Debates

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley commented in a Deadline Hollywood interview that Fox News only has 200,000 to 300,000 viewers.

Fox’s Megyn Kelly marvelously responded on Monday’s America Live, “We beat you in all the debates and on election night, Scott” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting some liberal media member cautioning the Republicans to not "overplay their hand" concerning the various scandals now plaguing the White House.

Do you remember the press being concerned that the Democrats would overplay 2006's "Republican Culture of Corruption" or last year's "Republican War on Women?"

On Thursday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow mocked Republican party chairman Reince Priebus for listing as a lesson from 2012 "controlling the debate process, getting involved in moderators and networks and all of these other issues so that we don`t have chaos."

Maddow found it odd that the GOP chair would (very sensibly) say "we just can`t have MSNBC, you know, hosting a debate at the Reagan Library only to have their network comment -- you know, make the commentary afterwards for three hours about the debate of the Republican Party. I mean, it’s ridiculous."

On Friday February 22, the Washington Post took a double-barreled approach to pushing more gun control In a 52-paragraph front-page story, staff writer Stephanie McCrummen highlighted the efforts of anti-gun activist Susan Beehler, a North Dakota woman “going against the gun culture” in the Roughrider State. Elsewhere in the A-section, staffer Philip Rucker devoted 23 paragraphs to boosting Vice President Biden's push for gun control.

McCrummen's article began by promoting Beehler as, “one activist challenging the status quo.”  Beehler, who herself admits she does not own a gun, started the North Dakota chapter of the Million Moms for Gun Control group, and McCrummen went through a plethora of examples of her efforts to, “find a few other brave souls” to push for greater gun control.

Before an audience of Nevada Republicans last night, Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, admitted the obvious: picking CNN correspondent Candy Crowley to moderate one of the 2012 candidate forums was a “mistake.”

“We made one mistake this time: Her name is Candy,” he told the assembled crowd organized by the conservative Keystone Group, according to state-based political reporter Jon Ralston.

CBS’s Bob Schieffer has come to the president’s defense again. Conveniently forgetting about the media's obsession with the “war on women,” and how the media tag-teamed with the president's reelection campaign on social issues, Schieffer insisted that Barack Obama based his successful reelection campaign on the economy.

Schieffer, who moderated the final presidential debate in 2012, appeared  on the January 28 edition of The Kalb Report alongside fellow debate moderators Martha Raddatz of ABC and Jim Lehrer of PBS for a discussion of the 2012 presidential and vice presidential debates. After the discussion, the panelists fielded questions from the audience, and one audience member asked Schieffer:

Well, there goes any chance that MSNBC might have resolved to drop the phony "war on women" meme in the new year. On the January 3 NewsNation fill-in host Alex Witt interviewed Kate Pickert to push for greater abortion access across the nation, discussing her cover story for the January 14 print edition of TIME magazine, which is pegged to the forthcoming 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. "40 years ago, abortion-rights activists won an epic victory with Roe v. Wade," blares the cover headline, adding, "They've been losing ever since."

The segment itself was more of an advocacy spot than an actual interview with Witt acting as cheerleader for the abortion rights movement.  Witt introduced the segment calling the article a “fascinating, comprehensive great article”, that “really gets right to the heart of the issue.”  Ms. Witt followed her fawning over the article by asking Pickert, “What do you think it’s going to take to get abortion rights back on track and not deny it from those who need it?”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Not only did MSNBC's Thomas Roberts jump on top of yesterday's deadly Oregon mall shooting to push gun control, he presented his softball interview with gun advocate Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign as a "debate." That's right, the segment's title, given in an onscreen graphic was "Gun Control Debate." Of course, Roberts failed to bring on a gun-rights advocate to balance out Gross's appearance, meaning the audience didn't witness an actual debate.

Spokesmen for the Brady Campaign appear regularly on MSNBC, as they share the same gun-control stance of the network's anchors.  Coupled with friendly interviewers like Roberts, they get a platform devoid of any hard questions or valid counterpoints.  [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]

In his day job at New York magazine, political writer John Heilemann is throwing cold water on Romney victory hopes. “What's true, however, is that two or three weeks ago, Mitt Romney and his people were fully convinced, and not entirely without reason, that victory was within their grasp. The reality now, though, is that this is no longer true.”

As victory eludes Romney’s grasp, beware the “ferocity” of the Romney voters who “despise Obama,” for it will be “breathtaking, and perhaps not a little scary”: 

CNN's Candy Crowley got a tremendous amount of criticism last month when she defended Barack Obama during the second presidential debate.

On Sunday's State of the Union, she appeared to compensate by saying "President Romney" in a question to Ohio's Rob Portman (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Having not done a press conference since June, Barack Obama has instead appeared on ABC's The View, CBS's Late Show with David Letterman, and NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Apparently feeling MSNBC's Morning Joe will present him with similar softballs and friendly confines, the President is doing an interview with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski Saturday to be aired Monday just eight days before Americans go to the polls.

The national and battleground state polls are all showing tremendous momentum for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney since the first debate.

Despite this, with the absence of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, the entire panel of PBS’s Inside Washington Friday – comprised of the Washington Post’s Colby King, PBS’s Mark Shields, Politico’s Evan Thomas, and NPR’s Nina Totenberg – unanimously stated that if the election were held today, President Obama would win (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

It's becoming very clear that Obama's media are starting to realize the candidate they helped get elected four years ago is in serious trouble.

Count New York Times Washington Bureau correspondent Jeff Zeleny who tweeted moments ago, "In closing days of the race, Romney frames his candidacy as 'big-choice' vs. status quo of Obama. It's like watching '08 in reverse":

On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's The Ed Show, all but official Obama campaign surrogates Ed Schultz and Richard Wolffe discussed the third and final presidential debate. Both declared the president a clear winner and insulted the intelligence of anyone who would disagree. Failing to recognize the irony of what they were doing for Obama, Schultz criticized the Romney campaign for declaring victory -- as if it defied all logic.

"Romney's camp is spinning last night as a victory for him," he said. "What about that? I mean, do they really think the American people are that stupid?" [ video below, MP3 audio available here ]

In a continued effort to tag Mitt Romney with a flip-flopper label, on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams proclaimed that Romney's performance in the final presidential debate "seemed to be a move to the center" on foreign policy issues and asserted that the Governor was "taking positions he has not taken before."

In the report that followed, correspondent Andrea Mitchell declared: "Mitt Romney's switch to a more moderate foreign policy last night was clearly aimed at independent women voters.... Clearly having decided that undecided voters, those swing voters, are more likely to choose a moderate Republican than a hawk."

PolitiFact has received a fair share of criticism from conservatives for their spin-heavy fact-checks. The liberal media, for the most part, has accordingly been dismissive of such conservative complaints. But now even The Daily Beast/Newsweek is joining in on the criticism, with contributor Megan McArdle joining conservatives in noting the fact-checker repeated repetition of a falsehood regarding the Lilly Ledbetter Supreme Court case.

As NewsBusters has been reporting, there has been a shift in recent months concerning late night hosts' willingness to make jokes about the current White House resident.

NBC's Jay Leno said a doozy on Tuesday's Tonight Show (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Stop the presses! Stop the presses!

One of Barack Obama's biggest fans in the media, David Letterman, said on Tuesday's Late Show that he was "upset" and "discouraged" the president during Monday's debate lied about Mitt Romney wanting to let Detroit go bankrupt (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Tuesday's Piers Morgan Tonight, host Morgan proclaimed that President Barack Obama was wrong during Monday's debate when he claimed that the U.S. military has fewer bayonets than in the past as the CNN host recounted that hand-to-hand combat still occurs in places like Afghanistan.

As he brought aboard Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times as a guest, Morgan played a clip of Obama from the debate and then corrected him:

On Tuesday, liberal stalwart NPR hyped a BBC World Service poll that found that "if the world picked U.S. president, election would be a blowout" for President Obama. Writer Eyder Peralta's item, which was the number-one most-viewed on its website, spotlighted that the poll "taken in 21 countries...found for the most part, foreign countries preferred Obama. The only exception was Pakistan where more people said they preferred Romney."

The BBC poll, conducted between July 3 and September 3, found that the most strongly pro-Obama country, to no one's shock, was France, with 72 percent of respondents supporting the incumbent Democrat. The second highest pro-Obama country was Australia, followed by Kenya, Nigeria, and Canada.

Just how pathetic are people that watch MSNBC?

On Tuesday, a 9 1/2-year-old girl was booed during an on-location live broadcast of Morning Joe because she had the nerve to say Mitt Romney should win the election (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Shortly following the conclusion of the final presidential debate Monday night, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams posed this question to Richard Haas of the Council on Foreign Relations: "I noticed a columnist for the New York Times tonight tweeted out that this was an etch-a-sketch moment for Governor Romney....Did you see that kind of movement on his part?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Williams reminded viewers of the origin of the phrase: "It was obviously a knock of the campaign story that came up about changing policy, moving toward the center with an ease of erasing an etch-a-sketch." Haas avoided any validation of the liberal talking point: "I'm almost more comfortable, Brian, leaving the politics to others, about, you know, what Governor Romney was trying to do tonight."

Alessandra Stanley, "The TV Watch" columnist for the New York Times, has reviewed all four debates this election season – three presidential debates and the one vice-presidential debate -- and clearly favored the Democrats in each review.

While even the liberal media conceded Romney won the first debate and that Joe Biden may have blown the vice-presidential debate with inappropriate laughter, Stanley's coverage suggested she thought the Romney rout was a boring draw and that Biden beat Ryan. Stanley also more explicitly awarded the final two presidential debates to Obama.

At the end of an interview with vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie parroted Democratic attacks on Mitt Romney's foreign policy credentials: "John Kerry said, 'this is the most inexperienced foreign policy ticket to run in decades,' talking about you and Governor Romney. What specific national security experience qualifies Governor Romney to be commander in chief?"

At the top of an interview with Joe Biden only seconds later, fellow co-host Matt Lauer teed up the Vice President to slam Romney on the same issue: "[I] started by asking him if he thought Governor Romney is a qualified candidate when it comes to his vision and understanding of foreign policy." Not surprisingly, Biden declared: "No, he's not."

NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham appeared on the Fox Business Channel's Varney & Co. earlier this morning to review how the liberal media spun last night's debate, and what to expect over the next two weeks.

Host Stuart Varney suggested media bias could not dislodge the pro-Romney trend now evident in the polls, but Graham offered a warning: "We could see some of the most aggressive bias to date coming in the next two weeks, if they [liberal reporters] really believe Obama is losing." [Video and transcript below the jump.]
 

Appearing at a campaign event in Delray, Florida, Tuesday, President Obama revealed a 20-page booklet called “The New Economic Patriotism: A Plan For Jobs & Middle-Class Security.”

CNN's Jessica Yellin reporting from the scene amazingly said, "There’s not anything significantly new in here" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In their third Presidential debate analysis, the Jurassic Press Media last night and thus far this morning have failed utterly in their role as fact checker and record-corrector - at least when it comes to what President Barack Obama had to say. 

As but one glaring example, there were the President’s absurd assertions regarding the auto bailout and China.