Campaigns & Elections

Despite the fact that the 2012 presidential election is still 20 months away, MSNBC apparently has an idea who might win. On Monday's News Nation, a network graphic featured a picture of Barack Obama and these words: "2012: In the Bag?" Anchor Tamron Hall even cited as inspiration for the day's segment, last week's edition of the liberal Real Time With Bill Maher: "I was watching Bill Maher…

There are very few Americans who believe that the maintenance of the American republic literally depends on their continued relevance. Journalists comprise a large portion of that relatively small group. So as technology has enabled public figures to circumvent traditional media, those journalists have raised the alarm that without the proper "filters" (them, of course) constitutional…

Discussing the state of the Republican Party with political analyst John Dickerson on Saturday's CBS Evening News, anchor Russ Mitchell concluded: "...it has been a tough week for House Republicans." On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Meredith Vieira made an identical observation, declaring : "It has been a rough, rough week for the Republicans, to say the very least." Mitchell explained his…

Today marks the opening of the 38th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Regardless of where you may stand on internal debates about some of this year's co-sponsors, there's no denying that for nearly four decades its been an enduring legacy of conservative political activism. But to liberal journalists like Time's Adam Sorensen, CPAC is casually dismissed as a "three-day…

 For the past year, the left has cried foul at the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United vs. FEC, which overturned laws prohibiting corporations and unions from broadcast election-related communications within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. More than a year after the court handed down its decision, misinformation still pervades liberal condemnations of the ruling…

On Monday's "Morning Joe," co-host Mika Brzezinski launched into a passionate defense of President Obama's handling of tough press coverage in 2008. Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin retorted that Obama received soft coverage on the campaign trail, and has only recently learned how to face tough interviews. Brzezinski apparently thinks that is "revisionist thinking." "He was raked over…

On Wednesday, the Associated Press's Andrew Taylor covered the latest deficit projections released by the Congressional Budget Office. In his treatment of the predicted unemployment rate, Taylor betrayed no concern whatsoever about the plight of the millions of unemployed who are in that position largely because the Obama administration attempted to bring about an economic recovery through…

To add an exclamation point to Brad Wilmouth's great post last night ("ABC Pushes for Tax Hike on Capital Gains, Ignores Likelihood of Tax Revenue Loss") -- in ignoring the likelihood that raising the capital gains tax rate would reduce capital gains tax collections, the network also "somehow" forgot now-retired World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson's aggressive questioning on the topic…

Come, let us reason together with our GOP compatriots.  But in the meantime, send us some cash to defeat those Republican liars. That was the decidedly mixed message that this fervent hope-and-changer received from Pres. Obama today in his fundraising email on behalf of Harry Reid and his merry band at the Dem senatorial campaign committee. PBO was clearly trying to channel the new "civility…

As it turns out, mainstream media outlets that lauded President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech as "downright Reaganesque" might be on to something. While ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC exalted the commander-in-chief, at least one observer charged the Democratic president with crafting a speech that was "tantamount to plagiarism." In a column on the U.S. News site, presidential…

Prior to calls for civility and what turned out to be a disastrous "date night" for the Democrats, Barack Obama was nicely set up to catapult himself into a fabulous 2011 approaching next year's reelection campaign with an enviable head of steam. Having been all but considered dead - am I allowed to say that post-Tucson? - after his shellacking at the polls in November, the President eked out…

In an Associated Press report by Patrick Walters yesterday afternoon, the following two reasons were offered as to why the Philadelphia abortion "clinic" operated by Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was arrested and charged earlier this week "with murdering seven babies and one woman who went to him for an abortion," had not been inspected since 1993: Democratic former Governor Ed Rendell, who left…

On Tuesday's John King USA, CNN's John King issued a prompt on-air apology minutes after a guest on his program used the term "crosshairs" during a segment: "We're trying to get away from using that kind of language" (audio available here). This action stands in stark contrast to an incident over a year earlier where former anchor Rick Sanchez took four days to apologize for using a unconfirmed…

On Tuesday's CBS Early Show, congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes reported on Sarah Palin's first interview since the Tucson shooting: "She accused the Left and the news media of trying to destroy her message, trying to destroy her, said she was being accused of being an accessory to murder." Cordes forgot to mention her role in furthering those accusations against the former Alaska…