Mitch McConnell

The lack of current events knowledge demonstrated by today's anchors and political commentators is often breathtaking.

On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory actually told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), "Democrats haven't put together a budget in a year." Actually, it's been almost three years (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing as a panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas - formerly of Newsweek - took a jab at Senate Republican Leader Mitch Mcconnell, suggesting that he is normally not a "good guy," during a discussion of the Kentucky Republican's role in reaching a deal with Democrats to extend the payroll tax cut by two months. (Video below)

If not an unmitigated frozen-flying-pig-in-Hades moment, then certainly something noteworthy for its rarity, coming from the lips of David Gregory . . .

On today's Morning Joe, the Meet The Press moderator, in one surprising swoop, managed to praise a statement from Mitch McConnell while simultaneously seeming to acknowledge that President Obama's economic program has failed. Video after the jump.

Forget the birther theory that Obama was born in Kenya. Chris Hayes wants you to believe the president was born on Krypton.

How else to explain his over-the-top gushing for Dear Leader during an appearance on MSNBC colleague Rachel Maddow's show on Thursday (video after page break) --

Tonight Brian Williams will moderate, along with Politico's John F. Harris, the GOP presidential candidate debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. If recent performances by the NBC Nightly News anchor are an indication, candidates (particularly those favored by the Tea Party) should recognize his hostility to their agenda and be prepared for a number of topics and questions from the left.

Ever since its emergence, Williams has undercut the Tea Party, its champions within the GOP, and its cause of fiscal conservatism. At the same time, Williams has heralded its chief opponent Barack Obama.  

Update: Williams incessantly peppers Republicans with questions from the left during debate.

(video after the jump)

Last week, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said conservative views about the debt ceiling should be censored from news reports.

On Friday's "Morning Joe," Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) took this a step further calling on media to stop giving "equal time or equal balance" to Tea Party ideas that people like him consider "absurd" and "not factual" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who once argued Sarah Palin's bus tour was in "breach of federal law," attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday, wondering if the 69-year-old Republican is "suffering some kind of mild dementia or long-term memory loss?"

Excoriating McConnell for rejecting tax increases as part of a potential budget deal, the former ABC "Nightline" anchor regurgitated a litany of liberal talking points about the Bush years on his eponymous program:

[Video after break]

File this one under: Imagine If The Partisan Tables Were Turned.

On her MSNBC show this evening, Rachel Maddow repeatedly mocked Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell as "little Mitch, the rodeo queen."

Maddow was miffed over McConnell's arranging a Senate vote on the raising of the debt ceiling, and by extension the Republican position on Medicare reform.  And so, for about ten--interminable--minutes, Maddow beat into the ground a labored metaphor, somehow analogizing McConnell to the cowgirls in Utah who were forced to compete on stick ponies because the real horses had been sidelined by illness.

View video after the jump.

NBC's David Gregory on Sunday accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of not having said publicly if he's for Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Medicare plan.

This oddly came four days after McConnell and 39 other Republicans voted for the proposal on the floor of the Senate (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In discussing the present "kinetic military action" in Libya, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell and Contessa Brewer both tried to shift scrutiny away from President Obama and toward Republicans Monday afternoon, hours before the President's address to the nation on Libya.

O'Donnell tried to pinpoint the hypocrisy of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for criticizing Obama's failure to obtain authorization from Congress for military action in Libya. The liberal MSNBC host referred back to a nonbinding Senate resolution passed unanimously on March 1, calling for the U.N. Security Council to implement a no-fly zone over Libya.

Since the resolution passed unanimously, O'Donnell believed McConnell to be a hypocrite for voting for a no-fly zone and then calling out President Obama for failing to seek authorization from Congress. The nonbinding resolution, though, was effectively an opinion from the Senate on the matter. The U.S. Congress never authorized President Obama to declare war or preside over military action in Libya.  

(Video after the jump.)
 

Bob Schieffer on Sunday scolded Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for saying President Obama wasn't serious about the budget.

Two weeks ago, the "Face the Nation" host made the very same observation in a discussion with Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) (video follows with transcripts and commentary):

There are times it seems the folks at MSNBC are so driven by their liberal agenda that they're missing their own hypocrisy even when it happens on the same show separated by mere minutes.

Take for example Chris Matthews who moments after a lengthy segment Monday complaining about Glenn Beck and the so-called "violent rhetoric of the Right" ironically tied Tea Party members to "Nazi stuff" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 On ABC’s World News Saturday, correspondent John Hendren filed a report marking this year as the first time since 1947 that no members of the Kennedy family will hold public office in Washington, D.C. The piece began:

JOHN HENDREN: The sun has set on the Kennedy era. When Congress reconvenes next week, it will be the first time in 64 years that there has not been a Kennedy in office.

KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, DAUGHTER OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY: I think it's sad. I think that we need a Kennedy.

Hendren went on to recount the death of former Senator Ted Kennedy, "the Lion of the Senate," and the decision of Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy to retire, as well as the shuffling of office space with the arrival of newly-elected Republicans. The ABC correspondent also noted that Tea Party-backed Rep. Ron Paul and Senator-elect Rand Paul are the only family members serving who will be serving concurrently in Congress.

Hendren concluded by offering a ray of hope for those would like to see the Kennedy family in government again:

If Pres. Obama's signal fight in the coming year will be preserving ObamaCare, he can count on at least one ally in his struggle with Republicans: ABC News and in particular its Political Director, Amy Walter.

On GMA today, Walter issued a stern warning to Republicans who might have the audacity of hoping to repeal ObamaCare. The segment began with a montage of Republicans vowing to do so, including an oddly mocking replay of a Mitch McConnell moment.

Then Walter appeared and pronounced her admonition.  View video after the jump.

Charles Blow made some political observations in his New York Times column Saturday that are destined to anger many of his left-leaning readers.

Just imagine how the average New York Democrat is going to respond to being told the future of his Party is being jeopardized by the fact that "Too many liberals just want to whine":

Chris Matthews on Friday said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell should be Time magazine's Man of the Year for engineering a "disgusting strategy" that forced Obama to the left and made the President look like a socialist.

"Time magazine’s picked people pretty awful," claimed the "Hardball" host. "I’m not mentioning their names…Hitler" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

"If the GOP Senate Minority Leader were to grab a Senate page and threaten to kill the innocent victim if the Democrats refused to capitulate to the party’s demands on tax cuts, we would all quickly arrive at the conclusion that the Minority Leader had lost his mind and gone too far. We simply, under no circumstances, will not tolerate threatening someone’s life in order to get what you want.

"Yet, by playing with the denial of the only economic lifeline left to millions of unemployed, this is precisely what the GOP is doing."

The rantings of a Newsweek writer or MSNBC host, right? Wrong.

Charles Krauthammer on Monday said that when Barack Obama spoke to the nation hours ago to announce a tax extension compromise just reached with Republicans, "It was actually a speech addressed at Daily Kos, the New York Times, and MoveOn."

In Krauthammer's view expressed on Fox's "Special Report," "This was a speech aimed at appeasing the Left which is extremely angry over this" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 On Thursday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, as he plugged a segment on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s appeal to President Obama to cooperate with the GOP, host Keith Olbermann suggested that Obama should "kick" the "ass" of McConnell rather than surrender to the Republican Senator’s demands. Referring to McConnell during a plug, Olbermann complained: "Once again, he honestly explains what compromise means: agreeing with him. And instead of kicking him in the ass, the President agrees to sit down and chat."

After a few more plugs in which the Countdown host mocked McConnell for asking Obama to move in the Republican direction on issues, Olbermann got to the segment and played a clip of the Senate Republican Leader speaking to the conservative Heritage Foundation. After bringing aboard the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman, the MSNBC host held his hands over his head and began the discussion: "Forgive me. I have to deal with this headache immediately, so I'm doing this right at the moment."

He soon asked Fineman if President Obama would ever realize that trying to compromise with Republicans "hasn’t gotten me a lick of spit" and give up:

During live MSNBC coverage leading up to President Obama's Wednesday 1PM ET press conference, former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather urged the President to aggressively take on Republicans in the wake of the midterm elections: "[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs." [Audio available here]

Rather declared that the President should "take the Harry Truman, who lost big in1946 and said 'I'm going to fight them. I'm going to fight them.'...He has to be a fighter." He lamented how Obama's "reputation as president so far is he's a little soft. He plays soft." Rather concluded: "He's got to demonstrate, and I think in this news conference, 'yes, I will work with them, but I'm prepared to fight them on things that really matter to me.'"

Video below

If the Republicans are victorious at the polls next Tuesday, President Obama will demonize them the same way Bill Clinton did after the 1994 midterm elections. 

So said New York magazine's John Heilemann and NBC News's Norah O'Donnell on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell claimed the GOP's top goal was to ensure Barack Obama is a one term president – and Joe Scarborough thinks that is "pathetic." Apparently, Scarborough was hoping that the Republicans would work with President Obama on bipartisan legislation, and put the political battles on the backburner.

Ron Brownstein, columnist for the National Journal and President of Atlantic Media, reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has, as the GOP's top goal, to unseat President Obama in 2012.

"That is embarrassing!" Scarborough exclaimed. "I want to take control of the Senate so I can worry about an election two years away," he mockingly imitated the Republicans.

Brownstein cast it as a sign of the times. "In a Juan Williams-fired world, everybody is looking to sharpen the divisions, clarify the differences, and fire up the base, and that may be more of what we see over the next two years than in '95-'97," he remarked.

Scarborough, however, was still up in arms. "Can I just say it for the record?" he remarked of the GOP's goal. "That is pathetic."
 

George Will on Sunday gave a much-needed education to the entire "This Week" panel about how the Tea Party is moving the GOP in a positive direction that could alter politics in this nation for years to come.

As Christiane Amanpour and her Roundtable guests - Democrat strategist Donna Brazile, National Journal's Ron Brownstein, and Republican strategist Matthew Dowd - all fretted about the so-called Civil War brewing in the GOP, Will was once again the voice of reason. 

"At the beginning of the year, the question was, will the Tea Party people play nicely with others and will they obey the rules of politics? Who's sort of not playing nicely?" asked Will.

"Mr. Crist starts losing the primary to a Tea Party favorite Rubio. He suddenly discovers that he's an independent and changes all his views overnight," he continued.

"Mrs. Murkowski loses a primary and suddenly discovers that she has a property right in her Senate seat and she's going to run as a write-in. Senator Bennett thought of that in Utah, Senator Castle in Delaware is thinking of a write-in candidate. Who are the extremists?" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Isn’t it odd after the passage of TARP, the stimulus and ObamaCare that left-wing politicians and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media are suddenly worried about budget deficits?

As opposed to reining in deficit spending, the new public policy stance for the Democratic Party going into the 2010 midterm election is to call for a tax hike on the top-income earners by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those folks. In an interview on MSNBC’s Sept. 17 “The Daily Rundown” with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, co-host Savannah Guthrie pressed the Texas senator on the need to raise taxes in order to lower budget deficits.

Guthrie asked: “Sir, as you know, a lot of the energy in the Republican Party, some of the animating issues have to do with deficit and spending, and I ask you given the concern among Republican voters about deficit spending, how is it that Republicans can get behind allowing the Bush tax cuts to go forward for the wealthiest Americans, something that will cost $700 billion borrowed money deficit spending. How do you square that up?”