Celebrities

On Wednesday night's edition of the poorly-performing prime-time show Rock Center, Brian Williams tried to rub some stardust on his ratings and strike a blow for feminism at the same time. He honored actress Ashley Judd for writing an outraged feminist essay about "patriarchy" on The Daily Beast because someone criticized her puffy face.

Williams supportively explained, "This week the 43-year-old actress wrote a bold, and at times angry essay on the Web, calling out our whole culture, the haters, the cheap shots, how easy it's become for everyone to pick apart someone else." He noted she accused the media of having a quote "nasty and misogynistic conversation at her expense about the way she looks," but he left out the rest of the feminist jargon.

During the March 19 edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports, actress Eva Longoria fielded softball questions about her new role in President Obama’s re-election campaign. During the interview, Mitchell had no problem with reminding MSNBC viewers about the so-called Republican War on Women, chiding, "But the women's issues, women's health issues have become front and center force of what has happened on the Republican side."

Longoria was also given a chance to attack Republicans, sneering that Mitt Romney is "probably the one on the wrong side of every issue pertaining to Latinos, education, the economy, health care access....He's calling the anti-immigration law from Arizona a model law for the rest of this- the country."

If only President Barack Obama were a Republican, then the public would realize he has been “a very successful” President, but Democrats, actor/activist George Clooney fretted, “are just very poor...at explaining” their accomplishments. The assessment from Clooney, who also declared “the President that I voted for, I’m very proud of,” came in a Meet the Press online “Press Pass” sit-down with David Gregory aired on the real Meet the Press. Clooney imagined that if he and Obama were Republicans:

In January, many thousands of Americans coming in on planes, trains, and automobiles to protest abortion for the "March for Life" were relegated to the bottom of the front page of the Metro section (and about 11 pro-abortion activists got equal billing). But just one protester was awarded a huge splash across most of Saturday's Style section. That would be one George Clooney, going through the typical liberal trespass-arrest protest at the Sudanese embassy.

"In tails and cuffs" were the large words above a 5-by-7-inch picture of Clooney in plastic handcuffs. Under Aaron Leitko's byline, these words came in subhead type: "A good way to close out a hectic week in Washington: Orchestrate your own arrest. For a good cause, of course." There were only five paragraphs of honorific text (some of it highlighted in yellow), but four color pictures. All told, it splashed eight inches across and 18 inches down to the bottom of the page -- 144 square inches of front-page Style goo.

Updated at bottom of post | This morning, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell sent letters to Jay Farner and David Friend, the presidents of Quicken Loans and Carbonite, respectively, addressing the hypocrisy of how their companies pulled out of the Rush Limbaugh program over comments for which the conservative talker has since apologized, even as they continue to advertise on the programs of hateful left-wing radio hosts.

For example, Carbonite continues to advertise on Ed Schultz's radio program, although he maliciously slammed conservative author Laura Ingraham in May 2011 as a "right-wing slut" and "a talk slut."

Continuing her network's anti-Limbaugh drumbeat today, MSNBC's Tamron Hall interviewed a little-known feminist activist by the name of Shaunna Thomas of the equally unfamiliar group UltraViolet, which is campaigning to deprive Rush Limbaugh of all of his sponsors. UltraViolet, apparently, is famous for pushing the specious and ultimately discredited claims about a supposed anti-abortion clinic bias by the iPhone 4S's speech recognition software.

To her credit, Hall noted that liberals like Bill Maher have said equally if not more offensive things than Limbaugh and not been called out on it, citing a tweet by none other than former White House aide Austan Goolsbee. "What do you make of this back and forth of, well he did it, but so did he?"

The prospect of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008 was “pretty terrifying” to actress Julianne Moore, who plays Palin in HBO’s upcoming Game Change movie about the 2008 campaign, but not because she feared Palin’s policies. Instead, the self-described “longtime liberal” dreaded Palin might allow the GOP ticket to win: “I really felt like, ‘Oh my gosh, the Republicans might have this election’” since “she was so electrifying.”
 
In Tuesday’s “Yeas and Nays” column in the Washington Examiner, Nikki Schwab relayed Moore’s comments expressed in an interview for the upcoming March issue of Capitol File magazine.

Super Bowl XLVI was a good football game, marred once again by the bohemian elite at NBC. NBC could have prevented, but failed to stop, the broadcast of a female rapper "flipping the bird" at 114 million viewers during Madonna's halftime show. It was another "fleeting expletive" of the hand-gesture variety, and somehow, despite elaborate rehearsals, no one at NBC could seem to stop it.

The same network skillfully edited God out of a clip of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance during last year's U.S. Open golf tournament.

Showing how no left-wing effort to raise taxes is too silly or embarrassing for ABC News to embrace, World News on Wednesday night jumped to promote a Web video, created by a group founded by a former Howard Dean operative and “featured contributor” to the Huffington Post (Rick Jacobs), to impose a higher state income tax rate on Californians earning over $1 million.
 
“First it was Warren Buffett,” anchor Diane Sawyer glowed in citing her hero, “and now it is reality TV star Kim Kardashian. What could they have in common? Both center stage on the question of fairness in the way the country taxes the rich versus the middle class. Some big unions in California have created an ad saying people like Kim Kardashian are the reason the tax code has to change.”

Renowned liberal author and journalist Christopher Hitchens died December 15 at the age of 62 following a short battle against esophageal cancer, since summer 2010.

One might assume Hitchens was pro-abortion, since he was also an avowed atheist. But he was not, in small or large part due to his history with abortion, as he explained in a 2003 Vanity Fair column:

The death of Christopher Hitchens hits like the 2008 death of Tim Russert. Both were men you really wanted to hear from during a looming presidential election.

The word being tossed about in reference to the passing of Hitchens is “contrarian,” and that strikes me as a little unfair. Hitchens could be infuriating and even wrong, but there was nothing dishonest or insincere about the man. Though it’s not the perfect definition of contrarian, I don’t believe for a second that Hitchens ever once took a stand simply to be provocative or contrary.

You'd think a former Catholic seminarian would be happy about Christian athletes who are unashamed to publicly praise Jesus Christ. But then again, this is Bill Press we're talking about.

Our friend Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer notes how the left-wing talker and CNN Crossfire alumnus declared on his December 15 radio program that the Denver Broncos quarterback should shut the [expletive] up:

In a glowing review of The Roots' new album "undun," Washington Post music critic Chris Richards lamented it was "too bad" that the band's choice of Fishbone's "Lyin' A** B*tch" to introduce Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on the November 21 Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will likely be "the one song" that the band will "be remembered for" most in 2011.

"The band considered it a joke. Certain corners of the media considered it an outrage," Richards noted (emphasis mine):

Ben Smith at Politico reports that in her new book, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann goes out of her way to praise Garrison Keillor, the arrogant liberal host of A Prairie Home Companion on NPR. This is the guy that wrote for Time magazine that "The Republicans are going to be the Party That Canceled the Clean Air Act and Took Hot Lunches from Children, the Orphanage Party of Large White Men Who Feel Uneasy Around Gals."

How would Bachmann process that one? She oozed in the book: “His politics are very different from mine, but I love his gentle, knowing humor. Keillor understands Minnesota, from Lutherans to lutefisk, and his ability to squeeze laughs out of serious-minded midwesterners makes him a legend.”

[UPDATED: See video and transcript below.] Appearing on ABC's Good Morning America, Monday, to shill for his latest book, Bill Maher told George Stephanopoulos he's rooting for Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination. "At least he eats with a knife and fork. I mean, he is all that stands between us and the rise of the apes."

Couldn't that be seen as a bit racist toward Herman Cain? We're used to Maher slamming religious folks in that way, but "apes"? Stephanopoulos didn't blink. He only said "He's [Romney's] probably odds-on, although Newt Gingrich..." [MP3 audio here.]

In Hollywood, the only truly serious sexual disease is virginity. It’s a dire and embarrassing condition, desperately in need of elimination. Teenagers that still have “it” are woefully immature. They might as well consider themselves to be walking the school hallways in diapers.

Along comes Fox Entertainment to enlighten us. Get ready. It’s sick.