Liberals & Democrats

In an interview with Vice President Joe Biden in Iraq aired on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry depicted the war effort there as a failure: "In a war that was started to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction that were never found, can the United States claim victory?" [Audio available here] Biden agreed with Curry as he took a jab at the Bush administration: "We're not…

Acting as a televised press release for the Democratic National Committee, MSNBC's Martin Bashir today brought on DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) to argue that new voter ID laws in several states of the Union are an attempt by Republicans to "suppress" the votes of "minorities" and college-aged voters, two groups that historically trend Democratic. True to MSNBC form, no…

Updated : More analysis and full transcript added. Introducing an interview with CEO Richard Branson about his new book, "Screw Business As Usual," on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer proclaimed: "...Sir Richard Branson argues the driving force behind capitalism should not be about making a profit, it's about caring for people, communities, and the planet." [Audio available here]…

On Wednesday, NPR's resident ObamaCare booster Jule Rovner spotlighted the left-leaning Kaiser Family Foundation's latest tracking poll on the law. Rovner indicated that 51% unpopularity for the legislation in October was merely a "blip," and played up how "the public is still confused about what the law does and does not do, more than 18 months after its passage." The journalist led her…

On Monday's NBC Rock Center, host Brian Williams took time to update viewers on the latest political news, "And if you want to guess how dirty this campaign will be, listen to this Romney ad....Romney's spokesperson said they're not going to take their foot off the gas." Williams played a clip of President Obama from the ad: "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." He…

Looks like GQ magazine and CNN's Anderson Cooper have gotten under Ed Schultz's skin. Then again, so many things do. The magazine last week ranked Schultz in a satirical listing of "The 25 Least Influential People Alive," a tally that also included President Obama. (audio clip after page break)

On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer interviewed Obama advisor David Plouffe and promoted liberal concerns that the administration had not pushed enough government economic programs: "Even the Democratic Mayor of Scranton, Christopher Dougherty, says that he'd hoped for more federal help under this Democratic administration, and it hasn't come." Lauer further detailed Dougherty's…

In a live report from Baghdad on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry described her arrival to the country with Vice President Biden: "Security is heavy amid an uptick in violence as the U.S. brings its divisive eight-year war in Iraq to an end. The Vice President timed his trip to the last days of America's war in Iraq." Later in the report, Curry listed the cost of the war: "Eight…

Yesterday we noted how the Washington Post devoted both an A-section front-pager and a Style section front-pager to celebrating the career of Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who announced his retirement from the House on Monday. Today the Post's "In the Loop" columnist Al Kamen continued the paper's celebration with a look at  "Frank's Greatest Hits", a collection of the Massachusetts Democrat's…

The Democratic National Committee blasted ABC reporter Jake Tapper in an "open letter" for declaring on his Political Punch blog that their ad was "deceptive and false" on Mitt Romney's position on the stimulus (as we reported first here.) Ben Smith at Politico reported it, and noted it has now been unpublished. This is probably why: DNC National Press Secretary Melanie Roussell charged,  "If…

NPR's Tovia Smith sang the praises of Congressman Barney Frank on Monday's All Things Considered: "Frank has proven both piercing and pithy, zinging one-liners....bold and unabashed." Smith barely included any dissenting voices in her report, playing four sound bites from the staunch liberal and his supporters, versus only two from opponents. Host Melissa Block noted how Rep. Frank is a "…

In an interview with President Obama's outgoing assistant Reggie Love on NBC's Rock Center Monday night, host Brian Williams fawned over the First Family: "...like a retro almost 1950s American family, that there's a – kind of a wholesomeness about them. They play board games, they play on the floor of the living room with the dog, they're not – the girls aren't allowed a lot of TV and social…

Anyone who made the easy prediction that the Associated Press would fail to bring up Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in its fawning tribute to Barney Frank after his retirement announcement yesterday was correct. Anyone making the easy prediction that the AP would lionize him as a "gay pioneer" was also spot-on. Also predictably, the wire service's Bob Salsberg and David Espo failed to mention that…

In a testy interview on Tuesday's NBC Today, fill-in co-host Savannah Guthrie avoided asking retiring Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank about his role in the collapse of the housing market and yet the liberal Democrat still complained: "You've managed to ask all sort of negative questions.....you're four for four in managing to find a negative approach." Guthrie began the segment by…