On Monday's Early Start, co-host Ashleigh Banfield insisted to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) that "I got to" bring up his 2007 prostitution scandal, so she could ask how Newt Gingrich could "manage the baggage" of his personal sex life. Vitter fired back that "the good news is, in America, it's not up to CNN" how the GOP presidential nominee is chosen. Former President Clinton has done hundreds of TV interviews since leaving office in 2001, and journalists have very rarely found it appropriate to revisit his sex scandals. But for CNN, Republicans merit an entirely different standard of coverage. Vitter's... continue reading
According to Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang, Diane Sawyer's interview with the President on Thursday was "exclusive and candid." Although Sawyer didn't find time for questions about scandals such as Solyndra or Fast and Furious, she did manage to squeeze in queries about the Super Bowl and the President's singing. At one point, the World News anchor enthused, " And speaking of sports teams, we asked the fan-in-chief, what is it, Giants/Pats ?" After wasting one question on this topic, she followed-up: "Two years ago, we talked. You had the Saints [as Super Bowl winners]." Sawyer chose to highlight video of... continue reading
On Monday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose hammered Newt Gingrich on the issue of the opposition his presidential campaign was receiving from some prominent conservatives: " Why are so many conservatives, including ... Drudge and Ann Coulter, attacking you? " Rose also spotlighted how apparently "t here are those who say that you [Gingrich] are angry and you want to get even with Romney ." The anchor started relentlessly pursued Gingrich not long after he began the interview. He asked the Drudge and "get even" questions in quick succession after getting the former House Speaker to reply to a recent... continue reading
After cameras caught Arizona Governor Jan Brewer pointing her finger at President Obama during a discussion on an airport tarmac last week, NBC's Brian Williams acted appalled. "Who have you ever seen talking to the President like this?" Williams demanded to know on the January 26 Nightly News , later adding: "You don't see that often, or maybe ever." But, as NewsBusters blogger Noel Shepherd discovered over the weekend, Brian Williams himself jabbed a finger towards then-President George W. Bush in an August 29, 2006 interview, as evidenced in footage shown on NBC's Today show the following morning. That confrontation... continue reading
On Monday, Today co-host Matt Lauer pushed Mitt Romney to stop running an ad that features a clip of former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw reporting Newt Gingrich being charged with ethics violations in 1997. However, it has now been 4,742 days without an NBC story on Gingrich subsequently being cleared on those charges. Even as Lauer grilled Romney on use of the NBC News coverage, he still failed to correct the record with the fact that in 1999 the Internal Revenue Service completely vindicated Gingrich. Instead, Lauer simply noted how upset Brokaw was: "[He] released a statement saying,... continue reading
Actor/left-wing activist Alec Baldwin, who on Sunday night won a Screen Actors Guild Award (best actor in a comedy series) for his role on NBC's 30 Rock , last week identified the 'greatest single moment' of his life as when he received a call from Senator Ted Kennedy thanking him for his campaign work. That occurred in 1994 when Kennedy was running for re-election against some guy named Mitt Romney. 'Outside of children and marriage and so on,' CNN's Piers Morgan asked Baldwin, 'what has been the single greatest moment of your life, the moment that if I could relive... continue reading
On Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, host Maher repeatedly made jokes about conservatives being racists, and at one point even acknowledged that the main criticism that conservatives make about him is his tendency to make cracks about them being racists. Maher also defended liberal hatred of President Bush, claiming that the left hated Bush for what he actually did, in contrast with conservatives, whom he claimed mostly make up complaints about President Obama. As he spoke during the panel segment, the left-wing comedian brought up complaints about his labeling of conservatives as racists: The one complaint they... continue reading
Charlie Rose boosted a jaw-dropping line from Politico's Roger Simon on Friday's CBS This Morning, which concluded that the Republican presidential debates were hurting the party's chances at defeating President Obama: " It is said that in Chicago, where they are running the Obama campaign, that they're so giddy that they want to run naked in Millennium Park " [audio available here ]. Simon's actual sentence in his Thursday piece was more graphic: These debates are making the Obama staffers in Chicago so giddy that after each one they are tearing off their clothes, running through Millennium Park and howling... continue reading
Former Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords retired from office a year after suffering a gunshot wound to the head, and CNN is already goading her husband to replace her in Congress. Since Democrats wanted him to run for Giffords' seat, CNN was basically asking a Democrat to run for office. On Friday's Starting Point, host Soledad O'Brien told Giffords' husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, that historically "often spouses will jump in and take over their spouse's Congressional seat." She strongly insinuated that would be him, and that he should run. When he answered in the negative, she followed up asking why... continue reading
In what amounted to a love letter to California's Democratic Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday's NBC Nightly News, special correspondent Tom Brokaw gushed: "It's not sunshine every day for the California economy, but Jerry Brown has not given up on big dreams. His new big dream, a high-speed rail line from the north to the south..." Anchor Brian Williams set the scene for Brokaw's fawning report: "California is mounting a comeback led by a man whose name has been synonymous with California government for decades." Brokaw sympathetically declared: "The one-time boy wonder of California politics is now the state's aging... continue reading