Rick Perry

For the second week in a row since returning from his summer hiatus, it didn't take HBO's Bill Maher long to begin attacking conservatives.

Roughly one minute into his opening monolog on Friday's "Real Time," the host mocked Texas governor Rick Perry's performance at Thursday's presidential debate and disgustingly quipped, "Sarah Palin was watching and she said, 'If only he was black, I'd f--k him'" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity alert):

It's going to be a long campaign . . . Republicans haven't come close to choosing their presidential candidate yet, but already a proud member of the MSM is calling a leading GOP contender a "killer."

On his MSNBC show this evening, Crazy Larry O'Donnell accused Rick Perry of being--for his record of enforcing the Texas law on capital punishment--the Republicans' "favorite killer, favorite state-sanctioned killer."  Video after the jump.

In recent years, various media outlets have established self-styled truth squads to "fact check"  politicians.  Today on CNN Newsroom anchored by Brooke Baldwin, correspondent Tom Foreman examined statements made at last night's GOP presidential candidate debate.  One was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's criticism of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s support for a law allowing children of illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition at public universities and colleges.  Romney said: "Four years of college, almost $100,000 discount if you're an illegal alien to go to the University of Texas. If you're a United States citizen you have to pay $100,000 more."
     
Foreman's verdict was that Romney's assertion was correct, but faulted him because he didn't mention other states have similar programs:

FOREMAN: If you were an out of state student, you would pay an additional around $23,000 to go there, so over four years that, would add up to about $100,000 break as an in-state student. What he doesn't mention, however is that Texas is not alone. Sure, he wants to punch Rick Perry with this. But California does this, New Mexico does it, Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, Maryland, I can't remember them all.

On Friday's Early Show, CBS's Erica Hill advocated for a liberal pet cause, urging Michele Bachmann to allow children of illegal aliens to receive in-state college tuition. Hill also spotlighted Gov. Rick Perry's attack on his competitors in the GOP presidential race on this issue: "Basically, [Perry is] saying to the other eight folks on the stage there, including yourself, that you don't have a heart."

The anchor raised the immigration issue towards the end of her interview of the Minnesota representative. Hill first quoted Gov. Perry's line on the in-state tuition issue from the previous night's debate: "He said, 'If you say we should not educate children who come into our state by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart.'" She then made a budget-based appeal to the Republican: "I know you said you don't want any resources to go to illegal aliens or their children. Why not, though, give them a tuition break now, rather then, perhaps, down the line, having to hand over unemployment, or even welfare?"

On Thursday's American Morning, CNN regarded Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry's newest web-ad as using "patriotism as a political tool." Co-host Carol Costello lumped his ad in with the 2004 Swift Boat campaign, as an unfair accusation to make of his opponent's patriotism.

Perry's newest web-ad attacks Obama's jobs record and his "apology tour" for America, and trumpets Perry's own patriotism. Costello then lumped that in with the Swift Boat campaign of 2004 which questioned the war heroism of candidate John Kerry. Although it was a legitimate story, it has been regarded by the liberal media as a smear.

On Tuesday's Morning Edition, NPR's Wade Goodwyn carried water for pro-abortion activists who are targeting Governor Rick Perry and the Texas legislature for cutting the state funding of "women's health clinics." Goodwyn didn't give an ideological label for the activists, referring to them merely as "family planning advocates," and highlighted their objection that some of the cut funds were now going to crisis pregnancy centers.

Hosts Steve Inskeep and David Greene pushed a liberal talking point against the Republican presidential contender in his introduction for the correspondent's report: "Texas has been attracting people who move there for jobs. At the same time, though, more than a quarter of the state's population has no health insurance, which is more than any other state. Hospital emergency rooms and dozens of women's health clinics have been filling the gap." Greene continued that "this year, Perry and the state legislature drastically cut funding for the clinics."

CNN's Wolf Blitzer fretted over Rick Perry blasting Obama's foreign policy soon before the President was to deliver his address to the United Nations. CNN analyst David Gergen agreed with him, painting Perry as a grenade-thrower.

In a meeting with New York City Jewish leaders GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry slammed what he termed President Obama's policy of "appeasement" in the Middle East, and labeled it "naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous." Perry made his remarks on the eve of President Obama's address to the UN, in the same city.

[Video below the break. For audio, click here.]

Former New York Times editorial page editor turned columnist Gail Collins made the front of Sunday Opinion with a (what else?) condescending and stereotype-filled story on Republican Gov. Rick Perry and Texas, rounded out with a cartoon of Perry as a cactus and an undignifying stack of headlines: “Rick Perry, Uber Texan – Meet the lone wolf of the Lone Star State. To him, Texas has all the answers and Washington is the enemy. Go Aggies!”

Clearly the Times isn’t afraid of offending those particular regional sensibilities.

During a prerecorded commentary on CBS Sunday Morning, left-wing CBS commentator Nancy Giles complained about the "bloodlust" of GOP audience members who applauded Texas's use of capital punishment at the recent MSNBC debate and a small number of audience members who applauded at Monday's CNN debate after moderator Wolf Blitzer asked if someone who chose not to purchase insurance should be allowed to die.

CBS played a clip of the exchanges but notably left out Rep. Ron Paul's answer to Blitzer's question as he argued that organizations like churches used to help provide health care before Medicaid existed, leaving Giles to give the impression that Rep. Paul had been unconcerned about the uninsured dying. Giles:

Wouldn't it have been wonderful if while Ronald Reagan was President the media gushed and fawned over him the way they do now?

On this weekend's syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," the host actually spent half the program discussing with his guests why Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is no Reagan (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher returned to HBO Friday regaling viewers with nonstop attacks on conservatives.

Showing some uncharacteristic restraint, it only took eight minutes before he went after Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann using Texas's HPV vaccine issue to call the Minnesota Congresswoman mentally retarded (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"What Texas miracle?" Chris Matthews snorted at the open of his September 16 program, noting that "Today we learned that the Texas unemployment rate hit 8.5 percent last month" and that "the state actually lost jobs last month, even worse than the national figure of zero jobs created."

"So where's the Texas miracle now?" a smug "Hardball" host asked his audience.

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As the scandal involving failed solar panel company Solyndra and President Obama grows, the prime time programs at the so-called "news network" known as MSNBC continue to ignore it.

Despite the announcement of the Solyndra bankruptcy on August 31, "Hardball," "PoliticsNation," "The Last Word," "The Rachel Maddow Show," and "The Ed Show" have not done one single report on the subject.

Ah, this would explain the blood on his hands.

Rachel Maddow continues her yeoman's work as propagandist for Democrats, dishonestly attributing power over sentencing in Texas murder cases to Gov. Rick Perry instead of with juries where it actually resides. (video after page break)

CNN's Jim Acosta asked Rick Perry Wednesday if he was "a tad overconfident" for stumping in a battleground state like Virginia so early in the campaign season. Perry, a leading Republican presidential candidate, delivered a speech at Liberty University earlier in the day.

"It seems as if you're already looking past the primaries and into the general election," CNN's political correspondent posed to the candidate. "Aren't you being a tad overconfident?" he obnoxiously added.

[Video below the break. For audio, click here.]

Covering Gov. Rick Perry's Wednesday morning speech to Liberty University students, Washington Post's Philip Rucker painted the Texas Republican as "anti-intellectual" for what amounts to a self-deprecating jokes about his grades in college:

Despite having been exposed for at least twice calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, MSNBC's Chris Matthews continues to pound Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry for saying the same thing.

Here's what the "Hardball" host hypocritically said on Tuesday's program (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Tuesday's New York Times's “Check Point” was the latest liberally slanted fact check of a G.O.P. presidential debate, this time by two liberal reporters, Michael Cooper and Nicholas Confessore, “Perry’s Criticism of Social Security as ‘Ponzi Scheme' Dogs Him in Debate.”

Confessore, who once worked for the liberal journals Washington Monthly and American Prospect, once again staunchly defended Social Security. In a December 2004 post for the Prospect, he praised the Times, the paper he was about to join, for its harsh coverage of President Bush’s attempt at free-market-based Social Security reform.

“NBC Nightly News” is the highest-rated daily news show in the morning or evening. In mid-August, this show had been ranked number one for 100 straight weeks, pulling an average of 7.7 million viewers. This makes Brian Williams the king of the TV-news hill. To be sure, it’s obviously a smaller hill than the Walter Cronkite era, but in political terms, Williams, like Cronkite, is E.F. Hutton. His newscast can set the tone across the rest of the  “news” media.

But all that royalty evaporates in the presence of Barack Obama. The contrast was jaw-dropping between Williams roaring like a lion against Obama’s Republican challengers at the Reagan Library on September 7, and then bowing gently like a lamb at the White House three days later.

The left is already out attacking last night's CNN Tea Party debate, with the New York Times leading the way as it cried "the first event hosted jointly by a major news organization and a Tea Party group" has "left some questioning whether the network had gone too far in reaching for centrist credibility." That charge only makes sense in a liberal world view that thought Brian Williams' biased performance at last week's NBC News/Politico debate was somehow soft and uncontroversial.

In fact there were far more liberal questions (13) to the GOP candidates at this Tea Party debate than there were conservative-oriented questions at the NBC News debate last week (just one). The Tea Party gets credit for helping restore balance to the agenda, but it's not like liberal ideas were shut out.

On Tuesday's Early Show, CBS targeted Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry by using their 'Fast Draw' animators to depict the Texas governor as gun-slinging, right-wing extremist. Cartoonists Josh Landis and Mitch Butler turned to a Texas journalist who claimed that Perry "would turn back the clock. He would take America back to where there was basically no safety net" [audio clips available here].

The largely animated segment focused on Perry as part of "a contest to find out who will be 'America's Next Top Republican,'" a parody of the TV show "America's Next Top Model." After labeling the governor a "true believer," Landis noted the Texas politician's beginnings in "the dusty little town of Paint Creek," highlighting how "he bathed on the back porch," even depicting this with feet hanging out of a bathtub.

[Video clips from the segment available below the jump.]

Whether or not Social Security is a Ponzi scheme was again a source of great discussion during Monday's Republican presidential debate, and it appears this is likely going to be a hot issue throughout this election cycle.

What should be interesting to participants and pundits alike is that during the last presidential campaign, on November 5, 2007, the late Tim Russert, and Chris Matthews, while talking about the Democrat candidates on an episode of MSNBC's "Hardball" broadcast exactly one year before America elected its first black president, agreed that Social Security was "a bad Ponzi scheme" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last night's debate brought a few blows to front runner Gov. Rick Perry, who kept his cool despite the attacks from every other candidate. While Perry's overall performance at last night's debate seemed to have improved over last week's debate, his stumbling on the issues of immigration and health care may have hurt him in the eyes of some Tea Party supporters. Do you think the attacks against Perry will hurt his campaign? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, CNN asked if Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry was being a "bomb thrower" for vilifying Social Security as a Ponzi scheme.

After playing a clip of Perry calling the program a "monstrous lie" and a "Ponzi scheme," CNN's Kyra Phillips teed up Democratic strategist Maria Cardona with this question: "Bomb thrower or truth teller, Maria?" Cardona predictably replied that Perry was a "bomb thrower."

[Video below the break.]

On the front of Sunday's Business section, Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein slammed GOP candidates: "If you came up with a bumper sticker that pulls together the platform of this year’s crop of Republican presidential candidates, it would have to be: Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP."

Pearlstein seemed especially insulted that Gov. Rick Perry would suggest John Maynard Keynes and his "stimulus" economics were through, and no one on the Republican stage came to the liberal icon's defense. Somehow, reporters (and former reporters like Pearlstein) always expect there to be a liberal in the other party's fold. Liberals really hate it when you say their ideas are outdated.

Within seconds of his introduction on Friday's "Tonight Show," Bill Maher attacked leading Republicans.

In a truly delicious example of instant karma, moments after calling Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann idiots, the pompous, more arrogant than most Maher spoke of how important the "Iowa primary" is (video follows with commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday admitted that Social Security is technically a Ponzi scheme.

Less than 24 hours earlier, in numerous post-debate discussions, the "Hardball" host criticized Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry for saying the same thing (video follows with transcript and commentary):