Roger Simon

Politico's Roger Simon on Friday criticized the White House's handling of the Hilary Rosen-Ann Romney dustup whilst also taking a poke at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Simon said, "The degree to which the Obama campaign was fearful of Hilary Rosen's comments: they really tied her to the top of the family car" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing as a subsitute panel member on the Friday, March 2, Inside Washington on PBS, Politico columnist Roger Simon recited the liberal line of attack on Republicans as he theorized that female voters were being turned off from the GOP.

After quoting the Democratic charge of there being a GOP "war on women," moments later he wondered why Republicans were trying to get government 'into our wombs."

Charlie Rose boosted a jaw-dropping line from Politico's Roger Simon on Friday's CBS This Morning, which concluded that the Republican presidential debates were hurting the party's chances at defeating President Obama: "It is said that in Chicago, where they are running the Obama campaign, that they're so giddy that they want to run naked in Millennium Park" [audio available here; video below the jump].

Simon's actual sentence in his Thursday piece was more graphic:

You know liberals are desperate if they’re playing the race card so early in the 2012 campaign cycle. The latest edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables is now out, and this week’s collection was heavy with media quotes attacking both Republican voters and their presidential candidates as racist.

Among the lowlights: NBC’s Ann Curry accusing Newt Gingrich of “intentionally playing the race card” when he talked about President Obama’s dismal economic record, and ex-CNN correspondent Bob Franken nastily asserting that conservative voters harbor “a real resentment against blacks,” and “would love to see us return to the good old days of Jim Crow.”

The worst quotes are below the jump; the full issue can be read at www.MRC.org. (PDF version)

There are times when I'm sickened by what I see so-called journalists do on television.

Sunday was one of those times when Politico's Roger Simon, appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources, said being "a little bit racist perhaps, gives you good bona fides in a Republican primary. It shows them you're on the same side as they are" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charles Krauthammer on Friday evening exposed a classic liberal media hypocrisy concerning the differing bar used to determine truthfulness in politicians depending on their political leaning.

When "Inside Washington" panelist Nina Totenberg (NPR) asked if Republican presidential candidates might not have been totally honest Thursday evening when they all said they wouldn't accept a budget that incorporated ten dollars worth of spending cuts for every dollar raised in taxes, Krauthammer smartly responded, "Obama in the end said he wouldn’t sign a bill that didn’t increase taxes. In the end, he did. Was he lying?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It was by no means surprising when Politico's Roger Simon claimed on Friday's "Inside Washington" that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's comment concerning corporations being people "was one of his rare flubs."

But when the Washington Post's Obama-loving columnist Colby King stuck up for Romney saying, "He's actually right," it's a metaphysical certitude many unsuspecting viewers around the nation spit out whatever was in their mouths (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

The New York Times was very excited about President Obama's deficit reduction speech.

The Gray Lady's editorial Thursday began, "The man America elected president has re-emerged":

Politico's Roger Simon said Sunday Barack Obama is the greatest orator of modern times.

Chatting with Howard Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Simon also said journalists are just now looking beyond the President's speaking skills and analyzing what he's actually saying (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A conservative writer likely unknown to most NewsBusters readers scolded Politico's Roger Simon Sunday for trying to connect Sarah Palin to yesterday's shootings in Tucson, Arizona.

Surrounded by liberals on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle said what would be obvious to most journalists if they weren't always so quick to tie extreme acts of violence committed by a white male to prominent right-wing figures (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews on Friday made the absurd claim the "compassionate" Left is too soft on Republican wrongdoers, and that by contrast the Right puts it's "heel into the back of the guy's head when he's down."

The "Hardball" host - with a straight face no less - said this to guests Ron Reagan and Politico's Roger Simon with reference to how the "right-wing press played up [Charlie] Rangel's censure" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

An uncomfortable moment occurred on Tuesday's "Hardball" when Chris Matthews and guest Roger Simon of Politico disagreed with the meaning of something Barack Obama said during a "backyard chat" in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

After playing a clip of the President talking about his mother not being much of a churchgoer when he was a child, Simon asked, "Did he really have to throw his family under the bus to make this point?"

"To me this is the worst thing he's done since comparing his grandmother to Reverend Wright," he continued.

At that point, Matthews can be seen in the split-screen grimacing and shaking his head before flatly disagreeing with his guest (video follows with transcript and commentary):  

Chris Matthews is still getting a thrill up his leg, and even further, when he hears Barack Obama speak, as the MSNBCer, on Monday's Hardball, announced to the world "I get the same thrill up my leg, all over me," whenever he listens to Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech. Matthews also revealed he is really sensitive about how his "thrill" moments are described, as he took offense when a guest inaccurately labeled it a "tingle" as Matthews shot back: "It wasn't a tingle, up my leg, that's what right wing fascists say. I got a thrill up my leg. Okay? You're reading the right wing blogs. Start tuning your station." [audio available here]

Matthews, however, is quite aware that the rest of the country doesn't share the same all over body thrill he does as he asked his guests, Roger Simon of the Politico and Jim Kessler of Third Way, "Can President Obama stir us again and help his party keep power this November?" 

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the September 7 Hardball:

"Yes, he might last that long," Politico's Roger Simon states in response to his own question.

Honest to goodness, the man just does not get it. He might be forced to pull a Palin and resign before his first term is over. He could go off and write his memoirs and build his presidential library. (Both would be half-size, of course.)

I am not saying Obama is not smart; he is as smart as a whip. I am just saying he does not understand what savvy first-term presidents need to understand:

You have to stay on message, follow the polls, listen to your advisers (who are writing the message and taking the polls) and realize that when it comes to doing what is right versus doing what is expedient, you do what is expedient so that you can get reelected and do what is right in the second term. If at all possible. And it will help your legacy. And not endanger the election of others in your party. And not hurt the brand. Or upset people too much.

Do you concur with that assessment, or is Simon being too cynical? Remember to give some examples to back up your point.

Roger Simon's Wednesday morning column ("Journolist veers out of bounds"), an item Rush brought up on his show this afternoon, may be one of the most delusional items ever written by a journalist attempting to defend his profession.

Rich Noyes at NewsBusters covered one aspect of Simon's column on Wednesday, namely the deliciously hypocritical outrage of NBC/MSNBC reporter Chuck Todd over how the Journolist scandal "has been keeping him up nights, and he's especially frustrated that 'the right' would use it as 'a sledgehammer' against everyday journalists, 'those of us who don't practice advocacy journalism.'"

I'll suggest that Simon's rendition of journalistic history is at least as offensive as Todd's reaction, in that it's laughably and obviously false on so many fronts (numbered tags are mine):

... when I became a reporter, it was almost a holy calling. (1)

NBC News White House correspondent and MSNBC daytime anchor Chuck Todd told Politico's Roger Simon that the Journolist scandal has been keeping him up nights, and he's especially frustrated that "the right" would use it as "a sledgehammer" against everyday journalists, "those of us who don't practice advocacy journalism."

Todd fretted: "Journolist was pretty offensive. Those of us who are mainstream journalists got mixed in with journalists with an agenda. Those folks who thought they were improving journalism are destroying the credibility of journalism. This has kept me up nights. I try to be fair. It’s very depressing."

The only problem, of course, is that Todd and other ostensibly neutral reporters at NBC have gotten "mixed in with journalists with an agenda" via the entire MSNBC project. Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, the upcoming Larry O'Donnell show -- these are not programs designed to boost the "credibility of journalism." They are liberal agenda shows designed to push one side -- Journolist on TV, as it were.

For his part, Simon seems critical of Journolist for tainting the media's professionalism -- a "holy calling" (although the most directly critical statement is the headline, "Journolist veers out of bounds"). An excerpt:

On the very day America learned so-called journalists conspired to destroy Sarah Palin from the moment John McCain chose her as his running mate, Politico's Roger Simon declared she's at the top of the Republican Party.

Assuming he's correct, what does that tell us about all those in the mainstream media that have been looking down their noses for almost two years as they worked overtime to smear this woman?

Before we attempt to answer that question, let's see what Simon had to say:

Howard Kurtz on Sunday used a Keith Olbermann tactic of selectively editing and cherry picking from a Rush Limbaugh radio transcript to make the conservative talk show host look racist.

In a "Reliable Sources" segment dealing with the embattled Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, Kurtz played a highly-edited clip of statements Limbaugh made Tuesday about this issue.

Unfortunately, just as MSNBC's Olbermann did on his "Countdown" program, Kurtz never told his viewers that Limbaugh was referring specifically to comments that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker made on last Sunday's "This Week" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Appearing on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Tuesday, Politico columnist Roger Simon described a recent interview with President Obama: "...he showed a genuine irritation....when people like Bobby Jindal, you know, standing up, screaming about more federal action...a small-government, no federal aid kind of guy. And the President is calling out those people for hypocrisy."

Simon was discussing a quote from Obama in that interview, in which the President whined: "Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying do something are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much." Apparently, asking the federal government to do its job in a national emergency but not take over people's health care is the liberal definition of hypocrisy.

Earlier, Mitchell asked Simon to preview the President's prime time address on the oil spill. Simon gushed: "...he's cool and collected about things but he also realizes that he has to break through that, and tonight is his chance. You know, speeches have never failed Barack Obama. They started his presidential career. They've always rescued him at tough times.... I think he wants to re-establish that personal bond he once had with voters." He could hardly wait for Obama's performance: "I think tonight we saw a preview of it in Pensacola. He likes to preview the speeches like opening a play out of town before you go to Broadway."  

Newsweek's Howard Fineman, on Monday's Hardball, pushed Barack Obama to "overdo" and "overstep" in his efforts to get BP to plug the leak and stop the oil spill in the Gulf, something Fineman claimed Obama hadn't done yet because "he's usefully and rightfully dangerous about power. I think he thought...George W. Bush overstepped in terms of executive power...he's an observer by nature." This observation from Fineman seems particularly odd, as it comes at the same time the President has pushed for a $50 billion in additional domestic spending.

Fineman made the comment after the Politico's Roger Simon insisted there's only so much Obama can do, as he insisted: "He's not Iron Man. He cannot dive a mile underwater and stop this by himself." However host Chris Matthews asserted Obama could do more and he asked if the President will be "tough" and "really threaten BP" and openly wondered: "Does he know he's a powerful man?" After Fineman responded that Obama needs to "overstep" a concerned Matthews questioned: "Even at the risk of being called a socialist again?"

It would be "absurd" for Florida Rep. Alan Grayson (D) to apologize for insisting recently that Republicans stand behind a health care "holocaust," MSNBC's Chris Matthews argued on today's "Hardball" program.

While Matthews felt Grayson's Nazi comparison was over-the-top, Matthews cheered Grayson's display of "cojones," even chuckling at video of Grayson calling Republicans "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals."

Matthews made clear to guests James Warren of the Huffington Post and Politico's Roger Simon that he thought Grayson was just the shot in the arm liberals needed for their health care push (audio available here, video embedded at right):

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," ominously warned that the "activists on the radio," are "gonna pay," if "we have violence in this country against our president of any form," for having "encouraged the craziness." Matthews made that charge in a segment, with NBC News' Chuck Todd and the Politico, that began by the MSNBC host wondering if the GOP was "jumping the shark," with "these crazy town meetings," and declared "the clown show is over."

The following exchange was aired on the September 22 edition of "Hardball":

On Sunday, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer praised President Obama’s recent media blitz for health care reform: "There’s no question he is the best salesman on the staff," but wondered: "Does he run the risk of overexposing himself?" Politco.com’s Roger Simon dispelled that fear: "It is a risk, but he keeps topping himself."

Simon elaborated on Obama’s oratory skill: "Every time you think this guy can’t give another speech that’s better than the last one, he gives another speech that’s better than the last one. And he’s achieving his purpose." He added that the President’s address to Congress last Wednesday: "was to unite Democrats around him. As a man who can get this job done."

In the same segment, Schieffer also spoke with syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, who gushed: "There is always that risk of overexposure. And yet, if you watched his speech yesterday in Minneapolis, he sort of redeems himself every time he goes out there in front of the public, because he is so good."

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," invited on HBO's Bill Maher to mock GOP criticism of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as Maher accused them of being "racist," and Matthews marveled at how Republicans can admire Sarah Palin but not someone who worked as hard as Sotomayor to achieve her position, as he pondered: "Why do they like somebody who's shown no sweat equity against somebody who's shown nothing but sweat equity?"

Before discussing Republican treatment of Sotomayor Matthews asked Maher to rate the audiences that come to see him in the South. Maher, not surprisingly, belittled most of the region, saying the ones that do come to his shows are the minority as they are "marbled in and surrounded by a bunch of hillbillies and rednecks." To which Matthews rejoined: "Isn't it refreshing to meet Southern liberals? Because the great thing about Southern liberals is they don't, they're not competing for the latest nuance of sexual freedom like in Greenwich Village. They are liberals, meaning they're, they're for black equality for example. Things like that, that are pretty nice and wholesome." [audio available here]

Not long after that slam against non-liberal Southerners, Maher threw out the charge of Republican racism:

Politico chief political columnist Roger Simon, a longtime correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and U.S. News & World Report, simply cannot believe it’s controversial for Sonia Sotomayor to claim a "wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences" makes a wiser judical decision than a presumably privileged white male. "I have read those words over and over, and I still fail to see what is wrong with them."

To Simon, that’s apparently as true as two and two make four. He complained that the White House tried to apologize for it as a poor choice of words:

Why? I don’t get it. Why was her word choice poor if "she was simply saying that her life experiences" gave her "information about the struggles and hardships" of people?

We all know why. If you are not white, you have to be careful what you say. You cannot hint that you may actually know more than white people.

I don't know what got into MSNBC's Chris Matthews Thursday, but the "Hardball" host seemed rather annoyed by his President's recent treatment of the news media.

First, he opened up a segment with guests Roger Simon of "Politico" and USA Today's Susan Page by accusing Barack Obama of behaving "like the campaign never ended" asking:

[W]hat`s the president up to? Is he doing what he does well? Is he simply sticking to his strengths? Or is he trying to bypass what he sees as a problem area, meaning the national press corps?

Later, he suggested that the folks at Thursday's Internet town hall were "self-selected" much like a "Potemkin village" (video embedded below the fold with full transcript):

There were many famous people at CPAC this year and I was lucky enough to run into some of them. And some of those I ran into even let me ask them a few questions about media bias. The resulting videos are embedded below the fold.

The four interviews I was able to get where with Joe the Plumber, John Ziegler, George Phillips, and Roger Simon. Each have unique experiences with liberal media bias and each articulated different but insightful points about the media.

Make sure you check out each of the videos and watch them all the way through.

Looks like Chris Matthews is actually disappointed in Barack Obama, but only in the sense that he's worried Obama isn't moving to the left fast enough. Throughout Monday night's "Hardball," after reciting recent appointments like Robert Gates, Jim Jones and yes even Hillary Clinton, Matthews repeatedly asked his guests questions like: "What happened to the victory of change, and I hate to use the phrase, the Left? Who won this election?" and "Why do we have no lefties in this Cabinet?"

Matthews even invited on two "lefties," Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America and David Corn of The Nation, to blast Obama for not going left enough and offered them regular spots on his show to "Keep the guy [Obama] where he ought to be."

A little later in the program, Matthews had on Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg news and Roger Simon of the Politico and fretted about his perception that there weren't enough leftists in the cabinet: "Why no lefties? Why nobody that talks like Barack Obama talked when he got elected?"

The following exchanges occurred on the December 8, edition of "Harball":

On Thursday night's "Hardball," Chris Matthews actually praised Sarah Palin for her ability to draw a crowd and even pegged her as the early frontrunner for the GOP nod in 2012, "Who’s gonna beat her?" However the MSNBC host, later admitted giving Palin that much credit took a lot out of him as he confessed to a guest panelist: "This is really hard to do this, to salute Sarah Palin."

The following exchange occurred during a segment with the Politico's Roger Simon and Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman on the December 4, edition of "Hardball":

CHRIS MATTHEWS: As a student of politics, you guys are too, inevitably the man, in this case the woman, who gives that "Someday we'll win, we'll win this thing back again, even though we lost year," was Goldwater in ‘60, Reagan in ‘76. They all go to the convention, they give that crie de guerre, that call for, you know, call, war cry, and they all do it in the same way. "We're gonna lose this year but some day we're gonna come back." Goldwater came back and got the nomination, Reagan came back and got the nomination. Both from the right wing of the Republican Party. She could do it.

Recapping Wednesday's presidential debate TV journalists were struck with how Barack Obama conveyed an “appeal to the center” while a “sarcastic” John McCain showed “disdain and contempt” and was hurt by being too much of a right-wing “ideologue” whose  “worst moment” came when he raised the name of William Ayers.

Also noteworthy: On NBC, Ann Curry pressed six undecided voters to “raise your hand if you know of people, and be honest here, who may not vote for Barack Obama because of his race.” And NBC anchor Brian Williams asked Hillary Clinton to assess Sarah Palin: “Is Governor Palin qualified to be Vice President or President?”

On “Nightline,” George Stephanopoulos went three for three for the Democrat -- four for four if you add in Biden over Palin -- in declaring Obama the “winner.” Read on for our recap.