Chris Cuomo

At this time four years ago the liberal media was just starting its flirtation with Barack Obama in Iowa, while others still carried the torch for Hillary Clinton. On the eve before the Iowa caucus Chris Matthews, on Hardball, hoped that an Obama win in Iowa would send the message to the world that a "despised" America was truly ready to "change." For her part, then Today co-host Meredith Vieira was still caught up in Hillary hype as she touted that, "up close the Senator and former First Lady is natural, confident and warm."

On the January 2, 2008 Nightly News, NBC's Andrea Mitchell did her part to advance the notion of Obama's centrism as she sought out "a lifelong Republican, who twice voted for George Bush, now canvassing for Obama" as "a precinct captain" in Iowa.  (video after the jump)

 

Is it a case of removing the plank from your own eye before removing the speck from your brothers - or political correctness run amok?

In a tweet Aug. 26, ABC "20/20" anchor Chris Cuomo told his 987,000 followers not to condemn Muslim violence because other religions have perpetrated violence in the past.

"To all my christian brothers and sisters, especially catholics - before u condemn muslims for violence, remember the crusades....study them," Cuomo tweeted around 9:30 am.

So does past violence justify modern violence? If so, maybe Cuomo should take his own advice and study the Crusades. Even a brief study would reveal a much more complicated situation than Cuomo's tweet suggests about who struck first.

Before “a disturbing change” of character in early 2009, arrested terrorist Faisal Shahzad, ABC's Chris Cuomo asserted Tuesday night, “seemed to be living the American dream” with a wife whose Facebook page “says she loves Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends” while “his signature seems to suggest optimism -- it appears a heart is dotting the 'i' in Faisal” in a job application found outside his foreclosed house. (larger jpg image)

How heartwarming.

The “big question” for a befuddled Cuomo: “Why did someone, with apparently so much to live for, simply decide to throw it all away?”

The end of Congress’s long debate over ObamaCare could be near, as the President pushes for a final vote this week before his Asia trip, and House Democrats want a resolution before next week’s Easter break.

Yet whether or not liberals’ dreams are ultimately realized, they have had a huge advantage throughout the process. Over the past twelve months, journalists have continually stacked the deck in favor of a big government takeover of health care.

A review of the worst spin:

Chris Cuomo says there's no proof Mutallab will talk less as a lawyered-up criminal defendant than as an enemy combatant.  Suggestions to the contrary are just politics. George Stephanopolous manifests the same problem his old boss did: he doesn't know what the meaning of "is," is.  Steph claims Mutallab "is" singing.  But reports are that the would-be mass-murderer was singing—but isn't any more.
 
It was all part of Good Morning America's defense today of Pres. Obama's decision to give the NWA 253 bomber the full ACLU treatment, rather than dealing with him as the enemy combatant he is.
 
Fortunately, Rudy Giuliani was there to set things straight . . .

On Thursday’s Good Morning America, it was announced that news anchor Chris Cuomo would be leaving the program and taking over as co-host of 20/20. Since joining ABC in 1999, the journalist has frequently spun for liberals and slammed conservatives. This has included worrying about American "racism" and wondering if it would be better to "nationalize the whole economy?"

While interviewing then-presidential candidate Barack Obama on December 20, 2007, he fretted, "What do you think the bigger obstacle is for you in becoming President, the Clinton campaign machine or America's inherent racists- racism?"

On April 1, 2009, during a conversation with liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Cuomo offered this rather astonishing question: "We've seen government intervene in the banking industry, mortgage industry, insurance, automobiles, chasing down problems after they happen. Wouldn't it be better to try and get ahead of the next crisis by just, right now, nationalize the whole economy and let government experts take over for failing CEOs?"

On Monday’s Good Morning America, the ABC show began a week’s worth of nostalgic segments on the legacy of host Diane Sawyer, who will leave the program on Friday to become the new anchor of World News. Chris Cuomo gushed over Sawyer’s 2006 trip to North Korea, lauding her "pivotal" interview: "It really matters to people and it makes us all proud, when you hear something like that. You ask that question that we were all so worried about."

Cuomo was referring to Sawyer’s questioning of a North Korean general, but didn’t mention her superficial tour of a school in that country, also from the same visit. (See above video.) On the October 19, 2006 GMA, while being escorted by officials of the state, she touted, "It is a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school."

Seemingly ignoring the concept of propaganda and brainwashing, Sawyer intoned, "Ask [the students] about their country, and they can’t say enough." One North Korean girl brightly chirped, "We are the happiest children in the world."

NBC's Anne Thompson, on Monday's Today, covered the Climategate story only to essentially dismiss it in a nothing-to-see here, move along fashion. CBS's The Early Show had a brief mention of it, and ABC's Good Morning America did nothing. Thompson, reporting live from Copenhagen, opened her piece declaring that delegates determined "this could be their last best chance to deal with the consequences of climate change," but then added "overshadowing all of this is a scandal involving some stolen e-mails that has skeptics, once again, questioning the whole idea of global warming." 

Thompson went on to air criticism from Professor Ian Plimer, of the University of Adelaide who charged, "There's data being massaged," but then devoted the rest of her piece to confirming the existence of climate change, even allowing a Penn State scientist, who appeared in the e-mail exchange, to defend the use of the term "trick," by a colleague as he claimed: "What the person meant was it was a clever approach to the problem."

The Washington Post on Thursday reported that ABC has offered the position of Good Morning America co-host to former top Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos. According to the Post’s Howard Kurtz, Stephanopoulos, should he take the job, wants more politics in the morning program: "...Stephanopoulos has pushed for a role reshaped to spotlight his interest in politics and hard news rather than feature segments."

Would this mean a greater infusion of liberal bias from the ex-Democratic operative? If his track record on This Week, and guest appearances on GMA are any indication, the answer is yes. The MRC’s Profile in Bias has documented Stephanopoulos’ left-wing spin. For instance, he declared Barack Obama and Joe Biden the winner of all four presidential debates in 2008.

On the May 13, 2007 This Week, Stephanopoulos tarred Republicans as racist and unlikely to vote for Obama: "Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m naive...I guess I think that anyone who’s not going to vote for Barack Obama because he is black isn’t going to vote for a Democrat anyway."

Leave it to ABC and its obsession with alternate sexuality to characterize being a male or a female as a "difficult decision." Introducing an interview featuring Chastity (now Chaz) Bono on Nov. 19, "Good Morning America's" Diane Sawyer said, "There can be no decision that you make that is more complex and difficult than gender identification."

Bono explained the hardships of undergoing a sexual "transformation" and the "journey into manhood" to an extraordinarily sympathetic Chris Cuomo, saying, "Gender is between your ears, not between your legs."

This interview only adds to a long list that details ABC's fascination with the sexually bizarre. In July 2009, CMI released a study that found that ABC news programs had featured 76 segments about sexual activity in the past six months. Most of the reports related to political sex scandals or crime cases that contained a sexual element, but 11 promoted alternative sexual arrangements, such as gender changes and, even more disturbing, objectum sexualization - having romantic relationships with objects like F-15 fighter jets and the Eiffel Tower.

The Daily Beast on Friday reported that former Democratic aide turned journalist George Stephanopoulos has now pulled ahead of ex-Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo’s son, Chris Cuomo, in the race to become the new co-host of Good Morning America. Correspondent Rebecca Dana quoted an ABC source as saying, "It’s George’s now to lose."

Dana added, "That both contenders are associated with prominent Democrats has helped to add a campaign vibe to the contest for Sawyer’s anchor chair." She then gossiped, "There is a rumor floating around ABC that Mario Cuomo has placed some calls on his son’s behalf..." (Chris Cuomo is also the brother of New York state’s current Democratic attorney general.)

If Stephanopoulos does become the new host of GMA, there would potentially be an opening at his old show, This Week. The Daily Beast asserted that the contenders are Jake Tapper and Nightline co-host Terry Moran, a well known liberal. On February 20, 2009, Moran famously provided this over-the-top comparison between Barack Obama and George Washington: "I like to say that, in some ways, Barack Obama is the first President since George Washington to be taking a step down into the Oval Office."

Maine's successful referendum to repeal a newly-imposed "same-sex marriage" law would have been a huge national story if the gay left had won. But since they narrowly lost, the broadcast network morning shows on Wednesday barely acknowledged it. In fact, NBC avoided the news for its entire four hours of Today. The Early Show on CBS offered 20 words from Jeff Glor early in the show: "In Maine, a loss for supporters of gay marriage yesterday. Voters voted down a law that had legalized same-sex marriage."

ABC’s Good Morning America led the pack with two quick mentions. In the first hour, Diane Sawyer told George Stephanopoulos: "In Maine, you probably heard about this, voters were voting on gay marriage. They decided against gay marriage, 53 to 47 percent." That’s 22 words. In the 8 am hour, this squib from news anchor Chris Cuomo: "And we do have the results of one widely watched ballot initiative. Voters in Maine repealed a law that allowed same-sex marriages." That’s also 22 words.

In the midst of all the elite upset over the Fox News Channel's supposedly over-the-top opposition to President Barack Obama, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz pointed out in a Saturday story across the top of the “Style” section that the apparent two finalists to replace Diane Sawyer (who is moving to World News in January) on Good Morning America “have politics, but little else, in common.” Liberal Democratic politics, that is, since the two names in play are George Stephanopoulos and Chris Cuomo.

Kurtz began his October 24 story: “One helped elect a president, the other grew up as the son of a governor. Now George Stephanopoulos and Chris Cuomo are engaged in a very different kind of contest, for one of the most coveted prizes in network television.”

Hell hath no fury like an infotainment show duped. On Oct. 19, ABC's "Good Morning America" started the week by picking up where it left off the previous Friday. On Monday, GMA wasted over 14 minutes whining about the bogus balloon boy story and his family's lack of "remorse."

On Oct 16, GMA spent 25 minutes hyping balloon boy, covering every angle by talking to the family, the sheriff, and a former co-worker. Now that it's apparent that the boy had taken them "for a ride," the morning show wants an apology.

"If you are among those who feel deceived and are waiting for a public apology from the family," said reporter Ryan Owens, "you may be waiting for a while."

Then: Barack Obama “wants the country to fail.” Now: “He might be guiding us in the wrong direction.” Legendary singer Andy Williams has backed off the sharp edge of his criticism of President Obama. About three weeks after he told a British magazine “Obama is following Marxist theory” and “wants the country to fail,” Williams, prompted by ABC's Chris Cuomo on Tuesday's Good Morning America to agree he was “taken out of context,” concurred: “Well that's taken out of context, a lot of it.” Williams complained “it was an interview that I made to a reporter by phone in London and it just got blown out of proportion.”

The singer, on the ABC show to promote the release of his new book, 'Moon River and Me : A Memoir,' tried to get back in the good graces of liberals and Obama fans: “I think Obama's the most-charismatic politician that we've seen since John F. Kennedy.” Recalling he “voted for many Democratic Presidents,” he assured viewers “I have nothing absolutely against a liberal Democrat,” though he still allowed “I just think sometimes, like a lot of Americans, that he might be guiding us in the wrong direction.”

He concluded by dismissing the relevance of his opinion: “But that's just from a singer. It really doesn't mean much.” To which the small audience, inside GMA's Times Square studio, laughed.

In less than 24 hours, ABC devoted 13 minutes to rhapsodizing over liberal Michael Moore’s new, "deeply Christian" film, Capitalism: A Love Story. Featuring the director first on Tuesday’s Nightline, co-anchor Terry Moran took his socialistic agenda seriously and opened the show by teasing, "Is capitalism evil?" (In 2007, the network contributed 21 minutes to Sicko, totaling 34 minutes of promotion for the two films.)

On Wednesday’s Good Morning America, co-host Chris Cuomo cooed, "Many critics are calling the documentary Moore's best ever." He also raved, "You demonstrate the [capitalism] question very well in the new movie. And you do it lots of different ways. People will get where you’re coming from."

On Nightline, Moran offered a few tough questions to the filmmaker, but made no effort to hide his admiration. He extolled, "He's an American populist in the grand tradition, a provocateur, a comic, a rhetorical bomb thrower." The ABC host marveled that Moore hates capitalism "with a savagely funny...and surprisingly religious passion."

It’s very easy to be outraged by the way our "objective" media greeted the massive September 12 rally against Big Government in Washington and across the country. They treated it as a menacing surge of white anger, meanness, and racism. But all the media bias against this rally clearly illustrates one nagging truth for media liberals: they really don’t think conservatives should be allowed to protest. It’s somehow like a copyright violation.

On Monday night’s "Countdown," MSNBC’s David Shuster found the protest united "in apparent hatred of the current president, Barack Obama." It was undemocratic, a sign of people not accepting election results, and Shuster even suggested Sen. Jim DeMint’s speech at the rally signaled he favored a "military coup." The unglued anchorman also dismissed the crowd as "white, whiter, and whitest," all attending an "intolerance festival."

Brent Baker revealed how the network news on Thursday night described Rep. Joe Wilson’s "you lie" comment at President Obama as almost an international incident, a "shout heard ‘round the world" that symbolized the "ugly" tone of anti-Obama sentiment and a sign of disrespect on Capitol Hill.

It’s probably not shocking to remember that on Wednesday, October 24, 2007, when Code Pink protester Desiree al-Fairooz screamed at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that she was a "war criminal" at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, none of the networks described it as "ugly," and NBC painted it as another sign of disarray for Team Bush.

On the Nightly News, reporter Andrea Mitchell weaved the Code Pink protest into a story on how the State Department was struggling with contractors in maintaining security in Iraq:

ANDREA MITCHELL:Before she even confronted lawmakers today, the secretary of state came face to face with a protester --

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: War criminal!

ABC News anchor Chris Cuomo conducted a hostile interview of RNC Chairman Michael Steele on Monday’s Good Morning America. Noting Steele hadn't used the term “death panel,” Cuomo asked if it was "a sign of positive progress." He also wondered why Steele wasn't bashing insurance companies, since when there is "excess in the system, it always comes back to the insurance companies."

The GMA anchor interviewed the RNC chairman 15 minutes into the 7 am hour. He zeroed in on Steele’s op-ed plugging a “Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights" which ran in the Washington Post on Monday. After Steele first summarized what was in the proposal, Cuomo brought up the hyped “death panel” term, which is a central part of the debate over ObamaCare:

“Now Mr. Steele, here in this health care bill of rights -- very interesting what is not here, the word ‘death panel’ is not anywhere in here. Is this a sign of positive progress, that we’re not going to talk about death panels anymore as a scare tactic?”

With President Obama and congressional liberals facing loud protests over their big government health care plan, journalists are casting the anti-ObamaCare forces as “ugly,” “unruly,” “nasty” mobs, with reporters presenting the most odious images (like pictures of Obama drawn as Hitler) as somehow representative. But when President George W. Bush faced left-wing protests, the media scrubbed their stories of radical voices and depicted demonstrators as mainstream, and even “prescient.”

In January 2003, all of the broadcast networks touted an anti-war march organized by the radical International ANSWER, an outgrowth of the communist Workers World Party. Signs at the rally read: “USA Is #1 Terrorist,” “Bush Is a Terrorist,” and “The NYPD Are Terrorists Too.” National Review Online quoted several protesters who claimed 9/11 was a Bush plot, “like when Hitler burned down the Reichstag,” and argued Bush would “build a worldwide planetary death machine.”

Reporters bypassed all that hate and showcased the protesters as everyday Americans. On ABC, Bill Blakemore stressed how the protest attracted “Democrats and Republicans, many middle-aged, from all walks of life,” while CBS’s Joie Chen saw “young, old, veterans and veteran activists — all united in the effort to stop the war before it starts.”

Of the three network morning shows, only ABC highlighted a new study by the Heritage Foundation that reported how the federal government's massive spending will average almost $34,000 per household in 2009, up $8000 from last year. On Monday, Good Morning America news anchor Chris Cuomo also appeared amazed at wasteful, bureaucratic errors: "Seventy two billion dollars spent by our government to the wrong people in either double payments or mispayments."

He marveled, "Can you believe that? It’s true." NBC’s Today and CBS’s Early Show have, thus far, not reported on the Heritage study. The report explained, "The 2009 version of ‘Federal Spending by the Numbers’ shows spending and deficits surging at a pace not seen since World War II."

Liberal hopes for a quick health care bill are in collapse, as Senate Democrats push any floor action off until the fall, a move House Democrats may match this week. But if the Obama White House is upset that their plans for a huge expansion of government health care have been delayed, they surely cannot complain about the media coverage.

Last week, a new study by the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute (BMI) found broadcast coverage during the first six months of 2009 tilted heavily in favor of Barack Obama’s big government plan. BMI’s Julia Seymour and Sarah Knoploh looked at 224 health care stories on the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows from Obama’s January 20 inauguration through his June 24 prime time special on ABC.

Among the key findings:

Eleven days after mourning the tenth anniversary of the death of "the prince of Camelot," John F. Kennedy Jr., Monday’s Good Morning America took yet another look back at the "grace" and "equilibrium" of the late presidential offspring. ABC’s Chris Cuomo touted JFK Jr.'s "gift for leadership" and recounted how "America watched him grow from young son, to idealistic lawyer, to loving husband."

The GMA news anchor interviewed Rose Marie Terenzio, friend and personal assistant to Kennedy, about a charity that JFK Jr. started to assist health care workers who help the disabled. Cuomo, however, gossiped over whether or not the President's son had planned on following his father into politics. Speaking of the health care charity, he fawned, "John's idea was ahead of its time. A foresight that may have indicated a gift for leadership."

NPR’s Juan Williams criticized President Obama’s “the police acted  stupidly” response to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates during a segment on Friday’s Good Morning America: “The president has gone way, way too far without having looked at the police report, without knowing the facts of the case.” He later recommended that the president “walk it back and say, you know what- I spoke out of turn here.”

Anchor Chris Cuomo sought Williams’s take on the Democrat’s now infamous remarks on the detainment of the Harvard professor just after the beginning of the 7 am hour. He first brought up a standard mainstream media race question: “Do you think the police would have acted the same way, if Gates had been a white man?” The NPR analyst replied that he wasn’t sure, and gave an anecdote of his experience growing up in Brooklyn: “I don’t know the Cambridge police intimately....I grew up in Brooklyn during the ‘60s, and had...sort of a tense relationship with police- especially white police- as a young, black kid.”

Williams continued by giving his first critical analysis of the president’s answer: “My concern about the president speaking out here is, I’m not sure he saw the police report, where you can read that Gates was- had become rather aggressive with the cop...The cop was responding to a report of a break-in at the house, and by Gates’ own account, he tried to force his way into his own house, and that house had been broken into previously.”

ABC anchor Chris Cuomo played the liberal emotion card and asked California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during an interview on Wednesday’s Good Morning America if Republicans were “playing politics” with President Obama’s health care “reform” proposal, and whether this was turning into a “little bit of a reckless situation” on the part of the GOP. [audio available here]

Cuomo first put the health care issue in the context of California’s budget woes, and started out of the gate with his plea to people’s emotions in his first question to the governor: “Your state is somewhat of a window into the reality of health care. You’ve been pictured at your desk with a big knife, having to cut the budget- over $1 billion in health care cuts. It’s going to affect low-income families. It’s going to affect the coverage that children get. Is this absolutely necessary?”

After Schwarzenegger’s answer, the ABC anchor then turned to the president’s proposal for health care “reform,” and asked the liberal Republican governor why he supported it. The former actor clarified that he didn’t 100% support Obama’s plan, “because I don’t know exactly what is in that bill. It changes all the time, as you know.” Cuomo followed up by asking if he was leaning towards supporting it. Schwarzenegger again didn’t give a solid answer.

A new study found that unborn babies may start to develop memories as early as thirty weeks into a pregnancy, but ABC’s “Good Morning America” ignored the study’s potential impact on the abortion debate, especially concerning late term abortion.

Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi’s July 15 segment covered the pivotal study without even mentioning abortion. Anchor Chris Cuomo attempted to broach the issue during a follow-up interview but fell short.

Alfonsi touted the study, “Day by day, a fetus goes through remarkable changes. By 30 weeks, opening and closing their eyes. Making facial expressions. And now, a new study reveals, forming memories. Yep, barely three pounds, but already able to remember. For the study, researchers used a fetal monitor to make a buzzing sound against a mother's belly. The noise and vibrations startle the fetus and it typically reacts by moving. But with repeated applications of the buzzing the fetus learns its okay and does not have to react. And four weeks later, when the fetus is buzzed again, many don't react at all, because researchers say they now remember the sound.”

Last year, banks were “too big to fail” and were arm twisted into taking a federal bailout.  Now that many of them have repaid the TARP money, the media deems their profits to be a betrayal of the taxpayers.

NBC “Today” host Meredith Vieira began the segment on Goldman Sachs by pitting the average American against the big companies, “While you may be struggling financially these days, happy days appear to be here again for some companies on wall street, and now they are getting set to pay out some big bonuses.”

Correspondent Melissa Francis also continued this storyline in her report. “With the nation’s unemployment rate moving closer to ten percent, a housing market still plagued by foreclosures and households struggling to make ends meet, it might be hard for most Americans to believe that it’s back to business as usual on Wall Street,” she said.

The common, everyday act of swatting a bug is something that happens countless times a day at picnics and ball games across the country, especially during the summer, but when Barack Obama was caught on tape by CNBC's cameras doing it, the fawning liberal press couldn't contain their excitement. All three broadcast network morning shows, on Wednesday, praised the presidential kill as they were impressed by the "ninja" Obama's "precision," and "cat-like quickness."[audio available here]

On NBC's "Today" show substitute-host David Gregory opened the show declaring: "You just have to appreciate the, the concentration and the precision! Just a few things going on in the world but it's as if everything was stopped and at a standstill for the President to lower the boom." On CBS' "The Early Show," Chris Wragge marveled: "We've also just confirmed the President is a Ninja." And on ABC's "Good Morning America," they even brought out the Telestrator to break down the video as Chris Cuomo offered play-by-play: "You see? He stares at the fly. How many times have each of us tried to do this? Look at the hand coming up. The poise. The cupping. And the quick slap...Just knocked it away, very rare."

The following exchanges were aired on the June 17 editions of NBC's "Today" show, ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS's "The Early Show":

All three broadcast network morning shows on Wednesday made a point of labeling Nevada Senator John Ensign as a “Republican” after the Senator came forward last night to admit having an extramarital affair last year. NBC, which refrained for days from calling New York Governor Eliot Spitzer a “Democrat” after his relationship with a prostitute was exposed, called Ensign a “conservative Republican,” while CBS made a point of reciting Ensign’s associations with Christian groups.

ABC’s Good Morning America provided the only full report, with the on-screen headline declaring “Leading GOP Senator Admits Affair.” News anchor Chris Cuomo and correspondent Jonathan Karl noted Ensign’s Republican affiliation three times: “A rising star in the Republican Party is coming forward....” “John Ensign is a member of the Republican leadership....” and “The Republican from Nevada admits cheating on his wife...”

Last year, NewsBusters noted how the networks always added the “Republican” label to GOP politicians caught in sex scandals, but not Democrats; with their coverage of the Ensign scandal this morning, the networks are maintaining their perfectly slanted approach.

Pete Peterson is a billionaire, a former commerce secretary, and successful entrepreneur, so one would think an interview with him would be a chance to push for specific observations and prescriptions for the U.S. economy. But if one were watching ABC’s “Good Morning America” on June 9, one would be wrong. Petersen was promoting his new book, “The Education of an American Dreamer,” in an interview with Diane Sawyer. But during the segment, Sawyer tossed him softball questions and allowed him to offer only vague, liberal policy prescriptions.

Sawyer, who raved about Peterson’s “national commitment to the old American values,” asked him, “But everyone keeps saying that we had to plunge all this bailout money into the economy in order to stave out an absolute cataclysm?”