Government & Press

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel informed President Obama yesterday that it found his controversial Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius violated the federal Hatch Act back in February. ABC News's Jake Tapper noted the finding in a September 12 Political Punch blog post at ABCNews.com, but World News editors apparently thought the matter unworthy of coverage last night. The story was also unreported on NBC's Nightly News and CBS's Evening News.

The Hatch Act forbids federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity and Sebelius did just that in off-the-cuff remarks as the keynote speaker at a February 25 gala for the Human Rights Campaign, Tapper noted (emphasis mine):

In light of the tragic events that just transpired in Egypt and Libya on Sept. 11, both presidential candidates felt obligated to host separate press conferences that aired just 30 minutes apart. In yet another example of the ‘journalistic integrity’ that saturates the MSNBC network, the Jansing and Co. hostess and guests openly showed favoritism to President Obama, who was glaringly devoid of any time for questions from the media.

Anchor Chris Jansing engaged in a conversation with NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd that continued off and on throughout the allotted hour. Republican challenger Romney was taken to task for sharing his opinion on the matter without the benefit of “any foreign policy experience,” or as they described it as “launching a political attack” after the murder of an ambassador.

That it’s entirely possible there were dangerously incompetent policies in place regarding diplomatic security in both Cairo and Benghazi were not even considered.

Earlier today, an angry Cairo mob stormed the U.S. embassy, ripped down the American flag, and flew in its place a black al Qaeda banner. The mob is reportedly angered about a documentary film that supposedly offends Muslim religious sensibilities with critiques of the Prophet Muhammad.

While CNN and Fox News have both mentioned the developing story, MSNBC has not as of the time of this publication, a review of our DVR systems shows.

Reporting from Chicago this afternoon on MSNBC, NBC News reporter Kevin Tibbles described yesterday's teachers union picket lines as "festive" occasions but worried that the mood may sour if an accord is not reached soon.

Yet while other media outlets have reported and confirmed that the Chicago teachers union had requested a 35 percent pay hike, Tibbles completely ignored the issue of pay, insisting the teachers union is concerned most with teacher evaluation policies.

The Washington Post doesn’t always report on voter fraud, but when it does, it buries the story in the Metro section.

At the bottom of page B4 in the September 11 issue, the Post noted a Democratic congressional candidate in Maryland who dropped out of the race yesterday after instances of her voter fraud were brought to light.

Throughout its morning and afternoon news coverage today, MSNBC has dealt with the hours-old teachers strike in Chicago. NBC reporter Kevin Tibbles did a few standups next to a picket line "outside the Ray Elementary School in Chicago." During his 11:40 a.m. Eastern live report, Tibbles interviewed a union teacher, John Cusick, who said he'd heard from parents, "mostly" who "support us" because "they know we care for their children" and "have their children's best interest at heart."

Immediately after Cusick said that, rather than express skepticism, Tibbles seemed concerned about how the strike could hurt President Obama and the Democrats come November's election:

While the liberal media have noted how little foreign policy was raised at the GOP convention and will surely play up President Obama's attacks on Republican opponent Mitt Romney as being weak on that issue portfolio, it's noteworthy how little media attention is being given to the Democratic Party's views on America's most reliable, democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel.

Even as Democrats on Wednesday afternoon hastily re-added language about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel to their party platform, the document is hardly as pro-Israel as its 2008 iteration, Ben Shapiro of Breitbart's Big Government site noted in a September 6 post. "[T]he full language of the 2008 platform is still gone, Shapiro noted, before quoting the 2008 document's Israel plank and then explaining that:

On Thursday's Diane Rehm show on NPR stations, NPR political director Ron Elving was truly beside himself in praising the Bill Clinton speech on Wednesday night,  going so far that he presumed Democrats said to themselves at every pause for the next gem of wisdom, "What'll that be, Daddy?"

Elving began by oozing "That was about as full-throated, robust and effective, to use your word, a defense of President Obama as I can imagine. I don't know very many people who were seeing it as inadequate last night... frankly, there are things Barack Obama can do as a speaker. We all know that. But he has not been particularly good at his own defense. This was hiring the right attorney at the right time in the right courtroom."

While folks at MSNBC are calling Republican vice presidential nominee a "compulsive liar" for, among other things, his factually accurate statement about then-Sen. Obama's February 13, 2008 visit to a now-shuttered Janesville, Wis., General Motors plant, it's worth noting that, well, the video doesn't lie.

Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com has Obama's pledge on video here [You can also watch the video below the page break.] What's more, a search of the Nexis database reveals that David Wright of ABC News showed Obama's pledge in a story on the February 13, 2008 World News (emphasis mine):

For decades the liberal media have enjoyed poking fun at conservative politicians for their public gaffes, real or imagined. Dan Quayle, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin -- these are just a few of the many conservatives parodied by the press. Vice-President Joe Biden is set to address the Democratic National Convention Wednesday evening. There will be many interviews conducted with him during this time. So in the interest of fair play -- the news media are fair, aren't they? -- NewsBusters's parent organization the Media Research Center (MRC) -- has compiled a list of ten questions the media should pose to Joe Biden.

Questions we wish the liberal media would ask Biden:

While the Obama acolytes at MSNBC are insisting that the Janesville, Wisconsin, GM plant was "closed" in December 2008 on President Bush's watch, NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray was more nuanced in an appearance with Thomas Roberts on MSNBC shortly after 2:30 p.m. Eastern today. Even so, Murray's reporting was misleading and is easily negated by a Web search turning up reporting by the Janesville [Wis.] Gazette from February 2009.

Here's what Murray told Roberts:

The liberal media can’t seem to help themselves. While counter-arguments are occasionally acknowledged, most journalists of the progressive persuasion are not interested in fair and balanced coverage of politics. Facts and figures are seemingly subjective in the whole scheme of things. Severely limited studies and polls seem to provide them with all the information they need. Oh, and almost everything is racist.

The Washington Post has been one of most reliable offenders, as far as daily publications are concerned. For example, Rosalind Helderman, Jon Cohen and Aaron Blake collaborated on a report that was published today suggesting the “Republican Party base is white, aging and dying off.” This is according to an “extensive analysis" by David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Once again, the NBC Politics team at NBCNews.com cobbled together what they consider the most "notable" of the speeches from last night's Republican convention. Once again, a dynamic Democrat-turned-Republican speaker was left out of the "curated" selection: Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, a woman of Hispanic ethnic heritage.

Yesterday I noted how the website omitted video of Artur Davis's speech. In her speech Wednesday night, Martinez noted that although she grew up a Democrat, the daughter of Democrats, her values were always conservative. She shared with convention goers the story of how she came to the realization that the Republican Party, not the Democrats, best shared the values that her hard-working, business-owning parents instilled in her. You can watch Martinez's speech at Breitbart TV here.

Update 22:47 Eastern: Reeve doubles down on his assertion in a piece entitled "Why We Think John Boehner Is Hoping for Low Minority Voter Turnout" | A comment by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that many blacks and Hispanic voters that are traditionally in the Democratic column will not show up to vote for President Obama's reelection because of his poor handling of the economy is being twisted by the Atlantic to suggest that Boehner cynically "hopes" for a depressed turnout by minorities.

"Boehner Says Out Loud He Hopes Blacks and Latinos 'Won't Show Up' This Election," blares the headline for the August 27 story by Elspeth Reeve at TheAtlanticWire.com. Reeve himself got his information from another liberal site:

Despite mediocre ratings and a multitude of unenthusiastic reviews, HBO renewed The Newsroom for a second season after its first two episodes. The commercial-free premium cable network with a penchant for some of the most unabashed forms of liberalism must've really liked Newsroom’s topical, politically-slanted subject material, and anti-American sentiment.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

The season finale featured another intense op-ed assault against the Tea Party. In what was supposed to be a news report, lead anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) summed up his own objections to the movement. The self-proclaimed moderate Republican suggested Tea Party members should be called “The American Taliban” instead, slamming the movement’s: 

On Thursday, Sentier Research released a study showing that household income has actually declined at a worse rate in the sluggish economic recovery than it did during the December 2007-June 2009 recession. "From June 2009 to June 2012, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 4.8 percent, to $50,964," Washington Post's Michael Fletcher noted in Friday's paper, although his article was buried by editors on page A10. The New York Times ran a story on the report on Friday on page B1 entitled "Big Income Losses Hit Those Near Retirement."

This should of course be troubling news for any incumbent president, but since that happens to a be liberal Democrat, the media are not making much of it. Indeed, the broadcast networks have completely ignored the story, as a search of our DVR recordings and of the Nexis database confirm.

Yesterday a "report by Sentier Research, a firm headed by two former Census Bureau officials," found that "[f]rom June 2009 to June 2012, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 4.8 percent," Michael A. Fletcher of the Washington Post reported today. What's more, the fall in median household income was much worse for blacks, "a staggering 11.1 percent drop." June 2009, you may recall, marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007.

Yet such news was shoved down to page A10 by Post editors, rather than placed on the paper's August 23 front page, which included, among other things, a large photo of a woman working on a large sand sculpture at a resort in Florida, a story about Mitt Romney's campaign 'Mad Men,' and a story about how Lance Armstrong "won't fight doping charges" anymore.

"These are two of the most moronic statements I have ever heard," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell, himself a practicing Catholic, complained after watching video of MSNBC host Martin Bashir and MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams attacking Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as championing an "unbiblical" budget that doesn't comport to Catholic social teaching.

"Consider that one of these morons is saying that Paul Ryan's budget is unbiblical?! I mean, what book of the Bible dealt with Paul Ryan's budget?" the Media Research Center founder asked on the August 23 "Media Mash" segment, going on to note that seeing as that the Catholic Church is suing the Obama administration over the religious liberty-infringing contraception mandate, it's laughable to suggest that Joe Biden is a better Catholic. [watch the full segment below the page break]

"Democrats aim to be inclusive," blurts the headline in Amy Gardner's 5-paragraph item on how the Democratic convention "will feature a long list of female speakers and a slew of activities designed to make it the most inclusive convention in history, organizers announced Wednesday."

Gardner went on to note that Sandra Fluke and "women from many other walks of life" will take to the podium, such as NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, Caroline Kennedy, and actress Eva Longoria. Gardner left out that Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood was also announced as a speaker, and that Keenan served on this year's platform drafting committee, which shot down an effort by Democrats for Life of America to add "big tent" language to the platform. Somehow a handful of pro-choice speakers addressing contraception and abortion is diversity to the Washington Post.

A new poll by Rasmussen shows that 51 percent of voters think the media will, for the most part, attempt to help reelect President Obama rather than work to accurately and fairly report on the campaign. Only 9 percent of respondents believe the media are in the tank for Romney. That same poll found 59 percent of likely voters "believe Obama has received the best treatment from the media so far."

Filling in for Bill O'Reilly last night, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham discussed this poll and other evidence that the American public are wary of the media's liberal bias with NewsBusters senior editor/Media Research Center research director Rich Noyes. You can watch the full segment below the page break.

There’s no denying that what Rep. Todd Akin said was completely inappropriate, but for it to receive four times more coverage than the Vice President of the United States’ indefensibly racist gaffe is unconscionable. Todd Akin is a congressman. Joe Biden is one heartbeat from being the leader of the Free World. Once again, the media’s double standard is exposed for all to see.

If Ronald Reagan was the "Teflon President," then Joe Biden is the "Teflon Blowhard." He’s spent his entire career with his foot firmly lodged in his mouth, uttering an endless stream of impossibly stupid, vulgar, and insensitive things. And yet the media fall all over themselves to make excuses for blustery "Old Uncle Joe."

"GOP rejects rape exception in platform," blared a Politico headline yesterday. "Even as Mitt Romney sought to quash the furor surrounding Todd Akin’s 'legitimate' rape comments, the Republican platform committee here approved an abortion plank that includes no exemptions for rape, incest or even to save the life of the mother," James Hohmann noted in the lead paragraph of his August 21 story.

"On Tuesday, not one of the 100-plus members on the GOP platform committee introduced amendments. They kept the identical language from 2004 and 2008," Hohmann groused, comporting to the media's quadrennial fixation on how the GOP is supposedly too extremely pro-life. By contrast, as I noted yesterday, the 15-person Democratic platform committee -- one member of which is NARAL Pro-Choice America's president -- earlier this month stubbornly refused to mildly soften their party's stringent pro-choice abortion plank. Politico, of course, failed to cover that controversy.

Whatever happened to American exceptionalism? Liberal abhorrence of the concept has been well-documented in the past. One of the latest examples can be found at Time Ideas, where Eric Liu has published a case for mandatory voting laws. Liu never outright admits as much, but it’s abundantly clear he feels such a policy would help elect more liberal Democrats to office and hence put the country further leftward than it would otherwise be.

Liu, a former speechwriter and policy advisor to President Clinton, joined a growing sect of the liberal media punditocracy who have publicly admitted that they want to see an America that mirrors the rest of the world. Twenty-three nations -- most famously Australia -- have adopted more of a compulsory approach to suffrage, so why not us?

Now that the normally loyal White House press corps has stopped continually carrying water for President Obama (they only do it 90 percent of the time now), the Administration is resorting to a new tactic of going to local media for interviews while at the same time setting specific questions for them to ask about.

Instead of being asked to account for ridiculous statements from his campaign staff and the outrageous claims of Harry Reid, President Obama is using hand-picked local journalists and requiring them to ask about the budget deal he signed with Republicans a year ago which requires automatic budget cuts called sequestration in the event no official budget is signed. Many of these cuts will be to the military, something that the Obama White House is keen on letting swing state voters know about.