Jon Stewart said Thursday press reporting of President Obama’s healthcare summit was so bad that if he had to score it like an Olympic event, he’d disqualify the contestants for sucking.

The comedian devoted a full ten minutes to the bipartisan meeting on Thursday’s "Daily Show," and was largely an equal opportunity offender.

After taking what some would consider to be a cheap shot at "Senator Tom ‘Killing Abortion Doctors Might Not Be Such A Terrible Idea’ Coburn," Stewart quipped moments later, "That’s Senator Chuck ‘If I Was Any More Liberal and Jewish I’d Have T*ts and Be Barbra Streisand’ Schumer." 

But much of his attack was about the media coverage, especially toward the end (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

JON STEWART: Now, obviously there was grandstanding. There was posturing but there were some really substantive points made here. And there were issues where there was great agreement on healthcare on both Democratic and Republican sides and room for negotiation. This really did have some important steps for the American people’s understanding of this complex and essential issues. Or, to put it another way, media:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS: Was any progress made? Was anyone winning?

ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC: Who had the best advantage so far?

ED HENRY, CNN: At least in the early — in the first 90 minutes or so I’m not seeing any real chance for progress.

KELLY: Is any one actually winning this debate?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN: If this were sort of the Winter Olympic Games how would you score this?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEWART: I would disqualify you for sucking.

So would I, Jon. 

This summit might not have produced the fireworks the media were looking for, or the results. But those that actually watched the full meeting were treated to specifics about this issue — especially from the Republicans present — that so-called journalists have been avoiding since this debate began a year ago.

Maybe this is the problem with today’s press: details are no longer important. What can’t be expressed in a snappy soundbite is just too inconvenient.

On the other hand, it’s possible media members didn’t like what they saw because they weren’t involved.

Perhaps if THEY’RE not part of the story, they can’t find it newsworthy.

Hmmm.

A report on the health care summit on Friday’s CBS Early Show featured a clip of President Obama scolding lawmakers for "trading talking points" during the meeting, that was followed by  correspondent Bill Plante pointing a finger at the GOP: "But from their first speaker, Republicans never backed down from their opposition to the Democrats’ bill."

Plante noted that "John McCain, the President’s opponent In 2008, challenged the process by which the Democrats’ bill was produced." After a clip was played of McCain denouncing the lack of change in Washington, Plante touted how "the President shot back," playing a clip of Obama proclaiming "the election is over." Plante also highlighted an exchange in which Obama slammed Senator Lamar Alexander, telling the Tennessee Republican to get his "facts straight."

Oddly, after displaying the President’s clearly partisan attacks, Plante concluded: "Democrats emerged from the meeting saying they still want bipartisanship. Republicans said they don’t see that happening."

On Thursday’s CBS Evening News, White House correspondent Chip Reid described how "exasperated" President Obama was with Republicans, who proved they were the "party of no."

Plante did acknowledge that the summit was ultimately a stalemate: "In the end, it was pretty much a draw. The President at the end seemed to suggest that he would encourage Democrats to pass a health care bill without Republicans, using the legislative tactic known as reconciliation. And then let the voters sort it all out next November."

Following Plante’s report, co-host Harry Smith discussed the summit with Face the Nation host Bob schieffer and asked if the Democrats would now "go it alone" on health care reform. Schieffer responded:

I think the Democrats will probably go it alone….go ahead with this process called reconciliation….there is going to be an enormous cost, because Republicans are just going to go crazy about this and I think that they that will vow to tie up the Senate on every other single issue that comes before it this year. The Democrats, by the same token, will be saying, okay, go ahead and try to do that and see what the voters think of that.

Smith followed up by describing Obama’s bold gamble: "This is basically the President saying, taking all the chips, putting them in the middle of the table saying ‘I’m all in on this deal, we’re going to pass this health care the way it is. I will risk my presidency, I will risk the fall elections on this one issue come hell or high water.’" Schieffer agreed: "I think you’re right. And he is basically daring the Republicans to do the same thing."

Neither Schieffer nor Smith seemed to notice a just-released Gallup poll that showed that a majority of Americans, 52%, oppose the use of reconciliation, compared to only 39% who approve of the legislative tactic.

Stop the presses: David Gergen actually said something nice about the GOP Thursday.

"I don’t think [the Democrats] got the breakthrough they were looking for in terms of the public, reaching the public and trying to change opinions," Gergen told Wolf Blitzer’s "Situation Room" panel shortly after President Obama’s healthcare summit ended.

"That is because intellectually, the Republicans had the best day they have had in years."

Gergen even reiterated, "The best day they have had in years."

Less amazing was the silence from the panel — which consisted of Candy Crowley, John King, Gloria Borger, and Joe Johns — when Gergen made this statement (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Hot Air):

WOLF BLITZER, HOST: And the Republicans had less speaking time, but they took full advantage of the minutes they had.

DAVID GERGEN: Yes, they do. Wolf, before you get to that, the president deserves enormous credit for putting this on. He was I thought extremely graceful and occasionally with an edge, but he was graceful and dominated much of the proceedings, and the Democrats got stronger in afternoon than in the morning. Even so, I don’t think they got the breakthrough they were looking for in terms of the public, reaching the public and trying to change opinions. That is because intellectually, the Republicans had the best day they have had in years. The best day they have had in years. They, you know, there has been a perception that the Republicans are brain dead and ideologically resistant to anything, and they have no ideas and the rest of it. I thought it was not just the, you know, people like Lamar Alexander and Tom Coburn, but the new people, of Ryan and Cantor were fresh, and I think that they really evened the score and kept it even.

Did you hear that pin drop on the set when Gergen said this?

The Washington Post’s Peter Slevin lauded abortion doctor Carol Ball on Feb. 26, for bravely traveling to perform elective abortions in South Dakota when no doctors in state will.

In his glowing tribute “Minnesota Abortion Provider Helps Meet Need in South Dakota,” Slevin not only turned Ball into a hero, but sympathized with her “difficult” situation. “This is a difficult time for Ball and her colleagues,” Slevin wrote before citing last year’s murder of abortion provider George Tiller.

Slevin and Ball downplayed the controversial nature of her profession. Ball told the Post her decision to start performing abortions was easy. “It was legal. It was right…Why would anybody argue with that?” Talking about pro-lifers upset with what she does in South Dakota Ball said: “I think to myself, ‘What century do we live in?’”

Even though we live in the 21st century, no doctor in South Dakota will performs elective abortions so four doctors take turns staffing the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls.

Slevin quoted the clinic director, sympathizing further with the pro-abortion side of South Dakota’s controversy.

“It would be a dream to have a doctor in town,” says Andrea, the clinic director, who, for security reasons, spoke on condition that her last name not be used. “Until I got here, I didn’t understand the magnitude of the political environment and the woman’s decision and how much what we do matters.”

Ball also told Slevin that she used to be afraid to tell people what line of work she was in, but now she will tell people she works for Planned Parenthood.

“Along with her desire for privacy, she wanted to protect herself and her family from harm. She remains cautious. But her children are older, and she wants to show them the importance of ‘standing up for what you believe,’” Slevin wrote. He didn’t point out the contradiction between her being able to stand up for what she believes, but dismissing those who protest because they believe abortion is the killing of innocent human life.

Pushing a liberal pro-abortion agenda is nothing new for the Post. In October 2009, the paper featured a sympathetic article about a woman who had 15 abortions in 15 years. The Post also featured a medical student’s opinions about why she supported abortion in June 2009. And when the number of abortions dropped in 2008, the Post included three liberal voices and only conservative voice in their story.

Other mainstream media outlets have pushed the same agenda. After Tiller’s death, CMI exposed the way the media went to lengths to portray him as “martyr.” Networks ABC and NBC only referred to Tiller’s death as deadly, while ignoring the violent nature of abortions.

The latest episode of the NewBusters’ Notable Quotables show features a special guest, Big Hollywood Contributor and stand-up comedian Evan Sayet.

Sayet stopped the Media Research Center studio to join MRC news analysts in mocking some of the latest and most outrageous sound bites from the liberal media.

This week we have CBS’s Chip Reid showing exasperation at Americans not appreciating the "success" of Obama’s stimulus package, FNC host Geraldo Rivera suggesting Dick Cheney is aiding terrorism, and ABC’s John Hendren dismissing the nation-wide anti-Democrat sentiment as merely "a tempest in a teapot." And that’s just to name a few.

Current and past episodes, based on the MRC’s bi-weekly Notable Quotables publication, can be found on our video sharing website Eyeblast.tv.

Have a good weekend and enjoy the show!    

What good is the liberal media’s "truth squadding" or "fact-checking" when it doesn’t reveal any facts and is completely divorced from the truth?

MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell gave a stark answer to that question this morning, when she appeared on "Morning Joe" to discuss yesterday’s health care summit. O’Donnell heaped praise on the President for being "in command of some of the facts", like the "fact" that premiums would decline 10-13 percent under his plan. If she had actually looked at the CBO report she was citing, however, she would know that the plan is expected to raise, not lower, premiums for individuals by 10-13 percent.

So for all her "truth-squadding" and "fact-checking", O’Donnell is still confused about the difference between up and down. Either that, or she didn’t truth-squad or fact-check anything, but simply said what she wanted to believe. Maybe she should spend less time devising her awkward hyphenated verbs , and more actually examining the facts.

I must say I’m sort of struck by what his become this sort of narrative of criticism of the president who’s too professorial, that he’s been removed from the process. And then when he gets engaged in the process, then he’s accused of being bullying of lowering himself to the level of other members, so he seems to be constantly criticized for a number of these things.

I think that one thing that everybody should respect is that the president was in command of a number of the facts. I’m doing some of the truth-squadding and the fact-checking today. when the president was whipping out that he’d studied the CBO numbers and in fact premiums would not rise under this bill for individuals who purchase health insurance, but that it would drop by 10-13 percent, and that he’d gone through all the CBO reports. That should be refreshing to people I think that the president was so heavily in the details about what it means for the average American. Is it going to cost you more, is it going to cost you less?

More, actually.

Granted, the reason premiums would go up under ObamaCare is that many people would be buying higher quality health care plans. That was the crux of the disagreement in the summit between the president, who stressed the quality aspect, and Sen. Lamar Alexander, who noted the higher premiums.

So each emphasized the element of the CBO report that underscored his respective argument. "O’Donnell’s statement, on the other hand," notes David Freddoso, "is completely wrong."

Now before certain lefty watchdog wannabes get all wee weed up–as they have at some columnists who have simply noted the predicted rise in premiums under Obama’s plan–let me note that the premiums in question are those associated with the individual insurance market, not the group market. These were also the premiums to which O’Donnell was referring ("…for individuals who purchase health insurance").

The angry left also likes to point out that many of the people in the individual market will receive subsidies to buy health insurance. But as Philip Klein notes,

subsidies do not change the underlying cost of the policies — the only difference is that other taxpayers are picking up the rest of the higher tab. And  14 million Americans who earn too much to qualify for subsidies (the cutoff is $43,320 for individuals; $88,000 for a family of four) would see their premiums go up. The point is that when the health care push began, we were led to believe that legislation would reduce the economic burden of health care costs by lowering premiums and containing the growth of health care spending. But the current legislation does not accomplish that goal. If liberals still want to argue that helping more Americans obtain coverage is worth the costs, that’s fine. But saying that government will subsidize the higher premium costs created by health care legislation is a far cry from boasting that reforming our health care system will lower the actual price of insurance.

The point is that O’Donnell was completely off base in her statistical analysis of ObamaCare this morning. Did she even read the CBO report she was discussing? Does she realize that she needs to actually read it to fact-check it?

Her claim that the bill would do the exact opposite of what it will actually do suggests that she has some preconceived notions about the legislation. What a surprise.

Fox is having its usual smash with "American Idol," with this season’s latest offering beating the Winter Olympics in the ratings. Paula Abdul walked off in a money dispute, Ellen De Generes is unexpectedly flat, and the show overall is starting to sag, but it’s still just about the best thing on TV. Now there’s a buzz about the best judge, Simon Cowell, leaving after this season.

Cowell is constantly booed and attacked as the nasty judge, the one who crushes young singers’ dreams his patented cutting remarks. It’s also true that he is painfully honest.

Almost every "Idol" watcher looks forward to hearing Simon offer those blunt and honest opinions every bit as much – or even more than – the actual performances. The other night, he responded to boos after one stinging analysis by shooting back at the audience, "I’m only saying what you’re thinking." That’s instantly a classic line, and very true.

It’s common now to hear viewers suggest they might just stop watching the show once Simon is gone, that the quality of the judging just will not be the same. That is definitely true if one believes the rumors circulating about the sewer where Fox is fishing for Simon Cowell replacements.

First, news reports surfaced that Fox was considering the has-been satellite radio shock jock Howard Stern to be a judge. "Yeah, I would do that show for $100 million," he said on his XM/Sirius radio program. "I can’t imagine anyone else but me replacing him….How else are they going to make that show work?"

This Stern idea would go over like a lead balloon with parents who like "Idol" as family entertainment.

Most recently, Stern told "American Idol" Season Three winner Fantasia that she wasn’t succeeding in the music business because she didn’t sexually arouse teenage boys: "Hey Fantasia, you’re not getting little boys [aroused]. Nobody’s [masturbating] to you. You look like you stepped out of a cartoon."

A few weeks ago, Stern (age 55) wondered out loud which Disney teen favorite would provide better oral sex: Miley Cyrus (age 17) or Taylor Swift (20). Stern and his friend "Pittsburgh Pete" marveled over Cyrus’s "natural" breasts. The comments spilled out on a YouTube video, but Stern supporters got it yanked.

A more common Stern segment is the porn-star interview. Stern’s website highlights a recent chat with Taryn Thomas, a porn star in an X-rated parody of the MTV reality show "Jersey Shore." They discussed how Thomas had to take a two-year sabbatical from porn after her intestines were "torn open" in an anal-sex scene. Stern could only announce that the man who ripped the woman’s bowels must have been proud of himself. "I’ve never hurt a woman with my penis. I’ve tried. It just doesn’t work," he lamented.

Before his satellite show, his over-the-air show had lowlights like this one. "Have you ever had sex with an animal?" Stern wondered. "Don’t knock it. I was sodomized by [the sock puppet] Lamb Chop."

And Fox had "no comment" about the prospect of hiring this man.

There are more fish flapping around at the bottom of this barrel. The scurrilous gossip blogger Perez Hilton – who’s echoed Stern by calling himself "Queen of All Media" – begged for the job on MTV News. "Basically, I’m shamelessly looking for work. I’m available and I’m cheap."

Perez is best known as the beauty-contest judge who ruined Carrie Prejean’s chances at the Miss USA pageant by demanding she endorse gay marriage as the price of the crown. "She lost, not because she doesn’t believe in gay marriage, Miss California lost because she’s a dumb [B-word], okay?" The next day, Hilton issued a fake apology: "I was thinking the c-word and I didn’t say it."

Hilton prides himself on being a "dangerous" figure of controversy. "I’m dangerous because I have no censor button and I speak the truth. And people are afraid of the truth." This is a rather ridiculous claim for a gossip who loves to draw vile sexual objects around the faces and crotches of celebrities on his blog. He drew a penis on a photo of Prejean holding a microphone.

He recently boasted of his newest blog obsession, a large, fat, white man exposing himself in women’s clothing: "(Wo)Man, an amazing wannabe tranny, who enjoys riding his banana seat around Beverly Hills with his banana out!"

Simon Cowell has that endearing kind of "meanness," the kind that comes with a wink. Howard Stern and Perez Hilton have persistently demonstrated that their nastiness is real and unmitigated by any notion of decency. If Fox wants to take an axe to the golden goose of "American Idol," putting either of these men in front of millions of families as judges on this program would be just the place to start.

Sarah Palin sends liberals into irrational frenzies of contempt and, in the case of Bill Maher, fits of condescension which drive him to denigrate anyone stupid enough to see anything good in her. Maher began and ended his Friday night HBO program, Real Time with Bill Maher, with derogatory “jokes” based on the presumption Palin and her supporters are morons.

He started with how at the health care summit the attendees recited stories about health care perils: “John McCain told how he once carried a brain-dead woman through an entire campaign.”

About 56 minutes later, Maher raised Tiger Woods and his Buddhist beliefs, wrapping up the show by ridiculing the eastern religion, but turned it into a slam at Palin fans: “Thinking you can look at a babbling, barely house-broken, uneducated being and say that’s our leader doesn’t make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter.”

Both lines, of course, earned laughter mixed with approving applause from the audience at CBS Television City in Los Angeles.

The two “jokes” on the February 26 edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher:

♦ Being politicians, you know, they all got to sharing their personal stories. Obama talked about his mother’s battle with cancer, Harry Reid talked about a kid with a cleft pallet and John McCain told how he once carried a brain-dead woman through an entire campaign.

♦ People are always debating, is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It’s a religion because you’re a religion when you do something as weird as when the Buddhist monks scrutinize two-year olds to find the reincarnation of the dude who just died and then choose one of the toddlers as the sacred lama. Sorry, but thinking you can look at a babbling, barely house-broken, uneducated being and say that’s our leader doesn’t make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter.

A Tuesday night NewsBusters post, “Ed Schultz Uses Cheney’s Heart Attack to Push Healthcare Reform,” riled Ed Schultz, the Radio Equalizer noticed. On his Wednesday radio show, a laughing Schultz mocked NewsBusters (“I just want all of you to know that I get my entertainment through NewsBusters”) and derided “some little weasel” at NewsBusters before he graphically reaffirmed using Cheney’s heart attack to score a political point:

You’re damn right, Dick Cheney’s heart’s a political football. We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him. I’m glad he didn’t tip over. He is the new poster child for health care in this country.

The Thursday night Radio Equalizer post, “MSNBC Talker: Let’s Rip Out Cheney’s Heart; With Deranged Cheney Rant, Ed Moves Into Malloy Territory,” has the audio.

Schultz, during his February 24 radio show:

I just want all of you to know that I get my entertainment through NewsBusters. (laughs, then in menacing voice)

How dare the Democrats make fun of Dick Cheney’s heart problems and turn it into a political football. (back to normal voice, to the extent possible) I can just hear some little weasel who’s writing that at NewsBusters. You’re my entertainment.

Bozell, Bozell and his bozo crew. You’re damn right, Dick Cheney’s heart’s a political football. We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him. I’m glad he didn’t tip over. He is the new poster child for health care in this country….

And we want Shooter to make it. Hell, we hope he goes and shoots somebody else in the face. That was a helluva story way back when….

How come Dick Cheney’s health care isn’t being dropped? Do you realize that if you had five heart attacks, hell, you wouldn’t get past two heart attacks and they’d dump you.

But because you’re a war criminal and because you are on the take from Haliburton and you had these executive meetings in 2001 back in the, you know, the days of the rolling blackouts and executive privilege on how we’re going to develop energy policy in this country, you do stuff like that, hell, you can get the best health care on the face of the earth.

“The President often seemed exasperated with Republican arguments,” CBS’s Chip Reid empathetically conveyed in reporting on Thursday’s health care policy summit before he declared that President Obama had achieved what he needed to accomplish:

Well, he really did, Katie. What he really wanted to do was convince the American people, and more importantly wavering Democrats in Congress, that the Republicans are the party of no. They won’t compromise and he now has no choice but to move ahead with Democrats alone.

On ABC, anchor Diane Sawyer led with what she described as “a landmark event today, a televised political duel.” Echoing Reid’s assessment of Obama’s “exasperation,” Jake Tapper saw “from the Republicans, some old arguments and new frustrations for the President.” George Stephanopoulos decided Obama had “reinforced his bipartisan bonafides, showed that he was reaching out.”

Parting with Reid, however, Stephanopoulos considered it an “honorable draw” since “both sides…gained something” as “Republicans were able to show they had real substantive ideas, there are just differences about how to achieve health care reform in this country.”

Brief excerpts from the ABC and CBS coverage on Thursday, February 25:

ABC’s World News:

DIANE SAWYER: Good evening. It was a landmark event today, a televised political duel. Democrats and Republicans sitting face to face for nearly seven hours, debating health care in America. They had been summoned by the President and there was tension, there was anger. But there was genuine engagement. So, will there be action?…

SAWYER: In some sense today’s meeting, as you know, was theater, as well, George. So, thumb’s up, thumb’s down, for whom?

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I think it was probably an honorable draw. You say theater, it was also political chess, as well. And both sides, I think, gained something. I think the President reinforced his bipartisan bonafides, showed that he was reaching out. I think Republicans were able to show they had real substantive ideas, there are just differences about how to achieve health care reform in this country.

CBS Evening News:

KATIE COURIC: Good evening, everyone. Anyone tuning in to daytime television today saw something unprecedented — the President and members of Congress holding a summit before live cameras on a major piece of legislation, health care reform. But it was less negotiating than speech making, and as new as this was, you might have gotten the feeling you’d heard it all before. Republicans said let’s start from scratch. Democrats said forget it. So where do they go from here?…  

CHIP REID: The President often seemed exasperated with Republican arguments while his fellow Democrats vigorously defended the President’s plan and accused Republicans of coddling insurance companies….

COURIC: Chip, did the President, in a way, accomplish what he needed to do today?

REID: Well, he really did, Katie. What he really wanted to do was convince the American people, and more importantly, wavering Democrats in Congress, that the Republicans are the party of no. They won’t compromise and he now has no choice but to move ahead with Democrats alone.