Latest Blogs

The April jobs report showed 244,000 job gains, “surprisingly strong” numbers according to the Kansas City Star. Many national news outlets reported that jobs number as well as the rise in unemployment rate back to 9 percent in their headlines immediately reacting to the news. CNBC initially suggested that the unemployment rate “ticked” up because of higher participation in the labor force,…

The first Republican presidential debate But  took place last night on the Fox News Channel, but featured only one candidate, Tim Pawlenty, generally considered to be a front-runner. So now we must undertake the inevitable task of deciding who "won" the debate. The other participants were Herman Cain, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, and New Mexico Governor…

It’s inevitable that the joy and national unity over the killing of that monster bin Laden would cool. Already we’re debating the journalistic and political ramifications. On Wednesday, President Obama told CBS he wouldn’t “spike the football” by releasing photos proving Osama is dead.  I agree with the President, as much as that pains my friend Sean Hannity and other conservatives (and non-…

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Thursday had a highly-contentious interview with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "The Last Word" host repeatedly interrupted his guest leading her to say after one such incident, "Lawrence, you have a bad habit with your guests. You never let them answer a question" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A PBS viewer might be surprised that Tavis Smiley might recognize the killing of Osama bin Laden as a newsworthy event, since he believes Christians kill people in bombings every day in America. But on the day after the Osama mission succeeded, Smiley went straight to the radical left for the official PBS reaction. There's your tax dollars at work again, providing a megaphone for The Nation…

Scott Pelley, the incoming anchor for the CBS Evening News, dropped by Washington, DC’s CBS affiliate on Wednesday where he mimicked left-wing MSNBC’s “Lean Forward” slogan as he promised: “We’re going to be leaning forward.” On DCRTV.com I saw a link to online video of a WUSA-TV story about Pelley’s May 4 visit to the Gannett-owned station where he pledged: “We're going to cover hard news.…

On his MSNBC show this evening, Chris Matthews criticized Hillary's lack of "humanity" for denying that, in the photo of her in the Situation Room during the attack on Bin Laden, she was having an emotional reaction.  Matthews played video of Hillary suggesting that rather than reacting in horror, she was merely stifling a cough.  Riiight. On the one hand, Hillary richly deserved Matthews'…

NPR's Ari Shapiro emphasized the possible political benefits for President Obama on Thursday's Morning Edition in the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden. Shapiro lined up sound bites from three pundits who touted the "big moment" for the "bold" President and how it amounted to a  "fundamental shift in the way Americans perceive Mr. Obama." Midway through his report, the correspondent…

Chris Matthews apparently misses moderating Republican debates and hectoring the candidates with bizarre questions. On Thursday's Hardball, hours before the first GOP face-off, the cable anchor dreamed up hypothetical queries he would like to see: "Question to Mr. Candidate, do you believe in evolution? Are you a fundamentalist who believes in the Bible as written? Has man been around millions…

Thursday's New York Times lead editorial defended the paper's left-wing ideological ground against conservative arguments that the killing of Osama bin Laden is a vindication of harsh interrogation methods used on terrorist detainees in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere: "The Torture Apologists – Efforts to justify torture after the Bin Laden killing are cynical and destructive."              As…

Yesterday I critiqued Washington Post staffer Michael Laris's reporting on the Montgomery County [Md.] Council passing into law a 5-cent bag tax effective January 1, 2012. Laris omitted the fact that the county bag tax has a glaring exemption for newspaper bags, including the sleeves that protect home-delivered newspapers from the elements. This was despite the fact that his newspaper's…

Not bad, it took her a mere 18 months to grasp this. On her MSNBC show Monday night, the first time it ran after the death of bin Laden, Rachel Maddow cited several post-9/11 examples of terrorism targeting Americans in the US -- including the attack at Fort Hood in November 2009. "Since Sept. 11, the story of terrorism targeting the United States itself has mostly, thankfully, been the…

President Bush received a short-term boost in a New York Times poll when Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, his job approval rating rising to 58% from 50%, while the assassination of Osama bin Laden similarly benefitted President Obama in yesterday's NYT/CBS poll, 57% to 46%. Yet it was Obama who got the warmer initial greeting on the New York Times's front page. The first three…

Anchoring NBC News special report coverage of President Obama visiting Ground Zero on Thursday, Meet the Press host David Gregory used the opportunity to take a shot at critics of the administration: "...this [killing bin Laden] was the ultimate leadership moment for a commander in chief who in some ways had not been tested on this order. Who had been the target of criticism from Republicans…