Apparently fed up of hearing what they believe was a phony line being delivered by GOP spokesmen – that women across the country were offended by the media questioning Sarah Palin's fitness as a mother – Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann defied critics to find examples of any news outlets making that charge. Matthews and Olbermann, spurred on by criticism from Hawaii's Republican governor Linda Lingle at around 8:09pm [EDT] during MSNBC's live coverage of Thursday night's (September 4) Republican convention, threw down the following gauntlet:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Alright Andrea thank you. Thank you Governor. It would, I'd love the governor or anybody else repeating those talking points to give us the names of those news organizations that have actually questioned whether or not mothers have a right to sit in office. But we haven't heard that list yet.

...

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well I have to agree. I sit here waiting for that list of major news organizations who have questioned her motherhood or her right to become Vice President, given her motherhood. I don't think it has ever happened. But of course it's become the talking point for all the spokesmen.

Matthews and Olbermann's NBC colleague David Gregory made a similar claim on Wednesday's "Today" show.

Well for Matthews, Olbermann and Gregory's information, the following is "a list of major news organizations," that have, in fact, questioned Palin's maternal abilities:

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Moments before Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave her history making speech at the Xcel Energy Center Wednesday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told NewsBusters that the left-wing media are trying to destroy her because she represents a threat to their ability to define what a successful, professional woman is in America today.

Offering some of the strongest media criticisms we've encountered at the Republican National Convention, Gingrich painted a picture of exactly what's at stake for the liberal press if Palin is successful in her bid to become the first female vice president in American history, and that people should not underestimate what they are willing to do to prevent that from happening (video embedded right):

Cross Posted At Eyeblast.tv

After Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave her speech last night, MSNBC talking heads Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow gathered to discuss the VP candidate's remarks. Among the topics covered was Palin's religious background.

MATTHEWS: Is it true that she believes that God supports the war in Iraq? How does she know?

MADDOW: Was she sitting in the pew in her church in Wasilla two weeks ago when a speaker said that the Israelis deserve terrorist attacks, because Jews are unbelievers in Christ?

MADDOW: That was in the Politico today.  Jews for Jesus founder speaking at her church while she was there two weeks ago making incredibly, incredibly out of line comments about Israel and Jewish people. These are tough questions she'll have to answer.

MATTHEWS: Pro or con?

MADDOW: Saying that's why Israel was subject to terrorist attacks. It was God's judgment for not believing in Christ.

MATTHEWS: What's the source?

MADDOW: Politico.com

During MSNBC's Wednesday night live coverage of the Republican National Convention Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Tom Brokaw and others scoffed at the idea they had an anti-Sarah Palin agenda. Brokaw depicted the charge of liberal bias as a mere "tactic," by the GOP, Matthews played it off as just "an old, old conflict," and even tried to write off the media's fascination of Obama, as just a mere fondness of "the new."

This is a political tactic on their part. And the shorthand is, "Let's go after the media." And are they sorting out, for example, Fox or conservative blogs or others who have, in fact, been defending all of this? No what they want to do is just raise the specter that everything that America sees is controlled by a tiny band of Eastern liberal elites.

And for her part Norah O'Donnell insisted:

There is one important thing to point out. The media is not attacking Sarah Palin. The media has done investigative pieces, in their job, about the way Sarah Palin was chosen.

The following are just some of the anxious rebuttals from the MSNBC crew to Palin's charge that the media was biased against her, as they occurred on MSNBC’s September 3, coverage of the Republican Convention:

Cross Posted At Video Done Right

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews charged GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as being a member of Alaska’s Independence party. Members of this party advocate to secede from the union and place all federally owned land under state control.

Even after Howard Fineman mentioned he received documentation from the McCain campaign showing Palin had been a registered Republican since 1982 and never a member of the Alaskan Independence party, Matthews continued to make the connection of Alaskan secessionist leader Joe Vogler to Palin.

Joe Vogler’s views are pefect media fodder to make Palin look fringy. It seems as if MSNBC and others are looking for their own William Ayers or Jeremiah Wright to pin on the McCain Palin campaign to scare away voters. Matthews quoted Vogler:

“I’m an Alaskan not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann began to poignantly patch things up two nights ago.  But there's clearly still mucho trabajo to be done to heal the rift between Joe Scarborough and the temperamental Countdown host.  Readers will recall that during the Dem convention, Olbermann was caught [accidentally on purpose?] on an open mic suggesting Scarborough "get a shovel" for his failure to toe a sufficiently pro-Obama line.  

On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough took a thinly-veiled shot at Olbermann for the way he tried to keep Republican analyst Mike Murphy off the air, and then tried to pull the plug ["let's wrap him up, alright?"] when Murphy eventually made it into an interview with Chris Matthews.

Pat Buchanan was the sole voice on today's opening-hour panel to opine that Fred Thompson had done a good job with his speech last night.  In contrast, Scarborough suggested Thompson had been flat. Pat expressed his feelings of alienation as the show was going to a break. It was then that Joe and Mika let Buchanan know that—in contrast with other MSNBC venues—dissident voices were welcome on Morning Joe.

Obsessing over Sarah Palin's pro-life position on abortion, MSNBC hosts and reporters on Tuesday night repeatedly raised it and painted it as a detriment to Republicans even though last week with Democrats the channel did not similarly pursue how a solidly left view on abortion might hurt Obama and Biden. By the count of the MRC's Geoff Dickens, between 8 PM and midnight EDT, MSNBC raised abortion at least 16 times, twice with an edge that painted the GOP position as extreme by applying a “hard right” label. Chris Matthews declared “they are going hard right on abortion rights” and later David Gregory asserted: “The abortion platform here is pretty hard right.”

Chuck Todd, Political Director for NBC News, fretted over how “this is as stringent of a platform on abortion the Republican Party ever has. And the problem is” that “these delegates are more conservative than even the ones four years ago.” Andrea Mitchell described Palin as “very conservative” and pressed a Republican Congressman: “Now there are a lot of women in that area who are less conservative socially than Sarah Palin. There are a lot of women who believe in choice. So how do you square the circle there?”

Matthews bemoaned to Tom Ridge that “it seems like you got a convention saluting a vice presidential nominee who wants to outlaw abortion, period, across the country. Is this going too far?” To Tim Pawlenty, Matthews demanded:

Do you believe you can win with the cultural statement being made by the selection of Governor Palin? That statement being someone from the very culturally conservative part of your party?

Reviewing speeches at the Dem convention, Keith Olbermann was like a mother describing her child's performance in a middle-school musical.  "A grand slam across the street," enthused Olbermann over Hillary's effort, only to outdo himself by calling Obama's speech's "spellbinding" and "extraordinary."

But when it came to reviewing Fred Thompson's speech tonight at the GOP convention, Olbermann suddenly morphed into Frank Rich with a migraine back in his theater critic days.

Sniffed Olbermann: "We have heard two speeches in the last forty minutes or so, Chris, first from President Bush and now from former Senator Fred Thompson. I think it's fair to say, nearly entirely militaristic in nature and touching to some degree on who John McCain is and what he would do, but mostly standing him next to a flag and a gun."

View video here.

If a hypothetical tabloid owned by, say, Richard Mellon Scaife, had a cover story with scurrilous accusations about Joe Biden, do you think Chris Matthews would be waving it about on camera and Keith Olbermann citing it?  Neither do I. But if for some reason they did, would they possibly fail to mention the mag's ownership?

But Matthews saw fit—not once but twice—to display the cover of Us magazine, with its story "Babies, Lies and Scandals" about Sarah Palin. Olbermann alluded to it as well. And who is the owner of Us?  Jann Wenner,  the founder of Rolling Stone . . . and a big-time donor to Barack Obama. How big a donor?  You can view his list of contributions here, with an image after the jump.

Now it's true that Matthews discounted the "lies" allegation.  But why give currency to dubious accusations—by a magazine whose stock-in-trade is celebrity gossip—by displaying them repeatedly on a national news show?  There was no suggestion that Us, unlike the National Enquirer in John Edwards' case, had done any significant independent reporting. This is apparently scandal-mongering, pure and simple. And of course, neither Matthews nor Olbermann mentioned the Wenner connection.

View edited video here.

On Friday’s Hardball on MSNBC, the day after he labeled Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as "showcase appointments," Chris Matthews retracted his comment, chalking it up to a bad choice of words, as he contended that he should have called Powell and Rice "high-profile" appointments, rather than "showcase" appointments. Matthews: "I should have said 'high-level, high-profile' appointments. They were genuine appointments. They were not tokens." And, although Matthews did seem to demean Rice on Thursday by referring to her position of Secretary of State as a "nice title," Matthews on Friday used a different tone: "Nobody on Earth believes that Condoleezza Rice is not this President's chief foreign policy advisor. Or nobody challenges their ability. Personally, I love the guy, although I wish he'd had opposed the war, General Powell. So I used the wrong word. I should have said 'high-level, high-profile,' not 'showcase,' because some people took that as 'token.' And damn it, I certainly didn’t mean that."

It's a love-in, man!

Looks like the grown-ups at NBC/MSNBC have taken the kids aside and told them to kiss and make up.  After the embarrassing "tension convention" [to quote Imus] at the DNC amongst Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, we've already seen the Countdown host plucked out of the GOP convention, under the convenient excuse that he would be anchoring—back in NYC and safely removed from St. Paul—the coverage of Hurricane Gustav.

When Olbermann and Matthews appeared on split-screen during the 7 PM EDT hour this evening, they were clearly on their best behavior. The dueling duo traded kind words, culminating in Olbermann's credulity-cracking claim to "miss" his erstwhile antagonist.  Chris got things off to a conciliatory start.

KEITH OLBERMANN: Joining us now from the site of the convention, Chris Matthews from St. Paul. Chris, good evening.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Good evening, partner.

View the video, here.  Was that an amiable grin on Chris' lips, or the sardonic smile of someone who's been taken to the woodshed?

Stunning Fox News Watch host Bill Hemmer, panelist Jim Pinkerton, picking up on a NewsBusters post with video (“Maher: Matthews and Olbermann 'Were Ready to Have Sex with' Obama”), from just hours before the FNC show aired live at 6:30 PM EDT Saturday from St. Paul, pointed out that MSNBC's Democratic convention coverage was so adulatory that it led to:

Bill Maher, who's no conservative, who hates Bush, to joke that he thinks that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews want to have sex with Obama. That's no slap at Obama, of course. He's innocent.

As the other panelists laughed, Hemmer was incredulous, interjecting “whoa, whoa” before pressing for corroboration: “Bill Maher said that?!” Pinkerton, Cal Thomas and Juan Williams all chimed in with confirmation and then Hemmer, putting his finger to his earpiece, informed viewers: “I'm hearing that we have a sound clip of that. Do we? Alright, roll it. Here's Bill Maher.” Viewers were treated to the video of Maher from his Friday night HBO show:

I think there is a problem, though, with the media gushing over him too much. I don't think he thinks that he's all that, but the media does. I mean, the coverage after, that I was watching, from MSNBC, I mean these guys were ready to have sex with him.

Audio: MP3 clip from FNC which matches video above (1:15, 450 Kb)

The media in general, and MSNBC in particular, are so far into the tank for Barack Obama that even the far-left Bill Maher, on his HBO show Friday night, recognized “there is a problem...with the media gushing over him too much.” Specifically, though he didn't name co-anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, Maher pointed to MSNBC's coverage following Obama's acceptance speech: “The coverage after, that I was watching, from MSNBC, I mean these guys were ready to have sex with him.”

Maher's assessment, ironically enough, came in the midst of his panel (CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and NPR's Michel Martin) all effusively praising, along with Maher, Obama's Thursday night address concluding the Democratic Convention in Denver. Maher's full rebuke on the August 29 Real Time with Bill Maher:

I think there is a problem, though, with the media gushing over him too much. I don't think he thinks that he's all that, but the media does. I mean, the coverage after, that I was watching, from MSNBC, I mean these guys were ready to have sex with him....It's embarrassing.

Audio: MP3 clip (18 seconds, 100 Kb.) Video: click above or download wmv (1.2 Mb)

On August 27th, during MSNBC's Dem convention coverage, Keith Olbermann makes a hand gesture to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) mocking Chris Matthews "go[ing] off at the mouth."

Chris Matthews has had it with Karl Rove, and he told the Reverend Al Sharpton, during MSNBC's live coverage of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, to "beat" Rove in Ohio, "before we have the count." After Sharpton claimed the Democrats were "robbed" in 2000 and 2004, Matthews urged the Reverend not to let it happen again.

MATTHEWS: Well let's hope if you, for the purposes of your cause, Reverend Sharpton, that Karl Rove and Don King and the rest of them don't get together in Ohio again, like they did last time, and use the marriage issue to drum up a divisive vote, to take that state away. So you ought to keep your hands on that situation and beat them before we have the count, instead of joining in the pity thereafter.

Before Matthews interviewed Sharpton he bemoaned the tactics of Rove as he yelled, "People really do hate the politics of Karl Rove!," and "I really do think that hurts our patriotism."

The following rants occurred around 12:03AM [EDT] on MSNBC about an hour after Barack Obama's acceptance speech:

During his normal "Hardball" program on MSNBC on Thursday evening, Chris Matthews asked Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison if the "Republican party platform is inclusive enough on the issue of reproductive or abortion rights." Hutchison, whose name has been floated as a possible vice-presidential nominee for John McCain, didn’t give a straight yes or no answer, and mentioned that in her view, "...both the Republican and the Democratic platform generally have areas that are not mainstreamed, and I don't think that you can agree with either platform in its entirety, and I think you just have to understand that a candidate’s views are going to prevail and I think people choose the candidate."