Campaigns & Elections

Anyone who made the easy prediction that the Associated Press would fail to bring up Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in its fawning tribute to Barney Frank after his retirement announcement yesterday was correct. Anyone making the easy prediction that the AP would lionize him as a "gay pioneer" was also spot-on. Also predictably, the wire service's Bob Salsberg and David Espo failed to mention that…

In a testy interview on Tuesday's NBC Today, fill-in co-host Savannah Guthrie avoided asking retiring Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank about his role in the collapse of the housing market and yet the liberal Democrat still complained: "You've managed to ask all sort of negative questions.....you're four for four in managing to find a negative approach." Guthrie began the segment by…

Even President Obama's supporters would agree that enthusiasm for his 2012 campaign pales in comparison to the energy generated by his 2008 campaign. The stammering of his campaign has led some to question whether his heart is even in it for re-election, especially after his recent comments on American voters, who he said have "fallen behind" and gotten "lazy." Do you think Obama is hoping to…

All three morning shows on Tuesday trumpeted the latest woman to make accusations against Herman Cain, hyping this as a possible "death blow" and sign of coming "doom" for the "Sixth Sense" campaign. [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Ginger White insisted that she and Cain had engaged in a 13-year affair.  CBS, unlike NBC and ABC, made no mention of the woman's past legal problems, which…

Can you imagine the holy hell Ann Coulter would have unleashed if Ronald Reagan had been described in similarly scathing terms? But when the irrepressible Ann called Ted Kennedy "human pestilence," long-term Kennedy clan retainer Mike Barnicle barely blinked. It happened on Morning Joe today. Coulter, who has called on conservatives to rally around Mitt Romney, was defending Romney's…

With penetrating political analysis like this, no wonder Ed Schultz has been named one of the least influential people alive . . . On his MSNBC show this evening, discussing the recall effort in Wisconsin, Schultz said that Republican Governor Scott Walker "sucks." Video after the jump.

During the presidential campaign of 2000, George W. Bush was criticized by some conservatives for calling himself a "compassionate conservative." Some believed the term to be redundant. Now we're in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign and candidate Newt Gingrich has called for a "humane" policy on illegal immigrants. Gingrich wants illegal residents who have been in America for 25…

There was little doubt when Martin Bashir started his mid-afternoon gig at MSNBC in February that he'd be another left-of-center anchor in the show's afternoon lineup, although to what extent the British-born reporter would be a fierce partisan bulldog was uncertain. The past few months, as we've noted, the former rugby player has displayed pugnacious partisanship, at one point ridiculously…

Good Morning America's David Kerley on Sunday ran down the attempts of various Republican candidates to become the "anti-Romney" choice, decrying the "disastrous" debate performance of Rick Perry and mocking Michele Bachmann's "historical flubs." Speaking of efforts by Iowa conservatives to solidify behind one candidate, Kerley dismissed, "But each of them have their weaknesses. Newt…

The Washington Post selected Jennifer Rubin as their “Right Turn” blogger, which to many has seemed like the wrong title. It should be “Romney’s Turn.” But when the Post publishes her blogs in excerpted form in the newspaper, they’re making her even sharper in attacking the “hard right” of the Republican Party. In Monday’s paper, Rubin lashed out at the New Hampshire Union Leader’s…

It seems that everyone in Washington believes that there is zero chance of any kind of economic calamity befalling this nation until January 2013, even though the government is on track to stay on self-destructive autopilot until then. I do not understand how or why anyone can be that confident. Jim Kuhnhenn at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, almost gleefully…

Bored with the Penn State scandal because it didn't implicate any prominent Republicans, the mainstream media have suddenly become obsessed with Grover Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge." They are monomaniacally fixated on luring Republicans into raising taxes. If Democrats could balance the budget tomorrow and quadruple government spending, they'd refuse the deal unless they could also…

CBS's Early Show on Wednesday boosted a claim by Democrats that a recent Mitt Romney ad takes a line from a 2008 speech by then-candidate Barack Obama out of context. However, CBS noted at that time that Obama was using that line to counter a McCain campaign ad which played up the Democrat's association with left-wing terrorist Bill Ayers. Anchor Erica Hill raised the controversy over the…

CNN's Gloria Borger has been covering Newt Gingrich for decades. (I still recall her in 1989 calling him a "frisky chipmunk," as in he "resembles a frisky chipmunk scurrying from idea to idea and storing too many bad ones.") But Borger on Tuesday night concluded he had a good debate. He was 'the good Newt, the smart Newt" and not the "negative nasty anti-media...Newt." It's true that Gingrich…