Arianna Huffington

The Huffington Post would like to present itself as an oasis of religious tolerance. When they started their Religion section, Arianna Huffington decried that "all too often, when talking about it, we end up talking at each other instead of with each other." Weeks ago, they published Nida Khan lamenting conservative Islamophobia, as "a vocal minority of extremists to capitalize and advance on their bigotry and xenophobia." The writer cited Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, Rick Lazio and Peter King. That was one of many Huff-Po pieces feeling the pain of American Muslims, victims of vicious midterm politics.

But that same Huffington Post doesn't mind promoting "Rome-o-phobia," vile anti-Catholic screeds from bigoted leftists that just happened to enjoy ripping up a picture of Pope John Paul on national TV. Arianna Huffington published Sinead O'Connor's "An Open Letter to the Pope," carrying flagrantly false statements, such as "not one member of The Vatican has publicly displayed an iota of humility over this issue. Instead each person who has spoken has done so most arrogantly and dismissively."

Here's the latest line from O'Connor in the U.K. Guardian, where the headline says "The Vatican is a nest of devils." Or, to be more precise:

He currently works for one of the most liberal magazines in America while contributing to without a doubt the most liberal news network on television.

As such, it only seems fitting that as many of Newsweek's employees flee the transitioning ship, Howard Fineman would go to the unashamedly far-left leaning Huffington Post.  

Makes you wonder if he'll still feign any air of objectivity in his new position reported by the New York Times Sunday: 

The PBS NewsHour tried to balance a conservative Republican with a liberal Democrat when it interviewed (on two different Thursdays) Dick Armey and Arianna Huffington. Left-wingers complained to PBS ombudsman Michael Getler that NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff failed to press Armey about the Tea Party's funding from corporate billionaires. The far-left media monitors at FAIR wanted Woodruff to bash Armey as a hypocrite who benefits from government entitlements, like Bill Moyers did. 

Getler's response was jaw-dropping. He claimed that PBS had failed to achieve balance, since Armey is conservative and Arianna Huffington is a centrist "and her widely viewed website strike me, as a reader, as an equal-opportunity critic. Armey is not. There are plenty of sharp, critical assessments of the Democratic Party and administration on her site." Doesn't it matter that those critics are banging away that Obama isn't socialist enough?

Worse yet, Getler said this should be "remedied" by bringing on another leftist, author Will Bunch of Media Matters for America, because Arianna was clearly not left-wing enough or critical enough of the Tea Party. Getler lamented that PBS has lost left-wing shows like Now and Bill Moyers Journal that are "not in the safe comfortable center."

Since the financial industry collapse two years ago, dishonest media outlets and their employees have continually blamed George W. Bush for the implosion that occurred in the fall of 2008 as well as the resulting recession.

NewsBusters has regularly pushed back on this historically inaccurate premise specifically pointing to two crucial pieces of legislation signed into law by former President Bill Clinton.

On Wednesday, a contributor to the Huffington Post - who is also the editor of the website TruthDig - published an article confirming what NewsBusters has been claiming, doing so in a fashion that must have shocked the economically ignorant proprietor of this perilously liberal online "news" outlet:

As NewsBusters has previously reported, liberal Internet publisher Arianna Huffington is breathtakingly ignorant when it comes to basic economic theory.

On Sunday, she proved it again by making an absolute fool of herself on ABC's "This Week."

With the "Roundtable" segment beginning on the subject of the economy, Huffington noted how the failure of the banking bailout to stimulate growth was "proof that the government does not work."

In a stunning display of both idiocy and hypocrisy, she moments later demanded more financial regulations, including a reinstatement of the Depression Era Glass-Steagall Act, to - wait for it! - stimulate the economy.

Adding insult to injury, George Will was available to really make clear what an absolute imbecile Huffington is (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):  

Snatching the proverbial low-hanging fruit off the branch, Arianna Huffington compared the vast majority of Americans who oppose the construction of a mosque close to Ground Zero to the thirty members of a Florida church who plan to burn copies of the Koran on 9/11. Appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America" today, the liberal publisher criticized the president for not echoing her logical fallacy.

"I think the point [President Barack Obama] could have made is to connect [Koran burning] with the opposition of the mosque," asserted Huffington, publisher of The Huffington Post. "You can't really completely separate these things."

Huffington then attempted to pass off circular logic as a "teachable moment:"

ABC’s Diane Sawyer gave Arianna Huffington a rare gift on Tuesday night: An entire World News segment devoted to promoting the left-winger’s new book, Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream, and her Huffington Post site. Though a matching ABCNews.com posting described Huffington as a “liberal commentator,” no iteration of liberal passed Sawyer’s lips.

As if Huffington’s book does any such thing, Sawyer wondered: “What if we pulled together in one place all the innovative ideas for creating jobs?” The generous on-screen heading beneath Huffington’s picture: “Change Agent.” After highlighting Huffington’s wish to absolve troubled mortgage-holders of much of their responsibility, Sawyer trumpeted:

Arianna Huffington's new book is called Third World America, and on her Web site, she's been gathering innovative solutions to keep that Third World from happening.

The articles posted on the Huffington Post page with “innovative solutions,” a page the ABC segment displayed, sound more like the usual liberal carping: “Work Until You're Dead? That May Be the Only Option for Many Americans,” “Thousands Crowd Atlanta Area Housing Authority for Section 8 WAITING LIST, Fights Break Out,” “The 10 Highest-Paid CEOs Who Laid Off the Most Workers: Institute for Policy Studies” and “Income Inequality: ‘The Most Profound Change In American Society In Your Lifetime.’”

Liberal publisher Arianna Huffington on Monday displayed an absolutely staggering ignorance of business, taxes, and economics.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Countdown" to discuss Republican plans to stimulate the economy and curb the exploding budget deficits, Huffington was sarcastically asked by Keith Olbermann, "Does Huffington Post hire more people when your personal tax rate changes?"

Realizing the host was mocking the GOP's desire to extend the Bush tax cuts to all wage earners including those making over $250,000 a year, Huffington replied, "Huffington Post operates like most American businesses which is that our hiring practices have nothing to do with the income or the tax rate of the people who are running the business."

Ironically, the liberal publisher contradicted herself in the very next breath (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As we approach the second anniversary of Sarah Palin being thrust into the limelight by former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a number of the haters in the media are starting to take the object of their disaffection more seriously.

One such so-called journalist is the ultra-liberal internet publisher Arianna Huffington who on Sunday, just hours after Palin questioned the cojones of the current White House resident, penned a piece that actually compared the former Alaska governor to Ronald Reagan.

As you read the following quotes from "Sarah Palin, 'Mama Grizzlies,' Carl Jung, and the Power of Archetypes," try to determine what this Republican-bashing shill's motives might be for publishing what on the surface looks like a positive article about a woman she's been consistently defaming for almost 24 months:

MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan took time out his Friday show to send a special message to the founder of the left-wing Huffington Post blog: “happy birthday to a good friend of the show…. Miss Arianna Huffington, earlier this week, turned 60 years young and had quite the celebration…. I had the privilege of being able to join her.”

Not content with simply wishing her a happy birthday, Ratigan went on to declare: “Arianna Huffington, who represents such a voice of truth and the highest aspiration for any individual that hopes to improve themselves each and every day, as they go through their days, to be better, not only for themselves, but to those around them.” He concluded: “I believe she is a role model for all of us in that regard and couldn’t be happier for her.”

In reality, the Huffington Post has been far from a “voice of truth,” let alone representing anyone’s “highest aspiration.” As a 2007 Media Research Center report, Huffington’s House of Horrors, detailed, “the HuffPost’s content reveals that flame-throwing, name-calling, and hate speech against conservatives are all on the Web site’s everyday menu.”

Given Ratigan’s own incendiary nature, displayed regularly on his show, perhaps Huffington truly is his “role model.”

The lengths Keith Olbermann will go to attack his adversaries knows no bounds.

On Tuesday, he selectively edited and cherry picked from a Rush Limbaugh radio transcript in order to make the talk show personality look racist.

Most disgracefully, the "Countdown" host completely avoided telling his few viewers that Limbaugh was referring to truly disgusting statements the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker made on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.

With total disregard for the truth or any sense of journalistic integrity, here's what Olbermann said during his "Worst Person in the World" segment Tuesday (h/t Meredith Jessup):

In today's "Careful What You Ask For" segment, liberal publisher Arianna Huffington is crying at her website because the folks at PolitiFact didn't back up her claim that Halliburton has defrauded American taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.

Making this most delicious, Huffington asked to be fact-checked by the group!

For those that have forgotten, the former outspoken conservative was a guest on ABC's "This Week" on June 6 when she get into the following squabble with Liz Cheney (video and transcript follow with commentary, relevant section at 7:30):

A new talk radio show was launched this weekend that will certainly get a lot of attention from producers across the fruited plain.

Called "Both Sides Now," the program pits far-left internet publisher Arianna Huffington against conservative political consultant Mary Matalin.

Unfortunately, there's a glaring problem with the format: the host is the far-left leaning Mark Green who used to be the president of Air America Radio.

As such, listeners will likely hear twice as many liberal views as conservative ones.

Naturally, Green didn't admit this in his debut announcement published at the Huffington Post Sunday:

Sometimes even the seemingly most unreasonable characters as far public policy goes can be reasoned with if the circumstances are right. Just sometimes it takes someone like Steve Forbes to pull it off.

On the June 14 broadcast of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Forbes explained that a flat tax might be the medicine that Greece, a country on the fiscal brink needs.

"Well, when you engage in binge spending and the idea that going to revive an economy, you just get in a spiral on that," Forbes explained. "In terms of countries like Greece what should be done, in addition to the necessary austerity, is they haven't put in place policies, Joe that we did in the early '80s that enabled this  country to get back on its feet.

It's called "Left, Right and Center," which claims to be a "civilized yet provocative antidote to the screaming talking heads that dominate political debate." But there's not a whole lot of truth in advertising for KCRW Santa Monica's radio program, which is also podcasted on the Internet.

The show normally features Robert Scheer, editor of the left-wing investigative Web site Truthdig.com and a former Los Angeles Times columnist, representing the left. Matt Miller, a former Clintonista and senior fellow at the left-wing Center for American Progress represents the so-called center. And former Washington Times editorial page editor and visiting senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation usually represents the right. And for whatever reason, HuffPo editor Arianna Huffington is included to represent what they call the "independent progressive blogosphere," as if that is somehow different from the "left."

For the June 11 edition of this show, both Blankley and Miller were away and replaced with David Frum, a recently terminated fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, representing the "right" and Lawrence O'Donnell, of MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" fill-in fame, representing the "center." And it was on the broadcast Frum used the platform to take a shot at the Club for Growth.

One has to give credit where credit is due. The Huffington Post is 2010's 'People's Voice Winner for Best Political Blog' and Arianna Huffington will receive her Webby Monday night in New York City. We are in awe of her humility...

'I need to decide what this year's speech should be, and would love your input. Submit your five-word speech in the comments section. We'll publish the best ones on Monday... and if I end up using yours Monday night, you'll get a signed copy of my new book, Third World America, as soon as it is published in September.

'Okay, HuffPosters... start your creative engines!' --- Arianna Huffington, Help, I Need a Five-Word Speech for the Webby Awards!

One can only be judged in this business by the accolades of one's peers, and here's a taste of the acknowledgments of those who admire the non-partisan, tolerant, inclusive Huffington Post most.

“Sooner or later, we’ll blame this on George W. Bush,” George Will presciently predicted on Sunday’s Week during the roundtable’s look as how President Barack Obama is handling the gulf oil leak. Seconds later, the Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington didn’t let Will down, declaring “the truth is, that right now we have precisely the regulatory system that the Bush-Cheney administration wanted. Full of loopholes, full of cronies and lobbyists filling the very agencies they're supposed to be overseeing the industry.” Then this exchange:

GEORGE WILL: So, it's Bush's fault? Just clear this up.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: It is absolutely a thousand percent Bush-Cheney's fault.

Huffington proceeded to hit the Obama administration for not having “really done enough fast enough to change” Bush’s policies so “we are seeing the complete success of the kind of regulatory system that Bush-Cheney wanted.” Prompting Liz Cheney to marvel, “I don't know what planet you live on,” Huffington also charged that “right here we have the poster child of Bush-Cheney crony capitalism, Halliburton, involved in this.”

The co-founder of progressive blog The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, has attributed the West Virginia mining disaster, along with virtually every other accident under the sun, as a direct result of  small-government and corporate greed in the April 13 Huffpo column "The West Virginia Mining Disaster and the Financial Crisis Have the Same Root Cause."

"Officials say it's too soon to pinpoint the exact cause of the tragic explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia that took the lives of 29 miners, but we certainly know enough to identify the root cause," Huffington began. "It's the same cause that led to the 2006 Sago mine disaster in West Virginia that killed 12 miners. And it's also the same cause that led to the Lehman Brothers disaster, the Citigroup disaster, the bursting of the housing bubble, and the implosion of our financial system: a badly broken regulatory system."

"The economic collapse has not killed people, but it has gradually destroyed millions of lives. Both calamities occurred because elected officials who should have been creating a regulatory system that protects working families instead created a system that protects the corporations it was meant to watch over."

Huffington predictably mouthed the response from the left and the mainstream media whenever something goes wrong in a business or industry: Massey Energy's Don Blankenship and other evil CEOs who put profit ahead of people.

For the second time in six days, liberal publisher Arianna Huffington stuck her foot in her mouth on national television only to get corrected by numerous others on camera.

Appearing on Sunday's "This Week" on ABC, Huffington foolishly claimed that Supreme Court justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter would never be appointed by a Republican President today due to "how far the Party has traveled," obviously meaning to the Right.

All three of her fellow Roundtable panelists were quick to correct her flawed logic beginning with Sam Donaldson (video follows with partial transcript, relevant section at 9:20):

Pop quiz: which of the following political candidates would you be less likely to vote for: one who had written things offensive to many women in a master's thesis, or one who was convicted of trying to solicit sex from a minor?

If you think the felony conviction is a more condemnable offense for a political candidate, you may want to give up your dream job as a Huffington Post columnist. In the bizarre world of Arianna Huffington, the master's thesis is apparently the more reprehensible offense.

HuffPo columnists relentlessly attacked now-Va. Governor Bob McDonnell for his "frightening" views on marriage and the family as expressed in his 1989 thesis. But lefty blogger Tim Russo, who is running for office in Cleveland, is just the victim of local media that "want him to pay for [his felony conviction] for the rest of his life," presumably by suggesting that soliciting sex from a minor demonstrates a lack of judgment unbecoming a public servant.

I know, really radical stuff.

Arianna Huffington stuck her foot in her mouth during Tuesday's "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, and ended up being totally humiliated by host Joe Scarborough and guests Rudy Giuliani and Mort Zuckerman.

As the subject of Florida's Senate race was broached, Huffington decided to attack the former Mayor of New York City rather than address the qualifications of Republican candidates Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.

"Your judgment in people has not been stellar -- Bernard Kerik, anybody, so the fact that you're supporting Rubio now, I don't know exactly how seriously we should take it," irrelevantly spouted the liberal publisher.

Marvelously, some of the gentlemen on the panel didn't appreciate the cheap shot including Giuliani himself who finally said, "I come on here just to talk about Marco Rubio, you're attacking me on Bernie Kerik, you're attacking me on how I ran my presidential race. I imagine you're going to attack me on what I did in the Little League when I was a child" (video follows with partial transcript, h/t NB reader Pam): 

Liberal publisher Arianna Huffington on Tuesday expressed sympathy for Fox News host Glenn Beck.

Appearing on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" to talk about Beck's bizarre interview with Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) earlier in the day, Huffington said, "And, to his credit, Glenn Beck...apologized to his audience for wasting an hour of their time."

She surprisingly continued, "I never thought anything would make me feel sympathetic towards Glenn Beck, but having to interview Eric Massa for an entire hour make -- made me really feel for him" (video embedded below the fold with transcript and commentary):

Define hypocrisy: Arianna Huffington claiming that Fox News President Roger Ailes plays off of Americans' fear and paranoia.

Indeed, while Huffington Post columnists call American political leaders criminals, terrorists, and Nazis and occasionally fantasize about their deaths, Huffington has the gall to claim, "If you’re looking for the usual flame-throwing, name-calling, and simplistic attack dog rhetoric....don’t bother coming to The Huffington Post." She then turns around and criticizes Ailes for appealing to paranoia. Unbelievable.

But Ailes has never been one to shrink from a fight. He noted Huffington's arrant hypocrisy on Monday's segment of "Uncommon Knowledge", a webshow produced by National Review Online (video and transript below the fold - relevant portion begins at 0:52):

In a segment on the banking industry on CBS's Sunday Morning, fill-in anchor Anthony Mason cited the movie "It's A Wonderful Life" and wondered: "Who would you say is today's equivalent of the movie's villain, the dastardly Mister Potter?" His answer: "If you ask the Huffington Post's web mistress Arianna Huffington, it's these guys." Footage rolled of big bank CEOs.

Mason touted Huffington's class warfare against the banks: "Are you angry at banks that are supposedly too big to fail....Well, an internet provocateur has some advice....Huffington has launched a campaign that drives the point home with a sledge hammer....The 'Move Your Money' campaign urges customers to move their money out of the big banks and into smaller community oriented ones."

A clip was played of Huffington arguing: "JP Morgan, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo. These banks that received taxpayer money...have not really done their job of helping small businesses at lending." At no point in the segment did Mason refer to Huffington as liberal or point out the government's role in creating the financial crisis.

Would you like some religion with your brie?

“Huffington Post” and “religion” may sound like an oxymoron, but the two are attempting to go together. The liberal blogspot – which regularly features Bill “Religulus” Maher – announced on February 24 that the website was launching HuffPo Religion. Founder Arianna Huffington touted it as being, “a section featuring a wide-ranging discussion about religion, spirituality, and the ways they influence our lives.”

While that may have been the intention, in reality HuffPost Religion’s discussions are based on promoting the liberal agenda toward religion.

Appearing during the "Roundtable" segment on Sunday’s This Week on ABC, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington continued her campaign to portray conservatives as promoters of violence as she recounted what she referred to as the "violent imagery" of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s speech at CPAC in which he, alluding to Tiger Woods’ troubles, suggested that a golf club should be used to "smash a window out of big government."

Huffington connected the Republican governor's remarks to Joe Stack’s suicide attack on the IRS building in Austin, Texas, as she noted that Pawlenty’s speech came "the day after the pilot had flown a plane into a federal government building," and contended that "that kind of rhetoric is disturbing."

On Thursday’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, Huffington had appeared as a guest, and asserted that there were "displays of violence" at the convention, even lumping in people stomping on the Media Research Center’s doormats that display the likenesses of MSNBC hosts Olbermann and Chris Matthews. Huffington:

Arianna Huffington just keeps slamming our Olbermann floor mats. Plugging her own appearance on the public-radio show Left, Right, and Center (based at Santa Monica NPR station KCRW), the Huffington Post blurb writer suggested CPAC was based in Texas: "Taking the temperature of the conservative GOP: To judge from their conference in Austin, they're quite cheery, yelling Run Dick Run to Dick Cheney and stomping with glee on floor mats that bare Keith Olbermann's." [?]

About 21 minutes into the podcast, Arianna dragged out the same line, but this time Tony Blankley wasn’t having it at all:

HUFFINGTON: Also the undertones of violence, there were -- 

BLANKLEY: There were no undertones of violence.

HUFFINGTON: Oh, come on. There was even a punching bag for John McCain. There were pinatas with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s on it, and in order to get the candy, you had to break them apart. There were mats with Keith Olbermann’s and Chris Matthews’ faces on them. And there’s today, on Friday, um, you had the sort of recommendation that get a big 9-iron and hit the window out of government, like what is that? Isn’t that violence?

On Thursday night's Countdown, Arianna Huffington suggested to Keith Olbermann that the MRC's playful Stomp Out the Liberal Media floor mats are "displays of violence," as is a Pelosi pinata.

Earth to Arianna: do we have to remind you again that your site published Alec Baldwin's Cheney-murdering fantasies and John Cusack's bluster about conservatives ("I piss down the throats of these Nazis")? Here's the exchange:

KEITH OLBERMANN: The Rubio explosion, which is for a guy who hasn‘t gotten a nomination yet, let alone a seat—he may very well wind up beating Governor Crist as the Florida Republican nominee for the senate, but in states and districts where the Rubio, to use a term, loses to the more establishment Republican, are we seeing more possible repeats of what happened in the New York 23rd, based on the substance and the tone of today?

Does Arianna Huffington consider Glenn Beck more radical and dangerous than an advocate of Islamic Sharia law? She's let off a lot of hot air lately criticizing Fox News president Roger Ailes for employing Beck, but it turns out that on the Huffington Post's payroll is an envoy to the United States from the Somali Unity government, led by the Islamic Courts Union.

The ICU is a strong proponent of Sharia law, and an organization dubbed by some the Taliban of Africa for its radical interpretation of Islam and its support for some violent elements of the Islamic community (like Osama Bin Laden).

Abukar Arman, the Somali Unity government's envoy to the United States, is open about his advocacy of Sharia as long as it is "adapted to address contemporary political, social, economic, and spiritual challenges in a just way." He lays out a number conditions that would have to be satisfied for sharia to be effectively implemented in Somalia. These include respect for life, assembly, conscience, thought, rule of law, political freedom, and international peace. Considering the violent history of the Somali Unity government and he ICU, that is not likely.

Conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt and liberal publisher Arianna Huffington squared off on Sunday in an epic ideological battle about Fox News's Glenn Beck and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

With Howard Kurtz moderating on CNN's "Reliable Sources," the outspoken pair found very little to agree about.

Unfortunately, Kurtz was by no means an impartial host oftentimes letting Huffington off the hook while pressing his conservative guest more strongly on points he didn't agree with (video embedded below the fold with transcript and commentary):