State of the Union

Bing West was a Marine infantry officer in the Vietnam war and a frequent embedded reporter in Iraq, yet Drum likens him to a tantrum-throwing kid and lectures him, “It's time to grow up, Bing.” (West is 75 years old.) After West commented, “The lesson of Iraq is that after American troops achieved stability, Mr. Obama quit, leading to a larger war and more American deaths,” Drum vented, “Jesus…

GOP political strategist Steve Schmidt has taken considerable flak from conservatives for occasional Republican-In-Name-Only tendencies, but he held his ground well after taking a gratuitous shot across the bow from Chris Matthews. With Matthews and Rachel Maddow acting as anchors in covering last night's State of the Union address, Schmidt was one of three MSNBC commentators, along with Chris…

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, during a discussion of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley giving the Republican response to the State of the Union, Daily Beast Executive Editor Noah Shachtman asserted that Governor Haley is a "super-conservative" who is trying to prevent the GOP from going "fascist" and "white nationalist." After host Costello noted that…

ABC’s Terry Moran has not lost his love for Barack Obama. The Nightline correspondent, who once compared the President to George Washington, on Tuesday got nostalgic for the early days of Obama, reminiscing, “I first met the then-Senator Obama in Cleveland all of the way back in 2006. Back then, they were naming babies after him in Iowa.”

On Wednesday, all three network morning shows offered rave reviews of President Obama’s final State of the Union address, applauding the “passionate defense of his record” and his repeated attacks on Republicans. Leading off NBC’s Today, co-host Matt Lauer announced: “Return to hope and change....President Obama uses his last State of the Union address to tout his accomplishments, set some lofty…

Despite most of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s response to the State of the Union being a takedown of President Obama, during interviews with the Republican on Wednesday, NBC’s Today and CBS This Morning focused exclusively on her warning against the “angriest voices” in the GOP.

Reasonable people agree that Americans fear of Islamic terrorism is irrational. Unfortunately, President Obama can't say that in public. That’s the thrust of New York Times reporter Peter Baker's “news analysis” on Tuesday’s front page, before Obama’s last State of the Union Address: “A Speech to Balance Terror and Reality.”  Baker’s pre-game analysis dovetailed with the administration’s…

Here at NewsBusters, one of our classification categories under Media Bias is "Sudden Respect." The notion is that all a Republican has to do to win praise from the MSM is to bash fellow Republicans or conservatives. There was a perfect illustration of the phenomenon on today's Morning Joe.  In her Republican response to the SOTU, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley counseled Republicans to…

ABC’s post-State of the Union coverage featured a number of predictably liberal takes on Tuesday, but some opposing viewpoints were able to break through with one criticism being chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz slamming the President’s characterization of many ISIS fighters as “guys in pickup trucks” because those same men “still are in charge of Mosul in Iraq” and “huge swaths…

Amid the deluge of post-State of the Union coverage Tuesday night, there was a similar litany of praise for President Obama’s final such speech with notable highlights coming from ABC as contributor Donna Brazile touted it as “a good exclamation point” for his presidency and correspondent David Wright spinning it as the President “pleading for unity” instead of “rub[bing] salt in the Republican…

Moments after President Obama’s final State of the Union on Tuesday night, liberal historian Michael Beschloss was a panelist on PBS and fawned over how the President was “so poignant” in lamenting during his speech that he hasn’t “been able to bridge the divide” while in office.

"The lessons that he has had to teach, the elementary lessons of governing that he has struggled to teach this Congress is something that no one else has had to go through," harumphed Lawrence O'Donnell during post-State of the Union coverage on MSNBC.

NBC News political director and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd lamented in the final moments before President Obama’s final State of the Union Tuesday night that the “timing” of Iran’s seizure of 10 Sailors from the U.S. Navy “couldn't be worse for the President” as he went onto tout the Iran nuclear deal in his address.

Prior to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley gushed that the President “will be taking what you might call a valedictory lap” as he starts his final year in office while Face the Nation host John Dickerson ruled that the President offers “a message of hope” compared to one that’s “fearful of change” made by conservatives and Republicans.