Sudden Respect

Of all the ignorant, boot-licking interviews in Chris Matthews' long career, this one may be the most hypocritical.Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), he of  "die quickly" YouTube fame, appeared on the October 2 edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," and Matthews wasted no time in teeing up the GOP for Grayson:CHRIS MATTHEWS: I'm looking for some insight here. I'm a reporter. I'm trying to find out what you know…

Roman Polanski may be an Oscar-winning brilliant film maker, but he’s also a fugitive from justice, an infamous child rapist who jumped bail and fled to France in 1978  to avoid the consequences of his 1977 rape of a 13-year-old in Los Angeles. Polanski was arrested on Saturday in Zurich on the grounds of the 31-year-old arrest warrant.It didn’t take long for the Polanski defenders to crawl out…

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller penned a letter to the New York Review of Books, in reply to a Michael Massing article on the Internet and the news business. After defending his paper's Internet presence, Keller found a blog he actually likes, praising left-wing blogger-journalist Josh Marshall, who operates the Talking Points Memo blog.  I've long been an admirer of the best…

It’s not just liberal policy and charismatic personalities that the liberal media find alluring about the Kennedy clan, but also its decidedly upper-crust fashion sense. In Sunday’s Washington Post, fashion reporter Robin Givhan waxed eloquent about the “look of rich tradition” the patrician Kennedy clan brought to their oft-publicly photographed wardrobe. Yet four years ago, Givhan derided as “…

A turnaround on Obama-Care at the New York Times? Not quite, but health reporter Robert Pear's corrective story Friday, "A Basis Is Seen for Some Health Plan Fears Among the Elderly," did make some surprising concessions to conservative concerns about rationing of health care for the elderly under an Obama plan. Might those horror stories about "death panels," declared "false" by the Times just a…

The Washington Post editorial page threw itself today into quite an odd political position.The Post seems to think that Bob McDonnell, the GOP candidate for Virginia governor, should be more vocal about his opposition to abortion.  His opponent, Creigh Deeds, recently attempted to make a campaign issue out of his (somewhat newfound) support for abortion rights – a strategy that the Post called “…

At least one media outlet is bucking the field's bleak economic outlook: The left-wing blog Talking Points Memo. On Monday, Noam Cohen reported in the New York Times that TPM has received funding from outside investors that will result in a doubling of staff, and may include some veteran mainstream journalists. The political news Web site Talking Points Memo this weekend completed a round of…

Monday's New York Times Business section contained a favorable Bill Carter profile of Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, "Fox News Anchor Draws Ratings, and Ire of Conservative Critics." This marks the only positive view of Fox News I've seen in the Times, if only because Smith is portrayed as a brave, lonely counterpoint to the network's conservative orthodoxy. Carter predictably portrayed Smith,…

Here’s a shocking statement about the behavior of the White House Press Corps at the Correspondent’s Dinner: “What I saw the other night was like a bunch of teenage girls waiting for a Bay City Rollers concert, ready to scream at their the top of their lungs.”The content of this statement is not nearly so shocking, however, as who said it – a member of the media, one Joe Scarborough of MSNBC. …

Rush Limbaugh has no problem following black conservatives. But you’d never know it, were you to read the Black Entertainment Television website. Posted by the amorphous BET.com Staff, the following kneecapping was posted today: Rush Limbaugh has a problem with leading Black Republicans. In recent weeks, he’s blasted his own party’s chairman, calling Michael Steele “gutless” and too weak to…

During the recently completed presidential campaign, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff was all excited over his "web exclusive" piece on staffers with the McCain campaign that had connections with past lobbying efforts. Back in those days Newsweek was all about the evils of those darn lobbyists. For their part, Obama supporters at the time ballyhooed the pledges that Barack Obama had made stating that…

Before a few weeks ago, I don't recall seeing Kathleen Parker much on TV.  But tuning into Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC show this afternoon, there she was.  And when I got back from the gym and fired up my DVR of David Gregory's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?"  Yup, Parker redux.Let's see.  What might possibly explain Kathleen Parker's sudden popularity on MSNBC?  You don't suppose it could conceivably…

Ah, the land of lollipops and unicorns has descended upon us now that the savior has won the election.Perhaps with the safety of the completed election securely behind, Peter Slevin of the Washington Post did a very cutesy article covering the not-so-cutesy terrorist, Bill Ayers.Ayers was gracious enough to come out of the woodwork to offer his viewpoints on the Republicans demonizing him during…