Campaigns & Elections

Last night's interview between Jon Stewart and President Obama was a far cry from their jovial encounter two years ago almost to the day. Instead of sounding like two kindred spirits yucking it up, there was quite a bit of tension between the two. The interview certainly cemented Stewart's role as the nation's most popular liberal kool-aid sipper. Reality may have turned the post-partisan…

Andrea Mitchell on Thursday made no secret of the contempt she held for a new ad Republican Sharron Angle is running in Nevada, deriding it as "beyond the pale." The MSNBC host announced that so many people are "outraged" over the campaign spot she slammed as a "Halloween show." The commercial, which the senatorial nominee just began airing, features images of illegal immigrants crossing the…

Actor and former Obama White House staffer Kal Penn joined Alyssa Milano and a handful of other actors in a short video urging "Funny or Die" website visitors to take time to vote next Tuesday, comparing the time it would take to do so with "much worse ways to spend 10 minutes," like "talk[ing] to your parents about the first time they had sex." [h/t blogger Robert Stacy McCain] "That is a…

"Follow the money," the left insisted when News Corporation donated $1 million to the Republican Governor's Association. The implication was that since News Corp. gave lots of money to Republicans (nearly 10 times as much as it did to Democrats), Fox News coverage that casted the GOP in a positive light could fairly be seen as a direct result of that contribution. By the standard much of the…

Joy Behar admits she made a "mistake," sort of. After angrily denouncing Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) as a "bitch" who will "go to Hell" for her "Hitler youth commercial" in which she criticizes Democrat Harry Reid's position on illegal immigration, "The View" co-host sarcastically retracted part of her joyless insult. "I really shouldn't have called her a bitch because to me…

All three morning shows on Thursday covered Barack Obama's appearance on The Daily Show Wednesday night, but only Good Morning America's Jake Tapper stressed that comedian Jon Stewart's complaints represented the unhappy left. Tapper recounted of Stewart: "One of America's foremost political humorists, who seems to root for the President, demonstrated one of the major problems Mr. Obama is…

There is an axiom that is adhered to by conservative journalists that explains at least some of what for liberals is this inexplicable election. It is the Taranto Principle. Coined by the inimitable James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal, the Taranto Principle encourages the worst in liberals by reporting politics with a slavish bias. The conservatives can do nothing right. The liberals can…

We won't try to weave too much political-cultural significance into the spat that erupted on Morning Joe today.  Just sit back and enjoy the spectacle as Joe Scarborough struggled to get in a word edgewise with Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation. Scarborough was seeking to cite statistics showing that by a ratio of about 40:20, more Americans identify as conservatives than as liberals.  That…

If you’re a left-of-center media personality and you use your national TV platform to call a candidate for the United States Senate a “bitch,” how might you be rewarded? Apparently in this day and age, you’re granted an interview with a former sitting president of your political party. Even though he wasn’t one of the most distinguished presidents of the United States, former President Jimmy…

How desperate is the liberal media? How totally has it abandoned any attempt to run on the Obama record?  Ed Schultz's MSNBC show this evening was 100% Obama-record free.  It was—entirely and without exception—devoted to Republican bashing. Come along, if you dare, down Ed's miserable, fly-blown landcape, as we break down the sorry show, segment-by-segment . . .  

Good Morning America on Wednesday was the only network morning show to highlight Barack Obama's exhortations that Latinos should help him "punish our enemies." Host George Stephanopoulos played the clip while discussing the issue with conservative Laura Ingraham. At the same time, he attempted to downplay the President's comments, given during an interview to Univision.  After the radio host…

It’s hard to tell what the end goal of HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher’s is with his constant barrage of elitist shots at the American public. Does he think demeaning the average citizens is the best way to win people over on whatever issue he is carping about on that given day? On the Oct. 26 broadcast of TBS’s “Lopez Tonight,” Maher took a couple of cynical and contemptible jabs at the…

On Wednesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith interviewed MoveOn.org protestor Lauran Valle, who was stepped on during a protest outside of the Kentucky senate debate on Monday: "Less than a week before election day, the races are heating up, some even turn ugly. We'll speak exclusively with a woman who was stomped on the head during a campaign melee." While CBS was eager to talk to…

As I noted yesterday in my NB Extra piece, in an October 26 editorial listing endorsements for the Montgomery County [Md.] Council, the Washington Post erroneously stated that the incumbent County Executive Isiah "Ike" Leggett (D) was unopposed in his reelection bid. That simply is not true, and the Post today issued a correction noting that Leggett does indeed face a challenge, from…