Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday became emotional over the passing of John Murtha, named by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as one of Congress’ most corrupt politicians. He lauded the Democrat as "one of those guys who make the [House of Representatives] work." [Audio available here.]

Neither Stephanopoulos, nor Juju Chang, who filed a news brief on Murtha, mentioned his 2006 smear that U.S. Marines killed Iraqi civilians "in cold blood." Stephanopoulos, a former Democratic operative, reminisced as he tried to maintain control: "I’m going to get a little choked up. I miss him already. You know, I went to Capitol Hill as an aide almost 30 years ago."

He cooed, "And he did it with such a sense of joy and fun and he taught me an awful lot." Stephanopoulos skipped the following quote from Murtha in May of 2006 about a supposed massacre in Haditha, Iraq: "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

MSNBC on Friday continued to mock and deride the "controversial" tea party movement. Host David Shuster commented on the group's Nashville convention and asserted that it's "full of workshops, meetings, funny outfits and speeches." Setting the tone for how the conventioneers would be portrayed, Shuster introduced the segment by playing a clip of an unidentified woman.

"I just couldn't sit down anymore and not do anything, because it reminded me of what happened during the reign of Hitler," the woman asserted. Couldn't MSNBC have found someone complaining about spending or the size of government? Reporter Domenico Montanaro dismissed keynote speaker Sarah Palin. He wondered if "she's a politician first or a political celebrity first, now."

Two prominent journalists appeared on Friday's Good Morning America and casually admitted that Barack Obama has received glowing coverage from the press. Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown announced, "No, [Obama] got the best press known to man. Let's face it."

Howard Kurtz, host of Reliable Sources on CNN and a Washington Post columnist, corrected, "In the history of civilization." The liberal Brown quickly agreed, "In the history of civilization, incredible." Kurtz and Brown appeared with Meghan McCain to discuss the latest political developments with GMA host George Stephanopoulos.

McCain, a moderate Republican, offered her own denouncement of liberal bias.  Discussing the John Edwards sex scandal and how journalists ignored it during the 2008 campaign, she complained, "Where was the press when this was going on? Who was reporting on this? And when you find out later on that many people in the press did know about the affair going on, it could have changed the course of the election."

On Thursday, MSNBC continued its quest to link conservatives with the birther movement- people who don't believe Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President. Previewing an unrelated segment on this weekend's tea party convention, Norah O'Donnell played a clip of Obama criticizing those who raise the issue. She then compared, "President Obama sends a message to those who question his citizenship, this as the tea party movement gets ready for its first big convention."

At no point did O'Donnell explain or justify the connection, other than her apparent assumption that tea partiers equal birthers. The MSNBC host interviewed author Rick Scarborough, one of the speakers at the convention in Nashville. During the piece, this MSNBC graphic appeared in large font at the bottom of the screen: "Obama: Okay to Question My Policy, Not My Citizenship."

Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts didn’t even try for objectivity on Wednesday when she talked to pay czar Kenneth Feinberg about his attempts to stop AIG CEOs from receiving bonuses. "We can feel the fire in your belly," she enthused after Feinberg touted the administration’s efforts at reining in bonuses. "And that's great to see," Roberts opined.

After Feinberg proudly told Roberts, "I do not, for a minute, ignore the outrage out there, which I share," the GMA co-host marveled, "We can see that." The pay czar assured the ABC anchor that "we’re doing a very good job" of "getting as much of this money back as we can." Roberts rhapsodized, "Progress is being made. No doubt about it."

ABC on Tuesday devoted a fourth day of interviews to the John Edwards sex scandal and still failed to identify the ex-vice presidential nominee as a Democrat. After 67 minutes of coverage on two programs, the network has highlighted most of the salacious details of the Senator’s story, all while avoiding the D-word.

Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday talked to former Edwards aide Andrew Young and his wife, Cheri. Interviews with Mr. Young, who falsely claimed to be the father of what turned out to be Edwards’ love child, also appeared on Monday and Saturday.

On Monday, former Democratic operative turned journalist Stephanopoulos did not react well to Young's assertion that the campaign believed "all of the viable candidates had some type of skeleton in their closet." Stephanopoulos fretted, "That is a very serious charge." When Young tried to backpedal, the host complained, "You just said it."

MSNBC’s David Shuster on Tuesday used a poll by the liberal website Daily Kos to assert that "most Republicans" don’t believe Barack Obama was born in America and, thus, are birthers. Shuster marveled, "...As the Democrats try to talk about working with Republicans, given those numbers of Republican supporters, how is that possible?" [Audio available here.]

Citing a survey that also claims 23 percent of self-identified Republicans want to secede from the union, Shuster quizzed Andy Barr from Politico as to the poll’s meaning. After Shuster correctly noted, "It is a documented fact. The President was born in Hawaii," he used this one poll to declare, "And most Republicans aren't sure, don't believe it; there you have it."

So, one poll, by a left-wing website (in conjunction with the firm Research 2000), is enough for MSNBC to assert that 58 percent of GOPers subscribe to a bizarre conspiracy? A Rasmussen poll from May of 2007 found that 61 percent of Democrats either believed that George Bush knew about the 9/11 terror attack in advance or aren’t sure. Does that mean that "most Democrats" are Truthers?

MSNBC’s Tamron Hall on Monday interrogated a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and tried to associate conservatism with believing in a bizarre conspiracy theory. Talking to Patrick Hughes of Illinois, she challenged, "For example, one of the questions was, do you think the President was born in the United States? Is that your definition of conservative or is it in the perimeter of a conservative?" [Audio available here.]

Hall prefaced this "birther" query by oddly asserting, "When you say conservative, I know you know that much has been made of this conservative litmus test to be a true conservative in this country." Of course, it was Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) who advocated making this an issue.

According to The Hill, he told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Democrats should say, "Ask them, 'Do you believe Barack Obama [is a] citizen of the United States?'" It looks as though Hall was more than willing to repeat Democratic talking points.

Since Friday, ABC has devoted 60 minutes and 23 seconds to interviews covering the most salacious details of John Edwards' sex scandal. Yet, the network's anchors have refrained from referring to him as a Democrat. 20/20 on Friday spent the entire hour talking to Andrew Young, a former top Edwards aide who allegedly holds a sex tape involving the politician. The D-word was never used by reporter Bob Woodruff.

Good Morning America again featured the story on Saturday. On Monday’s GMA, former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed Young about his role in covering for Edwards. Over two segments that lasted 14 minutes and 50 segments, Stephanopoulos never highlighted Edwards’ party affiliation.

The only time it came up is when Young, who has written a tell-all book about Edwards, tried to justify covering for the candidate: "At that point, I genuinely- genuinely believed that he was the only Democrat that could beat McCain or any other opponent."

When Maine Republican Olympia Snowe backed aspects of health care reform early last fall, CBS’s Nancy Cordes cheered the "rebel Republican." Now that Snowe is sounding a tougher, more skeptical tone on the legislation, how will journalists treat the moderate Senator?

Appearing on Thursday’s edition of On the Record, host Greta Van Susteren asked Snowe if health care was dead. She bluntly replied, "I think that this particular legislation. I think its going to be very difficult to reach an agreement even within, I think, the Democratic caucus in both the House and Senate to accept this legislation one way or the other."

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates appeared on Friday’s Good Morning America to promote a new series on genealogy and revealed to George Stephanopoulos that he might be related to Hillary Clinton. Gates told the former Democratic staffer turned journalist, "You are very likely a maternal cousin with Hillary Clinton."[Audio available here.]

Gates, who very famously was involved in an altercation with the Cambridge police in 2009, recounted how Stephanopoulos (to promote the GMA segment) submitted a swab sample for the DNA company 23andMe: "According to 23andMe, George, you most likely share an ancestor with a very prominent American woman, a person who, like your haplotype, is an intrepid traveler yourself."

Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts on Thursday implored Teresa Heinz Kerry to explain how Republican Scott Brown could have won his Senate race in Massachusetts. Talking to the wife of Democrat John Kerry, she lamented, "What’s happening?"

Prefacing this question, a bewildered Roberts recapped, "We have the election, recent election in Massachusetts, where Ted Kennedy had been senator there for almost 50 years. Health care was very important to him. And a relative newcomer, a Republican, Scott Brown, wins..."

The Senator’s wife offered a condescending explanation for the failure, thus far, to pass government-run health care: "And people don't quite understand either the depth and the ramifications [sic], in spite of the President explaining it." Roberts didn’t press Heinz Kerry on this insulting remark.

Of the three morning shows on Thursday, only NBC’s Today show skipped any mention of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s Republican response to the President’s State of the Union address. Both ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’s Early Show gave McDonnell’s rebuttal at least minor attention.

On the Early Show, Chip Reid explained, "Virginia's newly inaugurated governor Bob McDonnell gave the Republican response. He echoed the sentiment of many in his party who believe big government is not the solution." Reid then featured a clip of McDonnell calling for limited government.

ABC co-host George Stephanopoulos only referenced McDonnell as an intro to a question for former Governor Mitt Romney: "Jobs. That's the President's number one priority. In the Republican response last night, Governor McDonnell said the same thing."

The three morning shows on Thursday reacted to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address by highlighting the risk Republicans run in continuing to oppose the President’s agenda. On NBC’s Today, Meredith Vieira fretted to Joe Biden, "What risk do the Republicans run by continuing to say no, by being the party of no?" NBC put the happiest spin on the speech, featuring a graphic that trumpeted, "‘Never More Hopeful’: Obama’s Renewed Message of Hope for America."

Chuck Todd cooed, "The President took pains to talk about hope at a time when so many Americans seemed to have so little." On the Early Show, Maggie Rodriguez pressed Senator John McCain on GOP accommodation. She wondered if "we are going to hear" more yes answers and fewer no replies from the Republicans. The co-host then chided McCain, "But will you compromise?"

In an amusing moment on Today, Vieira asked Biden what Americans could expect for the economy in the new year. He replied, "Well, I say, they’re going to start to see unemployment grow this spring." Vieira quickly jumped in and corrected, "You mean employment?" [Audio available here.]

On Monday’s edition of Rosie Radio, host Rosie O’Donnell spun the outpouring of support for the victims of the Haiti earthquake as a result of President Obama’s leadership. She then falsely accused George Bush of not quickly speaking out after Hurricane Katrina: "If two days after Katrina, you know, the President of the United States went on and said, 'You will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten. We are sending in the Army-’" [Audio available here.] 

The satellite radio host added, "If there was that, sort of, mass impulse to help, I think, then, Americans would have felt more justified of, you know, helping..." In fact, two days after Hurricane Katrina, on August 31, 2005, President Bush said this in the Rose Garden: "Right now, the days seem awfully dark for those affected. I understand that."

He continued, "But I'm confident that with time, you'll get your life back in order. New communities will flourish. The great City of New Orleans will be back on its feet. And America will be a stronger place for it. The country stands with you. We'll do all in our power to help you." The speech also laid out exactly how the National Guard, FEMA and other government agencies would assist the effort.

Rosie O’Donnell on Tuesday announced her love for the sci-fi, anti-war film Avatar, seeing it as "this story of the United States and the Mid-East, going to get the oil." Discussing the movie on her Rosie Radio show, she gushed over the allegorical plot of evil, imperialistic Marines being defeated by large blue aliens. [Audio available here.]

Revealing how she feels about U.S. military actions, O’Donnell told guest Howard Stern, "And I think Americans are watching that movie, going, 'Yay, blue guys,' [and] I'm like, 'Wait a minute - the blue guys are the guys we're against!'"

Avatar’s storyline revolves around a group of mercenaries invading a peaceful race of creatures, all for the purpose of exploiting their natural resources. "I loved it," raved the liberal comedienne.

All three morning shows on Wednesday highlighted the revelation that a conservative activist had been arrested in connection to an attempt to tamper with the phones of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. Despite jumping on the "Louisiana Watergate" story only 17 hours after it was first reported, the networks took five days to file full reports on the same James O’Keefe and his undercover footage exposing corruption at ACORN.

On ABC’s Good Morning America, reporter Pierre Thomas recounted O’Keefe’s previous expose, charitably describing ACORN as "an advocacy group which helps the poor." On NBC’s Today, Pete Williams found sinister motives in right-wing outrage at the organization. He sneered, "Because ACORN helped register thousands of low income voters, Republicans pounced." (Could the illegal activities and voter fraud associated with the group have been another reason for GOP attacks?)

Rosie O’Donnell appeared on Tuesday’s Good Morning America and lectured host George Stephanopoulos, "You just have to relax and remember that not everyone's a politician. And you don't have to grill them." The liberal comedienne needn’t have worried. Stephanopoulos only gently approached O’Donnell and her new gay-themed HBO documentary.

After being dressed down by O’Donnell, the GMA host offered this softball question about A Family Is a Family Is a Family: "So, tell us about this amazing documentary." He quickly followed up to see if the query was benign enough: "How was that?"

Although O’Donnell asserted that the documentary is about "equality," Stephanopoulos didn’t bring up the details of the special. A plot synopsis explains that the film features "children with two fathers or two mothers...a pair of mothers who are getting married to make one big family," in addition to stories on kids being raised by grandparents and who are adopted. So, it’s odd that Stephanopoulos would allow O’Donnell to get away with claiming to be non-political.

Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos played defense for the White House on Tuesday. While talking with John McCain about Obama’s 2010 proposals, he sounded annoyed that the Senator’s ideas for job creation would include tax cuts: "But, those tax cuts are going to increase the deficit, aren't they, sir?"

After McCain declared his opposition to Democrat spending proposals, the host pressed, "If you're against that, what job creation proposals are you for?" Continuing the Democrat-friendly theme of McCain as obstructionist, Stephanopoulos quoted Harry Reid’s attack on McCain in Sunday’s New York Times: "‘My amazement has been John McCain. I thought he'd turn out to be a statesman, work for things. He is against everything. He's against everything.’ Your response?"

In an appeal for viewers to watch MSNBC's coverage of the State of the Union, Chris Matthews on Monday enthused that his network is a "great place to watch." He added, "You get a lot of context when you watch on MSNBC you don't get elsewhere." Of course, this is the same cable outlet that featured Keith Olbermann ranting that a campaign finance ruling was "Supreme Court sanctioned murder of what little actual democracy is left in this democracy." [Audio available here.]

In the tease from Monday's Hardball, Matthews explained that viewers could expect "a lot of excitement in our coverage," including from "Keith, Rachel, the rest of us." Would this be like the excitement from the January 18 edition of Countdown when Olbermann derided Republican Scott Brown: as "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman"? 

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos appeared on The View, Monday, and attempted to deflect some of the over-the-top praise heaped on him after he joined Good Morning America. He protested, "I did not like all of the introduction stuff, all the ‘let's go back and talk to everybody from your entire life.’ But we got through it."

On the January 4, 2010 show that Stephanopoulos was referring to, his friend, Democrat James Carville, appeared to coo, "I once said, 'If you converted his IQ to Fahrenheit, you could boil water.'" A graphic on that program proclaimed, "George Is Smart."

On Monday, View co-host Barbara Walters asked Stephanopoulos if President Obama could "recover" from a string of electoral losses. The Democratic operative turned journalist was emphatic [See video above]: "Yeah. I mean, look, he's more popular now than Ronald Reagan was his second year in office, the same time." Of course, Reagan didn’t have a willing media ready to spin failures from his first year.

Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos on Monday did not go easy on his friend and former colleague James Carville. Discussing the Massachusetts Senate election, he quoted Carville’s words from his 2009 book 40 More Years: "Republicans have no hope of making serious inroads into democratic advantages in 2010 or likely 2012 or 2014 and so on. It's time to call T.O.D., time of death, on the GOP."

Stephanopoulos then challenged, "Care to revise that opinion?" On May 5, 2009, the day before 40 More Years was released, GMA brought Carville on and gave him generous amounts of time to promote his book. So, ABC should be commended for calling the author out on his wildly inaccurate prediction.

The ABC journalist noted the cloudy forecast for Democrats in the 2010 midterms and pressed, "Is the Democratic majority at risk in the House?" Carville bluntly replied, "You have to think unless something is done to change direction, I think everything is at risk." A surprised Stephanopoulos marveled, "Wow!"

When the liberal radio network Air America debuted on March 31, 2004, NBC trumpeted it as the “counterweight” to the "right-wing bent" of talk radio. Katie Couric enthused that Al Franken and his colleagues hoped “to break into what has been a conservative lock on the radio.” However, when the beleaguered Air America announced bankruptcy on Thursday, both the Nightly News and Friday's Today skipped the story. [Video of Today's promotion can be found above. Audio can be found here.]

Back in 2004, Today co-host Matt Lauer enthused, “If you're a talk radio fan, chances are you're a conservative, too. But, a liberal talk radio network hits the airwaves today. We're gonna ask new talk show host Al Franken if people will rush to listen to him?” Couric touted, “Also a new voice is launching on talk radio today hoping to be a counterweight to the right-wing bent on the airwaves.”

Couric’s interview that day with Franken amounted to a big promotional push for the left-wing comedian who was debuting as the host of The O’Franken Factor. He was already an alumnus of NBC, having starred in the network’s Saturday Night Live show.

On Friday's Good Morning America, Claire Shipman gushed over Elizabeth Edwards as a “smart, passionate, sometimes fierce woman with many different sides to her personality.” She lauded the wife of John Edwards as a complex “heroine” who is “increasingly hard to define.” At the same time, Shipman downplayed the negative portrayal of Mrs. Edwards in a new campaign book.

Recounting the story of the spouse to a cheating politician, Shipman began, “It's a long journey from the adored, everywoman next door who captivated Washington on her arrival.” The journalist did mention the highly negative characterization of Elizabeth Edwards in the book Game Change, a recounting of the 2008 campaign.

However, she assured viewers that staffers say “this was a one-dimensional portrait.” GMA co-host George Stephanopoulos, who himself is a former Democratic campaign operative, quickly agreed: “And we're all a lot more complicated than that.”

MSNBC host David Shuster on Wednesday used his Twitter account to repeatedly slam "teabaggers" and their "teabag leader." Shuster was defending a segment he hosted on MSNBC where he derided the "far-right" elements of the tea party movement. Writing on Twitter he derided, "Highly amusing to see teabaggers claim [Scott] Brown a [sic] referendum on Obama...when Brown himself denied it and distanced himself from teabaggers."

Referring to those who are unhappy with him using a vulgar sexual term to describe a political movement, Shuster retorted, "For all who object to the term 'teabaggers,' please direct your frustrations to [correspondent] Griff Jenkins at Fox News. He came up with it." (It's not clear why this lone example makes the word acceptable.)

Using the term for a third time, Shuster Tweeted to @AdamCassandra: "The issue is International ANSWER wasn't behind ALL the war protests as your teabag leader alleged. Try thinking sometime." This was in reference to his Wednesday segment on MSNBC.