Fox News Sunday

Fox News has a business strategy of seeking to "undermine" the MSM by alleging that it has a liberal bias.   That was Chuck Todd's assertion on Morning Joe today.

Todd, NBC's political director and chief White House correspondent, was reacting to Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon's statement on "Fox News Sunday" that "the mainstream media hates the tea party movement almost as much as it hates Sarah Palin."

UPDATE II: Politico Executive Editor and Co-Founder Jim VandeHei on Monday appeared on Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor to defend the indefensible (video at right; audio here).

UPDATE (below the fold): Calderone responds to us in electronic print.

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The Politico's Michael Calderone on Sunday wrote the following headline and first paragraph. With what would appear to have been a straight face.

Fox's Sammon bashes MSM; Todd calls it 'absurd attack'

Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon bashed the media's coverage of the tea party movement with unsubstantiated claims of bias during a panel on "Fox News Sunday."

"Unsubstantiated claims" of media bias against the TEA Party movement? Really? Seriously?

It may be time for Calderone to move off the media beat. He clearly hasn't been paying attention to major details of a major story for nearly a year.

I would offer he could be moved to Obituaries, but that too would entail coverage of the "MSM."

How has Calderone missed completely the now nearly ubiquitous presence of the sexually-explicit, derogatory term used by members of the "MSM" to describe the participants in said Movement? The in-person attacks on Party participants by the likes of CNN's Susan Roesgen (now no longer with the firm)? The over-arching denigrating words and deeds by people throughout the "MSM?"

There is so much "MSM" anti-TEA Party venom to substantiate Sammon's assertion, one hardly knows where to begin. So we will simply list, with links and dates, documentation aplenty below. 

(Cursory glance result: 52 NB stories.)

We hope Calderone avails himself hereof, and repents. In writing. Today.

Joe Scarborough was surely right about one thing: he's going to take some flak . .  .

On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough said that Sarah Palin has been "lowering the bar" with her public pronouncements, asserting that she hasn't done the necessary homework to permit her to speak seriously on the issues.  

Joe also claimed that while "top conservatives" are afraid to take Palin on publicly, "behind the scenes" they are angry at her for her alleged lack of preparation.

Since Republican Scott Brown won the special election Jan 19 to fill Massachusetts' U.S. Senate seat vacated after the death of Ted Kennedy, President Barack Obama and high-level White House staffers David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs have been on the media circuit in damage control mode.

But according to "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace, efforts to spin this in a positive way are futile. Wallace appeared on the Fox Business Network's Jan. 21 "Imus in the Morning" program to explain their efforts to alter the news coverage to a favorable tone in the wake of this news is not the proper course of action.

"I think it means a big deal and I have to laugh, you know, somebody was saying yesterday, there's some events that are just un-spinable," Wallace said. "They're just too big, too dramatic, too obvious - you can't spin them and yet the White House clearly is trying to spin this."

The first rule of dinner-table conversation is no hot talk about politics or religion. Apparently there’s a rule regarding the discussion of religion during political talk shows, too.

On "Fox News Sunday" on January 3, the panelists had advanced to that light part of the discussion where they focusing on movies and crime novelists. Venerated news man Brit Hume turned to sports, and predicted Tiger Woods would return to success as a golfer. But if he really wanted to recover as a person, Hume suggested, he should consider Christianity. Woods is a Buddhist, he said, but Christianity offered the forgiveness and redemption that could really make Woods a powerful role model for faith and recovery.

Ka-boom. Oh, what a reaction erupted.

Some in the secular elite acted like Hume had set the national house on fire and broken all the fine china. Some TV talk show hosts quite seriously compared Hume’s comments to those of "Islamic extremists" waging a "holy war."

On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann twice claimed that FNC contributor and former anchor Brit Hume’s public recommendation that Tiger Woods convert to Christianity to help solve his personal problems amounted to trying to "threaten" Woods into conversion. Previewing a segment focusing on Hume’s Monday appearance on The O’Reilly Factor to clarify his words from Fox News Sunday, Olbermann teased the show: "Brit Hume and the attempt to threaten Tiger Woods into converting to Christianity. He does it again."

Olbermann also plugged the segment before a commercial break: "Brit Hume has tried to force Tiger Woods into becoming a Christian again. That in a moment."

The Countdown host introduced the segment, contending again that Hume had tried to "threaten" Woods into becoming a Christian: "Brit Hume of Fox News has not only not apologized for his bizarre on-air attempt to threaten Tiger Woods into converting to Christianity, he`s actually gone further."

Notably, in December 2005, Olbermann distorted the words of former FNC host John Gibson from Gibson's radio interview on the Janet Parshal Show and compared the program to "an Al-Qaeda show on Al-Jazeera talking about infidels."

If you're going to call out someone for hypocrisy, make sure you're not guilty of the same thing. Guest columnist Welton Gaddy, a pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, La. and MSNBC regular, apparently had no qualms with calling out former Fox News "Special Report" anchor Brit Hume in a Jan. 4 column, but is committing the same transgression.

Gaddy took issue with the Fox News senior political analyst's 39-second spiritual commentary on redemption for the recently disgraced Tiger Woods. And although Gaddy failed to mention that Hume publicly stepped out of his role as anchor/reporter in 2008, Gaddy revealed his disgust with the apparent preachy hypocrisy emanating from the "reporter" (emphasis added).

"The picture on the television screen and the audio of reporter Brit Hume's words struck me as contradictory," Gaddy wrote. "Just below the image of the reporter's face, the insignia 'Fox News' appeared in three different places. Yet, the content of Mr. Hume's comments was not that of a news reporter so much as that of a televangelist."

Tolerance is a virtue the Left loves to trumpet, except when the intolerable is set forward. In this instance, the intolerable is a gentle Christian evangelistic overture to a celebrity caught in sexual scandal.

Yesterday, Fox News analyst and professing Christian Brit Hume expressed his spiritual concern for Tiger Woods and urged the golf superstar to turn to Christianity for grace and forgiveness during a segment of the January 3 edition of "Fox News Sunday."

For that, Hume is being lambasted by some liberal bloggers, including Atlanta Jounal-Constitution's Jay Bookman who unleashed this venom in a brief three paragraph blog post yesterday afternoon:

Bill Kristol has set forth a stinging indictment of the Obama admin's handling of the war on terror. His two-minute monologue on today's Fox News Sunday delineated a devastating bill of particulars:

• It was a mistake to treat Abdul Mutallab as a criminal defendant rather than as an enemy combatant: "Mr. Brennan [Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser who appeared earlier] said to you that we're very worried that there're other Abdul Mutallabs out there. This Abdul Mutallab was there for four months.  He might know who the others are.  He might know their names. Will you let him lawyer up?"
• As to Brennan's claim that there was no "smoking gun" regarding Abdul Mutallab: "He is the smoking gun," going on to detail all the red flags surrounding him. "Frankly, for Mr. Brennan to say, well, no smoking gun, that itself shows a kind of not-serious-about-the-war mentality."

The Weekly Standard editor wasn't through . . .

Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday" is the latest in a long line of observers to note the essentially religious fervor of those who believe man is responsible for global warming, and the blind faith with which they cling to the science behind it.  

Wallace, appearing on the Fox Business Network's Dec. 10 "Imus in the Morning" program to discuss the President's European trip with stops in Oslo and Copenhagen, said the religious conviction is evident in the way climate change alarmists treat those who challenge the theory.

"The President's going to Copenhagen - so he's flying all over the world leaving a Sasquatch-like carbon footprint," host Don Imus said. "So what's that all about?"

On Fox's Nov. 22 "Fox News Sunday," former "Special Report" anchor and Fox News senior political correspondent was dead spot on target in many regards when it came to criticizing the tack President Barack Obama has taken with his foreign policy gestures.

First, Hume reflected on how Obama reacted on his trip to Asia last week. He noted that Obama was in a tough position, having to rely on borrowed Chinese money. However, "embracing weakness" was not the proper way for Obama to represent the country in Hume's view (emphasis added).

"Look, the president is in a weaker position than he might have been, not least because his policies have contributed mightily to the immense amount of new borrowing that's being done, much of it from the Chinese," Hume said. "So now you have the Chinese even worried about the size of the health care plan. That is unfortunate. But this president seems quite willing to embrace weakness as a position for the United States. I mean, the bowing and scraping that we see -- Saudi Arabia we saw it. We saw it on this trip in Japan."

Rush Limbaugh's tough criticisms of President Barack Obama on Fox News Sunday “broke” the White House's truce with Fox News, Bob Schieffer suggested during an interview with Obama's Senior Adviser, David Axelrod, on Face the Nation.

After playing a clip of Limbaugh dismissing as “a photo-op” Obama's trip to Dover Air Force Base to witness returning casualties from Afghanistan and quoting Limbaugh's characterizations of Obama as “narcissistic,” “immature, inexperienced” and “in over his head,” Schieffer, seemingly referring to Limbaugh's remarks -- or, at least the decision by Fox News to feature Limbaugh on its Sunday interview show -- forwarded:

Last week your man Robert Gibbs met with the folks at Fox News, declared a truce in this war you've been having with them. Was the truce broken this morning?

Axelrod insisted: “We're not at war with anyone. We're at war only with people who represent mistruths...”

Chris Wallace's much-awaited "Fox News Sunday" interview with conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh began exactly as one might have expected with the guest stating right from the start:

I'm really, really worried. We've never seen this kind of radical leadership at such a high level of power in the -- in the country. I believe that the economy is under siege, is being destroyed. Anybody with any economic literacy would not do one thing this administration's done to try to revitalize the private sector. They're destroying it. And I have to think that it may be on purpose, because this is just outrageous, what is happening -- a denial of liberty, an attack on freedom.  

And that was just the beginning.

From there, Wallace and Limbaugh discussed healthcare reform, Afghanistan, Fox News, the NFL, painkillers, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, and the future of the Republican Party (videos embedded below the fold in three parts with full transcript): 

As NewsBusters reported Friday, conservative talk radio host will be appearing on "Fox News Sunday":

Host Chris Wallace traveled to Palm Beach, Florida to record the interview with Limbaugh today.

List of air times, by city, for the program on Fox broadcast stations at various times on Sunday morning.

For those champing at the bit, here's a brief sneak preview including Limbaugh claiming that if ObamaCare passes, "It's gonna be the biggest snatch of freedom and liberty that has yet occurred in this country" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Breitbart TV):

Rush Limbaugh will be the guest on this weekend's Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace traveled to Palm Beach, Florida to record the interview with Limbaugh today.

List of air times, by city, for the program on Fox broadcast stations at various times on Sunday morning.

Don't forget, Daylight Savings Time ends at 2 AM on Sunday, so if you don't see the show at the time you think it is on, wait an hour.

Fox News Sunday re-runs twice on FNC on Sunday: 2 PM and 6 PM ET -- at what then will be EST.

In the midst of this week's controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh's failed bid to become a part owner of the St. Louis Rams, one liberal media member has been pounding the table concerning some of the hypocrisy involved: National Public Radio's Juan Williams.

On Sunday, Williams continued to expose the media's double-standard by pointing out how absurd it is that Limbaugh isn't allowed to be an NFL team owner, but MSNBC's Keith Olbermann can be involved in "Sunday Night Football" broadcasts.

Williams made this marvelous point during the panel discussion segment of "Fox News Sunday" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

It's “a badge of honor” that Fox News Sunday is “the only place you won't see Barack Obama on Sunday,” host Chris Wallace proudly proclaimed during a Friday morning radio interview, DCRTV.com reported. Wallace's remark aired on the “Grandy & Andy Morning Show” on Washington, DC's WMAL in response to Andy Parks proposing: “Are you wearing the fact that the President won't be on with you on Sunday as a badge of honor?” (Audio: MP3 clip, 11 seconds)

President Obama recorded interviews Friday afternoon with four of the five Sunday interview shows, all but Fox News Sunday: ABC's This Week, CBS's Face the Nation, CNN's State of the Union and NBC's Meet the Press -- plus Univision. Though Fox News Sunday re-runs on the Fox News Channel, it's Fox's only news program and, unlike ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, Fox did not air Obama's address last week to a joint session of Congress.

It took Van Jones' resignation, around midnight Saturday night on a holiday weekend, for ABC and NBC to mention him for the first time in Sunday morning news shows which broached, but failed to quote, the insidious “911truth” petition he signed, while ABC's George Stephanopoulos, seemingly trying to rationalize ABC's spiking of the subject, came aboard Good Morning America to dismiss the matter as “a summer squall.” Stephanopoulos was impressed by how the White House handled it: “The fact they got it out of the way before the end of the Labor Day weekend, before his spokespeople like Robert Gibbs, who's appearing on This Week come on this morning, I think will contain any kind of damage.”

That, and a compliant news media. As Bill Kristol observed on Fox News Sunday: “The mainstream media did not cover this story.”

Mike Viqueira reported on NBC's Today: “Van Jones, that's the President's 'green gobs' czar, has resigned overnight after it became known that before joining the administration he signed a petition put forward by those who believe that the government had a hand in 9/11.” Later, Viqueira relayed how “Jones says he is the victim of a 'vicious smear campaign' from the right, but he says he's resigning because he doesn't want to draw attention from the fights to come this fall over health care and energy and climate change legislation.”

On the August 30 Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace seemed to pick up on Clay Waters' NewsBusters item, earlier posted at TimesWatch, pointing out the blatant double standard between the New York Times obituary for conservative Republican Senator Jesse Helms and that of liberal Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy.

Near the end of Sunday's show, Wallace read from the first paragraph from each obituary, with the Kennedy version tagging the liberal Senator as "a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew acclaim and tragedy in near equal measure, and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate."

By contrast, the Helms version omitted such positive causes as his legislative fight against the tyranny of communism, and instead portrayed his Senate career in a negative light, referring to him as the "Senator with the courtly manner and mossy drawl, who turned his hard-edged conservatism against civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the August 30, Fox News Sunday:

"This president who travels the world apologizing for his country couldn't quite apologize for himself."

So said Brit Hume on the most recent installment of "Fox News Sunday" as the panel discussed Barack Obama's handling of the Henry Louis Gates affair.

Adding insult to injury, there was virtual unanimity that the President erred in this matter, and erred badly (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

On March 6, in response to New York Times reporters' questions, President Barack Obama told the paper that he is not a socialist. He or his advisers were apparently so bothered by the questions that Obama later called the Times reporters involved in an attempt to .... well, I'm not sure, because he had already supposedly denied the charge.

The best guess is that Obama and his peeps felt he needed to get in some gratuitous digs at former president George W. Bush.

Part of Obama's phone call back to the Times including the following relative to the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) under then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson:

I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks.

..... I just think it’s clear by the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system.

If former President George W. Bush said 500 million Americans are losing their jobs each month, do you think media would report it?

Probably every hour on the hour until all 300 million Americans had heard about it, right?

Well, during a press conference on an undetermined date, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) -- you know, the second in line for presidential succession right behind the vice president!!! -- said, "Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs."

Amazingly, she's made this same comment at least twice in the past month -- in front of cameras, mind you!!! -- without creating a media firestorm: (video embedded below the fold):

"Fox News Sunday" featured a fabulous interview with Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush today demonstrating that regardless of their political leaning, these are two fine gentlemen who deeply love their country and have the utmost respect for the office they held.

What was particularly fascinating was how they both had nothing but positive things to say about president-elect Barack Obama, as well as his cabinet picks, and that they refused to say anything negative about him.

In fact, if you forward to minute 3:00 of the video embedded below the fold, you'll witness an absolutely marvelous discussion about why they believe former presidents should keep their opposing views of the current executive to themselves, as well as what they think of administration leakers and those that write tell-all books for financial gain (partial transcript follows as well):

In a Fox News Sunday panel segment on the media's pro-Obama and anti-McCain bias, Juan Williams revealed journalists were in such a swoon for Barack Obama that during the primaries “what you saw was that the executive editors and the top people at the networks were all rushing to Obama events, bringing their children, celebrating it, saying they were, there's this part of history.” Though Williams, a former Washington Post reporter who is now a NPR news analyst and regular analyst for Fox News, maintained “there's no question in my mind the media has been more supportive of Senator Obama,” he contended it does not explain why McCain is losing.

Williams on the Sunday, October 26 Fox News Sunday:

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

On The Situation Room today, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer made a surprising admission to, of all people, real estate entrepreneur Donald Trump:

BLITZER: What do you think of his (Obama's) decision to pick Joe Biden as his running mate?

TRUMP: I really don't know Senator Biden but I know one thing. He's run a number of times for president. He's gotten less than 1 percent of the vote each time. And that's a pretty tough thing. You know, he's also been involved in pretty big controversy like plagiarism in college and various other things. That's a pretty big statement. So perhaps you change over a period of time. But when you plagiarize, that's a very bad statement. That hasn't been brought up yet, but I'm sure at some point it will. I'm sure that Sarah Palin will bring it up in a debate or somebody's going to bring it up.

BLITZER: Are you talking about plagiarism when he was running for president?

TRUMP: No, I'm talking about when he was a college student as I understand it, and this was a big issue originally but he supposedly plagiarized as a college student. That's a pretty serious charge.

BLITZER: I don't remember that. We'll check it out. But maybe you obviously have a better memory about that.

Speaking of “dishonesty” in McCain's TV ads, on Fox News Sunday Brit Hume pointed out Barack “Obama goes around claiming he's going to cut the taxes of 95 percent of the public, which is literally impossible” since “40 percent of American taxpayers don't pay any income tax,” but that hasn't stopped ABC (directly) and CBS (implicitly) in recent days from advancing that Obama claim as fact. Charles Gibson, in his third interview session with Sarah Palin excerpted on Friday's 20/20 and Nightline (see earlier NB item), stated that Obama will extend the “Bush tax cuts on everything but people who own or earn more than $250,000 a year -- cuts taxes on over 91 percent of the country.”

On Tuesday's CBS Evening News, Anthony Mason looked at how the Obama and McCain tax plans would impact three Ohio families, including Charles and Joi Beacham who earn $32,000. Mason asked them: “In terms of taxes, what do you want from the next President?” Joi, a school teacher with an astounding level of chutzpah, replied: “Relief.” Chutzpah because, as Mason only noted later (and deserves credit for doing so unlike many of his colleagues over the years), the Beachams “paid no taxes in 2007.” Nonetheless, Mason proceeded to report how the Beachams would benefit more from Obama than McCain since they “would see no change in their taxes under McCain, but the Obama plan would help them” because they would get refundable credits and thus “receive a check from the government for more than $2,200.”

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

Chris Wallace uncharacteristically gave Barack Obama's Chief Strategist, David Axelrod, carte blanche during his interview today on FOX News Sunday.

Failing to challenge Axelrod's avoidance in answering questions directly over and over again, and allowing him to go on and on with the standard Obama talking points, was strikingly different than the treatment Wallace gave to John McCain's Campaign Manager, Rick Davis, who he continually interrupted to challenge, sometimes even argued with, such as regarding when the McCain campaign was going to 'allow' Sarah Palin to be interviewed by the media.

And on Saturday's Beltway Boys, Mort Kondracke referred to Palin, McCain's VP running mate, as "that Wacko Right-winger". So much for 'fair and balanced' from the liberals at FOX News.

In the years since he began working at FNC as host of its "Fox News Sunday" program, Chris Wallace has come to realize he was wrong for earlier thinking that the elite media are politically neutral.

"When I was in the mainstream media, when I was working at NBC and ABC [...] I thought we were fair and balanced. But since coming to Fox four and a half years ago, I have come to see things a little differently. And I, in fact, do believe there is a bias in the mainstream media and that is something I was only able to understand when I was outside of it," Wallace said in an interview with a Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts newspaper.

Even if you don't believe Fox is objective, you should be glad it's out there, Wallace added, if only for pluralism reasons: