Campaigns & Elections

Bartender—send a double Wyborowa with a Zoloft chaser to the nice lady at the end of the table.  But seriously, relax, Mika.  Four months before an election in which they are poised to triumph, congressional Republicans are not about to muddy the waters by trying to impeach President Obama. But on today's Morning Joe, that reality did not prevent Mika Brzezinski from getting verklempt and…

Hardball host Chris Matthews made some bizarre comments about the potential Republican candidates for president in 2016 on Tuesday night.  Speaking to Jeanne Cummings of Bloomberg News and Republican strategist John Feehery, Matthews took a swipe at Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and suggested “he's the Republicans' John Edwards.” [See video below.]

As my colleague Clay Waters noted, the New York Times finally caught up with the Washington Free Beacon's month-old scoop about an audiotape recording of Hillary Clinton chuckling as she recalled her successful 1975 defense of a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl. Perhaps because there was no longer any plausible deniability about the existence of the story, MSNBC's Chris Matthews tonight…

On Monday evening's NBC Nightly News, host Brian Williams used a perhaps revealing verb to describe a belief held by former Soviet foreign minister and Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze, who died on Monday at 86. It would be good to look back and learn how Shevardnadze came to say what he said a decade ago before getting to how Williams framed it. As reported in Doug Martin's obituary at…

Chris Matthews was on a roll last night. Beyond erroneously describing how Nixon ‘signed the 26th Amendment into law,’ and outrageously claiming that the Boehner lawsuit occurs ‘in third world countries before they have a coup,” the Hardball host spent over six minutes bashing “the latest frontier in partisan -- that means Republican efforts – to limit access to the voting booth” in North…

Chris Matthews’ disdain for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and his decision to sue President Obama over his use of executive orders reached a fever pitch on his Hardball program Monday night.  Speaking to David Corn of the liberal Mother Jones and Howard Fineman of The Huffington Post, Matthews maintained that Speaker Boehner’s lawsuit “is the kind of Mickey Mouse that goes on in third…

The economy is going gangbusters but Americans are not psyched about it like they should be because President Obama isn't doing a great sales job. That and Republican businessmen are sitting around in their boardrooms conspiring how they can "talk down" the economy and make us all think it sucks. That, in a nutshell, is how Hardball host Chris Matthews explained away President Obama's poor…

It seems as though MSNBC is back on its anti-voter ID drumbeat as a legal challenge to North Carolina’s new voting laws goes before a judge this week.  On Monday, July 7, MSNBC host Alex Wagner expressed her outrage over the new law on her Now w/ Alex Wagner program. The MSNBC host played up how some liberal opponents consider North Carolina’s voter id laws to be “the new Jim Crow.” [See…

CBS journalists over the weekend were thrilled at the possibility that Hillary Clinton might be John McCain's "favorite Democrat." Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer on Sunday talked to the Arizona senator and enthused, "Hillary Clinton has said that you are her favorite Republican and I just want to ask you is she your favorite Democrat?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.] On Monday, CBS…

Instapundit cracked wise this morning: “How can a Libertarian get favorable treatment in The Washington Post? Be in a position to deliver a Senate seat to the Dems.” In a front-page article on Monday, Post reporters Reid Wilson and Karen Tumulty cited the precedent of last year’s gubernatorial race in Virginia – where Democrat Terry McAuliffe won with a 2.6 percent margin of victory while “…

You may recall how, on Monday's Hardball, guest Michelle Bernard held forth with her view that the Hobby Lobby ruling would help Democrats rope in massive numbers of women voters in the 2016 presidential cycle.  Well, tonight, perhaps to build on that theme, guest host Steve Kornacki moderated a discussion segment featuring Democratic pollster Margie Onero and McCain presidential campaign…

The Hobby Lobby ruling will be a blessing in disguise for Democrats, possibly this November but most certainly for 2016. That's the argument put forward by two MSNBC contributors on Hardball this evening, Washington Post columnist Melinda Henneberger and Michelle Bernard of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics, & Public Policy. "I see this ruling as, definitely on the political front,…

NBC’s Cynthia McFadden did what she does best during an interview with Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Obama, lobby for Hillary Clinton to run for president.  Appearing during a taped interview that aired on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, June 29, McFadden hyped how “There's no question that the person who is poised at this moment to break that ultimate glass ceiling is Hillary…

NBC’s David Gregory did his best to minimize Speaker of the House John Boehner’s soon-to-be lawsuit against President Obama, dismissing it as a “political stunt.” During an interview with Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, on Meet the Press on Sunday, June 29, Gregory insisted that the lawsuit had no real merit and wondered “isn’t this just to gin up the base in…