Debates

Mollie Hemingway -- the winner of the first annual Noel Sheppard Media Blogger of the Year Award -- has an excellent piece at The Federalist detailing why "CNBC's John Harwood Has No Business Moderating A GOP Presidential Debate."

Ahead of Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, NBC’s Today promoted Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton having “her own battle plan heading into tonight,” preparing to respond to the GOP 2016 field with a new ad blitz.

Hours before Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America both seized on a hit piece in Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspaper demanding that Marco Rubio resign his Senate seat. At the top of Today, co-host Matt Lauer proclaimed: “Florida Senator Marco Rubio gets dealt a tough blow from one of his state's newspapers.”

Whatever Nicolle Wallace had for breakfast this morning, Jeb should down a double order . . . On today's Morning Joe, former Bush communications chief Wallace slammed a Politico story in which former McCain staffers rejected parallels between Jeb's campaign and that of McCain, who came back from the political wilderness to win the nomination in 2008. Calling the story a "cheap shot," "low blow"…

On Tuesday's New Day on CNN, during a discussion of how the latest poll numbers might affect the upcoming Republican presidential debate, co-anchor Chris Cuomo predicted that the debate would include discussion of the revelation that Hillary Clinton initially told people close to her that Benghazi was a terrorist attack before switching to the discredited story of a video merely inciting a…

On her Tuesday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell reminisced over CNBC’s Washington correspondent John Harwood tripping up Rick Perry during a 2011 Republican presidential debate. After playing a clip of the infamous “oops” moment, Mitchell turned to Harwood and proclaimed: “John, what are you doing when you're not ending people's presidential candidate's race? I mean, that was a memorable moment.”

Appearing as a guest on Friday's Tavis Smiley show on PBS, actor Dick Van Dyke spoke of his support for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and oddly complained that it is "incendiary" for his critics to call him a "socialist," even though Sanders labels himself a "democratic socialist." Van Dyke then declared that "we're a fairly socialist government already." The veteran actor, who is…

During CBS This Morning’s daily “Headlines” segment on Thursday, co-host Norah O’Donnell eagerly touted a piece by Time magazine which “reports on Congressman Paul Ryan accused of hypocrisy.” The CBS reporter mentioned no names who accused Ryan of “hypocrisy” when she promoted the article and instead noted that “Ryan said if he were to serve as House Speaker he would not give up spending time…

On Wednesday’s CBS This Morning, reporter Nancy Cordes previewed Congressman Paul Ryan’s expected bid to be the next Speaker of the House by repeatedly playing up the potential conflict he will have with the supposed “hardliners” within his own party. The CBS reporter introduced the segment by stressing how Ryan will only run for speaker if he receives support from the entire House Republican…

After tape rolled of Black Lives Matter demonstrators repeatedly chanting "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon," you might have thought a BLM leader would either apologize, or at least seek to miminize the incident as the excesses of an irresponsible and unrepresenative few. But no.  On today's Melissa Harris-Perry show, after just such video was played, BLM leader Monica Dennis issued not one…

During an appearance on Sunday’s Meet the Press, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell complained to House Benghazi committee member Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) as to why “have you focused to much on e-mails and not on the central question of why was the security failure at that consulate?” 

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, the Washington Post’s Charles Lane helped preview Hillary Clinton’s upcoming testimony before the House Benghazi committee and declared “she comes in brimming with confidence.” Lane heaped praise on Clinton’s debate performance, specifically when she compared the Republicans with the Iranians as a moment when the Democratic frontrunner appeared “humorable…

Reporter Patrick Healy made the front of Friday's New York Times marveling at how differently Republicans and Democrats see America, in "One Nation, Under Debate. Or Are There 2?" Healy, who is hypersensitive to the political strengths of Hillary Clinton, portrayed the Republican presidential field as dour and negative, while his strange choice of cultural commentators for a political story --…