Chris Matthews

During the 2011 debt ceiling fight, the media relentlessly harassed Republican attempts to rein in spending, as journalists demanded tax increases and blasted conservatives as hostage takers and bomb-toting terrorists.

The indictment of former President Trump has prompted gleeful cheers among many in the left-wing media, but a similar indictment of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards 12 years ago was jeered at the time as an “overreach” that could wind up being an “embarrassment” for the Justice Department.

Thirteen years ago this week, the liberal media celebrated the final passage of the Affordable Care Act, aka “ObamaCare,” President Barack Obama’s big government answer to the millions of Americans without health insurance. Passage came after a year of media cheerleading, as journalists trumpeted the alleged benefits of Obama’s plan and denigrated conservative critics as racists or terrorists…

Eight years ago, the New York Times’s Michael Schmidt broke the news that Hillary Clinton ignored government rules and used a personal server for e-mail during her time in office. Friendly journalists spent the next week furiously attempting to spin her scandalous conduct away, ultimately deriding reporters who provided tough coverage as Hillary “haters.”

Journalists love to use past presidents to measure today’s politicians, either to build up those who exemplify their historical liberal heroes, or to belittle conservatives with whom they disagree. Here’s a deep dive into the MRC’s archives showing how the media have used presidents from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln to JFK as talking points in today’s political battles.

Joe Biden can never hope to garner the gushing praise the media habitually lavished on his onetime boss, former President Barack Obama. Liberal reporters were always thrilled whenever they were privileged to hear their hero delivering predictable liberal platitudes from the well of the House of Representatives.

Six years ago today, November 26, 2016, news broke of the death of Fidel Castro, the former communist dictator of Cuba. His death was an opportunity for journalists to salute the prison state’s advances in health care, and to mindlessly babble about how Cubans supposedly preferred donkey carts to modern automobiles.

Four years ago, Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke enjoyed a starring role in the liberal media’s coverage of the 2018 midterm elections. This year, Beto’s trying again, taking on Texas Governor Greg Abbott, but on TV news he’s gone from a rock star to the invisible man.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, at a recent event with a liberal audience, praised Justice Clarence Thomas, her ideological adversary. Sotomayor said, “He is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution.” She added that while the two often disagree over judicial decisions, “We share a common understanding about people and kindness towards them.”

If coverage of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings (set to begin on Monday) is anything like what Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees faced, expect the liberal media to do everything they can to pave the way to an easy confirmation. When they weren’t singing the praises of their backgrounds, or even comedic stylings, liberal reporters and anchors tried to downplay the leftist leaning of…

Ten years ago this fall, then-President Barack Obama ridiculed Mitt Romney’s assessment that Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe.” On October 22, 2012, Obama dismissed the then-Republican presidential nominee with this mockery: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War's been over for 20 years.” In the years since, outlets such as CNN have…

Americans can be forgiven for suffering a collective whiplash over the last 13 years in how the liberal media views presidents. They desperately wanted Barack Obama to succeed and Donald Trump to fail. Now, they are attempting to rescue the floundering Joe Biden. Perhaps one of the best examples of working on the behalf of Obama came 13 years ago last month. Then-MSNBC host Chris Matthews came…

There’s a new battle brewing over the federal debt ceiling. Ten years ago, after the Obama administration instigated massive federal spending to deal with the Great Recession, Republicans insisted on long-term deficit reduction, and the liberal media slammed them as nihilists, hostage-takers, terrorists, suicide bombers and zombie vampires.

Years before Barack Obama gave Chris Matthews a “thrill” UP his leg, the Democrat prompted a “chill” IN his leg. In fact, it was 17 years ago this week that the former MSNBC host swooned over the Democrat the media would fall in love with. During John Kerry’s Democratic National Convention, Matthews used eerily similar language to his more famous outburst: “I have to tell ya a little chill in…