Thursday's New Day on CNN hyped Monica Lewinsky's Vanity Fair article and acknowledged that former President Clinton's sex scandal with the now former White House intern casts doubt on Hillary Clinton's credibility in the realm of women's issues. Chris Cuomo noted that Lewinsky "makes a decent case that women, who are all gathering around Hillary as the obvious choice for them, may want to rethink it, based on how she characterizes her role in her husband's affair."
Panelists Amy Chozick of the New York Times and Republican strategist Margaret Hoover agreed with Cuomo's point, but all three, along with anchor Kate Bolduan, played up the "delicate position" for Republicans if they raised the Lewinsky scandal in a potential presidential race against Hillary Clinton. Hoover hyped that Mrs. Clinton would likely gain an advantage from the issue: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
Kate Bolduan
Hidden just below the surface of the liberal media is a barely noticed trend of patronizing contempt: Joe Biden is the Democrats' Dan Quayle, but because he is a Democrat they'll do anything to avoid treating him like they treated Dan Quayle.
The Washington Post trumpeted a new poll recently that showed Hillary Clinton was cleaning Biden's clock in an early poll among Democrats, 73 percent to 12. The Post saw that as great news for Hillary, but not as disastrous news for the man who's currently in his second term as vice president. Try to imagine Al Gore pulling 12 percent in a presidential poll during Clinton's second term.
Monday's New Day on CNN hyped University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam "making history" with his revelation that "I'm a football player, and I'm gay." John Berman gushed, "Six foot-two, 255 pounds – a big guy, Michael Sam – strong guy. But you want to see real strength? It's what he's doing right now." Berman later heralded Sam's revelation as "a landmark moment in confronting homophobia in professional sports."
Michaela Pereira played up how "it shows how much his teammates respect him that they didn't reveal this. They allowed him to come out with this, and say, this is my news – I'm revealing I'm gay. It's really powerful." However, Chris Cuomo, who recently acclaimed rapper Macklemore's pro-LGBT activism track, surpassed his co-anchors in his over-the-top reaction to the Sam potentially becoming the first openly-homosexual NFL player: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
In an interview with Vice President Biden that aired on Friday's New Day, CNN's Kate Bolduan brought up Corvettes but completely ignored ObamaCare and the IRS scandal.
Bolduan asked about Biden's new jobs task force, immigration reform (which only 6 percent of the public sees as their top priority), Corvettes, and Biden's presidential aspirations. Her toughest question was about Senate Democrats seeking re-election who don't want President Obama campaigning in their state.
Thursday's New Day on CNN spotlighted President Obama's latest push for gun control, and lamented how "gun issues got just a mention in this year's State of the Union," compared to last year's post-Sandy Hook address. Anchor Kate Bolduan underlined how supposedly "gun control is expected to dog him [Obama] while he's on the road."
Correspondent Brianna Keilar later asserted that "in 2013, it was one of President Obama's – probably, one of his biggest disappointments – a failure to advance a gun bill. And that issue is front and center today, even as he's pushing his populist economic agenda." [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
Tuesday's New Day on CNN followed the lead of Reuters in giving ideologically-tinged reporting about Pope Francis's latest condemnation of abortion. Kate Bolduan hyped the "blunt words from Pope Francis on abortion", and played up how "conservative Catholics have complained the new pontiff...hasn't been tough enough on the issue until now."
Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen added that "this is one of the strongest statements that this pope has made on abortion, and it comes after he was criticized by some conservatives in the Catholic Church for not taking a forceful enough position." In reality, the Argentinian-born Bishop of Rome made an equally-sharp denunciation of abortion in November in his first apostolic exhortation: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
The Labor Department released absolutely horrendous employment numbers Friday that are going to be difficult for the Obama-loving media to positively spin.
Moments after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that only 74,000 jobs had been created in December with the unemployment rate declining due to almost 500,000 people leaving the job market, Christine Romans on CNN's New Day called the report “a big miss,” “a real shocker,” “a big disappointment,” and concluded that the jobless rate “fell in part because people simply gave up” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CNN hosts and analysts actively cheered the House budget deal and scoffed at Tea Party conservatives who opposed it, on Wednesday and Thursday.
"I think this is great, what we're hearing here. You've got Boehner saying the fringe types, back off. We're here to do a job. We have to compromise," New Day co-host Chris Cuomo relished the Speaker's rebuke of the Tea Party on Thursday morning.
As NewsBusters reported Sunday, CNN's New Day featured a segment wherein the newly upgraded ObamaCare website crashed when senior medical producer Matt Sloane tried to open up an account.
Maybe that was too honest for on Monday's New Day, senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen painted a much rosier picture of the website's progress (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CNN has ignored a CBS report that back in 2010, the Obama administration knew ObamaCare would force an estimated 14 million workers off their employer-provided insurance.
Despite not reporting this big news, CNN stretched to pick out a "silver lining" for the troubled law on Wednesday. "So there's a potential silver lining here," chief national correspondent John King said of poll numbers showing a majority of Americans think the law's problems will "eventually be solved" and it's "too soon to tell" if the law is a failure.
CNN's Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan cautioned against MSNBC suspending or firing host Martin Bashir for his latest broadside against Sarah Palin, on Thursday's New Day. Cuomo actually asked if he wasn't just trying to make a "rhetorical point" rather than be "hurtful" to Palin.
Bashir had clearly stated that Palin was "the outstanding candidate" to receive a certain punishment for slaves – defecating in their mouths – for her remarks on slavery. Despite the gravitas of his words CNN gave him some benefit of the doubt while ignoring his history of vile smears of Republicans, the worst of which is documented below.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has threatened to block presidential nominations until the Obama administration gives Congress access to survivors of the Benghazi attacks. CNN lectured him about such tactics on Thursday's New Day, and Graham fired back at White House criticism of him.
"Well, hopefully you can settle this without holding up nominations because I know you will agree with this," co-host Kate Bolduan condescendingly spoke to Graham, "that obstructing one part of government is not a good way to run the other part of government."