Reporting on Michele Bachmann officially entering the presidential race on Monday's NBC Today, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell declared that "step one" for the Minnesota Congresswoman was "redefining [her] public image" by "turning down the flame-thrower persona." Following O'Donnell's report and taped interview with Bachmann, co-host Ann Curry interviewed fellow Republican presidential candidate and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Curry asked about Bachmann's chances: "She has been described as being too far outside the mainstream to be president. You know her. You're both from Minnesota. Do you agree with that or disagree with that?" As evidence of Bachmann supposedly downplaying her "flame-thrower... continue reading
On Sunday's This Week, ABC's Christiane Amanpour repeatedly hit Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with the White House's plea for 'revenue raising' measures, often the new euphemism for tax hikes, but when she talked to Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn, the Assistant Minority Leader in the House, she failed to press him about agreeing to GOP spending cut proposals and instead only asked him about prospects for a deal. Amanpour began with how reasonable President Obama and Democrats, who 'need revenue,' are acting: 'Democrats are saying they're not putting, for the moment, tax hikes on the table, but they need revenue,... continue reading
The ABC and NBC evening newscasts have focused stories on Billy Bulger, the long-time Massachusetts Democratic political hack who is the younger brother of just-captured reputed mass-murdering Mobster Whitey Bulger, but both refused to identify Billy Bulger's party affiliation. (The CBS Evening News has, so far, not even mentioned Billy.) 'While Whitey Bulger was running a gang, his brother was a celebrated star of Massachusetts politics,' ABC anchor Diane Sawyer trumpeted on Thursday night. On Friday night, NBC forwarded MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell to vouch that Billy had no information about the whereabouts of his fugitive brother while Jeff Rossen marveled:... continue reading
Fareed Zakaria, CNN's world affairs analyst, hailed President Obama's Afghanistan speech as a "remarkable speech for an American president" Wednesday and defended the president's decision to ignore the advice of his generals on the target dates for pulling troops out of Afghanistan. "It was a remarkable speech for an American president in the caution, the strategic emphasis, rather than the idealistic emphasis," sounded Zakaria, no stranger to praising Obama's foreign policy speeches. He lauded the president's May 19 Mideast speech as "remarkably comprehensive" and "fair" and "balanced." [Video below.] He also gave positive reviews of his "very thoughtful" face-to-face conversations... continue reading
NBC barely covered the Thursday arrests of two Islamists in a planned terrorist attack on a military facility in Seattle. The network didn't cover the breaking news at all on Thursday's Nightly News, and devoted only 17 seconds to it on Friday's Today Show. Thursday's CBS Evening News had a minute-long report on the arrests, while ABC had full reports on the arrests on World News and GMA. CBS anchor Scott Pelley introduced correspondent Bob Orr's brief report on the terror plot: "It has been a busy 48 hours for the FBI. We learned today that agents have arrested two... continue reading
Barack Obama's confusing one living American war hero with a fallen one he honored in 2009, has been completely ignored by the Big Three network newscasts, including the same NBC Nightly News that threw a fit over Sarah Palin's recent recounting of an event over 200 years ago, Paul Revere's ride. On Thursday, at Fort Drum, New York, as reported by the Military Times , Obama told the 10 th Mountain Division he had the privilege of meeting "a comrade of yours, Jared Monti" adding it was "the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor... continue reading
In an exclusive interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer played a clip of a woman attacking the Republican as hypocritical for sending his children to private school while cutting funding for public schools. Lauer agreed with her premise: "I thought it was a fair question." Lauer sympathized with the woman and argued: "...what she was asking you was – she clearly sends her kids to public schools and she's saying, 'Governor, I understand you send your kids to private schools, but is it possible, though, then you don't understand how these cuts... continue reading
According to cable host Piers Morgan, CNN is bias-free. On his June 22 program, the anchor declared of his network: "What it doesn't have is partisanship, which is a very different thing from having an opinion." See the video below for examples of just how partisan CNN can be . (MP3 audio here .) Morgan is the same host who on June 07 asked of Ann Coulter , " Where is the similar mob to Mussolini's and Hitler's in the modern democratic era?...Tea Party ?" On January 21, 2009, CNN's Carol Costello gushed about the newly sworn in President, "When... continue reading
We all know how the story ended for the first "Sheriff of Wall Street," Eliot Spitzer. CNN hailed attorney Preet Bharara as the "New Sheriff of Wall Street" in a puff-piece Thursday afternoon, and one can only wonder if his career path will eventually take him to a prime-time slot at CNN as a Democrat mouthpiece. Bharara was nominated by President Obama in 2009 to be U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In less than two years he has convicted 44 people on Wall Street for insider trading, thus earning him headlines and a complimentary title from... continue reading
Former CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour appeared on Wednesday's Piers Morgan show and was praised as being like "the queen of England" and " Beyonce ." The Piers Morgan Tonight host also allowed Amanpour to get away with declaring herself non-"ideological" and not "opinionated." Amanpour, who once compared Christians who don't watch R-rated movies to "totalitarian regimes," bragged about her role as a journalist, "... You're not trying to say this is right or that is right. You're not trying to be political. You're not trying to be ideological ." The This Week host, who in 1999 blamed Mikhail Gorbachev for... continue reading