Rachel Maddow

In case there are any residual doubts about how bad the tea partiers have been treated, here are the Top Five ways the left and the media have abused a grassroots movement. The coverage has been so hateful and so biased, it was almost impossible to narrow the list. Here they are in reverse order, just in time for the big tea party events April 15:

5) Protesters are Anti-Government

The media and the left portray tea parties as "anti-government" because it undermines a patriotic grassroots movement. Tea partiers aren't anti-government, they are anti-big government. That's just not the story journalists tell. The "anti-government" theme is strong, cropping up in more than two dozen stories in The Washington Post and New York Times combined. Very few of them mentioned the word "big" in reference to government.

Instead, it's NPR's Liz Halloran claiming tea parties have been boosted by "restive Republicans who have found refuge in the year-old anti-tax, anti-government uprising." Or Frank Rich of The New York Times who compared tea partiers with Andrew Joseph Stack, the man who flew a plane into an IRS building. "Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a ‘Tea Party terrorist.' But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner."

Did you know that Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts is "harassing" Rachel Maddow?

Depends, of course, on how you define harassment. Liberals like Maddow are inclined toward the most flexible definition possible, especially when directed at those of less evolved politics.

As far as Maddow is concerned, Brown is "harassing" her -- in other words, he's a criminal -- because Brown sent out a fundraising appeal mentioning Maddow as a potential challenger.  

Brown's pitch read --

Friends, It's only been a couple of months since I've been in office, and before I've even settled into my new job, the political machine in Massachusetts is looking for someone to run against me. And you're not going to believe who they are supposedly trying to recruit -- liberal MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.

Back when she had a show on the now-defunct, fringe left-wing Air America Radio, Rachel Maddow ran a regular feature called "Ask Dr. Maddow."

It began with an announcer stating, "Rachel Maddow is a doctor. Just not that kind of doctor." You know, the indispensible kind who can save lives. Instead, Maddow is of the academic variety, courtesy of a doctorate in political science from Oxford. 

The purpose of the feature was twofold: first, to answer listeners' questions, and second, to remind anyone within earshot that Maddow has a rarefied advanced degree and, chances are, you don't.

Rachel Maddow has to get it right eventually, what with the law of averages and all. We'll just have to remain patient.

Latest targest of her self-righteous wrath? Congressman Bart Stupak, apostate Democrat of Michigan, for his opposition to taxpayer-funded abortion. 

Here's Maddow from her MSNBC show on Wednesday, alleging deceit by Stupak while engaging in it herself twice over -- 

MADDOW: One of the things that folks have not paid much attention to as they've been putting Bart Stupak on TV and giving him more attention than he's ever had in his life is that Bart Stupak never seems to name this bloc of people who he supposedly represents, this bloc of Stupac-following members of Congress who he supposedly speaks for. Well, last month Congressman Stupak said it was 15 to 20 unnamed members of the House who he said had major concerns about the bill.

Despite what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in an interview last night – "I know you`re nonpartisan" – Maddow very predictably helped Pelosi dismiss any responsibility for the Speaker in the Eric Massa ethics investigation. [Audio available here.]

Maddow didn’t act like a skeptical Tim Russert, asking if Pelosi sounds exactly the opposite of her remarks in 2006, assuming Speaker Dennis Hastert cravenly overlooked the allegations of Mark Foley's sexual misconduct. Instead, she embraced Pelosi’s line that Republican focus on Massa was "trying to distract from the endgame on health reform." Maddow declared her nostrils had found it:

You can almost smell how excited Republicans were to try to make this an anti-Democratic leadership issue today. They were very excited about that prospect for some number of minutes this afternoon. And for some of those minutes, I was actually inside the U.S. Capitol and I swear you could smell it in there.

 

How much of a pickle is Pelosi potentially in?  Enough that Dem loyalist Charles Blow had to resort to some truly twisted reasoning to explain away her delay in responding to allegations against Eric Massa.

Of all things, the New York Times columnist tried to excuse Pelosi's failure to act by blaming . . . "our crazy misogynistic culture."  Huh?

Blow offered his odd opinion on today's Morning Joe . . .

When Michael Moore starts getting panicked, you know times are getting tumultuous for the left and the Democratic Party. 

The anti-corporation, sometimes conspiracy theorist documentary filmmaker aired his frustrations about the current health care reform predicament. Congressional Democrats have gotten themselves into a mess with time running out as the midterm election cycle fast approaches and Moore said he was worried. According to Moore, who appeared on MSNBC's March 10 "The Rachel Maddow Show," if the Democratic Party doesn't make strides in getting their liberal agenda passed - it's bleak times ahead for them.

"Well, we see what it's led us to, to the fact that one out of eight homes now in America is in foreclosure or delinquency," Moore said. "One out of eight home and, of course, the millions that don't have health care and everything else it's - how do you get yourself out of bed every morning to do this show with just the despair of how - the hope that we all had a year, year and a half ago. And now it's like, I just feel like the Democrats are - they're in for an ass-whooping of Biblical proportions in November if they don't get off the dime and do the job they were sent there to do. I mean that. I mean, it - don't they see that?"

As did Martin Luther King Jr., I have a dream.

I dream that my 10-year-old son of pale skin hue will one day grow to maturity in a nation where he won't be dismissed by liberals as some old white guy with a fetish for firearms. Rather, that my son will be judged by a still-revered belief in the singular importance of character.

Agreed, such an expectation is probably more delusion than dream, seeing how often left-wingers in positions of influence gratuitously invoke race.

Here, for example, is Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show this past Thursday talking about a volunteer law enforcement effort called "Operation Exodus" (the segment can be seen in its entirety here) --

MADDOW: These folks, these guys are volunteers in something called Project Exodus in Bossier Parish, La. The sheriff in Bossier Parish, Sheriff Larry Deen, put out a press release recently announcing the creation of this Operation Exodus group. It's now been reported by the Shreveport Times and that local reporting has been picked up nationally by Zack Roth at Talking Points Memo.

If there's one thing Rachel Maddow hates, it's hypocrisy. That and dishonesty, oh, don't get her started. Especially when they emanate from the GOP side of the aisle, at least as perceived by her.

But when coming from Maddow, well, let's just say her blind spot is broad of breadth.

On her MSNBC show Tuesday, for example, Maddow repeatedly called Sen. Orrin Hatch a liar in response to a Hatch op-ed that day in the Washington Post criticizing Democrats for their expected use of budget reconciliation to pass health legislation.

Could Sen. Jim Bunning's desire to pay for extended unemployment benefits with stimulus funds be the result of a serious mental disorder? So suggested Rachel Maddow during her show last night. Maddow based her report on unfouded allegations from a liberal newspaper, and neglected to mention the numerous unstable congressional Democrats that have come unhinged from time to time.

Maddow noted that "even his hometown newspaper has at times questioned his mental fitness," and quoted the Louisville Courier Journal, which in October 2004 asked, "Is his increasing belligerence an indication of something worse? Has [he] drifted into territory that indicates a serious health concern?"

Of course Maddow neglected to mention that Bunning's doctor at the time said his health was "excellent". His campaign manager said the Courier-Journal was spreading false accusations to damage Bunning's election prospects "because he's not a liberal." A political press? Never! (Clips from Maddow's show below the fold - h/t Brian Maloney.)

Want to irk a liberal? I've got just the word for it -- "filibuster."

Hardly a waking hour passes these days without an indignant left-winger in the media condemning this arcane procedure requiring 60 votes to pass major legislation in the Senate.

In the process, dubious claims are being made. Here, for example, is John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation, on Ed Schultz's radio show this past Wednesday (click here for audio) --

NICHOLS: The fact of the matter is that the founders of this republic believed in an arcane, almost forgotten concept called majority rule. They thought that a majority got to decide things. And it is extremely important that these senators, and it's not just Feingold, it's also quite a few other Democratic senators, who think they are defending some sort of structural tradition, some sort of American way of doing things.

UPDATE: Fantastic video analyzing two weeks in the life of Keith Olbermann and his (nearly all white) guests below the fold.  From February 4 through February 18, Keith had 48 guests - and TWO were black.  One, actually - the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson appeared twice.  4% - now THAT'S diverse.  Bravo and kudos to Broliath for said stellar production.

The Place for Race-Baiting

MSNBC hosts Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and the egregiously stentorian and officious Keith Olbermann have made their warped interpretation of the conservative and TEA Party movements as racist a staple of their oft-ridiculed and rarely watched television programs.

These three (and other MSNBC hosts) have engaged in this slander with regularity and fervor. 

Reporting on an August 18, 2009 Arizona TEA Party, white host Contessa Brewer fretted "there are questions about whether this has racial overtones....(with) white people showing up with guns" (Arizona is an open-carry state). The only problem was, one of the men they showed packing was black, and they edited out of the video any show of his melanin so as to carry further their fraudulent narrative.

The Dallas (Texas) TEA Party created a video mocking Olbermann (and Company) for these serial assaults, showing people of color attending TEA Parties and contrasting it with the prevailing whiteness of MSNBC's line-up. To which Olbermann responded with a list of black participants in the alleged news making of his network (and that of parent NBC).

Well Olbermann's explanation, and all of the race-baiting "reporting" done by his vile network, apparently wasn't nearly good enough for Congresswomen Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) and Maxine Waters (D-California), two members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

Next time Rachel Maddow debates members of the John Birch Society, she ought to come armed with more than attitude.

On her MSNBC show Friday night, Maddow showed a minute-long snippet of her exchange with two Birchers at CPAC 2010. The subject? You guessed it -- the Birch Society's opposition to fluoridation of water. Here's how it went --

JBS PRESIDENT JOHN F. McMANUS: The reason we opposed fluoridation is that it's mass medication. Right after we opposed it, a professor from Tufts University, you know where that is, he came out and he said, I think the population's growing so high and so fast that we gotta put birth control substances in the water supply and we can use as a precedent putting fluoridation in the water.

When this arrived at my e-mail inbox Sunday, I thought a usually reliable tipster was playing a joke on me.

But after reviewing the video and transcript of this morning's "Reliable Sources" on CNN, it's become apparent that Howard Kurtz really did ask two of his guests if the press is currently going soft on the Republican Party.

"Every day, every week the media -- and that includes this program -- focus on President Obama," Kurtz said.

"But what about the Republicans? Do they largely get a pass because they're in the minority?" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript and commentary, h/t Story Balloon):

After strolling through the exhibition hall of CPAC 2010 on Thursday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow told viewers that night of her impressions.

Here's Maddow describing one of the things she didn't like --

MADDOW: There were lots of people giving away copies of the Constitution, but in a thing that sort of bothers me, they couldn't resist adding their own documents to the Constitution. So you can get the Constitution, plus say, the mission statement of the anti-ACLU American Civil Rights Union. Or you can get the Constitution plus the mission statement of the Young America's Foundation. Or you can get the Constitution with a foreword by Ron Paul. Much as I love Ron Paul, I don't think you get to write a foreword to the Constitution.

Actually you do, thanks to -- all together, in unison -- the Constitution.

On Friday’s Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Newsweek contributor Jerry Adler was shown reciting a poem in which he lamented all the agenda items that are unpassable because of the Senate filibuster rule that gives Republicans the power to block action by the Democratic majority. Host Maddow set up the clip: "Every week, Jerry Adler turns a story from the news into a verse for Newsweek. So now, without further ado, we present Newsweek`s Jerry Adler reading his latest opus, ‘59 to 41: Filibuster this Poem,’ with a special assist from our own Kent Jones." Jones playing the bongo was used as background music as Adler  read his poem.

Below is a complete transcript of the relevant segment from the Friday, February 19, The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC:

A second MSNBC host on Thursday commented about the NewsBusters doormats featuring the faces of America's most disgraceful cable news network.

As NewsBusters reported moments ago, Rachel Maddow did a segment on her show Thursday evening about her visit to our booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

Not to be outdone, her partner in disinformation, Keith Olbermann, also noticed our quickly becoming famous doormats (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, Rachel Maddow visited our booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference taking place in Washington, D.C.

Showing herself to be a really good sport, Maddow discussed her CPAC visit on the MSNBC program bearing her name.

In particular, she was very pleased with our Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann doormats, although she was offended we didn't have one for her.

"Nobody wants to stomp me out?" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

[Update, 5:30 pm Eastern: MRC's Kevin Eder sent a new picture of Maddow, which is now below the jump. The new picture is much clearer than the one at right]

A few hours ago, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow popped by the Media Research Center/NewsBusters booth at the exhibit hall of CPAC 2010.

She liked our booth -- so much in fact that she posed for a picture -- but complained in jest (?) that it was "sexist" that we didn't have a door mat bearing her image, while we had those of her male MSNBC colleagues Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.

We'll have to see what we can do, Rachel.

In fairness to Rachel Maddow, at least she sounds convincing, even though her earnest assertions invariably collapse under scrutiny. Maddow embodies the smarmy belief that sincerity is all that matters -- fake it well and you've got it made.

Here's Maddow, for example, appearing as a panelist on Sunday's "Meet the Press" and on her MSNBC cable show Monday night (first and second parts of embedded video), weighing in on interrogation of terrorists --

MADDOW: There's, there isn't in this case and there hasn't been in any known modern terrorism case any correlation between the usefulness of an interrogation and whether or not somebody gets read their Miranda rights. It just isn't the case. And in every single instance, every single terrorism case where there's been an arrest in this country in a terrorism case since 9/11, every single one has been handled, the person has been handled as a civilian criminal.

There was a moment when Jose Padilla and Ali al-Marri were handed, handled in military custody. There's nothing magic about the time that they were in military custody. They didn't do any more magical forms of talking that they wouldn't do when they were civilians.

The war between Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow continued Tuesday night when the MSNBCer told the Fox Newser to back off.

Maddow was responding to Beck's accusation on his radio show the previous day that she had intentionally omitted a key sentence of his during her attack on him last week.

During a nine minute segment designed to try to redeem herself in front of her tiny audience, Maddow refused to explain why she and her staff cut off an audio of Beck on Friday just as he was about to say something that would make her point totally absurd.

Instead, she filibustered ad nauseum with videos of previous programs without ever owning up to her shameful omission, after which she ridiculously concluded, "I didn't lie. Back off" (partial video and transcript below the fold):

CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference begins Feb. 18. Conservative leaders will rally the troops before the mid-term elections in November and discuss the future role of conservatives in politics.

One person who will not be in attendance is Meghan McCain, despite the year-long media attempt to make citizens believe she is somehow representative of conservatives. She tweeted on Feb. 11, "I have no idea where this weird rumor I am speaking at CPAC came from, it isn't true and I will not be attending or speaking."

McCain, the 25-year-old daughter of former Republican presidential nominee John McCain and a writer for The Daily Beast, has taken it upon herself to tell the GOP what needs to be fixed within the party. Because she calls herself a Republican, media outlets have perpetuated the notion that she is also conservative. By doing that, they've pushed a liberal social agenda that directly conflicts with conservative values.

Writer Kathleen Parker, herself no stranger to conservative bashing, praised McCain last spring as "one smart cookie" who "in a matter weeks ... has created a brand, presenting herself as a fresh face of her daddy's party and voice of young conservatives."

Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post and a contributor to MSNBC, suggested last summer that "maybe what the Republican Party is going to have to do is skip a generation and wait for the Meghan McCains to come of age so they can run for office and take over the mantle of the party."

Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck has struck back at Rachel Maddow for her gross misrepresentation of his position on global warming by calling her a dishonest purveyor of propaganda.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Maddow last Friday cherry-picked some statements by Beck to make it appear that he believed the recent snowstorms in the nation's capital disprove Nobel Laureate Al Gore's favorite money-making theory.

For what should be obvious reasons, Maddow and her crew decided to omit a key sentence from Beck's radio program that very morning: "How many times have I said both for hurricanes and no hurricane, this doesn't, one storm, one storm does not prove anything?"

Beck made the same case on his radio show Monday accusing Maddow of intentional dishonesty employed to spread anti-conservative propaganda (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Right Scoop):

Rachel, stop, you're killin' me . . .

If  Rachel Maddow's MSNBC gig doesn't work out, why not a career in stand-up?  Earlier today, Tim Graham highlighted a Howard Kurtz WaPo article on Maddow.  Although she has persistently focused on the gays-in-the-military policy, inviting gay soldiers on to tell their stories, Maddow insisted that she is not "mounting a crusade" or "explicitly pushing for change."

That same "lady doth protest too much" routine is echoed in the latest MSNBC promo for Maddow's show, in which the host looks into the camera and proclaims: "I'm not trying to push an agenda."

On Monday, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz touted how Rachel Maddow is making history happen on gays in the military – which might not seem very tough with Obama and the liberal Democrats in Congress in charge of the government. Maddow tries to present herself as an advocacy journalist, not an activist, like there’s a huge difference:

As one of the few openly gay television anchors, Maddow has kept the spotlight trained on the contentious issue of whether service members known to be homosexual should face discharge proceedings, as Choi did after that interview. But she doesn't view herself as mounting a crusade.

"I was an activist before I went into the media," Maddow says. "It is useful for me to tell my opinion on some things I cover. But I'm not trying to get people to march in the streets or call their congressmen. I don't believe that's my role."

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Friday cherry-picked statements from Glenn Beck's radio show to accuse him of lying about global warming.

In a brief segment on the MSNBC program bearing her name, Maddow said the Fox News star claimed the snowstorm that hit the East Coast this week disproves Al Gore's favorite myth.

Unfortunately, Maddow conveniently left out the part when Beck said "one storm does not prove anything."

But that didn't stop the MSNBC host from making the accusation (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

Challenging someone's patriotism is a pretty hefty charge to level in the political arena, based on the response when Barack Obama's patriotism was challenged during the 2008 election cycle.

However, there seems to be a different set of rules when it comes to questioning the authenticity of the manmade global warming argument in the wake of record-setting snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic. And this different standard applied to Bill Nye "The Science Guy," who appeared on MSNBC's Feb. 10 "Rachel Maddow Show" and aired his disapproval of manmade climate change skeptics and labeled them "unpatriotic."

"[T]here's more energy in the atmosphere and this is stirring things up," Nye said. "If you want to get serious about it, these guys claiming that the snow in Washington disproves climate change are almost unpatriotic. It's really, they're denying science. So they're very happy to have the weather forecast be accurate within a few hours, but they're displeased or un-enchanted by predictions of the world getting warmer. It's really, it shakes me up."

Rachel Maddow on Friday referred to attendees of the National Tea Party convention in Nashville, Tennessee, as white-hooded racists.

Continuing MSNBC's sad tradition, Maddow first attacked one of the convention's speakers: "The opening speech last night was given by failed presidential candidate, ex-congressman and professional anti-immigrant, Tom Tancredo who started the event off with a bang, a big loud racist bang."

From there, she went after the audience (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

Jon Stewart Thursday cited a NewsBusters headline that used the word "Rips" to describe what he did to Rachel Maddow in a "Daily Show" segment three weeks ago.

In a sketch mocking recent blog headlines involving him, the Comedy Central star referred to how NewsBusters and others depicted his January 14 response to Maddow's use of the Haitian earthquake disaster as an excuse to criticize former President George W. Bush. 

NewsBusters reported this on January 16 with the headline "Stewart Rips Maddow for Using Haitian Disaster to Bash Bush, Maddow Foolishly Strikes Back."

The "Daily Show" host referred to this twice in Thursday night's segment called "The Blogs Must Be Crazy" (video embedded below the fold, relevant sections at 1:06 and 2:52):

An old joke comes to mind -- a man hiring for an accountant interviews two applicants. He asks the first applicant, two plus two, what's the answer? Four, the applicant responds.

Second applicant, same question. The response -- what do you want it to be? You're hired, he's told.

After watching Rachel Maddow's default tendency toward deceit for more than a year, I wonder if those seeking work at MSNBC undergo similar winnowing.