David Brooks: GOP Senator Had Hand On My Thigh During Dinner

July 11th, 2009 12:13 AM
In today's "That's WAY Too Much Information" segment, New York Times columnist David Brooks claims that while he was dining with a Republican senator, the guy had his hand on Brooks's inner thigh the whole time.Now, isn't that special?Requiring no further setup, the following REALLY strange discussion occurred on MSNBC Friday (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

Media, Obama Gearing Up for 'Stimulus, The Sequel

July 8th, 2009 3:46 PM
"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" That's a saying once bungled by President George W. Bush, to the loud delight of the liberal media. But that same media should keep it in mind as Washington mulls a second round of stimulus spending. A July 7 Bloomberg story by Shamim Adam reported that Laura Tyson, an economic advisor to the Obama administration, had put forward the…

Second-Guessed: CNBC's Harwood Suggests Tax Cuts May Have Been More St

July 6th, 2009 5:51 PM
Question for CNBC Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood: Where were you six-and-a-half months ago? Harwood on CNBC's July 6 "Squawk Box" noted that the stimulus was not working quite as well as the Obama Administration had hoped - this coming in the wake of comments from Vice President Joe Biden that the economy was "misread" by the administration. The difficulty with the stimulus, he…

NYT Column On ‘Obama Haters’ Goes Too Far, Even For MSNBC

June 19th, 2009 3:57 PM
Reacting to a New York Times column in which Frank Rich claimed Fox News was responsible for violent acts like the murder of abortionist George Tiller or the Holocaust Museum shooting, on MSNBC on Friday, John Harwood remarked: "I love Frank's columns, but I don't believe that cable television causes people to become violent."Harwood, who is a reporter for the Times as well as the co-host of a…

Morning Show Anchors Marvel At Obama's Fly Swat

June 17th, 2009 11:32 AM
The common, everyday act of swatting a bug is something that happens countless times a day at picnics and ball games across the country, especially during the summer, but when Barack Obama was caught on tape by CNBC's cameras doing it, the fawning liberal press couldn't contain their excitement. All three broadcast network morning shows, on Wednesday, praised the presidential kill as they were…

Obama Blasts Fox News: 'I've Got One Television Station that is Entire

June 16th, 2009 10:31 PM
You can't be loved and adored by everybody, but if you're President Barack Obama and it concerns the media, you can come awfully close.  In an interview on CNBC's June 16 "Closing Bell" with the network Washington correspondent John Harwood, Obama reflected on the media coverage he has received to date. Harwood asked the president to respond to the claim that lack of media criticism has allowed…

Obama Swatting Fly A ‘Dirty Harry Make-My-Day Moment

June 16th, 2009 5:46 PM
During a CNBC interview, New York Times reporter John Harwood shared an intense moment with President Obama: "He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him during the interview...he swatted his hand and he said ‘I got the sucker’...it was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment."Harwood described the showdown at the end of the 4PM ET hour on MSNBC, after anchor David Shuster…

The NY Times Finds New Way to Insult Ronald Reagan: As a Big Spender

June 16th, 2009 5:05 PM
In John Harwood's Sunday Week in Review piece, "Rethinking The Reagan Mystique," he claimed Republicans are rejecting Ronald Reagan as a political inspiration and urging their party to look forward. He probably overstates the case. However, Harwood does come up with a novel insult of Reagan: The man the media labeled a heartless budget-cutter was actually a runaway spender in disguise!For a…

MSNBC's Brewer: GOP Should Abandon ‘Morals and Values

June 15th, 2009 4:38 PM
On Monday, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer offered some advice to Republicans: "Until they change policies – I mean, that's what it took for conservatives in Great Britain to win – is a real change in focus away from morals and values into things that affect people's daily lives.’Brewer made the comment during the 2PM ET hour while discussing the future of the GOP with New York Times reporter John…

NYT's Stolberg: Obama's 'Trying to Bring People Together' as GOP Fight

June 3rd, 2009 6:30 PM
It was a liberal-fest on MSNBC's weekly "New York Times Special Edition on MSNBC" show, hosted last Friday by John Harwood and Norah O'Donnell and featuring a rotating gaggle of Times reporters, both in studio and on location. To preface a discussion about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor about 20 minutes into the show, host Harwood (who also writes for the Times) broadcast a clip of former…

NYT Says Don't Worry, Dems -- Pelosi Under No 'Serious Threat' on Wate

May 18th, 2009 4:15 PM
After burying the story on page A18 Friday, the New York Times finally put the Nancy Pelosi-C.I.A. controversy on the front page Saturday. Yet congressional reporter Carl Hulse made excuses for House Speaker Pelosi, who accused the CIA of deliberately misleading her in 2002 about waterboarding. Hulse glossed over the multiple contradictory accounts Pelosi has delivered of what she knew about…

Media Talk Up Pot Legalization as Possible Answer to Bad Economy

April 22nd, 2009 8:07 PM
The economy is already in rough shape, but some think we should let it go to pot - literally. Pro-legalization advocacy groups are promoting the possibility that legalizing marijuana could provide some economic relief, and the media has eagerly explored the idea. On April 20, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) aired TV ads calling for marijuana legalization. They…

Debunking the Stimulus Myth: Only 3% Allotted for Road, Bridge Spendin

January 23rd, 2009 8:17 PM
You've heard it here, there and everywhere in the news media - the time is now for a big-government economic stimulus package, not only to revive the economy, but to salvage America's crumbling infrastructure. That's one of the selling points used over and over again by pundits, as they are paraded out repeatedly on broadcast and cable network news programs - that so-called "shovel-ready"…

NYT on Medicare: Obama's Benign 'Overhaul' vs. GOP's Scary 'Big Cuts

January 8th, 2009 4:35 PM
With a liberal Democrat coming to power, the New York Times has evidently gotten over the false fear of "big cuts" in Medicare it displayed when Republicans tried to trim the program back in 1995. Thursday's lead story by Jeff Zeleny and John Harwood, "Obama Promises Bid To Overhaul Retiree Spending," characterized the president-elect's stated willingness to tackle huge entitlement programs…