Media dishonesty on display

With Pictures of House GOPers On Screen CNN Rips Congress for Not Passing Budget in 1000 Days

CNN's Erin Burnett on Monday did a segment correctly castigating Congress for not passing a budget in over 1000 days.

The only problem was that while she did this, pictures of House Republicans were shown on the screen despite the blame resting solely with Senate Democrats (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ERIN BURNETT, HOST: Today's Congress, the least productive and least popular in recent history. What will it take to turn it around? Well you know what there's an idea out there, what about if they don't get anything done, they don't get paid. Well see this would really be a problem, I think, because it's been more than 1,000 days since the last joint budget resolution, so if you said you don't get paid until you get a budget, that's a heck of a lot of days with no pay.

All right, this is one of the potential reforms though that's going to be receiving a Senate hearing this Wednesday that might really turn the tide in terms of Congress getting things done and being liked perhaps a little bit while they're doing it.

John Avlon is going to be at that hearing and he has a preview for us tonight. All right John, so more than 1,000 days since the last joint budget resolution, no budget, no pay. Maybe they'll get one done.

JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Maybe they would. So here's the idea. Basically it's basic. You don't pass a budget on time; you don't get paid on time. And so that's the idea of applying the kind of incentive that it might take the focus the mind of Congress to start doing their job, so that's one of the proposals that's going to be forwarded at this -- the Senate hearing on Wednesday that's going to start trying to take on some congressional forums to maybe change this dysfunctional culture that we've seen in Congress.

BURNETT: And the average salary on Capitol Hill, $174,000 --

AVLON: That's right --

BURNETT: -- right, so it's not -- this is a lot of money.

AVLON: Absolutely and you know you need to change the incentive structure. The incentive system in Congress is all screwed up. This is one way to get it right.

BURNETT: All right, so I would love -- that's a really great idea, a really great idea, OK.

You know what else is really great idea? Cable news anchors and their contributors knowing what they're talking about.

Since Barack Obama's first budget was passed in April 2009, the Senate, which has been controlled by Democrats since January 2007, has not offered one single budget.

By contrast, after taking over the House in January 2011, the GOP proposed and passed a budget on April 15. It was defeated by Senate Democrats on May 26.

As such, the entire cause of the absence of a budget resolution since April 2009 is Democrat obstruction.

To show House Speaker John Boehner (R-Oh.) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on screen during this segment was a pathetic deception.

Sadly, that's par for the course at CNN.