Clarence Page

If there was a contest each week for the dumbest comment made by a member of the media, this would likely be last week's prohibitive favorite.

On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show this weekend, during a discussion about Barack Obama's America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page actually said with a straight face, "Right-wing wouldn't have that story if it wasn't for the mainstream media" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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):

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):

On the Chicago Tribune's Web site and in its print edition today, columnist Clarence Page asks hopefully "Could this be the end of Limbaugh?"  

Seizing on the usual Democratic points regarding Rush Limbaugh's comments about law student Sandra Fluke, Page writes that Limbaugh wasn't suspended, "despite his breathtaking assault against a private citizen whose only crime, after all, was to testify before a congressional committee hearing in support of mandatory health insurance for contraception."

Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs issued a truly delicious smack down to America's press Sunday.

In the midst of a lengthy discussion about the so-called “Contraception Controversy” on ABC's This Week, Dobbs said, "It’s awfully nice of the national media and the Democratic Party to help everyone understand the dangers of Rick Santorum" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

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):

Those familiar with Kathleen Parker's work are well aware that this supposedly conservative columnist is a fine example of a Republican in Name Only.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, Parker proved it once again saying that the National Review "was created from an ideological point of view...As opposed to, for example, the Chicago Tribune or The Washington Post" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the Chicago Tribune's Web site today, columnist Clarence Page writes of "The umbrage card trick."  Page lights into GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich for assorted misdeeds, one of which is calling Barack Obama a "food stamp president":

Like a lot of Americans who live outside the D.C. metro area, I was first introduced to Tony Blankley by PBS's McLaughlin Group.

It was therefore quite fitting that host John McLaughlin as well as panelists Michelle Bernard, Pat Buchanan, Eleanor Clift, and Clarence Page on Friday paid tribute to Blankley who sadly passed away last Saturday (video follows with commentary):

Want to know just how scared of the Tea Party America's media are?

On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page published a column entitled "Is The Tea Party Over?":

Chris Matthews on Thursday claimed Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved capitalism in the 1930s.

This deliciously came during a "Hardball" segment wherein he mocked the intelligence of Tea Party members saying they "need to read history, and especially Michele Bachmann" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

People that have been watching Chris Matthews since the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire last month know that the devout liberal has suddenly and quite mysteriously developed a soft spot for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

On Sunday's "The Chris Matthews Show," the host actually said to his guests, "I wonder whether cerebral writers like George Will and David Brooks, bright people, are not really in tune with that base out there that she is" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bob Woodward thinks the world doesn't hold the United States in very high regard anymore.

Appearing on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" this weekend, the Washington Post's most recognizable journalist said, "I’m not sure the United States has been looked at as the grown-up nation for a long time...You travel around the world a little bit, and, and there’s, there’s not even tough love for the United States" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews, once again, abandoned any notion he was serious about establishing a new tone of political civility in the wake of the Tucson shooting, as on Wednesday's Hardball he compared former Speaker of the House and possible GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich to a terrorist as he screeched "He looks like a car bomber" and even described him in demonic terms, adding: "He's got that crazy Mephistophelian grin of his. He looks like he loves torturing."

The following Matthews rants came during a discussion about possible GOP presidential contenders with the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page and The Huffington Post's Sam Stein on the March 2 Hardball:

(video, audio and transcript after the jump)

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):

Howard Kurtz should apologize to conservative author S. E. Cupp for how he and his fellow panelists treated her on Sunday's "Reliable Sources."

As Cupp via a satellite feed tried to explain the point Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell was making about the First Amendment during last week's debate with Chris Coons, those in the studio could be heard in the background laughing (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Conservative radio host Monica Crowley on Friday smacked down Newsweek's Eleanor Clift over racism in the Tea Party.

In the second segment of "The McLaughlin Group," the host addressed July's controversial resolution by the NAACP condemning so-called racist elements within the Tea Party.

Liberals Clift and Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune predictably supported the NAACP while bashing the conservative organization.

Crowley with the support of Pat Buchanan defended the Tea Party while calling the NAACP irrelevant.

With McLaughlin surprisingly taking Crowley and Buchanan's side, sparks flew in an oftentimes heated discussion (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

George Will on Sunday challenged Vice President Joe Biden and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page about the as yet unproven allegation that a Tea Party member called a black Congressman the N-word earlier this year.

During the Roundtable segment of ABC's "This Week," host Jake Tapper asked Page about the recent resolution by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People condemning alleged racism in the Tea Party.

Page replied, "We can debate over whether or not Congressmen really were called the N-word or not. It's a he said/he said dispute."

Will was having none of this, and marvelously addressed the flaw in Page's thinking (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

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:

UPDATE: Page responds to NewsBusters in Chicago Tribune blog post.

The bitterness toward the tea party movement continues to go on and on.

Case in point - Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, who on the Dec. 27 broadcast of "The McLaughlin Group," deemed it "The Most Defining Political Moment" of 2009, but refused to call it the "tea party." Instead, he granted the movement the preferred name by the left-leaning cable network MSNBC, the "teabaggers" and somehow devised the notion that the movement "asked for" the derogatory name.

"The backlash movement known as the ‘teabaggers,' who kind of asked for that name and now they regret it," Page said.

Chris Matthews got together with the Politico's Jeanne Cummings and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page to look down their collective noses at the concept of Sarah Palin as a writer on Tuesday's Hardball, with Matthews even questioning the former vice presidential candidate's mental state as he pondered: "Is this delusion here?" After playing a clip of Barbara Walters' interview with Palin, in which Palin says of a possible talk show hosting gig that she'd "rather write than talk," the MSNBC host called the idea "daffy," and Cummings giggled, "It's all illusion and delusion. Smoke and mirrors everywhere!" while Page insultingly interjected, "Well Chris don't forget...she was a journalism major. That's what she got her degree in. So I suppose in...her head she's...still a writer who just hasn't written in a while." [audio available here]

The following exchange was aired on the November 17, edition of Hardball:

Chris Matthews, on Monday’s "Hardball," accused the right wing of achieving an "orgiastic level" of excitement in its rooting against Barack Obama to deliver the Olympics to Chicago. Matthews, joined by the Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page and CNSNews.com’s very own Terry Jeffrey, opened his show by declaring that the "Right roots against America," as seen in the following opening: 

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Anti-American? Let’s play Hardball! Good evening, I’m Chris Matthews in Washington. Leading off tonight, the right roots against America. Remember how Republicans questioned Democrats' patriotism during the Bush years? How you were either with Bush or with the terrorists? So what do we make of the glee some prominent Republicans felt when Chicago and President Obama lost its Olympic bid. It's one thing to argue politics and policy, what's good and what's bad for America, that's what we do right here on "Hardball." It's another thing to root for America to fail....Here is a conservative group getting the news from, about the Olympic bid this Friday. Let's listen. [audio available here]

"I wrote this song with the great Phil Springer. Take a moment to listen to the words. You don't have to agree with everyone's politics...none of us agree 100% of the time. But you have to admire a lifetime dedicated to public service and improving the lives of others -- and that is just one of the many things that made Ted great. I think this song captures a small part of Ted's legacy of service. Listen to it and see what you think."

So wrote Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) about his friend the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Video of the piece is embedded below the fold (h/t Clarence Page):

As Americans flood to town hall meetings and Tea Parties to express their opposition to ObamaCare, media members find it somewhat hypocritical that these same people might have looked upon anti-Bush protests with contempt.

This seeming contradiction was addressed on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday when host Howard Kurtz asked his guests, "[H]asn't Fox, in fact, flipped -- some Fox hosts, I should say -- from slamming liberal protesters to defending these anti-Obama protesters?"

This question arose when Kurtz brought up last week's exchange between Fox News's Bill O'Reilly and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 8:45):

Over the weekend, Chris Matthews compared Rush Limbaugh to a James Bond villain and claimed the radio talk show host was a "human vat of vitriol. He relishes the attention and he sells anger as a weapon." Before playing a clip from "You Only Live Twice," in which a Bond nemesis drops a victim into a piranha tank, Matthews, on his syndicated "The Chris Matthews Show," offered up the following description of the talk show host:

MATTHEWS: Before we break if you didn't know better this past week, you'd think Rush Limbaugh was more important than the guys in Washington and women in Washington actually elected to do things. How many U.S. senators would invite the President of the United States to come to their home turf and debate them? Well two facts are clear about this human vat of vitriol. He relishes the attention and he sells anger as a weapon.

(Begin clip)

RUSH LIMBAUGH AT CPAC: What is so strange about being honest in saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed? We, we are in for a real battle.

(End clip)

MATTHEWS: Limbaugh's high-handed, melodramatic, off with their heads, oratory reminds me of those over-the-top movie villains. You know, the ones who issue ludicrous commands to snuff out the good guys, like James Bond's arch nemesis who wanted the supremely confident Bond - gone.

(Clip from "You Only Live Twice")

If you needed any more evidence that the media meme regarding Sarah Palin not being qualified for vice president is nothing but liberal propaganda from America's Obama-loving press you got it on Sunday's "The Chris Matthews Show."

After the panel of New York magazine's John Heilemann, the Washington Post's Anne Kornblut, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page unanimously concluded that Palin was a horrible choice as John McCain's runningmate due to her lack of qualifications, they all agreed that she will be a serious candidate for president in 2012 if Obama wins this November.

Interesting hypocrisy, wouldn't you agree?

Readers are strongly encouraged to strap themselves in before proceeding to the following partial transcript of this astonishingly revealing segment (video embedded upper-right):

Today's contribution from the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page, who also serves on the newspaper's editorial board, is "Enquirer scores— but about the aliens."  Clarence frets about mainstream media credibility under attack for not pursuing John Edwards's affair:

The blogosphere is abuzz with criticism of the mainstream media for allegedly failing to pursue the story of Edwards' alleged "love child" when the National Enquirer first reported it last year. In fact, major media did try to confirm the story without using the Enquirer as a source. It appears most of us in the MSM tend to be hung up on stodgy old-fashioned virtues like facts. The Edwards bombshell became problematic when none of the main parties in the story would go on the record to confirm the allegation. If you're going to use unnamed sources, which is questionable enough as a practice, at least make them your own sources, not those of a supermarket tabloid.

And later:

Today's Chicago Tribune features "Left speechless?," by columnist Clarence Page.  Page, who also serves on the Tribune's editorial board,  writes:

Besides whispering to another guest on the set that he would like to de-sex the Democratic presidential candidate, Jackson also accused Obama of "talking down to black people . . . telling niggers how to behave."

Jackson has since issued two statements of apology for his self-described "trash talking." He also might issue this word of advice: If you want to whisper something that could be damaging if traced back to you, don't whisper it over a microphone.

Am I surprised by Jackson's use of the racial slur? Not really. I was more surprised to hear that so many other people are shocked, especially non-African Americans.

Ethnic etiquette has always given greater latitude to epithets expressed about one's own ethnic group, as long as they are expressed inside of one's ethnic group. That's how people talk within one's family or ethnic group, especially when you regard your ethnic group as affectionately as you regard your nuclear family.

But if we hold Jackson to a higher standard, it is because he has held us to one too.