Giving Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer an unusual evening newscast platform to plug a book, on Monday's NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams brought viewers back to the Left's ten-year-old grudge, cuing up Breyer to agree: "Do you think Bush v Gore hurt the credibility of the modern court?" Breyer replied with a simple "yes" and Williams suggested: "Irreparably?" "No," Breyer said in rejecting Williams' overwrought premise, so Williams pressed: "For how long?" Williams introduced the September 13 segment by marveling: We can't remember a sitting justice on the U.S. Supreme Court ever stopping by our studios here, but it... continue reading
New York Times reporter Eric Lipton blasted House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner on Sunday's front page for his "especially deep" and "especially tight ties" with "lobbyist friends," loose talk that falsely suggested Boehner has some kind of unique troublesome ties to lobbyists, in " A G.O.P. Leader Tightly Bound to Lobbyists ." President Obama went after Boehner by name several times in a speech last week, which the paper used as a half-hearted excuse for its hit piece. With convenient circularity, the resulting Times article was quickly forwarded by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs the morning of its... continue reading
Well you have to give Chris Matthews credit for admitting the obvious. On Monday's Hardball, as he overlooked the bad environment for Democrats this midterm season, Matthews appeared grateful he didn't make his much rumored run for Pennsylvania's Senate seat, as he asked one of his guests: "Do you think it could be the year where guys...like me were smart not to make the run?" [ audio available here ] The admission came during a segment in which Matthews, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza and local radio talk show host, Dan Gaffney of WGMD, were breaking down the prospects for... continue reading
In a puff piece on Attorney General Eric Holder on CBS's Sunday Morning, correspondent Rita Braver praised his professionalism: "...ignoring political pressure is Holder's constant message as he talks to Justice Department lawyers.... Though he was a key advisor to the Obama campaign and considers the President a friend, Holder says he now keeps it purely professional." [Audio available here ] Throughout the interview, Braver portrayed Holder as lacking any political agenda: "And when he took office last February, he got a hero's welcome. It was in part, he believes, a reaction to cronyism and questionable policies advocated in the... continue reading
Appearing as a guest on Friday's Countdown show, MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe, formerly with Newsweek, referred to the debunked story that was retracted by Newsweek in May 2005 which had incorrectly claimed that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a Koran down a toilet to intimidate Muslim prisoners. But Wolffe did not inform viewers that the story was untrue as he accused conservatives of a double standard for criticizing Newsweek's inaccurate Koran desecration story from 2005 while not being aggressive enough in condemning Pastor Terry Jones's plan to burn the Koran on September 11. Wolffe: I'm struck all... continue reading
ABC's Christiane Amanpour used Sunday's This Week to again shame Americans for their presumed irrational intolerance and Islamophobia as she railed against the ignorance of too many Americans, provided a friendly forum to Iman Faisal Abdul Rauf, whom she prompted to ridicule Sarah Palin, and then brought aboard a group of three "leading thinkers on faith" to "discuss religious tolerance and Islamophobia in America." That brings Amanpour's show tally to six guests in favor of the Ground Zero mosque versus zero opposed (four today, two on the August 22 program). Unmentioned by Amanpour or her guests: A report presented Friday... continue reading
On Sunday's syndicated Chris Matthews Show, after host Matthews asked if electing a President whose middle name was "Hussein" had "opened a door to better relations with the Arab and Islamic world. Or has it opened a door to more xenophobic American negativity?" the panel mostly agreed that Obama's election was more of a "net plus" for America's relations with the world's Muslim population. The Washington Post's David Ignatius had a dissenting view that "President Obama raised expectations that there would be a different kind of America. That in itself could be dangerous." After former CBS News anchor Dan Rather... continue reading
On Saturday's Good Morning America on ABC, during a discussion of the recent controversies over the Ground Zero mosque and the possibility of Koran burning in Florida by Pastor Terry Jones, after anchor Dan Harris brought up the naive liberal expectation that President Obama would be able to improve relations with the Muslim world because of his family connections to Islam and his inaugural speech reaching out to Muslims, ABC News consultant Richard Clarke suggested that Obama's inaugural address had "helped a lot" to make America safer before being derailed by recent controversies. After Clarke had argued that recent events... continue reading
Filling in for anchor Katie Couric on Thursday's CBS Evening News, Early Show co-host Harry Smith introduced a report on opposition to building mosques in some areas of the country: "...they feel like strangers in their own country, Muslims shocked by the growing opposition to new mosques ....building a mosque has suddenly become a hot-button issue in many communities." Smith expounded on the cause of the protests: "The furor over plans to burn the Koran and the building of the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero has had ripple effects all across America." Correspondent Seth Doane followed by focusing on... continue reading
At a media summit in London on Wednesday, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger predicted the Times will eventually go out of print (and become a wholly online publication). But Times Home section contributor Anne Raver has uncovered a possible alternative use for the dead tree version of the paper. Under the hopeful headline: " Read First, Then Use to Kill Weeds ," Raver made the case for using the Times, with compost, to kill garden weeds, as demonstrated in a photo by Rob Cardillo. "I knew I was saving those newspapers for a reason," I said to Rock, as... continue reading