Campaigns & Elections

This morning, P.J. Gladnick at NewsBusters pointed to how the Des Moines Register avoided identifying the employer of a "prominent member of a well known Democrat campaign consulting firm" who was also a "former Obama campaign staffer" until the firm, LINK Strategies, had a chance to fire him. Once Zachary Edwards was shown the door, it it became a "safe" story to cover, whereupon the Register…

Irony alert: Former Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos on Monday questioned Newt Gingrich's "character and temperament." The Good Morning America co-anchor interviewed the Republican presidential candidate and unselfconsciously scolded, "I know you've faced these kinds of questions before. Is there any way for you to put this issue of temperament to rest?" [See video below. MP3 audio here…

Our republic as our Founding Fathers created it is under assault from extremists outside our country and anti-constitutionalists inside our country. Combine that with the flailing American economy and global markets and you see that Western civilization is on the brink, as experts and all the GOP presidential candidates agree. President Barack Obama has tried and failed miserably to fix our…

"There was nothing newsworthy" about Marianne Gingrich's latest claims about the dissolution of her marriage to Newt Gingrich, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News host Sean Hannity on his January 20 program. "We looked at the September 2010 Esquire story on the marriage" and found "there's nothing, let me underscore, nothing in the story last night that wasn't in that interview…

Of all the Morning Joe regulars, I find Harold Ford, Jr. the least interesting.  Ever on the lookout for his next opportunity, the fiercely ambitious Ford is firmly of the "my good friend" so-and-so school of politics, constantly hedging his bets and finding a way to praise or agree with virtually everyone.   So it was an exception this morning when the former Dem congressman from Tennessee…

After Rick Perry ended his presidential bid on Thursday, the Associated Press's Chris Tomlinson opened his dispatch about the announcement thusly: "Gov. Rick Perry dropped out of the presidential race on Thursday, endorsed his old friend Newt Gingrich and returned home to Texas, where the failed White House candidate has three years left to serve as the chief executive." Based on much of his…

There are few things the liberal media like more than a Republican renegade.  David Stockman has made a career out of strutting his independence from the GOP.  So little surprise that he was an honored guest on this morning's Up With Chris Hayes on MSNBC. That Stockman repaid his hosts by attacking Republicans was utterly predictable.  Even so, the absurdity of Stockman's particular…

Late-night comedians historically have relished the opportunity to poke fun at politicians. Sometimes they savage them. In the Obama era, they haven’t been so enthusiastic about any of it. A recent study of political jokes on three late-night shows (Letterman, Leno, and Jimmy Fallon) by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found that Barack Obama’s joke count is “substantially lower than any…

In the final three paragraphs of a report that was primarily about Mitt Romney trying to lower expectations concerning the results of tomorrow's South Carolina Primary voting, Steve Holland of Reuters told readers that Newt Gingrich canceled an appearance. Holland then used that appearance as an opportunity to build on a meme the press has been working on for some time about the former…

When his tenure at the investment firm Bain Capital became an issue in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney responded by saying he "was disappointed ... to see one of my opponents attacking free enterprise, just like the president was." It's understandable why Romney would want to see criticism of his resume as an attack on free enterprise. Seventy percent of…

A group of conservative evangelical leaders met in Texas last weekend and endorsed a Roman Catholic for president. Given the history of evangelical antipathy toward the theological underpinnings of the Roman Catholic Church, that in itself signals a remarkable evolution (pardon the word), along with a considerable amount of political pragmatism. The blessing of what was once called the "…

Once again, an MSNBC reporter has falsely accused Newt Gingrich of using racial overtones in his critique of President Obama’s economic policies. On the Friday edition of her eponymous program Andrea Mitchell Reports, the veteran broadcast journalist maintained that Gingrich deploys language with coded racial overtones that she and fellow MSNBCers can detect is a racially-tinged "dog whistle…

John H. Cushman, Jr. of the New York Times almost completely slanted to the left in his Friday article about the Obama administration's decision to force religious organizations to include free contraception in their employee insurance plans. Cushman quoted from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, liberal Senator Barbara Boxer and the president of notorious pro-abortion "Catholics for Choice," but…

In an attempt to make the Republican presidential race appear chaotic, on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry turned to White House correspondent Chuck Todd and declared: "Even the word 'tumultuous' seems inadequate to describe what has happened to the GOP race in the last 24 hours." The on-screen headline screamed: "Campaign Craziness." Todd saw only problems for the Republican candidates…