Conservatives & Republicans

During coverage of President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, all three broadcast networks, CBS, NBC and ABC, managed to compare the tone of the speech to that of Ronald Reagan. Reporters and pundits uniformly praised the supposed optimism of Obama. [Audio available here] On CBS, Evening News anchor Katie Couric touted how political analyst Jeff Greenfield thought it was "…

CNN's 7 pm Eastern hour program John King USA was the only program on Monday and the following morning on Tuesday that mentioned the March for Life in Washington, DC. Anchor John King devoted only 11 seconds to the pro-life demonstration, and omitted crowd numbers and footage from the March. CNN.com's write-up on the annual event downplayed the number of attendees as merely in the "thousands…

Has our financial mess brought us to the brink of getting beyond the culture wars? It's a question that we might just see play out on Capitol Hill in the coming months, as the new political majority seeks to make the late pro-life congressman Henry Hyde proud, by prohibiting taxpayer funding of abortion and de-funding Planned Parenthood. "Hell no," now-Speaker John Boehner said, when he was…

Talking to New York Senator Chuck Schumer on Sunday's Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer said of a video statement released by President Obama on Saturday: "If I didn't know better and had my eyes closed I might have thought that was President Reagan talking." Schieffer specifically referred to Obama's call for spending cuts, noting: "It sounded very much like a speech that a Republican would…

On MSNBC's Ed Show on Thursday, despite initially regretting his comparison of Republicans to Nazis, Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen later doubled down: "[Indiana Congressman] Mike Pence talked about government takeover of health care....he wants to be concise, careful, and consistent. Well, that's somebody...who lived in a previous century who worked for bad people, that's what he did." […

The Washington Post on Friday took on Seymour Hersh's outlandish conspiracy theory that "neo-conservative" members of Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta inside the military "overthrew the American government" and are waging a "crusade" against Muslims. The newspaper reported that, contrary to Hersh's claims, General Stanley McChrystal was not a member of either organization, and that there was "…

On Thursday's Parker-Spitzer, CNN's Kathleen Parker acted as an apologist for Rep. Steve Cohen's uncivil comparison between Republicans and Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels: "He was talking about the saying that if you repeat a lie over and over and over again, it becomes the truth. I don't think he was necessarily saying Republicans are Nazis- come on!" (audio available here) Parker and co…

On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric was dismissive of a vote by House Republicans to repeal ObamaCare as she asked congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes: "There is no chance this repeal will succeed, it's a largely symbolic measure. So what's the point?" Cordes described it as "the first step in their long-term effort to wipe this health care law off the books." Cordes…

What should the congressional GOP's policy objectives be for the next two years regarding federal deficits and prosperity? Two very different strategies are being considered by authentic conservatives: 1) attempt to govern from their majority in the House and actually try to start the process of reducing the costs of entitlements (most conspicuously Social Security and Medicare) as a path…

Wednesday's CBS Early Show adopted a hostile tone in its coverage of the upcoming vote by House Republicans to repeal ObamaCare, with co-host Chris Wragge proclaiming: "The battle over health care heats up again today. The House plans a vote on repealing the legislation. It fulfills a campaign promise for Republicans and begins a two-year effort to try to dismantle the law." In the report…

Liberal journalist Seymour Hersh unleashed on President Obama in a speech in Qatar on Monday, voicing his extreme disappointment with his foreign policy: "Just when we needed an angry black man, we didn't get one." Hersh also revealed his Dan Brown-style conspiracy theory about how "neo-conservative radicals" in the military's special operations community "overthrew the American government…

On Tuesday's CBS Early Show, congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes reported on Sarah Palin's first interview since the Tucson shooting: "She accused the Left and the news media of trying to destroy her message, trying to destroy her, said she was being accused of being an accessory to murder." Cordes forgot to mention her role in furthering those accusations against the former Alaska…

On Monday's CBS Early Show, after reporting claims from Ron Reagan Jr. that President Ronald Reagan may have had Alzheimer's Disease while in office, co-host Erica Hill asked other son Michael Reagan about those accusations: "And your brother has said this is just his own feeling....Could it be possible there may have been something else? Could he [President Reagan] have had dementia?"…

Like Rahm Emanuel, who wouldn't waste a crisis, Frank Rich doesn't want to let a murderous rampage pass without trying to wring political advantage.  By now, even most ardent liberals have had to admit that there was no nexus between conservatives and the manifestly psychotic AZ shooter.  But there was Rich, in his New York Times column of this morning, still bitterly clinging to the accusation…