Jonathan Capehart

Once again, MSNBC shows it has no sense of decency when it comes to its political contributors making extreme statements on its network.  The latest example comes from contributor Joy-Ann Reid, managing editor of TheGrio.com, who asserted that attendees of the annual CPAC conference sympathized with pro-segregationist comments made by one extreme individual attending the three-day conference. 

At issue is video that has emerged from a CPAC panel discussion called “Trump the Race Card” hosted by K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans.  After Smith commented that, “[Frederick] Douglass escaped from slavery. He writes a letter to his former slave master and says, I forgive you for all things you did for me,” an attendee of the panel named Scott Terry then interjected, “For giving him shelter and food?”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Early this morning, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he’d abdicate the papal throne at the end of the month, which is the first time a pontiff will have stepped down in seven centuries.  Such breaking news was bound to set off rampant media speculation about next month's meeting of the College of Cardinals --which will decide Benedict's successor -- and talk in the media about the outgoing bishop of Rome's legacy.

All that is well and good, but on MSNBC, it was the perfect excuse for the liberal network to feature liberal Catholics Chris Matthews and E.J. Dionne scolding the Church as out of touch with modernity on issues of sexuality and women as priests. And that was on top of laughingly treating the election of a new pope as though it were some presidential primary where candidates work feverishly to line up enough delegates to win nomination. Read the relevant transcript below the page break:

Sure, you might be cool with Barack Obama calling up a drone strike on an American citizen.  But don't forget: a Republican [shudder!] could become President!

That was the Washington Post editorialist Jonathan Capehart's warning to Donny Deutsch when the ad-man-turned-pundit proclaimed he had no problem with the president, under desperate circumstances, ordering a drone strike against an American.  View the video after the jump.

The liberal media have spent 12 years feeling sorry for Al Gore.The Man Who Should Have Won in 2000 has had megatons of positive publicity dumped on him, hailing him as the “Goracle.” They cheered as leftists honored him with the Nobel Peace Prize and gave an Oscar to his filmed eco-sermon “An Inconvenient Truth.”

So when Gore sold his left-wing cable channel Current TV to al-Jazeera for $500 million, where were they? Despite the fact that conservatives thought the deal sounded like a ridiculous April Fools joke, the networks had nearly nothing to say. ABC skipped it entirely. CBS and NBC offered a perfunctory sentence on a couple of newscasts.

Despite President Obama’s reelection nearly a month ago, MSNBC has continued to attack Mitt Romney and his family every chance it gets, with the latest being a vicious critique of Ann Romney on the December 3 The Last Word w/ Lawrence O’Donnell.  Mr. O’Donnell brought on Washington Post writers Jonathan Capehart and Philip Rucker to comment on recent articles they penned on the Romneys. 

Mr. O’Donnell started the segment by gleefully claiming that, “They [friends of Ann Romney] said she has been crying in private and trying to get back to riding her horses."  "[G]iven the way you saw the character of Ann Romney unfold during the course of the campaign, what’s your reaction to that?” O'Donnell asked Capehart, a liberal columnist.   [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]

With the election over and President Obama handily winning reelection -- including in photo ID states like Michigan and Florida -- you'd think MSNBC would go silent about voter ID laws, which clearly did not disenfranchise millions of seniors, students, or black voters nor did it turn the election in favor of Romney.

But no, the network will still flog the issue for the forseeable future. Witness Tuesday’s Now with Alex Wagner, which featured a discussion of the Supreme Court’s decision to review Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.   [See video below break.  MP3 audio here.]

The childish unprofessionalism on display at MSNBC is becoming breathtaking.

Martin Bashir on Wednesday jokingly apologized to young viewers that might have been frightened by Charles Krauthammer's face in a video clip he aired (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

In an interview last Thursday with Reno, Nevada, station KTVN, Ann Romney said her chief concern with her husband winning the presidency would be his "mental well-being," adding, "I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness and his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy, in his understanding of what's missing right now in the economy - you know, pieces that are missing to get this jumpstarted. So for me I think it would just be the emotional part of it."

Obviously, in context, she was not suggesting her husband couldn't handle stress well, just that she knows the presidency is a stressful job and would be emotionally taxing on the man she loves. But to MSNBC's Martin Bashir, it was an opportunity to run a segment on his October 1 program where he strongly suggested that Romney may not be mentally fit for duty as president. [MP3 audio here; video embedded at bottom of post]

On Tuesday's NBC Today, correspondent Kristen Welker amazingly shoe-horned a swipe at Republicans into a report about Commerce Secretary John Bryson causing multiple car accidents over the weekend, claiming that a tweet from a GOP super-PAC about the incident was "a sign of how contentious the campaign season has gotten." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

After quoting the tweet in question – of American Crossroads joking about Bryson's odd series of fender-benders – Welker then quoted another tweet shortly after that apologized. A sound bite then followed of left-wing Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart, who eagerly seized on the Twitter postings: "We always knew that it was going to be a negative campaign. But we're beginning to see just how low and how negative it can get."

On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, American Conservative Union president Al Cardenas squared off against a group of left-wing pundits on the subject of President Obama announcing his support for gay marriage. The liberal bloc of guests included MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and Washington Post columnists Jonathan Capehart and Kathleen Parker. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Parker cheered Obama's use of the word "evolving" to describe his flip-flop on gay marriage: "I think that's the perfect word to describe this conversation because the American people are evolving on this issue. And increasingly they're coming on the side of same-sex marriage being the right side of history..."

On Wednesday’s edition of his eponymous program, MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir and his liberal panel continued their staunch defense of Bill Maher while ripping into Rush Limbaugh.  MSNBC contributor and former Democratic National Committee communications chief Karen Finney gave her tortured defense of the media's double standard:

You know, he is a public person. Sandra Fluke is not a public person.  Bill Maher is a public person.  Sarah Palin is a public person.   You could make the argument whether you like what Bill Maher says or not, when you are in the public arena,  you do put yourself out there in a way that a private person asked to testify in Congress should not expect to be attacked.  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.] 

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart got into quite a heated debate about same sex marriage on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday.

When Capehart aggressively tried to grill Christie, the Governor scolded, “I used to be a prosecutor. I don’t know if you did too, but I’m not going to be cross-examined by you this morning” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Appearing on Saturday's NBC Today, left-wing Washington Post opinion writer and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart dismissed a congressional investigation into the Solyndra debacle as just "the GOP looking to scratch, trying to find a scandal in an administration that is remarkably free of scandal."

After co-host Lester Holt noted that "Republicans have seemed to caught a whiff of scandal" with Solyndra, Capehart argued: "...it's the only program that failed, Solyndra. And also, the other thing to keep in mind is that this is a program that was started – a process that was started under President George W. Bush."

If it's Friday, it must be Call Herman Cain an Oreo Day.

While neither the terms Uncle Tom nor Oreo were deployed, for the second Friday in a row MSNBC's Martin Bashir brought theGrio.com columnist Goldie Taylor on his eponymous program to slam GOP presidential candidate for essentially being a self-hating black man.

On MSNBC Friday afternoon, openly gay Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart (while substituting for host Martin Bashir) cited his newspaper competition to mock Gov. Rick Perry’s religious-right stances.

“Timothy Egan has an interesting column in the New York Times,” he insisted, “that pointed out that when Rick Perry prays to God, they tend to not get answered. For example, he prays for rain, they have an extreme drought. He holds prayer services and the markets tank. Is God listening to Rick Perry?”

Filling in for host Martin Bashir during the 3 p.m. ET hour on MSNBC on Thursday, left-wing Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart outrageously compared British Prime Minister David Cameron to deposed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak for asking UK law enforcement to disrupt social media communication among criminals planning violent riots.

Capehart ranted:

If shutting down social networking, or even the internet, over fears that it's used to organize and possibly bring about civil unrest sounds familiar, it should...when things hit a boiling point in Egypt earlier this year, the entire internet was unplugged for fear that people were using it as a tool to bring about the revolution they so badly desired. And how did that attempt at censorship work out, Prime Minister? Not so well.

[Special thanks to MRC intern Alex Fitzsimmons for providing video of the segment after the break]  

As we get closer to Election Day, it's becoming clear that media members aren't going to tolerate any criticism about President Obama whether it comes from the Right or the Left.

On Wednesday, Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart skewered left-wing black activist Cornel West for having the nerve to speak ill of the current White House resident:

Presenting the same-sex marriage debate in Maryland's state legislature as one about "marriage equality," openly gay MSNBC host Thomas Roberts discussed the matter with Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart, who is also openly gay.

The segment, entitled "Cold Feet In Maryland?" aired today at 11:17 a.m. EST.

"Supporters of Marriage Equality Wavering on Bill" the lower-thirds caption read as Capehart described how supporters of same-sex marriage are a few votes shy of passing the bill in Maryland's House of Delegates. A similar bill has already passed the Democrat-dominated Maryland Senate and Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has pledged his signature should the bill reach his desk.

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on Friday amazingly asked, "Since when does Scott Walker represent 'the people'?"

Such happened during a heated discussion on PBS's "The McLaughlin Group" about the goings-on in Wisconsin (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Something rather shocking happened on MSNBC Wednesday.

Not only was a compliment given to a Republican, but on the "Dylan Ratigan Show," it was said by a Washington Post columnist about a GOPer that is actually admired by conservatives (video follows with transcript and commentary):

What would be worse: if Norah actually believes it--or if she doesn't?

Norah O'Donnell has claimed that the Washington Post and the New York Times provide straight-up information, without bias, of the sort that would be appealing to members of the putatively non-partisan "No Labels" group.

Norah's mind-boggling assertion came on today's Morning Joe during a discussion of AOL's acquisition of HuffPo for $315 million.  Reacting to indications that Arianna Huffington may be guiding her creation toward the center and away from its leftist roots, WaPo's Jonathan Capehart argued the move made sense on the theory that people such as those at No Labels are hungry for straight-up reporting. That's when Norah broke in to claim that such unbiased reporting is already being provided by, yup, WaPo and the Times.

View video after the jump.

MSNBC's Chris Jansing featured the liberal Jonathan Capehart on Wednesday to attack a newly released Sarah Palin video as "anti-Semitic." The Washington Post editorial page writer berated Palin for complaining about the media's attempts to link conservative speech to last week's shooting in Arizona.

In the video, the former Alaska governor rejected this as a "blood libel." Capehart smeared, "...That phrasing, that phrase is incredibly anti-Semitic. And no one is calling Sarah Palin an anti-Semite but for her to use that language a lot of people think she has dug a deep hole even deeper."

However, the National Review's Jim Geraghty pointed to an October 30, 2008 Ann Coulter column: Capehart's Washington Post colleague Eugene Robinson complained about "...The blood libel against black men concerning the defilement of the flower of Caucasian womanhood." Was Mr. Robinson using anti-Semitic language? Should he have been "more careful," as Capehart instructed Palin to be?

(See video below. MP3 audio here.)

As it's grown in influence and power, the Tea Party movement is increasingly being attacked by fearful liberals looking for ways to paint it as racist. One of their favorite lines of late is that the desire to "take the country back" is actually veiled bigotry, even a call to return to institutionalized racism. Considering how many liberals used this phrase during the Bush 43 administration, however, this is yet another case of media liberals throwing stones from a glass house.

"We're talking about the extreme portions of the tea party movement and they're overwhelmingly white. Those are the folks that are saying I want my country back," Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart said on today's "Morning Joe". "And it does have that tinge of I want my country back from them." The word racism was never mentioned, but check out the video below the fold. The implication was clear.

No word yet on whether Capehart and every other media personality to parrot this line of attack also think racism animates Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, James Carville, Paul Begala, Nation editor in chief Katrina vanden Heuvel, and libtalker Thom Hartmann. All have used the phrase "take our country back" or some form of it in electoral rallying cries (see details below the fold).

Former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman's declaration that he is homosexual caused gay-left Washington Post editorialist Jonathan Capehart to embrace Mehlman...and compare him to the most hardline segregationist.

Once again, in Sunday's newspaper, racism and opposition to the sin of homosexuality were shamelessly equated on Mehlman's "road to redemption" -- but the Sunday edit left out Capehart's praise for ex-conservative David Brock:

NBC's Today show invited on Washington Post columnists Jonathan Capehart and Michael Gerson to debate whether the current Democratic midterm strategy of blaming George W. Bush would work this November. Capehart, citing an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, claimed it was an "effective" strategy because "Sixty-two percent of the American people polled said that they would be uncomfortable with a candidate who's identified with President Bush."

However that strategy, according to Democrats' own polling numbers, may not be working. According to the Hotline's Reid Wilson: "Dems have tried repeatedly to tie the GOP to Bush's economic policies, which remain highly unpopular. But so far, that hasn't worked, according to officials at the Dem-leaning Third Way think tank." Wilson went on to quote from the Third Way's results: "Just eighteen months after President Bush left office with the nation's economy in historic freefall, two-thirds of Americans now see congressional Republicans and their economic ideas as new and completely separate from those of the former president."

Capehart, also dismissed any notion that the Democrats or more specifically, Barack Obama would be seen as "whining" about the former president as he noted that Obama: "can point to the TARP program, the stimulus program, the health care bill, as things he's doing to try to move the country forward and get it out of the ditch. It would be whining if he didn't have those things to point to."

Jonathan Capehart is the early frontrunner to win my Obama Parrot of the Week, the dubious award I hand out on my local TV show to the media member most wantonly toeing the White House line.

On today's Morning Joe, the Washington Post editorialist, trying to suggest the White House was not involved in the firing of Shirley Sherrod, offered a strained theory of how Sherrod misunderstood what she was being told by a USDA official about the White House wanting her gone.

But when Willie Geist asked the obvious question, Capehart's house of cards largely crumbled, forcing Jonathan to beat a hasty tactical retreat.  It's actually quite amusing: do check out the video.

Appearing on Wednesday's Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC to discuss the Shirley Sherrod controversy, Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei pointed out the NAACP's role in fueling racial accusations: "If you think about this, where this thing started, the NAACP comes out and makes this charge against the tea party movement."

VandeHei rejected the NAACP's claim of racism in the political movement: "It's a very, very diffuse group. You cannot say that they are racist anymore then you can say the Republican Party's racist or the Democratic Party is racist, so it creates this culture and it's a dangerous topic, it's a dangerous fire to light, and then when it happens this is the outcome."

Explaining how the NAACP charge led to the accusations against Sherrod, VandeHei observed: "I'm not defending Breitbart. But conservatives are outraged, they feel like 'listen, you're – because I'm part of the tea party movement you say, therefore, I'm racist.' And so what Breitbart's arguing is 'I want to push back.'"