NBCCCP's Gregory: Are Supporters of Cain Seeking 'Absolution' for Charges of Racism?

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday November 01, 2011 @ 10:24 AM ET

1. NBC's David Gregory: Are GOP Supporters of Herman Cain Seeking 'Absolution' for Charges of Racism?
On NBC's Meet the Press: Press Pass, Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings explained Republican support of Herman Cain to host David Gregory this way: "...they've been accused as being racist and I think when they can vote for a Herman Cain....they feel like, 'Well, you know, I support this guy...it shows that I'm not racist, and I'm supporting him.'" Gregory added: "'Here's a black conservative who's - who's hammering the President the way we are, so there's no racism here.'" He then wondered: "You feel like he offers absolution in that way, to Tea Party Republicans?" Cummings replied: "I think that's at least a part of it."

2. All Three Networks Hype 'Bombshell Blast' Against Herman Cain
All three morning shows on Monday hyped a "bombshell blast" against Herman Cain, playing up a story in Politico charging the Republican presidential candidate with sexual harassment back in the 1990s. ABC's Good Morning America led with the allegations. Co-host George Stephanopoulos, whose former boss, Bill Clinton, repeatedly faced sexual harassment claims, touted, "And this morning, bombshell blast. Major allegations against front-runner Herman Cain. Two former female colleagues accuse him of sexual harassment."

3. 'Occupy' Opponents Missing on CBS, Plays Up Holdout Protesters
CBS's Early Show on Monday found yet another excuse to report on Occupy Wall Street, spotlighting the diehard protesters who stayed in Zuccotti Park during a winter storm. While correspondent Debbye Turner Bell noted the $3.4 million spent on police overtime in New York City and the complaints from businesses near the demonstrators' campsite, she didn't play one sound bite from the opposition. Turner Bell first highlighted the "freezing temperatures and record-breaking October snow" over the past weekend in the Northeast and added, "And that does raise the question of how committed are these Occupy Wall Street protesters? But there's another question: can local city governments afford to pay the price tag that goes along with expressing this basic American right?"

4. CNN Hosts Former Communist Party Candidate to Praise OWS, Hit Obama from Left
CNN's Don Lemon hosted radical leftist and former Communist Party member Angela Davis on Sunday night's Newsroom for what he called a "blast from the past." Davis hit President Obama from the left and praised the Wall Street protests as a continuation of the movement that swept "a black president who identified with a black radical tradition" into office. CNN labeled Davis as a "political activist" but did not report that she was a prominent Communist Party member and twice its vice presidential candidate in the 1980s. As a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, she was urged by the state's then-Governor Ronald Reagan not to be allowed to teach at the state's universities because of her Communist Party membership.

5. While Recounting JFK Assassination, Chris Matthews Links 'Vicious' 'Right-Wing' 'Hate'
While hyping his new book on John F. Kennedy, Friday, Chris Matthews seemed to connect "vicious" "right-wing" "hate" to the assassination of the nation's 35th president. At no time in his Hardball editorial did Matthews admit that the President's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a pro-communist leftist, who, at one point in his life, defected to the Soviet Union. Speaking of Kennedy's trip to Dallas in November of 1963, Matthews connected, "[Kennedy] was living the life of an American politician, trying to figure things out politically, trying to figure out what was in the water down there in Dallas that made some people so viciously right-wing. An hour later, he was gone."