Conservatives & Republicans

While discussing the numerous ObamaCare failures on Wednesday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd felt it necessary to gratuitously bash Republicans: "And suddenly you have the picture of two parties, a Democratic Party led by the President that apparently doesn't know how to govern, has a competency issue when it comes to this health care website, juxtaposed next to a…

John Dickerson didn't mince words about the "bad launch" of ObamaCare in his Tuesday item for Slate.com. The CBS News political director invoked one of deceased tyrant Kim Jong il's most infamous saber-rattling tactics: "Healthcare.gov launched with the fanfare and success of a North Korean missile." Dickerson also rephrased his recent contention that "the administration could get into, sort…

43 months after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, another national establishment press outlet has called President Barack Obama's serially made promise that "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health plan" a lie. Specifically, Washington Post designated fact-checker Glenn Kessler has given it "four Pinocchios," the lowest possible rating on his scale reserved for "…

During an interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie marking the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer seized the opportunity to tout Christie slamming fellow Republicans over federal relief efforts: "You said, quote, 'There's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims, the House majority and their Speaker,…

Two snares stand in the way of conservatives' fervent desire to dismantle Obamacare: 1) a possible perception that its problems are limited to the technical issues with the rollout and 2) the GOP's potentially suicidal impulse to bail Obama out. Though the problems with the rollout are far more than website "glitches," they can and will be fixed. But once fixed, substantive problems will…

On Tuesday's Fox News Special report, contributor Juan Williams lamely tried to excuse away the mind-boggling incompetence of the HealthCare.gov rollout by claiming that "massive opposition (to Obamacare) from the Republicans" caused fearful system architects to "roll it out and see how it works for now." Juan's haughty huffiness was so absurd that the Fox News panel was caught slack-jawed…

The left has been ridiculing supposedly wildly overstated estimates of the costs of building the calamitous HealthCare.gov website, the fact is that the costs involved are certainly far higher than the figures most commonly cited: "over 500 million" at Digital Trends, "over $400 million" at the New York Times. The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is claiming that it's really only $170 milion to…

At the Associated Press Friday morning, economics writer Christopher Rugaber's story had a predictably sunny and incomplete headline ("LONG-LASTING US FACTORY GOODS ORDERS RISE 3.7 PCT.") followed by an opening paragraph which told readers that "orders for most other goods fell" and which speculated without basis that the substantively bad news was "a possible sign of concern about the partial…

Taking journalistic hypocrisy to ever-headier heights, Politico's Todd Purdum spent hundreds of words Wednesday evening bemoaning the potential impact of an incident which both sides involved say never happened, and acted as if incivility only comes out of the mouths of conservatives and Republicans. Earlier Wednesday, the website's Tal Kopan relayed news that Illinois Democratic Senator Dick…

In an interview with Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn on Wednesday's MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports, fill-in host and NBC White House correspondent Kristen Welker desperately attempted to blame Republicans for the disastrous ObamaCare website rollout: "Congress repeatedly refused to authorize requests by the Obama administration for additional funding for the rollout of the health care law…

When it comes to liberals standing up to indefensible rhetoric from others on the Left, the Daily Beast's Jamelle Bouie illustrates how NOT to do it. Oh, sure, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) was wrong to compare the Tea Party with the KKK but "it would be needless political correctness to dismiss the Tea Party as completely unrelated to the Klan, or at least, the reactionary currents that gave it…

In 2003, Halliburton Company received a great deal of scrutiny from the establishment press over certain no-bid contracts obtained in connection with the Iraq War. Examples, two of which are from the Associated Press, are here, here, and here. A Google News Archive Search on "Halliburton no-bid" not in quotes allegedly returns 1,760 items (Google's counter is suspect, but the list extends to at…

Some media figures just can’t let go of the idea that opposition to ObamaCare is fueled by hatred of the president himself. On Wednesday’s The Cycle, co-host Toure engaged in some Matthewsian ranting against opponents of the health care law. Near the end of a roundtable discussion about the failures of Healthcare.gov, Toure redirected everyone’s attention to what he saw as the major issue: […

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe asserted that Republicans "have not tried to find any compassion" since last year's election as he reacted to comments from Maine Republican Governor Paul LePage on the number of his state's residents who are not working. Wolffe: