State of the Union

The Economist magazine often provides valuable windows into world events. But when it comes to American politics, its reach exceeds its grasp, succumbing to the worst, self-satisfied Euro-cliches: A knuckle-dragging, ultra-conservative Republican Party vengefully attacking thoughtful, intellectual Democrats like Barack Obama. The two standards were on stark display in the January 16/22 issue,…

“America is the best country in the world,” declares Danny (Chris D’Elia) at the opening of the episode "Danny's Boyz Walk Into a Bar" of the live NBC comedy Undateable. He is giving his own version of the State of the Union address, a timely reference to the actual address delivered by President Obama just a few days ago. He calls himself “Barack O’Biden” and promises a clothing-optional America…

Broadcast-network comedy-talk programs such as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon took two weeks off over Christmas and New Year’s. Real Time With Bill Maher got a winter break college students would envy (two months -- remember, it’s not TV, it’s HBO) but the show returns Friday night, and to promote it, Maher gave an interview to The Daily Beast. He and the Beast’s Marlow Stern talked…

One day after President Barack Obama made his final State of the Union address, Paul Ryan -- speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives -- criticized the event by stating that “it was a fairly typical speech” for the Democratic occupant of the White House, who “glossed over the economy” as well as his “foreign-policy failures.”

Don Lemon offered a strange critique of Paul Ryan on Wednesday's CNN Tonight, as he noted the House Speaker's "poker face" during Tuesday's State of the Union address. Lemon spotlighted a Twitter post from Shonda Rhimes, where the Hollywood writer/producer attacked Speaker Ryan for his lack of applause: "She [Rhimes] said, 'Seriously? You cannot clap for curing cancer? You are that much of a…

Bing West was a Marine infantry officer in the Vietnam war and a frequent embedded reporter in Iraq, yet Drum likens him to a tantrum-throwing kid and lectures him, “It's time to grow up, Bing.” (West is 75 years old.) After West commented, “The lesson of Iraq is that after American troops achieved stability, Mr. Obama quit, leading to a larger war and more American deaths,” Drum vented, “Jesus…

GOP political strategist Steve Schmidt has taken considerable flak from conservatives for occasional Republican-In-Name-Only tendencies, but he held his ground well after taking a gratuitous shot across the bow from Chris Matthews. With Matthews and Rachel Maddow acting as anchors in covering last night's State of the Union address, Schmidt was one of three MSNBC commentators, along with Chris…

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, during a discussion of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley giving the Republican response to the State of the Union, Daily Beast Executive Editor Noah Shachtman asserted that Governor Haley is a "super-conservative" who is trying to prevent the GOP from going "fascist" and "white nationalist." After host Costello noted that…

ABC’s Terry Moran has not lost his love for Barack Obama. The Nightline correspondent, who once compared the President to George Washington, on Tuesday got nostalgic for the early days of Obama, reminiscing, “I first met the then-Senator Obama in Cleveland all of the way back in 2006. Back then, they were naming babies after him in Iowa.”

On Wednesday, all three network morning shows offered rave reviews of President Obama’s final State of the Union address, applauding the “passionate defense of his record” and his repeated attacks on Republicans. Leading off NBC’s Today, co-host Matt Lauer announced: “Return to hope and change....President Obama uses his last State of the Union address to tout his accomplishments, set some lofty…

Despite most of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s response to the State of the Union being a takedown of President Obama, during interviews with the Republican on Wednesday, NBC’s Today and CBS This Morning focused exclusively on her warning against the “angriest voices” in the GOP.

Reasonable people agree that Americans fear of Islamic terrorism is irrational. Unfortunately, President Obama can't say that in public. That’s the thrust of New York Times reporter Peter Baker's “news analysis” on Tuesday’s front page, before Obama’s last State of the Union Address: “A Speech to Balance Terror and Reality.”  Baker’s pre-game analysis dovetailed with the administration’s…

Here at NewsBusters, one of our classification categories under Media Bias is "Sudden Respect." The notion is that all a Republican has to do to win praise from the MSM is to bash fellow Republicans or conservatives. There was a perfect illustration of the phenomenon on today's Morning Joe.  In her Republican response to the SOTU, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley counseled Republicans to…

ABC’s post-State of the Union coverage featured a number of predictably liberal takes on Tuesday, but some opposing viewpoints were able to break through with one criticism being chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz slamming the President’s characterization of many ISIS fighters as “guys in pickup trucks” because those same men “still are in charge of Mosul in Iraq” and “huge swaths…