The Kicker

Forget Is America Ready for a Black President? Or Is America Ready for a Female President? Have you stopped to consider: Is America Ready for a Black First Lady? There are some who think it will be harder for America to accept a black first lady — the national hostess who serenely presides over the […]

We know journalists love lists. But does a Clinton Grudge List exist? Depends, I guess, on what your definition of “exist” is. There are pen-and-pad lists. Table-like lists maintained in Excel spreadsheets. And then there are lists that are “less formal documents than spoken diatribes, with offenders’ names spit forth in rants, gripe sessions and […]

“Report: [Maureen] Dowd repeatedly uses gender to mock Democrats.” Um, yeah! Did we need a “report” to know that? I mean, if this is news to you, clearly you haven’t been taking your Times like a man every morning (or every Wednesday and Sunday mornings, at least). Where have you been? Off lactating somewhere or […]

Any media critic haunted by a feeling they are forever writing the equivalent of You hurt America. Don’t do it again… or else! can understand Ezra Klein’s celebration of what he sees as actual “consequences” visited upon the press for a job not well done. To Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s and ABC News’s offer to host […]

“Entertain.” Asked to give some “tough love” to Web-wary magazine editors assembled at a recent conference, MarketWatch‘s Jon Friedman came up with “8 simple rules to ensure success on the Internet” (really bringing down the hammer on his audience with rules like “Have an attitude”). As the first person to comment online on Friedman’s Rules […]

To one reporter, “the fist bump heard ’round the world” exchanged by Barack and Michelle Obama last Tuesday evening “was a tiny gesture so cool, so tight, so loving and so right, that it seemed to encapsulate both the satisfaction of the moment and the new cultural trajectory of American politics.” To another, it was…. […]

“Lies are the new facts.” So says Gina Gershon, the actress who has been seeking a retraction from Vanity Fair for the following sentence in Todd Purdum’s now-infamous “hatchet job” on Bill Clinton. [A]ides have winced at…high-end Hollywood dinner-party gossip that Clinton has been seen visiting with the actress Gina Gershon in California. Lies? It’s […]

The Times of London has an intriguing photo slideshow on its Web site right now headlined, “Environmental Photographer of the Year.” Despite the singular tense, it’s actually a collection of fourteen photographs from various artists. Some are beautiful, some poignant, but needless to say, they’re all exceptional. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, […]

It’s a sorry state of affairs on cable news, indeed. Chris Matthews…David Shuster…Liz Trotta… …And on MSNBC just now, an uncomfortable-looking Andrea Mitchell became the latest cable news campaign reporter/commentator to apologize on-air for “something stupid” she said (her use on Friday of the word “redneck” to describe Bristol, Virginia and environs). Mitchell said today […]

So, What Happened, really (as it applies to both Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination and to the White House press corps’ post- 9/11 job performance)? Of Clinton’s campaign, on the New York Times‘ op-ed page, former Republican governor of New Jersey and former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman observes: “[I]t’s clear that voters […]

“It is possible,” writes the New York Times‘ Guy Trebay in yesterday’s Sunday Styles, “at a time when campaign images are scrutinized by media sibyls as ardently as the entrails of birds were read by the ancients, to read too much into Michelle Obama’s grooming and wardrobe.” To be sure, as they say. But let’s […]

As we were saying, it’s been a hell of a primary season but now it’s time to get serious. John McCain’s teeth are, apparently, too yellow; “gross,” gripes Kos (get that guy a chair at the cable pundits’ table). On the other hand, if Barack Obama’s teeth are at all yellow (ex-smoker and all), it […]

To what extent is reporting on an unsubstantiated rumor simply spreading that rumor? There have been, recently, insinuations circulating around the internet and cable news shows alleging video footage of Michelle Obama’s use of a derogatory term about white people. As Politico’s Ben Smith—and others—have reported, there is absolutely no evidence supporting the video’s existence. […]

With the apparent end, this Saturday, of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency, the “was the media treatment of Clinton sexist?” question—already the subject of much discussion, as Liz pointed out last month—will (and, by the way, should) continue. And on last night’s Daily Show, “Senior Women’s Issues Commentator” Kristen Schaal put her own satirical […]