MSNBC

With news of a possible Rosie O’Donnell show on MSNBC, Bill O’Reilly, a frequent critic of both, predictably led the November 6 "O’Reilly Factor" with his take.

O’Reilly rehashed Rosie O’Donnell’s most inflammatory comments. Among them were her famous "fire can’t melt steel" September 11 conspiracy theory, calling terrorists "mothers and fathers," implying the British-Iranian hostage crisis was a "Gulf of Tonkin" hoax, comparing "radical Christianity" to radical Islam, smearing volunteer soldiers, and suggesting that the Americans are the real terrorists.

O’Reilly also dispelled the false "New York Times" story that "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" (O’Reilly only said "MSNBC" without mentioning Olbermann by name) is competitive with "The O’Reilly Factor." In fact, "The Factor" dominates the 8:00 PM slot dwarfing "Countdown."

Bill O’Reilly also poked fun at NBC’s hard left turn noting "it is not true that Sean Penn will be co-anchoring the NBC ‘Nightly News’...that Hugo Chavez will become their chief foreign correspondent."

The entire transcript is below.:

On Tuesday night's "Hardball" MSNBC's Chris Matthews bragged that Hillary Clinton took his strategic advice for taking on her critics. After Matthews replayed his recitation of a speech he wrote for Clinton last week, he then showed a clip of Hillary, apparently, aping his line of defense and then praised the Senator from New York as he declared: "Well done."

The following occurred on the November 6th edition of "Hardball":

Chris Matthews: "Last week I gave some free advice in the form of suggested speech notes. First to Obama, then to Joe Biden, then to Hillary. I guess she heard me. Here's what I said she should say on Thursday and what she ended up saying on Friday."

[Begin clip of Matthews from November 1st, "Hardball"]

Is it conceivable that Bill Clinton doesn't want Hillary to win? Chris Matthews floated the possibility on this afternoon's "Hardball."

View video here.

At the top of the show, Matthews played a clip from Bill Clinton's remarks last night to the American Postal Worker's Union. Clinton analogized the criticism of Hillary's evasive debate performance last week in Philly to the Swiftboat ads on John Kerry and attacks on Al Gore and former Dem senator Max Cleland.

Even liberal Bush administration critics are, as Hillary Clinton would say, "piling on" the Senator from New York and Democratic presidential candidate. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, a regular guest on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," who suggested that President Bush "could well have committed a federal crime...30 times" with the NSA wiretapping program, offered harsh words for Senator Clinton on the November 6 "Fox and Friends."

Turley opined that the Clintons "seem to want" documents being released "at a glacial pace." Turley noted that "it’s not just health care stuff" but also "things like pardons, controversies involving Hillary Clinton’s brothers."

As NewsBusters previously reported, Rosie O’Donnell is reportedly negotiating a talk show with MSNBC, the same Rosie O’Donnell who did not last a full season on "The View" with her left wing ravings. The co-hosts on the November 6 edition of "Fox and Friends" discussed it. Gretchen Carlson predicted that "it probably won’t last because Rosie doesn’t stick too long with any particular show."

The co-hosts proceeded to play two inflammatory clips of Rosie O’Donnell, previously documented by NewsBusters. First, was Rosie O’Donnell comparing radical Islam with "radical Christianity" and then her September 11 conspiracy rant that for "the first time in history, that steel was melted by fire."

Is nothing sacred, not even the samba?

Yesterday we were griping about the way NBC's "Green Week" crusade had infiltrated a perfectly good NFL football game. Today brings news that not even the presumably politics-free "Dancing With the Stars" is immune from BDS.

"Morning Joe" today twice rolled tape from last night's "Dancing with the Stars" in which Len Goodman, a Brit who is the head judge, managed to sneak in a shot at President Bush. He was speaking to a dancing pair, apparently after their performance.

View video here.

Will Joe Scarborough be sent to NBC's environmentalist re-education camp and subjected to an endless loop of "An Inconvenient Truth"? The "Morning Joe" host gave a number of hints today that he is less-than-thrilled by the doctrinaire environmentalism the network is imposing on viewers and employees alike during its "Green Week."

Scarborough's show-opening line was a not-overly-subtle dig at the seemingly endless greenery.

View video here.

On Monday's "Countdown," MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered his latest "Special Comment," inspired by revelations that former Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin had advised the Bush administration that waterboarding of Al-Qaeda terrorists should be considered torture, as the "Countdown" host charged that "the presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush." He further accused Bush of intentionally inducing Al-Qaeda prisoners to make false confessions which Bush could speak of publicly for political gain, which Olbermann contended would "mean George W. Bush is going to prison." He also warned that Bush would like to use his "nightmare presidency" to move America on a course similar to that of 1930s Japanese fascism.

Rosie O'Donnell on MSNBC.

When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

After all, what could be better than three consecutive hours of leftwing invective starting with Chris Matthews, followed by Keith Olbermann, and ending with Rosie's ridiculous rants replete with repugnantly rude ruminations such as only she can regurgitate?

It's a liberal cable network's dream.

As reported by the New York Times Monday (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer motherbelt):

Chris Matthews can't get enough of John Edwards' brutal-but-funny anti-Hillary ad, playing it twice during this evening's "Hardball." Set to the Blue Danube Waltz and based on clips from last week's debate, the theme is Hillary's double-talk on Iraq, Social Security and immigration [her triple-toe loop on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants].

But in the three-cushion game that is presidential billiards, two of Chris's guests surmised that the ad, in taking down Hillary, would likely redound to Barack Obama's benefit.

View video here [includes the Edwards' ad].

Not that there was any doubt about the ulterior motives behind NBC's "Green Week," but we didn't expect the Peacock Network to be quite this brazen. This morning on MSNBC, an NBC environmental "correspondent," who as you'll see has an impressive resume as a left-wing activist, openly urged viewers [on the eve of Election Day] to vote for politicians with an environmentalist agenda.

Video (2:18): Real (1.70 MB) and Windows Media (1.42), plus MP3 audio (1.04).

Meterologist Jackie Meretsky was in NYC, reporting live 67 stories up at the "Top of the [NBC] Rock," overlooking Central Park. At 10:12 AM ET, she interviewed Simran Sethi [shown on the right], whom she described as the "brand new environmental correspondent for NBC" and "the greenest person in the organization."

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington made some irresponsible misrepresentations on Tuesday's "Countdown" of a seemingly innocent statement by Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

At the end of the article, the following question was posed: Does anybody believe Olbermann and/or Huffington will apologize for their erroneous defamation of Giuliani?

Well, sports fans, we now have our answer, for in their own way, Keith and Arianna perfectly demonstrated how liberals apologize when they make a mistake insulting conservatives: continue insulting them.

For instance, on Friday's "Countdown," Olbermann actually did apologize for the error, but then immediately began his "Worst Person in the World" segment giving all three dishonors to Giuliani. I kid you not (portions of LexisNexis transcript follow, video available here):

Ann Coulter's been a naughty girl! She has to go sit a time out in the corner, according to Chris Matthews, who's withdrawing the distinct and high honor of inviting the columnist on "Hardball" as punishment for the Donny Deutsch row, which was hyped by the liberal smear machine Media Matters for America.

And I thought that was only reserved for attractive business reporters who didn't lean into the camera.

Here's how Gail Shister of TVNewser reported the matter today:

Looks like Hardball is playing hardball with Ann Coulter.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews says it will be "a while" before the incendiary conservative pundit is invited back to the show.

The fact has been out there for some time, but never garnered much media attention. Now, in the context of the current debate over the granting of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, will there be renewed focus on this chilling reality? Could this be the factoid that changes a presidential election? As John Fund wrote in his Wall Street Journal column today and discussed during his "Morning Joe" appearance:

After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote.

View video of Fund's "Morning Joe" appearance here.

And what made it so simple for them to register? As Fund explains:

"[T]he Clinton campaign in general has a sense of entitlement regarding treatment from the media. I think they're truly shocked by the fact that Russert had the audacity to ask them tough questions," argued Slublog at Ace of Spades in reaction to the Hillary camp's whining about treatment at the hands of NBC's Brian Williams and Tim Russert. Yet as NewsBusters and the MRC can attest, neither Williams nor Russert are even close to being agenda-driven conservatives.

Slublog was reacting to a report at TheHill.com about a Clinton damage control conference call. Reported Sam Youngman in a November 1 article (emphasis mine):

One caller from Oklahoma City said that “the questions … were designed to incite a brawl,” and that Russert’s and Brian Williams’s moderating was “an abdication of journalistic responsibility.”

I'm part of the enlightened MSM elite, happy to embrace Barack Obama. But, sigh, there are many benighted folks across our land not as sophisticated as I. You know: "Reagan Democrats," who just won't vote for an African-American. And the Republicans would plan to appeal to their racism to attack Obama.

That, in sum, was Joe Scarborough's condescending analysis of Barack Obama's presidential prospects, offered up on today's "Morning Joe." Fortunately, guest Pat Buchanan was there to gently correct him.

Panelist Mika Brzezinski kicked off the discussion of which Dem the Republicans could more easily "demonize."

View video here.

"Bill Clinton: caution, slippery when wet." -- George H.W. Bush, 1992 RNC convention.

"The Clintons have a reputation of being slippery and hard to pin down. Last night Clinton underscored that on the issue of whether illegal immigrants should have drivers licenses." -- David Shuster, "Hardball," 10-31-07

Was that really David Shuster? Or could Shuster, like opera singer Enrico Pallazzo in "Naked Gun," have been tied up in a dressing room as a Halloween impostor echoed George H.W.'s 1992 characterization of the Clintons? Be that as it may, on this afternoon's "Hardball" someone looking like the normally Dem-friendly Shuster did indeed accuse Hillary of underscoring her slippery reputation with her drivers-license debate dodge.

View video here.

Obama, goner? Joe Scarborough seems to think so. Here's what the MSNBC host had to say on today's "Morning Joe":

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yesterday, way too late in the afternoon, I did an hour on "Super Tuesday" [MSNBC's weekly Election 2008 special] and was interviewing A.B. Stoddard, journalist of "The Hill," and I asked her about Barack Obama, was he going to step forward? And she gave a great answer, and she said what a lot of people are not saying right now, she said, "you know what, Joe? He just doesn't have it in him."

View video here.

During Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC, NBC anchor Brian Williams posed a question to Barack Obama which managed to simultaneously impugn Republicans as executors of disreputable campaign practices and portray Obama as a likely victim of it -- all based on Mitt Romney flubbing Obama's name and memories of the Bush campaign's attacks on John McCain in 2000.

Explaining that his question would be “about religion and misinformation,” Williams, who co-moderated the debate with Tim Russert, raised how Romney “misspoke twice on the same day, confusing your name with that of Osama bin Laden,” as if, apparently, that was some sort of effort to suggest Obama is Muslim. Williams proceeded to highlight how “your party is fond of talking about potential swift boating,” before he got to his charged political point in the form of a question: “Are you fearful of what happened to John McCain, for example in South Carolina a few years back, confusion on the basis of things like names and religion?”

According to a new study, those news organizations that hold themselves up as the most neutral and professional — big newspapers, the broadcast networks and taxpayer-subsidized National Public Radio — are actually producing campaign stories that are the most tilted in favor of Democrats, while online news and talk radio have actually been the most balanced.

The study, released Monday from the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, found newspapers and broadcast TV outlets devoted far more time to covering the Democratic candidates than the Republicans and that the tone of those stories was much more favorable to the Democrats, mirroring the results of a Media Research Center study released in August.

NewsBusters reported on October 29 that Chris Matthews wrote a speech for Barack Obama attacking his primary rival Hillary Clinton from the left. The following morning, "Fox and Friends" picked it up. Co-host Steve Doocy noted, just as Geoffrey Dickens did in his post, that Matthews is a former Jimmy Carter speech writer.

Doocy read an e-mail from Jonathan in Sag Harbor, New York calling Matthews a "Democratic stalwart" and "will do anything to get a little face time" for his "low rated program." Co-host Gretchen Carlson observed that it "sounds a lot maybe like a speech that MoveOn.org would also write."

The transcript of the discussion is below.

Sure, Rosie O'Donnell's a 9-11 conspiracy nut. But she's also a big-time liberal and ardent Republican critic. That makes her our 9-11 conspiracy nut. So let's literally [see screencap] turn the page on her lunacy.

That seemed to be Mika Brzezinski's operative logic on today's "Morning Joe." During the opening 6 AM schmoozefest, talk turned to the confrontation between Rosie and an "O'Reilly Factor" staffer [identified by NewsBuster Ian Schwartz as likely being producer Jesse Watters] that recently occured at an O'Donnell book-signing. Rosie had apparently declined to return phone calls from the "Factor" inviting her on, so Bill dispatched a producer to offer the invitation in person. "Morning Joe" rolled a clip of the incident in which the "Factor" producer invited Rosie to recant her 9-11 conspiracy theory.

View video here.

Chris Matthews got his start in politics by writing speeches for Jimmy Carter, well on Monday night, the "Hardball" host returned to his roots when he penned an anti-war screed that he urged Barack Obama to use as a way to attack Hillary Clinton from the left. The following excerpt is how Matthews opened the October 29 edition of "Hardball" (video available here):

Matthews: "Good evening, I'm Chris Matthews and welcome to Hardball. The 2008 election, that's the spotlight tonight. Iowa, which starts the whole thing January 3rd, is now a dead heat between Hillary and Obama. Here's what I think Obama should say, starting tomorrow night, at the big MSNBC debate in my hometown of Philly.

With a little help from Joe Scarborough, Valerie Plame Wilson tried this morning to paint herself as someone who, far from seeking "Vanity Fair" fame, had celebrity thrust upon her in a moment of distraction. Right.

And try this quick quiz:

Q. Is it possible to get through an extended interview of Valerie Plame Wilson without mentioning Richard Armitage?

A. Yes, if Joe Scarborough is the interviewer.

For a moment, let's put aside minor matters like Iraq, Iran and $1 trillion Dem tax proposals and focus on something important . . .

Appearing on today's "Morning Joe," CNBC's John Harwood made a strong defense of Rudy Giuliani's announcement that the avid Yankee fan is rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series. And by the end, he even got University of Alabama alum Joe Scarborough to admit that under certain circumstances he would root for Auburn -- the Tide's arch in-state rival. Then again, Harwood failed to persuade at least one Bronx native . . .

The issue arose in the context of Hillary's campaigning.

JOHN HARWOOD: You notice she got in a little dig about Giuliani and the whole Red Sox thing.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, I like that. Tell our viewers about that.

View video here.

For years now, Valerie Plame has been the toast of the liberal glitterati, a celebrated combat specialist against the Vast Bush Conspiracy. Every move the former CIA employee has made has oozed political and commercial calculation. She struck a book deal with Simon & Schuster worth more than $2 million. She struck a movie deal based on the book deal with Warner Brothers for millions more, so she can be played as a patriotic heroine on the silver screen by Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts. How many millions more? Two million? Five million? Don’t wait for the media to ask. They're too busy playing her as victimized.

In the Clinton years, any opponent in a Clinton scandal was assumed to be overwhelmed with greed, desperate to get an agent and make millions with lies about the president, to sell "trash for cash." Since she's been encouraged to wage political war by Hillary Clinton, none of these assumptions have been applied to Valerie Plame, or her husband, Joe Wilson. Here’s a rundown of the Plame interviews and the number of questions about the Wilsons making millions:

Notice Norah O'Donnell glancing down? Although the screen graphic refers to the Lewinsky scandal, the MSNBC anchor was at that moment discussing the Democrats's $1 trillion tax proposal with Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). As Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rangel is the key mover behind the tax plan.

O'Donnell, obviously reading from a document, described the proposal as a plan "to eliminate the alternative minimum tax and ease the tax burdens of most Americans by asking the rich and some corporations to pay more."

Was it just a slip of the tongue, or did Josephine "Josie" Hearn of Politico just let her liberal slip show? On this evening's "Tucker," she sure seemed to wax enthusiastic over a positive poll result for Hillary.

Norah O'Donnell subbed for Tucker Carlson on his MSNBC show this evening, and talk turned to the latest LA Times|Bloomberg poll, which put Hillary at 48%, with Obama at 17% and Edwards trailing with 13%. Norah invited Hearn to comment.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Josie, it just shows she's continuing her wide margin on just about every demographic, right?

See Update at Foot -- FEMA Administrator flatly debunks Garamendi

Good on Tamron Hall.

On the one hand, as I've noted here and here, Hall let her liberal leanings show more than once when serving as a "Morning Joe" panelist. But the MSNBC anchor is also the daughter of a career Army man, and clearly knows and respects the military.

When Dem John Garamendi, the California Lt. Gov., appeared on MSNBC this afternoon, Hall took the occasion to challenge him over the misleading remarks about the California National Guard that he made yesterday to Chris Matthews during an interview in which he also spoke most ungraciously, as I noted here, about Pres. Bush's impending visit to California.