Campaigns & Elections

Last night (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) I critiqued a short Associated Press item posted earlier Monday by reporter John Hanna which seemed quite alarmed at the notion that "Conservatives in Republicans are turning against moderates in their own party." Hanna expanded his report on Monday. Its apparently final version, time-stamped at 5:16 p.m. at the AP's national site, goes further into…

Gosh, I think John Hanna and the Associated Press need to do something about their use of eliminationist language and violent imagery. Look at how AP headlined Hanna's late morning report on the rise of conservatism in several midwestern and southern states at the likely expense of moderate incumbents (shown in full because of its brevity and for fair use and discussion purposes).

"There is absolutely no way Barack Obama can win reelection running on his record and the news media know this," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Eric Bolling at the top of today's Your World with Neil Cavuto. Newsweek's current edition, featuring the headline, "The Wimp Factor: Is he [Mitt Romney] just too insecure to be president?" is just the latest example of the media's…

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) had some harsh words for Newsweek and its Washington bureau chief Howard Kurtz Monday. According to Politico, the former Republican presidential nominee said of Kurtz's newest article "John McCain Stages Romney Intervention," "It’s just the kind of liberal left-wing trash that I have to put up with from time to time."

When you make your living in the public arena as I do and when you let your opinion be known as I do in mainstream and social media, you expect some criticism and this is as it should be, this being America where our very way of life is centered around free speech. I don't mind the criticism and usually give as good as I get, respecting all comers, regardless of how far afield or how vehement…

"I think the New York Times monopoly is over...Arthur Sulzberger used to have the biggest megaphone in America. And all you have to do is look at the dwindling size of newspapers, even one as big as his.” So said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in an interview with BuzzFeed Monday:

For the second day in a row, Bob Schieffer spotlighted Newsweek's "The Wimp Factor" cover story on Mitt Romney, this time on Monday's CBS This Morning. Schieffer played up the potential negative impact that the liberal magazine's attack could have on the GOP presidential candidate, and concluded that "this did not help Mitt Romney, and my feeling is it probably hurt him." The Face The Nation…

Newsweek's print magazine has slid steeply toward irrelevance, but that didn't stop CNN from airing its latest hit piece on Romney's "wimp problem" on Monday. CNN devoted over 12 minutes of coverage on its morning shows to the attack disguised as a cover story and authored by a liberal journalist. Early Start anchor John Berman hyped the "pretty brutal" portrait of Romney and even ventured…

In a news brief on Monday's NBC Today, anchor Natalie Morales touted how "Palestinian leaders are slamming Mitt Romney" for remarks he made during a "fundraising visit" to Israel: "Romney sparked outrage by suggesting that he would move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, calling it Israel's 'capital city.' Palestinian leaders say the comment is, quote, 'unacceptable.'"

The same networks that piled on Mitt Romney for highlighting questions about security for the Olympics have now rediscovered serious problems at the London games. Last Friday, CBS and NBC played up tabloid coverage of Romney as "Mitt the Twit." On Monday, however, Good Morning America's Amy Robach briefly noted, "Well another embarrassment for security at the Olympics. Someone lost a set of keys…

Managing to squeeze politics into the opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday, NBC hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira cheered a tribute to Britain's government-run National Health Service, with Lauer declaring: "Back in the states...we're locked in this kind of partisan debate over the future of health care in our own country. Here, they feel so strongly about their health care system,…

On Monday morning, Washington Post gossips Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger hailed Michelle Obama the fashion plate with the headline "Fit For a Queen (Truly)." For a reception at Buckingham Palace for heads of state, Mrs. Obama wore a "very fancy" jacket priced at  a "princely $6,800." Readers could exhale, the American now fits in. The very same Washington Post greeted the GOP nominee's…

In his column at the Los Angeles Times today (HT to a NewsBusters tipster), Michael Hiltzik engages in predictable whining about discussions on how to bring the federal deficit under control seem "increasingly to be driven by the wealthy." In the instance he cites, one could substitute "big bank and big company CEOs," who seem to have recently decided that President Obama's Simpson Bowles debt…

"Someone should have told Mitt Romney that they still speak English in England," snarked Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza as he awarded Romney the "Worst Week In Washington" on Sunday for calmly laying out security concerns to NBC before the London Olympics -- concerns the networks themselves reported beforehand. That matches the attitude that political reporter Philip Rucker…