Stimulus

On Friday's NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams touted the stimulus spending that went to renovating the reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC: "Tourists in Washington this holiday weekend will find water in the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool for the first time in two years. It was actually stimulus funding that paid for the major renovation project - $34 million worth."

Scott Pelley also gave a brief on the pool's renovation on Friday's CBS Evening News, but chose not to play up the stimulus detail, only noting that "the pool was closed, so that workers could fix leaks and stop it from sinking."

CNN's Soledad O'Brien defended the stimulus bill on Monday's Starting Point, calling it a "big thing" that President Obama accomplished and adding that police officers and firefighters kept their jobs because of it.

"[I]f the stimulus hadn't been passed, then what would have happened to the economy?" she threw a Democratic talking point at Rep. Mike Burgess (R-Tex.). "Didn't that to a large degree help the economy? You're not going to argue certainly that it didn't?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

There are so many holes in Paul Wiseman's Wednesday report at the Associated Press on the weakness of the current "recovery" that it would take a term paper to cover all of them. I'll just concentrate on a repeat error Wiseman made. It is one which AP colleagues Christopher Rugaber (with Wiseman, as demonstrated here) and Martin Crutsinger (as shown here) have also committed. All three gentlemen have been preparing their reports as if "government spending" is the same thing as the government spending and investment component of the nation's economic output. It's not.

In his piece about why the Obama "recovery" (as seen here, by Warren Buffet's requirement that per capita GDP has to return to where it was before the downturn began, we don't even have the beginnings of a recovery yet) is the worst since World War II, Wiseman had the following to say on the "government spending" topic:

Clay Waters at NewsBusters addressed this item earlier today, but I want to emphasize one particular quote in the related New York Times piece which also caught the (possibly gullible) attention of Chris Ariens at Media Bistro's TV Newser: "In private meetings with columnists, he has talked about the concept of 'false balance' — that reporters should not give equal weight to both sides of an argument when one side is factually incorrect. He frequently cites the coverage of health care and the stimulus package as examples, according to aides familiar with the meetings."

Wow. Where do you start? I'll cite just one example in each area Obama cited. I suspect readers will have more.

For the past two weeks Barack Obama's media minions have been working overtime trying to convince the American people the President was taken out of context during his now infamous "You Didn't Build That" speech in Roanoke, Virginia.

CNN's Donna Brazile and the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus tried making that pathetic claim on ABC's This Week Sunday only to receive a much-needed education from George Will and Breitbart.com's Dana Loesch (video follows with transcript and commentary):

New York Times economic columnist Paul Krugman made a statement Sunday about the looming end of the year tax hikes and spending cuts that is likely to raise some eyebrows on both sides of the aisle.

Appearing on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, Krugman said, "If Obama’s reelected, I think that there’s a quite good chance that for a month or two we actually will go off the cliff" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Jurassic Press was in full-throated ObamaChorus mode in reporting on General Motors (GM)’s allegedly strong June sales.

Very few failed to receive the sheet music.

Liberal media's love for higher taxes is a thing of legends.

On Inside Washington Friday, PBS's perpetually pandering pundit Mark Shields told viewers that since 1991, "21 years, Republicans have not voted for a single broad-based tax increase, and that’s become the theology of the party, the ideology of the party, the definition of the party, and that is irresponsible" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin pleaded with President Obama to tell voters: "'I am doubling down on what I did.' He didn't do enough on the stimulus. He didn't do enough investing in the future. The things he believes in, he has to say we need more of it. And that's our future." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Goodwin implored Obama to "diagnose that what went wrong has gone wrong for 20 years, not just the last four years. The middle class has been squeezed for a long time because of an unfair structure because of lack of investment."

We at NewsBusters have been calling MSNBC's Chris Matthews a sycophant for Barack Obama since at least February 2008 when the so-called journalist bragged on the air about getting a thrill up his leg at the sound of the former junior senator from Illinois' voice.

It was therefore quite pleasing to hear former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele tell the Hardball host that to his face Thursday during a contentious exchange about the current White House resident's economics policies and who should be blamed for their failure (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In an interview with Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey on her Tuesday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell attempted to use a new Federal Reserve report showing massive wealth loss for the American middle class to promote President Obama's agenda: "Does that, in fact, justify what the President has been saying...about the need for more help and the need for more stimulus?"

Toomey dismantled that argument: "The problem is the President's program has been making it worse. The President got the big stimulus bill that he wanted.... the economic growth is so feeble that we're not even creating enough jobs to meet the demands of the new entrants in the work force....Unfortunately, the President wants to double down on all the failed policies that he's been pursuing."

Does CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien's job description include spoonfeeding Democratic talking points to Obama's deputy campaign manager? Quoting a study used by the Democratic-appointed CBO director to defend the stimulus plan, O'Brien asked Stephanie Cutter if there should be another stimulus, on Monday's Starting Point.

"So, is the takeaway from this, the stimulus worked, so there should be another stimulus?" O'Brien asked after touting a survey of economists that included the Obama's former economic advisers. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

President Obama made quite a gaffe Friday when just one week after the Labor Department announced horrid jobs numbers for May, he claimed "the private sector is doing fine."

Appearing on CBS's This Morning Monday, New York Times columnist and unashamed Obama shill Paul Krugman covered for the current White House resident saying, "He screwed up the line" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

The $82 billion auto bailout has been a Crony Socialist nightmare mess. We’re going to lose at least $30 billion on the deal.  And that’s only if the Barack Obama Administration’s math can be trusted - a dicey proposition at best.

The Administration eviscerated two hundred-plus years of bankruptcy law, throwing bond holders over the side to over-reward their United Auto Workers shock force buddies.

General Motors (GM) is cutting undisclosed deals with executives’ wives businesses.And on, and on, and on....Haven’t heard most or all of this?  Not surprising - the Jurassic Press ain’t reporting it.

Fareed Zakaria on Sunday actually asked former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel if the president should "run a campaign against a do-nothing Republican Congress."

Such actually transpired on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, a program hysterically presented by the so-called "Most Trusted Name In News" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last year, Harry Reid said pretty close to the same thing President Obama said on Friday about the health of the nation's private sector. Obama claimed that "The private sector is fine." On the Senate floor on October 19, Reid claimed that "It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine."

Don't feel bad if you don't know this, because the press mostly ignored it. The few who did notice it worked mightily to excuse it. One of the chief excusers was Pete Kasperowicz at the Hill:

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is clearly worried the President that once gave him a thrill up his leg is not going to get reelected.

Appearing on Jansing and Company moments before Barack Obama's press conference Friday, the Hardball host said the President has "got to be aggressive. He’s got to be big time. Stop this nickel and dime, a couple of bucks for the teachers, a couple of bucks for the firefighters. 'I'm going to reduce the payroll tax.' This is pissant" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's becoming clearer with each passing day the Obama-loving media are now in a full-scale panic that the man they helped get elected in 2008 is in serious trouble to repeat that feat in 2012.

Take for example Newsweek/Daily Beast which published a piece moments ago with the somewhat shocking headline, "Is Barack Obama Too Weak to Win in November?":

Peter Goodman, the business editor for the perilously liberal Huffington Post, has come up with a new highly-derogatory term for people on the right that believe there isn't an unlimited amount of money at the government's disposal.

His Monday headline read, "Bleeding Cash Conservatives Wasting Money To Punish Vulnerable Americans":

Readers are strongly advised to remove food, fluids, and flammables from proximity to their computers prior to reading any further. You've been warned!

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said on ABC's This Week Sunday, "It's terribly unfair that [President Obama is] being judged on the failure of the economy to respond to policies that had been largely dictated by a hostile Congress" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As we approach Election Day, it's becoming more and more important for the Obama-loving media to give credit to the President for the economies of swing states governed by Republicans that are doing better economically than the rest of the country.

Candy Crowley did her part on CNN's State of the Union Sunday by asking Governor Bob McDonnell (R-Va.), "Don’t you credit President Obama at all for the good fortune that Virginia has?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, England's Telegraph published an article last Thursday with the absolutely glorious headline "Britain Can’t Afford to Fall for the Charms of the False Economics Messiah Paul Krugman."

On Wednesday, appearing on a broadcast of BBC's Newsnight, Krugman got a much-needed education from a conservative member of the British parliament who said she found his view of governments spending their way out of deficits "reckless" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

NewsBusters reported Friday that the Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler gave a MarketWatch piece claiming President Obama's "spending binge never happened" three pinocchios for its utter falsehoods.

On Monday, the Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former assistant managing editor Eugene Robinson actually misrepresented his own paper's findings to hype the thoroughly debunked MarketWatch piece and bash Mitt Romney:

Former Democratic Michigan governor turned Current TV commentator Jennifer Granholm got a much-needed education Sunday about the difference between Mitt Romney's involvement with Bain Capital and President Obama's forays into green energy investment.

"When Bain invested," said George Will on ABC's This Week, "it invests money that it gets voluntarily to be invested. When the president throws a half-billion dollars away on Solyndra, it's money taken away by the police power of the federal government from unwilling taxpayers" (video follows with transcript and commentary)

Last year New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called for space aliens to invade earth so that the government would spend money to mount a defense thereby stimulating the economy.

As aliens have yet to comply with Krugman's wishes, he advocated on HBO's Real Time Friday that scientists should get together and lie about an imminent attack to boost federal spending (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher is either a blithering idiot, a pathological liar, or both.

On HBO's Real Time Friday, the factually-challenged financier of Barack Obama actually had the gall to say the President didn't support the recommendations of his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (aka Simpson-Bowles) because - wait for it! - Republicans didn't support it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Leave it to America's strongest ally in the world to speak the truth.

On Thursday, England's Telegraph published an article with the absolutely glorious headline "Britain Can’t Afford to Fall for the Charms of the False Economics Messiah Paul Krugman":

A bogus report published by MarketWatch Tuesday claiming "under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s" has been all the rage at the White House and MSNBC.

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter correctly observed Wednesday:

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Sunday continued his campaign to get Barack Obama reelected by misinforming the public about the economy.

Appearing on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, the Nobel laureate falsely claimed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to enact Greece's failed economic policies here in America (video follows with transcript and commentary):