In a bizarre exchange, co-debate moderator Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday night pressed Ben Carson as to whether he was “tough” enough to kill thousands of children. Hewitt lectured, “We're talking about ruthless things tonight. Carpet bombing, toughness, war. And people wonder, could you do that?”
Ben Carson
By Brad Wilmouth | December 14, 2015 | 11:35 PM EST
On Monday's Erin Burnett OutFront, CNN National Correspondent Jason Carroll delivered a heavily one-sided report highlighting charges by the Council on American-Islamic Relations that GOP presidential candidates -- specifically naming Ben Carson, Chris Christie and Donald Trump -- have been partly to blame for inspiring a recent spate of attacks against Muslims in the U.S.
By Rich Noyes | December 14, 2015 | 8:15 AM EST
After a five-week hiatus, the Republican presidential candidates meet tomorrow night for their next prime time debate, moderated by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Based on how the various networks handled the first four debates, viewers of Tuesday's CNN debate should expect: 1) the questions will be aimed at getting the candidates to fight with one another; 2) Donald Trump will take more airtime than any of his competitors; 3) Blitzer and his colleagues will gobble up more speaking time than any of the individual candidates; and 4) the audience will be much higher than for the Democratic debates.
By Geoffrey Dickens | December 10, 2015 | 9:30 AM EST
An MRC analysis of interviews from January 1 to December 4 finds the broadcast networks have pounded the candidates with a blizzard of hostile and left-wing questions.
AP's 'Spin Meter' Suggests Carson, Trump Hypocrites on Gun Rights Because Rallies Don't Permit Weapons
By Ken Shepherd | December 9, 2015 | 5:17 PM EST In the AP Spin Meter today, the newswire's Bill Barrow and Jill Colvin hit Republican presidential candidates Bill Carson and Donald Trump over hypocrisy regarding gun rights. Both candidates have made statements in favor of civilian concealed carry as a preventative measure against terrorist attacks like San Bernardino.
By Tim Graham | December 6, 2015 | 4:26 PM EST
On Friday's All Things Considered, NPR anchor Robert Siegel began the "Week in Politics" segment with a serious focus on San Bernardino, but he "couldn't resist" creating a tag-team mockery of conservative presidential candidate Ben Carson for pronouncing Hamas like it rhymed with "Thomas." Like Morning Joe, these media elites wanted to claim he said "hummus," which is funnier.
Blogger Charles Pierce: Reagan Established GOP Tradition of Being ‘As Full of Crap As the Christmas Goose’
By Tom Johnson | December 4, 2015 | 9:05 PM EST “There'll be scary ghost stories,” sang Andy Williams on a Christmas album of long, long ago. In a Monday post, Esquire’s Pierce suggested that “ghost stories” of a sort -- “obvious lies,” as he also put it -- have become part and parcel of Republican campaigning, and that “as with so many things, this all began with Ronald Reagan.”
Pierce argued that Donald Trump is “the logical end product of almost 40 years of conservative politics. Reagan was as full of crap as the Christmas goose, and in the same way that Trump and [Ben] Carson are. Trump has dancing Muslims. Reagan had the fictitious welfare queen in Chicago…Trump has weaponized Reagan's fabulism and that seems to make a difference to some people. But nothing that has happened in this campaign, up to and including the latest spasm of outright bigotry and fear-mongering, is new in the recent history of Republican politics. It always is the person who tells the best ghost stories who wins.”
By Mark Finkelstein | December 4, 2015 | 7:44 AM EST
Yes, it's fair to report Ben Carson's problems in pronouncing "Hamas," as a reflection of his lack of foreign policy fluency. But despite being billed as an MSNBC political "correspondent," on today's Morning Joe Hunt mocked Carson in a manner more befitting a late-night comedian trolling for laughs from a liberal crowd.
After rolling a clip of Ben Carson addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition yesterday in which Carson's pronunciation of "Hamas" left something to be desired, Hunt cracked "there were some questions afterwards in the room whether he was talking about the terrorist group, or the Middle Eastern food staple." Washington Post columnist Gene Robinson gleefully piled on, saying that when he was in Gaza he had "some very good hummus" and "I also met with a member of Hamas." A sighing, seemingly sympathetic Mika Brzezinski observed "it's just too easy."
By Kyle Drennen | December 1, 2015 | 4:41 PM EST
Interviewing Ben Carson for the first time on NBC’s Today on Tuesday, co-host Matt Lauer condescended to the Republican presidential candidate while citing the latest polling: “In the last four to six weeks you have gone from number one in Iowa to number three, and your decline seems to coincide with some very troubling world events....Is it a coincidence that your numbers are going down as Americans are coming to terms with moments like that?”
By Brad Wilmouth | November 30, 2015 | 5:54 PM EST
As Monday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello devoted a segment to whether political rhetoric against Planned Parenthood's practices inspired an attack on a Colorado Planned Parenthood office, host Costello began by asserting that GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina had "falsely" claimed that the abortion provider "was guilty of harvesting a live baby's organs" as the CNN host wondered if such "rhetoric" is "fueling" violence.
And Daily Beast contributor Dean Obeidallah took aim at Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Dr. Ben Carson as he made charges of politicians "legitimizing hate," and charged that most extreme language comes from the right more than the left.
By Michael McKinney | November 30, 2015 | 4:31 PM EST
Planned Parenthood executives appeared twice on MSNBC on Monday with female interviewers who acted more like facilitators than journalists. Planned Parenthood boss Cecile Richards appeared on Andrea Mitchell Reports. Meanwhile PP's Executive Vice President, Dawn Laguens, was on MSNBC Live with Tamron Hall.
By Brad Wilmouth | November 29, 2015 | 11:25 PM EST
On all three broadcast network Sunday talk shows, hosts pressed some of their GOP guests by forwarding a quote from Planned Parenthood complaining that "hateful rhetoric" from abortion opponents had contributed to the shooting attack on Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain in Colorado.
NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press notably managed to utter the words "hateful rhetoric" three times and "heated rhetoric" once as he repeatedly brought up Planned Parenthood's complaints about being criticized by the pro-life movement for selling baby parts.