Barack Obama

On Wednesday, CNN quickly ran to label President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, as a "moderate" and a "consensus candidate." Jake Tapper contended that "this seems like a fairly-establishment, moderate pick." Pamela Brown first responded by underlining that there's "no doubt about it;" but moments later, she revealed that Judge Garland "may carry on Obama's legacy when it comes…

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was still hard at work making befuddling statements early Wednesday morning following the third installment of Super Tuesday with comments that mocked “neocons” as wanting everyone to go into battle “for Israel” as “blah, blah, blah” while fellow panelist Joy Reid attacked Rubio’s concession speech as unoriginal and mash-ups of Reagan and President Barack Obama.

These days, one of the biggest meta-debates in politics concerns apportioning blame for the staying power of the Donald Trump circus. How much of Trump’s popularity is attributable to, say, the mainstream media? To conservative talk radio? In a Sunday post, The Washington Monthly’s Martin Longman pointed the finger at Republicans and absolved President Obama. Apropos of Trump’s economically…

“Objective” journalists have a bad habit of declaring against all evidence that President Obama has been “scandal-free” since 2009. This was demonstrated again on the C-SPAN interview program Q&A with Brian Lamb. The guests were married journalists: Politico editor Susan Glasser and New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker. Lamb asked about Obama’s place in history, and he…

As CNN Newsroom host Poppy Harlow on Saturday tried to suggest Republicans like John Kasich deserve blame for not speaking out against Donald Trump when he was pushing birtherism against President Barack Obama several years ago, she was taken aback when her guest, Ohio GOP chairman Matt Borges, turned the tables by implicating Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign in dabbling in similar…

From reading most establishment press news, especially their economy-related reports, you'd think that those who are complaining about the current U.S. economy are outliers — especially the millions of Americans who are angry about it. Though they sometimes acknowledge that forward progress  since the recession hasn't been robust, the media's meme-makers have mostly told us that "overall job…

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Thursday night reminisced about the “stellar” Barack Obama from 2008 and how the Democrat gave him a “thrill up the leg.” Matthews finally conceded that such excitement couldn’t live up to expectations. He also added, “Hillary can’t match that.” 

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, race-obsessed CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill painted "white male" Donald Trump supporters as being bothered at "a rise in expanded opportunity for black people and for brown people," suggesting that Trump's slogan is really "We're going to make America white again." Host Costello set him up: "Let me ask you this, Marc,…

In the early moments of CNN’s Super Tuesday 2 coverage, Atlantic contributing editor and CNN political commentator Peter Beinart encouraged viewers to consider “how brilliant was Hillary Clinton” to accept President Obama’s offer to become his secretary of state and “politically de facto his vice president” even though “[a] lot of people at the time didn't see” this so-called “wisdom.”

Beginning early in 2014, shortly after its initial disastrous rollout, there has been a virtual blackout on anything resembling negative coverage of the "Affordable Care Act," aka Obamacare. It hasn't been due to a lack of horror stories: plan cancellations, shocking rate increases, shrunken provider networks, co-ops going out of business, etc. It's because the nation's establishment press has…

Since the economy finally began consistently regaining jobs in early 2010, the establishment press has had a consistent, predictable and annoying reporting (and non-reporting) pattern. It starts with the Friday morning jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at or near the beginning of the month. Virtually without fail, it has spit out positive and sometimes even very positive seasonally…

Score another blow for (allegedly) "unintended consequences." A proposed 33-page rule applying to investment advisers emanating from the Department of Labor would redefine the fiduciary relationship between investment advisers and their clients investing for retirement, which is the predominant objective of most investors. According to the Wall Street Journal, the rule "could be released as soon…

Columbia Journalism professor Dale Maharidge has produced a lengthy lament about the state of print and newsroom journalism, and how hard it's been on those forced out of their jobs. It's present online at The Nation, one of the far-left's flagships, and at BillMoyers.com, the web site of the former Johnson administration press secretary. The delusional Moyers believes that "We have an…

The press is mostly thrilled over yesterday's Employment Situation Summary from the government, which reported that the unemployment rate stayed at 4.9 percent and that the economy added 242,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs. President Barack Obama took the opportunity to take what CNBC's Jeff Cox described as "a victory lap ... in Friday remarks to the media." Well, why not? Obama was secure…