Open Thread

NB Staff

Norah Defends Napolitano

How should MSNBC supplement its income?  Have the DNC underwrite part of Norah O'Donnell's salary.  She's certainly earning it . . . Yesterday, as noted here, a giddy Norah enthused that Charlie Crist's vote-splitting independent run gives the Dems "a real shot" to win the Florida Senate seat.O'Donnell was back on the Dem ramparts this morning on Morning Joe, defending Janet Napolitano's…
Mark Finkelstein

Laura Bush Tags 'Adversarial, Offensive' Reporters at WaPo, N.Y. Times

First Lady Laura Bush is "settling scores" in her new memoir, reported Washington Post writer Ann Gerhart on Thursday, and several reporters from the New York Times and The Washington Post are called out: The New York Times' Jason DeParle interviewed her "in a tone that was adversarial and more than a touch offensive." [DeParle is the Times reporter whose wife currently works for Obama.]Jim…
Tim Graham

Cafferty: Obama's Threat to Challenge Arizona's Immigration Law 'Utter

For the second time in three days CNN's Jack Cafferty went after the White House for its response to Arizona's new anti-illegal immigration law."The Obama administration says it might challenge Arizona's new law in court," Cafferty said during Wednesday's "Situation Room.""They're apparently concerned the law would take away resources needed to target criminals," he continued."How utterly absurd…
Noel Sheppard

CBS Trumpets Opposition to ‘Notorious’ Arizona Law from One Cop an

CBS won’t let go of liberal efforts against the new immigration enforcement law in Arizona. A night after Katie Couric focused on “the backlash against Arizona's new immigration law. San Francisco bans official travel to that state,” she teased Thursday’s CBS Evening News by trumpeting a lawsuit against it from a lone police officer: “The latest response to Arizona's new immigration law? Sue the…
Brent Baker

Joe Scarborough Says His Radio Show's a Wild Success; Don Imus Says No

Citadel Media abruptly pulled Joe Scarborough's radio show from its lineup on Monday, describing it as a “brief hiatus” while they develop a new three-hour version of the show. Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer blog has tape of Joe and his sidekick Mika Brzezinski denouncing conservative talk radio for being simple-minded, one-sided, and “afraid of hearing other viewpoints.” Scarborough…
Tim Graham

George Mason Reviewing Author of South Park Death Threats

While the story of the South Park death threats may not specifically constitute bias in the media per say, it does highlight an embarrassing pattern that has sent Big Media the way of the dinosaur, and a disturbing pattern that has people kowtowing to aggressive threats from radical Islamists.  We'll start with the MSM.  Zachary Chesser, or Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee as he is known on the…
Rusty Weiss

Olbermann Mocks Alabama's Tim 'We Speak English' James's Southern Acce

Keith Olbermann on Thursday mocked the Southern drawl of Alabama's Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim James.Last week, James released a new ad claiming that if he's elected governor, drivers license exams will only be written in English rather than the twelve languages currently available for Alabama residents.The commercial ended, "Maybe it's the businessman in me, but we'll save money, and…
Noel Sheppard

MSNBC: Charlie Crist Independent Run Shows GOP Pushing Out Moderates

During Thursday's 11AM ET hour on MSNBC, anchor Tamron Hall asked former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean about Florida Governor Charlie Crist's expected announcement to run as an independent in that state's senate race: "Is this a sign that people, perhaps centrists or moderates, like Charlie Crist, have no place in this new emerging Republican Party?" That set up the left-wing…
Kyle Drennen

NBC's Andrea Mitchell Sides With U.K. Prime Minister, Slams Voter as a

On Thursday's Morning Joe, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell appeared and seemed to agree with Britain's Prime Minister that a voter he met was a bigot. Discussing Gordon Brown's April 28 comments, which were caught on a live mic, Mitchell defended, "And what he said is not actually that offensive...I mean, it was an honest opinion." [Audio available here.]Even the fellow panel members on the mostly…
Scott Whitlock

CNBC’s Liesman: What Path to Socialism? Says Current Rate of Gov’t

A $787-billion stimulus. Liabilities of $356 billion for the TARP bailout on the federal government's balance sheet. And that's in addition to other unfunded liabilities from federal entitlements like ObamaCare, Medicare, and Social Security. But that doesn't mean the U.S. is heading down the path toward socialism because they were one-time expenditures, according to CNBC senior economics…
Jeff Poor

CNBC Debate: Liesman, Santelli Argue Whether U.S. Is Headed for Europe

Senior economic reporter says federal expenditures like TARP and the stimulus won't be repeated.
Jeff Poor

NYT's Egan: 'Crackpot' Republicans Behind 'Lunatic Magnet' Arizona's

Timothy Egan, liberal New York Times reporter turned liberal nytimes.com columnist, is the latest former reporter to weigh in on Arizona's anti-immigration law, "Desert Derangement Syndrome."It would be hard to top former NYT Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse's hysterical conflation in her Tuesday print-edition column of Arizona's stricter enforcement of immigration laws with a Nazi police…
Clay Waters

Time Places 'Moron' NewsBusters on 'Least Influential' List

Time magazine's website on Thursday named me to their tongue-in-cheek "Least Influential People of 2010" list, ranking me with other notables such as Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, MSNBC anchor David Shuster, and Clarence Thomas. Contributor Joel Stein stated that he was "short on morons" to put on his list, so he picked me after CNN anchor Rick Sanchez told him about our recent dispute.The…
Matthew Balan