Conservatives & Republicans

On NBC's Rock Center on Monday, correspondent Mike Taibbi led the broadcast with a report on Mitt Romney's family roots in Mexico: "It's a little known fact that there's a whole branch of Mitt's family living right here in Mexico, including his second cousin, Layton Romney." [Audio available here] Following the report, host Brian Williams used the story to discuss Mitt Romney's stance on…

Talking to MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry portrayed one of Mitt Romney's strength's as a weakness: "How vulnerable do you think Mitt Romney could be in highlighting his business background, given this sort of anti-Wall Street Occupy climate we're in?" Ratigan seized on the opportunity and ranted: "Mitt Romney's liabilities as an American businessman are…

On Monday's Today, NBC's Matt Lauer dwelt on an "extremely negative" attack on frontrunner Mitt Romney from a super PAC that supports Newt Gingrich and asked the former Speaker, "Can't you already hear the ads from President Obama's team saying this is a guy whose own party members called him...a predator and ruthless?" Back on January 4, CBS similarly played up Gingrich calling Romney a "liar…

In an early-Sunday version of an Associated Press report which has since been revised to exclude the paragraph I'm about to cite, the wire service's Steve Peoples (authorship shown here) apparently had a hard time understanding how Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney could possibly have criticized President Barack Obama's economic stewardship in Saturday's New Hampshire debate in…

Last October, liberal groups who want MSNBC to be "purified" of conservatives -- like Color of Change, the group that lobbied to get Glenn Beck removed from Fox News -- demanded a purge of Pat Buchanan from the MSNBC airwaves. In the past, MSNBC used Buchanan as a shield against the idea their network was going to be as hermetically sealed against conservatives as the old Olbermann show. Now,…

Out the 41 questions directed to the six Republican presidential candidates during Sunday's NBC News/Facebook debate on Meet the Press, 25 of them were from the left, 13 questions were neutral, mainly about the campaign horse race and electability, and only three questions pressed the candidates from the right. Early in the debate, moderator David Gregory demanded to know how much "pain" the…

On Friday's CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley tagged Rick Santorum as the "very conservative Pennsylvania Senator" as he introduced a full report on the GOP presidential candidate's views on gay rights, abortion, and contraception, with correspondent Dean Reynolds warning that the GOP candidate's views on social issues that helped him in Iowa "have energized his opponents here in New…

On Thursday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, citing a recent article by conservative columnist George Will in which he asserted that Republicans "crave fun" in their presidential campaigns, host Stephen Colbert found amusement in GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's concerns about partial-birth abortion as the Comedy Central host joked about playing a drinking game based on the…

During Saturday's GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire hosted by ABC, after two of the moderators - World News anchor Diane Sawyer and local ABC affiliate anchor Josh McElveen - had devoted six minutes to a discussion of what the candidates would say to a gay couple "sitting in your living rooms" about same-sex marriage and adoption, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich highlighted the double…

When Democrats have primary presidential contests, we never hear about "extreme-left, in-your-face liberals," playing to the left-wing base of their party, yet when it comes to this year Republican primary contest, the media are quick to slather the extreme-right label on candidates like Rick Santorum, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the January 6 edition of Fox News Channel's…

Appearing as a panel member on Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, Politico's Evan Thomas - formerly of Newsweek - made claims about the existence of "angry, white, middle class" men in the Republican Party who are "seething." And fellow panel member and Washington Post columnist Colby King accused GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum of "pandering" to a racist view "that black people are…

On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer highlighted The Boston Globe endorsement of Jon Huntsman, and noted how, "Joe Klein in Time magazine wrote this about him...'He has proposed the most thoughtful roster of policy initiatives of any candidate in the race.'" Lauer then wondered: "People say this guy is a great candidate. Why hasn't he broken through?...why aren't more people talking about…

In a Wednesday interview with up-and-coming GOP candidate Rick Santorum, CNN's John King dug up a "controversial" 2003 interview Santorum had with the AP and then proceeded to misquote him on the matter of homosexuality. The AP reporter who had then questioned Santorum was Lara Lakes Jordan – whose husband Jim Jordan managed John Kerry's presidential campaign later that year. King never…

On Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry predicted that following his strong finish in Iowa, Rick Santorum was "about to face the meat grinder of tough scrutiny for the first time." Turning to Meet the Press host David Gregory, she wondered: "So is he going to have to change his conservative message as he's looking...into New Hampshire, which is a much less conservative state, David?"…