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On Monday's NBC Rock Center, correspondent Harry Smith began a story on an American-Muslim comedy troupe touring the American south by asserting to comedian Dean Obeidallah that, "A lot of Americans hate you." Obeidallah was slightly taken aback and replied: "I'm not sure how many actually hate me, but I know what you're getting at." [Audio available here] Smith went on to explain the goal…

What a shock, more revisionism from Ed Schultz. Schultz is responding testily to criticism that he urged Democrats in 2010 to refrain from voting to protest congressional Democrats not pushing hard enough for extended jobless benefits. (audio clips after page break)

Can we declare a moratorium on using the word “enigmatic” to describe North Korea’s totalitarian leadership? The death of the North Korea dictator Kim Jong-il made the late edition of the Monday New York Times. The obituary by veteran foreign policy reporter David Sanger appeared under the rather neutral online headline “A Ruler Who Turned North Korea Into a Nuclear State.”

NBC and ABC on Monday and Tuesday knocked House Republicans for potentially "messing up" an extension of the payroll tax cut. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell derided this as "holiday cheer gone sour." Over on ABC, "World News" correspondent Jim Avila spun the fight as one between unpopular Republicans and a resurgent Barack Obama. According to Avila, the country's anger is "reflected in today's ABC…

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren is still mad at The New York Times (and Howard Kurtz on CNN's Reliable Sources) for underlining her husband John Coale's assistance to Herman Cain. On her GretaWire blog, she highlighted Jake Tapper's news item on MSNBC stars and other liberal media folks going to coffee with Obama Monday. Her headline was "You got to be kidding me … and they complain about ME…

The race toward 2012 has cemented the idea of a Republican "establishment." Some call former House Speaker Newt Gingrich the establishment, having spent most of his career inside the Beltway. Others call former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney the establishment, pointing to his lack of success at capturing the support of Tea Party voters. Do you think a Republican establishment exists that can…

During a fawning interview with Bill Clinton on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry asked for the former President's thoughts on Newt Gingrich running for president: "You also, having worked with him, I'm wanting to know, putting aside politics, do you see Newt Gingrich as a man who has the temperament, the leadership qualities, to be President of the United States?" Clinton took the…

Those GOP moderates just keep “dwindling” away. New York Times Political editor Richard Stevenson Sunday wrote about Americans Elect, a new organization that favors an alternative nominating process for electing a president in the name of nonpartisanship: “Group Clears a Path For a Third-Party Bid.” But what Stevenson called a “process to enable creation of a centrist ticket” was in fact packed…

It's always interesting to see how the several thousand readers who voted in the MRC's "public ballot" differed from the 48 media experts who selected our Best Notable Quotables of 2011 (a panel which included talk radio hosts Mark Levin and Neal Boortz, Human Events editor-in-chief Tom Winter and Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby). This year, there were six categories where our readers and…

Welcoming Chris Christie onto the set of Morning Joe today, Joe Scarborough warned Mika Brzezinski that the New Jersey governor "has come to straighten you out." Christie was good to Scarborough's word, bluntly telling Mika, among other things, that "you're diving deeply into the Obama tank."  Video after the jump.

On his blog Political Punch, ABC's Jake Tapper reported "an all-star list of progressive and liberal media folks" had coffee with President Obama in the Roosevelt Room on Monday -- including MSNBC hosts Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Hayes. In the Bush years, it was considered a major scandal for Roger Ailes to send a note to the White House, but MSNBC stars meet with Obama, and it's just…

On Monday's The Ed Show, MSNBC host Ed Schultz accused Republican presidential candidates of "fearmongering" on the issue of the danger posed by a nuclear Iran, but, ironically, on the same day the CBS Evening News led its show with an interview with Obama administration Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who hinted at the possibility of a nuclear strike on Iran within the next year because the…

See-no-evil economic reporting during the Obama years has "somehow" missed a number of developments in the makeup of the American workforce which I believe would not have been missed (or deliberately overlooked, take your pick) if a Republican or conservative were in the White House. One of them relates to full-time employment. Did you know that seasonally adjusted full-time employment in…

If you find it off-putting that Best Buy is sticking it to Santa Claus in its "Game On, Santa" ads, that is nothing compared to a new ad by UNICEF (much better known for Halloween.) The New York Daily News is one of the few major media outlets to notice UNICEF turned Santa into a jerk. "Santa won't bother going to poor countries this year, so the United Nations Children's Fund will go instead…