Double Standards

The front of the New York Times Arts section featured an exhaustive report on the controversy over the world-famous Rockettes performing at Donald Trump’s inauguration: “Still Kicking, but No Longer Silent.” The text box was harsh to Trump for ruining an American tradition: “A Trump Inauguration Casualty: The Silent, Smiling Rockettes."

Near the end of Thursday’s Special Report on the Fox News Channel, conservative syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer fired back at USA Today writer Susan Page touting Democratic boycotts of the Trump inauguration as “pretty powerful” by exposing this massive media double standard if the party roles were reversed.

The end of Barack Obama’s reign as president of the United States appeared to hit the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) pretty hard. All three of them took the time to bid the President an emotional farewell at the end of their Wednesday night programs. “While President Obama was busy changing the White House…the White House was also changing him,” remarked anchor Lester Holt on NBC Nightly…

Prior to President Obama’s final press conference, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley seized the opportunity to gush that Obama “will be leaving the presidency in less than 46 hours and he is not going gently into that good night.” 

On Tuesday, disgraced MSNBC journalist Brian Williams had a very poor outlook for the week of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. “There is a kind of a dark mood surrounding this week for a lot of people,” he whined on The 11th Hour, “The approval rating of Donald Trump is at 40 percent, it's the lowest of recording polling.” Williams was venting to Princeton University Professor…

Late Tuesday afternoon the White House announced a list of 64 convicted criminals they planned to pardon, including 209 others whose sentences were being shortened. “The Obama presidency is ending on a note of forgiveness,” declared anchor Scott Pelley at the start of CBS Evening News. One of the most controversial sentence commutations was that of Private Chelsea Manning, who stole and released…

Appearing on Sunday’s edition of Fox News’s MediaBuzz, The Hill’s Joe Concha ripped into CNN’s Jim Acosta as “entitled” and “obnoxious” when he tussled on Wednesday with President-elect Trump by “grandstanding” and yelling over a dozen times at Trump.

With the ingurgitation of President-elect Donald Trump just a few short days away, Brian Williams put together a program looking back at The Obama Years slated for late Monday night. Williams appeared on Chris Matthews’ Hardball to promote it, and the two of them took the time to gush about President Barack Obama’s time in office. “What do you think he thinks about how he fits the job, how…

Friday’s edition of Dateline NBC featured the long-planned hour-long special Reality of Hope dedicated to outgoing President Barack Obama and, naturally, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt stayed clear of all Obama scandals in lieu of gush over his so-called accomplishments. 

Congressman John Lewis’s infamous interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, smearing the president-elect as illegitimate, was the first segment aired on Meet the Press on Sunday. What’s apparent from the video is that not only did Lewis stick to his accusation, but Todd failed to push back at all. At one point he asked the congressman, “You're a man of action. You have been your whole life. You believe…

There are predictable signs that after eight years of giving the problem inadequate attention and occasional ridicule, the business press has decided that federal budget deficits and the national debt are going to start to matter again. Gosh, I wonder why? The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber was relatively subtle about it in a report on Uncle Sam's December and year-to-date budget deficits…

Is it hasta la vista, baby, for the venerable White House daily briefing for the media? Way back there in 1955 James Hagerty, the press secretary for President Dwight Eisenhower, came to the conclusion that admitting television cameras to presidential press conferences  Ike held in the Indian Treaty Room of the next-door to the White House Old Executive Office Building (now named for Eisenhower)…

Here we go again. A month ago, Robert Baer, a leading coddler of Iran who is an "Intelligence and Security Analyst" while pontificating at CNN, contended that alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election meant that the nation needs "to vote again." Now The Hill has given space to Chris Edelson, an assistant professor of government in American University's School of Public…

When Donald Trump mentioned Nazi Germany in reference to a lurid document floating around U.S. intelligence agencies, the New York Times was shocked and appalled -- and deeply hypocritical, given the eagerness of the paper's reporters, editors, and columnists to make those same comparisons against Donald Trump.