During an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Washington Post reporter Ed O’Keefe argued that Hillary Clinton’s decision to compare Republicans with terrorists on the issue of women’s issues was a sign of weakness coming from her presidential campaign. O’Keefe suggested that Clinton’s comments were meant to “solidify the Democratic base and sort of remind that she's willing to be that partisan warrior that they're seeking...But I saw that sort of as a sign of desperation or at least an attempt to sort of tamper down the idea that others are surging or that they're going to get in.” 

The New York Times saw grim tidings for Democrats in the congressional elections, but over the weekend, one could spot the paper subtly separating President Barack Obama from the travails of his party. And one headline should make the Hall of Fame for wishful thinking on the part of the liberal media.

In Politico’s reporting on Chuck Todd taking over “Meet the Press,” the Drudge Report singled out Mark Leibovich, a New York Times reporter and the author of “This Town,” a book on Washington insiders. Tim Russert’s success came from his ability be “distinctive and combative.”

“If you were a politician of serious ambition,” Leibovich wrote, “an invitation to his set was your rite of passage and your proving ground.” Presidential candidates in both parties weren’t contenders until they passed a Russert exam.

A month back, I noticed the usual back-scratching that goes on when The Washington Post makes a list of the year’s best books, and two of the top five nonfiction books of the year were former Posties.

When the New York Times list came out in mid-December, a similar thing happened: one of their Ten Best Books came from Times reporter Peter Baker, "Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in The White House."

New York Times Magazine correspondent Mark Leibovich has made waves in Washington, D.C. recently with the release of This Town, his tell-all account of the “universally disliked” culture in our nation’s capital. Leibovich appeared on Tuesday’s Morning Joe to promote his controversial book, and to discuss the breakdown of Washington journalism with co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Leibovich suggested he wrote This Town to “hold a mirror to the culture” of the nation’s capital, and that the ultimate takeaway of his work is that “everyone fundamentally is disappointed with Washington.” But Leibovich’s history of partisanship, as documented by NewsBusters, suggests that the reporter is very much a part of the dysfunction inside the Beltway. Leibovich has a history of praising Democrats and bashing Republicans, all in a day’s work at the left-wing New York Times.