During the 9:00 a.m. hour of the July 16 "MSNBC News Live," Richard Pompelio, a lawyer with the New Jersey Crime Victims' Law Center, appeared as a guest for a segment on a New Jersey appellate court’s recent decision that cities cannot implement their own laws regarding child sex offenders. After asking Pompelio to describe Megan’s Law -- which requires law enforcement personnel to provide information about a child sex offender to the community in which the offender lives -- "MSNBC News Live" host Contessa Brewer worried:

The question that always comes up when you have these community hearings where law enforcement gather the neighbors and they say "look, we just wanna let you know that there's a sex offender moving in so that you can keep an eye on your children and stay safe." The neighbors say "why, why is he moving into my neighborhood.?" But they've served their time, they’ve done their, they've done the punishment so don’t they deserve a chance to come out and try to live a good life?

What Brewer must have forgotten is that the inspiration for Megan’s Law was the brutal 1994 rape and murder of seven-year-old Megan Kanka by Jesse Timmendequas, a twice-convicted sex offender who happened to live across the street from Megan.

The day after many in the media jumped to Barack Obama’s defense over the satirical cover of the latest New Yorker magazine, MSNBC News Live host Contessa Brewer brought on comedian and satirist Andy Borowitz to make fun of John McCain’s age.

Borowitz founded BorowitzReport.com, is a blogger at the left-leaning Huffington Post and is performing an on-stage production entitled “Countdown to ‘08” with guests such as Joy Behar from “The View” and CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, both of whom are no strangers to NewsBusters criticism.

Brewer introduced the segment by informing viewers that:

When John McCain was born, there wasn’t even FM radio and forget about computers, they weren’t even a blip on the technological horizon.

Later, Brewer played clips of McCain trying to be humorous, including him parodying the Beach Boys hit “Barbara Ann” with the lyrics “bomb Iran” and joking that perhaps U.S.-exported cigarettes are shipped to the regime in order to kill Iranians. What followed was an exchange about McCain being too old to properly function as president:

In a revealing moment of MSM elitism, WaPo editorialist Ruth Marcus, discussing the decision of Silda Wall Spitzer to appear with her husband Eliot yesterday, wanted people to know Mrs. Spitzer is a Harvard law grad and a "serious" person, not a Tammy Wynette type.

Marcus was interviewed by Contessa Brewer on MSNBC this afternoon, and the pair turned to the question of why political wives tend to appear with their husbands who have been caught up in sex scandals.

RUTH MARCUS: I just don't think that we should also lump all these women together. And to use a line that got Hillary Clinton in some trouble back in the 1992 presidential campaign, Eliot Spitzer's wife is not some Tammy Wynette, stand-by-your-man kind of woman.

She continued . . .

A couple days ago, speculating that Contessa Brewer might be a closet conservative, I expressed the hope that I wasn't making trouble for her at MSNBC. Maybe I did. For the anchor now has gone out of her way to express PC sentiments that almost make you wonder whether she wasn't trying to prove her liberal bona fides to her MSNBC honchos.

 

Jesse Jackson would normally be the last person who'd need to be persuaded to take offense at any comment that could possibly be considered to have racial overtones. Usually, it's a case of duck meets junebug.

But for whatever reason, interviewed by Brewer on MSNBC this afternoon at 4:18 PM ET, Jackson was on his way to taking the high road regarding Ed Rendell's recent remark about some whites in Pennsylvania being unwilling to vote for blacks . . . until Contessa cut in to point out the possible racial slight. Jackson took the hint and proceeded to express the criticism Brewer had apparently been hoping for.

I wouldn't want to create problems for Contessa Brewer [file photo]. But again today the spirited MSNBC anchor said something that made me wonder whether she might be a closeted conservative in the belly of the liberal beast.

Janet Huckabee, responding to Brewer's question on the possibility that her husband would withdraw from the presidential race, drew a contrast between the Romney and Huckabee campaigns.

View video here.

UPDATE: 11-13 9:35 AM: Did Hillary answer a second planted question at the event? See foot.

What did Hillary Clinton know about the planted question in Iowa and when did she know it?

The Clinton campaign and apparently Clinton herself are denying she had any idea she was calling on a plant. But according to information in the New York Times, Clinton campaign aides had in fact prompted her to call on the plant.

At 10:51 AM ET this morning, MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall interviewed Hillary campaign co-chair Tom Vilsack, the former Dem governor of Iowa.

TAMRON HALL: Senator Clinton herself said she knew nothing about this and promised it would not happen again . . .

TOM VILSACK: Obviously Hillary Clinton does not condone the planting of questions; she did not know that this young person had been given that question.

View video here.

Vilsack elaborated on his answer later in the interview.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R-Iran)

This week, Alan Colmes proved, yet again, that Fox News has its own liberals willing to say crazy things. The host asserted that right-wingers should have embraced the visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because the dictator is a "conservative" like them.

Those Hateful Republicans

Speaking of angry liberals, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has claimed that the reason that "white wing" Republican presidential candidates are skipping minority debates is because they want to re-segregate America. Of course, given the host’s insensitive comments during a football broadcast, perhaps he shouldn’t be throwing stones.

On Wednesday, a MSNBC graphic flat-out accused Bill O’Reilly of being a racist. It read: "Anchor’s Racist Comments" and there was no accompanying question mark to at least add the benefit of the doubt. During the 11am hour of "MSNBC News Live," anchor Contessa Brewer discussed a liberal group’s attack over O’Reilly's comments about eating at a black restaurant. A second graphic, below the host, did offer some slight uncertainty. It asked, "Anchor’s Racist Comments? Bill O’Reilly Comes Under Fire For Description of Black Restaurant."

Brewer discussed the issue with Paul Waldman of Media Matters and Republican strategist Joe Watkins. At one point, Watkins noted that both he and the host had previously been attacked by the liberal organization. Brewer defensively replied, "And, by the way, I'm not a conservative." The host appeared to be sympathetic to the idea O’Reilly’s comments, which originated on the September 19 edition of his radio show, had some sort of negative intention. She opened the segment by asserting the Fox News host is "now at the center of a heated debate about racist language."

As Newsbusters previously documented, NBC is giving 75 hours of air time to Al Gore and his global warming alarmism with his "Live Earth" concert. On June 20 MSNBC, NBC’s cable channel, ran featured Janet Larson from the Earth Policy Institute, a global warming alarmist, to paint a scary picture for the future.

Host Contessa Brewer started with her editorial comment "it was downright scary," and as Larson continued her frightening predictions, Brewer asked softball questions like "are [government officials] likely to listen to this study?" and "is there anything we can do to help change this?" Brewer never mentioned the cost of combating a scenario that may not materialize. The entire transcript is below.

What does it say when porn-peddler and sex-shop owner Larry Flynt treated Jerry Falwell’s death with more class than CNN? As Newsbusters reported  yesterday,  during “Anderson Cooper 360,” CNN used a still from an old protest video that had a large illustration of Jerry Falwell next to a large illustration of Hitler.

Despite being courtroom and media adversaries that was kicked into overdrive when Flynt ran a fake ad in “Hustler,” which claimed that Falwell’s first sexual experience was with his mother in an outhouse and resulted in a lawsuit producing a landmark First Amendment ruling by the US Supreme Court, allowing the parody of public figures, Flynt issued this surprisingly generous and thoughtful statement to "Access Hollywood" on May 15 (emphasis mine):

Proving that he's not a fan of Republicans, "Hardball" host Chris Matthews slammed 2008 GOP contenders on Wednesday for running a "mordant," "negative campaign." Sounding like a Democratic activist, he appeared throughout the day on MSNBC and, at one point, bitterly complained about former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s jibe that Congress spends money "like John Edwards at a beauty shop."

Mr. Matthews condemned the line, which was delivered during a May 15 presidential debate, as "stupid," "embarrassing" and "pandering." (Is it surprising that a Republican would play to his Republican audience?)

Video (1:22): Real (2.25 MB) or Windows (2.54 MB), plus MP3 (1.22 MB).

The "Hardball" host showed up in the 2pm hour of "MSNBC Live" to trash Governor Huckabee for daring to make fun of John Edwards. Responding to a question by host Contessa Brewer about whether Huckabee prepared the line in advance, Matthews could barely contain his contempt:

Ah, live television--where chipper interns can embarrass even the most self-important anchor types.

Earlier today, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer cited the anti-Bush parody web site Whitehouse.org as if it were the official web site of the president. Later in the show, she corrected her mistake, but tried to make it seem she mentioned the phony site on purpose.

It was a really bad error, too, since, as Allahpundit points out, Whitehouse.org is quite over-the-top in its "tribute" to Falwell, having the fictional reverend speak warmly of his "foot-high stack of mostly gay hardcore pornography" on the same page that Brewer quoted from.

Hat tip: TVNewser

There's really only one problem for Cuba: those yanqui imperialists and the embargo they slapped on the country. Just ask Andrea Mitchell. The NBC correspondent is in Cuba today for the May Day festivities. Here's an excerpt from her conversation on MSNBC at 9:07 EDT this morning with host Contessa Brewer.

MSNBC HOST CONTESSA BREWER: Is there an expectation among the crowd there, a sense that Castro will return to power at some point?

NBC CORRESPONDENT ANDREA MITCHELL: Officials are pointing out, and it's certainly true from my visits here that the government runs, it's business as usual, that they have managed this succession rather well. Raul Castro is here today, he and other leaders are very much in charge. There have been no major problems, other than the continuing economic difficulties that of course this country faces because of the U.S. embargo, the economic embargo.

MSNBC host Contessa Brewer [file photo] has taken some deserved heat here, as when NewsBuster Scott Whitlock caught her here, seemingly rooting for the entire Democratic presidential field.

But for at least one brief shining moment this afternoon, Brewer gave the pro-Second Amendment side of the VA Tech argument fair treatment. The fair Contessa's guests were University of Missouri law prof Kris Kobach, a former senior aide to former AG John Ashcroft, and Dennis Henigan of the Brady gun-control group.

Brewer began by expressing skepticism as to how additional gun control laws could have helped: "Dennis, let me put you on the spot here. What possibly have been done to keep Cho from buying a gun? We now know he didn't have a criminal record."

On Monday, MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer discussed the recent meeting of 2008 Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Selma, Alabama. Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky reeled off all the racial and cultural firsts that the upcoming primaries will have, including Hispanic candidate Bill Richardson. MSNBC News Live host Brewer responded with perhaps a revealing comment:

Julie Roginsky: "Well, I think Hillary Clinton started out with a set of name recognition that nobody else in the Democratic field has. And I think as Barack Obama becomes more known, obviously it makes sense that he would- his name recognition and his numbers would go up. But I think what's important to note here is that this is a set of firsts, not just for the African-American community, but for women, for Hispanics and Bill Richardson. There are so many firsts in this Democratic primary that I think it's really a good time to be a Democrat."

Contessa Brewer: "It's sort of like we're all rooting for everybody all at once."