2012 Presidential

On Monday's Early Show, CBS's Jim Axelrod pressed Gov. Mitch Daniels to anything derogatory about the Republican presidential field, leaving the Indiana politician little time to say anything about his new book. Axelrod also devoted a significant amount of time during the interview to the question of whether New Jersey Governor Chris Christie would get into the presidential race.

The substitute anchor led the segment with the issue of the recent Florida straw poll, which businessman Herman Cain won: "Cain didn't just win in Florida this weekend. He had more votes than both Governor Romney and Governor Perry combined. What does that tell you about the state of the Republican field?" After his guest gave an initial answer, Axelrod followed up by asking, "When you see what's happening with the inability for a single candidate to, sort of, get some traction, does it make you rethink your decision, at all, to get out of the race?"

On Friday's NBC Nightly News, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd portrayed audience members at recent Republican debates as unruly and an embarrassment to the GOP: "Some Republicans are concerned these audience moments might send the wrong message to swing voters."

Wrapping up a report on Thursday's Republican debate, Todd declared: "These three September debates have also exposed just how stark some of the cultural divides are between left and right. From the cheering of Perry's death penalty record....To the shouts from the audience about whether emergency rooms should treat the uninsured....To last night's jeers of a question about gays in the military."

Update: Click here to make your voice heard!

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell has issued a letter  to the heads of NBC, CBS, and ABC television networks calling on them to end their bias against GOP presidential hopefuls in their reporting and interviewing.

The MRC recently released an analysis of 53 weekday morning show interviews with either potential or declared Republican candidates from January 1 through September 15, and compared the results with our study of the same programs’ treatment of the Democratic candidates during the same time period from four years ago. The analysis revealed, among other things, that by a 5-to-1 margin, ABC, CBS and NBC morning show hosts employed an adversarial liberal agenda when questioning this year’s Republican candidates.

This latest proof of blatant bias has prompted a letter from Bozell to each of the network heads which reads in part:

Good Morning America's John Hendren on Sunday dismissed the victory of Herman Cain in the Florida straw poll, condescendingly asserting that the "big winner is nobody." The ABC reporter made sure to repeatedly mention the business of the Republican presidential candidate: "That's right. The man who brought you Godfather's Pizza at 37 percent."

Hendren arrogantly explained, "What's notable about the Florida straw poll is less who won than who lost...The week's big winner in the Republican primary is nobody." It's odd for ABC to dismiss the straw poll's actual winner as a "nobody." But if the candidate hasn't broken through, perhaps the hosts at GMA should actually consider having him on as a guest. (This has yet to happen in 2011.)

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The folks at MSNBC as well as parent NBC should sit up and take notice of something Joe Scarborough said on Monday's "Morning Joe."

"There are not enough people that are either Republican in the mainstream media or talk to people on the telephone at least one a month...who actually understand what the Republican Party is" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

During the 2008 election cycle, small donors were the symbol of President Obama's campaign. This time around, though, Obama's low approval ratings have underscored a major problem with his 2012 campaign: the growing disillusionment from his former grassroots supporters. With their disillusionment and poor economy also comes a significant drop in the number of small donations Obama is receiving.

Do you think the drop in small donations signals problems for his campaign? Or are big donors really all that matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Update [11:15 ET]: Full transcript added.

In an interview with Herman Cain on Monday's NBC "Today," co-host Ann Curry declared: "The Washington Post is reporting that many of the delegates voted for you – are saying that they voted for you as a protest vote to express no confidence in the Republican field. Do you want to weigh in on this?" [Audio available here]

Cain fired back at the report: "I think that is absolutely false. I talked to a lot of delegates when I was in Florida all last week. It's not a protest vote. Look, the message coming out of that victory was quite simple. First of all, the voice of the people is more powerful than the voice of the media....the people are listening to the message and not simply, with all due respect, just to the media."

View video after the jump

"Greece has got a 45 percent income tax, a 23 percent value-added tax on top of that, so Greece should be in fine shape according to this economic theory," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on Friday, reacting to a clip of CNN's Christine Romans insisting that "serious economists" all agree that taxes must be raised on America's highest income earners.

"This is a press release by the Obama campaign," Bozell complained, adding that "cutting the size of government... capping spending" and "cutting the deficit" are options that are "off the table, not just with Obama, but with CNN."

[See video after page break]

Forget those polls.  In the mainstream media, there's always good news for President Barack Obama.  So it is on the Minneapolis StarTribune's Web site.  An Associated Press article appears under the headline "Voters weathering economic downturn sticking with Obama — because they like him" and includes this heartening news:

People who have lost their jobs or homes during Obama's presidency nonetheless say they want him to succeed and, what's more, they're working to help re-elect him because of the affinity they feel for him.

And how did the AP arrive at this conclusion in its 31-paragraph story?  They talked to people, that's how.  Specifically, the article includes quotes from two, count'em, two women who have lost their jobs, one woman who has lost her house, and one woman who has a law degree but "cobbles together work as a caterer, cake decorator and office manager."  The AP supplemented its exhaustive research by talking to a few Democratic operatives, to assure an objective and complete analysis no doubt. 

NBC's David Gregory on Sunday did his darnedest to get Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say Israel has had no better friend in the White House than President Obama.

As the "Meet the Press" host continued to force the issue, Netanyahu finally said, "David, you're trying to throw me under the bus of American politics. And guess what, I'm not going to be thrown there" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

One of the finest recent examples of liberal media bias has been the press's hostile treatment of author Ron Suskind for having the nerve to write a book critical of the Obama administration.

As Suskind told CNN's Howard Kurtz Sunday, these are "[m]any of the folks who were praising me mightily during the Bush era" for books criticizing the previous president (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Was it just coincidence that of all the ways "Good Morning America" could have reported that Republicans are urging Chris Christie to get into the presidential race, the ABC show today spoke--twice--of Christie being "heavily" urged to run?  Throw in GMA describing Christie supporters opining that the other candidates are "too small" for the job.  Oh, and the show's decision to roll extended, less-than-flattering footage of Christie walking across an airport tarmac to greet President Obama.  

Makes you wonder whether this was the opening salvo of an ABC attack on Christie's avoirdupois. Of course, such cheap shots have a history of back-firing. Just ask ex-NJ Governor Jon Corzine. Video after the jump.

As NewsBusters reported Friday, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman during an interview on CNN said members of the Tea Party are racists willing to do whatever they can to "get this black man" out of the White House.

After his win in Saturday's Florida straw poll, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain responded to Freeman during an interview with Fox News's Neil Cavuto (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll tonight, winning the votes of 37% of those who participated. No other candidate came within 20 points of Cain.

As of 8:20 p.m., roughly two hours after the result was announced, the Associated Press's Philip Elliott and Kasie Hunt had a blatantly obvious contradiction in their 6:51 p.m. story ("Perry works to show he's strongest GOP contender"; saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes), as seen in this comparison of Paragraph 2 to Paragraphs 12-14 (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Forget the birther theory that Obama was born in Kenya. Chris Hayes wants you to believe the president was born on Krypton.

How else to explain his over-the-top gushing for Dear Leader during an appearance on MSNBC colleague Rachel Maddow's show on Thursday (video after page break) --

The lengths MSNBC will go to deflect blame from President Obama for anything bad that can be tied to his administration is simply amazing.

On Friday, a liberal green jobs activist was brought on "MSNBC Live" to falsely accuse former President George W. Bush of making that ill-advised loan to failed solar company Solyndra (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For the second week in a row since returning from his summer hiatus, it didn't take HBO's Bill Maher long to begin attacking conservatives.

Roughly one minute into his opening monolog on Friday's "Real Time," the host mocked Texas governor Rick Perry's performance at Thursday's presidential debate and disgustingly quipped, "Sarah Palin was watching and she said, 'If only he was black, I'd f--k him'" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity alert):

Former Congresswoman Jane Harman called out Bill Maher Friday evening for saying Fox News's Megyn Kelly was a "blonde twink" who's "not bright."

Appearing on HBO's "Real Time," Harman responded by noting that Maher had just minutes before discussed with author Ron Suskind the sexist treatment of women in the Obama White House, and then said, "I want to point out that the last time I was on this show, there were lots of women on. This time, I'm it. I'm blonde. Hey" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's probably not much of a stretch to believe that Barack Obama and his speechwriters frequently peruse the New York Times in print or online.

Their likely affinity for the Times may explain why the President referred to the "intercontinental railroad" in his speech yesterday in Cincinnati near the Brent Spence Bridge:

It's going to be a long campaign . . . Republicans haven't come close to choosing their presidential candidate yet, but already a proud member of the MSM is calling a leading GOP contender a "killer."

On his MSNBC show this evening, Crazy Larry O'Donnell accused Rick Perry of being--for his record of enforcing the Texas law on capital punishment--the Republicans' "favorite killer, favorite state-sanctioned killer."  Video after the jump.

In recent years, various media outlets have established self-styled truth squads to "fact check"  politicians.  Today on CNN Newsroom anchored by Brooke Baldwin, correspondent Tom Foreman examined statements made at last night's GOP presidential candidate debate.  One was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's criticism of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s support for a law allowing children of illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition at public universities and colleges.  Romney said: "Four years of college, almost $100,000 discount if you're an illegal alien to go to the University of Texas. If you're a United States citizen you have to pay $100,000 more."
     
Foreman's verdict was that Romney's assertion was correct, but faulted him because he didn't mention other states have similar programs:

FOREMAN: If you were an out of state student, you would pay an additional around $23,000 to go there, so over four years that, would add up to about $100,000 break as an in-state student. What he doesn't mention, however is that Texas is not alone. Sure, he wants to punch Rick Perry with this. But California does this, New Mexico does it, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Maryland, I can't remember them all.

On Friday's Early Show, CBS's Erica Hill advocated for a liberal pet cause, urging Michele Bachmann to allow children of illegal aliens to receive in-state college tuition. Hill also spotlighted Gov. Rick Perry's attack on his competitors in the GOP presidential race on this issue: "Basically, [Perry is] saying to the other eight folks on the stage there, including yourself, that you don't have a heart."

The anchor raised the immigration issue towards the end of her interview of the Minnesota representative. Hill first quoted Gov. Perry's line on the in-state tuition issue from the previous night's debate: "He said, 'If you say we should not educate children who come into our state by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart.'" She then made a budget-based appeal to the Republican: "I know you said you don't want any resources to go to illegal aliens or their children. Why not, though, give them a tuition break now, rather then, perhaps, down the line, having to hand over unemployment, or even welfare?"

In a Thursday morning post setting the table for last night’s Republican presidential debate in Orlando, New York Times chief “Caucus” blog reporter Michael Shear became the latest Timesman to falsely finger the Tea Party audience at a CNN debate last week as cheering on the prospect of letting a hypothetical man die for lack of health insurance.

Shear listed six things to watch for in Orlando last night. The last item:

Morgan Freeman, in an interview to be aired on CNN Friday evening, says that President Obama has made racism worse in America.

Chatting with Piers Morgan, the Oscar-winning actor also blames the Tea Party saying they're "going to do whatever [they] can to get this black man outta here” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberals watching CNN Friday morning would have been pleased by the "Political Buzz" segment that targeted Republicans for criticism and hyped the possible political career of Chelsea Clinton.

CNN reported that the "crowd" at Thursday's GOP debate booed a gay soldier serving in Iraq. From the video they provided of the incident, it was clear that a couple of rogue crowd members booed the man, and not the audience in general.

[Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

The media "are so vested" in Obama "not being a failure that it's going to be amazing to watch the lengths they go to protect him," Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) told NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell in an exclusive for CNSNews.com earlier this week.

"There's going to be a real desperation" as the media ramp up their attacks on conservatives who are taking on the president, Walsh noted.

That's something the Illinois Republican can personally attest to, having sparred with MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Martin Bashir recently.

We've embedded the video after the page break:

Earlier this evening (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I cited a few of very many examples where the press has not hesitated during the Obama years, and really since Barack Obama became the frontrunner for the Democratic Party's nomination in 2008, to engage in uncalled-for creativity to avoid calling a statement made a lie or an unlawful action illegal. One of the lastest: A Raleigh New & Observer reporter concluded that in implying that North Carolina has bridges in imminent danger of falling -- specifically, by asking his audience: "Why would we wait to act until another bridge falls?" -- Obama "may have" merely "over-suggested the risk to public safety."

Jim Kuhnhenn's report at the Associated Press tonight on the President's visit to the Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River connecting Cincinnati to Covington, Kentucky appears to have taken the cover-up of the president's misleading statements to a new level, as seen in the following excerpted paragraphs (bolds are mine):