Matt Hadro's blog

When asked by CNN what "one foreign policy question" he would ask the President, Dan Rather didn't mention Libya and instead asked a generic question about a threat to world peace. Is he a journalist or a Miss America contestant?

CNN's Brooke Baldwin inquired of Rather on Monday, "what is the one foreign policy question that you are absolutely dying to ask of the President?" His answer: "What is, in your opinion, the single biggest threat to world peace and our own national security? And in a second term, if you're re-elected, what would you do to alleviate that threat?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Once again, a Republican guest ripped CNN's Soledad O'Brien for her Democratic-friendly bias. Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani lit into her on Monday for giving President Obama "an incredibly generous interpretation" of his reaction to the Libya attacks.

"My goodness. That's an incredibly generous interpretation for the President," Giuliani told O'Brien after she tried to refute GOP accusations of a cover-up from the Obama administration. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

After a Gallup poll showed abortion as the top issue among likely women voters, CNN's Carol Costello suggested Republicans are responsible – and not in a good way.

"Why now? Maybe it's because there's been so much controversial language surrounding the issue lately, like Congressman Todd Akin's 'legitimate rape' comments," said Costello, bringing in the Democratic talking points. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Can Jessica Yellin be any more of an Obama flap? She scorched Mitt Romney's "binders" comment as hurtful to the candidate, but on Thursday she watered down President Obama calling the deaths of Americans in Libya "not optimal."

The President said on the Daily Show that "When four Americans get killed, it's not optimal." Yellin explained that host Jon Stewart used the word "optimal" in his question and Obama "repeated it." She promptly moved on to Obama's renewed promise to close Guantanamo Bay and his joke about Vice President Biden in a swimsuit. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Liberal CNN host Piers Morgan canned the Democratic "binders full of women" attack on Romney as "facile and silly," but CNN reporters hammered on it Wednesday night and well into Thursday.

Surprisingly, Morgan threw his criticism in David Axelrod's face by telling him "I find it rather facile and silly, to be honest with you, that the Democrats are trying to make it fun of Mitt Romney for what seemed to be a perfectly reasonable to say, in the same way the Big Bird thing looked a bit silly and facile." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Not 24 hours after Tuesday's presidential debate, CNN's Jessica Yellin was working the Obama spin on Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" comment.

"You know, it made it sound almost like working women are some mail-order product you can order out of colored binders," she ridiculously claimed on Wednesday's Anderson Cooper 360. CNN's White House correspondent played right into the White House talking points. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

[UPDATED BELOW] CNN's Soledad O'Brien showed her glaring liberal double standard on Thursday, citing a liberal source to debunk Mitt Romney's tax plan while casting its supporters as either "completely partisan" or unworthy sources.

Her source, the Tax Policy Center, is the joint venture of two liberal think tanks, but since the American Enterprise Institute is a "conservative think tank" O'Brien threw water on the credibility of its support for Romney's tax plan. And she herself cited a TPC blog post attacking Romney's plan, but wouldn't accept a defense of the plan because it was a "blog post."

While CBS This Morning hosts served Vice President Joe Biden softball questions on mostly horserace issues and debate optics, they challenged Paul Ryan to defend his voting record.

"Does Governor Romney believe the President was right to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law? You voted against that act, didn't you?" pressed co-host Anthony Mason. In contrast, when Biden was asked about the Libya fiasco at the very end of his interview, Norah O'Donnell molded it into a more friendly question.

Former debate moderator (and liberal journalist) Carole Simpson has been making the media rounds before Tuesday's presidential debate, giving President Obama the edge and implying that the standards for debate moderators are sexist. She continued that on Tuesday's Starting Point.

She gave Obama the town hall-style debate advantage as a  "people person" and "touchy-feely." In contrast, she cited criticism of Romney "that he doesn't relate to ordinary people." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Anderson Cooper cited the liberal Tax Policy Center debunking Mitt Romney's tax plan on Monday, without noting that one of the authors admitted the plan could still work with different assumptions. He waited until the end of his report to admit that the studies in question were "making assumptions."

"[A] bipartisan panel of three authors for the Tax Policy Center examined the plan and concluded that there's really no way of making the numbers work, that is, unless the middle class pays more," Cooper reported on the night before Tuesday's presidential debate. That is misleading, since the study admitted reliance on "certain assumptions" and one of its authors said the plan could work. The TPC report was released in August.

Liberal journalist Carole Simpson is at it again. The former debate moderator returned to CNN and cast doubt on Mitt Romney's expectations while building up President Obama's, on Monday.

"I would have to say he [Obama] would have the edge in this debate," she mused. "One of Mitt Romney's problems throughout the campaign season has been does he relate to ordinary people?" she asked before adding "I'm not sure he can." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

When a news anchor's Obama-friendly question is slapped down by even a liberal columnist, it's whacky. CNN's Carol Costello wondered if Libya should even be a campaign issue, but both her guests -- liberal and conservative -- answered in a resounding affirmation on Monday.

Citing the father of dead Ambassador Chris Stevens, who deplored the tragedy becoming a campaign issue, Costello asked "So I think the Ambassador's father spoke out too late because Libya has already become a campaign issue. I guess the question is should it be?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Has CNN's Piers Morgan had a revelation? Or is he simply praising Mitt Romney in the British press while peddling Democratic talking points on CNN?

Romney "just might save America," Morgan proclaimed over the weekend in Britain's Daily Mail. "His track record as a businessman is better than almost any presidential candidate ever."

NBC's Tom Brokaw blasted Joe Biden's debate antics on Friday's Morning Joe. "I mean he just can't contain himself," note Brokaw. "And he's become a caricature on the talk shows."

"I just don't think you should be laughing during a discussion about thermonuclear war with Iran," Brokaw called out Biden, who repeatedly shook his head at opponent Paul Ryan while smiling and laughing. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

While CBS This Morning asked only one tough question on the Obama administration and Libya on Friday, guest Newt Gingrich came out swinging and dismantled Democratic guest Jennifer Granholm's defense of the administration. CBS has at times been friendly to the administration over the fiasco.

"I think with regard to the debate and the election, I don't think people are going to be voting on Benghazi. I think they are going to be voting on who do you trust," Granholm ridiculously argued. "You want to talk about trust? Having an American ambassador and three other Americans killed while the President lies to you is a pretty big question," Gingrich shot back. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

After a lengthy spar with CNN's Soledad O'Brien over an alleged Mitt Romney flip-flop, RNC chief Reince Priebus called her out for her double standard on Thursday's Starting Point.

"Soledad, I wish you would be as passionate about taking Barack Obama to task for every one of his promises and for every one of his changes that he didn't follow through on over the last four years, as opposed to this," Priebus lectured her. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Stephanie Cutter ignited a firestorm when she blamed Team Romney on Thursday for making the Libya fiasco into the "political issue" it has become, but CNN's Brooke Baldwin enabled her gross political accusations by calling the Libya controversy a "political circus."

"No doubt this has absolutely turned in to a political circus, whatever political aisle you're looking at," Baldwin began the interview. Cutter then used those exact words in her first response: "Paul Ryan has politicized and made it a political circus all over this country of the terrible tragedy that happened in Libya." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

On Thursday's CBS This Morning, co-hosts Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell waited until the fifth interview question to press Obama adviser David Axelrod about the fiasco in Libya. The question wasn't even a tough one, basically asking for the administration's spin.

"David, the consequences of what happened in the death of the Ambassador in Libya has caused some scrutiny in those incidents in the security there, and people are writing in editorials this morning that perhaps there was some pressure on Ambassador Rice to say what she said," Rose brought up the charges against the administration. "What is the response of the President to these questions and charges?" he asked.

Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake told CNN on Tuesday that candidate George W. Bush "just didn't pay a high enough price" in the 2000 election for his DUI arrest that occurred more than 20 years prior.

Blake was talking about famous "October surprises," or unforseen events occurring in the month before the election that could be game-changing. The Bush DUI revelation was a hit job planted by a Democratic source that mushroomed into a big story because of the liberal media. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Piers Morgan just couldn't let his Republican guest denounce President Obama's foreign policy. He spouted the White House spin on all the President's accomplishments while not holding him accountable for the Libya fiasco, on his Monday night show.

"I would say one of the things that Barack Obama has done incredibly successfully is restore a lot of America's very damaged reputation around the world since the eight years of George Bush and all the warfare that came with it," claimed Morgan. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

A July campaign story by CNN's Jim Acosta was so biased that the Obama campaign trumpeted the headline in its new attack ad. That came after MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell cried foul over the campaign using footage of her in its ads, perhaps telling evidence of the role the liberal media is playing in this campaign by providing fodder for Obama.

Back in July, Acosta hyped that Mitt Romney's overseas trip to Europe began in "shambles" even though CNN hosts Piers Morgan and Fareed Zakaria threw water on that sentiment. Team Obama now has featured Acosta's story to cast aspersions on Romney's foreign policy credentials. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Soledad O'Brien is bungling facts, again! The CNN anchor omitted a key portion of Mitt Romney's remarks back in May as she tried to convict him of hypocrisy with his own words on Monday. Conservative blog The Right Scoop reported earlier on this.

Just hours before Romney's key address on foreign policy, O'Brien reported, "So here's what we know he is going to say in his speech this – later today. He's going to say 'Finally I will recommit America to the goal of the democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.' And as you well know, this is very contradictory to what we know he was saying in that tape that was leaked," she hammered his adviser Tara Wall.

ABC's Cynthia McFadden was dripping with sugary admiration on Monday for President Obama's "not-so-secret weapon," First Lady Michelle Obama. She touted Obama as a big hugger" and "very warm in person."

Obama made statements like this that went unchallenged by McFadden: "I rarely step foot in the West Wing. In fact, people are shocked when they see me there." That sentiment of a hands-off policy flatly contradicts Jodi Kantor's reporting in the New York Times of definitive friction between the First Lady and the President's staff. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN continued to hype Big Bird as a key debate issue on Friday morning as Soledad O'Brien brought on PBS "Reading Rainbow" host LeVar Burton who laid into Mitt Romney's promise to cut PBS funding. "Save Big Bird!" and "Romney Takes Aim At Big Bird" read CNN's headlines on screen.

"I was outraged. I couldn't believe the man actually fixed his mouth to say that. I interpreted it as an attack on children, Soledad," Burton ranted. "PBS is the nation's largest classroom. It guarantees equal access to the wonderfulness that PBS has provided for almost 50 years in this country." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Soledad O'Brien twice implied Mitt Romney is lying, on Friday's Starting Point. She pointed to the candidate's admission to being wrong about his 47 percent comments after previously standing by them as a "flip-flop," and something "which some could define as lying."

Meanwhile, on Wednesday she barely touched a 2007 video of then-Senator Obama pandering to a largely black audience and implying the federal government cared less about majority-black New Orleans than it did New York and Florida. O'Brien did not question whether Obama would now "flip-flop" on what he said then. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

When CNN laughably focused on Mitt Romney cutting funding for "Big Bird" as a key debate moment, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) took CNN to task on Thursday for hyping such a frivolous detail.

"I think focusing on a light moment, which was clearly what it was, is doing a disservice to the people of America who are struggling," Diaz-Balart ripped into CNN. He also mocked anchor Carol Costello, "that's the take-away that you found from the debate? I mean frankly that's the best you can come up with from this debate?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

President Obama left his "greatest hits on the cutting room floor" for Wednesday night's debate, claimed CBS This Morning co-host Norah O'Donnell after the debate. According to her, "contraceptive rights" and "free mammograms" in ObamaCare are some of the President's "greatest hits."

"There was no mention of Bain," she said on Wednesday night's Charlie Rose. "There was no mention of the auto industry saved. There was no mention of the wars ended, and in the discussion about ObamaCare, he didn't mention that that would turn back many provisions that protect women's health, free mammograms, contraceptive rights." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

A Romney campaign senior adviser blistered CNN's Soledad O'Brien on Wednesday morning, quipping that "I know you have your talking points" before citing an independent study to attack Obama's jobs record. O'Brien later retorted that "Only one person who is spinning at this moment, and that would be you."

Romney advisers and supporters could make a habit of mocking Soledad O'Brien's bias on CNN. Romney surrogate John Sununu has twice gone after O'Brien in such fashion, telling her she should be ashamed to be parroting Obama talking points and that she should put an Obama sticker on her forehead. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN dismissed the controversy behind a 2007 Obama video that just resurfaced, by calling it "old news" and whitewashing the President's own words. CNN even touted its own 2007 coverage of the speech without admitting that it ignored the most controversial part.

Anchor Soledad O'Brien, who has stuck up for Obama more than once before, lamely spun that Obama "was talking about racial discontent and hopelessness because of poverty." CNN's Zoraida Sambolin said "it is old news" and added that CNN "covered it at the time." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

When push came to shove, CBS's Charlie Rose caved to the wishes of Obama adviser Robert Gibbs on Wednesday's CBS This Morning. Gibbs derided CBS for hammering a controversial video of Obama from 2007, and Rose quickly changed the subject.

"I have to say I'm a little amazed that, as you mentioned, a widely-covered speech, likely by people at your network, has somehow caused a kerfluffle five years later because somebody like Sean Hannity decided to re-air what was covered extensively," mocked Gibbs, to which Rose replied "Let me move on." [Video below the break. Audio here.]