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As NewsBusters has been reporting, NBC's Matt Lauer had an interview with President Obama on Super Bowl Sunday that was as soft as cream cheese that's been sitting in the sun for hours.

One such sickeningly squishy moment was when the Today show host let his guest get away with claiming he "ran an affirmative campaign" in 2008 without negative attack ads (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"'Jim Crow' Voting Legislation Passes in Virginia Senate," a CBS news headline on a Washington D.C. CBS news website alarmed readers tonight.

The AP/CBSDC story, filed at 10:33 p.m. Eastern on the website for CBS Radio's new all-news station WNEW, reports on the passage of a strict voter ID law in the Virginia State Senate. As we've noted previously, the Washington Post has reported, uncritically, Virginia Democratic legislators' Jim Crow comparisons, but it appears that CBS News is taking the Washington Post's bias even further (see screen capture below page break):

Hypocrisy knows no bounds on the airwaves of National Public Radio, as their Minnesota-based star Garrison Keillor led off his latest edition of “A Prairie Home Companion” by mocking the GOP frontrunners as “the Mormon running against the polygamist.” This is a rich dig coming from Keillor, since he has been married three times – just as many times as Newt Gingrich.

This was within three minutes of the program starting, just a little partisan liberal boilerplate before the folksy singers get started. Keillor mocked conservatives like Romney and Gingrich for believing "the solution to our current dilemma is to go back to the policies that helped cause that dilemma...deregulation, cutting taxes, starting a new war, if possible."

Despite Clint Eastwood's pronouncement Monday that he is "certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama," the President's fans in the media are doing a victory lap over Super Bowl Sunday's Chrysler commercial featuring the Oscar-winning actor and filmmaker.

So excited by this ad was MSNBC's Ed Schultz Monday that he disgustingly asked his audience, "Will voters hold Republicans accountable for trying to kill the American auto industry?" (video follows with commentary):

NBC Nightly News on Monday lifted its two-plus week blackout of the Obama administration’s decision to force religious institutions, such as Catholic hospitals and charities, to provide birth control coverage in health insurance provided to employees, but ABC’s World News and the CBS Evening News have still yet to utter a syllable about what has enraged people across the political spectrum while having plenty of time to champion Planned Parenthood’s attacks on the Komen foundation.

NBC’s Chuck Todd on Monday evening found a few seconds in a larger story to relay how the Republican presidential candidates “are hitting the Obama administration’s decision to require all health insurance plans to cover birth control. Many Catholic organizations had hoped for an exemption since the rule runs counter to the church’s doctrine. Today Mitt Romney’s campaign launched a petition drive to repeal the decision, and Newt Gingrich also sounded off.”

Oscar-winning actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood has come under some heat for appearing in a Chrysler commercial on Super Bowl Sunday that some feel was pro-Obama.

Eastwood spoke with Ron Mitchell, the producer of Fox's O'Reilly Factor, Monday to set the record straight:

CNN's blatant double-standard in covering religious and social issues was manifested in its lopsided coverage of two different stories over the past few weeks.

When prominent religious leaders condemned an Obama administration mandate as an attack on religious freedom, the network gave the controversy one brief mention in ten days. But when liberal outrage ensued over a cancer charity pulling its funding of leading abortion provider Planned Parenthood, CNN reported the story the next day and promptly followed it up with more coverage.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there he goes again.

On MSNBC's Hardball Monday, host Chris Matthews said Barack Obama's smile "is worth five to ten points" on Election Day (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC, CBS, and NBC spotlighted the Komen foundation's about-face on funding Planned Parenthood on their Friday evening newscasts, and played up the apparent role of social media in getting the charity to reverse its earlier decision. On World News, ABC's Diane Sawyer trumpeted the "dramatic day for people power," while on Nightly News, NBC's Lester Holt concluded, "score one for the power of social media."

The Big Three outlets also covered the 180 by the breast cancer organization on their Saturday morning shows. Altogether, the networks added seven more reports to the 13 from the first 60 hours or so of the controversy, bringing the total to 20 since February 1, versus only three on the face-off between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration since January 20 (the MRC documented and highlighted this imbalance in a report on Friday; ABC and NBC added mentions on their Sunday morning political shows).

Politico's Keach Hagey has predicted Planned Parenthood's successful ambush of Susan G. Komen for the Cure last week will "likely to go down as a textbook case of the political power of social media."

She's right, and pro-lifers need to learn from it.

In his softball Sunday interview with President Obama before the Super Bowl, Today co-host Matt Lauer invited the Democratic commander in chief to speculate on Mitt Romney's ability to connect with voters: "He's a guy who's been incredibly successful in his life and career. He's made a lot of money, it's not a crime...can [he] identify with the middle class and the underclass in this country?"

While Obama refused to "comment on any particular candidate" he had no trouble hitting Lauer's easy pitch: "...people also want to see is that everybody is doing their fair share. That we're all pulling together....Whoever the Republican nominee is, I fundamentally disagree with a formula that would go back to the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place."

While most in the liberal media are downright ignoring President Obama's attack on religious institutions -- via the mandate that they cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans, even if doing so violates church teaching -- MSNBC's Martin Bashir mentioned the issue in today's "Clear the Air" commentary that closes his eponymous program.

Of course, true to MSNBC form, Bashir ignored the legitimate policy and religious liberty implications of Gingrich's complaint to dredge up Gingrich's past moral failings, namely his adulteries, as a way of fatally wounding the messenger and hence, Bashir hopes, negating the message [MP3 audio available here; video posted below page break]:

New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum wrote a valentine in news story format for Saturday’s edition on Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s heavily publicized donation to the abortion provider Planned Parenthood, after it initially lost funding from the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity: “With Fine Timing, Bloomberg Makes a Financial Pledge That Excites and Engages.”

Raising not a whisper of criticism about the righteousness of Bloomberg’s big pro-abortion donations, Grynbaum called it the mayor's “biggest political coups in years and gave him, at least for the moment, a rejuvenated voice on the national stage,” and claiming it “reflected the mayor’s longtime support for the causes of reproductive rights and women’s health.” But Grynbaum skipped the less flattering side of Bloomberg's apparent enthusiasm for abortion.

On Saturday I noted how Washington Post staffer Laura Vozzella front-loaded her February 4 Metro-section front-pager with overheated rhetoric from liberal Democrats suggesting that voter ID bills pushed by Republicans were the second-coming of Jim Crow. As I wrote my critique, I wondered what sort of news editor would allow such extremely biased dreck to go to publication.

Today's Washington Post editorial blasting the voter ID bills may very well answer my question. In "How to discourage Virginia voters," the Post editorial board today suggested that Del. Mark Cole's bill to make the state's voter ID law stricter is evidence of "institutional racism" in the Old Dominion.

Editor's Note: What follows is a letter that NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell sent to the presidents of the news divisions of ABC, CBS, and NBC as well as to CNN president Jim Walton. It has also been carbon copied to 10 leaders representing various Catholic and Protestant faith organizations.

The broadcast and cable television networks need to report the current, unprecedented assault against freedom of religion in this country, as well as the millions of Americans who would be left out in the cold by the Obama administration if it does not rescind HHS’s recently issued insurance mandate requiring contraceptive coverage.  As our statistics and analysis below outline, they are not, and it’s a glaring double standard.

On Sunday, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat highlighted the blunt favoritism shown by the media toward Planned Parenthood in last week’s headline-making spat with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, the breast cancer charity, after it announced it would no longer fund the prominent abortion provider: “The Media’s Abortion Blinders.”

Douthat compared the popularity of the pro-life position among Americans with the unanimous hostility the media unleashed on Komen, and the universal respect accorded Planned Parenthood: “... on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudices are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable.”

After pounding Mitt Romney on taxes and wealth for weeks, ABC on Monday touted a new poll finding that the Republican is "struggling on this key issue of taxes," according to co-host George Stephanopoulos. Reporter Jake Tapper trumpeted this result: "And the more that the American people hear about Mitt Romney, the more they don't like."

He added, "They heard about Romney paying only that 15 percent rate, which is all he's legally required to pay when it comes to investments and they don't like it." Stephanopoulos helpfully forecasted that the "White House is going to continue to drive that." Of course, it was ABC who drove this class warfare angle. On January 24th, Jon Karl sneered, "So, just how rich is Mitt Romney and is he paying his fair share of taxes?"

"Coming up at 11am on @msnbctv, Gingrich a Reagan republican? We'll put the question to the President's son, Ron Reagan."

That's a teaser tweet MSNBC's Thomas Roberts put out shortly before taking the air to host his 11 a.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC Live. Of course, Ron Reagan is a political liberal, unlike his brother Michael, who is conservative and has been actively campaigning for Gingrich.

George Washington just got a promotion. Yes, he's still one of the slave-owning oligarchs who, according to liberals, stuck us with a short-sighted Constitution, and whose colleagues were probably having sex with slaves.

But with the 2012 election on the line and conservatives citing the Founders' legacy as a touch-stone of limited government, Time Magazine has found it useful to turn the first president into a proto-liberal.

Ezra Klein has unwittingly offered a telling insight into the liberal mind.  On Morning Joe today, the liberal Washington Post blogger actually argued that quintessential big government programs like massive involvement in housing finance and the imposition of a carbon tax aren't "progressive" but simply "good policy."

Joe Scarborough pushed back saying Klein's notion of "good policy" was only so for those who share his liberal mindset.   Video after the jump.

Today's starter topic: Unrest in Syria has become so bad that the State Department has closed the American embassy in Damascus. Do you think there will be any U.S. intervention in Syria? Details below:

Once again touting the latest cover of New Yorker magazine, NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer lobbed this softball to President Obama in a pre-Super Bowl interview: "...you watching the big game on TV...on screen it's not the Patriots and the Giants. It's Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, same team, and they are pummeling each other. And look at the smile on your face there. Is art imitating life here?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Obama began to answer: "Well, you know, look, I've been through these primaries, they're tough." Lauer quickly followed up: "But does this help you?" In an interview with Mitt Romney on Wednesday, Lauer promoted the same magazine cover and wondered about the ongoing primary race: "How can it not damage you?"

When the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced on February 1 that it would no longer be donating to Planned Parenthood, the Big Three networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC -- rushed to the defense of the left-wing organization, which is the largest abortion conglomerate in the United States. Over the course of about 60 hours, ABC, CBS, and NBC emphasized the controversy with a whopping 13 morning and evening news stories. A  Media Research Center study found that the soundbite count was loaded: 76 percent of the quotes came from supporters of Planned Parenthood (35 in total). Only 11 clips or statements came from Komen representatives or new allies.

The broadcast network evening and morning newscast blackout, of the Obama administration plan to force health insurance offered by Catholic charities and hospitals to cover sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception without a co-pay, continued over the weekend, yet the ABC and NBC Sunday morning talk shows took up the topic.

Meanwhile, the media double standard in ignoring the ObamaCare imposition on religious institutions while jumping to defend Planned Parenthood when Komen pulled funding, is being noticed by media observers ranging from from Fox News to even a New York Times columnist.

On Sunday's Chris Matthews Show, after panel member Richard Stengel of Time magazine argued that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is an example of a wealthy President who connected with average Americans more effectively than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Rommney does, NBC Andrea Mitchell praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for donating $250,000 to Planned Parenthood, arguing that it helped him "connect to people" in his "constituency." After an anecdote from Stengel about Roosevelt, Mitchell injected:

It’s apparently never too young to push social liberalism and call it “anti-bullying education.” Sunday’s Washington Post promoted D.C. schools with the headline “Redefining Family.” As usual, the Post featured happy color photographs of two lesbian moms – two on the front page of Metro, and two on the back page where the story continued.

Reporter Michael Alison Chandler began: “In the national push to prevent bullying, more elementary schools are introducing lessons about gay tolerance. Some lessons begin before the first day of kindergarten.”

Joe Scarborough had a jocular way this morning of pointing out the pro-Dem bias in ABC/Washington Post polls.

On Morning Joe, after Mark Halperin cited a new poll from the conglomerate with many findings favorable to President Obama, Scarborough facetiously asked "does Axelrod poll for ABC?" He went on to detail the way the polling combine consistently puts its fat left thumb of the scales for Dems. Video after the jump.

Kudos to CNN "State of the Union" host Candy Crowley for bringing up on Sunday the undercovered story of the recent Obamacare-related decision to force Catholic employers to insure sterilizations, abortifacients, and contraceptives. When she mentioned "real outrage within the Catholic community" -- and bishops' letters opposed Obama were again read in parishes across America at Mass on Sunday -- liberal Gov. Martin O'Malley blew off the bishops: "most of those in the hierarchy are also Republicans." Is that why Obama's violating their religious freedom?

O'Malley also claimed that this is not a big deal because "these same rules apply in countries like Italy which have overwhelming numbers of Catholics, and yet we did not see the reaction in those countries to these sorts of things." This might be because while 97 percent of Italians think of themselves as Catholic, church attendance is very low (from 15 to 30 percent). They go to church on an Obama schedule. (Fore!)