2010 Congressional

Usually, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry only toils for the Obama administration on the weekends. Last Friday, she worked overtime. On the May 31 edition of Al Sharpton’s PoliticsNation, Harris-Perry fawned over the Democrat-controlled 111th  Congress, which sat for the first two years of President Obama’s first term, as the “most incredible legislative session in American history.”

Yes, this is the same left-wing legislature that placed burdensome regulations on the financial sector under Dodd-Frank and rammed ObamaCare down the nation’s throat. Unsurprisingly, the liberal host is just fine with aggressive, one-party rule in Washington – as long as it’s the Left’s agenda being supported.

You can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting some liberal media member cautioning the Republicans to not "overplay their hand" concerning the various scandals now plaguing the White House.

Do you remember the press being concerned that the Democrats would overplay 2006's "Republican Culture of Corruption" or last year's "Republican War on Women?"

In what some have described as a "bombshell" statement, ABC News Political analyst Trey Hardin said something on Monday morning any reporter with any kind of meaningful inside connections in Washington should have known, but apparently wouldn't dare say or write: "I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS were doing but authorized it."

Martin continued: "It simply just does not happen at an agency level like that without political advisers likely in the West Wing certainly connected to the president’s ongoing campaign organization that didn’t know about it." Again, many experienced reporters in Washington had to know this. Any remaining doubts that what Hardin said is true disappeared today when Congressman Darrell Issa, as reported by Kerry Picket at Breitbart News, released hearing testimony previous obtained (bolds are mine):

MSNBC contributor Joy Reid – in her infinite liberal wisdom – has the Republican Party all figured out. In a sneering tirade against conservatives on Wednesday’s PoliticsNation, Reid broke the entire party into five separate groups: the “angry” Tea Party, the evangelicals that “want to litigate social issues only,” the “economic conservatives” who want to “get rid of Social Security and Medicare,” those who focus “on ripping away programs for the poor,” and the “Wall Street guys who really run the party.”

Reid, of course, didn’t just reserve her criticism for views she disagrees with. She also claimed the only thing these ‘groups’ agreed on was “despising Barack Obama.” Doubtless we can trust Reid, managing editor of NBC’s left-leaning website TheGrio.com, as a trusted source on all things conservative.

Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has reviewed the White House logs looking for a relationship between meetings listed there and the timeline found in the Inspector General's report on the targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups issued last Tuesday. Lord's work represents yet another example of alternative media scooping a lazy or negligent establishment press.

What Lord has found (single-page print version) is that President Barack Obama met with the President of the National Treasury Employees Union Colleen Kelley, on March 31, 2010. The NTEU is "the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies." The Inspector General's report, blandly titled "Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review," indicates that the IRS, in Lord's words, "set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America" the very next day. Lord's work is a mandatory read-the-whole-thing item. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

MSNBC is well-known for excusing the failures of President Obama, usually by blaming Republican “obstructionism” for Obama’s faltering agenda. If that doesn’t work, they will pretend that the Obama administration is free from guilt regarding any criticism it may receive, essentially living in denial.

Take the Monday May 13 edition of Now w/ Alex Wagner when Time magazine assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar ridiculously asserted in light of the IRS/Tea Party scandal that, “What’s so sad about it is the president has been very rightfully proud of the lack of scandal in his administration so far.” [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]

I guess we had better start paying closer attention to how the establishment press labels -- and mislabels -- congressional districts.

The headline at the Associated Press at a lengthy column composed by Charles Babington bemoaning the lack of willingness of Ohio First District Congressman Steve Chabot to "compromise," i.e., sell out his principles, reads as follows: "PARTISAN DISCORD FINDS ROOTS IN TOSS-UP DISTRICTS." Uh, Chabot won the district in the 2012 elections by 20 points. Babington's attempt to justify the "toss-up" classification also falls flat:

It's not very often that a federal judge begins a ruling by saying that "Sometimes even a person with excellent vision does not see the forest for the trees." That happened yesterday in a case involving former First District Democratic Congressman and sore loser Steve Driehaus, whose district mostly comprised the western two-thirds of Cincinnati's Hamilton County. Yet it's not news at Gannett's Cincinnati Enquirer -- or anywhere else, for that matter.

After his 2010 defeat at the hands of Republican Steve Chabot, Driehaus sued the Susan B. Anthony List in federal court  for defamation and -- get this -- "loss of livelihood." Why? Because, during that campaign, SBAL told Driehaus's constituents -- correctly, it has since been proven -- that his vote for ObamaCare was a betrayal of his pro-life principles. Yesterday, despite his obvious conflict of interest as former president and director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati, Judge Timothy Black, a Barack Obama appointee, found a way to do what he should have done in the first place, and rejected Driehaus's nonsense. 

A common media theme since the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in January 2011 has been that former President Ronald Reagan and former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill were great legislative partners despite being from different parties.

Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan threw some cold water on this notion on PBS’s McLaughlin Group Friday saying, “There’s a lot of myth about Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan working together. They did not" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Though it occupies four web pages, it's hard to avoid thinking that Alex Isenstadt at Politico is hoping news consumers only look at his story's headline ("Democrats' drive to retake House falters") and not its damning yet still woefully incomplete content.

The headline would make you think that Dems will gain seats, but not enough to achieve a majority. Isenstadt bravely concludes early on that "Democrats are expected to pick up five seats at best ... (and) might even lose ground and drop one or two seats to the Republican majority. But the rest of his writeup virtually screams "double-digit losses," and fails in several respects to properly assign blame for what appears to be an impending Democratic Party debacle (bolds are mine):

In an article for the November Philadelphia Style magazine, a cocky Chris Matthews wistfully recounted a considered 2010 run for Senate, bragging at how incredible he would have been: "I'm not dreaming here. I would be one of the stars of the Democratic Party—there aren’t that many."

The liberal MSNBC anchor flirted with, but ultimately decided against, running in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Perhaps wondering what might have been, he lamented, "I know this: If I had run and won and beaten [Senator Pat] Toomey, I would be one of the Democrats people talk about today." The Hardball host also took some disgruntled shots at Barack Obama.

In their third Presidential debate analysis, the Jurassic Press Media last night and thus far this morning have failed utterly in their role as fact checker and record-corrector - at least when it comes to what President Barack Obama had to say. 

As but one glaring example, there were the President’s absurd assertions regarding the auto bailout and China.

In an item which talks about a "secret retreat" planned by eight senators which is so "secret" that it's getting a two-page story, the Politico's John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman write that "If polls stay steady, (House Speaker John) Boehner will be at the helm of a House filled with Republicans disappointed that Obama will have another four years in the White House."

Uh, last time I checked, pollsters' results can hold steady or go in whatever cooked or uncooked directions they wish, and they still won't determine the outcome of the election. Ballots by voters and the presumably accurate inclusion and counting of such ballots will. Besides, as will be shown, there are even more valid reasons to question poll results now than in the past. Several paragraphs from the rest of B&S's BS, which is apparently designed to get the country ready to accept "revenue" (i.e., tax) increases, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post).

Back in the '90s, many people called CNN the "Clinton News Network" because it was so obviously partial to the Democratic President from Arkansas.

Wolf Blitzer perfectly exemplified why this was the case Thursday when in an interview with former President Bill Clinton, he shamefully allowed his guest to absurdly claim that prior to Tuesday's controversial interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, he thought the Bush tax cuts expired before Election Day (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

The headline at Thomas Beaumont's Sunday item about the possible significance of the Scott Walker recall election in Wisconsin is "Few November clues to be found in Wisconsin recall."

Maybe, but I have a definite clue as to Beaumont's political proclivities, something which I shouldn't be able to glean from a wire service report, thanks to the paragraph which follows the jump. Let's see if readers can pick up that clue:

CBS chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell and Republican strategist Bay Buchanan had a bit of a tussle about women in the workplace on Sunday's Face the Nation.

When Buchanan said opportunities for women are currently unlimited, O'Donnell strongly disagreed claiming, "There is a glass ceiling in politics" which led the conservative to correctly point out this is largely due to women's personal choices rather than anything nefarious (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It has become clear what the Obama campaign's strategy for trying to win states like Michigan and Ohio is and will continue to be. In three steps, it's as follows: 1) Pretend that the states' Republican governors, John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Snyder in Michigan, who both succeeded free-spending Democrats who presided over stagnant economies, have had nothing to do with their increased employment, lower unemployment rates, and improved business climates (as well as balanced budgets in fiscal 2012 involving no tax increases, though Snyder may ruin that in Michigan this year); 2) Instead give the credit for all of these favorable developments to Obama and the governments' bailouts of Chrysler and General Motors; 3) Don't say anything about how other states run by Dems, particularly Illinois, North Carolina, and Connecticut, are lagging because they have instead tried to apply Washington's tax-and-spend model to their states' fiscal situations.

Of course the AP, aka the Adminisitration's Press, is all too willing to make the administration's laughable claims appear credible. It did so in two separate items this week, one giving basic details about the job-market situations in Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina, and the other covering Obama allegedly improving chances of winning Ohio, Michigan, and a dozen other "swing" states. There was no mention of the Buckeye State's or Wolverine State's chief executives in either article.

Yesterday, Time's Joe Klein may have produced the single dumbest analysis post ever. Absurd as it is, it's still important, because it probably betrays Barack Obama's election strategy, with which the press will gleefully cooperate. The strategy is: Make it about anything and everything besides what I and my administration have and haven't done, because it hasn't impressed anyone, and we know it.

Klein's entry (HT Hot Air Headlines) at Time's Swampland, which should be named Fever-Swampland, was so brain-dead that he failed to cite a single example of an incumbent facing reelection (vs. a successor seeking election for the first time) in attempting to make his case:

Kathleen Parker this weekend demonstrated that even so-called “conservative” media members long for the death of the Tea Party.

On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, the Washington Post columnist predicted, “The Tea Party’s not going to have the same clout in the 2012 election as they did in the last cycle” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Thursday's CBS Evening News, Elaine Quijano touted a charge from Pennsylvania Democrats that the new voter I.D. law there "targets poor and elderly voters." Quijano also spotlighted that, according to unnamed "Pennsylvania court officials," there were no cases of "voters convicted of fraud in the last five years." However, in late 2010, the AP reported on a credible allegation of voter fraud in the state.

Anchor Scott Pelley introduced the correspondent's report by trumpeting how "Pennsylvania has just enacted one of the toughest voter I.D. laws in the country. It will require voters to provide a photo I.D. at the polls this November. Republicans say it's about preventing voter fraud. Democrats say the real target is the poor."

Since Senator Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) surprising announcement that she won't be seeking reelection in November, the media have been doing a victory lap blaming her decision on the lack of moderate Republicans in Congress.

Yet an op-ed she published in Friday's Washington Post suggests her dissatisfaction with government stemmed from the behavior of Democrats that have controlled the Senate since 2007 (emphasis added throughout):

On Thursday's CBS This Morning, anchor Charlie Rose spotlighted the apparent "the disappearance of political moderates" in Congress in the context of Republican Senator Olympia Snowe's retirement. Correspondent Nancy Cordes gushingly asked Snowe, "Was it just getting too lonely to be a moderate Republican in the Senate?" CBS also listed several "moderate" senators who are actually liberals.

After Cordes gave her report on the Maine senator's retirement, Rose turned to Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill and introduced her as "one of the few moderates left on Capitol Hill." In reality, McCaskill is a solid liberal, given her low rating by the American Conservative Union and her high rating from the left-leaning Americans For Democratic Action.

Another campaign cycle, another chance for the New York Times to sic the government on GOP fund-raising groups? The gang from 2010 (Mike McIntire and Michael  Luo, pictured) got back together for Sunday’s front-page story, “Fine Line Between ‘Super PACs’ and Campaigns.”

Luo in particular wrote several articles in 2010 suggesting the IRS and the Federal Election Commission might find it worthwhile to investigate GOP-affiliated groups making campaign ads, with Karl Rove a particular target. The Times’s concern over questionable campaign funding has certainly risen since 2008, when Obama scandals were greeted with nothing-to-see-here headline like this, from October 7, 2008: "G.O.P. Query Involves 1% of Giving to Obama." Sunday's piece is not as explicit (Obama is indulging in Super PAC's as well, as the reporters briefly note) but the implication remains:

Despite Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, Obama-loving media members love to blame gridlock in Washington on Republicans.

Doing his part Sunday was Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer who asked guest Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), "Has the Tea Party made compromise a dirty word, and is that why Congress can't seem to get anything done?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In an article on the sudden stroke suffered by Senator Mark Kirk, the Associated Press on Monday gratuitously piled on the Republican, currently in intensive care, making sure to note that in his last campaign, questions were raised "about his own honesty." The section has since been removed from the version on the Washington Post's website but can be found below in a screen capture. [Update: The Post has added the paragraphs back.]

After detailing the condition of Kirk, the AP's Sophia Tareen and Tammy Webber devoted three paragraphs to dredging up old attacks: "Kirk was elected to the Senate in 2010, winning the seat formerly held by President Barack Obama after a hard-fought election that often focused on questions about his own honesty."

On Friday, the White House engaged in its customary document dump, mostly secure in the knowledge that a lazy establishment press would, as usual, pay it little heed and then declare it to be old news by Monday morning.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air identified the significance of documents relating to now-bankupt Solyndra, the California-based solar panel manufacturer which borrowed $535 million through the Department of Energy. Read the whole thing, of course, but for brevity's sake I'll present the accurate timeline Ed presented:

In an item which still has a breaking news tag, Josh Funk at the Associated Press (saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes) call retiring Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson a "centrist," and almost seemed to mourn over "an increasingly polarizing climate" which made it clear that Nelson's reelection would have been a steep uphill fight. Of course, there was no mention of the infamous Cornhusker kickback which was offered and then withdrawn in a firestorm of controversy in an Obama administration attempt to win Nelson's support for the passage of ObamaCare -- which they got anyway.

Here are several paragraphs from Funk's report and the immediately following breaking news item:

Time magazine's editor-in-chief Richard Stengel was asked on Sunday's Reliable Sources to respond to NewsBusters criticizing the inclusion of the Occupy Wall Street movement into Time magazine's "Person of the Year" award, given to "The Protester." In contrast, the Tea Party which helped the Republicans win a landslide election victory in 2010 earned only runner-up status in Time that year.

CNN host Howard Kurtz asked Stengel straight-up about criticisms of the magazine's bias: "Now, some of the criticism of this cover selection comes from the right, the conservative site, NewsBusters saying, 'Time is so liberal that it could not consider the Tea Party protest as a 'Person of the Year' entry, but that's not true with Occupy Wall Street.' Your response?" [Video below the break.]