Newsweek Hits 'Pipeline to Nowhere'; Suggests Palin Too 'Optimistic' A
Borrowing from the nickname for a federal earmark that would have built a multi-million dollar bridge for an Alaska town of 50 people, Newsweek's Mark Hosenball offers readers of the September 29 print magazine a look at "[Gov. Sarah] Palin's Pipeline to Nowhere." Hosenball suggests that Palin's $500-million "principal achievement" as governor "might never be built after all." But while the…
CNN’s Jim Acosta: Palin ‘Still Very Much on Script, Teleprompter
On Monday’s American Morning, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta tried to throw a bit of cold water on the news that tens of thousands showed up in central Florida for a Sarah Palin camapign rally on Sunday. When co-host John Roberts asked about the high turnout, Acosta replied, "[T]his was an enormous crowd out here in Florida. She is still very much on script, John -- still very much on that…
ABC Highlights 'Shameful Chapter' of CEO Excess; Forgets Government Ro
Private CEOs? Yes. Government-sponsored CEOs? No. In a September 19 "Good Morning America" preview of a report scheduled to appear on the same day's edition of ABC's "20/20," chief investigative reporter Brian Ross took a few jabs at the rich who had fallen. Ross called it "the end of a shameful chapter of American history," and although top executives on Wall Street had been hit hard in…
On NBC, CNBC's Liesman Raises 'Banana Republic' Spectre
Comparisons to the current Wall Street financial situation to the Great Depression have not been unusual in the media, but Thursday's NBC Nightly News went a step further into inducing panic. Delivering a healthy dose of hyperbole, Steve Liesman of CNBC prompted a “wow” from anchor Brian Williams when he raised the spectre that the credit troubles could lead, “some” would say, to the “U.S.…
CBS’s Smith Attacks McCain’s Economic Experience; Responsible For
On Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith interviewed John McCain about the recent collapse of Wall Street investment banks: " I want to make sure I have this straight now. Yesterday, on the campaign trail, you reiterated that you believe the fundamentals of the economy are strong. At the same time, we understand your campaign is issuing an ad that says the economy is in crisis. Which is…
Katrina, Minneapolis Bridge Collapse? Reagan's Fault, Says NYT Critic
New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff's "Reflections: New Orleans and China" showed that he shared the same affliction as Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman -- gauging the success of the strong central power of Communist China by looking at its shining and efficient surface, without questioning its effect on the nation's unseen citizenry. For good measure, he even held…
Cramer Calls WSJ the ‘Fox Street Journal’; Refers to Democratic Pa
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" September 8, Jim Cramer took a shot at owner of The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch, in the midst of talking about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeover: I read The Wall Street Journal, sorry, The Fox Street Journal. When is Murdoch going to put his positive right wing implant on left wing journalists? ... When is Murdoch going to broom the Spartacus workers…
CBS’s Schieffer: Higher Taxes & Rationing Needed for War Effort
On Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer interviewed Republican presidential candidate John McCain and wondered why Americans weren’t sacrificing more during a time of war: "But we have one half of one percent of the American people who are making all of the sacrifice in this war. If the rest of us didn't watch television or looked at the newspaper, we might not know there's a war…
Some Future: Obama Advisor Preaches Tariffs, Wage Controls, Suppressio
Mercantilism [emphasis added]: An economic doctrine that flourished in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Mercantilists held that a nation's wealth consisted primarily in the amount of gold and silver in its treasury. Accordingly, mercantilist governments imposed extensive restrictions on their economies to ensure a surplus of exports over imports. In the eighteenth century,…
AP's Weird Science: Who Needs Data When You Have Anecdotes
Update below. Anecdotal evidence is pretty much useless in science, a discipline steeped in empirical data. But that's no matter to the Associated Press or the Washington Post, which published an August 31 AP article about how "Scientists See Fewer Fireflies." The subheading quickly qualified that the "[e]vidence is anecdotal, but experts fault sprawl, pollution."Of course some of the quoted…
ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ Revs Up Criticism of Car Rental Gas
If you break the terms of a contract, you should be expected to pay a penalty, right? Not according to ABC's "Good Morning America." "Good Morning America" criticized fees charged to customers who return rental cars without a full tank of gas - part of a standard car rental agreement. "The only thing more expensive than gassing up your car these days is not gassing up your rental car,"…
Post Reporter: Romney's Free Trade Principles a 'Vulnerability
Sometimes the qualities that make a strong candidate in one pool make them a weak candidate in another pool. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would hurt Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain as a running mate because of "vulnerability" stemming from his successful businesses and support for free trade, according to a reporter for The Washington Post. "On the whole subject…
CNN Frets Bill Clinton Was Too Conservative
Thursday's edition of CNN's "American Morning" featured a "fact checking" segment on the claims former President Bill Clinton made about his accomplishments as president during his speech to the Democratic National Convention. The segment wasn't much of a "fact check" as CNN Business Correspondent Christine Romans mostly reminisced about the "glory days" of the '90's. But what she did find was…
