NBC's Curry: Do Tea Party Members of Congress 'Know How to Govern

August 1st, 2011 4:04 PM
In a discussion with Meet the Press host David Gregory and Tom Brokaw on Monday's NBC Today about the debt ceiling deal, co-host Ann Curry contemptuously wondered: "...do you think that members of the Tea Party Caucus know how to govern or are they – do they understand that standing up for a cause is not the same as governing?" [Audio available here] Interestingly, Brokaw rejected Curry's…

NY Times' Zeleny: 'Both Sides' 'Bruised' in Debt Ceiling Deal; Only Co

August 1st, 2011 3:07 PM
In a front-page “news analysis” piece this morning, Times national political correspondent Jeff Zeleny pronounced that “After a Protracted Fight, Both Sides Emerge Bruised.” Yet Zeleny’s analysis was chock full of the typical liberal bias slant that puffs up President Obama, slams the Tea Party as “intractable” and ignores the partisanship of liberal Senate members, particularly Harry Reid (…

CNN's Lemon Peppers Rand Paul With Dem Talking Points After Asking Pau

August 1st, 2011 2:49 PM
After asking Tea Party favorite Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to discard his talking points and be frank on the debt ceiling issue, CNN's Don Lemon repeatedly interrupted the senator, and even lectured him and threw some Democrat talking points at him. Lemon interviewed Paul on Saturday's 5 p.m. EDT edition of CNN Newsroom. "At this point though, and can we do this – let's do this interview without…

NBC Hosts Fret Obama Had to 'Give In' to GOP With 'Not Balanced' Debt

August 1st, 2011 1:02 PM
In an interview with White House advisor David Plouffe on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer worried about liberals being unhappy with the proposal deal on the debt ceiling: "So did the President compromise here, David, or did he give in simply so that he wouldn't be labeled as the president who was on duty as the nation defaulted on its financial obligations?" Plouffe defended the plan…

Ben Stein Slams Tax Cuts, Tea Partiers, Bush, and Obama as ‘Careless

August 1st, 2011 4:20 AM
 During a commentary aired on CBS Sunday Morning, supposedly right-leaning actor and economist Ben Stein blamed the "folly of supply side economics" - singling out President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in addition to President Obama’s spending - for the current federal budget deficit. The CBS contributor also complained that some Republicans have an "inflexible belief" that "low taxes were an…

Fox 19 Cincinnati's Sherrod Brown Interview Typifies Weak Media Covera

August 1st, 2011 1:07 AM
Saturday night in Cincinnati, Fox 19's Kimberly Holmes Wiggins interviewed Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown from Washington about the state of the debt-ceiling debate. A full transcript follows. Contained therein readers will see the untruthful establishment press memes which have dominated their coverage, and all too typical disgraceful and predictable demagoguery by Brown. Similar…

AP's Hurst Implies Default Would Happen on Aug. 2 Without Debt-Ceiling

July 31st, 2011 4:30 PM
In his roughly 10 a.m. report this morning (HT to an NB emailer), the Associated Press's Steven R. Hurst opened by saying that "The top Republican in the Senate said Congress and the White House were very close to a deal on raising the limit on U.S. borrowing that would avert an unprecedented default on America's debt, ending one of the nastiest partisan fights in recent memory." In his…

ABC Sees Conservatives ‘Mounting an Unprecedented Assault on Environ

July 31st, 2011 5:29 AM
 On Saturday’s World News, ABC anchor Dan Harris seemed to fret that the current debate over the budget is taking attention away from an "unprecedented assault" that is being "quietly" waged by conservatives "on environmental regulations." As the report from Blair, West Virginia, focused on a coal mining technique that destroys the tops of mountains, correspondent Jim Sciutto featured two…

FNC Cites MRC Study on Network Newscasts Blaming Republicans for Budge

July 30th, 2011 11:24 PM
 On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, regular panel member Jim Pinkerton of American Conservative magazine brought up a recent study from the Media Research Center - parent organization to NewsBusters - which found that broadcast network newscasts overwhelmingly placed more blame on Republicans than Democrats for the drawn-out budget fight. After asserting that the press are "carrying" President Obama…

GDP Media Coverage, Part 3: AP Pair Pins Prime Blame on Gas Prices, Fi

July 30th, 2011 9:31 PM
The AP's coverage of the U.S. economy late Friday focused on high gas prices as the dominant, uh, driver of this year's anemic growth both visually and in its text. As will be seen after the jump, the graphic at the AP's national site is of a gas price sign. The final sentence in the caption of the full-size version reads "High gas prices and scant income gains forced Americans to sharply…

Media, Democrats, and the President Have Been in Lockstep with the Tea

July 30th, 2011 2:29 PM
Throughout his tenure, there have been several facets in which President Obama has been demonstrably weak on leadership, with the debt debate coming to the forefront in recent months.  Now however, lost in that news cycle has been another failure of leadership for the President – his own request to tone down violent rhetoric in this country.  For it was mere months ago that Obama stood in front…

Networks Deride 'Rebellious' 'Hardline Conservatives' Creating 'Chaos

July 29th, 2011 1:42 PM
On Friday, all three network morning shows played up the theme of stubborn House GOP conservatives opposing Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling plan. On CBS's Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge proclaimed: "House Republicans will meet again this morning after hardline conservatives handed House Speaker John Boehner a major setback." On ABC's Good Morning America, co-host George Stephanopoulos…

20-1: NY Times Continues to Bury Liberal Label in Debt Debate, Highlig

July 29th, 2011 12:51 PM
The New York Times' lead story on the debt ceiling debate, Friday, for the second time in three days, featured no liberal labels, but managed to tag "conservatives" five times. This now brings the ideological scorecard (for that time period) to 20 conservative identifications and just one for liberals. The Times' Carl Hulse only slightly varied his description of the House Republicans. He…

MRC-TV: Bozell Discusses Debt Crisis Bias on 'Fox & Friends

July 29th, 2011 11:22 AM
"When, oh, when is a Republican going to stand up" and call the liberal media on their lies about the debt ceiling debate, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell lamented on this morning's "Fox & Friends." Bozell was reacting to a clip of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) answering a misleading and biased question by CBS's Bob Schieffer (video follows page break; MP3 audio here):