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Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but in late August 2010 Ben Bernanke took on complete responsibility for everything -- especially everything mediocre or bad -- that occurs in the economy. I know this because on August 27 and 28 (covered here and here), the Associated Press issued three reports essentially telling readers that it was up to Ben to save us. There wasn't anything Barack Obama, Tim…

Once again, a presumably simpatico guest on "The Rachel Maddow Show" undermined a claim she made on the same show. This occurred twice in the same week back in March, as I described at the time. It happened again Friday night when Maddow talked about Republican congressmen facing constituents angered by the GOP budget plan. Maddow compared this to the contentious public forums on health…

I'm regularly amazed by the economic ignorance of today's television commentators. Consider MSNBC's Chris Matthews who on Monday's "Hardball" actually said, "Nobody thinks this country can drill its way out of high gas prices" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For what seems like the umpteenth day in a row, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Monday brought up Donald Trump and President Obama's birth certificate. On this occasion, the "Hardball" might have wished he hadn't when guest Errol Louis of NY1 marvelously said, "They like the fact that it bothers people like you, Chris, and I think they get more pleasure out of bugging you than anything else" (video…

Chrystia Freeland has called the US prison system an "American Gulag Archipelago."  The Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters made her comment during today's Dylan Ratigan show on MSNBC.   The context was a discussion of the recent WikiLeaks document dump about Gitmo, but Freeland was clearly speaking of the domestic US prison system, not our military prisons.  Ratigan picked up on her theme,…

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman on Monday spun Paul Ryan's blueprint for reforming Medicare as saying to younger Americans "screw you." Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball, the senior politics editor for the Huffington Post eagerly went along with host Chris Matthews' hyperbolic description of the Republican plan. Responding to the idea that Ryan would exempt Americans 55 and older from…

Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) may find a January 2009 appearance on Rachel Maddow's program coming back to bite him. According to the Chicago Tribune's Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, federal prosecutors are hoping to use an excerpt of an interview in Blago's retrial:

The New York Times’s coverage of Easter Sunday was sparse, but the paper did mark the Christian holiday in its own inimitable way, by spotlighting anti-traditional gay rights activism. Reporter Liz Robbins was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan on Sunday morning to hear Archbishop Timothy Dolan delivers his Easter homily to nearly 3,000. St. Patrick’s also marked the “finish line” of the…

This past Friday, April 22, 2011, marked the simultaneous celebration of Good Friday and Earth Day and ABC, CBS and NBC treated the two “holidays” as equals. Though Good Friday has been celebrated by millions around the world for nearly 2,000 years, the 41-year-old liberal eco-celebration of “green living” known as “Earth Day” was put on the same platform as the sacred day that Christians…

According to New York magazine, Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is a "versatile" humorist who now has a "second career" making people laugh. In a gushing, 3600 word piece, writer John Swansburg went so far as to fawn, "He’s a confident, kempt success in a profession dominated by neurotics and Apatovian man-children. Isn’t it time we took the comedy of Brian Williams seriously?" For proof…

In Florida, New York Times reporter Lizette Alvarez buttered up Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida (aka Superwoman) the new head the Democratic National Committee, in Monday’s “In a Life Filled With Firsts, One More.” In case there weren’t enough superlatives in that headline, the subhead had another: “Energetic Florida Congresswoman to Be Democrats’ New Leader.” By contrast, in March…

Networks have refused to connect administration to steadily rising gas prices.

The "erosion" of progressive policies in the U.S. has led to a "dramatic" rise of economic inequality in the past few decades, writes Princeton historian Julian Zelizer in a CNN.com op-ed. The incline has been so steep that Zelizer's headline asks "Are we heading for royal weddings in the U.S.?" According to Zelizer, the upcoming British royal wedding "reminds some Americans of what America…

NBC's Today show actually gave Tavis Smiley an opportunity to criticize the President, but it was from the left, as the PBS commentator claimed that Barack Obama has devoted "too much attention to the rich and the lucky." Invited on Monday's show to promote his new book Fail Up: 20 Lessons On Building Success From Failure, Smiley was prompted by NBC's Ann Curry about what he thought was…