2010 Congressional

“We’re so eager to promote ourselves with the smartest take on how President Obama and the Democrats got themselves in this pickle that we haven’t done a good job explaining the stakes,” Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter despaired in a piece in the latest issue of the magazine in which he didn’t even pretend to be a journalist and delivered a political activist’s screed, “Why the Midterms Matter: The…

The Democrats’ strategy to salvage the 2010 campaign was to distract voters from their record over the past two years and paint their opponents as wacky extremists. Win or lose, the Democrats got a lot of help from their friends in the supposedly objective “news” media. MRC analysts reviewed the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from September 1 through October 25. Key findings:   ■ Only…

[Update, 12:15 pm Wednesday: See below on CNN's additional coverage of the assault.] CNN devoted seven news briefs on Tuesday to an assault on a MoveOn.org employee by Rand Paul supporters caught on camera outside the Kentucky Senate debate on Monday evening, but failed to mention a second assault on Rand Paul supporter by a booster of Paul's opponent, Jack Conway. Most of the briefs also…

“The Center for Public Integrity's 20th anniversary dinner at the Newseum was wrapping up Thursday night,” the Washington Post's “The Reliable Source” column reported in Tuesday's newspaper, “when things took a lively if unexpected turn: Former NBC correspondent Richard Valeriani, now a blogger living in Connecticut, took the stage uninvited and railed against the GOP.” The Post got ahold of…

Just days after MSNBC President Phil Griffin claimed his cable network does not use air-time to support Democratic candidates and liberal causes, evening host Lawrence O'Donnell yielded over two minutes of his eponymous program to feature MoveOn.org's latest anti-Republican advertisement in its entirety. O'Donnell introduced the partisan attack ad as a get-out-the-vote push: "Sometimes you…

Clearly, Becky Bohrer at the Associated Press is very picky about what she'll report. In her story datelined early this morning ("Senate race in Alaska is bitter and unpredictable"), she played the "any Tea Partier whose family or extended family has ever taken a government benefit is automatically a hypocrite" card. She made sure readers knew about Republican candidate Joe Miller's…

Conservative Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell (R), a popular target of the mainstream media, was questioned on CNN’s “American Morning” for her statements about faith and prayer in her interview with Christian Broadcasting Network White House Correspondent David Brody. The Christian candidate cited prayer as playing a central role in her campaign, and her comments drew raised…

Appearing on Tuesday's CBS Early Show, Arizona Senator John McCain spoke of his admiration for Sarah Palin and criticized continued media efforts to go after his former running mate: "I continue to hold her in the highest regard and continue to be entertained by the attacks of the liberal media against her. It's very entertaining to watch." McCain made the comment as part of his response to…

I have no obligation to the Democrats or progressives or unions. We’re not warriors in their cause[.] – Jon Stewart defending his anti-Beck rally You work on the message, I’ll work on the logistics. — Arianna Huffington to Jon Stewart regarding her offer to provide buses to his rally. Jon Stewart always tries to make it seem like he rises above it all, and that’s not the case. He certainly…

Comparing her latest campaign spot to a "Hitler Youth commercial," "The View" co-host Joy Behar angrily pronounced that Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) is a "bitch" who will "go to Hell" for her ad. While none of the four co-hosts agreed with the tone of Angle's ad, Behar was the most vicious in her attack on Angle, calling her a "moron" and insisting she should try out her campaign…

Update (15:20 EDT): Fargo, N.D.-based radio host  friend of NewsBusters Rob Port takes on this Newsweek item on his Say Anything blog today and eviscerates David Graham's article as error-laden and grossly misleading. Newsweek -- the floundering weekly news magazine that was recently sold for the princely sum of $1.00 -- apparently assigns a pretty low value on the intelligence of its readers…

The Congressional Budget Office just reported that in the past two years since President Barack Obama took office, federal spending is up 21.4 percent. The national deficit was $1.29 trillion in 2010 (second to the $1.4 trillion in Obama's first year in office, 2009), which means that for every $1 the federal government spent this past year, it borrowed 37 cents of it! The feds will tell…

  Chris Matthews, on Monday's Hardball, invited on his old boss, former President Jimmy Carter, to commiserate about the rise of the Tea Party, as the two condescendingly praised the movement at first, with Matthews admitting "they're not all crazies, they're regular people" but then went on to ridicule them as dupes of the rich. After Matthews asked if the Tea Partiers realized that "they'…

Vanity Fair’s attacked conservative men with its latest political satire: a soft-core pornographic, borderline homosexual and obviously photoshopped “Official 2010-2011 Republican Beefcake Calendar.”  Humorous perhaps, but also an attack on those candidates and certainly not the magazine’sfirst jab at Republicans and conservatives. In an effort to possibly shift “GOP tidal-wave” dialogue or…