Romney Adviser Hammers CNN Anchor Over 'Silly Question

After the press belittled Mitt Romney over the politics of his statements on Tuesday's embassy attacks, CNN's Don Lemon continued asking redundant questions about process to the Romney campaign's foreign policy adviser on Wednesday. "[Y]ou want to talk about a process issue," Richard Williamson lectured Lemon. "Because the White House doesn't want to talk about substance. It wants to talk…
Matt Hadro
September 12th, 2012 4:46 PM

Obama Attends About 43 Percent of His Daily Intelligence Briefings; Wi

Has an empty chair been getting 56.2 percent of the president's intelligence briefings? In light of the news that fatal attacks on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, may well have been pre-planned by al Qaeda operatives, it would behoove the media to scrutinize just how infrequently President Obama sits in on his daily intelligence briefings. As Marc Thiessen noted in an op-ed in Sunday,…
Ken Shepherd
September 12th, 2012 4:39 PM

Christiane Amanpour: 'Extremists' in America 'Whip Up Hatred' in Libya

ABC journalist Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday compared the rioting and murder that followed Middle Eastern anger over an anti-Islamic movie to yelling "fire in a crowded theater." Regarding filmmaker Sam Bacile and the killing of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya, Amanpour derided, "So, now, one has to, really, try to figure out the extremists in this country and the extremists out…
Scott Whitlock
September 12th, 2012 4:30 PM

Bob Woodward on CBS: 'Very Difficult' Republicans are 'Like a Brick Wa

Bob Woodward singled out congressional Republicans as the main party to blame for the 2011 debt ceiling showdown during an interview on Wednesday's CBS This Morning and minimized President Obama and Senate Democrats's responsibility regarding the looming fiscal cliff: "The Republicans are like a brick wall, and it's very difficult to deal with them." Woodward also bemoaned that the press…
Matthew Balan
September 12th, 2012 4:11 PM

Video: CBS and NPR Reporter Plot to Insure Romney's Asked If He Regret

The Right Scoop has posted video with an open microphone that shows the Romney press corps “coordinating questions to ask Romney," with CBS reporter Jan Crawford saying, “no matter who he calls on, we’re covered on the one question.” They wanted to make Romney take credit or walk back his statement condemning Obama weakness after the embassy attacks: “Do you stand by your statement or regret…
Tim Graham
September 12th, 2012 3:31 PM

NYT's Ashley Parker's Opening Line on Romney Speech: 'Facing Criticism

New York Times campaign reporter Ashley Parker tried to put Mitt Romney on the back foot from the opening sentence of her article on his speech to the National Guard convention in Reno: "After Criticism of His Convention Speech, Romney Thanks Nation's Armed Forces." Facing criticism for failing to mention American troops or the Afghan war effort in his convention speech, Mitt Romney spoke…
Clay Waters
September 12th, 2012 3:22 PM

Newsweek Trashes Romney for Exploiting Tragedy, Touts Obama's 'Diploma

As a media reporter, Howard Kurtz used to evaluate the media’s tilt in a moderate way. Now, as Washington bureau chief for Newsweek, his job must be to repeat the day’s assembly-line liberal spin, in an article titled “Mitt Romney’s Ill-Timed Assault on President Obama as Americans Are Killed Abroad.” Romney’s “given the appearance of exploiting an international tragedy.” Meanwhile, Newsweek…
Tim Graham
September 12th, 2012 2:11 PM

New Report Examines Media Bias in Coverage of Voter ID

Media reporting of Voter ID fails to meet basic standards of objectivity and integrity, says a new report released today, "Media Shows Pervasive Bias When Covering Voter ID" by Justin Danhof. In fact, Danhof says, the media in many cases is openly hostile to Voter ID, using three primary tactics to attack it: rhetoric, flawed data and selective coverage.
Amy Ridenour
September 12th, 2012 1:25 PM

Time's Foroohar Compares Glenn Beck to Islamist 'Industry of Outrage

Mitt Romney's statement yesterday evening slamming the Obama administration for the U.S. embassy in Cairo's attempt to appease the Islamist protesters was "naive," MSNBC's Alex Wagner and Time magazine's Rana Foroohar agreed in a segment on the September 12 edition of Now with Alex Wagner. While Wagner said the initial statement condemning the anti-Muhammad movie was intended to calm tempers…
Ken Shepherd
September 12th, 2012 1:13 PM

Flashback: Media Amazed by Obama's 'Deft' Libya Policy

The media's full-throttle attack on Mitt Romney's condemnation of Barack Obama's weak handling of the Libyan crisis isn't surprising given they invested so much time praising the President's Libyan policy in 2011. During the Arab Spring of 2011, Time's Mark Halperin called the administration’s policy toward Libya "deft" and CBS’s Norah O'Donnell declared Obama's "victories" in the Middle East…
Geoffrey Dickens
September 12th, 2012 12:47 PM

NBC's Todd: Romney Response to Embassy Attacks 'Looks Crass and Tone D

At the top of Wednesday's MSNBC Daily Rundown, host Chuck Todd denounced Mitt Romney for daring to criticize the Obama administration's handling of the attack on U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya: "[The Romney campaign] wish they had that press release back, because as the hours unfolded....this statement looks crass and tone deaf in the light of this day." [Listen to the audio or watch the…
Kyle Drennen
September 12th, 2012 12:11 PM

MSNBC's Roberts, Todd Hit Romney 'Doubling Down' on Statement About Ca

Both President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney spoke earlier today about the horrendous murders yesterday of U.S. foreign service officials in Benghazi, Libya. Of the two, only Romney took questions from the media. Yet rather than scrutinize the president's failure to be open to inquiry from members of the press, MSBNC's Thomas Roberts and NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd devoted the…
Ken Shepherd
September 12th, 2012 12:09 PM

Journalists Freak Out as Romney Condemns Obama's Handling of Libya

Angry journalists repeatedly lashed out at a defiant Mitt Romney, Wednesday, pushing the Republican to renounce his criticism of Barack Obama's handling of the crisis developing in Libya. In a statement on Tuesday, the presidential candidate slammed the administration's "disgraceful" response to the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Libya, which ended with the murder of ambassador Chris Stevens…
Scott Whitlock
September 12th, 2012 11:43 AM

Politico Attempts to Create an 'All Hope Is Lost For Romney' Meme

After reading Ben White's "Morning Money" report at the Politico this morning, I went back to Real Clear Politics to make sure that I was up to date on the current polling. Currently, RCP has Barack Obama up by 3.2 points over Mitt Romney in an average of the five most recent polls -- and at least two of those polls are cooked. But if we're to believe White, "bankers and their lobbyists" are…
Tom Blumer
September 12th, 2012 11:17 AM