CNN

Only an hour after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation from the papacy, and not ten minutes into Monday's Starting Point, CNN's Soledad O'Brien hosted the director of an anti-Catholic documentary who has called Pope Benedict a "criminal" and a "deeply flawed human being."

Director Alex Gibney was O'Brien's first guest on her show. His new film on the clerical sex abuse scandal has been criticized as distorted and misleading and "an anti-Catholic broadside masquerading as a documentary." O'Brien praised it as "riveting, absolutely riveting," however, and let him criticize Pope Benedict.  [Video below the break. Audio here.]

A conservative doctor named Ben Carson made quite a splash this week when he appeared to lecture President Obama at the national prayer breakfast.

On CNN's State of the Union Sunday, host Candy Crowley asked her guests, "Do you find anything offensive with" what the doctor said or did (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Only about five percent of Americans identify as atheists, but CNN played up the "very activist atheist movement" and touted celebrity atheists like Julianne Moore and Mark Zuckerberg, on Thursday.

"Various surveys put the number of atheists in America around five percent. And according to the Pew study in 2012, one in five people claim they have no religious affiliation at all," anchor Carol Costello noted. She didn't mention that having no religious affiliation might not even be close to atheism.

It was huge news. A map targeting those with opposing viewpoints led to a tragic attack. Partisan rhetoric was out of control and fringe-types were being driven to gun commit gun crimes. Except that, in the case of the Gabby Giffords shooting two years ago, none of those things were even remotely true. But that didn’t stop the media from breathlessly conjecturing that a target-festooned map on Sarah Palin’s website had pointed Jared Loughner to Rep. Giffords, and that Palin’s “reload” rhetoric made him shoot.

But now we have a case in which a politically motivated shooter has confessed to choosing his targets according to a map. In fact, it was a “hate map” created by the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). But ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN aren’t talking.

Tony Bennett is one of America's most popular singers but he has proven once again that talent in the arts is no predictor of intelligence.

At a Wednesday press conference, the outspoken pacifist and ardent Democrat Bennett compared isolated gun deaths in the U.S. to Nazi concentration camps and said that if America did not do something to curtail violence in this country, the other countries would “take care of us in a really bad way,” just like they did in World War II to the Germans. Bizarre video and story below.

Giving advice is easy; accepting it, not so much. One day after Chris Christie downed a doughnut and joked that he's “the healthiest fat guy you've ever seen in your life” on Monday night's edition of “The Late Show With David Letterman,” a medical expert on presidential health said the New Jersey governor's weight is no laughing matter.

"I'm worried he may have a heart attack. I'm worried he may have a stroke," former White House physician Connie Mariano said in an interview with Jim Acosta, CNN's national political correspondent regarding the GOP "heavyweight."

After a man shot a security guard at the Family Research Council (FRC) last summer, the organization claimed it was targeted because the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) listed it as a "hate group."

The shooter has now revealed that he indeed used that SPLC map to find his target. And CNN has not only promoted this list of "hate groups" in the past, but after the shooting it re-affirmed the FRC's place on the list as "hate spewing hate."

CNN's Piers Morgan invoked the death of Trayvon Martin to support his case for gun control, but the brother of Martin's accused shooter George Zimmerman had a retort ready on Tuesday's Piers Morgan Tonight.

"You would accept, would you not, that if your brother had not gone out armed with a gun that day, Trayvon Martin would be celebrating his 18th birthday today," Morgan first pressed Zimmerman.  [Video coming soon. Audio here.]

CNN anchors dropped journalistic integrity and went into full attack mode against supporters of the ban on gay Boy Scouts on Wednesday morning.

When the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins questioned why the Scouts should change their long-standing policy, anchor Soledad O'Brien blurted out "Because it's discriminatory," before adding "Because they think it's discriminatory." She then asked "My final question for you, do you worry you are on the wrong side of history on this?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin compared the push for the Boy Scouts to accept gays to the struggle over interracial marriage and same-sex marriage. She slammed any ban on gay scouts, local or national, as "discrimination," on Tuesday afternoon's Newsroom.

"They've been arguing that, Brooke, for years. If you let a black person marry a white person society will end. If you let gay and lesbian couples marry, society will end. That's an argument that has failed time and time again. And so to argue that we should discriminate because you want the Boy Scouts of America to survive is just a bunch of nonsense," Hostin told anchor Brooke Baldwin. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's message to the Boy Scouts is this: "the world" is becoming more accepting of same-sex marriage, and the Scouts should get with the times by accepting openly gay leaders. Anchor Carol Costello made that clear on Tuesday morning's Newsroom.

"And like it or not, children are exposed to gay people. Ever watch 'Modern Family' or 'Ellen' or hear NFL players speak out for same-sex marriage? The world is changing. And the question now: will the Boy Scouts change with it?" Costello argued. Of course, CNN helps facilitate that "change" by giving NFL players -- who wish to "harness this Super Bowl media" to push for "marriage equality" -- air time to push for same-sex marriage unopposed. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's resident gun control advocate Piers Morgan faced off with Ted Nugent Monday, and as was expected, the bullets were flying.

By the end of the first segment, Nugent told his arrogant adversary, "You're the perfect poster boy to stand up for the things that make no sense at all to common sense people" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

The former president of CNN/U.S. doesn't regret bringing Piers Morgan to CNN and reaffirmed his desire to hire Keith Olbermann away from MSNBC in 2010, in an interview with HuffPost Live.

When asked if he regretted hiring Piers Morgan, Jon Klein replied "as a viewer I don't regret it. I mean, I watch him all the time." When pressed about Olbermann, Klein admitted his "foresight" in wanting the liberal host to move to CNN, noting "it would have made things a lot more difficult for MSNBC."

Liberal media members defending Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are about as rare as Halley's Comet.

Yet that's what CNN's Howard Kurtz did Monday in a piece surprisingly titled "Obama, Gore, Stop Whining About Right-wing Media."

CNN thinks the Super Bowl has become "a platform for the culture wars," but they are using that "platform" to support causes like gay marriage.

The morning after the Super Bowl, CNN's openly-gay anchor Don Lemon interviewed gay rights activist and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo and thanked him for his work. No guest from the other side was brought on.

NewsBusters reported on the media's early valentine for outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and CNN's media critic Howard Kurtz focused on their "romance" on Sunday's Reliable Sources.

"[T]hings were so lovey-dovey, it almost sounded like a therapy session," Kurtz described Clinton's 60 Minutes interview.  He added the media "are almost portraying her [Clinton's] exit as walking on water." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Piers Morgan is apparently trying to get another petition started to have him deported.

Shortly after the conclusion of Sunday's Super Bowl, he tweeted, "Got to laugh at Ravens being declared 'World Champions' of a competition only American teams enter":

CNN must be so proud!

On Sunday, the self-described most trusted name in news aired a thirteen minute interview with Global Warmingist-in-Chief Al Gore, and although the subject of the sale of Current TV was raised, host Fareed Zakaria didn't ask him one question about al Jazeera's connection to oil (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The folks at CNN sure have gotten smutty this year.

In the wake of Kathy Griffin kissing Anderson Cooper's crotch on New Year's Eve, and Piers Morgan having a truly raunchy discussion with Chelsea Handler earlier this week, Cooper on Friday reported a 1980s date as Larry King "trying to get Katie Couric in the sack" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Speaking on a different show but making the same tired liberal points, CNN's Piers Morgan hit the American "mentality" on guns and attacked the NRA on Thursday's The Tonight Show. Of course, Morgan probably reached more of an audience at NBC than on his own CNN show.

"And the crucial thing in America now is you've got to somehow change the mentality and the culture to reduce the number of guns," the liberal CNN host insisted, pointing to other countries as an argument in favor of gun control. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Viewers who tuned in to Wednesday's The Situation Room were bombarded with over five times as much coverage of gun control advocates than of the lone gun rights advocate Newt Gingrich.

Host Wolf Blitzer tossed plenty of softball questions to gun control advocates Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mark Kelly, husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), but he grilled Gingrich on background checks.

Continuing to harass pro-gun advocates, CNN's Piers Morgan attacked a Wisconsin sheriff who had encouraged citizens to own a firearm for self-defense. Morgan interrupted his guest repeatedly and tried to frame him as a loony Wild West gunman.

"What you're creating is a return to the Wild West in Milwaukee," Morgan insisted on Tuesday night's Piers Morgan Tonight. "You do these racy, Hollywood-style adverts. You want them all out there armed and shooting." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

As NewsBusters reported, CBS's Steve Kroft told CNN's Piers Morgan Monday that President Obama likes going on 60 Minutes because "he knows that we're not going to play gotcha with him."

On Tuesday, Fox News's Bret Baier quoted NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard's opinion on this matter (video follows with transcript):