Eric Boehlert

Rick Sanchez, who was fired from his Rick's List program on CNN on Friday, certainly racked up a record of liberal bias, specifically bias against conservatives, during his tenure at the network. Sanchez also revealed a propensity for making on-air gaffes which made him a targets of comedians like Jon Stewart. It was the former anchor's animosity toward Stewart which directly led to his firing.

Here's the "best of Sanchez" list compiled from the Media Research Center's archives, updated from a July 22, 2010 item on NewsBusters:

Targeting Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio

In late 2008, the CNN anchor gained the 3 pm Eastern time slot of CNN's Newsroom, which would evolve into his Rick's List program. He consistently targeted conservative media outlets from that time until his firing.

ED HENRY: "Fox, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio were vying for it- all made strong cases. In the end, Fox [was] unanimously moved up to the front row, but did not get the seat Helen Thomas was in. We voted unanimously to move the Associated Press over to where Helen Thomas was because what a lot of people were missing in this whole fight was that"-
BROOKE BALDWIN: "And it is a fight"-
HENRY: "Yeah"-
BALDWIN: "Which is fascinating, for those of us who don't understand the inner workings of the"-
HENRY: "Sure, and then we can walk through the whole"-
SANCHEZ: "Well, I understand the Associated Press. I even understand Bloomberg, but don't have you to be a news organization to get that seat?"
HENRY: "Oh! Are you saying Fox is not a news organization?"
SANCHEZ: "Yeah. I'm just wondering."
-Exchange with CNN correspondents Ed Henry, a member of the board of the White House Correspondents Association, and Brooke Baldwin, August 2, 2010 [see video above]. Almost a year earlier, Sanchez hinted Fox News wasn't a "real news organization."

At least Eric Boehlert of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters isn't opposed to all tax cuts. He's just hazy on when it's actually happened.

Appearing on Stephanie Miller's radio show this past Monday, Boehlert praised former president Bill Clinton for cutting taxes on top earners in this country -- when Clinton did just the opposite.

Here's the relevant exchange between Boehlert and Miller, during a discussion of Republicans' Pledge to America which cites a quote from John F. Kennedy on tax cuts (audio here) -- 

In today's "People In Glass Houses" segment, Chris Matthews accused Fox News of being shills for the Republican Party just minutes before he said "the scariest three words in the English language are: President Sarah Palin."

MSNBC's "Hardball" on Tuesday began with a lengthy segment in which Matthews, with the help of co-conspirators from the Huffington Post and Media Matters for America, made the case that the Fox News Channel was a platform to assist Republican candidates to get elected.

Obviously missing the irony, the very next piece dealt with why President Obama ought to replace Vice President Biden with Hillary Clinton to not only assist him in getting reelected in 2012, but also set her up to win in 2016.

Still oblivious to the hypocrisy, Matthews ended the program with his take on why the thought of Palin becoming president is scaring "tens of millions of Americans, and not just Democrats."

To give you an idea of the absurdity of this hour of television, let's start with quotes from the first segment (videos and partial transcripts follow with commentary):

Rick Sanchez, who hosts his Rick's List program for two hours during the afternoon on CNN, will be taking on the network's 8 pm Eastern hour slot for several weeks between Campbell Brown's departure on Wednesday and the start of the ex-Democratic Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer (the infamous Client #9) and sometime-conservative Kathleen Parker's new program.

Sanchez will likely bring his two-year record of liberal bias to his temporary gig. Some of the worst examples from the Media Research Center's archives:

Targeting Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio

In late 2008, the CNN anchor gained the 3 pm Eastern time slot of CNN's Newsroom, which would evolve into his Rick's List program. Over the past year and a half, he has consistently targeted conservative media outlets.

"That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, 'Our rights were being infringed upon.'"
-From CNN Newsroom, April 8, 2009. Sanchez blamed conservative news outlets for the murder of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Radio listeners and cable viewers, rest assured -- Ed Schultz is on the side of the angels when it comes to integrity, he strenuously reminds us.

The liberal radio host and MSNBC action hero spent much of his radio show yesterday venting about the Shirley Sherrod uproar and denouncing Andrew Breitbart and Fox News for their alleged role in Sherrod's abrupt firing. 

Here's a holier-than-thou Schultz proclaiming his own purity (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: What we have here is a manufactured story, cooked up and promoted by the right wing that work across the street, supplied by a hate merchant, Breitbart, and Hannity, sold as a racial hate story and clearly a White House that overreacted without all of the facts. It is so unlike President Barack Obama to act like this.

Conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart and Eric Boehlert of the liberal organization Media Matters debated each other on Wednesday's Good Morning America. But ABC only identified the ideology of the right-leaning guest. Boehlert was simply the "senior fellow with the watchdog group Media Matters for America." [MP3 audio here.]

Yet, Breitbart's website was described in a previous segment as "conservative." In a follow-up piece, news anchor Juju Chang labeled him "a conservative blogger." Breitbart and Boehlert were appearing to discuss the firing of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod, following the posting of a tape of her on Breitbart's website.

Media Matters for America was founded to fight conservative "misinformation." But they don't fight liberal misinformation. They spread it. The Radio Equalizer blog is reporting that now that Rush Limbaugh's NFL-ownership bid is ruined, Media Matters is telling liberal radio hosts that maybe they could stop spreading absurd fake quotes about Limbaugh suggesting slavery had merits or Martin Luther King’s assassin deserved a medal. On the Stephanie Miller show on Wednesday, Karl Frisch of Media Matters suggested that the quotes were fictions, but that they fit Limbaugh’s other racist quotes:

You know, in fairness to Rush, those two out of literally dozens of racist things were not necessarily accurate. We were never able to find them. We’ve had people call us trying to find it. We don’t know where they came from. They could just be Internet apparitions. But you know, that being said, anyone who wants to know how racist he is, we’re happy to give them other examples.

"In fairness to Rush"? Those are words no one should expect out of Media Matters. In fact, Frisch spread the "slavery had its merits" quote on the Media Matters website.

Anchor Rick Sanchez used another crazed gunman’s rampage to blast conservative media during CNN’s Newsroom program on Thursday, and brought on Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert as his aide to bash talk radio and Fox News. He hinted that the white supremacist who killed a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, might have been “motivated to move by right-wing pronouncements...on some TV and radio outlets.”

Sanchez began his panel discussion with Boehlert and Accuracy in Media’s Roger Aronoff at the end of the 3 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program with his indicting line of questioning against conservative radio and TV: “Was there a tone in this country that was actually started with the election of our first black president that is bringing the crazies out of the woodwork, and are they being motivated to move by right-wing pronouncements, like he’s dangerous- he’s a socialist- he’s a Muslim, and he isn’t even a U.S. citizen? This is what we hear on some TV and radio outlets.”

After introducing his two guests, the CNN anchor let the left-wing partisan Boehlert “start with the premise” which, of course, echoed the preceding introduction: “I don’t think there’s any doubt since Barack Obama’s been elected, there’s been a complete unhinged reaction from the conservative movement in America, and sort of this vigilante and- and militia-style rhetoric has become a cornerstone of the movement, and certainly of conservative media.”

[Update, 10:12 pm, EDT: Video of the last promo and the entire debate segment is now available on YouTube. Acosta’s report is available here.]

CNN’s Rick Sanchez returned to blasting conservatives on Wednesday’s Newsroom program, blaming the recent murder of three Pittsburgh police officers on the Fox News Channel and other media on the right: “That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, ‘Our rights were being infringed upon.’” He tag-teamed with Media Matters fellow Eric Boehlert to argue that conservative media personalities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity were offering “garden-variety fear and hate mongering...night in and night out.” 

One could be sure that Sanchez would be pointing his finger squarely at his competitors on the right from the first moment he mentioned the gun issue, which was 13 minutes into the CNN program. After playing audio of gunshots from the Pittsburgh murders, he gave the following promo: “What you’re hearing there is three police officers killed by a man who thought President Obama would take away his guns. Who put that thought in his head? And how many more Americans believe that? Could it be 1.2 million Americans? You’re going to see why I’m asking that question.” Sanchez gave a further hint that his target was Fox News during another promo ten minutes later: “Are Americans being fed a pack of lies about President Obama and guns laws? And is it creating a gun buying panic? ‘We’ll report, you decide.’ That’s not too obvious is it?”