ABC's World News Sunday gave attention to black Republicans who have a good chance of getting elected in this year's congressional elections, focusing on Tim Scott of South Carolina and Ryan Frazier of Colorado, and even showing a clip of Allen West of Florida. Anchor Dan Harris set up the report: "Two years after the historic election of America's first African-American President, there is now a huge wave of black candidates running against Barack Obama. Many of these candidates have the full support of the largely white Republican Party and the Tea Party." As correspondent Ron Claiborne filed a report,... continue reading
Barely 36 hours before Washington State voters go to the polls, CBS News aired a 14-minute unregulated in-kind campaign expenditure on behalf of " Yes on 1098 " and its chief cheerleader, Bill Gates Sr, sandwiched by Lesley Stahl hailing rogue Reagan adviser David Stockman as "brave" for advocating the end to the Bush tax rates and imposition of a 15 percent national income surtax. Stahl trumpeted: One Republican brave enough to go public is David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director. He says all the Bush tax cuts should be eliminated - even those on the middle class. And he... continue reading
Barely 36 hours before Washington State voters go to the polls, CBS News aired a 14-minute unregulated in-kind campaign expenditure on behalf of " Yes on 1098 " and its chief cheerleader, Bill Gates Sr, sandwiched by Lesley Stahl hailing rogue Reagan adviser David Stockman as "brave" for advocating the end to the Bush tax rates and imposition of a 15 percent national income surtax. Stahl trumpeted: One Republican brave enough to go public is David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director. He says all the Bush tax cuts should be eliminated - even those on the middle class. And he... continue reading
On Sunday's NBC Nightly News, during a roundup of several reporters covering a number of high-profile Senate races, correspondent Ron Allen was upfront in labeling Pennsylvania Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey as a "conservative," but an ideological label for liberal Democratic nominee Joe Sestak was absent: "Conservative Pat Toomey, a former Congressman and businessman, has been consistently leading in the polls ahead of Joe Sestak, a Democratic Congressman." And correspondent Natalie Morales played up the possibility that "a lot of people are going to be blaming the Tea Party" if Republicans land one vote short of a majority and Delaware... continue reading
ABC's Christiane Amanpour spent her last show before the election mimicking Democratic talking points. She cued up Democratic Senator Robert Menendez with how Americans don't recognize the realities of Obama's achievements so the Democratic shortcoming is not liberal policies but "bad messaging," while she pressed Republican Senator John Cornyn about whether Republicans "will agree with President Obama's plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest and preserve them for the middle class?" She also fretted that it's been a "very specific-free, substance-free, content-free election" before she scolded Cornyn for a "racist" ad. Though ABC's Jonathan Karl on Friday night noted how... continue reading
This weekend's Inside Washington put on full display the liberal sensibilities of the Washington press corps as Newsweek veteran Evan Thomas yearned for a win in Colorado for incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, "a good guy," wishing "sometimes justice does triumph," and former Wall Street Journal reporter Jeanne Cummings, now with Politico , was upset Republican Meg Whitman might win the California gubernatorial race: "She's built a turn-out operation of her own and it worries me." Thomas soon hailed Lincoln Chafee, the ex-Republican who campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008 and is now an independent candidate for Governor in Rhode... continue reading
On Sunday's syndicated Chris Matthews Show, as host Matthews asked the panel to predict the outcome of the Pennsylvania Senate election, he described Republican candidate Pat Toomey as "right-leaning," but assigned no ideological label to Democratic candidate Joe Sestak. Panel member John Heilemann of New York magazine asserted that Toomey is "not just right-leaning, he's a pretty conservative guy," while also giving no label to Sestak. Ironically, it was Helene Cooper of the New York Times who finally described the Pennsylvania Democrat as "so far to the left" as she predicted a win for Sestak. Later in the show, as... continue reading
On Sunday's Reliable Sources, CNN host Howard Kurtz pressed guest Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post on her hypocrisy for calling for more civility in political discourse even while she is a regular guest on Keith Olbermann's Countdown show on MSNBC. After Kurtz asked if MSNBC was as much of a problem as FNC, she charged that "misinformation" disseminated by FNC is "monumental" compared to MSNBC: Definitely not as much of the problem. Have they exaggerated? Yes, they would admit it themselves. But the constant barrage of misinformation being put out by Glenn Beck, by O'Reilly, by Hannity is just... continue reading
On Sunday's Good Morning America, ABC's Christiane Amanpour treated partisan spin as if it were an accurate explanation for why Democrats are performing poorly in the polls as she described Democrats as "admitting" - as if they were stating a fact - that "the message hasn't got out" regarding the "successful legislation" Congress has passed. She went on to pass on President Obama's spin that "perhaps they were too focused on what they said was doing the right thing in terms of policy and not being as concerned or as attentive to politics." Amanpour: Well, Bianna, of course, it's the... continue reading
On Saturday's Good Morning America, ABC correspondent David Kerley not only made sure to assert that House Republican Leader John Boehner "may" meet with a controversial Republican congressional nominee who has a history of dressing in a Nazi uniform as part of World War II reenactments, but the ABC correspondent sloppily worded his statement on the matter as if the candidate, Ohio Republican Rich Iott, were wearing the uniform during the campaign as Kerley vaguely referred to a candidate "who's dressed up" - presumably meaning "who has dressed up" - in a Nazi uniform. Even though some viewers may not... continue reading