Debuting the latest NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News , political director Chuck Todd concluded that campaign "hits seem to be taking a greater toll on Romney" and proclaimed: "Call it a likeability gap. 46% of voters told us they didn't like Romney personally. That compares to just 31% who said the same about the President." [ Listen to the audio ] However, on Wednesday's Morning Joe on MSNBC, Todd admitted the poll was skewed: "...our sample was a little Democratic heavy." Hot Air examined the partisan breakdown of poll respondents and discovered just how... continue reading
Minutes after Mitt Romney addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars o n Tuesday, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell appeared on MSNBC to downplay the GOP candidate's positive reception: "...this is a conservative group....This is a very conservative foreign policy group and there's no question that they would be predisposed, I think, more towards being in the Republican camp than the Democratic camp." Mitchell was responding to host Craig Melvin fretting over Romney's tone in the speech: "...a fairly aggressive attack. I don't know if that's exactly what we were expecting from his address there at the VFW. A... continue reading
CNN used Friday's tragic shooting to force the gun control debate back into headlines this past weekend, and multiple network anchors made a blatant liberal push for further gun regulation. The advocacy began just hours after the atrocity, despite both President Obama and Mitt Romney abstaining from politicking on the day of the massacre. "America has got to do something about its gun laws. Now is the time," CNN's Piers Morgan tweeted hours after the shooting. [Video below. Audio here .] Morgan followed that up with more tweets and a Friday night show that was loaded with pro-gun control guests... continue reading
On her 1 p.m. et hour show on MSNBC on Tuesday, host and NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell decried Mitt Romney labeling President Obama's big-government philosophy "foreign" to American capitalism: "...he is still using the term 'foreign' and I'm telling you, this is happening every day, it is a dog whistle." [ Listen to the audio ] Chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd attempted to talk Mitchell down: "...to take him [Romney] at face value – it's about trying to paint the President as out of touch, that he doesn't have the experience....out of touch about the American... continue reading
In an article for NBCNews.com's First Read on Monday, Domenico Montanaro eagerly proclaimed to readers: "Mitt Romney has criticized President Obama for his 'you didn't build that' line, when it ca me to businesses.... But in 2002, during his speech at the Opening Ceremonies at the Winter Olympics ....Romney made a similar argument abo ut Olympians." Romney simply told the Olympic athletes – many in their teens and twenties – that they achieved their individual success with help of parents, coaches, and their local communities. However, by Monday night, The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, filling in for MSNBC's Rachel Maddow,... continue reading
ABC on Tuesday dropped any pretense of objectivity and defended the President over his "you didn't build that" attack on business. In an online article , ABCNews.com writers Amy Walter, Elizabeth Hartfield and Chris Good dropped this spin into a supposedly straight news report: " Republicans have seized on the line 'you didn't build that' to falsely claim that Obama was speaking dire ctly to business owners about their businesses ." The ABC writers whined that the Mitt Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee have "been relentless in pushing" the attack." Walter, Hartfield and Good then cheered, "The Obama... continue reading
CNN pushed for more gun control on the very day of the Aurora shootings – to the dismay of media critic Howard Kurtz – and host Candy Crowley continued the fight on Sunday and Monday. In her Monday report, Crowley stressed the lack of "courage" – borrowing from a one gun control advocate – in today's Democratic Party to pursue firearms regulation. And when Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) noted the lack of outrage over gun violence, Crowley agreed, "She's right." She pulled from disgruntled gun control advocates to round out her report. In scrutinizing Obama's record on guns, Crowley cited... continue reading
Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman appeared on Monday's Hardball to smear the Republican Party as "xenophobic" and "nativist." Fineman lamented that Mitt Romney doesn't have the courage to take on the base, a group he mocked as being "afraid of the world." Fineman is now the editorial director for the liberal Huffington Post, an outlet in sync with his own left-wing views. Matthews and the journalist discussed Huma Abedin , an aide to Hillary Clinton who Congresswoman Michele Bachmann connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Asked why Romney won't take on people like Bachmann, Fineman assailed that the presumptive GOP nominee... continue reading
Appearing on Monday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, Time magazine editor-at-large Mark Halperin confessed a broad media consensus to curtail gun rights: "If you walk the halls of most major news organizations or of the OEOB at the White House or West Wing, I think you'd find overwhelming sentiment that there should be stricter gun control laws in the United States." [ Listen to the audio ] After admitting the press and the Obama administration were on the same page on the issue, Halperin lamented: "...the intensity, in terms of guns as a voting issue, is much more on the... continue reading
On Monday's CBS This Morning , Norah O'Donnell glossed over President Barack Obama's record of supporting gun control when she claimed that " Mitt Romney, in some ways, has been more for gun control than Barack Obama ...He signed, as governor...a law, to ban assault weapons, and he only just recently joined the NRA." O'Donnell also played up that the President has apparently " disappointed gun control advocates ." [audio available here ; video below ] In an unsigned 2009 report , the correspondent's own network actually acknowledged that Obama supported gun control as an Illinois state senator, a U.S... continue reading