Greta Van Susteren

On Thursday night, the Whitman-Walker Health Clinic will hold its annual “Be The Care” fundraiser honoring lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) with its “Partner for Life” award. Once again this year, journalists don't seem to think supporting this is a conflict of interest.

This liberal-Democrat event is being co-chaired by former Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, and she and her husband, current Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia (whose recent book targeted Sen. Marco Rubio) are “presenting hosts.” So is Fox News host Greta Van Susteren. That title goes to people donating $2500 to this activist group.

Former Congressman Allen West (R-Fl.) had some harsh words for America's media Monday.

Appearing on Fox News's On the Record, West said, "I think that we cannot continue to go on believing that all we can do is ask the President what his favorite color is and continue to have these softball interviews" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As America's media predictably fall in line behind any attempts President Obama makes to reform immigration policy, one has to wonder if they're going to recall how he cast the pivotal vote in the Senate in 2007 to block such legislation.

Keeping the press on their toes, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Fox New's On the Record Monday, "In 2007 when we tried to do immigration reform, he folded like a cheap suit" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported, President Obama, in an interview published Sunday by The New Republic, said, "If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you'll see more of them doing it."

Within a few hours, Fox News's Greta Van Susteren struck back:

Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren has reached her boiling point after seeing yet another person at MSNBC hurl a gratuitous, objectively false charge of "racism" at Arizona Senator John McCain for having the gall to believe that Susan Rice would not be a good choice to be the next Secretary of State.

She let it rip in a blog post Monday afternoon:

Greta Van Susteren on ABC's This Week Sunday took exception with a cheap shot at Fox News from Nation magazine's Katrina vanden Heuvel.

This came after vanden Heuvel said of former CIA director David Petraeus, "Don't forget that over at your network at Fox, he was your candidate for a while" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On September 25, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell was joined by numerous other conservatives in an open letter to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN executives protesting their blatant bias and noting that they are encouraging Americans to get their news from other, more balanced sources.

The following night, Fox News's Greta Van Susteren referenced the letter in a segment with fellow FNCer Brit Hume, who noted that while every presidential election he's covered he's observed the media's bias against the Republican candidate, that this year is markedly different in the intensity of that bias (watch the video embedded below the page break):

Donald Trump on Monday had some harsh words for Bill Maher's incessant attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormonism.

Appearing on Fox News's On the Record, the real estate mogul said, "If a conservative Republican made a like statement about somebody else's religion, there’d be hell to pay. It’ll be all over the place. It would be the end of that person's career as you know it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported earlier, David Chaney, a now fired secret service agent involved in HookerGate, boasted on his Facebook page in 2008 as having ogled former Alaska governor Sarah Palin while guarding her.

On MSNBC's Martin Bashir Show Friday, the host scolded Chaney for "making Sarah Palin relevant" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Feeling pressure in the wake of the Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy, Bill Maher recently said he could say disgusting things about Sarah Palin and other women because he's on HBO and doesn't have sponsors.

Apparently the White House doesn't completely agree, for according to Politico, David Axelrod, one of Obama's right-hand men, has cancelled an upcoming appearance on Maher's Real Time:

Earlier today, Van Susteren announced on her blog that she will not be attending the Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner hosted in DC every year. This dinner is being headlined by liberal comedian Louis C.K. who has said a number of offensive statements about Sarah Palin and other women that are far in excess of anything ever said by Rush Limbaugh on the air. Update below: C.K. has pulled out of the dinner

"Another pig….and a media association has hired the pig, Louis C.K., to be their headliner for the big media dinner?  Really?" Van Susteren wrote. Full blog post is quoted below the break:

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich scolded Meet the Press host David Gregory for beginning their interview with a question about the Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy.

On Fox News's On the Record Monday, Karl Rove said of this exchange, "God bless Speaker Gingrich for taking David Gregory out behind the barn and giving him a whooping" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Donald Trump on Wednesday upped the ante to his April call for America to stay in Iraq and take the oil as compensation for our efforts.

Speaking with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News's "On the Record," the real estate tycoon said, "We’ve lost tremendous numbers of great, young, beautiful soldiers. Those families should be given a couple of million dollars apiece from the Iraqi oil" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) got quite a grilling from David Gregory on Sunday's "Meet the Press."

This caught the eye of real estate tycoon Donald Trump who told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren Monday, "Michele was so unfairly treated...I don't think I've seen anything like it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Greta Van Susteren on Sunday took issue with CNN's Howard Kurtz for a report he did on "Reliable Sources."

In it, Kurtz falsely accused Fox News of going "out of its way to avoid a lot of reporting on its parent company's troubles" involving the British tabloid "News of the World" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing on Fox News's On the Record Wednesday night, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich slammed NBC News for its reporting earlier that day that Callista Gingrich was a main cause of the exodus of Gingrich staffers last week: "I believe NBC owes Callista an apology....I think the program this morning was totally irresponsible and personally reprehensible..."     

Host Greta Van Susteren asked Gingrich: "What was her role in the campaign prior to the departure? What is her role now? And had there been any internal conflicts with Callista and any of the people who left?" Gingrich responded: "Look, Callista and I have a very similar relationship to Nancy and Ronnie Reagan. And people blame Nancy Reagan for things that Ronald Reagan did."

Fox News's Greta Van Susteren on Saturday took issue with New York Times columnist Charles Blow's recent piece "False Choice."

In it, the perilously liberal commentator criticized Republicans for wanting to solve the nation's economic woes with a mixture of tax and spending cuts:

After comedian Bill Maher referred to Sarah Palin as a derogatory term for a vagina a little over week a ago, NewsBusters asked, "Can the dreaded C-word be far behind?"

According to the Dallas Voice, this happened on Sunday while Maher was "performing" at the Winspear Opera House (photo courtesy Reuters):

It's certainly not surprising that the New York Times would publish a hit piece on Glenn Beck, but coming hours after CNN's Howard Kurtz spent almost ten minutes bashing the Fox News commentator makes me smell a rat.

Add to this the increased pressure Beck has come up against from MSNBC personalities since Keith Olbermann surprisingly left America's most liberal television news network in January, and one has to wonder what Times author David Carr had in mind with his Monday piece "The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms":

  Twice this week on the Ed Show, MSNBC host Ed Schultz has paid attention to FNC’s Shepard Smith for not approaching the Wisconsin labor union controversy from the right, and also added in FNC’s Greta Van Susteren on Thursday. On Wednesday, the MSNBC host began his regular "Takedown" segment:

Tonight, in the "Takedown" segment, how about Shepard Smith? I’ll tell you what, he's bucking the Fox News Republican agenda by actually telling the truth about what's happening in Wisconsin. But first, Bill O'Reilly made a big admission on his show last night while reading viewer mail about George Soros and fairness and Fox News.

After responding to a clip of Bill O’Reilly enumerating some of FNC’s hosts and calling them "fair," Schultz went after Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade for misreporting a poll on the public’s attitude toward the Wisconsin situation. After gloating over Kilmeade getting the poll results wrong, Schultz eventually admitted to MSNBC viewers that Kilmeade had, in fact, already corrected the mistake.

Despite heavy promotion for MSNBC's Monday presentation of "President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon," Chris Matthews' love letter to the 42nd president didn't get the ratings the network was likely hoping for.

In fact, the special was bested by Fox News's "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren:

Ed Schultz is not completely happy with his new 10 pm Eastern time slot. On his radio show Friday, he said to his Ed-heads: "Where is Ed Friday night? Well they’ve always run the prison junk on Friday night. You, you wouldn’t -- I’m telling you straight, that beats Fox News. Okay, that Lockup and that Jerry Behind Bars, or I don’t know, all that stuff. There is amazing amazing intrigue with prisons."

As usual, when Ed talks about ratings and Fox, he's not exactly right. The Friday night numbers from TV Newser shows that MSNBC's Lockup beat FNC's On the Record among viewers 25 to 54, by 329,000 to 239,000. But among overall viewers, Fox crushed MSNBC: Greta van Susteren drew 1.34 million, while Lockup only had 586,000 viewers.

Whether it's the departure of Keith Olbermann or the weakness of the new prime time lineup, the ratings at MSNBC are collapsing.

Take a look at how this so-called news network fared Thursday:

Chris Matthews on Thursday attacked Sarah Palin for making what appeared to be a hip double entendre concerning President Obama's oft-used State of the Union slogan "Winning the Future."

Even less surprising, the "Hardball" host also went after Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.) slavery remarks - for the third night in a row (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's been less than 24 hours since Keith Olbermann's abrupt departure from MSNBC, and folks are all atwitter with predictions about where he'll end up.

TV critic Tim Goodman's suggestion that the former "Countdown" host should go to Fox News is destined to anger people on both sides of the aisle:

Politico published another Sarah Palin hit piece on Sunday evening, and much like the last one, authors Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei couldn't find one disparaging source to actually go on the record with his or her negative opinions.

Grabbing the article hot off the presses, Fox News's Greta Van Susteren and her guest Palin trashed "all these brave" faceless people as well as the so-called journalists willing to write hit pieces without any named sources (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Mediaite):