Clintons Put Crying in Politics, Press Eat it Up

In the 1992 blockbuster movie "A League of Their Own," coach Jimmy Dugan, played by Tom Hanks, marvelously shouted at one of his weeping female players, "There's no crying in baseball!" Sadly, on Monday morning, Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY), followed by her husband and former President Bill Clinton Tuesday evening, put crying in politics. And the press ate it up. In…

Morning Show Montage: How They Teased 'Comeback Kid' Stories

The Clinton and McCain victories in New Hampshire were topic A on the network morning shows today, so I thought we'd compile a montage video of the teases that the "Early Show," "Good Morning America," and "Today" ran.Video (1:40): Windows Media (3.29 MB) and MP3 audio (475 kB). Some samples:

‘CBS Evening News’ Does 180 on Thimerosal/Autism Link

It’s better late than never, might be what vaccine manufacturers are thinking right now. The pharmaceutical industry had maintained all along that there’s no proven link between a vaccine preservative called thimerosal and autism. CBS had been unwilling to concede that notion until last night. “In health news tonight, new research finds no link between mercury in vaccines and autism in…

Shazam: Smith 'Pyles' On

Of all the ways Harry Smith could have opened this morning's historic Early Show, he chose to do so by waving today's Boston Herald with its one-word front page "Shazam!" above a photo of Mike Huckabee. Smith described Barack Obama simply as the "big winner" on the Democratic side.View video here [with apologies for low audio level].

See No Bias: CBS Stabs Transparency in the 'Public Eye

R.I.P., Public Eye. [Sept. 12, 2005- Dec. 21, 2007] We hardly knew ye. Yes, confirms TVNewser, CBS's eye on itself, the Public Eye ombudsblog, is sadly no longer with us (h/t Eat the Press):TVNewser has learned the CBS News blog PublicEye, once described as a "de facto ombudsman" of CBS News, has ceased operations. CBS Interactive cut several staff members last month, including Matthew Felling…

Hillary Will Be at the Laff Shack All Week

If things don't work out for Hillary with this presidential thing, she can always do stand-up out in LA. Or not. If you didn't catch her side-splitter on last night's Letterman, you can view it here, as rebroadcast on MSNBC this morning.For those taking nitrates who might not want to risk a sudden drop in blood pressure by watching the clip, here's the text of Hillary's rib tickler:Dave has been…

Faulty Media Polls Fuel Iowa 'Expectations' Game

As you’ve already been told a thousand times, with only a day to go before the Iowa caucuses, the polls are showing a statistical three-way tie between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards atop the Democratic field, and a similarly close two-way race between Republicans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.But the polls are probably wrong. Or maybe they’re right -- we won’t really know until…

CBS Sees GOP 'Mudslinging,' Not 'Playing As Nice' As Dems

FNC Cites MRC Quotes, Matthews Has 'Man Crush' on Clinton

FNC's morning anchors highlighted a few of the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2007" on the Monday edition of "Fox and Friends." Included were a quote of MSNBC's Chris Matthews comparing Bill Clinton's speaking ability to that of "Jesus at the temple" when the former President spoke at Coretta King's funeral, and a quote of comedian Bill Maher commenting that if [Vice President Cheney] died, "…

Holt To Huck: Wish You Had a 'Do-over' on Pakistan Comments

Could it have been just a couple days ago that Chris Matthews claimed that the media had made a "mascot" out of Mike Huckabee? You wouldn't know it from this morning's Today show. Weekend host Lester Holt kicked off the show's political segment by implying that among presidential candidates, Huckabee was the big loser in his handling of the Pakistani situation.LESTER HOLT: The murder of Benazir…

Wash. Monthly Blog Shows for Left, Name Calling = Political Analysis

Now With Updates, Kristol Responds to critics and Steve Benen responds to me! Washington Monthly has a blog called Political Animal that is also picked up by the CBS News website. It is written by Kevin Drum, but recently has been guest penned by a former Clinton intern and Internet gadfly named Steve Benen who makes no bones about the fact that he is an extreme leftist. Looking over his Wash.…

The Worst 'Notable Quotables' of

Before we ring in 2008, it's worth taking a look back at some of the liberal media's goofiest or most outrageous moments, courtesy of the Media Research Center's Best Notable Quotables of 2007: The Twentieth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting. The awards were determined by a panel of 53 distinguished media observers, including radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, editorial writers…

Media Can't Decide If 2.4 Percent Is Dramatic or Ho-Hum

The media are always trying to find a way to report the bad side of economic news, so it's shouldn't come as a terrible surprise to anyone that they managed to make positive holiday sales growth a bad thing.According to MasterCard SpendingPulse, retail sales were up 3.6 percent during the holiday season - 2.4 percent excluding gas prices. But because it's not as big an increase as recent years…

All I Want for Christmas Is Reporting on Al Sharpton's FBI Probe

Imagine for a moment that the FBI raided televangelist Pat Robertson's office for any reason whatsoever, much less say his 1988 presidential campaign. It'd be a story in the broadcast evening news programs, right?So why the utter lack of interest in the December 12 federal probe into Al Sharpton's 2004 campaign? A review of Nexis for ABC, NBC, and CBS network news stories for December 12-18…