Columnist Mark Shields Despairs George W. Bush Too Honorable to Use as
It will be “very difficult for Democrats to demonize” George W. Bush “again” during this campaign season, liberal nationally syndicated columnist Mark Shields despaired on Friday’s Inside Washington, because he’s “a circumspect and discreet former President.” Quite unlike, he didn’t say, the often boorish Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.Reacting to Vice President Joe Biden’s indictment of the…
AP's Econ Coverage Continues Singular Focus on Bernanke, Non-Naming of
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's first full day as the only person in the whole wide world with any kind of influence over what happens in the economy didn't go too badly. That's the impression one might get from consuming two Friday Associated dispatches and a related AP Video. Bernanke apparently took full charge of anything and everything having to do with the economy on Thursday evening. As…
Labeling Contrast: Glenn Beck = 'Controversial Conservative;' Al Sharp
Just like NBC and ABC this morning, CBS’s The Early Show had a hostile take on Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally scheduled for Saturday on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Correspondent Whit Johnson labeled Beck a “controversial conservative,” event speaker Alveda King (a niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.) a “longtime advocate for conservative causes,” and suggested that the fact that some…
AP to Bernanke: Save Us, Ben! (Barack, Nancy, and Harry Who
Sometimes you just have to chuckle at the transparent motivations of business writers in the establishment press. Two Associated Press reports from this afternoon, one from Stephen Bernard and another much lengthier piece from Jeannine Aversa, attempt to set the template for Friday morning's reportage: Despite all the bad news, including a serious downward revision to second-quarter economic…
MSNBC’s Schultz Compares Tea Party Movement to Nazi 'Brown Shirts' t
Wasn't comparing your political opponents to Nazis once a no-no? I mean, just remember how upset the liberal concern police would get if some wayward individual at a Tea Party event in some random place in the United States had a homemade sign protesting President Barack Obama and invoked Nazi Germany symbolism? Well, you would think - or at least expect a national TV host (even with…
Explaining 'Lives Touched' to the Mainstream Media
In late July, a Government Accountability Office report circulated which analyzed stimulus funding being spent by the Department of Energy. The main gist of that report involved the cost of each job being generated by the stimulus bill - a staggering $194,000. Tucked away in that report was a phrase that was new to most of us, a way to calculate jobs through a term called ‘lives touched'. Last…
July New Home Sales: Wire Reports Dour, But Still Understated; Reuters
July's bad news in new home sales is even worse than it first appears. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units is bad enough. That is an all-time low since records have been kept and 12% lower than June's annual rate. It's also lower than what analysts predicted by about the same percentage. The lazy business press is running with those figures. But, as has been the case so many…
NBC Chief Jeff Zucker Open to Political Run, Bringing Couric Back to N
We've heard the knocks on NBC and the institutional bias that exists in its network - from the subtle spin in its flagship network's news coverage at NBC to the over-the-top bias at its cable news channel MSNBC. So maybe the man behind the curtains at NBC Universal would like to be more overt with his opinions - as a politician? On MSNBC's Aug. 25 "Morning Joe," Jeff Zucker, president and CEO…
Olbermann Attacks Higher-Rated Competition: 'Fox News Channel: Making
It is vile bitterness put on display for America every night of the week - even though not as many people tune in as they do to his competitor. But, still Keith Olbermann seems to obsess over the Fox News Channel. On the Aug. 24 broadcast of his show "Countdown," Olbermann demonstrated just how sensible the so-called "professional left" can be when criticizing things they perceive to be…
Shirley Sherrod Rejects Return to USDA; Media Rejects Reporting Releva
The theater of the Sherrods continues. Earlier today, Shirley Sherrod, who, according to the current version of ruling class wisdom, was prematurely evacuated from the USDA by Director Tom Vilsack, decided not to accept an offer to return to the agency. Instead, according to Politico's Matt Negrin, "she hasn’t accepted the department’s offer to work there again, but that she wants 'some type of…
Time Compiles 'Best Viral Campaign Ads of 2010', Pans Most of the Repu
It was inevitable that someone with enough time on their hands would compile a list of the best viral campaign video ads of 2010. There sure have been some doozies this year, so I can't fault Time magazine for including hits like "Demon Sheep" and the Dale Peterson ad in their top 20 list. That said, of the 15 Republican ads in the list, most were panned by Time staffers. By contrast, two…
Sub-19 and Sub-5: Big Three Nets' Drew Under 19 Million Last Week; CBS
They'll have all sorts of excuses (but only if asked) about why it happened: It's because they had a lot of guest anchors last week, it was hot, summer vacation season is still on (though lots of kids around in Greater Cincinnati were already back in school by last Wednesday), cable is killing us, blah-blah, etc., etc. But the Big Three networks won't be able to avoid the fact that their ongoing…
Jon Voight Discusses His Conservative Views, Tea Parties on FNC's Huck
Actor Jon Voight appeared on the August 22 "Huckabee" to discuss, among other things, his conservative activism and the media's misrepresentation of the Tea Party movement. Here's a sample: MIKE HUCKABEE: We heard that there were people yelling racial epithets at some of the members of Congress. Did you hear anything like that?JON VOIGHT: You know, when you saw this, folks, and you all read…
In July, LA School Officials Defended RFK Taj Mahal K-12 Complex as 'M
Well, it didn't take to much digging to find people who think that the $578 million cost of the new Taj Mahal complex known as the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles (pictured at right; noted last night at NewsBusters and BizzyBlog) isn't that big of a deal. What I found makes me wonder why it took so long for waste of this magnitude to become a national story. On July 9, at LA'…
