Anderson Cooper

As if having an hour a week to bash Republicans on national television isn't enough, vulgarian comedian Bill Maher is regularly asked to appear on cable news networks to offer his perilously biased opinions.

Such was the case Wednesday when he told CNN's Anderson Cooper if Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wins the nomination, "Obama is going to beat him like a runaway sister wife" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich severely scolded CNN’s John King for beginning Thursday’s debate in South Carolina with a question about allegations made by his ex-wife earlier in the day.

After the debate ended, CNN contributor David Gergen said, “This is one of the most explosive moments we’ve seen in debate history. It was also one of the harshest attacks we’ve had on the press that I can remember in a long, long time…I think that there’s a reasonable chance after talking to people here tonight that he could win South Carolina based on that answer” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

The more one listens to Newsweek’s Andrew Sullivan, the more one has to conclude that he either knows absolutely nothing about the economy or he’s lying through his teeth.

Appearing on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday evening, Sullivan actually said tax “revenues currently are at 50 year lows” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On the campaign trail, Republican candidate Rick Santorum blurted out a word that sounded like "black" and was widely-criticized for making a generalization that black citizens rely on welfare. Though the transcript of the remark is not entirely certain, CNN's Anderson Cooper emphasized the comment anyway with a "Keeping Them Honest" report on his Thursday show.

The title "Keeping Them Honest" implies that the subject is being dishonest, but Cooper admitted that he was grilling Santorum for "what he appears to be saying." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Determined to vet up-and-coming GOP candidate Rick Santorum, CNN's Gary Tuchmann chose Wednesday to pull a number of liberal attacks on the candidate's social beliefs and call it a report. Apparently for CNN, "scrutiny" entails digging up liberal talking points instead of studying a candidate's voting record and economic and foreign policy plans.

Tuchman attested on Anderson Cooper 360 that "we can already tell you quite a bit about his vision for this country," adding that Santorum "has established a reputation as a conservative in every sense of the word." He then descended into implying that Santorum was a racist and a homophobe. [Video below the break.]

Divers all over South Florida were probably drooling last night while watching the huge lionfish that appeared in the 60 Minutes broadcast about Cuba's Jardines de la Reina coral reef off that island's southern shore. The reason is that the state of Florida has declared open season on the invasive lionfish, introduced from Asia, which is known to devastate marine life on coral reefs. Fortunately lionfish flesh is quite tasty and its population has been kept in check in Florida by hungry divers with spearguns.

Not so in Cuba. As you can see in the video at the 15 second mark and later in their full broadcast, the lionfish at the Jardines de la Reina are both quite large and numerous. Why? It seems that Anderson Cooper shied away from asking the question that would have a politically very uncomfortable answer.

Anderson Cooper found yet another way to scrutinize Republicans, as on Tuesday he spotlighted GOP candidates attacking each other's record after each promised to run positive campaigns – even though verbal spars happen during every single election.

The segment's title of "Keeping Them Honest" insinuated that the subject is being deceitful or dishonest, and Cooper decided to call the candidates out for backtracking on their promises of positive campaigns – even though an overall positive campaign doesn't necessarily rule out attacks on opponents' records. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

There are tragedies and then there are tragedies.

According to CNN's Anderson Cooper, the "real tragedy" in this week's pathetic plane incident involving a spoiled celebrity is that Alec Baldwin "shut down his Twitter account" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Anderson Cooper ran a critical segment on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's old ethics charges of violating tax law and lying to the House Ethics Committee. Only at the very end did Cooper acknowledge that Gingrich was vindicated by the IRS on charges of tax violation.

Cooper opened his show with the story. "We begin tonight 'Keeping Them Honest' with Newt Gingrich who's skyrocketing the polls and downplaying his past which includes the distinction of being the first House speaker in history to be reprimanded for ethics violations," the CNN anchor reported.

Cooper didn't note that while Gingrich was the first House Speaker to be reprimanded, Democrat congressman Jim Wright – just a few years before – was the first House Speaker to resign over a scandal. Wright tendered his resignation from Congress in 1989 while under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Ed Schultz last week actually suggested that CNN's Anderson Cooper might have had something to do with him being named to GQ's "The 25 Least Influential People Alive" list.

On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360, the host nicely put the pathetic Schultz in his proper place - The RidicuList (video follows with transcript and absolutely no additional commentary necessary):

As the Media Research Center has documented, CNN's Anderson Cooper has been targeting Republicans far more than Democrats with critical "Keeping Them Honest" investigative reports – and Cooper continued that trend Wednesday night. The CNN host scrutinized Republican presidential candidates for statements they made in Tuesday night's debate, but has not reported controversial statements made this week by President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Cooper also hit candidate Herman Cain with a "Keeping Them Honest" on Monday night, the third time he has focused such a report on Cain in the last two weeks. In contrast, President Obama has been the target of three such reports in the last three months. [Video below the break.]

[UPDATE at end of post: Cooper responds via Politico.]

Tuesday night’s Republican debate in Las Vegas will be moderated by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. The CNN promo urges viewers to “See if what happens in Vegas gets them closer to the White House.” But Cooper’s nightly Anderson Cooper 360 often looks like it’s trying to keep Republicans away from the White House.

CNN advertises Cooper’s regular segment, “Keeping Them Honest,” with the question: “Who's Anderson keeping honest tonight?” Apparently, CNN and Cooper find Republicans are much more dishonest. Since July, a review of “Keeping Them Honest” segments found 24 reports tagging the Republicans with dishonesty, compared with just three for Democrats – a ratio of eight to one.
 

CNN's Anderson Cooper opened his Monday night show hitting GOP candidate Herman Cain for his comments on immigration, which Cain claimed were meant in jest. Cooper continued lock-step with his trend of hitting Republicans with critical "Keeping Them Honest" reports at a much higher rate than Democrats.

It was Cooper's third "Keeping Them Honest" report on Cain in less than two weeks, which equals the same number of those reports that President Obama has received in three full months.

"He says he's only joking and said it again just this evening," Cooper spoke of Cain's comments that as President, he would install an electric fence on the Mexican border with a moat full of alligators. "But new polling shows him to be a serious candidate at this point....So people are now taking everything he says seriously whether he likes it or not." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

It’s hard to keep up with what the media and the left deem acceptable. Seems like just last year Anderson Cooper publicly took offense at a line from a movie. Come to think of it, it was just last year that the CNN anchor found “That’s so gay,” upsetting to his perfectly honed PC sensibilities.

Fast forward a year. Many people are accusing two currently prominent figures of being gay. But don’t hold your breath waiting for indignant coverage from Cooper and the rest of the media, because it’s liberals leveling the charge against conservatives.   

Take, for example, Marcus Bachmann, husband of GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.). The Bachmanns have been married more than 30 years, and have five children. Mr. Bachmann runs a clinic that offers Christian counseling to people struggling with “unwanted” homosexual feelings – derisively termed “praying away the gay” by liberals.

CNN's own poll recently showed that voters 60-to-one believe the economy is the most pressing issue facing the United States, as opposed to policies toward gays and lesbians. CNN's Anderson Cooper apparently thought the views of Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann toward gays and lesbians important enough to merit the lead segment on his Monday show.

"We begin tonight 'Keeping Them Honest' with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and her sudden silence on a topic she was once anything-but-silent about," Cooper began his show. His critical segment accused the Minnesota congresswoman of "judging" gays and lesbians and highlighted her sudden silence on gay rights, an issue she had been quite outspoken over.

[Video below the break.]

Channeling liberal disenchantment with President Obama, CNN anchor Don Lemon wondered Monday if the President would be "better off running as a conservative" in the next election.

"Your colleague in New York Gary Ackerman said the Republicans invited the President, quote, 'to negotiate at a strip poker table, and he showed up half-naked,' and then liberal columnist Paul Krugman calls the deal an abject surrender," Lemon quoted the two liberals downcast over the debt ceiling deal. "Would the President be better off running as a conservative in 2012?" he asked Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.)

[Video below the break.]

In a critical "Keeping Them Honest" segment Wednesday night, CNN's Anderson Cooper selectively reported findings from his network's own poll to bolster his argument that Republicans are out-of-touch with the wishes of the American people in the debt ceiling debate.

This came even after the Democrat Senate Majority Leader, supported by the president, produced a plan including no tax increases in an effort to garner Republican support. Yet Cooper still peddled a CNN poll showing public support for a plan including increased tax revenues, and framed Republicans as dishonest for claiming Americans want no more taxes.

[Video below the break.]

Perhaps CNN stands for the Closeted News Network. No, that doesn't work. There's nothing closeted about CNN's clear advocacy for homosexual causes.

A Culture and Media Institute analysis of 239 programs aired on CNN from the period June 15 to July 15 revealed that CNN quoted or interviewed nearly four times the number of gay-agenda supporters as critics.

When an adoring mainstream media suspend their fawning long enough to point out that he's lying, Barack Obama must realize his presidency is in trouble.  That's what happened Friday night on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees.

Naturally, Cooper began by claiming Republicans who argue Americans don't want higher taxes use polling data "that's just not true."  No mention was made of this week's Rasmussen Reports survey showing 55 percent of respondents oppose a tax hike in any debt ceiling deal.  But then Cooper turned to Gallup Poll findings used by Obama:

CNN's Anderson Cooper and Gloria Borger took turns casting President Barack Obama as the centrist 'adult' in a room teeming with unruly Republican children who would rather invite economic calamity than compromise on a debt-reduction plan.

Discussing a topic that would have made a perfect "Keeping Them Honest" segment, Cooper insisted, incorrectly, on Monday's "AC 360" that the Democratic president has never raised taxes since taking office in 2009: "Now, in fact the stimulus was about one-third tax cuts. So in fairness, he did not raise taxes. He and Congress later passing a payroll tax holiday that is in effect right now. A year later he and Congress did approve tax breaks to help employers hire more people."

According to Politifact, Cooper is way off base in claiming the president "did not raise taxes."

For the second night in a row, Anderson Cooper opened his regular news cast Tuesday touting a story about Michele Bachmann's hypocrisy in benefitting from federal agriculture subsidies. Although his own network, which interviewed Bachmann Tuesday morning, did not report on the matter during that day, Cooper thought it important enough to put the issue as the lead story for the second straight night.

The issue at hand is that Bachmann was a beneficiary of a family farm that received funding from federal corn, dairy, and livestock subsidies – all while railing against federal intervention in the free market. Bachmann was a partner in Bachman Farm Family, LP, and did receive income from the farm owned by her father-in-law and later by others.

[Video below the break.]

On Tuesday's American Morning, co-host Kiran Chetry reported that  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is "prone to misstatements" and posed this question to her: "Did you mean to make false statements intentionally or were you just misspeaking?"

"PolitiFact.com, which is a Pulitzer Price winning fact-checking web site examined 26 statements that you made and they found only one to be fully true and 18 to be false," Chetry told Bachmann. "Several of them relating to your criticism of President Obama. Did you mean to make false statements intentionally or were you just misspeaking?"

[Video below the break.]

On Tuesday's In the Arena, fill-in host Christine Romans questioned Marjorie Dannenfelser of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List on the relevance of the abortion issue in the upcoming presidential election. She argued that the central issues, according to polls, are the economy and jobs and that focusing on politicians' stances on abortion might not be a viable strategy.

Ironically, Anderson Cooper opened up CNN's 10 p.m. hour with a "Keeping Them Honest" segment scrutinizing a certain politician's flip-flops on same-sex marriage – President Obama.

[Video below the break.]

[Update below:] Anderson Cooper last June had advertised CNN's telethon raising money for the Gulf oil spill through the National Wildlife Federation.

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) will be honoring CNN's Anderson Cooper as a "Wildlife Hero" at its 75th Anniversary celebration June 15. A spokesperson for the organization confirmed that Cooper will be receiving the award for his coverage of the Gulf oil spill last year.

The NWF identifies itself as "the nation's largest conservation organization," working through education, preservation of habitats and ecosystems and protection of wildlife.

The night after CNN’s debate in New Hampshire with seven Republican presidential candidates, Anderson Cooper brought aboard left-wing “comedian” Bill Maher to ridicule them. Asked if he “had to vote” for one of them, he named Ron Paul since “he's a cut from a different cloth than the rest of those people who are of course selling their souls to the corporate interests who back them and who have just horrible, society-killing ideas about America.”

Later discussing Anthony Weiner, Maher used it as an opportunity to deride one of the left’s favorite targets they never tire of vilifying: “Dick Cheney used to go out and shoot birds by the hundreds that were like in a cage. To me, that's a lot more psychotic than anything Anthony Weiner ever did.” Maher insisted: “He shot and killed an incredible number of birds for absolutely no reason than a blood lust.” (Audio: MP3 clip) Video below:

Both CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday's AC360 and CBS's Nancy Cordes on Thursday's Early Show highlighted conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart's early part in spreading news of the lewd photo Tweeted from Rep. Andrew Weiner's Twitter account. Cooper played up Breitbart's supposedly "questionable credibility," while Cordes reported how "supporters of Weiner note that it was [the] right-wing blogger...who broke the story."

The CNN anchor raised Breitbart's involvement 15 minutes into the 10 pm Eastern hour as he introduced the second part of an interview of the New York Democrat conducted by his colleague Wolf Blitzer: