Michele Norris

NPR Critic Rips Ralph Nader's Novel: 'An Unconscionable Attack on America's Trees'

As proof that National Public Radio can't call anyone a liberal, when they decided to review Ralph Nader's new novel "Only the Super-rich Can Save Us!" on Monday evening's All Things Considered, anchor Michele Norris described him only as a "perennial presidential candidate and social critic." Book critic Alan Cheuse was not kind, calling the 700-page book a waste of forest. The good guys are a small group of the super-rich, including Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, Bill Cosby, and Yoko Ono:

America, to all of them, is a land where there's only liberty and justice for some. Point well made. And they want the pledge of allegiance to truly cover all citizens. From a headquarters in Maui -- yikes -- the social critics really know how to live, they established their movement and set up groups to organize labor and some sympathetic businessmen, an attempt to convince a reluctant Congress and president that their path remains the best way to walk the walk. Corporations tried to block them and defame them to no avail.

NPR Plugs Elizabeth Edwards Book, But Suggests Some Think She 'Perpetrated a Fraud'

In addition to a sympathy tour on Oprah Winfrey’s show, Elizabeth Edwards was interviewed by National Public Radio on Thursday. But All Things Considered co-anchor Michele Norris deserves credit for channeling some of the resentment of voters – both Edwards voters and others – who feel defrauded not just by John, but by Elizabeth, who consented to completely fraudulent media stories celebrating her wedded bliss. Deep into the interview, Norris asked the toughie:

NORRIS: Now, I don't have to tell you this, but you know that some people feel misled by your husband but also by you. You knew about the affair, but you chose to actively campaign for your husband and to present him as a man of character and to present yourselves as the people involved in an ideal marriage. And people are angry because they feel like you've perpetrated a fraud. People are angry because they feel that his campaign had an impact on the election. Is the anger directed at you justified?

Rush Limbaugh = Political Peril? So Says PBS

On Friday night’s Washington Week on PBS, the liberal media elites around the table were still finding political perils for the Republicans in the new era of Democratic dominance. NPR anchor Michele (pretentiously pronounced Mee-chelle) Norris substituted for Gwen Ifill, and noted President Obama still faced fire from the "Republican machinery," symbolized by Rush Limbaugh. Former Time reporter John Dickerson suggested there was real "political peril" in associating the GOP with Rush, as Obama masterfully suggested:

NORRIS: The Republicans are going through a certain amount of party building right now. They emerged from this last election with real wounds that they have to tend to. But there are signs that the Republican machinery is still very strong, particularly the thunder at the right that we hear on the airwaves every week and in the name of Rush Limbaugh.

PBS's Ifill Fawns Over Michelle Obama on MSNBC

Gwen Ifill of PBS, MSNBC News Live | NewsBusters.orgLive from Denver, Colorado, on Monday, Brian Williams hosted the 1 p.m. hour of MSNBC's "News Live" and featured guests Gwen Ifill of PBS and Michele Norris of NPR to talk about Michelle Obama’s upcoming primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention. The segment turned out to be a love-fest of Michelle Obama and her humble roots.

Williams started off the segment by asking the typical question of "what does Michelle Obama have to do tonight in this hall?" Ifill immediately went into gushing mode, first about Senator Ted Kennedy and then about Obama:

Michelle Obama has to find a way to be more amazing and more emotional than Ted Kennedy. If it looks like Ted Kennedy actually walks across that stage tonight and appears in some fashion in person and speaks, it’s gonna be an emotional highpoint. Michelle Obama, however, also has to deal with preconceptions about who she is. A lot of people have never seen anything that looks like a Michelle Obama before. She’s educated, she’s beautiful, she’s tall, she tells you what she thinks and they hope that she can tell a story about Barack Obama and about herself.

Brokaw: Limbaugh's Hurting GOP As Voters Reject Reagan 'Dogma'

Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw dismissed Rush Limbaugh as wrong-headed on Sunday’s Meet the Press. Not only did Brokaw pound the narrative that Reaganism is dead or dying within the Republican party, with a "nomadic herd" of voters "rejecting dogma," but he said Limbaugh trying to debate which candidate is truly conservative "is not going to help the Republican party." As if Tom Brokaw was really interested in that goal. He said the country is "hungry for solutions," as if "solutions" and "conservatism" were antonyms.

Brokaw tried to claim the "nomadic" search for the non-dogmatic is "going on in the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party." Where on Earth would he get evidence for that? As Clinton, Obama, and Edwards all lurch left to secure the MoveOn/Daily Kos vote, they’re rejecting "dogma"? Here’s the exchange from a pundit’s-roundtable segment of the NBC Sunday chatfest: