Paul Ryan

Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos on Monday kicked off the program by tagging Paul Ryan as "the former prom king that once drove the Weinermobile." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] The ex-Democratic operative turned TV host also authoritatively declared that "the White House is actually pretty pleased by the choice of Paul Ryan because they do see him as a target." (What else would they say? Would the campaign admit to being scared of the Republican?)

Reporter David Muir continued the false narrative about the Ryan plan: "Ryan is known in the political world for his controversial budget plan that would call for steep cuts and the Obama campaign said it would change Medicare as we know it." On Sunday, GMA's Bianna Golodryga warned of "budget slasher" Paul Ryan.

Hoping to define vice presidential pick Paul Ryan early with liberal talking points, on Monday's NBC Today, correspondent Peter Alexander painted the Wisconsin congressman as "the architect of a politically polarizing budget plan to slash trillions in federal funding, including cuts to Medicare..." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Alexander began his report by offering this description of Ryan: "To Republicans, Ryan is viewed as a conservative, a courageous and visionary conservative. To Democrats, his views are seen as extreme." At the top of the show, co-host Matt Lauer only saw problems for Republicans and advantages for Democrats with the Ryan pick: "Will Ryan's budget plan hurt the ticket? And how is President Obama using the choice to his own advantage?"

Almost as soon as word leaked that Mitt Romney had chosen Paul Ryan as his running mate, liberal reporters stepped forward to help define the Wisconsin congressman as too conservative, a heartless budget-slasher who might repel as many votes as he might attract to the GOP ticket. Chris Matthews, for example, on Saturday derided Ryan as someone whose plan “really screws the people who desperately need Medicare and programs like that.”

The script is always a little different, but the trend is always the same. The Media Research Center has monitored campaign coverage for 25 years, including the media’s reaction to four Republican vice presidential selections: Dan Quayle (1988); Jack Kemp (1996); Dick Cheney (2000); and Sarah Palin (2008). While most of the candidates usually received initially positive introductory coverage, in each case journalists quickly pivoted to emphasizing the attack lines pushed by the Democratic campaigns. [Video evidence after the jump.]

The far left has already started a campaign to misinform the public about Paul Ryan's views about Medicare and how he supposedly wants to destroy the program. (The irony, of course, is that President Obama actually reduced funding of the program by $700 billion as part of his healthcare law.)

Be that as it may, for those wondering what Ryan actually says about Medicare, National Review provides a helpful primer on the congressman's views, noting particularly that the newest Medicare proposal he's touting actually is quite a bit different from his older one:

An interesting—encouraging?—comment and admission from Mark Halperin on today's Morning Joe. The MSNBC political analyst said that "almost every national political reporter knows Paul Ryan, likes Paul Ryan, more than they do Mitt Romney.  And that gives Romney a little bit of an edge that he was missing, which is pro-Obama in the press corps."

Halperin's comment came immediately after Joe Scarborough had dared Dems to demonize Ryan, saying it would only help Republicans. Halperin's statement was a bit condensed. But parsing it, he seems to be admitting that the national press corps is pro-Obama, but that they know and like Ryan, and that will be a plus for the GOP ticket as the inevitable Dem demonization of Ryan unfolds.  View the video after the jump.

Advancing a false narrative about how the wealthy are paying a lower tax rate than the middle class, CBS Bob Schieffer used his 60 Minutes session with the Republican ticket to push Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to agree “fairness” means the rich should pay higher taxes. “A lot of people,” Schieffer contended, “think corporations and rich people are getting all these breaks and they’re getting stuck with paying the bills. They see some of the wealthiest paying the lowest tax rates. How are you going to fix that?”

Schieffer next insisted: “Doesn’t fairness dictate that the wealthiest people should not be paying the lowest taxes because that’s what happening many times?”

For months now the Obama-loving media have been tearing Mitt Romney to pieces over his involvement with the private equity firm he founded and once led.

Despite this, during an interview with the presumptive Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday, host Bob Schieffer actually had the gall to ask Paul Ryan, "Do you think [Romney's] been too defensive about Bain capital?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You would expect that as a contributor to Barack Obama's Super PAC, HBO's Bill Maher wouldn't have kind things to say about Paul Ryan being named Mitt Romney's running mate.

True to form, Maher took to Twitter on Saturday to make vulgar comments about Ryan's budget despite likely not knowing one single word that's in it (serious vulgarity warning):

Tonight’s (Sunday) 60 Minutes will feature an interview with the new Republican ticket of Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan conducted by CBS’s Bob Schieffer. Last year, when Schieffer interviewed Ryan on Face the Nation, he chided Ryan over his budget plan and refusal to raise taxes.

“Why do these rich people need another tax cut?” Schieffer demanded of Ryan on the April 17, 2011 program. Conveying his no-so-profound economic reasoning, Schieffer saw a pot of money to be absconded: “I mean, they’re already rich. They seem to be doing pretty well as it is now. Why cut their taxes some more?” After Ryan explained his proposal would maintain current tax revenue levels while eliminating deductions and loopholes used by the wealthy, a baffled Schiefier ruminated:

Now that Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has been named Mitt Romney's running mate in the upcoming presidential election, we can expect the Democrats and the media to set new lows in their attacks on him.

Unfortunately, over the years, liberally biased journalists have had plenty of practice. Here's our look at the top 10 most outrageous media attacks on Paul Ryan.

With all the trashing of Paul Ryan by Obama-loving media members in the past 24 hours, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus pulled off quite a feat on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday.

In just one sentence, she insulted Ryan as well as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (video follows with transcript and commentary):

UPDATE: Maddow responds.

She's touted by the liberal media as one of the brightest commentators on television, yet MSNBC's Rachel Maddow got thoroughly demolished by National Review editor Rich Lowry on Sunday's Meet the Press.

When continually asked by Lowry to defend the President's $700 billion Medicare cuts in ObamaCare, Maddow repeatedly refused making herself look tremendously foolish (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On a special Saturday edition of Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews twice claimed that Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's budget "screws" needy people. During a segment with Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen, as he asked what it was like to work with Rep. Ryan as his colleague, the MSNBC host asserted that the plan "really screws the people who desperately need Medicare and programs like that."

Minutes after Paul Ryan was introduced as Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee, Saturday, a sour Andrea Mitchell dismissed the choice: "This is not a pick for suburban moms. This is not a pick for women."

Playing off the GOP congressman's first speech as the presumptive nominee, Mitchell lectured, "I think that you're going to see that they [Team Romney] have decided that this is a base election." The liberal anchor for MSNBC worried that Ryan was "talking about what the base wants to hear." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Politico's Jonathan Martin is putting on his "cracker counties" snob act again in attacking Paul Ryan's resume, much like Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, only meaner.

This was how it started: "Flipping burgers at McDonald’s, steering the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, slinging cheap margaritas, and toning abs and pecs. That’s about the extent of Rep. Paul Ryan’s private sector experience." Again, this from the liberals who weren't in the habit of mocking Barry Obama slinging Bubble Gum ice cream?

The attacks on newly announced Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan came fast and furious on CNN Saturday.

Just before Candy Crowley said this "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish," Gloria Borger called Ryan "a polarizing figure" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been noting all Saturday morning, now that Paul Ryan has been chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate, the goal of the Obama-loving media is to rip him to shreds.

Doing her part Saturday was CNN's Candy Crowley who claimed some Republicans (unnamed, of course) think this "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish."

[[Editor's Note: Since the townhall debate format debuted in the 1992, the media moderators have favored left-wing question 2 to 1 over conservative ones. Get the facts here.]]

Previewing the choice of Paul Ryan as the GOP vice presidential candidate, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows all used Democratic framing to describe the House GOP budget plan that Ryan championed as a plan to, as CBS’s Bob Schieffer put it, “cut more than $5 trillion over the next ten years.” ABC’s Bianna Golodryga passed along the demagogic rhetoric of liberals: “Democrats, meantime, contest that it will destroy Medicare and Social Security.”

But Ryan’s plan would actually increase federal spending over the next ten years, from about $3.6 trillion this year to just under $4.9 trillion in 2022. The $5 trillion in “cuts” are merely reductions from the much-higher spending anticipated by President Obama’s budget. (See tables starting on page 88.)

In the coming days and weeks, the job of the Obama-loving media is to blame all that ails the nation on newly-appointed Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan and to at every turn impugn his record as a member of Congress.

Doing his part Saturday was MSNBC's Chris Hayes who falsely claimed Ryan in 2003 "cast the deciding vote" for Medicare's prescription drug benefit "because it passed by one vote in the House" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Breaking the news this morning that Mitt Romney has chosen Paul Ryan as his running mate, ABC’s Good Morning America in a single hour employed no fewer than seven “conservative” labels to label Ryan and his supporters. But four years ago as Barack Obama tapped Joe Biden, there wasn’t a single “liberal” label to be found on GMA’s coverage that Saturday morning.

Ryan, ABC’s team accurately pointed out, is as fill-in co-host David Muir put it, “a favorite among conservatives;” a candidate who “rallies the conservative base,” as George Stephanopoulos later opined. According to the American Conservative Union, Ryan has a solid 91.69 conservative rating (100% being a perfect conservative score).

It seems a metaphysical certitude the big takeaway for the Obama-loving media from Saturday's announcement by Mitt Romney concerning his running mate is that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee introduced Paul Ryan as "the next President of the United States."

As they bash Romney for this error, will they mention candidate Obama did the same thing when he introduced Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008? (Videos follow with transcribed highlights and commentary.)

The Drudge Report singled out political writer Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker as having the unintentionally hilarious first spin on the reported pick of Paul Ryan to be Romney's running mate. Lizza immediately started to "tally the risks."

"For one thing, Ryan has no significant private-sector experience," he wrote. He wrote this with zero ackowledgment of Obama's private-sector experience scooping mint-chip at Baskin-Robbins. If the rest of the media follows this line, this is going to be shamelessly biased:

In just a matter of days, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney will announce his choice for his 2012 running mate. No matter who Romney picks, however, the liberal media's line of attack is already clear. The Media Research Center reviewed news coverage of several potential picks, and found many have already been caricatured as too far right or outside the mainstream.

Norah O'Donnell adopted the left's spin on extending the current tax rates on Friday's CBS This Morning, challenging Rep. Paul Ryan when he asserted that "they're really not tax cuts. We're just talking about keeping taxes where they are." She asked, "You're calling them tax policies and tax code. You're afraid to call them tax cuts now?" O'Donnell laughed when Ryan affirmed that "they're not tax cuts," and replied, "Oh, Congressman, come on!" [video below the jump; 02:16 into the segment]

Back on July 9, 2012, the White House correspondent bizarrely cited that there was a $150 billion "cost to taxpayers" if the existing tax rates were maintained for another year.

On today's edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Thomas Roberts talked with Michael Barbaro of the New York Times discussing the so-called Young Guns who are on the short list to be Mitt Romney's running mate: Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Gov. Bobby Jindal (La.), and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.).

But when the MSNBC graphics team showed photos of the Young Guns, they accidentally used a photo of Rep. Ron Paul, the septuagenarian former Republican presidential candidate with strong libertarian convictions, in lieu of Paul Ryan. See our video below:

Ever sweet on liberal Catholic nuns, CNN played up a group of nuns lambasting the Ryan budget and hosted one of the leaders, Sr. Simone Campbell, three times in three weeks for an interview. In contrast, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) appeared not once on the network to defend his budget during that time span.

"You go, girls," CNN's Carol Costello cheered the "Nuns on the Bus" tour. The tour received eight different mentions from CNN from June 13 through July 3, including a report from the trail that aired twice, and three interviews of Sr. Campbell.

After ignoring its own 2009 clip of Obama denying his health-care law was a tax increase, ABC finally played the snippet of the President on Sunday's This Week -- but bizarrely, they failed to mention that it was theirs. Host George Stephanopoulos highlighted an ad from Americans for Prosperity that included the clip, but omitted that he conducted the interview where the President made this denial.

Later in the program, Rep. Paul Ryan exposed what the ABC News host omitted, that "the President, on your show, said this is not a tax." [audio available here; video below the jump]

Do you think trying to balance the federal budget is incendiary?

NBC's David Gregory apparently does, for on Sunday's Meet the Press, he asked Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) "whether a guy like Paul Ryan is a little too incendiary" to be vice president (video follows with transcript and commentary):

National "Public" Radio has barely touched on the 43 Catholic organizations that filed lawsuits against the Obama administration, but it continues to be a noisy sounding board for leftist nuns and their supporters. On Friday, NPR offered more than 14 minutes of air time to the left-wing forces.

On the afternoon talk show Tell Me More, NPR devoted nine minutes and 47 seconds to a segment they titled "Born to Be Wild: Catholic Nuns Hit the Road." These "wild" nuns were celebrated for opposing the Paul Ryan budget with a bus tour. Once again, NPR's honored guest was Sister Simone Campbell of Network, the "social justice lobby." Martin asked Sister to get out a club (or a ruler?) and whack Ryan: