Hm, more evidence that I am really not missing anything for not having cable. I am totally immune to all television pundit bloviation. I simply never see it (except on an occasional Sunday morning). For the most part, I get all of my broadcast news from NPR, so if folks on CNN or MSNBC are making fools of themselves, it is nothing to me.

That said, the above does rather make me wonder - is MSNBC really as over-the-top as all that? I am not asking this rhetorically; I sincerely do not know. Could somebody give me examples of why MSNBC is understood by some here to be especially pro-Obama?

Michael and Liam, get a grip. Obama is clearly the beneficiary of biased press coverage. The only question here is why anyone would single out MSNBC for something that's almost across the board endemic. The media hates Hillary.

The media hates Hillary.

I think that is probably a fair statement. Strangely, this appears to count as a mark in her favor among many of her supporters for reasons that totally elude me.

Greg, your implicit assumptions in this post and the one linked are that Hillary outperformed expectations. I would suggest that's never a good way of looking at these things.

I really don't think enough people watch MSNBC for it to have much of an effect either way. I mean, you criticize someone for saying Bill hurt Hillary, but then you suggest one cable news network's endorsement coverage made a difference?

Why don't you watch CNN if you don't like MSNBC's coverage? Although I was in the car at the beginning of the night, and NPR called about 5 states that CNN didn't call until almost a full hour later. Plus, MSNBC has Keith Olbermann.

Here's a thought: Maybe MSNBC's viewership is more pro-Obama, and they are pandering. Obama's voter demographics suggest that they would be a pretty desirable audience to advertisers. Doesn't he usually win among younger and more educated primary voters?

I do think the overall coverage, not just MSNBC, does enable Hillary's camp to put out the storyline that Obama is somehow showy but not substantive, which is not true, but many voters may get that impression and not dig deeply enough to find out that it's false.

Barak Hussein is claiming victory just like his cousin in Kenya did in their elction a couple of weeks ago.

May be he should run for president of Kenya.

Barak Hussein is claiming victory just like his cousin did in election in Kenya even though both didn't get majority.
He should run for president of Kenya

Greg, this is about the dumbest thing I've ever read. There is zero empirical evidence for you claim. Don't you normally complain about pundits making claims they can't possibly support?

The time for talk about expectations and whatnot is over. That might have mattered in Iowa and NH but by NV and SC talk about "momentum" and whatnot is just Media wankery.

With Just two candidates in the race, there is no reason for anyone to vote "strategically" No voter is going to switch from Obama to Hillary because Hillary is has "momentum".

Furthermore, the idea that Obama could be harmed by people praising him is utterly Absurd.

I do think Chris Matthews did help Hillary by ragging on her before NH, though. But that's due to his crazy hatred of Hillary, rather then his like of Obama.

I think Sen. Obama would say, "Who decides what is and is not affordable?"

That's the question I always want to ask Hillary when she insists that her plan would be affordable to everyone. I doubt everyone will feel that way.

I think Greg filed this story from the deck of the Pequod. I don't totally disagree with the sentiment, but using Taylor Marsh to back up your point is ridiculous. She's a full-fledged Clinton supporter. Also, I'd say pulling 90% of the African-American vote is a pretty clear repudiation of Bill Clinton's antics in South Carolina.

And folks, giving Greg grief for pointing this out is misplaced. Whether or not you agree with his premise, Obama doesn't want MSNBC or anyone else for that matter, setting expectations so high that it is impossible for him to meet them.

Remember New Hampshire.

By the way, I'm an Obama supporter and MSNBC's coverage does seem to tilt towards Obama. But I think that's a good thing. It's often said that "reality has a liberal bias" well, in my view Reality also has an Obama bias.

But on the other hand, MSNBC's coverage not only includes facts that favor Obama, but also has a lot of commentary by people who seem to really like him.

I don't see why you think it's bizarre though. It's a hell of a lot better then CNN with people so afraid of seeming biased that they end up being boring as hell. Plus, we all know Obama supporters have more disposable income. I've been watching MSNBC for more and more election coverage rather then CNN. MSNBC has been tilting to the left lately with Olberman and Matthews, and this is just an extension of that.

The idea of non-biased reporting is just out of date, and unnecessary in a world with infinite information sources.

There is a strong element of "working the refs," just like the Republicans did for twenty years with this "the media hates poor Hillary" thing. But let's get real. MSNBC hates her, which, given the stable of people with personality disorders they've assembled, actually helps her. Fox hates everyone. But what about the others? The NYT has a love/hate relationship with her. ABC has a thing about Obama that is far more harmful to him than the MSNCB follies are to Hillary because it is less obvious.

As I said this morning, the Hillary pity party reminds me more and more of Nixon.

I'm an Obama supporter, and I agree with Greg. Chris Matthews gets the biggest man crushes (remember how he'd gush over Tom DeLay?). I think is his Obama-hyping is cloying and offputting, so if I'm undecided, yeah, I might prefer Hillary after listening to him. I'll grant that Matthews is in a tough spot, they want him for his opinions, frankness, insidery-ness, but he has no idea when he's going overboard and turning people off. I'll be surprised if he lasts through November, after the apology he had to make for his off-the-wall Hillary-bashing post-NH. You know another bomb is going to drop any time.

They need more women at MSNBC--CNN, too. Rachel Maddow is a bright light. Rachel Sklar's not bad, she has to slow it down a little. But when the guys get going--Chris, Howard Fineman, Eugene, even Keith, no wonder the Clinton people scream sexism.

Hey Gregg,

I think you need to step back a little bit and see things in a wider context. You probably follow this stuff so closely by virtue of your job, that you might be losing perspective a little bit.

Very, very few people watch msnbc, or even cnn for that matter. Even in relation to the number of people who participate in primaries and general elections. I think Chris Matthews rarely gets more than million viewers. So whatever these types of talking heads say or do is really peripheral, irrelevant and unknown to most voters.

I'm actively interested in politics, but I don't really have time to watch these shows. Even if I did, I wouldn't watch because, even though these shows focus on politics, they are pure garbage information-wise, and add no value to my understanding of politics, other than cluing me in on the conventional wisdom of idiotic and irrelevant talking heads who get orgasms from Hillary getting coughing fits.

Chris Matthews is a nobody. What he says is pretty much irrelevant.

come on Greg. This is beneath you.

Matthews is a tool and he overplays it on both sides. He kept referring to Clintons win in MA last night as a huge upset when it was no such thing. She has consistently been ranked #1 on his moronic power ranking. He praised her to the moon after the SC debate. I could go on but what is the point. At any rate he is far less biased towards Obama than you are for Clinton. Does that help or hurt your candidate? It certainly hurts TPM's credibility and that is a shame.

MSNBC seems to specialize in people with severe neuroses and personality disorders and, on balance, they've done much more harm than good to Obama.

But MSNBC is not the entirety of the media. Hillary's peeps have been working the refs with this "bias" thing harder than ther Republicans did/do. She's got the NYT mostly, if somewhat schizophrenically, on her side, other than some of the big names on the Op/Ed page (speaking of personality disorders). ABC News is clearly, though subtly, pro-Hillary.

It's not monolithically anti-Hillary and the "the MSM hates poor, poor Hillary" pity party is getting Nixonian.

And c'mon, Taylor Marsh? Are you kidding me, Greg? After all your griping about how over-the- top some of Obama's supporters are, you go and cite Taylor Marsh as a source? Mark Penn is a fountain of unspun objectivity and factual accuracy compared to ol' Taylor. Some days, I suspect there are even people at Hillaryis44.org, or whatever the hell its called, who are like "whoa, Taylor, ease up, that's kind of slanderous!"

I only watch MSNBC because I don't get standard cable, and somehow it's included in my basic package.

The night before last on MSNBC, Dan Abrahamson was shouting through the roof tops that the media is biased against Hillary because they were going to treat a Hillary win like an Obama victory. Last night, there was a tie, and MSNBC treated it like a Hillary win. For example, there was little mention of the fact that Obama won more states than Hillary or that the delegates were too close too call, but a lot of discussion of Hillary's big wins in Mass, New Jersey, and California. So no, I don't see any systematic bias.

This isn't to deny that some of the personalities (Olbermann, maybe Matthews) may have their own preferences that shine through on occasion. But they do a much better job of concealing it than, say . . . Greg Sargent.

This is off the subject, but have you seen Gallup's tracking poll today (shown on the right of the page)?

The poll shows a 13 point lead for Clinton. Given last night's results, how could that possibly be true? They should have polled more before they released this one.

Rasmussen was something like 4 or 5 today.

I did a lot of channel surfing last night (except no Fox) but probably spent more time on MSNBC. I didn't feel they were promoting Obama but we all see things in different ways. Pat Buchanan was vicious.

Overall I kept thinking all channels downplayed Obama's success & played up Hillary's. They were very enthusiatic about Georgia but they had nothing else to talk about until more polls closed & then it seemed nothing was important except the size of the states Hillary won & Obama's wins were dismissed. I kept hearing how Obama had "lost his momentum" & how the Kennedy's had no influence.

I would have to say that Taylor Marsh & Craig Crawford aren't exactly unbiased sources. Both are Hillary fans. For the last few weeks, the Hillary supporting blogs & many of her fans on different blogs are promoting the theme that Hillary is picked on by the media & she's wonderful because she prevails. So, I admit to a bias against this storyline.

As for MSNBC, if people felt they were nice to Obama last night, not to worry - they'll tear him back down & viciously. They seem to live for it.

Wow, that's shocking, Michael A. I have never, ever seen that reported anywhere. Good on Obama, bad but typical for Clinton.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-rees/clinton-obama-and-clust_b_84811.html

Over 150 nations have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. It pains me that our great nation has not. But in the autumn of 2006, there was a chance to take a step in the right direction: Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.

Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.

Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.

Analysts say Clinton did not want to risk appearing "soft on terror," as it would have harmed her electibility.

Come to think of it, I might be mistaken, but didn't I see Josh Marshall on MSNBC the other day? It could have been CNN perhaps, but if it was MSNBC, don't get him uninvited back, Greg! We want to see more of you guys on TV, not fewer!

I also give MSNBC a lot of credit for featuring Rachel Maddow. She is the just about the only pundit who I watch and literally say outloud, "That's exactly right." Late in the night when everyone else was forcing dumb analysis of who won and who lost yesterday, she said, "It's a tie" and refused to budge from that position, which I happen to believe is a good analysis (although I would personally give a slight edge to Obama since, you know, he won more delegates and delegates determine the nomination, but they didn't know the delegate count for sure, although Chuck Todd has just predicted it for Obama, and his prediction looks like it was pretty close).

That's the other thing, since the pundits contradict each other all the time, the audience can choose to give credit to what she's saying and discount Chris Matthews, which is basically what I do when I watch them.

Lombard, you make a good point about the younger demographic. I watch MSNBC and prefer it to CNN because it seems more energetic, and I love the give-and-take (and I'm not in their target demo). What I'm trying to say is that while I don't look for sexism at every turn, I would just like to hear perspective from a few more women. Rachel Maddow called it on Matthews after NH, and a lot of people clued in afterwards. So even if Maddow prefers Obama, she at least presents a counterpoint to the boys club. Checks and balances, that's all I'm looking for.

Everybody knows Matthews is on to be brutally honest about his opinions which, in the case of Obama, is admittedly positive. He has been about as open as he possibly could be about his reasons. He views politics like a story and Obama is a new, interesting character--exactly what he said last night when he said Howard Dean was one of his favorites in 2004. Anybody that is somehow subversively affected by Chris Matthews isn't paying attention and doesn't deserve an opinion.

I think even Hillary supporters can admit that conservatives have a harder time hating Obama than Clinton, so Scarborough/Carlson/Buchanan aren't surprisingly more critical of her. Again, I don't think any liberal viewer is taking their cues from these guys.

I don't see how people can claim Olberman is biased one way or another and Abrams spends a ton of time saying exactly what Greg is saying here (as someone else pointed out).

MSNBC runs with the Clinton talking points (such as the FL and MI complaints) as much as anyone else. Any claim that there is some obvious network-wide agenda is extremely misguided, in my opinion. It's already been said, but from any reasonable perspective this is really a non-story. Just like Josh's brief note about last night's pro-Hillary Times headline was a non-story. Even if true, these things will only be seen by a small percent of the electorate and will affect an even smaller percent.

Well I can only judge from my own experience. In MY view, I think it IS hurting Obama. I didn't have a negative opinion about the guy until MSNBC kept favoring him at every turn. I was in Hillary's camp but felt okay about both in the beginning. But MSNBC was so biased, I found myself getting angrier and angrier at the coverage until I turned it on Obama too. I told my husband the other day, if Obama wins nomination, I will NOT vote. I'm just so annoyed by the free publicity, all the hoopla over what? All fluff no substance.
And I rarely watch MSNBC anymore now. I am watching Fox and CNN. If you told me 6 months ago, I'd be watching FOX, I'd have laughed at you. But they are not biased since they want a republican.

"From what I've seen, more sober heads have apparently prevailed, and today the coverage seems more evenhanded and focusing more on delegate numbers. "

Personally, I think that the sudden emphasis on "delegate counts" is the result of anti-Hillary bias. Imagine if the results had been reversed -- that Obama had won California and Massachusetts, and Hillary had won all the "caucus" states.... right now, I think the media coverage would be all about Obama's victories in those states, and his "momentum", with very little coverage of the delegate count.

Lord, you people are naive. GE owns NBC. GE is big in nuclear energy. GE has never been shy about using its media outlets to push its interests. Obama has close ties to the nuclear energy industry.

Yes, there is a lot of sexist, anti-Hillary nonsense spewed on NBC and MSNBC, but the sexism isn't the point, it's only the dishonorable tool that serves a bigger, uglier purpose. It isn't the real scandal, just a means to perpetuate the real scandal. Which is; a corporation's misuse of it's access to the public airways to manipulate the election process for its own benefit.

Greg- I don't watch MSNBC all that often, so I can't comment on the accuracy of your observation. In general, however, I'll say both campaigns tend to be at their worst when pumped up on too much of their own talking points.

And don't let the O-commentariat intimidate you if you have observations that could be construed as detrimental to the One.

Chris Matthews repeatedly hailed Obama as a kind of cross between Jesus, JFK, and Muhammad Ali.

It should be readily apparent that Obama doesn't have Ali's left jab.

Maybe MSNBC sees an opportunity and is trying to make a play to be to the Dem party what Fox was/is to the Rep party and has chosen to back the BO horse...I think its clear that CNN has chosen to back Clinton...Both networks are taking a page out of the Fox manual i think..

I would submit this instance. I live in New Jersey and watched Chris Matthews early last night bait my senator Robert Menendez by asking if Obama won Jersey would he change his super-delegate vote for him. Saying if he didn't, he would not be representing the people of New Jersey. I disagree, and eventually Hillary won New Jersey. If you want to take that approach with super-delegates, fair enough. My question is then why not ask John Kerry and Ted Kennedy the same question. Hillary also won in their state after a week or so of heavy campaigning by Kennedy. Chris Matthews would never ask this, and anyone except Craig Crawford does not have the nerve to challenge him. It was the first thing I thought of when he took the harsh line of questioning of my senator. I am not going to express my views of Obama, may the candidate that leads in the end win.

Greg wrote:

"bias" -- yawn

boring, already. come up with something new.

Greg, satellites can see your bias from space. I don't begrudge you your choice of candidate. But if you think you are calling it down the middle between Hillary and Obama you are insane. You are more credible to the extent you disclose your preference.

I think they were over-promoting Obama, but they weren't doing that in a supporting favor they were playing into the HRC campaign of over-inflating the Obama momentum.

You should have seen Joe Scarborough over exagerate the California primary results this morning on Morning Joe. He acted like the whole world was believing that Obama would win California even though they reported a week ago how Hillary already had a month advantage in campaigning and absentee ballots that had already been cast for her.

They tried to make it seem like Hillary over-came odds and made a huge victory when the difference was only 10%. Sometimes I do think MSNBC bias in favor of Hillary.

Greg:

They don't want MSNBC predicting that Teddy K. will produce major gains for them. Why is this so difficult to understand?

Are you falsley insinuating that Obama hasn't made major gains in the past three weeks? Because he, apparently, made some pretty major gains in MA, CA, CT, DE, ND, ID, NM, TN, AK, NY, NJ, AR, GA, and the rest of the country.

What planet have you been living on? Really?

All of the CNN and MSNBC cable characters are entertaining, some are silly, some have valuable comments from time to time, but I don't give any of them credit for power beyond that with which the viewers themselves assign.

I'm an Obama supporter, buy into the movement, want change now, Bush gone yesterday. Chris Matthews is late to the Obama circle of admirers. I bought my first OBAMA banner after the last democratic convention.

But if you think Chris Matthews is damaging Obama's chances somehow, let me know because it may actually be part of a Clinton consipiracy. I'll report it to Howard Dean. There . . . problem solved.

yeah, the whole Taylor Marsh citation really just kills your post.

your have a way with pointed language that can be useful in making an argument, but with references like that you just shoot yourself in the foot.