Covering New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's secret weight loss surgery, Good Morning America's Paula Faris couldn't help but make fat jokes. The reporter on Wednesday began her segment by wryly asserting, " Chris Christie is wasting no time devouring his critics ." She continued, "The no-holds-barred New Jersey Governor known for his healthy appetite...sounded off" at reporters. [MP3 audio below .] Faris found clips of liberal comedians mocking the Republican governor. She included one of David Letterman joking, "Bring it, fat boy!" In another snippet, Jimmy Fallon sneered, "Christie hopes to visit the site of the Last Supper. You know,... continue reading
On Tuesday's CBS This Morning , Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell pressed Senator Joe Manchin about a possible new push for gun control in Congress. Rose wondered how Manchin and his allies could make legislation " more palatable to those people who may be afraid of it, " while O'Donnell bluntly asked the Democrat, " Are you frustrated with the NRA? " Manchin was their only guest on the gun issue. The CBS anchors had an opportunity to provide balance by asking Senator Bob Corker about his support for gun rights . Instead, Rose and Gayle King peppered the Republican... continue reading
Appearing on Monday's Tonight Show , NBC Today co-host Savannah Guthrie told Jay Leno that President Obama was "deeply disappointed" by gun control legislation being voted down, prompting the late night host to complain: "Why do you think he's not able to close a deal? This seems to happen a lot....how come Obama hits this wall sometimes?" [ Listen to the audio ] Guthrie acknowledged: "I think the criticism is that he hasn't quite learned how to work with Congress to get some of his initiatives through." But then she offered a defense of Obama by touting his supposed accomplishments:... continue reading
On Monday's The Last Word , MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell portrayed NRA members as imagining themselves killing police officers in a "psychotic vision of an armed uprising" as he ranted against the NRA's Wayne LaPierre alluding to the benefits of American citizens being armed while a fugitive like Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is on the loose. O'Donnell: The NRA's cause, it's mission, what that convention was about is making sure everyone else, everyone other than police officers can get any kind of gun and ammunition they want any time they want it. In fact, the NRA's mission is to make... continue reading
This past April, celebrity Obama donors Beyonce Knowles and husband Jay-Z took a controversial trip to the communist country of Cuba. Knowles appeared on Monday's Good Morning America and Nightline , but ABC continued to offer no skepticism about the details of the visit. Instead, reporter Amy Robach discovered her inner-entertainment journalist, wondering, " What did you make of the controversy?" [MP3 audio here .] That was the extent of Robach's questions on the topic. No mention of the fact that Knowles and her husband raised over $4 million for Obama in 2012, prior to being given special permission to... continue reading
Wrapping up a report on Monday's NBC Nightly News about a fresh round of congressional hearings on the Benghazi terrorist attack, correspondent Andrea Mitchell dismissed the development as political posturing by the House GOP: "There is an obvious political undercurrent. Republicans are taking direct aim at Hillary Clinton, the country's most popular Democrat and a possible presidential contender." [ Listen to the audio ] Mitchell began the report by noting new testimony from Gregory Hicks, the State Department's deputy mission chief in Tripoli, Libya at the time of the Benghazi attack, "who said he called for military help from four... continue reading
Apparently not even Chris Matthews listens to Chris Matthews. On Monday's Hardball , the liberal anchor compared the speeches at the National Rifle Association's 2013 convention to the Nazis. Three minutes later, he decried the use of Nazi comparisons. On the same program, Matthews insisted that the Republican Party has forgiven the assassination of GOP President Abraham Lincoln. As he played clips of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck at this past weekend's convention, Matthews railed, "First of all, it's Hitlerian, generally speaking, demagoguery. It's always about righteous indignation. All great demagogic speakers talk about how they're coming to get us."... continue reading
Fox News Channel analyst and former anchor Brit Hume asserted Monday night that for Benghazi “to become the scandal it surely deserves to be will require another ingredient: Relentless news coverage of the kind the media typically avoid when the subject is someone or some cause they favor.” He explained: “That’s why the Gosnell abortion horrors were played down for so long and that’s why the now discredited Benghazi talking points were treated as just an honest mistake.” In contrast, “think back to the disputed claim by President George W. Bush that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa,”... continue reading
During an interview with Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt for the Meet the Press web-based feature Press Pass on Sunday, NBC's David Gregory eagerly asked Schmidt about working for President Obama's 2012 campaign: "...what did you discover, what did you learn, what did you actually help to bring to the campaign that changes politics, that changes a politician's ability to say, 'Who is it that I need to reach and how do I reach them?'" [ Listen to the audio ] That teed up Schmidt to brag about his role in the campaign's get-out-the-vote operation: "...the Obama campaign used sort... continue reading
On the Friday, May 3, Politics Nation , MSNBC host Al Sharpton fretted over the video that was played at Friday's NRA convention in Houston to introduce Rick Perry which shows the Texas governor firing at targets with an AR-15. Sharpton began the segment: Houston, we have a problem. It's called the NRA. Today, in Houston, the NRA held its annual convention with a whose who list of the far-right pundits and politicians in the country. In fact, the NRA used a tasteless video to introduce Texas Governor Rick Perry, complete with the soundtrack and slow motion effects that showed... continue reading