Politico.com

Politico's Evan Thomas on Friday made perhaps the best observation about the Obama administration's edict requiring the Catholic Church to provide contraception for its employees.

Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Thomas said, "It seems crazy to me what they are doing" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, Politico's Jonathan Martin, while chatting with MSNBC's Chuck Todd, referred to some of Florida as "cracker counties."

This caused a bit of a firestorm for Martin who called the Media Research Center's publicist to address the matter.

In response, I spoke with Martin Thursday, and my first question was somewhat obviously, "What's a cracker?"

While most in the Obama-loving media took a predictable victory lap for the President's State of the Union address this week, Politico's Evan Thomas was not impressed.

Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Thomas said, "It was a disheartening speech. It was a pathetic speech...He is running on sort of cheap pandering" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charlie Rose boosted a jaw-dropping line from Politico's Roger Simon on Friday's CBS This Morning, which concluded that the Republican presidential debates were hurting the party's chances at defeating President Obama: "It is said that in Chicago, where they are running the Obama campaign, that they're so giddy that they want to run naked in Millennium Park" [audio available here; video below the jump].

Simon's actual sentence in his Thursday piece was more graphic:

Although the media would love to present Barack Obama as seven times brainier than George W. Bush, Byron Tau of Politico reports "President Obama's 2012 State of the Union address again rated at an 8th grade comprehension level on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test — the third lowest score of any State of the Union address since 1934."

Eric Ostermeier of the University of Minnesota's Smart Politics initiative conducted an analysis on the last 70 State of the Union addresses and found that President Obama's three addresses have the lowest grade average of any modern president. (Obama came in 13th out of 13; George W. Bush was at number eight.)

Politico turned five years old yesterday and self-importantly celebrated its survival of infancy with a roast video featuring journalists and pundits celebrating the paper with biting comments.

Perhaps the best, and most spot-on quip came from NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory about 30 seconds into the spot (video embedded below):

Appearing as a panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas - formerly of Newsweek - made claims about the existence of "angry, white, middle class" men in the Republican Party who are "seething."

And fellow panel member and Washington Post columnist Colby King accused GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum of "pandering" to a racist view "that black people are just shiftless, lazy and hands out" because of a recent comment in which Santorum appeared to bring up "black people" who receive welfare benefits, although the former Pennsylvania Senator denies that he used the word "black." (Video below)

Appearing as a panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas - formerly of Newsweek - took a jab at Senate Republican Leader Mitch Mcconnell, suggesting that he is normally not a "good guy," during a discussion of the Kentucky Republican's role in reaching a deal with Democrats to extend the payroll tax cut by two months. (Video below)

On Wednesday, the Politico ran a story about the International Association of Machinists Union at Boeing agreeing to approve a contract extension, the result of which ultimately led to the National Labor Relations Board dropping its controversial decision to prevent the company from beginning to operate a mostly-constructed plant in South Carolina.

Though it deserves separate commentary, that decision is not the subject of this post. What is germane at the moment is the howler of a photo accompanying the Politico's report which appears after the jump.

Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Morning Joe last week claimed that Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace "loathes Mitt Romney."

On Fox & Friends Sunday, Wallace denied this (transcript and commentary follow with video courtesy Johnny Dollar, relevant section at 2:45):

The Obama-loving media have been paying a lot of attention of late to flipflops made by Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney throughout their respective political careers.

Yet as Politico loosely addressed earlier this month, the current White House resident signed a bill in November that reversed his campaign pledge to prevent the slaughter of horses (picture courtesy NowTheEndBegins.com) :

Over at PJ Media's Tatler section, Roger Simon caught Alana Semuels at the Los Angeles Times in what has to be a lead candidate for the NOn-Eric Holder howler of the day.

In running down the degree of religious seriousness of a few more recent presidents in an article portraying GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's heavy involvement with Mormonism, Semuels wrote (bold is mine):

MSNBC's faux conservative Joe Scarborough dismissed the conservative credentials of Republican front-runners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney while promoting Jon Huntsman – the GOP darling of liberals like Jimmy Carter.

Scarborough's Politico op-ed ripped Gingrich and Romney for flip-flopping on issues like abortion and global warming. He strangely ignored the time where Huntsman, MSNBC's favorite Republican, called his fellow party members "anti-science" for disbelieving global warming – or when he supported civil unions for same sex couples.
 

Oops, he supposedly did it again. Herman Cain, the GOP presidential candidate who has experience as a rocket scientist on his resume, made another allegedly "stupid" remark. Why, if you buy the press's accounts of his statements, it's hard to believe the guy can dress himself in the morning without hanging his pants over his head and putting his socks on his hands.

Here's what Cain said that has the ninnies at ThinkProgress aka ThinkRegress (whom I won't link) and the Politico all lathered up -- When Cain recounted how he wouldn't answer a reporter's non-specific question about Libya, he responded that he needed to know which aspect of President Obama's current "policy" (there is one?) he should address: "Do I agree with siding with the opposition? Do I agree with saying that Qadhafi should go? Do I agree that they now have a country where you’ve got Taliban and Al Qaeda that’s going to be part of the government? … Do I agree with not knowing the government was going to — which part was he asking me about? I was trying to get him to be specific and he wouldn’t be specific." Well, it turns out, in an update at Politico which ThinkRegress isn't posting, lest it disturb its meme of constant condescension, that a Cain spokesman identified an important Libyan official with Taliban connections lickety-split:

On Friday, CBS's Early Show was the only Big Three morning show to cover Energy Secretary Steven Chu's testimony before a congressional hearing on the $528 million loan to the bankrupt solar panel company Solyndra. NBC previewed the hearing on Thursday's Today show, but avoided it the following morning. ABC's GMA completely ignored it both days.

Fill-in news anchor Betty Nguyen gave a 44-second news brief during the 7 am half hour of The Early Show, noting how Secretary Chu "made no apologies for the loan of more than $500 million to Solyndra back in 2009" during the hearing. However, the CBS morning show didn't air a full report on the controversy until the top of the 8 am hour.

"Memories, light the corners of my mind. Misty watercolor memories of the way we were." -- Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were

Sober political analysis, or merely an MSMer pining for the good old days of Speaker Pelosi? On Morning Joe today, touting a Politico Pelosi puff piece about her "golden touch," Mike Allen claimed it was "very possible" that Democrats would retake the House majority in 2012. Video after the jump.

There have been a lot of ridiculous comments made in the past week since Politico published its hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, but one of the most absurd yet came from Newsweek's Eleanor Clift this weekend.

Appearing on PBS's McLaughlin Group, Clift actually said, "This is the press doing what the press should be doing, and they should have done due diligence on this candidate earlier on...He got a free ride for a good long while." (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As he accumulates his "Occupy Rap Sheet" over at BigJournalism.com, John Nolte has made some excellent points about the nature of the press's coverage which should not be missed. His incident count is up to 151. It will certainly grow based on more recent events which haven't yet made it to his compilation (this is just a sample): A $10 million arson arrest in Fort Collins, Colorado (really; HT The Other McCain); pushing a 78 year-old woman down a flight of stairs (she required a hospital visit); and a lack of basic safety so pervasive at Zuccotti park, the headquarters of the "movement, that "protesters put up (a) women-only tent to prevent sexual assaults."

Nolte's count is clearly an understatement of all that is actually happening. He also notes that the nature of the press's coverage serves to understate the disorder- and violence-based inclinations of the Occupiers (internal link is in original; bolds are mine):

Since publishing its unsourced hit piece on Herman Cain last Sunday evening, Politico has now run more stories about this so-called scandal than it did throughout the entire 2008 presidential campaign about Barack Obama's connections to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers or convicted real estate developer Tony Rezko.

The Washington Examiner reported Friday:

"Restaurant group nixed backing Cain," reads a teaser headline on Politico's website today, hinting to casual readers that a National Restaurant Association (NRA) endorsement of their former chief Herman Cain was a done deal until Politico dug up an old out-of-court sexual harassment settlement. 

The story was also plastered on the front page of the November 1 print edition, headlined "Restaurant Group Tamps Down Cain Talk."

But in the November 1 story itself, Politico staffers Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel noted that a teleconference on endorsing Cain was done in October prior to Politico breaking its scoop about the out-of-court sexual harassment settlement (emphasis mine below). Left unmentioned in the story is that the NRA is co-hosting with other trade groups a series of town hall forums where members can phone in questions to presidential candidates:

For the second day in a row, the lone so-called conservative anchor on MSNBC supported Politico's hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

After saying Cain "made a fool of himself" with his inconsistent response to the allegations Monday, Scarborough said that if there were another viable conservative candidate in the race, "Rush Limbaugh would be making fun of Herman Cain today" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"This is the biggest single Twitter controversy of the campaign.  48,000 mentions!"

That was Mike Allen doing his best "look--a squirrel!" dodge on today's Morning Joe.  Pressed by Joe Scarborough as to whether Politico had any more details beyond its story's vague allegation that Herman Cain had made gestures "that were not overtly sexual but that made women uncomfortable," Allen's telling first instinct was to point to the story's popularity on a social networking site. Video after the jump.

The shills at MSNBC spent Monday giving their full support for Politico's hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

Ed Schultz did his part by beginning his program with what he called a "blockbuster story" and then immediately attacked Cain's defenders starting with conservative author Ann Coulter (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You would think that with all the scrutiny Politico is getting as a result of its hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, the employees might want to hide their love for Barack Obama for the time being.

Not White House correspondent Glenn Thrush who actually tweeted to his followers Monday evening about the President's "superhuman" blood pressure:

For those who don't know, ProPublica (bold is mine) "is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with 'moral force.' We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them." It has received predominant funding from the Sandler Foundation (yeah, those Sandlers; Herbert Sandler is Chairman). Other contributors include George Soros's Open Society Foundations. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (yeah, him) is also on ProPublica's board.

Translation: They lean left. Nevertheless, the organization's Stephen Engelberg (HT Instapundit) questions whether the Politico had enough information on sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain to publish a story (bolds are mine):

Common decency dictates you shouldn't congratulate someone for possibly ruining the career and marriage of a fellow human being.

Such morality eluded MSNBC's Chris Matthews and the Washington Post's Nia-Malika Henderson Monday when they actually congratulated - on national television, no less! - Politico's Jonathan Martin for Sunday's hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Sadly, Herman Cain’s predictions have come true. In May he stated that he was "ready for the same high-tech lynching that [Clarence Thomas] went through -- for the good of this country." That's what Politico is doing with its unsubstantiated and thoroughly hypocritical hit piece against him. Anyone in the press that gives this story oxygen is equally hypocritical.

In the eyes of the liberal media, Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation. So they must destroy him, just as they tried destroying Clarence Thomas.