FLASHBACK to January | Chris Matthews: I Am NOT Charlie Hebdo!

Railing against how Republicans want to "make it ethnic" when it comes to criticism of Islamist terrorism, Hardball host Chris Matthews this evening insisted that President Obama was correct to eschew referring to the Charlie Hebdo office massacre by al Qaeda operatives as "Islamic terrorism." What's more, Matthews made a point of insisting that he refuses to identify in solidarity with the…
Ken Shepherd

ABC Finds It Credible Barack Obama Can Be Another Reagan

Without laughing, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday’s World News Tonight advanced the White House hope that Barack Obama will be seen as Ronald Reagan was in 1987, as a President who rescued the economy and was rewarded by voters.
Rich Noyes

Boehner's SOTU Guest a Cuban Dissident; Will Media Ignore?

The State of the Union address this year falls one day after the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. So it's quite fitting that Speaker John Boehner have as his honored guest a black human-rights activist. But alas, said human-rights activist is also a Cuban dissident, a former political prisoner of the Castro regime and a critic of President Obama's push to normalize relations with Cuba…
Ken Shepherd

NYT Follows Lead of Left-Wing French Comedy Show to Pile on Fox News

The New York Times just can't stop using precious print space to attack rival news organization Fox News, based on an exaggerated claim about Muslim "no-go-zones" in England by a terrorism analyst who appeared on the channel after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Fueled by an obsessive anti-Fox crusade by a left-wing French comedy show, the latest story made Page 4.
Clay Waters

NYT: Obama Aide Reads 'To Kill a Mockingbird' to Month-Old Daughter

According to the New York Times, Obama's deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, reads "To Kill a Mockingbird" to his month-old baby daughter. I kid you not.
P.J. Gladnick

Blogger: GOPers ‘Twist’ Civil-Rights History ‘Beyond Recognition'

Esquire blogger Pierce alleges that right-wingers have turned the civil-rights movement “into a weapon against issues on which Dr. King surely would have come down on the progressive side,” and declares that the movement “no longer can be used as history's truncheon against the legitimate social, cultural, and political aspirations of the people who are its truest heirs.”
Tom Johnson

Fox's Tantaros: Kerry Should Have Used 'Send in the Clowns' in France

On Fox News's "The Five" last week, the panel had some fun coming up with alternative songs and performers U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry could have employed in his visit to France last week. The video which follows starts with Greg Gutfeld exposing how the song used — "You've Got a Friend" as delivered by James Taylor, who was having a hard time even keeping his microphone properly…
Tom Blumer

Jon Stewart's Skewering of Kerry & Taylor in Paris ... Touche!

Here's a textbook example of why Jon Stewart isn't entirely trusted on the left  -- when a big fat eephus pitch is heaved from a lumbering liberal, Stewart is swinging for the fence. And when the man connects, that ball is ... gone! On his Comedy Central show last night, Stewart demonstrated why he is more than willing to eviscerate a worthy target regardless of whether said target is…
Jack Coleman

Telemundo’s One-Sided Take on the Economics of Amnesty

The nation’s second most widely viewed Spanish-language newscast, Noticiero Telemundo, recently presented an entirely slanted report about the projected economic impact of the executive action by President Obama that lifts the threat of deportation that faced millions of immigrants who live in the United States without authorization.
Gerardo Abascal

Larry Wilmore Debuts New Comedy Central Show By Obsessing Over Race

On Monday night, Comedy Central’s newest late-night comedy show, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, premiered as the replacement for the recently departed Stephen Colbert. The former Daily Show correspondent spent the entirety of his debut episode talking about race in America and even brought on Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to ask him “do you feel like you're just a hoodie away from being face…
Jeffrey Meyer

MSNBC Guest on Jindal: 'Trying To Scrub the Brown Off of His Skin'

Arsalan Iftikhar made a bigoted attack on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on Monday's Now with Alex Wagner on MSNBC. Iftikhar asserted that the minority Republican politician was trying to make himself more white by hyping "no-go zones" in Europe: "He might be trying to scrub some of the brown off of his skin as he runs to the right – you know, in a Republican presidential exploratory bid."
Matthew Balan

NBC's Lauer: Isn't Obama Just Trying to 'Trap' GOP With Tax Hike Push?

On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer actually grilled White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on President Obama's tax hike proposal: "During the President's last press conference of 2014, he was asked how he might be able to work with the new incoming Republican-controlled Congress and he said, quote, 'The tax area is one area where we can get things done.' And now he's proposing a…
Kyle Drennen

Networks: American Sniper 'Igniting Debate' as It 'Glorifies Killing'?

All three network morning shows on Tuesday spun American Sniper as controversial and possibly as a movie that "glorifies killing." ABC, CBS and NBC all played up attacks by celebrities such as Michael Moore, but they ignored the most incendiary part of the liberal filmmaker's comments.  
Scott Whitlock

Were Those Obama's SOTU Writers, Or the Oscar Nominees?

Tuning into the middle of a Morning Joe segment today, at first I assumed that MSNBC's Ari Melber was chatting with the Oscar nominees.  But no, turns out Melber had scored interviews with President Obama's SOTU speechwriting team. You'll excuse my confusion. As you'll see, just like the Oscar hopefuls, the SOTU writers appear to be a panorama of people of pallor. 
Mark Finkelstein