Campaigns & Elections

We are living in strange times indeed when it's not laughable to suggest that President Obama will be difficult to beat in 2012. Well, I'm not buying it, even considering any positive (but inevitably temporary) surge Obama may receive with Osama bin Laden's death. In 2008, as an economic crisis played into his hands, Obama ran against an uninspiring opponent in John McCain, campaigned on…

Chris Matthews' obsession with birthers didn't take a break on the day after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Only 43 seconds into Monday's show on the terrorist, the Hardball anchor connected, "Barack Obama. The cool hand directs the operation step by step. All this time, the crazies were talking birth certificates, he was working." Politicizing the death of the man who murdered 3000 people…

Update (17:38 EDT on May 4): Rush Limbaugh mentioned this post on his May 3 program. You can listen to that by clicking here. Well, this should be interesting. The AP is reporting (preserved here in case the report devolves, as such things very often do) that "secret prisons" and "harsh interrogation techniques" were involved in getting the "first strands of information" that ultimately led…

View co-hosts Joy Behar and Barbara Walters on Monday immediately politicized the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. After giving credit to Barack Obama for the successful strike, supposedly straight journalist Walters giddily announced, "I would hate now to be a Republican candidate thinking of running." Liberal comedienne Joy Behar played off a months-old comment by token…

Thank goodness for the royal wedding! It took U.S. media attention off Donald Trump for a few minutes. In case you missed it, President Barack Obama actually made a statement about Trump's search for Obama's official birth certificate, now made public by the White House. One assumes the president took Trump seriously not to help generate free publicity for the "Celebrity Apprentice" finale…

President George W. Bush's nickname for David Gregory was "Stretch."  True to his moniker, the elongated Meet The Press host gave a long, tall, three-part smooch to President Obama during his appearance on this morning's Today Show. Speaking with weekend Today co-host Jenna Wolfe: Gregory reported favorably on: 1. the Tripoli bombing that might have killed members of Khaddafy's family; 2.…

Even at MSNBC, which gets crushed of course by Fox News in every prime-time slot, Cenk Uygur manages to come in dead last in ratings among his liberal peers.   So when Cenk claims that he doesn't want to cover Donald Trump but is forced to do so by The Donald's popularity, the baloney-meter starts screaming. Uygur opened his show last evening with a long segment on Trump, all the while…

Yesterday evening (late afternoon West Coast time), Phil Bronstein at the San Francisco Chronicle informed his readers that one of its reporters had been banned by the Obama administration: The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.   White House officials have banished one of the best…

Both CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell incorrectly asserted that President Obama is the only president in U.S. history who has had his citizenship doubted. In reality, both CBSNews.com and MSNBC.com posted a 2009 Associated Press article that detailed 21st President Chester A. Arthur having to deal with a similar controversy in the 1880 presidential campaign…

On Wednesday's All Things Considered, NPR's David Folkenflik erroneously claimed that NBC's Meredith Vieira "notably failed to contradict Donald Trump or others casting doubt on where Mr. Obama was born. Vieira...acknowledged those remarks passively." In reality, the Today show challenged the billionaire about the birth certificate issue, twice asking, "Do you believe he's [Obama's] lying?" […

Meet the Press host David Gregory on Wednesday derided the Republican National Committee Chairman as "low-minded" for his response to the release of Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate. Jansing and Co. guest host Savannah Guthrie lauded the President for looking "like the most reasonable man in Washington." Appearing just minutes after the President completed a press conference on the…

NPR's Renee Montagne apparently didn't take an alleged death threat seriously, as she practically chuckled during a report on Friday's Morning Edition about anti-Koch brothers protesters mistakenly calling a Des Moines, Iowa business named Koch Brothers office supplies. Substitute co-host Mary Louise Kelly, noted that "Charles and David Koch are the billionaire owners of a giant industrial…

In Florida, New York Times reporter Lizette Alvarez buttered up Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida (aka Superwoman) the new head the Democratic National Committee, in Monday’s “In a Life Filled With Firsts, One More.” In case there weren’t enough superlatives in that headline, the subhead had another: “Energetic Florida Congresswoman to Be Democrats’ New Leader.” By contrast, in March…

The establishment press's lack of interest in associating President Obama with the sharp run-up in energy costs has been thoroughly documented by several folks at the Media Research Center, including but not limited to Julia Seymour when gasoline hit the $3 mark, and more recently Brent Bozell. Saturday, the Associated Press's Mark S. Smith took the gas-price propaganda to the next level. As…