Media Double-Standards: MSNBC has them too!

Oh MSNBC, it must be so easy to righteously criticize Fox News and CNN from your viewpoint, with hours of exclusive Fox-bashing coverage that ranges from splicing video to make it look like Neil Cavuto said “doo-doo” on TV (nice one, Dan Abrams) to the shameless personal rag-fest Keith Olbermann likes to call his “Worst Person in the World” segment. It must be so easy to blind people into thinking you’re objective while Chris Matthew rails about the tingle that runs up his leg when he hears Obama speak when your ratings are that pathetic.

Yet, for some time, I did believe the hype. I bit the hook- MSNBC seemed balanced pundit-wise (Scarborough and Carlson vs Matthews and Olbermann), and the latter just seemed like a little dog desperate for attention and yapping at his master’s feet while his Doberman friend Bill O’Reilly got all the love.

Then MSNBC did some serious schedule reorganizing. Joe Scarborough was disappeared into the morning show (where he may or may not still be- I didn’t care to check) and Tucker Carlson was disappeared into unemployment. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Tucker Carlson is my all-time favorite pundit, the man I boycott the Daily Show for, because I, too, like freedom and babies and want illegal immigrants to go away forever. Tucker was the only libertarian voice on cable news- the perfect balance between Sean Hannity and Anderson Cooper (a closeted liberal as well as allegedly some other things). Tucker was fearless in attacking those who attacked freedom and enough of a lover of free speech that he pushed the envelope on his program “The Situation” (later just “Tucker” after CNN’s Wolf Blitzer plagiarized it) every day.

By far the best thing about Tucker, though, is the fact that he is smart enough to not take himself too seriously. He says he learned this from Larry King, who once advised him to “care, but not too much; give a shit, but not really.” He would routinely make light of absurd situations that Bill O’Reilly would be livid with rage about. In the nascent stages of his show, he had current HBO boxing analyst Max Kellerman on for a segment where he would debate politics with Kellerman to prove that anyone who pays any bit of attention can play the role of pundit, even if your specialty is pugilism. On the last episode of Tucker, supposedly canceled because of “ratings,” Tucker sealed his reputation, and his opinion of the media circus that is American politics:

Given how much leftist media agents like Jon Stewart control mainstream public opinion for reasons unknown to me, it wasn’t too hard to believe that this were true. However, it took this loyal fan some time to accept that the most moderate and sensible voice on cable news could be so unpopular. Are the people that tune into MSNBC so incredibly closed-minded and radical as to refuse to watch his show?

I then came across a clip that explained it all. In a related search, I looked for MSNBC clips that were critical of democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Wading through a sea of Chris Matthews Obama pick-up lines and Olbermann’s declarations of undying love for the candidate wasn’t easy, but I finally found it- the one anti-Obama segment ever broadcast on MSNBC. Here it is, folks:

Oh, what’s this? Tucker Carlson deviated from the channel’s talking points, only to later to fired? Sounds like he was removed from his position and humbled with a guest correspondent stint for the same reason Alan Colmes is forced to take “vacations” at peak moments in the election, and, for that matter, the same reason Tucker Carlson was fired from CNN. Before you criticize Fox for sticking to strict talking points, MSNBC, take a look in the mirror: you’re playing a pot and kettle game.