On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann highlighted suggestions by former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo that there should be civics literacy testing for registered voters made at the recent Tea Party convention, which Olbermann referred to as the "Tea Klux Klan," and painted Tea Party activists as wanting to deny minorities the right to vote using the tactics of the Jim Crow South. As if Tancredo wanted to discriminate against African-American voters, Olbermann referred to "Tancredo harking back fondly to the electoral strategies once used to keep poor people – specifically, explicitly, black people – from voting."

After bringing aboard the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson for further discussion, Olbermann’s first question employed the premise that "mainstream Republicans" wish to discriminate against minorities:

If you ever thought mainstream Republicans would openly reminisce about race-based election stealing, did you ever think that you would, as a grown man in the 21st century, see the once proud Republican party let it happen with the only kind of peep of integrity coming from the daughter of a Senator?

Robinson charged that Tea Party members were displaying "naked Jim Crow racism." Robinson:

Author, political analyst, and humorist Andrew Ferguson really lacerated the campaign memoir Game Change in the February 1 Weekly Standard. He pointed out the inside-the-Beltway media chumminess greeting authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann: "The authors are highly regarded political reporters—highly regarded, that is, by other political reporters whom the authors likewise hold in high regard (that’s how admiration works here)." But that doesn’t excuse a bad book. He began by isolating page 279:

"F— you! F—, F—, f—, f—, f—, f—, f—, f—, f—, f—!!!"

McCain let out the stream of sharp epithets, both middle fingers raised and extended, barking in his wife’s face. He was angry.

Amazingly, these authors don’t offer the reader any explanation of this abusive scene that they might expect from reporters -- the when, where, and why:

New York Times columnist Frank Rich would have rebelled against the notion that opposing President Bush’s policies was unpatriotic. But he can shamelessly declare that opposing Obama’s agenda is unpatriotic – even if you’re John McCain. Rich wrote on Sunday:

If [Harry] Reid can serve as the face of Democratic fecklessness in the Senate, then John McCain epitomizes the unpatriotic opposition. On Wednesday night he could be seen sneering when Obama pointed out that most of the debt vilified by Republicans happened on the watch of a Republican president and Congress that never paid for "two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program."

Rich wasn’t going to find it ridiculous that Obama was blaming Bush for an "expensive" Medicare entitlement that Democrats voted for and/or felt wasn’t expensive enough – just as Obama blames Bush for the deficit effects of TARP, which he voted for. Rich only found fault that Obama wasn’t tougher – and used Times economics columnist David Leonhardt for backup:

CRITICAL UPDATE AT END OF POST: Obama praised the 2009 budget when the Senate passed it!

After President Obama told the nation during Wednesday's State of the Union address that he inherited the huge budget deficits befronting the country, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) turned to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and said, "Blame it on Bush."

In reality, this was one of many Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) moments last night as the President once again played fast and loose with the facts in a nationally televised address.

Sadly, media are deeply at fault here, for if they wouldn't allow the White House to repeatedly blame the nation's current fiscal problems on the previous Administration, Obama would be forced to be more truthful. As NewsBusters has regularly shown, America's so-called journalists have been aiding and abetting these falsehoods for quite some time.

But before we get there, here's what Obama said last night (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript includes McCain saying "Blame it on Bush," file photo):

Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos played defense for the White House on Tuesday. While talking with John McCain about Obama’s 2010 proposals, he sounded annoyed that the Senator’s ideas for job creation would include tax cuts: "But, those tax cuts are going to increase the deficit, aren't they, sir?"

After McCain declared his opposition to Democrat spending proposals, the host pressed, "If you're against that, what job creation proposals are you for?" Continuing the Democrat-friendly theme of McCain as obstructionist, Stephanopoulos quoted Harry Reid’s attack on McCain in Sunday’s New York Times: "‘My amazement has been John McCain. I thought he'd turn out to be a statesman, work for things. He is against everything. He's against everything.’ Your response?"

On Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith introduced a segment on the future of ObamaCare in the wake of Scott Brown becoming the 41st Republican senator: “Democrats are trying to figure out their next move after Tuesday’s stunning loss of Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. The big question continues to be what will it mean for President Obama’s agenda? Especially health care reform.”

In the report that followed, White House correspondent Chip Reid described how: “The President says he still wants Congress to move forward with reform, but in an orderly way.” Citing political analyst and executive editor of The Hotline, John Mercurio, Reid declared that: “not passing health care would be devastating for Democrats.” Mercurio added: “I think without that, they satisfy no one and they discourage a lot of their base voters from turning out in November.”

Following Reid’s report, Smith conducted an exclusive interview with Senator John McCain, asking: “Is health care...as the Democrats understand it right now, is it dead?” The headline on-screen read: “Capitol Hill Chaos; GOP Victory Could Halt Health Care Reform.”

In an interview in which he hit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee repeatedly from the left, George Stephanopoulos pleaded with Sen. John McCain to "name an issue next year where you are going to be joined at the hip with President Obama." [audio available here]

The live interview via satellite occurred six hours after McCain joined the other 39 Senate Republicans in voting against cloture on the Senate version of Democratic health care legislation.

All but two of Stephanopoulos's questions dealt with health care,the other two with Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Transcribed below are Stephanopoulos's agenda of questions, which you'll notice buffet McCain from the left, and/or paint Republicans are the party responsible for keeping the Senate from wrapping up its business until Christmas Eve, even though it is Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who controls the legislative calendar:

On the Sunday, December 20, syndicated Chris Matthews Show – during which the panel weighed in on who should be granted various dishonors for the year – Matthews seemed to lump conservatives like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh in with what Matthews saw as "white tribalism" as he also fretted over the "birthers" who promote the fringe conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in America. Matthews had notably expressed frustration about "white tribalism" being stirred up by "idiots" in America at the end of last week’s show.

Matthews seemed to compare Glenn Beck and  Limbaugh to swine flu as he introduced the award titled "A Plague on Both Our Houses." Matthews played a clip of Beck going over the top in calling President Obama a "racist" on FNC’s Fox and Friends, but he did not specify any particular quote from Limbaugh. A bit later, after the BBC’s Katty Kay tied Palin to the "birthers," prompting Matthews to interject that "I think it’s white tribalism," Matthews brought up the new book of panel member John Heilemann of New York magazine, and set up Heilemann to blame Palin for "activating" racism against Obama during the 2008 campaign.

Matthews: "Was this something that was simmering, this sort of tribalistic resentment of Barack Obama being what he is?"

Heilemann responded:

New York Times health care cheerleader-reporter David Herszenhorn seems unhappy that Republicans continue to oppose Obama-care -- especially John McCain, who Obama beat in the 2008 election.

Herszenhorn really “cranked” up the melodrama (and old man insults?) in his Monday morning post on the Times's “Prescriptions” blog, “The Crankiness of the Defeated," turning a hum-drum event -- the 73-year-old Sen. John McCain challenging Obama on health care -- into a strange anti-Republican hit piece.

As political opera goes, the libretto seemed to be the vengeance of the vanquished.

With President Obama at the Capitol on Sunday for a meeting with the Democratic caucus, his nemesis from last year’s presidential race, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, stood in a corridor just a few steps away facing a gaggle of reporters and television cameras.

....

It was less aria than huff-and-puff. He and Mr. McConnell suggested that the fact that Mr. Obama was meeting alone with Democrats was evidence that hyper-partisanship continues in Washington and that the president had been powerless to stop it.

(Of course, Mr. McConnell, Mr. McCain and their Republican colleagues do their own part to contribute to the continuing acrimony, but that went unspoken.)

As if he really expected Republicans to issue a mea culpa at a partisan press conference.

Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue" is set for release on Nov. 17 and with that will likely come a media blitz of epic proportions. However, based on the cover of the Nov. 23 issue of Newsweek, someone felt a response was warranted.

The wizards of smart at Newsweek took an image from a shoot of Palin that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine for the cover and splashed the headlines, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" and "She's Bad News for the GOP - and For Everybody Else, Too."

Mike Allen of Politico previewed the cover in the Nov. 14 edition of his "Playbook." In it, he included these comments from Newsweek editor John Meacham who blamed Palin for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., struggles with his conservative base in South Carolina. One of those struggles for Graham was his acknowledgment that climate change is a manmade phenomenon in need of a so-called "compromise," And that backlash is somehow former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's fault:

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin claims in her soon to be released book that the reason she let Katie Couric interview her was because she felt sorry for the CBS "Evening News" anchor:

I almost started to feel sorry for her. Katie had tried to make a bold move from lively morning gal to serious anchor, but the new assignment wasn't going very well.  

I'd say the assignment wasn't going very well given Couric's continually plummeting ratings since she took over the anchor position.

With this in mind, the excerpt of Palin's "Going Rogue" posted at the Drudge Report makes for fascinating reading:  

UPDATE: Not wanting to be left out of the Palin slamming scene, ABC's "Good Morning America" joined the fray on Nov. 4, interviewing the same people as CBS' "Early Show" and criticizing Palin on the same points. 

From accusing her of igniting a civil war within the Republican Party to calling her "nutty" antics a "treasure" to the Democrats, the mainstream media is once again shamelessly slamming Sarah Palin.  

On Nov. 3 CBS' "Early Show" interviewed Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, co-authors of "Sarah from Alaska," a "very revealing" book about Palin on the campaign trail.

"Later this month, Palin's highly anticipated memoir hits bookstores," said CBS' Harry Smith. "But another book beats her to it."

To start off the interview, Smith asked Conroy (who, by the way, also works for CBS) to explain what was going on "behind the scenes" when John McCain gave his concession speech on Election Day last year.  

Conroy wasted no time painting Palin as a media hungry mongrel, saying:

The Left is ecstatic about the latest ABC News-Washington Post poll, which claimed a surge in public support for the so-called "public option," wrapped in the (insincere) rhetoric of "choice" and "competition." The poll asks if the government should "create a new health insurance plan to compete with private insurance plans," and 57 percent agree. Happy days are here again for liberals.

Liberals in the media found even better news to declare: a new low for the Republican Party, since only 20 percent of those surveyed "usually" think of themselves as Republicans. (Another 19 percent "lean more" toward the Republicans, but that number is being ignored because 20 percent sounds better.) MSNBC’s David Shuster openly hoped: "Have centrists been frightened away from the Republican Party by the right-wing birthers, Tenthers, and town hall screamers?"

Here was a chance for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. to admit he was wrong, and to conclude publicly that government intervention in the private sector doesn't always result in the best of outcomes.

McCain appeared on CNN's Oct. 11 "State of the Union" in a pre-recorded interview and was asked by host John King if the lackluster recovery of the economy warranted more government intervention.

"The president has said he's considering new initiatives to help job creation," King said. "They passed one stimulus plan and most Republicans, including John McCain, have been pretty critical of this $787-billion stimulus passed early in the year. Should the President do more now through government spending, though tax incentives or should he wait because, as you have said many times, we have so much red ink, we can't afford much more?"

About a year ago, then-Senator and Democratic nominee Barack Obama managed to seize control of the issue of taxes from the Republican Party by promising lower taxes for "95 percent of Americans."

But today it's a drastically different situation. Obama's $787-billion stimulus has been passed into law and the administration is taking on higher deficits, which will only increase if a Democrat health care reform bill passes. It looks as though the president's hand will be forced and he will have to raise taxes. That's begs question - where were the media on this a year ago?

CNBC's Erin Burnett asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at a CNBC made-for-television town hall on Sept. 10 if taxes would be raised. Geithner dodged the question, but Burnett interpreted the dodge to mean yes, as she explained on NBC's Sept. 13 "Meet the Press."

NBC's Ann Curry, on Thursday's "Today" show, asked Senator John McCain if "the death of Senator Kennedy" would "be the catalyst" to pass health care reform, but when the Arizona senator responded that it may change the partisan way in which the Democrats have had "no real negotiations" with the GOP to get it passed, Curry demanded that McCain and the Republicans should be the ones to relent as she pushed McCain to "cross the aisle." McCain said he was "willing," but reiterated to Curry, "There's been no opportunity to do so," as seen in the following exchange:

ANN CURRY: Well, one of the next battles before Congress, which is one that, what mattered really most to the Senator, is of course about health care reform. And you faced a lot of rancor, some anger yesterday at a town hall meeting. What do you say about this idea? Could, in fact, the death of Senator Kennedy be the catalyst that might spark the possibility that this actually might go somewhere, as it doesn't seem to be right now? [audio available here]

During an interview with John McCain on Sunday’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos practically begged with the Arizona senator to repudiate "death panel" claims by former Governor Sarah Palin. Speaking of the health care bill, Stephanopoulos attacked euthanasia worries and lobbied, "[Obama] called that an extraordinary lie. And he is right about that, isn't he?"

The former top Clinton aide turned journalist reworked the same query four more times. After McCain referred to the fact that a Senate panel dropped a provision on end-of-life counseling, Stephanopoulos interrupted, "I don't think that's correct, Senator. The bill, all it said was that if a patient wanted to have a Medicare consultation about end of life issues, they could have it, at their request. And the doctor would get reimbursed for it. No panel."

Most Republicans likely already think Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) is a joke, and Thursday evening he proved it when he took the stage at a Pittsburgh comedy club.

Appearing at the Improv in a benefit for Allegheny county's Music Festival Fund for children, Specter poked fun exclusively at Republicans including Bob Dole, Dan Quayle, Trent Lott, Alfonse D'Amato, and Howard Baker.

Proving just how much his allegiances have changed since his defection to the Democrats, although some of the material was taken from a previous routine he had done at the Washington Improv in 2007, a joke which back then involved Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden now featured Sarah Palin, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani (videos in two parts embedded below the fold, sexual content warning, h/t Huffington Post):

[Update, 6:45 pm Eastern: Video and audio clips from segments added.]

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez concluded Tuesday’s Newsroom program with an admission of sorts about his misrepresentation on the previous day of John McCain’s words about the GOP’s outreach to Latinos: “I paraphrased to my colleague Roland Martin that McCain had said the party needs to recruit ‘competent’ Hispanics. I just want to be fair about this, right? He didn’t use the word ‘competent’ when he said that” [audio clips from both segments available here].

During this correction at the end of the 3 pm Eastern hour, Sanchez related his version of what had transpired near the end of Monday’s Newsroom program during a segment with CNN political analyst Roland Martin: “Yesterday, in trying to defend the meaning of Senator John McCain’s statement about the Republican Party being in, what he called, ‘a deep hole’- those were John McCain’s word [sic]- with Hispanics, and needing to recruit more Hispanics, as he’s telling the Republican Party- I paraphrased to my colleague Roland Martin that McCain had said the party needs to recruit ‘competent’ Hispanics. I just want to be fair about this, right? He didn’t use the word ‘competent’ when he said that.”

On Monday’s Newsroom program, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez misrepresented Senator John McCain’s words from an interview with his colleague John King on Sunday about the GOP’s outreach with Latinos. He described the Arizona Republican as recommending that “the Republican Party needs to find competent Hispanics who can fit into the party,” when McCain never used the word “competent.”

Sanchez had CNN contributor Roland Martin aboard during the final two segments of the 3 pm Eastern hour, and first played a clip from the McCain interview from Sunday’s State of the Union program, where the defeated presidential candidate warned that “unless we reverse the trend of Hispanic voter registration, we have a very, very deep hole that we’ve got to come out of.” The anchor continued that McCain “went on to say, interestingly enough, that the Republican Party needs to find competent Hispanics who can fit into the party. They need to actually recruit them -- is the word he uses.” Martin interrupted Sanchez and asked for a clarification: “Did he actually say 'competent'?” The CNN anchor replied: “Competent, they have to be competent.”

Lawrence O’Donnell failed spectacularly on today’s "Morning Joe" this morning. The Democratic pundit wasn’t alone in that effort, as co-host Mika Brzezinski, and journalists Martin Savidge and Mike Barnicle all failed to correct his gaffe.

Apparently, the MSNBC political analyst is under the impression that Sarah Palin’s selection as Vice President drove down female support for the John McCain ticket – and claims that polling numbers back him up.

The Gallup organization, for one, disagrees.

From the July 29 edition of “Morning Joe”, during a discussion of Sarah Palin’s 2008 speech at the Republican convention:

We're in the middle of the worst recession in decades.

Congress is currently debating sweeping changes to healthcare and energy policy that could cost trillions of dollars in new taxes in the foreseeable future.

We've got soldiers risking their lives on two fronts in the Middle East, and despots in North Korea and Iran developing nuclear weapons.

Yet, when one of the most powerful men in Washington visited "Meet the Press" Sunday, host David Gregory spent almost 30 percent of the time allotted grilling him about -- wait for it! -- Sarah Palin. 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, of the 19 1/2 minutes Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spent Sunday morning chatting with Gregory, he was questioned for 5 3/4 minutes about Palin's resignation and her future in politics (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

Although almost eight months have passed since last year's elections, Palin Derangement Syndrome continues to manifest itself throughout America's press.

As NewsBusters' Mike Sargent reported Tuesday, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum is gravely afflicted with the illness, and needs to see a team of doctors quickly if he ever wants to be taken seriously by anyone other than the extreme Left.

With that in mind, Palin documentarian John Ziegler had a fascinating radio interview with Politico's Mike Allen Wednesday that shed some light on how PDS works and why it's so pernicious.

To set this up, Allen was on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" earlier in the day, and defended Purdum's piece (15 minute audio available here):

"Obama's intelligent speech in Cairo has had a big impact in the Muslim world, and it is obvious that it is his presence in the White House – far more than any BBC broadcast – that is giving hope to the demonstrators in Tehran...I do not believe it could possibly have happened had John McCain been elected...Who knows whether [the Iranian protestors] will succeed, but we can safely say that the BBC and Barack Obama have done more to change Iran than Fox News and George W Bush."

So wrote London's mayor in an astonishing display of Obama Derangement Syndrome Monday.

In his British Telegraph article entitled "What has Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran got against little old Britain?", Boris Johnson sung the new American president's praises in a fashion likely to upset many a stomach (h/t NBer Right2thePoint): 

MSNBC's Chris Matthews appeared on Montel Williams' Air America radio show on Wednesday to slam John McCain: "I think McCain put his finger on the idiot button." The Hardball host fumed about McCain's criticism of how Barack Obama has handled the response to Iran's disputed election. He also unflatteringly compared the Senator to Sarah Palin.

After getting a laugh from the Montel Across America host, Matthews reiterated, "I'm telling you, the idiot button." He complained, "That's my new term for when you start putting your finger on the button that's got Sarah Palin's fingerprints on it." Matthews broke off his attack and then explained that McCain is a "very smart, patriotic American."