Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball last week giggled with guests Alex Wagner of Politics Daily and Richard Wolffe as they tried to convince viewers that Christine O’Donnell is a “cute” candidate but her “claim to fame is ‘I don’t know nuthin’.’” Matthew’s remarked on O’Donnell’s “cuteness” and appeal and in the same breath called her a “deadbeat.”  Amazing that an attack ad against O’Donnell can bring Matthews to the conclusion that O’Donnell is a “deadbeat” but Geithner is a person who we can thank for “saving” the economy.

Matthews continues to patronizingly call O’Donnell “irresistibly cute” and that her mannerisms are “attractive as hell” but is quick to remind his audience that she is brainless.  What’s degrading to women in politics is not so much that Matthews calls her cute or finds her attractive, but it’s that he tries to fit her in the “brainless beauty box.” For example, he mentions how Sarah Palin is the same way. Incredibly, Matthews can’t seem to name any “cute” conservative women in politics that he also believes are intelligent. (more…)

Another viral video broke this morning on Big Government, in this video, two students working on a project see Congressman Etheridge leaving a Nancy Pelosi fundraiser. As the Congressman approaches them, one student (who was holding a video camera) asked Etheridge if he supported the Obama agenda.

When you watch the video you see:

• Etheridge approached them. The student with the camera was recoding from the time one student said hello, and did not move until the congressman swung at him.
• The two students were polite throughout the entire incident.
• The question asked was not pro-Obama or anti-Obama, it was simply “Do you fully support the Obama agenda?”

Now look at the coverage. This is from the Charlotte Observer:

U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat, was leaving a fundraiser in Washington headlined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when two guys with video cameras met him, according to a blog post on Big Government, a site affiliated with conservative commentator and publisher Andrew Breitbart.

The message of that last phrase is since it was published by a website owned by Andrew Breitbart, who is one of those crazy conservatives, it’s not to be trusted. Unless Breitbart is hiding somewhere behind the camera, he had no involvement in making the film.  Additionally, as someone who has written for both Big Government and Big Journalism, the editors of the sites get the posts edit and decide which posts go up and when.  And while I am sure that Andrew puts my posts on his refrigerator each time they appear, as the head man, Breitbart is in charge of general direction; his is the “face” of the sites, etc, like the head of any business. There was no reason to include him in the story in a cheap attempt at guilt (?) by association.

(more…)

Should the National Enquirer get the Pulitzer Prize for its multi-year investigation of the John Edwards affair, scandal and cover-up? That’s a question that’s been asked lately: in some cases, at the same Mainstream Media papers which participated in the news blackout of the Enquirer’s Edwards’ coverage.

Edwards, who had been Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, was one of the front-runners at the time the Enquirer broke the second installment of the story on December 18, 2007.

The Enquirer released an abundance of easily-verifiable information at that time: Rielle Hunter, a former Edwards campaign worker, was pregnant with what the Enquirer reported was Edwards’ love child; she had been moved within five miles of the Edwards campaign headquarters in Chapel Hill, NC; Hunter was living an exclusive gated community, a few houses down the street from Edwards’ former Director of Finance, Andrew Young; and, she was driving around in a BMW registered to Young.  Add all this to the fact that information about Hunter had disappeared from the Internet and other publicly-searchable databases and the MSM was handed a great story. (more…)