Martin Bashir

It's becoming clear that MSNBC anchors, hosts, and commentators are allowed to say any defamatory thing they want about the Republican presidential candidates.

On Friday, Martin Bashir asked one of his liberal guests, Goldie Taylor, "Do you think Herman Cain can spell the word 'Iraq?'" (video follows with commentary):

It’s no surprise MSNBC hosts were quick to see “vindication” for President Barack Obama in the death of Moammar Qadhafi, but ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Jake Tapper were just as eager Thursday night to make sure viewers knew the White House was gloating.

“The President was careful not to take too much credit in the Rose Garden,” fill-in World News anchor George Stephanopoulos noted before presuming that “behind the scenes White House officials have to be feeling some sense of vindication.”

Hours before Republican presidential candidates faced off in Tuesday's debate in Las Vegas, Martin Bashir took a swipe at six of them.

On the MSNBC program bearing his name, the host said that since Mitt Romney is "the inevitable candidate," the rest of the contestants are auditioning "for future employment" at Fox News (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The reliably liberal Martin Bashir on Tuesday questioned anti-Semitism at the Occupy Wall Street protests, pushing artist/activist Russell Simmons to respond to bigoted signs and messages seen in New York.

Simmons bristled at having to deal with the subject, replying to Bashir's question by dismissing, "Where'd you get that from? Bill O'Reilly or somebody?" Bashir played a commercial by the Emergency Committee for Israel, featuring a protester screaming, "You're a bum, Jew!" Another can be seen announcing, "Jews control Wall Street." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Martin Bashir devoted his October 17 "Clear the Air" segment to defending MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor from criticism from NewsBusters and The Blaze that she attacked GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain for being in her view ashamed of being black.

Taylor insisted on Friday that Cain would "shed his ethnicity" that "if he could become what I would call the color of water, he would do it" for political advantage.

Bashir failed to find any fault with the "insightful" Goldie Taylor's attack and even doubled down on it with a puerile smear of Cain as being a "post-stupid" candidate, whatever that's supposed to mean [MP3 audio available here; video embedded below page break]:

Martin Bashir's campaign to prove Herman Cain really isn't a black man continued Monday when he accused the Republican presidential candidate of skipping the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument in Washington, D.C., Saturday because he "really doesn't want to be overtly associated with African-Americans" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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 his Thursday program, MSNBC's Martin Bashir collaborated with pro-abortion Rep. Diana DeGette to bash pro-life conservatives as "misogynists" during a seven-and-a-half minute long segment. Bashir claimed that it's "hardly surprising" that the proposed Protect Life Act, which would protect the conscience rights of health care workers, "has earned the moniker the 'let women die act.'"

During the segment, the host repeatedly railed against Republicans for putting the bill up for a vote while "fourteen million Americans out of work." Bashir also adopted the pro-abortion lobby's own talking points from the very start [video clips from the segment below the jump]:

For the second day in a row, MSNBC's Martin Bashir used the death of one man to attack a completely unrelated conservative.

Having disgustingly besmirched Sarah Palin in the middle of his eulogy for Apple's Steve Jobs Thursday, Bashir on Friday went after Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as he paid his respects to Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Herman Cain is now leading the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, and the folks at MSNBC are clearly scared to death.

Following in Lawrence O'Donnell's footsteps who spent 23 minutes antagonistically grilling Cain Thursday, Martin Bashir said of the black Republican's "calm, measured" style Friday, "The people that he needs to win over in order to win a primary, those people do not want to hear from a black man who’s aggressive, assertive, angry" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's becoming quite clear that there's no rock some members of the media won't crawl from under to trash Sarah Palin.

Case in point - MSNBC's Martin Bashir used his final segment Thursday to eulogize Apple's Steve Jobs as "the very best of American exceptionalism" while in the same breath attacked the former Alaska governor as "the very worst form of American opportunism" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Touting Sesame Street's newest muppet character, a young girl living in poverty, MSNBC host Martin Bashir on Wednesday slammed Republican efforts to curb spending and urged: "...perhaps they do well to change the channel just for a moment from Fox News to PBS.... on Sesame Street they will see the sad face of a hungry doll whose family doesn't have enough money to buy food." [Audio available here]

Bashir began his rant by announcing: "One in four children under the age of 6 now lives in poverty.....And it's gotten so bad, that even Sesame Street can no longer ignore it." Despite Barack Obama being in the White House, Bashir attacked the GOP for that statistic: "...as Republicans in Congress push to slash subsidies for home heating oil and work with all their might to cut off unemployment benefits..." [View video after the jump]

"Grab a blanket, kids. Congress wants to cut your home-heating benefits," MSNBC's Martin Bashir teased viewers of his October 4 program as he went out to a commercial break with Dean Martin's "Baby It's Cold Outside" playing in the background.

Upon his return from break, Bashir tag-teamed with Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) to bash Republicans are heartless bastards who want children to shiver through the coming winter (video follows page break; emphasis mine):

In an outrageous rant during his 3 p.m. ET hour show on MSNBC on Friday, host Martin Bashir actually attempted to blame budget cutting by Republican lawmakers for a deadly outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe: "John Boehner and his Republican majority decided to gut the food safety and inspection service....Cut, cut, cut. Now the results are in. 16 people have lost their lives."

Bashir went on to blame free market principles in general for the outbreak: "Republicans in Congress talk proudly of their commitment of laissez-faire economics, where government gets out of the way and everything works perfectly. You try telling that to those who ate melon with a side of listeria."

View video after the jump

For the second day in a row, MSNBC's Martin Bashir made a statement involving New Jersey governor Chris Christie that should offend Americans on both sides of the aisle.

Discussing Republican presidential candidates with conservative author Pat Buchanan Thursday, Bashir asked, "Why do you think Mr. Christie is the great white hope?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There are times when I am truly sickened by what I see from the current breed of television anchors and hosts. Today is one of them.

Martin Bashir on the MSNBC program bearing his name finished Wedneday's show with a segment attacking New Jersey governor Chris Christie concluding, "Go home, Mr. Christie. Your state needs you much more than America does" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

British-born MSNBC afternoon anchor Martin Bashir devoted his September 20 "Clear the Air" commentary to clouding the issue of raising taxes by citing the clause in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution's that bans Congress from granting titles of nobility (video follows page break):

Someone at MSNBC should tell Martin Bashir that he might not agree with Pat Buchanan's politics, but he's not one to challenge about a matter of fact.

On the show bearing his name Thursday, Bashir mistakenly tried to refute the conservative's claim that former Mayor Ed Koch accused President Obama of throwing Israel under the bus (video follows with transcript and commentary):

British-born MSNBC Martin Bashir took the time in his September 7 program to lament the absence of gun control as a major issue in the 2012 presidential contest and to take aim in particular at Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), painting him as cavalier at best and heartless at worst when it comes to the victims of crimes committed with guns.

Republican Congressman Joe Walsh and left-leaning MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir got into a contentious exchange over Barack Obama on Friday. The Congressman bluntly explained to Bashir, "Your profession did not vet [Obama]..."  See video below. MP3 audio here.

Bashir became visibly upset as he discussed Walsh's plan to skip the President's jobs speech next Thursday, implying racism as the reason. The anchor theorized, "I am asking you, are you able to be as disrespectful to the office of president by simply walking away from something that every member of the Congress is going to attend? Is that also because he's black?"

Update (17:48 EDT): Nagin was also interviewed on today's "Hardball," which was guest-hosted by Chris Jansing.

Teasing his Friday 3 p.m. ET hour show on MSNBC, anchor Martin Bashir proclaimed that he would have a special guest on to discuss incoming Hurricane Irene: "Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin joins us to explain what leaders must do to avoid the mistakes that were made six years ago." [Audio available here]

Bashir was "delighted" to have Nagin on the program and began by asking about the response of political leaders to the storm: "Is it your view, sir, that they are handling preparations for this hurricane in the best way possible?" Bashir followed up by wondering: "...with the benefit of your experience, what are the critical actions that you think need to be taken to ensure that Hurricane Irene, or any other act of mother nature, does not become Katrina, Part II?"

Thanks to Scott Whitlock for providing video after the jump

Despite the poor economy, MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Thursday saw only problems ahead for the 2012 GOP presidential candidates, grilling Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.

Singling out Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, Bashir chided, "...There are a large number of people in this country who find some of the beliefs and comments and commitments of these individuals to be, frankly, very, very difficult to accept."

The media attacks on the Tea Party are becoming truly deplorable.

On Wednesday, MSNBC's Martin Bashir actually brought on an addiction specialist to analyze the nation's most powerful conservative movement, and his opinions were nothing less than vile (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If all you knew about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization controversy was what MSNBC's Martin Bashir told you on August 3, you'd only know that it exists and that House Republicans are at fault.

Bashir claimed the thousands of furloughed FAA workers should blame Republican intransigence, but the truth is that the Democratic-controlled Senate let funding for the agency expire over proposed changes to airline unionization rules and cuts in subsidies to rural airports, including one in Sen. Harry Reid's home state of Nevada.

On Monday's "Martin Bashir," MSNBC analyst Jonathan Alter proclaimed that America would "be in a depression now if there had been a balanced budget amendment in 2009." Bashir, concurring with the former Newsweek editor, added, "Indeed."

Reacting to Rep. John Boehner's (R-Ohio) press conference about the debt-ceiling deal, Alter and Bashir mocked the speaker's suggestion that a balanced budget amendment is needed to "handcuff" Congress.

[WMV video here. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC's Martin Bashir not-so-subtly suggested Wednesday that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is a "baby" who should "go the f*** to sleep" and let Democrats deal with the debt ceiling issue.

Anchoring the afternoon program that bears his name, Bashir excoriated Boehner's latest deficit-reduction proposal, which he dubbed a "ludicrous lullaby," blaming the Ohio Republican for "this ridiculously prolonged, tortuous, and confused attempt to raise the debt ceiling."

[Video follows page break]

Quoting a British politician who claimed "right-wing nutters" pose the most serious threat to the international financial system, MSNBC's Martin Bashir asked his conservative guest on Monday: "He's right, isn't he?"

The MSNBC anchor posed this question at the end of a contentious interview with Tea Party Nation Founder Judson Phillips, after asking Phillips four times whether he wanted the U.S. to default on its debts.

[Video below break]

Frank Schaeffer -- the embittered liberal progeny of the late evangelical Christian scholar Francis Schaeffer -- appeared on MSNBC's "Martin Bashir" program this afternoon where he availed himself the opportunity to spew forth more venom against American evangelicals, who tend to vote for conservative Republicans.

Schaeffer was ostensibly brought on to react to new polling data that show 56 percent of Americans believe it's important for presidential candidates to have strong religious beliefs, even if those beliefs don't square with the voter's personal views.

In the process of the interview, Schaeffer indirectly compared evangelical Christians to the Taliban as he slammed "faith-based politics" (emphasis mine):

MSNBC's Martin Bashir argued on Wednesday's Morning Joe that the News of the World hacking scandal demonstrates why government should be allowed to regulate private ownership of media. "All of this reveals the fact that people like Michele Bachmann, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, talk about government getting out of the way, well this is what happened in this country. In 1968, Rupert Murdoch bought one newspaper, and government got out of the way. Then he bought a second, then he bought a third. "