Conservatives & Republicans

On Tuesday night, each of the major broadcast networks devoted time to covering the swearing in of the 114th Congress and the race for House Speaker that saw John Boehner retain his post, but not without 25 conservatives voting in dissent against the incumbent Republican. Overall, the networks lamented how the group presented “a thorny obstacle to Boehner's leadership” and, in turn, will force…

Let's imagine a white Congressman saying that when he served in Vietnam, he was never moved at the sight of a dead U.S. soldier unless he was white. His career would be over, and deservedly so, within about five minutes of his statement. If he was a conservative or a Republican, even if he resigned instantly and was roundly and unanimously condemned by his colleagues, the press would remind us of…

While Republicans officially took control of both the House and the Senate on Tuesday, NBC, ABC, and CBS all touted GOP setbacks. NBC's Today led the way, with correspondent Peter Alexander seizing on comments from the top Senate Republican: "Among incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's main goals for his party: don't be scary."

Longtime journalist Tim Russert, who among many other things hosted NBC's Meet the Press for over 17 years, passed away suddenly in June 2008. His son Luke now works for NBC, and among other things is a Meet the Press panelist. Based on some of his more recent output, Luke is perhaps better described not a journalist, but as the network's desginated childish, mean-spirited namecaller. After…

In a live interview with Sarah Palin on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie accused the former Alaska governor of taking a "cheap shot" at President Obama while defending herself against nasty attacks from animal rights group PETA: "You also talk about President Obama, saying that he tried dog meat when he was under ten years old in Indonesia. I have to ask you about that one, though,…

Hillary Clinton must be giddy at the thought of facing off against former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R), a social conservative and former Baptist preacher, MSNBC host Chris Matthews argued on the January 5 edition of his Hardball program.

On Monday, both ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today hyped a supposed "controversy" between Sarah Palin and radical animal rights group PETA, after Palin shared a touching photo of her Down Syndrome son using his service dog as a step stool to reach the kitchen sink. During a news brief on GMA, anchor Amy Robach announced: "Sarah Palin sparking new controversy, this time among animal…

Ed Kilgore (at Talking Points Memo) and Mark Kleiman (at the Washington Monthly) agree that the Republican party has a serious racism problem but differ on what the GOP could or will do about it.

Edelstein gripes in New York magazine that “the native population are portrayed as invaders of our sacred space instead of vice versa,” and that “the people [Chris] Kyle shoots always represent a ‘savage, despicable evil,’ and the physical and mental cost to other Americans just comes with the territory.”

On Thursday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Jan Crawford reported on former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s resignation from a number of corporate and nonprofit boards ahead of a possible campaign for president in 2016 but also found time to lament about the challenge the GOP primary could present for Bush. “Now, the challenge of Bush is going to be running a center right campaign for the…

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who died on Thursday, is predictably being lionized today by USA Today's Aamer Madhani "as (a) giant in political rhetoric," and by others elsewhere in similarly glowing terms. Madhani goes on to characterize the three-term Empire State chief executive's 1984 Democratic Convention speech in San Francisco as "what is widely considered one of the finest pieces…

On the heels of news that Republican majority whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana may have addressed a white nationalist group founded by David Duke, New York Times reporter Jeremy Alford did his best to smear today's Republican Party by linking it to the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan: "Much of David Duke’s ’91 Campaign Is Now in Louisiana Mainstream." Guilt by association is popular…

Call the Ripley's Believe It or Not people. Have smelling salts available. What follows will surely be one of the more unusual things you've seen or heard this year. In the midst of his otherwise odious Silicon Valley race-hustling shakedown effort, Jesse Jackson said something that made sense — so much sense that the rest of the press, which usually hangs on every word of his nonsensical…

Chris Megerian at the Los Angeles Times, in a report first published online on Tuesday, had a difficult time trying to downplay the fact that Democrat and leftist mega-donors outspent their Republican and conservative couterparts by an overwhelming margin during the past election cycle. But Megerian made the best of it, giving readers the impression that David Koch, of the supposedly evil Koch…