Fox News Sunday

The depths the shills on the Left will go to impugn their enemies knows no bounds.

On Sunday, the George Soros-funded organization Think Progress falsely accused Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx.) of comparing Social Security and Medicare to slavery (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Forget about Bush Derangement Syndrome.

According to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, the Sunday morning political talk shows are all biased towards the 43rd president we conservatives all thought they despised (video follows with transcript and lots of debunking commentary):

A round-up from over the weekend of journalists denouncing Republican Congressman Paul Ryan for not including a big tax hike in his deficit-reduction plan and discrediting the Tea Party’s pressure on House Speaker John Boehner as a “far right” impediment to good government.

“He doesn't deal with the revenue side at all,” despaired Newsweek veteran Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, arguing: “We cannot survive on 18, his goal is to do 18 percent of GDP as revenue. That's not enough. We're going to have to raise some taxes...”

On HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night, Katty Kay, anchor of BBC’s World News America, echoed, “He does nothing on the revenue side,” fretting: “There is this allergy, amongst Republicans, about saying ‘you know what, we actually do have to deal with taxes too.’”

Juan Williams charged “the rich get off like scoundrels,” complaining on Fox News Sunday that Ryan is “not doing anything in terms of raising taxes.” Williams also worried: “John Boehner now has the Tea Party wrapped around his neck like an albatross.”

Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) predicted last Sunday on Fox News that Democrats were going to demagogue him and his historic 2012 budget proposal in order to assist their reelection chances next year.

On Friday's "Inside Washington," Newsweek's Evan Thomas not only agreed with Ryan, but also said, "The Democrats will now accuse the Republicans – it’s an old page in their playbook – of throwing Granny in the snow" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In an argument which would make his ex-NPR colleagues proud, Juan Williams took to Fox News Sunday to push for tax hikes to reduce the deficit. Scolding Brit Hume, an exasperated Williams contended: “You’re going on as if, ‘you know what, we don't know in America how to help our own deficit problems.’ We do. We just have to tax people.”

Moments before, in assessing Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s expected plan on how to slow budget growth, Williams insisted “tax increases should not be off the table,” chastising Ryan for, during an interview with Chris Wallace earlier on the show, rejecting a tax increase: “I don't know why it is that he somehow suggests the rich in the country have no obligation to support the country.”

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Tuesday cherry-picked an "O'Reilly Factor" segment to drum up a feud between Fox News's top prime time host and the former Alaska governor.

Five sentences about Sarah Palin pulled from a six and a half minute segment ridiculing President Obama for not scheduling Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates as guests on last weekend's "Fox News Sunday" led "The Last Word" host to conclude that O'Reilly is now assuming a role in Republican politics "bullying the nuts off the stage to make room for viable candidates" (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were featured guests on all the broadcast network Sunday morning shows with the exception of the one on Fox.

Host Chris Wallace was clearly unhappy about this, and let his viewers know (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Two weeks ago, George Soros went on CNN claiming that Rupert Murdoch and Fox News are like Nazis dangerously trying to deceive the American people.

On Sunday, an organization that Soros funds attacked Fox News by cherry-picking 53 seconds from an almost 12 minute segment to make it look like host Chris Wallace and the network he works for support the disgusting views of the Westboro Baptist Church (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

“This is such a weak field,” Fox News analyst Juan Williams, recently ousted from NPR for not fully toting the far-left line, declared during a Fox News Sunday discussion of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, prompting an appalled Bill Kristol to mock: “Yeah, President Obama had done so much when he ran for President. I mean, all of these guys are better qualified than Barack Obama.”

Williams got in the last words of the December 26 segment, using them to deride Sarah Palin compared to Barack Obama:

There is nobody out there except for Sarah Palin who could absolutely dominate the stage and she can't stand on the intellectual stage with Obama.

That caused oohs from the panel and led host Chris Wallace to suggest “there’ll be a lump of coal” in Williams’ stocking. (Audio: MP3 clip)

 On this past weekend’s Fox News Sunday, panel member Mara Liasson - also of NPR - invoked the name of Winston Churchill as she recommended that House Democrats send off Nancy Pelosi "in a blaze of glory" after having "accomplished historic things," rather than keep her on as party leader in the House. Liasson:

Nancy Pelosi did two things for which she will go down in history. She was an incredibly effective majority leader when, and Speaker, there was an opposition President. She helped make the majority. And when she was in the majority, she was the hammer that got through President Obama’s agenda and sent it to the Senate. However, that is a completely different role than what she wants to do now. For which, I think she’s kind of like Winston Churchill. I mean, she accomplished historic things for the Democrats, and they should be sending her off in a blaze of glory and adjusting for this new regime.

Panel member Brit Hume took exception with Liasson connecting Churchill and Pelosi. After Hume argued that "the difference between her and Winston Churchill is that Winston Churchill was turned out after he led his country to a great victory," leading Liasson to respond that she agreed Pelosi "should be turned out," the exchange continued:

On Monday, while both ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today covered the scandal involving reporters at CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA caught on tape discussing ways to attack Republican Joe Miller's senate campaign, CBS's Early Show failed to make any mention of the incident.

On Good Morning America, White House correspondent Jake Tapper reported: "In Alaska, some reporters with the local CBS affiliate at a rally for Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller accidently left a message on the voice mail of Miller's spokesman." An audio clip of the voice mail played: "You know that of all the people that will show up tonight at least one of them will be a registered sex offender. We need to find that one person." Tapper followed with a clip of Sarah Palin condemning the comments on Fox News Sunday: "Those are corrupt bastards, Chris. That's what's wrong with the media today."

On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume condemned NPR for its “howling double standard” in firing Juan Williams for expressing an opinion, a standard “manifestly not being applied to other NPR people.” He forwarded the theory that “in the culture of NPR, appearing on Fox is a sin” and “for an African-American man” to “be kind of a Bill Cosby liberal, not a down-the-line liberal, is a sin as well.”
 
Hume’s assessment came after host Chris Wallace read from a column in which Cokie Roberts denounced Glenn Beck as “worse than a clown. He’s more like a terrorist,” showed a clip of her disagreeing with a court ruling on partial birth abortion and ran a soundbite of Nina Totenberg, NPR’s legal correspondent, attacking a Supreme Court decision. Fortune magazine’s Nina Easton recalled how Daniel Schorr “did a biting, acerbic, liberal commentary regularly on NPR” where “he called the 2000 Supreme Court decision, that gave George Bush the right to take office as President, he described that as a ‘junta,’ as ‘a coup.’”

“So much to dislike about NPR, it's hard to know where to begin,” Bill Kristol later quipped.

After layoffs cost him his job as a media reporter for socialist editor and author Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher magazine, Joe Strupp landed at Media Matters for America, where he can ask the liberal media elite why on Earth any of them would ever appear on that unethical Republican swamp known as Fox News (or Fox affiliates on Sundays).

In this case, Strupp went looking for former New York Times reporters and editors to denounce current Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller (the one who suggested to President Bush he should feel personally responsible for the 9/11 attacks) for sinking to an appearance on Fox News Sunday. Former Times media reporter Alex Jones even suggested Fox gets zero credit for open-mindedness for allowing a liberal Times reporter on their set:

"It is a bad idea, period," said Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. "I think the format is calculated to make you say things you would like to put back in your mouth."

...He said Times reporters appearing on any cable talk show is a mistake, but singled out Fox, stating, "Fox is an organ of the Republican party. I think everyone who goes on there shares in being used by them for their entertainment value. Fox uses them to demonstrate they are open-minded by putting the Times on there. But does it show Fox is open-minded? I don't think so."

Brit Hume on Sunday took Juan Williams to task over the Democrats adjourning Congress without voting on extending some or all of the Bush tax cuts.

As host Chris Wallace moved the panel segment of "Fox News Sunday" to last week's decision by legislators to head home to their states and/or districts in preparation for the upcoming elections, he asked Williams for his opinion.

Williams said that he had spoken with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) on Friday, and she told him she had the votes to get an extension passed for all but the top wage earners.

This led Hume to ask, "Then why didn't she call the vote?"

And that's when the fun started (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Conservative radio host Mark Levin thinks Delaware Republican senatorial nominee Christine O'Donnell is "smart to bypass" the Sunday talk shows she was scheduled to appear on this week.

As the Associated Press reported Saturday, O'Donnell canceled her appearances on CBS's "Face the Nation" and FNC's "Fox News Sunday":

Campaign spokeswoman Diana Banister cited scheduling conflicts and said O'Donnell needed to return to Delaware for commitments to church events and afternoon picnic with Republicans in a key county where she has solid backing. 

Sunday morning, Levin told his Facebook followers this was a good decision:

Juan Williams on Sunday said the passage of Missouri's anti-ObamaCare ballot initiative last week is irrelevant because only older white people voted for it.

Discussing the issue on "Fox News Sunday," the liberal FNC contributor said, "As far as the Missouri vote, you get 70 percent inside an echo chamber of older white people, no not in St. Louis not in Kansas City, saying, 'Oh yeah, we don't like a requirement that everybody has to have healthcare even though the hospitals in Missouri say it's gonna drive up our costs.'"

Host Chris Wallace seemed somewhat stunned by this and asked, "What happened to respect for democracy?"

When Williams elaborated saying that he believes this will eventually be decided by the courts, Liz Cheney rightly scolded her colleague, "I think it is stunning you and the White House are unwilling to heed the votes of the people in Missouri" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Sarah Palin said on Sunday that when it comes to securing America's borders, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer "has the cojones that our president does not have to look out for all Americans."

Speaking to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Palin addressed this week's decision by a federal judge to block much of the anti-illegal immigration law passed by Arizona earlier this year.

"Well, this is a temporary suspension of some of the key elements in the law that Jan Brewer pushed hard for Arizonans and for the rest of the country to have the result of us being more secure," said Palin. 

That's when she really took aim at the White House (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Bret Baier took on former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean for accusing Chris Wallace of lying about Fox News's coverage of the Shirley Sherrod affair.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Dean pointed his pathetically biased and accusatory finger at FNC while a guest on "Fox News Sunday" only to have it marvelously slapped down by Wallace.

The following day in the friendly confines of MSNBC's "The Ed Show," the former Vermont governor said, "I happen to like Chris Wallace, but he was really not being exactly accurate when he talked about 'We didn`t say one word about this before the secretary of Agriculture fired her.' The fact of the matter is they were pushing this story very, very hard all day."

On Wednesday's "Special Report," Baier struck back and struck back hard using a time lapse video to prove Dean completely wrong (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t our friend Johnny Dollar):  

Appearing as a guest on Monday’s The Ed Show on MSNBC, former DNC chairman Howard Dean renewed his discredited claim that FNC had played clips of former USDA official Shirley Sherrod before her forced resignation, and suggested that Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace had deceived him in denying that there was FNC coverage before her firing. Dean: "I happen to like Chris Wallace, but he was really not being exactly accurate when he talked about ‘we didn`t say one word about this before the Secretary of Agriculture fired her.’ The fact of the matter is they were pushing this story very, very hard all day. It may be true that they didn`t mention her name, but they sure did run the tape without mentioning her name."

Earlier in the show, host Ed Schultz had played the clip of Wallace correcting Dean’s assertions about FNC from the previous day’s Fox News Sunday. Wallace: "I know facts are inconvenient things, but let`s try to deal with the facts. The fact is that the Obama administration fired or forced Shirley Sherrod to quit before her name had ever been mentioned on Fox News Channel."

After Dean’s claims about FNC showing the Sherrod video, Schultz followed up by asking if Fox News is "racist in what they do," leading Dean to answer in the affirmative and to accuse Fox News of "inflaming racial hatred":

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean on Sunday accused the Fox News Channel of being racist.

With the opening subject of "Fox News Sunday" being last week's controversial termination of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, Dean said, "I think Fox News did something that was absolutely racist. They took a, they had an obligation to find out what was really within the clip."

Dean continued, "They have been pushing a theme of black racism with this phony Black Panther crap and this, this business, and Sotomayor and all this other stuff...The Tea Party called out their racist fringe, and I think the Republican Party's got to stop appealing to its racist fringe."

That apparently was all host Chris Wallace could stand, for he struck back and struck back hard beginning with, "I know facts are inconvenient things, but let's try to deal with the facts" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

NPR's Juan Williams on Sunday spoke an astonishingly inconvenient truth about the Gulf Coast oil crisis: "[President Obama] just hasn't conveyed that he really cares about this issue, and that he's not off to the side watching."

This was in stark contrast to Time's Joe Klein who said this weekend, "This is more Bush's second Katrina than Obama's first," and New York Times columnist Frank Rich who on Sunday blamed the oil spill on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and Rand Paul.

No, Williams, participating in bonus online coverage of "Fox News Sunday," made it crystal clear that unlike many of his colleagues in the Obama-loving media, he's not carrying the administration's water on this critical issue facing the nation (video follows with partial transcript and commentary, relevant section at 5:50):  

Sarah Palin on Sunday said that she sees similarities between how the media are treating Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul and the way the press tried to "get" her before the elections in 2008.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, the former Alaska governor said, "I think there is certainly a double standard at play here."

"One thing that we can learn in this lesson that I have learned and Rand Paul is learning now is don't assume that you can engage in a hypothetical discussion about constitutional impacts with a reporter or a media personality who has an agenda."

She continued, "They are looking for the gotcha moment, and that's what evidently appears to be that they did with Rand Paul" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

“This is a damn outrage,” a disgusted David Brooks, the faux conservative columnist for the New York Times, declared on Sunday’s Meet the Press reacting to Republican Senator Bob Bennett’s loss Saturday at Utah’s Republican convention which chose two others to compete in a June primary for the seat. Brooks fretted he was punished for being “a good conservative who was trying to get things done” by “bravely” working with Democrats on health care and supporting TARP. “Now,” he repeated, “he's losing his career over that. And it's just a damn outrage.”

Sitting beside Brooks on NBC’s roundtable, liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr,. a former New York Times correspondent, saw “almost a non-violent coup because they denied the sitting Senator even a chance of getting on the primary ballot.”

Over on Fox News Sunday, NPR’s Juan Williams expressed exasperation: “This is evidence of how the American political center is losing, on the right wing of the party a guy like Bob Bennett, who is a right-wing conservative, is being driven out because he’s not sufficiently conservative?”

ABC’s Jake Tapper brought Rudy Giuliani aboard This Week to address the handling of the Times Square botched bomber, but wouldn’t let him go before bringing up Bennett’s defeat as proof of an intolerant GOP: “Are you worried at all that the Republican Party is not only growing more hostile to more liberal to moderate Republicans such as yourself, but also conservative Republicans who are shown to, at least shown an ability to work with Democrats?”

During Fox News Sunday's "Roundtable" segment, regular panel member Brit Hume chided the news media for spreading misinformation about the new law in Arizona aimed at enforcing federal immigration laws, as he charged that "It's turned out that a lot of the news stories simply flat had it wrong, and a lot of the critics of the bill itself have also got it wrong."

After recounting that the law requires "that there be a legitimate law enforcement incident, a stop, a detention, or arrest," and "reasonable suspicion," he concluded that "all the hysteria about it is grossly overdone, in my judgment."

It might seem a little shocking to hear two NPR women standing up for Sarah Palin. But on Wednesday's Tell Me More talk show, host Michel Martin and analyst Cokie Roberts took offense at a weeks-old joke on the Imus show on Fox Business about Palin's first Sunday-show interview on Fox News Sunday:

DON IMUS: When you interview her, will she be sitting on your lap?

CHRIS WALLACE: One can only hope.

Roberts was "appalled" and Martin saw in this ribbing a "tool of social control" to put Palin in her place:

Not exactly going out on a limb, but Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume predicted President Barack Obama’s success in getting his health bill passed and signed will lead to “a wave of gushing coverage” for “the determination of this President to see his signature initiative through.” Hume, during the panel segment on Fox News Sunday:

The early political fallout will be, particularly in the media, there will be a wave of gushing coverage. We already saw some, it's already beginning about the tenacity and the determination of this President to see his signature initiative through. It will be said that this was an act of real leadership and he kept on persisting when all seemed lost and there will be a lot of that.

The media’ enthusiasm, however, will not match the public reaction, the ABC News and Fox News veteran forecast, continuing on the March 21 program:

The morning after CBS News White House reporter Mark Knoller, in a tweet, slurred anti-ObamaCare protesters with the vulgar “tea bagger” sexual terminology, Bob Schieffer began Sunday’s Face the Nation with how the health care reform debate “that's been rancorous and mean from the start turned even nastier yesterday” with protesters “shouting ‘kill the bill!’ and ‘made in the USSR”’ as they supposedly “hurled racial epithets, even at civil rights icon John Lewis of Georgia, and sexual slurs at Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank. Other legislators said the protesters spit on them and one lawmaker said it was like a page out of a time machine.”

In what way is “kill the bill” nasty?

Though the despicable actions, if true, were committed by a handful out of thousands, Saturday’s World News also used the incidents to discredit the cause of those rallying against ObamaCare: “Protesters against the plan gathered on the streets of the capital where late today we learned words shouted turned very ugly, reports of racial and homophobic slurs, one protester actually spitting on a Congressman,” ABC anchor David Muir announced, repeating: “Late word from Washington tonight about just how ugly the crowds gathered outside the Longworth office building have become.”