Campaigns & Elections

Fred Lucas of NewsBusters sister site CNSNews.com is reporting today that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney wants to see convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi extradited from Libya to the United States to face prosecution:

You have to hand it to Politico, they know how to gin up publicity. "Is Rick Perry dumb?" asks the top headline on the website today. Yet on balance, the corresponding article by Jonathan Martin isn't all that bad, noting that Perry has often been underestimated politically, much to the peril of numerous Republican and Democratic opponents who are now footnotes at best in Texas political…

Based on the dramatic bias of past election cycles, nobody should count on The Washington Post to be helpful (or even fair) to Sen. George Allen. But in Sunday's paper, political writer Ben Pershing reported on how Jamie Radtke, a Tea Party activist running against Allen in the primary, leaked e-mails to Politico from RedState blogger Erick Erickson and turned him from an endorser to someone…

When I first saw a brief Associated Press report asserting that Rick Perry, at an event in Des Moines, Iowa today claimed, in AP's words, that "he's created 1 million jobs while governor of Texas," I thought to myself, "Wow, that's a pretty egotistical thing to say -- as if he did it all by himself." Then I remembered that I was reading an AP report. Of course Perry didn't say that, and,…

CBS referenced Vice President Joe Biden's recent gaffe about "fully understanding" China's one-child policy on Friday's Early Show as "off-the-cuff remarks" and "interesting comments," but failed to get to it during the segment. Anchor Chris Wragge merely explained that viewers would find "more on that on our website." Oddly, Wragge and his colleagues did broach the subject in an online video…

Republican presidential candidates are meeting too many businessmen in their travels and too few unemployed folks or working-class wage earners, at least in the eyes of the Washington Post. Post staffer Philip Rucker lamented in his 23-paragraph August 25 story that in a recent "50-minute session" with voters in New Hampshire that former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) -- who "is campaigning to be…

President Obama often tells us that his No. 1 focus is creating jobs, but his record makes you wonder what he might have done differently if his goal were to destroy jobs. Those who've examined Congressional Budget Office data have calculated that each job allegedly created by Obama's stimulus — and this is if you accept the fantastically generous guesstimates — cost between $225,000 and $600…

It's actually kind of funny to watch a liberal journalist, hit in the face with all the relevent data,  drawing anything but the painfully obvious conclusion. Take Michael Tomasky of Newsweek/The Daily Beast, who chalks up President Obama's trouble in recent opinion polls to his spin doctor team in the White House (emphasis mine):

Despite the poor economy, MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Thursday saw only problems ahead for the 2012 GOP presidential candidates, grilling Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. Singling out Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, Bashir chided, "...There are a large number of people in this country who find some of the beliefs and comments and commitments of these individuals to be,…

Attacks on Republicans like Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Sarah Palin that compare them to the Three Stooges are just a sign that the liberal media is getting worried that their champion Barack Obama stands a good shot of losing next year's election. What's more, any Republican who gets attacked as an intellectual lightweight should "wear it as a badge of honor." That's what NewsBusters…

During Thursday's 12 p.m. ET hour on MSNBC, host Contessa Brewer, who is soon to be leaving the anchor chair, declared that moderate Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman was "trying to turn things around with a new take-no-prisoners strategy, calling out his conservative competitors for their far-right views." Brewer talked to Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of the liberal Slate…

Alas, we lost a most desirable candidate for the White House this week, one that is not charismatic, did not write (or have someone else write) his memoir, has displayed no jump shot in public and did not leave important documents on his desk while gallivanting around the country in campaign mode and heading for vacation on Martha's Vineyard. In the first instance, I am talking about…

Even by the non-standards of the Associated Press, its treatment of the resignation in New Jersey of a state Assembly member is remarkable.  Twice in the space of the wire service's headline and reporter Angela Delli Santi's first three words, Pat Delany was tagged as a Republican, followed during the first two paragraphs by two descriptions of Republican Party reaction (bolds are mine):

Hardball guest host Ron Reagan on Wednesday assailed Rick Santroum as a "lonely, homophobic voice shrieking in the wilderness." The liberal MSNBC anchor attacked the Republican presidential candidate for his opposition to gay rights, wondering if Santorum wanted to return to the days when husbands could beat their wives. Reagan mocked Santorum for defending "traditional" marriage, scolding…