MSNBC

Boycotts are falling everywhere. With the French having elected Sarkozy, American conservatives are feeling good about buying Beaujolais again. And with Imus gone from MSNBC, Hillary Clinton has ended her one-woman boycott of the network's morning-show slot. Hillary had famously shunned the shock-jock's show in the wake of his suggestive shtick at a Radio & TV Correspondents dinner with Pres. Clinton and the First Lady in attendance.

Hillary did a lengthy phone interview at 8:09 EDT today on "Morning Joe," the latest in MSNBC's revolving morning-chat shows in the old Imus slot, hosted by Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who hosts a regular evening show in the MSNBC lineup. At one point during the interview, Joe told Hillary "I'm not kissing up to you at all. Those who know me know I certainly don't do that." But if there were any questions that put Hillary on the spot, I must have missed them. There were points of agreement on health care and other issues. Joe blamed himself for being part of the impeachment effort and closed with a bouquet for Hillary's "unifying" presence.

View video here.

Al Sharpton, victim?

Yup -- according to Chris Matthews. The MSNBC host suggested that Mitt Romney had landed a "sucker punch" on Sharpton in reacting to the reverend's assertion that "true believers" will defeat the Mormon in the presidential race. Matthews laced his interview with Sharpton on this afternoon's "Hardball" with a number of comments painting Sharpton as the offended, not the offender.

After playing a tape of Sharpton's remark, and Romney's response in which he characterized Sharpton's comment as bigoted, Matthews went off on a riff.

View video here.

Think all Hollywood elites are Bush-bashing liberals falling in lockstep with the leftwing dogma being espoused by Democrat leaders and the media that support them?

Well, if you do, you'd better prepare yourself for an alternate reality.

Actor Jon Voight, on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country” Tuesday evening, made some statements that are likely to get him tossed out of Club Hollywood if he’s not careful.

After a brief discussion about his film “September Dawn,” Voight went into a shocking monologue about what he sees wrong in the nation today, including shots at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and "extremists who really believe all the propaganda that they are being fed on a daily basis by very cunning professionals" (video available here):

We’ve now finished the first two presidential debates, both on MSNBC. Pundits are debating whether they will make a difference in the race, but one thing is very clear: it’s business as usual for the media moderating these things. The Democrats were treated to an amiable chit-chat among friends. The Republicans took round after round of hostile fire from enemies. Nothing ever changes. The Democrats are spoiled like rotten kids, and the Republicans are invited to sleep on a bed of nails, and do so willingly.

But the dynamic now has been made even worse by the petulant petitions and protests of the censorious left, the ones who claim to be "democrats" but want to remove Fox News Channel from the news media. Leftists believe in a media strategy with all the sophistication of holding your breath and turning blue. Fox hatred is required. On the Huffington Post, author Carol Hoenig argued the Democrats should debate on Fox. Even so, her article was headlined "Fox News: A Cancer On Society."

On Friday's Today show, MSNBC's Chris Matthews defended his ludicrous decision to ask the GOP candidates if it would "be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?" Matthews explained the sociological insight: "They all sort of guffawed. Well, that's a particularly Republican response. If I offered that same question up to Democrats...they would be cheering like mad." So Matthews proved that the ten Republican debaters are not Democrats — was there any doubt? The weird Clinton question was symptomatic of how MSNBC and debate co-sponsor ThePolitico.com spent valuable time asking the GOP candidates questions that reflected the agenda of far-left bloggers, not the concerns of GOP primary voters. A week earlier, while moderator Brian Williams did pose a few right-leaning questions to the Democratic field, most of that debate reflected issues that rate high with Democratic voters. In other words, both debates were dominated by liberal agenda questions.

Has the king of Bush Derangement Syndrome, Keith Olbermann, created a new liberal malady characterized by an almost incomprehensible inability to tolerate any criticism of the MSNBC host?

After reading Joan Walsh and Glenn Greenwald’s articles at Salon Monday, one could certainly come to the conclusion that such an affliction exists, and that the two are suffering from this little known psychological impairment “Olbermann Derangement Syndrome."

For instance, Walsh began her “A Hit Job on Keith Olbermann” (emphasis added throughout):

In the aftermath of Democrats boycotting presidential debates sponsored by Fox News, and the deplorable questions asked by liberal media members at Thursday’s GOP event, should Republican candidates consider refusing to attend any upcoming affairs involving obvious leftwing shills?

Before you answer, consider what a John Edwards campaign representative said in April when it was announced that the Democrat presidential candidate from North Carolina wouldn’t attend the September 23 debate sponsored by Fox News as reported by the Associated Press (emphasis added):

In the wake of Democrat presidential candidates canceling debates to be held by Fox News, it only seems fitting that similar concerns are surfacing regarding the inclusion of Keith Olbermann during Republican debates sponsored by MSNBC.

This seems even more appropriate given the disgraceful performance of clearly left-leaning media members at Thursday’s event in Simi Valley, California.

As reported by the Associated Press Friday, the Giuliani campaign actually expressed its concerns about Olbermann’s participation before the debate occurred (emphasis added throughout):

NewsBusters senior editor/MRC director of research Rich Noyes appeared on "Your World with Neil Cavuto" a few moments ago discussing the agenda of silly, liberally-biased questions in last night's GOP debate on MSNBC.

Video: Real (4 MB) or Windows (3.2 MB), plus MP3 (1.6 MB)

Discussing the agenda of questions posed by Chris Matthews and the reporters from Politico.com, Noyes observed: "It's the kind of stuff you find liberal bloggers complaining about, questions like, 'Is Karl Rove your friend,' 'Do you believe in evolution,' [questions] designed to trip up Republicans and make them look like they were against science. The question from Jim VandeHei, 'What's the deal with the corruption in your party?' This was all a series of very left-leaning questions to G.O.P. candidates. And there's no problem asking Republicans tough questions, but if you look at the tone of the Democratic debate, it was all softballs compared to what Republicans got last night. There's really two different standards for the two parties." After running down some of the more obnoxious questions thrown at the candidates at last night's debate, Cavuto pointed out how "none of those Republicans was afraid to be at a venue where they knew they would probably get snide questions like this on a network or with a host who has a certain leaning. Yet none of their counterparts in the Democratic Party would dare appear here." Noyes agreed: "Well, that's true. It's amazing that Democrats are trying to avoid having a debate on the Fox News Channel. Fox News had debates in the last cycle. A lot of the questioners brought in — they were not Fox employees — they were some liberal reporters like Gwen Ifill and Juan Williams, along with some of Fox's own people like Carl Cameron. Nobody had any complaints about that [debate]. Now, because they want to please the left-wing blogosphere, they're acting like if appearing on Fox is somehow a dangerous and terrible thing to do. Here you have Republicans going on MSNBC, which is a really, become a very far-left wing network in the last few months, few years, and they all seemed to have a pretty good time and got their message out."

While being interviewed on Friday's “Today” show by Meredith Vieira, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews attempted to explain the rationale behind a bizarre question he posed to Republicans the night before at the debate he moderated. Matthews had asked the presidential candidates: "Seriously, would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?"

Republicans laughed in unison, with Mitt Romney retorting: "You have got to be kidding."

On the May 4 "Today," from the site of the debate, the Air Force One Pavilion at the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, Matthews defended his question:

Romney won, Rudy lost. That's Chris Matthews' take on the GOP presidential debate he moderated on MSNBC last night. Matthews made his views clear during his appearance on this morning's "Today." Meredith Vieira, who interviewed Matthews at 7:09 EDT, seemed to share her colleague's assessment.

TODAY CO-HOST MEREDITH VIEIRA: Winners and losers in your assessment?

MSNBC HOST CHRIS MATTHEWS: Oh, come on. Well, let me just say I thought that just factually, Giuliani stood out on the issue of abortion rights, clearly. At one point I asked if they would be happy, if it would be a good day for America, if the courts struck down Roe v. Wade, the court decision back in '73 that gave a woman the right to an abortion, and he said 'that would be OK,' Very tentative. And then later on he reasserted his position that he is for abortion rights. So I think that separated him on a big issue.

VIEIRA: Yeah, but Chris, he also said it would be OK if a strict constructionist judge upheld Roe v. Wade. It sounded like he was talking out of both sides of his mouth there.

View video here

Update (15:33): MRC/NB's Rich Noyes will be on Fox News at 4:15 p.m. to discuss this. Look for a new post shortly thereafter with video.

In a debate packed with silly questions and ones matching left-wing attack points on GOP candidates, in the first “Interactive Round” of questions submitted by the public on Politico.com, a co-sponsor of the debate, Mitt Romney got the most bizarre. The Politico Executive Editor Jim VandeHei, a Washington Post political reporter before jumping to The Politico earlier this year, found this one worth posing: “Daniel Dekovnick [sp phonetic] from Walnut Creek, California wants to know, 'What do you dislike most about America?'" Romney responded: “Gosh, I love America. I'm afraid I'm going to be at a loss for words...”(More questions below)

Video clip of VandeHei posing the “what do you dislike most about America?” question and Romney's response (45 secs): Real (1.3 MB) or Windows Media (1.5 MB), plus MP3 audio (260 KB)

Read past the jump for more oddball questions and a huge blog roundup.

Tucker Carlson is a self-described libertarian who mentioned more than once this morning that in he has in the past supported fellow libertarian Ron Paul for president. Little wonder, then, that Carlson takes a live-and-let-love attitude toward the escort-service scandal that is threatening to rock Washington.

For those who have not been following the case, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called "DC Madam," owner of an escort agency, turned her clients' phone numbers over to ABC. On tomorrow's "20/20," ABC is apparently planning to disclose the names of some of those clients, who are reported to include Bush administration officials, prominent lobbyists, CEOs and the head of a conservative think tank.

To discuss the ethical issues involved, Carlson had as guests on the early-morning version of his show today the owner of the legal-in-Nevada Moonlight Bunny Ranch, Dennis Hof, and two of his employees, Audrey and Brooke. MSNBC has shaken up its lineup today to provide all-day pre-game coverage of tonight's GOP debate.

The highlight of the segment was this exchange between Carlson and the two women.

View video here.

Not that there's anything wrong with that . . .

Actually, Bill Maher didn't add that Seinfeldesque qualifier when describing Republican affection for Ronald Reagan. Maher was a guest on this afternoon's "Hardball." In the course of taking a cheap shot at Fred Thompson, this Cornell alum [what is it about my alma mater, which also churned out Keith Olbermann?] had this to say:

BILL MAHER: It amuses me so much that the Republicans now are talking about the great charisma of Fred Thompson, basset-hound faced Fred Thompson. The Republican party has this campy fixation with Ronald Reagan. It is almost gay about the way they are talking about him and obsessing about him.

With baseball season underway, Tony Snow today used a metaphor from America's pastime to knock out of the park NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell's allegation that the U.S. is to blame for Cuba's economic woes.

As I noted here earlier today, Mitchell reported on MSNBC from Havana on the occasion of Cuba's May Day celebrations. Describing conditions in Cuba, as the country transitions from Fidel Castro to brother Raul, Mitchell claimed:

There have been no major problems, other than the continuing economic difficulties that of course this country faces because of the U.S. embargo, the economic embargo.

This NewsBuster participated in a conference call today with White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. Asked by me to comment on the Mitchell claim, Snow, flashing midseason form, observed:

There's really only one problem for Cuba: those yanqui imperialists and the embargo they slapped on the country. Just ask Andrea Mitchell. The NBC correspondent is in Cuba today for the May Day festivities. Here's an excerpt from her conversation on MSNBC at 9:07 EDT this morning with host Contessa Brewer.

MSNBC HOST CONTESSA BREWER: Is there an expectation among the crowd there, a sense that Castro will return to power at some point?

NBC CORRESPONDENT ANDREA MITCHELL: Officials are pointing out, and it's certainly true from my visits here that the government runs, it's business as usual, that they have managed this succession rather well. Raul Castro is here today, he and other leaders are very much in charge. There have been no major problems, other than the continuing economic difficulties that of course this country faces because of the U.S. embargo, the economic embargo.

MSNBC: Fair and Balanced

According to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani committed "terrorism" when he suggested that the country would be "playing defense" if a Democrat was elected president in 2008. And this is the network that’s hosting a Republican presidential debate?

Americans Making Lots of Money: Good or Bad?

On Monday, an ABC graphic provided a shining example of media bias. Co-host Diane Sawer was discussing the recent surge by the stock market. During the segment, a graphic below her read, "Will Dow Hit 13,000 Today? Is Unstoppable Market Good or Bad?"

You Won’t Have Rosie O’Donnell To Kick Around Anymore

"Good Morning America" reacted to the departure of Rosie O’Donnell this week by claiming that the left-wing comedienne was a pioneer for women. (The morning program also ignored her 9/11 conspiracy theories.)

Over at The Hillary Spot on NRO, a great spot for keeping up with the presidential campaign, Jim Geraghty found that Chris Matthews wasn't exactly playing "Hardball" before the Democratic debate. But he did imply that Bush was a little racist because he was faster to arrive on the scene at Virginia Tech than in New Orleans after Katrina. (Question to Chris: Do you think no blacks were gunned down at Virginia Tech?) Geraghty thought Matthews sounded like a DNC press aide:

Chris Matthews' first question to Elizabeth Edwards on Hardball: "What's the difference between having a Democratic President and a Republican President?"

Hard-left radio talk show host Stephanie Miller will be filling the Don Imus morning-radio-simulcast gap on MSNBC next week from April 30 to May 2. On her show Thursday morning, she was joking to her male sidekicks about what can be said on MSNBC: "You can't call me a whore. I can call myself a whore." It is in a sense, like Old Home Week, since she co-hosted the CNBC program "Equal Time" with Bay Buchanan for a while ten years ago.

The buzz from Jossip is "according to someone with a vested interest in seeing her succeed, 'the network is hoping to build Stephanie into a major face of the network.'" As for her politics and more about her radio show, see her Progressive interview: "I love Russ Feingold. I love Barbara Boxer. And Howard Dean and John Conyers."

-- So, you think NBC shouldn’t have aired that Cho Seung-Hui video, do you?

-- NBC has a new definition for its initials: the Narcissism Broadcasting Company. How fitting it is that their logo is a peacock. It’s bad enough that this monster gunned down 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech. But in between murder sprees this vicious, calculating killer calmly went to the post office and sent an Express Mail package of his self-glorifying pictures and videos to NBC News in between killings – and NBC News rushed this killer’s propaganda on NBC and MSNBC within hours of receiving this bundle of psychosis.

-- So what’s your complaint? The timing – airing the video when nerves were at their most raw – or airing it at all?

-- Let’s start with the timing. Usually, after a school shooting, network news divisions mourn with the families, and comfort them on their shocking losses. In this case, NBC took their wounds and shoveled salt into them. Outraged families canceled their planned NBC interviews because their pain in no way balanced out NBC’s naked desire to stick it to their competitors. NBC News President Steve Capus implausibly claimed they were handling the exploitation with "great sensitivity" to the grieving, but the idea that they have any corporate compassion was completely lost to anyone who watched their frenzied programming.

Here's one ally that most people opposed to the airing of Cho's material would surely just as soon do without.

In an MSNBC column, Siva Vaidhyanathan claims that NBC News' decision to air the material was unfair to, that's right, Cho the mass murderer.

In Material from Killer Should Not Have Aired, Vaidhyanathan does note en passant that the airing "ultimately was disrespectful to the victims and their families." But the lion's share of his column is devoted to complaining that NBC was "exploitative of Cho's condition and that of all severely mentally ill people."

We will see sick attempts at humor, bigoted jokes about Korean immigrants and chilling calls to violence. And we will see a proliferation of hateful material that will be an assault on the mentally ill and their families.

When Republican strategist Michelle Laxalt began to describe the clinical reality of partial-birth abortion on MSNBC this morning at about 10:55 AM EDT, MSNBC host Chris Jansing cut her off, saying she didn't want to get into an "emotional debate." Of course not. Better to focus on the antiseptic "right to choose" without letting the gruesome reality of the matter intrude.

In partial birth abortion, the doctor collapses the near-term baby's skull and its brains are then sucked out. Immediately after stopping Laxalt just as she was about to state that, Jansing herself said that the GOP might welcome the debate on the partial birth abortion issue "after Iraq and some of the other things that have gone on at the White House that have sort of sucked the life out of the Republican party."

Video: Real (1.6 MB) or Windows (1.8 MB), plus MP3 (279 KB)

(Be sure and read the updates at the bottom of this story.)

Since NBC complied with the Virginia Tech killer's desires to have himself splashed all over national television, the question arises: Did NBC act unethically by promoting Cho Seung-hui's videos?

Jack M. makes a good, if somewhat profane, case in the affirmative:

These guys are idiots.

I can't believe they aired all this crap the shooter sent.

I can't believe they are giving his "manifesto" serious air time.

Lemme make an analogy here:

Ever watched a baseball game on say, WTBS or WGN, when some asshat jumps on the field?

What happens?

The producers of the game pull their cameras off the field. They focus on the broadcast booth. They focus on the dugouts. They focus on the bullpen.

From Todd Boyd, ESPN’s Page 2:

Now that disgraced radio talk-show host Don Imus has been booted, can we finally get down to some “real talk” about the multiple issues embedded in this racial theater? There is a lot to sort through here, but after a week of debate centered around “nappy-headed hos,” half-assed apologies, cries of censorship, and a curmudgeonly shock jock’s lame attempt at being funny, many pundits have moved beyond the core issue and now are talking about the perceived double standard they feel exists between what Imus said and what often comes from the mouths of rappers.

Yet Imus and hip-hop really don’t have much in common. Imus was host of a radio show that focused on the real news of the day, while hip-hop is a fictionalized form of cultural expression. Imus is real, featuring real guests and humor based on real topics. However loudly hip-hop might claim to be real, it is not real; it is a form of representation. This is why so few rappers use the names on their birth certificates when performing.

Substitute hosting for Chris Matthews on last night's Hardball it didn't take long for David Shuster to bring up the specter of gun control in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting. Shuster indicated that gun policies actually "enabled" the shooter to obtain his "weapons of choice." The following was Shuster's intro for the April 16th edition of "Hardball."

David Shuster: "At this hour, investigators are still trying to piece together what happened this morning on the Virginia Tech campus. Tonight, we will tell you everything we've learned about the killer's motive. We will bring you the most gripping interviews we have seen today from students who witnessed the rampage and tried to block the killer's path. And you will hear live from witnesses who saw the aftermath. Many questions are lingering tonight about the response by campus police, warnings to Virginia Tech students, even gun policies that enabled the killer to get his hands on his weapons of choice. But we start tonight with a campus community was rocked to its core and asking the question, why us?"

MSNBC host Contessa Brewer [file photo] has taken some deserved heat here, as when NewsBuster Scott Whitlock caught her here, seemingly rooting for the entire Democratic presidential field.

But for at least one brief shining moment this afternoon, Brewer gave the pro-Second Amendment side of the VA Tech argument fair treatment. The fair Contessa's guests were University of Missouri law prof Kris Kobach, a former senior aide to former AG John Ashcroft, and Dennis Henigan of the Brady gun-control group.

Brewer began by expressing skepticism as to how additional gun control laws could have helped: "Dennis, let me put you on the spot here. What possibly have been done to keep Cho from buying a gun? We now know he didn't have a criminal record."

According to TV Newser, football fans can probably expect some liberal bias in the upcoming NFL season. Keith Olbermann, the reliably left-wing MSNBC host, will become the co-anchor of NBC’s "Football Night in America":

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann is returning to network sports after a six year absence as a co-host of NBC's Football Night in America.

"This will, obviously, be great fun and a great privilege for me," Olbermann says. "To be reunited with NBC Sports, and Dick, and the entire production team, produces all the warm-and-fuzzies you'd be expecting. And even if they weren't old friends and colleagues, to get to work with the nonpareil of sportscasters in Bob, and the most insightful and honest of sports analysts in Cris, will be rewarding and challenging. I hope I can hold up my end of the equation."

Readers may recall that, back in 2000, radio star Rush Limbaugh auditioned to join ABC’s "Monday Night Football" broadcast, an act that horrified the Washington Post and other liberal outlets.

For the last few weeks I have been watching two stories that, were they about Conservatives or Republicans, would have been scandals that would have shaken the rafters of the MSM. But, since these stories are about two favored Liberals, one old and one newly minted, we have seen no faux outrage, no shocked commentary, no calls for heads on pikes to be posted at the entrance to Congress, and no calls for resignations. Oh, the stories were reported all right, but all sensationalism was eschewed with the usual extrapolation to the level of a “culture of corruption” cast aside for a straight, newsy style atypical to their normal means against Republicans.

These two stories and the lack of passionate coverage of them by the MSM shows that the MSM employs as much liberal bias in what they chose not to cover as they do in what they chose to go ahead and focus upon.

 TVWeek and TMZ announced that “conservative MSNBC pundit" Tucker Carlson, will host a game show pilot remake of the Johnny Carson 1950s classic, “Who Do You Trust." While this is potentially good news for Tucker, what is more interesting is how these two sites described the former “Jeopardy” champ. 

TVWeek focused on Carlson’s conservatism while describing the show instead of his journalism background and non-scripted TV experience with shows like “Jeopardy” and "Dancing with the Stars":

CBS has tapped conservative MSNBC pundit and famed bow-tie aficionado Tucker Carlson to host its game show pilot "Who Do You Trust?"