John Heilemann

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, New York magazine's John Heilemann - also an MSNBC analyst and formerly of The New Yorker - made a gay joke about GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as he described the competitive election in Iowa. (Video below) After host Stephen Colbert, playing the part of committed conservative wanting to pump up Santorum,…

It's hard to imagine the media rooting, even "cheering" for a social conservative like Rick Santorum.  But two certified MSMers claim that Santorum does have the potential to attract such unlikely support. On today's Morning Joe, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, co-authors of the best-selling Game Change about the 2008 election, both opined that Santorum, given his appealing blue-collar…

The next time you get into an argument with a liberal about whether or not the media is biased, show him or her the following video of MSNBC's Chris Matthews admitting on Friday's Hardball that it is (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Brand new MSNBC host and Second Amendment critic Alex Wagner devoted a segment of her November 15 Now with Alex Wagner program to express her exasperation at the fact that she's far left of the American public on the issue of gun control. Wagner prefaced a panel discussion with footage of an ABC News interview with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically injured in a January shooting. "…

Well, that didn't take long. It took about half an hour into her new noon Eastern program Now with Alex Wagner for the host to attack the Republican presidential field as insane. And true to MSNBC form, her panel of liberal journalists largely agreed with her. "When I watched that waterboarding segment, all I could think of is these Republican candidates are putting another brick on the house…

You have to wonder if a day has gone by since the September 7 GOP presidential debate without someone on MSNBC referring to audience members cheering when NBC's Brian Williams asked Texas governor Rick Perry about capital punishment in his state. Likely the most colorful description of this incident to date occurred on Monday's Hardball when host Chris Matthews said Republicans "look hot and…

While media outlets such as CBS News celebrate Vice President Joe Biden's claim that rape and murder will increase if the President's jobs bill isn't passed, they've all ignored a crucial point. According to a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, despite the recession with its associated state and city budget cuts, violent crime in America has declined four years…

As NewsBusters reported Monday, Newsweek featured an in-depth look at Fox News and chairman Roger Ailes in its most recent installment. When this subject came up on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Tuesday, after the guests predictably carped and whined about FNC's conservative leanings, host Joe Scarborough observed, "People are shocked and stunned at the blurred lines when Roger Ailes and Fox does it…

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough chided the "crazy" rhetoric of Republican presidential candidates Tuesday, as he called them out by name and affirmed "crazy never wins." This aired on the same network that employs Al Sharpton and Ed Schultz. Scarborough insisted that "crazy never wins, one of the reasons we're seeing Rick Perry collapse, the same reason we're seeing Bachmann collapse, the same reason…

What a curiously incurious Morning Joe bunch!  Joe Scarborough says Solyndra "is just not a story I have focused on" and John Heilemann similarly admits to not having "drilled down" on the matter.  Meanwhile, Harold Ford, Jr. assures us that when it comes to any potential Solyndra scandal, "there's no there, there" and that no one "has done anything illicit here at all." A blasé Joe…

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" spent a good deal of time Tuesday discussing Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr.'s disgraceful Labor Day comments about the Tea Party and his political rivals. After playing a clip of Hoffa's remarks as well as President Obama calling for civility months ago, Scarborough pointed out, "There seems to be a rule here which is don’t say really mean things that coarsen the…

Forget about 2008's "Hope and Change" mantra. New York magazine's John Heilemann said on this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show" Barack Obama's message in 2012 will all be about "fear" of the Republican candidate, and the President will spend $500 million on negative attack ads against his opponent to instill it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The story about Michele Bachmann's migraines was not the product of a "liberal media conspiracy." Instead, it was a "calculated hit piece" by one of Bachmann's rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. That's the view emphatically propounded by John Heilemann on Morning Joe today.  As evidence, the New York magazine editor and Game Change co-author noted that the story first…

Chris Matthews as usual had four guests on the weekly syndicated program bearing his name. When he asked them which of the current Republican candidates could end up being a great president, nobody chose to identify a single one (video follows with transcript and commentary):