Birth Control

MSNBC's Martin Bashir has been off for a few days, but he was back in the studio and in fighting form today, eager to push the network's leftist talking points on the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate that would force religious institutions to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans.

Bashir opened up an interview segment with Baptist theologian Craig Mitchell entitled "Full of Grace?" by furthering a misleading liberal talking point about a February 16 hearing before the House Committee on Government Reform, which featured opponents of the mandate affiliated with various religious institutions:

Christian evangelist Franklin Graham made some comments about President Obama on MSNBC's Morning Joe Tuesday that have liberals across the fruited plain hopping mad.

So angered is MSNBC's Chris Matthews that on Tuesday's Hardball he said, "I think we should stop inviting this guy to talk about politics...he ain’t his father’s son" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"Birth control has ­become a surprise ­obsession among the GOP presidential can­didates this year."

That's the misleading teaser headline on page A1 of the February 21 Washington Post. After all, it was a liberal Democratic Congress that passed and a liberal Democratic president who is enforcing provisions of ObamaCare that will force religious institutions to provide contraceptive coverage in insurance plans, even if doing so violates religious conscience. Yet to the liberal media, it's social conservatives who are waging "culture wars."

“GOP says HHS mandate is about liberty, not contraception. Dems say it’s about contraception, not liberty. Media accept and amplify Democratic framing.” So the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes adroitly tweeted noontime Sunday in an accurate observation demonstrated by Meet the Press where host David Gregory opened the roundtable: “I want to start with...a big theme in this race so far. And Politico, I thought, captured the headline here with this theme, ‘2012: The year of birth control moms?’”

Later, Gregory touted how “I see this bumper sticker,” which, he insisted, “we’ve heard everybody talk about,” that proclaims “GM’s back on top, and Osama bin Laden is dead.” Cuing up New York Times White House correspondent Helene Cooper, Gregory noted the obvious: “That’s the record that this President wants to run on.” Cooper affirmed: “That’s absolutely the record that he wants to run on.”

Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs issued a truly delicious smack down to America's press Sunday.

In the midst of a lengthy discussion about the so-called “Contraception Controversy” on ABC's This Week, Dobbs said, "It’s awfully nice of the national media and the Democratic Party to help everyone understand the dangers of Rick Santorum" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Liberal women were in an uproar over the all-male panel at Thursday's congressional hearing on the HHS birth control mandate, and CNN made sure to tout their displeasure. Anchor Hala Gorani emphasized the "fireworks" over the hearing while ignoring the Republican explanation as to why a female pro-birth control witness was refused participation in the panel.

Gorani played clips of two Democratic congresswomen decrying the all-male panel and gave the Democratic talking points as to why two congresswomen left the hearing in protest. "The two Democratic women tried to get a witness added who favors birth control services, but were refused. Thus, the walkout," Gorani tersely explained. [Video below the break.]

Salon editor Joan Walsh said Friday that conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is "a secret Democrat."

Speaking with MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Hardball about the debate over who should pay for contraceptives, Walsh said of Limbaugh, "He is leading [the Republican] party off a cliff on this issue" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Friday's CBS This Morning, Rick Santorum pushed back against Charlie Rose's interrogation about supporter Foster Friess's recent "bad off-color joke" on contraception, all but name-dropping former Obama pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright as an example of the media's double standard on playing "gotcha" politics with Republicans, but not Democrats.

Rose initially countered, "This is not gotcha; what this is, is trying to understand exactly what Rick Santorum stands for, and what he might say or do as president." But the GOP presidential candidate wasn't having any of it: "You don't do this with President Obama...he sat in a church for 20 years, and [you] defended him- that, oh, he can't possibly believe what he listened to for 20 years. It's a double standard...and I'm going to call you on it" [audio available here; video below the jump].

On Friday's NBC Today, substitute co-host Savannah Guthrie eagerly touted liberal talking points attacking a hearing held by House Republicans over the controversial ObamaCare contraception mandate on Thursday: "[They] held a hearing on the matter and Democrats got a lot of mileage out the fact that, that first panel of witnesses was all men."

On to discuss the political fallout, Meet the Press host David Gregory concluded: "You look at a scene like yesterday and it just underscores the fact that not only government, but our religious institutions, are dominated by men. It was an unfortunate image to put out there." Guthrie added: "...maybe Republicans stepped into it a little bit on that."

Let he who is without a Y chromosome cast the first stone . . . Today's Morning Joe afforded viewers a study in hypocrisy: the all-male makeup of a panel at yesterday's House hearing on contraception was bashed by the show's panel consisting entirely of, yes, men. 

With Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough having the day off, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle took guest-hosting turns.  Barnicle introduced the subject, harrumphing about "the absurd picture we just saw of basically, it looks like an all-male locker room in a golf club."  Lawrence O'Donnell and Dem congressman Elijah Cummings joined in the breast-beating. Video after the jump.

Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum merely stated his affirmation of the Catholic Church's condemnation of contraception, but CNN's Mary Snow ran a critical segment on Thursday asking if such statements would hurt him with voters.

In the video clips which aired in the report, Santorum strongly stated that he would not mix his opposition to contraception with his policies as president, meaning that he would not ban contraceptives. Nonetheless, Snow quoted the pro-abortion and pro-Democrat group Emily's List, as well as phoney-conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin, as slamming him as out-of-touch. [Video below the break.]

What is it about MSNBC that seems to make it impossible for its anchors to consistently tell the truth?

On Thursday's Hardball, host Chris Matthews falsely claimed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum "said it would be fine with him if states outlawed the sale of birth control" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Leading into a commercial break, CNN's Piers Morgan wished to leave his viewers on "a knife-edge" by assuming the possibility that Rick Santorum is a sexist. Morgan popped the question during his Wednesday night interview with the candidate.

"If Rick Santorum becomes president, does he actually like women?" posed the CNN host, just before a commercial break. On the other side of the break, he asked it again before telling Santorum "I know you do." [Video below the break.]

When ABC, CBS, and NBC finally got around to covering -- after two weeks of silence -- the controversy over the Obama administration's mandate that religious institutions provide health insurance for abortifacients, sterilization, and birth control, the networks downplayed the religious freedom component to the story, casting it instead as a political dogfight between liberals and conservatives.

MRC analysts studied all 36 stories, interview segments and mentions of the HHS mandate story on the Big Three broadcast networks from January 30 through February 15. Out of the 91 talking heads who appeared as soundbites on their morning or evening programs (or a small number of guests on the morning shows), politicians far outnumbered Church officials, by a margin of 60 to 9.

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the perilously liberal media have been focusing a great deal of attention on contraception in order to assist President Obama's narrative that Republicans want to take away everyone's birth control.

Doing his part on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday was CNBC contributor Howard Dean who actually said with a straight face, "Very conservative women want their kids, their daughters taking birth control" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

I wrote last week about a theory put forth by Washington Post's Sarah Kliff that abortion proponents were shifting strategies to focus on contraceptives rather than abortion, the reason being their own polls show abortion is no longer a winning issue with young people and women, but contraception is.

This week Republican strategist Dick Morris pitched the same theory on Hannity, adding some corroboration:

Those imagining Mika Brzezinski as a straight-down-the-line liberal will be surprised by her comments on today's Morning Joe.

Brzezinski didn't demur after Joe Scarborough described her as a Catholic who is "more conservative than many" on social issues.  To the contrary, she proceeded to prove Scarborough's point by defending Rick Santorum's stance on contraception.  The show had played two clips of Santorum in which he had called contraception "harmful to women" and said that contraception "is not OK."  Video after the jump.

CNN was late to the standoff between Catholic bishops and the White House over the HHS birth control mandate, and CNN.com's religion section has not exactly been the most balanced in its coverage of the fight. In addition to covering the mixed reactions of Catholics to the standoff, CNN's Belief Blog has now featured two pieces on liberal Catholics criticizing the bishops.

CNN.com's religion editor Dan Gilgoff penned a piece on Wednesday about liberal Catholics openly challenging the U.S. bishops. The article quoted liberals and a Democratic official, and included just a single quote by a spokesperson for the bishops right at the end.

On its Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning newscasts, CBS played up its most recent poll with the New York Times, which found that 61% of Catholics approve "President Obama's contraception policy," as a graphic on the CBS Evening News spun the recent federal government mandate that forces religious institutions to cover sterilization and birth control without a co-pay.

The left-leaning outlets' poll question, however, completely glossed over the religious liberty component to the controversy over the policy, asking only, "What about for religiously-affiliated employers, such as a hospital or university? Do you support or oppose a recent federal requirement that their health insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control for their female employees?"

New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein portrayed Obama’s “compromise” on his requirement that religion institutions provide contraception coverage as causing conflict within the Catholic church that could damage it politically, in Wednesday’s lead National section story, “Obama Shift On Providing Contraception Splits Critics.”

Goodstein, the paper’s religion reporter, hasn’t shown much patience with religious concerns in her coverage of Obama's contraceptive mandate; in her Saturday update she put “religious freedom” in quotation marks while writing dismissively on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops rejection of Obama’s purported compromise.

And in a front-page story February 10 she passed on popular but bad statistic, without even citing a source, falsely claiming “Studies have shown that 98 percent of Catholic women have used artificial contraception at some time in their lives.”

In the wake of the controversy surrounding the Obama administration's edict on contraceptives, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some press member claiming Republican views on such matters are extreme.

Countering this nonsense Wednesday was MSNBC's Joe Scarborough who on the show bearing his name correctly stated, "America is much more conservative" when it comes to social issues than the media think (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Andrew Sullivan in his most recent Newsweek column claimed, "Obama Set a Contraception Trap for the Right."

Two days later when Sullivan, appearing on MSNBC's Hardball, flipflopped saying, "I think a lot of this was ginned up by the Bishops. They were the ones that set a trap for Obama," host Chris Matthews was seen on the screen doing a facepalm (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There was a surprisingly positive consensus on Rick Santorum on today's Morning Joe.  Most remarkable was the observation by Obama fan Mika Brzezinski, who said "I don't agree with anything he says, but I like the guy." H/t  to NewsBusters reader D.B. for audio assistance.

Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist were also upbeat on Santorum, Scarborough astutely observing that "90% of Americans don't obsess on social issues," so that what some would cast as controversial past statements by Santorum won't hurt him nearly as much as might be imagined.  Video after the jump.

Jake Tapper of ABC News wrote a remarkable story last week revealing the players in the Obama administration’s internal debate on the contraception mandate.

According to Tapper, President Obama’s top advisers on the issue included Vice President Joe Biden, former White House Chief-of-Staff Bill Daley, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, former Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes, White House Senior Advisers Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, two U.S. Senators – and Planned Parenthood Federation for America CEO Cecile Richards:

During a lengthy Morning Joe discussion about the growing contraceptive controversy, co-host Mika Brzezinski took issue with the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan saying the Obama administration is “mischievously” misinforming the public on this issue.

Noonan smartly responded with a much-needed lesson on exactly how the White House and the Left are dishonestly twisting this subject for political gain (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On Saturday's Fox News Watch, during a discussion of the media double standard between hitting Komen for planning to defund Planned Parenthood, while delaying attention to Catholic leaders criticizing the Obama contraception mandate, liberal FNC analyst Kirsten Powers debated fellow panel member and FNC analyst Judy Miller from the right as Powers noted the media's bias toward Planned Parenthood, while Miller defended President Obama. (Video below)

In a statement that would have been worthy of a right-leaning analyst, Powers exposed the media:

Saturday's CBS Evening News ran a piece highlighting the complaints of a Catholic Democrat - Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter, recounting his opposition to President Obama's attempt to force Catholic employers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Winters asserted that he is "very angry about this," and substitute anchor Elaine Quijano noted that, although he voted for President Obama in 2008, he plans not to vote this year. (Video below)

Quijano used a soundbite of Winters giving a warning to Obama during the show's opening teaser:

On Saturday's Fox News Watch, FNC contributor and conservative talk radio host Monica Crowley cited a letter released last Monday by NewsBusters publisher and  Media Research Center president Brent Bozell which called on the media to give more attention to President Obama's attempt to force religious institutions to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, even if these institutions object on religious grounds. (Video below)

Crowley cited numbers on how little attention had been given by the broadcast networks and CNN as of Monday, and credited the MRC with affecting a greater focus on the issue from the media: