Sudden Respect

As former Newsweek editor-in-chief Evan Thomas appeared as a guest on MSNBC Sunday to discuss former First Lady Nancy Reagan's passing, host Chris Matthews and Thomas used Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon to chastise the current Republicans for being too unwilling to compromise. After Thomas asserted that Reagan and Nixon "are rolling over in their graves" and recalled that Nancy…

New York Times Phoenix bureau chief Fernanda Santos gave out surprising praise to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in Wednesday’s edition -- though it’s less surprising when you realize why. Like her newspaper, Santos has a history of trying to discredit Republicans on illegal immigration. In August 2014, Santos suggested Arizona citizens who showed up to a forum to express concerns about border…

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…

On Monday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, host O'Donnell and Frank Rich of New York magazine talked up the possibility that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is not really a natural-born U.S. citizen and therefore not eligible to serve as President. Rich, a former New York Times columnist, praised GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump as "brilliant" for pushing the issue…

The lead story in Saturday's New York Times heaped praise upon the passage of a package of spending increases: “Avoiding Rancor, Congress Passes A Fiscal Package -- $1.8 Trillion Measure – Spending Rise and New Tax Breaks Suggest End of Austerity." This big-spending budget earned Ryan some strange new respect, with reporter David Herszenhorn praising his “deftness in pacifying rebellious…

When tagging items at NewsBusters, one of our Media Bias sub-categories is "Sudden Respect." The notion is that to win the affection of the MSM, all a Republican or conservative needs to do is turn against members or positions of his party. A great illustration of the phenomenon comes from today's Morning Joe. During last night's undercard debate, Lindsey Graham repeatedly ripped fellow…

Offering his initial thoughts on Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate on the 11:00 p.m. Eastern edition of CNN’s AC360, CNN political commentator and Hillary Clinton super PAC head Paul Begala complained that Republicans possess “dominant emotion” of “fear” that they’ve somehow used to instill fear in Americans following recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. 

What does it take to get a member of the MSM to praise a Fox News host?  Simple: trash Donald Trump. On yesterday's With All Due Respect, co-host John Heilemann declared "I have always like Shep Smith, and I like him more today than I've ever liked him before." So what had Shep done to enhance Heilemann's fondness for him? On his show on Tuesday, during a dialogue with Wall Street Journal editor…

It's suddenly acceptable in the New York Times to call liberal hero Woodrow Wilson a racist, now that a black campus pressure group is making demands that Princeton University strike the name of Wilson, former president of the university, from the name of its public policy school. Yet for years, prominent conservatives have reminded liberals of the blatant racism and discrimination practiced by…

Appearing as a panel member on Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus had sudden respect for former President George W. Bush as she declared that she was "nostalgic for the good old days" when President Bush had "soothing, calming responsible words about Muslims" in contrast with the "very ugly week for Republicans" since the Paris attacks.

The Public Broadcasting Service isn’t really a representative of the Public, as everyone should know. It’s the defender of liberal elite opinion, no matter what the polls say. This week, the polls are stacking up against President Obama on his ISIS policy and his Syrian-refugee policy. But the PBS NewsHour stands with Obama and in horror at the current Republican Party. Both liberal Mark Shields…

New York Times reporter David "hard-line" Herszenhorn is making hostile labeling of conservatives a bad habit, especially in his post-Boehner reporting. The shock resignation of the Speaker of the House gave Times reporters an excuse to target the "far-right" conservatives who had supposedly hounded John Boehner out of office, and granting the speaker never a popular figure in Times-land, some…

On Saturday morning, the major broadcast networks were at it again in bashing the “far-right” and “unruly hardliners” in the House Republican caucus for causing Speaker John Boehner’s impending resignation announced Friday that CBS added could hurt the party’s chances in 2016 if the “infighting” continues.

A heavily politicized preliminary version of Friday's front-page New York Times story on Pope Francis's visit to New York City was another example of the sudden respect a religious figure garners from the liberal newspaper -- at least when he happens to agree on the Times' pet issue of immigration. Reporters Marc Santora and Sharon Otterman noted that the Pope's "words cut against the current…