David Gergen

David Gergen had some harsh criticism for the remaining Republican candidates for president Wednesday.

Appearing on CNN's post-debate show, Gergen said, "For a lot of women it sounds like four white guys who are out there telling them, 'Here’s how we’re going to control your lives'” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A rather extraordinary thing happened on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday.

The host actually defended Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney from the media's proclivity to take his statements "entirely out of context" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The victory lap for Soledad O'Brien's interview with Mitt Romney wherein the Republican presidential candidate uttered the now infamous words "I'm not concerned about the very poor" continued on CNN Saturday.

During the network's coverage of the Nevada caucuses, contributor David Gergen practically blushed when seeing O'Brien - "Love having you on the set here tonight" - as he told her, "You’ve been really much in the news. You’ve been sort of driving the conversation" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich severely scolded CNN’s John King for beginning Thursday’s debate in South Carolina with a question about allegations made by his ex-wife earlier in the day.

After the debate ended, CNN contributor David Gergen said, “This is one of the most explosive moments we’ve seen in debate history. It was also one of the harshest attacks we’ve had on the press that I can remember in a long, long time…I think that there’s a reasonable chance after talking to people here tonight that he could win South Carolina based on that answer” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

CNN's Gloria Borger has been covering Newt Gingrich for decades. (I still recall her in 1989 calling him a "frisky chipmunk," as in he "resembles a frisky chipmunk scurrying from idea to idea and storing too many bad ones.") But Borger on Tuesday night concluded he had a good debate.

He was 'the good Newt, the smart Newt" and not the "negative nasty anti-media...Newt." It's true that Gingrich didn't pull out a trademark "J'accuse" against Wolf Blitzer. Perhaps Newt would say he's now seen "the good Gloria, the smart Gloria, not the the negative nasty anti-Newt Gloria." David Gergen also applauded Gergen for breaking from "orthodoxy" and embracing the "humane" side of immigration.

Parade Magazine, the nationally distributed Sunday newspaper supplement had a cover reading "GEORGE CLOONEY FOR PRESIDENT" on Sunday. "In his new movie, at least," it said in smaller type.

Inside we were supposed to read a "candid conversation" with CNN political analyst David Gergen -- who was entirely too candid in describing how hanging out with Clooney at his Lake Como villa in Italy led to a "nasty hangover" and "nonstop fun." Apparently, there was Gergen swimming in underpants in the middle of the night. Is this how journalists behave to "soften up their subject"? Clooney can't just wine and dine with the women. He also knows how to seduce journalists into giving him what he wants: puffball publicity. Gergen wrote:

CNN's Wolf Blitzer fretted over Rick Perry blasting Obama's foreign policy soon before the President was to deliver his address to the United Nations. CNN analyst David Gergen agreed with him, painting Perry as a grenade-thrower.

In a meeting with New York City Jewish leaders GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry slammed what he termed President Obama's policy of "appeasement" in the Middle East, and labeled it "naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous." Perry made his remarks on the eve of President Obama's address to the UN, in the same city.

[Video below the break. For audio, click here.]

CNN's political analyst David Gergen remarked Monday that many Americans were "horrified" at what they heard from the Republican presidential debate, co-sponsored by the Tea Party Express and CNN. "I was getting notes about they ought to keep this people locked up and not let them out. Don't let them do anything to the country," Gergen remarked.

Gergen's comments came in the  post-debate analysis and during the 10 p.m. EDT hour of Anderson Cooper 360. He mentioned that Tea Partiers "loved the debate" and pitted them in contrast with the many on Twitter who expressed their disgust with the debate.

[Video below the break. For audio, click here.]

On Thursday night's "Anderson Cooper 360," CNN senior political analyst David Gergen thought it an "outrage" for Republicans to shut down the government right now if Planned Parenthood is still funded. An agitated Gergen cast the amount of federal funding Planned Parenthood annually receives as "tiny," and failed to acknowledge that the Democrats are also contributing to the impasse by holding out for Planned Parenthood funding.

"It would be an outrage...for the Republicans to shut down the government on matter how much money we give to Planned Parenthood or how the EPA is funded," Gergen insisted.

Gergen repeatedly argued that the amount of funding Planned Parenthood receives is negligible, and the battle can be fought at another time.

CNN indicated its sympathy for gun control on Tuesday with two segments on The Situation Room where sound bites from gun control supporters outnumbered gun rights supporters by a three-to-one margin. During the first report, correspondent Dana Bash stated that Senator Patrick Leahy "supports gun rights," even though the Democrat actually has the opposite record on the issue.

The previous evening, during the 9 pm Eastern hour of Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, the network's senior political analyst, David Gergen, indicated that he supported stricter gun control, in the wake of the attempted assassination on Representative Gabrielle Giffords, during a segment with Tea Party activist Dana Loesch.

GERGEN: ...How is it possible that someone who is this unhinged, when so many people understood that he was in mental deterioration, that he could still walk into a gun store and buy- you know, 9 mm semiautomatic Glock handgun, and also, then carry it concealed? I mean that's- if there's some cultural insanity here, it is the fact that we haven't put a stop to the capacity of these deranged young people to buy guns and then spray at people. It's just unbelievable.

Parade magazine, the nationally distributed Sunday newspaper supplement, offers an interview with disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (aka, Client Number 9), whose new CNN talk show starts Monday night. The questioner is CNN senior political analyst David Gergen. Isn't this a bit too cozy, even as Parade acknowledged their CNN connection? When asked about his high-priced prostitute scandal, Spitzer pushed back:

GERGEN: Critics have argued that your selection is bad for TV news, that it rewards vice over virtue. [Bingo.]

SPITZER: There are precious few who are pure. I say that not to in any way justify myself or diminish my sense of remorse but rather to say 'Okay, I have acknowledged by lapses. If you think I can still offer something, I'll be happy to try.'

Worse yet, Gergen ended the interview comparing Spitzer to Martin Luther King Jr. (who cheated on his wife as well):

GERGEN: Martin Luther King biographer Taylor Branch once told me that King took great chances in his public life because he wanted to atone for the inner issues he was struggling with.

SPITZER: That's interesting -- he felt compelled to push hard in order to seek the redemption he believed was necessary. That's the great tension: we are better at understanding morality than we are at living it.

CNN's David Gergen gushed over Barack Obama during CNN's coverage of the President's press conference on Friday, but was unimpressed by his performance: "He impresses everyone with his competence....The subtlety of his mind I think is very impressive. At the same time, I thought it was...boring." Minutes later, Roland Martin replied to Gergen by rushing to Obama's defense: "He's not an entertainer."

Anchor John King brought on some of the network's "best political team on television," including Gergen and Martin, 19 minutes into the 12 noon hour, immediately after the President's briefing concluded. King turned to the senior political analyst first and asked, "David, a lot of ground covered- what did you come away with?"

On Thursday's Situation Room, CNN's Jack Cafferty questioned the motives of the planners behind the proposed New York City mosque near Ground Zero: "The developer... has said the proximity of the planned mosque and center is not an issue. Really?...It's simply unrealistic to think you can build a Muslim house of worship two blocks from where this awful thing happened, and not get a negative reaction."

Cafferty raised the mosque controversy during his 5 pm Eastern hour commentary: "Sometimes no answer can be an answer. When asked if a portion of the $100 million needed to build the mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero here in New York City might come from either Saudi Arabia or Iran, the developers refused to comment. This only adds to the already heated controversy surrounding this project."

The CNN personality, after noting that "15 of the 19 hijackers responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, and the destruction of the World Trade Center on September the 11th, came from Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. considers Iran to be a sponsor of terrorism," applauded New York Governor David Paterson's effort to find a compromise over the planned mosque's site, labeling him "one of the few rational voices in the conversation."

[Update, 8:10 pm EDT: The original version of this article identified Roland Martin as a "black talk radio host." He no longer has his own radio talk show. He is still a CNN contributor, columnist syndicated by Creators Syndicate, and analyst for for the Tom Joyner Morning Show, according to his own website.]

On Tuesday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN contributor Roland Martin strongly pushed for the Democrats to "stand up and protect the Constitution" by defending the planned New York City mosque near Ground Zero: "Democrats should get some spine and say, 'You know what? I am sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution.'...Stay strong- say it's about the Constitution."

Substitute anchor John Roberts brought on Martin, along with Republican strategist Ed Rollins and CNN senior political analyst David Gergen, to discuss the continuing controversy surrounding the mosque project. The anchor first turned to the former black talk radio host and asked, "Roland, is this the sort of thing that Democrats want to be talking about right now, at a point where many people form their opinions of who they're going to vote for in November?" Martin didn't begin with his "constitutional" argument, but instead emphasized that Democratic candidates needed to focus on local issues: "Frankly, if I'm a Democrat and somebody comes to me with that question...I say, 'Hey, go talk to...the folks representing New York. I'm here talking about my district.'"

Exhibiting an extreme case of the media euphoria over Shirley Sherrod’s vindication, moments before Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack appeared before the cameras CNN senior political analyst David Gergen gushed to Rick Sanchez:

I have to tell you, Rick, I don't want to put her on too high a pedestal. I don't think she would want that. But I kept thinking about Nelson Mandela as I heard her story, because he had to overcome the same sort of hatred on both sides. And he became this larger-than-life figure and I think we all loved him and revered him because he was able to grow like that. And there is that quality about her story.

48 hours without a job just like 27 years in prison. And how did she experience “hatred on both sides?”

In the wake of Tuesday's revelations concerning liberal media members trying to bury the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story in the spring of 2008, one has to wonder how many mainstream organizations played a hand.

On May 5 of that year, at the beginning of an interview with Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama, CNN's John Roberts said (video available here courtesy Ed Driscoll, relevant section at 3:43):

I want to just stipulate at the beginning of this interview, we are declaring a Reverend Wright-free zone today. So, no questions about Reverend Wright. Our viewers want us to move on, so this morning we're going to move on.

As NewsBusters noted at the time, this came eight days after CNN personalities David Gergen, Tony Harris, and Roland Martin had a discussion about why the media should stop talking about Wright (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Anderson Cooper first defended the Obama administration's initial response to the Gulf oil leak and then criticized him from the left on Tuesday's AC360: "A month ago, it seemed like the federal government was on top of this. They were beating back claims...that this was Obama's Katrina." He later continued that "it doesn't seem like there's much pressure being applied to [BP], if it's there at all."

Cooper brought on CNN senior political analyst David Gergen and liberal presidential historian Douglas Brinkley for a panel discussion on the environmental disaster 25 minutes into the 10 pm Eastern hour. The anchor included his apologetic of the early response by the administration in his first question to Gergen: "David, I mean, a month ago, it seemed like the federal government was on top of this. They were beating back claims by conservatives that this was Obama's Katrina, and now, it seems that may have been premature."

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):

Stop the presses: David Gergen actually said something nice about the GOP Thursday.

"I don't think [the Democrats] got the breakthrough they were looking for in terms of the public, reaching the public and trying to change opinions," Gergen told Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room" panel shortly after President Obama's healthcare summit ended.

"That is because intellectually, the Republicans had the best day they have had in years."

Gergen even reiterated, "The best day they have had in years."

Less amazing was the silence from the panel -- which consisted of Candy Crowley, John King, Gloria Borger, and Joe Johns -- when Gergen made this statement (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Hot Air):

CNN analyst Paul Begala stuck to his Democrat guns, or elbows on Tuesday night's Anderson  Cooper 360. He urged Obama to keep pushing a liberal agenda and challenge Scott Brown: "Let's see if the president can throw him an elbow under the hoop." Brown made a pledge to get along and work together, and Begala said lay him out:

BEGALA: The one thing I might counsel them, though, if I was still working there, would be, you know, you show your character in defeat sometimes a lot more than you do in victory. And this is a moment, I think, perhaps the president can show his character. Does he really believe in this stuff, or does he just sort of folds his tent and go home? Watching him in the campaign, I think there's a lot more steel in that spine than perhaps Mr. Obama's critics think.

I saw senator-elect Brown saying he wants to play basketball with the president. The first thing I thought of it, yes, good, and let's see if the president can throw him an elbow under the hoop. Barack Obama is going to have to shift into a much more tough-minded fighting mode there as a populist mode. If he wants to sort of answer this very strident [Brown] speech we saw...

Update - 9:25 AM | Lachlan Markay: David Gergen commented on Brown's response. His comments below. 

The death of Ted Kennedy hit the liberal media particularly hard. NBC's Andrea Mitchell caught the mood of the nation's pundits when she said the "heavens were weeping" during Kennedy's funeral. Now that Kennedy is dead, some pundits feel as if Democrats are entitled to the seat he left vacant.

CNN senior political analyst David Gergen had to be reminded of this fact Monday as he moderated a debate between the two candidates for Massachusetts's open Senate seat. He asked Republican candidate Scott Brown whether he'd be willing to "sit in Teddy Kennedy's seat and [say] I'm going to be the person who's going to block it [liberal health care policy] for another 15 years."

But Brown, refusing to take for granted Gergen's blatantly left-wing premises, responded instead: "Well, with all due respect it's not the Kennedys' seat, and it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat." (video and transcript below the fold - h/t Kerry Picket)

CNN senior political analyst David Gergen went so far to compare the Senate’s cloture vote early Monday morning on ObamaCare to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Seconds after the Senate concluded its vote, Gergen lamented the party line vote, and contrasted it with the unanimous finding of the Supreme Court which ended the segregation of schools [audio clips from segment available here].

The analyst appeared during CNN’s midnight special coverage as the Senate concluded its debate on its version of health care “reform” legislation. Sixteen minutes into the 1 am hour, anchor Tom Foreman asked the perennial White House advisor about the expected partisan vote: “What’s wrong with the Democrats simply saying- fine, you don’t want to vote with us? This is entirely ours.”

CNN’s David Gergen played up the difficulties that President Obama has faced on Monday’s Anderson Cooper 360, underscored the importance of the coming week for the executive, and compared him to an iconic movie damsel in distress: “For a president who’s had more trials than anybody I can remember in a long time, sort of ‘The Perils of Pauline’ all year, this has become a climactic week for his presidency.”

Host Anderson Cooper brought on the senior political analyst to comment on the latest development on the health care debate, the Obama presidency in his first months, and the President’s upcoming trip to the UN’s climate change conference in Copenhagen. Cooper first asked Gergen about the potential for congressional liberals to turn against the proposed health care “reform” bill if the Obama administration cuts a deal with Senator Joe Lieberman over his objections to a Medicare “buy-in” for people 55 and older: “So, David, dropping the Medicare buy-in, could we be seeing- I mean, a liberal revolt in the wake of this? Because, I mean, a lot of people haven’t been following the minutia of this, but, basically, that idea of expanding Medicare to 55 and above, that was all for liberals, who were angered over the public option being dropped out.”

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour lashed out at the widespread criticism of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama on Thursday’s American Morning: “Can I just say, I think it’s overdone, this pushing back against his award. He’s obviously done something very significant, and that is...the United States has now had a new relationship with the rest of the world” [audio clip from the segment available here].

Amanpour and CNN senior political analyst David Gergen appeared just after the beginning of the 7 am Eastern hour, about an hour before the President formally received his Nobel in Oslo. Anchor Kiran Chetry asked the chief international correspondent, “[W]e received some of the embargoed remarks, and he [President Obama] does acknowledge quite soon in this delivery the controversy surrounding it, that perhaps he’s at the beginning and not the end of his labors on the world stage. How do you think that’s being received?”

The Iranian-born journalist immediately launched into her critique: “You know what? Can I just say, I think it’s overdone, this pushing back against his award. He’s obviously done something very significant, and that is, after eight years in which the United States was really held in contempt around the world, the United States has now had a new relationship with the rest of the world. This is what the Nobel Committee has rewarded and has accepted. This is what the polls around the world are showing.”

On Friday night's Anderson Cooper 360, the CNN anchor tried hard to spin bad polling news for Obama. "In the latest CNN/Opinion Research poll, 48 percent, less than half, said they approve of President Obama's performance, while 50 percent disapprove. The question is, how significant is this shift? Some folks will say, 'Look, it's just one poll.'"

But any White House would shudder at the tumble. CNN's poll on November 13-15 was 55-42 approve, and just three weeks later, it's 48 to 50. On Friday, NBC's Chuck Todd observed on Twitter, "CNN's poll had consistently shown the president with a slightly higher approval rating than either the Gallup, Pew or NBC/WSJ surveys."

Cooper brought in analyst David Gergen to explore whether this kind of tumble has been a historic problem for presidents. They puzzled over the biggest collapse, among non-college educated whites, guessing that's about the economy, not war.

COOPER: So it's not so much about Afghanistan, which was obviously a big story this week, and liberal Democrat dissatisfaction with him sending in more troops. It's really about money, the bad situation a lot of folks are still in?

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Fox officials agree that all this attention is helping ratings.

Three days before Howard Kurtz talked with White House communications director Anita Dunn about the Obama administration's attacks on the Fox News Channel, a number of CNN contributors pointed out how this strategy is helping FNC's ratings while hurting Democrats.

Such was discussed on Thursday's "Situation Room" by a panel consisting of CNN's Gloria Berger, David Gergen, and John King, as well as Politico's Nia-Malika Henderson and Republican strategist Tony Blankley.

Makes you wonder why Kurtz on Sunday didn't ask Dunn about the following tremendously relevant conversation that happened on his own network a few days earlier (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Mediaite): 

Some very friendly assessments of President Barack Obama's health care address Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress, most gathered from the quick analysis in the short time between Obama and the Republican response: 

♦ MSNBC's Keith Olbermann hailed it as “a broad and forward thinking speech” with “a touch of greatness.” (MP3 audio)

♦ On ABC, George Stephanopoulos saw “a pretty remarkable speech” and suggested “this might have been the most emotional speech I've seen President Obama give” as “there was even a catch in his voice” because “this is very close to President Obama's heart.” (MP3 audio)

♦ Chuck Todd, on NBC, recited how Obama endorsed an insurance mandate for all citizens, “came down pretty strongly for the so-called public option” and proposed paying for it all by “taxing benefits for the wealthiest.” Yet after that liberal litany, Todd insisted the address was “about re-branding the President himself as a centrist and a pragmatist.”

♦ CNN's Gloria Borger trumpeted how “there was something in there for everybody” before David Gergen lamented Obama's lost opportunity: “Had he given this speech three months ago, when there was a glow about his presidency, I think he could have swept the country...”

♦ [UPDATE] Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, during a 11:15 PM EDT edition of MSNBC's The Ed Show, celebrated: “The great news tonight is this bill is on track for passage. Historic change is coming to the United States.” (MP3 audio)

“It's a sad day to see a man of good work get so little credit,” CNN senior political analyst David Gergen regretted about Van Jones on Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, complaining about the coverage of the Obama “green jobs” czar who resigned late Saturday night after his radical views were exposed: “I mean, there's no balance to understanding just how many good things he's done.”

Jones signed a petition which charged Bush administration officials “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war,” described himself as a “communist,” compared George W. Bush to a crack user, called Republicans “assholes” and made other incendiary race-based remarks, but Gergen saw a saint: “As he left Yale Law School, instead of going to a lucrative job, went out and worked with ex-prisoners, tried to create green jobs for them, has been featured in Time magazine, gotten all sorts of award for it.” (Audio: MP3 clip of Gergen)

Being championed in Time magazine is only a badge of honor for liberals. Back in November of 2007, in a profile of Jones, “Bring Eco-Power to the People,” the magazine hailed him as “magnetic” and a “visionary.”