Campaigns & Elections

Really Barbra Streisand, you didn't think anyone would check? Perhaps she is worried about having her influence diminished now that there are players on the block that can match her wealth and then some. But Streisand in a 682-word screed published on the Huffington Post on Feb. 23 railed against "entrenched special interests" that can now give money to political campaigns. "Over the last year…

While discussing the Democrats' latest version of health care reform on Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked GOP strategist Ed Rollins: "Are the Republicans better off just saying let the Democrats burn in hell with this, we're going to stay on the sidelines and win the House back this fall?"The segment also featured disgraced ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who Smith earlier…

Let's be honest for a minute, America. I know a lot of you had stars in your eyes last January when Barack Obama was inaugurated amid promises of "change we can believe in", closing down evil Guantanamo Bay, bringing the troops home from Iraq and all the other idealistic promises he made so he could get elected.He also promised to fix the economy and let us know in no uncertain terms that he had…

In an exclusive interview with First Lady Michelle Obama on Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez fretted over the future of ObamaCare: "Deadlines keep getting missed for passing health care. Obstacles keep mounting....Unfortunately at the moment...health care is being held hostage by partisanship."Rodriguez introduced the interview by proclaiming that the First Lady: "acknowledges…

This will certainly be mulled over by the talking heads in the mainstream media for days to come. At her 2010 Conservative Political Action Committee speech on Feb. 20, conservative author and commentator took the usual shots at the former President Bill Clinton and former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, but she also let it be known that the she's not a fan of the mainstream…

The comedic ingenuity that is adorning the pages of The Washington Post these days is astonishing, but not exactly in a good way. Dana Milbank, one-half of the duo that sent panic throughout the newsroom at the Post last year after producing a video with his colleague Chris Cillizza that suggested President Barack Obama would serve a brew called "Mad Bitch Beer" to Secretary of State Hillary…

CNN contributor and Daily Beast columnist John Avlon labeled "saving freedom," the theme for CPAC 2010, as "a little extreme" and "a little far out" on Thursday's Campbell Brown program and Friday's American Morning. Avlon went further, bashing conservatives' criticism of President Obama: "When they say 'saving freedom,' they're confusing, at heart, losing an election with living under tyranny."(…

Update - 7:15 PM | Lachlan Markay: The questions from the poll phrase the issue in similarly misleading language. Details below.The news media have a tremendous potential to shape public opinion. So when they misreport important events, it has significant consequences for public opinion and public policy.An ABC News/Washington Post poll released today shows that 80 percent of Americans disagree…

Poor Barack Obama.  Hasn't put a foot wrong.  Policies just fine.  It's just that he's been dealt the cruel fate of . . . being President of the United States.That was the essence of what Jonathan Capehart, WaPo editorialist, whistled past the liberal graveyard on Morning Joe today.  Confronted with the prez's crumbling poll numbers [by 52-44 margin people don't think PBO deserves to be re-…

If there was an award for the journalist least skeptical of the official reason Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) has given for his decision to retire rather than seek reelection in November, I'd nominate Jonathan Alter for it.A crusty veteran of political reporting, Alter most certainly can't be this gullible:

In a story primarily about President Obama's plan to campaign on behalf of incumbent Democratic senators in Nevada and Colorado, Washington Times reporter Joseph Curl did not name Colorado Senator Michael Bennet's opponent. That oversight would ordinarily be defensible if the Bennet's primary competitor were polling weakly. But he is most decidedly not, at least where it ultimately counts -- in…

On Tuesday, both CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez and ABC Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos lamented the announced retirement of Democratic Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and proclaimed that his reelection would have been a virtual certainty. Rodriguez described it as "a lock," while Stephanopoulos asserted that it was "almost assured."In reality, A January 25 Rasmussen poll…

Good Morning America on Sunday derided the idea that Democratic retirements in Congress spell bad news for the party in 2010. John Hendren, a day before Evan Bayh announced he's leaving the Senate, dismissed, "But, for now, despite all the passionate, anti-incumbent tea parties, the math suggests limited changes on Capitol Hill. A tempest in a teapot." [Audio available here.] Democratic…

A Monday New York Times story from Houston by Texas-based reporter James McKinley Jr., "Taking Texas Primary Even Further to the Right," focused on Texas gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, whose reputation took a hit when she played coy in a radio interview with Glenn Beck on a question about 9-11. Medina responded with the thought that "the American people have not seen all the evidence there…