Political Scandals

On Friday, the White House engaged in its customary document dump, mostly secure in the knowledge that a lazy establishment press would, as usual, pay it little heed and then declare it to be old news by Monday morning. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air identified the significance of documents relating to now-bankupt Solyndra, the California-based solar panel manufacturer which borrowed $535 million…

In the annals of fawning coverage of scandal-plagued Democrats, Michael Biesecker's Saturday morning report on John Edwards's illness and its effect on his upcoming trail on campaign finance violations surely must be among the worst. Biesecker missed at least a half-dozen natural opportunities to tag Edwards as a Democrat, finally doing so in cryptic fashion in his 15th of 17 paragraphs. He…

On Friday, two Deputy Secretaries, one at the Department of Transportation and the other at Defense, in their capacities as co-chairs of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Executive Committee, released a one page letter concluding that the modified broadband deployment plan of LightSquared could not coexist with current GPS devices and their spectrum. That's…

The "Doomsday Clock" has been with us since 1947. It is a symbolic construct of the now left-leaning Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group which "was established in 1945 by scientists, engineers, and other experts who had created the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. They knew about the horrible effects of these new weapons and devoted themselves to warning the public about the…

Given the underlying story, the following headline to a Thursday story at the Detroit Free Press is either a big mistake or a deliberate attempt to focus blame where it absolutely does not belong: "Man on probation, fined for role in tea party scam." Excuse me while I question whether the Freep deserves the benefit of the doubt. L.L. Brasler's story is really about how the second of two…

In an item which still has a breaking news tag, Josh Funk at the Associated Press (saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes) call retiring Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson a "centrist," and almost seemed to mourn over "an increasingly polarizing climate" which made it clear that Nelson's reelection would have been a steep uphill fight. Of course, there was no mention of the…

On the popular radio show A Prairie Home Companion this weekend, NPR star Garrison Keillor sang a different version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." It had a slightly different melody, and mocked Newt Gingrich, without naming him. Keillor sang: "Don’t think a sense of style conceals your escapades / Don’t vote to impeach Bill Clinton while shacking up with Congressional aides." Gingrich was…

As the three broadcast network evening newscasts on Thursday reported former New Jersey Democratic Senator Jon Corzine's testimony before Congress on the billion dollars in investor money that went missing from the financial firm he once headed, only the NBC Nightly News took the time to label him as a Democrat.

CNN's Anderson Cooper ran a critical segment on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's old ethics charges of violating tax law and lying to the House Ethics Committee. Only at the very end did Cooper acknowledge that Gingrich was vindicated by the IRS on charges of tax violation. Cooper opened his show with the story. "We begin tonight 'Keeping Them Honest' with Newt Gingrich who's…

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) will testify to a House panel today regarding the MF Global scandal that he "simply do[es] not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date," reports Associated Press's Marcy Gordon. Gordon eventually got around to mentioning Corzine's party affiliation, in paragraph 11 out of her 12-paragraph story:

Wednesday afternoon, Matthew Balan at NewsBusters noted that two of the three network morning shows failed to mention disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's Democratic Party affiliation. Not that it's an excuse, but what was probably their primary raw material, namely three Tuesday reports from the Associated Press, completely failed to tag Blago as a Democrat, specifically the…

Disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison today. The Chicago Tribune devoted four reporters to cover this one story. Despite this, there were zero references to Blagojevich's Democratic party affiliation in the 49-paragraph "breaking news" item, "Judge gives Blagojevich 14 years: 'When governor goes bad, fabric of Illinois is torn.'"

The Big Three network morning shows on Wednesday highlighted the upcoming sentencing of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, but only CBS's Early Show identified the disgraced politician as a Democrat and devoted a full segment to him. ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today omitted his party ID, and just gave news briefs on the convict's possible sentence. CBS correspondent Cynthia…

Sad to see Ed Schultz suffer such sudden memory loss on live national TV.  On his MSNBC show this evening, discussing Herman Cain's handling of the various allegations against him, Schultz: found it odd that Cain's wife had come to his defense; said he'd never "seen anything like this in American politics;" and claimed that by criticizing his accusers, Cain had hit "a new low in American…