Bob McDonnell

In the liberal fantasyland that is the Associated Press, it's only Republican governors with an eye on 2016 that are fraught with potential problems that could end their campaigns before they begin.  In their May 2 AP story, reporters Bob Lewis and Charles Babington sought to convince readers that the Republicans governors of Virginia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Florida are all train wrecks.

Lewis and Babington focused in particular on Virginia's Bob McDonnell and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, who are unpopular in no small part because of moves they made on tax policy. McDonnell signed off on massive tax increases for transportation, while Jindal’s failed attempt to reform his state tax code -- making the state income tax free but boosting some sales taxes to make up for lost revenue -- has eroded his once-stellar popularity. Of course, plenty of Democratic governors thinking about 2016 also hiked taxes, but they were curiously left out of the mix. 

We've come to expect this sort of thing from MSNBC, but the Associated Press should be ashamed of itself. In a story about Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signing into law a new voter ID law requiring a photo ID to vote-- which may be provided free-of-charge to indigent Virginians, by the way -- the AP strongly suggested the bill is an attempt by Virginia Republicans to prevent a Democratic presidential candidate from winning the state in 2016.

"Republican majorities in the Virginia House and Senate pushed the bill to passage one year after a more modest GOP-sponsored voter identification law failed to prevent President Barack Obama from winning Virginia for the second presidential election in a row and a Democratic U.S. Senate victory," the AP noted in the fourth paragraph of their March 27 story. As you can see in the full story pasted below, this was in the context of hyping a liberal Democrat's charge that requiring voter ID is akin to Jim Crow-era  disenfranchisement efforts (story accessed via FoxNews.com, emphases mine):

[UPDATED BELOW] CNN's Soledad O'Brien showed her glaring liberal double standard on Thursday, citing a liberal source to debunk Mitt Romney's tax plan while casting its supporters as either "completely partisan" or unworthy sources.

Her source, the Tax Policy Center, is the joint venture of two liberal think tanks, but since the American Enterprise Institute is a "conservative think tank" O'Brien threw water on the credibility of its support for Romney's tax plan. And she herself cited a TPC blog post attacking Romney's plan, but wouldn't accept a defense of the plan because it was a "blog post."

For years I have heard abortion enthusiasts contort themselves in knots to avoid saying "baby" when talking about abortion.

Leave it to MSNBC's plucky Rachel Maddow to go where few liberals dare --  acknowledging, albeit indirectly, that abortion involves killing human life at its most vulnerable. (video after page break)

In just a matter of days, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney will announce his choice for his 2012 running mate. No matter who Romney picks, however, the liberal media's line of attack is already clear. The Media Research Center reviewed news coverage of several potential picks, and found many have already been caricatured as too far right or outside the mainstream.

Soledad O'Brien apparently thinks President Obama should get the credit for states with low unemployment, as she pressed two Republican governors to admit on Friday's Starting Point.

Interviewing Gov. Terry Branstad (R-Iowa), O'Brien mentioned his state's low unemployment rate and asked "Do you think that the governors get the credit for that or shouldn't President Obama get the credit for that?" She phrased the question as though Obama should not only receive some, but the whole of the credit for the state's low unemployment. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Soledad O'Brien cherrypicked poll numbers to argue that the American public favors ObamaCare, when four polls from the last week show more Americans opposing the law than favoring it.

On Friday's Starting Point, O'Brien challenged Gov. Bob McDonnell's (R-Va.) premise that "about 60 percent" of Americans oppose the ObamaCare mandate. She cited "the latest poll" from Bloomberg showing a majority of respondents wanting the law to remain mostly or completely intact.

As we approach Election Day, it's becoming more and more important for the Obama-loving media to give credit to the President for the economies of swing states governed by Republicans that are doing better economically than the rest of the country.

Candy Crowley did her part on CNN's State of the Union Sunday by asking Governor Bob McDonnell (R-Va.), "Don’t you credit President Obama at all for the good fortune that Virginia has?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Fifty-six percent of Virginians approve of Republican Bob McDonnell's job as governor and 49 percent believe the Old Dominion is on the right track. That contrasts with a 47 percent average approval rating for President Obama and an average of 32.7 percent of Americans who believe the country is on the "right track."

Yet the Washington Post chose to spin the polling numbers as a negative, noticing a downward trend from previous numbers and attributing the shift to "a contentious legislative session that drew large protests and national ridicule to the state Capitol."

When the Virginia General Assembly was debating a new voter ID law, the Washington Post did its level best to paint the measure as a vote suppressing measure that was akin to "Jim Crow" laws. The Post's editorial board also weighed in by charging that making the voter ID laws stricter was evidence of "institutional racism" in state government.

But now that the debate is over and the bill is likely to be signed by Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), the Post's Richmond correspondents Laura Vozzella and Anita Kumar today admitted that, well, the legislation is fairly lax compared with stricter legislation that absolutely requires photo IDs in other states:

Trying to help Democrats come up with a line of attack against the GOP in November on Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory teed up Maryland Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley to slam fellow guest, Republican Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell: "Do you think your counterpart here in Virginia would be a good running mate for Romney or would you cast him as an extremist?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

What would justify such a label? The answer to that can be found in this earlier question Gregory hit McDonnell with: "You backed an abortion bill initially that included a very invasive procedure as part of an ultrasound that the state would have required and then you backed off of that. Were you wrong to support that initially or did you simply back off because the political heat got turned up the way it did?"

Karen Finney should go back to smearing her body with chocolate and calling it art.

So sorry -- that was Karen Finley. Still, considering what former DNC flack Karen Finney said on the Rachel Maddow show Friday night, the confusion is understandable. (video after page break)

Filling in on the 11 a.m. hour of MSNBC Live coverage this morning, Luke Russert talked to Washington Post reporter Anita Kumar and Virginia Del. Charniele Herring (D) about Gov. Bob McDonnell's "abrupt switch" to oppose requiring "invasive" transvaginal ultrasounds prior to an abortion. McDonnell is backing a bill that would make transvaginal ultrasounds optional but abdominal ultrasounds mandatory.

At not point in the interview did either Russert or Kumar note that Planned Parenthood abortionists already perform ultrasounds before abortions. What's more, Russert prompted Herring to agree with him that requiring abdominal ultrasounds could in some way be a "sex crime" [video follows page break; MP3 audio here]

The Washington Post editorial board is so committed in its abortion-on-demand views that apparently an abdominal ultrasound pre-abortion is too much of an imposition.

In their February 23 editorial, "Mr. McDonnell's abortion crucible," the Post lamented that "Virginia's governor back[ed] down on ultrasounds, but not far enough."

When has a liberal reached the realm of the truly unhinged? When reined in by Ed Schultz.

This happened yesterday on Schultz's radio show when one of his producers, James "Holmy" Holm, let loose with yet another memorable rant, this one about Virginia Republicans pushing a law that would mandate an ultrasound before an abortion (audio) --

Reporting today on how Virginia Republican "Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is backing off his unconditional support for a bill requiring women to have an ultrasound before an abortion," the Washington Post's Anita Kumar failed to note that Virginia abortion providers affiliated with Planned Parenthood already use ultrasounds as part of their preparatory work for abortion.

As Commentary magazine blogger and former NewsBusters contributor Alana Goodman reported yesterday (emphasis mine):

The media may be busy trying to reelect Barack Obama, but it's never too early for them to start grooming the 2016 field. Look no further than the Washington Post, for example.

"O'Malley to set ambitious agenda," read the teaser headline posted this morning at the  Post's website. "Watch the Maryland governor deliver his sixth State of the State address now," read the caption beneath a photo showing Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley in front of two American flags. A few hours later, following the speech, an updated teaser headline reading "Gov. O'Malley calls for 'tough choices'" takes readers to an article about O'Malley's February 1 speech in which the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) chief "urged Maryland lawmakers to act on gay marriage, tax hikes."

"Virginia Republicans push slew of conservative bills," shrieks the WashingtonPost.com headline for staff writer Laura Vozzella's January 23 article. Print edition editors opted for the decidedly more neutral-toned headline, "Virginia GOP pushes ambitious agenda," for the January 23 Metro section front-page article.

Vozzella kicked off her article by painting the GOP state legislators are rabble-rousing troublemakers disregarding the sage counsel of the state's Republican governor to tone it down:

Political analysts across the country were closely watching votes on two key initiatives in Ohio Tuesday to get a sense as to where the nation is on the power of labor unions as well as the President's signature piece of healthcare legislation.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe Wednesday, the failure of Ohio's Issue 2 - which strikes down Governor John Kasich's (R) anti-collective bargaining law by public unions - was raised several times as a major defeat for Republicans, but not once in three hours did the overwhelming passage of Issue 3 - which effectively makes ObamaCare illegal in the state - surface.

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," host David Gregory continually pressed Republican Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on the GOP being "too extreme" and "diabolically successful" at obstructing President Obama's agenda, while he chatted with Democratic Governor Deval Patrick about Obama finding his "voice" and the Red Sox firing their manager after a poor season.

Early in the segment, Gregory remarked to McDonnell that President Obama "must like the comparison" with the Republican 2012 candidates and wondered: "...do you worry...that the national Republican Party is fielding candidates who will ultimately have to be too extreme and will lose the opportunity to retake the political center, which is how presidential campaigns are won?"  

Did David Gregory realize just how much he was letting down the mask and revealing his liberal bias?   On today's "Meet The Press,"  Gregory stated as a simple declarative fact that Republicans have a "harsh stance" on immigration reform.

Did Gregory simply forget the "some say" fig leaf so favored by the MSM?  Or is the MTP moderator so lost in the liberal media cocoon that he can't imagine anyone disagreeing with his assertion that the GOP view is "harsh"?  View the video after the jump.

Today's Washington Post devoted an 8-paragraph editorial to slamming "Virginia's abortion end run," worrying that "poor African Americans and Hispanics" in the Old Dominion will have a harder go of killing their unborn children thanks to recently-issued Board of Health regulations on the state's abortion clinics.

[Last Friday, you may recall, Post staffer Anita Kumar gave readers a skewed portrayal of the hearing in which the regs were adopted.]

A new Washington Post poll of Virginians finds that Old Dominion voters are optimistic about the direction of the state, approve of the job of their conservative governor, and are divided on the question of same-sex marriage.

Guess how the Post handled reporting the results.

That's right, the paper hyped the same-sex marriage numbers on A1 but shuffled the good news for McDonnell over to page B1, even though an astonishing 50 percent of Old Dominion Democrats approve of his job in office, and arguably by extension his conservative policies.

 

The editorially-liberal Washington Post is hardly an enemy of government regulation. Except, of course, when it comes to moves to restrict abortion.

In Wednesday's paper, the editorial board lamented "Va.'s abortion end run."

"Mischief, not public health, drives the push for new regulation," griped the subheader. The online edition headline snarked that "Mischief drives change in Virginia abortion rules."

The Post dismissed as unprincipled and slippery the manner with which pro-life state legislators had pushed through a law that would require the Old Dominion's abortion clinics to be regulated like hospitals:

"Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski broke from the panel discussion Tuesday and implored Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to close the state's so-called gun show loophole. The MSNBC panel was discussing lax gun show laws allowing persons to purchase semi-automatic guns with little or no background check performed on them.

Brzezinski, seemingly abandoning journalism in favor of advocacy, tersely asked Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on camera to close the state's gun show loophole. "Just close the loophole. Governor Bob McDonnell," Brzezinski pleaded, staring into the camera as she singled out the state's chief executive.

Virginia law presently allows private transactions at gun shows to be completed without paperwork. Federal law mandates licenced gun sellers to perform background checks on buyers; private sellers are not obliged by the state to do so.
 

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) is "missing the target when it comes to whose interests he's really looking out for" but "then again, that's nothing new for us, is it," MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan complained in the "Busted" segment of today's program.

Ratigan lamented that McDonnell stripped out the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) as an alternative organization that Old Dominion educators could select for gun safety instruction for elementary school students. As it stands now, the National Rifle Association's "Eddie Eagle" program is the only option public school teachers have under state law.

Perhaps Ratigan is unaware that the Eddie Eagle program "neither offers nor asks for any value judgment concerning firearms," it merely instructs children in four simple steps about what to do should they come across a gun: "Stop. Don't touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult."

By contrast, the NCPC has ideologically-colored aims in some of its gun safety materials for grade schoolers. Take this lesson plan for fourth and fifth graders, for example (emphasis mine), which uses the assassinations of Lincoln, Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. as tokens to advance a loathing of guns themselves:

Painting conservatives as racists is a favorite pastime of the mainstream media and a recent move by Republican Virginia governor Bob McDonnell gave them more ammunition to do just that.

McDonnell issued a proclamation on April 2 stating April would be Confederate History Month, but failed to note the role slavery played in the U.S. Civil War that lasted from 1861-1865. Commentators and journalists seized upon McDonnell's omission as proof that conservatives are inherent racists, despite an apology and later inclusion in the proclamation of a strong statement condemning slavery.

In his apology, McDonnell called slavery an "abomination" and explained that the proclamation was "solely intended to promote the study of our history, encourage tourism in our state in advance of the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, and recognize Virginia's unique role in the story of America."

These allegations of racism against conservatives have percolated in the media since Barack Obama's election in 2008. "Confederate" or "Confederacy" has been used 60 times in news reports on ABC, CBS and NBC since November 4, 2008, but it's this proclamation, coupled with the anger over the recently passed health care reform, that had some in the media wondering if conservatives were ready to wage Civil War Redux.

CNN's Roland Martin continues to make a fool out of himself concerning Gov. Bob McDonnell's (R-Va.) decision to name April "Confederate History Month."

"After reading the hundreds of e-mails, Facebook comments and tweets in response to my denunciation of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to honor Confederates for their involvement in the Civil War -- which was based on the desire to continue slavery -- the one consistent thing that supporters of the proclamation offer up as a defense is that these individuals were fighting for what they believed in and defending their homeland," Martin wrote Saturday.

After sharing some of the comments he received about his position on this subject, Martin disgustingly asked (h/t Weasel Zippers):

The following is a Twitter conversation I had with CNN's Roland S. Martin on Wednesday. He was upset at Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) issuing a proclamation declaring it Confederate History Month in the commonwealth without mentioning slavery. He had retweeted Donna Brazile's tweet that she was outraged that the RNC hadn’t condemned McDonnell. Her Tweet said:  "RNC Chair should have condemned this statement,along with every GOP leader. But the double standards are so apparent with the media & blogs"And he doesn't like NewsBusters very much (discussion follows with my tweets in Italics):