Michele Bachmann

Dan Rather this weekend said Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is "for real" and that he can "imagine a scenario where she actually gets the Republican [presidential] nomination."

Maybe even more surprising, on the syndicated program bearing his name, Chris Matthews agreed (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

When MSNBC's Chris Matthews isn't calling a potential Republican presidential candidate racist, he's calling them idiots.

On Tuesday's "Hardball," after one of his guests said, "We shouldn’t forget Sarah Palin" as a possible candidate, the host arrogantly shot back, "I think she’s proven herself to be profoundly stupid" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For weeks MSNBC's Chris Matthews has been complaining about the lack of declared GOP presidential candidates.

On Tuesday's "Hardball," former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele exposed Matthews' hypocrisy concerning this matter marvelously demonstrating that once any of the possible candidates formally enters the race, the avowed liberal commentator is just going to trash him or her (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN contributor John Avlon, labeled an "independent," was all but sounding the death knell for 2012 Republican presidential hopes on CNN Thursday. Avlon took Republican criticism of notable figures such as Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann and spun it to tout that the GOP is in trouble.

"This is the sound of Republicans getting nervous," Avlon ominously sounded. "It really hurts the Republican Party in the long-term."

Anchor Carol Costello opened the segment with a clip of Bush's former senior advisor Karl Rove dismissing Donald Trump as an "inconsequential candidate" over his "embrace of the 'birther' issue." Costello added that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Sarah Palin are under fire from other Republicans and conservatives for some of their own views.
 

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday continued to obsess over the birther issue, foisting Barack Obama's certificate of live birth onto guest Michele Bachmann. Holding up a copy, the co-host lectured, "It's certified. It has got a certification number. It has got the registrar of the state signed. It has got a seal on it."

After Bachmann replied that the document "settles" things, an anxious Stephanopoulos followed-up, "So, it's over? This story is over." The last time the Republican congresswoman appeared on GMA, February 17, 2011, the co-anchor insisted on similar declarations from Bachmann: "Can you just state very clearly that President Obama is a Christian and he is a citizen of the United States?"

GMA has repeatedly hyped and fixated on the birther issue. Yet, the ABC program has not required that liberals denounce 9/11 truther conspiracies.

(See video below. MP3 audio here.)

CBS's Jan Crawford spotlighted the Tea Party movement on Monday's Early Show, but also played up how it might present a "challenge" for potential Republican presidential candidates due its apparent unpopularity: "Recent polls show 47% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the movement. So candidates looking for Tea Party votes have to be careful not to alienate moderates."

Midway through her report, after noting the would-be GOP presidential candidates, such as Tim Pawlenty and Donald Trump, who showed up at some of the weekend rallies, the correspondent turned to possible downside that these politicians might face in appealing to the Tea Party, playing up a result from a recent CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll:

Remember all that talk a few months ago about toning down the violent rhetoric on the airwaves in the wake of the tragic shootings in Tucson?

On HBO's "Real Time" Friday night, Bill Maher actually joked about a wall collapsing on Congressman Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Interviewing Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer pushed for tax increases in the 2012 budget: "...the President's expected to call for raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans – some estimates say that could raise some $700 billion, why couldn't that money be used to pay down the debt?"

Moments later, Lauer added: "...like Congressman Ryan is suggesting, Medicare needs to be revamped....that affects the elderly and the poor...why shouldn't the burden be equally shared? Why shouldn't we put some of that burden on the wealthy and corporations?"

As NewsBusters reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews went on quite a Republican-hating rant Monday linking murder and violence in Afghanistan to GOP "zealots at home."

Such conservative bashing continued till the end of "Hardball" when the host finished with a two minute segment excoriating the Republican Party as one where "you can't say you believe in science, you can't say you believe in evolution or in climate change or in gay rights, or even in separation of church and state" concluding "Maybe this is God's will, that Obama not have a reasonable opponent out there" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The liberal media are on a full-court press to make the entire GOP presidential candidate field look hapless and unelectable.

Doing his part Friday was New York magazine's John Heilemann who on "The Chris Matthews Show" said the Obama campaign thinks their guy has "more talent in his little finger than any of these Republicans" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A consistent media meme in the past few months has been that Republicans are asking for Draconian cuts to the federal budget.

On Friday's "Inside Washington," Charles Krauthammer didn't let the host get away with furthering this nonsense (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Undeterred by criticism that his recent attacks on Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann have gone over the line of comedic decency even for him, HBO's Bill Maher continued his sexist assault on two of the leading conservative female politicians Friday.

As part of a joke mocking Donald Trump's recent lapse into birtherism, the "Real Time" host displayed mock birth certificates of Palin showing that she was born "Healthy, alert and pregnant" while Bachmann's read “Stupid, even for a baby” (video follows with commentary and transcript):

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Wednesday's Today show, startled Michele Bachmann as he tried to convince her that Obama's strategy of bombing Libya was a good way to show support for the rebels as he pressed the Republican Minnesota Congresswoman "If there are flickers, as you say, of al Qaeda among the rebels, would it not be a sign to them or showing them that the United States has compassion and we are willing to use our military might to help all people?" Bachmann was taken aback by the thrust of the question as she responded: "Compassion for al Qaeda?"

Lauer scrambled to clarify himself, insisting he meant the U.S. would be showing compassion for "civilians in Benghazi." Bachmann pointed out to Lauer: "Well of course we have compassion for people. That is not the point," as seen in the following exchange:

(video, audio and transcript after the jump)

After comedian Bill Maher referred to Sarah Palin as a derogatory term for a vagina a little over week a ago, NewsBusters asked, "Can the dreaded C-word be far behind?"

According to the Dallas Voice, this happened on Sunday while Maher was "performing" at the Winspear Opera House (photo courtesy Reuters):

After getting laughed at by Monica Crowley for making a foolish comment about the disparate ways Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan handled Libya during their respective presidencies, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift doubled down on this weekend's "McLaughlin Group" by saying a Tea Party candidate can't win a national election.

Crowley was once again up to the challenge and correctly pointed out, "If the government keeps spending like this, that Tea Party movement is only going to accelerate" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, the National Organization for Women's weak response to Bill Maher referring to Sarah Palin as a highly derogatory term for a woman's vagina in no way discouraged the "Real Time" host or the television network he represents from making these sexist attacks.

Proving this point, Maher called Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) bimbos on Friday's show (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Tuesday, "The 3,400 members of the mainstream media are part of the Obama press contingent."

Appearing on the "Laura Ingraham Show, " Bachmann addressed all the liberal hyperventilating that occurred after her gaffe about Lexington and Concord being in New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Lawrence O'Donnell on Monday accused people that voted for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) last November of being "shockingly ignorant," and said one of the reasons was because her district is 92 percent white.

This happened as "The Last Word" host went on an almost seven-minute rant about Bachmann's gaffe this weekend concerning Lexington and Concord being in New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday scolded New York Times columnist David Brooks for his snobby, elitist treatment of the Tea Party.

Ingraham began her admonishment, "Your judgment on the Tea Party has been fairly brutal" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Leave it to Chris Matthews to look at a typical, by the book, recitation of talking points appearance by Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and describe it as a sign of conspiracy or lunacy. On Monday's Hardball, after Matthews played clips of Bachmann on NBC's Meet the Press, he wondered if she was trained by "a group in Virginia that teaches right wing people" to "use the most wild language" and repeat it or was she simply "behaving like a zombie?"

Matthews, who is prone to make cinematic comparisons, went on to say the conservative congresswoman's appearance reminded him of The Manchurian Candidate as he questioned Democratic Representative Loretta Sanchez: "Is there some kind of playing card...A queen of diamonds, like in The Manchurian Candidate, where you flash the queen of diamonds and this congresswoman colleague of yours goes into that trance like repetition of those words?"

(video, audio and transcript after the jump)

The way David Gregory was carrying on during today's Meet The Press, you would have thought that he was irked by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's revelation of only 105 thousand dollars in secret ObamaCare funding instead of the actual astounding 105 BILLION dollars. A clearly irritated David Gregory kept insisting that he only wanted to stick with "narrow budget questions" and acted increasingly frustrated as Bachmann kept returning to the 105 BILLION dollars of hidden ObamaCare funding that he did not want to even briefly talk about.

Here is a portion of the interview of a clearly upset David Gregory as you can see in this video who obviously did not want to deal in the slightest with Bachmann's revelation which would have been major news to the viewing public as well as a more detailed transcript below the fold:

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN: ...There was a Congressional Research Service report that just was issued in February, and we discovered that secretly, unbeknownst to members of Congress, over $105 billion was hidden in the Obamacare legislation to fund the implementation of Obamacare. This is something that wasn't known. This money was broken up, hidden in various parts of the bills. And we have worked very hard to discover $61 billion in cuts that we could put forward, get to the president. So, in effect, David, we've taken one step forward and two steps back because we've found now that $105 billion had already been implemented.

MR. GREGORY: All right. But that--but, Congresswoman, you heard the president this week offer...

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker said Friday New Jersey Governor Chris Christie won't run for president next year because "he realizes there’s still a crazy tax that a Republican nominee has to pay at this point."

This in Tucker's view stated on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" includes cozying up to the birthers, coddling Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, and denying manmade global warming (video follows with transcript and commentary):

George Stephanopoulos on Thursday followed in the footsteps of other journalists who are lecturing Republicans on the need denounce birthers and declare Barack Obama a Christian. The co-anchor quizzed Michele Bachmann four times on the President's faith and citizenship.

He pestered, "You know, a sizable number of GOP primary voters are questioning President Obama's faith and citizenship. Can you just state very clearly that President Obama is a Christian and he is a citizen of the United States?"

Stephanopoulos, like NBC's David Gregory, found no answer sufficient. The ABC host snapped, "Do you believe it?...I'm just asking if you believe it?" The Republican representative insisted she takes "the President at his word" that he's a Christian. This still wasn't enough for Stephanopoulos.

Chris Matthews got another thrill up his leg for Barack Obama Tuesday.

As you read and/or watch the most-recent presidential gushing and fawning from the "Hardball" host, keep telling yourself that this man believes his program is "absolutely nonpartisan" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Jon Stewart on Thursday marvelously lampooned Keith Olbermann and all his former colleagues that can't fill the "Olbermann-shaped hole" his departure has left at MSNBC.

The "Daily Show" host began the segment (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

Having mercilessly attacked Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for six days in a row, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday set his sights on conservative talk show host Glenn Beck.

After an opening teaser in which the "Hardball" host referred to "the right-wing freak-out over Egypt," Matthews ended up doing two segments about the Fox News star in which he and his perilously liberal guests called the object of their disaffection a "fear mongering," "completely crazy," "full mooner," "Captain Queeg" (videos follow with partial transcripts and lengthy commentary):

In just one segment, on Tuesday's Hardball, host Chris Matthews managed to hypocritically use violent "gun play" language, attack Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin and even likened the Tea Party to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Matthews, who made many absurd pronouncements on tonight's show, saved his zaniest comment for the Tea Party as he actually compared their potential primary challenges of Republicans to the Muslim Brotherhood going after Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, as he asked GOP strategist John Feehery: "So the Muslim Brotherhood has a parallel role here with the Tea Party, they're the ones who keep you honest and decide whether you've stayed too long?"

Before that charge, Matthews, who has frequently condemned Sarah Palin for her use of "gun play" language, used his own violent imagery to depict a struggle between the GOP and the Tea Party. In a teaser, Matthews claimed "the Tea Party is out for scalps" and then in the ensuing segment questioned if, by joining with the Tea Party, the GOP was "dancing while they shoot at their feet here?"

Matthews also went after some of his favorite targets, Bachmann and Palin, as he accused the Minnesota Congresswoman of "strange behavior" and applauded his Republican guest for thinking the former Alaska governor wasn't "worth anything."

(video, audio and transcript after the break)

The merciless attacks on Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) continued for the fifth day in a row on MSNBC's "Hardball" Monday.

These came despite a liberal women's rights advocate telling Fox New's Megyn Kelly hours earlier that Chris Matthews' treatment of the Congresswoman is sexist and "over the top" (video follows with transcripts and commentary):