George W. Bush

The Olympic Games, which begin this week, is an exhibition of the sportsmanship, teamwork, and the competitive spirit that make sports so enjoyable. But for many in the media, sports is just another excuse to engage in divisive political commentary. The sports media transform an apolitical past-time into a forum for their own politics.

Progressives have actively attempted to remake the Olympics into a celebration of their own political ideals. From calls to make the summer Games “a forum for the promotion of LGBT rights,” to criticism of the International Olympic Committee as “the 1 percent of the 1 percent,” lefties care less about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat than using the world’s biggest sporting event to pound for their pet causes.

In a post-Occupy Wall Street/Buffett Rule world, I bet you'd never expect a liberal news organization to admit that you can't solve all the country's problems by just raising taxes on the rich.

The Washington Post did exactly that in an editorial Monday:

Appearing on the Saturday, July 21, Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, NBC correspondent Michael Isikoff - formerly of Newsweek - made a point of noting that one of the guns used in the Aurora theater massacre used to be illegal under the assault weapons ban, as if shooter James Holmes could not simply have purchased a different gun to assist in his murder spree.

Isikoff asserted that the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, "was lifted under President Bush," and noted that President Obama had "pledged during his campaign to restore it" but that "he has dropped that issue." Isikoff:

Quite the MSNBC two-fer tonight.  Wrapping up Hardball, Chris Matthews counseled President Obama to explain his accomplishments to the American people "as if he were talking to a two-year old."

Later, on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show, MSNBC contributor Richard Wolffe said he "might get into trouble" for saying that President George W. Bush has done a dignifed job of staying out of the limelight since leaving office.  Was Wolffe being facetious?  He seemed straight-faced. View the video after the jump.

CNN on Friday surprisingly accused President Obama of "swiftboating" presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney with continuously false attacks regarding his service at Bain Capital.

The idea appears to have first been raised by CNN correspondent Jim Acosta during his interview with Romney on The Situation Room (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Uniquely among the broadcast network evening newscasts, on Friday's NBC Nightly News, substitute host Kate Snow briefly noted that it was former President George W. Bush's 66th birthday, and that the former President was in Africa as part of an effort to fight against cancer on the Third World continent. Snow read the item:

When Bill Clinton went to Africa in 2007 to fight AIDS, ABC hyped his important work "to save a continent." Diane Sawyer interviewed the ex-President and Kate Snow followed him to Africa. However, the same network has, thus far, skipped former President George W. Bush's efforts to fight cancer in the same area.

On the July 24, 2007, Good Morning America, Kate Snow excitedly related, "In Africa, they seem to be on a first-name basis with the former president, shouting 'Bill! Bill!'" On the July 20th GMA, Diane Sawyer hyped, "And President Bill Clinton weighs in, speaking out on the war, his work to save a continent..." Instead of praising Bush's work, Tuesday, the morning show devoted two segments to the divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Chris Matthews on Thursday made a very cynical observation about the Supreme Court upholding ObamaCare.

Appearing on MSNBC Live shortly after the ruling was announced, Matthews said, "There must be a strange feeling down in Texas right now in the Bush family that they created a Chief Justice" that ruled this way (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

It really is pathetic that MSNBC is allowed to call itself a "news network."

Adding to his long list of falsehoods spoken on the farce of a cable station that employs him, Ed Schultz on Tuesday dishonestly claimed Barack Obama didn't have a hand in killing immigration reform in 2007 (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Here’s more proof that the media cynically use the environment as a hammer to whack Republicans: the non-existent response of ABC and muted comment by The New York Times about Obama’s refusal to attend a major environmental conference, contrasted with their fury 10 years earlier over a similar decision by President George W. Bush.

President Obama is not attending the United Nations Environmental Conference on Sustainable Development, informally known as Rio+20, scheduled from June 20 to June 22. Rio+20 seeks “to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development, and address new and emerging challenges.”

The host of MSNBC's weekend program The Melissa Harris-Perry Show used a racially charged speech on Monday to claim that the events of 9/11 sent America into a “nationalist fervor” that resembled post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

While addressing the liberal Take Back the American Dream Conference in Washington, D.C., Harris-Perry asserted that “for about a year, there were African-American men walking around the city of New York with NYPD hats on. That can only be explained as a PTSD response.”

We at NewsBusters have been calling MSNBC's Chris Matthews a sycophant for Barack Obama since at least February 2008 when the so-called journalist bragged on the air about getting a thrill up his leg at the sound of the former junior senator from Illinois' voice.

It was therefore quite pleasing to hear former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele tell the Hardball host that to his face Thursday during a contentious exchange about the current White House resident's economics policies and who should be blamed for their failure (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If Attorney General Eric Holder’s goal was to minimize broadcast network news coverage when he chose late Friday evening to announce a criminal investigation into how damaging national security secrets were released to the New York Times, the media have certainly played along.

Holder announced the investigation after the East Coast feeds of Friday’s ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts. While each of the networks included some discussion on their Saturday and Sunday broadcasts, including ABC’s This Week and CBS’s Face the Nation (NBC’s Meet the Press was pre-empted by tennis), by Monday the networks had already lost interest.

Conservative author Ann Coulter made an outstanding observation on Fox News's Hannity Monday about the ongoing national security leaks controversy.

"When the New York Times is printing classified intelligence under a Republican administration, it's to make the Republican administration look bad. When they’re doing it under a Democrat administration, they’re doing it to make the Democrat look good" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

CNN's Candy Crowley said something Sunday guaranteed to raise eyebrows on both sides of the political aisle.

Near the end of her program State of the Union, and well after a somewhat contentious interview with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) that dealt with amongst other things the recent national security leaks controversy, Crowley stated, "Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

NewsBusters reported Thursday that CNN's Wolf Blitzer shamefully allowed former President Bill Clinton to absurdly claim that prior to Tuesday's controversial interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, he thought the Bush tax cuts expired before Election Day.

On Friday's Starting Point, CNN's chief political correspondent Candy Crowley agreed with NewsBusters saying about Clinton's preposterous statement, "I don’t buy that explanation" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On Thursday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose went out of his way to spotlight how guest Jeb Bush once complimented President Obama, and played up his disagreements with fellow Republicans. Rose touted how supposedly only Bush had the "courage" to differ with "every Republican candidate in the primary" in being open to eliminating tax deductions to increase revenue.

The anchor also highlighted how Obama claimed that he emulated the father of the former Florida governor: "The President of the United States says that his foreign policy, in sense, in part, is modeled after the foreign policy of your father, President Bush 41."