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The ladies of the ‘View' cannot seem to make up their minds. After Sarah Palin released her response to the tasteless David Letterman joke about her daughter, Joy Behar made an astonishing comment June 15 in support of the Vice-Presidential nominee: "You know, I have to say that I'm on her side this time. Not because I didn't think it was sort of ok because comedians make jokes. But as a parent, as a mother, she's no dummy. She's going for the jugular. And I would, too. I would, too. As a mother, I would do it."

If you had watched the View from last week this statement would come as a surprise. During the discussion on the same topic, Behar was the only one on the show defending Letterman and his comments. She supported the joke by explaining that Sarah Palin "traipse the kid [Bristol Palin] out" and that she's "a walking punch line!"

Media Research Center Director of Communications Seton Motley appeared Sunday morning on Fox News Channel's "America's News Headquarters" to discuss comedian David Letterman's inappropriate joke about Gov. Sarah Palin's 14-year-old daughter Willow.

Motley noted a marked difference with the now infamous Don Imus joke about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

While both Letterman and Imus made crude and inappropriate jokes, conservatives like Gov. Palin do not have the benefit of the mainstream media's outrage as did the Rutgers basketball players [audio available here, see embedded video at right]:

Here we go again. Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore is going offer his solution to societal ills through one of his documentaries.

If Moore's past movies are any indication of the coverage he will get, it is sure to be a media hit. Already, Huffington Post blogger and MSNBC daytime anchor Carlos Watson is praising praised Moore's early promotion of the flick.

"Michael Moore, the filmmaker, is back and this time he was taking aim at Wall Street," Watson said on June 15. "[H]e did a very funny thing, Sarah, this weekend when you showed his documentary in some of the movie theatres. It was very interesting. He had ushers walk along, trying to take up money for CEOs and Wall Street banks."

With Sarah Palin condemning David Letterman's joke about her daughter, a look back at some of Letterman's previous hostility toward Palin after she emerged as the GOP's VP nominee -- as documented, with video, in previous NewsBusters posts.

Last September, Letterman sarcastically complained that if a President McCain “drops dead...don't you want your President to have had the presence of mind to have chatted to her teenaged kids for five minutes about birth control?” He soon sneered: “They don't sell Trojans in Alaska? Come on.” In October, without recognizing any irony given Barack Obama's inexperience, Letterman wondered if the nation can risk “a beginner in the passenger seat” and, in a sexist cheap shot, imitated Palin adjusting her hair during a 9/11 crisis as he impersonated her voice: “How's my hair?”

On Monday's show, Letterman's monologue included: “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning her daughter was knocked-up by Alex Rodriguez.”

Joy Behar apparently has a thing for waterboarding and conservatives. ABC’s “View” co-host interrupted a serious June 11 discussion about hate crimes in America, with talk of, well, more waterboarding. In this case, the suspect in the Holocaust museum shooting.

 “You know they say he’s the lone gun man he’s acted alone and everything…but do you think that Cheney should have him waterboarded to see if there’s anybody behind this?”

The reaction of the crowd was mostly silence, with a splatter of awkward laughs.

Salon.com Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh, on Wednesday night's "Hardball," cited "conservatives" like Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly for "whipping up" a climate that sparks the likes of alleged Holocaust Museum shooter James Von Brunn and "Hardball" host Chris Matthews wondered if access to guns were to blame for the tragedy as he cried, "It's easier to get your hands on a gun than to get somebody to make you a waffle." Blaming Limbaugh while insisting she was not, Walsh charged:

There is a very disturbing and disturbed element of political discourse. And I would, I would throw in Rush Limbaugh. Not blaming him, but when you say that our President is more dangerous than al-Qaeda you've gone off into crazy nut job land. You are off the charts crazy. And you are, you are whipping people up.

After her appearance from San Francisco, Walsh posted a blog item titled: "Can right-wing hate talk lead to murder?"

Audio: MP3 clip (1:50).

Dr. LeRoy Carhart had ample television time to further his cause against "domestic terrorism" on the news program Anderson Cooper 360 on Monday night. Anderson Cooper, the anchor, asked Carhart some direct questions, but failed to press Carhart on the answers, and didn't interview anyone from the mainstream anti-abortion movement.

After a brief news segment concerning Scott Roeder, Cooper asked Carhart, "You probably heard from Ted Rowland's piece some of the things this man Scott Roeder [the man charged with the murder of abortionist George Tiller] has said. He said he called the closing of this [Tiller's] clinic quote ‘a victory for unborn children.' How do you respond?"

If you stand in the way of President Barack Obama's agenda, beware because there may be a litany of consequences that could result from your act - regardless if the obstacle is legitimate or not.

On June 8, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a stay to review an appeal by a trio of Indiana pension and construction funds that own a part of Chrysler's secured debt. They claimed the administration's handling of the deal that would have sold Chrysler's assets to Italian automaker Fiat (BIT:F) arbitrarily threw 150 years of bankruptcy law out without process of law.

The Supreme Court later vacated her order, which cleared the way for the deal. But during the 24 hours in between, there was a sense of panic coming from the broadcast networks, fearing the worst.

CBS correspondent Thalia Assuras touted the celebrity status of the Obamas on Wednesday: "The paparazzi and the press corps treat them like movie stars. They're on magazine covers and in fashion spreads. Even the presidential pooch is a celebrity. The Obamas are helping turn staid old Washington into Hollywood on the Potomac." [audio available here]

During the Early Show, Assuras reported on numerous upcoming reality TV shows being set in Washington D.C. and credited the first family for turning the nation’s capital into a celebrity hot spot. She cited Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn, who declared: "All of the power is concentrated here and power is a great aphrodisiac. And so, Washington has become the place to be." Assuras added: "And be seen. Even film stars are flocking here for a chance at the spotlight. Now the latest proof that the nation's capital is indeed the new hot spot, the arrival of reality TV."

Many have claimed the federal government was playing fast and loose with the rules surrounding its takeover of General Motors and the circumstances surrounding the selection of which dealerships would remain open and those that wouldn't. Fox News' Gretchen Carlson came forward with evidence of this through a personal account of dealership closings.

Carlson, a co-host on the Fox News Channel's morning show "Fox & Friends," appeared on Glenn Beck's June 9 program and questioned the logic behind the decision reached by the government and General Motors (GM) to close down a dealership that has been in her family for 90 years.

"I'd like to get a hold of the car czar too," Carlson said. "Never did I think personally that I would need to get a hold of him, but now I do because my parents have owned a General Motors dealership in Anoka, Minn., for 90 years and they were terminated last week and they would like to know why. They would like to know why from the car czar."

To hearty laughter from what sounded like anchor Wolf Blitzer (who would have a live mike, but listen and judge for yourself), CNN's Jack Cafferty on Tuesday afternoon asked on The Situation Room whether viewers would “rather just stick needles” in their eyes than listen to Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich? During the 4 PM EDT/1 PM PDT hour “Cafferty File” segment, Cafferty inquired: “Would you rather listen to a speech by Sarah Palin or a speech by Newt Gingrich?” Then he quickly added another option which is what prompted the laughter: “Or would you rather just stick needles in your eyes?”

Finished guffawing, Blitzer soon wondered: “What do you think, Jack? You want to listen to Palin or Gingrich deliver a speech?” Cafferty replied he dislikes them both: “I'm not interested in listening to either one of them.”

Amongst the replies Cafferty read at the end of the hour, this one from Dann: “That’s like asking 'Who do you think is the best hockey player in Ecuador?' It’s not much of a choice. If given a third option, I would rather trim my nose hair with a carrot scraper.”

Should it be the role of the government to determine what amount of risk is appropriate in the private sector? President Barack Obama could have been interpreted as suggesting that much in comments he made about TARP repayments on June 9.

CNBC's Rick Santelli responded to those comments earlier in the day from Obama, "that those who seek reward do not take reckless risks." Santelli said on CNBC's "Power Lunch" that it's not the role of the government to make those judgments.

"It makes me a little nervous and some of the people on the floor express this - whether it was the end of the last administration or the current administration, you know to really understand what's wrong and what needs to be right - that statement's very un-American," Santelli said. "You know, why should the government think they know the magic blend of risk and reward? It's the government's role not to fall asleep at the switch, not to have products that are unregulated and to have speed limits."

Catching up with Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, guest D.L. Hughley -- the actor/comedian who until recently had a show on CNN -- insisted “you never saw drugs or drive-byes or homeless people” in inner-cities before Reagan “cut” social programs and became “the Moses of...greedy white men.” Left-wing blogger Jeremy Scahill predicted “some guys” will pull down the new Capitol rotunda Reagan statue “and drag it through the street like the Saddam statue with some kid hitting it with a shoe.”

Pegged to the placement of the new statute of Ronald Reagan, Hughley declared: “I didn't love Ronald Reagan.” Maher echoed “I didn't either,” and then Hughley launched a rant with distortions of quotes from Ronald Reagan, as he recalled:

I grew up in Los Angeles inner city -- you never saw drugs or drive-byes or homeless people or anything like that. All the social programs that were cut as a result of Reagan coming into office and greed just became a hobby....I remember watching...him say people in America who are homeless are homeless because they want to be. That seemed to be one of the most-- and I was a kid -- I knew how cruel that was and I would never, you know, ascribe any level of greatness to somebody who would say, you know, if somebody's hungry in America it's because they're on a diet. Like that, to me, made greedy white men feel good about being greedy white men. He was the kind of the Moses of leading them to feeling good about being greedy white men. So to me he wasn't a great man.

To the extent that it is being reported, actor Jon Voight's remarks to last night's Republican House-Senate fundraising dinner are being selectively chosen to fit the media's talking points about conservatives and the GOP.

Robert Dougherty of Associated Content News, for example, has latched onto some red meat lines to portray the actor as a thorn in the side of some Republicans who don't want to rock the proverbial boat:

Though the Republicans tried in vein [sic] to heal the recent divides in the party, Jon Voight had no such words of reconciliation in regards to the President. As host of the dinner, Voight spoke against the "Obama oppression" and called the President a "false prophet" among other things.

But that doesn't do justice to Voight's 10-minute speech -- which I've embedded above at right -- wherein the veteran actor noted how Democrats and the media were content to wear down public opinion of George W. Bush with a never-ending flood of negativity while building up Barack Obama as a near-messianic savior who dare not be questioned:

On Sunday, White House correspondent Chip Reid gave a glowing review of President Obama’s overseas trip: "A trip laden with symbolism and elegant words, asking the world to look beyond old hatreds and wounds. In doing so, he hopes to create a world where there never has to be another D-Day." [audio available here]

During CBS Sunday Morning, Reid reported on Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe, highlighting the President’s speech in Cairo last week and marking of the 65 th anniversary of D-Day in France on Saturday. On the subject of Obama addressing the Islamic world, Reid cited left-wing New York Times columnist and Obama sycophant, Roger Cohen, who declared: "He went out there, he spoke movingly...He spoke in a way that convinced Muslims that he is sensitive to their view of their suffering, to their culture, to their religion. And that's a new message from an American president."

In March of 2008, Cohen jumped aboard the Obama campaign, using his column to praise then candidate Obama’s speech on race: "It takes bravery, and perhaps an unusual black-white vantage point, to navigate these places where hurt is profound, incomprehension the rule, just as it takes courage to say, as Obama did, that black ‘anger is real; it is powerful’...Can an inquiring mind actually explore the half-shades of truth? Yes. It. Can...The clamoring now in the United States for a presidency that uplifts rather than demeans is a reflection of the intellectual desert of the Bush years."

ABC gave pro-abortion advocates free advertising last night with its "World News Sunday." During the report, an abortionist unequivocally stated that late-term abortion is "really a miscarriage of a stillborn fetus."

Anchor Dan Harris framed Steve Osunsami's segment  as a look at why doctors risk their lives to perform abortions given the "constant threat" of violence they face, as evidenced by last week's murder of abortionist George Tiller and recent comments from Tiller's accused killer that "similar attacks are planned all over the country."

Harris teased the segment "Tonight, we talk to late-term abortion providers who fear they are targets. Why do they do it?" He stated in his introduction, "Why would a doctor take that risk? And why would a woman make that choice?"

Some in the liberal media establishment have decried discussion of the Fairness Doctrine, claiming the Obama administration's publicly saying it wouldn't pursue it removed the threat. 

However, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh theorized that President Obama may have another method to restrict content over the airwaves in mind. In an interview on Sean Hannity's June 4 Fox News Channel program, Limbaugh explained how Obama could do this - by exercising the influence the government has over the banking sector.

"I want to say one other thing, even if I go over time here," Limbaugh said. "People ask me about the Fairness Doctrine all the time and I've been watching something here - newspapers are losing money. Advertising revenue is down, circulation. But radio companies, too, Sean. Television companies - their advertising revenues are down."

It takes a big man to admit when he’s been bested. I have to say however, that after this one I had to walk away with my head hanging in shame.  You win this round, Mr Olbermann… You win this round. [video below page break]

In my defense however, I will say that Maddow came way out of left field with the double-teaming.  I personally found it to be distasteful… But well played on Maddow’s part.

Every time voters face a ballot initiative of some sort that would raise their taxes, proponents of such measures will trot out any of the following components to champion the cause - school children, policemen, firemen or the release of criminals from jails.

But this time, the June 3 "NBC Nightly News" waited until after California voters denied passage of initiatives that would raise their taxes to say, "I told you so." NBC correspondent George Lewis followed up a dire, one-sided June 3 "Today Show" report with a "Nightly News" segment that blamed the budget cuts for one supposed hardship story - a California school district forced to cancel summer school, which in turn made it impossible for one child's mother to look for a job.

The government is continuing to encroach on freedoms more and more in the name of climate change. Case in point: An ordinance that went into effect June 1 stating if you sell your home in Austin, Texas and you fail to get a clean energy "green" audit, you will likely face criminal charges.

According to an ordinance passed by the Austin City Council in November 2008, any home 10 years or older will require an "Energy Conservation Audit. Failure to comply - criminal charges as explained by the local community-owned electric utility:

What if I sell the house without having an audit?

Non-compliance with the ECAD ordinance is a Class C misdemeanor. Reported violations will be forwarded to the City of Austin Legal Department for review and action.

On his FNC show Wednesday night, Bret Baier looked at how the murder of an abortion doctor on Sunday has earned much more media attention than Monday's murder by a politically-motivated killer of a serviceman in Arkansas, a disparity matched by the condemnation of the first killing by an Obama administration which has ignored the second. Baier reported:

In the media, [George] Tiller was a top story for almost three days. Several liberal analysts blamed  pro-life groups for inciting the murder [video from MSNBC]. In contrast, there has been relatively little coverage about the killing of Army Private William Long and the wounding of Private Quinton Ezeagwula outside the recruiting center in Little Rock, despite the fact that the alleged shooter was a convert to Islam who police say probably had political and religious motives for the attack.

After outlining how the Obama administration has failed to condemn the murder of the Army private, Baier related how “conservative media analyst Brent Bozell says the different responses come down to politics.” Viewers then heard this soundbite from the President of the Media Research Center: “Politics dictated that they be outspoken on the murder of Doctor Tiller, but be silent when American servicemen are gunned down.” [audio available here]

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper conducted a five-minute long interview of Diane Elder, a woman who decided to let her infant daughter live despite her severe genetic defects, during his program on Tuesday evening. The interview came about after Elder wrote Cooper after watching a similar interview he conducted the previous night of Lynda Waddington, a “pro-choice” blogger for the Huffington Post and RH Reality Check, who decided to have a late-term abortion herself (the anchor did not mention Waddington’s left-wing affiliations during the interview). (audio clips from the interview available here)

On Wednesday afternoon, the network’s “Situation Room” program played an extended clip from the interview, which followed an additional segment with a different parent whose twins were aborted late-term at the hands of murdered abortionist George Tiller. During this second interview, the father of the twins described how Tiller had the two babies “wrapped up in a baby’s blanket” and how the abortionist “baptized them.” Despite the two-to-one imbalance in the segments, CNN did at least try to balance the segments with the two supporters of late-term abortion with that of the interview of Elder.

During the interview with Cooper, Elder described her experiences during the four months after she found out that her daughter had Trisomy 18, a severe genetic disorder, and during the half-day that she shared with her daughter, whom she named Angela. Despite all the hardships that she and her family endured, Elder recounted how after her daughter was born, “we were very taken aback when we found that, when she was placed in our arms, we were happy. We were- we were incredibly happy. And my husband was with me. A lot of family and friends showed up right after the birth. She was passed around from arm to- from arms to arms.” Cooper dealt with the subject very sensitively, and thanked her for her strength at the end of the interview.

Tomorrow, June 4, is the 20th anniversary of the Chinese army massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Back in 1989, the big networks provided in-depth coverage of the massive protests that swelled in mid-May, and harsh coverage of the brutal reaction from the communist authorities.

But, as the Media Research Center noted at the time, the networks also used the occasion for some bizarre comparisons. Two that stand out from our archive: CBS’s Eric Engberg comparing the People’s Liberation Army’s planned assault on students with the Ohio National Guard’s panicky shooting into anti-war demonstrators at Kent State University in 1970, killing four; and NBC commentator John Chancellor ruing the heavy focus on the bloodshed in Beijing instead of a then-new Carnegie report found problems with America’s middle schools.

With the federal government issuing massive amounts of debt and the Federal Reserve purchasing it in the name of keeping interest rates down, questions have arisen about impact on the U.S. dollar.

On June 2, CNBC's "Power Lunch," aired a clip of the network's chief economics reporter, Steve Liesman interviewing Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner. Geithner claimed the Federal Reserve wasn't monetizing the debt the government was accruing. Following that clip, CNBC's Chicago Mercantile Exchange floor reporter Rick Santelli, famous for inspiring the anti-tax-and-spending tea parties, questioned Geithner's denial of debt monetization.

"Well, you know the first part of that question was economists are worried about quantitative easing - are we monetizing?" Santelli said. "And his answer was no, we have a strong independent central bank. Now the latter may be true but it certainly isn't an answer to the question and I put forth, and I'd like feedback everybody - that quantitative easing can't exist without the monetization process. We issue debt; we print the money to buy it. That is monetizing. I can't believe that was his answer."

(h/t The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney)

"MSNBC News Live" co-host David Shuster slammed Dick Cheney on Tuesday's program as a hypocrite, complaining, "Your Iraq war inflamed the Muslim world, bred a new generation of terrorists who hate America and cost the lives of over 4,000 U.S. soldiers." The broadside against the former Vice President occurred during day two of Shuster's newly resurrected "Hypocrisy Watch" segment, a feature that mostly goes after conservatives and Republicans.[audio available here]

Shuster complained about an appearance Cheney made at the National Press Club on Tuesday. The ex-VP decried the closing of Guantanamo Bay and defended the Iraq war, asserting that, in the end, it saved lives. The MSNBC host also lambasted the Republican for mistakenly using Barack Obama's name when he meant Osama bin Laden. "Obama, Osama. Good grief," he exclaimed, before sarcastically asserting, "I'm sure that was an innocent mistake." Now, of course, numerous politicians have made such an error, including Ted Kennedy in 2006. Shuster has never made any of them the subject of "Hypocrisy Watch."

George Tiller, the Kansas doctor notorious for his commitment to performing late-term abortions, was killed May 31 while attending a Sunday morning church service.

By his count, Tiller performed 60,000 abortions. His clinic, Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, was one of only three clinics in the United States that offered abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy.

Loss of human life is a tragedy and should be reported as such, and premeditated murder is always wrong - something all the mainstream pro-life groups were quick to affirm in the wake of the killing. But in reporting this tragic story, the news media have much to say about a man who helped provide women with the "right" to end their pregnancies, but have little to say about lives he helped to end. In failing to highlight what Tiller's work actually entailed, reporters do nothing to help their audience understand why this man was targeted.

During live MSNBC coverage in the 9AM EST hour on Monday about the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, guest Dr. Warren Hern, a fellow abortionist and friend of Tiller, declared: "Dr. Tiller's crime was that he helped women and the man who killed him tried to kill an idea. The idea is freedom. So we don't have to invade other countries to find the terrorists. They’re here killing doctors who do abortions. The difference between – the main difference between the American anti-abortion movement and the Taliban is about 8,000 miles." Instead of challenging such an incendiary statement, correspondent Monica Novotny simply concluded the segment: "Dr. Warren Hern, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate it." [audio available here]

 

Earlier in the interview, Novotny asked Hern: "You were quoted as saying that Dr. Tiller's death was ‘predictable.’ What was your reaction when you heard and why do you say that?" Hern explained his statement: "This was not the act of a lone deranged gunman. This is a result of 35 years of relentless and merciless anti-abortion harassment, violence, and intimidation, hate speech and violent rhetoric, and this is the absolutely predictable consequence of that kind of mindless harassment and fanaticism."

'The Goode Family,' a new half-hour animated comedy show which spoofs the politically-correct and environmental do-good thinking of a liberal family which considers its lifestyle superior to “abstinence people” who “wear flag pins,” debuted this past Wednesday night on ABC. The opening scene showed a “Support Our Troops...And Their Opponents” bumper sticker on the family's hybrid.

When the 16-year-old son who the parents adopted from Africa and presumed he'd be black, but to their surprise was a white South African, wants to start driving, the father cautions: “With greater emissions, comes greater responsibility.” In another scene, the mother declares “nothing brings a mother and daughter closer together than shopping at a high-end, organic grocery store.” And inside the store an intercom announcement alerts shoppers: “Check out the big board to see how you can limit the impact of your existence.”

I won't give away all that's in the accompanying video in which I cobbled together a little under three minutes of what I thought were the funnier and most-damning parodies of liberal thinking .

Displaying a caricature of a celebrity enraptured by President Barack Obama, although apparently quite serious in the underlining attitude he conveyed in an over the top manner, on Friday's Larry King Live actor Denis Leary (IMDb page) proclaimed: “I think that President Obama is the greatest President in the history of all of our Presidents and that he can do no wrong in my book.”

Asked about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Leary, co-producer and star of FX's Rescue Me, exclaimed: “Fantastic!” Guest host Joy Behar prompted him to affirm: “You love her?” He repeated his earlier mantra: “Everything you ask me about President Obama I'm just going to say it's the greatest thing ever. I love the guy!”

Leary, who made the appearance ostensibly to plug his book, 'Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid', as a Father's Day gift, also related how he likes to “torture” pro-Bush friends and colleagues by gloating over Obama. “I do have to say that I enjoy upsetting people -- friends of mine who might be in the Republican world” by telling them: “President Obama is the greatest thing that ever happened.”

Audio: MP3 clip (20 seconds)

You'd expect to see this in the liberal blogosphere or possibly some of the national mainstream media outlets with an obvious agenda. But now some of the preemptive strikes against Republican senators leading up to the Senate confirmation hearings and eventual vote to confirm President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, are finding their way into local newspapers.

An op-ed published in The Anniston (Ala.) Star on May 28 by Ari Rabin-Havt, the managing director of the left-wing Media Matters Action Network, attacked the new ranking Republican of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. He alleged that if Sessions and other Senate Republicans didn't commit to taking a filibuster off the table for Sotomayor's confirmation, they would be guilty of hypocrisy.