Guns

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday conducted a softball interview with Michael Bloomberg, touting his new gun control campaign and never once calling the New York mayor a liberal. GMA even featured a truck promoting Fixgunchecks.org, highlighting the parked vehicle just outside ABC studios. Ignoring ideological labels, Stephanopoulos introduced, "New York Mayor Mike…

Andrea Mitchell, for a second day in a row, pushed for more gun control on her MSNBC show as she encouraged Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, "You and Mike Bloomberg...have all been yelling and screaming," about more restrictive anti-gun measures, "Somebody's got to listen in Washington." Initially invited on Thursday's Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss the Obama administration's push for…

In a pre-taped interview with gun control advocate New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, aired during Wednesday's 1PM ET hour on MSNBC, host Andrea Mitchell browbeat President Obama for having "absolutely nothing, not one word....not even a sentence" about gun control in his State of the Union address. Prior to the interview, Mitchell touted Bloomberg's anti-gun crusade: "Michael Bloomberg…

"Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski broke from the panel discussion Tuesday and implored Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to close the state's so-called gun show loophole. The MSNBC panel was discussing lax gun show laws allowing persons to purchase semi-automatic guns with little or no background check performed on them. Brzezinski, seemingly abandoning journalism in favor of advocacy, tersely…

Given the chance to interview Katie Couric, I wouldn't ask her what newspapers she reads.  I'd want to know how she understands her role as anchor, and why she thinks it's appropriate to express opinions on controversial issues of the day. For that's just what she's done on the subject of gun control, expressing disappointment that Pres. Obama didn't raise it in his SOTU. Describing her…

It appears NBC's Matt Lauer is not happy about Barack Obama's failure to exploit the Tucson shooting to push for more gun control as on Wednesday's Today show, he seemingly expressed disappointment to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that the President "missed" an "opportunity" to address it in his State of the Union speech. Lauer's anti-gun question to Giuliani came on the heels of…

In previewing the President's State of the Union Address, on Tuesday's Today show, NBC's Matt Lauer pushed White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, mostly from the left, as he pressed her to reveal if Obama would "directly address gun control" and asked if Obama's appointment of business leaders to his team, risked "alienating some more liberal voters...who don't like big business."…

What's with the New York Times and its inability to practice what it preaches when it comes to avoiding gun-filled images and rhetoric?  A few days ago I noted how the Times had placed a bullet-riddled ad for a violent video game right on its online op-ed page. Now comes this Times headline: "Republicans’ Budget Man Draws Fire".  That is of course a metaphorical invocation of someone who by…

 On Monday’s the Last Word show, in its new 8:00 p.m. time slot, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell referred to the manufacturers of high-capacity magazines as "merchants of death" who purchase "their political protection from the NRA." As he continued his push for a ban on magazines with 30 bullets in light of the Tucson shootings, O’Donnell dismissed a statement from the NRA which argued that such…

There are times it seems the folks at MSNBC are so driven by their liberal agenda that they're missing their own hypocrisy even when it happens on the same show separated by mere minutes. Take for example Chris Matthews who moments after a lengthy segment Monday complaining about Glenn Beck and the so-called "violent rhetoric of the Right" ironically tied Tea Party members to "Nazi stuff" (…

There I was this morning at the New York Times online op-ed page, the scene of so much self-righteous hand-wringing in recent weeks over the violence in our culture and rhetoric.  I was deciding whether to subject myself first to Gail Collins or Charles Blow, when my eye was drawn to the ad you see here for something called "Project Blackout."  A busty babe wields an assault rifle the Times…

"[W]hether you think a ban on police-style assault weapons such as the one Jared Lee Loughner used in Tuscon is good policy or not, it is curious to see that Republicans are not even bothering to make legitimate arguments against such proposals," Newsweek's Ben Adler scoffed in a January 18 The Gaggle blog post: There is simply no precedent to support the claim that laws preventing…

From the files of clippings I've saved over the years, one of my favorite headlines -- "Prison populations, costs climbing: $40b a year spent on inmates despite falling crime rate," as published in The Boston Globe on July 28, 2003. Yes -- "despite". Not the only time I've seen a headline along these lines, though less often nowadays, its idiocy becoming too obvious to ignore. As if to…

On Tuesday's John King USA, CNN's John King issued a prompt on-air apology minutes after a guest on his program used the term "crosshairs" during a segment: "We're trying to get away from using that kind of language" (audio available here). This action stands in stark contrast to an incident over a year earlier where former anchor Rick Sanchez took four days to apologize for using a unconfirmed…