The Kicker

In response to our Kicker post about Jon Stewart’s satirical analysis of the ABC debate—and to our general frustration with the questions asked of candidates during that debate—reader Mark Richard makes some interesting points: I’m sorry, but the only people complaining about the ABC debate are transparently Obama supporters upset because he is finally getting […]

Leave it to Jon Stewart to condense Fight Night’s frustrations into a neat little nutshell. After airing the debate-specific-but-Daily Show-obligatory Montage of Media Madness last night, the faux-anchor added a bit of commentary: The first hour of last night’s debate was a sixty-minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues […]

That’s the number of comments posted to ABC News’s Web site in response to the outlet’s article about Wednesday night’s debate, as of 8:32 this morning. The latest two comments posted are telling, variety-wise: Hurray for ABC! Finally someone has asked the questions I wanted Obama to answer! He seemed to have lost a little […]

About last night: David Brooks, for one, thought “the questions were excellent” and gives ABC an “A,” Clinton a “B” and Obama a “D+” for the debate.

If you’re hoping to quell any grumbling about revolving doors (and I’m not including myself in that grumbling) or if you’re hoping that viewers won’t recall that you — ABC Newsman and moderator of last night’s debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton –once worked in the Bill Clinton White House, then this is probably […]

Here’s a choice bit from Tom Shales’ Washington Post review of last night’s ABC-sponsored Democratic debate, headlined, “In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC:” [A]nother step downward for network news — in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, […]

Per Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, moments after the ABC-sponsored Democratic debate concluded just now. Maybe Olbermann’s just peeved that ABC is restricting his use of clips? Actually, Olbermann’s characterization sounds about right to me. It was pretty much all gotcha or gaffe from debate moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos for the first hour. Put […]

Paul Waldman writes in The American Prospect: [Tim] Russert and [Chris] Matthews may be at the top of their profession’s hierarchy, but their proletarian pose has become the standard affectation of the media elite… And: The contempt for the eggheads and latte-sippers may be offered with an angry sneer from the likes of [Bill] O’Reilly […]

ABC, the sponsor of tonight’s Democratic presidential debate, is circulating usage guidelines stating that ( per the New York Times) “other news organizations are only allowed to excerpt half a minute from the broadcast…That means choosing only one 30-second clip to use on television and the Web between 11 p.m. Wednesday and 5 a.m. Thursday.” […]

What, no siren? No banner headline on Drudge linking to the New York Observer story today about “fake news” in which this tantalizing (I Rule!) bait beckons, courtesy of an unnamed political reporter? (Maybe it’s old hat to Drudge by now.) The gist of the Observer piece is this: Several reporters and editors say they’re […]

Yesterday I wrote about how McCain seemed to go way out of his way in a speech Monday to flatter a press corps that he has already more than made nice with. The buttering up, apparently, continues. Not only does McCain respect reporters, understand reporters, sympathize with reporters and BBQ for reporters, he also accessorizes […]

Obligatory quote from Stephen Colbert’s interview with Michelle Obama last night. Wherein Colbert let the (campaign press) cat out of the bag: Colbert: Are you ready to fight this thing out all the way to the convention? Michelle Obama: “I am hopeful that this is going to be over before the convention… Colbert: Those of […]

I’m ecstatic to be proven wrong. Bilal Hussein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Iraqi Associated Press photographer who was detained by U.S. forces in April 2006 will be set free tomorrow. Last week, after a prolonged detention and a series of opaque judicial proceedings, an Iraqi court dismissed the charges, citing what the AP then described as […]