Dick Cheney

Alec Baldwin almost had another Twitter meltdown Tuesday.

The perilously liberal, intellectually challenged actor took some time out from the Cannes Film Festival for another one of his classic anti-conservative rants this time telling his followers that "lying thieves" like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will be back in the White House if Obama loses (presented in chronological order):

Andrea Mitchell on the MSNBC program bearing her name Tuesday twice referred to "enhanced interrogation techniques" as "torture."

The second time, Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Services, set the record straight (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Al Sharpton benefits more than most radio hosts by having listeners call his show. It lets Sharpton come across as sane by comparison.

The other day, for example, Sharpton wasted little time dismissing the latest bizarre conspiracy theory making the rounds (audio clip after page break) --

Brent Baker told me I only found half the story in Newsweek’s coverage of Dick Cheney’s heart transplant. Posted in the middle of the Kent Sepkowitz hit piece was Monday’s edition of their daily NewsBeast in-house video. In the first seconds, the “highlight” was Newsweek/Daily Beast assignment editor Allison Yarrow saying of Cheney: “But can you imagine being that organ donor?...I would never do it. I’d say ‘give me my heart back.’”

Welcome to the latest edition of Compassionate Liberals Show Their True Colors. Openly gay Newsweek senior writer Ramin Setoodeh added, “I would never give my heart to Dick Cheney. It would freeze over.” Yarrow offered: “He may be one of the most evil people in the world.” (Video below)

Leave it to the crass Daily Beast (and Newsweek) to accuse Dick Cheney of a "dick thing" for refusing to take himself off a heart transplant list and die. Writer Kent Sepkowitz (who brags in his credit line that he writes thick academic articles that are "tough sledding") sheds science for this article, which drips with contempt. "Well, dry those tears, America—he’s back!"

"How did this happen? No, not the Florida recount, but how could someone so old and frail be a candidate for that most precious commodity, the human organ?" Sepkowitz added: "Did Dick do a dick thing and leapfrog a bunch of other worthies, people who aren’t viewed by some as war criminals and evildoers but rather are decent folk decades younger, likelier to contribute to society and to provide a better return on investment for our taxpayer health-care dollars?"

Sinking to a new low in their disdain for Dick Cheney, the hosts on Monday's NBC Today wondered if the former vice president should have received a recent heart transplant, with Ann Curry declaring at the top of the broadcast: "...even though he has waited longer than most to receive his donor heart, some are questioning whether someone that old should be getting one..." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Fellow co-host Matt Lauer described Cheney as "somebody who tends to stir controversy," who "can cause all kinds of controversy if he orders a cup of tea."

In the report that followed, NBC's left-wing chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman sounded like a one-person death panel, as she fretted: "...this has raised a lot of ethical questions, moral questions, about whether the Vice President, in fact, should have received his heart against – ahead of other people. And, raises the question, how old is too old to receive such a precious transplant?"

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift and National Review's Rich Lowry got into quite a heated debate on PBS's McLaughlin Group this weekend.

With the topic being President Obama's Middle East policy, after much back and forth, Lowry scolded, "If you’re honest about it, that is your bottom line. You are okay with [Iran] getting a nuclear weapon" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the previous decade, liberals loved making parallels between Bush administration policies and the power-seeking villains in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy.

With the 3D release of the first episode "The Phantom Menace," Yahoo! contributor Timothy Sexton took to his keyboard Friday to tell his readers, "[T]he original trilogy appealed directly to the simplistic moral perspective of an America above reproach and always on the side of right in global geopolitics, whereas the much more subversive prequel trilogy stands in defiant counterpoint to the much more dangerously simplistic moral absolutism of the Age of Bush":

Appearing as a panel member on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show on Sunday, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius predicted that President Obama would be more aggressive in taking on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a second term, as he cited the  belief by Obama's people that the President "has had success" in Middle East policy so far. (Video below)

Ignatius seemed to go along with the idea that President Obama has a "strong foreign policy record" as he ended up asking rhetorically:

This is what happens when left wingers ignore another left winger with a microphone -- pathology.

Mike Malloy, a man so beyond the pale that he was fired by comparatively sane moonbats at the now-defunct Air America Radio, has again shown he's probably beyond redemption. (audio clip after page break)

NewsBusters readers should be quite familiar with Ron Christie, the Republican strategist who loves to tangle with the liberal commentators on MSNBC.

Following his terrific encounter with Chris Matthews last week, NewsBusters spoke by phone with Christie about his experiences on the nation's most left-leaning cable news outlet as well as what it's like to be a black conservative in the year 2011 (video follows with transcript):

Actor Alec Baldwin for the second time in as many months went nuts on Twitter.

His targets Monday were George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mark Levin, readers of the website Free Republic, and what he referred to as "right wing trash":

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman this weekend said he'd give President Obama high marks for fulfilling Bush's foreign policy.

This surprising observation on PBS's McLaughlin Group came somewhat coincident with Chris Matthews saying George W. Bush was actually better at conveying his message than the current White House resident (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Like many Americans, actor Alec Baldwin took to his Twitter account Wednesday evening to express his feelings about the execution of Georgia cop killer Troy Davis.

Rather strangely, the objects of his derision included former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and conservative author Michelle Malkin:

CNN's John King on Tuesday asked former Vice President Dick Cheney if one of the motivating factors behind writing his recent book was out of a fear that his "days could be numbered."

As only Cheney can, he dryly replied, "I was very much aware that my days are numbered. So are yours" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Salon columnist Joe Conason appeared on Monday's Hardball to excoriate former Vice President Dick Cheney: "...You would almost think that Cheney was actually an agent of the nation's enemies..." Host Chris Matthews did not disagree or contest this charge.

Conason and Matthews were discussing the war in Iraq and Cheney's continual defense of it. Playing off the Salon.com's columnist's comments, Matthews compared the ex-VP: "That's what they said, by the way, of Joe McCarthy. You couldn't be a better friend to the communist, in effect, than Joe McCarthy."

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace displayed to former Vice President Dick Cheney how NBC’s Today show on Tuesday had ended Matt Lauer’s interview with him by pulling back to highlight an Amnesty International protest sign (“TORTURE IS A CRIME: INVESTIGATE CHENEY”) in the crowd on the street.

Wallace wondered: “What do you make of that? I mean, I somehow doubt that if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were speaking, they would have taken the shot and then suddenly a person with a sign would have been putting their picture up. I mean, simply, do you think there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media?”

Given the way most media members treated former Vice President Dick Cheney during his book tour last week, CNN's Howard Kurtz asked an absolutely perfect question on Sunday's "Reliable Sources."

"Would liberal pundits be satisfied with anything other than Cheney confessing to war crimes?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Trial lawyer and liberal radio host Mike Papantonio really knows how to draw attention to himself. The Radio Equalizer blog reports he was subbing on Ed Schultz's radio show on Monday and not only claimed like Rep. Andre Carson that conservatives favored "lynching black people for real," but suggested Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal/serial killer from "The Silence of the Lambs," was more respectable than Dick Cheney:

You know, it was easier to at least respect a character, a fictional character, like Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs" because Hannibal Lecter at least readily admitted that he was a dangerous mutation and he was somebody capable of lying and manipulating and even killing to get what he wanted.

Tina Brown seems to be very conflicted about her opinion of Dick Cheney.

After telling the "Morning Joe" panel the former Vice President is a "wrecking ball" who "seems to be totally in denial still about Iraq," the Daily Beast-Newsweek editor said moments later, "He's been validated by Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Monday's NBC Today featured another preview of the upcoming Dateline interview with Dick Cheney about his new memoir, with correspondent Jamie Gangel declaring the former Vice President to be "A conservative hero to his fans, Darth Vader to his critics." [Audio available here]

On Thursday, Gangel also appeared on the NBC morning show to promote the interview, with co-host Ann Curry proclaiming Cheney to be "one of the most controversial figures of our time."

On Monday, fellow co-host Matt Lauer kept up that theme as he announced: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks out about his controversial new memoir....looks back on his controversial time in the White House. In an exclusive interview he pulls no punches, makes no apologies. No one's spared, from Colin Powell to Condoleezza Rice."

Newsweek journalist Dan Stone appeared on MSNBC's News Live, Monday, to offer a bizarre complaint about Dick Cheney's new memoir. He lamented, "This book is very focused on rehashing. It's very based on the past, from what I can tell."

Responding to a question about whether the book could cause problems for Obama, the White House correspondent added, "Not many people are taking it to look forward." Of course, it would be hard to write a memoir on one's life and not look backward.

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The liberal media are predictably gushing over Colin Powell's supposed rebuke of Dick Cheney on Sunday's "Face the Nation."

Bucking the trend was Joe Scarborough Monday who on the MSNBC program bearing his name said Powell going on "Face the Nation" to defend himself proved Cheney right about heads exploding over his new book (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Just when you thought Rachel Maddow could not get more cloyingly annoying, she outdoes herself again.

There she was on her MSNBC show last night, talking about about how she must interview Dick Cheney about his memoirs, seeing how he'll be appearing on "Dateline NBC," "Today" and "Morning Joe" (video after page break) --

According to Hardball guest host Ron Reagan, former Vice President Dick Cheney is a "war criminal" for endorsing waterboarding. On Thursday, the son of the former President attacked, "But the fact of the matter is...[Cheney's] a war criminal. Torture is a crime and this is a guy who can't travel to Europe anymore for fear of being- ending up in the Hague."

Reagan was commenting on a new interview Cheney has given to NBC in which he reiterates support for waterboarding. The liberal anchor discussed the subject with Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune. Reagan reiterated, "...Any neutral reading of, say, the U.N. Convention Against Torture makes it pretty clear that if you support waterboarding and you enact that sort of a policy, you're guilty of a war crime."

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Thursday's NBC Today previewed an upcoming Dateline interview with Dick Cheney about his new memoir and labeled the former Vice President "controversial" three times in less than a minute. Co-host Ann Curry proclaimed him to be "one of the most controversial figures of our time." [Audio available here]

Turning to correspondent Jamie Gangel, who conducted the interview, Curry noted: "I understand that you asked the former Vice President, in a wide-ranging conversation, about one of the biggest controversies of his time in office and that's the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques?"

Gangel described how Cheney's book was "filled with revelations and he does not back down on those controversial programs he championed that made him such a lightning rod for criticism after 9/11."

Referencing Dick Cheney's revelation in his new memoir that he urged President Bush to bomb a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, CNN's Kyra Phillips posed this obnoxious question to her panel: "Was Cheney even more of a hawk than we gave him credit for?"

The upcoming release of Cheney's memoir, "In My Time," should re-ignite the media's decade-long war on the former Vice President, as he himself has predicted that the book will have "heads exploding" in Washington. In the book he detailed a meeting in 2007 where he was the only one the room supporting the bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor. President Bush declined to take that approach, and Israel bombed the site months later.

[Video below the break.]

Dick Cheney has begun a media tour to promote his memoir, "In My Time," with excerpts of his NBC "Dateline" interview showing up on Wednesday’s "Nightly News" and Thursday’s "Today." If history is a guide, Cheney will face a liberal media that has been stunningly hostile and derisive in their coverage of the former Vice President.

Prior to his selection as George W. Bush’s running mate in the summer of 2000, the liberal networks generally treated Cheney — who served as White House chief of staff, Congressman and Secretary of Defense — as a respected Republican leader. But the media turned on Cheney as soon as he joined the Republican ticket, portraying him as an extremist who was “anti-equal rights” and “against education” — even distorting his vote on a non-binding resolution as a vote “against releasing Nelson Mandela from prison,” as if the U.S. House had such power.

[video and audio excerpts follow the page break]

Tina Brown got in hot water this week for an unflattering Newsweek cover photo of Tea Party Republican Michele Bachmann but those who've followed the current Daily Beast and Newsweek editor's career, ever since she brought her version of tabloid journalism over from England to Vanity Fair in 1984, can tell you this is just par for the course.

In fact that wasn't the first time the former editor of The New Yorker displayed her disgust for women of the right. After a run of victories by female candidates in the 2010 GOP primaries, Brown on the June 10 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, called the wins: "a blow to feminism." However when it comes to liberal women like Michelle Obama, Brown sings a decidedly different tune. Videos after the jump.