Jon Meacham

Reviewing Newsweek veteran Jon Meacham’s biography of former President George H.W. Bush, Thomas J. Duesterberg observed in The Weekly Standard that Meacham portrays the 41st President‘s life through a liberal prism. For instance: “The policies of Ronald Reagan are viewed from a decidedly unsympathetic and formulaic viewpoint, which follows the consensus, left-of-center perspective.”

Jon Meacham is no conservative. The Pulitzer-winning historian is, after all, a former editor of Time and Newsweek. Which makes his declaration about President Obama that much more damning. Asked on today's Morning Joe for a historical analogy to Barack Obama, Meacham harkened back to Jimmy Carter: "three years into his administration, [Carter] giving a speech about this very subject, saying…

Nothing says raw, real and unfiltered like a Hillary moment manufactured by a horde of hacks, handlers and hangers-on.  On today's Morning Joe, Kasie Hunt observed that in this election cycle, "the demand seems to be for raw, unfiltered, real type of moments. I think that they're trying very hard to create that with her." Jon Meacham—seizing the oxymoronic irony—jumped in: "they're manufacturing…

Whatever the question, politicians have a way of working their issue of the day into the answer.  Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) took that tendency to new heights today. Asked on Morning Joe to explain the disproportionate amount of terrorism against the United States that emanates from the Islamic world, Ellison, the first Muslim Member of Congress, asserted that it is the struggle for…

MSNBC’s Morning Joe sidekick Mika Brzezinski is getting desperate for ObamaCare to succeed, to the point of threatening to jump off of, well, something. On Tuesday’s show, she exploded at the GOP for not falling in line behind the health care law. “[E]very step of the way – every step of the way – the Republicans have tried to undermine this from top to bottom and if anything they probably were…

The Hindenburg? The Titanic? Hurricane Sandy on steroids? Any of those might have been a better analogy for the monumental mess that is Obamacare than the lame one Jon Meacham proposed on today's Morning Joe. The presidential historian somehow sought to analogize the Obamacare fiasco to . . . the classification of ketchup as a vegetable. Huh?  View the video after the jump.

Presidential historian Jon Meacham did his best on Morning Joe this morning to lower the bar for President Obama's speech today commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.  "The country has put an enormous amount of expectation on him . . . since he first came on the stage in 2004 . . . we sometimes have-often have--unrealistic expectations of the office," empathized Meacham…

Nothing warms the hearts of the liberal media more than a Republican who criticizes other Republicans. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, when MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe called retired General Colin Powell a “national treasure” on Friday’s Morning Joe. The entire Morning Joe panel was praising the former secretary of state for speaking out against North Carolina’s strict new voter…

Fox Business’s Don Imus had a delicious trifecta Thursday trashing three perilously liberal journalists in less than 90 seconds. After telling Jonathan Alter to “shove” his request to come on the program and hawk his new book, Imus called Howard Fineman a “sniveling little weasel” and Jon Meacham a “phony bastard” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On a day largely devoted to remembering Margaret Thatcher, one of the 20th century's greatest conservatives, would it really have been too much for Morning Joe to have had on at least one conservative guest to discuss her legacy?  Apparently, yes. Morning Joe's lineup of political guests today leaned 100% left: Jon Meacham, Al Hunt, Cokie Roberts, Sen. Tim Kaine, former Obama aides Robert…

Barack The First? Wow: who would have thought that perhaps the strongest statement yet in condemnation of President Obama's self-arrogated right to kill Americans abroad would have come from Jon Meacham?  Yet on today's Morning Joe, historian Meacham—who knows something about the use and abuse of presidential power—criticized Obama for ignoring the "rule of law" and actually described Obama as…

Marco Rubio's tough talk to Rush Limbaugh yesterday about no immigration deal being done unless certain language on border security, etc. is included?  Ignore it.  Just Rubio taking care of his conservative base—and saving face.  In the end, Rubio will likely give Obama his vote on immigration reform.  It's all about finding an out for Republicans when it comes to winning back a decent share of…

Pulitzer Prize-winning former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham on Monday marvelously defined liberalism. In a discussion about the failings of the Founding Fathers on MSNBC's The Cycle, Meacham said, "I certainly learn a lot more from sinners than I do from saints" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing on Friday's NBC Today to promote his new book, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, author and former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham made a comparison between the founding father and the current commander-in-chief: "[Jefferson] was a tall, cool, cerebral president who won re-election, who was actually really good at politics even though he didn't want to act as though he was. So there's…