Mark Shields

Something shocking happened on Friday night on NPR's All Things Considered. "Conservative" pundit David Brooks took the anti-Washington Post position on the Mitt Romney high-school "scoop." Obviously, Post columnist E.J. Dionne stuck with his paper and his liberal guns, insisting more and more stories just like this are going to come out, whether that's a threat or a promise.

Anchor Melissa Block would not use the word "alleged" to describe the Post story which "details incidents of bullying by Romney when he was a senior at the tony Cranbrook boys prep school in Michigan. Five former classmates spoke about an incident when Romney led a posse that targeted a student with long bleached-blond hair, tackled him, pinned him to the ground and hacked off his hair as he cried and screamed for help." Brooks cried it was illegitimate "gotcha" journalism:

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer made a point about today's media that should make everyone think twice about the state of American journalism.

In a discussion about the Ryan budget proposal on PBS's Inside Washington Friday, Krauthammer observed, "Obama will win the argument if the electorate is as gullible as Nina [Totenberg] and Mark [Shields] and Evan [Thomas] in accepting what the Administration is saying about the cuts" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer gave quite a tongue lashing to Mark Shields on Inside Washington this weekend.

When the liberal PBS contributor said Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) budget proposal lacked vertebrae, Krauthammer scolded, "Talk about absence of spine, your guys haven’t introduced a budget at all on anything" (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

On Friday's Inside Washington on selected PBS stations, Charles Krauthammer floated his curiosity about what would happen if the Republicans chose a new candidate for the fall election if Romney or Santorum couldn't get to the magic delegate number. Mark Shields joked about how it would be unfair to pick to someone who hasn't slogged across the country and then made a fat joke: "Chris Christie, have a little ice cream, and come in."

There goes svelte Shields again. NPR reporter Nina Totenberg promised the elite media would savage a new Republican candidate and pick apart everything "he" has ever done or said (no females are apparently allowed in this exercise):

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields on Friday excoriated Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts for "taking our system and absolutely screwing it up completely."

Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Shields was complaining about how "these campaigns have been taken over totally by Super PACs" as a result of the Citizens United decision (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, liberal columnist Mark Shields seemed to show mor skepticism than other panel members about whether Iran is really trying to build nuclear weapons, as he brought up the failure to find an advanced nuclear program in Iraq, asserting, "I've seen this movie before."

He later defended the rationale for Iran locating its nuclear program under a mountain as being a response to threats by other countries to bomb the program.

Shields began:

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday marvelously exposed the poor state of American politics and today's media.

While the entire panel on PBS's Inside Washington gushed and fawned over this week's bipartisan agreement to extend the payroll tax holiday through the rest of 2012, Krauthammer said it was like buying crack cocaine - "A payroll tax cut has no effect at all, it’s going to make people smile for, you know, eight or nine months" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, as the panel discussed the new Obama administration rule that requires even Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraception to their employees, both liberal columnist Mark Shields and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer hit Obama for the decision, while NPR's Nina Totenberg claimed that there were valid arguments in both directions as she made a flawed analogy between contraception and immunization as a defense of the Obama position.

But the blunt criticism directed at Obama by the liberal Shields, who is also a longtime regular on the PBS NewsHour, was the most surprising part of the show. After host Gordon Peterson noted that some Catholic leaders had supported Obamacare, and asked if they are "being hung out to dry," Shields responded:

Last Friday saw two high-profile liberal pundits - one on Bloomberg News's Political Capital and the other on PBS's Inside Washington - repeating the story that Newt Gingrich divorced his first wife while she was being treated for cancer, without either of them noting that one of Gingrich's daughters - Jackie Gingrich Cushman -  last May specifically disputed the account that her mother, who is still alive, ever had cancer, or that her father initiated the divorce during a hospital visit.

On Bloomberg News's Political Capital show, host Al Hunt only vaguely noted that Gingrich's daughter had disputed some of the commonly believed details of her parents' divorce as he dismissed her account as "demonstrably false." After Bloomberg News columnist Margaret Carlson called the former House Speaker a "lout," Hunt asserted:

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):

Charles Krauthammer justifiably lost his patience with his fellow panelists on PBS's Inside Washington Friday evening.

No matter how many times he explained that Republicans last week proposed a revenue increase that Democrats refused, PBS's Mark Shields and NPR's Nina Totenberg couldn't seem to grasp this simple concept leading Krauthammer to ask, "What planet are you guys living on...I’ve rarely encountered such thickness" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the Friday news roundup on the PBS NewsHour, pseudoconservative analyst David Brooks of The New York Times kept up his disparaging of Herman Cain, predicting "he will be deflated very seriously within a week or two." He attacked Cain for "behaving badly" and having "gone for the home run" in denying all sexual harassment claims. Mr. Brooks didn't consider it at all possible that Cain could be truthful in denying all claims.

On both NPR and PBS Friday, Brooks lamented that Jeb Bush isn't in the race and would be the frontrunner pleasing both conservatives and moderates if he had chosen to make a run. He clearly has no respect for Herman Cain:

On the PBS NewsHour Friday, there was the typical agreement between "conservative" David Brooks and liberal Mark Shields on the sour state of the economy, and that despite that, Brooks said President Obama's "hanging in there reasonably well," and Shields agreed he's "defied gravity."

Brooks slammed Herman Cain's response to the incredibly vague Politico story: that he "didn't do kindergarten-level preparation for this story is just incredibly damning." Shields agreed, adding a slam on conservatives hating candidates with any experience: "Herman Cain's candidacy is a reflection, if not a direct product, of the feverish anti-government flavor, fervor of Republicans, because they really have so little regard, Republican primary voters, for government."

PBS's Mark Shields on Friday took some childish swipes at Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

During an Inside Washington discussion about who might be next to challenge Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential nomination, Shields said, "Don't count out the chubby fellow from Georgia, Newt, the rehabilitated Newt Gingrich, carrying along a bogus IQ and some other baggage" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The hyperventilation of media members concerning income inequality in America reaches a new high with each passing day.

Case in point, on Inside Washington Friday, PBS's Mark Shields, with a straight face no less, said this disparity is a "national security issue" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The juvenile bashing of Chris Christie's weight hit a disgraceful low on PBS's "Inside Washington" Friday when a panel absent the guiding sanity of syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer chuckled and guffawed over the size of the New Jersey governor.

What posterity will certainly view as one of the more embarrassing episodes on this political talk show stalwart came when PBS's Mark Shields quipped, "When you sit in the bathtub, and the water level in the toilet does rise, it’s a pretty good indication that you probably ought to cut the second dessert" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Although he attributed it to Mike Huckabee, Mark Shields on PBS's "Inside Washington" said Friday that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney "has more positions than the Kama Sutra."

This led Charles Krauthammer to humorously scold, "I thought this was a family show...There are children watching" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the view of the perilously liberal syndicated columnist Mark Shields, nothing good ever comes from corporate America.

On PBS's "Inside Washington" Friday, Shields told his fellow panelists, "If one waited for all the great social improvements of this country to come from CEOs, we would still have child labor at 8 cents an hour working at mills and looms and lathes" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As he normally does on "Inside Washington," PBS's Mark Shields Friday was waxing moronic about Republican plans to balance the budget.

Not pleased by the fictional account on display, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer challenged his fellow panelist saying, "Democrats have not even produced a budget for 2012. What’s their budget?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields said Friday that today's low income tax rates are "fundamentally un-American."

Such happened on PBS's "Inside Washington" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NPR's Nina Totenberg on Friday may have asked one of the silliest questions raised since the Weinergate sex scandal began about two weeks ago.

Appearing on PBS's "Inside Washington," Totenberg actually said, "If his name weren’t Weiner, would we still be talking about this?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

While many liberal media members spent the week defending Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), PBS's Mark Shields may have made the best comment about this sordid affair on Friday's "Inside Washington."

Shortly after NPR's Nina Totenberg said we really shouldn't care about this scandal because "it's a great lark of a diversion," Shields asked the definitive question, "What the hell is a member of Congress, who wants to be mayor of New York, having portrait galleries of his crotch available for distribution?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

PBS's Mark Shields on Friday advanced the typical liberal media line that there's a danger to the GOP if it nominates a presidential candidate that is too conservative.

When he finished, his "Inside Washington" co-panelist Charles Krauthammer marvelously responded, "What Mark wants is a Republican nominee who is a squish and then he’ll vote against him anyway" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NPR's Nina Totenberg on Friday pleaded with Congress to raise taxes in order to balance the budget.

When she did so, her fellow "Inside Washington" panelist Mark Shields, as if at a revival meeting, said "Amen" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Out of the mouths of babes...

On Friday's "Inside Washington," during a discussion about American foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa, PBS's Mark Shields actually said, "The most urgent priority that we have is to find jobs somehow, not simply for Americans, which is an urgent priority, but for young Egyptians" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charles Krauthammer had quite a battle this weekend with "Inside Washington" host Gordon Peterson and fellow panelist Mark Shields.

The fireworks began when Peterson quibbled about how we haven't raised taxes to pay for the wars we're currently waging leading Shields to call them unpatriotic as a result (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It was likely not a surprise to "Inside Washington" viewers that most of the usual suspects on the panel Friday saw the crisis in Japan as not being good for the future of nuclear powered electrical plants in this country.

What certainly must have raised a couple of eyebrows though was the strongest opposition to any further construction of such facilities coming from lone conservative Charles Krauthammer (video follows with transcript and commentary):

After the public shaming of NPR this week, Nina Totenberg was given the option of taking a day off from PBS's "Inside Washington" so that she wouldn't have to face the music concerning the so-called "news organization" she works for.

Demonstrating admirable spunk, Totenberg showed up to "defend the product" her radio station produces only to have Charles Krauthammer say in the midst of a lengthy discussion about the issue, "If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the state?" (video of entire segment follows with transcript and commentary):

For the fourth time in the last five weeks Evan Thomas has taken a political position quite contrary to the other liberal panelists on PBS's "Inside Washington."

In Friday's installment, Newsweek's assistant managing editor not only took on regulars Mark Shields and Nina Totenberg but also ridiculed the New York Times (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Something has definitely gotten into Evan Thomas's water, as for the third time this month, he advanced a viewpoint on PBS's "Inside Washington" quite contrary to the other liberal panelists.

On Friday's installment, with lone conservative regular Charles Krauthammer taking the day off, the Newsweek columnist practically assumed his position as the voice of reason taking on the other guests regarding the budget situation in Wisconsin (video follows with transcript and commentary):