For most Americans, the 2012 presidential campaign will be experienced on television, and voters will evaluate the candidates based on their performances at televised debates, daily news coverage, and in long-form interviews. Even with all of the changes in the media landscape over past several years, the most-watched regular forums for candidate interviews are the broadcast network morning news programs — NBC’s Today, ABC’s Good Morning America, and CBS’s The Early Show, with a combined weekday audience of more than 13 million as of the second quarter of 2011.
Michele Bachmann
By Noel Sheppard | September 17, 2011 | 2:00 AM EDT
Bill Maher returned to HBO Friday regaling viewers with nonstop attacks on conservatives.
Showing some uncharacteristic restraint, it only took eight minutes before he went after Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann using Texas's HPV vaccine issue to call the Minnesota Congresswoman mentally retarded (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Geoffrey Dickens | September 13, 2011 | 6:13 PM EDT
The left is already out attacking last night's CNN Tea Party debate, with the New York Times leading the way as it cried "the first event hosted jointly by a major news organization and a Tea Party group" has "left some questioning whether the network had gone too far in reaching for centrist credibility." That charge only makes sense in a liberal world view that thought Brian Williams' biased performance at last week's NBC News/Politico debate was somehow soft and uncontroversial.
In fact there were far more liberal questions (13) to the GOP candidates at this Tea Party debate than there were conservative-oriented questions at the NBC News debate last week (just one). The Tea Party gets credit for helping restore balance to the agenda, but it's not like liberal ideas were shut out.
By Kyle Drennen | September 13, 2011 | 5:34 PM EDT
In an interview with Michele Bachmann on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer actually delayed discussion of job creation as he pushed her to attack Texas Governor Rick Perry: "We'll talk about jobs in a second, but I do want to stick on this controversy over...Perry mandating vaccinations for HPV."
Bachmann had attempted to begin on the subject of President Obama's jobs plan, but Lauer quickly steered her toward Republican infighting: "You not only question the policy [of mandating the HPV vaccine], but you questioned the motivation behind it, suggesting rather strongly that this could have been an attempt to appease a big drug company, Merck, because they contributed to his campaign. So I want you to lay this out for me. Is that what you are asserting?"
Maher Tells Leno That Bush, Palin, Perry and Bachmann Are Idiots - But He Doesn't Know Iowa Has Caucuses
By Noel Sheppard | September 12, 2011 | 12:55 AM EDT Within seconds of his introduction on Friday's "Tonight Show," Bill Maher attacked leading Republicans.
In a truly delicious example of instant karma, moments after calling Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann idiots, the pompous, more arrogant than most Maher spoke of how important the "Iowa primary" is (video follows with commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | September 7, 2011 | 6:02 PM EDT
UPDATE AT END OF POST: Video of Matthews repeating this on the air.
After months of inactivity in his Twitter account, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday tweeted what some might consider a rather risqué comment about the upcoming Republican presidential debate (mild vulgarity follows with commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | September 5, 2011 | 5:27 PM EDT
St. Louis Tea Party co-founder Dana Loesch was one of Christiane Amanpour's roundtable guests on Sunday's "This Week."
At the end of the lengthy segment, Loesch, who is also editor of Big Journalism, offered an interesting view about next year's elections (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | September 5, 2011 | 12:10 PM EDT
When it comes to debasing conservative women, is there nothing considered off-limits by the liberal media?
Consider Sunday's Doonesbury which joked about the bra sizes of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann:
By Noel Sheppard | September 2, 2011 | 5:38 PM EDT
Is there anything David Letterman hates more than conservative women?
On Wednesday's "Late Show," the host went after Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann saying, "She is now publishing her memoirs, and I thought, well, wait a minute, why can't we pray that away?" (video follows with transcript and commentary)
By Geoffrey Dickens | September 1, 2011 | 1:26 PM EDT
On Thursday's Today show NBC's Savannah Guthrie prodded Jon Huntsman to slam his fellow GOP presidential candidates Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann as too conservative, as she pressed the former Governor of Utah: "Are they too far right to win and beat President Obama?"
For his part, Huntsman played into Guthrie's portrayal of his competitors by responding that the American people "don't want politics at the extreme ends," as seen in the following exchange:
(video after the jump)
By Aubrey Vaughan | August 31, 2011 | 7:06 PM EDT
The blogosphere has been abuzz this week with a video misleading viewers to believe that Rep. Michele Bachmann riles up a campaign crowd in Iowa with the line, "Who likes white people?"
The video was pirated from Robert Stacy McCain's blog, the Other McCain, after he covered a Bachmann appearance at a rainy August 5th Christian music festival, during which Bachmann shouted to the drenched crowd "Who likes wet people?" She followed the question with a statement to her Christian audience on God's power over the weather, which was cut from the edited version. The blogger took the video from McCain, added a caption to read "Who likes white people?" and the video instantly became viral thanks to Perez Hilton, CBS News, and Wonkette. Now the blogger who edited the stolen video has removed the video from YouTube and apologized to McCain, but has still damaged the reputation of Bachmann and could face legal repercussions from both her and McCain.
By Scott Whitlock | August 31, 2011 | 3:42 PM EDT
Good Morning America on Wednesday offered a short, odd little segment on Michele Bachmann's hairdo. Seeming to not know how to explain this phenomenon, GMA contributor Laura Spencer stuttered, "The- Well, let's just call it what it is. It's The Bachmann, people, and everybody wants it."
Spencer added a caveat in regard to Bachmann's ideology: "Now, whether or not her politics are your cup of tea, it doesn't matter. Hair stylists across the country say there is a nonpartisan demand for the Bachmann bob."