Fwd: MRC Alert: Matthews Desperately Pleas for Republicans to Come on Hardball to Denounce Limbaugh

 

A daily compilation edited by Brent H. Baker, CyberAlert items are drawn from daily BiasAlert posts and distributed by the Media Research Center's News Analysis Division, the leader since 1987 in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.

 

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday May 12, 2010 @ 10:51 AM EDT

1. Matthews Desperately Pleas for Republicans to Come on Hardball to Denounce Limbaugh
A desperate-sounding Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's Hardball, put out a call to a Republican, any Republican, to come on his airwaves to denounce Rush Limbaugh as a liar. At the top of the show the MSNBC host issued the following challenge: "And out on a Limbaugh! We're issuing a challenge tonight and every night to elected Republicans. Come on Hardball please sir and madam and tell us you disagree with Rush on anything! Tell us you've had it with his distortions, his misrepresentations, his outright falsehoods. We invite you to tell us he's not the leader of the Republican Party. It's our standing offer. Come on Hardball and tell us Rush isn't telling the truth."

2. CBS 'Early Show' Sees Kagan As Not Liberal Enough, Maybe on the Right
In an interview with Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith lamented President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court: "Liberals feel let down because she would be filling a seat left by John Paul Stevens, they don't feel like she's enough – has enough gravitas to fill his shoes." In his first question to Biden, Smith fretted: "Some people have said she's a person so careful as to leave no footprint. Do you really know what you're getting? Do the American people know what they're getting?"

3. MSNBC Plays Up Talking Point That Kagan May Not Be 'Liberal Enough'
Twice in the span of ten minutes, MSNBC on Tuesday ran segments touting left-wing complaints that Elena Kagan may not be "liberal enough." News Live host Peter Alexander seriously speculated of the Supreme Court pick: "...But who is really most frustrated with the pick? It seems as many liberal groups are upset by this as are conservatives."

4. To NY Times, Obama Pick Elena Kagan a 'Liberal,' But Only 'in Moderation'
The New York Times' Peter Baker wonders if Obama's pick Elena Kagan is liberal enough to battle with the staunch conservatives on the Supreme Court, while other Times reporters fawn over Kagan the "opera-loving, poker-playing, glass-ceiling-shattering" product of New York's Upper West Side.

5. CBS's Lesley Stahl Gushes: Obama Picked a 'Mediator' 'in His Own Image' for the Supreme Court
60 Minutes journalist Lesley Stahl on Monday appeared on Morning Joe and touted Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick as a "mediator" who was chosen "in his image." The CBS correspondent enthused that a conciliator is "what [Obama] was."

6. Surprise! Lauer to Biden: Isn't Job of Justice Only to Interpret Constitution?
In what may be a sign of the media's confidence that Elena Kagan will be easily confirmed to the Supreme Court, NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show, didn't feel the need to sell Kagan to viewers and actually asked somewhat tough questions to Vice President Joe Biden. Lauer even hit Biden from the right when he asked the following: "When we say maybe does she or does she not understand the plight of ordinary people, is that even important? Isn't the job of a Supreme Court justice to understand the Constitution only and interpret it?"

7. Dan Rather Repeats His Stale Sophistries About 'Tight Money' and 'Fierce Independence'
Dan Rather just won't go away nor update his obstinate refusal to acknowledge liberal media bias. Confronted with MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski's observation that the mainstream media lack "balance" and convey "a liberal world view," Rather rejected the premise and offered up a banal defense: "What is the definition of liberal? I myself favor strong military, tight money, and clean water." That's the very same obfuscating silliness he put forward as an argument as far back as 1999 in an appearance on CNN's Crossfire. In an interview for Julie Menin's Give & Take program for WNBC-TV's "New York Nonstop" digital channel, which will run this weekend and which TVNewser.com posted Wednesday night to highlight Rather's take on a CNN-CBS News merger, Rather, making a parody of himself, declared his 2004 discredited hit piece of George W. Bush was "true" and insisted "I'm independent, fiercely independent," maintaining: "I'm independent, I'm going to play no favorites, pull no punches. When I go down the street and knock out windows on one side, I'll knock them out on the other side. I think my record shows that."

8. CBS's Rodriguez Praises Girl Who Wants to Be President: 'You Sound Like President Obama'
Late in Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez interviewed 9-year-old actress Fatima Ptacek and wondered: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Ptacek replied: "I definitely want to be the first female president. But I also want to be a lawyer, so I can protect those innocent people." Rodriguez gushed: "Oh, that's good. You sound like President Obama." Rodriguez then remarked: "So he [Obama] went to Harvard. Where do you want to go to college?" Ptacek predictably responded: "Harvard."