On the eve of the 2016 Republican National Convention (RNC) finally getting underway, the major broadcast and cable networks had wall-to-wall coverage of both the RNC preparations in addition to the horrible and deadly ambush of Baton Rouge, Louisiana police officers that stretched from morning well into the late evening.
Amidst the seriousness of these situations, there were a handful of utterly baffling, comedic, and eye-rolling comments from anchors and commentators across the liberal media that left viewers either laughing, shaking their heads or both.
Without any further a due, here’s the list (in chronological order with the first two being thanks to my colleague Nick Fondacaro):
1. ABC/CNN’s Donna Brazile was participating in the “Powerhouse Roundtable” of ABC’s This Week with ABC News special correspondent and former Bush official Matthew Dowd when the topic of marriages (in context of political ones) arose. Somehow, the unmarried Brazile told Dowd that she’s “looked around a lot” in her life including having “look[ed] around at you sometimes when I’m bored.”
2. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was hosting his network’s live coverage of the Baton Rouge shooting and in the process of speaking to an eyewitness, Cooper seemed skeptical about the man’s claim the shooter was dead based on the fact that he was laying on the around.
Here’s the utterly baffling question that yes, Anderson, was a “dumb question”: “This may be a dumb question but you're describing him as a body. How do you know he was dead or a body as opposed to somebody just sleeping?”
3. MSNBC’s Brian Williams has been on the air quite a great deal with all the horrifying news across the globe, so this one struck this writer as particularly strange early Sunday night when he described armored Cleveland police officers as looking like “Luke Skywalker” instead of “friendlier” police patrolling without protection for themselves.
“We've seen there the two steps of security from the friendlier looking bicycle police wearing shorts, local Cleveland P.D., to the kind of Luke Skywalker look on the new uniforms among the more armored bicycle cops,” Williams pontificated.
4. MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews is known for his infamous May 3 hot mic comment about Melania Trump, so it’s fitting that this list ends with another one. Williams had just expressed his surprise at Matthews being someone who would watch golf like the British Open (as Matthews had just made a golf analogy) and after Williams tossed to commercial, Matthews jumped.
“We look good, you guys,” exclaimed Matthews to Williams and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Of course, Williams immediately struck quite the smirk as the camera faded to black.
