Jon Meacham, the liberal host of PBS's Need to Know, frankly admitted Thursday that media scrutiny of President Bush would far surpass the mild criticism of Barack Obama when it comes to a 10-minute ESPN segment on the President filling out his NCAA Tournament bracket. Stalwart liberals such as MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski and California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom (D) agreed. "My only point is that Bush would have gotten more barbecued for this," Meacham claimed on Morning Joe Thursday. "Anyone who thinks that he didn't - he wouldn't - is crazy." The panel was debating the merits... continue reading
Last Sunday, Frank Rich filed his last column for the Week in Review, " Confessions of a Recovering Op-Ed Columnist ." Rich is joining his friend and former Times Magazine editor Adam Ross at New York magazine. Rich's farewell is typically self-indulgent: "My own idiosyncratic bent as a writer, no doubt a legacy of my years spent in the theater, is to look for a narrative in the many competing dramas unfolding on the national stage. I do have strong political views, but opinions are cheap. Anyone could be a critic of the Bush administration. The challenge as a writer... continue reading
NPR's Scott Horsley favored Democrats over Republicans by a five-to-two margin on Thursday's Morning Edition. Horsley played soundbites or quoted from Obama administration officials or congressional liberals more often than from GOP representatives. During his report , the correspondent highlighted congressional concerns over the safety of nuclear energy during the Tuesday hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Energy Secretary Chu and Nuclear Regulatory Chairman Gregory Jaczko were the main witnesses during the hearing. Horsley first noted that "Chu was cautious in talking about Japan's nuclear crisis and its meaning for the U.S. Damage to the Fukushima reactors seems... continue reading
On Thursday's CBS Early Show, news reader Jeff Glor declared: "President Obama is ready for March Madness, it appears. He broke out the brackets at the White House yesterday and made his picks in the NCAA basketball tournament." However, he lamented how the commander in c hi e f "Didn't exactly go out on a limb....For his Final Four he chose all number one seeds." Only moments earlier, Glor received a report from correspondent Mark Phillips in Libya, who described the losing battle rebels were fighting against dictator Moammar Qadhafi. While Glor noted the United Nations was still debating the... continue reading
MSNBC's Chuck Todd on Thursday fretted over the blame Barack Obama is enduring for making televised NCAA picks during the ongoing crises in Libya and Japan. After gushing over the President's basketball predictions on Wednesday , Todd followed up by lamenting, " Makes people wonder why anyone wants the job ." Talking to former Bush aide Tony Fratto, a defensive Todd argued: "[The White House has] been criticized for using him too much in time of crises. Here's a week where, now, people are criticizing, 'We're not seeing him enough.'" Justifying Obama's basketball picks, golf outings and speeches to Democratic... continue reading
On Wednesday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, fill-in host Norah O'Donnell spoke with liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about his claim that the United States is "not broke," but simply needs to "raise revenue" through higher taxes. She teased the segment by wondering: "Is Washington really as broke as lawmakers make it seem?" O'Donnell described Dionne's latest column as "provocative" and asked, "How can you say there is no crisis?" Dionne argued: "...we are in this strait partly because of an economic downturn, when things get better, when the economy gets better, revenue comes in. We're also in this... continue reading
The New York Times versus state spending cuts. Reporter Sabrina Tavernise went to the downtrodden town of Gallipolis, Ohio, and collected a grab bag of sympathetic liberal anecdotes about government workers threatened by a bill that would restrict public-sector unions, for Wednesday's " Ohio Town Sees Public Job As Only Route To Middle Class ." Tavernise focused solely on the plight of low-income workers, including unionized government workers, while failing to mention the state's $8 billion deficit (a number included only in an Associated Press sidebar story, "Governor's Budget Seeks To Limit Union Influence.") Jodi and Ralph Taylor are public... continue reading
Diane Sawyer allocated all but 1:37 of World News to Japan on Wednesday night, committing 33 seconds of that limited time to touting President Obama's NCAA basketball picks provided to ABC corporate cousin ESPN. "Despite all the troubles around the world" Sawyer rationalized - as if there's much evidence Obama, who's hardly been engaged in the Libyan or Japanese situations and who went golfing last weekend, is devoting much time to any of it - "the President kept his annual appointment to fill out his bracket for college basketball's March Madness. The basketball Fan-in-Chief got together with our sister network... continue reading
NPR's Michele Norris expressed the liberal skepticism of any tax incentive to spur job growth on Tuesday's All Things Considered during an interview of Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Otellini proposed a tax holiday for any company that built a new factory in the U.S. Norris replied: " Can this country afford that right now? " The host asked the CEO about job creation near the end of her interview. She began with a left-of-center premise: " What can the government do to create jobs or can the government create jobs? " Otellini offered a free market solution: OTELLINI: Well, I... continue reading
On his eponymous program Tuesday, MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir interviewed a liberal environmental activist aiming to scare viewers into believing that nuclear energy poses an imminent threat to the safety of the United States. Bashir allowed a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, a left-wing environmental group, to declare nuclear facilities in California dangerous and unsafe, but neglected to report that the nuclear industry claims it has protocols in place to ensure safety. "The fact of the matter is that what's happening in Japan could certainly have happened here," predicted David Moglan, director of the Climate and Energy Project for... continue reading