Campaigns & Elections

Lazy journalism at NPR typically causes a return to their default position: liberal bias. Such was the case yesterday. In the morning edition, NPR reported on the recent and unsurprising announcement that NOW--the National Organization For Women, an ideological & partisan group--would endorse Barack Obama.Rarely does the National Organization For Women endorse a presidential candidate. On…

As Culture and Media Institute Director Robert Knight has noted, the media are still presenting Obama campaign spin on the McCain sex ed ad as hard facts. Last week the McCain campaign released an ad charging Senator Obama with supporting sex education for kindergarten children when he was an Illinois state senator.  According to the Obama campaign and the media the legislation in question "was…

On this evening's Hardball, Chris Matthews began his teaser for a segment about Sarah Palin's pending press interview and plans to field questions at a town hall by exclaiming "look who's talking" as an image of Palin [see screencap] appeared bearing the same graphic."Look who's talking" is of course the title of a 1989 hit movie in which the person doing the talking was . . . an infant.  View…

On last night's Election Center, CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger and CNN Anchor Campbell Brown continued to promote the Obama talking point that John McCain had lied in an ad about Barack Obama's record on a sex education bill in the Illinois state Senate. McCain's ad says Barack Obama's "one accomplishment" as a state senator was "legislation to teach ‘…

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann accused Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Tuesday of cutting in half her state's funding for the Special Olympics.Not only is this categorically false, it appears likely Olbermann got this erroneous information from the far-left website ThinkProgress which NewsBusters has shown in the past to be a source for some of the "Countdown" host's material…

"Good Morning America" host Diane Sawyer on Wednesday grilled Cindy and John McCain about differences in the couple's position on abortion and the subject of overturning Roe V. Wade. And yet, when co-anchor Robin Roberts talked to Barack and Michelle Obama in May, she didn't raise the issue, instead wondering if the Illinois senator would be prepared for all the negativity he would surely face as…

Illegal immigration has all but disappeared as an issue on the MSM radar screen since the primaries wrapped up, and it's unlikely to be resurrected given the generally liberal immigration stances of both Sens. McCain and Obama.Nonetheless, some credit is due to the San Francisco Chronicle for not one but two articlesin the Septmeber 17 paper on the city's so-called sanctuary policy and its…

At the top of the 8am hour of Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased an upcoming segment on an ethics investigation into Sarah Palin’s firing of an Alaska public safety official: "Sarah Palin and troopergate – why the Alaska governor makes an about-face on this issue and why it could haunt her on the campaign trail." Later, correspondent Chip Reid remarked: "Palin may be back…

John McCain's early love affair with the press has been well-chronicled. He was a "maverick" most loved because he went against his own party--best loved, in fact, when he produced legislation like McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform. As Rich Lowry points out, they liked him for more than just that, they liked him because he gave them such extensive access.Since 2000, John McCain had thrived…

Of course we all know that it's absolutely wrong and mean-spirited to suggest that anyone on the left could conceivably be unpatriotic [though an exception might be made for unrepentant terrorist friends of Barack Obama who accept from Vietnamese communists rings made from downed US planes.]  So while we won't be using the u-word here, two recent MSNBC shows offer a remarkable contrast. Let's…

To show the empty "logic" that Jack Cafferty of CNN employs in his political commentary all one need do is check out his September 16 Political Ticker blog post on why the race for the White House is so tight in the polls. Reason: the country is filled with racists. Yes, folks, if you are voting against Obama (and no matter who or what you are actually supporting and why) it must be because you…

When Andrea Mitchell says "all of us" thought a certain way, whom does she have in mind?On her  MSBNC show this afternoon, Mitchell stated that "all of us" originally thought John McCain had made a political mistake when he changed positions and came out of in favor of expanded oil drilling.  Mitchell was chatting with former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers and Republican strategist Doug…