Debates

A series of reports at the Associated Press following Texas Gov. Rick Perry's announcement that he would not seek another term can only be explained if their purpose is to poison his possible 2016 presidential aspirations. In doing so, the AP is from all appearances firing the opening shots in a campaign to duplicate the establishment press's tragically successful efforts to marginalize Perry and…

The July 9 broadcast of Now with Alex Wagner wouldn’t be complete without a panel discussing Texas State Senator Wendy Davis – and the abortion battle in Texas. Yet, it reached a new level with New York Times op-ed contributor Beth Matusoff Merfish declaring that she was “proud” her mother underwent an abortion since “she had the wisdom and the courage to know that her own potential would be…

 It may be 2013, but the race for the White House in 2016 is already heating up. The eventual Republican nominee will have to deal with the liberal media assisting the Democratic candidate in the presidential debates. In his 2011 book Tension City, journalist Jim Lehrer recounts several examples of that happening from 1960 through 2008. Talking to Lehrer, George H.W. Bush recited his…

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley commented in a Deadline Hollywood interview that Fox News only has 200,000 to 300,000 viewers. Fox’s Megyn Kelly marvelously responded on Monday’s America Live, “We beat you in all the debates and on election night, Scott” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last night, Republican Gabriel Gomez debated Democratic Rep. Ed Markey for the second time in the race to fill John Kerry's vacant senate seat in Massachusetts, and had this to say about the budget: "it's not math, it's arithmetic."  Gomez had taken a swipe at Democrats for ignoring the fiscal realities facing the nation.

You can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting some liberal media member cautioning the Republicans to not "overplay their hand" concerning the various scandals now plaguing the White House. Do you remember the press being concerned that the Democrats would overplay 2006's "Republican Culture of Corruption" or last year's "Republican War on Women?"

On Thursday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow mocked Republican party chairman Reince Priebus for listing as a lesson from 2012 "controlling the debate process, getting involved in moderators and networks and all of these other issues so that we don`t have chaos." Maddow found it odd that the GOP chair would (very sensibly) say "we just can`t have MSNBC, you know, hosting a debate at the Reagan…

On Friday February 22, the Washington Post took a double-barreled approach to pushing more gun control In a 52-paragraph front-page story, staff writer Stephanie McCrummen highlighted the efforts of anti-gun activist Susan Beehler, a North Dakota woman “going against the gun culture” in the Roughrider State. Elsewhere in the A-section, staffer Philip Rucker devoted 23 paragraphs to boosting…

Before an audience of Nevada Republicans last night, Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, admitted the obvious: picking CNN correspondent Candy Crowley to moderate one of the 2012 candidate forums was a “mistake.” “We made one mistake this time: Her name is Candy,” he told the assembled crowd organized by the conservative Keystone Group, according to state-…

CBS’s Bob Schieffer has come to the president’s defense again. Conveniently forgetting about the media's obsession with the “war on women,” and how the media tag-teamed with the president's reelection campaign on social issues, Schieffer insisted that Barack Obama based his successful reelection campaign on the economy. Schieffer, who moderated the final presidential debate in 2012, appeared…

Well, there goes any chance that MSNBC might have resolved to drop the phony "war on women" meme in the new year. On the January 3 NewsNation fill-in host Alex Witt interviewed Kate Pickert to push for greater abortion access across the nation, discussing her cover story for the January 14 print edition of TIME magazine, which is pegged to the forthcoming 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. "40…

Not only did MSNBC's Thomas Roberts jump on top of yesterday's deadly Oregon mall shooting to push gun control, he presented his softball interview with gun advocate Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign as a "debate." That's right, the segment's title, given in an onscreen graphic was "Gun Control Debate." Of course, Roberts failed to bring on a gun-rights advocate to balance out Gross's appearance…

In his day job at New York magazine, political writer John Heilemann is throwing cold water on Romney victory hopes. “What's true, however, is that two or three weeks ago, Mitt Romney and his people were fully convinced, and not entirely without reason, that victory was within their grasp. The reality now, though, is that this is no longer true.” As victory eludes Romney’s grasp, beware the…

CNN's Candy Crowley got a tremendous amount of criticism last month when she defended Barack Obama during the second presidential debate. On Sunday's State of the Union, she appeared to compensate by saying "President Romney" in a question to Ohio's Rob Portman (video follows with transcript and commentary):