Ken Vogel

"Restaurant group nixed backing Cain," reads a teaser headline on Politico's website today, hinting to casual readers that a National Restaurant Association (NRA) endorsement of their former chief Herman Cain was a done deal until Politico dug up an old out-of-court sexual harassment settlement. 

The story was also plastered on the front page of the November 1 print edition, headlined "Restaurant Group Tamps Down Cain Talk."

But in the November 1 story itself, Politico staffers Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel noted that a teleconference on endorsing Cain was done in October prior to Politico breaking its scoop about the out-of-court sexual harassment settlement (emphasis mine below). Left unmentioned in the story is that the NRA is co-hosting with other trade groups a series of town hall forums where members can phone in questions to presidential candidates:

Sadly, Herman Cain’s predictions have come true. In May he stated that he was "ready for the same high-tech lynching that [Clarence Thomas] went through -- for the good of this country." That's what Politico is doing with its unsubstantiated and thoroughly hypocritical hit piece against him. Anyone in the press that gives this story oxygen is equally hypocritical.

In the eyes of the liberal media, Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation. So they must destroy him, just as they tried destroying Clarence Thomas.

At the conclusion of a fractious national debate about the debt ceiling, a truly marvelous moment occurred Monday when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) returned to the House floor after being shot in the head almost seven months ago.

Apparently unable to control himself, the sadly getting more and more disgraceful Chris Matthews chose to mar the emotional homecoming by connecting her shooting to the Tea Party and "the violent level of the right-wing" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews in the course of less than two hours Thursday appeared to radically change his opinion about Shirley Sherrod's pending lawsuit against Andrew Breitbart.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Matthews during the 5 p.m. installment of "Hardball" got into a heated argument with former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean about the contents of the controversial video Breitbart posted at BigGovernment.com on July 19.

For some reason, rather than air that segment as part of the normal 7 p.m. rerun, MSNBC did a live broadcast bringing Politico's Ken Vogel in to discuss the matter with Matthews and original guest Salon's Joan Walsh.

What resulted was a completely different presentation than what aired just two hours prior with Matthews far more critical of Breitbart than he previously was and far more supportive of the merits of Sherrod's case.

Let's look at the videos to see the glaring difference in these segments (partial transcripts also follow with commentary):

Palin Derangement Syndrome was once again on full display at MSNBC Tuesday as Chris Matthews said the former Alaska governor is "campaigning almost for the role of a professional ignorant."

Discussing New York Magazine's cover story published the previous day, the "Hardball" host said to guest Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "I really think, not that she`s unintelligent, but she`s campaigning almost for the role of a professional ignorant, like, 'I don`t know anything, therefore I should be listened to.'" 

He continued, "She seems to aspire to knowing even less."

Not surprisingly, Tucker didn't disagree (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Weasel Zippers):