Bill Clinton

Sad news today that Richard Mellon Scaife, a longtime supporter of conservative causes, died this Fourth of July at the age of 82. Scaife became a target for vicious media attacks, especially during the Clinton-era, because of his support for conservative journalism and institutions.  And, as might have been expected, this morning's obituary on the New York Times Web site (a version of which…

Hillary Clinton is touring to promote her State Department memoir “Hard Choices,” but most of the news she’s made along the way relates to her personal finances, not her tenure in Foggy Bottom. On Tuesday, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait examined Hillary’s “dead broke” comment and other recent remarks and revelations about the Clintons’ money with an eye toward whether or not they’ll…

At the top of the 9 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday's NBC Today, weatherman Al Roker suggested in jest that his colleague David Gregory deserved to be punched in the face by former President Bill Clinton after the Meet the Press moderator asked Clinton in a recent interview about wife Hillary being "out of touch." Roker joked: "You know, I'd give anything if after David finished the question, Bill…

You'd think the Clintons would have learned by now that if they keep lobbing meatballs over the plate, Rush Limbaugh will keep cranking them out of the park. Latest example of that delightful dynamic occurred after it was reported in the New York Daily News that Chelsea Clinton claims she is -- sigh -- indifferent toward money. Yes, the same Chelsea Clinton who, along with equally…

Once again, Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director, Chief White House Correspondent and host of MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, did his best to explain away a gaffe by a Democrat, this Hillary Clinton’s claim that they were "dead broke" after leaving the White House. Appearing on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, June 24, Todd proclaimed that "Bill Clinton tried to do what he does best today, explain…

Although the 42nd U.S. president made the remarks during a taped interview Tuesday for sister network NBC's Meet the Press, MSNBC's Chris Matthews completely ignored Bill Clinton's defense of his wife's "dead broke" statement as "factually true." By contrast, the competition over at CNN on Erin Burnett OutFront featured a panel discussion in which the participants made light of Mr. Clinton's…

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton told ABC's Diane Sawyer on June 9 that when she and her family left the White House in 2001, they were “dead broke.” The reaction to that remark took an interesting turn on Tuesday, when her husband and former president Bill Clinton leaped into the fray by asserting that his wife's comment “is factually true” and the potential 2016 Democratic…

Hillary Clinton is not as complex as the universe, but she's Big and Important enough for Peter Beinart to call his 4,600-word National Journal piece on her hypothetical presidency "A Unified Theory of Hillary" and appear to mean it (mostly) seriously. The article deals more with Hillary's personality than with her ideology (for what it's worth, Beinart classifies Hillary, along…

In the aftermath of Megyn Kelly's tough interview with Dick Cheney, the Fox News Channel anchor has received praise from some unusual sources. One of these was Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball weekday program, who said the host of the weeknight Kelly File show was “great” when she threw some hardballs of her own at the former vice president over his role in the Iraq War more than a decade ago…

Media blogger Erik Wemple at The Washington Post relayed that Bill Clinton punished Jay Leno for cracking a good pile of Monica Lewinsky jokes, despite sending the former president an expensive bicycle as a make-amends gift. That’s a revelation that comes from a New York Post roundup of a new book by Leno staffer Dave Berg (Behind the Curtain: An Insider’s View of Jay Leno’s Tonight Show).

On Wednesday, June 17 Bloomberg reported that Bill and Hillary Clinton are taking advantage of financial planning strategies to avoid paying a hefty estate tax, even though the Clintons are prominent supports of the tax.  Despite the report, ABC, CBS, and NBC have all ignored the story on both their morning and evening newscasts. According to Bloomberg: “The Clintons are using financial…

Speeches from successful politicians “come at a price,” FNC’s Bret Baier noted in setting up a comedy clip at the end of his Thursday (June 12) show, “a hefty one hundred million dollars” for former President Bill Clinton since he left office in 2001. Conan O’Brien’s staff “did the math,” Baier explained as he introduced the clip from Wednesday’s Conan on TBS, “and figured out the optional…

NBC and CBS on Wednesday hyped a win by Senator Mitch McConnell as an example of a major setback to the Tea Party movement. But it was only ABC's Good Morning America that highlighted the "big loss" suffered by Bill and Hillary Clinton as their candidate went down to defeat. CBS This Morning co-anchor Charlie Rose lectured, "Tea Party backers are reeling this morning from primary election…

George Stephanopoulos may no longer be a paid partisan activist, but he most certainly helps Democratic candidates and causes from his perch as an ostensibly objective journalist. Witness the interview the Good Morning America co-host had with Jimmy Kimmel on Monday’s edition of Kimmel’s eponymous late-night ABC program, which served to butter up former President Bill Clinton and his wife,…