SNL Trashes Michele Bachmann, Imagines 'Second Attempt' at SOTU Speech

January 30th, 2011 11:06 AM
Predictably joining the media attacks on Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), NBC's "Saturday Night Live" began its most recent installment mocking her response to the President's State of the Union address last Tuesday. Actress Kristen Wiig playing the Congresswoman explained that as a result of technical difficulties in her first attempt, CNN gave her a second try at it. What followed…

CNN’s New Executive VP Argued Not Raising Taxes Hikes Deficit: ‘Re

January 28th, 2011 12:54 PM
In picking Mark Whitaker, Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News, as its new Executive Vice President and Managing Editor (TVNewser post), CNN has selected someone with a liberal outlook who presumes not raising taxes can be blamed for an increase in the deficit. On election night last year, Whitaker channeled a liberal argument in favor of hiking taxes, declaring during live NBC News…

Today Show Blames Palin & Bachmann for Ending Civility, Ignored Democr

January 28th, 2011 12:41 PM
NBC's Today show never covered Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen comparing Republicans to Nazis, but on Friday co-anchor Meredith Vieira determined Sarah Palin's mocking of Barack Obama's Winning the Future slogan as the precise moment when the new era of "civility" in Washington, came to an end. After Vieira opened this morning's show announcing: "End of civility? Sarah Palin takes a shot at…

Today Show Highlights Harry Reid Hitting Obama From the Left on Earmar

January 27th, 2011 2:24 PM
In what was perhaps a move to make Barack Obama appear more moderate than he is, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, on Thursday's Today show, played up a "rift" between him and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over government spending. In her piece, O'Donnell hyped that Reid was "calling out the White House" on his State of the Union claim that he would veto any bill with earmarks in it.  The…

Liberal Media Ignore Plagiarism Allegations Against Obama

January 27th, 2011 1:14 PM
As it turns out, mainstream media outlets that lauded President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech as "downright Reaganesque" might be on to something. While ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC exalted the commander-in-chief, at least one observer charged the Democratic president with crafting a speech that was "tantamount to plagiarism." In a column on the U.S. News site, presidential…

ABC, CBS Provide Skeptical Looks at Obama's Plan to Spend More, Cut th

January 27th, 2011 12:57 PM
Of the three evening newscasts, only NBC's Chuck Todd on Wednesday offered no critical analysis of Barack Obama's call for both new spending and deficit reduction. ABC's Jake Tapper actually investigated the proposed plans and concluded, "...It almost looks like a wash between his new ideas for cutting and his new ideas for spending." CBS's Chip Reid also highlighted Republican opposition and…

NBC's Today Show Depicts GOP as a Party Divided

January 26th, 2011 1:39 PM
NBC's Today show, on Wednesday, used the occasion of two responses to Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, by Republicans Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann, as an opportunity to portray the GOP as a party divided. Despite a historic victory by Republicans in last year's midterm elections NBC anchors, past and present, on this morning's Today show, took pains to portray the Republican Party in…

Lauer to Rudy Giuliani: Did Obama Miss An Opportunity to Push for More

January 26th, 2011 12:30 PM
It appears NBC's Matt Lauer is not happy about Barack Obama's failure to exploit the Tucson shooting to push for more gun control as on Wednesday's Today show, he seemingly expressed disappointment to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani that the President "missed" an "opportunity" to address it in his State of the Union speech. Lauer's anti-gun question to Giuliani came on the heels of…

All Three Networks Agree: Obama Sounded 'Reaganesque' in State of the

January 26th, 2011 11:53 AM
During coverage of President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, all three broadcast networks, CBS, NBC and ABC, managed to compare the tone of the speech to that of Ronald Reagan. Reporters and pundits uniformly praised the supposed optimism of Obama. [Audio available here] On CBS, Evening News anchor Katie Couric touted how political analyst Jeff Greenfield thought it was "…

Lauer to Valerie Jarrett: Will Obama Push for 'Tougher' Gun Control in

January 25th, 2011 11:52 AM
In previewing the President's State of the Union Address, on Tuesday's Today show, NBC's Matt Lauer pushed White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, mostly from the left, as he pressed her to reveal if Obama would "directly address gun control" and asked if Obama's appointment of business leaders to his team, risked "alienating some more liberal voters...who don't like big business."…

CBS's Schieffer: Obama Sounds Like Reagan on Deficit Reduction While G

January 24th, 2011 12:25 PM
Talking to New York Senator Chuck Schumer on Sunday's Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer said of a video statement released by President Obama on Saturday: "If I didn't know better and had my eyes closed I might have thought that was President Reagan talking." Schieffer specifically referred to Obama's call for spending cuts, noting: "It sounded very much like a speech that a Republican would…

Rush Limbaugh Called a Drug Addict in NBC's New Legal Drama 'Harry's L

January 23rd, 2011 10:04 AM
Monday's premiere episode of NBC's new legal drama "Harry's Law" took a cheap shot at conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. As the show's star Kathy Bates argued for the legalization of drugs while her client was being cross-examined by a totally hapless district attorney, she claimed the idea was first raised by Republicans, "When the party had thinkers, before it was hijacked by the…

Olbermann Signs Off from MSNBC’s Countdown for Last Time

January 21st, 2011 9:58 PM
 On Friday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, host Keith Olbermann announced that the episode would be his last, and spent a few minutes near the end of the show saying goodbye. He mentioned a number of infamous and pivotal points in his show’s history when he went after the Bush administration: The show gradually established its position as anti-establishment from the stagecraft of "Mission…

NBC/WSJ Poll Uses Interesting Methodology to Find Obama's Bounce in Po

January 20th, 2011 1:59 PM
The media have been jumping for joy since an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll discovered a supposedly big bounce in President Obama's approval rating. But as Hot Air's Ed Morrissey discovered, the pollsters involved used some interesting methodology to reach this conclusion: