Rachel Maddow

A day after key White House officials declared the Fox News Channel wasn't a news organization, President Obama met with MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

Talk about your delicious hypocrisy.

Fittingly, the news was broken by FNC's Bret Baier during Tuesday's "Special Report" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, relevant section at 1:45, h/t Hot Air via NBer Thomas Stewart):

Less than a week after likening conservative blogger Michelle Malkin to a “mashed-up bag of meat” on his Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann on Monday called out former President George H.W. Bush for daring to call him and fellow MSNBC host Rachel Maddow “sick puppies,” as Olbermann described Bush’s words from a recent interview as a “weird term."

As he characterized Bush as being hypocritical for making the comment while denouncing the incivility in American politics, Olbermann accused Bush of helping to create the climate of incivility himself in 1988 with the Willie Horton ad, although the ad Olbermann was referring to which showed a photograph of Horton – and which Olbermann displayed images of – was produced by an independent group, the National Security Political Action Committee. The Bush campaign never used Horton’s image, but instead ran the “Revolving Door” ad attacking Michael Dukakis’s support for a prison furlough program.

Potential title of Tom Wolfe novel with protagonist based on Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida -- A Man in Fulsome.

Rachel Maddow had just introduced Grayson on her MSNBC show Monday night and what does he do? Disparages the size of her audience.

Maddow was talking about Florida Republicans gearing up to unseat Grayson -- 

MADDOW: I know that two of the people who are going to run against you are tea party activists ...

GRAYSON: That's right.

MADDOW: ... Patricia Sullivan and Dan Fanelli. I'm helping them out with their name recognition right now. What do you ...

GRAYSON (laughing): Well, good, now four people know them instead of two.

Rachel Maddow on Thursday told one of her guests, "I personally think that you and the folks that do what you do are a parasite who gets fat on Americans` fears."

Maybe this is what led former President George H.W. Bush to call Maddow a sick puppy on Friday.

Abdicating all journalistic standards and ethics -- what a shock for an MSNBC employee!!! -- Maddow made it clear why she was attacking Tim Phillips, President of Americans for Prosperity: "[B]ecause we`re making this about you and me."

Maddow further elaborated that some of her anger regarding Phillips's efforts to block ObamaCare is because he's "being paid to do it." 

Phillips marvelously responded, "And what are you being paid to do? To attack guys like me?" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 4:30, h/t Story Balloon, file photo):

Perhaps the 41st president still has it in him - at least when it comes to the left crying foul about the so-called uncivil political discourse on right, but being equally if not worse on the left - particularly on MSNBC, the "Place for Politics."

In an interview on Oct. 16 with CBS Radio, former President George H.W. Bush took a very critical tact with MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, deeming them "a couple of sick puppies." (via MSNBC's Oct. 16 "The Rachel Maddow Show")

"I don't like it," Bush said. "I think the cables have a lot to do with it. I'll take you back to when I was president - we got tons of criticism, but didn't seem day in and day out quite as personal as some of these talk show people."

Earlier today, the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack reported that the Huffington Post had asked author Jack Huberman to document quotes allegedly from Rush Limbaugh declaring that slavery “had its merits” and that the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. deserved the Medal of Honor.

The quotes were widely cited as real by several sports writers and on CNN and MSNBC in the past week as proof that Limbaugh was a racist who did not deserve to own part of the St. Louis Rams football team. But the Huffington Post has now removed them, saying the author has not been able to substantiate them.

[UPDATE: CNN's Rick Sanchez also, apologizes, sort of, via Twitter: "our bad."]

This editor’s note appeared early this evening on the 2006 blog by the liberal Huberman, who was pitching his then-new book, 101 People Who Are REALLY Screwing America:

On the June 3, 2009 Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, host Rachel Maddow cited a false quote attributed to Rush Limbaugh in which the radio host supposedly said he wanted to award Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin the Medal of Honor. Since Limbaugh expressed interest in becoming part owner of the St. Louis Rams in October, several MSNBC hosts have repeated that and other false quotes.

Reacting to Limbaugh calling then Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist, Maddow declared: “When you get called racist by the guy who says the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. should get the Medal of Honor, consider yourself honored. Also, nauseated.” Maddow’s dishonest rant was originally reported by NewsBusters’ D. S. Hube.

Before lying about Limbaugh, Maddow attacked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for also labeling Sotomayor as racist and not fully retracting his statement: “Last week, Mr. Gingrich used Twitter to declare that Judge Sotomayor is a Latina woman racist.  Today, he issued a statement that seemed designed to take credit for retracting that comment without actually retracting it.” Viewers are still waiting for MSNBC to retract its charge of racism against Limbaugh based on fabricated quotes.

Every now and then, though not often, MSNBC has its moments.

Like when one of its left-wing pundits has something good to say about Fox News. Yes, that Fox News.

On her cable show Thursday night, Maddow and Democratic strategist Joe Trippi were discussing a poll conducted by Opinion Dynamics and reported by Fox.

Remember back just a few short months ago - when thousands, if not millions, of Americans were protesting out-of-control government spending and other policies favored by President Barack Obama's administration? 

Surprised by the resounding turnout, the usual lefty talking heads on MSNBC, specifically on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" and "The Rachel Maddow Show," explained the protests away as being fake grassroots aka AstroTurf.

Fast forward to Oct. 7, when both Olbermann and Maddow started laying down AstroTurf of their own. They encouraged free health care clinics to be held in the states of six Democratic senators that are not in lockstep with the left-wing agenda on health care reform.

This is perhaps a pretty desperate way for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to try to resonate with her liberal viewers. 

On her Oct. 6 show, Maddow specifically targeted Sens. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C. for pursuing foreign policy objectives that run counter to President Barack Obama's on the issues of global warming and Latin America relations.

First she set her sights on Inhofe, who recently announced he would be making a trip to Copenhagen to offer an opposing U.S. perspective on the issue of global warming. Inhofe, who is the ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has been one of the most outspoken critics of efforts to force the U.S. government to enact economy-wrecking policy by putting limits on carbon emissions.

Anyone who makes fools of liberals on a regular basis can't be all bad. For this, yet again, we can thank Sarah Palin.

The upcoming release of Palin's memoirs, "Going Rogue: An American Life," has already led to attempts by left wingers in the media to rewrite the Troopergate scandal.

Palin was accused of abusing her power as governor by dismissing Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan for his refusal to fire state trooper Mike Wooten as a danger to the public. Wooten was Palin's former brother-in-law and had gone through a nasty divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister.

Here, for example, is Alaskan blogger Jeanne Devon of The Mudflats.net with her skewed take on Troopergate when she appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Sept. 29 --

If a regular fan of MSNBC primetime were to chime into a water cooler conversation with the words, "Terror plot? I haven't heard of any terror plot?" such an MSNBC devotee couldn't be blamed for not knowing about one of the big news stories of the past two weeks.

While the arrest of terror suspect Najibullah Zazi -- who admitted to training with al-Qaeda in Pakistan and is believed to have been planning to target New York City -- featured prominently on every broadcast network evening newscast in the past couple of weeks as well as some evening shows on CNN and FNC, there was barely a mention during MSNBC's primetime schedule of the terror plot described by NBC Nightly news anchor Brian Williams as "one of the more serious terror plots since 9/11."

Don't you love it when a liberal lapses into candor?

Here's a recent example of this delightful phenomenon, courtesy of Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC this past Wednesday, with New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman one of Maddow's guests.

Maddow and Krugman talked about a speech given by Sarah Palin to investors in Hong Kong, and of Krugman's new book, "The Return of Depression Economics," when Maddow asked him this (click here for audio)--

Recent videos from two investigative reporters, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, with the help of Andrew Breitbart, showed that community-group ACORN engaging in scandalous practices. But MSNBC host Rachel Maddow argued Sept. 24 that wasn't the story that mattered. 

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, was hit hard by the videos showing employees giving tax avoidance advice to a "pimp" and "hooker."  

But Maddow rose to the defense of ACORN which she called a right-wing "bogeyman," crusading for them on her MSNBC show. She accused corporations of going into "kill mode" against the organization which helps "poor people."

The progressive mindset is a curious one, as evidenced by New York Times columnist and Nobel Economics Prize recipient Paul Krugman.

Krugman appeared on MSNBC's Sept. 23 "The Rachel Maddow Show" and lamented that the Obama Administration missed the opportunity the recent financial crisis offered to fundamentally change how the American economy operates. Host Rachel Maddow asked Krugman what the Great Depression taught economists when it comes to avoiding a repeat.

"It taught us a lot about how to avoid one, which is that you really have to, have to put some constraints. I mean, it sort of roughly, banking is very useful but extremely dangerous and banks have to have all kinds of - you know, fencing put around them as a protection. They have to have some guarantees so that we don't have bank runs, so people know their money is safe. But then, we also have some regulation so that bankers don't take huge risks with other people's money on a ‘heads I win, tails you lose' basis."

Yes -- "un-future-y." Rachel Maddow actually says things like that, and there are people out there -- and out there, they are -- who consider it charming.

At the end of her MSNBC show Monday, Maddow chatted with sidekick and pop culture reporter Kent Jones about "Star Trek" actor George Takei ("Mr. Sulu") and his partner becoming the first gay couple to compete on "The Newlywed Game."

As might be expected of likeminded liberals, both Maddow and Jones had trouble envisioning Takei as married, same-sex or otherwise --

MADDOW: I have to say, the idea of Mr. Sulu being married is so un-Sulu to me. I mean, I'm really happy that he's married as George Takei, but I think of him as Mr. Sulu and Mr. Sulu could not be married.

Since the Tea Parties began and the anti-government sentiment boiled over into town hall meeting protests, a consistent media meme has been that some of the signs present as well as the rhetoric have been inciting violence against Barack Obama.

As my colleague Geoffrey Dickens previously reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews Tuesday actually warned talk radio hosts that they would pay if anything actually happens to the President.

Of course, on MSNBC, this isn't anything new, for the August 7 installment of "The Rachel Maddow Show" featured the host asking her guest, "Do you think that calling the president a Nazi, calling the president Hitler is an implicit call for politically motivated violence?"

With this in mind, Paul Williams created a marvelous video essay using the audio of Maddow's program that day with an overlay of pictures and footage of demonstrations when George W. Bush was president.

The result is an extraordinarily powerful demonstration of how hypocritical the current liberal media position is concerning this matter (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Political Integrity Now):

Kent Jones, a guest on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," branded the MRC's Culture and Media Institute a "usual suspect" in the fight against gay marriage.

Dubbed the "matrimonial recreation correspondent" by Maddow, Jones mocked conservative arguments against gay marriage during a report of George Takei's (Mr. Sulu for the Trekkies out there) scheduled appearance on the "Newlywed Game" alongside his spouse, Brad Altman.

Jones noted that the legalization of same-sex marriage in Iowa "didn't cause the apocalypse" and called Takei and Altman's appearance on the game show a "little marital victory," before launching into the "Star Trek" jokes:

Talk about grasping at straws.

Once again, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow can't let a week pass without denigrating former vice president Dick Cheney, the better to shift attention from Obama's beleagured presidency.

Here's Maddow on her cable show Sept. 8, relaying news of British intelligence officials apparently still chagrined at Cheney for forcing their hand to arrest suspects in the '06 airline bombing plot before they were prepared to do so --

Is there a sentient person over the age of 12 who believes our health care problems are as serious as the peril facing America after 9/11?

At least one person whose belief in this has been confirmed, though I suspect many others drawn to MSNBC think likewise.

Here's Princeton political science professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," where she is a frequent guest, on Sept. 10 --

Do you ever wonder how morally upside-down a liberal can be when they can furrow their brow and decry the waterboarding of the man who plotted the September 11 mass murder, but find it funny when a conservative gets maimed? Via Radio Equalizer, we learn that radical MSNBC host Rachel Maddow thinks it’s funny that an anti-Obama protester had his pinky bit off at a health care event. The screen behind her attempted humor (in a reference for the older audience members, to NBC's Laugh-In): "Fickle Finger of Fight."

Ana Marie Cox, until the end of last year the Washington editor for Time magazine's Web site, concluded her Friday night (September 4) fill-in gig as host of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show -- where she was hardly shy about conveying her liberal views as she spent much of the hour ridiculing conservatives -- by pulling open her jacket to display how underneath she was wearing a vintage “I'm Ready for Teddy Kennedy '76” T-shirt. (For the historically-challenged, Kennedy did not run in 1976.)

Now a weekend host for the left-wing Air America radio network, Cox explained: “It's a tribute, of sorts, to the fallen liberal lion.” A blogger for The Daily Beast, where the title for her last post was “God Loves Obama,” she quickly added that Kennedy was not her first apparel choice: “I actually was looking for a Wellstone shirt. If anyone can find a Wellstone shirt, very interested in it, classic.”

If only Rachel Maddow watched her MSNBC show when someone else is guest hosting, she might avoid inconvenient juxtapositions.

The first part of the embedded clip shows Maddow on Aug. 31 taking aim at former vice president Dick Cheney's unapologetic defense of Bush administration tactics against al Qaeda and the war in Iraq.

The second part shows Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff appearing on Maddow's show Aug. 24 and inadvertently undermining what Maddow would say about Cheney a week later.

Rachel Maddow, gun lover? Well, sort of - and with some strings attached, of course.

The MSNBC host of the "The Rachel Maddow Show" appeared on Jimmy Fallon's Aug. 31 NBC show and told the host about her first date - at a shooting range.

"My first date with my girlfriend Susan was at a shooting range," Maddow said. "That was awesome. It was ladies' day on the range. Her sister is a lifetime NRA member and she was organizing ladies' day on the range at her gun club. So we did it. We shot AR-15s and we threw tomahawks and we did archery, pistols and skeets."

Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer found wacky leftist radio host Stephanie Miller taking her worship of MSNBC to ridiculous levels, even for a comedian who's (half?) joking: 

I was on Ed Schultz yesterday, as a liberal, going to MSNBC – like visiting the Vatican...Hung out with Rachel Maddow for a while. I would have licked Keith Olbermann’s chair again, but he doesn’t let me into his studio...[Whispers about Maddow] She is awesome!

Maloney added:

Now, imagine for a moment the state-run media's reaction if a conservative were to equate the FOX News Channel studios with any major religious site or institution. The mere mention of "licking the chair" of a FOX host would bring months of ridicule.

Thanks, Steph, for defining liberalism as it exists today. We couldn't have said it better.

Those pesky wabbit Wepublicans, complained MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, always waising the bar on Democrats. 

During her show Aug. 20, Maddow recruited former WNBA player Sue Wicks to shoot baskets in studio to illustrate alleged machinations by the GOP. Here's what Maddow had to say after Wicks nailed one of her shots --

MADDOW: Sinking a shot on a regulation, 10-foot hoop, yeah, it's not a sure thing but with effort and focus you learn how to do it. These are the rules. Or these were the rules, OK?

You know why you never hear about the Senate needing 51 votes to pass anything any more? It's because since the Republicans have been in the minority in the Senate, they've taken a once rarely-used exception to the 51-vote rule and they've turned it into a new rule. It's called the filibuster and it means that the minority won't even allow something to be voted on without 60 senators giving it the nod.

To liberal media outlets, Warren Hern, one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country, has been worthy of praise as a doctor who boldly stands up for his beliefs in the face of intimidation - a lonely humanitarian braving violent death for the sake of his patients.

That's the picture painted by TV and other media. What's missing from the portrait is Hern's belief that humans are "malignant ecotumors," his refusal to be called an abortionist, and his strident denunciations of the pro-life movement.

Attention has turned to Hern in the wake of the May 31 murder of Kansas late-term abortionist (and Hern friend) George Tiller. Since then, Hern has appeared on MSNBC, CNN and NPR. Print media, including the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Boston Globe and The Chicago Tribune have cited him.

Esquire magazine devoted 9,000 words to Hern in its current issue, which sparked his Aug. 12 appearance on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show and praise from Keith Olbermann.

Hey, if you can't poke fun at someone whose name dovetails with that of a potentially devastating neurological disorder ...

MSNBC cable show host Rachel Maddow demonstrated what passes for humor on her show Aug. 12 when she said this about Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio --

MADDOW: Next up on the bizarre health-care debate circuit, Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette attended a town hall event in his Ohio district yesterday. There, he very responsibly urged his audience to be civil. (cuts to footage of LaTourette)

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," a bit of a squabble happened when panelists Dick Armey and Rachel Maddow bickered over whether or not MoveOn.org once ran an ad equating former President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Regardless of who was right, someone should instruct Maddow as to the difference between being a guest and a host, for her continual interruptions when Armey was speaking, though quite commonplace for an MSNBC anchor, were downright rude.

Just watch what happened when host David Gregory asked the very first question directed at Armey (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 3:25):

Somewhere, Joe McCarthy is smiling . . .

On today's Meet The Press, Rachel Maddow demanded to know whether Dick Armey was a member of a coalition with the Tea Party Patriots, a group she alleges to promote "violence."  Moderator David Gregory joined in the cross-examination of Armey, head of Freedom Works.