Hillary Clinton

According to James Carville, all Democrats want to do is “get behind” Hillary Clinton for the 2016 elections. It’s definitely easier for them to do so when the media is throwing their full weight behind the former secretary of state.

The liberal panelists on Tuesday’s Morning Joe hyped the “very, very, very big news” that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is endorsing former Secretary Clinton for the 2016 presidential race – three and a half years before the election. McCaskill announced she was supporting Clinton Tuesday morning through the Ready for Hillary Super PAC.

In an early Wednesday morning story which seems to have been a strategic trial balloon, Charles Babington at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, ran a story trying to portray the NSA surveillance revelations by Edward Snowden and subsequent developments as matters which have only riled up people on the "far left and far right." Otherwise, the American people are okey-dokey with NSA's data dragnet. Too bad for Babington and the administration, as I demonstrated in Part 1 (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), that what appears to have been a belated attempt to intimidate prominent elected politicians has to a large extent not worked.

This post will further show that polling data Babington cited near the end of his report contradicts his claim that "Solid majorities of Americans and their elected representatives appear to support the chief elements of the government's secret data-gathering."

Alex Wagner just took the media’s infatuation with the Clinton family to a whole new level. In an interview with Chelsea Clinton on Friday’s Now, the daytime MSNBC host jokingly begged Clinton for “an extra large rolly bag that I can stuff myself into” when the former First Daughter travels.

After Clinton gamely approved, Wagner followed up with an even more bizarre request:

CNN sure loves the Clintons. After running a Hillary puff piece on Thursday, the network fawned over Chelsea on Friday morning's Starting Point.

Michaela Pereira, co-host of CNN's new morning show New Day, hyped that "Chelsea Clinton might just be the epitome of girl power." In her first CNN report, she added that Chelsea "is motivated from within. She's got these two extraordinary parents." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

During a fawning report on Hillary Clinton's "first time kicking off the Clinton Global Initiative" on Friday's NBC Today, White House correspondent Peter Alexander also cheered the "double feature" of Clinton and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaking at the event: "Today it is Bill Clinton who could soon be advising his wife's next presidential bid, giving her possible rival Chris Christie the reins for a major platform to showcase his own leadership skills."

Continuing to hype Christie hobnobbing with Democrats, Alexander declared: "Chris Christie, the Jersey-shore-reopening, carnival-playing presidential pal is the former President's guest of honor, speaking this afternoon, while his Republican rivals address a conference of religious conservatives. Insiders say, for the moment, Christie is focused on 2013, not 2016, eyeing his own re-election race in a heavily blue state."

In a report for Friday's NBC Today, White House correspondent Peter Alexander gushed over Hillary Clinton speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative: "Call it Hillary Clinton 3.0." A sound bite played of Clinton joking: "So after visiting 112 nations over four years, I'm still jet lagged." Alexander added: "But no signs of wear..." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Alexander continued the Hillary promotion as if she was already running for president: "[Clinton] is essentially raising the curtain on her next act, empowering women and girls.... Her recent return to the spotlight certainly appears carefully choreographed. The newly renamed Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation and a brand new Twitter account, nearly a half million followers waiting to hear what's 'TBD.'"

On Wednesday's The Lead, CNN's Erin McPike touted Hillary Clinton's speech at the Clinton Global Initiative and hyped her prospects for 2016. She ignored any controversies from Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, like Benghazi and new accusations of a cover-up of sex scandals abroad.

"[T]here's no question that the big star here was a very relaxed Hillary Clinton," McPike reported. "The political world is abuzz over a potential race for the White House in 2016." A CNN headline trumpeted "Here Comes Hillary." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

John Dickerson downplayed most of the recent scandals surrounding the Obama administration on Thursday's CBS This Morning, asserting that the White House was "trying to get something done on immigration....they're trying to stay focused on the things that really matter to this presidency, and only trying to spend a small amount of time putting out these little fires."

This came mere moments after Dickerson acknowledged the potential for the scandals to affect the President's legacy: "At the worst end...you get a feeling it's a scandal a week related to the administration, and if that idea sets in – that there's a kind of, rot....that affects the President's legacy." [audio available here; video below the jump]

That's two famous actresses that have now denied being up for the part of a young Hillary Clinton in the upcoming biopic "Rodham."

After Jessica Chastain's denial earlier this month, Scarlett Johansson has also come out saying she's never been contacted about the part or seen a script.

Good Morning America hasn't made time to cover a possible prostitution scandal involving Hillary Clinton's State Department, but the show's hosts gushed over the politician's debut on Twitter. News reader Josh Elliott thrilled, "Hillary Clinton has arrived on Twitter. And, boy, does she have people talking because in part of her description of herself."

After reading the description of Clinton's bio, the GMA anchors raved over the former Secretary of State's skill at social media. Robin Roberts lauded, "She's so good at that!" Entertainment reporter Lara Spencer agreed. Sam Champion bragged, "I tweeted her yesterday. I saw it early on! I'm, like, hey is this real?" After co-anchor George Stephanopoulos inquired as to whether he got a response, a dejected Champion admitted, "No." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Yesterday, my colleague Matt Vespa noted how Time writer (and former BuzzFeeder) Zeke Miller had room to fawn over Hillary Clinton setting up a Twitter account, yet no space to mention allegations of widespread drug and prostitution use by her security detail when she was Secretary of State.

Checking back at Time.com today and searching for "State Department," I found that the magazine has still yet to get around to the story. But they have had time on Tuesday, apparently, to drum up "The 13 Funniest Celebrity First Tweets."

[UPDATED BELOW] For hours on Monday and Tuesday, CNN hyped a positive Hillary Clinton story while ignoring a negative Clinton story.

While both stories broke on Monday morning, CNN only touted one of them on Monday: Clinton joining Twitter. And the network spent almost 10 minutes discussing it on Tuesday morning. In contrast, it took until 11 a.m. on Tuesday for CNN to even mention serious accusations leveled against the State Department by its own Inspector General. Clinton was Secretary of State until only a few months ago.

Another day, another Hillary Clinton for president story by the Washington Post. On Monday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially joined Twitter. Today, the Post devoted a 26-paragraph puff piece to this development and on the front page no less.

Staff writer Philip Rucker all but begged Hillary to run for president in his story headlined “One-tweet wonder draws followers, and anticipation.” Contrast that with how Post editors allotted a mere 12 paragraphs to an Anne Gearan piece on explosive allegations about drugs and prostitution use by diplomatic security staffers who protected Mrs. Clinton. That story, blandly headlined "State Dept.'s handling of cases reviewed," was placed on page A2.

After fretting that numerous government scandals were becoming a "big problem" for President Obama at the top of Friday's NBC Today, in the 7:30 a.m. ET half hour, correspondent Andrea Mitchell eagerly engaged in reporting that was more enjoyable, the promotion of a new Hollywood biopic of Hillary Clinton ahead of the former secretary of state's potential 2016 presidential run. [Watch the video after the jump]

Mitchell began the puff peice by proclaiming: "Hillary Clinton has been America's first lady a senator from New York, and most recently, secretary of state. But a new film called Rodham will focus on Hillary Rodham's days fresh out of law school." Mitchell's supposed news story devolved into entertainment gossip: "So who will play a young Hillary? Reports have linked some of Hollywood's hottest stars to the film, including Scarlet Johansson and Reese Witherspoon. A source close to the film wouldn't confirm that, but did tell NBC News Kerry Mulligan is being strongly considered for the role. The British actress most recently appeared in The Great Gatsby."

The New York Post offered an op-ed on Monday adapted from the new paperback edition of Ed Klein's book The Amateur. Klein says Team Obama and Team Clinton made a deal last summer: Bill Clinton would give the key nominating speech at the Democratic convention in Charlotte endorsing Obama. In exchange, Obama would endorse Hillary Clinton as his successor. But after he won his second term, Obama had second thoughts about endorsing Hillary in 2016.

"Bill Clinton went ballistic and threatened retaliation. Obama backed down," Klein asserteed. "He called his favorite journalist, Steve Kroft of '60 Minutes,' and offered an unprecedented 'farewell interview' with departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."

Appearing on Thursday's NBC Today to promote his new show premiering on the Military Channel, The Brokaw Files, special correspondent Tom Brokaw fondly looked back at a 1993 interview he conducted with Bill and Hillary Clinton: "It's amazing when you stop and think about all that they've been through. That was 1993, it's 20 years ago, and they're still at the top of the attention span in this country." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

In the 20-year-old clip that was shown, Brokaw is seen lobbing this softball to then-President Clinton, as Hillary looked on: "How long do you think it'll be, Mr. President, before there's a first husband?" Clinton predicted it would happen "probably in my lifetime." Following the clip, co-host Savannah Guthrie proclaimed: "Well, that's a priceless piece of videotape."

According to Chris Matthews on Tuesday, having Rand Paul or Ted Cruz as opponents would result in an easy win for Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Hardball host, who famously had a "thrill" going up his leg for Barack Obama, plotted the former Secretary of State's path to victory. Regarding whether she'll run, Matthews gushed, "It's just a question of what kind of campaign and who's going to help her win it?" (Other than MSNBC, one might wonder?)

The cable anchor predicted Clinton would probably be "lucky enough" to have Cruz or Paul as an opponent. Matthews lectured, "And I tell you, that's not going to be a complicated vote for most people." Before offering more campaign advice, the journalist actually insisted, "I can't put myself in the ring for running her campaign." Yet, a few months ago, Matthews did exactly that.

"If she decides to run, I would walk across the country to get her into office."

So said Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Michael Bolton about Hillary Clinton during an interview with HuffPost Live Friday.

Politico’s Katie Glueck reported two feminists who’ve written opinion columns for The New York Times are still giddy about Hillary Clinton’s chances in 2016. Benghazi, schmengazi.

Appearing Thursday at the liberal Center for American Progress, former Times columnist Anna Quindlen asserted any gender-related problems Hillary encountered in previous races have been “wiped out,” and her gender would only be an asset if she runs in 2016.

It seems the liberal media are desperately determined to shield Hillary Clinton from any attacks on her handling of the Benghazi fiasco. On Sunday’s Weekends with Alex Witt, the host attempted to blunt the criticism by suggesting that Mrs. Clinton’s opponents have taken her memorable "What difference, at this point, does it make?" quote from her testimony in January out of context.

Witt was talking with Steve Thomma of the left-leaning McClatchy Newspapers chain about how far the Benghazi talking points fiasco will go. Thomma predicted that Republicans would use the issue against Democrats in the 2014 midterms and the 2016 presidential race. He pointed out that a GOP Super PAC has already put out an attack ad that excerpts Secretary Clinton’s angry eruption. But Witt had a problem with the way the ad used that quote: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

It's been a busy week full of news stories highly damaging to liberals, from the damning testimony about Benghazi to revelations that the Obama IRS targeted the Tea Party to yesterday's conviction of Philadelphia abortionist and infanticidal maniac Kermit Gosnell.

So we at NewsBusters thought we'd show you how some conservative political cartoonists around the country were dealing with these developments in this week's edition of NB's ToonsDay:

On Monday, NPR Morning Edition anchor Steve Inskeep expressed -- in the face of all the evidence of Fast and Furious, Solyndra, MF Global, and so on -- that the first term of Obama's presidency was "remarkably scandal-free." When I challenged him on the factual inaccuracy of this, he tweeted in reply , "Hm, did I say it was scandal-free or that it 'has been described' as such?"

However passively Inskeep expressed it, he certainly agreed with it. Inskeep asked Cokie Roberts, "This administration has been described -- I don't even know how many times- - as remarkably scandal-free. But when you get into the second term of an administration, there's often some dirty laundry that comes out. Is that what's happening now?" Roberts agreed:

On Friday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes led the show by recounting the news of the "big, bad, scary" scandal of President Obama's IRS targeting conservative groups, but also chided Republicans for continuing to push Benghazi, which he referred to as a "witch hunt" and a "fake, ginned up scandal."

After reading a quote from a Tea Party group which brought up Benghazi in reacting to the IRS scandal, Hayes continued:

On Friday's Politics Nation on MSNBC, which was dominated by coverage of the kidnappings in Cleveland, Ohio, host Al Sharpton took a moment to note the Benghazi scandal as he accused Republicans of a conducting a "cheap stunt" and of pushing a "phony conspiracy theory." Sharpton:

If you were a journalist reporting on Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks, wouldn't you find it interesting that he was a Democrat who voted for Barack Obama twice?

Someone at NBC News didn't according to Hicks's attorney Victoria Toensing who disclosed the spike job to NewsMax host Steve Malzberg on WMAL radio Saturday (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

"Everybody knows that she's one of the most experienced candidates we've ever had running for president. She practically doesn't have to say it."

So said Time magazine's Joe Klein about Hillary Clinton on Sunday's syndicated Chris Matthews Show (video follows with transcript and commentary):