Jennifer Rubin

When the Washington Post's "conservative" blogger Jennifer Rubin last Sunday accused the right-leaning media of being "embarrassingly bad this election cycle," it seemed a metaphysical certitude CNN's Howard Kurtz would soon have her on to advance her view.

True to form, exactly one week later there was Rubin on Reliable Sources with the host saying, "This indictment suggests, my reading of it, that the conservative media, parts of the conservative media are essentially corrupt" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Washington Post selected Jennifer Rubin as their “Right Turn” blogger, which to many has seemed like the wrong title. It should be “Romney’s Turn.” But when the Post publishes her blogs in excerpted form in the newspaper, they’re making her even sharper in attacking the “hard right” of the Republican Party.

In Monday’s paper, Rubin lashed out at the New Hampshire Union Leader’s endorsement of Newt Gingrich by slamming the entire conservative media as “embarrassingly bad.” The Post's gleeful headline is "Conservative media blow another story." But any nuance she placed in this attack on her blog was edited out by the Posties. Check out how harsh Rubin sounds on the page:

Early this morning, I noted how two AP writers seemed to be hoping that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will be the Republican Party's presidential nominee, in the process ignoring inconvenient facts like his failure to get over 25% in any poll covered at Real Clear Politics since mid-July while failing to even mention Herman Cain's name until the report's eleventh paragraph (a Rasmussen poll today breaks Romney's three-month dry spell, showing him at 29%, tied with Herman Cain). Sadly, what the AP writes is important for readers to know, because the wire service's copy is read and relayed without question by most of its thousands of subscribing outlets.

Not that learning about the following is anywhere near as important, but in case you're wondering about the GOP presidential nominee preferences and perceptions among several of the pundits at the Washington Post, wonder no more:

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, some liberal media outlets were spreading the idea that a Barack Obama impersonator was pulled off the stage at a Republican event this weekend because he was telling racial and gay jokes.

Although CNN's Howard Kurtz at least figured out that the real reason Reggie Brown was yanked was because he was starting to insult Republicans, the "Reliable Sources" host seemed shocked Republicans would rather hear jokes about Obama than about Republicans (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Washington Post has added a new conservative blogger to its stable, one that NewsBusters readers should be familiar with.

Only three days into her new position, Jennifer Rubin has made it clear she has no intention of toning down her criticism of mainstream media darlings like New York Times columnist David Brooks:

The Washington Post announced Tuesday that it has hired Commentary Magazine contributing editor Jennifer Rubin to write a blog on the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

The move suggests that the Post has learned its lessons from the short run it gave blogger Dave Weigel, who resigned in June after emails surfaced showing him viciously attacking some prominent conservatives. The emails suggested that Weigel was hostile to large segments of the conservative movement, the beat he had been assigned to cover.

New York Times columnist David Brooks on Friday defended the Tea Party from many of the criticisms commonly uttered by mainstream media members.

In so doing, he took a couple of slaps at the conservative movement that continues to usher in surprising election results across the fruited plain.

By the end of "The Backlash Myth," Brooks went so far as to say "the Tea Party doesn't matter."

But prior to this point, there were positives not typically reported about this group, especially on the pages of the New York Times:

The New York Times editorial board on Sunday absolutely tore Barack Obama apart for his handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 

"The president cannot plug the leak or magically clean up the fouled Gulf of Mexico. But he and his administration need to do a lot more to show they are on top of this mess, and not perpetually behind the curve," wrote the Times. 

"It certainly should not have taken days for Mr. Obama to get publicly involved in the oil spill, or even longer for his administration to start putting the heat on BP for its inadequate response and failure to inform the public about the size of the spill." 

Quite surprisingly, the Times was just getting warmed up: 

Is the Washington Post losing that loving feeling for President Obama?

Consider the following headline and subsequent article posted by Anne Kornblut at the paper's "44" blog Friday:

Obama's 17-minute, 2,500-word response to woman's claim of being 'over-taxed'

This headline changed when her piece was published in Saturday's paper on page A2, but the seemingly sad song remained the same:

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz believes comedian Jon Stewart is an icon to many journalists.

"[E]specially those in television who sometimes copy his quick-cut editing techniques," wrote Kurtz in his column Monday.

But that's not all.

Kurtz sees the "Daily Show" host as "a pop-culture bellweather," and feels his recent attacks on Barack Obama are a significant sea change. Last week Stewart went after the President's use of a teleprompter at a Virginia elementary school.

As a result, the clearly left-leaning Comedy Central star's "barbs are generating partisan buzz" (h/t Jennifer Rubin):

Barack Obama is President, Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, Harry Reid is Senate Majority Leader, Bill Clinton is doing the television circuit to revive his reputation, most journalists are still hopelessly in the tank for the current White House resident, and the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza is concerned that the Democrats don't have a voice to counter Republican talking points.

This is almost as silly as a New Yorker losing sleep over the Yankees not having enough money to field an allstar team next year.

Regardless of the apparent absurdity, such was Cillizza's point in a blog posting at WaPo's The Fix (h/t Jennifer Rubin):

If "Hardball" host Chris Matthews is indeed going to challenge Arlen Specter for his senate seat in 2010, he must resign his position with MSNBC.

So say a growing chorus of observers from both sides of the aisle.

As reported by Politico's Michael Calderone Thursday:

If you want to get an idea of the kind of rose-colored microscope Obama will be scrutinized with by journalists now that he's headed to the White House, you need look no further than David Broder's column in the Washington Post Thursday which actually began:

The first week of Barack Obama's transition to the presidency has gone about as well as anyone could imagine. 

Hmmm. I guess no one could have imagined president-elect Obama being greeted by a bullish show of confidence from Wall Street in the week following his coronation rather than an historic stock market collapse.

For some reason Broder chose to ignore the 14 percent decline in equity values since Election Day, but the Wall Street Journal didn't: 

As NewsBusters previously reported, the Washington Post's ombudsman admitted Sunday that her paper's coverage of this year's presidential campaign was clearly biased towards Barack Obama.

Although that shouldn't surprise any sane person in this country, such a mea culpa is just good marketing unless the entity confessing the inappropriate behavior plans on doing something to correct it.

Jennifer Rubin of Commentary magazine agreed Sunday, and suggested that the road to recovery is first admitting the problem (picture courtesy Grinning Planet):

From a non-Jew, it would smack of anti-Semitism.  From Eric Alterman? You be the judge.

The author of the Altercations column at Media Matters has a running complaint:  Rick Klein, editor of The Note at ABC News, pays too much respect to the work of other Jewish pundits. Jennifer Rubin, one of the chief bloggers at Commentary's "Contentions" blog, was Alterman's first target, in his August 1 column [emphasis added throughout]:

I realize I may be the only person in the world to care about this, and I only care a tiny bit, but what does Commentary's Jennifer Rubin have on The Note's Rick Klein?

I realize that Mr. Klein is, in many respects, a fully-worked ref, citing right-wing publications that have proven consistently wrong about everything throughout the past eight years -- following the requisite ABC advertising which justifies the expense of the effort to his corporate overlords -- while ignoring those on the center-left who have proven right. But even so, Commentary? Come now. The guy cites her every day. Are they dating? Did his mother lose a bet to her mother playing canasta in Boca?