Two weeks after Texas state senator Wendy Davis and a mob of abortion activists prevented popularly supported pro-life legislation from being passed in the Lone Star State, on Tuesday's NBC Today, news reader Natalie Morales warned of another upcoming vote on the bill: "The battle over abortion rights is focused on Texas, where a controversial bill that failed last month will be back up for a vote." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
In the report that followed, correspondent Gabe Gutierrez declared Texas to be at "the epicenter of the national debate over abortion" and hyped "another showdown" at the state capitol. He detailed the bill's "controversial" measures: "...banning abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and mandating that abortion clinics meet the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers. It would also require that a doctor who performs abortions be able to admit patients at a nearby hospital."
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For the second day in a row, the journalists at Good Morning America failed to identify prostitution patron Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat. Yet, in a story on the politician's comeback, reporter Claire Shipman made sure to highlight former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford as a Republican. Regarding Spitzer's bid to be the New York City comptroller, Shipman enthused, "A new political lesson for Eliot Spitzer: Infamy might work to his advantage."
She continued, "It certainly brought the former New York governor crowds he could not have imagined before his prostitution scandal cost him his job in 2008." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] What the reporter conveniently ignored is that Spitzer was mercilessly heckled on Thursday. A Manhattan man screamed at the Democrat, "Why were you late? Were you with a hooker?"
George Zimmerman's attorney said something Monday that is a truly sad statement about our society and the current state of America's media.
Appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan Live, Mark O'Mara said that if Zimmerman is acquitted of all charges, "He'll never be safe" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
In a show of advocacy and not journalism, CNN skirted the policy details of the student loans debate and instead just paddled Congress for letting the loan rates double, on Monday's New Day.
Co-hosts Kate Bolduan and Chris Cuomo begged Congress to "fix" the student loan rate increase that automatically went into effect on July 1. They dubbed it the "'Come on Congress' campaign." Cuomo scolded Congress: "This student loans thing, we want to be on it just about every day. They can fix it. They know it was a mistake. You can't compromise education in the country, not this way."
In an interview aired Sunday for Meet the Press's Press Pass, host David Gregory teed up left-wing NBC political analyst Jonathan Alter to promote his new pro-Obama screed, The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies: "...you write the following: 'A set of values that had been part of the American consensus since at least the New Deal would remain in place....The United States would remain a highly partisan and often gridlocked nation, but a centrist one.' Is that the emerging legacy of this president?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Alter cheered the President's re-election: "I believe it is. Yeah, and that's where I think the 2012 election was so pivotal. Because it really was all on the line....You had one party, the Democrats, who were pretty close to the center, maybe a little bit left of center. And then you had another party, the Republicans, who were way out there and much more conservative than Ronald Reagan was."
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux went to ridiculous ends on Monday to suggest that a testimony in defense of George Zimmerman could be used by the prosecution.
A witness testified that she recognized Zimmerman's voice crying for help in a 911 call as he struggled with Trayvon Martin, because she worked with him on a political campaign. Malveaux suggested that the prosecution could argue that Zimmerman's jubilant cries during political rallies could be similar to his voice while "pummeling Trayvon Martin" with "a sense of joy."
The journalists at Good Morning America on Monday offered an assist to liberal politicians trying to avoid being associated with the scandal-plagued former Governor of New York. While announcing Eliot Spitzer's return to public life, news reader Paula Faris avoided any mention of the fact that Spitzer is a Democrat. As she noted his bid to be New York City's comptroller, Faris simply referred to the "disgraced former governor of New York."
Over on NBC's Today, correspondent Kristen Dahlgren hyped Spitzer as "the next comeback kid." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Comparing the ex-governor to Anthony Weiner, Dahlgren enthused, "2013 may go down as the year of the second chance." Despite connecting the two New York Democrats, Dahlgren also skipped any ideological label. It wasn't until the 8am hour that co-host Natalie Morales alerted, "The Democrat stepped down in 2008 over a prostitution scandal."
Appearing on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd blamed Republicans for ObamaCare beginning to collapse under its own weight: "...you could argue that there are some Republicans that are trying to sabotage the law, that they're hoping to not get it off the ground and then they can suddenly make the case, 'See, we've got to get rid of it.' And they've got some state governors that are openly trying to sabotage it." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Todd went on to attack Republican senators who protested an effort by the Obama administration to use the NFL to promote ObamaCare: "Look at what [Mitch] McConnell and [John] Cornyn did to the sports leagues? That was a shakedown. That was a threatening letter by the two leaders of the Senate Republicans, who essentially said, 'If you participate in this, if you help them try to enact this law of the land, be careful, there's going to be political repercussions.'"
The Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page made a comment about the country's political polarization this weekend that might raise eyebrows on both sides of the aisle.
Appearing on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Page said, "I blame the media" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
George Will made a marvelous observation Sunday about the so-called Affordable Care Act.
Appearing on ABC's This Week, Will said, "What Obamacare requires for it to work - mass irrationality, both on the part of employers to ignore that incentive and on the part of young people who are supposed to pay 3, 4, 5 times more for health insurance than it would cost them to just pay the fine and ignore it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Former President George W. Bush had a marvelous line during his interview aired on ABC's This Week Sunday.
Asked by Jonathan Karl what he and President Obama discussed in Africa last week when the cameras weren't rolling, Bush replied, "What a big pain the press is" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman had a rather shocking thing happen to him while logging a live report from near Cairo's Tahrir Square Friday.
Members of the Egyptian military interrupted his report and took away CNN's camera (video follows with commentary):