MS NOW (formerly MSNBC)

During live coverage of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing on Monday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews gushed about the judge's opening statement, saying "Well, I'm getting one of those thrills I get about America. I'm sorry, I'm shouldn't say this. And I'm getting it again." Matthews, who famously proclaimed that Barack Obama gave him a "thrill" up his leg, also offered a fawning aside about what a "…

On a rainy September night in 1972, a man on a ferry bound for Martha's Vineyard tried to throw another passenger overboard. The target of the assailant's attack -- former defense secretary Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank.The assault received considerable attention at the time though was largely forgotten in the decades that followed. After McNamara's death earlier this month at…

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Is Vancouver Sun writer a Daily Kos contributor?MSNBC's David Shuster on Saturday told his fans at Twitter that he intends to report on some ugly comments made about President Obama's daughter Malia at the conservative website Free Republic last week.For those unaware, a British Daily Mail article about a peace sign t-shirt Malia was wearing in Rome before the start of the…

This was inevitable.  When the Obama administration effectively took over General Motors, Obama-friendly media hacks were going to tout the company's products . . .And so it was that on his MSNBC show this evening, Ed Schultz offered up an unpaid infomercial for GM's new Camaro.  Most grotesque was Schultz's boast that the Camaro was outselling the Ford Mustang. Take that, private-sector company…

MSNBC’s David Shuster and Tamron Hall labeled the circulation of a photo of President Obama allegedly glancing at a teenager’s posterior a “right wing smear,” and singled out Fox News and Drudge as culprits. They brought on a Media Matters spokesman, who accused these sites of being motivated by a “racist stereotype of an oversexed black man being a predator.” They let this accusation go…

My dear late father used to say that whenever a person's reaction is disproportionate to the stimulus, something else is at work.  Keith Olbermann's "Worsting" of Ann Coulter on last night's Countdown [video] is a good illustration of the principle.  Olbermann ostensibly awarded Ann his "Worst Person" for what was, after all, a rather mild swipe at Rachel Maddow, a tongue-in-cheek reference to…

Ah, Twitter.The fast-moving microblogging technology has become a household name.  It is the technology that aided the recent Iranian uprising, that gave the global supporters of freedom and justice a way to communicate with the people on the ground in Iran – those poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.Like much of the Internet, it is also sometimes a hive-mind of absurdity.Case in point…

Noted free-speech champion Keith Olbermann has declared that we have to "legally stop" Glenn Beck. The Fox News host's crime? Not reacting strongly enough for Olbermann's taste when a guest made an over-the-top remark.  [H/t reader JKF.]On the June 30 editon of Beck's show, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer said: "the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to detonate…

MSNBC anchor and Keith Olbermann wannabe David Shuster is so beside himself with glee over Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation that he's eager to let the whole world -- or at least some 18,000+ followers on Twitter -- know about it 140 characters at a time. In the process Shuster spewed ad hominem attacks on Palin backers on Twitter and endorsed as a knee-slapper a July 3 slam of Palin penned by…

In announcing that she was stepping down as Alaska Governor on Friday, Sarah Palin noted the unrelenting hostility of liberal media elites. In the barely ten months since she burst onto the national scene, Palin has been scorned and mocked by journalists -- including many supposedly objective reporters -- like few other politicians. Here are a few of the choicer attacks, as compiled from MRC's…

By this time, the NewsBusters connoisseur will have surely heard about yesterday’s unofficial celebration in the White House press briefing.  Like many parties, it was somewhat louder than normal, a bit tense at points, and the press – specifically Chip Reid and Helen Thomas – topped off the early Independence Day festivities by roasting (figuratively, of course) Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.That…

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of media attention the networks have given to Michael Jackson? You're not alone, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, and that fact puzzles MSNBC contributor Touré. Touré and David Wilson of TheGrid.com appeared on the July 2 broadcast of Nancy Snyderman's MSNBC's show "Dr. Nancy" to examine the premise that Michael Jackson's death was…

The Democrats spent years complaining that Republicans were questioning their patriotism, so now that they are in power, they certainly won’t question the Republicans’ patriotism just because their views differ on political issue? Yes, that was a rhetorical question. After cap-and-trade passed with just eight Republican votes, Henry Waxman, author of the bill, accused Republicans of “rooting…