Invited on Tuesday's Today show to promote her new book, Carrie Prejean defended the latest scrutiny surrounding her as the latest example of "liberal bias in the media," of "conservative women" being attacked. When confronted by Today co-anchor Meredith Vieira about her assertion she's been "Palinized," Prejean threw back "Do you think Sarah Palin has been attacked," to which Vieira dodged the liberal bias charge simply stating: "I think Sarah Palin has certainly been criticized, absolutely, by a lot people, as have many politicians." Prejean then slammed Vieira's NBC colleague Keith Olbermann:

CARRIE PREJEAN: And there is a double standard out there. There is an extreme double standard that conservative women are under attack for whatever it is. I mean if Sean Hannity went out there and said some of the things that Keith Olbermann has said about me, you know, if he said anything about Sonia Sotomayor or Michelle Obama, he would be off the air. Why is there this double standard? And that's the reason why I wrote this book. [audio available here]

The following is the relevant exchange from the November 10 Today show:

Only in the mind of a liberal media journalist would Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Bernie Sanders be considered ideological "polar opposites," but that’s what NBC's Chuck Todd, during a piece aired on the health care debate on Tuesday's Today show, declared.

CHUCK TODD: Meanwhile, the Senate's two Democratic independents, polar opposites ideologically, are split over the bill's government-run public option and both are threatening to scuttle the process if they don't get their way.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: If the public option plan is in there as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: It would be outrageous to me that when you have an overwhelming majority of Americans wanting a strong public option that we do not deliver that.

While the two may be split on a government-run option, that’s just one of the very rare times the two disagree as Lieberman's lifetime ACU rating is 15.96 and Sanders comes in at 6.44, hardly "polar opposites."

The following is the complete Todd piece, that featured mostly Democratic soundbites (only a brief excerpt of a GOP ad represented the Republican view) as it was aired on the November 10, Today show:

On the syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, over the weekend, conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin was mocked by Chris Matthews for playing to the "wingnuts" at a Capitol Hill rally. Before running a clip of Levin, MSNBC host broke down the new GOP coalition as "regular Republicans," "energized conservatives," and "the wingnuts!" and added: "Talk show host Mark Levin spoke to all of them!"

The following exchange was aired on the November 8 edition of the The Chris Matthews Show [MP3 audio clip here]:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Tuesday's election results gave Republicans a big boost. A year from now they hope their loose coalition will unite to beat a lot of Democrats. What's that coalition? Well it's regular Republicans, people that have been Republicans all their lives. It’s also energized conservatives. People philosophically opposed to what they see as a creeping big government. Third - it's people just upset about the economy and the loss of jobs. And fourth - it's the wingnuts! Talk show host Mark Levin spoke to all of them at that rally at the Capitol this week.

Reporting live from the Berlin Wall NBC's Tom Brokaw, on Monday's "Today" show, never once mentioned Ronald Reagan's name and his role in helping to end the Cold War, but did find time to praise Mikhail Gorbachev and "Today" co-anchor Matt Lauer even wondered if it was "a little egocentric" to look at the fall of the Wall as an "American victory," as seen in the following exchange:

MATT LAUER: I know, I think it may be a little egocentric but I think most Americans look at that event and they think of it as an American victory. When you talk to Germans today, do they view it that way?

TOM BROKAW: Well, they certainly think that the United States played a major role. But the real payoff came later when Germany was peacefully re-united. I said at a dinner last night, the remarkable thing is that no tanks rolled that day, no shots were fired, no East German leaders were hanged in the streets of East Berlin. And you have to give Mikhail Gorbachev a great deal of credit for that, Matt. Because he was in Moscow and he didn't send in the troops and he said to the East Germans, "You need to learn how to reform."[audio available here]

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the November 9, "Today" show:

NBC's David Gregory, on Wednesday's Today show, downplayed the huge GOP wins in New Jersey and Virginia as merely reflecting the "anti-incumbency mood," and "the change message that Obama" started last year. Gregory, however, did play up Democrat Bill Owens' win over Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the New York 23 congressional race, and even more absurdly Bob McDonnell's win in Virginia as evidence that the Republican's path to victory is to go moderate, as the Meet the Press host postulated: "What's striking is you have the results in New York 23, which Democrats will hold up as a great result for them, but then you have McDonnell winning in Virginia, a purple state. He's a social conservative for his political career, yet he runs more as a pragmatist, as more of a centrist and look at the result. He wins big, wins big among independent voters."

The following is the full Gregory segment with Meredith Vieira as it was aired on the November 4, Today show:

If you're a skeptic of climate change or want to educate your child at home Chris Matthews probably thinks you're an oddball. On Tuesday's Hardball, the MSNBC host egged on the former liberal Republican New Jersey governor and former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman to turn to the camera to scold all the global warming non-believers in the GOP as he urged: "Would you tell your Republican colleagues right now – look in the camera and say, 'There is climate change and we have to do something about it?'" And later on in the show Matthews stereotyped all homeschoolers as some sort of anti-social shut-ins that don't want their children to "go to public school 'cause you don't want to mix with other people."

The following exchanges were aired on the November 3 edition of Hardball:

Chris Matthews, on Monday's Hardball, claimed the GOP is purging moderates from the party like it was 1930s Russia, and Newsweek's Howard Fineman said the dumping of RINOs like Dede Scozzafava in New York was leading to "the crack cocaine of reduced Republicanism." Yes indeed it was, as Fineman noted, a night of "wild comparisons," on Hardball but after making the "purge" metaphor, Matthews actually had the nerve to call Rush Limbaugh's play-on-words joke that Scozzafava "screwed every RINO in the country," a "metaphor from Hell."

The following exchanges were aired on the November 2 edition of Hardball:

It's hard to imagine two Chris Matthews Show panelists publicly admitting that the President was smarter than them, during the George W. Bush administration, but that's precisely what happened during this weekend's episode when host Chris Matthews asked Newsweek's Howard Fineman that very question. When a frustrated Matthews worried that Barack Obama wasn't being more aggressive in pushing health care reform, Fineman calmed Matthews down by assuring him that "one of his great qualities...is patience" which prompted Matthews to ponder: "Howard is he smarter than us?" to which Fineman affirmed: "Of course he is! Much smarter!" [audio available here]

The following exchange occurred during the November 1 edition of The Chris Matthews Show:

Noted Dick Cheney-basher Chris Matthews, on Thursday's "Hardball," finally found an area of common ground with the former Vice President – his endorsement of moderate Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison over Rick Perry in the Texas governor's race. However, even a bit of praise from the MSNBC host came with a vicious shot, as Matthews sneered, "You might think an endorsement from Dick Cheney would be like a dinner invite from Uday and Qusay Hussein, but not in Texas."

After making the comparison to the brothers who infamously tortured Iraqi athletes for losing on the field, Matthews went on to ponder: "Can the torture man boost her backing from conservatives in beating secessionist governor Rick Perry?" [audio available here]

The following Matthews outbursts were aired on the October 29, "Hardball":

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Thursday's "Today" show, handed San Francisco Democrat District Attorney Kamala Harris a virtual campaign contribution in the form of a full interview segment in the 8:30am half-hour as he billed her as the "Female Barack Obama." Harris, who was on to plug her new book, received the full star-treament as Lauer pressed if she had "ambitions for national office." Not surprisingly, the "rising political star" featured the segment all over her official Web site. 

The following teasers and full interview segment were aired on the October 29, "Today" show:

MATT LAUER: And coming up in this half hour, we're gonna meet a woman. Some are calling her "the female Barack Obama." Her name is Kamala Harris. She is a rising political star in California, has written a book on crime, and we're gonna talk, get her take on this, what she thinks we're doing wrong when it comes to fighting crime.

Comedian Wanda Sykes, invited on Thursday’s "Today" show to plug her HBO comedy special and new late night talk show, was pressed by co-host Meredith Vieira to comment about her crass remark at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner that she hoped Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys would fail. The stand-up comic initially defended her Limbaugh death wish as she claimed, "I was having fun...and I meant what I said," but did admit that perhaps it was "a little too much," however she concluded, "it was just a joke."

MEREDITH VIEIRA: Last year, a good year in many ways for you but also controversial. Beginning with the White House Correspondents Dinner where you talked about Rush Limbaugh.

WANDA SYKES: Right.

VIEIRA: You compared him to Osama Bin Laden. You got a lot of grief for that. In retrospect you wish you hadn't done that or are you saying, "No, I mean what I said I was having fun."

SYKES: Oh no! I meant what I said. I thought I was having, you know, I was having fun. And, and I meant what I said. I think people were more upset with the tagline when I said, "You know he hopes America fail," and I said "well I hope his kidneys fail."

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," invited on former Cheers star Woody Harrelson to promote his new movie, The Messenger, and also talk Afghanistan war policy. The Zombieland actor announced that he was opposed not only to the war in Iraq, but also to the fight in Afghanistan as he compared it to Vietnam and advised that Barack Obama should "pull those troops out," to which Matthews chimed: "It doesn't look like he's pulling out. He's not gonna follow the recommendation of Mr. Woody Harrelson it looks like...although he might be better off doing that." [audio available here]

The following is the relevant exchange between Matthews and Harrelson as it was aired on the October 27 edition of "Hardball":

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about this, the war. I mean we’ve got two wars going now, one that hopefully is settling down, we’re coming home next year from Af-, from Iraq. But the other one looks like we might be beefing up. Your feelings about it?

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," mocked former President George W. Bush making his debut as a motivational speaker as he laughed it off as a "Halloween prank, you know like toilet-papering somebody’s house." After taking that jab Matthews proceeded to castigate Bush as "the man who got this country into two wars that feel like Chinese handcuffs right now," and determined Bush's legacy will be as the "reason" people voted for Barack Obama.

The following outburst was aired during the "Sideshow" portion of the October 27 edition of "Hardball":

Well the verdict is in and it looks like the GOP has been severely damaged by its opposition to Obamacare, well at least that was the conclusion of all the liberal members of "The Chris Matthews Show" panel over the weekend. On the syndicated show, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and HDNET's Dan Rather were unanimous that the "branding" of the GOP as "The Party Of No," has "hurt" them. The New York Times' Helene Cooper chimed in that the Republicans were "gonna be in a really tough spot," and the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan judged "The town halls clearly hurt them. They turned the debate around in favor of the President."

The following exchanges were aired on the October 18 edition of "The Chris Matthews Show":

Last night ABC News, as the MRC’s Brent Baker noted, showcased the "Why People Hate You Obama?" kid and on Friday’s "Today" show it was NBC's turn to be charmed by the Obama-adoring child. NBC's Savannah Guthrie, reporting from College Station, Texas about Obama's latest health care pitch and his upcoming joint appearance with George H.W. Bush to promote volunteerism, squeezed in a clip of Tyren Scott asking Obama why people hated him, when they're supposed to love him? After which Natalie Morales cooed: "Alright cute kid there."

The following is the full report as it was aired on the October 16 "Today" show:

In an intro dripping with sarcasm, Chris Matthews, on Thursday's "Hardball," opened his show by declaring Rush Limbaugh's "racially inflammatory words," have "knocked him out as a potential NFL owner." Matthews went on to mock the radio talk show host as the "master of righteous indignation," and rhymed "that it takes large forces indeed, to bring down so grand a man as he." 

The following is Matthews' complete introduction to the August 15 edition of "Hardball":

Chris Matthews, on Wednesday's "Hardball," backpedaled from the James Bond movie-like death sequence he depicted for Rush Limbaugh that he made on the MSNBC airwaves on Tuesday morning. As Newsbusters' Mark Finkelstein first noted, Matthews imagined a cinematic death for the radio talk show host: 

"Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody's going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he's going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet. But we'll be there to watch. I think he's Mr. Big, I think Yaphet Kotto. Are you watching, Rush?"

Fast forward to Wednesday night and Matthews offered the following clarification during the "Sideshow" segment on the October 14 "Hardball" [MP3 audio available here]:

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," went all blue when discussing Rush Limbaugh's interview with his NBC News colleague Jamie Gangel. After showing a clip of Limbaugh playing word association, in which the talk show host bashed Matthews' old boss Jimmy Carter as "An utter disgrace and embarrassment," the "Hardball" host fired back with this odd rejoinder: "You say Rush Limbaugh, I say phone sex for the traveling salesman. Think about it."

Matthews probably left most viewers scratching their heads with that connection but he was actually just adding a scatological twist to an earlier statement he made from his January 28 show about Limbaugh's listeners:

In the second part of her interview with Rush Limbaugh, on Tuesday's "Today" show, NBC's Jamie Gangel attempted to broker a beer summit between the radio talk show host and the President. Gangel, during the mostly friendly interview with Limbaugh, suggested a meeting between the two to promote "more unity," as seen in the following exchange:

JAMIE GANGEL: Do you think the Republicans can win?

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Yes.

GANGEL: Do you think they will win?

LIMBAUGH: Too soon to say but I think it's entirely possible. We do have Obama, and he's truly polarizing the country. So, there will be a significant vote against. But you gotta have somebody to vote for at the same time.

GANGEL: If he invited you to the White House, would you go?

NBC's Ann Curry, on Tuesday's "Today" show, called longtime liberal White House correspondent Helen Thomas her "inspiration." As part of an ongoing series "Today's Mentors and Inspirations," Curry visited the former UPI reporter and current Hearst columnist in Washington and offered a bouquet of a profile to her hero as, over video of Thomas challenging former presidents Curry gushed:

CURRY: Affectionately called the First Lady of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas has made 10 presidents sweat-

HELEN THOMAS: Charged with perjury-

CURRY: -stammer-

GEORGE W. BUSH: That's where, that's where-

CURRY: -and answer to the people. She first walked through those White House gates half a century ago.

While the tenor of the interview was mostly cheery, interspersed with clips of Thomas questioning presidents throughout her many years as part of the White House press corps, the segment took, literally, a darker tone when the Iraq war came up. Over video that suddenly turned black and white with Bush, in slo-mo, walking to the podium, Curry relayed Thomas' one chastisement to her fellow reporters [MP3 audio highlights here]: