Campaigns & Elections

Want to know how Barack Obama would intend to run against John McCain? Consider this line from Obama's speech to the Jefferson-Jackson dinner this evening in Virginia:This week, this week, we found out that the presumptive nominee of the Republican party will be Senator John McCain [scattered boos in the audience.] Now, I believe John McCain is a good man and a genuine American hero. And we…

Call it Today's homage to John Lennon: imagine there're no conservatives. The NBC show so much enjoyed the conservative-free citizens panel it hosted back in November that it brought it back this morning.As I wrote about at the time, two timid Republicans were pitted against two partisan Dems. In November, one of the "Republicans," Susie O'Neil, claimed that the country is in decline due to the…

Admission: over the course of my NewsBusting, I've actually developed a certain admiration for Bob Herbert. Not that I agree with virtually anything the NY Times columnist has to say, but that I appreciate his directness and the absence in his work of the superfluous sarcasm that marks that of a number of his colleagues.That said, I offer up Herbert's lament of this morning, "Where Are the Big…

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) enters the voting booth to vote in the New York primary election at the Douglas Grafflin Elementary School in Chappaqua, New York February 5, 2008. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) 

Friday’s edition of Today on NBC had several conservative-denigrating moments over the ideological direction of presumptive GOP nominee John McCain. Matt Lauer interviewed columnist Ann Coulter. He threw a spitball about conservatives being babies: "Critics of conservative voices right now are saying for the first time in a very long time, the conservatives have lost. They haven't been able to…

In an appearance on the Fox Business Network February 8, Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor criticized the media's refusal to fully report the costs associated with campaign promises being made by presidential candidates."You would actually think the media had talked about how much it's going to cost," Gainor said of the hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending…

Should liberal reporters bare all on their voting records? Time TV writer James Poniewozik not only declared that he voted for Obama, but that other reporters should do the same: "Writing about election coverage, I have disclosed, probably to the point of tediousness, that I voted for Obama. I think it's a good thing for you to know, but I really do it for me. It's important to me that I have…

I'm not talking about endorsing Hillary. I'm talking about raising money for her because apparently the Republican 'strategery' is relying on fear and loathing of Hillary to unite everybody. -- Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 7, 2008 There's nothing the MSM loves more than Republican in-fighting. And of late, conservatives have concededly given the liberal media plenty to gloat about in that regard. Well-…

In the age of Daniel Pearl, who does a leading MSMer refer to as a "throat cutter"?The essence of Howard Fineman's Newsweek column about the demise of Mitt Romney's campaign is the glorification of authenticity, and Romney's perceived lack of it. Ironic, then, that Fineman would resort to one of the oldest, and least authentic, journalistic dodges: suggest the worst about someone, then slyly…

Imagine campaign events happening in 22 states at the same time, and that at such contests, two liberals, two conservatives, and one moderate candidate are vying for the public's votes.You would expect the words "liberal" and "conservative" to be equally interspersed in media coverage of these events if indeed press outlets were impartial, right?Well, count MSNBC out of this logical calculus, for…

 Update 2-08: Shuster apologizes, suspended. Appearing on Tucker Carlson's show a few days ago, Hillary fan Lanny Davis observed that Tucker's is "about the only show on MSNBC that consistently allows a Clinton perspective to be expressed." But maybe not so much when, as this evening, David Shuster is the guest host. Employing one of the more graphic metaphors to be heard about a Clinton from…