NewsBusters Time Machine

Since Tuesday’s ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, journalists have slammed House Republicans as radicals and extremists. If it sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly what viewers heard after Republican Speaker John Boehner stepped down eight years ago.

Journalists’ shutdown playbook is straightforward: single out Republicans for blame; highlight “victims” of the shutdown to build public anger; and then claim Democrats won because they were the “grown-up” party.

Thirty years ago this week, Bill and Hillary Clinton outlined their ill-fated plan for unprecedented government intervention in the health care sector. The liberal media loudly crowed their approval, assuring voters “reform” would end the “shame” of America as the only developed nation without universal coverage.

Five years ago this week, the media began their infamous campaign of innuendo and attacks against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. All in all, it was a shoddy excuse for journalism.

This month, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will honor ex-CBS News anchor Dan Rather, exactly 19 years after Rather’s most corrupt act as a journalist, his attempted an election-year hit job on then-President George W. Bush.

At CBS, Katie Couric sounded indistinguishable from liberal politicians when it came to climate change, government health care, President Barack Obama’s massive spending, and even a government takeover of U.S. banks. She flattered Obama, condemned the rest of the media for being too tough on Hillary Clinton, and blamed her own failures at CBS on — what else? — sexism.

The media's kid-gloves treatment of Joe Biden after his inept response to the horrific Maui firestorm on August 8 stands in stark contrast to the withering attacks unleashed against then-President George W. Bush in the wake of the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina back in 2005.

Two years ago this week, even liberal journalists were appalled by the disastrous incompetence of the Biden administration regarding the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet quickly the most shameless partisan journalists identified themselves by deciding to praise, rather than criticize, the disaster that all could see with their own eyes.

Twelve years ago, NewsBusters exposed an act of plagiarism by CNN host and Time columnist Fareed Zakaria. Here's a look back at how the story unfolded, and the reaction from Zakaria's fellow journalists.

On August 5, 2013, we learned Jeff Bezos had bought the Washington Post for $250 million. The Amazon founder had an opportunity to demand that the Post hew to its longtime motto of being “an independent newspaper,” yet the record of the past decade shows the paper continues to be rabidly pro-Democrat and anti-Republican.

Nineteen years ago tonight, the liberal media were in full swoon over Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, with the hope that their effusive praise might propel the liberal Massachusetts Senator into the White House.

In the 1980s and ’90s, liberal reporters openly cheered the left-wing Rev. Jesse Jackson as “inspirational,” a “king” and a “rock star,” the “conscience of the country” and America’s “charismatic national symbol of human rights.”

Eight years ago this week, the liberal media touted the “major victory” of President Obama’s “historic” deal with Iran that would supposedly limit the terrorist state’s access to nuclear weapons for at least a decade.

It’s been 31 years since Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton picked Tennessee Senator Al Gore as his vice presidential candidate on the 1992 Democratic Party ticket. The announcement kicked off a wave of positive coverage, as the media gleefully participated in the re-branding of a new “centrist” Democratic Party.