2012 Presidential

Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple and his website handlers tried this clickbait headline on Friday: “We nominate Rachel Maddow for CEO, Republican presidential debates.” Why? Wemple is impressed that Maddow is now trashing CNN like she trashed Fox for how they selected the tiers of Republican debaters, specifically CNN now adding in Carly Fiorina (and Chris Christie) for an eleven-…

Call the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" people. Politifact, the alleged fact-checking site which has for years almost invariably insisted on calling obvious truths stated by Republicans and conservatives "Half True" at best and often worse, while taking flat-out lies by leftists and pretending they contain some element of truth, has issued a "Pants on Fire" rating on Senate Minority Leader Harry…

On Thursday, Curtis Houck at NewsBusters noted how the Big Three networks and the two leading Spanish-language networks ignored the latest developments in the now 813 day-old IRS targeting scandal. As usual, only Fox News covered a congressional hearing on, in Fox's words, "the lack of accountability following the IRS targeting of tea party and other groups" as well as a federal judge's threat "…

The bar-lowering in the business press continues. In the wake of today's disappointing news from the government on U.S. economic growth, an email from CNNMoney.com failed to properly describe reported second-quarter growth, and falsely characterized today's results as "solid":

Earlier today, Geoffrey Dickens at NewsBusters noted how the Big Three morning network news shows on NBC, ABC, and CBS failed to cover President Barack Obama's denial that the Internal Revenue Service ever went after Tea Party and other conservative groups in his appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Specifically Obama said that "it turned out no ... the truth of the matter is there was…

Back in the 2012 Republican presidential primary race, Chris Matthews slammed former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a "theocrat" and a "Cro-Magnon" man. On tonight's Hardball program, however, the MSNBC host was actually cordial and low-key. In fact, at no point did he rudely interrupt Santorum mid-sentence or badger his guest by trying to talk him into a corner with a gotcha question.  That said…

The left's "screw up, move up" principle for career advancement appears to be at play again. Of course, the press is playing up the move-up, and ignoring the screw-ups. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, whose statements and strategies inarguably led to more property destruction and civil disorder than would have occurred if someone more responsible had been in charge during that city's…

America no longer has a two-party system, argued Washington Monthly blogger Martin Longman in a Friday post. That’s because the Republican party is essentially “defunct,” having been sucked into a “vortex of stupid” (i.e., taken over by right-wingers). “The architects of this vortex,” wrote Longman, “are as varied as Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and Regent University jurisprudence,…

The New York Times, after taking online hits over its not-a-parody nytimes.com news flash Friday morning about 17 traffic tickets earned by Marco Rubio and his wife Jeanette over an 18-year period, doubled down by reprinting the blog post in Saturday's print edition under the headline: "Plenty of Notice for Rubios on the Road." Seemingly every election cycle, the Times embarrasses itself with a…

On Thursday, the Associated Press's Will Weissert demonstrated that the ignorance of our nation's founding documents exhibited by Meredith Shiner at Yahoo Politics in March is not isolated to her. Readers may recall that Shiner, reacting to Ted Cruz's presidential announcement speech, tweeted: "Bizarre to talk about how rights are God-made and not man-made in your speech announcing a POTUS bid?…

Retiring Face the Nation moderator Bob Schieffer sat down with FNC's Howard Kurtz on Sunday’s MediaBuzz and did his best to excuse the media’s soft treatment of President Obama in the 2008 campaign. Schieffer conceded the media “were not skeptical enough” before he argued the media have no role in shaping political campaigns: "My feeling is, it is the role of the other -- of the opponents to make…

In a Thursday interview recorded for Megyn Kelly's Fox News show that evening, Charles Krauthammer provided stunning evidence rarely mentioned even on Fox — and almost never in the establishment press — relating to how unserious the administration's and the Pentagon's "strategy" has been in containing, let alone defeating, ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Krauthammer began discussing the inadequacy of…

The former Democratic governors of Michigan and Ohio are on tap to be in the same place at the same time on June 27 in the Buckeye State capital of Columbus. This is a made-for-the-media event for the record books. I certainly can't recall a time when two former governors who oversaw a combined total of over 1 million peak-to-trough job losses during their terms in office have been at the same…