Kyle Drennen's blog

With an on-screen headline describing the annual Conservative Political Action Conference as a "Battle for the Base," correspondent Kelly O'Donnell remarked: "...the Republican Party stars are, in essence, competing to outdo each other taking apart President Obama. From Florida, Senator Marco Rubio....to those former candidates who gave the primary season a fleeting spark."

Earlier in the report, O'Donnell proclaimed that Rick Santorum had "...pounded away again at the White House for its battle over contraception coverage with the Church" in a campaign speech on the campaign trail.

In the only network morning show interview with Rick Santorum in the wake of his three-state victory on Tuesday, NBC Today co-host Ann Curry on Friday pestered the former Pennsylvania senator on whether he would "commit" not to do any negative campaigning and attempted to portray his recent comments on women serving in military combat roles as a gaffe.

Curry put this question to Santorum early in the interview: "...it is clear that negative campaigning generates votes....aren't you going to now have to go negative? Will you commit that your – you and your PACs will not? Or are you going to have to now?"

In a live interview with John F. Kennedy mistress Mimi Alford on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry fretted over her sharing unflattering details about the late president: "What about Caroline [Kennedy], who is still alive?...Did you think about, as you talk about unburdening yourself, the idea that you've burdened other people now with this?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Alford stood by her decision to go public with the affair: "Well, I don't intentionally burden someone else. I'm telling my story. And that is what – that is what I needed to do." Curry followed up: "Any push-back from the Kennedy family? Yes or no?" Alford replied: "No, nothing."

Following a revealing interview with former JFK mistress Mimi Alford on Wednesday's NBC Rock Center, left-wing MSNBC host Chris Matthews, along with liberal historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Reeves, were invited on the broadcast to give a sycophantic defense of the womanizing president. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Touting his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," Matthews proclaimed: "The greatest heroes are often the most flawed." The Hardball host went on to gush over how Kennedy "colorized American politics....made it a technicolor movie, he made it exciting." In his characteristic fashion, Matthews concluded: "And so with it all, the total picture still arouses the country."

In a panel discussion on Wednesday's NBC Today, committed liberal and advertising executive Donny Deutsch denounced critics of Chrysler's Super Bowl ad: "Republicans should be quiet because by saying this is a Barack ad, you're saying this is America the beautiful, America is on its way back....They're looking like fools."

Moments later, Deutsch admitted the ad touted an Obama accomplishment: "And by the way, Barack did make the move to save the auto industry. Like him or not, that's a fact." Earlier in the discussion, attorney Star Jones expressed the same sentiment: "The truth hurts. I mean, if, in fact, the country is coming back and it benefits this administration, then they reap that benefit."

Hawking his new novel on Wednesday's NBC Today, author Josh Bazell launched into a rant against the GOP and Rick Santorum specifically: "If I were to create a character who, say, had been the senator from Pennsylvania...get up at a debate and say that global warming was a hoax and that we had to change the Constitution to limit the rights of gay people. No one would believe that." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Bazell, son of NBC medical correspondent Robert Bazell, further proclaimed: "And if I said then, you know, that the entire Republican establishment sat quietly through this, no one stood up and said, 'You know, that's a crazy man talking,' it would just seem like I was being biased." For his part, weatherman Al Roker simply nodded along with the liberal screed, offering no objection.  

After finally deciding to actually cover the controversy swirling around the Obama administration's attempt to force Catholic institutions to pay for birth control in health insurance plans, NBC's Today on Tuesday brought on leftist MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to dismiss all legitimate opposition to the move as a "pretty far-right perspective" and "an extension of anti-abortion politics." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

While co-host Matt Lauer began by wondering if President Obama had "miscalculated on the issue," he quickly seized on Maddow's supposed "logic" on the topic: "...you hear people saying President Obama could suffer because of this in the election, and yet, you use your logic there, if the majority of women in this country say that they use birth control, could this backfire on the Republican candidates who are now making it the issue?"

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."

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?"

Following Democratic National Committee talking points to the letter at the top of Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams saw Donald Trump's endorsement of Mitt Romney as an excuse to bash the Republican frontrunner: "New fallout from Mitt Romney's choice of words about the very poor, and tonight a new endorsement from a man who's catchphrase is 'You're fired.'"

In the report that followed, correspondent Peter Alexander gleefully touted Democrats smearing Romney in the wake of Trump's backing: "For Romney, the endorsement of a billionaire businessman with this as his signature line [clip of Trump saying "You're fired"] Gave Democrats new fodder for attacks on cable." A nasty sound bite followed from DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "They both like firing people and they’ve both made millions doing it."

Since announcing that it would no longer provide funding to Planned Parenthood on Wednesday, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has been subject to a vicious smear campaign by the abortion provider, a campaign which NBC News has worked to advance over the past 48 hours.

At the top of Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams sounded the alarm: "Caught in the middle. Two of the biggest names in women's health, tonight in a bitter fight over money and it may be thousands of women who pay the biggest price." In a later tease of the upcoming report he made no secret of who he thought the villain of the story was: "A decision that's making a lot of women furious at the world's largest breast cancer organization. Why did it cut off funds for critical breast cancer screenings?"

Sounding like an Obama campaign spokesman on Thursday's NBC Today, correspondent Peter Alexander touted how a recent gaffe by Mitt Romney was "not the first time...Remember that he said corporations are people, or there was the $10,000 bet during the debate."

Alexander proclaimed it to be, "just one more item that could go on to the president's re-election campaign team's greatest hits reel against Romney." At the top of the broadcast, co-host Ann Curry hyped: "GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney deals with a backlash to this controversial comment." The edited sound bite that followed ignored the full context of Romney's remark: "I'm not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there."

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams fretted over winter doing a "disappearing act" and proclaimed: "It was so warm today across much of the country, as you know, they're calling it June-uary. It's got a lot of people wondering whatever happened to winter?" The headline on screen pondered: "Where's Winter?"

In the report that followed, chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson added to the alarmism as she declared: "This most unusual January ending on a remarkably mild note across the country....2,890 daily high temperature records broken or tied." She later cited climatologist and global warming proponent Dr. Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research: "Add to that a world warming because of climate change and it stacks the deck, Dr. Meehl says, against a traditional winter."

Discussing the recall of two Pfizer brands of birth control pills on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry pressed Dr. Keri Peterson on an "option" for women who "may be now vulnerable to being pregnant." Peterson offered this tip: "There are options....You're going to want to use condoms immediately...there are also over-the-counter termination kits available that you can take right away." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

While NBC correspondent Peter Alexander noted on Tuesday's Today how "Republicans are jumping on the president's choice of words" in telling a woman her husband's long-term unemployment was "interesting" to him, neither ABC's Good Morning America nor CBS's This Morning bothered to highlight Obama's aloof flub.

The NBC report played the sound bite of the president's remark: "It is interesting to me – and I meant what I said, if you send me your husband's resume I'd be interested in finding out exactly what's happening right there – because the word we're getting is, is that somebody in that kind of high-tech field, that kind of engineer, should be able to find something right away."

At the top of his Tuesday report for NBC's Today, correspondent Peter Alexander warned viewers about the state of the Republican primary race in Florida: "This campaign has just gotten so nasty lately. By some accounts, more than 90% of the ads that have run in this state have been negative."

Remarkably, later in the same segment, Alexander was happily promoting a nasty line of attack by the Obama campaign against Mitt Romney: "...the president's re-election team is now weighing in on the issue of how Romney treated his former pet....when he put the family dog, Seamus, on the roof of his car."

On Monday, Today co-host Matt Lauer pushed Mitt Romney to stop running an ad that features a clip of former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw reporting Newt Gingrich being charged with ethics violations in 1997. However, it has now been 4,742 days without an NBC story on Gingrich subsequently being cleared on those charges.

Even as Lauer grilled Romney on use of the NBC News coverage, he still failed to correct the record with the fact that in 1999 the Internal Revenue Service completely vindicated Gingrich. Instead, Lauer simply noted how upset Brokaw was: "[He] released a statement saying, quote, 'I'm extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of my personal image in this political ad. I do not want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign.'"

In what amounted to a love letter to California's Democratic Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday's NBC Nightly News, special correspondent Tom Brokaw gushed: "It's not sunshine every day for the California economy, but Jerry Brown has not given up on big dreams. His new big dream, a high-speed rail line from the north to the south..."

Anchor Brian Williams set the scene for Brokaw's fawning report: "California is mounting a comeback led by a man whose name has been synonymous with California government for decades." Brokaw sympathetically declared: "The one-time boy wonder of California politics is now the state's aging lion....Sticking up for his state."

On Thursday, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams was eager to share new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll numbers with viewers as he touted this headline from the results: "Our poll is also showing evidence this race is hurting the GOP, and we could see more of that tonight at the next debate..."

By daring to stand up for herself in recent exchange with President Obama, the media quickly labeled Arizona Governor Jan Brewer a villain. On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams was aghast: "Who have you ever seen talking to the president like this?....The governor of Arizona with her finger in the face of the President of the United States. You don't see that often or maybe ever." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

In a vain attempt to justify President Obama's claim that "America is back," on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd excitedly announced to viewers: "In our new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, improvement in three key categories seems to indicate the statistical green shoots about the economy is now actually penetrating the American psyche."

So what stunning reversal of public sentiment did the new poll reveal? Here it is: "The big number, of course, is whether the country is headed in the right direction. In December, it was 22%. Now it shot up seven [eight] points to 30%. That's a one-year high." The graphic on screen showed that 61% of Americans still believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

Despite the fact that Nancy Pelosi has failed to produce any evidence to back up her claim that she "knows something" about Newt Gingrich that would end his candidacy, on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer still touted her unfounded remarks: "...she makes this comment saying, 'Newt Gingrich will not be president, there's something I know.' Now that in itself sounds pretty alarming."  

Talking to special correspondent Tom Brokaw, Lauer suggested Pelosi must have some really damaging information that needs to be made public: "Clearly, she's hinting that she learned something that will make, will disqualify him as president. Does she have the right to back out now and back off of that?"

In an interview with Mitt Romney following the State of the Union Tuesday night, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams used the tax returns of the former Massachusetts governor as a weapon: "And it's fair to ask tonight, will you be explaining further the story of them, the back story....the amounts we've learned about today equaling unfathomable wealth for most Americans..."

Earlier in the evening, at the top of Nightly News, Williams was equally melodramatic: "...Mitt Romney, chose today to release his tax returns from the year 2010. He did it to help stop the questions about his wealth, but in releasing his taxes, he reveals what most Americans will regard as unimaginable wealth...." Williams signaled the media would not let go of the issue: "The numbers in these returns will likely get talked about for the rest of the way in this campaign."

Moments after President Obama concluded his State of the Union address on Tuesday, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams could barely contain his glee over the speech: "A rousing recitation, a reminder of why the nation is great from President Obama." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Meet the Press host David Gregory was next to take up the pom-poms, as he proclaimed: "Well, this is the power of the presidency....This was a president who was very forceful.... This was his pitch for re-election. Economic fairness is at the core of it." Williams played off Gregory's comment and sounded like a White House spokesman: "Chuck Todd, anything wrong with reminding people that as a nation we're best when we have each other's backs and what is great about America?"

What was in Ann Curry's coffee this morning? In an uncharacteristically challenging interview with Obama advisor David Plouffe on Tuesday, the NBC Today co-host actually defended Mitt Romney's wealth and questioned why Democrats would criticize his success: "Now, what's wrong with that?...is that not the American dream?"

Her question became even more pointed as she pressed: "...isn't making a lot of hay over how much money he's earned and how much money he's paid in taxes, you know, really not just fanning the flames of this sort of idea of politics of envy?"

After eagerly awaiting the release of Mitt Romney's tax returns, on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer immediately wondered how the new information could hurt the Republican presidential candidate, asking chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd: "Do you see any surprises in here, anything that will give his rivals more ammunition?"

Todd wasted no time in reciting liberal talking points bashing Romney: "I think there is certainly some fodder for some of his Democratic opponents. Things like having a Swiss bank account. You know, that's not something a lot of ordinary Americans have....it certainly paints a picture of something that a lot of Americans cannot connect to."

Appearing on Saturday's NBC Today, Time magazine and MSNBC political analyst Mark Halperin chatted with co-host Amy Robach about how thrilled the Obama White House has been with the Republican presidential race: "I think the White House is loving this. They've said all year the chaos in the Republican race is good."

That proclamation was prompted by Robach wondering if during the ongoing GOP primary season, "the Obama White House sitting back and enjoying the view?" Halperin asserted: "The President's State of the Union is coming up this week, I think that'll be a good moment for him...the contrast between a guy who is working...versus what's going on, on the Republican side..."

Worried that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was being too critical of President Obama on Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory attempted to steer the discussion toward bashing Republicans: "Where have Republicans been culpable for the paralysis in Washington? You've spoken about the President....what role do Republicans play?"

Christie hit back, placing the burden for compromise back on Obama: "...my point to Republicans has been to you've got to force those conversations. Now if the President's not interested in having them, and if he's not interested in developing those relationships, then there's little the Republicans can do."

When did NBC News suddenly become concerned with the welfare of the Republican Party? On Monday's NBC Today, former Democratic staffer and current chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd hyped Republican fears of Newt Gingrich: "...look what Gingrich did when he was essentially on the ballot, if you will, in '96 and '98, he helped re-elect a Democratic president..."

Todd promoted the idea of the GOP in disarray: "So there is this panic that they could not just lose the presidency, but lose control of the House and actually blow their chances at picking up the Senate. That's why this panic that the establishment will just do whatever it takes to stop him [Gingrich]."

In an attempt to make the Republican presidential race appear chaotic, on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry turned to White House correspondent Chuck Todd and declared: "Even the word 'tumultuous' seems inadequate to describe what has happened to the GOP race in the last 24 hours." The on-screen headline screamed: "Campaign Craziness."

Todd saw only problems for the Republican candidates: "Mitt Romney still has an inability to win over conservatives and what does the party establishment do if Gingrich indeed does win South Carolina.... Do they try to rally around Romney one more time? Or do they try to say, 'You know what? Maybe it's time to look for somebody else again, because we don't think Gingrich is electable but now we're worried that Romney's not nominatable.'"