Nelson Mandela

On Thursday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter played the liberal caricature by actually suggesting that, in light of former South African President Nelson Mandela's passing, Americans should practice "forgiveness" toward "hundreds of thousands of people" who are serving life prison sentences. Speaking to host Al Sharpton, Alter suggested:

Amid the tributes looking back at the life of former South African President Nelson Mandela following his death on Thursday, Friday's NBC Today and ABC's Good Morning America both managed to take shots at Ronald Reagan for not being supportive of Mandela during Apartheid. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] On Today, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell…

On Tuesday, successive MSNBC hosts used the failing health of former South African president Nelson Mandela to promote President Obama's upcoming trip to Africa. Daily Rundown host Chuck Todd lead the way when he announced: "We have some developing news that we just have to share. Nelson Mandela's daughter, Zindzi Mandela, tells NBC that she was with Nelson Mandela, that she told him of…

Legendary South African leader Nelson Mandela is in the hospital today with a lung infection, and MSNBC could not resist using the occasion to compare President Obama to Mr. Mandela. During a discussion with Time managing editor Richard Stengel on her daily program, Andrea Mitchell showed a picture of then-Senator Obama visiting South Africa’s first black president in 2005. Mitchell cooed, “You…

On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams gushed over a speech Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made on a trip to South Africa: "...she talked about the strength she received from Nelson Mandela back when she was first lady and the Clintons were under daily political attack." Williams read a quote from Clinton: "I was beginning to get pretty hard inside. I was beginning to…

The Dalai Lama said something Tuesday guaranteed to make liberal heads explode. Appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, the Dalai Lama told his very shocked host, "I love President Bush" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's Hardball, invited on Time editor and Nelson Mandela biographer Richard Stengel to clarify his comparisons of Mandela to Barack Obama as the MSNBC host prodded him to expound on the "kerfuffle" that "will arouse some anxiety on the right." After Matthews recited a quote from the book, that Obama had achieved "a Mandela-like temperament without the long years of…