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In the present, liberals vehemently oppose what conservatives stand for (and vice versa, of course). But do liberals believe there was a time when conservatism was somewhat reasonable, or at least not appalling? Martin Longman offered an answer in a Friday post: It was “the reaction to FDR’s New Deal” that crystallized the suspicious, radical conservatism of today.

“Conservatism is supposed to revere institutions,” commented Longman. “But what institutions has Movement Conservatism respected?...Not Congress or the federal government. Not the Supreme Court. The Office of the Presidency is respected only when it is in the hands of a conservative…What characterizes the conservative attitude to our institutions isn’t respect but paranoia.”

Appearing as a guest on Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN to discuss CNN's town hall on guns with President Barack Obama, Washington Post media columnist Erik Wemple derided the National Rifle Association as "utterly cowardly" for refusing to take part.

Fellow guest and right-leaning CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp then argued that the NRA had "no incentive" to attend because the President treats them and American gun owners as "the problem" while the media have been "overtly hostile" to gun rights supporters. Cupp: "The media has been overtly hostile on this issue, and it's also been hostile and deeply disappointingly unknowledgeable. I have never seen an issue be covered by so many vocal people who know little about guns, so there's no incentive for gun owners to have this conversation."

It’s an old New York Times labeling trick: Find the bad guys, and stamp the “conservative” label on them -- even if they are Soviet Communists -- the enemy of U.S. conservatives during the Cold War. The Times insists on describing Muslim migrants, in the news for sex attacks in Germany, as hailing from “conservative” societies (then turning around and accusing Western conservatives of “Islamophobia”). Reporter Melissa Eddy wrote three articles from Germany, two on the sexual assaults by Muslim refugees in Cologne and other cities, one on the republication of Mein Kampf. In all three stories, Eddy strangely managed to put the bad actors on the “conservative” or “far right” side of the political spectrum.

My New Year's Eve interview with CNN came with a Clinton defender who insisted every Clinton sex charge was "phony" and "disgraceful" and dragged around by the radical right.

Phony charges? Really? Really? President Clinton himself stepped in front of the cameras to say that he had never had sex with “that woman, Ms. Lewinsky”…and later came to the nation and admitted he lied.  The phony here was Mr. Clinton.

Ooops. CNN’s Anderson Cooper seemingly let slip on Thursday night what anyone who has a watched a presidential press conference already knows, but journalists are usually loath to admit: The White House press corps favor President Obama’s policies and so don’t challenge him on them. Following CNN’s “town hall” on guns with Obama, Cooper explained his approach: “I wanted him to actually address people who disagree with him, not just people who agree with him that so often happens at, you know, a presidential news conference.”

On Friday, New York Times entertainment reporters Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes lamented “the dreaded Oscar-season truth squad. Once again, confrontations between an expanding field of reality-based movies and a growing pack of watchdogs, mostly of the armchair variety, have been turning the annual awards ritual into a brutal game of ‘gotcha.’”

The latest gushing edition of Politico Magazine released on Wednesday entitled “The Obama Issue: A Special Report on a Historic Presidency,” was loaded with one article after another largely celebrating the impact of President Obama’s waning administration.