Douglas Brinkley

Jeffrey Fleishman, arts and film writer for the Los Angeles Times and its former Cairo bureau chief, waxed insufferably eloquent about the departing President Obama’s oratorical skills in a pandering panegyric: "Obama’s legislative legacy may be in jeopardy from President-elect Donald Trump, but the grace of his prose will endure....His sentences soothed and stung, coaxed and challenged, drawing…

CNN was off the wall prior to President Obama’s farewell address as OutFront host Erin Burnett lauded “an emotional night” for the President’s most ardent supporters while an former Obama administration official compared him to Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope when he was struck down by Darth Vader. 

Appearing as a panel member on Tuesday's CNN Tonight, CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley repeated as if were fact the claim that Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1980 pressed the Iranian government to delay the release of the Americans held hostage to hurt President Jimmy Carter's reelection chances. Neither host Don Lemon nor fellow CNN presidential historian Timothy Naftali noted that a…

In the introduction for CNN’s book Unprecedented, CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley fawned over Hillary Clinton as “an avenging Joan of Arc” with an “appearance of elitism” losing to “a P.T. Barnumesque lead figure in Trump.” Brinkley also had plenty of scorn for Trump and praise for Bernie Sanders, spinning that Sanders “rose above the temptation to join Republicans in calling into…

CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley was at it again on Thursday’s CNN Tonight spinning for liberals as he aired his discomfort with discussing the WikiLeaks e-mail dumps from John Podesta’s account since it was “an illegal one” but brushed them aside as not “really that damning” because “a lot of voters have been hearing about Hillary Clinton's e-mails and servers and WikiLeaks for a year…

Appearing as a guest on Friday's Wolf show, liberal CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley tagged Donald Trump as the "kingpin" of "dog whistles and innuendo about race," charging that the GOP presidential candidate is "looking for racist votes." He also worked in a dig at Richard Nixon as he accused the former Republican President of campaigning on the term "law and order" as a "clever way…

On Tuesday's CNN Newsroom, Douglas Brinkley predictably gushed over President Obama's speech at a memorial service for the murdered police officers in Dallas, Texas: "I heard echoes of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. It was elegantly written. It pulled on scripture at the right times." Brinkley also touted the "high caliber" of the address, and likened it to President Reagan's Oval…

In an election that’s presented numerous moments where people from the across the political spectrum found themselves on the same side, Tuesday’s CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall featured another strange dichotomy as liberal historian Douglas Brinkley oozed praise for Donald Trump over his handling of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski facing criminal charges. 

On Wednesday, CNN quickly ran to label President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, as a "moderate" and a "consensus candidate." Jake Tapper contended that "this seems like a fairly-establishment, moderate pick." Pamela Brown first responded by underlining that there's "no doubt about it;" but moments later, she revealed that Judge Garland "may carry on Obama's legacy when it comes…

Appearing as a guest on Sunday's Reliable Sources, CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley claimed that President Ronald Reagan "used to fabricate stories," and alluded to a story about the Holocaust as an example. After fellow guest James Fallows of The Atlantic recalled possible holes in stories told by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, lamenting that voters do not seem to care,…

CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin took part in the network’s post-Republican debate panel Saturday night and used the occasion to lecture the GOP candidates for all having “bad moments” in “a raucous screamfest” and rallied to the defense of Chief Justice John Roberts to lament the direction of the party he doesn’t even belong to. Further, liberal CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley…

On Wednesday's CNN Tonight, longtime Obama admirer Douglas Brinkley trumpeted the President's speech earlier in the day at the Illinois State Capitol: "Barack Obama is really preaching the gospel of civility right after Donald Trump won New Hampshire. There's a contrast of styles between Trump and the President there. I thought that it was a historical moment for the President — a journey down…

Moments before the start of Thursday evenings CNN town hall forum on guns, liberal presidential historian Douglas Brinkley forecast that President Obama would take the proverbial stage seeking to be a "minister" to grieving families who lost loved ones to "gun violence." For the term-limited president, it is a "yes, we can moment" as he winds down his president, Brinkley offered.

On Thursday, CNN's John Berman took aim at a claim by President Obama moments after he announced that thousands of American troops would remain in Afghanistan. Berman highlighted that the President "did make clear he is not a president who has ever supported endless war," but continued that "if Afghanistan, at this point, is not an endless war, I'm not sure what is." Liberal historian Douglas…