CNN Hails 'New Cult Favorite' Jimmy Carter, Asks If His Image Is 'Bein

CNN touted ex-president Jimmy Carter as a "new cult favorite" and asked if his image was "being rehabilitated" on Monday's The Situation Room. After friendly interviews of Carter and his grandson last week, it might be more accurate to ask if CNN is trying to "rehabilitate" Carter's image. Liberal historian Douglas Brinkley made the laughably thin case for Carter. "But when you look at the…
Matt Hadro
February 25th, 2013 7:08 PM

Sharpton's Sequester Sham: Falsely Claims Closing Control Tower Closes

Al Sharpton joined the sequester scare-mongering squad on his MSNBC show this evening.  Just one problem: the Reverend Al got one of his "facts" embarrassingly wrong. Sharpton claimed that the effect of the sequester would be to close Rep. Paul Ryan's hometown airport in Janesville, Wisconsin.  Nuh-uh.  Yes, Southern Wisconsin Regional in Janesville is on a list of 200 airports, 100 of which…
Mark Finkelstein
February 25th, 2013 7:08 PM

Fearing SCOTUS Will Scuttle Voting Rights Act, MSNBC's Toure Hits New

Most U.S. states have some form of voter ID law whereby voters are asked or required to present an ID, preferably with a photograph. In 2005, the Supreme Court, in a decision written by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens validated such laws as constitutional. In 2008,  equally liberal former president Jimmy Carter also endorsed voter ID as a legitimate way to safeguard the integrity of the vote…
Ken Shepherd
February 25th, 2013 6:59 PM

MSNBC's Alex Wagner: Oscars Wouldn't Have Greeted Laura Bush As Warmly

You've surely heard by now that Michelle Obama presented the Academy Award for Best Picture last evening. On Monday, MSNBC host Alex Wagner, appearing on Hardball, said, "Could Laura Bush have done it? No. If she'd appeared at the Oscars, I don't think she would have been greeted with the same amount of warmth" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Noel Sheppard
February 25th, 2013 6:51 PM

David Brooks Labels Republicans As 'Mindless Anti-Government Fanatics

Faux conservative David Brooks of the New York Times used his Friday appearance with Mark Shields on the PBS NewsHour to bash Republicans over sequestration, comparing GOP tactics in dealing with spending to a trite circus act.  Either Mr. Brooks forgot that sequestration was the president’s idea or doesn't care about facts getting in the way of cozying up to his liberal media buddies.  Even…
Matt Vespa
February 25th, 2013 6:30 PM

NBC's New Hire Lisa Bloom Once Implied Prop 8 Supporters are 'Lunatic

MediaBistro's TVNewser blog reported on Thursday that NBC's Today hired former CNN legal analyst Lisa Bloom as their new legal analyst. Bloom, the only child of notorious celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, is a chip off her mother's block, given her liberal record both on the air and online, particularly on the issue of same-sex "marriage". The attorney blasted California's voter-approved…
Matthew Balan
February 25th, 2013 6:12 PM

Chris Matthews Offers To Help Hillary’s 2016 Campaign: ‘We’ll Ge

According to TV critic David Zurawik, MSNBC's hiring of ex-Obama officials David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs makes the so-callend news network almost "a bona fide organ of state propaganda." Hours after this was published Monday, Hardball's Chris Matthews offered his services to Hillary Clinton - along with those of MSNBC contributors Howard Fineman and Joan Walsh - in order to get her elected…
Noel Sheppard
February 25th, 2013 5:54 PM

WashPost's Wan Presents Chinese Communist Government, Vatican on Equal

In a 41-paragraph front-pager today, the Washington Post's William Wan looks at how the "New pope will be challenged by strained ties with China." "A reset is possible as both sides introduce new leadership," added a subheadline. The website version had a wildly different headline, "For China's Catholics, new pope brings hope." Throughout his article, Wan  used language that suggested that…
Ken Shepherd
February 25th, 2013 5:08 PM

CNN's Velshi Attacks Bobby Jindal, GOP 'Weird Math' and 'Balanced Budg

Responding to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) on Monday, CNN's chief business correspondent slammed GOP "weird math" and "balanced budget nonsense" on the sequestration and accused Jindal of being "misleading." "And it's this weird math that the Republicans are using, that it's just three percent of the federal budget," Velshi ranted. "Except you can't touch entitlements. So it's three…
Matt Hadro
February 25th, 2013 5:00 PM

ABC Hypes Obama's Sequester Warnings, Spins Cuts as Sounding 'Like a D

ABC on Sunday continued to hype Barack Obama's hyperbolic claims about sequester cuts. World News reporter David Kerley played a clip of the President and then insisted that $85 billion in spending "sounds like a disaster movie." Kerley warned, "Child care canceled for tens of thousands of kids. Long airport security lines. Flight delays with a shortage of controllers. And military cuts that…
Scott Whitlock
February 25th, 2013 4:41 PM

New York Times Again Sees a Looming 'Era of Government Austerity' in a

Over the weekend the New York Times painted the $85 billion in budget cuts that will start kicking in Friday – known in Washington-speak as sequestration -- in dramatic terms, falsely heralding a new age of "government austerity" (since when?) and passing along stories of budget-cut fear-mongering from the state level. Saturday's lead from Michael Cooper painted a White House-friendly horror…
Clay Waters
February 25th, 2013 4:35 PM

NBC Bids Pope Farewell: 'Scandal Continues to Dog Benedict's Papacy an

In an effort to hype controversy days before Pope Benedict XVI steps down as the leader of the Catholic Church, on Monday's NBC Today, correspondent Anne Thompson proclaimed: "Even in his final days as pope, scandal continues to dog Benedict's papacy and the Church." The chyron on screen throughout the segment declared: "Vatican Intrigue." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump…
Kyle Drennen
February 25th, 2013 4:25 PM

Latest Ed Schultz Whopper: Obama Tax Hike on Wealthy Not Actual Tax Hi

Somewhere the ghost of George Orwell groans in recognition. Remember during last year's campaign how President Obama harped on "millionaires and billionaires" not paying what they should in taxes? For the sake of fairness, Obama insisted, tax rates signed into law by George W. Bush a decade ago should increase on the wealthy while the remaining "98 percent" of taxpayers, those earning less…
Jack Coleman
February 25th, 2013 4:11 PM

CBS Boosts White House's Doom and Gloom Talking Points About Sequester

Charlie Rose led Monday's CBS This Morning by hyping the allegedly catastrophic effect of the sequester during a promo for a report from correspondent Major Garrett: "Kids without vaccines; schools without teachers; and massive airport delays – we'll show you the worst-case scenario for government spending cuts." Garrett himself could have been mistaken for an Obama administration flack as…
Matthew Balan
February 25th, 2013 3:21 PM