2012 Presidential

Investor's Business Daily: Media Blackout of FitzGibbon Sex Harassment Scandal Shows Double Standard
By Tom Blumer | December 23, 2015 | 8:59 PM EST

On Monday, I posted on the virtually complete lack of establishment press interest in the story of Trevor FitzGibbon, the former owner of far-left PR firm FitzGibbon Media. Fitzgibbon folded on Thursday after allegations of serial sexual harassment and sexual assault were reported in the Huffington Post. From there, the establishment press did virtually nothing with the story.

It will surprise no regular reader that non-coverage is still the norm. Searches this evening at the Associated Press's main national site and at the New York Times returned nothing and no recent stories, respectively. While I'm also sure deliberate refusal to cover an obviously relevant story doesn't surprise the editorial board at Investor's Business Daily, it has infuriated them enough to write a stinging editorial justifiably decrying the situation — especially the press's double standard.

CBS’s Bouie: Trump Supporters Symbolize ‘Racial Resentment and Anti-Black Attitudes’ Toward Obama
By Curtis Houck | December 13, 2015 | 1:19 PM EST

Discussing a focus group of Trump supporters convened by Frank Luntz that aired on Sunday’s Face the Nation, CBS News political analyst Jamelle Bouie promptly trashed them as representing the belief among social scientists (i.e. fellow liberals) that there’s been “a distinct rise in racial resentment and anti-black attitudes” in America resulting as a fact of the Obama presidency.

Washington Monthly Blogger: Thanks to Palin, Republicans Now Insist ‘The Truth Doesn’t Matter’
By Tom Johnson | November 27, 2015 | 11:56 PM EST

In the race for next year’s Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have made media bias an issue, as did Newt Gingrich during the 2012 contest. Irony alert: Martin Longman believes that it was one of the media’s favorite GOPers, John McCain, who planted the seeds for such press-bashing when he chose his  running mate.

Longman contended in a Wednesday post that “something broke on the right when they were forced to spend September and October of 2008 pretending that it would be okay if Sarah Palin were elected vice-president. The only way to maintain that stance was to jettison all the normal standards we have for holding such a high office. But it also entailed simply insisting that the truth doesn’t matter…Seven years down the road, it’s gotten to the point that Republicans have realized that they can say anything they want and just blame media bias if anyone calls them on their lies.”

Chris Matthews, Michele Bachmann Exchange Notes On Photographic Media Bias
By Ken Shepherd | November 10, 2015 | 8:55 PM EST

At the end of an interview segment tonight on Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews and former Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) traded stories about their brushes with journalists who used goofy-looking photos of them as cover art to adorn magazine profiles.

IBD Fights Back As Politico and MSNBC's Scarborough Smear Its Historically Accurate Polls
By Tom Blumer | November 10, 2015 | 10:23 AM EST

The folks at Investor's Business Daily are more than a little tired of seeing their IBD/TIPP (TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics) polls smeared by establishment press publications and pundits.

No similar torrent of criticism has been directed at other polls which have been horribly inaccurate predictors of actual election outcomes. A large majority of them seriously and oh-so-predictably underestimated support for conservative and center-right candidates and causes in 2014 and 2015.

Chris Matthews Lectures About Accuracy In Memoirs; Where Was He On Obama's Inaccuracies and Untruths?
By Ken Shepherd | November 9, 2015 | 10:06 PM EST

Discussing media scrutiny over unsubstantiated claims that Dr. Ben Carson has made in his memoirs, Hardball host Chris Matthews pontificated about the importance of fact-checking one's own book to make sure everything is kosher. But where was he when the veracity of President Obama's memoirs was brought up in 2012?

New Republic Writer: Republicans’ Attitude Toward Mainstream Media Often Means They Can’t ‘Engage With Reality’
By Tom Johnson | November 4, 2015 | 9:14 PM EST

“Cocooning” in the sense of staying at home rather than going out is not a political term, but Jeet Heer suggests that conservatives are prone to a sort of ideological cocooning, eschewing non-conservative media to the point that it can be hard for them to “engage with reality at all.”

In a Wednesday article, Heer argued, “Distrusting the mainstream media as too liberal and putting their trust on sources like Fox News, American conservatives have increasingly taken on the characteristic of a sect where the members share an arcane language and mythology which they have trouble discussing with the outside world.”

John Harwood Fondly Remembers ‘Ending’ Rick Perry’s 2012 Presidential Bid
By Kyle Drennen | October 27, 2015 | 2:47 PM EDT

On her Tuesday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell reminisced over CNBC’s Washington correspondent John Harwood tripping up Rick Perry during a 2011 Republican presidential debate. After playing a clip of the infamous “oops” moment, Mitchell turned to Harwood and proclaimed: “John, what are you doing when you're not ending people's presidential candidate's race? I mean, that was a memorable moment.”

AP Hides Hillary's Smoking-Gun Benghazi Admission to Chelsea
By Tom Blumer | October 25, 2015 | 12:45 PM EDT

Those folks at the Associated Press sure are "clever."

Those looking for information about Hillary Clinton's damning email to her daughter Chelsea indicating that Mrs. Clinton knew that a planned operation by Al Qaeda — and not an Internet video — was behind the Benghazi attacks which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others trying to save him will find nothing at all at the AP's national site in a search (not in quotes) on "Hillary Chelsea":

Will Press Cover State Dept. Envoy Declaring Russia's Bombing Shows Obama's Syria Policy Is Working?
By Tom Blumer | October 8, 2015 | 5:15 PM EDT

It seems more than fair to say that establishment press coverage of the deteriorating situation in Syria has been much lighter than what we'd see if a Republican or conservatives was in the Oval Office. Additionally, what has been reported in the admittedly complicated situation has been confusing at best and misleading at worst.

There was a moment of disconcerting clarity today which, if reported, should disturb even those Americans who only have a vague understanding of what's going on in that country. As reported by Tim Mak and Nancy A. Youssef at The Daily Beast:

Wilmore Slams Obama's 'Near-Sighted Snobbery' for Mocking Romney on Russia Threat
By Brad Wilmouth | October 2, 2015 | 1:21 AM EDT

On Thursday's The Nightly Show on Comedy Central, host Larry Wilmore skewered President Barack Obama in the aftermath of Russia undermining the President's Syria policy by bombing the Syrian rebels Obama has been supporting.

The Comedy Central host reminded viewers that Obama had mocked Mitt Romney in 2012 when the GOP presidential candidate warned that Russia would be one of America's greatest foreign policy problems, as Wilmore referred to Obama's cocky dismissal of Romney as "near-sighted snobbery," and played a clip of the exchange with Romney.

Press Ignoring Blatant Conflicts of Interest Exposed in CBS Benghazi Coverage
By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2015 | 11:59 PM EDT

Apparently, the establishment press is waiting for its marching orders on how to handle what an Investor's Business Daily editorial has already called a "scandal."

This one's a joint effort involving Hillary Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, a recently deceased former CIA operative named Tyler Drumheller who worked with Blumenthal — and CBS News. As Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard reported Tuesday afternoon (i.e., now approaching two overnight news cycles ago), "Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s clandestine service in Europe who was working directly with Blumenthal as a member of Clinton’s spy network, was concurrently working as a consultant to CBS News and its venerable news program 60 Minutes." IBD's question, reacting to Hemingway's report: "Who is more corrupt, Clinton or the mainstream media?"