Roland Martin

Editor's Note: Earlier today, CNN suspended contributor Roland Martin for some tweets he made regarding the David Beckham underwear ad that ran during the Super Bowl. Martin was the target of a pressure campaign from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). What follows after the page break is NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's statement.

A rather extraordinary thing happened on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday.

The host actually defended Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney from the media's proclivity to take his statements "entirely out of context" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

UPDATES AT END OF POST: Martin and O'Brien respond.

Should media members congratulate each other for skewering a political candidate?

That's exactly what CNN's Roland Martin did Thursday as he high fived Soledad O'Brien for the previous day's interview with Mitt Romney wherein the Republican presidential candidate uttered the now infamous words, "I'm not concerned about the very poor" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center debated liberal CNN contributor Roland Martin on the November 1 John King USA regarding the media's coverage of anonymous 15-year-old sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain.

"What's the accusation?!" Bozell demanded, noting the media's frenzy over what amounts to incredibly vague, anonymously-sourced accusations from 15 years ago.

"What's he being accused of?" Bozell asked. "None of us know, and we're talking about this for 36 hours?! That's a lynching." Watch the full segment in the video embed below the page break:

At a ceremony to honor the opening of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in our nation's capital Friday, the late civil rights leader's daughter Bernice made an historical error that would evoke tremendous ridicule and derision if she were a conservative.

"Lincoln remembered for signing the Declaration of Independence" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Tuesday morning, CNN's Kyra Phillips asked why the Republican presidential candidates have not been speaking out on foreign policy in Libya during the climactic battle in the country's capital between rebel and imperial forces. CNN had interviewed Republican candidate Jon Huntsman the night before, but had not yet asked him about the conflict in Libya, in the first of a two-part interview set to conclude Tuesday night.

"This week's battle in Libya, the first big chance for the GOP presidential hopefuls to show their foreign policy savvy," Phillips noted during the 10 a.m. hour of Newsroom. "Why haven't we heard from them?" she asked. Liberal CNN analyst Roland Martin subsequently hammered the Republicans as "wimps" for their silence.

[Video below the break.]

Even liberal comedian John Stewart thought Newsweek went too far with its Michele Bachmann cover page, but CNN analyst Roland Martin sees no story here. Martin is blunt with "angry conservatives, and delusional feminists" in his latest CNN.com op-ed telling them to "get real."

"To the angry conservatives, and delusional feminists, give it a rest. There is nothing sexist about the photo, nor does it reveal a flaming liberal bias," Martin writes of a Newsweek cover showing a wide-eyed Bachmann above the title "Queen of Rage."
 

CNN analyst Roland Martin simply allowed DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to say what she wanted about Republicans on his Sunday show Washington Watch, on TVOne.

Schultz linked Florida GOP-backed voting proposals with Jim Crow laws and poll taxes, and said one has a better chance of being struck by lightning than see an instance of voter fraud. Martin not once challenged Schultz over her rhetoric. Schultz was referring to Republican-backed measures in certain states that require a photo I.D. to vote and trim the number of early-voting days, in order to prevent voter fraud. Schultz hit such policies as discriminatory.

[Video below the break.]

During his (in)famous "Psycho Talk" segment of his Thursday evening MSNBC show, host Ed Schultz played the clip of Rick Santorum's interview with Terry Jeffrey of CNSNews.com where Santorum challenged President Obama's plea of ignorance on the question of when a person receives the right to life. Schultz, himself a loud-mouth liberal radio talk show host prone to crazy talk branded Santorum's comments as "psycho talk."

Rick Santorum said the following about Barack Obama and abortion in the interview: "The question is--and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer--is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person, human life, is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, no, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people."

He later followed up his comments with a statement comparing abortion with slavery, and said he is "disappointed that President Obama, who rightfully fights for civil rights, refuses to recognize the civil rights of the unborn in this country."
 

CNN's Roland Martin went on a tirade against Rush Limbaugh on his "Washington Watch" program on TV One on Sunday, labeling the conservative talker a "right-wing blowhard" and "absolute idiot" for pretending not to know anything about the black-oriented TV network. Martin claimed that he was "more fair and sensible" than Limbaugh, but his list of guests alone betrays a definite liberal bias.

The CNN contributor went after the talk show host in his "Call 'Em Out" segment, which lasted just under three minutes during the 11 am Eastern hour program. In a teaser for the segment, Martin trumpeted how "that right-wing blowhard Rush Limbaugh needs some schooling about this show, 'Washington Watch,' and TV One. Trust me, I'm gonna give it to him."

During the actual segment (video available here), the TV One host led with his "absolute idiot" label for Limbaugh and played a clip from the December 6, 2010 edition of the conservative's show, where he needled Martin and his network (audio of Limbaugh available here):

Roland Martin brought his full-blown Palin Derangement Syndrome to Friday's Anderson Cooper 360, labeling the former Alaska governor "the Kim Kardashian of politics." Martin continued that Palin is "making a ton of money. We're trying to figure out why. It's the same as Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton....She quit her job because she wanted to go out and be a celebrity."

The CNN contributor actually first tried out his questionable label of the Tea Party favorite on his Twitter account. At 5:12 pm on November 9, Martin posted the following Tweet: "Palin slammed then-Sen. Obama as a celebrity in 2008 campaign, and she's more of a celebrity because she doesn't hold office." Mind you, at that time, Palin was Alaska's governor and the Republican vice presidential candidate, but the liberal continued by complaining in a second Tweet that "the media goes ga ga over whatever she says. Palin is often wrong. She's a former governor who quit her job rather than tough it out." During his third Tweet, Martin added, "She holds no position; wants no accountability; and wants to sling arrows and then gets angry when called on the carpet 4 her nonsense." The CNN personality completed his rant by comparing the Republican to the curvy celebrity most infamous for making a pornographic video: "At the end of the day, Sarah Palin is the Kim Kardashian of Politics. She's a celebrity with no real purpose other than picking up a check."

[Video below the jump]
 

Rick Sanchez, who was fired from his Rick's List program on CNN on Friday, certainly racked up a record of liberal bias, specifically bias against conservatives, during his tenure at the network. Sanchez also revealed a propensity for making on-air gaffes which made him a targets of comedians like Jon Stewart. It was the former anchor's animosity toward Stewart which directly led to his firing.

Here's the "best of Sanchez" list compiled from the Media Research Center's archives, updated from a July 22, 2010 item on NewsBusters:

Targeting Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio

In late 2008, the CNN anchor gained the 3 pm Eastern time slot of CNN's Newsroom, which would evolve into his Rick's List program. He consistently targeted conservative media outlets from that time until his firing.

ED HENRY: "Fox, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio were vying for it- all made strong cases. In the end, Fox [was] unanimously moved up to the front row, but did not get the seat Helen Thomas was in. We voted unanimously to move the Associated Press over to where Helen Thomas was because what a lot of people were missing in this whole fight was that"-
BROOKE BALDWIN: "And it is a fight"-
HENRY: "Yeah"-
BALDWIN: "Which is fascinating, for those of us who don't understand the inner workings of the"-
HENRY: "Sure, and then we can walk through the whole"-
SANCHEZ: "Well, I understand the Associated Press. I even understand Bloomberg, but don't have you to be a news organization to get that seat?"
HENRY: "Oh! Are you saying Fox is not a news organization?"
SANCHEZ: "Yeah. I'm just wondering."
-Exchange with CNN correspondents Ed Henry, a member of the board of the White House Correspondents Association, and Brooke Baldwin, August 2, 2010 [see video above]. Almost a year earlier, Sanchez hinted Fox News wasn't a "real news organization."

Are you getting tired of hearing liberal media members claim the voter anger around the country is all because Barack Obama is black?

RedState Editor and CNN contributor Erick Erickson is, for on Wednesday's "John King USA," he let Dana Bash have it for reiterating this insulting accusation.

"Talking to Democrats, I know you have, privately, will say some of the anger they hear in their districts, they say there's no doubt some of it is latent racism," uttered Bash.

Erickson was having none of if responding, "Oh, good lord...It's the last best trick of a losing Democrat, is to accuse the Republicans of racism."

When Erickson concluded his reply by stating Obama's "world view is fundamentally anti-American," a heated discussion between him and CNN's Roland Martin ensued (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's David Gergen gushed over Barack Obama during CNN's coverage of the President's press conference on Friday, but was unimpressed by his performance: "He impresses everyone with his competence....The subtlety of his mind I think is very impressive. At the same time, I thought it was...boring." Minutes later, Roland Martin replied to Gergen by rushing to Obama's defense: "He's not an entertainer."

Anchor John King brought on some of the network's "best political team on television," including Gergen and Martin, 19 minutes into the 12 noon hour, immediately after the President's briefing concluded. King turned to the senior political analyst first and asked, "David, a lot of ground covered- what did you come away with?"

[Update, 8:10 pm EDT: The original version of this article identified Roland Martin as a "black talk radio host." He no longer has his own radio talk show. He is still a CNN contributor, columnist syndicated by Creators Syndicate, and analyst for for the Tom Joyner Morning Show, according to his own website.]

On Tuesday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN contributor Roland Martin strongly pushed for the Democrats to "stand up and protect the Constitution" by defending the planned New York City mosque near Ground Zero: "Democrats should get some spine and say, 'You know what? I am sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution.'...Stay strong- say it's about the Constitution."

Substitute anchor John Roberts brought on Martin, along with Republican strategist Ed Rollins and CNN senior political analyst David Gergen, to discuss the continuing controversy surrounding the mosque project. The anchor first turned to the former black talk radio host and asked, "Roland, is this the sort of thing that Democrats want to be talking about right now, at a point where many people form their opinions of who they're going to vote for in November?" Martin didn't begin with his "constitutional" argument, but instead emphasized that Democratic candidates needed to focus on local issues: "Frankly, if I'm a Democrat and somebody comes to me with that question...I say, 'Hey, go talk to...the folks representing New York. I'm here talking about my district.'"

Rick Sanchez, who hosts his Rick's List program for two hours during the afternoon on CNN, will be taking on the network's 8 pm Eastern hour slot for several weeks between Campbell Brown's departure on Wednesday and the start of the ex-Democratic Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer (the infamous Client #9) and sometime-conservative Kathleen Parker's new program.

Sanchez will likely bring his two-year record of liberal bias to his temporary gig. Some of the worst examples from the Media Research Center's archives:

Targeting Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio

In late 2008, the CNN anchor gained the 3 pm Eastern time slot of CNN's Newsroom, which would evolve into his Rick's List program. Over the past year and a half, he has consistently targeted conservative media outlets.

"That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, 'Our rights were being infringed upon.'"
-From CNN Newsroom, April 8, 2009. Sanchez blamed conservative news outlets for the murder of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Almost from the moment Barack Obama declared he would run for president in 2007, our enraptured media elite has been accusing anyone who would stand in Obama’s way with racism. The question was never whether Obama was ready to govern the country, but whether the country was ready for the historic awesomeness of Obama.

Pity the NAACP. We now have a black president, and they must convince (racist) America that there still exists the need for a national association to advance “colored people” in our society. How to do it? Identify and condemn as “racists” anyone or any group opposed to Barack Obama.

Apparently you cannot sincerely oppose a crushing tax burden, a useless “stimulus” bill, ObamaCare, or any other element of his socialist agenda without being tagged as a bigot.

In the wake of Tuesday's revelations concerning liberal media members trying to bury the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story in the spring of 2008, one has to wonder how many mainstream organizations played a hand.

On May 5 of that year, at the beginning of an interview with Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama, CNN's John Roberts said (video available here courtesy Ed Driscoll, relevant section at 3:43):

I want to just stipulate at the beginning of this interview, we are declaring a Reverend Wright-free zone today. So, no questions about Reverend Wright. Our viewers want us to move on, so this morning we're going to move on.

As NewsBusters noted at the time, this came eight days after CNN personalities David Gergen, Tony Harris, and Roland Martin had a discussion about why the media should stop talking about Wright (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Rick Sanchez returned to attacking conservative talk radio on Wednesday's Rick's List program, lamenting that "a lot of people in this country...think that Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are legitimate news organizations." Sanchez also brought on liberal CNN contributor Roland Martin to do the same: "The Glenn Becks of the world...use the race-baiting...Rush Limbaugh and his racist language" [audio clips available here].

The left-leaning CNN anchor brought on Martin and Memphis, Tennessee Tea Party founder Mark Skoda just after the bottom of the 4 pm Eastern hour to discuss the NAACP's recently-passed resolution condemning the tea party movement's "racism." As you might expect, Sanchez singled out two isolated examples of racially-tinged signs at tea party rallies: a birther tea party protester who held a "sent Obama back to Kenya" sign while carrying a stuffed monkey, and a sign from the 9/12 rally in Washington, DC in 2009 that depicted President Obama as an African witch doctor.

Martin treated Skoda in a confrontational manner from almost the beginning. The Memphis tea party leader brushed aside Sanchez's citation of a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll which apparently found that "49 percent of Americans saying that they believe the tea party movement is based in some part on racial prejudice." The pro-Obama contributor then pounced: "Well, actually, he didn't actually answer your question. He danced around your question because I don't- he obviously did not want to answer it. So I will let him have a second opportunity, Rick, to actually answer the question."

CNN's Jack Cafferty expressed skepticism of President Barack Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court during a commentary on Tuesday's Situation Room. After outlining Kagan's elite background, Cafferty noted that many thought that "someone who has spent so much time in elite academic settings is out-of-touch with average Americans."

The CNN commentator began by pointing out a promised made by the President in the past: "President Obama promised us all Supreme Court candidates who can relate to the real world and how the law affects ordinary Americans, but there are questions about whether Elena Kagan fits that description. Kagan comes from a world unknown to most Americans: from Manhattan's Upper West Side, to Princeton University, and on to Harvard Law School."

Who said the cable networks were predictable? The Elena Kagan nomination has drawn surprising fire from Obama-friendly Roland Martin of CNN, and surprising praise from Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl. In a CNN.com commentary, Martin hammered Kagan's record of hiring a pile of whites at Harvard Law:

Guy-Uriel Charles, founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics, has heavily scrutinized Kagan's hiring record as head of Harvard Law School. In a scathing blog post, he has said that of the 29 positions Kagan had a chance to fill, 28 were white and one was Asian-American. And of the group, only six were women -- five white and one Asian-American.

These numbers on the surface are appalling, and would be ripped to shreds by those who value diversity, but my gut tells me that even though Kagan has been tapped by Obama, the normally vocal and persistent voices in this area will be tight-lipped and quiet, unwilling to oppose or heavily criticize the nomination of a woman to the court, and especially one made by an African-American Democratic president.

What has gotten into Roland? He sounds like Tavis Smiley all of a sudden, suggesting Obama isn't serving the black community with enough affirmative action:

CNN political analyst/Obama publicist Roland Martin granted an interview to Time Out Chicago, and his dominant theme was America is full of stupid people:  

Roland Martin thinks you’re stupid. Well, not you, specifically, just a lot of you in general. “We got some pretty dumb people,” says the Chicago-based CNN contributor, relaxing in the network’s offices at Tribune Tower between appearances discussing “broken government.” “I mean, I know we’re not supposed to call Americans dumb…but sometimes you gotta go ahead and say it.”

Voters who barely show up at the polls, tea partyers who don’t know the federal stimulus bill included tax cuts, Obama supporters who haven’t done anything since the election but whine about how little the President has accomplished—they all burn him up.

Painting conservatives as racists is a favorite pastime of the mainstream media and a recent move by Republican Virginia governor Bob McDonnell gave them more ammunition to do just that.

McDonnell issued a proclamation on April 2 stating April would be Confederate History Month, but failed to note the role slavery played in the U.S. Civil War that lasted from 1861-1865. Commentators and journalists seized upon McDonnell's omission as proof that conservatives are inherent racists, despite an apology and later inclusion in the proclamation of a strong statement condemning slavery.

In his apology, McDonnell called slavery an "abomination" and explained that the proclamation was "solely intended to promote the study of our history, encourage tourism in our state in advance of the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, and recognize Virginia's unique role in the story of America."

These allegations of racism against conservatives have percolated in the media since Barack Obama's election in 2008. "Confederate" or "Confederacy" has been used 60 times in news reports on ABC, CBS and NBC since November 4, 2008, but it's this proclamation, coupled with the anger over the recently passed health care reform, that had some in the media wondering if conservatives were ready to wage Civil War Redux.

CNN's Roland Martin continues to make a fool out of himself concerning Gov. Bob McDonnell's (R-Va.) decision to name April "Confederate History Month."

"After reading the hundreds of e-mails, Facebook comments and tweets in response to my denunciation of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to honor Confederates for their involvement in the Civil War -- which was based on the desire to continue slavery -- the one consistent thing that supporters of the proclamation offer up as a defense is that these individuals were fighting for what they believed in and defending their homeland," Martin wrote Saturday.

After sharing some of the comments he received about his position on this subject, Martin disgustingly asked (h/t Weasel Zippers):

The following is a Twitter conversation I had with CNN's Roland S. Martin on Wednesday. He was upset at Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) issuing a proclamation declaring it Confederate History Month in the commonwealth without mentioning slavery. He had retweeted Donna Brazile's tweet that she was outraged that the RNC hadn’t condemned McDonnell. Her Tweet said:  "RNC Chair should have condemned this statement,along with every GOP leader. But the double standards are so apparent with the media & blogs"And he doesn't like NewsBusters very much (discussion follows with my tweets in Italics):

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck - but just be prepared to have your spelling skills challenged when you reach that conclusion. 

And so goes CNN's Roland Martin. On the network's March 21 special coverage of the House of Representatives passage of health care legislation, host Wolf Blitzer asked Martin, a CNN political analyst, about his views of those who call these so-called reform measures Soviet-style communism or socialism.

"That's just stuck on stupid," Martin said. "I mean to sit there on the House floor and all of a sudden you're talking about, oh, this is communism and you're sitting here and reaching - that's just dumb, OK? You know what? If Republicans truly cared about health care, why in the world didn't they do anything for eight years? So don't stand here now when the Democrats have been pushing the issue and now say, oh, no, ‘Republicans - we really care about health care,' when you had the opportunity to make changes to our system."

On Tuesday's Rick's List on CNN, Rick Sanchez again hinted that Texas Governor Rick Perry is a racist. Sanchez, reacting to the distinct possibility that Perry would win the Republican gubernatorial primary, referenced a comment he made at a tea party rally in 2009: "He was talking about states' rights. States' rights is, to most people of color, a racist term" [audio clip available here].

The CNN anchor discussed the Republican primary with Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News. He asked the journalist, "Perry's going to win this thing, right?" After Slater noted how Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison lost her early lead in the polls over Perry, Sanchez responded, with some shock, "Why? I mean- you know, when he came out with his comment. Remember, you and I talked about it when he said it. I mean, he was all about secession from the union. He was talking about states' rights. States' rights is, to most people of color, a racist term, and I thought he had hurt himself. Why wasn't she able to, kind of, jump on that and use it?"

Slater explained that the typical Republican primary voter in Texas is "very conservative," and that Perry had actually won the nomination race after he had made his "states' rights" remark at the tea party. This didn't calm Sanchez, however, and he followed up by asking, "Well, but shouldn't we be frightened by that?"

The whitewash-the-green-czar tour continued, as Van Jones found another comfortable powder-puff interview with another black leftist, this time with CNN analyst Roland Martin. On Martin's Sunday show Washington Watch on the black entertainment channel TV One, Jones declared "I'm called the green Jack Kemp, because I'm so passionate about the entrepreneurial agenda here."

He means green jobs, which he said would flow once Team Obama imposed a "carbon cap." He also claimed these policies were not liberal.

Roland Martin wasn't as gooey as PBS's Tavis Smiley, but he was more a friend than a journalist, completely avoiding any specifics on what Jones said about 9/11 being a government conspiracy and other radical views. Martin began the show by touting Jones, "forced out as White House green jobs czar by a right-wing campaign, looks forward to what we need to do to build a green economy."

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."