Kate Snow

Snow: Clintons' Failure to File 2007 Return Shows 'They're Human'

By Mark Finkelstein | April 5, 2008 - 09:05 ET

Like characters in a Currier & Ives scene, a gentle snow has covered the Clintons. Make that a gentle Snow . . .

On yesterday's Hardball, Chris Matthews, smelling a rat, was livid when he learned that the Clintons had failed to file or release their 2007 tax return. But on today's Good Morning America, Kate Snow managed to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of the Clinton's delay. Far from depicting it as a means to evade the promulgation of inconvenient facts, Snow painted the procrastination as proof of the Clintons' humanity. Compare and contrast . . .

HARDBALL APRIL 4TH

DAVID SHUSTER: As far as the details we do not have the details from last year. We don't have those specific consulting fees for last year.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I was predicting [that] . . . now Joan [Walsh of Salon.com], it seems to me everybody wanted to know where the Clintons got their income. Is there any sticky income? We're not getting that information. The one thing we were promised to get.

ABC's Nick Watt Smears Dutch Filmmaker as Racist

By Scott Whitlock | April 3, 2008 - 18:20 ET

"Good Morning America" reporter Nick Watt smeared Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders as a racist on Saturday's edition of the ABC program. Watt, who interviewed the director over his new movie about radical Islam's incompatibility with Dutch culture, sneered, "You believe the Western Judeo Christian culture is superior. You believe immigration should be stopped. I mean, you're a racist, no?"

Wilders is under fire from Islamic protests in much of the Middle East and has been criticized by the Netherlands prime minister. GMA co-host Kate Snow seemed skeptical as well. Speaking of Wilders's movie, she derided, "So, is this hate speech or free speech?" Snow failed to explain how, exactly "hate speech" is not also free speech. At one point, after Wilders touted the superiority of western culture, Watt incredulously replied, "What do you mean, better?" Leaving no doubt as to what his opinion is, Watt closed the segment by asserting, "Wilders calls this freedom of speech. Others call it fanning the flames."

ABC's Snow Enthuses Over Tough, Smart Chelsea Clinton

By Scott Whitlock | February 27, 2008 - 16:38 ET

According to "Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts, Chelsea Clinton is so impressive, she just might be able mount a comeback for her presidential candidate-mother. On Wednesday's program, Roberts gushed over the first daughter and asserted, "[Hillary Clinton is] leaning more and more on Chelsea, who has taken on a new role as Clinton's biggest campaigner and, some say, her last, best hope for a comeback."

GMA reporter Kate Snow, who filed a segment on the topic, has a long history of rhapsodizing over the entire Clinton family. She marveled at Chelsea for being "there with a smile and hug" and also acting as "her mother's fiercest defender." Using fawning language, Snow commented, "Gone is the shy girl with frizzy hair and braces....Now she's spouting policy details, standing her ground against hecklers." It was only slightly more than a month ago that Snow narrated another piece about Chelsea's impressive campaigning. On January 18, she expounded on the "spotlight" shy Clinton. The ABC journalist claimed then, "To be honest, [Chelsea] doesn't like cameras much...She doesn't want to be in the spotlight."

'The Strained Scurrying of the Also-Ran'

By Mark Finkelstein | February 24, 2008 - 10:02 ET

If that sound isn't the fat lady clearing her throat, it might be the MSM humming Hillary's dirge. Consider, for example, ABC national political correspondent Jake Tapper's Good Morning America segment today on the differences in tone between the Obama and Clinton campaigns. After playing footage of an angry Hillary waving allegedly misleading Obama campaign literature and then of a relaxed Obama laughing it off, Tapper had this to say.

JAKE TAPPER: There's a difference between a winner's confident stride and the strained scurrying of the also-ran.

View video here.

ABC's Obamacan: 'Lashing Out' Hillary 'Brazenly' Attacks Barack

By Mark Finkelstein | February 16, 2008 - 11:29 ET

This is too perfect! Barely an hour after Pat Buchanan proclaimed on NBC that the MSM is full of "out-of-the-closet Obamacans," ABC's David Wright provided a perfect illustration of the genre.

In fact, I'm nominating the GMA segment Wright narrated this morning as the single most slanted episode of the MSM primary season. The screen graphic "On the Attack," set the theme: Hillary is unfairly attacking Obama, and to the extent Barack's gone negative, it's only to rebut Clinton's unfair criticism. Oh, and Hillary's demographic is crumbling. And by the way, Bill's dissing Obama supporters.

View video here.

Carville Doubts, Hillary Dodges, McAuliffe 'More Confident Than Ever'

By Mark Finkelstein | February 14, 2008 - 10:13 ET

Three voices of the Clinton campaign, three distinctly different takes on its fortunes. James Carville is candid about the pickle Hillary's in. Hillary, true to form, utterly evades the question. Ah, but there's always Terry McAuliffe. The proud graduate of the Baghdad Bob School of Flackery this morning declared that he's "more confident than he's ever been" about winning the nomination.

Carville, appearing on last night's Larry King, couldn't have been more succinct.

LARRY KING: If Hillary loses Texas or Ohio, is it over?

JAMES CARVILLE: Yes.

View Carville and Hillary video here.

ABC's Kate Snow: The Oscar Goes to Barack and Hillary

By Scott Whitlock | February 1, 2008 - 13:17 ET

"Good Morning America" correspondent Kate Snow appeared ready to present Academy Award statues to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on Friday's show. The reporter gushed over the performance of the two Democrats at Thursday's Los Angeles-based Democratic debate. She rhapsodized, "So, the nominees for best performance in a televised debate go to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton..."

Snow, as well as GMA co-host Diane Sawyer and "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos, who appeared later on in the show, couldn't restrain themselves from mentioning the possibility of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton "dream ticket." Sawyer looked absolutely bubbly during GMA's opening. Lauding the friendly nature of the debate between the senators, she enthused, "And it's Friday, February 1st, 2008 and we all watched last night, right? What about that?!"

ABC's Kate Snow Tags Along With Spotlight-Hating Chelsea Clinton

By Scott Whitlock | January 18, 2008 - 15:56 ET

ABC reporter Kate Snow continued her long history of delivering generous Clinton spin during a segment on Friday's "Good Morning America." The GMA correspondent followed Chelsea Clinton as the former first daughter campaigned for her mother, repeating talking points along the way. Snow announced, "To be honest, [Chelsea] doesn't like cameras much. She let us tag along, but takes no questions." Later Snow repeated, "She doesn't want to be in the spotlight." The ABC reporter, who often covers the Clintons, didn't ask the obvious question: If Chelsea doesn't like the spotlight or cameras, why, exactly, did she allow ABC to follow her around with a camera crew?

GMA did balance the piece on the Clinton daughter with a sympathetic take on Mike Huckabee's wife, Janet. (At one point, reporter Claire Shipman asked about Mike Hucakbee's "legendary guitar playing.") However, Snow has developed a pattern of vigorously lauding the actions of various Clintons. On January 7th of 2008, she praised Hillary Clinton for seemingly ordinary actions. "No subject is too small. No issue too dense," Snow raved.

ABC's Race Expert: Woman Who Hoped for Death of Clarence Thomas

By Scott Whitlock | January 15, 2008 - 11:37 ET

On Saturday's "Good Morning America," Kate Snow chatted with a woman who once wished death on Clarence Thomas and highlighted her as an expert on racial politics in America. The weekend GMA co-host interviewed Julianne Malveaux on the subject of racial overtones in the conflict between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

On November 4, 1994, Malveaux famously stated of Supreme Court Justice Thomas: "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease....He is an absolutely reprehensible person." (Video in the MRC's 20th anniversary Notable Quotables, scroll down to "Damn Those Conservatives Award.") Of course, Snow made no mention of this. She simply introduced the well known liberal as "a noted commentator on American politics." Snow also skipped over the fact that Malveaux is a former talk show host for the leftist Pacifica Radio network.

ABC’s Kate Snow Shills for Bill and Hillary Clinton

By Noel Sheppard | January 13, 2008 - 12:24 ET

As NewsBusters reported Monday, one of the media members that seemed to fall hook, line, and sinker for Hillary Clinton's crying game in New Hampshire was Kate Snow who covers the junior senator's campaign for ABC News, and posted a sycophantic blog about the weepy candidate's emotional performance virtually moments after it happened.

Six days later, appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Snow continued to shill for Hillary, and took the pimping a step further by parroting statements made recently by Bill Clinton about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

After host Howard Kurtz showed a clip of the now infamous teary scene in that New Hampshire diner, Snow was asked how she saw the event, and responded with a statement that sounded like it had been written by one of Hillary's staffers:

ABC Falls for Hillary’s Crying Game in New Hampshire, Will Others?

By Noel Sheppard | January 7, 2008 - 19:09 ET

She got rocked in Iowa last week, and things aren't looking good in New Hampshire tomorrow.

I guess that means it's time for the smartest woman in the world to choke up on camera, and tug at the heartstrings of folks that are easy prey for such passion plays.

For those fortunate enough to have missed it, ABCNews.com has posted a video of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) getting a bit misty Monday about how things are going on the campaign trail lately.

Kate Snow, who apparently posted a blog concerning the event at ABC's website, appears to have fallen for Hillary's crying game hook, line and sinker (emphasis added throughout):

ABC's GMA Devotes 15 Minutes to Dem Race; 31 seconds to GOP

By Scott Whitlock | January 7, 2008 - 17:28 ET

Are the two major political parties hosting primaries this winter? Or is it just the Democrats? Viewers who saw Monday's edition of "Good Morning America" might assume the latter. The ABC program devoted a lopsided 14 minutes and 56 seconds to breaking down the race between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. A scant 31 seconds were given to the competitive Republican race.

Over the course of the two hour program, GMA featured four segments on the Democrats and only a solitary (and brief) piece on the GOP contest. This included co-host Diane Sawyer interviewing Barack Obama twice. ABC anchor and former Bill Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos talked to Senator Hillary Clinton. Kate Snow discussed the state of the New York senator's White House bid. Aside from mentioning the latest GOP polls in the show's intro, the only analysis of the Republicans resulted from Sawyer asking Stephanopoulos this banal question: "And what about the Republicans?" The conversation that followed lasted 31 seconds.

ABC's Snow on Hillary: No Subject Too Small; No Issue Too Dense

By Scott Whitlock | January 7, 2008 - 13:34 ET

ABC journalist Kate Snow continued her habit on Monday of parroting Hillary Clinton's campaign spin. Filing a report for "Good Morning America," she gushed over just how hard the senator is working for a resurgence in the polls. Snow raved, "No subject is too small. No issue too dense. Hillary Clinton is taking question after question from voters, from reporters."

Spinning seemingly ordinary tasks, Snow continued, "She's pounding the pavement, literally going door to door for votes." The GMA contributor also explained that "the new Hillary critiques Barack Obama for putting a lobbyist at the top of his New Hampshire campaign." Later in the segment, she repeated the phrase: "The new Hillary confronts Obama saying he's changed his positions." Snow has a long history of history of portraying Senator Clinton's every move as brilliant:

ABC's Kate Snow: Lieberman a 'Conservative Democrat'

By Justin McCarthy | December 17, 2007 - 12:06 ET

According to ABC’s Kate Snow, support for the Iraq War automatically makes one a conservative, even if that individual is liberal on most other issues. In reporting on the increasingly tight race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Snow briefly mentioned at the end that Joseph Lieberman endorsed John McCain. She dismissively referred to Lieberman as a "conservative Democrat."

"And he won over long-time Democrat, all be it a conservative one, Senator Joe Lieberman, who ran with Al Gore, will endorse McCain later today."

ABC Gushes Over Hillary and Obama's 'Superstar Campaigners'

By Scott Whitlock | December 10, 2007 - 13:11 ET

In the battle of Democratic "superstar campaigners," the reporters of "Good Morning America" couldn't decide whether they prefer Hillary Clinton's exciting surrogates or Barack Obama's. On Monday's edition of the ABC program, correspondent David Wright parroted talking points about Oprah Winfrey supporting Obama and the inspiring nature of the talk show host. He glowingly asserted, "She's urging her fans to vote the dream, not just to settle for the inevitable." Wright didn't bother to explain what, exactly, that means.

Video (1:54): Real (3.11 MB) and Windows (3.53 MB), plus MP3 audio (887 kB).

The GMA reporter also gushed that "...When it comes to connecting a crowd over shared hardships and shared hopes, nobody beats Oprah." According to Wright, she's "kind of like everybody's big sister." Kate Snow, filing a piece on the Clinton campaign, explained that operatives at "Hillaryland" sent Bill and Chelsea Clinton to Iowa in order to manipulate media coverage away from Obama. Snow shamelessly confessed, "And it worked. We're not just talking about Oprah this morning, are we?"

ABC Reporter Kate Snow Continues to Smile and Spin for Hillary

By Scott Whitlock | November 30, 2007 - 13:49 ET

On Friday's "Good Morning America," reporter Kate Snow continued her habit of happily spinning Hillary Clinton's campaign maneuvering as nothing less than brilliant politics by the presidential candidate. She parroted talking points from the '08 contender's campaign about how smart it would be to target South Carolina voters who frequent hair salons. Sitting in a sylist booth, a smiling Snow gushed, "It makes a lot of sense, actually. Because women, when you think about it, we talk about everything in the hair salon from family to politics."

The segment, which focused on the battle between Obama and Hillary over the black vote, then cut to a quote from Kelly Adams, the South Carolina director of Clinton's campaign, who, unsurprisingly, expressed the same sentiment: "We talk politics....But, you know, there's a lot of conversations had in hair salon, serious political conversations and decisions are made there." The story, first reported over a month ago in the Washington Post, continued a template developed by Snow: Laud any action by the Clinton camp as political gold. On October 1, she reported on the former First Lady's laugh, which many found odd and off-putting. However, according to the GMA correspondent, the cackle is representative of someone either having a great time or "she's the master of a shrewd political skill, disarming her critics with a gleam in her eye and a roar straight from the belly." (A gallery of Snow, always smiling as she commits bias, can be found below.)

ABC Gushes Over Hillary; She 'Simplified' Her Immigration Stand

By Scott Whitlock | November 16, 2007 - 13:50 ET

Liberal journalists George Stephanopoulos and Kate Snow spun ABC's coverage of Thursday's Democratic debate as a roaring comeback for Hillary Clinton and charitably described the 2008 contender's shifting position on the issue of driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. Reporting on Friday's "Good Morning America," Snow slyly claimed that Clinton has "simplified her opinion" on the matter and now opposes licenses.

"Simplified" is one way to describe the senator's change of heart. A less friendly variation, one that might be handed to a Republican, is that she flip-flopped. On November 1, the Boston Globe reported, "Hillary Clinton came out yesterday in support of a plan by Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York to offer limited driver's licenses to illegal immigrants..." So, on November 1, she was for the program. She's now against it and that's simplifying a position? "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton operative, appeared on GMA to gush that the headline from the debate is "Hillary's back." He enthused, "And the subhead, I guess, would be 'no more Madam Nice Guy.'"

CNN's Sanchez Defends Hit on McCain Over Supporter's 'Bitch' Remark

By Brent Baker | November 15, 2007 - 04:45 ET

A night after CNN host Rick Sanchez decided to try to create a scandal over John McCain's failure to rebuke a supporter who referred to Hillary Clinton as a “bitch,” Sanchez on Wednesday declared McCain “should have distanced himself” from the remark and, since he didn't, the incident was newsworthy; McCain castigated CNN for its “biased reporting” and CNN's own media critic, Howard Kurtz agreed “his campaign has a point. That little incident was pretty badly hyped by Rick Sanchez.”

ABC got into the hype too as anchor Charles Gibson introduced a story on “another bit of controversy in the presidential race” which “involves the reaction of Senator John McCain when a lady at a town meeting asked him a question that contained a derogatory reference to Hillary Clinton.”

On CNN's The Situation Room, Brian Todd informed viewers how on “Tuesday evening CNN anchor Rick Sanchez takes about six minutes at the very top of his prime time show, Out in the Open, raising questions about why Senator McCain didn't immediately chastise the woman for insulting Mrs. Clinton like that.” Later, on Out in the Open, Sanchez whined about how in criticizing CNN's news judgment, McCain is “shooting the messenger, blaming me personally and CNN for his present plight.” Sanchez laid bare his agenda as he excoriated McCain for not acting as Sanchez wanted: “His staff has put out several statements today. None of them offers an apology to women in general or to Hillary Clinton specifically.”