Political Scandals

Sometime late Thursday afternoon, an editorial at the New York Times bitterly criticizing President Obama for the expansion of surveillance efforts during his administration contained this sentence: "The administration has lost all credibility." Within a few hours, as seen here, that sentence was changed to "The administration has lost all credibility on this issue," and set off in a separate paragraph.

The Times is pretending that it didn't do what it obviously did:

For the week of May 27, the Big Three networks' evening news broadcasts declined, both compared to the previous week and the same week last year, and garnered an average combined daily audience of just under 20 million.

Somehow, Chris Ariens at Media Bistro apparently wasn't looking at the same numbers his readers were when he did his post, and wrote the following while linking back to the related post from last year which contradicted what he wrote (bolds are mine; link is in original):

Comedian Steve Martin stepped into the political ring this weekend tweeting numerous comments about the newest scandal facing the White House.

His most recent one reads, "Wearing my NSA spy-phone helmet as I bike by the UN is the definition of cacophony":

George Will had some harsh words for the Obama administration Sunday.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Will said that the recent revelation concerning National Security Agency information gathering is going to metastasize the IRS controversy into a national security scandal, and concluded that as a result, “the willingness to trust the executive branch is today minimal and should be.”

Since last week’s revelations concerning the National Security Agency looking at American phone records, it’s been fascinating to watch Obama-loving media members take issue with what the White House is doing.

Include New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who on ABC’s This Week Sunday said that America is now “kind of” an “authoritarian surveillance state” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday had harsh words for the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald revealing last week that the National Security Agency is looking at phone records of virtually all Americans.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Rogers said, “I know your reporter that you interviewed, Greenwald, says that he’s got it all and now is an expert on the program. He doesn't have a clue how this thing works” (video follows with transcript):

Texas Congressman Steve Stockman (R) weighed in on the recent revelations involving the National Security Agency looking at Americans' phone records with a humorous knock at Chris Matthews' so-called "news network."

Commenting on Twitter, Stockman wrote Saturday, "At this point the only way to prevent people from hearing your conversations is to have them on MSNBC":

Jay Leno continued his humorous attacks on the White House Friday.

In the middle of a lengthy set of opening monologue jokes about the various scandals plaguing Barack Obama, the NBC Tonight Show host said, “We wanted a president that listens to all Americans - now we have one” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

In case you haven't heard, the Media Research Center is moving. Starting June 10, the MRC (which publishes NewsBusters) will be located in Reston, Virginia. As we prepare for the move, we've discovered old, unseen gems. During the 1992 presidential campaign, George H.W. Bush was asked whether he had ever been unfaithful to Mrs. Bush. Tom Sherwood, a local journalist for NBC's Washington affiliate, cornered Dan Rather, Charles Kuralt and Tim Russert at the Republican National Convention in Houston. He turned the tables on his fellow reporters, quizzing them about possible affairs.

An awkward Rather first shot back, "You been asking this to Tom Brokaw, have you?" After Sherwood demanded, "Have you ever committed adultery," Rather retorted, "Have you?" Following another pause, the then-CBS Evening News anchor clumsily concluded, "Mmm. Well, thank you very much. Pleased to see you." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

On the day Barack Obama lost the New York Times, it appears he also lost Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert.

On Thursday’s Colbert Report, the host actually said, “Obama is a tyrannical despot who ignores all the rules” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Jay Leno continued his string of humorous attacks on the White House Thursday.

On NBC’s Tonight Show, the host joked about being worried as a kid about “Big Brother” saying, “Now with Obama, we actually have a brother watching us.”

On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd cheered President Obama picking Susan Rice to be his new national security advisor and nominating Samantha Power as U.N. ambassador: "They are now among the most powerful women in the American foreign policy community. Behind-the-scenes power players now front and center."

Amid sound bites of Obama praising both women, Todd joined in extolling their accomplishments: "Both come with a long list of impressive credentials. Rice, a Harvard graduate and Rhodes scholar with a Ph.D. from Oxford. In 1990's she served as assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration. Power is a human rights expert and Pulitzer Prize-winning author; she's also the mother of two young children."

MSNBC and Anthony Weiner: made for each other like a frank and a bun?

Today's New York Daily News reports that when NYC mayoral candidate Weiner got into an argument on the campaign trail yesterday, he boasted that despite his mistakes, "I am still gonna be out there leaning forward."  "Lean Forward" is of course MSNBC's lefty slogan, featured in many promos that NB has analyzed, as here and here.  More after the jump.

A Google News search on ["Susan Rice" "executive privilege"] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets) returns two stories. The main one is at Fox News, where K.T. McFarland pointed out that President Obama, now that he has appointed Susan Rice to be his National Security Adviser, can invoke executive privilege to keep her from testifying before Congress. The second is at Mediate, and notes that McFarland said the same thing to Fox News Channel anchor Martha MacCallum earlier today.

Among those who conveniently didn't catch this: Frank James at NPR, who didn't identify the executive privilege dodge in his "5 Takeaways From Obama's Susan Rice Appointment"; the Associated Press, whose three Wednesday items on Rice (here, here, and here) don't mention it, and where a search on "executive privilege" (not in quotes) returned nothing relevant; and the Politico, where a search on "Rice executive privilege" (not in quotes) also returned nothing relevant. Excerpts from McFarland's column, with harsh words about Rice's lack of qualifications, follow the jump (bold and italics are hers except final paragraph):

Just when you thought the folks at MSNBC couldn't go any lower in defending the current White House resident, someone there stoops to new depths.

On the Martin Bashir show Wednesday, the host actually said that Republicans are using the acronym "IRS" as the latest dog whistle in their "war against the black man in the White House" (video follows with fuller transcribed highlights and commentary):

Wednesday's CBS This Morning minimized Susan Rice's refuted claims about the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi as they covered her appointment as national security adviser. Charlie Rose and John Dickerson dwelt more on outgoing national security adviser Tom Donilon's term, with Dickerson only vaguely mentioning how Rice was "the focus of so much controversy in the Senate."

The only time that a CBS News personality specifically mentioned Benghazi during the segment was when Gayle King wondered if President Obama's decision to choose the current U.N. ambassador to succeed Donilon was a "message to Republicans who came down hard on Susan Rice during the Benghazi hearings."

MSNBC continues to disparage the scandals that have plagued the Obama administration the last few weeks. On Sunday’s Weekends with Alex Witt, the host brought on former Democratic staffer Jimmy Williams and former RNC chairman Michael Steele to reluctantly discuss the scandals once again. Of course, rather than focus on the substance of the controversies, Witt fell back on the concern that she and many others in the liberal media have often expressed: “[D]oes this have the potential to derail the president's second-term agenda?”

The president’s agenda is always the victim of these scandal investigations in the minds of the press, at least when there's a (D) following the president's surname. Williams, being the Democrat that he is, brushed aside that question and riffed on another favorite left-wing talking point – Republicans will overreach, just as they did with Bill Clinton in 1998:

The patent absurdity of trusting Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate himself is the topic of today's NB ToonsDay:

Media members thinking the Republicans are overplaying their hand with the Internal Revenue Service scandal should pay attention to what happened on NBC’s Tonight Show Monday.

When host Jay Leno joked that President Obama should close the IRS rather than the terrorist detention center in Guantanamo Bay, the audience erupted in thunderous applause (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

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?"

It's thankfully been a long, long time since we've heard from Keith Olbermann.

Unfortunately, he came out of the bathtub long enough on Monday to give a Twitter follower his opinion of Attorney General Eric Holder saying, "He should've resigned or been dismissed after the AP overreach. Instead he made a Fox News figure a martyr":

On May 27, Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo at the New York Times filed a ridiculously incoherent, ignorant and biased report on Tea Party groups' attempts to have their organizations approved for tax-exempt status. The story's window title: "Non-Profit Applcants Chafing at IRS Tested Political Limits." The actual print edition title (Page A1, of course): "Groups Targeted by I.R.S. Tested Rules on Politics." The headlines give the impression that Tea Party groups deliberately tried to test the boundaries of legality.

The pair's content also betrayed more than a little ignorance of the rules governing campaign finance, electioneering, and literature distribution. Among those interviewed for the story was Tom Zawistowski, Portage County TEA Party Executive Director. Zawistowski took great exception to their writeup in an email he distributed on Saturday (bolds are mine; additional paragraph breaks added by me):

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):

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on CNN’s State of the Union called White House press secretary Jay Carney a “paid liar.”

On Fox News’s Special Report Monday, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer took issue with Issa saying, “I’ve argued here for months that Carney is majorly underpaid, and I think that really is the problem” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

At the end of an interview with New York Senator Chuck Schumer on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory teed up the Democrat to lecture Republicans on being too focused on the scandals plaguing the Obama administration: "Do you have a warning for Republicans who want to make the IRS and personal issues affecting the President the main theme of 2014?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Schumer eagerly proclaimed: "My warning to the Republicans is look at 1998. All they did is spend their time on the impeachment of Bill Clinton. And for the first time, the incumbent president didn't lose seats in the House....if they go too far, they will lose....if they emphasize it too much they're going to pay a price at the polls in 2014."

With Friday's admission by liberal activist Curtis Morrison for having bugged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office in April, there are some liberal media members that owe the Senator an apology.

One is certainly Howard Fineman, the editorial director of the Huffington Post, who on April 10 wrote the following (emphasis added):