Judiciary

The late Antonin Scalia was a "good soul" personally but had a backwards, outdated "ideology," Chris Matthews asserted on his February 16 Hardball program. Of course, in the process, Matthews both confused Scalia's philosophy of legal interpretation with "ideology" and misnamed it as "originalist" when in fact Scalia repeatedly took pains to describe his philosophy as "textualism."

The “big three” networks ABC, CBS, and NBC all made sure to weigh in Tuesday night on President Barack Obama’s comments hours earlier about his desire to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia and spun them as Obama “plan[ning] to follow the Constitution” against “the Republican roadblock” in the Senate. 

The View’s Whoopi Goldberg on Tuesday furiously denounced fellow co-host Joy Behar for suggesting that the family of Antonin Scalia might know of a conspiracy theory to kill the justice. Goldberg went ballistic at her fellow panelists on the show for speculating on such possibilities, condemning, “We don't actually know what happened! This just happened over the weekend. Let's hold off before we…

Few in media can rival Rachel Maddow's ability to project earnest indignation over the apparent perennial willingness of Republicans to engage in politics. On her MSNBC show last night, Maddow twice mentioned the possibility of a constitutional crisis in the wake of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death, since President Obama says he intends to nominate a judge to fill the vacancy and…

Liberal MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday played mind reader and asserted that the late Antonin Scalia would want Barack Obama to appoint his replacement. This claim is false. One would only have to ask Antonin Scalia. 

Despite not even having a short list of President Obama’s nominees to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, on Tuesday’s NBC Today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell assured viewers it would be a “moderate” pick and slammed Republican opposition.

Unlike ABC and NBC, the journalists at CBS This Morning on Tuesday actually exposed the hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton’s calls to quickly replace Antonin Scalia. Reporter Jan Crawford began by noting that “these politicians” have “said the exact opposite thing in the past.” 

On Monday, the morning and evening newscasts of ABC and NBC failed to highlight, in their coverage of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, that Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer’s decision to come out in support of whomever President Obama nominates flies in the face of what he said in 2007, 18 monhs before the end of the presidential term, about vowing to block any Supreme Court…

Over the past few days, a great many left-wing commentators have weighed in on Antonin Scalia-related issues, especially Scalia’s judicial legacy and Republicans’ refusal to consider anyone President Obama might nominate to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Highlights have included Slate's Dahlia Lithwick remarking that "sometimes it seemed [Scalia] worked overtime to earn your hate. He…

New TBS host Samantha Bee returned for round two of her show Monday night and after a litany of vile remarks in the inaugural edition, she used the opening segment of this one to savage late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and especially Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as she likened him to an “obstructionist ass” who’s desecrating Scalia and the Constitution by stating he wouldn’t…

As the debate over who should replace late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continued into Monday, NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell took to NBC Nightly News to tout claims that the discussion could hurt Republicans and lead to Democratic Senatorial candidates winning elections in November to help their party retake control.

The New York Times news coverage upon the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was mostly respectful (which is more than can be said about the paper’s nasty editorial thrust). But the paper’s liberal bias shone through in pondering how Scalia’s death would resonate during the election year. Emily Bazelon’s Monday “news analysis" portrayed conservative rulings as “limiting” and “…

Appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Monday, Hardball host Chris Matthews blasted Republican opposition to President Obama nominating a successor to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: “...this almost indecent march to rejection here within minutes of the announcement of Judge Scalia's death....it was like a Dickensian scene in A Christmas Carol when Scrooge or somebody’s died – dead…