PBS

On his PBS show Monday night, Tavis Smiley welcomed liberal former Sen. Bill Bradley to discuss his political agenda, which began with repealing the Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United decisions on campaign financing. But what stood out most was Smiley ripping the Tea Party as more Republican than American.

Bradley suggested “even” the Tea Party are Americans first. “I’m just not sure that I’m persuaded,” Smiley said.

The Obama-loving media had quite a hissy fit this week when the President's America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright suddenly became a campaign issue despite all their efforts.

So opposed to the mere mention of Wright's name is NPR's Nina Totenberg that on PBS's Inside Washington Friday, she said he's irrelevant because the current White House resident - wait for it! - killed Osama bin Laden (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the wake of Richard Mourdock's landslide victory over Republican Senator Richard Lugar in Indiana's primary Tuesday, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift made what some might consider a staggeringly stupid prediction on Friday's McLaughlin Group.

"The Tea Party will cost the Republicans control of the Senate" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

It's becoming crystal clear that President Obama stepped on his foot while taking a victory lap for the assassination of Osama bin Laden one year ago.

Joining the growing list of even liberal media members offended by this shameless act of self-promotion was PBS's Tavis Smiley who on ABC's This Week Sunday actually said, "I just hate seeing the president play into the hands of the right by running around bragging about having to off Osama bin Laden...I don't think it's presidential" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Just like NPR, the PBS NewsHour on Thursday night invited on liberals Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein to pound away at the "extremism" of the Republican Party (Tea Party Edition). Propose defunding public broadcasting, and this is how the Empire strikes back.

Thomas Mann unleashed on the GOP: "They are ideologically extreme, contemptuous of centuries worth of policy, economics and social; scornful of compromise, no use much for facts, evidence, and science, and really not accepting of the political legitimacy of the other party." As if Mann is sounding like he believes in the political legitimacy of the Republicans?

PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley is doing a media tour with his pal, the Marxist professor Cornel West, and no one at PBS seems to care that this underlines PBS as a hard-left media brand. Noel Sheppard noted Smiley bashing Romney on Hannity. Smiley also bashed Romney last week on the taxpayer-subsidized Pacifica Radio show Democracy Now.

Pacifica host Amy Goodman replayed the CNN interview in which Romney told Soledad O'Brien he was not interested in the very rich or the very poor. Smiley found that showed callousness and arrogance and even a demonization of the poor:

Although the list is long and undistinguished, PBS's Tavis Smiley said possibly one of the dumbest things he's ever said on television Wednesday.

In a discussion about class warfare and the politics of envy on Fox News's Hannity show, Smiley actually said with a straight face, "No one who happens to be poor wants what Mr. Romney has" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Thursday’s Tavis Smiley show on PBS, actress Annie Potts tried to claim that her ABC show “GCB” isn’t a vindictive anti-Christian Hollywood slam on red-state Texas. Potts claims it is designed by Christian creators to “disinfect” the hypocrisy out of Christianity.

“I’m getting a lot of letters and tweets and things from people who are Christian people who are happy to see the hypocrites called out,” Potts declared after mocking Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. “I think all true believers love to have hypocrisy routed out. I mean it’s –  what do they say – sunshine is the best disinfectant? Put it out there. Call it what it is. You know, satire is always helpful for society.”

My Wednesday blog on PBS anchor Gwen Ifill emceeing a gay group's fundraiser that honored HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for implementing ObamaCare drew some attention across the web, including The Washington Post and The Huffington Post. WashPost media blogger Erik Wemple looked askance at the PBS star's appearance of a conflict of interest. But the strongest response came from PBS ombudsman Michael Getler: he declared Ifill should have skipped the event.

Ifill responded to Wemple's questions by claiming she isn't being paid, she wasn't going to honor Sebelius, and she accepted without knowing of the honor. She was just going to say "welcome," announce some anodyne agenda items, and "announce dessert." The Whitman-Walker Clinic is "just using me as a draw." That's still using her name (and PBS cachet) to raise money for gay-left lobbying, legal services, and health services. Wemple wrote:

This Sunday marks the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day and for 25 of those years the MRC has documented the liberal media’s role in advancing the left’s green agenda. From fretting about overpopulation to scaring viewers about global warming, for over 25 years the media have championed the capitalism-killing agenda of the modern environmentalist movement.

So sacrosanct the liberal media believes its mission to be, that they haven’t even bothered to hide their bias. CNN’s environmental editor Barbara Pyle, as quoted in the July 1990 issue of American Spectator, actually bragged: “I do have an axe to grind...I want to be the little subversive person in television.” Time magazine’s science editor Charles Alexander, at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference, confessed: “I would freely admit on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy.”

(Top 25 Countdown with videos after the jump)

Charlie Rose did his best to forward liberals' talking points about Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, during an interview of House Speaker John Boehner. Rose played up Mitt Romney's endorsement of the Ryan plan and how the former governor "talked about, perhaps, abolishing H.E.W. [sic]- I mean, HUD, as well as Department of Education."

The anchor even went so far to tout how "Catholic bishops today said that the Ryan budget fails to meet moral criteria and disproportionately cuts programs that serve the poor and the vulnerable, which sounds like the President." By contrast, Rose didn't even bring up Nancy Pelosi's notorious dissent from Catholic doctrine during a recent interview of Boehner's immediate predecessor on PBS.

In 2008, it was questionable that PBS NewsHour and Washington Week anchor Gwen Ifill could moderate the vice-presidential debate as she was writing a book called “The Breakthrough” about the rise of Barack Obama and other black liberal politicians. On Thursday night, Ifill will cross another Obama line by acting as emcee for a fundraiser for the LGBT health and advocacy group the Whitman-Walker Clinic that will honor Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services for her work in implementing ObamaCare.

The invitation says “Please join Gwen Ifill, managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for the PBS News Hour, and the Whitman-Walker family as we honor United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius for advancements in health care.” To be an "event host" and be listed on the program requires a $1,000 donation. Individual tickets are $150.

There are times when I'm truly sickened by the total lack of economic acumen possessed by today's so-called journalists.

On PBS's McLaughlin Group this weekend, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift once again said something so totally ignorant that she had to be corrected by US News & World Report's Mort Zuckerman (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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):

John McLaughlin on the PBS show bearing his name asked his guests this weekend, "Has America done more to spread peace and prosperity than any other power in human history, yes or no?"

The conservatives on the panel - syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan and the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney - were quick to say "Yes" as their liberal colleagues - Newsweek's Eleanor Clift and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page - both equivocated (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said President Obama wins the budget debate if the electorate is as gullible as people like NPR's Nina Totenberg.

Just three minutes later on PBS's Inside Washington, as if on cue, Totenberg said people making between $60,000 and $125,000 pay the most in taxes (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer made a point about today's media that should make everyone think twice about the state of American journalism.

In a discussion about the Ryan budget proposal on PBS's Inside Washington Friday, Krauthammer observed, "Obama will win the argument if the electorate is as gullible as Nina [Totenberg] and Mark [Shields] and Evan [Thomas] in accepting what the Administration is saying about the cuts" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday said the Supreme Court striking down ObamaCare could energize the Left in this nation in much the same way 1973's Roe v. Wade decision galvanized the Right.

Such was said on PBS's Inside Washington (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer gave quite a tongue lashing to Mark Shields on Inside Washington this weekend.

When the liberal PBS contributor said Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) budget proposal lacked vertebrae, Krauthammer scolded, "Talk about absence of spine, your guys haven’t introduced a budget at all on anything" (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

There was a truly delicious moment on PBS's McLaughlin Group this weekend.

After Newsweek's Eleanor Clift gushed over how well President Obama gets along with British Prime Minister David Cameron describing him as "not like the conservatives we have in this country," syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan marvelously responded, "He's a RINO!" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting for weeks, the Obama-loving media have concocted the fallacy that Republicans are suddenly in a war on women.

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on PBS's Inside Washington Friday called this "a classic example of liberal echo chamber elite cocooning" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift and National Review's Rich Lowry got into quite a heated debate on PBS's McLaughlin Group this weekend.

With the topic being President Obama's Middle East policy, after much back and forth, Lowry scolded, "If you’re honest about it, that is your bottom line. You are okay with [Iran] getting a nuclear weapon" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The host of PBS's McLaughlin Group asked his panelists this weekend, "Is the press in love with Obama?"

Not surprisingly, all in attendance said "Yes" with the exception of Newsweek's Eleanor Clift who predictably protested, "No, they aren't" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift got a bit of a tongue-lashing from US News and World Report's Mort Zuckerman on this weekend's McLaughlin Group.

After Clift predictably praised President Obama's press conference last week, Zuckerman aggressively shot back, "That's nonsense to say the Israelis don't think through the consequences of war! That’s ridiculous!" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields on Friday excoriated Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts for "taking our system and absolutely screwing it up completely."

Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Shields was complaining about how "these campaigns have been taken over totally by Super PACs" as a result of the Citizens United decision (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NPR's Nina Totenberg got a much-needed education Friday on the hypocrisy of the media's treatment of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh's comments about Georgetown University law student and women's rights activist Sandra Fluke.

When the Inside Washington panelist criticized Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for not saying "something less than complimentary" about Limbaugh, Krauthammer smartly responded, "When Obama speaks about Maher’s misogyny as he takes a million dollars for his campaign, then I’d expect Romney to denounce somebody else" (video follows with transcript and commentary):