Networks: 'Tough' Obama 'Wasted No Time' Issuing 'Fighting Words' Agai
After President Obama admitted on Thursday that he had "no strategy" for dealing with the ISIS terrorist network, on Wednesday, the network morning shows rushed to portray the aimless commander-in-chief as a tough-talking leader ready to "destroy" the radical killers.
At the top of ABC's Good Morning America, co-host George Stephanopoulos hyped: "President Obama's tough words to the ISIS…
CBS’s Dickerson: ‘Overlaying This Entire Election Is Disappointmen
After appearing on Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, CBS News political director John Dickerson joined substitute anchor Charlie Rose on Tuesday night’s CBS Evening News to discuss the upcoming midterm elections. While Dickerson told Rose that voters are citing domestic issues as what they care about most, he said that “overlaying this entire election is disappointment with the President” which “…
MSNBC's Mika Bemoans 'Unprecedented' Foreign Policy 'Crises' Obama Has
On Tuesday's Morning Joe, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski felt sorry for President Obama and all the crises overseas that he is currently facing: "You look at just the President, and the incoming on foreign policy crises, I think it's possibly unprecedented, except for extreme times of war."
Moments earlier, the morning newscast played a montage of video clips looking back at all the tumultuous…
Charles Pierce: He’s ‘Not Very Good’ as a TV Host, But ‘The Co
Some politicians have the same public image throughout their careers. Others at least try to give themselves a makeover (e.g., the “new Nixon” of 1968). In a Wednesday post, Esquire’s Charles Pierce claimed that for the past decade, we’ve had what amounts to a new Al Sharpton, and that “the transformation began when Sharpton ran for president in 2004.”
Pierce noted Sharpton’s Tawana Brawley/…
Politico: Obama to Limit Campaigning to 'States Where He's Still Popul
A Friday afternoon dispatch at the Politico from Carrie Budoff Brown and Jennifer Epstein tells us that "The White House is putting the finishing touches on a post-Labor Day schedule that will send the president to states where he’s still popular."
The list of states where the Politico pair alleges that's the case is quite short: "Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California."…
Networks Defend Obama as ‘Critics Pounced’ and Took 'Too Literally
On Friday morning, the major broadcast networks were out in full force to defend President Obama after his remarks at a press conference Thursday afternoon in which he said that “we don’t have a strategy yet” in how to militarily address the Islamic terrorist group ISIS in Syria.
Leading the way was NBC’s Today, where co-host Matt Lauer told NBC News political director and moderator of Meet…
AP Headline Describes 160 Syrian Soldiers Massacred by ISIS as 'Dozens
I struggle to come up with a reason, other than an irresponsible attempt to minimize the impact of the horror, why the headline at a Thursday evening Associated Press story by Zeina Karam and Ryan Lucas about "more than 160 Syrian government troops" massacred by ISIS is "JIHADISTS KILL DOZENS OF CAPTURED SYRIAN SOLDIERS."
But that's how the wire service is presenting it:
'Americans Could Die!': Megyn Kelly Goes Off On Obama's Friday Fundrai
On Wednesday night, Megyn Kelly, perhaps the best host on the air today at adapting and responding to new information, did a double-take when Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry told her that President Obama would be traveling to Rhode Island on Friday for a Democratic Party fundraiser.
Having been so informed, she then made those plans the first topic of discussion with each of her…
NBC and ABC Ignore Obama Fundraising Trip Snarling Holiday Travel, CBS
Despite a Thursday New York Post report that President Obama's upcoming Labor Day weekend fundraising junket would shut down airspace across the northeast and hurt business for local pilots, neither NBC's Today nor ABC's Good Morning America covered the controversy. CBS This Morning offered a mere 18-second news brief on the topic.
This Morning fill-in co-host Vinita Nair informed viewers…
Matthews on Arizona Gun Range Tragedy: ‘This Is Where You Get When Y
Chris Matthews devoted a segment during his MSNBC show Hardball on Wednesday evening to the tragic shooting death of a firearms instructor at a Arizona gun range after a nine-year-old girl accidently shot him with an Uzi submachine gun. Instead of discussing how tragic this incident was or possible safety measures to take in the future, Matthews and his guests chose to rail against the National…
Rush Limbaugh Levels Gwen Ifill's 'Is That America?' Piety on Ferguson
Among the things that conservative firebreather Rush Limbaugh deservedly loathes, it's sanctimony from an ostensibly neutral news anchor.
Gwen Ifill, moderator of "Washington Week" and co-anchor of "PBS NewsHour," was among the panelists who appeared on "Meet the Press" this past Sunday. The discussion inevitably turned to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the civil…
PBS Bemoans Philippines 'Diluting' Population Control Law to Protect R
Mark Litke hyped the "population explosion – what some are calling a crisis" in the Philippines on Sunday's PBS NewsHour Weekend, and played up how poor "families in Asia's most Catholic country...have had little or no access to contraception or family planning advice." Litke confronted a retired Catholic archbishop on his Church's teaching against birth control: "If the people of the…
Networks Fret Over Burger King 'Defecting' to Canada to Pay Lower Taxe
As news broke on Tuesday of Burger King buying Tim Hortons and moving its corporate headquarters to Canada, the broadcast networks quickly adopted the liberal talking point that the fast food chain was being unpatriotic by avoiding high U.S. tax rates. On Tuesday's ABC World News, anchor Diane Sawyer proclaimed: "Burger King, home of the Whopper, accused of doing something a lot of Americans…
O'Reilly: Al Sharpton 'Almost Single-Handedly Has Corrupted NBC News
On his show Monday night, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly declared that MSNBC host and Ferguson, Missouri activist Al Sharpton "has become so controversial in America that it's hard to explain how a news agency, NBC, can even have him on the payroll." Mediabuzz host Howard Kurtz agreed, labeling Sharpton's employment with the network "a travesty." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the…
