Tea Parties

CBS sided with supporters of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests on Monday's Early Show, bringing on former Democratic Senator Russ Feingold to boost the left-leaning demonstrations, with no Republican and/or conservative critics appearing as guests during the program. Feingold slammed Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as "un-American" for his critique of the protests.

Near the end of her interview of the Wisconsin politician, anchor Erica Hill raised Cain's attack on the continuing anti-corporate rallies: "Republican candidate Herman Cain, weighing in over the weekend. He said that, basically, it's un-American to protest capitalism. Businesses have to make money, and if they can do a better job making money oversea- it's an unfortunate reality for many Americans- but they're concerned about their bottom line. Can there be some sort of common ground here?"

It seems New York Times columnist Paul Krugman thinks the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been better behaved than Tea Party attendees.

Read the following paragraph from Monday's "Panic of the Plutocrats" and you be the judge:

David Gregory on Sunday's Meet the Press asked former Obama Chief of Staff turned Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel a rather surprising question about his previous boss's support for the Occupy Wall Street protests.

"Is demonizing Wall Street the way to create an environment to get the banks to hire? Is this not a reverse Tea Party tactic?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In a report filed at the Los Angeles Times's Politics Now blog earlier today, Washington Bureau reporter James Oliphant relayed a number of whoppers delivered by Vice President Joe Biden without anything resembling a challenge.

Breaking Biden's bilge into three sections, they involve his claim about the historical origins of the Tea Party, which Biden characterized as a collection of "barbarians" only a month ago (and as "terrorists" two month ago); his hit at Bank of America and its $5 monthly fee for debit-card use; and the nature of the "bailouts" which followed the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the fall of 2008. In this first part, I will go after what Biden said about the Tea Party. An excerpt from Oliphant's writeup follows the jump (bolds are mine throughout):

Very much unlike how they greeted the Tea Party protests in early 2009, the networks are embracing the new left-wing/anti-capitalist protests, even failing to condemn their unruly behavior which resulted in 700 arrests in New York City over the weekend, conduct for which they would have condemned Tea Party activists. 

“Is there about to be a nationwide movement building right now to point a finger at Wall Street on greed?” ABC’s Diane Sawyer hopefully cheered Monday night, touting how “protests are spreading across the country.” NBC anchor Brian Williams trumpeted how “the movement that started here in New York about a month ago...now has thousands of people joining in and it's spreading across the country.”

CBS's Erica Hill channeled the overblown worries of liberals about influence of the Tea Party on Thursday's Early Show, asking Newt Gingrich, "The Tea Party has really made some big inroads...But there's a feeling by some folks that this very small group of people is starting to control the conversation. Do there need to be more voices at the table, in general, at this point?"

Hill brought on Gingrich to discuss his new Contract With America package, due to be released later in the day. Just as in The Early Show's interview of Herman Cain the previous morning, the anchor flattered her guest by congratulating him for his good showing in a recent poll, but wasted little time before launching a critique of one known part of his proposal, thinly veiled in conservative language:

Actor Alan Cumming (IMDb page), who was born in Britain and plays the scheming campaign manager “Eli Gold” on The Good Wife which has its season premiere tonight on CBS, contended on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight that the U.S. is “full of such hatred in terms of politics.” The bi-sexual actor conceded the Tea Party has “some quite sensible notions,” but he charged “that kind of seems to be an umbrella thing that just covers up a lot of real homophobia and racism.”

Referring to opposition to same-sex marriage, Cumming insisted: “I just think the Tea Party is out of touch with America, actually. That’s the sad thing for them to have to come to terms with.”

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):

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):

“The Republican Party is split right down the middle between Tea Party movement supporters and those who do not support the two-and-a-half-year-old movement, according to a new national survey,” a Thursday CNN.com “Political Ticker” post asserted in recounting the findings of a CNN/ORC poll which were cited on air by both Wolf Blitzer and John King.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Friday said the people in the audience at Monday's Republican presidential debate were "applauding the death of a young man without health insurance" and therefore were like the John Birchers "that Bill Buckley kicked out of the conservative movement in the mid-1960s."

Unfortunately, the host of "Morning Joe" has, like so many others in the media, badly misinterpreted what occurred when Texas Congressman Ron Paul was asked what should happen to a voluntarily uninsured man who falls into a coma (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough released an antiwar song featuring powerful images of that horrible attack on our nation along with a message to bring our soldiers home from our current incursions.

The music video "Reason To Believe" was aired on Thursday's "Morning Joe," and I caught up with the host by phone shortly after the show's conclusion (video follows with highlights along with commentary from Scarborough and me):

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday offered up bizarre, revisionist history, insisting that Ronald Reagan "wasn't a social conservative." In an attempt to denigrate the goals of the Tea Party movement, the Hardball host inaccurately asserted that the 40th president "accepted Roe V. Wade."

Matthews, who fancies himself a presidential historian, appeared on the Martin Bashir show and asserted that Reagan wouldn't be comfortable in the "church tent" of today's GOP. He spun, "Although [Reagan] would address the pro-life rallies every year in Washington, for example, he would do so through public address. He never showed up." Matthews added, "He accepted Roe V. Wade under the Constitution."

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Not surprisingly, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz was practically orgasmic with joy Tuesday over Teamsters president James Hoffa’s Labor Day declaration of war against the Tea Party.

After telling his “Ed Show” audience that Obama’s poll numbers have been declining because he hasn’t spoken to the American people like the union boss, Schultz actually asked Hoffa, “Do you think the Republicans are sons of b---hes?” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

National Review's Jonah Goldberg on Tuesday, appearing on Fox News's "Special Report," put James Hoffa's Labor Day attack on the Tea Party in proper perspective.

"We would not be in this mess, we would not have this controversy, if we did not have this bonfire of asininity that came out of the Tucson shootings where all of a sudden Sarah Palin’s Facebook Congressional map was somehow to blame for not only this madman but for all of the violence overtaking America" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" spent a good deal of time Tuesday discussing Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr.'s disgraceful Labor Day comments about the Tea Party and his political rivals.

After playing a clip of Hoffa's remarks as well as President Obama calling for civility months ago, Scarborough pointed out, "There seems to be a rule here which is don’t say really mean things that coarsen the debate, could encourage violence, unless you’re a Democrat...If you support [Obama], you can say, 'We’re going to take people out'" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr. on Monday, at a Labor Day rally addressed by President Obama moments later, made some disgraceful comments about the Tea Party and his political rivals.

Later in the day, Hoffa was interviewed for six minutes by CNN's John King, and although the union leader's comments were played at the beginning of the segment and referred to in the onscreen chyron, King actually didn't ask his guest one single question about them (video follows with transcript and commentary):

St. Louis Tea Party co-founder Dana Loesch was one of Christiane Amanpour's roundtable guests on Sunday's "This Week."

At the end of the lengthy segment, Loesch, who is also editor of Big Journalism, offered an interesting view about next year's elections (video follows with transcript and commentary):

David Gregory began Sunday's "Meet the Press" with a roundtable discussion about the future of our nation asking, "Are we having the right conversation about the best way forward?"

Given the subject, it seemed utterly preposterous that one of his panelists was a Congresswoman who just two weeks ago said, "As far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Tuesday, The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez noted how MSNBC's Tamron Hall moderated the recent Congressional Black Caucus town hall where Rep. Andre Carson smeared the Tea Party by accusing them of wanting to bring back Jim Crow laws and endorsing the lynching of blacks. Former Obama aide turned NBC employee Joy-Ann Reid also attended the CBC event, but omitted Rep. Carson's attack from her report.

During the August 22 town hall in Miami, Carson, a leader within the liberal Congressional Black Caucus from Indiana, actually apologized to Hall in the midst of his inflammatory remarks against the Tea Party:

Representative Andre Carson's inflammatory attack on the Tea Party has yet to have receive any attention from the Big Three networks. As reported by Politico on Wednesday, Rep. Carson accused Tea Party-friendly members of Congress of wanting to bring back Jim Crow and went so far to accuse his colleagues of wanting to bring back lynching: "Some of them...would love to see you and me...hanging on a tree."

Jake Sherman's report for Politico noted that the "explosive comments, caught on tape, were uploaded on the Internet Tuesday, and Carson's office stood by the remarks." The Blaze, a website run by Glenn Beck, uploaded a video compilation onto YouTube on Tuesday morning which included the Indiana Democrat's smear of the Tea Party. Carson attacked the Tea Party immediately after complimenting Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Emanuel Cleaver at a CBC town hall in Miami on August 22:

[Video compilation embedded below the jump]

The left and its media allies have systematically reduced Tea Party members to caricatures, calling them everything from "bigots" to "racists" to "terrorists," hoping to make something stick. The latest installment is a rewrite of the famous story tale "Alice in Wonderland," in which their "Mad Hatter" leader is none other than GOP presidential contender Michele Bachmann.

TBTM Media, the authors of "Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book" have unveiled their latest attack on conservatives with, "Malice in Wonderland: A Tea Party Fable," in which they proudly claim that they have rewritten the Lewis Carroll classic to reflect "a bizarro world populated by Tea Party crazies!"

Dallas Tea Party founder Phillip Dennis turned a wardrobe malfunction on Friday's "MSNBC Live" into possibly the best line of the week.

When his earbud dislodged during a heated discussion with Al Sharpton, Dennis marvelously quipped, "I don’t think I could listen to any more of your insanity there without my earpiece falling out" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning):

NPR's Nina Totenberg spent more than 4 minutes on Wednesday's Morning Edition to supposed ethical conflicts of interest for conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Antonin Scalia. By contrast, Totenberg devoted only 17 seconds to the more current issue of liberal Justice Elena Kagan's service in the Obama administration as a factor in upcoming cases before the Court.

Host Renee Montagne introduced the correspondent's report by noting how both "liberal groups have chastised conservative justices for attending private conferences put on by conservative political interests, and conservative groups have responded by leveling some criticism in the other direction." However, the journalist devoted the first three minutes of a seven-and-a-half minute segment on the criticism launched at Clarence Thomas's wife from the left:

On Monday's CBS Evening News and Tuesday's Early Show, CBS failed to cover an Iowa Tea Party activist's confrontation with President Obama. Both ABC's GMA and NBC's Today mentioned the encounter. Just days earlier, CBS and ABC spotlighted how left-wing protesters heckled Mitt Romney at an Iowa appearance and how the Republican apparently made a "gaffe" in reply.

NBC correspondent Chuck Todd noted the "heated exchange" between Tea Partier Ryan Rhodes and the President midway through his report just after the top of the 7 am Eastern hour of Today:

New York Times’s Public Editor (or ombudsman) Arthur Brisbane weighed in on columnist Joe Nocera, who apologized in print last week for having compared Tea Party members to terrorists in a column August 2.

Just four months into his new job as a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, Joe Nocera banged out a blistering screed against Tea Party Republicans who “have waged jihad on the American people.”

These “terrorists” were willing to sacrifice the nation’s creditworthiness to achieve deep spending cuts -- a goal they believed was “worth blowing up the country for,” he wrote in his Aug. 2 column. He concluded the piece by saying that, for now, “the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough.”

Liberals need to grow up and stop criticizing President Obama.

So said Fareed Zakaria Sunday on the CNN program bearing his name (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charles Krauthammer on Friday evening exposed a classic liberal media hypocrisy concerning the differing bar used to determine truthfulness in politicians depending on their political leaning.

When "Inside Washington" panelist Nina Totenberg (NPR) asked if Republican presidential candidates might not have been totally honest Thursday evening when they all said they wouldn't accept a budget that incorporated ten dollars worth of spending cuts for every dollar raised in taxes, Krauthammer smartly responded, "Obama in the end said he wouldn’t sign a bill that didn’t increase taxes. In the end, he did. Was he lying?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):