Labeling

The federal government today reported a $17.5 billion budget deficit for January. That brings this fiscal year's shortfall through four months to $194.2 billion, up from $182.8 billion during the same period last year. As usual, the Associated Press's coverage, this time delivered by Martin Crutsinger, named the nation's "Worst Economic Writer" by National Review's Kevin Williamson two years ago…

Tabloid TV host Jerry Springer sang the praises of the supposedly "smart," "funny," and "witty" Keith Olbermann in a Wednesday post on Twitter, and proposed that the former MSNBC host should become Jon Stewart's successor at The Daily Show.

By yesterday afternoon, the Obama administration recognized that it had a serious problem on its hands. Zeke Miller at Time.com reported that 2008 presidential campaign manager and longtime adviser David Axelord's book revealed that, in Miller's words, "Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious…

On Wednesday's CNN Newsroom, Mark Feldstein channeled Michael Moore's take on the Brian Williams scandal. The former CNN journalist acknowledged that Williams likely wouldn't recover the "traditional credibility that he had as a news anchor," but later fell into the same Bush bashing as Moore: "Is it as bad a scandal as telling lies about the Iraq War to get us into it, as the Bush administration…

Tara Parker-Pope attempted a defense of disgraced NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams in an item ("Was Brian Williams a Victim of False Memory?") posted at the New York Times "Well" blog — late Monday afternoon. It even made Tuesday's New York version of the Old Gray Lady's print edition. Parker-Pope's premise, similar to that used by Marison Bello at USA Today three days earlier — even using…

Very few things drive leftists to distraction more than a strong Republican or conservative woman achieving political power. Joni Ernst is a perfect example. The strong-willed freshman Senator from Iowa describes herself in three words: "Mother. Soldier. Leader." Imagine the howls of outrage if a conservative went after a liberal female combat veteran as Andrew Reinbach at Huffington Post did on…

To understand the literary elite's simplistic grasp of politics, look to whom they get their opinions from: Veteran political contributor Elizabeth Drew, a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, explained the Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate for the Review's February issue under the headline: "The Republicans: Divided and Scary." And purist. And nativist. And racist....

In his story on Brian Williams at 10:55 p.m. ET Tuesday, Gabriel Sherman at New York Magazine reported that the now-suspended anchor and his agent "were presented with a dossier of Williams' apparent lies," and that "Williams himself was only slowly grasping the depths of the mess he'd created." That begs the obvious question of whether the public will ever get to know what's in that "dossier,"…

John Hinderaker at Powerline is certainly correct when he notes that the media elites love "Girls," the HBO show starring sister-abusing, rapist-misidentifying Lena Dunham. Critics rave about how great the show and its main characters are, frequently employing complimentary adjectives descriptive of or synonymous with "smart." Hinderaker was brave enough to peruse the script of the show's Season…

Carol Costello gave an on-air correction on Tuesday's CNN Newsroom concerning an on-screen graphic that aired on the Monday edition of her program: "Yesterday, we ran a story about the debate among Western leaders about whether to send arms to Ukraine. During that segment, our banner mistakenly said, 'Obama considers arming pro-U.S. troops.'"

Ted Kennedy, the late liberal "Lion of the Senate" (as he's invariably called) had his hugely exaggerated bipartisan reputation polished to a gleam in a story in the New York Times Arts section by Robin Pogrebin, "In the Mold of a Senator Who Bartered -- Edward M. Kennedy Institute Aims to Teach Collaboration." Yet the George W. Bush Presidential Library was considered by the Times "disturbing"…

At about 2:40 this afternoon, Stars and Stripes published a "full transcript of the Feb. 4 (Wednesday) interview in which the anchor admits he was never on the attacked helicopter and claims he was unaware his flight was not directly behind but actually far from the company that was hit." Williams, in admitting that his flight was far from the company that was hit, is acknowledging that the…

In an entry at the Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy blog yesterday, George Mason University School of Law Professor David Bernstein asked, "Did the Obama Administration lie about Netanyahu?" The issue is whether, when and how the Obama White House learned of the Israeli Prime Minister's plans to deliver a speech to the U.S. Congress. The New York Times got dragged into the discussion, and…

CNN's Alisyn Camerota forwarded a liberal talking point about same-sex "marriage" on Monday's New Day as she interview former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Camerota spotlighted polls trending towards support of the left-wing cause over recent years, and wondered, "So, in terms of your stance on gay marriage, do you feel as though you're on the wrong side of history?"