Sex Scandals

While NewsBusters really doesn’t target op-eds, especially ones that are printed in the New York Times, egregiously absurd arguments merit exposure and ridicule. Enter Frank Bruni's August 14 column, wherein the Times scribe discussed how our culture facilitates the objectification of women.  Curiously, Bruni buried longtime Democratic politician Bob Filner, who saw women as objects he could…

Liberal Piers Morgan is still fond of the twice-disgraced Anthony Weiner and is wondering if he'll make another comeback after the present New York mayoral race. "Having said all this, there's something about Anthony Weiner I can't help liking. He's a very intelligent guy," Morgan admitted on his Monday show. "I've seen him make speeches at big events where he's brought the house down and…

Parents can hardly criticize New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner for his latest sexting escapade when their teens commit the same deed (and have done so for years) – or so says The Daily Beast.  The Daily Beast’s Lizzie Crocker agonized over the conundrum, asking, “In the wake of Anthony Weiner's latest sexting scandal, one question has emerged that’s particularly tough to answer: How…

Setting up an interview on Tuesday's NBC Today with author Christopher Andersen about his new book on President Kennedy's final days, co-host Savannah Guthrie began with a gauzy introduction: "As we approach November's 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, the facts and folklore surrounding his life and family are still captivating the world....the images of President John…

Former NBC Today show host Meredith Vieira channeled her inner Lorena Bobbitt Friday night. Appearing on NBC’s Tonight Show, in a discussion about embattled New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, Vieira said, “If my husband was sexting, I’d cut it off” (video follows with commentary):

Former New York Times columnist Frank Rich showed up on Joy Behar’s Current TV program Say Anything! on Wednesday to chat about some hot news topics – chief among them, the ongoing Anthony Weiner saga. Rich assured Behar that the Weiner situation would not affect Hillary Clinton’s future. On the contrary, he said, it would make people love her husband Bill Clinton even more. Rich made his…

The sexting scandal of Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman and current New York mayoral candidate, puts into focus the importance of character to public service. Weiner's texts, tweets and photos show not just a tawdry person but a risk-taking, deceitful individual who continued his serial texting and lied about it even as he prepared to run again for office.

If a Republican were ensnared in a sex scandal, do you think MSNBC would have failed to mention his party and instead featured a photo of him with a smiling Nancy Pelosi?  But the "Lean Forward" network might well have hoodwinked unwary viewers this morning into thinking that Democrat Bob Filner is a Republican. Not merely did today's Morning Joe failed to identify Filner—the San Diego mayor…

ABC and CBS both failed to point out San Diego Mayor Bob Filner's Democratic party affiliation on their Wednesday morning newscasts. Good Morning America devoted just one 17-second news brief to the ongoing Filner scandal. CBS This Morning didn't do much better, with two news briefs on the former congressman. NBC's Today didn't set aside any air time to the controversy. The NBC morning show…

All three major networks ran full-length stories on their Saturday morning shows on the sex scandals involving San Diego Mayor Bob Filner and New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. However, none of the networks directly identified either politician as a Democrat. ABC’s Saturday edition of Good Morning America ran separate stories on each of the two men. Their two-and-a-half minute…

On Monday's NBC Today, following a report on the latest fallout from the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, Hillary Clinton sycophant Andrea Mitchell fretted over the impact of the controversy on the former secretary of state: "This is terribly painful....this is getting to the point where it is really splashing up against the Clintons because it's almost unavoidable that people are making…

The situations involving disgraced and relapsed former Congressman Anthony Weiner and Ben Quayle, who hasn't been in politics for about a year, are very analogous. Just ask Katie Glueck at the Politico. Oh, and the the Weiner situation is also very analogous to that of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who has returned $21,000 worth of gifts he should never have taken from a businessperson. Just…

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the media these days seem to see everything through the prism of what helps and hinders Hillary Clinton's path to the White House. On CBS's Face the Nation Sunday, Bob Schieffer said Huma Abedin, by standing by her disgraced husband Anthony Weiner, was "doing Hillary Clinton no favors whatsoever if Hillary Clinton is planning to run for president" (video…

George Will made an observation on ABC's This Week Sunday that shouldn't have evoked laughter from his fellow panelists and host. "If these two people, [Mayor Bob] Filner in San Diego and [Anthony] Weiner here, were Republicans, this would be a part of a lot of somber sociology in the media about the Republican war on women" (video follows with transcript and commentary):