FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The Financial Times‘ Edward Luce (2/3/10) had a report last week that blamed some of the Obama administration’s problems on the president’s overreliance on four top advisers—particularly chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who “in addition to hurling frequent profanities at people within the administration…has alienated many of Mr Obama’s closest outside supporters.” More illuminating than […]
Blogger Matthew Yglesias (2/9/10), responding to a Des Moines Register poll that found “a third of Iowans from across the political spectrum say they support the ‘tea party’ movement, sounding a loud chorus of dissatisfaction with government”: Thirty-eight percent of Americans have a favorable view of Cuba and 36 percent are favorably disposed toward socialism, […]
Here’s a classic example of how the conservative media smear machine works. In a video less than four minutes long, Rep. Barney Frank describes how the Wall Street Journal‘s John Fund lied about him, how that lie was amplified by the right’s media echo chamber, and how, when he called Fund on the lie, Fund […]
“I miss John McCain,” writes the Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank today (2/5/10). Milbank calls himself “an original McCainiac”–by which he means that he, like so many others in the corporate media, adored the so-called “maverick”John McCain of the 2000 presidential campaign. As we’ve pointed out plenty of times before, McCain’s Senate record has staunchly conservative […]
The Washington Post‘s Eli Saslow (2/3/10) on Obama: He is a rare president who comes from the middle class, yet people still perceive him as disconnected from it. It’s true that very few presidents come from the middle class—except for Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, […]
AP‘s Calvin Woodward, who has the standing assignment of “factchecking” political speeches, continues to be an embarrassment to genuine factcheckers everywhere–substituting his own weird value judgments, semantic games and crystal-ball gazing for genuine examination of facts (FAIR Blog, 10/30/08, 2/25/09, 4/30/09). In his post–State of the Union effort (1/27/10), he singles out Barack Obama’s call […]
The New York Times, which we had criticized (FAIR Blog, 1/12/10, 1/13/10) for ignoring insurgent candidate Jonathan Tasini in its coverage of the New York Senate race, ran a substantial piece about his candidacy today (1/27/10). While the piece, by N.R. Kleinfield, had a somewhat wry tone as it stressed the “long shot” nature of […]
An interesting catch from Think Progress (1/26/10)–from an interview conducted last year by Fox News‘ Chris Wallace (9/27/09) with pretend pimp James O’Keefe: WALLACE: O’Keefe says he wants to do more undercover films, and he has some targets in mind. He says his friends always tell him the next sting will never work. O’KEEFE: I […]
I agree with much of what Timothy Egan has to say in his recent New York Times blog post (1/20/10), but I’m tired of hearing this: Democrats have to govern in a country that is essentially center-right. What does that even mean? To the right of the center of what? It’s like saying that all […]
digby (1/19/10) spotted a telling moment on the Ed Show (MSNBC, 1/19/10), when host Ed Schultz asked Politico‘s Mike Allen “what’s the next move for progressives” if the Democrat lost in the Massachusetts Senate race. Allen’s response: I would remind you that when Republicans started to eat each other up, we talked about how it […]
It’s striking how the coverage of the Republicans’ gaining a 41st vote in the Senate accepts without question the idea that there is nothing unusual or objectionable about a majority party needing 60 votes to pass any legislation there. This normalization of the filibuster, as I wrote in the December 2009 issue of Extra!, amounts […]
The New York Times ran a front-page story (1/11/10) on the race for the Senate seat held by New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand that omits mention of the sole Democratic candidate running a serious campaign against her. Jonathan Tasini (who garnered 125,000 votes in a bid for the seat against Hillary Clinton in 2006) declared […]
The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is getting attention for one rather unusual finding: that the right-wing Tea Party movement is more popular than either the Democratic or Republican parties. The point was made on MSNBC‘s First Read website and on the channel’s Morning Joe program this morning (12/17/09). Don’t buy it. The MSNBC headline– […]
We’ve noted the corporate media’s double standard on Nazi analogies: When conservatives are compared to the Third Reich, however obscurely, it’s an outrageous slur, but when leaders of the right charge progressives with Hitler-like tendencies, it’s unremarkable political rhetoric. Political Animal‘s Steve Benen (12/8/09) rounds up some similar examples of criticisms that are outrageous when […]
Today’s Los Angeles Times (12/7/09) gives us a story headlined “The Fight’s Back in John McCain.” In the subhead we learn that McCain is “Bipartisan No More, Especially on Healthcare.” The Timestells us that “the Mac is back” because he’s sounding an awful lot like a Republican politician: “Gone is the maverick bridge-builder who bucked […]
A meeting of the minds between NBC host Chris Matthews and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (Chris Matthews Show, 11/29/09): IGNATIUS: The long period of analysis, very deliberative, robs this of passion. This is–he was going to be a wartime president now, and he has to sell the country on the idea that our young […]
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham’s enthusiasm for Dick Cheney is not a new thing. Appearing on MSNBC back in 2004, Meacham praised the Republican National Convention speeches of Cheney and Sen. Zell Miller: If I taught at the Kennedy School, I would take these two speeches as ur-text of partisan rhetoric. I think it was a […]
Newsweek‘s editor apparently believes this is the way to make a “provocative” argument: I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in […]
Sarah Palin’s highly anticipated visit to Fox News Channel‘s O’Reilly Factor saw the famously tough-as-nails host ask the tough questions of the right-wing leader: O’REILLY: OK. The latest poll has you with a 23 percent favorable, 37 percent don’t know. You do the math, OK. And you’re up at 60 percent of people who could […]
From ABC World News, 11/11/09: CHARLIE GIBSON: We understand he’s raising new questions about a number of plans that are in front of him. What new questions are there to be asked after all this time? MARTHA RADDATZ: Well, you would think he’d be through with the questions, Charlie. Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times (11/15/09): […]
