Campaigns & Elections

In a September 15 post-primary item at the Atlantic ("An Epic End to the Primaries: What It Means"), politics editor Marc Ambinder presented seven "different ways to look at the primaries of September 14, 2010." His final item reads as follows (bold is mine): 7. The media is going to help the Democratic Party's national messaging, which is that the GOP is a party full of Christine O'Donnells, a…

Remember when American comedians went after the powerful in an effort to bring them down to earth with the sharp satire of accountability? Today, they appear to only protect the powerful. Well, unless the powerful aren't liberal enough. As things stand now you have the likes of David Letterman and Louis C.K. savaging Sarah Palin's family, SNL terrified to rip Obama with any real zeal, cartoonists…

Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer blog reports what should have been expected: Rosie O'Donnell hates Christine O'Donnell. "So she apparently has said some pretty crazy s--t," Rosie announced on her XM/Sirius satellite radio show Thursday. "Apparently, there's no chance a candidate like this can win. Is that what they're saying? I have a fear that the opposite may be true."(Wild-eyed liberal…

Imagine a movie: Maureen Dowd is seen thrashing around on her bed, clearly in the grips of a gruesome nightmare.  When she awakes, it is not to relief but to the horrifying discovery that reality is worse than anything her fevered brain had conjured.That is the sense of hopelessness, desperation and depression in which Dowd drowns in her New York Times column of today. The piece is one long…

It's almost tempting to just run a few paragraphs of Kate Zernike's latest item in the New York Times and simply have folks take their rips, but a bit of background would be helpful. Zernike (pictured at right) is the Times reporter who seems to have made it her mission to somehow singlehandedly discredit what may when all is said and done come to be seen as the most significant grass-roots…

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux led Friday's Situation Room by labeling the social conservative Value Voters Summit a "traditional showcase for hardcore conservatives." Later in the same segment, senior political analyst Gloria Borger stated that the Tea Party movement was "anti-health care" and bizarrely referred to Ronald Reagan as "the most secular president we've known in our lifetime."Malveaux used…

While the mainstream media have been in a frenzy to denounce Christine O'Donnell as a kook for her socially conservative statements on abstinence from the 1990s, the cable news networks had a perfect opportunity this afternoon to let her speak for herself. Collectively they gave her less than five minutes. The Republican Delaware Senate nominee gave a speech at the Values Voters Summit in…

Appearing on Friday's CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer continued to compare the rise of the tea party and possible candidacy of Sarah Palin in 2012 to the 1964 campaign of Barry Goldwater. In response, co-host Harry Smith remarked that Palin could take Republicans "to the edge of the abyss, as it were." On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, Schieffer argued: "...it is very much like…

Closing out the "Media Mash" segment on the September 16 edition of his eponymous "Hannity" program, the Fox News host asked for NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell's reaction to NBC's Meredith Vieira telling House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that the Bush tax cuts "didn't succeed" and asking him "what's so good about them?":Memo to Meredith [Vieira]: You can have a debate about what future…

While acknowledging bad news for Democrats in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll on Thursday's CBS Early Show, White House correspondent Bill Plante worked to find a silver lining: "But when it comes to who's at fault for the rotten economy there's a disconnect. 37% say the Bush administration is most to blame. Only 5% blame the Obama administration." Following Plante's report, fill-in co-…

"This is what we are to expect, and it's going to get worse between now and November."That's how NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell reacted this morning on Fox Business Network's "Varney & Company" to the media's drumbeat of criticism regarding Tea Party-backed Republican nominees for office this November.Bozell agreed with host Stuart Varney that the media…

For the second day in a row, Good Morning America featured degrading descriptions of Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell. Democratic strategist James Carville appeared on Thursday's show and fumed about the Republican's past financial problems: "Christine O'Donnell doesn't believe in spending, particularly her own money, because, she's a deadbeat. She doesn't pay her loans back."…

The trashing of Christine O'Donnell continues.  Two days after Karl Rove took to the air to scald his party's newly-nominated candidate, Mike Barnicle has declared that O'Donnell won't win because she's not merely "different," but "crazy."On today's Morning Joe, the former Boston Globe columnist fumbled and fumfered when asked to back up his allegation with facts.  And speaking of facts,…

[Update, Wednesday, 11:15 pm Eastern: The Tweet by O'Brien apparently "doesn't exist" any more. A screen cap of the Tweet in question can be seen after the jump.] Former CNN anchor Miles O'Brien (no relation to current CNN special correspondent Soledad O'Brien) slammed Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell as a "Tea Party nutbag" in a Tweet on Wednesday evening. O'Brien continued that he…