After GOP-less ObamaCare Special, ABC's Sawyer Chides McConnell and St

Apparently feeling some heat about its decision to not allow any Republicans to participate in its primetime ObamaCare infomercial Wednesday evening, ABC decided at the last minute to invite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and RNC Chairman Michael Steele on Thursday's "Good Morning America."Unfortunately, both McConnell and Steele, having been given less than 24 hours notice, were…
Noel Sheppard

NBC, CBS, and ABC Highlight Sanford’s GOP Label; Downplayed Label Fo

In the wake of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s admission to having an affair, evening and morning newscasts on NBC, CBS, and ABC all immediately identified him as a Republican. In contrast, in March of last year, the networks rarely identified disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat in the wake of his affair with a prostitute. In a 2008 study of evening and morning network…
Kyle Drennen

Former Clinton Aide Stephanopoulos: Dems Have a Harder Time Surviving

Former Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos appeared on Thursday's Good Morning America to bizarrely assert that Democrats have a harder times surviving sex scandals than Republicans. While discussing South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, he breathlessly claimed, "We've never seen anything like this before" and never mentioned his former boss, Bill Clinton, who escaped impeachment conviction…
Scott Whitlock

LAT Muzzled Edwards Scandal Last Summer, Yet Revels in Sanford Affair

Last July, when news first surfaced that Democrat John Edwards was reportedly having an affair, an editor at the Los Angeles Times forcefully instructed the staff not to report the story "until further notified." (The Times finally got around to tepidly reporting the scandal weeks later.)Now take a look at today's Times. A huge color photo plasters the top of the front page. The large headline is…
Dave Pierre

The Audacity of Speed

How much havoc can Obama wreak before our buyer's remorse catches up with him?
Dan Kennedy

Climate Progress's Romm Blames Tiger's US Open Loss on Global Warming

Climate Progress's Joe Romm believes global warming caused all the rain at last week's U.S. Open golf tournament, and because favorite Tiger Woods was in the first draw of players most impacted by the inclement weather, it cost him the victory.In his latest exhibition of Global Warming Derangement Syndrome, Romm conveniently ignored how New York is currently experiencing one of its coldest Junes…
Noel Sheppard

A King-Sized Problem

Sarah Knoploh

Lauer Labels Sanford a Republican but Forgets to Add the 'D' Next to M

NBC's Matt Lauer, at the top of Thursday’s "Today" show, was careful to note the party affiliation of Mark Sanford as he announced "The political future of South Carolina's governor Mark Sanford, a once-rising star in the Republican Party, is very much in doubt." However when he invited on former Democratic New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey – who resigned after admitting an affair with a gay man…
Geoffrey Dickens

Open Thread

NB Staff

ABC ObamaCare Special Turns Into Presidential Filibuster

Call this a teachable moment, but even with ABC's best-laid plans to kickstart the debate about health care reform and not allow the "Prescription for America" special to become an "infomercial," as many have complained - the president spent more than twice as much time as his questioners vaguely answering or not answering the questions asked of him. But the network consistently presented the…
Jeff Poor

Sanford Affair: Scarborough Slams 'Unbridled Glee' Of Fellow MSNBC Hos

Should be interesting next time Joe Scarborough runs into the likes of Ed Schultz . . . The Morning Joe host today slammed the hypocrisy of cable news hosts, specifically including some at MSNBC, for taking "unbridled glee" in Mark Sanford's disgrace.Scarborough didn't name names, but he almost surely had Schultz, among others, in mind.  As I reported here, on his show last evening Schultz…
Mark Finkelstein

NBC’s Engel Compares Iran Govt Murder of Woman to Dubious Israeli Sh

On Monday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, as host Keith Olbermann and NBC News correspondent Richard Engel discussed the apparent murder of 27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan by Iranian government forces as part of the crackdown against pro-democracy protesters, and the possibility that she will become the visual symbol for her country’s pro-democracy movement because her death was recorded, Engel brought…
Brad Wilmouth

How ABC Stacked the Deck for Obama

With the very first question of its prime time special, Questions for the President: Prescription for America, ABC set the tone that essentially confirmed for viewers that the president was right in his desire to radically remake America's healthcare system. As the infomercial began, "moderator" Charles Gibson asked a seminal question of the doctors and other participants that were about to hear…
Warner Todd Huston

AP Somehow Equates Jindal, Perry, and Palin to Sanford Affair

In their latest article analyzing the extramarital affairs of the deplorable Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, the Associated Press demonstrates once again that the word ‘logic’ has somehow become lost in translation.In a piece entitled, Sanford’s extramarital affair a problem for GOP, the AP gleefully discusses the topic of Sanford’s misdeeds and their potential effect on the Republican…
Rusty Weiss