Paul Ryan

After Paul Ryan released his last two years of tax returns late Friday, reporters on ABC and CBS not only made sure to point out that Ryan paid a higher federal tax rate than the wealthier Mitt Romney, but also noted that he had supplied more than two years to the Romney campaign as part of the vetting process, as if to put additional pressure on Romney and Ryan that they should make more than two years public.

The Media Research Center is out with its latest edition of Notable Quotables, our bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. There's no subtlety in the latest batch of quotes, as liberal journalists greeted newly-minted GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan by screeching about how he will supposedly “slash” the federal budget, slamming him as a “zombie-eyed granny starver” who would “rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans.” Meanwhile, MSNBC ramped up the hysteria about a potential repeal of ObamaCare, insisting that if Mitt Romney is elected, “a lot of people will die.”

Some of the choicest quotes and videos are after the jump; read the entire issue at MRC.org, or sign up for automatic e-mail delivery every two weeks.

After some of the recent Obama-loving/Romney-bashing Newsweek covers, the one hitting newsstands Monday is guaranteed to turn some heads.

Under the picture of our dear leader are the words, "Hit the Road, Barack: Why We Need a New President."

Ted Cruz, Texas's Tea Party candidate for Senate, gave a rather embarrassing education to the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday regarding President Obama's budget proposal.

When Dionne had the audacity to call it "a serious plan," Cruz marvelously replied, "It got zero votes. Not a Democrat in the Senate voted for it. Not a one" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If we're to believe a report by Heidi Przybyla at Bloomberg News on August 13, the country might be operating under bipartisan deficit-reduction framework instead of being without a budget for over three years if it weren't for Wisconsin Congressman and GOP vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Her lead: "Representative Paul Ryan was a pivotal figure in killing the 2010 Bowles-Simpson agreement, which Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney now holds out as a model for putting America’s fiscal house in order."

There are many deceptions and unsupported assertions in Przybyla's report, but before getting to some of the others, many of which relate to her inability to recognize objective truth, the two most important related to her treatment of President Obama's role in the rejection of Simpson-Bowles:

On Saturday's World News, ABC correspondent Jake Tapper explained President Barack Obama's deceptive strategy of trying to get voters to believe that Mitt Romney supports lowering his own tax rate to less than one percent by attacking a tax plan which his running rate, Paul Ryan, once proposed in Congress which is not part of Romney's own plan.

As he introduced a deceptive soundbite from President Obama, host David Muir raised the issue:

Contrary to popular belief, 'Paul Ryan is not Freddy Kruger'. Mainstream media outlets wasted little time in their attempt to discredit the newly appointed vice presidential candidate, while practically ignoring every new gaffe committed by the current one. The constant and vicious attacks of his conservative views and budget proposals mirror the ordeal Sarah Palin endured, but the career congressman has dealt with it all before. 

Seemingly everyone has an unfavorable opinion that they're anxious to share, including musicians like Rage Against the Machine lead guitarist Tom Morello. In one of his many op-eds for Rolling Stone, the Nightwatchman called Ryan "the embodiment of the machine our music has been raging against for two decades." 

NBC's Late Night host Jimmy Fallon on Friday asked former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) if she's ever seen Paul Ryan with his shirt off.

This came in response to Pelosi saying of her fellow Congressman, “I don't really know him well because I've never been to the gym” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Appearing as a panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas brought up the term "death panels" as he advised that America will some day have to stop "spending so much money" on people who are near death. As he brought up a few examples of reforms for American health care, he ended up proposing:

Paul Ryan is radically anti-woman, anti-senior citizen, and if he and Mitt Romney are elected and ObamaCare is repealed, people will die! That, in a nutshell, is the liberal media's spin about Gov. Romney's pick of the Wisconsin Republican as his running mate, with the latter claim being made recently by MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter, formerly of Newsweek.

"That sleazeball did exactly accuse Romney of murder!" NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell exclaimed on the August 16 Hannity program, adding that by Alter's logic, it would be the majority of Americans who voted for Romney's presidency who would be complicit in "murder." "Where is that talk... where is the discussion of civility? Where are those high-minded people talking about civility now?" the Media Research Center founder asked. [watch the full "Media Mash" segment in the video embedded below]

It appears now that Paul Ryan has been named Mitt Romney's running mate, CBS Late Show host David Letterman feels obligated to attack him every evening.

On Thursday's program, Letterman spent two minutes on the Wisconsin Congressman including accusing him of being "the grandson of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not man who was able to swallow his own face" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

For well over a week now, the folks on MSNBC have been throwing conniption fits over the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate.

On Thursday, Hardball host Chris Matthews actually said, "They’ve created a real Frankenstein’s monster in putting this guy on the ticket" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Political reporter Stephanie Condon painted Republican vice presidential pick Paul Ryan as an "anti-abortion" extremist in a Wednesday report for CBSNews.com. Condon forwarded the talking points of the pro-abortion left as she zeroed in on Ryan's support of personhood legislation: "Supporters of reproductive rights have loudly pointed out that this type of legislation would not only outlaw abortion but potentially some forms of contraception or even in vitro fertilization."

The online correspondent hyped that "personhood initiatives are so extreme that even card-carrying conservatives like former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour have expressed concerns that they go too far." Condon repeatedly used variations of the "conservative" label in her article, but didn't once identify the left-wing politics of pro-abortion groups.

New York Times fashion reporter Cathy Horyn's "Critics Notebook" entry on Paul Ryan, "Embracing The Right Fit," (get it?) made the front of Thursday Styles section criticizing Ryan's fashion sense and offensively suggesting that Republicans (but not Democrats) need hot politicians to salivate over:

While the media "are treating him as a serious and substantive person," they are erroneously tagging Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) "as a budget slasher," which is patently false, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham told Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney this morning.

"There isn't any slashing [in the Ryan plan]. There's a reduction in [the rate of] growth" of government, the Media Research Center director of media analysis noted. [watch the full segment below]

Earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted how the Associated Press's Steve Peoples and Politico's Juana Summers could only find hundreds of people attending GOP vice-presidential pick Paul Ryan's Wednesday appearance at Oxford, Ohio's Miami University. Perhaps even more troubling is how they somehow chose an odd angle for their coverage, namely that Ryan has supposedly avoiding talking about Medicare in his stump speeches -- and both wrote "that changed" in describing its first mention.

It seems more than a little odd that two establishment press reporters from supposedly separate and independent media outlets both apparently focused for four days on when Ryan would mention the word "Medicare" on the campaign trail. Summers even made it her headline, while Peoples seemed to want to convey the impression that Ryan has been afraid to mention the word:

UPDATE: In its video report, but not in its accompanying text, Cincinnati Local 12 News reported that the crowd was over 6,000, and that "a whole line of people were turned away, because there wasn't enough room."

It would appear that Politico's Juana Summers and the Associated Press's Steve Peoples have an unusual and nearly identical problem with math. Yesterday, they could have and should have gone to the Secret Service for help. (Also, go to this subsequent post about how the pair also played a very odd duet in supposedly independently written stories, both attempting to portray Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan as avoiding the topic of Medicare on the campaign trail.)

Summers wrote that Ryan's appearance yesterday at Miami University drew "several hundred supporters gathered for an outdoor rally." Peoples claimed it was "hundreds of supporters." After the jump, I will note several media outlets which reported that the crowd numbered in the "thousands" -- including one which cited a Secret Service estimate of 5,500.

Comedy Central's Jon Stewart asked NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams the $64 trillion question on Wednesday's Daily Show.

"What is preventing the media from discussing more substantive issues before the introduction of Paul Ryan, and then since the introduction, and then, let's say, you know, after the election?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There were some stark contrasts on the campaign trail in Wednesday's New York Times. After Vice President Joe Biden warned a racially mixed south Virginia audience of the Republican ticket: "They're going to put y'all back in chains." A five-paragraph brief on Biden's comments by Rebecca Berg made page A14 Wednesday, including a brief quote of Mitt Romney's counterattack on the Obama camp in Chillicothe, Ohio, under the soporific headline "A Metaphor Draws Notice."

Berg helpfully corrected Biden's grammar by removing the veep's condescending second-person plural Southernism ("y'all"), replacing it with the more standard "you all." By contrast, the exchange was highlighted in a front-page Washington Post article, which retained Biden's contraction.

Beginning an otherwise positive story on Wednesday's NBC Today about vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's intense exercise regimen, P90X, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell managed to work in this jab: "He's doing a workout you've probably seen all over late night TV. Call it extreme. And we're not talking about his politics here." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Was Soledad O'Brien borrowing from liberal Talking Points Memo again? She was caught red-handed doing so Monday night, and her challenge to Romney's budget on Wednesday's Starting Point seemed awfully similar to TPM's take on the matter.

O'Brien not only echoed TPM's liberal criticisms of Romney's budget, but featured a Fox News clip that TPM quoted from the heart of its piece titled "Paul Ryan Can't Escape Own Budget Package In Debut Solo Interview." [Video below the break.]

In an interview with Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie slammed Paul Ryan's proposed budget: "And the Ryan budget makes some very hard decisions and has some huge spending cuts....But how can you justify in the Ryan budget defense spending that stays flat and then giving a massive tax cut, which predominantly benefits the wealthy?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

In reality, Ryan's budget does not include "huge spending cuts," but simply slows the rate of growth of government spending. That was a "nuance" that NBC political director Chuck Todd made sure to point out on Monday as he attempted to diffuse Republican attacks on the President for taking Medicare funds to pay for ObamaCare.

Jesus Christ would favor a tax rate as little as 50 percent and as high as 100 percent. So really, President Obama's preferred tax rates are a bargain. That's one of the big "idea" of Erika Christakis's August 14 Time magazine Ideas blog post, "Is Paul Ryan's Budget 'Un-Christian'?"

Christakis has a master's in education but apparently hasn't a clue about exegeting Scripture, nor does she seem to care. Jesus is just a convenient figure to use to make a flawed political talking point:

Jay Leno took some cheap shots at America's leading Republicans Tuesday.

During his Tonight Show monologue filled with jokes about the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, Leno said, "Ever since it was announced that Sarah Palin will not be speaking at the Republican convention the Romney campaign has been flooded with thousands of texts and emails demanding she be allowed to speak - all from President Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher made it clear Tuesday that when Real Time returns from vacation on HBO this Friday, Paul Ryan will be a prime target of his attacks.

Speaking with the Huffington Post, the typically stoned comedian said, "This is the intellectual?...Somehow he's the smartest guy in the Party and [Sarah Palin's] the stupidest woman on earth, but they agree on everything" (video follows with transcript and commentary):