Time columnist Joe Klein conceives of himself as outside the “blinkered orthodoxy” of the political parties, but for many years he’s been a blinkered adorer of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, touting them both as centrists despite the governing realities. In handing out his “Teddy” (for Roosevelt) awards for "doers, diplomats, and leaders who ignored our worst instincts," the trend continued. He deeply bowed to Obama for making a deal with Iran, and then proclaimed his alleged moderation:
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By Tim Graham | December 26, 2015 | 11:20 AM EST
By Tom Blumer | December 26, 2015 | 10:56 AM EST
The detachment from reality of those who actually believe that the recent international climate agreement in Paris is anything but a dangerous and potentially expensive charade has become especially irritating.
The goals identified in Paris are obviously unachievable, and have no direct tie-in to reducing "global warming." Convincing evidence of the link between carbon dioxide generation and allegedly rising global temperatures doesn't exist. In light of this reality, someone really needs to ask the AP's Karl Ritter how much Kool-Aid he had to drink before he informed readers on Thursday morning that the "PARIS CLIMATE GOALS MEAN EMISSIONS NEED TO DROP BELOW ZERO" — and then attempted to take that goal seriously.
By Rich Noyes | December 26, 2015 | 9:59 AM EST
Since Monday, NewsBusters has been presenting each category from the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Ruining the Revolution Award,” for journalists wailing about how awful it will be for communist Cuba to become more like the capitalist U.S. Winning this award, Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith who fretted that if American businesses such as Taco Bell or Lowe’s moved to Cuba, it could “ruin the place.”
By Brent Bozell and Tim Graham | December 26, 2015 | 8:12 AM EST
ABC News devoted a fluffy two-hour special to the year in review, studying the news and pop culture. They had a “Dishonor Roll” segment where they mocked the adultery of Josh Duggar and the scandal of the adultery website Ashley Madison when its client list leaked. They scorned the dentist that shot “Cecil the Lion,” white activist Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kim Richards getting arrested for shoplifting, and pop singer Ariana Grande caught on video licking donuts.
But nowhere in this summary were the grisly tapes exposing Planned Parenthood for its effort to profit from selling the organs of babies it killed in its abortion clinics.
By Tom Johnson | December 26, 2015 | 12:12 AM EST
Bill Scher runs a website called Liberal Oasis, which makes it unsurprising that his Monday RealClearPolitics column celebrated President Obama’s avoidance (so far) of the “second-term curse” that supposedly afflicted George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and some of their predecessors in the White House.
Scher exults that Obama “has not been knocked off course by scandal” and lauds him for “master[ing] the art of scandal management, while his Republican opponents lost credibility by transparently politicizing every investigation…Instead of following the facts before drawing conclusions, [Republicans] proclaim the worst—and then fail to prove their allegations. That’s why the pursuits of wrongdoing in Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the IRS audits and Benghazi have all fizzled.”
By Tom Blumer | December 25, 2015 | 11:58 PM EST
In a year-end interview with National Public Radio, President Barack Obama largely blamed "a saturation of news" coming from a media which "is pursuing ratings" for growing concerns in America over the ability of ISIS and other terrorists to conduct attacks on U.S. soil, and indicated that "it's up to the media to make a determination about how they want to cover things."
It's reasonable to believe that Obama was telling the press corps, which already works furiously to prop him up, that they need to cut back on their reporting of domestic terrorist activities, arrests and court proceedings. It seems fair to say that the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, quickly took that advice to heart in its selective coverage of the saga of Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, and that its selectivity has kept a noteworthy story very quiet.
By Jack Coleman | December 25, 2015 | 6:52 PM EST
As Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) gradually fades among liberals after its decade-long stint atop their stack of pathologies, a newly diagnosed condition known as Completely Unhinged over Citizens United (CUCU) is supplanting it.
Even though BDS is unlikely to wholly depart from the liberal psyche, which appears to draw sustenance from its presence despite the obvious toll on left-wingers' health, eruptions of the new malady still occur with alarming frequency.
By Clay Waters | December 25, 2015 | 5:30 PM EST
The New York Times’ Christmas Day editorial got off to a wonderful start with a tribute to the astronauts of Apollo 8, the first humans to orbit the moon. But it quickly fell back to earth, as the liberals on the editorial board took advantage of the season to interpret peace on earth and goodwill toward men as a Christmas wish list for the left wing, celebrating Black Lives Matter, gay marriage, the climate change accord, and Syrian refugees, while putting America on the naughty list.
By NB Staff | December 25, 2015 | 10:32 AM EST
The MRC’s Tim Graham joined Newsmax TV on Tuesday night with host Steve Malzberg to elaborate on the MRC’s Notable Quotables Worst of the Worst 2015 winners, including overall winner Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC declaring on October 25 that the term “hard worker” has racist connotations.
By Rich Noyes | December 25, 2015 | 10:10 AM EST
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 “Harsh to the Huddled Masses” award, for attacks on the GOP candidates for their supposed hostility to immigration. Winning the trophy: Yahoo! News anchor Katie Couric for suggesting to GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz that he lacked “empathy” because he didn’t support Barack Obama’s unilateral executive action on amnesty.
By Mark Finkelstein | December 25, 2015 | 9:17 AM EST
A very Merry Christmas to NewsBusters readers everywhere! Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the Google doodle for this Christmas Day. See below: it's bland, boring and above all, void of any reference at all to the holiday itself. I decided to have a look at the ways Google observed other days with its doodles. And sure enough, exactly one month to the day before Christmas Eve, Google celebrated "the 41st anniversary of the discovery of Lucy," she being the skeleton of a hominin found in Ethiopia.
Google's animated gif doodle shows a monkey walking on all fours, then a lumbering ape-like figure, and finally the tall, striding Lucy. Evolution, baby! Evolutionists everywhere celebrate Lucy Discovery Day by huddling around their Origin of the Species first editions and adorning their bumpers with fish symbols with feet. So, is Google worried about offending non-Christians with a true Christmas doodle? Then why not similar concern for the sensibilites of creationists with its Lucy doodle?
By Clay Waters | December 24, 2015 | 3:00 PM EST
On Christmas Eve the New York Times pushed the NBA’s new gun control campaign (that's NBA, not NRA), both on the front page and the front of the Sports section. The sports editors really performed a full-court press, taking a local angle with an over-the-top deck of headlines above an enormous picture of New York Knicks player Carmelo Anthony: “Trying to Drown Out The Din of Gunshots – No Stranger to Despair, Anthony Joins Other Stars in Speaking Up for a Cause.” As long as it’s a cause approved of by the liberal Times, anyway.
By P.J. Gladnick | December 24, 2015 | 2:52 PM EST
Don't panic, liberals. Stephen Colbert won't really be supporting Donald Trump on Face The Nation this Sunday. He will only be pretending to support Trump in his character of pretend conservative from The Colbert Report. Since his current Late Show ratings on CBS are falling, one can't blame him for attempting to reprise a role that enjoyed some success. Of course, many liberals out there won't be in on the obvious joke when reading this Politico report which leaves off the fact that Colbert will only be pretending although anybody who is familiar with him would know there is no way he would ever support Trump:
By NB Staff | December 24, 2015 | 11:17 AM EST
Making his television debut on the December 18 edition of One American News Network’s Tipping Point, NewsBusters managing editor Ken Shepherd promoted the 2015 winners of the Notable Quotable’s Worst of the Worst and the overall winner of MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry scolding guest Alfonso Aguilar on October 25 for using the term “hard worker” because it’s racist.
By Tom Johnson | December 24, 2015 | 11:16 AM EST
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.