Dan Balz

Liberal Democrats in the past few weeks have been pounding the message that massive infusions of "secret" money into independently-run political advertising have a detrimental effect on Democrats democracy. The media have done their level best to amplify that complaint. But is knowing the identity of political advertising donors really a huge issue to swing voters? By and large, no,…

The Washington Post doesn't avoid the bad news for Democrats on Tuesday's front page, but it noticeably tried to hide the worst of it. The headline on the new ABC/Post poll was "Republicans making gains ahead of midterm elections; parties nearly even on trust; Obama's overall rating is at new low, poll finds." There is no graphic illustration of any poll result -- unlike their misleading GOP-…

In today's Washington Post, Dan Balz argues that the "Florida Senate race starts without a clear favorite." While that may be true in some sense, recent polling data has some favorable signs for conservative Republican candidate Marco Rubio.Yet nowhere in his 20-paragraph story did Balz delve into those poll numbers. Instead, Balz presented the Florida race as complete wild card that is…

Analysts that spend their time critiquing the media normally don't have very good things to say about what they observe these days, but the final segment of Sunday's "Face the Nation" on CBS was a marvelous exception.Substitute host John Dickerson invited on the network's chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford and the Washington Post's Dan Balz for a refreshingly open and honest discussion of two…

The Washington Post announced bad news for its largely liberal readers in its poll Tuesday morning. The headline said "6 in 10 Americans lack faith in Obama: Congress still held in lower esteem, but poll shows gap narrowing." Those who read the story would wait until the end of paragraph six (just before the jump) to get this liberal-haunting number: "Those most likely to vote in the midterms…

This afternoon, the Washington Post's Web site offers readers two looks at how the Democrats and the GOP will proceed following the 2009 elections, but, surprise, surprise, the paper only forsees internecine squabbles for the GOP."Republicans revel in wins but ideological fissures loom," the headline to Washington Post staffer Philip Rucker and Perry Bacon's news piece filed at 2:30 p.m. EST…

The Washington Post touted a new poll on Tuesday that popular support is increasing for a government-run "public option" health care system – just as liberal Democrats try to push that into the Senate Finance Committee bill. The headline was "Public option gains support: Clear majority now backs plan." So it’s not surprising, as Ed Morrissey found at Hot Air, that the Post is stuffing its poll…

On Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer talked to Washington Post reporter Dan Balz about Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama and Balz argued: "Well I think it's obviously significant. I don't think endorsements ultimately mean that much, but there are two, I think, important things that happened with his endorsement of Senator Obama...the criticism of McCain for picking…

Employing the usual liberal assumption that Republicans are always nastier at attack politics, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer suggested on Sunday morning that Barack Obama has yet to "go negative" in this campaign and "some" say he needs to "climb off the mountaintop and get down here and mix it up." Did he miss all Obama's talk of Bush-induced "economic disaster" on Saturday? But then…

Here's something you don't see every day: an Associated Press writer actually publishing something negative about a Democrat...let alone one named Obama.But, there it was Saturday, with a headline even more curious: "Analysis: Biden Pick Shows Lack of Confidence." The Obamessiah lacks confidence? Such wrote Ron Fournier (emphasis added, photo courtesy AP):