Rick Santorum

MSNBC's supposedly conservative host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday continued his months-long attack on the Republican presidential candidates.

After telling his Morning Joe viewers that he would consider voting for potential third party candidate Ron Paul if Newt Gingrich won the nomination, Scarborough said he could "in five minutes write a list of 200 Republican members of the House of Representatives" more qualified than "the presidential candidates that are running right now" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting for days, the Obama-loving media have been doing a collective victory lap concerning the President's appeasement retort "Go ask Osama bin Laden."

When CNN's Candy Crowley tried this during her interview with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday's State of the Union, she got a much-needed education that would help all her foreign policy-challenged colleagues in the press (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting, America's supposedly impartial media have been gushing and fawning over President Obama's press conference retort to Republican accusations of his appeasement, "Ask Osama bin Laden."

Doing his part Thursday was CNN's John King who proudly declared on the program bearing his name, "Point, set, match Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The media are all in a tizzy about the idea of real estate tycoon Donald Trump moderating a Republican presidential debate.

On Tuesday, one of the candidates, Rick Santorum, told KLIF substitute radio host Steve Malzberg, "I can't see in some cases where Donald Trump would be any worse than what we get from the mainstream media" (video follows with transcript):

The liberals on PBS's Inside Washington Friday were all giddy at the thought of Newt Gingrich as the Republican presidential nominee.

So sure this would be good news for the president he adores, syndicated columnist and PBS fixture Mark Shields said this would result in the "landslide reelection victory of Barack Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Monday, the Daily Kos covered the Saturday night GOP debate in Iowa with a typical headline "Republicans pander to American Taliban." (Who's doing the pandering? That's also the title of the latest book by Kos bloglord Markos Moulitsas.) Jed  Lewison insisted Rick Santorum was Talibanesque when he said, in the Washington Post account: “As long as abortion is legal in this country... we will never have rest because that law does not comport with God’s law.”

Lewison proclaimed: "So the next time you hear Rick Santorum complain about government imposition of Sharia law, keep in mind that he doesn't have a problem with violating the separation of church and state. To him, the only thing that matters is whether the government is imposing his beliefs." (Italics in the original.) Blogs like Right Wing Watch (from People for the American Way) seized on the answer.

Are there no limits to where leftwing media members will go to bash Republicans?

On Monday, the Huffington Post actually published a front page article with the headline, "Michele Bachmann Pours Water For Men At GOP Primary Forum In Iowa":

With the usual self-satisfied smirk, as she karate-chopped the air in front of the word "SHAMPAIGN," MSNBC host Rachel Maddow mocked the idea of a Newt Gingrich surge by picking up on her fellow gay activist Dan Savage's smear of Rick Santorum: the one which insures that a Google search of Santorum leads to Savage's comparison of the religious conservative to semen and fecal matter. Don't ever let them tell you MSNBC is classy.

"They’ve gone through this with Donald Trump now and Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, and Herman Cain. We sort of expect them to do this with everybody in the field -- I mean, except for Rick Santorum. Nobody’s going to vote for Rick Santorum, come on," Maddow sneered. "But the idea of a Newt Gingrich surge is almost as absurd as people – uh, you know, Googling Rick Santorum and saying, 'I like what I found here, I`m going to vote for this guy.'" Then came the Springtime for Hitler references.

Jon Stewart, on Thursday's Daily Show, repeatedly mocked Rick Perry for his, as he put it, "brain turd" moment at this week's CNBC debate. However, Perry wasn't the only GOP candidate Stewart made fun of. Everyone from Perry to Santorum took a hit. The only candidate Stewart didn't mock was Mitt Romney, whom the Daily Show host declared to be the winner of the whole race. "It's over! Indecision 2012 Mercy Rule Edition. Because in presidential primaries, as in little league, if one team is up 10-0 in the third you call it a day an you head over to Friendly's for some Fribbles and some food poisoning."
                                             
Stewart initially teased his audience with the Perry clip by calling it: "Rick Perry's now infamous ABC Wide World of Sports agony-of-defeat-worthy brain turd." Then he went on to savage the other GOP contenders on his November 10 show. (video after the jump)

Perhaps CNN’s "Belief Blog" should be renamed the "Anti-Belief Blog." Blatant scorn for Christian morality is ever-present there. 

Fordham religious professor Patrick Hornbeck, in a post titled "Why good Catholics are challenging church line on homosexuality," argues that good Catholics are increasingly rejecting "official Church teaching" concerning homosexuality. He claims that "A series of recent conferences at American colleges reveals the breadth of Catholic approaches to issues of sexual diversity."

There are softballs and then there are softballs.

On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory teed one up for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that was specifically designed to mock the Republican presidential candidates while allowing her to brag uninterrupted about the foreign policy successes of Barack Obama (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Hours before Republican presidential candidates faced off in Tuesday's debate in Las Vegas, Martin Bashir took a swipe at six of them.

On the MSNBC program bearing his name, the host said that since Mitt Romney is "the inevitable candidate," the rest of the contestants are auditioning "for future employment" at Fox News (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Joining PBS host Charlie Rose as a questioner tonight at the Washington Post debate is Post reporter Karen Tumulty, who wrote for Time magazine for  quite a while. On the Post website, she promised "No gimmicks, no gotchas, just a discussion that is as serious as the issues that Americans are dealing with on a daily basis."

But Tumulty has a history of uncorking some liberal hosannas, hailing Obama's "conspicuous candor" and lauding Al Gore's documentary as the work of "a laptop-wielding ninja whose PowerPoint could rescue the planet from the forces of greed and indifference."  But Newt Gingrich was the "pompous thug of late-night cable." Last December, Tumulty was clearly in a "gotcha" mode with former Sen. Rick Santorum, describing him as a "notorious" fire-breather on social issues:

On today's Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace devoted the last five minutes of a 13-minute interview to sparring with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, as the Fox host challenged the former Pennsylvania Senator for his opposition to gays serving openly in the military.

After playing a clip of Santorum from a recent debate arguing against the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Wallace began the exchange:

On Monday's "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, host Jon Stewart called both Rick Santorum and Rick Perry idiots as he responded to some of their statements from the most recent GOP presidential debate.

After a clip of Santorum arguing that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy should be reinstated, suggesting that members of the armed forces should keep their sexual orientation to themselves as they serve, Stewart responded with censored profanity and ended up calling the former Republican Senator an "idiot":

Openly gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts is aggressively using his daily soapbox for gay activism. On Friday morning, Roberts was outraged with the rest of the left that the Republican candidates did not denounce the boos after openly gay soldier Thomas Hill asked on video if the Republicans would "circumvent the progress that has been made" for gays if elected. [Audio available here.]

No one seems to question why Fox News and Megyn Kelly would pluck this question out of thousands of submissions and throw it directly at Rick Santorum. It seems like they were wearing a bracelet asking "What Would CNN Do?" Roberts, speaking very calmly, said something very wild. These Republican candidates would like to build a time machine and go back to when women couldn't vote and slavery was cool:

CBS's Erica Hill lauded homosexual activist Dan Savage, the mastermind of an Internet smear campaign against Rick Santorum, as a "tireless advocate" for bullied schoolchildren on Thursday's "Early Show." The Big Three networks all turned to Savage as their "expert" for their Wednesday and Thursday coverage of high school freshman Jamey Rodemeyer's suicide, but only "The Early Show" brought him on.

Hill's radical guest, who revealed his torture fantasy against the Republican in July 2011, founded an online campaign called the It Gets Better Project, where Rodemeyer posted an online video in May. The anchor began by claiming that Savage "has been a tireless advocate to stop this bullying, to give kids some hope." She then tossed a softball question: "His [Rodemeyer's] mom said he had a big message, but it shouldn't have to be a message. What would you say to her this morning, to so many teens who may be watching Jamey and what happened to him?"

“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.

Wednesday on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, Morgan interviewed GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.  The host spent considerable time on Santorum's views on homosexuality.  Confirming the candidate is a Catholic, Morgan asked if he believes homosexuality is a sin.  Santorum stated he subscribes to his Church's teaching that it is.  Morgan asked how Santorum would react to learning one of his sons is gay and after listening to his response:

MORGAN: I guess one of the reasons it's troubling and difficult for people to come out is because of the level of bigotry that's out there against them. I have to say that your views you espoused on this issue are bordering on bigotry, aren't they?

So an orthodox Roman Catholic who adheres to his faith's determination that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" borders on bigotry.  Not Morgan, however:

MORGAN: Well, I'm a Catholic, too. I just think, unfortunately, we're in a different era. We're in a modern world. And the fact --

This year’s crop of GOP presidential candidates includes strong conservatives, just like the top Democratic candidates four years ago — Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards — were all staunch liberals. But a major, glaring difference between today’s campaign coverage and the early coverage of the 2007 Democratic nomination race is the impulse of journalists to repeatedly brand the 2012 GOP candidates as “conservative” despite offering extremely few “liberal” labels four years ago.

Media Research Center analysts reviewed the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news programs from January 1 through July 31 and found 62 “conservative” labels for Republican candidates or those talked about as potential candidates. A check of the same broadcasts for the same time period in 2007 found a paltry three “liberal” labels for the Democrats running that year, a greater than 20-to-1 disparity.

Editor's Note: What follows is NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's thoughts on who won, who lost, and who should just pack it all in following last night's Republican presidential debate in Ames, Iowa.

Gingrich: The winner. Wasn't even close. Showed why Obama would pee in his pants having to debate this man.

Santorum: Also a winner. Showed most passion, and took on and beat up other candidates. But was it enough to keep him alive?

Two weeks after Bill Maher hosted one of the most vile political discussions ever broadcast on national television, the host of HBO's "Real Time" was rewarded with a tenth season of his despicable show.

TV By The Numbers reported Friday:

As NewsBusters previously reported, sex advice columnist Dan Savage on HBO's "Real Time" Friday said he wanted to perform violent hate sex on Rick Santorum.

On Monday, the former Pennsylvania Senator responded on WOR radio's Steve Malzberg show (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Potentially the most vile political discussion ever aired on national television occurred on Friday's HBO program "Real Time."

After former Air America comedian Marc Maron said he wanted to have violent hate sex with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), sex advice columnist Dan Savage said he'd like to do the same to Rick Santorum (video follows with transcript and commentary, extreme vulgarity warning):

A defense of infidelity, put forward by gay-rights activist and explicit sex-advice columnist Dan Savage and penned by Mark Oppenheimer, “Married, With Infidelities,” served as the cover of the latest New York Times Sunday Magazine. The subhead to the banner headline in the print edition described Savage as a “devoted husband, proud father, sex columnist.” Left off the resume: Doorknob licker and conservative presidential campaign saboteur.

Savage believes monogamy is right for many couples. But he believes that our discourse about it, and about sexuality more generally, is dishonest. Some people need more than one partner, he writes….Savage says a more flexible attitude within marriage may be just what the straight community needs. Treating monogamy, rather than honesty or joy or humor, as the main indicator of a successful marriage gives people unrealistic expectations of themselves and their partners. And that, Savage says, destroys more families than it saves.

CNN anchor Ali Velshi lamented Republican resistance to raising the federal debt ceiling during an interview on Tuesday's American Morning with former Pennsylvania Senator and current GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum. "It's an absolute mess what is going on in Washington right now, specifically, with respect to the debt ceiling and failure to reach an agreement is somewhat deplorable," said Velshi.

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In a feature entitled "Don’t Know Much About History: Epically Wrong Politician Accounts of Yesteryear," Time magazine's Swampland blog crew promised to break down "nine egregious examples of the type of revisionist flub you can expect in 2012," starting with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) arguing John Quincy Adams was a Founding Father.

Time made sure to toss in President Obama and Vice President Biden in the mix, the list was predominantly comprised of Republican 2012 presidential hopefuls. On some counts, Time was spot on, but in others the magazine was either inaccurate, patently unfair in its criticism, or both.

Deriding Sarah Palin for her inartfully-put account of Paul Revere's midnight ride, Time.com echoed MSNBC's Chris Matthews by snarking that she was shoehorning a pro-gun rights talking point into her later explanation of the historical event:

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on Tuesday badly mispronounced the last name of Constitutional lawyer and conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Rather deliciously, this occurred in a segment wherein the pompous, know-it-all host was once again mocking the intellectual capacity of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):