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By the late summer of 1977, Jimmy Carter had been president for only a few months, but if you knew which way the cultural and political winds were blowing, he seemed unlikely to win a second term. That’s because on May 25 of that year, Star Wars had opened, and its colossal success both foreshadowed and helped to revive a mindset that carried Ronald Reagan to the White House. That’s the word from Perlstein, who laid out his theory last Friday in The Washington Spectator.

This week, NewsBusters is presenting the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “What Difference Does It Make?” Award for denying Hillary’s scandals. Winner: ABC chief anchor and longtime Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos, who treated author Peter Schweizer as a hostile witness during an interview about Schweizer’s book revealing potential conflicts of interest between contributions to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s work as Secretary of State.

James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal had some fun with the liberal praise for the latest global-warming accord in Paris, which was uniformly described as “historic.” For example he noticed this from Elizabeth Kolbert for The New Yorker: “The climate accord approved in Paris over the weekend has, justifiably, been described as ‘historic.’ It represents the most significant step forward since international climate negotiations began, more than two decades ago.” But is it really historic? Or could it end up being a phantom achievement, since most countries fail to live up to whatever emission-reduction goals they pledge to achieve at these confabs?

Within hours of sliming Ted Cruz’s daughters as cartoon monkeys, The Washington Post presses were churning out Wednesday’s front page. At the top, it read “The quiet impact of Obama’s Christian faith.

Next to the story came this summary: "President Obama, who did not grow up in a religious household, has relied on his Christian faith in trying to bring civility to the nation’s political debates. But no modern president has had his faith more routinely questioned or disparaged, and the nation has grown more polarized during his presidency."

The desperation is palpable at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, over how the Christmas shopping season is going.

Having appearently learned something contrary to the "consumers will catch up with their spending" we've been hearing from the National Retail Federation and others so far, AP Business Writer Joyce M. Rosenberg shifted gears and decided that consumers are spending less this year on individual gifts because, well, "Cheap is the new chic." Having spoken with one of Rosenburg's sources, readers can be assured that "chic" has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Politicians often complain about America’s struggling middle class, but according to Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin, they should quit crying over spilt milk. Sorkin argued on Dec. 23 that the mid-20th century idea of middle class was a historical anomaly.

“This middle class that we keep talking about, this Leave it to Beaver middle class that was this panacea that people talk about is actually, I would argue to you, an historical aberration,” Sorkin said. Sorkin made the argument after co-host Joe Kernen and Aspen Institute CEO Walter Isaacson decried the current state of America’s middle class.

Each year, Christmastime is moving farther away from a celebration of peace, joy and love toward media-promoted consumerism, violence and debauchery. From movies, to music to television, many of the messages this year were far from heartwarming.