Political Scandals

Both CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday's AC360 and CBS's Nancy Cordes on Thursday's Early Show highlighted conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart's early part in spreading news of the lewd photo Tweeted from Rep. Andrew Weiner's Twitter account. Cooper played up Breitbart's supposedly "questionable credibility," while Cordes reported how "supporters of Weiner note that it was [the] right-wing…

Joseph E. diGenova, former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said today it would be a crime for Rep. Anthony Weiner (D.-N.Y.) to file a complaint with the police claiming his Twitter account had been hacked if he knew it had not been hacked. Last Friday, a Tweet that included a lewd photograph was sent from Weiner’s Twitter account to a 21-year-old woman in Seattle, whom the 46-year…

So now we know: Donny Deutsch would advise Dems caught in a sex scandal . . . to fabricate a false story. On today's Morning Joe, ad man Deutsch stated that, when caught with his pants down, Anthony Weiner should have been "very honest" and claimed that he had sent the picture to his wife. And by "very honest," Deutsch of course means "very dishonest" since no one, starting with Weiner…

What a difference a day makes.  Yesterday, much of the media muttered about how unresponsive Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was to questions about how he's been multitasking on Twitter.  Today it appears the liberal Democrat has redeemed himself through an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.  Guest hosting on CNN's John King, USA this evening, Jessica Yellin began an interview with two…

ABC’s World News and the CBS Evening News on Wednesday night both allocated full stories to Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner and his evolving non-denial denials over the lewd photo sent from his Twitter account, but not the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Williams instead made the news judgment to skip Weiner and highlight the “PR problem” Republican New Jersey Governor Chris…

ABC's GMA and NBC's Today on Wednesday both did due diligence on the Rep. Anthony Weiner brouhaha surrounding a lewd photo posted on his Twitter site. ABC's Jonathan Karl noted how Weiner didn't give "the most convincing press conference" in response to the controversy. NBC's Meredith Vieira highlighted how "people are wondering why he is being so defensive." But CBS's Early Show didn't even…

Will Newt Gingrich's big credit line at Tiffany's define his 2012 Republican presidential run? The New York Times seems to hope so. Wednesday’s front page "Political Memo" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg on Gingrich’s credit line was bejeweled with a headline that sounded like a liberal wish: "All That Glitters May Redefine Run by Gingrich." To the long list of rich-guy foibles that turned into…

Featured on Time Magazine's Web site is "The Misconduct Matrix."  Subtitled "Not all affairs are created equal," the graphic presents 19 men guilty of - make that allegedly guilty of in some instances- serious sexual misbehavior. Dominique Strauss-Kahn is listed, as are Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Tiger Woods, John Kennedy and, of course, the president who gave phone sex a bad name, the…

Every hour but one of CNN's Tuesday evening news coverage featured at least a mention of former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's marital infidelity. Guess which anchor backed away from any mention of the scandal? Schwarzenegger's revelation of his fathering a child with a mistress was one of the day's leading headlines, and merited a mention if not a segment on most every CNN news…

CNN continued its rehabilitation of Eliot Spitzer's political career in leaving his name out of a lengthy list of recent political sex scandals Tuesday. As MediaBistro and my colleague Tom Blumer reported yesterday, the network shied away from disclosing the checkered past of one of its prime-time anchors. In the wake of former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's revelations that he…

UPDATE, May 18: NewsBusters commenter "dreamsincolor" has pointed out that CNN "somehow" forgot Democratic New York Congressman Eric Massa, who resigned in 2009 to avoid "an ethics investigation into alleged misconduct toward a male staff member." (Begin original post) Chris Ariens filed a report today at MediaBistro's TVNewser that opened with a reader's Tweet, which plaintively asked: "…

Sex scandal double standards? New York Times Washington reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg managed to write an entire story about the marital woes of potential Republican presidential candidates yet only vaguely glanced over President Bill Clinton, whose proven adultery and allegations of sexual harassment almost brought down his presidency and led to his impeachment. A marital crisis in the…

  Apparently, the Left will never get over John Kerry's loss in the 2004 presidential election. On Thursday's Joy Behar Show, Joy Behar used a discussion of the "birther" claims against Barack Obama to slam what she called the "lies" of the Swift Boat veterans, who challenged Kerry's account of his service in Vietnam. "Does this treatment remind you of the swift-boating that went on when…

President Obama authorized the state of Hawaii to release a copy of his long-form birth certificate, resulting in massive media attention and a front-page splash by New York Times reporter Michael Shear on Thursday, “Citing ‘Silliness,’ Obama Shows Birth Certificate.” But a Times media reporter wrongly suggested the “Birther” theories only erupted after Obama became president, among…