Sarah Palin

It's only January and the vitriol being spewed at Republicans by the Obama-loving media is starting to crest.

On Tuesday, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen went after almost every high-profile right-leaning politician in the land in a piece that disgracefully ended "The GOP is brain-dead":

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose hammered Newt Gingrich on the issue of the opposition his presidential campaign was receiving from some prominent conservatives: "Why are so many conservatives, including...Drudge and Ann Coulter, attacking you?" Rose also spotlighted how apparently "there are those who say that you [Gingrich] are angry and you want to get even with Romney."

The anchor started relentlessly pursued Gingrich not long after he began the interview. He asked the Drudge and "get even" questions in quick succession after getting the former House Speaker to reply to a recent comment from opponent Mitt Romney. Later, the CBS journalist pounced when the Georgia Republican raised what George Soros said recently, that "there isn't all that much difference" between President Obama and Romney [audio clip available here; video below the jump]:

 

Despite Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, Obama-loving media members love to blame gridlock in Washington on Republicans.

Doing his part Sunday was Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer who asked guest Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), "Has the Tea Party made compromise a dirty word, and is that why Congress can't seem to get anything done?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was quite displeased to find out that Trig Truther Andrew Sullivan actually had an article published on the cover of Newsweek with the headline "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?"

During an online chat about the piece Tuesday, Sullivan told participants that he had an orgasm when he saw Palin's tweet (vulgarity warning):

The pushback concerning Newsweek's decision to publish a cover story asking "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" continues.

On Tuesday, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin weighed in on Twitter saying, "@Newsweek: know what's truly 'dumb'? Giving a cover story to the TrigTruther conspiracy kook writer who thinks I didn't give birth to my son":

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, Arizona Senator John McCain complained about ABC's George Stephanopoulos because the ABC host asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney if states have the constitutional power to ban contraceptives.

Bill Maher had an article published at the Huffington Post's front page Wednesday.

This appears to be an indication the website is going back on the ad hominem attack rule it used to ban conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart from its front page in March:

Although it's long been proved that Sarah Palin and so-called violent political rhetoric had absolutely nothing to do with January's tragic shootings in Tucson, Arizona, CNN's Piers Morgan felt it was necessary to bring her up during Wednesday's interview with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) husband.

For his part, astronaut Mark Kelly was only too happy to take the bait and run with it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC presented an absolutely marvelous special Tuesday evening about Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) remarkable recovery from a gunshot to the head last January.

After 36 minutes of uplifting scenes involving the Congresswoman's therapy and road back to being able to walk and speak, host Diane Sawyer for some reason felt the need to bring politics into the program at its conclusion while taking a truly pathetic swipe at former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Thursday's edition of The Situation Room, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer ran with the media herd that he's "probably never seen anthing as dramatic" as the Rick Perry brain freeze. Then he turned to commentator Jack Cafferty, who insisted, "Not since Sarah Palin sat down with Katie Couric as a candidate for one of the nation's highest offices disgraced himself the way Rick Perry did last night."

When Blitzer replied by estimating Palin's made about $20 million since she ran for vice president, Cafferty shot back: "Stupidity sells. I won't argue with you about that."

For at least the umpteenth day in a row, so-called conservative Joe Scarborough ridiculed Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

On Wednesday's Morning Joe, the host said, "Sarah Palin could absolutely take down Herman Cain in a foreign policy Jeopardy contest right now" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

One of the most popular articles on the liberal website Slate right now is by former Newsweek legal reporter Dahlia Lithwick, denouncing the "mainstream media" which fail to understand the Occupy Wall Street movement. The article is titled "Occupy the No-Spin Zone." Lithwick speaks as a participant, since "I spent time this weekend at Occupy Wall Street and my husband spent much of last week adding his voice to the protesters there." (Her husband, Aaron Fein, is a sculptor, so he has the free time.)

Dahlia's not just denouncing Fox News (all liberals do), but denouncing the mainstream media for not being leftist enough, for devoting "four mind-numbing years" to chronicling the Kardashians and taking the Palin family seriously:

Actor Orlando Jones on Saturday celebrated the death of Libya's Moammar Gaddafi by taking to his Twitter account and calling for American liberals to kill Sarah Palin.

"Libyan Rebels kill Gaddafi, if American liberals want respect they better stop listening to Aretha & kill Sarah Palin" (image via Sad Hill News):

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough continued his almost relentless attacks on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain Monday this time also throwing an unnecessary barb at former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

When the "Morning Joe" discussion turned to what the Cain campaign is doing in Iowa to prepare for the upcoming caucuses, the supposedly conservative co-host said to Time magazine's Mark Halperin, "You may want to tell him next time you see him to read Foreign Affairs and the New York Times" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Appearing as a guest on Friday's Imus in the Morning on the Fox Business Network, actor and comedian Jay Mohr took some sexual jabs at Sarah Palin, suggesting that she used to be his "booty call," and then later referring to her as "screwing black people since the mid-90s."

He also imitated GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain as he cracked that Cain is "getting blacker" as the campaign progresses.

For the second day in a row, MSNBC's Martin Bashir used the death of one man to attack a completely unrelated conservative.

Having disgustingly besmirched Sarah Palin in the middle of his eulogy for Apple's Steve Jobs Thursday, Bashir on Friday went after Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as he paid his respects to Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's becoming quite clear that there's no rock some members of the media won't crawl from under to trash Sarah Palin.

Case in point - MSNBC's Martin Bashir used his final segment Thursday to eulogize Apple's Steve Jobs as "the very best of American exceptionalism" while in the same breath attacked the former Alaska governor as "the very worst form of American opportunism" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A bad joke about President Obama that involved Adolf Hitler is apparently unpardonable to ESPN, whereas a crass sexual reference about former Gov. Sarah Palin (R), well, that may actually be riotously funny to some at the network.

ESPN today announced that it will no longer use Hank Williams Junior's "Are You Ready for Some Football" to promote the network's "Monday Night Football" programming after Williams's comment on Monday's "Fox & Friends" comparing the famous Boehner/Obama golf outing to Adolf Hitler playing golf with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the “nonfiction” writers have clearly sharpened their knives for Sarah Palin (and put “writers” in quotes if we’re talking Levi Johnston), the liberal media also can’t help but publicize smear-fiction of Palin. Case in point: Nicolle Wallace, the Palin-hating McCain aide, whose new novel smears Palin with a plot about a vice president who isn’t vetted well who’s exposed after the election as mentally ill. 

Wallace, who plays a Republican on TV, was featured and touted on two editions of the Rachel Maddow show (Tuesday and Wednesday). Maddow especially liked and reran Wallace suggesting with a smile, “Look, you know, I was inspired by her to write a book about someone who was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. So don’t ask me.”

Crusty comedian Lewis Black mocked Sarah Palin as a "fictional character" on CNN Wednesday, to an eruption of laughter from host Piers Morgan. "She's a fictional character that came to life. I'm serious. I think that someone wrote her," Black quipped.

Morgan played along with his act. "You couldn't invent someone like Sarah Palin, could you?" he asked the comedian, who hastily responded that Palin was "superfiction."

[Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

On Wednesday's Early Show, CBS's Chris Wragge complimented GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain for his recent win in the Florida straw poll, but then wasted little time in throwing cold water on the future of his campaign. Wragge, along with co-anchor Erica Hill, asked why Cain would "stick with it," and wondered if the Republican could compete if Gov. Chris Christie entered the race.

The two anchors began the segment by heralding the former Godfather's Pizza CEO's "surprise over the weekend" and how he "shook up the GOP race on Saturday, winning the Florida straw poll with more votes than Rick Perry and Mitt Romney combined." Wragge then congratulated Cain and asked, "Someone like Sarah Palin says late last night that you're the flavor of the week. How do you respond to something like that?"

In 2008, NPR's All Things Considered tried to take apart the "swift-booking" of Barack Obama by conservative author Jerome Corsi, insisting in several places "we know" Corsi's reporting wasn't factual. On Friday's All Things Considered, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik took a looser standard in publicizing the Palin-bashing book by liberal author Joe McGinniss. Folkenflik eventually found book experts who disdained the difference between a "warts and all" book and an "all warts" book. But none of the book's claims were held up individually as false. It just on the whole "felt unreliable."

This leads the listener to wonder what might be true: Palin's cocaine-snorting, the premarital sex with NBA stars, the neglect of her children? Which? Folkenflik brings up McGinniss's tawdry publicity stunt, renting right next to the Palin home in Wasilla, running some mini-soundbites of outrage from conservative talkers like Sean Hannity ("creepy") and Bill O'Reilly ("immoral"). But Folkenflik tweeted Friday "How rascally is the writer behind 'The Rogue'?" All in all, the stunt was a plus:

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):

While CNN gave two tough interviews to Palin-bashing author Joe McGinniss, HLN's Joy Behar joked around with him on her Wednesday show. She referenced his newest tome on Sarah Palin and her family, full of nasty gossip and rumors, and jokingly asked "What, do you have a death wish, Joe?"

In the previous segment, Behar had made fun of Rush Limbaugh's past drug abuse in her interview with Levi Johnston. "Your mother was selling Oxycontin?" she asked Johnston. "What's she – what's up with that? Does she know Rush Limbaugh?"

 

On Monday's Piers Morgan Tonight, author Joe McGinniss blamed Sarah Palin and her family for inciting the death threats made against him. After he moved in next door to the Palins, something he called a "non-issue from the start," he claimed that Sarah Palin "incited that hatred" of death threats made against him for writing a critical book of her.

"The Palins march right up to the border of inciting violence, and stop there and then stand back and say, we had nothing to do with it, if anything happens to anybody," McGinniss told Piers Morgan. CNN granted the author almost 20 minutes of air-time in two separate interviews Monday and Tuesday.
 

he start," he claimed that Sarah Palin "incited that hatred" of death threats made against him for writing a critical book of her.

"The Palins march right up to the border of inciting violence, and stop there and then stand back and say, we had nothing to do with it, if anything happens to anybody," McGinniss told Piers Morgan. CNN granted the author almost 20 minutes of air-time in two separate interviews Monday and Tuesday.
 

Palin-trashing author Joe McGinniss is booked for several TV interviews this week.  The New York Times reports the list includes Morning Joe, The View, The Joy Behar Show, and The Colbert Report. On CNN's Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz added Piers Morgan Tonight. "TV seems to have the idea that if it's a book, if it's between hard covers, it has a certain stature that allows it to be covered, but there are a lot of crappy books out there."

Wrong. Tabloidish books about Barack Obama have generally not been featured like McGinniss. But Steve Roberts, a former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times and husband of TV journalist Cokie Roberts, actually argued on CNN that Palin somehow "bears some guilt here" for these tabloid tales, since she's become a celebrity and starred in a reality TV show: