2012 Presidential

60 Minutes journalist Lesley Stahl is apparently concerned about how such "out of the mainstream" Republicans ran in the 2012 presidential primaries, given what a "centrist" country America is. Stahl moderated a New York Historical Society discussion on the state of the race. Time journalist Joe Klein appeared at the May 3 event to smear conservative groups as racist. After noting that he…

Our friend John Nolte at Big Journalism points out that Politico is back to its old tricks, defending Barack Obama from criticism by digging up dirt on a private citizen who supports his Republican opponent. In 2008, it was Joe the Plumber who was vetted by the Politico. This time around, it's an Iowa man who appears in a Romney Web ad. "Right now Politico is doing oppo-research on private…

Edward Klein’s unauthorized biography of Barack Obama, "The Amateur," was released yesterday. While I appreciate that Klein devoted a chapter of his book, albeit only three pages, to Obama’s opposition as state senator to the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, he got it pretty much all wrong. You can read the chapter at the link above, but here is the relevant section:

Is absolutely nothing sacred to liberal media members anymore? On NBC's Tonight Show Tuesday, comedienne Wanda Sykes said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is such a pandering politician that if he were speaking to the National Organization for Women, he would say, "I like women. You know, my wife has a vagina. I like that" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's Conan show on TBS, HBO comedian Bill Maher absurdly suggested that recent allegations that Mitt Romney engaged in "bullying" in high school are worse than being molested by Michael Jackson, and asserted that he would be willing to trade being beat up in grade school for being "gently masturbated by a pop star." Maher also again attacked Mormonism and…

When it comes to opposition research, there is often only one difference between a candidate’s vicious negative ad and an “investigative” news report: the undeserved patina of media “objectivity” and respectability. Take the Washington Post’s Jason Horowitz 5,400-word “expose” on how Mitt Romney may have pinned a boy down and cut his hair, in 1965. 1965. That’s almost a half-century ago. Even…

Here's a word which the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger only used once in his coverage last Thursday of Uncle Sam's April 2012 Treasury Statement: "debt." And when he did, he was quoted someone about Europe's situation. To his credit, the AP reporter wasn't particularly impressed with the fact that the government was able to run a single-month surplus of $59 billion in April. To his…

Fresh off his humiliating defeat on Jeopardy! Monday night, MSNBC's Chris Matthews actually introduced a pair of guests Tuesday as "two of the most smartest people." Almost as funny, "two of the most smartest people" in the Hardball host's opinion are Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Monday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams attempted to conflate the JPMorgan $2 billion loss with Mitt Romney's business record as he declared: "The Obama campaign may have had this JPMorgan story in mind when it picked today to launch a new ad attacking Mitt Romney's former firm, the private equity giant, Bain Capital, as a middle class job killer." Chief White House correspondent…

Some passages in Barack Obama's commencement address Monday at Barnard College on Broadway didn't make the media quote machine -- especially the ones whacking the media, and the comparative stupidity of men. Now that's a way to build a gender gap. The "founding mothers" were smarter than the Founding Fathers, he quipped. CNSNews.com reported the media slam -- which is an odd way to treat your…

Some conservatives believe that other conservatives, on talk radio and Fox News Channel, are damaging the cause of conservatism by dishonestly overstating their case against President Obama to increase their ratings and profits. More reasonable Republican politicians, they argue, would like to cooperate with Obama on bipartisan solutions but don't have the power to resist these extremists…

With Mother's Day right at our back, I want to address one of the most extreme overreaches by the federal government into American homes that I've seen in a long time. Then I want to call on my own 91-year-old mother, who was raised in rural Oklahoma and worked in cotton fields with her family during the Great Depression, to help set straight the rural farm and child labor record. After a…

Dutifully doing its part to find any excuse to expand government regulation, NBC News on Monday and Tuesday immediately touted Democratic efforts to exploit a $2 billion loss of private money for banker JPMorgan Chase to push for more government intervention in the banking industry. On Monday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Anne Thompson used the news to pump up struggling Democratic…

New York Times reporters Mark Landler and John Cushman Jr. covered President Obama's plea to women's voters disguised as a commencement address at Barnard College, a woman's college in Manhattan: "In Graduation Speech to Women, Obama Leaps Into Gender Gap." What the paper failed to bring up was that according to its own polling, the female "gender gap" is currently Obama's problem, not Mitt…