Ronald Reagan

Friday's enormous A1 New York Times story by economics reporters Binyamin Appelbaum and Robert Gebeloff tried to soften Americans up for tax hikes under a misleading headline: "Complaints Aside, Most Face Lower Tax Burden Than in the Reagan ’80s." They write:

But in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes -- federal, state and local -- than they would have paid 30 years ago. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.

In last week's Food section, the Washington Post's Manuel Roig-Franzia cooked up a look at various First Families and their respective Thanksgiving traditions. While overall not that bad a feature, the current residents at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue received a fair bit of mushy treatment, especially for incorporating the produce of their organic White House garden into the Thanksgiving feast. [h/t my lovely wife Laura, who is hard at work on our Thanksgiving feast today]

What's more there will be "No creamy, gloppy, fattening dressing, either," Roig-Franzia gushed approvingly. "Their fresh produce will be dappled with a dressing that would make a dietitian beam, blended from shallots, lemon juice, red wine vinegar and olive oil."  The Post staffer likewise included some vignettes about the last Democratic first family, the Clintons, and how Mrs. Clinton kept a sense of down-home Southern sensibility even in the fancy finery of the executive mansion's dining room:

Can you imagine the outrage if a white commentator wrote an article with the headline "The 15 Most Overrated Black People?"

On Monday, African American Studies professor and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill published a piece at the Huffington Post entitled "The 15 Most Overrated White People."

For the past few weeks, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious examples of liberal media bias the Media Research Center has uncovered in our 25-year history, all leading up to tonight’s 25th Anniversary Gala and DisHonors Awards in Washington, D.C.

To close out this series, I’ve pulled together what I consider the 25 most obnoxious quotes of the MRC’s history. It’s a pretty offensive display of smug disdain for everyday conservatives, rabid hatred for conservative leaders, embarrassing sycophancy for liberals, and a little anti-American treason thrown in for good measure.

These worst-of-the-worst quotes and video appear below the jump; or you can check out the year-by-year posts here.

Since September 2, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala next week.

Click here for blog posts recounting the worst of 1988 through 2003. Today, the worst bias of 2004: CBS’s Morley Safer eulogized Ronald Reagan by saying “I don’t think history has any reason to be kind to him;” the New York Times asks George W. Bush if he feels “personal responsibility” for 9/11; and Dan Rather finds “exclusive” documents regarding Bush and his Vietnam-era service in the National Guard. [Quotes and video below the jump.]

Each morning, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala September 27.

If you’ve missed a previous blog, recounting the worst of 1988 through 1999, you can find them here. Today, the worst bias of 2000: Amid the custody battle over 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez, Newsweek touts life under the Castro dictatorship (“The boy will nestle again in a more peaceable society that treasures its children”), while PBS host Bonnie Erbe rudely slams conservative guest Linda Chavez during a gun control debate. [Quotes and video below the jump.]

Each morning, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala September 27. (Click here for details and ticket information.)

If you’ve missed a previous blog, recounting the worst of 1988 through 1998, you can find them here. Today, the worst bias of 1999, including Eleanor Clift likening the House Republican impeachment managers to the KKK (“all they were missing was the white sheets!”), and Katie Couric misquoting author Edmund Morris to call Ronald Reagan “an airhead.” [Quotes and video below the jump.]

ABC's Diane Sawyer, in a Nightline interview with the Washington Post's Bob Woodward Monday, aggressively defended President Obama from any blame for last summer's debt ceiling crisis.

"Barack Obama was hostage to events outside his control" due to a "Republican Congress newly dominated by the Tea Party" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Once a day for 25 days, NewsBusters is showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala on September 27. (Click here for ticket information)

So far, we’ve published the worst quotes from 1988 through 1992 (you can check those out here). Today, the worst bias of 1993, including the Washington Post smearing Christian conservatives as "poor, uneducated and easy to command," Dan Rather fawning over Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Helen Thomas disavowing any tilt, saying she does not “know what a liberal bias is.” [Quotes and video below the jump.]

Each morning, NewsBusters is showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala on September 27. (Click here for ticket information)

We’ve already published the worst quotes of 1988 and 1989; today, the worst of 1990. Highlights include: Time magazine saluting Mikhail Gorbachev as “the communist Pope and the Soviet Martin Luther;” CBS finding “nostalgia” for the Berlin Wall; and Knight Ridder’s economics reporter giving this slanted take on the 1980s: “Reaganomics delivered a feast to the greedheads and starvation to the poor.” [Quotes and video below the jump.]

Every day for the next few weeks, NewsBusters is showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala on September 27. (Click here for ticket information) With each TV quote, we’ve added the matching video from our archive, some of which hasn’t been seen in nearly a quarter-century.

Yesterday, we published the worst quotes of 1988; today, the most outrageous quotes of 1989. Among the highlights: On Ronald Reagan’s last day in office, ABC talks about the “pockets of misery made even meaner and more desperate the past eight years,” and CBS’s Andy Rooney rues how communism “never got a fair chance.” [Quotes and video below the jump.]
 

Every day for the next few weeks, NewsBusters will be showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala on September 27. (Click here for ticket information.) With each TV quote, we’ve added the matching video from our archive, some of which hasn’t been seen in nearly a quarter-century.

To start: the worst quotes of 1988, MRC’s first full year in business. Among the highlights: Dan Rather ambushes the first George Bush and Ted Turner’s TBS super-station aired a propagandistic tribute to the U.S.S.R. [Quotes and video below the jump.]

Obama campaign spokesperson Stepanie Cutter, appearing on MSNBC earlier this week, claimed that "over the past, you know, 27 months we've created 4.5 million private-sector jobs. That's more jobs than in the Bush recovery (or) in the Reagan recovery."

A Thursday Investor's Business Daily editorial plaintively asked: "Where are those allegedly unbiased fact-checkers when you need them?" As will be seen shortly, the answer is "AWOL."

Appearing as a guest in a pre-recorded interview aired on Wednesday's The O'Reilly Factor on FNC, actor Jimmie Walker explained why he believes President Barack Obama "is not the guy" for the job of President and declared that, "You just can't blindly vote for somebody just because they are [your race]. Sometimes, even a brother, you have to let him go when he's not doing the gig."

Uniquely among the broadcast network evening newscasts, on Friday's NBC Nightly News, substitute host Kate Snow briefly noted that it was former President George W. Bush's 66th birthday, and that the former President was in Africa as part of an effort to fight against cancer on the Third World continent. Snow read the item:

On Friday's World News on ABC, anchor Diane Sawyer cited a recently hyped quote from former Governor Jeb Bush as the Florida Republican theorized that President Ronald Reagan "would be criticized" by Republicans today "for doing some of the things that he did."

As Sawyer recalled it, during a piece on former President George H.W. Bush, she asserted:

During the 1980s, despite data which even then was telling them they were wrong, it became a mantra of a desperate establishment press that the booming economy under Ronald Reagan really wasn't that impressive because so many of the new jobs created were part-time or temporary.

The data was not then readily available for temps, but it certainly was for part-time vs. full-time employment. It comes from to the Household Survey performed by Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics on a monthly basis to determine the unemployment rate. What follows is a graph comparing the growth in employment in those two categories during the 35 post-recession months under Reagan to the analogous 35 months since the most recent recession's official end in June 2009. It will make you wonder how the press can claim objectivity when it has barely touched on the contrast you will see, or even on the poor performance itself without historical comparisons.

The BuzzFeed Website carried an article on Monday based on an interview with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in which he said that his father, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan would have a difficult time getting nominated by today's “ultra-conservative” Republican Party in a “hyper-partisan moment.”

The only problem is that Bush never used the words “ultra-conservative” or “hyper-partisan”in the interview (at least not in any of the text provided).. Those words were added by the unidentified “BuzzFeed Staff” who wrote the article.