Hilary Rosen

On Wednesday's Joy Behar Show, HLN host Behar was joined by liberal guests Bill Press and Hilary Rosen to trash the GOP presidential field as the group discussed the latest sexual accusations against Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls. Press took a shot at Gingrich early on as he cracked that Cain would be the frontrunner now if he had had an affair while his wife was "dying of cancer":

For analysis of the special election in New York's 9th Congressional District, CNN hosted Hilary Rosen – a former Democratic strategist and former interim head of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBT civil rights organization.

The network simply listed Rosen as a "CNN political contributor," failing to disclose her past as a Democratic strategist. Not surprisingly, Rosen downplayed the shock of a Republican victory in former Congressman Anthony Weiner's district, which had been Democratic since the 1920s, remarking that "there's too much made of it."

ategist and former interim head of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBT civil rights organization.

The network simply listed Rosen as a "CNN political contributor," failing to disclose her past as a Democratic strategist. Not surprisingly, Rosen downplayed the shock of a Republican victory in former Congressman Anthony Weiner's district, which had been Democratic since the 1920s, remarking that "there's too much made of it."

CNN imported its Parker-Spitzer model of liberal versus slightly moderate to Friday's Situation Room, except reversing the sexes. Anchor Wolf Blitzer brought on Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen and Tea Party-hating columnist John Avlon to discuss the debate in Congress over tax rates and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Avlon took the same position as his colleague Kathleen Parker, that taxes should be raised on some rich, and joined Rosen in calling for the repeal of the controversial policy.

The two CNN political contributors appeared during the regular "Strategy Session" segment 49 minutes into the 5 pm Eastern hour. Blitzer read an excerpt from a recent blog item by Time's Mark Halperin where he wondered if the Democratic Party was "in the midst of a nervous breakdown." Rosen denied that this was the case and mouthed her party's talking points on the tax debate:

On Monday’s Joy Behar Show, HLN host Behar devoted a segment to chiding former Republican House Speaker New Gingrich’s over the top declaration in his latest book that the "secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did," as she charged that Gingrich "throws the word (Nazi) around like its nothing," and asked, "What is he, losing his marbles?"

After playing a clip of Gingrich from Fox News Sunday, with host Chris Wallace taking him to task and reading the quote from his book, Behar asked of guest Susan Molinari, former moderate Republican Congresswoman from New York: "Susan, when Bush was called a Nazi, the right wing went berserk. And yet, Gingrich just throws the word around as if it`s nothing. What is up with him? What is he, losing his marbles?"

But Behar has her own recent history of comparing some conservatives to Nazis. On Monday’s The View on ABC, she invoked Nazi Germany and suggested that those who oppose Arizona’s new immigration law protest by taking a lesson from a legend – which she incorrectly cited as factual – from the days of the Nazi occupation of Denmark:

On CNN’s Sunday Morning program, anchor John King revealed that he thought comedian Wanda Sykes’ barb at Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was in poor taste: “You know, I don’t give personal opinions that often, but I give you one here. I think that one was probably a tad over the taste line, and you could sense that around the room. Even Democrats, who are no fan [sic] of Rush Limbaugh -- a lot of them had a little bit of a cringe at that moment.” King later brought up the issue with Republican operative Mary Matalin and the Huffington Post’s Hilary Rosen on his own State of the Union program, where Rosen defended Sykes’ off-color joke.

King brought up Sykes during a segment with anchors T.J. Holmes and Betty Nguyen just before the bottom half of the 8 am Eastern hour. After briefly mentioning some of President Obama’s act at the dinner, King mentioned how the comedian “did cause some groans and some -- some uncomfortable moments in the room.” Nguyen replied that “we’ve gotten a lot of traffic on our Twitter and Facebook pages” about Sykes’ attack on Limbaugh, and asked how her act went over. The State of the Union anchor answered:

KING: Some people were laughing because most of the jokes leading up to it were very funny, and people were laughing, and then you could sort of sense a little bit of the oxygen come out of the room -- people start to cringe a little bit. You know, I don’t give personal opinions that often, but I give you one here. I think that one was probably a tad over the taste line, and you could sense that around the room. Even Democrats, who are no fan [sic] of Rush Limbaugh -- a lot of them had a little bit of a cringe at that moment.

Did you think listening to President Obama give his address before Congress on Tuesday evening was "like sex?"

Republican strategist and CNN contributor Alex Castellanos did, or at least that's what he admitted to John King on Sunday's "State of the Union" a friend said:

I think, as a friend told me once, that -- listening to Barack Obama give a speech is like sex. The worse there ever was, was excellent.

Honestly, when GOP strategists in the media begin talking this way, one has to wonder where the balance is going to come from in the coming years (video embedded below the fold with CNN produced transcript, h/t NB reader Greg477, file photo):

CNN's Presidential Debate Report Card echoes most polls offered by the main stream media.  It involves 60% Democrats as a sample group, and if your response doesn't agree with their agenda, then some ‘alterations' are made.  In other words, the results are weighted to provide liberals with an edge. 

The Web site's latest report card allows the viewer to rate the performance of both Presidential candidates in Wednesday's debate.  Seems pretty straight-forward, right?  But things weren't working properly for some readers.

In fact, when visiting the Barack Obama side of the report card first, all is seemingly well. Votes are counted and recorded correctly.  Everything seems just dandy.  However, when one visits the John McCain side first, things can get a little peculiar. 

This peculiarity occurred several times early Thursday afternoon, and will be outlined after the break.

When clicking on a choice of grade for McCain's debate performance, I went with an A, as can be seen here with the highlight:

CNN’s Ed Henry introduced a new and odd adage about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s trip to the United Nations on Tuesday’s American Morning. Instead of trying something similar to the "education" line that CBS’s Julie Chen used, the White House correspondent focused on how the McCain campaign was "trying to cram a lot in for Sarah Palin over the next two days in New York:" "It's like speed dating with world leaders. In the span of just 30 hours in New York, Sarah Palin will meet with nine major international players during the U.N.'s General Assembly meetings, from the presidents of Iraq and Afghanistan, to Henry Kissinger and the rock star Bono -- all aimed at beefing up Palin's thin foreign policy chops" [see video at right].

[Audio available here.]

Without going into the grouping of a mega-rock star like U2 front-man Bono with Hamid Karzai, Henry’s "speed dating" line might raise some eyebrows over possible sexism in the media, given how the female Alaska governor is meeting with these nine world leaders, all of whom are men. Katie Couric could be consulted with this matter, given what she said about the coverage Hillary Clinton received during the Democratic primaries.

[Update, 8:25 pm ET: Audio link added below.]

CNN frequent contributor and Huffington Post's political director Hilary Rosen slammed John McCain's vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin as being unqualified on Friday's Newsroom program and accused the Republicans pandering to women, especially Hillary Clinton supporters: "Senator McCain obviously thinks this is going to go a long way to help those women who are attracted to Hillary Clinton. I think if you were attracted to Hillary Clinton, in many ways, it was because she's a qualified woman" (Rosen put emphasis on "qualified" by practically yelling the word). She later accused the GOP of trying to "change skirts and put it on another woman, and have it be an acceptable thing" (audio available here).

CNN placed a total news blackout on Nancy Pelosi’s misrepresentation of Catholic teaching and history on abortion on Sunday’s Meet the Press and the subsequent reaction from several prominent Catholic bishops and from pro-life politicians. The news network did not mention the story at all between Sunday morning, when Pelosi made her remarks, and early Wednesday evening. This contrasts with major media outlets such as AP, Reuters, The Washington Post, and Fox News picking up on the controversy, not to mention the conservative blogosphere and talk radio.

[Update, 10:30 am EDT Thursday: Martin's title at CNN is now political analyst, not contributor, according to an e-mail we received earlier this morning. This must be a very recent development, as Mr. Martin was referred to as "contributor" as late as June 17.]

CNN contributor Roland Martin, when asked on Tuesday’s "Anderson Cooper 360" if Michelle Obama was being held to a different standard than other presidential candidates’ wives, unequivocally placed the blame on conservative men. "No, I think what you have is you've got some weak men on the conservative side who, frankly, don't like strong women. I mean, we saw the exact same thing take place for Hillary Clinton back in 1992.... All of a sudden... Michelle Obama is this angry black woman, when in fact, she's an accomplished woman, a mother, a wife. And so, they are trying to define her in that way, because they don't want to deal with the reality."

CNN’s Campbell Brown, participating in a panel discussion on CNN’s special coverage of the West Virginia primary on Tuesday evening, agreed with the liberal members of the panel and rejected a Republican strategist’s opposition to the idea that John McCain has been receiving a "free ride" over the past weeks. "We can argue he’s [McCain] also not getting a lot of attention right now."

Brown must have forgotten that her own network hasn't exactly given a "free ride" to McCain in the recent past. Earlier in the week, CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, speaking of McCain's environmental record, stated that "he's not as far as to the right as Bush is, but he's pretty close." On April 2, CNN correspondent Dana Bash interviewed McCain and asked if he was "heartless" on the issue of the economy.

"We'll deal with him later." -- Clinton co-chair Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, on Mark Penn.

"It's disgusting for him to do this . . . that's just disgusting." -- Clinton supporter Hilary Rosen.

Mark Penn sleeps with the fishes. Metaphorically speaking only, of course.

On this evening's Tucker, Clinton's chief campaign strategist came in for some industrial-strength opprobrium from two prominent members of Team Hillary for his attempt to flee what might be a sinking ship.

View video here.

Tucker Carlson, on his MSNBC show this evening, describing the Clinton campaign's press relations . . .

TUCKER CARLSON: They're awful to the media: let's be totally blunt. They're awful to the press. They treat the press like enemies. [Clinton Communication Director] Howard Wolfson's always calling around threatening people. Threatening people! News organizations! They do that! People hate you if you do that. I mean, they've earned the enmity of the press, in my view. They have. I mean, it's been hard but they've done it.

View video here.

The affable Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post tried to defuse matters, to no avail . . .