Face the Nation

The morning after CBS News White House reporter Mark Knoller, in a tweet, slurred anti-ObamaCare protesters with the vulgar “tea bagger” sexual terminology, Bob Schieffer began Sunday’s Face the Nation with how the health care reform debate “that's been rancorous and mean from the start turned even nastier yesterday” with protesters “shouting ‘kill the bill!’ and ‘made in the USSR”’ as they…

At the top of Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith proclaimed: "President Obama makes a tough final push, going on the offensive against health insurance companies. Will it work?" Later, co-host Maggie Rodriguez gushed: "It looked like a campaign rally yesterday with President Obama center-stage taking his fight for health care reform out of Washington and into America's heartland."…

Not the biggest deal, but emblematic of how the Washington press corps consider anyone to the right of center, no matter if barely so, to be a “conservative,” while anyone who strays at all from a perfect liberal line is not worthy of an ideological label.Setting up Sunday’s Face the Nation, CBS's Bob Schieffer described guest Evan Bayh simply as “the Indiana Democrat” while tagging Republican…

On Wednesday's CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer ranted against Republican Senator Jim Bunning's opposition to a spending bill: "it's unconscionable what has happened here....this is about politics. It is not – it was not about anything of substance." [Audio available here]Co-host Maggie Rodriguez began the segment by explaining that Bunning had stopped blocking the legislation…

On Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith wondered if there was any credibility to Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the Christmas Day bomber: "...the point that he seems to be trying to make...that this administration, the Obama administration, is not taking terrorism seriously enough. Is this theater or is there a real point to be made?"Smith directed that…

Words never spoken before by a CBS News journalist: “Do you think also that George Bush would also need a little thanks for that? I mean, does he share in the credit or not?” That very unusual quest to credit former President Bush came from Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, since even for him Vice President Joe Biden’s claim -- “Iraq, I think, is going to be one of the great achievements of this…

Touting the latest CBS News/New York Times poll on Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer concluded that Americans were upset with President Obama and Congress simply over the influence of "special interest groups," without mentioning massive government spending or ObamaCare as other possible reasons.After reporting that 70% of Americans were "…

On Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer twisted the meaning of a recent Washington Post poll on the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts: “Three-fourths of those voters...said they wanted Brown to work with Democrats to get Republican ideas into legislation....the vote for Brown was not so much a vote for or against policy or party, as it was a vote against the process itself.”…

A rather shocking thing happened on "Face the Nation" Sunday: CBS News's chief legal correspondent said Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) racist remarks about presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 will harm Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.Quite contrary to how ABC's George Stephanopoulos gave cover to the Senate Majority Leader by declaring his comments were supposed to be private, "…

Whatever happened to just opposing policy for the sake of it being bad policy, as is the case of many people's view of the current health care reform proposals making their way through Congress? That reason is just not good enough for some, particularly Washington Post blogger and food critic Ezra Klein. In a post on The Washington Post's Web site dated Dec. 14, Klein viciously attacked Sen. Joe…

On Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer about all the problems facing President Obama: “it was Afghanistan, now it’s jobs...healthcare....Do you remember a time when a president had as many irons – critical irons – in the fire, as this one seems to have right now?” Schieffer replied: “Oh, I suppose during the dark days of World War II.”  Schieffer…

CBS devoted half of Sunday's Face the Nation to the pressing question of “divisions within the Republican Party: Is there room for moderates?” Fill-in host Harry Smith of the Early Show allowed guests Dick Armey and Ed Gillespie plenty of time to reject his premise, but he forwarded the media's widely-held presumption in a series of statements as he simply cued up Dede Scozzafava, the Republican…

At the end of CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, host Bob Schieffer fretted over massive government spending but avoided blaming current Democratic proposals: “I’m not even talking about the cost of health care....It is now costing $1 million a year to keep one U.S. soldier on the ground in Afghanistan, not to mention that for every soldier there, we have one civilian contractor.”Schieffer also…