2008 Congressional

"Are we on seven-second delay?"--Mark Halperin on Morning Joe, prefacing his criticism of Pres. Obama's performance at the health-care summit.Halperin was surely being facetious, but the point about MSNBC's pro-Obama predilection was made.The Time editor went on to rather comprehensively pan PBO's petulant performance. His comments were preceded by a clip of Pres. Obama rudely reminding Sen. John…

"I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing." - Joe Biden, 2005Few Americans would be shocked to hear that members of Congress are not always consistent, and occasionally outright hypocritical. Very often, however, the liberal media attempts to downplay Democratic double standards and highlight Republican ones. Each recent change in…

Does the National Journal's Hotline inhabit the same universe as the rest of us?  Democrats lost two-out-of-three among last night's big races.  But in declaring Winners and Losers among non-candidates involved with the campaigns, the only Losers Hotline saw were . . . Republicans and conservatives, with nary a Dem in sight! Chris Matthews was only too happy to seize on the Hotline hitlist during…

Want to be noticed by any one of the hosts that have a primetime show on MSNBC's weeknight lineup? Just figure out a way to make Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.  the subject matter, and there's an excellent chance either Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow will take a shot at it, or her, during their shows. In the Oct. 25 Washington Post, George Will penned a column about…

Over the past two weeks, three prominent White House officials have publicly come out and criticized Fox News by demeaning its status as a news outlet - White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, Senior Advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. And today, the president himself commented on Fox News. However, this hasn't gone unnoticed by members of Congress. Yesterday, Sen.…

It probably wasn't totally unexpected, since the tally of time the on-air talent at MSNBC spends on Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., increases with every broadcast hour. Bachmann, not one to hold back on expressing her opinions, has criticized MSNBC on not one, but two occasions recently. And one of those appearances, on Fox News' Oct. 7 "The O'Reilly Factor," she called her critics on the left-…

Last Wednesday, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis, in the wake of James O'Keefe's and Hannah Giles's embarrassing video barrage, went into damage control mode: As a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees, I am, in consultation with ACORN’s Executive Committee, immediately ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN’s service programs until completion of an independent review. I…

Remember when the children of public figures were off-limits in the day-to-day hand-to-hand combat of political warfare? It's a rule that didn't just applied to the underage children of politicians, but the adult children. Witness the 2008 suspension of MSNBC's David Shuster for suggesting then-presidential contender Hillary Clinton's 28-year-old daughter Chelsea Clinton was being "pimped out"…

On Thursday's Today, Meredith Vieira tossed mostly softballs to Senator-elect Al Franken, offering no hard questions about the disputed 2008 election, instead fawning, "...Are you more worried about becoming a target for the GOP or a target for Saturday Night Live, your old stomping ground?" In regards to the post-election wrangling for the Minnesota Senate seat, the best Vieira could do is to…

On ABC’s World News Saturday, and the same day’s CBS Evening News, correspondents suggested that conservative positions on social issues were responsible for the Republican party’s recent electoral misfortunes, as the two programs filed stories about an appearance in Arlington by Jeb Bush, Eric Cantor and Mitt Romney as part of an effort to rebuild the party’s appeal. ABC cited a recent ABC News…

In the wake of back to back disappointments the past two elections, as well as Arlen Specter's recent defection to the Democrat Party, liberal media members -- and even some not-so liberal media members -- have been blaming the GOP's supposed demise on Republicans being too conservative.On Sunday's "Meet the Press," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough took issue with this popular yet obviously debatable…

Somebody needs to 'fess up. Who put truth serum in Calvin Woodward's coffee this morning?Whoever it is, they're in a heap of trouble, as Woodward produced a fact-checking critique of Barack Obama that is so good you'd swear most of it was ghostwritten by a conservative talk host.It will be interesting to see how much distribution it gets. I would suggest not counting on too much, but being open…

It's enlightening to see what topics New York Times editors find disturbing and newsworthy and which ones they shrug off or ignore.New York's new senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, is a Democrat who is nonetheless under strong suspicions at the liberal Times for her support of gun rights and her previous representation of a white conservative district. On Friday's front page, she came under fire via a…

Here's the relative tempest in a teapot that happened on Thursday: Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe made an unusual request for his speech today at the National Press Club: he wanted it off the record. ..... Politico editor-in-chief John Harris said that after hearing of Plouffe’s request, and decision not to reverse course, he backed out from moderating the lunch-time event. Harris…