George H.W. Bush

Debate Leaves Dowd in Dumps
By Mark Finkelstein | September 28, 2008 | 7:39 AM EDT
Barack Obama's desultory debate performance has left Maureen Dowd in the dumps.  Her weekend column is a laundry list of Sunday-morning quarterbacking.  Dowd's biggest beef is Obama's failure to have goaded McCain into a damaging display of ill-temper.  Just for fun, let's meander through Maureen's musings.
The president . . . is so insecure that he could only choose a vice president he knew would never hold his title.
The MSM portrayed Bush 41 as lacking in self-confidence by taking, in Dan Quayle, a VP who wouldn't overshadow him.  Now Dowd depicts Bush 43 as insecure for taking a strong Veep. Damned if you do, etc. 
MSNBC: Cuomo's Call for Nuclear Freeze Among Greatest Convention-Speech Lines Ever
By Mark Finkelstein | August 26, 2008 | 6:41 PM EDT

To these ears, it sounded like a sophomoric line by, well, a sophomore seeking to impress classmates and perhaps his fuzzy-headed teacher.  But MSNBC has proclaimed Mario Cuomo's call for a nuclear freeze because "peace is better than war and life is better than death" one of the greatest convention-speech lines ever.

In the run-up to this evening's keynote address by former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Hillary's much-anticipated speech, Hardball did a segment on some of the best Dem convention speeches of the past.  Now, love it or hate it, it's hard to deny that the late Ann Richards' "born with a silver foot in his mouth" about George 41 was a pretty good zinger.  And even Barack Obama's "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America.  There is the United States of America" wasn't bad either. No beef with those being included.  But try out the excerpt from Maria Cuomo's 1984 speech that MSNBC selected as one of the "best of the best."

View video here.

First Dukakis, Now Obama: NYT Accuses GOP of Questioning Dem Patriotism
By Clay Waters | May 5, 2008 | 8:39 PM EDT

The liberal media just can't get over the way Democrat Michael Dukakis lost to George H. W. Bush.

Newsweek’s One-Sided, but Blunt Reporting: 'The Economy Sucks'
By Jeff Poor | January 16, 2008 | 8:37 AM EST

The headline "The Economy Sucks" might be something you'd expect to see in Rolling Stone or on Slate.com, but certainly not in a reputable news magazine, right?

Yet, the January 21 issue of Newsweek defied expectations by using that for part of a headline for a one-sided, pro-Bill Clinton view of the economy. The article recalled the 1992 "It's the economy, stupid!" campaign as it tore down the current economy.

So, why does the economy "suck" according to Newsweek? It isn't that there's a depression looming or that we're in recessionary times, we're just "perilously close to sliding into a recession."

"Today, the nation is perilously close to sliding into a recession; in '92, the economy had already started growing, though a jobless recovery doomed George H.W. Bush's re-election bid anyway," Gross wrote. "The lesson? Voters' perceptions matter more than whether the economy is technically expanding or contracting."

Wow! Straight Talk From Lauer on Surge, Media Double-Standard
By Mark Finkelstein | January 16, 2008 | 8:06 AM EST
You don't suppose NewsBusters has become Matt Lauer's guilty pleasure; one having a salubrious effect on his thinking? The Today co-anchor this morning suggested an MSM double-standard on the Dem and GOP races and acknowledged the success of the surge.

Matt's guest during the first half-hour was Tim Russert, impressively fresh despite red-eyeing to NYC after moderating last night's Nevada debate. Lauer, after playing clips of the candidates' take on Iraq, suggested that the war is no longer the winning issue the Dems once thought it was.
MATT LAUER: How much of a tightrope are they walking with the apparent success of the surge over the last couple months, how difficult is it for these Democratic candidates to score points on Iraq right now?
View video here.
Al Gore, Comedian: Media's Global-Warming Coverage Too Balanced
By Mark Finkelstein | November 5, 2007 | 8:50 AM EST

Did Al Gore win his Nobel for "peace," or did it perhaps come in a new category: comedy? I ask in the wake of his rib-tickling routine on this morning's "Today." Al, that inveterate card, actually claimed that the MSM's coverage of global warming is . . . too balanced.

View video here.

Shuster: Hillary's 'Slippery' Rep
By Mark Finkelstein | October 31, 2007 | 5:58 PM EDT
"Bill Clinton: caution, slippery when wet." -- George H.W. Bush, 1992 RNC convention.
"The Clintons have a reputation of being slippery and hard to pin down. Last night Clinton underscored that on the issue of whether illegal immigrants should have drivers licenses." -- David Shuster, "Hardball," 10-31-07

Was that really David Shuster? Or could Shuster, like opera singer Enrico Pallazzo in "Naked Gun," have been tied up in a dressing room as a Halloween impostor echoed George H.W.'s 1992 characterization of the Clintons? Be that as it may, on this afternoon's "Hardball" someone looking like the normally Dem-friendly Shuster did indeed accuse Hillary of underscoring her slippery reputation with her drivers-license debate dodge.

View video here.