Conservatives & Republicans

In an attempt to stir tensions within the Republican Party over the recent budget deal, on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, host David Gregory falsely claimed that Florida Senator Marco Rubio had denounced the agreement as "un-American." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Gregory cited the fictional quote twice to Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, one of the architects of the…

Norah O'Donnell and Charlie Rose predictably conducted a hostile interview of Senator Marco Rubio on Friday's CBS This Morning, badgering the Republican for his opposition to a budget proposal from Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray. O'Donnell hinted that he was in the pocket of conservative special interest: "I want to ask you about the criticism that you may be more…

Leading off Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams declared: "It's war. A private battle blows wide open in public as the most powerful Republican in Washington says he's had enough, coming out swinging against members of his own party." Moments later, he hailed House Speaker John Boehner's "rare outburst of candor mixed with anger and frustration" at conservatives critical of the new…

House Speaker John Boehner made himself a hero in the eyes of the liberal Morning Joe panel. All it took was lashing out publicly against conservative organizations which criticized the Ryan-Murray budget deal. Appearing on Thursday’s show, panelist Donny Deutsch was the most effusive about Boehner. He proclaimed: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

Norah O'Donnell unsurprisingly took aim at Rep. Paul Ryan on Thursday's CBS This Morning over part of his bipartisan budget proposal that he presented with Democratic Senator Patty Murray: "Military members want to know why you asked them to take a cut, in terms of cost [of] living increases...the men and women in this country, who fight and die for this country, want to know why they should not…

Nancy Cordes heralded the proposed budget deal from Rep. Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray as a "true compromise" on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, and asserted that "the reason it's so important is that it could bring an end to this terrible cycle, where Congress can't agree on a yearly budget." Cordes also revisited her network's slanted language about sequestration, stating that the proposal…

Well, it's not perfect, but it's a start — and it's certainly a far cry from what President Obama is now willing to admit. In his report Tuesday on the congressional hearing for John Koskinen, Obama's nominee to be the next IRS Commissioner, Stephen Ohlemacher of the Associated Press wrote that Koskinen "told senators Tuesday he will work to restore public trust in the agency in the wake of…

On Tuesday's All In show on MSNBC, during a discussion of Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman's primary challenge to Senator John Cornyn, MSNBC political analyst Howard Fineman asserted that, "if you don't make outrageous statements," the Tea Party movement will not consider you to be "serious." Referring to some of Stockman's more controversial statements, Fineman reacted:

Time magazine's left-leaning reasons for choosing Pope Francis its 2013 Person of the Year were apparent in the cover story written by Howard Chua-Eoan and Elizabeth Dias. Chua-Eoan and Dias trumpeted how supposedly, "in a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church...above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors." The two later underlined…

On Monday's All In show, after going through a number of Rand Paul soundbites which he viewed as reflecting poorly on the Republican Senator, host Chris Hayes was impressed by Senator Paul taking a liberal point of view on the war on drugs. Hayes talked up the possibility of the Kentucky Senator being a plus for the GOP with minority voters. Hayes:

On Monday's All In on MSNBC, during a discussion of whether the Tea Party has helped conservatism, host Chris Hayes accused the Tea Party of being "reckless" in several ways, including "with people's lives," as he contrasted the GOP and Democratic bases, while MSNBC's Karen Finney asserted that GOPers only agree on "how much they hate Barack Obama." Hayes began the discussion as he posed:

MSNBC’s Alex Witt just can’t get enough of President Obama. On Saturday’s Weekends with Alex Witt, the host latched onto the president’s comment, made during his interview with Chris Matthews last Thursday, that a president’s job is to “push the boulder up the hill a little bit before somebody else pushes it up a little further.” After playing a clip of that statement, Witt couldn’t hide her…

On her Monday 1 p.m. ET hour show on MSNBC, host Andrea Mitchell was shocked by Senator Rand Paul's supposedly "breathtaking" observation that continually extending government unemployment benefits can cause people "to become part of this perpetual unemployed group." She incredulously asked: "It's the unemployment insurance that creates the, quote, 'dependency'?" [Listen to the audio or watch…