CBS This Morning went after Governor Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Thursday, throwing an Orlando Sentinel op-ed and a PolitiFact report at him and challenging him to answer just why ObamaCare wasn't the best option for his state to follow. CBS questioned the governor over his opposition to ObamaCare's expansion of Medicaid in Florida, and his refusal to follow the law. "But you have the third highest rate of residents without health insurance," CBS's Jeff Glor told Scott. "So I wonder if the ACA is not the right way to do things, what is?" Glor also cited two outlets slamming the... continue reading
Ever sweet on liberal Catholic nuns, CNN played up a group of nuns lambasting the Ryan budget and hosted one of the leaders, Sr. Simone Campbell, three times in three weeks for an interview. In contrast, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) appeared not once on the network to defend his budget during that time span. " You go, girls ," CNN's Carol Costello cheered the "Nuns on the Bus" tour. The tour received eight different mentions from CNN from June 13 through July 3, including a report from the trail that aired twice, and three interviews of Sr. Campbell. "It is... continue reading
ABC's World News on Sunday hyped Barack Obama's attack ads against Mitt Romney's past work for Bain Capital. Anchor David Muir even played a clip of one of the President's ads. Washington editor Rick Klein trumpeted, "Democrats are definitely breaking through by calling into question what Romney wants to be his biggest strength." Muir hyped, "If you live in those battlegrounds, you can't escape this." Muir highlighted "the concerted effort by Team Obama to talk about Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital in each of those battlegrounds." Of course, this narrative has gotten a boost from the media, particularly the... continue reading
When Bill Clinton went to Africa in 2007 to fight AIDS, ABC hyped his important work "to save a continent." Diane Sawyer interviewed the ex-President and Kate Snow followed him to Africa. However, the same network has, thus far, skipped former President George W. Bush's efforts to fight cancer in the same area. On the July 24, 2007 , Good Morning America , Kate Snow excitedly related, "I n Africa, they seem to be on a first-name basis with the former president, shouting 'Bill! Bill !'" On the July 20th GMA, Diane Sawyer hyped, "And President Bill Clinton weighs in,... continue reading
On Monday's Piers Morgan Tonight , as host Morgan debated guest Rep. Michele Bachmann on ObamaCare, after the Minnesota Republican explained that a government requirement to purchase health insurance differs from a requirement to buy car insurance because "no one is forced to buy a car if they don't want to," her answer went over the CNN host's head as he continued to press the same flawed comparison. After asking his guest, "Do you have car insurance?" and the followup "Who told you to (buy it)?", Bachmann had responded: But car insurance is a very different thing from health insurance... continue reading
CNN's Carol Costello told guest Bill Nye "The Science Guy" on Monday that climate change skeptics are "politicizing this issue" and "winning." Of course, the two did not admit to the possibility of man-made climate change believers doing the exact same thing. "But the people who are politicizing this issue, they seem to be winning because not much is being done on the issue of climate change even though President Obama promised that, you know, back in the day, 2008," Costello said. For his part, Nye continued to scoff at climate change skeptics as he claimed that "the two sides... continue reading
On Sunday's Face the Nation , fill-in host Norah O'Donnell simply let Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) air his Democratic talking points on ObamaCare while she challenged Republican Senator Tom Coburn (Okla.) over criticisms he made of the law. O'Donnell asked simple questions of Schumer like "What's your reaction?" to Republican criticisms of ObamaCare, and "Mitt Romney says he is going to repeal this on day one of his presidency. Can he actually do that?" Meanwhile, the CBS host challenged Sen. Coburn's facts about the deficit, saying the CBO scored ObamaCare as saving millions of dollars in the long-run. "[T]he CBO... continue reading
CBS's Norah O'Donnell kept safeguarding provisions of ObamaCare on Sunday's Face the Nation , daring Speaker John Boehner to oppose "protections for individuals" in the bill. She also asked if Mitt Romney has a "credibility problem" for opposing the law's individual mandate. "But he [Romney] was for it before," O'Donnell insisted to Boehner. "Doesn't he have a credibility problem?" O'Donnell continued her pro-Obama spin from the previous week by listing parts of the bill that might be hazardous for Republicans to repeal. "Is there anything good in this law?" she pressed Boehner before rattling off a list of provisions in... continue reading
Mark Halperin, editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time magazine, on Monday dropped any pretense of objectivity, openly shilling for ObamaCare. The Game Change co-author appeared on Hardball and lamented that opposing government-run health care is a political winner for Republicans: " ...I think we shouldn't be the only industrialized democracy that doesn't have universal health care ." MP3 audio here .] Halperin told guest host Michael Smerconish that, unfortunately, "it is not a politically dangerous" position for Senator Mitch McConnell to say, "...We should do things to make health- access to health care easier and more likely, but not... continue reading
New York Times movie critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott held their annual joyless, ridiculously political summer movie conversation on the front of Sunday's Arts & Leisure, focusing on the glut of superhero movies: " Super-Dreams Of an Alternate World Order – The Modern Comic Book Movie Has Become a Hollywood Staple. But Exactly What Is It Selling? " Dargis managed to make a villain out of President Reagan, while Scott chimed in by complaining that movie superheroes are "avatars of reaction" and that the last X-Men movie was insufficiently attentive to the civil rights movement (really). The reliably liberal... continue reading