At the top of Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez declared that vicious gossip monger Perez Hilton "makes nice....with so much bullying going on he doesn't want to be a bully himself anymore." While the report that followed cheered Hilton's efforts to reform himself, the morning show has been happy to promote his bullying tactics in the past. Correspondent Ben Tracy noted how Hilton "controversially outed gay performers like Lance Bass and Neil Patrick Harris." However, on the September 25, 2008 Early Show , correspondent Michelle Gillen seemed to have no problem with it as she reported on Hollywood's... continue reading
CNN's Wolf Blitzer and former public television anchor Nancy Karibjanian pressed Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell during Wednesday's Delaware Senate debate. While the two pressed O'Donnell on her personal finances, her past comments on evolution, and SNL poking fun of her, Karibjanian went out of her way to note Democratic candidate Chris Coons's past as a "student pastor at Yale." The first hour of the debate, which was held at the University of Delaware, aired on CNN starting at 7:30 pm Eastern. In her very first question to O'Donnell, the former WHYY personality raised the Republican's past financial difficulties: KARIBJANIAN: Let's... continue reading
NBC's Meredith Vieira previewed Thursday's Today show coverage of the Delaware Senate debate by teasing viewers about "the one question that left [Christine] O'Donnell struggling for an answer" but Vieira, nor Kelly O'Donnell in her full report, bothered to note her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, completely fumbling a basic question about property taxes. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell excerpted a moment from the debate unfavorable to Christine O'Donnell as she relayed: "On the Supreme Court O'Donnell stumbled much like Sarah Palin, when asked to name a recent decision she opposes." However Kelly O'Donnell failed to excerpt an embarrassing moment for Coons when... continue reading
At the top of Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased an upcoming report on Wednesday's Delaware Senate debate by proclaiming: "U.S. Senate candidate and tea party favorite Christine O'Donnell is grilled in her first highly-anticipated debate, where she addresses everything from witches, to China, to late-night TV jokes." Rodriguez's declaration was later followed by a completely one-sided report from congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes, who focused exclusively on O'Donnell being interrogated over past statements: "Well, this debate involved two candidates, but the spotlight was really on one of them, Christine O'Donnell, and her history of controversial comments." After playing... continue reading
On Thursday's Good Morning America, reporter Claire Shipman knocked Christine O'Donnell for a "cringe-inducing" answer during a debate, Wednesday, but downplayed and ignored awkward moments from the candidate's Democratic opponent. Shipman derided, "But, while she was quick to accuse her opponent of politics as usual, she stumbled on a question that many consider to be Politics 101." Co-host George Stephanopoulos teased, "And in last night's debate, what seemed to stump Tea Party star Christine O'Donnell?" Asked by Nancy Karibjanian, one of the moderators, what Supreme Court decision she most disagreed with, the Delaware Republican didn't have an answer. An ABC... continue reading
Leave it to Chris Matthews to shoe-horn in a crass political point against the Tea Party, even in the midst of a heartwarming story like the rescue of the Chilean miners. On Wednesday's Hardball, the MSNBC host, along with his guest Richard Trumka, president of the AFL/CIO, claimed those miners would never have survived if they had followed the "every man for himself" philosophy of the Tea Party crowd. After Trumka initially recounted his joy at watching the miners being rescued, he quickly veered into his standard rhetoric of the need for more regulation. Matthews then picked up on Trumka's... continue reading
Tuesday's front page featured the Times' latest convenient attack on anonymous donors supporting Republican candidates in the November elections: " Offering Donors Secrecy, and Going On Attack, " a 2,000-word expose from reporters Jim Rutenberg, Don Van Natta Jr., and Mike McIntire. The American Future Fund, a conservative organization based in Iowa, has been one of the more active players in this fall's campaigns, spending millions of dollars on ads attacking Democrats across the country. It has not hesitated to take credit for its attacks, issuing press releases with headlines like "AFF Launches TV Ads in 13 States Targeting Liberal... continue reading
Reporting that an elderly woman fainted at a West Virginia campaign appearance by former President Clinton, MSNBC ran the provocative headline "He's Still Got It," on its 10 a.m. EDT news hour. We'll leave it to the reader to guess what exactly MSNBC was getting at. President Clinton was giving a stump speech Monday for West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, the state's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. "One audience member was just a little overwhelmed," MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing remarked, as a video clip then showed Clinton pausing his speech to recognize an elderly woman in the front who... continue reading
CNN's Wolf Blitzer downplayed the straight liberal record of Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday's Newsroom, as he compared the former senator to Delaware Democratic Senate candidate Chris Coons: "I think we'll find out that he's [Coons] very much in line with the policies of a Joe Biden... sort of a relatively moderate liberal Democrat who's traditionally got a little bit of an independent streak " [audio available here ]. Blitzer appeared with anchor Tony Harris at the bottom of the 11 am Eastern hour for a preview of the debate between Coons and Republican Christine O'Donnell, in which he... continue reading
New York Times reporter and Obama-care cheerleader David Herszenhorn found more anger on the campaign hustings in Pennsylvania, in Monday's " In Pennsylvania, Anger Fuels a Race for Senate ." As usual in a Times account, all the "anger" was on the conservative side. Herszenhorn presented conservative Republican hopeful Pat Toomey as a fury-stoking opportunist, and engaged in some post-reportorial fact-checking. The voters of Pennsylvania are angry at Washington. And Pat Toomey, the Republican nominee for United States Senate, is glad to stoke the fury. "The policies that we are seeing coming out of Washington are preventing us from having... continue reading