Debates

For close to a hundred and fifty years, the elephant has represented the Republican party, but The American Prospect’s Meyerson suggests that these days, a more fitting choice for the GOP’s symbol would be an extended middle finger. In his analysis of Thursday’s prime-time presidential debate, Meyerson, who also writes a weekly column for The Washington Post, identified several of the candidates…

The New York Times is cranking up the old reliable "War on Women" weapon to target the crop of Republicans running for the presidency. Saturday's lead story by Patrick Healy and Jeremy Peters portrayed the aftermath of the GOP debate not as a tough, substantive debate but as yet another source for Democratic attack ads portraying the party as anti-woman: "Fear That Debate Could Hurt G.O.P.In…

If you watched Thursday night’s Republican debate and wished that a onetime Green Party presidential nominee had been asking the questions, then you agree with Washington correspondent John Nichols, who thinks Ralph Nader would be the “ideal prospect” to moderate presidential debates for both major parties. Spoilsports might argue that Nader’s fifty-year record of lefty activism would make him a…

Appearing as a guest on Friday's Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield, liberal CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill slammed GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson as having "racial amnesia and racial blindness" for not taking a left-wing, divisive view on race in Thursday night's Republican debate, as Hill accused the Republican base of being "race deniers."   The CNN commentator also sounded like he…

During the GOP debates, Hillary was hitting it up with Hollywood celebs.  At a fundraising event in talent manager Scooter Braun’s Los Angeles home, Clinton got together with Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Kris Jenner, Tom Hanks, Jessica Alba and other stars. The 225 supporters in attendance were required to contribute at least $2,700 to the Hillary for America fund.  According to The Hollywood…

On Friday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer spent a three-minute interview with Florida Senator Marco Rubio grilling the Republican presidential candidate on an opponent’s debate performance: “Donald Trump refused to rule out a third-party run. He says he's using it as leverage to make sure the party treats him well. Sounds like a bit of a threat to me. How does that impact the way you and other…

Prediction: Al Hunt will pay no price for calling Donald Trump the "Caityln Jenner of American politics." But can you imagine the outraged reaction on the left if a conservative commentator had said something similar about Hillary for her changing positions on everything from the Iraq war to gay marriage?   Reacting to Hunt's crack on Morning Joe today, Joe Scarborough told Hunt "I think I can…

A frequent whiner when it comes to Republicans and voter ID laws, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews couldn’t help but briefly commiserate with his guests following the first 2016 GOP presidential debate that the “denial of voting rights” and other issues like “childhood development” that “parents, especially mothers care about” were not discussed in the debate.

Speaking during CNN’s analysis of the first 2016 Republican presidential debate on Thursday night, CNN political commentator and former Obama White House adviser Van Jones panned Jeb Bush’s performance as “terrible” and “like oatmeal getting colder” but praised Ohio Governor John Kasich as “just unreal,” “emotional,” and an “authentic guy who cares.”

On Thursday’s network evening programs, ABC’s World News Tonight was the only newscast to make no mention of the 5:00 p.m. EDT debate between the bottom seven Republican presidential contenders ahead of the 9:00 p.m. EDT event featuring the top ten candidates. In addition, the CBS Evening News skipped Carly Fiorina’s attack on fellow candidate Donald Trump for his phone call with Bill Clinton. 

During MSNBC’s 4 p.m. ET hour pre-debate coverage on Thursday, Hardball host Chris Matthews called on Fox News moderators to grill the Republican presidential candidates on evolution: “So I would like to think that Fox is just brazen enough to ask some – what they call bizarre questions....If a person doesn’t believe in science or evolution or the evidence of our life on this earth, that’s a bad…

On her Thursday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell fretted that Republican candidates would be not be properly “fact-checked” during the upcoming presidential debate, especially on the Planned Parenthood scandal: “...one of the issues is going to be whether there's going to be any fact checking by the moderators. Certainly we can all do it later after the fact. But the Planned Parenthood debate has…

On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, after showing several clips allegedly showing GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush to be "gaffe prone," anchor Carol Costello somehow thought it newsworthy to read and display on air some of the Twitter mockery of Bush and the other Republican candidates, including a suggestion that they are a group of clowns.

In a rare acknowledgment of media responsibility, on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer declared that it was up to the press to properly cover the first Republican presidential debate: “...that idea of substance versus sizzle, one-liners versus issues. That's on us tomorrow as well. We’ve got to make sure that we cover what they talk about, the issues as opposed to those one-liners.”