Campaigns & Elections

Beginning an otherwise positive story on Wednesday's NBC Today about vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's intense exercise regimen, P90X, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell managed to work in this jab: "He's doing a workout you've probably seen all over late night TV. Call it extreme. And we're not talking about his politics here." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Wednesday's CBS This Morning did its best to spin Vice President Joe Biden's "he's going to put y'all back in chains" slam of Mitt Romney and even forwarded the Obama campaign's own talking points on the controversial line. Both Anthony Mason and open Obama supporter Gayle King inserted language that the Vice President didn't even use in his original speech on Tuesday. During an interview of…

Andrea Mitchell's Freudian slip was showing on her MSNBC show this afternoon. Mitchell's moment of unintentional honesty came during a discussion with Chris Cillizza of Joe Biden's ugly remark yesterday to a largely African-American audience that Mitt Romney would "put y'all back in chains." As noted here, Capehart defended Biden on Morning Joe today, claiming he had "nothing to apologize…

Was Soledad O'Brien borrowing from liberal Talking Points Memo again? She was caught red-handed doing so Monday night, and her challenge to Romney's budget on Wednesday's Starting Point seemed awfully similar to TPM's take on the matter. O'Brien not only echoed TPM's liberal criticisms of Romney's budget, but featured a Fox News clip that TPM quoted from the heart of its piece titled "Paul…

Some Biden gaffes easily get papered over by the media. Others, like yesterday's racially insensitive remarks, are too big to ignore. And that's precisely when the dutiful Obama/Biden acolytes at MSNBC go into full spin mode, defending the indefensible. Take Ed Schultz. Following Biden’s controversial crack before a largely African-American gathering that Mitt Romney will unchain Wall Street…

In an interview with Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie slammed Paul Ryan's proposed budget: "And the Ryan budget makes some very hard decisions and has some huge spending cuts....But how can you justify in the Ryan budget defense spending that stays flat and then giving a massive tax cut, which predominantly benefits the…

Jesus Christ would favor a tax rate as little as 50 percent and as high as 100 percent. So really, President Obama's preferred tax rates are a bargain. That's one of the big "idea" of Erika Christakis's August 14 Time magazine Ideas blog post, "Is Paul Ryan's Budget 'Un-Christian'?" Christakis has a master's in education but apparently hasn't a clue about exegeting Scripture, nor does she…

Of the three morning shows on Wednesday, only CBS acknowledged the racial tinge of Vice President Joe Biden telling a mostly black crowd that Republicans will "put y'all back in chains." ABC's Good Morning America, instead, tried to explain away and provide context for the Democrat. NBC's Today vaguely alluded to GOP concerns about the remark, but didn't mention race. (On Tuesday, the CBS…

Teeing up Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to bash Paul Ryan on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer lobbed this softball: "Do you think that Paul Ryan's addition to this ticket is the best thing that could happen to President Obama's chances for re-election?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Lauer used an article from The Washington…

On Feb. 2, 2009, President Barack Obama explained his chance to fix the economy to host Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today": "I will be held accountable. I've got four years. ... If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition." Here are the top 10 reasons I believe President Obama shouldn't sit a single day beyond his one term in the Oval Office:

Affirmative-action lovers were thrilled that CNN's Candy Crowley would be the first female to moderate a presidential debate since Carole Simpson's sneering turn in 1992. Crowley deserves the opportunity after being in the field of political news for decades, and is the closest thing the current crop of moderators has to a Tim Russert type in being able to question firmly both sides of the…

Mitt Romney made a smart executive decision selecting Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate. Ryan’s genial personality, serious policy wonkery, and political courage have dazzled conservatives and won respect even in a  few liberal circles. Romney scores points for political courage as well. He knew liberal politicians and journalists would talk in punishing terms about Ryan’s budget…

In what seemed like a White House commercial, CNN used cartoon characters to explain the benefits of ObamaCare back in June. Now CNN is trotting out the same elementary and partisan stunt to hype that seniors might lose ObamaCare benefits if the Romney-Ryan ticket wins in November. On Tuesday, medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen explained that "Medicaid Marlene" might lose her Medicaid…

A cartoonish Chris Matthews on Tuesday managed to mangle a historical analogy and spew liberal propaganda at the same time as he offered this ridiculous assessment of Paul Ryan: "This guy could be worse than Quayle, more trouble than Tom Eagleton." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Worse than Dan Quayle, who was successfully elected vice president in 1988? "More trouble" than Eagleton, the…