Chris Matthews once again embarrasses himself with an unhinged and ill-informed attack on Rep. Michele Bachmann in this clip. The entire basis for his idiotic attacks, repeatedly calling her a “balloonhead,” stems from Bachmann claiming that the Founders, also mentioning John Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams specifically by name, continued to work until the blight of slavery became a thing of the past in America.

Chris Matthews was nearly apoplectic in his questioning of Tea Party Express co-founder Sal Russo on the topic of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and her controversial re-imagining of history where the founding fathers found a way to end slavery in their lifetime. Repeatedly calling Bachmann a “balloon head,” Matthews demanded to know why Russo and the Tea Party wanted Bachmann to give a response to the State of the Union address or, more generally, why they ever wanted her to open her mouth in the first place?

I don’t believe Bachmann said anything about “in their lifetime.” But it’s Chris Matthews that needs to bone up on his American History, not Rep. Bachmann. As a Founder and the second President, it’s true that John Adams put the Republic above what was then an impossible issue to resolve. It is inaccurate to suggest he was a proponent of slavery with no role in its ultimately being eliminated in the U.S. No, he did not sacrifice the forming of a Republic for it, which is precisely what a strong position against it would have meant. But he did make his sentiments known (for more), taking pride in never having employed a slave. He is said to have found it “repugnant” and he argued against the Southern position that blacks not be included in population figures during the Continental Congress. In short, he did what he could without sacrificing the greater cause at the time. (more…)

To the leftists at Media Matters for America, even mere days after a suspected Islamist bomb plot was defused in Manhattan’s Times Square, national security is one big joke.

They could care less about U.S. security as long as they get to stick the knife in Glenn Beck, the Tea Party movement, conservatives, and others deemed enemies of George Soros’s utopian “open society.” It’s all about scoring against their political enemies and they don’t care if innocents get hurt in the process.

So it’s no surprise that the media bias analysts at the “non-profit,” George Soros-funded “watchdog group” like to mock Glenn Beck at every opportunity. They hate Beck and everything he represents, especially his ability to impact the nation’s political debate: I get it. But they’re playing with fire when they mock Beck for warning about the subversion threat posed by Venezuela’s communist strongman Hugo Chavez. (more…)

In his latest column, Bill O’Reilly thinks it just might be:

While many Americans believe the national press is biased toward the left, a more damning charge is now being debated: Are U.S. media outlets actually corrupt? Those who believe they are point to the cheerleading of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and to the recent reportage on the tea party movement.

When the Founding Fathers granted the press privileges beyond those of everyday citizens, they did so with some trepidation. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, opposites in political thinking, both loathed the early press in America because it often operated irresponsibly; that is, it was not unusual for money to change hands in the production of a news story.

But Jefferson, Adams and their peers understood that the people needed information in order to make informed decisions at the voting booth. Therefore, the greater good was served by allowing a free press in the hope that the honest journalists would outnumber the dishonest ones.

Today, we have a problem in America. Entire news operations are devoting themselves not to reporting events honestly, but to promoting a certain ideology or party.

(more…)

As we celebrate Presidents Day today, we may observe that there have been no shortage of people attempting to link themselves to the legacy of the greatest President of these United States. This includes the current President of the United States, who commented on Honest Abe’s example in a February 12, 2009 AP story:

Lincoln “could have sought revenge,” Obama said, but he insisted that no Confederate troops be punished.

“All Lincoln wanted was for Confederate troops to go back home and return to work on their farms and in their shops,” Obama said. “That was the only way, Lincoln knew, to repair the rifts that had torn this country apart. It was the only way to begin the healing that our nation so desperately needed.”

That’s great and it obviously speaks to the “let’s forget about ideologies and principles and just all get along” message that is a central theme of the Obama administration. Nothing would please the President more than for us crabby conservatives to shut up and go back, both figuratively and literally, to our farms and shops. (more…)

The mainstream media’s headlong and heady descent into denigrating George W. Bush over the last decade signaled a dark moment in media history that has surely damaged American consciousness. Caught up in “Bush-bashing,” the MSM reached a critical turning point, and likely one of no return.

At times consciously and even triumphally, the media increasingly abused the traditional journalistic standards of independence and neutrality in favor of functioning as a virtual arm of the liberal Democratic Party. They took on, in effect, a new and disturbing identity.

So consumed by politics, power and status did the MSM become during this period that bashing the former president became standard media fare. This death by a thousand cuts proceeded unabashedly, unabatedly, and largely without challenge by Bush and his staff during his presidencies.

Jim A. Kuypers concluded as much in his study, Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age, in which he meticulously documents how the agenda-driven and “anti-democratic” media not long after the 9/11 terror attacks began pervasively distorting the former president’s statements, failing to report critical parts of his speeches, and even “framing” (manipulating stories) to portray the president as an enemy.

Among countless examples: (more…)