Media Mash: Wis. Protest Edition; Bozell and Hannity Analyze Media's B

February 25th, 2011 10:53 AM
"It's like they have the same writer!" Fox News' Sean Hannity marveled after watching a montage of liberal journalists comparing the labor union protests in Madison, Wisconsin, with the anti-Mubarak demonstrations weeks ago in Cairo. "Sean, this is really goofy. These reporters should be embarrassed," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell agreed on last night's "Hannity." "If you want to find…

NYT's Paul Krugman, Inspired By Leftist Paranoia, Sees 'Shock Doctrine

February 25th, 2011 10:28 AM
Paul Krugman’s New York Times column for Friday, “Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.,” used for both headline and text fodder a book of far-left paranoid propaganda by Naomi Klein to push Krugman’s pet idea: That Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker is trying to make a “power grab” in order “to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy.” Here’s a…

NBC and CBS Tout Prank Call on Gov. Walker as 'Evidence' He Wants to

February 24th, 2011 12:59 PM
On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Michael Isikoff claimed a prank phone call on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker "provided his critics with evidence that his real motivation is what they've been saying all along, to crush public unions." On Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Erica Hill declared the "embarrassing" call revealed Walker's "plan for putting pressure on the big unions…

Networks Skip Democratic Congressman's Call for Union Protesters to 'G

February 24th, 2011 12:45 PM
Wednesday's nightly newscasts and Thursday's morning shows completely ignored video of a Massachusetts congressman exhorting union protesters in Wisconsin to "get a little bloody" in the fight against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's Today and CBS's Early Show all skipped the extreme rhetoric by Democratic Representative Michael Capuano. Fox News on…

Fleebaggers: The New Cut-and-Run Democrats

February 23rd, 2011 4:03 PM
First lady Michelle Obama said, "Let's Move!" Who knew Democratic politicians in Wisconsin and Indiana would take her literally? Faced with stifling debt, bloated pensions and intractable government unions, liberal Midwestern legislators have fled those states — paralyzing Republican fiscal reform efforts. Like Monty Python's Brave Sir Robin and his band of quivering knights, these elected…

Bozell Column: The Media on Wisconsin? A Bad Joke

February 22nd, 2011 11:00 PM
The battle in Madison, Wisconsin between new Gov. Scott Walker and the public-sector union hacks offers an amazing study in journalistic double standards. The same national media that have spent the last two years drawing devil’s horns and Klan hoods on the Tea Party protesters have switched sides with lightning speed. In the Wisconsin protesters, they find sweetness and light, “hope and change…

Bob Schieffer Wonders if Union Protests Make Wisconsin 'The Tunisia of

February 22nd, 2011 5:18 PM
On CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, host Bob Schieffer interviewed Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan and compared union protests in that state to the democracy movements spreading across the Middle East: "There are also reports that this could spread to at least nine other states....Is Madison, Wisconsin, Congressman, the Tunisia of American politics now?" At the top of the…

ICYMI: MRC's Graham Discussing Wisconsin Protest Bias on Feb. 21 'Your

February 22nd, 2011 4:12 PM
The liberal media have virtually ignored the scandal of medical doctors handing out fraudulent sick notes to labor union protesters in Madison, Wisconsin, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham noted on yesterday's "Your World with Neil Cavuto." What's more, while the media have been quick to portray Wisconsin public sector employees as victims, media outlets have ignored the perspective of…

Wisconsin Unions vs. The Tea Party: A Classic Double Standard

February 22nd, 2011 3:11 PM
Loud protests by Wisconsin public employee unions against a budget reform proposal from new Governor Scott Walker have drawn considerable national network news attention since Thursday, the day Democratic state senators fled the state in a last-ditch gambit to prevent the bill from becoming law. A story-by-story analysis by the Media Research Center shows the Wisconsin protests are a perfect…

CBS's Wragge Frets: 'Should Unions Be on Alert All Around the Country

February 22nd, 2011 11:51 AM
In an interview with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge worried about the fallout from budget cutting in Wisconsin: "It seems to look like this governor [Scott Walker] is trying to basically break unions and that other states may then follow suit. Is this – should unions be on alert all around the country?" Huckabee pointed out: "I think…

CBS Decides Wisconsin State Workers Underpaid, FNC Shows Doctor’s No

February 22nd, 2011 9:33 AM
CBS on Monday night tried to corroborate the case for the position on protesting Wisconsin state union workers, claiming without citing any source that they earn less than comparable private sector works, while FNC put the union workers in a less oppressed light, showing how “apparent doctors” were “handing out doctor’s notes for sick days. Our undercover producer got a medical excuse, no…

From Coolidge to Reagan to Scott Walker

February 22nd, 2011 4:00 AM
When three-fourths of the Boston police department went on strike in 1919, leading to broken shop windows and looting, then-Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge called out the state militia and broke the strike. Coolidge declared, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." His courage propelled him to the vice presidency and eventually to the…

Feds and Unions: Foes of Educational Reform

February 22nd, 2011 2:00 AM
"The fate of our country won’t be decided on a battlefield. It will be determined in a classroom." Do you believe that? Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker called on 14 state Senate Democrats, who had fled the state instead of voting on a deficit-cutting anti-teachers-union bill, to return and do their jobs. Senate Republicans hold a 19-14 majority there but can't vote on the bill unless…

WaPo/Newsweek 'On Faith' Site: Jesus Favors 'Cheddar Revolution

February 21st, 2011 6:01 PM
Leave it to "On Faith" to offer a Marxist/left-wing liberation theology twist on the public sector unions protesting Gov. Scott Walker's (R-Wis.) budget plans. On Saturday the Washington Post/Newsweek online feature published a "Guest Voices" by Wendy Cooper in which the divinity student lamented that middle-class government workers in the Badger State have much in common with the masses in…