Debates

Howard Fineman, the former Newsweek reporter turned editorial director for The Huffington Post, is excited for the upcoming Vice Presidential debate this Thursday.  You could tell from his column published today, which glorifies Joe as the archetypal debater. It's titled "Obama Needs the Merciless Joe."  To start things off, Fineman threw in a thinly veiled racial remark concerning Biden’s…

During the Week in Buzz segment on Sunday's NBC Today, Ericka Souter, editor of the celebrity gossip blog The Stir, trashed Mitt Romney for announcing plans to cut federal funding of PBS, including Sesame Street, ranting: "Everything else Romney said was completely overshadowed by the fact that Big Bird felt attacked or people felt Big Bird was attacked, and he's like an icon to millions of…

It is one thing to trash Jim Lehrer’s moderating behind his back.  It’s even worse when you then bring him on your show to praise his performance after you trash him.  No one does this better than Morning Joe’s Scarborough who did a complete 180 on his analysis of Lehrer’s moderating skills.  On the morning after the first presidential debate, Scarborough claimed that “Jim Lehrer got rolled…

On Monday's front page, New York Times reporters Peter Baker and Trip Gabriel used the upcoming vice presidential debate to criticize Obama's performance in his debate with Mitt Romney last week: "Biden Up Next, Obama's Aides Plot Comeback." The Times didn't flinch from calling out Obama's "disaster" of a debate performance, but did find some excuses for the president, including distractions…

Given the shellacking Barack Obama took at last week's presidential debate with Mitt Romney, one would have thought NBC's Saturday Night Live would have had no difficulty finding material to spoof the event. Not so according to New York magazine which published a piece Monday entitled "Unlike the Rest of the World, SNL Had a Hard Time Joking About the Debate":

"Actually, one of the best presidential debate moderators would be David Letterman." So astonishingly wrote movie critic Roger Ebert on Twitter Thursday (vulgarity warning):

Sam Donaldson had some harsh words this weekend for President Obama's performance at Wednesday's debate. Appearing on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, the former ABC White House correspondent said, "If he comes to the next two debates with the same demeanor, with the same passive resistance, he’s losing" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Just how awful was President Obama during Wednesday's debate with Mitt Romney? One of his financial supporters, HBO's Bill Maher, said Friday, "It looks like he took my million and spent it all on weed" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning):

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews had an on-air meltdown Wednesday after the presidential debate. NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno mocked this incident Thursday showing a video clip of Matthews giving his rant in a straight jacket as he's being taken away by men in white coats (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

Jay Leno went after the President again Thursday night. Early in his opening monologue, the NBC Tonight Show host said of the stellar television ratings for Wednesday night's debate, "The only person who didn't tune in, I think, was President Obama" (video follows with transcript).

On Friday's CBS This Morning, Nancy Cordes trumpeted that the Obama campaign is "turning lemons into lemonade" as she reported that the Democratic operation is "arguing that Romney had a great performance at the debate, but only because he was untethered from the truth." Not once did the correspondent or colleagues Norah O'Donnell and Bill Plante critically examine the claims from the incumbent…

The sole political guest on Friday's CBS This Morning was Howard Dean, the ultraliberal failed presidential contender who was once the governor of Vermont.  Co-host Norah O'Donnell asked him to comment on the vice president's statement on Thursday insisting the Democrats absolutely want to raise a trillion dollars in taxes on the rich. Biden had "some comments that people are calling a gaffe…

In a display of just how badly President Obama performed in Wednesday's presidential debate, Friday's NBC Today played a clip of Daily Show host Jon Stewart ripping into Obama: "There is no red America. There is no blue America. There is only the America that can't believe how bad this guy did in the debate. Romney won with the sound up....Romney won with the sound off." [Listen to the audio or…

Appearing on Friday's NBC Today, left-wing MSNBC host Ed Schultz desperately tried to explain away President Obama's bad debate performance: "I think that there were so many lies coming across that stage, and so many inaccuracies, it was hard for the President to comprehend it and decide which one he wanted to attack first." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Co-host…