Lawrence O'Donnell

On Monday, President Obama said his attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's involvement in Bain Capital are "not a distraction and that "This is what this campaign is going to be about.”

MSNBC clearly got the message for as Politico's Dylan Byers noted Tuesday, this so-called news network's primetime schedule this evening is chock full of Bain:

Lawrence O'Donnell yesterday on The Last Word vehemently denounced Newsweek's "The First Gay President" cover because he thought it could mislead many people into believing that message. Ironically (and hilariously) "FIRST GAY PRESIDENT" in bold capital letters along with Obama's picture kept appearing on the MSNBC screen throughout O'Donnell's denunciation. His own screen graphics amusingly worked in contradiction to his arguments as if to mock O'Donnell.

Unemployment is stubbornly high, mountains of debt are burying the nation, and gas prices appear to be bringing the tepid economic recovery to a halt.

Yet MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday actually spent five minutes bashing Ann Romney for wearing a $990 shirt on television (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Alec Baldwin is figuratively spiking the football before crossing the endzone. The liberal actor popped up on Tuesday’s edition of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to brag about Barack Obama’s chances of victory as he claimed that Republicans are “getting scared” and boasted that the President’s victory is all but “in the bag.” The 30 Rock star also acted as if he had an insight into the inner workings of the GOP as he asserted: “They know it’s not looking good for them.” (video after the jump)

In a much-ballyhooed exchange with GOP consultant Alex Castellanos on "Meet the Press," Rachel Maddow parroted the liberal trope that women receive 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in America.

Castellanos added sorely needed nuance to the conversation, as liberals are so fond of doing, pointing out that men work longer hours and in higher paying jobs and women want more flexibility in the workplace, thus skewing the overall numbers. (video after page break)

Geraldo Rivera on Friday accused MSNBC anchors of not caring at all about the evidence concerning the shooting of Trayvon Martin and instead "cheerleading for the conviction of George Zimmerman."

Appearing on Fox New's The O'Reilly Factor, Rivera specifically pointed his finger at Martin Bashir, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell, Al Sharpton, and Ed Schultz (video follows with transcript and commentary:

On Thursday’s edition of her Now program, MSNBC host Alex Wagner and her colleague Lawrence O’Donnell along with The Nation’s Ari Melber took to the air to smear the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) on the subject of voter ID laws.  ALEC, a liberal blogger bogeyman, has become MSNBC’s new punching bag and the liberal guests took the opportunity to attack the organization from all sides.

In a discussion regarding the merits of showing an ID to vote, Wagner, an alumna of the liberal Center for American Progress, conspiratorially claimed that, “voter ID is cooked up by Republicans to disenfranchise minority voters.” In other words, it's the work of evil, racist Republicans!  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

Mormon Congressman Raul Labrador (R-Id.) scolded David Gregory on Sunday for his network's horrible treatment of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's faith.

Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Labrador specifically named MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell as one of the offenders (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A nasty Joy Behar on Wednesday appeared on MSNBC's Last Word to attack conservative women such as Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley. Talking to the ultra-liberal Lawrence O'Donnell, Behar mocked, "Shouldn't [Palin] be turning letters somewhere on some game show at this point? Why is she still involved in the conversation politically?"

Palin's sin, according to Behar? Daring to opine on who Mitt Romney should pick as his vice presidential choice. Behar had more insults for the governor of South Carolina, who recently appeared on her ABC show, The View. Regarding Haley's comment that women don't really care about the contraception issue, Behar dismissed, "...I mean, that just shows you she's not thinking. I don't know where her head is at." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Just posted at www.MRC.org, the latest edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables, our bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This week’s issue was heavy with opportunistic quotes from liberal journalists attacking conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh (and slamming Republicans for failing to attack Rush with the same vigor as exhibited on the left) — even though some of the same people criticizing Limbaugh for his unfortunate remark have celebrated liberals who have said far worse. (I think that’s called hypocrisy.)

Here are some of the worst quotes we uncovered this week; for the full rundown (including eight video clips), you can visit www.MRC.org or just download the printer-friendly PDF version of this week’s issue. (You can also subscribe to our e-mail list and get NQ delivered to your inbox every other Monday.)

On Tuesday's The Last Word on MSNBC, liberals were once again hearing allegedly "coded" messages. During a discussion of Rick Santorum's GOP primary victories in Alabama and Mississippi, guest and talk radio host Mark Thompson absurdly seemed to suggest that Santorum's announcement speech that he gave in Pennsylvania back in June 2011 contained a "coded message" aimed at winning Alabama nine months later by appealing to racist sentiments.

After host Lawrence O'Donnell asked if he had seen "anything surprising" in Tuesday's election results, Thompson began his ridiculous analysis:

An MSNBC political analyst on Tuesday actually said that Alabama women voting for Rick Santorum in the Republican presidential primary that just concluded in that state "really hurts" her.

Talking to Lawrence O'Donnell on The Last Word, Karen Finney arrogantly said, "It’s a little painful because I’m wondering if those women really heard the full message" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

During live coverage of the Super Tuesday primaries, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell declared that he hopes that Rick Santorum wins the GOP presidential nomination because he wants to see "hard core conservatism crushed" in November. Moments later, Chris Matthews declared his belief that Santorum would result in a "moderate to liberal Democratic party running the country" which he believed "would be good for the country."

O'Donnell began the back and forth with Matthews as he pronounced:

Lawrence O’Donnell, on Thursday’s The Last Word, actually had his production team make up a graphic of Rush Limbaugh’s sex life. As a way to mock the conservative talk radio host’s take on a Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who petitioned Congress for subsidized birth control, the MSNBC host and his panel looked over a timeline of Limbaugh’s marital history.

O’Donnell snarked: “Throughout that entire interpersonal sex life he has produced exactly zero children. So this is a man who has not only been practicing birth control for well over 30 years, he has perfected it.” Then O’Donnell’s colleague Alex Wagner got into the act when she added: “It’s probably good...that there have not been offspring from Rush’s many unions.” (video after the jump)

Time's Joe Klein said Thursday, "What the Republicans have is an awful lot of scared white people in their party."

Appearing on MSNBC's The Last Word, Klein disgustingly continued, "And one of the things they're most scared about is people of different colors and ethnicities and, you know, backgrounds polluting their white picket fence sense of America" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

So nice to see they're again acting like they like each other.

Quick in the wake of MSNBC colleague Lawrence O'Donnell's passive-aggressive criticism of her views on the Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate, the seemingly selfless Rachel Maddow leaped to O'Donnell's defense on her show last night. (video after page break)

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell said Friday, "Mitt Romney is the single most cynical presidential candidacy we have ever seen."

Appearing on Morning Joe, the unabashed Obama lover doubled down claiming, "We have never seen such an empty, cynical candidacy in the history of presidential campaigning" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Let he who is without a Y chromosome cast the first stone . . . Today's Morning Joe afforded viewers a study in hypocrisy: the all-male makeup of a panel at yesterday's House hearing on contraception was bashed by the show's panel consisting entirely of, yes, men. 

With Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough having the day off, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle took guest-hosting turns.  Barnicle introduced the subject, harrumphing about "the absurd picture we just saw of basically, it looks like an all-male locker room in a golf club."  Lawrence O'Donnell and Dem congressman Elijah Cummings joined in the breast-beating. Video after the jump.

This keeps up, I won't feel so guilty watching reruns of  "The West Wing."

Lawrence O'Donnell made a pointed observation on his cable show Thursday night that came across as helpfully illuminating -- and more than a tad passive-aggressive when juxtaposed with what MSNBC colleague Rachel Maddow said only an hour earlier. (video after page break)

With the number of numbskulls on the airwaves today, I'm not sure I'd called MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell the dumbest man on television.

But that's how real estate tycoon Donald Trump referred to the "Last Word" host on Twitter Thursday also calling him the "poor man's Ed Schultz...and Al Sharpton":

On Thursday's The Last Word, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell disproved claims by liberals that eight states already have regulations that require Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage of contraceptives for their employees, as the liberal host informed viewers that his staff had looked into the laws of these states and found the assertions to be untrue. (Video below)

O'Donnell declared to his viewers:

During a syrupy interview with Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on Monday's The Last Word, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell was so impressed with her that he concluded the segment by declaring that she is worthy to be ambassador to the United Nations. O'Donnell:

Not surprisingly, the Obama-loving media are having a field day with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comment to CNN's Soledad O'Brien regarding not being "concerned about the very poor."

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell Wednesday decided to make an even bigger deal out of this issue by cherry-picking Rush Limbaugh to make it appear the conservative radio host shared the press's view (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Everyone knows the folks at MSNBC nearly faint in outrage whenever the words “Obama” and “Kenya” are used in the same sentence. Barack Hussein Obama Senior had four wives (one at a time), and fathered eight children from 1958 to 1982, but climbing that family tree is no doubt seen as racist by MSNBC.

But on Monday night’s Last Word on MSNBC, host Lawrence O’Donnell not only mocked Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather Miles Park Romney leaving America for Mexico to preserve his polygamy. He claimed their history is “profoundly weirder” than you would think – and didn’t really explain what he meant. [MP3 audio here. See video below.]

The unhinged hysteria being displayed by the liberal media over a picture of President Obama and Arizona's Republican governor Jan Brewer supposedly in a heated exchange has become laughable.

On Thursday's The Last Word, newly promoted MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry told host Lawrence O'Donnell that this photo reminded her of "the still photograph that was captured in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, of the young woman Hazel screaming at a young Elizabeth Eckford on her way trying to get into Little Rock High School, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Saturday said "Republican audiences do not know that most people on food stamps are white."

This occurred during his network's coverage of the South Carolina primary (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Upon seeing former New Hampshire governor John Sununu on MSNBC last night, you might have wondered why he was wasting his time.

After seeing Sununu's epic smackdown of terminally smug Lawrence O'Donnell, you were undoubtedly glad he did. (video after page break)

Warning: Sweeping pontifical claims ahead from Lawrence O'Donnell. Best taken with shaker of salt.

As is his wont, O'Donnell was holding forth last night during MSNBC's coverage of the Iowa caucuses, making not one but two statements of alleged fact that went beyond dubious to flat-out inaccurate (video after page break) --

In 2008, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. At that time it wasn’t hard to imagine the Swedes were rewarding Krugman for eight years of blasting George W. Bush. In other words, the Nobel Prize truly matched its namesake: Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. Krugman regularly throws rhetorical dynamite at anything that stands in the way of his radical worldview.

Krugman outdid himself for outrage in 2011. Every year the Media Research Center collects a panel of willing conservative journalists and talk show hosts and puts them on a  sickening roller coaster ride through the worst media bilge of the last twelve months to arrive at the Best Notable Quotables of the Year. Paul Krugman sat in the sulfurous center with three “bests.”

When anti-war liberals are pressed about whether they are anti-military, they normally claim to support the troops while disagreeing with the war the troops are under orders to take part in.

But, as he introduced Thursday's Last Word show, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell certainly sounded like he was attacking the U.S. military as he not only absurdly suggested that it was the U.S. military, rather than the President,  that "chose" to "stay encamped for nearly nine years" in Iraq, but he even recounted the number of Iraqi civilians killed by both the U.S. military and Iraqi insurgents combined.

O'Donnell began his Thursday, December 15, Last Word program on MSNBC (Video and transcript follow):