Open Thread

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Will Middle East peace discussions in Annapolis produce anything meaningful and lasting?
NB Staff

Zogby Zinger: Hillary Aide Should Temper Criticism 'With a Little Bit

"You sort of have to be a little careful. There's a whole campaign handbook of things that you say to dismiss polls. But you should mire them in a little bit of truth." -- John Zogby, responding to criticism by Mark Penn, chief Hillary Clinton strategist, of Zogby's online polling.Mark Twain, famously warning against getting into a spat with newspapers, said "never pick a fight with someone who…
Mark Finkelstein

Katie Couric's Preferred Epitaph: ' Don't Call Me F---ing Perky

Tim Graham

NBC's Williams Avoids Controversy With Edwards, Not With Giuliani

Three weeks ago, when NBC anchor Brian Williams interviewed Rudy Giuliani, Williams raised Giuliani's closeness to Bernard Kerik and pressed him on Iraq as he pointed out how 2007 had become “the bloodiest year” in the war, but in an interview with John Edwards aired Tuesday night, Williams stuck to softballs and didn't bring up the indictment of a major Edwards donor or push Edwards about how…
Brent Baker

AP Claims Discrimination Against Mexicans in Illinois, Offers NO Proof

According to the Associated Press, folks who are "foreign-born" are "newcomers" who "feel anything but welcome" in the Chicago suburb of Waukegan, Illinois. The AP piece leads the reader to imagine that several of the town's laws have been specifically written to chase out Mexicans and that the immigrant community (legal or otherwise) in Waukegan is feeling pressure to get out. Yet, upon close…
Warner Todd Huston

Abstinence Gets Fair Treatment from Today Show

NBC's Meredith Vieira is skeptical, but at least she isn't hostile.
Kristen Fyfe

NBC Highlights Returning Iraqis: 'I Can't Wait to Get Back

“There is a noticeable trend under way. A growing stream of Iraqis who left to escape the killing, many of them going to Syria, now reversing their migration,” anchor Brian Williams highlighted Tuesday evening as the NBC Nightly News became the first broadcast network evening newscast to air a full report on the trend. From Baghdad, reporter Tom Aspell showcased a mother who exclaimed: “I'm so…
Brent Baker

Bozell Column: Tom Brokaw vs. Talk Radio

In the musty but hallowed halls of the Old Media, the first item for target practice is often the New Media, the ones formed and made popular by the atrocious biases of their predecessors. The Old Media continue watching their numbers bleed away; continue to paint themselves as fair and balanced, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary; and continue to smear the New Media,…
Brent Bozell

Not Prejudiced, But 'I Don't Want...a Colored Man' for President

In the self-incriminating quote of the night, an unidentified white man, in a Tuesday night CBS Evening News story on Barack Obama, insisted “I don't want to sound prejudiced or anything,” but then proceeded to declare: “I don't want to vote for a colored man to be our President.” The soundbite aired during a piece from Dean Reynolds on Obama's racial identity and how it gives some blacks “pause…
Brent Baker

Newsweek Writer Enjoys Atheist Denouncing the Conservative 'Nitwit

Tim Graham

Schieffer Newsflash: Politicians Just ‘Tell Us What We Want to Hear

In his "Final Word" at the end of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer made the cliched charge:Candidates now race to tell us what we want to hear. They load us down with spin, tiptoe around controversial issues, and give us tortured explanations of how a change in their position really wasn't a change at all. This pandering to popular public sentiment toward politicians was…
Kyle Drennen

Newsweek: Who's Less Liberal? Romney or Giuliani

"Rudy v. Romney: Which one is least [sic]* liberal?"So asks a teaser headline in the Newsweek.com front page "light box" slideshow (pictured at right). The link takes readers to Newsweek assistant editor Andrew Romano's article, "Forget 'Conservative.' Who's the 'Least Liberal' GOP Frontrunner?"Conservatives examining whom to support in the primary elections might do well to welcome an…
Ken Shepherd

CNN's Cafferty: Streisand 'Reclusive, Neurotic, Over-the-Hill Vocalist

CNN's Jack Cafferty, who made his anti-Iraq war, anti-Bush administration stance clear on Monday's "The Situation Room," rolled his eyes at Barbara Streisand's endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Tuesday's program. His characterization of the news: "Reclusive, neurotic, over-the-hill vocalist endorses Hillary. I mean, is the ground supposed to shake now, and lightning bolts fly out of the sky. Who…
Matthew Balan

More Double Standards at YouTube

As YouTube is gearing up with CNN to host a Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, the video-sharing service is finding itself embroiled in another censorship controversy with an Egyptian blogger named Wael Abbas:The video-sharing Web site YouTube has suspended the account of a prominent Egyptian anti-torture activist who posted videos of what he said was brutal behaviour by some Egyptian…
Matthew Sheffield