ABC

While the broadcast networks have generally empathized with the distress of airline passengers over the TSA’s new and intrusive airport searches, they have not — thus far, at least — gone so far as to impugn the Obama administration as launching a war against Americans’ civil liberties. Indeed, NBC’s Matt Lauer on Monday even sympathized with TSA Administrator John Pistole: “I hate to even…

NBC's Today on on Monday offered the most sympathetic take on the growing outrage over invasive pat downs being conducted at airports by the Transportation Security Administration. While ABC highlighted "outrage" and CBS observed how some find the procedures "violating," Today host Matt Lauer worried about the government "caving" on the policy. All three morning shows interviewed TSA…

Former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich made a couple of rather startling comments on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. During the Roundtable segment, the devout liberal not only defended former governor Sarah Palin as a "realistic candidate" for president, but also questioned whether or not the government bailout of GM was necessary (video follows with transcript and commentary):

  Appearing as a guest on Saturday’s Huckabee show on FNC, Whoopi Goldberg - co-host of ABC’s The View - complained that bloggers disseminate inaccurate information about her without the need to "fact check," and that "they poop on you and they walk away." Goldberg: "But a blogger can say endless stuff. They don't have to fact check. ... And then that is picked up and made into some other story…

According to Rob Shuter of Popeater.com, folks at ABC are apoplectic over the possibility that Bristol Palin might emerge victorious in the season finale of "Dancing With the Stars" Tuesday night.

Jon Stewart is finally flaunting some of that "sanity" we've heard so much about. On his show Wednesday night, he had a simple message for the legions of journalists obsessed with Sarah Palin's children: "Who gives a sh*t?" "Kids are off limits," Stewart added. "In fact, we should all go out of our way to treat her children with kid gloves and respect to show that we don't judge individuals…

Apparently not all successful businessmen are created equal. Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos conducted a condescending interview with billionaire Republican Donald Trump on Thursday and oddly quizzed the Republican about abortion. After Trump simply described New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as "a little on the liberal side," Stephanopoulos pounced, "Are you pro-choice?...…

Of the three morning shows on Thursday, only CBS left out any mention of Barack Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder while reporting on the nearly complete acquittal of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. Early Show news anchor Erica Hill asserted that "the verdict is in for the first Guantanamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court and it is being seen by some as a serious setback for the…

It’s been a year since thousands of emails and files were leaked from a prominent climate science group at the University of East Anglia, with startling comments including this one: “We can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment.” Other leaked emails showed potential manipulation of temperature data, a willingness to destroy information rather than release it under the British…

ABC's "The View" hosted pastor Joel Osteen Tuesday, author of the book The Christmas Spirit – but the conversation took a controversial turn and went from Christmas to homosexuality. Co-host Joy Behar belittled Osteen about his conservative Christian beliefs on the matter. ABC's Barbara Walters first popped the question in the middle of the interview, flagging it was a "controversial" topic…

Tuesday's evening news broadcasts and Wednesday's morning shows allowed a scant four and a half minutes of coverage to the conviction of powerful Democrat Charlie Rangel over ethics charges. In comparison, these same programs devoted 121 minutes to exhaustively examining every aspect of the announcement that Prince William is getting married, a disparity of 30 to one. NBC's Today featured the…

Since National Public Radio somehow missed out on an author interview with George W. Bush -- they did portray his presidency as a horror film -- NPR's Chicago-based weekend game show Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!   mocked the former president by "interviewing" clips from his audio book, or as they called it, "A Fake Interview with a Real President." Bush's decision to tell about how he gave up…

Nightline co-anchor Bill Weir talked to TV Newser on Tuesday and offered a sarcastic answer to the question of how to be a careful journalist. Weir mocked, "Well, I've drastically scaled down the size of my meth lab." He joked, "And I no longer tweet, you know, race baiting comments." When asked his impression of reporting from war zones in Iraq or Afghanistan, the ABC anchor fretted, "You…

Yesterday the California Supreme Court ruled "that illegal immigrants are entitled to the same in-state tuition breaks that are offered to citizens who attend public colleges and universities." The Associated Press reports that "[t]he high court unanimously upheld a state law that says any student, regardless of immigration status, who attended a California high school for at least three…