Tag Archives: benen

Fox News Really Needs to Up Its Push-Polling Game

by NorrisClunie Posted on May 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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Steve Benen alerts us to the latest ridiculously-worded question in a Fox News poll:

In the aftermath of the Benghazi terrorist attacks, the Obama administration incorrectly claimed it was a spontaneous assault in response to an online video, even though the administration had intelligence reports that the attacks were connected to terrorist groups tied to al Qaeda. Do you think the Obama administration knowingly lied about the attacks to help the president during the ongoing re-election campaign, or not?

I’m not even going to bother pointing out all the ways in which this is wrong. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while and you still don’t know, then I’ve failed utterly.1

But here’s the funniest part: as Benen points out, the question Fox asked is roughly like saying “The administration totally lied. Do you think the administration knowingly lied?” And even so, Fox could only muster 51 percent agreement. Try harder, guys.

1Oh, all right. Here are the facts yet again: (a) Benghazi was an opportunistic assault, carried out with no more than a few hours of planning. (b) Reporting on the ground confirms that the video did, in fact, play a role in provoking some of the attackers. (c) Neither Susan Rice nor anyone else denied that Al Qaeda-affiliated groups were responsible. In the first few days after the attack they said only that we didn’t know yet. (d) In any case, Ansar al-Shariah is primarily a local group with local grievances, and is only tenuously affiliated with Al Qaeda. Abu Khattala, who also led some of the attackers, had no ties to Al Qaeda at all.

Originally from – 

Fox News Really Needs to Up Its Push-Polling Game

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Chart of the Day: Republicans Rule Sunday Morning

by Charline46P Posted on December 31, 2013

Mother Jones

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Steve Benen has once again tallied up all the guests on the five major Sunday morning chat shows, and as usual, Republicans rule the roost. The chart below shows everyone with 10 or more appearances, and 77 percent of them are Republicans:

This really is a bit of mystery. It’s easy to go on about how the beltway media is obsessed with Republicans no matter who’s in charge, yada yada yada, but that’s not really a satisfying explanation. Nor is it because one side happens to have more charismatic leaders than the other: it’s true that neither Harry Reid nor Nancy Pelosi are on this list, but neither are John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. So what explains it? Are Republicans more aggressive than Democrats about getting themselves booked? Are Democrats more boring than Republicans? Do Republicans get better ratings? Is theatrical intransigence just fundamentally better TV?

Seriously, what’s the deal? “Reporters love Republicans” just doesn’t cut it. So what’s up?

Originally posted here: 

Chart of the Day: Republicans Rule Sunday Morning

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Presidential Schmoozing Isn’t Just For Republicans

by Diana A. Kincaid Posted on December 23, 2013

Mother Jones

Sen. Joe Manchin lamented on Sunday that President Obama doesn’t schmooze enough.“It’s just hard to say no to a friend,” he told Candy Crowley on CNN’s State of the Union. Steve Benen is unimpressed:

Obama has gone further any modern president in bringing members of the opposing party into his cabinet….incorporating ideas from the opposing party’s agenda into his own policy plans….Obama invited several GOP lawmakers to the White House for a private screening with the stars of the movie “Lincoln.”….How many of the invited Republicans accepted the invitation? None….Obama has hosted casual “get-to-know-you” gatherings; he’s taken Republicans out to dinner on his dime; he’s taken House Speaker Boehner out golfing; and he’s held Super Bowl and March Madness parties at the White House for lawmakers.

In general, I’m on Benen’s side here. I think he probably overstates just how hard Obama has tried to be sociable, but in the end, I don’t think it mattered. It’s been a matter of settled public record for a long time that Republicans were dedicated to forming a united front of obstruction from the day Obama took office, and nothing he did was going to change that.

But in fairness, Manchin says in this interview that he’s talking mostly about his fellow Democrats here. And this is an area where Obama’s style probably has hurt him a bit. It hasn’t hurt him a lot—ideology, self-interest, and political survival will always count for a lot more—but I imagine that Democrats in Congress would be willing to back Obama more strongly if they felt a personal connection with him. Most of them don’t, and this has produced a more fractured party with less enthusiasm for backing difficult policies. Obamacare is probably a good example. Right now, when it’s having so many birthing pains, is precisely when you want Democrats coming to its defense most passionately. That’s a tough sell for obvious reasons, but I imagine that more of them would be stepping up if they felt that they owed it to their party leader. Ditto for other difficult policies, like the U-turn on Syria, the negotiations with Iran, and some of the pseudo-scandals of the past year. Strong relationships wouldn’t have turned night into day on these issues, but I’ll bet it would have helped.

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Presidential Schmoozing Isn’t Just For Republicans

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