Dan Abrams

Since that awful Sunday in Sanford, Florida, back in February, the media have shown time and time again they don't understand how the American justice system works.

Take ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams who on Thursday's Nightline said, "So even if Zimmerman was on his back, even if he was losing a fight, he still has a lot of explaining to do and is going to have to prove that Trayvon Martin was the initial aggressor" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You don't often see a well-known liberal media member publicly criticizing the liberal media he's a part of.

But when Dan Abrams, the former General Manager of MSNBC and founder of the left-wing Mediaite, trashes his former network - in particular Hardball host Chris Matthews - as well as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets for their "Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision," one should take notice:

On Tuesday's Parker-Spitzer on CNN, ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer ironically worried that too many of his fellow former politicians, who are also contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, are on Fox News: "Never before in our history...has one media outlet with one coherent ideology had almost a monopoly on...half of the presidential nominees and controlled one political party this way."

The disgraced former politician of Client Number Nine infamy raised the apparent problem during the first part of an interview of former MSNBC personality and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams. After noting that "Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and John Bolton...[are] all running for president and, perhaps more important, they all work for Fox News," Spitzer highlighted a quote from Dick Morris, who stated the 2012 race for the Republican presidential nomination "will come to resemble American Idol, where we watch the candidates perform and vote on who we like best."

Rick "I play it down the middle" Sanchez didn't disappoint during the first prime-time edition of CNN's Rick's List on Thursday, as he brought his liberal bias against Fox News to the program. When guest Dan Abrams of Mediate accused the anchor of "doing an opinion-based program" on Fox News's coverage of the Shirley Sherrod story, Sanchez denied this and added that he wasn't being ideological [audio clips available here].

The CNN anchor began his criticism of his network's competitor eight minutes into the 8 pm Eastern hour, focusing on Fox News's coverage of the Shirley Sherrod story. Sanchez's focused on Fox News's separation between their news operation and their opinion programming, such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity's shows, as he gave his version of the timeline of how the network apparently covered the story:

Tom Friedman stepped into a journalistic controversy in his Sunday New York Times column, "Can We Talk?" protesting CNN's firing of senior editor of Middle East affairs Octavia Nasr for posting this message on Twitter upon the death of Hezbollah founder Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah:

Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah... One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot.

According to Western intelligence, Fadlallah blessed the drivers of the vehicles behind the 1983 attacks on Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 241 Marines. President Clinton froze his assets in 1995 because of his suspected involvement with terrorists.

Yet Friedman was dismayed by Nasr's dismissal by CNN:

I find Nasr's firing troubling. Yes, she made a mistake. Reporters covering a beat should not be issuing condolences for any of the actors they cover. It undermines their credibility. But we also gain a great deal by having an Arabic-speaking, Lebanese-Christian female journalist covering the Middle East for CNN, and if her only sin in 20 years is a 140-character message about a complex figure like Fadlallah, she deserved some slack. She should have been suspended for a month, but not fired. It's wrong on several counts.

Is it possible to be so wrapped up in a media culture that one could minimize a sacred religious holiday in a shoddy attempt to write a clever headline? Mediaite's Tommy Christopher and his editors seemed to have pulled this feat off.

Christopher, who has had a much-publicized run-in with Andrew Breitbart, has a new hero, former American Enterprise Institute scholar David Frum. Christopher elevated Frum to messianic status in a Good Friday April 2 post headlined "Did David Frum ‘Die' For GOP's Sins?" specifically praising the former AEI scholar for his appearance on Comedy Central's April 1 "The Colbert Report."

According to Christopher, Frum still wants to be a conservative and hasn't converted to the liberal ideology, like others have before him. He argued that lends credence to Frum, who is more known for levying criticisms about conservatives and Republicans, and not his conservative world view. (As if being popular with the liberal blogosphere was a badge of honor.)

Keith Olbermann Wednesday went after "a fired MSNBC employee" who likely was the network's former general manager Dan Abrams.

During a revised "Worst Person in the World" segment, the "Countdown" host once again took issue with criticism from Abrams' website concerning his statements about Tea Parties being all white and how hypocritical this is given the lack of diversity on MSNBC's lineup.

"There are at least 23 minority newscasters, hosts, part time hosts, paid contributors and correspondents from NBC on MSNBC`s lineup," said Olbermann.

"Perhaps the reason that Mediaite took a Tea Party`s word for it is that this is the same site of a fired MSNBC employee, and in his attempt to implant his bitterness towards this place, to plug or weave it into his website, he has wigged out" (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

On Friday's Ed Schultz radio show, NBC chief legal correspondent Dan Abrams came on to discuss the Manhattan trials of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and four other accused terrorists. He was not optimistic that it would help Obama politically at all:

I think that on sort of the international front, that once the proceedings start, I think it's just going to provide nugget after nugget for these people who want to use propaganda....I don't know that Obama had much of a choice here but to move forward with this. But from a propaganda point of view, and from a political point of view, I think it may be a lose and a lose.

When Schultz asked what the chances were of these terror suspects getting acquitted, Abrams guessed that the chances for KSM were "not very high," but it could happen with the other suspects, which would create political problems. As far as KSM, Abrams said, "I think he's gonna make a mockery of the proceeding...What if Khalid Sheik Mohammed says he wants to represent himself, and as a result, he wants to create a mockery of the proceeding. I see that as a real possibility here."

Schultz asked: "Politically, is this risky territory for Obama?"

Rachel Maddow: The Glenn Beck Of The Left?

So reads the headline of a column published Tuesday in the left-leaning website Mediaite.

For those unfamiliar, Mediaite is the brainchild of former MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams, and was described by managing editor Colby Hall as "Huffington Post meets Gawker." 

No surprise there, for two of its other editors, Rachel Sklar and Glynnis MacNicol, both hail from HuffPo.

With this in mind, the latter wrote a piece Tuesday actually comparing someone liberals absolutely adore to someone liberals totally despise:

We know how the media relished the fall of the GOP, and lovingly analyzed divisions within the party. But their beloved Democrats are falling apart before their eyes, and the strain is beginning to tell. The Blue Dog Democrats are for being the only thing between this nation and socialized medicine, a fact that has some liberals coming out swinging – literally, in at least one case.

“Social commentator” Nancy Giles appeared on the “Today Show” July 28 along with Dan Abrams and Willie Geist during Kathy Lee Gifford and Hota Kotb’s segment “News Flash.” The usually all small-talk segment got heated when it turned to health care.

Kotb posed the simple question “Do you guys think health care will pass…?” Abrams and Willie gave simple answers. Giles, however, got passionate.

“It better and I could punch every Blue Dog Democrat in the nose. And I’m a Democrat. I could punch them, I’m so annoyed. And I’m annoyed with Harry Reid. I better not find him in an elevator.”

If Rod Blagojevich were a Republican, what's the over-under on the number of times the network morning shows would have mentioned that fact in their coverage today?

But Blago is a Democrat.  So how often did Today, Good Morning America and the Early Show explicitly identify him as such during their opening half-hours today?  Not once.  The closest any came were references at Today and Early Show today to "Democratic politics" and one at GMA to "the Democratic Chicago machine."  Speaking of GMA, George Stephanopoulos, appearing there, put in the most embarrassingly sycophantish performance of the morning.

During the 11 a.m. EDT hour of Tuesday’s MSNBC “News Live,” host Dan Abrams interviewed Reuters Washington correspondent John Decker about Senator Obama’s campaign seeking a criminal investigation against the American Issues Project over an ad which links Obama to terrorist Bill Ayers.

While none of the American Issues Project ad was shown, MSNBC did help Obama rebut any claims of a connection between Obama and Ayers by airing part of Obama’s response ad: “Why is John McCain talking about the sixties trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers? McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers’ crimes committed when Obama was just 8 years old.”

Just like in the Obama ad, Abrams only referred to Ayers as a “radical,” and never mentioned the bombings Ayers took part in or his September 2001 statement that, "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough."

NBC News has responded to John McCain's protest concerning biased election coverage by giving one of the most left-leaning members of the media -- a host from the ultra-liberal radio network Air America -- her own prime time program on MSNBC.

Honestly, how much further to the left can this network go?

While you ponder, this is what the New York Times reported just a few hours ago (h/t TVNewser via Hot Air):

Elizabeth Edwards authorized a friend to attack John Edwards over his infamous "she was in remission" interview on Nightline.  That's the stunning assertion of Sandra Westfall, the "People" magazine writer who authored the article [excerpt here] containing the friend's crticism. Westfall was a guest on tonight's Verdict with Dan Abrams.

DAN ABRAMS: Sandra, let me start with you. Is it fair to say that the story that you guys have in this week's magazine is effectively Elizabeth Edwards' side of the story?

SANDRA WESTFALL: You know, she authorized her brother and her best friend to speak to me on her behalf.

View video here.

Want to know just how in the tank MSNBC's Dan Abrams is for Barack Obama?

On Thursday's "Verdict," the network's former general manager actually tried to deflect criticism from Michelle Obama by bringing up statements John McCain made concerning his experience as a Vietnam POW making him realize how much he loves America.

This is how Abrams began the program: "Tonight: We have uncovered comments from John McCain on camera that could undermine the steady right-wing attacks against Michelle Obama."

Is that Abrams' role as a journalist: to undermine attacks against the wife of a presidential candidate?

Readers are warned that the following transcript is likely to offend them in a fashion that might not be desired on a Saturday (video embedded upper right, use scrollbars to center, h/t Hot Air via NBer Thomas Stewart):

We've seen Chris "Thrill Going Up My Leg" Matthews. Keith Olbermann admits to MSNBC viewers that his network doesn't give a "hard time" to Democratic candidates. Olbermann defends Barack Obama by humilating Matthews. Democratic stalwarts Lanny Davis and Ed Rendell blast MSNBC for not being fair to Hillary Clinton and for [Keith Olbermann] saying things that should put him on the Obama campaign payroll, respectively.

But when a Fox News Channel opinion show co-host states that he's a John McCain supporter? Well, that is just too much for "Verdict" host Dan Abrams!

Keith Olbermann is not good for the news industry.

Such was the opinion of former Los Angeles Times television critic and Pulitzer Prize winner Howard Rosenberg in a rather scathing article published Saturday.

Adding delicious insult to injury, Rosenberg didn't have very nice things to say about Chris Matthews, Dan Abrams, MSNBC, or that network's obvious love affair with Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama either.

Here were some of his candid observations (emphasis added, h/t TVNewser):

Dan Abrams, apparently still smarting from the castigation he received in April from Karl Rove, just cannot let go. Despite the fact that the "high level" Republican operative, Jill Simpson, who accused Rove of orchestrating the prosecution of convicted Democrat former Alabama governor, Dan Siegelman, never actually met nor talked to Karl Rove and whose "high level" operative activities in her own words never rose above typical volunteer work, Abrams continues to wander into the swamp created by this much less than credible source. On Thursday, Abrams and Catherine Crier were salivating with glee on MSNBC's Verdict over the prospect that the House Judiciary Committee might issue something called an 'inherent contempt' arrest for Karl Rove (emphasis mine):

It appears MSNBC's Dan Abrams is shamefully mimicking colleague Keith Olbermann's somewhat successful strategy to bring in viewers by belittling his competition.

Think of it as the largely unwatched liberal media member's "If you can't beat 'em, bash 'em" motif.

Despite how pathetic it is, it's certainly worked for Olbermann, whose incessant invective aimed at Bill O'Reilly -- interspersed, of course, between vitriolic rants against any politician with an "R" after his or her name, especially if it ends with "Bush" -- has nearly doubled the "Countdown" host's audience to almost a cool million.

Now, the man that used to be Olbermann's boss -- mired in his own viewership slump as he continually gets trounced in his time slot by "Hannity & Colmes" to the tune of four to one! -- has decided to adopt the former sportcaster's strategy as evidenced by the following partial transcript of Wednesday's "Verdict" (video available here):

MSNBC's Dan Abrams and the folks in the liberal blogosphere are going to be very disappointed tomorrow when they witness what Chris Wallace says was "a very friendly exchange" between the "Fox News Sunday" host and Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In fact, despite what Talking Points Memo reported Friday concerning Obama doing the program to "take on Fox," as well as Jonathan Kim's ("Fox Attacks") recommendation on MSNBC's "Verdict" that the junior senator from Illinois should "[go] on and just [attack] them," it appears Chris and Barack had an exceedingly civil and informative discussion about the campaign and the issues facing the nation.

Imagine that.

As he was driving home from his meeting with Obama, Wallace called in to give a preview of the interview to FNC's "Weekend Live" (h/t Johnny Dollar):

Honestly, the hypocrisy of liberal media members knows no bounds.

On Friday, Dan Abrams of MSNBC voiced extreme displeasure with the announcement that Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama is finally going to be interviewed by Chris Wallace on this weekend's "Fox News Sunday."

This from a man whose very network has hosted numerous presidential debates despite moderators Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann being clearly in the tank for Obama.

Amazingly, this contradiction continues to elude the good folks at MSNBC as demonstrated by the following partial transcript of Friday's "Verdict" (readers are cautioned to have a trash receptacle handy in case of involuntary retroperistalsis):

On Saturday, NewsBusters reported that former White House advisor Karl Rove recently sent a letter to MSNBC's Dan Abrams asking him to identify exactly what investigative research was done to verify allegations by the network that Rove was involved in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

On Thursday's "Verdict," Abrams told his audience, "Karl Rove has sent me an angry five-page letter," but chose not to share ANY of its contents, or address ANY of the 58 questions posed to him by Rove in the correspondence.

Instead, Abrams continued to point fingers at his target of disaffection (video embedded upper-right):

In today's episode of "As The Left Eat Their Own," a tape of Hillary Clinton complaining after Super Tuesday that activists from MoveOn.org "flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support [her]" was published at The Huffington Post Friday.

This has set off a predictably hostile reaction from the liberal blogosphere, and was considered such a bombshell that Barack Obama-loving MSNBC actually began Friday's installment of "Verdict" with this revelation.

But, before we get there, here's the text of Hillary's remarks (audio embedded upper-right):

Although many press outlets have reported a so-called nefarious connection between former White House advisor Karl Rove and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, none has focused as much attention on this conspiracy theory as MSNBC.

In the last four months, MSNBC has addressed this issue thirteen times, with nine involving former General Manager Dan Abrams.

Seemingly fed up with the continued unsubstantiated and poorly researched reporting by Abrams, Rove sent him a rather strongly-worded letter on April 13 (emphasis added throughout, h/t NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez via NBer Jonah Johansen):

On Monday night, we were privy to Round II of Dan Abrams' (of MSNBC's Live with Dan Abrams pseudo-fame) lukewarm game show, "Rush Limbaugh -- UnAmerican".

Both times Abrams levied said assertion in response to Limbaugh's apparently effective (at least at tweaking the likes of Abrams) Operation CHAOS.

Which is what Limbaugh has dubbed his call for Republicans to cross over -- where legal -- to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic Presidential primaries. In so doing he hopes to prolong as much as possible the Democrat primary process.

Limbaugh began Operation CHAOS in advance of the March 4th primaries and primary/caucus held in Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont and Texas. It appeared to be at least somewhat effective beyond just ruffling Abrams' feathers, as HRC won three of the four (losing only in Vermont). Which is when Abrams first resorted to Limbaugh name calling -- at least in this regard.

Look out! Here comes a liberal media feud. On his MSNBC program every night, host Dan Abrams hosts a media-criticism segment called "Beat the Press." On Thursday night, Abrams heavily implied ABC’s Jake Tapper is a plagiarist, stealing snarky lines from Jon Stewart. We dislike Tapper putting too much snark in the breakfast buffet. But if you’re going to level a serious charge like plagiarism, you better not take your target out of context. Guess what? Abrams did. Take a look:

ABRAMS: Finally, you have to wonder sometimes whether the folks at ABC News, they get all their material from their own heads, they come up with it. Here's Jon Stewart on CNN over two weeks ago talking about the Democrats and how they allocate delegates, and then ABC’s Jake Tapper.

STEWART: Feel better. Have a delegate and a trophy saying you're number one.

TAPPER: Democrats distribute them proportionately. It’s kinda like T-ball where every child gets a trophy.

On Wednesday’s episode of Live With Dan Abrams on MSNBC, Abrams lit into Rush Limbaugh as "un-American" for encouraging Republican voters to cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. In his "Beat the Press" segment, Abrams attacked Limbaugh mocking him for a segment on Monday night’s Abrams show on Limbaugh’s "Far Right Dirty Tricks." On Wednesday, Abrams associated Rush with the "radical right" and attempted to describe a Limbaugh radio show snippet:

He was upset that I said he was perverting the process by encouraging Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in open primaries in an effort to quote, "bloody up" Obama....When you encourage someone to vote for a candidate that they don't want as president, I believe it is actually un-American, and they are willing to increase the chances of what they consider to be a bad candidate winning in the hope they may slightly increase their candidate's chances? It is shameful.

Left wing think tank hatchet reporting

The Establishment Media's Weapon of ChoiceAnd you thought only the New York Times was engaged in not-for-profit journalism.

Behold the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), who on Wednesday made headlines across the nation with their report -- co-authored with the Fund for Independence in Journalism (FIJ) -- entitled "Iraq - The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War".

The Establishment Media hailed the study's lead "finding" -- 935 false statements by Bush Administration officials in the two-year period leading up to the launch of the War. The Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and -- of course -- the New York Times were all exhilarated to once again climb aboard the "Bush Lied - People Died" Express.

AP, MSNBC, CNN and the New York Times on Wednesday all promoted a “study” by a couple of affiliated far-left groups, supposedly documenting “935 false statements” about Iraq made by Bush officials, but in hyping the proof of “lies” which led to war, the news outlets disguised the ideology of the groups -- led by a former ABC and CBS reporter/producer -- and how many of the “false” statements were about Iraq possessing WMD, which FNC's Brit Hume pointed out was “a concept nearly universally accepted by most of the world's intelligence services at the time.”

Keith Olbermann, who in 2006 slammed the Media Research Center as a “rabid right-wing spin group,” Wednesday night on Countdown with “935 lies” on screen on top of a picture of Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney, described the Center for Public Integrity and Fund for Independence in Journalism as merely “two non-profit groups” who have “done the algebra” on “the administration's countless lies about Iraq.” Last September, CNN's Jack Cafferty accurately described the MRC as a “conservative media watchdog outfit,” but he euphemistically tagged the left-wing groups as “two non-profit journalism groups” with a study which “found President Bush led the pack with 260 lies.” Cafferty's labeling echoed AP's reference to “two non-profit journalism organizations.”

MSNBC's Dan Abrams lent the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) credibility as “a non-profit, non-partisan investigative journalism group.” On WashingtonPost.com, Dan Froomkin hailed the “non-profit group pursuing old-fashioned accountability journalism” and a Wednesday New York Times story cited CPI as “a research group that focuses on ethics in government and public policy.”

An interesting discussion occurred on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday when host Howard Kurtz raised the issue of MSNBC intentionally moving to the left politically, as well as its failed attempt to hire Rosie O'Donnell.

Maybe most shocking was conservative radio talk show host Michael Medved saying of the recent events at MSNBC, "I think it shows that they're getting smart."

Coming in a close second was Jennifer Pozner of Women in Media and News stating with a straight face "the majority of the people who host shows on MSNBC are either centrists or conservative," and that Keith Olbermann "is a liberal host, but he doesn't necessarily promote liberal candidates or promote liberal projects."

Deliciously, that might not have been the most absurd statement from Pozner this day (partial transcript follows with emphasis added for your entertainment pleasure):