NBC: McCain's Charge an Assertion, Obama's Shows 'Bluntness'

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In back-to-back stories on Monday's NBC Nightly News, reporters displayed a disparity in the use of terms applied to describe the criticism by John McCain and Barack Obama of each other. Up first, Kelly O'Donnell described how McCain “asserted that Obama claims he has stood up to fellow Democrats, but hasn't.”

In the second story, Lee Cowan played a clip he set up as showing how Obama “outright mocked what he called McCain's No Change Express” and after the soundbite (“You can't just re-create yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid.”), Cowan called that “a new bluntness on the stump, one his running mate Joe Biden fleshed out across the lake in Wisconsin today.” Following Biden, Cowan warned: “Then there was that new McCain TV ad touting his partnership with Sarah Palin and her record on wasteful spending in Alaska, something one spokesman called a flat-out lie.”

From Kelly O'Donnell's story on the Monday, September 8 NBC Nightly News:

KELLY O'DONNELL: ...Today McCain tried to appeal to voters beyond party labels and asserted that Obama claims he has stood up to fellow Democrats, but hasn't.

JOHN McCAIN: Senator Obama told the extreme left what they wanted to hear during the primary and now he's telling you what he thinks you want to hear.

O'DONNELL: Advisers tell NBC News they studied tapes of Governor Palin's speeches before she was chosen and decided she could effectively deliver a line against Obama.

SARAH PALIN: He said he's for change. But in Iraq, change happened and that's a great thing for America, Senator.

The next story began:

LEE COWAN: This is Lee Cowan with the Obama campaign. We're in Flint today, the Illinois Senator outright mocked what he called McCain's No Change Express.

BARACK OBAMA: You can't just re-create yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid.

COWAN: It's a new bluntness on the stump, one his running mate Joe Biden fleshed out across the lake in Wisconsin today.

JOE BIDEN: Name me a single issue that affects your life from jobs, to health care, to education, to energy, any of the big ticket items where John McCain and Sarah Palin disagree with the President. Not a joke now.

COWAN: Then there was that new McCain TV ad touting his partnership with Sarah Palin and her record on wasteful spending in Alaska, something one spokesman called a flat-out lie....

Cowan proceeded to get into past Palin comments about the “bridge to nowhere.”