2016 Presidential

Two recent Q&A sessions by New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg for the paper's Sunday magazine made for a convenient encapsulation of the paper's liberal double standards, with challenging, testy questions thrown at conservative Iowa Rep. Steve King in this Sunday's edition, versus a sympathetic, almost fawning session with lefty "Doonesbury" cartoonist Gerry Trudeau last month.

On Sunday, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos previewed Barbara Walters’ upcoming “Most Fascinating People” special set to air on Sunday night by playing a clip from Walters’ interview with conservative donor and businessman David Koch. Fill-in host Martha Raddatz introduced the clip of the interview by hyping “one of the more controversial parts of that legislation, provisions …

Saturday's front-page report on Jeb Bush, "Looking to ’16, Another Bush Stakes Out the Middle Ground," marks the latest New York Times profile to flatter the moderate Republican, at least in comparison to those "hard-line" right-wing conservatives. But such reportorial flattery from the Times would end the day Jeb Bush won the Republican primary, as John McCain found out in 2008.

In a Tuesday interview with Texas governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate Rick Perry aired on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday, political reporter Kasie Hunt questioned the Republican's intelligence: "Are you smart enough to be President of the United States?"

Guess when you're as brilliant as Mike Barnicle, it's OK to ridicule others for their supposed lack of smarts. Today's Morning Joe was teasing an upcoming segment about a tough question that reporter Kasie Hunt [who has earned a rep for not being afraid in interviews to "go there'] had posed to Rick Perry.  Mockingly trying to imagine the question, Barnicle offered "she asked him what day it was…

Last Friday, a Democrat-led investigation failed to find evidence linking Chris Christie to the 2013 traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge. After initially ignoring the report, ABC allowed 16 seconds on Friday's World News. Anchor David Muir briefly deemed this "welcome news" for the New Jersey Governor and 2016 contender. 

On Monday's CNN Newsroom, Jeanne Moos zeroed in on the largely-negative response to a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC's music video-style ad, which features a country music song about the former First Lady. Moos wasted little time before reporting that "at least one website warns, 'This pro-Hillary cowboy anthem will make your ears bleed.'"

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director, once again played the role of Hillary Clinton apologist as he defended the former Secretary of State from suggestions that she doesn't understand the challenges facing the average American. Speaking to his panel, Todd argued that Hillary’s inability to connect with voters was “not necessarily her fault. I mean, she's had Secret…

Laura Kipnis of Northwestern University claims that “you can tell a lot about a man by what he thinks about Hillary, maybe even everything,” and that conservatives who’ve written biographies of her tend to be “guys with a lot of psychological baggage, emotional intensity, and messy inner lives.”

Liberal reporters cannot believe conservatives see Jeb Bush as a Republican establishment figure, a moderate squish. Mark Levin calls him a “very good moderate Democrat.” In Politico magazine, NPR’s S.V. Date couldn’t believe it; neither could Adam C. Smith of the Tampa Bay Times. Both journalists thought conservatives were just misunderstanding reality.

Simon Maloy argues that Carson’s “significant following of Republicans who will happily back a radical bomb-thrower for president for no other reason than his refusal to be ‘politically correct’...doesn’t speak well of the health of the conservative movement.”

On the same evening that MSNBC’s Hardball seemed rather excited about a possible run for President in 2016 by Republican and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, NBC Nightly News was busy doing the same thing during on a news brief on Tuesday. Anchor Brian Williams opined that Bush was “the latest in the Republican Party to speak truth to power or at least try to” during an event sponsored by The…

If you plan on running for president as a Republican in 2016, it's safe to say that Chris Matthews is not exactly an endorsement you'd covet. While the Hardball host didn't officially give his seal of approval to  Jeb Bush, he made pretty clear on his December 2 program that he respects the former Florida governor, seeing him as an anti-Ted Cruz.

Back in October, NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd interviewed former Sen. Jim Webb as part of a series on potential presidential candidates. “a successful author and screenwriter and has written eight books over the years. And I do want to mention that my wife helped Jim Webb in his 2006 Senate campaign.” Now Politico reports that Kristian Denny Todd (apparently through her firm Maverick…