Eric Burns

A desperate-sounding Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's Hardball, put out a call to a Republican, any Republican, to come on his airwaves to denounce Rush Limbaugh as a liar. At the top of the show the MSNBC host issued the following challenge:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: And out on a Limbaugh! We're issuing a challenge tonight and every night to elected Republicans. Come on Hardball please sir and madam and tell us you disagree with Rush on anything! Tell us you've had it with his distortions, his misrepresentations, his outright falsehoods. We invite you to tell us he's not the leader of the Republican Party. It's our standing offer. Come on Hardball and tell us Rush isn't telling the truth. 

Later on in the program Matthews, in a segment full of cheap shots and out-of-context analysis, invited on Eric Burns from Media Matters and David Corn of Mother Jones to examine the conservative talk radio host's "ramblings," as Burns declared "most of what comes out of his mouth is a lie," and Corn implied Limbaugh was inciting violence against Obama as he decried the radio giant for being "full of untruths and lies and it's hateful...he's confirming perhaps the worst impulses that people might have, towards the Obama administration." [extended video clip here] [abbreviated audio available here] [extended audio clip here]

Throughout the show Matthews, repeatedly requested Republicans to come on his program to denounce Limbaugh as he charged: "I wonder if the Republican Party is not just in bed with Rush. They're under the covers."

The following teaser and full segment were aired on the May 11 edition of Hardball:

And they say a woman scorned can be merciless.  Eric Burns once served as the host of Fox News Watch.  It's reasonable to assume he won't be working there again any time soon.  In a December 2 Huffington Post article, "If I Still Worked at Fox News...," he describes it as "the right-wing partial-news-but-mostly-opinion network."

A great deal of his bile, however, is directed at Glenn Beck:

Actually, Beck is a problem of taste as well as ethics. He laughs and cries; he pouts and giggles; he makes funny faces and grins like a cartoon character; he makes earnest faces yet insists he is a clown; he cavorts like a victim of St. Vitus's Dance. His means of communicating are, in other words, so wide-ranging as to suggest derangement as much as versatility.

He is Huey Long without the political office.

He is Father Coughlin without the dour expression.

He is John Birch without the Society.

On Wednesday’s Newsroom program, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez turned to Eric Burns, the president of the left-wing organization Media Matters for America, to “fact check” Representative Mike Pence’s appearance on the program the previous day. Sanchez failed to mention the political leanings of Media Matters during the segment, and didn’t follow-up when Burns obliquely referenced his past occupation as a communications director for Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter.

Before introducing Burns, Sanchez played a clip of Representative Pence stating that he fought President Bush “on education spending. I fought my president -- was one of the 25 Republicans that opposed the prescription drug entitlement. I fought the earmarking culture and run-away spending under Republican control, and I’m going to keep fighting it as Democrats take us further down the road of deficit spending and debts.” The CNN anchor then made his introduction of the Media Matters president, omitting the left-wing stance of Burns’ organization: “Eric Burns is joining us now. He’s with Media Matters. His organization does the following -- you know what they do? They basically check to see if what politicians and people like me say on the air is truthful --  is accurate. When we make mistakes, they call us on it. I’ve been called.”

Jim Pinkerton found a graphic way to express his displeasure over Fox News Watch's decision to devote a segment to Lindsay Lohan's latest run-in with the law. With a nod to MSNBC newsreader Mika Brzezinski, who as I chronicled here had torn up a Paris Hilton story in protest, Pinkerton ripped a page or two on tonight's show.

FOX NEWS WATCH PANELIST JIM PINKERTON: This speaks to formula, right?. We all know that Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Ritchie are fighting to get the Anna Nicole Smith slot for this year.

FOX NEWS WATCH HOST ERIC BURNS: Nicole Ritchie, who has just been sentenced herself.

PINKERTON: Exactly. I'm going to honor another formula [as he ceremoniously tears the story in two]. That would be Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC and Jack Cafferty on CNN, who refused to read their copy. It might have been a show, it might have been an act for the cameras, but I'm going to do the same thing and see what happens. Because I don't think this is really worth covering on our segment.

View video here.