CNN's Jack Cafferty pulled from a liberal news site to emphasize Newt Gingrich's ignorance in race relations, on Tuesday's The Situation Room. He began his commentary with a blunt assessment that Gingrich is "clueless" about African-Americans, then attributed the words to liberal Daily Beast columnist Peter Beinart. Cafferty scolded Gingrich's conduct at Monday's GOP debate in South Carolina, attesting that he "dismissed" moderator Juan Williams' question about race and sensitivity concerning his own remarks, and was applauded by a "mostly-white crowd." The CNN commentator went on to help smear the Republican Party, quoting Beinart that the GOP is a "cultural... continue reading
On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose hinted Newt Gingrich should apologize for a supposedly racially-tinged comment he recently made: " I want to give you an opportunity, because the point was made .. .about it's better for black Americans to seek a job than it is to seek food stamps , and many people stepped forward to say, isn't that simply true for all Americans who are desperately looking for jobs? " Rose ended his interview of the former House Speaker with the controversy over a remark the presidential candidate made on January 5 during a campaign stop in... continue reading
Ignoring the facts, Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday insisted that it would be "impossible" for a non-Mitt Romney candidate to capture the nomination if the former Massachusetts governor wins the South Carolina primary on Saturday. However, even if Romney won all 25 of the state's delegates, he would still be 1099 shy of the amount needed to clinch a final victory. While talking to reporter John Berman, Stephanopoulos declared, "And if he wins on Saturday, impossible to see how any of [the other candidates] could really come back ." Berman cemented this questionable logic, agreeing, "Seems like that... continue reading
'With Huntsman gone,' ABC's Jonathan Karl despaired Monday night, 'the field of Republican candidates has lost the only candidate who favored civil unions for gay couples and said he was concerned about climate change.' In his World News report, Karl recalled how Hunstman once 'tweeted: 'To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.'' Over on the CBS Evening News , Jan Crawford noted how Huntsman was more popular with the news media than with Republicans: 'Huntsman's campaign never really took off, except among newspaper editorial boards.' From Karl's story on ther Monday,... continue reading
In the days leading up to the GOP primary in South Carolina, all three networks have aggressively attacked the state and its supposedly "dirty," "nasty," "notorious" politics. Echoing many other journalists, CBS's Jan Crawford warned on January 12: " Down here in South Carolina, the weather is warm, that tea is cold, and the politics can get down right dirty ." On January 15, Chris Matthews repeatedly smeared the Palmetto state: "Why are South Carolina politics always so down and dirty?...What makes this state, for everyone who wants to be president, the messiest stop of all?" Quoting Time magazine, the... continue reading
At the top of the 8 a.m. ET hour of NBC's Today on Monday, fill-in news anchor Tamron Hall promoted a fake campaign attack ad created by comedian Stephen Colbert which argues that if Mitt Romney believes corporations are people, "Then Mitt Romney is a serial killer. He's Mitt the Ripper." The ad follows with a woman screaming. [ Audio available here ] Hall explained to viewers: "Colbert is using his fake bid for the White House to call attention to unlimited spending by anonymous super-PACs." After the news brief, fill-in co-host Natalie Morales declared: "I love Colbert. What he... continue reading
CBS's Bob Schieffer decided his viewers needed a special warning about how far out of the mainstream an upcoming guest dwells, plugging at the top of Sunday's Face the Nation how he'd have as guests Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – and then: 'for context on how it's going, we'll bring in South Carolina's very conservative Senator, Jim DeMint.' Schieffer normally introduces guests with just their title, such as 'ranking member of x committee' or 'chairman' of the party. Last summer, however, in also bringing in 'context,' he applied ideological tags but avoided identifying his guests as... continue reading
A report by CNN's David Mattingly that aired on Friday's The Situation Room emphasized the "bitter Bain memories" left in South Carolina from Bain Capital, the private equity firm that candidate Mitt Romney founded. Mattingly featured the president of the local Steelworkers union at the plant Bain Capital bought back in the 1990s. As the United Steelworkers union has been heavily pro-Democratic, it came as no surprise that the president ripped Bain's practices and held Romney "very responsible." Even though officials in the county where Bain brought a company and abruptly left five years later admitted that they came out... continue reading
In a testy interview Friday morning on CNN's Starting Point, host Soledad O'Brien gave New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor the third degree over the credibility of her new book "The Obamas." O'Brien repeatedly hit Kantor for not having interviewed First Lady Michelle Obama since 2009, despite Kantor having used Obama's own aides as sources for her material. In addition, Kantor responded to O'Brien scolding her to "Get Real" earlier this week, which NewsBusters reported on. The CNN anchor had incorrectly claimed that reports from multiple news outlets discredited a segment in Kantor's book – but the author set the... continue reading
As he appeared on the Friday, January 13, The O'Reilly Factor , FNC's Geraldo Rivera complained that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney never mentions that his father, George Romney, was born in Mexico while campaigning as the "most virulent anti-illegal immigration person" and ended up calling the former Massachusetts governor a "hypocrite." After Rivera recounted the story of Mitt Romney's great grandfather leaving Utah for Mexico to avoid the state's anti-polygamy laws, with his grandson and Mitt's father, George, eventually returning to America, the FNC host noted that Mitt Romney is technically eligible for Mexican citizenship, and then launched into... continue reading