As the decade comes to a close, NewsBusters is recounting the most obnoxious liberal bias of the last 10 years. Yesterday, we presented the most outrageous examples of journalists fawning over liberal or left-wing icons.
Today’s installment showcases some of the decade’s most rancid quotes attacking Republicans or conservatives NOT named Donald Trump – the media’s attacks on the President will be featured on Wednesday.
From attacking radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh for having “blood on his Hands” to trashing the Tea Party as a bunch of Obama-hating racists the following are some of the worst attacks on conservatives and Republicans over the last 10 years:
[LANGUAGE WARNING]
DAMN THOSE CONSERVATIVES
Limbaugh Has “Blood On His Hands”
“What was the more likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing: talk radio or Bill Clinton and Janet Reno’s hands-on management of Waco, the Branch Davidian compound?...Obviously, the answer is talk radio. Specifically, Rush Limbaugh’s hate radio....Frankly, Rush, you have that blood on your hands now and you have had it for 15 years.”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann naming Rush Limbaugh the “Worst Person in the World,” April 19, 2010 Countdown.
Republicans Are the Real “Terrorists”
“What would you do, sir, if terrorists were killing 45,000 people every year in this country? Well, the current health care system, the insurance companies, and those who support them are doing just that....Because they die individually of disease and not disaster, [radio host] Neal Boortz and those who ape him in office and out, approve their deaths, all 45,000 of them – a year – in America. Remind me again, who are the terrorists?”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann in a “Quick Comment” on Countdown, January 5, 2010.
Another Christian Terror Spree
Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, talking about radical Muslims: “Somehow, the idea got into their minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter.”
Host Tavis Smiley: “But Christians do that every single day in this country.”
Ali: “Do they blow people up every day?”
Smiley: “Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that’s what Columbine is – I could do this all day long....There are folk in the Tea Party, for example, every day who are being recently arrested for making threats against elected officials, for calling people ‘nigger’ as they walk into Capitol Hill, for spitting on people. That’s within the political – that’s within the body politic of this country.”
— PBS’s Tavis Smiley, May 25, 2010.
Palin and Tea Party to Blame for Gabby Giffords Shooting
“We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before....Her father says that ‘the whole Tea Party’ was her enemy. And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous ‘crosshairs’ list. Just yesterday, Ezra Klein remarked that opposition to health reform was getting scary. Actually, it’s been scary for quite a while, in a way that already reminded many of us of the climate that preceded the Oklahoma City bombing....Violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hatemongers.”
— New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in a 3:22pm ET January 8, 2011 blog posting, less than two hours after news broke of Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting.
When Will Navy SEALs Take Out Death-Dealing George W. Bush?
“So when does SEAL Unit 6, or whatever it’s called, drop in on George Bush? Bush was responsible for a lot more death, innocent death, than bin Laden. Wasn’t he, or am I wrong here?”
— Left-wing radio host and former CNN producer Mike Malloy on The Mike Malloy Show, May 2, 2011.
Reviling Reagan
“Basically we have a President [Ronald Reagan] who treated the poor poorly, did not tend to the sick, broke laws, committed nearly impeachable offenses by your own reporting. Why should we be lionizing him in the broad public domain? You certainly don’t.”
— Ex-Newsweek editor Jon Meacham hosting PBS’s Need to Know, February 4, 2011 talking to filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, whose HBO documentary Reagan debuted February 7, 2011.
MSNBC = Mean-Spirited, Nasty, Belligerent Chris
“If only the people who voted in 2010 show up this November, you can kiss all this goodbye. You’ll see the beginning of the end to what could have been — what many of us believe should have been — an historic turn toward full democratic government in this country....It will be a doubledowning of efforts to suppress the votes of those who voted for him in historic numbers, the return to something like Jim Crow days, redolent of all the old anti-black gimmickry of that
time — literacy tests and poll taxes and all the rest. The goal will be to erase not just Obama from the history books, but any evidence that someone of his background should ever think of being President. It will mean victory for the haters.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews opening the January 7, 2014 Hardball.
Host Chris Matthews: “One thing I notice about black people at different conventions. You go to a Democratic convention with Donna [Edwards] and black folk are hanging together and having a good time. They’re smiling, they’re enjoying themselves. They feel very much at home. You go to a Republican event, you get a feeling that you are all told, ‘Individually now, don’t bunch up. Don’t, don’t, don’t get together. Don’t get together, don’t crowd, you’ll scare these people.’ Is that true in the Republican Party? Is that still true in your party? Did you fear that if you got together with some other African-Americans, these white guys might get scared of you?”
Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele: “No! What are you talking about?!”
— MSNBC’s Hardball, January 17, 2011.
“What’s worse, Thom Tillis or Ebola?”
— Matthews on Hardball, October 27, 2014.
“There’s a troll-like quality to Cruz. He operates below the level of human life....What is he, a theocrat? Maybe he is....There’s something about that guy — who’s always reminded me of Joe McCarthy — and there’s something about him that is negative and menacing.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Morning Joe, February 10, 2016.
America As Bad As the 9/11 Terrorists
“The dead in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania were used to sanctify the state’s lust for war....Because few cared to examine our activities in the Muslim world, the attacks became certified as incomprehensible by the state and its lap dogs, the press....Our brutality and triumphalism, the byproducts of nationalism and our infantile pride, revived the jihadist movement. We became the radical Islamist movement’s most effective recruiting tool. We descended to its barbarity. We became terrorists too. The sad legacy of 9/11 is that the assholes, on each side, won.”
— Ex-New York Times reporter Chris Hedges writing on Truthdig.com, September 10, 2011.
If Romney Wins, “A Lot of People Will Die”
“What the press should be focused on is what are the consequences of repeal of ObamaCare. And the consequences, as Mike [Kinsley] just indicated, are death. Repeal equals death. People will die in the United States if ObamaCare is repealed. That is not an exaggeration. That is not crying ‘fire.’ It’s a simple fact....They [the Obama campaign] need to move on to a debate about the main issue, which is ObamaCare. And they can bring death into the conversation and say, ‘No, we’re not calling Mitt Romney a murderer. What we are saying is that if he’s elected President, a lot of people will die.”
— Ex-Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, then MSNBC political analyst, on The Ed Show, August 9, 2012.
Republicans = Virulent Racists
“They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
— Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief and former political director for ABC News David Chalian talking over a picture of Ann and Mitt Romney, as caught on an open microphone during ABCNews.com coverage of the Republican National Convention, August 28, 2012.
Sick and Twisted Attack on Sarah Palin
“One of the most comprehensive firstperson accounts of slavery comes from the personal diary of a man called Thomas Thistlewood, who kept copious notes for 39 years.... In 1756, he records that ‘a slave named Darby catched eating canes; had him well flogged and pickled, then made Hector, another slave, s-h-i-t in his mouth.’ This became known as ‘Darby’s Dose,’ a punishment invented by Thistlewood that spoke only of the slave owners’ savagery and inhumanity....
When Mrs. Palin invoked slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate.”
— MSNBC host Martin Bashir on November 15, 2013 reacting to Sarah Palin’s comparison of excessive debt to slavery. Bashir apologized the following Monday, but MSNBC permitted him to stay on the air that entire week. After an extended Thanksgiving “vacation,” he quit on December 4, 2013.
Gun Owners, NRA = “Curse Upon the American Landscape”
“There are a few things I hate more than the NRA. I mean truly. I think they’re pigs. I think they don’t care about human life. I think they are a curse upon the American landscape.”
— Former NBC and CBS morning news host Bryant Gumbel, who currently hosts HBO’s Real Sports, in an interview with Rolling Stone posted January 20, 2015.
Should We Let Shooting Get In The Way of Calling Him a Hater?
“Obviously it’s a delicate thing because everybody is wishing the congressman well and hoping that he recovers, but Steve Scalise has a history....we’ve all been forced to sort of ignore on race. He did come to leadership after some controversy over attending a white nationalist event – which he says he didn’t know what it was. He also co-sponsored a bill to amend the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. He voted for the House health care bill which....would gut health care for millions of people, including three million children. And he co-sponsored a bill to repeal the ban on semi-automatic weapons. Because he is in jeopardy and everybody is pulling for him, are we required in a moral sense to put that aside at the moment?”
— Host Joy Reid on MSNBC’s AM Joy, June 17, 2017.
ObamaCare Repeal Is “Death to Poor People” Act
Host Joy Reid: “It’s in the old Confederate states where they have refused to put about four million people onto the Medicaid rolls out of this sense that this is sort of brown people who just want to take, and that is the reason they want to have it expanded.”...
Daily Beast columnist Dean Obeidallah: “This [repealing ObamaCare] will kill people. Why not just call it ‘Death to Poor People’? Maybe more people in the Freedom Caucus will actually support it then. Because fundamentally that's what they’re doing.”
— MSNBC’s AM Joy, April 29, 2017.
“Monster” Paul Ryan’s “Cruelty” Is “Beyond Belief”
“Paul Ryan has been dreaming about cutting this program [Medicaid] since he was sitting – hanging out at keggers in college – he’s told that story. What kind of a monster is he? Who dreams of cutting Medicaid? They act like people are merely takers – they don’t act like they understand hardship of any kind. Paul Ryan – who actually got Social Security as a survivor when his father died, God bless him. I mean, the cruelty....it’s the only word we can use – the cruelty of this bill is beyond belief.”
— MSNBC political analyst Joan Walsh on MSNBC’s The Last Word, June 23, 2017.
Pence = “Dangerous” Christian With “Mental Illness”
Co-host Sunny Hostin: “When you have a Mike Pence who now puts this religious veneer on things and who calls people values voters, I think we’re this a dangerous situation. Look I’m Catholic. I’m a faithful person, but I don’t know that I want my vice president speaking in tongues and having Jesus speak to him.”
Co-host Joy Behar: “Like I said before, it’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you....That’s called mental illness, if I’m not correct. Hearing voices.”
— ABC’s The View, February 13, 2018.
Trump Supporters Would “Lie to Their Own Mother” and Let Him “Kill” Their Grandparents
“We’re up against people who will lie, steal, and cheat, lie to their own mother, lie to themselves about what’s right for this country, about truth and about facts. If they will ignore any misgiving, any terrible deed, any awful saying they will just ignore it for their own political purpose. They will ignore the bigotry and the pettiness and the childishness about what Donald Trump said about me and LeBron James and others just because they want to gain some sort of political clout or they want a few more dollars in tax money. At what cost?”
— CNN host Don Lemon on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time, August 6, 2018.
“I would like a pollster to ask this question: How many people in the Republican Party think that it would be okay for Donald Trump to dissolve their own grandparents? I’m virtually certain that if it was a Donald Trump-related question you’d get like 10 percent that would be like ‘Donald Trump has the power to do whatever he wants – including kill my [grand] parents.’”
— National affairs analyst John Heilemann on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, August 16, 2018.
Scornful Farewell to Justice Scalia
“Died in a ranch in Texas. God bless America.”
“Wish I could be a fly on the wall for Scalia’s chat with the Devil.”
— Pair of tweets from The New Yorker’s managing editor Silvia Killingsworth, posted within minutes of the announcement of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death on February 13, 2016.
Sliming Kavanaugh
“I’ve never heard of a guy who is a one-time rapist. I’ve never heard of a one-time sexual assaulter. I grew up with guys [Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh] like this. He’s from around this area, right? He is the fifth guy in a gang rape. He’s the guy who comes in after he is drunk because everybody else encourages him and he can get away with it. He’s been pretty much covered his entire life. And now he’s on the Supreme Court, where he can move that same despicable misogynist attitude he has gotten away with his entire cowardly life to the greatest misogynist of all, which is the President of the United States.”
— MSNBC contributor and TheRoot.com’s Jason Johnson on MSNBC’s AM Joy, September 15, 2019.
