Grover Norquist

Kossacks are rarely short of hostility and condescension for Republicans, but their blasts at the Grand Old Party and its members seemed especially abundant this past week.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Cokie Roberts and other outspoken liberal journalists are "unelected lobbyists" in the very same sense that they charge Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist is. "From her perch at ABC News," as an ostensible journalist, Roberts is agitating for tax hikes, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell observed on the December 6 edition of Fox News Channel's Hannity. Rather than reporting the news regarding the fiscal cliff proposals by both the president and the Republicans, Roberts and other liberal journalists are cheerleading for the president's tax-and-spend plan.

The founder and president of the Media Research Center, Mr. Bozell was on Hannity for the popular weekly "Media Mash" segment. You can watch it in the video embed below the page break:

Founded by Roy Beck in 1998, Numbers USA is a grassroots organization and an influential lobbyist group that concerns itself with immigration reform and the threat of mass amnesty. As the unemployment rate among the citizenry continues to grow, over one million permanent work authorizations are handed out each year to immigrants -- further saturating an already stagnant labor market.

Beck sat down for an interview with MSNBC.com's Jane C. Timm recently, only to find himself labeled as the "Grover Norquist of the immigration debate." With no intention of portraying him in a positive light, Timm argued that the 1.3 million grassroots members of Numbers USA will not allow Republican congressmen to moderate their stance on immigration reform.  And rather than consider it an anti-amnesty organization, in predictable fashion she presented the group as "racist" in motivation.

Liberals can’t stand Grover Norquist. For years, they have lambasted and name-called Norquist, the president of American’s for Tax Reform: a staunch anti-tax hike group. But now the liberal media is also focused on him, in some cases rejoicing that he might lose his “stranglehold” over Republicans on the issue of taxes.

Left-wing websites like Daily Kos, Salon and The Huffington Post all exude vitriol with phrases like “idiot terrorist,” “anti-tax jihadist,” “enemy of the state” and “anti-tax fetishist.” HuffPo has been gleefully reporting about GOP tax “defectors” for over a year, long before it became the liberal media’s obsession.

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman apologized on Monday for his "inadvertent smear" against Grover Norquist. First reported on NewsBusters, Fineman appeared on the December 3 Hardball and slammed the President of Americans for Tax Reform. The journalist railed, "A long time before the Tea Party existed or had a name, Grover Norquist, the famous anti-tax lobbyist in Washington, was running around beginning to enforce, ayatollah-style, his edict about taxes."

Four hours after the comment, Fineman tweeted an apology, allowing, "Apologies to Grover Norquist and his Muslim wife for inadvertent slur on #MSNBC #Hardball, calling him 'Ayatollah' of GOP anti-tax movement."

During the panel discussion on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer launched an assault against Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist for holding Republicans to a pledge not to raise taxes: "What this is about is avoiding a recession which is going to happen....You're going to sacrifice that on the cross of two percent. Is that what you want?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Norquist, a fellow panelist, shot back: "I'm supportive of the Republican position, which is we need to have economic growth, not higher taxes. If we grew at four percent a year instead of two percent a year, Reagan levels instead of Obama levels, for one decade we'd net five trillion in additional revenue. That would pay down the debt that Obama has run up with the Solyndra stimulus stuff."

In a colorful demonstration of the Washington press corps’ disdain for Grover Norquist and his anti-tax pledge, on Sunday’s This Week, a flustered ABC News/NPR veteran Cokie Roberts blurted out: “It’s...politically smart to cut the knees out from under Grover Norquist. I mean this guy is, you know, who is he? He’s an unelected lobbyist.”

She soon urged that “a certain amount of saying ‘the emperor has no clothes’” about Norquist is helpful. “To say that, I think is very useful.”

CNN's Ali Velshi labeled anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist a "dangerous man" on Friday for blocking a fiscal cliff compromise between Democrats and Republicans.

"Hey, speaking of the fiscal cliff, there's been all this focus on one dangerous man who stands in the way of a deal that could avert it, Grover Norquist. He is neither elected, nor has he ever run for office, so why is Washington so scared of him?" Velshi introduced his segment on Norquist. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell appeared on the November 28 edition of CNBC's Kudlow Report, in his capacity as chairman of For America.

Kudlow brought the Media Research Center founder on to discuss the fiscal cliff and the need for Republicans to stand firm on opposing tax hikes, especially in light of the liberal media's tag-teaming with Democrats. "I can't hardly pick up a newspaper or website and not see anybody blaming [anti-tax-hike activist] Grover [Norquist]," Kudlow observed. You can watch that full segment below the page break. You can also find a transcript courtesy of Media Research Center intern Ryan Robertson below ( MP3 audio here):

Remember when a person had to actually betray our country before he or she would be labeled a traitor?

Now all it takes is steadfast aversion to higher taxes during an era of nosebleed government spending and debt. (video clip after page break)

It’s the Republicans who are in a bind.  They’re beholden to the will of the evil genius Grover Norquist.  They’re scared to death of The Club for Growth. That's the trite liberal media narrative that CBSNews.com's  Brian Montopoli furthered earlier this morning in a piece in which he forecast that the Republicans, and only Republicans, are in for a bruising in the coming weeks should a "fiscal cliff" deal not be finalized. But in doing so, Montopoli conveniently forgets that Democrats have their pressure groups that hold their feet to the fire against any significant spending cuts and/or entitlement reform.

Perhaps Montopoli doesn't watch his own network's evening newscasts. On the Tuesday Evening News, correspondent Nancy Cordes noted that Democrats and President Obama are digging in their heels against any proposed deal which addresses entitlement spending.  In fact, forty-two Democratic members of the House have signed on to a bill that explicitly prohibits cuts to the welfare state.

As the media push Republicans to raise taxes, anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist has been taking a pounding.

This may have reached a high point Tuesday when MSNBC's Chris Matthews and former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY.) actually joked about Norquist drowning (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The conventional wisdom has emerged that in order to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” politicians in Washington must agree to some method of tax increases (“revenue”) – which will be real, even if low taxes are not the cause of our ills -- alongside some kind of promise of spending restraint on entitlement programs, which is our problem, and which no one believes Washington will restrain.

The American left and our “objective” journalists – same thing, I know –  are not helping the nation balance its budget. As usual, these partisan hacks are obsessed with tearing the Republican coalition apart, limb from limb. By empowering the GOP moderates, they drive the conservatives into exile. These liberals are dishonest, but not dumb. They have no intention of honoring a pledge to curtail wasteful spending. What they want is GOP civil war. 

CNN kept pushing for Republicans to abandon Grover Norquist and his anti-tax hike pledge on Monday evening. Piers Morgan belittled Norquist and ostracized him from the debate over tax hikes.

"Why are you so concerned about protecting the vast wealth of America's small percentage of increasingly rich people? Why do you care?" Morgan pressed Norquist, adding, "Everyone laughing at you from afar." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist has suddenly become liberal Public Enemy #1 as the media pressures Republicans to accede to rising taxes. Frank Bruni devoted one of his excessively personal New York Times columns Tuesday to demonizing Norquist: "Is Grover Finally Over?" The text box: "Pledges are for purists, who have no place in a democracy." Is that how the paper feels about regulatory activists like Ralph Nader?

Norquist is evidently guilty of once regaling Bruni ("on a long train ride") with the case for Mitt Romney choosing the governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, as his vice presidential nominee. Bruni used the tale to accuse Norquist of not being a serious policymaker.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, ABC's Jon Karl on Tuesday hyped a "newfound willingness" by Republicans to compromise on raising taxes and a possible abandonment of "anti-tax enforcer" Grover Norquist. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Yet, this didn't appear enough for Karl who lamented that "even Republicans who say they are willing to violate the pledge say they will only do so by closing loopholes, not by doing what the President wants to do, which is raising tax rates." Talking to Norquist on Good Morning America, the journalist quizzed the founder of Americans for Tax Reform on pledges his organization encourages politicians to sign: "If somebody signed this 10 years ago, 18 years ago, 20 years ago, are they still bound by it?"

Billionaire Warren Buffett said Monday that there should be a minimum tax on the wealthy.

Appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, low tax advocate Grover Norquist responded, "If he wants to write a check, he should write a check and shut up about what everybody else should do" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC anchor Diane Sawyer and correspondent Jonathan Karl on Monday night salivated over Republicans breaking Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge. “We did see a sign the paralysis may be ending,” Sawyer relayed over “Tax Revolt?” on screen, touting “a Republican mutiny against a man who had convinced them to take a pledge.” She soon trumpeted the “new sign of flexibility.”

As if that’s a bad thing, Jonathan Karl fretted “the pledge is the biggest obstacle to any deal that would raise taxes.” But he saw hope ahead in how “with a budget crisis on the horizon and a re-elected President insisting on tax increases, some Republicans are now thinking the unthinkable: Ditching the pledge.”

On the November 25 broadcast of ABC's This Week, former Bush advisor Matthew Dowd continued his shift away from the Republican Party by bashing conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, saying he’s a impediment to good government. For good measure he childishly drew the connection to the name of a Muppet character on Sesame Street.

"Grover Norquist is an impediment to good governing…and the only good thing about Grover Norquist is he’s named after a character from Sesame Street…and that’s the last I hope we hear of him,” according to Dowd.  It’s sad that some on the Right feel that fighting for the American taxpayer is “an impediment to good governing.”

Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell sung from the same liberal sheet music on Monday's CBS This Morning as they tried to get Republican Senator Bob Corker to commit to higher federal taxes. Rose wondered if the Corker was "prepared, as others are doing, to...say, I'm going to forgo the [anti-tax hike] pledge because it is outdated and the country's problems are too big." O'Donnell asked the Tennessee politician if he was "willing to also raise the capital gains rate."

O'Donnell also cited "independent analysis" by the Tax Policy Center, but omitted that it is a project of two liberal organizations - the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

CNN broke out the pom-poms on Monday and cheered the Republicans who reneged on Grover Norquist's no-tax hike pledge. CNN contributor John Avlon lauded them as "profiles in courage."

Avlon quipped that now "people don't fear the Grover. And that's a good thing, you know." Anchor Carol Costello clearly liked the GOP mutiny, asking "how excited should we really be by all of this talk of throwing Grover Norquist under the bust [sic]?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

[UPDATE BELOW] CNN's Christine Romans and Soledad O'Brien teamed up on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Tuesday's Starting Point, pressuring him to renege on his pledge not to raise tax rates.

"So would you be fine doing a compromise where you would go against your signature on that pledge?" O'Brien pressed Chaffetz over Grover Norquist's pledge not to hike tax rates and not to increase tax revenues without enacting equal tax rate cuts. She asked him if he would "say this to the pledge" while tearing up a piece of paper. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

After the last jobs report before the election, CNN's Soledad O'Brien tried to be positive even with high underemployment and unemployment rates. On Friday's Starting Point, she ridiculously cast underemployment moving down one tenth of a percent to 14.6 as "improving."

"Underemployment which was 14.7 percent, now 14.6; labor force participation, as well, that's better. Are you feeling encouraged at all?" she asked conservative guest Grover Norquist. "No. This is not even a dead cat bounce," he replied. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist had himself quite a day on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday dispelling liberal media myths.

In the course of about five minutes, Norquist gave a much-needed education to CNN political contributor Hilary Rosen and the Washington Post's Bob Woodward on which political party in Washington is obstructionist (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is clearly scared to death Barack Obama won't be reelected in November.

On Monday's Hardball, the host upped the attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney ending his program with a hate-filled monologue about how the former governor of Massachusetts is a "dangerous," unthinking puppet controlled by neo-cons, the religious right, and Grover Norquist (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Did Erin Burnett just blow off the recall election results in Wisconsin? Even though the Governor Walker won his recall election by seven percentage points, the CNN host questioned the popularity of his "hard-line" tactics on Wednesday because of Obama beating Romney in the exit polls.

Burnett even admitted the exit polls aren't completely reliable, but still asked conservative guest Grover Norquist "So do you think some of these hard-line tactics, you know this kind of my way or the highway, if you don't like it, go jump off a cliff, is not the way to do it?" [Video below the break.]