On Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry predicted that following his strong finish in Iowa, Rick Santorum was "about to face the meat grinder of tough scrutiny for the first time." Turning to Meet the Press host David Gregory, she wondered: "So is he going to have to change his conservative message as he's looking...into New Hampshire, which is a much less conservative state, David?" Gregory suggested some lines of attack: "Well, he's going to be under a very intense scrutiny by the other candidates....you could go back about apparent contradictions between small government conservativism and some of his activism... continue reading
World News' Diane Sawyer on Wednesday hailed a questionably legal recess appointment by Barack Obama, praising the incoming arrival of a "consumer champion" who will "help" Americans with their financial problems. The program offered no skepticism as to whether a new, unrestrained bureau could harm businesses in America. Sawyer teased the program, " Consumer champion. Can this brand new man in town help you with your mortgage, your car loan, your credit cards? " [MP3 audio here .] Instead of any questions about the bureau, reporter Cecila Vega featured Pamela Banks of the Consumer Union , a group that supported... continue reading
Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, New York magazine's John Heilemann - also an MSNBC analyst and formerly of The New Yorker - made a gay joke about GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as he described the competitive election in Iowa. After host Stephen Colbert, playing the part of committed conservative wanting to pump up Santorum, asked of the Iowa results, "So, Santorum, this is a victory, right? He may have lost, but it's a victory," Heilemann took a shot at the former Pennsylvania Senator in his response: Oh, yeah, look, I mean, the... continue reading
Showing how no left-wing effort to raise taxes is too silly or embarrassing for ABC News to embrace, World News on Wednesday night jumped to promote a Web video , created by a group founded by a former Howard Dean operative and 'featured contributor' to the Huffington Post ( Rick Jacobs ), to impose a higher state income tax rate on Californians earning over $1 million. 'First it was Warren Buffett,' anchor Diane Sawyer glowed in citing her hero, 'and now it is reality TV star Kim Kardashian. What could they have in common? Both center stage on the question... continue reading
CNN's Soledad O'Brien tried to make race an issue on Tuesday where there was no conflict to begin with, and she continued thumping Republicans over immigration on Wednesday's Starting Point. O'Brien asked candidate Mitt Romney if he was simply driving Latino voters to Obama with his immigration stance, and brought up the issue again in a later interview. In her interview with Romney, O'Brien cited his opposition to the Dream Act and noted the large Latino voting bloc in Florida, the site of an upcoming GOP primary. "You know immigration is a big issue for Latino voters. When you tackle... continue reading
Is House Speaker John Boehner an anti-Obama racist? Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal all but accuses him in his Tuesday blog from Des Moines, ' Nobody Likes to Talk About It, but It's There .' The web headline is blunter: 'Republican Attacks Have Racist Undertones.' Actually, Rosenthal is all too happy to talk about racist Republicans if it helps Democrats politically, as he did on November 1, in one of his f irst blog posts : '...it was the Republicans who perfected the art of injecting racial fears into modern-day politics (remember Willie Horton in 1988?) and have conducted an... continue reading
CBS revealed its double standard in its treatment of Republican presidential candidates versus Democratic ones on Wednesday's Early Show, as Jim Axelrod and Nancy Cordes pressed Mitt Romney about the challenges ahead in the race the day after he won in Iowa. By contrast, then-anchor Katie Couric gushed over a " humanized " and " emotional " Hillary Clinton the day after the 2008 New Hampshire primary. After joking with Romney about his eight vote margin of victory at the beginning of the interview, Axelrod asked the former Massachusetts governor about the apparent slim rise in the number of votes... continue reading
On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Tom Brokaw asked Perry, Iowa resident Eddie Diaz: "Were you accepted right away by the community?" Brokaw explained: "Diaz is a Perry high school teacher, part of a growing Hispanic population.... Eddie could go elsewhere, but he likes Perry, which he says is more moderate, politically and culturally, than the candidates realize." Brokaw touted how Diaz lectured Michele Bachmann at a campaign event: "Recently he challenged Michele Bachmann for her hard line on immigration." Diaz argued: "Why would you choose to punish these kids?...Because every election cycle, immigration is used as a punching bag,... continue reading
Former top Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday wondered if Mitt Romney's attempt to "reassure" conservative voters would end up "turning off" moderates and independent voters in a general election. [MP3 audio here .] Interviewing the Republican presidential candidate on "Good Morning America," Stephanopoulos offered spin about conservative extremism: "And I wonder as you look at the general election ahead with President Obama, as you try to appeal to these Republican voters looking for a true conservative, are you worried at all, as you try to reassure them, that you might then turn off those moderates and independent... continue reading
During MSNBC coverage of the Republican Party Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, shortly after 8:30 p.m, MSNBC's Chris Matthews lumped "neocons" and the socially conservative Moral Majority movement in with segregationist Dixiecrats as he asserted that Republicans had picked up the "droppings" and the "effluent" of the Democratic Party, causing the Republican Party to be too "junk laden" to open their minds to Ron Paul's anti-war views. The MSNBC host began: Well, I think the Republican Party has, unfortunately for it, built itself over the droppings of the Democratic Party for about 50 years. He soon asserted that Republicans are "so... continue reading