Gloria Borger

As NewsBusters reported last week, eleven out of twelve regular contributors to the syndicated Chris Matthews Show thought Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won't be able to take control and drive the political debate in the next six months leading to Election Day.

On this weekend's program, only one of the twelve regulars thought President Obama's recent flipflop on same-sex marriage hurts him politically (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You want a clear picture of just how in the tank America's media are for Barack Obama?

On Sunday, Chris Matthews revealed that eleven out of twelve regulars on the syndicated program bearing his name say Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won't take control and drive the political debate in the next six months leading to Election Day (video follows with transcript and commentary):

With the Supreme Court about to decide the fate of ObamaCare, Americans are destined to hear all kinds of accusations about the so-called partisan nature of the conservatives on the bench.

New York magazine's John Heilemann did his part on this weekend's Chris Matthews Show claiming the Court's ruling in 2000's Bush v. Gore case "was pure politics and purely corrupt" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Following Wednesday night's presidential debate on CNN, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum took on the deliberate campaign on the part of Democrats and their media enablers to stigmatize him as purely a "social issues" candidate with limited appeal to Americans not as concerned about those topics.

Chatting with CNN analyst Gloria Borger following the GOP candidate contest, Santorum responded to Borger's question that he is "spending way too much time talking about divisive cultural issues" with a full-on rebuttal. "I understand the game," the former Pennsylvania senator said. "I do get these questions [...] and then the next question from the reporter is 'Why are you talking so much about social issues?' Full transcript of the exchange follows.

The double standard by which the media view presidential sex scandals is nothing less than stunning.

On this weekend's syndicated Chris Matthews Show, the entire panel - which included two women, one being the supposedly conservative syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker - said the new revelations regarding former President John F. Kennedy having sex with a 19-year-old White House intern will have absolutely no impact on his legacy (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews has a theory as to why Newt Gingrich is suddenly soaring in the Republican presidential polls.

As he discussed with his panelists on the syndicated program bearing his name this weekend, it's all because of the former House Speaker's time as a contributor to Fox News (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In its Monday afternoon coverage of the Congressional battle over extending the payroll tax cut, CNN repeatedly emphasized a Democratic advantage and claimed that the Democrats are acting like "conservative Republicans." Political analyst Gloria Borger even gave the Democratic talking point that the party roles on tax cuts have been switched.

"You know, if you're a true believer, and you're a Republican who believes that the tax cuts will pay for themselves, the question really is not how do you pay for it, but why do you pay for it, right? I mean, why pay for it at all?" CNN's Borger asked of the Republican insistence that the cuts be paid for without raising taxes elsewhere. "The Democrats, ironically, are acting much more like the conservative Republicans here," she boldly added. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Gloria Borger has been covering Newt Gingrich for decades. (I still recall her in 1989 calling him a "frisky chipmunk," as in he "resembles a frisky chipmunk scurrying from idea to idea and storing too many bad ones.") But Borger on Tuesday night concluded he had a good debate.

He was 'the good Newt, the smart Newt" and not the "negative nasty anti-media...Newt." It's true that Gingrich didn't pull out a trademark "J'accuse" against Wolf Blitzer. Perhaps Newt would say he's now seen "the good Gloria, the smart Gloria, not the the negative nasty anti-Newt Gloria." David Gergen also applauded Gergen for breaking from "orthodoxy" and embracing the "humane" side of immigration.

Forget about 2008's "Hope and Change" mantra.

New York magazine's John Heilemann said on this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show" Barack Obama's message in 2012 will all be about "fear" of the Republican candidate, and the President will spend $500 million on negative attack ads against his opponent to instill it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Gloria Borger said this weekend the Tea Party has "hijacked" the GOP and in so doing prevented Barack Obama from becoming a "transformational president."

In her view espoused on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," without the Tea Party, "The John Boehners of the world [would have] cut a deal with the President of the United States" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Time magazine's Joe Klein said this weekend that President Obama "is winning" the debt ceiling debate.

Klein told his fellow panelists on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," "He is coming across as the most reasonable guy in a crazy city...When he says things like 'Eat your peas,' that's language Americans can understand" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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."

The Justice Department is expected to indict former Senator John Edwards as early as Wednesday for violating federal campaign finance laws.

On this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show," the host along with Time magazine's Joe Klein and the Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan said the DOJ should leave Edwards alone (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Prior to this week, President Obama had been so detached from the budget debate that some in his own party have openly criticized him. Obama, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin declared in early March, has “failed to lead this debate or offer a serious proposal for spending and cuts that he would be willing to fight for.”

Yet when the President chose to parachute into the budget talks earlier this week, most of the mainstream media neglected to remember his long absence, but instead acted like White House stenographers in praising his “adult” and “grown-up” approach — conveying the obvious implication that House Republicans and/or the Tea Party have been acting like children.

A video compilation of some of the more noteworthy these comments appears below the fold; a link to audio of remarks by CBS’s Chip Reid, CNN’s Gloria Borger and CNN’s Eliot Spitzer, all from April 5, is here.

CNN's Gloria Borger ripped the 87 new Republicans in the House of Representatives in a Thursday commentary on CNN.com for their "arrogance of absolute conviction" in wanting to cut the budget. Borger first labeled this attachment to principle "dangerous," and continued that the "problem" with the freshmen representatives and their allies at the state level was "their conviction that compromise is bad."

The senior political analyst set the tone right away with the title of piece, "The arrogance of the new budget cutters." After noting that "we said we wanted budget cutters, so that's what we have" and the apparent "downright frenzy of rectitude in Washington," Borger stated that those "most convinced of their task are the 87 House Republican newcomers." She shot her first "arrogant" labeled at the freshmen after complimenting them a bit:

National Review's Reihan Salam this weekend demonstrated exactly why it should be required that there be at least one conservative present during televised political discussions.

Appearing on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," Salam had a spirited and at times contentious debate with the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan about conservatism, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, over the weekend, CNN's Gloria Borger predicted that incoming House Republicans will overreach and make Barack Obama "look good" in comparison and allow the President to become the "grown-up." During a segment in which host Chris Matthews asked his panel to predict how Obama will deal with the GOP, New York magazine's John Heilemann suggested Republicans would "work with him" on issues like deficit reduction and education, which prompted Matthews to ask Borger if this meant Republicans could no longer call him a "socialist."

CHRIS MATTHEWS: So, you're shaking your head. Is one of the advantages of cutting deals with Republicans, they can't call you a socialist anymore?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN: Right! They can't call you a socialist anymore. Although there will be some Republicans, in the new Congress, who are not gonna like the deals that the other Republicans cut. So he's still gonna have those problems. But they will make him look good, by the way. And he will be able to triangulate and to look like the grown-up which is-

MATTHEWS: Oh my favorite word!

BORGER: -what people want.

A little bit later on in the segment the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan insisted a GOP House will allow Obama to become the "President he wants to be" because, as he insisted, "he's not a big spending liberal, never was!"

CNN's Dana Bash asked a great question on Tuesday: were Tina Fey's disgusting remarks about conservative women at the Mark Twain Awards "the first time that PBS has been accused of editing to favor Republicans?"

Almost as telling, CNN's Gloria Borger appearing with Bash on "John King USA" answered, "They edited out something Paul McCartney said that was offensive at one point to Republicans, so probably not" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's John King on Wednesday mocked Barack Obama for calling Fox News a "destructive" force in our society while at practically the same time a White House spokesman was saying MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow provide "an invaluable service" to the country.

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, the President bashed FNC in a just-published interview with Rolling Stone magazine shortly before his Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton was praising MSNBC during a gaggle held on Air Force One.

With this in mind, on Wednesday's "John King USA," the host surprisingly derided the White House's inconsistency (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux led Friday's Situation Room by labeling the social conservative Value Voters Summit a "traditional showcase for hardcore conservatives." Later in the same segment, senior political analyst Gloria Borger stated that the Tea Party movement was "anti-health care" and bizarrely referred to Ronald Reagan as "the most secular president we've known in our lifetime."

Malveaux used her "hardcore conservatives" line as she introduced a segment on Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's speech to the Summit. Just before this, she stated how "some are calling her [O'Donnell] the new poster girl for the Tea Party phenomenon" and later continued that she apparently "preached a new kind of gospel at the Values Voter Summit: the Tea Party's anti-government mantra."

Gloria Borger this weekend ridiculed Barack Obama's dependence on his trusted teleprompter.

During the opening segment of the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," the host was comparing the current White House resident to the late John F. Kennedy.

After Matthews showed video clips of JFK and Richard Nixon during the 1960 presidential campaign, guest Dan Rather remarked, "I noticed in the acceptance speeches neither one of them used a teleprompter. You can't imagine any candidate today going without a teleprompter for an acceptance speech."

Borger marvelously quipped, "Particularly Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

On the syndicated Chris Matthews show over the weekend, Chris Matthews praised Barack Obama for earning another "big feather" in his cap for getting his Wall Street reform bill passed and then went on to ask his panel if all of the other overbearing, big government laws signed in his term would lead to victory for the Democratic Party in the fall. Just before closing his show Matthews posed the following big question to HDNet's Dan Rather, the BBC's Katty Kay, CNN's Gloria Borger and the Politico's John Harris: "Will the President's legislative success with the stimulus, with health care, with Wall Street reform and maybe even an energy bill be a net positive or negative for his party this fall?"

The following are their individual responses as aired on the June 27 Chris Matthews Show:

A truly extraordinary thing happened on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show": the host asked his panel if former Alaska governor Sarah is the most important Republican in the country right now.

What made this even more surprising was how his guests -- CNN's Gloria Borger, Politico's John Harris, the BBC's Katty Kay, and former "CBS Evening News" host Dan Rather -- seemed to feel she was.

Most bullish on Palin was Rather who said, "I wouldn't underestimate her...If she decides to run, it would be hard to bet against her for the nomination."

For his part, Matthews played a little bit of a misdirection with his viewers by predictably bashing Palin during the program's introduction (multiple videos follow with highlights and commentary): 

CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger returned to her roots as a slanted journalist on Wednesday's Newsroom with a glowing two-part report on Ted Olson and David Boies, the former rivals in Bush v. Gore who are now fighting to overturn California's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex "marriage." Borger portrayed their coalition as "a script that could have been written in Hollywood."

Anchor T. J. Holmes introduced the first part of the analyst's report just before the bottom of the 1 pm Eastern hour. After noting that closing arguments had begun in the lawsuit against Proposition 8, Holmes stated that the challenge was "the story of two powerhouse lawyers who have turned the partisan divide on its head. Ted Olson, a Republican, and David Boies, a Democrat, famous arch rivals in Bush v. Gore, have now joined together in this fight. It reads like a novel, which may explain why Hollywood had a lot to do with it."

Borger, who, before joining CNN as an analyst in 2007, served as a political correspondent for CBS News, continued on the Hollywood theme: "It's a script that could have been written in Hollywood. The opening shot? A lunch in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and it starts where you might expect, with a Hollywood heavy hitter: director and actor, Rob Reiner." She featured Reiner, a well-known liberal, throughout the first part of her report, as well as Chad Griffin, a former Clinton administration staffer turned activist for same-sex "marriage."

On Monday's Rick's List, CNN's Gloria Borger waxed ecstatic over Al and Tipper Gore, even as the two announced their separation: "This is a genuine couple....They have always been a real team." Borger also described them as "two very thoughtful people" and sang individual praises to both, lauding Tipper for being an "accomplished photographer" and labeling Mr. Gore "deliberative" [audio clips available here].

Anchor Rick Sanchez brought on the senior political analyst 16 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour to discuss the announcement by the former "second couple" that they were separating after 40 years of marriage. After showing the famous kiss by the couple at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, Sanchez commented that "you can't be someone like myself or yourself, I would imagine, who's covered the Gores for quite some time, and not really be kind of taken aback, almost feeling a little sad for the end of this relationship, right?"

Borger replied with overwhelming enthusiasm over the Gores:

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, and over the weekend Chris Matthews and his liberal cronies, on his syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, previewed the event as they reminisced about where they were at the time. Their memories reflect how anti-war they were back then and how that moment shaped them into the libs they are today as Matthews revealed the likes of his guests, like Newsweek's Howard Fineman and CNN's Gloria Borger, as students, were "editorializing against the war."

In his teasers for the segment Matthews set the table by claiming Kent State marked the time when "The sweetness of the anti-war movement turned sour" and "in the eyes of many the government lost moral authority." While the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page was actually serving in the Army at the time, the other panelists had already begun their journey towards becoming elite members of the liberal media as Howard Fineman remembered the day this way:

Perhaps tuning in to NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" isn't high on your list of priorities, outside of wanting the chance to catch Dan Rather suggest something bizarre like President Barack Obama couldn't sell watermelons. However, if you had watched the March 28 broadcast of the program, you would have found the show's roster of panelists think the Tea Party movement is a black mark on the Republican Party, as far as it pertains to unseating the Democratic majority in Congress.

Matthews' show featured NBC Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O'Donnell, Newsweek's senior Washington correspondent Howard Fineman, CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger and Atlantic senior editor Andrew Sullivan. In the aftermath of the passage of ObamaCare into law, some have suggested this was a defeat for the Tea Party movement. Matthews asked if the mere existence of this movement was a plus or minus for the Republican Party.

"OK, all things considered, if there were no Tea Party crowd, we never saw them demonstrate - would that be better for the Republican Party, or is the Tea Party a plus for them in November, winning elections?" Matthews asked.

Newsweek's Liz White took to her magazine's The Gaggle blog today to decry how conservatives critical of the Democratic health care bill have slapped it with "the ominous-sounding term ‘Obamacare.'"

You see, most mainstream media sources only use the term when quoting opponents of the bill or when "carefully placed in quotations or alongside an explanation that Obamacare is how opposition refers to the bill."

This prompted me to investigate how Newsweek dealt with the term "Reaganomics" during the Gipper's early presidency compared to how Newsweek's print pages have used the term "ObamaCare" thus far. The results are telling.

A Nexis search yielded only one reference to ObamaCare from January 20, 2009 through March 25, 2010: a Michael Hirsh article that said that in 1994, "as now, the Republicans were trying to exploit a backlash against big government. It was Hillarycare in '94; now it's Obamacare."

By contrast, a Nexis search for "Reaganomics" from January 20, 1981 through March 25, 1982 yielded 65 hits, many of which had the term Reaganomics used by a Newsweek staffer himself and in a manner to cast the term in a negative light.

I've included some examples below, including some by journalists who are still working in the media today and actively cheering on ObamaCare:

The "Saturday Night Live" team last evening mocked CNN and many of its most prominent personalities, in particular, Wolf Blitzer.

"Such an exciting name for such a boring man," said actor Jason Sudeikis in a marvelous Blitzer costume.

CNN personalities weren't the only target, for the sketch also lampooned the network's use of citizen journalists via the Internet and cell phone videos.

"Once again, CNN asks, are you there?" said Sudeikis. "Are you on the scene?" 

"Then send us your updates and send us your photos," he continued. "In other words, do our job for us" video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):