On Today: Young Voters Disappointed that 'Centrist' Obama Hasn't Gover

 New York magazine's John Heilemann apparently thinks Barack Obama hasn't been liberal enough, as he told NBC's Matt Lauer, on Thursday's Today show, the "centrist" president was compelled to go on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to fire up his young supporters because they lost faith in their "progressive champion." After Lauer relayed a point Stewart made during his interview with the…
Geoffrey Dickens

CNN Guest Mischaracterizes Focus on the Family as Pro-'Mean' Toward 'G

With the recent accounts of anti-gay bullying in the news, there has been a backlash against people and organizations that promote traditional values. Call it a relentless pursuit to find someone to blame. As politicians like Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and organizations like Focus on the Family express their concerns over the promotion of homosexuality in the public square, they are regularly…
Jeff Poor

Only ABC Stresses That Jon Stewart Is Part of Barack Obama's Unhappy L

All three morning shows on Thursday covered Barack Obama's appearance on The Daily Show Wednesday night, but only Good Morning America's Jake Tapper stressed that comedian Jon Stewart's complaints represented the unhappy left. Tapper recounted of Stewart: "One of America's foremost political humorists, who seems to root for the President, demonstrated one of the major problems Mr. Obama is…
Scott Whitlock

SPUN-employment: Networks Twist Unemployment Reports to Boost Obama, B

Spinning the Numbers When Conservatives in Charge: During the year leading up to the 2005-06 mid-term elections, the economy was strong and unemployment never went above 5 percent. That wasn’t how the media reported it. Negative reports and stories spun negatively accounted for 58 percent of the stories (38 out of 65). Spinning the Numbers When Left in Charge: Despite the near 10 percent…
Dan Gainor

Wishful WaPo Website Screams: 'Tea Party's Actions Could Burn Republic

The Washington Post home page this morning leads with this wishful-thinking headline: “Tea party's actions could burn the Republicans.” This “news” story by Amy Gardner appeared on page A6 and was grounded in the concern (read: hope) that Tea Party nominations could derail GOP Senate bids. The home page subhead was: “Tea party's influence appears to be doing more harm than good for GOP as…
Tim Graham

The Coming Struggle

There is an axiom that is adhered to by conservative journalists that explains at least some of what for liberals is this inexplicable election. It is the Taranto Principle. Coined by the inimitable James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal, the Taranto Principle encourages the worst in liberals by reporting politics with a slavish bias. The conservatives can do nothing right. The liberals can…
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

CBS Hypes: 'Doctors Who Perform Abortions Fear for Their Lives

On Tuesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric warned of violence against abortion doctors, based flyers being circulated by a pro-life group: "Their pictures are showing up on posters. Now doctors who perform abortions fear for their lives." The posters in question did not call for any violence whatsoever. Despite that fact, Couric later introduced the story by declaring: "Now some…
Kyle Drennen

Barbara Walters Tells Joy Behar 'You're So Offensive People Will Give

Barbara Walters on Wednesday told Joy Behar she's so offensive to so many people they will give money to folks she doesn't like. This marvelously was "The View" co-host's response to Nevada Republican senatorial candidate Sharron Angle raising $150,000 online after Behar called her a bitch on Tuesday's program (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Noel Sheppard

Open Thread: Joy Behar Raises Nearly $300k for Angle Campaign

Since the vacuous Joy Behar began attacking Sharron Angle, the latter's campaign has seen some impressive fundraising numbers in the eleventh hour of the midterm election season, Mark Hemingway reports:
NB Staff

Spat! Scarborough Can't Halt Hurricane Vanden Heuvel

We won't try to weave too much political-cultural significance into the spat that erupted on Morning Joe today.  Just sit back and enjoy the spectacle as Joe Scarborough struggled to get in a word edgewise with Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation. Scarborough was seeking to cite statistics showing that by a ratio of about 40:20, more Americans identify as conservatives than as liberals.  That…
Mark Finkelstein

Christine O'Donnell Theme Song: 'I Want to Be Evil

The front of Thursday's Washington Post shows Nancy Pelosi and Christine O'Donnell as witches with green faces, with the headline “A very scary midterm exam.” (To which we ask: Scary midterm for whom??) The Post wrote "Maybe it's no coincidence that Halloween and Election Day are only days apart. Maybe that explains all the campaign props -- axes! smoking guns! pointy witch hats!"  "" The…
Tim Graham

Olbermann Warns Voters Against 'Cataclysm' of Tea Party, 'Would Destro

 On Wednesday’s Countdown show, during a 21-minute "Special Comment," MSNBC host Keith Olbermann warned American voters against electing Tea Party Republicans to power, whom he suggested are "unqualified, unstable individuals" who will take America "backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the ‘30s, or backward to hanging union organizers." He then made a play off MSNBC’s "Lean…
Brad Wilmouth

Former President Jimmy Carter Blames 'Irresponsible News Media' for Ob

If you’re a left-of-center media personality and you use your national TV platform to call a candidate for the United States Senate a “bitch,” how might you be rewarded? Apparently in this day and age, you’re granted an interview with a former sitting president of your political party. Even though he wasn’t one of the most distinguished presidents of the United States, former President Jimmy…
Jeff Poor

NPR Uses Jon Stewart to Try to Make Fox Into the Villain in Juan Willi

NPR and other liberals are trying to convert the firing of Juan Williams into another episode of bullying conservatism. NPR deployed Jon Stewart in self-defense on Tuesday’s Morning Edition. Anchor Steve Inskeep noted Stewart’s arrival in Washington, DC marked his first show since the Williams purge, and they ran this joke: STEWART [From the Daily Show]: Are you kidding me, NPR? Are you…
Tim Graham