Margaret Carlson

Conservative author S.E. Cupp didn't take kindly to Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson calling Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum a zealot on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday.

"Rick Santorum is not a zealot," scolded Cupp. "He happens to be a Christian and a conservative. That's it, end of story" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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:

Like so many of her liberal media colleagues, Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson believes cutting payroll taxes for a short period of time stimulates the economy.

Fortunately for viewers of PBS's Inside Washington, when she tried to make this absurd conclusion Friday, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer was there to give her and others on the panel a much-needed education (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):

MRC has just posted the latest edition of Notable Quotables, our bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media. This week, NQ is chock full of quotes from journalists slashing the Tea Party as the Republican Party’s “Hezbollah faction,” who have “strapped explosives to the Capitol” and “waged jihad on the American people.”

Oh, and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd disparaging the “Tea Party budget slashers” as “cannibals,” “zombies,” and “vampires, draining the country’s reputation, credit rating and compassion.” So much for civility.

The full package is available at www.MRC.org; here are some of the best quotes:

For the second week in a row, Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson got a much-needed education from Charles Krauthammer on PBS's "Inside Washington."

After Carlson gave the typical Keynesian response to Friday's unemployment report - "We’re cutting spending at a time when we should be adding spending to stimulate the economy and jobs" - Krauthammer without skipping a beat quipped, "The way it worked in ’09 and in ’10" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson on Friday accused the Tea Party of wanting "to burn the place down" and having figuratively "strapped explosives to the Capitol" during debt ceiling negotiations.

Sitting beside her on PBS's "Inside Washington" was Charles Krauthammer who smartly replied, "I thought post-Tucson we weren’t supposed to accuse our political opponents of being terrorists" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Friday’s Political Capital show on Bloomberg News, as host Al Hunt turned the discussion to Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson attacked Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan for Medicare reform as she voiced supposed agreement with Gingrich that "it is right-wing social engineering to destroy Medicare as we know it."

She then went on to suggest that Gingrich plays "skinhead politics."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, May 20, Political Capital on Bloomberg News:

Just when the media adulation of Barack Obama might have been showing signs of waning, along comes the killing of Osama Bin Laden to drive it to new sycophantic heights.  In the genre, it will be hard to outdo the schoolgirl-crushiness of Margaret Carlson.

On today's Morning Joe, Carlson characterized the operation against Osama Bin Laden as the moment when "Professor Obama turned into General Obama and ran this incredible raid."

View video after the jump.

 

Howard Kurtz on Sunday pointed out a delicious irony involving MSNBC and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

After complaining about CNN's decision to air the Congresswoman's response to President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, MSNBC spent the next several days giving far more attention to her than to the official GOP respondent (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 On Friday’s Political Capital, during a discussion of Democratic-turned independent Senator Joe Lieberman’s retirement, Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson took a shot at him as she charged that, "Since he broke Iraq, let him go fix it," before suggesting that he be appointed ambassador to Iraq. After asserting that Lieberman "got a little bitter in his later years," she accused him of "violating every democratic principle" in running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in 2006.

Kate O’Beirne of the National Review argued that the Democratic Party’s inability to accept the liberal Lieberman as being liberal enough for them solely because of his stance on Iraq hurts the party’s image on national defense: "And it just says so much about the modern Democratic Party. Boy, oh boy, if they don't have room for somebody like Joe Lieberman has, and then they wonder why they score so low when it comes to who do you trust on national security?"

Joined by a balanced panel of liberal Bloomberg news columnist Margaret Carlson and leftist radio host Bill Press, HLN's Joy Behar took to her eponymous program last night to dismiss the plan Republican congressmen have to read the entire U.S. Constitution from the House floor later this week.

"Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand? I mean, is it a nod to the Tea Party?" Behar asked Press, before unwittingly, perhaps, answering her own question: "Is it the first time a lot of congressmen will have heard about it, er, read it?"

Congressmen are of course bound by constitutionally-required oath to "support this Constitution," and it's not inconceivable that some congressmen -- like Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) -- could brush up on their constitutional knowledge.

[h/t e-mail tipster Beth Villare. Video after page break, for MP3 audio, click here]

 On Friday’s Political Capital show, Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson lavished praise on President Obama has having "negotiating skills" like the recently deceased diplomat Richard Holbrooke - known for facilitating a ceasefire in Bosnia in the mid-1990s - as host Al Hunt asked Carlson and the National Review’s Kate O’Beirne to describe what Christmas gifts they would figuratively give to various public figures. Carlson: "I’m going to give him an inscribed copy of the late, great Richard Holbrooke’s memoir, in honor of Obama’s negotiating skills in this lame duck session. All he had to do was give up tax cuts - for which the Republican Party stands - to the wealthy who don’t need it in exchange for everything else he got."

She went on to trash Tea Party Republicans recently elected to Congress as "blowing off steam." Carlson: "I’m afraid that they might succumb to earmarks and lobbyists. They give every sign of that. So I’m going to give them a tea kettle because all they’ve done so far is blow off steam."

Charles Krauthammer on Friday gave a much-needed education to Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson about why the age at which one can receive Social Security benefits must be raised.

His words on PBS's "Inside Washington" also refuted Paul Krugman's foolish claims on this matter published in Friday's New York Times (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Managing Editor's note: National Public Radio (NPR) has fired longtime analyst Juan Williams for admitting he gets nervous on a plane when he sees a person dressed in Muslim garb. What follows is a statement from NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell.

Juan Williams has done nothing wrong. What he said echoes what the vast majority of Americans believe. It’s their tax dollars that fund NPR. But NPR is ignoring them. Instead, they are kowtowing to the agenda of radical anti-Americans like CAIR, and doing the bidding of George Soros, who hates Fox News with a passion.

And since when did NPR have standards? Here are just three examples of left-wing statements 100 times more outrageous than what Juan Williams said, with no reaction from NPR:

In a zinger that roused the indignation of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Bloomberg columnist Margaret Carlson cast Christine O'Donnell as Sarah Palin's protege – but "with not a fully-functioning human brain." But in 1992, Carlson gushed over the primary victories of current Sens. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. Does she hold a double-standard?

Co-host Mika Brzezinski was taken aback when the panel had to discuss Carlson's piece for The Daily Beast, "Watch Your Back, Sarah." She silently mouthed the word "bitchy" to Carlson to describe the article, adding that it was "searing."

Carlson's piece focuses on the emergence of the Republican Delaware Senate nominee as the next Sarah Palin protege, predicting a political catfight of sorts between the two female GOP stars. Carlson labeled O'Donnell an "obvious knockoff" of Palin, "hawking her wares on the shores of the Delaware."

Appearing on "Morning Joe" Wednesday, Carlson sneered that O'Donnell lacks a "fully-functioning human brain."

Of course, there was a time when she smiled upon the emergence of female Senate candidates.

The news that it could be a good year for women electorally did not cheer up the likes of MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson and the Politico's Jeanne Cummings, because it turns out it's only going to be a good year for women on the Republican side like Nikki Haley, Meg Whitman, and Carly Fiorina or as Carlson put it: "It's not a compassionate women year." [audio available here]

Matthews, on Monday's Hardball, invited on Carlson and Cummings to take a look at "gender politics" and found that it could be a good year for women, just not the kind of women they like, in other words the more conservative momma grizzly types that Sarah Palin supports. Cummings even bemoaned that a loss of the House could result in "one giant blow to women" in that it "could take down the Speaker, Speaker Nancy Pelosi" who was "a real shining star for the achievements and the rise of women in government."

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the August 30 edition of Hardball:

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, during a discussion of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, after Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson recommended that the mosque be moved as a compromise, NPR’s Michel Martin – formerly of ABC News – compared relocating the mosque to similarly treating a Catholic church after the Oklahoma City bombing.

Even though McVeigh -- who described himself as "agnostic" despite his Catholic parents -- timed the bombing to coincide with the second anniversary of the Waco disaster to signal that he was motivated by revenge, Martin ridiculously responded: "Did anybody move a Catholic church? Did anybody move a Christian church after Timothy McVeigh – who adhered to a cultic, white supremacist cultic version of Christianity – bombed the Murrah building in Oklahoma?"

Below is a transcript of the relevant exchange from the Sunday, August 22, Reliable Sources on CNN:

On the July 30th edition of Bloomberg's "Political Capital," former Time magazine reporter Margaret Carlson made every rationalization for the federal government to continue to not enforce federal immigration law.

First, Carlson spouted off the notion that Americans are only upset with illegal immigration because, "there is an economic downturn and during that period you find somebody to blame, they are blaming immigrants." Carlson seems to disregard history and the fact that former President George W. Bush was faced with this same problem in 2006, before the recession.

Second, Carlson alludes to unsubstantiated statistical evidence citing that, "Crime has dropped," "Illegal immigration has dropped dramatically" and that "Phoenix is one of the four safest cities in America." Several searches of Internet databases showed no reference to a study naming Phoenix as the fourth safest city. However, a 2010 report done by Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) concluded that, "Arizona's violent crime rate ranks 13th highest in the U.S. and Phoenix has the second highest kidnapping rate in the world behind Mexico City."

In the past six days, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some liberal media member claiming that Fox News was responsible for Shirley Sherrod's dismissal from the Agriculture Department.

So obsessed with this idea were the folks on PBS's "Inside Washington" Friday that the lone conservative on the panel Charles Krauthammer had to defend FNC's honor like a knight in shining armor protecting a princess from a gang of marauding Huns.

Two days later, CNN's Howard Kurtz and Politics Daily's Matt Lewis did their darnedest to convince Salon's Joan Walsh of the facts - unfortunately to no avail.

Getting fed up with the stupidity from his colleagues on the left, Mediaite's Steve Krakauer Sunday evening tried to once and for all put this matter to rest:

On Friday’s Political Capital, Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson – formerly of CNN and Time magazine – left the impression that FNC coverage of the Shirley Sherrod video was partially responsible for her firing, prompting the National Review’s Kate O’Beirne to clarify that FNC did not show the video until after the USDA employee’s resignation. After host Al Hunt asked, "did it also say something bad about the so-called right-wing echo chamber or Fox News?"

Carlson responded: "Well, once the tape was on Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hammity, Hannity, it got out there, and, you know, I was shown it on live TV, and I was snookered as the NAACP said they were." After also faulting the NAACP and the Obama administration for acting too quickly, she branded Sherrod a "hero" and "the model of the civil servant."

O’Beirne then informed viewers: "Margaret, let the record show the videos didn’t appear on Fox News till she’d already been fired, so it’s sort of hard to blame them for the incredible overreaction."

It's pretty hard—even for media liberals—to defend a guy in paramilitary duds swinging a billy club outside a polling site, or a government official bragging about having declined to do everything in her power to help someone because of the white color of his skin.  So on today's Morning Joe, Margaret Carlson, Norah O'Donnell and Mike Barnicle were obliged to engage in a modicum of hand-wringing over the incidents.  But once having discharged that duty, the trio set about doing what libs do best: finding ways to minimize the matters and excuse the MSM's failure to cover them.

To be sure, Carlson did call the statement by the USDA official "hateful" and said one should be "ashamed." And Norah O'Donnell and Mike Barnicle agreed with Joe Scarborough that the MSM can fairly be criticized for undercovering these stories.

But then the three started their excuse-a-thon:

During the July 2 edition of Bloomberg Television’s Political Capital, Bloomberg News columnist Margaret Carlson exalted Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Carlson stated she would vote for Kagan "twice" because "It has been so long since I saw someone in public life joyful about being there." [audio available here]

The gushing didn't stop there for Carlson who continued to adorn Kagan for her impeccable "intellectual ability" and "temperament," despite admitting that there was little substance known about Kagan. This however was not important to Carlson who then proceeded to fawn over Kagan's joke that "brought the house down."

During the "Last Word" segment on Bloomberg Television’s Political Capital on Friday, Bloomberg News columnist Margaret Carlson – formerly of CNN and Time magazine – tore into Nevada Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle – who will be taking on Harry Reid in November – as Carlson charged that Angle is "on the fringe, almost wacky," and asserted that Nevada voters would have to be "completely masochistic" to vote for her. Carlson:

You can’t beat somebody with somebody who’s as on the fringe, almost wacky, as Sharron Angle, unless the voters turn completely masochistic. She’s not just against (MEANT TO SAY "in favor of") abolishing EPA, Energy, Education, phasing out Social Security, and getting rid of the income tax, she wants our nuclear waste to go to Nevada.

Fellow panel member Kate O’Beirne of the National Review responded: "I’d hoped over the years I had built up Margaret’s tolerance for conservative women, but, sadly, that’s apparently not the case."

“Eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration removing regulations” has made it so “now the oil industry is too big to regulate,” former Time magazine Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Margaret Carlson fretted on Friday's Political Capital show on Bloomberg TV.

Defending Barack Obama against the notion the gulf oil disaster is “Obama’s Katrina,” Carlson, a columnist for Bloomberg News, argued on the weekly Friday night program hosted by Al Hunt:

 

The government is prepared for natural disasters, as in Katrina, if government is willing to act - which it wasn't in Katrina. Corporate disasters are another matter. The government doesn't have the equipment or the expertise. They can only oversee it.

And by the way, you know in a natural disaster government has an agency. We don't have an agency. What we had was eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration removing regulations. Now the oil industry is too big to regulate.

Former Time White House correspondent (and Carter administration appointee) Margaret Carlson really wants RNC chairman Michael Steele fired. In her Bloomberg News column on Wednesday, she badly exaggerated: "In the world of fundraising scandals, this one makes former Vice President Al Gore’s visit to a Buddhist temple look as quaint as tea at Buckingham Palace."

Earth to Margaret: the wayward RNC strip-club reimbursement is certainly embarrassing, but it isn't illegal, like the temple fundraiser. As Michelle Malkin explained: 

In the spring of 2000, [Gore aide Maria] Hsia was convicted by a federal jury in Washington, D.C., of five felony counts related to more than $100,000 in illegal contributions to Democratic candidates. The stash included $65,000 in straw donations, which Hsia had funneled through clueless, non-English-speaking monks and nuns the day after Vice President Al Gore's 1996 visit to the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Southern California.

On Thursday’s Joy Behar Show on CNN Headline News, as host Joy Behar discussed the ObamaCare debate during a segment that included Bloomberg News’s Margaret Carlson – formerly of Time magazine and CNN’s Capital Gang – the two took jabs at the "conscience" of Catholic bishops as Carlson argued that the group of nuns who recently endorsed ObamaCare are the "real conscience of the Catholic Church," and dismissed the opinions of bishops. Carlson: "[President Obama is] not going to get the Catholic bishops, they`re too busy denying Senators and Congressmen who are pro-choice, too busy denying them communion. They`re never coming over, so forget them."

As the two ignored the apparent left-leaning nature of the nuns group – the Catholic Health Association – Behar agreed with Carlson’s characterization of nuns as the "conscience" of the Church: "Exactly. You`re not kidding, especially these days."

Behar soon declared herself to feel "sappy" toward President Obama: "I`m sappy for Obama. I`m not sappy generally, but I just believe in the guy. I think he`s a gentleman, and I think he gives a damn."

Below is a complete transcript of the segment with guests Margaret Carlson and Ari Melber of the liberal The Nation magazine, with critical portions in bold, from the Thursday, March 18, Joy Behar Show on CNN Headline News:

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, as host Howard Kurtz led a discussion on media coverage of Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel’s ethical problems, guest Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News – formerly of Time magazine and CNN's Capital Gang – seemed to suggest that Rangel would have lost his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee sooner if the mainstream media were not so biased in favor of the New York Democrat.

Kurtz had just led a discussion with Carlson and the Washington Examiner’s Chris Stirewalt on whether ABC’s Jonathan Karl had slanted his coverage of Republican Senator Jim Bunning’s efforts to delay passage of the extension of unemployment benefits, with the CNN host posing the question: "When the television reports go from Senator Bunning on the floor, clearly ticking off his colleagues, to some poor unemployed person who obviously wants to continue to receive checks, are we loading the dice a little bit?"

After the discussion moved to Rangel, Kurtz recounted that Matthews recently wondered whether the New York Times was going after the Democratic Congressman because of his unethical acts or because he had angered them with some legislative action. The CNN host soon added: "But Matthews went on to say, ‘I've loved the guy,’ Charlie Rangel, ‘for years. I feel like recusing myself.’ But do you think this Rangel story got enough attention? All the networks covered it. NBC Nightly News is the only one that did a full story."

The left-leaning Carlson soon acknowledged the media’s negative feelings toward Bunning as a contrast with press affection for Rangel, with either Kurtz or Stirewalt – or possibly both men – voicing agreement that Rangel would have been gone earlier if not for his popularity:

Alice Roosevelt famously said, "If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me." With Roosevelt long gone, you can do the next best thing - get booked on HLN's "The Joy Behar Show." 

On the March 1 broadcast of her program, host Joy Behar featured a panel to discuss the tea party movement on its one-year anniversary. But rather than including tea party backers or even impartial observers, Behar talked only with people diametrically opposed to the tea parties and the views their mainstream followers hold, including the openly socialist senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, liberal talker Stephanie Miller and Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson. Behar cited a Feb. 17 Wall Street Journal column that was highly critical of the former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and the Tea Parties and pondered how the Democratic Party could take this on.

"Well, you know, it was interesting that Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal wrote this week I quote her, and she said, that the Tea Party is a group of, quote, ‘conspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers and assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged,'" Behar said. "Now, do the Dems even have to take on the Tea Party when their own side is attacking them like this?"