CNN Newsroom

The media are digging deep to rain on Mitt Romney's Ohio campaign. On Wednesday, CNN's Brooke Baldwin stupidly wondered how golfer and Ohio-native Jack Nicklaus' endorsement of the candidate would help him with Ohio middle class voters.

"But here you have – you have Romney needing middle class votes in Ohio. How is he helped by a man who has been the face of professional golf, doesn't even live in Ohio anymore?" Baldwin said in her pathetic attempt to play devil's advocate. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

President Obama had time to enjoy late night laughs with David Letterman while refusing to meet with America's Middle East ally, and yet CNN's Wolf Blitzer was just fine with that. It pays for a President to have friends in the media.

"In the scheme of things, who is going to get you more votes?" was Blitzer's excuse. "A meeting that could be tense with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or go on Letterman and come across as well as he did last night?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

After CNN pounded away at the latest media-manufactured Mitt Romney gaffe, CNN's Brooke Baldwin remarked on Tuesday that the campaign faces a "tsunami" of "myriad issues."

"Can they right this?" she questioned the Romney campaign's ability to weather the media storm, adding that they face "a tsunami, if you add up the myriad issues within the campaign." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Former Romney spokesperson Richard Grenell called out the media on Monday for not focusing hard enough on President Obama's foreign policy record. "The media needs to start looking at policies, not just lip service from this President," he told CNN's Carol Costello.

"You know, there has been criticism that Romney spoke out too early in the Middle East after 15 hours of a developing violence. How come we're not asking where was the President, why didn't he speak out before 15 hours?" Grenell asked of the media. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) has said new voter ID laws reflect old Jim Crow laws, and CNN's Carol Costello played right into his outlandish rhetoric on Friday morning.

"Are you kind of stunned we're talking about these kinds of things in this day and age, with your history, I mean?" Costello asked the liberal congressman of the debate over voter ID laws. He answered in the affirmative and again likened voter ID laws to Jim Crow. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Terrorists murdered an American ambassador in cold blood, and yet CNN shamelessly implied on Thursday that the makers of an anti-Islam movie might have blood on their very hands.

"Do you and Mr. Bacile feel that you have any blood on your hands as a result of the violence?" correspondent Brian Todd asked a consultant for the film, Steve Klein. Anchor Don Lemon reported that the movie "may have led to the death of four Americans." CNN was basically acting as an apologist for Islamic terrorists. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

After the press belittled Mitt Romney over the politics of his statements on Tuesday's embassy attacks, CNN's Don Lemon continued asking redundant questions about process to the Romney campaign's foreign policy adviser on Wednesday.

"[Y]ou want to talk about a process issue," Richard Williamson lectured Lemon. "Because the White House doesn't want to talk about substance. It wants to talk about process." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN contributor Roland Martin quipped on Wednesday that "I'm a black man at a Republican convention. Of course I stand out." Martin then went after black RNC speaker Artur Davis as a "political fraud."

"[Y]ou can have Artur Davis, former Democrat, we don't know what he is now, with that ridiculous speech he gave last night, I call him a political fraud, he is," sounded Martin. [Video below the break.]

Following the liberal media's precedent at GOP conventions, CNN hit the Republican Party for being too extreme and intolerant on Monday morning. As NewsBusters reported Monday, the media have repeatedly lectured Republicans at the conventions for being too conservative and exclusive of women and minorities.

"Some Republicans worry that the Republican Party will come off even more conservative during – over the course of the next three days," warned anchor Carol Costello, framing the party's hypothetical rightward shift as a bad thing. Anchor Ashleigh Banfield questioned the party's "big tent" label.

CNN foolishly asked if the head of the U.S. Catholic Bishops was playing politics by giving the benediction at the Republican National Convention, leaving out that the same Cardinal Timothy Dolan recently invited President Obama, along with Mitt Romney, to a high-profile Catholic event, the Al Smith dinner.

"Is this a big play to help shore up Paul Ryan's Catholic base?" anchor Don Lemon asked of the RNC benediction. "How does Dolan help Mitt Romney win Catholics?" inquired OutFront host Erin Burnett.

CNN shot down Mitt Romney's claim that President Obama "gutted" welfare reform, despite experts who helped construct the actual 1996 law insisting that Obama did indeed strike at its heart by nullifying work requirements for welfare recipients.

"Problem is, President Obama calls this claim nuts," stated reporter Tom Foreman, who aired a clip of Obama calling it "patently false." Foreman relayed another White House talking point about how the states were granted waivers from some rules as long as the work participants increased by 20 percent, thus ensuring Obama's motive was to increase the law's effectiveness and not to change it wholesale.

For CNN's Ashleigh Banfield, complete opposition to abortion equals a "very far right" position, as she insisted on Tuesday about the new Republican Party platform. For context, CNN used the same "far right" label to describe Sikh shooter Wade Michael Page's racist skinhead band.

"[T]he platform, for the most part, was crafted by the very far-right wing of the party and then if you combine that with the timing of all this ugliness that's going on with Mr. Akin...does that besmirch this platform that so many people agree with?" she asked, framing the completely pro-life stance as extreme and possibly damaging to the GOP. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN already understands why the Family Research Council (FRC) was labeled a "hate group" by the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). On Saturday, CNN gave more credibility to the SPLC as anchor Randi Kaye cited the group as a credible source on "hate groups" in the U.S. right after quoting their explanation for the FRC's "hate group" label.

"Statistics show hate groups are on the rise in this country. The Southern Poverty Law Center counted more than 1,000 known hate groups operating in the U.S. last year, and the FBI reported nearly 7,000 hate crimes," reported Kaye during the 10 a.m. hour of CNN Newsroom. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, anchor Ashleigh Banfield didn't begin her program with news that unemployment in 44 states has worsened, a story that CNN's Web site reported.  No, she devoted the first 12 minutes of her program to a real burning issue:  Mitt Romney's tax returns.

She spoke of President Barack Obama's offer to accept five years of GOP candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns and demand no more.  The offer is as big a joke as Vice President Joe Biden, yet Banfield discussed it with CNN political editor Paul Steinhauser and Reuters columnist David Cay Johnston.  Banfield injected her own theory:

CNN's Brooke Baldwin couldn't find a motive behind the Family Research Council shooting, on Thursday afternoon – despite CNN having earlier reported that "politics" was involved in the shooting at the conservative organization.

"You know, who knows what really was the motive behind this particular individual Floyd Lee Corkins?" Baldwin wondered at 3:10 p.m. EDT, even though anchor Suzanne Malveaux stated at 1:31 p.m. EDT, "Witnesses say that Floyd Lee Corkins walked into the conservative group's headquarters, told the security guard 'I don't like your politics,' and then shot him in the arm." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

In a fawn-fest over Chelsea Clinton with CNN's Ashleigh Banfield on Wednesday, Vogue magazine's contributing editor Jonathan van Meter slipped in some serious love for Bill and Hillary.

"I think one of the things the Clintons will go down in history for, it may very well being the world's greatest parents. I mean, they did such an incredible job of protecting her [Chelsea] from the likes of us, basically," van Meter admitted of the press. [Video below the break.]

In what seemed like a White House commercial, CNN used cartoon characters to explain the benefits of ObamaCare back in June. Now CNN is trotting out the same elementary and partisan stunt to hype that seniors might lose ObamaCare benefits if the Romney-Ryan ticket wins in November.

On Tuesday, medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen explained that "Medicaid Marlene" might lose her Medicaid coverage under Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, and "Donut Hole Don" would have to pay more for prescription drugs. Cohen only mentioned the benefits of ObamaCare and the uncertainty of the Romney-Ryan plan, offering no criticisms of ObamaCare and praise of the Republican plan. [Video below the break.]

Instead of fact-checking President Obama's dishonest attack on Paul Ryan for blocking a farm bill, CNN simply reported it three times on Tuesday morning. Correspondent Brianna Keilar actually repeated the false attack in her own words.

"[T]hey [the House] failed to pass a bill for drought relief, which as you know is huge right now because of all of the farmers, all of the cattle ranchers who are suffering through this terrible drought in the Midwest," Keilar said, ignoring that the House did pass a different drought relief bill and Ryan voted for it. [Video below the break.]

CNN's Gloria Borger dug deep for disgusting liberal smears of Paul Ryan's budget proposals and aired them without any criticism or outrage on Monday. In her report on the new Vice Presidential nominee, she unearthed past footage of liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman saying the Ryan budget would "kill people."

That smear was so egregious that it won the Media Research Center's "Grim Reaper Award" for 2011. Yet Borger featured it as valid liberal criticism of Ryan. And she kicked off her report by quoting other liberals saying his budget would drive America "over the cliff" and "destroy our government," before Ryan even introduced himself. [Video below the break.]

The attacks on newly announced Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan came fast and furious on CNN Saturday.

Just before Candy Crowley said this "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish," Gloria Borger called Ryan "a polarizing figure" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been noting all Saturday morning, now that Paul Ryan has been chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate, the goal of the Obama-loving media is to rip him to shreds.

Doing her part Saturday was CNN's Candy Crowley who claimed some Republicans (unnamed, of course) think this "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish."

[[Editor's Note: Since the townhall debate format debuted in the 1992, the media moderators have favored left-wing question 2 to 1 over conservative ones. Get the facts here.]]

Apparently CNN considers the stating of cold, hard economic realities to be risky partisanship now. Take the case of  Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter claiming that ObamaCare will increase costs for his company.  

Papa John's is not the first company to claim Obamacare will raise its costs, but it is the first to be viciously attacked by CNN.  [Video follows page break;  MP3 audio here.]

CNN relied on liberal analysis and Democratic talking points to dismantle a new Romney campaign claim about Obama gutting welfare reform. On Wednesday morning the network twice cited PolitiFact calling Romney's new ad "Pants on Fire" and quoted former President Clinton calling it false.

As NewsBusters reported, the July HHS directive does away with work requirements for welfare recipients, which was at the heart of the 1996 welfare reform bill. The memo would allow states to creatively redefine the work requirements and replace them with excuses for "work."

Not so, says CNN, who even resorted to quoting former Democratic President Bill Clinton to back up its argument. "Even former President Bill Clinton who orchestrated this welfare-to-work program back when he was president said it's just simply not true," anchor Carol Costello said of the Romney ad.

Despite admitting no direct evidence of Islamophobia behind the recent Wisconsin Sikh shooting, CNN's Carol Costello still tried to connect Islamophobia to the shooting and hype it as a national problem that needs to be discussed.

"No one knows why Wade Page allegedly chose the Oak Creek Sikh Temple," she began before adding "maybe" the shooter mistook the Sikhs for Muslims. Then she took this hypothesis and tied it to America's national scandal of Islamophobia. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN is known for being an activist network on the subject of gay rights, so it comes as no surprise that their newest target is the Boy Scouts of America.  As Newsbusters’ Matthew Philbin recently pointed out, CNN has close ties to GLAAD (Gays and Lesbians Allied Against Defamation) which might explain its decision to attack any organization that does not support its gay agenda.

The Boy Scouts organization, which does not allow openly gay individuals to join its organization as employees, volunteers or members, has been attacked viciously by CNN since it reaffirmed its position in June of this year. Since then, CNN has brought on numerous guests critical of the Scouts policy, including on Tuesday when it hosted Martin Sizmar, a former Eagle Scout who returned his medal because of their policy on gay individuals serving in their organization. The cable network allowed no one to defend the Scouts.  [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

After forcing gun control into headlines only hours after the July 20 Aurora massacre, CNN gave a voice to anti-gun advocates on Monday and Tuesday in the wake of Sunday's Wisconsin shooting.

The network hosted three guests who pushed for gun control on-air, and correspondent Dan Lothian highlighted prominent gun control advocates like Mayor Bloomberg in his Tuesday morning report.

CNN associated a white supremacist neo-Nazi band with the political right-wing as it labeled the punk rock band of Wisconsin shooter Wade Michael Page as "far right."

CNN had reported Page's band named "End Apathy" as "white supremacist," "neo-Nazi," and as a "hate group." Yet it also repeatedly labeled it "far right" on Sunday and Monday. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

In a pathetic display of adulation for a Democratic "star," CNN aired a total puff piece about the keynote speaker for the upcoming Democratic National Convention, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. Correspondent Rafael Romo's report dripped with praise for the "very successful" Castro.

Romo hailed Castro as a "very successful mayor" and a "young charismatic Latino leader" who is "media savvy," with an "only in America" story. Anchor Suzanne Malveaux wondered if he had future presidential aspirations. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

In a move out of the liberal playbook, CNN hammered Mitt Romney on Thursday for appearing out of touch because his horse is competing in the "elitist" Olympic event of dressage.

"He's back here in the United States, preparing to pick a vice president, and possibly trying to avoid charges that a sport involving horse ballet might not make him the most relatable candidate for the average voter," hyped anchor Carol Costello. [Video coming soon. Audio here.]

CNN excused reporters for shouting questions that could have passed for heckling outside a sacred site in Poland, but ripped a Mitt Romney aide for responding by cursing at them. On Thursday morning, CNN's Jim Acosta dismissed any controversy over the loaded questions in a completely self-righteous narrative.

Acosta excused reporters, "it's really no surprise really, that the press tried their best to get a question to him today," despite the shouted questions coming outside Poland's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. "I think it should also be noted that this press aide, and what he said to us, was really inexcusable." [Video below the break. Audio here.]