the candidates or a poor voter turnout effort. It’s that Republicans are too conservative – a false conclusion that ignores the successful campaigns of conservatives Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

The liberal media discourage candidates from being conservative because it helps their preferred liberal candidates. Mitt Romney didn’t embrace the conservative base and he lost, just like Bob Dole and liberal media sweetheart John McCain. The liberal media’s rush to scare the GOP away from conservatism is a deliberate attempt to divide the party. They don’t want Republicans to embrace conservative principals because conservative Republicans win.

As NBC anchor Brian Williams appeared as a guest on Wednesday's The Late Show on CBS, host David Letterman charged that Republican political strategist Karl Rove "lied to" and tried to "frighten" the electorate in 2012, referring to the former George W. Bush strategist as a "tubby little weasel." Letterman:

The film "SEAL Team Six" came under fire for being an Obama-booster just before the election. Its Obama-supporting producer Harvey Weinstein gave credibility to those charges when he lauded the President and took shots at Mitt Romney and John McCain on CNN on Monday night.

"I didn't have to do anything to remind anybody about the decision that Barack Obama made to pull the trigger on Osama bin Laden," Obama-donor Harvey Weinstein told CNN. Host Piers Morgan teed him up by calling the drama "quite overtly political in the most magnificent propaganda-style way." [Video below the break. Audio here.]