Martin Bashir

You just knew this was bound to happen. Some on the left are trying to blame George W. Bush for Obama's IRS fiasco.  Take for example Mediaite's resident Obama apologist Tommy Christopher, who wrote a much ado about nothing post on May 16 insinuating that this egregious abuse of government power stems from former Bush appointed IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman – and that credit for clearing this whole thing up will go to Obama. 

Christopher penned this piece using Martin Bashir’s May 16 broadcast, which featured Joy Reid of the Grio and Republican strategist Ron Christie.  During the exchange, Christie was forced to admit the Shulman was a Bush appointee, but so what? This scandal happened under Obama. The IRS executed this plan in 2010, and Shulman –and his successor Steve Miller– knew about it since the spring of 2012.  There is no doubt the agency lied about their knowledge of their employees’ malfeasance, and it happened under the Obama administration. Nevertheless, Christopher dutifully wove his spin, concluding:

As NewsBusters has reported over the years, America's media love to hype every serious weather event.

On Monday, shortly after an F4 tornado demolished the town of Moore, Oklahoma, MSNBC's Martin Bashir called it "perhaps the worst tornado in the history of the planet" (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

Here's a classic from the Obama playbook: Whenever you're in trouble, find a way to blame George W. Bush for it.

That concept was in play on Thursday afternoon's edition of MSNBC's Martin Bashir program, when the liberal host and contributor Joy Reid were able to convince their guest, GOP strategist Ron Christie, to admit that Steven Miller, the former acting director of the Internal Revenue Service, was appointed by “the previous administration,” a phrase used to describe Bush.

Apparently the folks at MSNBC have decided that the Benghazi investigation is merely a political ploy by the GOP to hinder Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions in 2016.  Instead of addressing the substantive issues that potentially resulted in a cover-up surrounding the attack, MSNBC anchors and pundits have been going out of there way to protect the Obama administration and smear Republicans. 

Doing her duty to defend team Obama on Martin Bashir May 10 program, soon-to-be MSNBC host and former DNC Communications Director Karen Finney laid the blame for the dead in Benghazi on, who else, congressional Republicans:

But I believe that is what the GOP is most terrified of having to talk about. Because they know they screwed up. Their austerity measures may have endangered this man’s life and they don’t want to talk about that. [See video after jump.]  

What is it with Martin Bashir and his tendency to talk dirty to women guests?

A couple of months ago, we noted the MSNBC host claiming to guest Karen Finney that Senator Marco Rubio, in his questioning of a hearing witness, was seeking to show that he had "very strong testicles."  This evening, taking things a vulgar step further, Bashir told another Dem woman that Americans so detest Congress that they "would rather contract gonorrhea" than show respect for that institution.  View the video after the jump.

In the days leading up to Margaret Thatcher's funeral on Wednesday, the three networks repeatedly hyped hateful, ugly attacks on the former Prime Minister of Britain, describing her as a "polarizing," "divisive" figure. On Rock Center, his low-rated Friday night show, Brian Williams explained that it was "sad, but necessary to report" that, while Americans may like Thatcher, "It's been a harsh couple of days ...Tonight, the number one song on iTunes in Great Britain is the Wizard of Oz classic [Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead], in this case celebrating the death of the Iron Lady." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

On Sunday's Today, Lester Holt began by insisting, "Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is proving to be as polarizing in death as she was in life." He, too, highlighted angry liberals in Britain gleefully playing the mocking song. Leftist journalist Martin Bashir appeared on the program to bemoan the "controversial" Thatcher. He touted, "An online campaign has pushed the song Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead up towards the top of the British music charts."

The media’s irresponsible speculation regarding the perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Boston seems to continue on MSNBC.  Appearing on MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on April 16, fill-in host Thomas Roberts brought on Harvard’s Jessica Stern to make predictions about who might have initiated the terrorist attack on April 15.

Stern began her segment by saying that the kind of bomb used in this attack was published in an al-Qaeda magazine before launching into her speculation that the far-right may be responsible:

Someone at NBC News really has to take a serious look at the things coming out of Martin Bashir's mouth.

On Monday's MSNBC program bearing his name, the host actually asked a Democratic Congressman if a family member of a Republican Senator is going to have to be killed in order to prevent a filibuster on gun control legislation (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Leave it to MSNBC to bring its perhaps most vile ultra-liberal daytime host to make the first comments following the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Speaking with host Chuck Todd and the BBC’s Katty Kay, Bashir sharply smeared the legacy of the Iron Lady, calling her tenure very divisive and one that promoted selfishness. 

The segment began with Bashir -- who has no qualms about calling living conservatives Stalinesque -- giving liberal talking points as to why he disliked the career of Thatcher:

Sometimes liberal bias goes so far it actually becomes absurd, like Roseanne Barr saying that she would bring back the guillotine in order to behead any rich people who wanted to keep more than $100 million of their own money. She set the bar (or the guillotine) higher than her $80 million net worth. But it wasn’t just extreme left-wing celebs like Roseanne and Michael Moore, news anchors and hosts have spewed anti-business, anti-wealth, or anti-capitalism nonsense too.

The Business and Media Institute hunted down some of the most outrageous anti-business, anti-wealth, or anti-capitalism comments by news and entertainment media people in the past year and came up with this list of eight individuals. After all, it is April Fools Day.

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.]

Not surprisingly, most of the folks on MSNBC have being having a field day Thursday ridiculing Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for his historic filibuster the day before.

Doing his part on the Martin Bashir show was MSNBC political analyst David Corn who said that Attorney General Eric Holder’s letter to Paul “had a very silent FU in it” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

In what appears to be a daily theme on MSNBC, the liberal network seems to find new ways to smear the Republican Party.  The latest example from the liberal network was on the March 5 Now w/ Alex Wagner on March 5, when the all-liberal panel took to smearing Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R-Va.) on his bid to be the next Governor of the Commonwealth. 

The liberal panel, including host and former Center for American Progress employee Alex Wagner, spared no mercy in their vicious attack on Cuccinelli.  Wagner introduced the segment with strong vitriolic rhetoric: 

Marcus Davis, a Houston, Texas-based restaurant owner, defends murals of Barack Obama painted on the exterior of his establishment with an AR-15.

Even though he is aware of this, Martin Bashir - one of MSNBC's most vocal gun control advocates - praised the proprietor of The Breakfast Klub during a lengthy interview Thursday (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

MSNBC's Martin Bashir bashed the Tea Party Patriots for creating a picture of Karl Rove dressed in a Nazi uniform as part of a fund-raising email.

While he ridiculed "Conservative hypocrisy on Hitler at its blatant best," Bashir conveniently ignored his own Nazi references to conservatives (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Remember all that talk about a post-racial society if Barack Obama was elected president?

On the Martin Bashir show Monday, the host introduced Lehigh Professor James Peterson as a new MSNBC contributor, and virtually the first words out of Peterson's mouth were, "structural racism," "structural inequality," and "an over-aggressive criminal justice system that is racially biased" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Martin Bashir made a bit of a fool of himself Thursday surprisingly with the assistance of NBC News's Kelly O'Donnell.

When Bashir claimed the just-ended failed cloture vote on Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary was "an example of the fractures in the Republican Party because at the beginning of the day we didn't think that Harry Reid would get any Republican votes," O'Donnell responded, "Actually, not a surprise, not a surprise" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In today's "Can Someone Help Me Get My Foot Out of My Mouth" segment, the astonishingly pompous and self-righteous MSNBC regular Julian Epstein made an absolutely delicious faux pas Monday while excoriating the character and accomplishments of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

In an appearance on the Martin Bashir Show, Epstein derisively described Cheney as "a guy who failed to get Osama bin Laden in Bora Bora" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Martin Bashir once again demonstrates that he represents the bottom of the admittedly deep MSNBC barrel . . .

On his MSNBC show this afternoon, Bashir suggested to a female guest that by his questioning at the Senate confirmation hearing of John Brennan, Senator Marco Rubio sought to demonstrate that he had "very strong testicles."  Bashir elicited nervous laughter and a duck of the head from guest Karen Finney.  View the video after the jump.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is scheduled to be one of Bill Maher's guests on HBO's Real Time Friday.

The folks at Monsters and Critics said it best about this matter in their preview of the upcoming program:

Leave it to liberal host Martin Bashir to bring on the president of Planned Parenthood to trash individuals with religious objections to the ObamaCare contraception mandate.  Speaking with Cecile Richards on February 6, Bashir conducted a Planned Parenthood advocacy session rather than an actual interview.And, naturally, Bashir failed to bring on an opposing viewpoint either in the same segment or a subsequent one.

Indeed, during the chat with Richards -- who was a fixture at the Lean Forward network during last year's "war on women" meme -- Bashir acted as cheerleader for the nation's largest abortion provider. "In yet another sign of his willingness to respect religious convictions, the president has amended the Affordable Care Act in relation to the availability of birth control," Bashir insisted, puffing the president as a magnanimous compromiser when it has been the president's own administration that has put religious organizations into a needless dilemma regarding their First Amendment freedoms in the first place.

In his ongoing campaign to demonize the National Rifle Association and with it defenders of 2nd Amendment rights in general, MSNBC's Martin Bashir featured left-wing Rolling Stone journalist Tim Dickinson to promote his hit piece on the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. Liberal Democratic strategist Julian Epstein, who added more reverb in the anti-gun echo chamber, joined Dickinson for the segment.

Dickinson and Epstein tag-teamed to bash the NRA. Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre was a “menace with a gun,” as he was irresponsible with one during a PR stunt featuring him at the range, Dickinson insisted, cited an unnamed source on background.  For his part, Epstein charged that the NRA accepts “blood money” from gun manufacturers in order to fund their agenda.  Yes, these are the folks Bashir insists just want to have a reasonable debate on gun control in America.

While liberal media outlets are slamming Al Gore for hypocrisy over selling his cable network to a Middle East oil magnate, one would "have every reason to not just criticize but condemn Al Gore for selling Current TV to Al Jazeera," because of a far greater reason. It is "a radical pro-Islamic enterprise that is regularly promoting anti-Americanism," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on the January 31 Hannity program.

"Al Jazeera is owned by the emirate of Qatar" which is "openly endorsing and supporting [terrorist networks] Hamas and Hezbollah." In fact, the father of the late Daniel Pearl -- who was murdered by Islamists -- "is calling for a congressional investigation," Bozell noted. In spite of this, "national security has nothing to do" with the liberal media's outrage, "it's the stupid global warming argument!" [watch the full "Media Mash" segment below the page break]

For the third time in the past year, NBC News has been caught selectively editing video for political gain, with the most recent instance coming on the Monday, January 28 Martin Bashir program.  Bashir ran heavily edited video showing Neil Helsin, whose 6-year-old son was killed in the Newtown shooting, appearing to be heckled by audience members during a legislative hearing on gun control. The chorus of criticism from media critics on the right and left forced MSNBC to backtrack, but not apologize.

On the Wednesday, January 30 Bashir program, liberal fill-in host Ari Melber of The Nation magazine offered this ridiculous explanation:

Martin and many others who saw Mr. Heslin's testimony have called that interruption heckling. Some disagree. He wanted you to hear it in full so you can draw your own conclusion.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC and NBC News--already famous for their perpetual bashing of conservatives and Republicans--are fast acquiring another claim to fame: dishonest editing of news footage to gin up the left-wing outrage machine.

The latest edit appeared on the Monday edition of the “Martin Bashir” program where the father of one of the victims of the Newton, Conn. school shooting was shown supposedly being shouted down by gun rights supporters as he testified before a hearing about banning certain types of guns in the state. Full video below the fold.

On the January 28 edition of his afternoon MSNBC program, Martin Bashir brought on liberal Democratic strategist Julian Epstein to talk about the left-wing’s favorite topic of late gun control.  As the interview progressed, Epstein made a comparison of the firearms industry to Big Tobacco, attacking firearms manufacturers for their role in sponsoring youth sporting events and publications like Junior Shooters.

This whole narrative was spawned from a ludicrous Sunday New York Times piece that basically said instructing kids in safe gun-handling is hazardous to their health.  As my NewsBusters colleague and MRC Times Watch director Clay Waters wrote today:

Yesterday was a historic day. Sure we had presidential inauguration but it was also perhaps the first and only day when loudmouth MSNBC host Chris Matthews actually shut his yap for a few seconds.

The cat that got Matthews’s tongue was being reminded by fellow MSNBC host Martin Bashir of his inane 2008 remark that he gets a “thrill going up my leg” when hearing Barack Obama speak. Watch below for the video.

Discussing Barack Obama's second inaugural address with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) shortly after 4 p.m. EST today, MSNBC host Martin Bashir approvingly noted how the president "critiqued some of the negative things" in American politics today, such as when he said "name-calling is not a reasoned debate" and "I've taken an oath to God and country, not to party and faction."

"I was thinking, these were rebukes, frankly, to House Republicans, in no small degree," Bashir concluded. Of course, to worry about political name-calling is rich coming from Bashir, who on various occasions has compared Republicans and conservatives to bloodthirsty tyrants responsible for bloody political repression. Below is just a short list of Bashir's battiest attacks on conservatives or Republicans: