War in Iraq Low on Obama’s Agenda; Compliant Media Move On, Too

March 4th, 2010 9:42 AM
“Despite persistent violence and a critical election coming up, President Obama hardly ever mentions the war in Iraq,” Joseph Curl reports in today’s Washington Times, and the news media are largely aiding in this neglect. Curl discloses that “the last time a White House reporter asked about the Iraq war was June 26,” while ABC, CBS and NBC aired just 80 minutes of coverage in all of 2009.The…

Newsweek's Romano: Obama 'Too Reasonable' to Pass Health Care

March 3rd, 2010 6:49 PM
Why can't President Obama get a health care bill through Congress? Nope, it has nothing to do with the fact that a clear majority of the country doesn't want the federal government overhauling seventeen percent of the economy. The problem is he is just too darn reasonable.So posits Newsweek's Andrew Romano, who notes that Obama could have gone wholesale-government-takeover on health care and a…

MSNBC Crops President Bush Out of Newsweek Cover

March 3rd, 2010 4:42 PM
UPDATE: MSNBC responds (read below).On Wednesday's Morning Joe on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough pointed out the cover of the latest edition of Newsweek magazine, which proclaimed "Victory At Last; The Emergence of A Democratic Iraq" and featured a picture of President George W. Bush walking the deck of an aircraft carrier. However, the image of Newsweek that appeared on screen cropped out President…

Newsweek Declares 'Victory At Last' In Iraq, While Team Bush Blasts Jo

March 3rd, 2010 11:55 AM
At The Corner on NRO, former Bush speechwriter Peter Wehner greeted the new "Victory at Last" Iraq cover story in Newsweek by throwing a hardball back at Iraq pessimists in the media, like Time’s Joe Klein and Tom Ricks of The Washington Post, who insisted the Iraq war was a "fiasco" and the surge was ridiculous:Those like Joe Klein and Tom Ricks, who claimed the Iraq war was "probably the…

Newsweek's Sarah Ball Cheers HuffPo Take on Obama's Smoking: It's GOP

March 2nd, 2010 12:02 PM
"Wait, What? Obama Still Smokes?!"That was the reaction of Newsweek's Sarah Ball to Navy physician Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman noting ongoing "smoking cessation efforts" by President Obama in a publicly-released memo regarding the results of Sunday's physical exam of the commander-in-chief.After going over a few takes from other media outlets about the story, Ball shared with readers of the magazine's…

Newsweek’s Darman Praises ‘Dignity’ of John Edwards Mistress Rie

February 25th, 2010 4:04 AM
In the February 22, article, "The Quiet Dignity of Rielle Hunter," Newsweek columnist Jonathan Darman praises Rielle Hunter, the mistress of John Edwards who gave birth to his baby, and suggests that her silence during the scandal has reflected favorably on her character.Mediaite’s Frances Martel points out Darman’s bizarre admiration for Hunter in the February 24, article, "Newsweek Columnist…

WaPo's Jacoby: American Coverage of Olympics 'Profoundly Anti-Intellec

February 24th, 2010 10:40 AM
It's no secret that America's going through a difficult time - sky-rocketing debt, a struggling economy, and the highest unemployment rate in two decades - but, according to Susan Jacoby, we have bigger problems. Our nation's "greatest failing" - our nation's "social disease," she says, is our patriotism.On the blog "The Spirited Atheist," which is co-hosted by the Washington Post and Newsweek,…

Newsweek Denigrates ObamaCare Opponents with Derisive 'Town Hall Face

February 22nd, 2010 10:48 AM
As my colleague Tim Graham brought to my attention this morning, Newsweek is not content to let its advocacy for ObamaCare lie in the realm of biased writing. Nope, it appears the gang at Newsweek wants to help along President Obama by lampooning earnest Americans who expressed their displeasure last year at town hall meetings.Why Newsweek chose now to roll out its photo gallery on "The Town Hall…

Newsweek's Pushy Poll: People Oppose ObamaCare, Until We Badger Them t

February 22nd, 2010 8:04 AM
On Monday, Newsweek’s website featured a strange headline. "Poll: Most Favor Health Care." It would be interesting to find out who opposes health care. (It's like a headline that says "Most Favor Food.") The headline wasn’t just strange, it was misleading: it suggested the Democrats’ proposals were favored by most. That’s not what they found. Newsweek took an Obama-defending poll. Here was the…

Maddow Shows Newsweek's Adler Reading Anti-Filibuster Poem

February 20th, 2010 9:37 AM
On Friday’s Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Newsweek contributor Jerry Adler was shown reciting a poem in which he lamented all the agenda items that are unpassable because of the Senate filibuster rule that gives Republicans the power to block action by the Democratic majority. Host Maddow set up the clip: "Every week, Jerry Adler turns a story from the news into a verse for Newsweek. So now,…

Newsweek Links Stack to ‘Right Wing Terror,’ Inexplicably Mentions

February 19th, 2010 3:29 PM
On Thursday, Newsweek's politics blog The Gaggle shamefully linked Austin kamikaze pilot Joseph Stack to a laundry list of right-wing stereotypes, and then, just for good measure, threw in a warning about death threats against President Obama.Writer David Graham made one passing mention about liberal elements found in Stack's manifesto before launching into a full-blown effort to blame it all on…

Newsweek: Chinese Oppression Good For Tibet

February 18th, 2010 1:33 PM
In a February 17 online article entitled "Charity Case," Newsweek's Issac Stone Fish declared: "Whether they like it or not, China has been very good for Tibetans." Fish's outrageous claim came on the eve of President Obama's Thursday meeting with Tibet's religious leader, the Dalai Lama. While Fish noted how: "Tibetans feel chafed by the restrictions on their political and religious freedoms;…

Newsweek Asserts 'Terror Begins At Home' -- With the Republicans

February 17th, 2010 1:07 PM
Newsweek’s latest issue features an article by managing editor Daniel Klaidman that blatantly associates Republican criticism of the Obama administration with terrorism. Its title in the table of contents is "Terror Begins at Home: The GOP’s Scare Tactics." Inside the magazine, the headline is "Terror Begins at Home: Fearmongering Politicians Are Scoring Cheap Political Points at the Expense of…

Newsweek's Alter Buys What Bayh's Selling at Face Value; Insists India

February 16th, 2010 3:26 PM
If there was an award for the journalist least skeptical of the official reason Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) has given for his decision to retire rather than seek reelection in November, I'd nominate Jonathan Alter for it.A crusty veteran of political reporting, Alter most certainly can't be this gullible: