Bill Hemmer

While discussing the ongoing manhunt for the second suspect behind the bombing of the Boston Marathon, Chris Wallace -- the host of Fox News Sunday -- linked the Monday terrorist attack with the debate on gun rights currently going on across the country.

Pointing to the fact that most of the region is in a tight lockdown due to the search for 26-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Wallace asked how many people in the area “do you think, might like a gun to be able to protect themselves and defend their homes?”

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann demanded an apology from NBC Wednesday for the disgraceful song that was played while she was walking on stage to be a guest on that network's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Monday.

"This wouldn't be tolerated if this was Michelle Obama," Bachmann told Fox News's Bill Klemmer. "It shouldn't be tolerated if it's a conservative woman, either" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Washington Post promoted Michael Moore's latest book in Sunday's Outlook section. Justin Moyer's promotional piece was headlined "We read so you don't have to," but it reads like a cover blurb. He called him a "reliable liberal gadfly," which is apparently what the Post calls someone who thinks Cuba had a lot to teach the United States. Just "liberal"?

Moyer plugged the book, "to be released later this month to a nation always ready to laud or excoriate him." The "highlights" begin with Moore threatening the safety of Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer:

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Laura Ingraham interviews Assemblywoman Litjens.

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, a Wisconsin Democrat Assemblyman vulgarly assaulted a Republican Assemblywoman last week disgracefully saying to her after a procedural on the state's budget, "You are f--king dead!"

Although the story was first broken by a Wisconsin radio station at 12:53 PM Monday, America's supposedly civility-minded media have almost completely boycotted it with the following exceptions:

A dozen Republican members of Congress have formed the “Media Fairness Caucus,” the group’s chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced this morning on FNC’s America’s Newsroom. Smith told FNC co-anchor Bill Hemmer that the problem of liberal journalists skewing the information reaching Americans is a worse threat than “a recession or another terrorist attack,” and said his group’s goal would be to “encourage the media to adhere to the highest standards of their profession and to provide the American people with the facts, not tell them what to think.”

Newsmax’ Ron Kessler wrote about the formation of the new group yesterday: “The Media Fairness Caucus will point out unfair stories, meet with members of the media, and write op-eds and letters to the editor to highlight media bias. For the past two years, Smith has conducted his own campaign against unfair coverage in weekly one-minute speeches on the House floor. The caucus is intended to broaden and fortify the effort.”

Here are key excerpts from Smith’s appearance on the Fox News Channel Thursday morning (video here):

Appearing on the June 3 "America's Newsroom" program, Graham discussed Newsweek economics columnist Robert Samuelson's gripe that the media's "Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time." 

Samuelson "is a reasonable guy" who "has got to know that we've had years of pro-Obama bias, and certainly in the pages of his own magazine, where there are syrupy pictures of Barack and/or Michelle almost weekly," Media Research Center (MRC) Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham told "America's Newsroom" host Bill Hemmer. [audio available here]

Graham added:

On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, FNC host Bill Hemmer brought up the media’s lack of interest in Barack Obama’s plans to exert control over the 2010 census from the White House, as the show’s panel discussed Republican Senator Judd Gregg’s decision not to accept appointment to the position of Commerce Secretary. Hemmer teased the show: "Is the White House effort to control the census a play to control the vote? And did most of the major media miss this major story?"

Conservative panelist Jim Pinkerton blamed Gregg’s decision on White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel’s planned involvement in the census: "What clearly got under his skin was the issue of the census and the clear realization, as Republicans were pointing out to him, that the census, the biggest thing the Commerce Department has to do... And for Gregg to be told that Rahm Emanuel is going to be running that from the White House and changing the numbers around, I think, was too humiliating for him..." On the February 9, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, correspondent Jim Angle had notably related: "Lawmakers such as Representative Barbara Lee reportedly yelled at a White House official until he agreed that Gregg would not be left in charge of [the census]." 

Stunning Fox News Watch host Bill Hemmer, panelist Jim Pinkerton, picking up on a NewsBusters post with video (“Maher: Matthews and Olbermann 'Were Ready to Have Sex with' Obama”), from just hours before the FNC show aired live at 6:30 PM EDT Saturday from St. Paul, pointed out that MSNBC's Democratic convention coverage was so adulatory that it led to:

Bill Maher, who's no conservative, who hates Bush, to joke that he thinks that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews want to have sex with Obama. That's no slap at Obama, of course. He's innocent.

As the other panelists laughed, Hemmer was incredulous, interjecting “whoa, whoa” before pressing for corroboration: “Bill Maher said that?!” Pinkerton, Cal Thomas and Juan Williams all chimed in with confirmation and then Hemmer, putting his finger to his earpiece, informed viewers: “I'm hearing that we have a sound clip of that. Do we? Alright, roll it. Here's Bill Maher.” Viewers were treated to the video of Maher from his Friday night HBO show:

I think there is a problem, though, with the media gushing over him too much. I don't think he thinks that he's all that, but the media does. I mean, the coverage after, that I was watching, from MSNBC, I mean these guys were ready to have sex with him.

Audio: MP3 clip from FNC which matches video above (1:15, 450 Kb)

MRC Director of Media Analysis and NewsBusters Senior Editor Tim Graham appeared on Fox News at 5:50 p.m. EDT to discuss the ABC News producer arrested in Denver as he was photographing Democratic donors from a public sidewalk.

TIM GRAHAM: Here's one of these times where ABC is actually trying to get a story that's not all puffy happy, and they're getting shoved into the street.

[...]

GRAHAM: There were media there the day before. All over that sidewalk, blocking the doors of the hotel. But somehow I think they felt that because there was not 18 reporters there but one reporter that they could be rough on the one guy. I mean you got to give ABC some credit here that they are trying to do some stories here about campaign finances.