Kagan Nomination

As a Sunday afternoon treat, here’s a sneak peek at the May 17 edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables newsletter, our bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media. The entire edition will be posted, with five video clips, at www.MRC.org on Monday morning.Shortsighted Voters Fail to Grasp Obama’s Historic Greatness“Big problems. Big achievements. Big…

On Friday night's edition of Inside Washington, NPR legal reporter Nina Totenberg twice used the term "spectacularly successful" to define Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Host Gordon Peterson asked her what "we" know so far:We know she was a spectacularly successful dean at Harvard Law School where she was the first female dean -- that she just moved the place, got it really moving again…

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Friday cited a new poll and marveled to viewers that Barack Obama "is largely escaping blame for his handling of the [oil spill] crisis." (Note the passive way he framed that sentence.) Reporter Jake Tapper discussed the government's reaction to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. He proclaimed, "[Obama] is said to be angry and disappointed, not…

If Jonathan Alter's interview segment, on Friday's Today show with NBC's Meredith Vieira, is any indication of what to expect from his new book on the Obama presidency, readers should not look forward to an insightful, hard-hitting treatment of the President as the Newsweek columnist praised Obama as not "a phony" who has a "psychological health to him." On to plug his book, The Promise, Alter…

Appearing on the May 13 "Hannity" program for a "Media Mash" segment,  NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell tackled the media coverage of the Elena Kagan nomination. After the Fox News host played some clips of network anchors focusing on how the Obama Court nominee loves opera, softball, and poker, Bozell noted it was par for the course.While "from the moment he was nominated, [Clarence Thomas…

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Thursday appeared frustrated that perceived successes by Barack Obama have failed to help his own party. The former Democratic operative turned journalist interviewed current Democratic operative James Carville and complained, "You know, you've seen over the last month health care passes. Jobs are being created. The President has an arms control…

MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday actually expressed some journalistic outrage over a White House PR video disguised as an interview, deriding the administration for "crossing a number of lines when it comes to journalism." An irritated Mitchell highlighted a video on the White House website that features Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. [Audio available here.]Most other media outlets…

NBC’s Today offered a conservative counterpoint on the Elena Kagan nomination on Wednesday: conservative radio talker and author Laura Ingraham. Co-host Meredith Vieira suggested Republicans were hypocrites to suggest Kagan was inexperienced. The top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, has said that her lack of experience to him is troubling. Yet when Harriet…

In the latest example of a pattern of opacity, the White House has cut off the press's access to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Kagan has extensive ties to journalists, which only serves as a testament to this administration's determination to control the message on its major initiatives, including Kagan's nomination."Tell her we're deeply frustrated," one reporter told White House press…

As the MRC’s Tim Graham documented yesterday, ABC and NBC's morning and evening newscasts have so far refused to tag Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a “liberal,” with CBS’s Jan Crawford offering the sole ideological label of the nominee on Monday's Evening News: “Her career has put her solidly on the left.”In contrast, all three networks made a major deal out of the last person nominated by…

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote in a 1996 article entitled "Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine" that "redistribution of speech" is not "itself an illegitimate end" for government.  As first reported by Matt Cover at the Media Research Center's news wing CNSNews.com, Kagan offers up this gem: "If there is an ‘…

For absurdly spinning Elena Kagan to the right, consider Washington Post editorial writer Eva Rodriguez, who asked in Tuesday's newspaper: “Is Kagan a bleeding heart or right-wing Bushie?” Specifically, Rodriguez argued Kagan took positions “loathed by the left” that would deny the broadest menu of civil liberties to terrorist suspects: So which Kagan are we getting: the warm and fuzzy defender…

Brent Baker remembered NPR reporter Nina Totenberg found Judge John Roberts carried conservatism to wretched excess. On NPR's All Things Considered back in 2005, she prefaced “conservative” with three verys, describing him as “a very, very, very conservative man.” But in a taped soundbite on the next day's Good Morning America on ABC, she cut back to merely “a very, very conservative man.”But…

It’s more than a little tiresome to contemplate that every current liberal Supreme Court justice was touted by the national media as a moderate or even a conservative when they were originally announced, from John Paul Stevens to Sonia Sotomayor. Dan Rather even claimed the last retiree, David Souter, was dangerously “anti-women’s rights” when he was nominated in 1990. So it was less than…