The New York Times published an unintentionally humorous headline on December 23: “When ‘60 Minutes’ Checks Its Journalistic Skepticism at the Door.” Times media columnist David Carr is suddenly stunned that “60 Minutes” has aired a puff piece on a serious political matter. In his article, Carr didn’t breathe a word about Steve Kroft’s long history of servile interviews with Barack Obama, most recently in January when he threw softballs at both Obama and Hillary Clinton at the president’s request. Carr’s never written about Kroft. Carr sees “60 Minutes” as a "journalistic treasure" because it's a rabble-rousing leftist outfit: “For... continue reading
What’s been called the “war on Christmas” is often a case of secular liberals wanting to engage in Christmas denial. In the name of not wanting to offend people of minority faiths (or no faith), they remove the C-word from department-store catalogs and remove Christmas songs from public-school concerts, leaving us with lame messages about snow. But there’s another kind of Christmas denial: the kind that simply stomps on Christianity as ridiculous and kicks over the nativity set. Take the atheist punk band Bad Religion and their new record of Christmas songs they found “hilarious” to record. Co-founder Brett Gurewitz... continue reading
Liberal journalists were glowing and full of hope after Barack Obama won a second term. As 2012 drew to a close, there was the traditional hour of ABC’s Barbara Walters fawning: “Mr. President, Mrs. Obama. There is a photograph of you [hugging] that went viral, became the most shared photograph in the history of Twitter. How do you keep the fire going?” As the second inauguration neared, Newsweek put out a cover image even though they’d stopped printing magazines. Over a picture of Obama, it read: “The Second Coming. America Expects. Can He Deliver?” He laid an egg. These are... continue reading
The man whose last controversial movie was "Bully" certainly knows how to behave like one. Just ask New York Post film critic Kyle Smith, who dared to give a thumbs-down to Hollywood bigwig Harvey Weinstein's latest anti-Catholic attack film, "Philomena," carefully timed for release during the Christmas season. Weinstein took out an full-page color attack ad in The New York Times singling out Smith for abuse. It got his attention. "I've never been flogged in the public square, but now I have a rough idea what it's like." In all capital letters, the ad proclaimed "The New York Times, Los... continue reading
The most defining moment of how MSNBC sees President Obama came when Chris Matthews sounded giddy the night before his interview with the president. “I got the Christmas eve excitement brewing right here at Hardball because tomorrow night at precisely this time...the President of the United States is going to join us." This means that to Matthews, Obama is either the Christmas gift he’s always wanted, or he’s still the messiah figure to die-hards at MSNBC. Either way, this should not be seen as an interview that counts in anyone’s book as a press interview holding the president accountable. Take... continue reading
The rapper Kanye West is known as one of the Western world’s largest egotists, which is really saying something in the boastful world of rap. He’s appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in a crown of thorns, and if that wasn’t obvious enough, his last album was titled “Yeesus.” On one song, he said Jesus was “the most high,” but he was “a close high.” Now he’s offending the Jews. In a radio interview with MTV personality Sway Calloway in New York, he came to Barack Obama’s defense by asserting “Black people don’t have the same level of connections... continue reading
It might seem like another day in Tea Party Land when a conservative columnist accuses the Obama White House “airbrushing history” like the “Stalin era” Soviet Union. But the columnist isn’t a conservative. It’s Dana Milbank of the liberal Washington Post, complaining about what’s happened to White House news photographers. He’s not alone. A New York Times photographer has publicly compared Team Obama to the Soviets’ Tass news agency. What is going on? As the wheels come off the Barack Obama Hope and Change Bus, the White House is now restricting access to the very media that have done little... continue reading
On November 22, with the national media focused on the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s death, few noticed the story of a jury in North Carolina convicting Crystal Mangum of murder in the 2011 kitchen stabbing death of her boyfriend Reginald Daye. Why should that fact fixate the national media? On its own, it shouldn’t. But in 2006 and 2007, Mangum’s false charges of rape against three lacrosse players at Duke University caused a national tsunami of media sensation, an angry wave of prejudiced coverage that presumed the guilt of rich white college boys when accused by an African-American stripper... continue reading
Like most MSNBC hosts, Martin Bashir has been hypersensitive to slights aimed at President Obama, real or imagined. He was shocked at a picture in January 2012 that showed Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer pointing a finger at Obama on the tarmac in Phoenix. He somehow imagined the disrespect was "unprecedented!" When then-Rep. Joe Walsh decided to skip an Obama jobs speech before Congress in the fall of 2011, Bashir was shocked. "Are you able to be as disrespectful to the office of President by simply walking away from something that every member of the Congress is going to attend? Is... continue reading
There may be no more painful oxymoron than "feminist comedians." MTV flash-in-the-pan Sarah Silverman and "Daily Show" co-creator Lizz Winstead teamed up in New York City on November 18 for a telethon to fund abortions in Texas via NARAL Pro-Choice America. Think Jerry's kids, except instead of saving the children, the unborn are eliminated. They call that "reproductive justice." Silverman and Winstead appeared together that night on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes," where Hayes described the event as a "telethon to help Texas women trying to survive the onslaught of right-wing deprivation of their right to choose." This was... continue reading