Political Scandals

Hours ahead of Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the House Benghazi Committee on Thursday, on NBC’s Today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell acknowledged that “44% of Americans are not yet satisfied” with the former secretary of state’s answers on the scandal but also declared: “...today is, indeed, her best chance to change all of that. Assisted by the Republicans who, themselves in recent weeks,…

Using clips from the 1973 Watergate hearings, MSNBC’s Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell went off on Wednesday at the House Select Committee on Benghazi for failing to exhibit the Watergate committee’s professionalism and instead being “oblivious and uninhibited” in creating a hearing that he promises will “waste enormous amounts of time on irrelevant questions.”

Previewing Hillary Clinton’s testimony Thursday morning before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 did their best on Wednesday to paint the most flattering picture possible of Clinton being “battle tested” with “steady nerves” despite “withering attacks” and the ability to turn “even a hot seat, if not comfortable, at least cooler.”

On Tuesday – just two days before Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the House Benghazi Committee – MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell teased an upcoming interview with liberal operative and longtime Clinton hatchet man James Carville, hailing him as a “political Jedi master.” Carville: “Trey Gowdy is a creation of the Koch brothers and the whole climate denial industry and this committee was nothing but…

Michael Kinsley’s second-best-known contribution to political discourse, trailing only the “Kinsley gaffe,” is his observation that “the scandal isn't the illegal behavior -- the scandal is what's legal.” In a Thursday post, Steve Benen, a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and the primary writer for the TRMS blog, sought to apply Kinsley’s wisdom to the congressional inquiry into the…

The New York Times has not merely climbed aboard the bandwagon of Truth, which exalts the fraudulent September 2004 CBS 60 Minutes report about President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard Service. It's now serving as the film's de facto lead apologist. The most recent example demonstrating how deeply in the tank the Old Gray Lady has gone is Stephen Holden's Thursday film review…

Finally getting his chance to interview Hillary Clinton on Friday’s The Lead, CNN anchor Jake Tapper didn’t exactly measure up as while he did what other reporters failed to do in asking Clinton about her relationship with Sidney Blumenthal, he cozied up to her on the recent marking of her and Bill’s 40th wedding anniversary plus sarcastically asking he could “get your e-mail address.”

While the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC all prominently touted on Monday President Obama’s defense of Hillary Clinton on her e-mail scandal in a 60 Minutes interview, none of the three dared to report later in the week how the Obama administration largely walked it back by declaring that Obama believes Clinton’s private e-mail server “does not pose a threat to national security” “based on what…

What’s more ironic: a film named “Truth” that tries to justify a lie; or liberal media critics lambasting the film as “lies” from “Hollywood liberals”?

Liberal celebrity talk show host Ellen DeGeneres continued to dismiss Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal during her eponymous show on Thursday as she repeatedly thanked socialist Senator and Clinton opponent Bernie Sanders for railing in the Democratic debate against the attention devoted to Clinton’s “damn e-mails.”

The “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC offered on Wednesday night more analysis of the first 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the night before that can only be summed up a complete lovefest for Hillary Clinton for having “command[ed] the stage” and “retaken control of the conversation” as she goes “on the offensive.” NBC trumpeted on screen: “New Momentum.”

Rallying to the aid of fellow 2016 Democratic presidential opponent Hillary Clinton during the first debate Tuesday night, Democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) angrily lamented the focus on Clinton’s e-mail scandal and berated the media for covering Clinton’s “damn e-mails.”

Just hours ahead of Tuesday’s 2016 Democratic presidential debate on CNN, the network was already in spin mode for Hillary Clinton down to the most minute detail as senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny marveled during The Situation Room at the sight of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin surveying the stage for Clinton to gather “a sense of what this evening is going to be.”

On Monday, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News prominently touted the claims by a fired staffer on the House Select Committee on Benghazi that the panel’s sole aim is to takedown former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a move that gives her “a potential lifeline” in “another blow” to the committee.