Jim DeMint

On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose hinted Newt Gingrich should apologize for a supposedly racially-tinged comment he recently made: "I want to give you an opportunity, because the point was made...about it's better for black Americans to seek a job than it is to seek food stamps, and many people stepped forward to say, isn't that simply true for all Americans who are desperately looking for jobs?"

Rose ended his interview of the former House Speaker with the controversy over a remark the presidential candidate made on January 5 during a campaign stop in Plymouth, New Hampshire: "I'm prepared if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps."

CBS’s Bob Schieffer decided his viewers needed a special warning about how far out of the mainstream an upcoming guest dwells, plugging at the top of Sunday’s Face the Nation how he’d have as guests Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – and then: “for context on how it’s going, we’ll bring in South Carolina’s very conservative Senator, Jim DeMint.”

American Morning co-host Christine Romans used David Brooks' words to press Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) Wednesday on the stubbornness of conservative Republicans in the debt ceiling debate. Brooks, the faux "conservative" writer for the New York Times, wrote a scathing column Monday hitting Republicans for their refusal to accept Democrat "compromises" in the debt ceiling debate.

Romans twice referenced critics of the Republicans, first saying that critics fear the "new awakening" of the Tea Party and the 2010 elections as "dangerous for America." Later she read DeMint a quote from Brooks's piece in the Times.

[Video below the break.]

Is context a four-letter word to MSNBC's Chris Matthews?

During the "Sideshow" segment on Friday's "Hardball," Matthews ripped a comment conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) made during a recent speech to the Federalist Society in order to paint DeMint either as a birther or as one playing cynically to those who believe President Obama was not born in the United States.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Here's what he said: "This whole idea that the president is the leader of our country is a mistake." This whole idea that the president is the leader of our country is a mistake. How does that make any sense, unless you're a birther, and that's what he sounds like.

The liberal Talking Points Memo (TPM) blog broke that story Thursday afternoon, but at least TPM provided the full context of DeMint's February 17 comments (emphasis mine):

Update: Joe denies judging Kyl and DeMint.  See video after the jump.

Call it an episode of Short Self-Attention Span Theater . . .

Mere moments after citing Matthew 7's instruction to "judge not, that ye be not judged," Joe Scarborough judged Jon Kyl and Jim DeMint to be "un-Christlike."

Scarborough's strange self-contradiction came in the course of his diatribe against the two Republican senators for having criticized Harry Reid for threatening to keep the Senate in session through Christmas.

View video after the jump.

Hey, it's Friday night.  Time to kick back, relax, and have a few chuckles, courtesy Ed Schultz.  On his MSNBC show this evening, Schultz, somehow managing to keep a straight face, claimed that NPR is "as down the middle as you can get."

Schultz served up his side-splitter in condemning Jim DeMint and other Republicans for proposing the federal defunding of NPR.  In the world according to Ed, the Republican suggestion to withdraw NPR's taxpayer subsidies reflects a GOP plan to "shut down any dissenting voices in this country."  Ed, buddy: Dems control the White House and both houses of Congress.  NPR is the voice of pro-government flackery, not dissent.  The rebels are . . . the Republicans!

 

Conservative Republican Senator "Jim DeMint relishes life on the Republican fringe," a teaser headline on the website for the Los Angeles Times noted this afternoon (see screen capture below at right).

"The South Carolina senator's refusal to compromise has made him a conservative hero. He showers cash on 'tea party' candidates like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, but he's winning few friends in D.C.," reads the subheadline to Tribune newspapers Washington bureau writer Lisa Mascaro's October 18 story.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Sarah Palin and Rand Paul were Judge Napolitano's guests on Saturday's "Freedom Watch" on FBN. First part below (relevant section at 5:20), rest available here:

Thoughts? 

New York Times "Tea Party" correspondent Kate Zernike again insisted that the main victims of Tea Party enthusiasm will be, not Democrats, but mainstream Republicans, in Thursday's "G.O.P. Gets a Partner, But Who Will Lead?"

It's basically a snapshot of the growing conflict between Sen. Jim DeMint, who has pushed conservative Tea Party candidates, and Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, whose job it is to elect Republicans.

A photo caption over a picture of DeMint reads: "Senator Jim DeMint has embraced the ideological purity that characterize many candidates with Tea Patty backing."

If ever there was proof that the Tea Party and the Republican Party do not necessarily go hand in hand, it is Christine O'Donnell's victory over the establishment in the Republican Senate primary in Delaware.

So what happens now, with the primary season ending, and the Tea Party having defined it? Does the Tea Party remake the G.O.P. in its image, staging a "hostile takeover," as Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, the libertarian advocacy group, urged activists rallying outside the Capitol last weekend to do? Or will the Republican Party co-opt the Tea Party, as Trent Lott, a former leader of the Senate Republicans, said it must?

The embodiment of this question might be Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who has made himself and his Senate Conservatives Fund a kind of Tea Party Good Housekeeping seal of approval. Sitting at the intersection of the Republican Party and the Tea Party, Mr. DeMint could be a model for how the two might co-exist -- or an example of how the drive for ideological purity could turn the Republicans into a niche party.

It's quite possible NBC's Meredith Vieira has never shown more concern about the Republican Party's ability to win elections than she did on Thursday's Today show, of course that may be because conservative Tea Party candidates are now forcing out the more moderate members of its ranks. In a segment entitled, "Tea Time, Is The Tea Party Hurting The GOP?" the Today co-anchor invited on Republican Senator Jim DeMint to question if conservative candidates like Christine O'Donnell "can win in November?" To which DeMint responded that the conservative candidates he's been supporting are doing just fine: "Well Meredith, they told me Marco Rubio couldn't win. And he is blowing it away in Florida because he's telling people the truth. And they said the same thing about Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and Rand Paul in Kentucky. They're well ahead in, in the polls because people want a change in Washington."

The following is the full interview with DeMint as it was aired on the September 16 Today show:

While lefties are foaming at the mouth over what Republican Senate candidates like Sharon Angle and Rand Paul have to say, they're not quite willing to publicly embrace or defend the antics of their own duly elected nominee, South Carolina U.S. Senate Democratic nominee Alvin Greene. That is, they weren't until now. 

On the Aug. 17 broadcast of her radio show, Randi Rhodes went to bat for Greene. According to Rhodes, the indiscretions that brought Greene indictments, in which he allegedly showed obscene photos to a University of South Carolina student and then talked about going to her dorm room, weren't really that bad. Although it's not clear if Rhodes was being serious, and it's difficult to tell, she claimed he was "sharing a wonderful moment of pornography" with this student and bewildered why such an approach warranted criminal charges.

"Let me tell you - you know my candidate for Senate in South Carolina is Alvin Greene," Rhodes said. "I left off where he was supposedly indicted for you know sharing a wonderful moment of pornography with a girl who was over 18 in a college library - in a college library where he had attended college by the way, so he still has his ID card to get on the campus, so. I don't know what law he broke, but apparently they say he did and they indicted him. And so the local TV went over to his house to see what his comments were about the indictment."

Keith Olbermann on Monday revised history to praise former President Bill Clinton and bash former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In the opening segment of MSNBC's "Countdown," the host railed against a proposal by Republicans to once again reintroduce the balanced budget amendment.

Olbermann pointed out to his tiny audience that this was "also pushed by then Speaker Newt Gingrich as part of the 1994 Contract With America."

With total disregard for historical facts, the "Countdown" host continued, "Gingrich failed to pass it, President Clinton raised taxes, balanced the budget, created 22 million jobs" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The man that surprisingly won Tuesday's Democrat primary for senator in South Carolina was interviewed by Keith Olbermann Thursday, and a more hapless candidate might never before have appeared on the national stage.

Despite Alvin Greene's stumbling, seemingly unaware persona, the "Countdown" host never seriously grilled him about anything concerning how he could possibly have won this primary without holding any campaign functions, distributing any campaign signs or literature, or creating a website.

As you watch this tremendously uncomfortable interview, imagine how Greene would have been treated by Olbermann if he was a Republican (video follows with commentary, h/t Right Scoop):

Host Bob Schieffer led Sunday's Face the Nation by fretting over opposition to the passage of ObamaCare: "What about the violence in the wake of the congressional action? Isolated incidents or signs of a dangerous anger?" He told viewers that he would talk to "Republican firebrands, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann" about the issue.

Schieffer pressed DeMint on some of the threats against members of Congress: "Senator, we saw some pretty scary stuff last week....We saw members' offices that were trashed. We saw death threats....Do you think the parties have an obligation to try to tone down some of this runaway rhetoric? Is it, in fact, dangerous?" The Senator defended tea party protestors: "I've been with hundreds of thousands of tea party patriots...and I've never seen any violence or heard any bad language....it's unfair and untrue to try to paint this whole American awakening with some of the bad comments that we heard last week in Washington."

Later turning to Bachmann, Schieffer tried to portray the Congresswoman as extreme: "You said last week that health care reform was dangerous and you equated it with tyranny. Do you really mean that?...You said that you thought Barack Obama had anti-American views....what do you mean the President is anti-American?" He continued his interrogation by pointing to comments made by Sarah Palin: "[She] famously said last week that it is not time for Republicans to retreat. It is time to reload....said she wasn't talking about guns. She was talking about getting out there and using the vote. Do you think Sarah Palin has overstated it here?"

At first glance it appeared Today viewers were in for a balanced segment with NBC's Meredith Vieira interviewing both Republican Senator Jim DeMint and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin about the health care bill bill on Wednesday's show. However Vieira saved her most slanted questions for DeMint as she mocked his earlier prediction of an Obamacare defeat being his Waterloo, "Is it now your party's Waterloo?" and after selectively citing one poll that showed a favorable view of the bill questioned which party was really "out of touch with the public?"

First up, in addition to Vieira throwing DeMint's previous "Waterloo" comments back in his face, she included (most likely) David Frum's criticism at DeMint:

VIEIRA: Senator DeMint, if I could start with you, back in July you said, "If we're able to stop Obama on this," meaning this health care reform bill, "it will be his Waterloo, it will break him." Well, the bill is now law and a former speech writer for former President George W. Bush has said Republicans messed up big by adopting the "Hell no!" approach to this bill. So do you still feel it is the President's Waterloo or is it now your party's Waterloo?

Immediately after taking shots from some conservative voices for his Feb. 8 remarks that heavy snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic is "reportedly" a result of global warming, MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan fired back at his detractors on his Feb. 10 program. 

The once seemingly rational host of CNBC's "Fast Money" voiced his frustration with the entire global warming debate as it stood in the wake of this record-setting winter weather event. Ratigan suggested neither side should use the crippling snowfall as evidence to further their respective arguments. However he did direct the lion's share of his criticism at conservatives.

"The weather we know is frightful, but my goodness me, so is the political back-and-forth over climate change in the context of these storms that are hitting D.C. especially," Ratigan said. "Both sides trying to use hometown ‘snowpocalypse' as free advertising for their chosen position on climate change, baby. Conservatives today, using the blizzard to pull a snow job on Al Gore and his liberal brethren. From South Carolina, Sen. Jim DeMint says quote, ‘It's going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries uncle.' That was a good one. Meanwhile, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asks ‘Where is Al Gore now?'"

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer on Wednesday took issue with a meteorologist who wouldn't refute Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) joke about snow continuing until Al Gore cries uncle.

After Raphael Miranda told viewers about the blizzard pummeling the East Coast, Brewer for some strange reason brought up DeMint's Twitter comment: "He's basically making this argument against global warming because they've had so much snow in Washington, D.C. Is this, does this have anything to do with global warming?"

When Miranda didn't give the answer Brewer was looking for, she amazingly responded, "You're playing it right down the middle. But I was taught that we're talking about climate change here and more severe weather."

The nerve of this meteorologist to not only play it "right down the middle," but also not give her the answer she wanted (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Ed Morrissey):

Imagine it being as hard to fire an incompetent airport screener as it is to fire an incompetent teacher.  Think that might have any implications for our safety and security?  Evan Kohlmann apparently doesn't.  In fact, the NBC terrorism consultant thinks opposition to unionizing the employees of the Transportation Safety Administration is "nonsense" and "ridiculous."

Kohlmann made his comments on MSNBC this afternoon in the course of condemning Sen. Jim DeMint for opposing TSA unionization.  The Republican senator from South Carolina has put a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers to head the TSA because of the nominee's apparent intent to unionize the TSA.

David Shuster teed up Kohlmann's tirade [the video bears watching to see just how contemptuous Kohlmann appeared] . . .

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's Today show, used the occasion of the bombing attempt of Northwest Flight 253, to press Republican Senator Jim DeMint to stop being the last "hold-out" and "come around," on approving Obama's pick for TSA director Errol Southers. However Lauer failed to mention Obama took eight months to make his choice as well as the fact that DeMint is concerned that Southers' choice could lead to collective bargaining that would "bring the security concerns of TSA under the authority of union bosses."

The following exchange came during the 7am half-hour of the January 4 Today show:

MATT LAUER: You say we're all on the same page. You are the single hold-out, Senator, in, in approving the President's choice for the director of the TSA, Errol Southers and I'm, I'm just curious, in, in light of Flight 253 are you still gonna hold out on that nomination or are you maybe gonna come around?

On CNN's American Morning today, anchor John Roberts talked with correspondent Jim Acosta about "the politics" of terrorism.  Part of the exchange:

ACOSTA: There is plenty punting going on in Washington, John. Hearings on the Detroit scare are planned for early next month, and the top Republican on that committee has already said there should have been a big red flag next to the suspect's name, and there are plenty of other issues, such as Guantanamo. Republicans are saying the president should shelve his plan to close Guantanamo at this point, John.

ROBERTS: So, shelve Guantanamo, but, at the same time, the president is trying to get some of his key appointments filled. They're being held up. And some of the key appointments that are still vacant are ones that are absolutely essential when it comes to maintaining security at our airports and on our jetliners.

ACOSTA: That's right. Those men and women at the airport wearing the blue shirts that say TSA, they don't have a full-time, permanent boss at this point. The temporary head of the TSA is a holdover from the Bush administration and, right now, the - the current appointee from the Obama administration to take the head of the TSA, a man by the name of Erroll Southers, he is still waiting to - to get his appointment confirmed. He is currently the assistant chief for the LAX Police Department, the Los Angeles International Airport out there in California, and his duties are head of Intelligence and Homeland Security. But, at this point, that nomination is on hold by Jim DeMint, the very conservative Senator from South Carolina. He's opposed to unionizing - fully unionizing the TSA, something that Southers apparently wants to do.

One of the favorite talking points that often comes from Fox News detractors is the claim that the News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) cable news is somehow an organ of the Republican Party. It's a claim that former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn made, along with countless other accusations from prominent Democrats.

However, these Democrats would be doing themselves and their audiences a favor to take notice of two Fox News anchors, "Your World" host Neil Cavuto and the weekend edition of "America's News HQ" co-host, Gregg Jarrett. The two recently challenged two Republican members of Congress, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill.

On the Dec. 12 broadcast of Fox News Channel's "America's News HQ," host Gregg Jarrett took on Grassley, who made an appearance to rail against federal spending, but all the while having so-called "pork project" money earmarked for his home state (emphasis added).

This is perhaps a pretty desperate way for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to try to resonate with her liberal viewers. 

On her Oct. 6 show, Maddow specifically targeted Sens. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C. for pursuing foreign policy objectives that run counter to President Barack Obama's on the issues of global warming and Latin America relations.

First she set her sights on Inhofe, who recently announced he would be making a trip to Copenhagen to offer an opposing U.S. perspective on the issue of global warming. Inhofe, who is the ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has been one of the most outspoken critics of efforts to force the U.S. government to enact economy-wrecking policy by putting limits on carbon emissions.

Remember "Baghdad Bob," the Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf? Even with Iraqi forces in a full rout and American Marines just blocks away Baghdad Bob would completely deny the presence of U.S. troops in the Iraqi capitol.

Watching MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," on September 24 was reminiscent of Baghdad's Bob's press conferences. Olbermann asked Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, also an MSNBC political analyst, how "the GOP" would convince the public that the health care system "is not really in crisis" and that it does not need to be a priority compared to Afghanistan.  Turning right to page three of the current left-wing talking points, Alter used the opportunity to attack Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., for suggesting that the president is letting Afghanistan slide to curry favor for health care, by invoking George W. Bush.

"It's a pretty lame argument," Alter said. "I don't remember Jim DeMint saying when George W. Bush was proposing to reform Social Security a few years ago that somehow he was putting the troops at risk in Iraq, because he was worried about some domestic issue."

Katharine Seelye, a reporter on the Obama-care health overhaul beat for the New York Times, filed Monday from a town hall in Spartanburg, S.C., that featured conservative Republican Sen. Jim DeMint among supportive constituents who oppose Obama-care in ways Seelye finds unseemly blunt, misleading, and anti-Obama.

In "Fighting Health Care Overhaul, and Proud of It," Seelye looked askance at DeMint's "ideological purity," chided him for "stoking anger" and for not knocking down "misimpressions" about Obama-care -- even though the Times itself seems less convinced that those conservative "myths," like the outcry over "death panels," are totally without merit.

Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who predicted that President Obama's effort to overhaul the health care system would become his "Waterloo," is doing his best to make that happen.

Taking questions from a friendly crowd of 500 people here the other day, Mr. DeMint did little to correct their misimpressions about health care legislation but rather reinforced their worst fears.

When one man said the major House bill would give the government electronic access to bank accounts, Mr. DeMint told him the bill was never about health care. "This is about more government control," he declared. "If it was about health care, we could get it done in a couple of weeks."

The text box reinforced DeMint's conservatism: "Gaining support by promoting ideological purity."

If you've been keeping up with the health care debate, opponents of President Barack Obama's health care plan have been accused of spreading misinformation to thwart the administration's efforts. Even Obama himself said recently that those who raised the abortion concern were "bearing false witness." But the same sorts of claims have come up in the media.

For example, on August 18 left-wing MSNBC host Ed Schultz interviewed Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform and a former ABC reporter.

"[F]ifty-four percent believe that abortion is going to be funded," Schultz to Douglass on "The Ed Show." "Fifty-four percent believe that there's going to be a government takeover. And 45 percent believe that death panels are going to be there for the elderly. I should point out, none of those are true. So, obviously, the White House is not connecting with the American people."

All of weeks ago, Ed Schultz reacted with disgust on his radio show to news that Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told other Republicans that Obama's attempt to enact massive health reform could be the president's "Waterloo."

Here's Schultz on July 21, responding to DeMint's remark while interviewing Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: So, Jim DeMint basically is showing where the Republicans really are. They just want to, they want to Waterloo the president.

Yes, "Waterloo" as verb. And yes, Schultz actually talks like that.

IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW!  (Kansas City Star and Abouhalkah recognize their own ignorance, change title of post and disable old link).

Numerous reasons to oppose the ludicrous Obama health care plan aside, Yael T. Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star has cut through to the real reason for dissent - Americans are ignorant.

While Abouhalkah will undoubtedly argue that the message was meant to apply merely to the aspect of health care knowledge, he is quite unsuccessful at holding back his overall disdain for the way American's have responded to the plan. 

The title of his most recent blog post says it all.  In referring to an NBC poll about the health care plan, one in which MSNBC titles Doubts About Obama's Plans, Abouhalkah titles his post - Poll: Ignorance abounds among Americans on health care plan. 

The message?  If you're not down with the President's plan, then you can only be classified as ignorant.

But what examples of ignorance does the author specifically cite?

(Continued Below)