The Situation Room

Pressing Rick Santorum on his opposition to women serving in combat, CNN's Wolf Blitzer quoted a liberal veteran who harshly criticized Santorum's policy. Blitzer did not identify the veteran or his group as "liberal," thus failing to address the critic's possible political motives against the conservative candidate.

"A very angry response from one veteran," Blitzer noted, before quoting the co-founder of VoteVets.org. The group identifies itself as the "largest progressive organization of veterans in America." [Video below the break.]

According to the Heritage Foundation Barack Obama’s policies, in just two years, have resulted in the number of Americans who rely on a federal program spiking by 23 percent to 67 million. Yet there was no mention of this grim figure on the Big Three network (ABC, CBS and NBC) evening or morning news programs. Since the study was released on Wednesday only Fox News and CNN have mentioned the increase in government dependents was the biggest two year jump since Jimmy Carter was president.  (video after the jump)

CNN's Wolf Blitzer was apparently quite moved by President Obama's speech at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast. Blitzer hailed it as a candid address and noted that the President spoke "very movingly" of his faith.

Of course, Obama's profession of his faith came shortly after his administration mandated religious-affiliated organizations to act against their church's teaching, a decision that caused great uproar. Blitzer did not mention that fact, but did cast Obama in a positive light as opposed to GOP candidate Mitt Romney. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Normally, when a leading charity cuts ties to a large non-profit organization, the news will not spark a media controversy. But when the Susan G. Komen Foundation severed financial ties to Planned Parenthood due to Congressional investigations into the organization, CNN hyped Planned Parenthood's cries of foul play and "bullying from the right."

Correspondent Mary Snow aired a pretty one-sided piece on Wednesday including statements from Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards, evidence supporting her claims of right-wing "bullying," and even vitriolic Facebook posts decrying the de-funding. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Borrowing from a liberal Daily Beast column, CNN's Jack Cafferty set about asking if Newt Gingrich was ignorant and "clueless" about the African-American community, on Tuesday's The Situation Room.

Cafferty dropped the bomb right at the start as he matter-of-factly stated that "Newt Gingrich is clueless when it comes to African-Americans" before backing away and attributing the argument to the Daily Beast's Peter Beinart. Beinart has also been the editor of the liberal New Republic magazine, so Cafferty was not doing his credibility any favors by quoting someone who very well might have a liberal agenda in attacking the Republican candidate.

A report by CNN's David Mattingly that aired on Friday's The Situation Room emphasized the "bitter Bain memories" left in South Carolina from Bain Capital, the private equity firm that candidate Mitt Romney founded.

Mattingly featured the president of the local Steelworkers union at the plant Bain Capital bought back in the 1990s. As the United Steelworkers union has been heavily pro-Democratic, it came as no surprise that the president ripped Bain's practices and held Romney "very responsible." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN touted a study from the liberal Tax Policy Center claiming that Newt Gingrich's tax plan would increase the deficit. On Tuesday afternoon's The Situation Room, business correspondent Poppy Harlow simply labeled the Tax Policy Center "non-partisan" even though it is a joint venture of two liberal think tanks, the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institute.

CNN even reported the Gingrich campaign's claim that the study did not include "many details" of the plan because the campaign "does not recognize them as an independent arbiter of tax policy information." That bit of information was buried at the end of CNN's report, however. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Conservative columnist Rich Galen lampooned CNN for its liberal bias during his appearance on Monday's The Situation Room. During the bottom of the 4 p.m. hour, anchor Wolf Blitzer threw water on right-wing claims that President Obama is waging a "war on religion," and Galen called him out for one-sided coverage of the matter.

GOP candidate Rick Perry had recently produced a campaign ad accusing Obama of running a "war on religion." Blitzer, noting the accusation, played a moving montage of performances from Sunday's "Christmas in Washington" pageant, attended by the President, and then asked how Obama could be considered anti-Christmas if he had attended such a public display.

Donald Trump on Friday took a nice little poke at Wolf Blitzer.

During an interview aired on CNN's the Situation Room, the real estate tycoon said to his host, "I know you like the president and all that stuff, although less than some of the folks at MSNBC" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

Seeking to breathe new life into the political damage of unproven sexual harassment charges against him, CNN's Lisa Sylvester presented viewers with a "developing story" in the 4 p.m. hour of The Situation Room entitled "Is Cain the Anti-Women Candidate?"

Sylvester glommed onto "recent controversial comments" Cain has made, such as referring to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as "Princess Nancy," and saying that "tutti-frutti" is the ice cream flavor that would best describe Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

"Some critics see him as the anti-women candidate," Sylvester insisted of Cain, turning to "CNN contributor Donna Brazile" who "says he has a credibility problem with women." Sylvester failed to note that Brazile is a liberal Democratic strategist who contributed to President Obama's campaign this September.

CNN's Poppy Harlow asked an Occupy Wall Street protester on Tuesday if the movement was "at that scale" of the civil rights movement, and if the cause was "as important" as civil rights.

In turn, the occupier answered that the Wall Street protests are "much grander" than the civil rights movement. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

On Monday's The Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked a female guest if she had a "problem" with Herman Cain's comment about a "manly" man not eating pizza loaded with vegetables.   

Cain made the remark in an interview with GQ magazine -- a men's magazine -- where he was asked specifically "What can you tell about a man by the type of pizza that he likes?" Cain then answered what pizza he thought a "manly man" would like – not what a woman should or shouldn't like. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Colby Hall at Mediaite highlighted how Democratic Party Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz went on The Situation Room on CNN on Friday and trashed Herman Cain for using the word "princess" for Nancy Pelosi: “I thought it was a pretty callous, sexist throwaway line.” Then Wolf Blitzer allowed her to unload a wagon of talking points against the entire GOP field for 66 seconds. When he then asked if she believed Cain or his accusers, she insisted “I think Herman Cain needs to come clean and address them and say far more than he’s said already.”

Mediaite and CNN have short memories, since Wasserman Schultz embarrassed herself back in June by insisting Anthony Weiner didn't have to share anything with the public...other than the bulge pictures he'd already posted on Twitter. Blitzer should have remembered -- since she refused to offer a Weiner opinion on CNN, as Blitzer repeatedly asked for one:

In a recent interview, Time magazine's Richard Stengel asked former President Bill Clinton why he was not a Tea Party "hero." Stengel's "criteria" were that Clinton oversaw a balanced budget and cuts to the rate of growth of the federal government.

However, as CNN's Wolf Blitzer pointed out to Stengel on Thursday, Clinton did so at the behest of a Republican Congress. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Wolf Blitzer – who will be moderating CNN's Republican presidential debate on November 22 – played a highlight reel of largely negative moments from the past GOP debates on Thursday afternoon's The Situation Room.

The "Top 10" video consisted of bloopers, controversial statements, and heated exchanges, all of which Blitzer innocently deemed "memorable moments." Rick Perry's most recent "brain freeze" was listed as the number one moment. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]
 

On Thursday's edition of The Situation Room, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer ran with the media herd that he's "probably never seen anthing as dramatic" as the Rick Perry brain freeze. Then he turned to commentator Jack Cafferty, who insisted, "Not since Sarah Palin sat down with Katie Couric as a candidate for one of the nation's highest offices disgraced himself the way Rick Perry did last night."

When Blitzer replied by estimating Palin's made about $20 million since she ran for vice president, Cafferty shot back: "Stupidity sells. I won't argue with you about that."

CNN put Republican candidate Herman Cain in the spotlight on Friday for his apparent lack of knowledge, accusing him of "dodging" tough questions. Cain had multiple times answered tough foreign policy questions by saying he would need to consider "all of the facts" before making an well thought-out decision.

"One of the things that I've always prided myself on is making an informed decision based upon knowing all of the facts," Cain stated during the May 5 Republican presidential debate. [Video clip below the break. Click here for audio.]

As the media did a victory lap over Friday's announcement by President Obama that all American troops would be removed from Iraq by the end of the year, Fareed Zakaria took a surprisingly contrary position.

Speaking from Tehran with a variety of CNN hosts throughout the day, Zakaria said this development was a disappointment for the United States and a victory for Iran (video follows with transcript and commentary):

When pressed to confirm that "some analysts" are blaming ObamaCare for higher health insurance costs, CNN's chief medical correspondent admitted that indeed they are "suggesting" Obama's Affordable Care Act is to blame.

Sanjay Gupta, once considered by President Obama for surgeon general, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday that according to "some analysts," mandates from ObamaCare have been behind the recent spike in health care costs and premiums.

[Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Jack Cafferty smeared entire crowds of people who attended recent GOP debates when he asked on Tuesday if they were "bloodthirsty."

"For the third time in as many debates, crowd members have either booed or cheered at what some say are highly inappropriate moments," Cafferty stated. He slammed both the crowd behavior and the Republican candidates for not denouncing such antics.

[Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

“The Republican Party is split right down the middle between Tea Party movement supporters and those who do not support the two-and-a-half-year-old movement, according to a new national survey,” a Thursday CNN.com “Political Ticker” post asserted in recounting the findings of a CNN/ORC poll which were cited on air by both Wolf Blitzer and John King.

Yesterday on CNN's The Situation Room, the story of President Barack Obama's uncle's arrest on charges of driving under the influence was reported.  Make that Barack Obama's half-uncle, as anchor Wolf Blitzer and correspondent Brian Todd identified him that way at least nine times.  Todd even presented a wall chart detailing "a complicated and very fascinating family tree." 

CNN and Blitzer haven't always emphasized Obama's precise relationship with other relatives.  From The Situation Room of April 12, 2011:

CNN's Jack Cafferty slammed the "intellectual lightweights" leading the Republican presidential field on Wednesday, wondering why their supporters "seem to be allergic to brains."

The CNN contributor labeled the candidates "Curly, Moe, and Larry" and sarcastically dubbed Palin a "MENSA candidate," a term reserved for smart people. Recently he also bemoaned a possible Palin run and gave credence to the conspiratorial theory that Bachmann and Perry are serious members of a theocratic fringe sect of Christianity.

[Video below the break.]

Citing a Daily Beast piece linking GOP candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry to a radical Christian strain called "Dominionism," CNN's Jack Cafferty fretted about a possible Christian theocracy in America on Wednesday's Cafferty File.

"I got to reading this piece, and it scared the hell out of me," Cafferty fearfully remarked of the article's conspiratorial claims. "We contacted both campaigns a few hours ago, haven't heard a word back form either one of them."

[Video below the break.]

CNN's Jessica Yellin used a recent CNN poll Tuesday to give credence to the White House spin that President Obama is the victim of a bad economy he inherited from Bush. What Yellin failed to report was another CNN poll showing that Americans almost two-to-one disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy.

Yellin, on Tuesday's The Situation Room, touted a July 25 CNN poll showing that 57 percent of Americans believe Bush and the Republicans are more to blame than Obama and the Democrats for the current economic troubles. She added that the Obama White House could credibly use that poll result to deflect blame toward President Bush for the poor economy.

[Video below the break.]

On Thursday's The Situation Room, Fareed Zakaria said the tactics used by Tea Party congressmen in the debt ceiling debate were akin to holding the country hostage and threatening to "blow up" the economy.

"So nobody has ever held a country hostage and say [sic] if you don't pass our policies, we'll blow up the economy, we'll blow up the credibility of the United States," Zakaria remarked on CNN Thursday. He called the recent debt ceiling fight "unprecedented" and slammed the Tea Party for its refusal to compromise.

[Video below the break.]

It's no secret that CNN's Jack Cafferty possesses a deep-seated loathing of Sarah Palin, and now that she may run for the Republican presidential ticket the grumpy CNN contributor has one more thing to grumble over.

"Palin recently said she plans to decide about 2012 in late August or September. God help us," Cafferty bemoaned Wednesday on The Situation Room. He fretted that the entry of Palin or Donald Trump into the Republican presidential race "would tend to fit nicely with the political insanity we've been watching the last couple of weeks."

[Video below the break.]

CNN's Wolf Blitzer put Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on the defensive Tuesday in a testy interview on the debt ceiling, lecturing the congressman and asking provocative questions about any divides within the party on Capitol Hill.

Blitzer told Jordan that "you've got to deal with reality now" after reporting that the Balanced Budget Amendment, a brainchild of House Republicans, failed in the Senate. "You've got to deal with the hand you're dealt, and you can pass anything you want in the House, but if it doesn't pass in the Senate, it's not going anywhere," he added.

[Video below the break.]

CNN touted results from its newly-released poll Thursday showing Americans favor a balance of spending cuts and tax increases in the debt ceiling debate, as well as raising the debt ceiling. What the network completely failed to report -- although NewsBusters reported it -- was that Americans also favored two conservative positions – passage of a balanced budget amendment, along with spending cuts and future spending caps.

CNN's deputy political director Paul Steinhauser emphasized that the poll results favored Democrats over Republicans. He insisted that "the headline here is Americans want compromise," and pointed out that 64 percent of respondents favored including both spending cuts and tax increases, "kind of like what the president is suggesting, what the Gang of Six is suggesting."