Jonathan Alter

Everyone proposes drinking games for the State of the Union speech. But it’s not just the president that can drive you to drink. It’s the opportunistic media elites deciding which branches of government have too much power, depending on which branches the Democrats presently control. After a lot of stalemate in 2013, the partisan media think it’s high time for the executive branch to go…

We at NewsBusters have demonstrated over the years that the liberal media are all too eager to flog Republican scandals to death while ignoring or downplaying Democratic scandals. MSNBC contributor Jonathan Alter provided a case study of that bias during an appearance on Sunday’s episode of Disrupt with Karen Finney. While discussing Chris Christie’s bridge controversy, Alter brought up the…

Today’s installment of the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2013,” as selected by our 42 expert judges: “The Tea Party Terrorists Award.” The establishment media have been hostile to the Tea Party from the moment it appeared on the scene in 2009, impugning participants as racists, “tea baggers” and terrorists ready to blow up the political system. “Winning” this category in…

On Thursday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter played the liberal caricature by actually suggesting that, in light of former South African President Nelson Mandela's passing, Americans should practice "forgiveness" toward "hundreds of thousands of people" who are serving life prison sentences. Speaking to host Al Sharpton, Alter suggested:

MSNBC contributor Jonathan Alter on Saturday continued the liberal media pattern of siding with the Obama administration on the current government shutdown. Appearing on Weekends with Alex Witt, Alter claimed that House Speaker John Boehner is not acting in a “patriotic fashion” and “can’t even deliver a pizza,” as Team Obama says. Fill-in host Mara Schiavocampo had asked Alter about the…

UPDATE (Sept. 27; 12:45 p.m. EDT): Alter is thrilled with having won last night. He tweeted this morning, "I won grand prize from rightwing Newsbusters for saying in '12 that repealing ACA wld lead to death. Yeah!" UPDATED (Sept. 27; 11:20 a.m. EDT): We've added the videos of Melissa Harris-Perry and Chris Matthews, winners in the Dan Rather Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis and The…

USA Today’s website today has a list of “5 must-read books about the Obama-Romney race,” and as you might expect, there are four books by liberal political reporters: “Collision 2012" by Dan Balz, “The Message” by Richard Wolffe, “The Center Holds” by Jonathan Alter, and “Double Down” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann (due out in November). But there’s a dash of balance: “Collusion” by L.…

MSNBC contributors Jonathan Alter and Joy Reid sound much like a good metronome: their commentary never changes, marching on at an endless, fixed pace. Alter and Reid have made a career at the Lean Forward network out of comparing Republicans to slave owners, terrorists, and drunks. Their latest assault on the GOP came on Friday’s Now, with Reid serving as guest host in place of Alex Wagner…

Former Governor Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) drifted a bit too far off MSNBC’s pro-Obama message on Thursday’s Now with Alex Wagner, receiving a strong left-wing rebuke after suggesting that President Obama should be willing to compromise with Republicans on upcoming budgetary battles. MSNBC contributor Joy Reid likened Republicans to terrorists, claiming that the president’s situation is like “when…

In an interview aired Sunday for Meet the Press's Press Pass, host David Gregory teed up left-wing NBC political analyst Jonathan Alter to promote his new pro-Obama screed, The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies: "...you write the following: 'A set of values that had been part of the American consensus since at least the New Deal would remain in place....The United States would remain a highly…

In 2010, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said that he didn’t think Democrats wanted to stop illegal immigration. On Tuesday’s Hardball, the host went even further saying that Democrats “believe in illegal immigration” and this is why they “don’t really believe in border enforcement” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The pundits over at MSNBC have it all figured out: Republicans don’t care about the millions struggling in the Obama economy. At least that was what a left-wing panel on Sunday’s The Ed Show decided, with Salon’s Joan Walsh declaring that Republicans “don’t care” about people who have lost their jobs. Walsh’s ridiculous comments came after guest host Joy Reid preposterously worried that the…

Appearing as a guest on Friday's PoliticsNation show, MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter -- formerly of Newsweek -- asserted that, if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had won the 2012 presidential election, "things would be so much worse," as he took relief in President Obama's ability to veto Republican-supported legislation. He also echoed the liberal rhetoric of labeling Republican efforts to…

Jonathan Alter showed up on PBS’s Charlie Rose Wednesday to promote the new book in which he celebrates Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection. The Bloomberg columnist doesn’t seem to understand the irony of his book’s title – The Center Holds. He really does believe President Obama is a centrist, and he attempted to explain the title from the comfort of Rose’s dark studio: “So the reason I call the…