Journalists and lefitsts (but I repeat myself) are hopping mad.
They're not mad at President Obama for failing to make freeing American hostages held by Iran an issue in negotiations with that nation. Instead, they're furious at Major Garrett of CBS News for daring to ask Dear Leader a question about it, even though in the process Garrett got a clearly irritated Obama to make news by admitting, and then trying to justify, his team's failure to make such an effort.
The Miracle on Ice and Hoosiers aside, the underdog usually loses, and Penn State's Sophia McClennen speculates that it’s happened again: Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show because he’s “exhausted” and "dejected" from battling Roger Ailes and the Fox News juggernaut. “Could Stewart really be giving up his show due to Fox News fatigue?” wondered McClennen in a Wednesday article for Salon. “It’s time to take seriously the idea that Fox News killed the greatest satire show of our nation’s history.”
In an extraordinarily and inappropriately indulgent interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif yesterday, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell rolled her eyes as she mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's position that the "deal" between Iran and an alliance led by the U.S. is a "mistake of historic proportions."
Immediately after doing so, she refocused her attention on Zarif, smiled and batted her eyelashes as she finished her question. The video which immediately follows the jump was posted at Digitas Daily (HT PJ Tatler via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit):
One would think that a presidential candidate falsely claiming that she never was subpoenaed would be bigger news story than people in the opposing party criticizing that candidate after the fact for her obviously false statement. As Tim Graham at NewsBusters noted late this afternoon, that's not the case. This post contains several more examples.
At CNN, the network's own Brianna Keilar, who conducted the interview during which Hillary Clinton denied ever receiving a congressional committee's subpoena for her work-related emails, "sharply criticized the Democratic presidential contender’s performance" for failing to answer several questions satisfactorily and for not even "engaging" when asked others. Despite Keilar's disappointment, beat reporters Jeff Zeleny and Tom LoBianco at CNN.com went light on Mrs. Clinton, and highlighted Republican critics.
The latest confirmation that Erick Erickson's original warning at RedState that "you will be made to care" about the legalization of same-sex "marriage" even if you think it doesn't affect you comes from Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin.
On Saturday, the day after the Supreme Court's related ruling, Baldwin was on MSNBC’s “Up w/ Steve Kornacki” program. Baldwin was asked, "Should the bakery have to bake the cake for the gay couple getting married? Where do you come down on that?" The short version of her answer: "Damn right they should."
On Monday, Fusion senior editor Felix Salmon echoed New York Times writer Mark Oppenheimer's call for the end of the tax exemption of religious institutions, but took it one step further: he called for the specific targeting of churches that "remain steadfastly bigoted on the subject" of same-sex "marriage." Salmon contended on Fusion.net that "if your organization does not support the right of gay men and women to marry, then the government should be very clear that you're in the wrong. And it should certainly not bend over backwards to give you the privilege of tax exemption."
To be clear, professional sports broadcasting is thankfully long past the time when the announcers would annoyingly sugarcoat dismal player performances. (Though I would prefer that those who actually played the game engage in this criticism, and that play-by-play announcers who haven't try to stay away from it.)
So it would have been somewhat acceptable if veteran NBC broadcaster Bob Costas, as he was doing the play-by-play for a Friday night Chicago Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals game, had merely stated the obvious, i.e., that Cubs relief pitcher Pedro Strop, after giving up a home run, hitting a batter, and walking one while only getting one out, had an "atrocious" outing. But that's not what he said. Costas ripped into Strop for (imagine that) looking up and pointing to the heavens as he headed towards the Cubs' dugout.
This item is only worthy of note because it's about an apparently genuine apology from a leftist — something rarely seen from the "I'm sorry you were offended" crowd — and because the chances are that very few have actually seen the apology.
Early last week, MSNBC's Chris Hayes claimed that Bill O'Reilly had asserted, as if it was the Fox News host's opinion, that the Confederate flag "represents the bravery of Confederates who fought in the Civil War." Of course, that isn't what O'Reilly said, and O'Reilly called Hayes out:
There may no better illustration of how much harm the economy has inflicted on the American people during the Obama era than a March 2015 Harris survey commissioned by American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The AICPA's Thursday press release reported that "a majority of American adults (51 percent) have delayed at least one important life decision in the last year due to financial reasons ... an increase of 20 percentage points from a similar survey conducted in 2007."
Covering the survey's results, Ann Carrns at the New York Times, in an item carried at CNBC (also found at the Times's web site), waited seven paragraphs to note a particularly damning statistic about a situation Obamacare advocates like to claim has already been solved.
In his "Talking Points" opening monologue Wednesday night, Fox News's Bill O'Reilly lit into the establishment press for allowing the notion that America is a "white supremacist nation" to go "largely unchallenged." He further accused the press of allowing itself to be "intimidated," leaving Fox as the only channel, in his view, "standing up for the truth."
I have been told that O'Reilly's monologue went about twice as long it usually does, but that's because he had a lot to say, and said it well.
As we’ve often discussed, the Tech Media is just as hopelessly Leftist and lost as the broader Jurassic Press. They are both echo chambers - talking points and terrible ideas bounce with great rapidity around their tiny little worlds. They are the Bubble Boys (and Girls) of news.
When a Tech Media story crosses over to the broader Jurassic Press - their ridiculous Leftist repetitiveness is truly comical. And highly disquieting.
On Friday, President Barack Obama’s huge Internet Network Neutrality power grab officially went into effect. A crossover story - with predictable, pathetic Press results.
If you're Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, you know you have to do the occasional segment going after the establishment press or left-wing groups to maintain appearances.
The James O'Keefe-ACORN saga in 2009 was one such instance. If Stewart hadn't dealt with it, his pretense of being supposedly fair to both left and right would have been blown out of the water. The incredibly petty New York Times reports on Marco Rubio's traffic tickets and finances fit the media version of the "We'd better do something with this or else" template. The video which follows the jump shows that Stewart only had a pair of strong moments, while missing at least a couple of key opportunities to make important points with humor.