The day after President Barack Obama's policies were rebuked by the voters of one of the most liberal states when Massachusetts picked a Republican to replace Ted Kennedy, the White House turned to former Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos as their preferred vehicle to forward their spin as Obama sat down for an interview with the ABC News journalist. An accommodating Stephanopoulos, in…
Downplaying Brown's Win: Newsweek's Stone Says It's Just a Washington
Move along folks, nothing to see here.Is that the impression you're getting from some in the media regarding the results of yesterday's special election in Massachusetts? That's definitely the one Newsweek's Daniel Stone wants to leave his readers.From his The Gaggle blog post "Does Most of America Even Care About the Mass. Election?":
NBC's David Gregory Realizes What Tea Parties Are All About
A small group of liberal talking heads may be realizing that opposition to Obama is not, in fact, wholly irrational. Though it would be a bit too hasty to proclaim it a trend among the mainstream media, it has been a refreshing break from the smears usually hurled at the right by the nation's pundits. First was Chris Matthews, who stunningly turned right and voiced his concern about an…
Carol Costello: Republicans Fomented 'Fear and Confusion Among Voters
CNN’s Carol Costello reminisced enthusiastically about President Obama’s inauguration a year ago on Tuesday’s American Morning, highlighting how, at the time, “the hearts of millions of Americans were ready to burst- with a Woodstock kind of love.” Costello also took a shot at Republicans, stating that they “used the President’s strategy [on health care] to create fear and confusion among voters…
CBS’s Rodriguez: Scott Brown Will ‘Derail’ Ted Kennedy’s ‘Pa
Speaking to political analyst John Dickerson on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show about Republican Scott Brown winning the Massachusetts Senate race, co-host Maggie Rodriguez lamented: “When it comes to health care, I think it’s so ironic that the late Ted Kennedy’s passion was health care. He dedicated his career to it. And the man who will replace him could be the one to derail it.”Rodriguez wondered…
New Republic Editor Goes Off Deep End Over Fate of ObamaCare
Few liberals have been more insistent on the inevitability of ObamaCare than The New Republic editor Jonathan Chait (along with his TNR colleague Jonathan Cohn). He is stubbornly clinging to the notion that ObamaCare can be a done deal despite the results of yesterday's election in Massachussets giving Republicans the 41st vote to block it in the Senate. To give you an idea of how far Chait has…
Vieira to Scott Brown: You're Derailing Cause of Teddy's Lifetime
NBC's Meredith Vieira, on Wednesday's Today show, rained on Scott Brown's parade as she wondered if the Senator-Elect's post-victory call to Ted Kennedy's widow Vicki was an awkward moment since, as the Today co-anchor pressed, "You plan to do whatever you can to derail...the cause of his lifetime?" [Audio available here]MEREDITH VIEIRA: You know on a personal note, you said last night the…
Dean and Skinner on CNBC: Mass. Vote Close Because Health Care Bill La
Matt Philbin
We don’t yet know the outcome of the Jan. 19 Massachusetts Senate special election. But the very fact that the Democrats could lose the seat formerly held by Sen. Ted Kennedy to a conservative who’s made blocking healthcare reform a centerpiece of his campaign, has liberals sputtering implausible explanations.On Jan. 19, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and liberal radio host Nancy Skinner…
ABC Empathizes with White House: Coakley Loss ‘Shakespearean
ABC on Monday night again empathized with the Obama White House’s disbelief that they could lose “Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat” -- and thus ObamaCare -- if Republican Scott Brown beats Democrat Martha Coakley in Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts. George Stephanopoulos saw a “Shakespearean” tragedy just over a week after PBS’s Judy Woodruff, on ABC’s This Week, described such a scenario as…
Time’s Mark Halperin: Dem Loss in Mass. = Win For ObamaCare
In a bizarre twist of logic, on Monday’s Morning Joe program on MSNBC, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin argued that if Democrat Martha Coakley lost the race for the Massachusetts Senate, it would improve chances of health care reform passing: “I actually think they may get health care more easily than if they win.”While Halperin acknowledged that losing the Senate seat that once belonged to the late…
Time's Scherer Hits Coakley for Misleading 'Gutter' Politics On Emerge
While concluding a story on the Massachusetts Senate race on Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez acknowledged the possibility that Republican Scott Brown could win the long held Democratic seat but wondered: “It’ll be interesting to see if Brown, the Republican, wins, if the Democrats can defer his swearing in and get health care passed. We will watch that.” At the top of the show,…
MSNBC's Shuster Wonders If Mass. Voters Have Lost Their Minds