MSNBC Mistakenly Tags Herman Cain As Dem, Laughably Considers Charlie
Herman Cain's political affiliation was incorrectly tagged as Democratic in an onscreen graphic during the 10 a.m. Eastern Chris Jansing Reports program today. Jansing was promoting the former Republican presidential contender's appearance on the noon Eastern Now with Alex Wagner program.
It was most certainly an innocent mistake by the graphics designer, but less excusable was yesterday's…
Not Very 'Interesting': ABC and CBS Morning Shows Ignore Obama Gaffe
While NBC correspondent Peter Alexander noted on Tuesday's Today how "Republicans are jumping on the president's choice of words" in telling a woman her husband's long-term unemployment was "interesting" to him, neither ABC's Good Morning America nor CBS's This Morning bothered to highlight Obama's aloof flub.
The NBC report played the sound bite of the president's remark: "It is interesting…
Scott Pelley's Obvious A.M. Error: Claims Florida's First High-Unemplo
Scott Pelley simply got it wrong on Tuesday's CBS This Morning, when he claimed that the Republican presidential candidates "have finally arrived in a state that was very hard hit by the great recession and has been suffering for a very long time. The unemployment rate here is about 10%." In reality, South Carolina, the state that held the last GOP primary, has about the same unemployment rate…
NBC Reporter: GOP Race 'Gotten So Nasty'; Obama 'Pokes Fun' at Romney
At the top of his Tuesday report for NBC's Today, correspondent Peter Alexander warned viewers about the state of the Republican primary race in Florida: "This campaign has just gotten so nasty lately. By some accounts, more than 90% of the ads that have run in this state have been negative."
Remarkably, later in the same segment, Alexander was happily promoting a nasty line of attack by the…
Politico's Jonathan Martin Mocks Conservative Florida Voters as the 'C
Politico reporter Jonathan Martin on Tuesday mocked the "cracker counties" of Florida's conservative Panhandle. Talking to Daily Rundown host Chuck Todd, he derided, "Chuck, a lot of the counties in the Panhandle, in north Florida, the cracker counties, if you will...more resemble Georgia and Alabama than they do Florida." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd appeared…
Let's Honor, Not Stretch, the Buckley Rule
In the intense heat of the present, it is easy to forget even the relatively recent past, but it seems to me that this GOP primary season is more acrimonious than the past few, probably because the stakes are so high.
When I've noted that this is the most important presidential election of our lifetimes, a few excitability-resistant conservative friends have said, "They have been saying that…
Juan Williams Finds Racism in Candidates' (and Others'?) Use of 'Const
So a guy whose contract was terminated by NPR on a phony pretext for not toeing the liberal line enough, including writing a book ("Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It") which indicted the modern civil-rights movement for, well, undermining Black America, now appears to want eliminate "Constitution…
Hardball: Diane Sawyer Quizzes Obama on the Super Bowl and Singing
According to Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang, Diane Sawyer's interview with the President on Thursday was "exclusive and candid." Although Sawyer didn't find time for questions about scandals such as Solyndra or Fast and Furious, she did manage to squeeze in queries about the Super Bowl and the President's singing.
At one point, the World News anchor enthused, "And speaking of sports teams,…
CBS's Rose Scolds Newt: 'Why Are Drudge and Ann Coulter Attacking You
On Monday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose hammered Newt Gingrich on the issue of the opposition his presidential campaign was receiving from some prominent conservatives: "Why are so many conservatives, including...Drudge and Ann Coulter, attacking you?" Rose also spotlighted how apparently "there are those who say that you [Gingrich] are angry and you want to get even with Romney."
The…
ABC: Romney is Looking to 'Drive a Stake' Through Gingrich's Heart
So, Newt Gingrich is a vampire? Over the course of two segments on Monday's Good Morning America, ABC's journalists goaded Gingrich to repeat his attacks on the "dishonest" Mitt Romney, while suggesting that the former Massachusetts governor is getting ready to "drive a stake" through the ex-Speaker's heart.
Playing up the fight between the two candidates, George Stephanopoulos pushed…
CNN Anchor Goes Personal on Vitter; He Says 'The Good News Is...It's N
Bill Clinton has done hundreds of TV interviews since leaving office in 2001, and journalists have very rarely found it appropriate to revisit his sex scandals. But for CNN, Republicans merit an entirely different standard of coverage.
On Monday's Early Start, co-host Ashleigh Banfield insisted to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) that "I got to" bring up his 2007 prostitution scandal, so she could…
NBC Whines About Use of Brokaw Report to Attack Newt on Ethics Charges
On Monday, Today co-host Matt Lauer pushed Mitt Romney to stop running an ad that features a clip of former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw reporting Newt Gingrich being charged with ethics violations in 1997. However, it has now been 4,742 days without an NBC story on Gingrich subsequently being cleared on those charges.
Even as Lauer grilled Romney on use of the NBC News coverage, he…
Chris Matthews Squirms as Scarborough Discusses JFK Buying West Virgin
There was a truly delicious moment on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday as the gang discussed the Republican presidential race from Florida.
When host Joe Scarborough recollected John F. Kennedy buying the West Virginia primary in 1960, Hardball host Chris Matthews, one of JFK's biggest fans, was seen visibly uncomfortable shifting position in his chair (video follows with transcript and commentary…
Despicable: Yahoo! News Contributor Exploits Bella Santorum's Illness
Update: A former Santorum colleague at EPPC responds. [see bottom of post]
Yahoo! News contributor Andrew Riggio yesterday evening cynically used the occasion of Bella Santorum's hospitalization and her father's accompanying temporary suspension of his presidential campaign to attack the pro-life conservative who opposes taxpayer-financed embryonic stem-cell research:
