Barack Obama

On Wednesday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes was gleeful over media coverage of the Benghazi hearings being preempted by both the story of three girls kidnapped and held prisioner for a decade in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as the verdict in the Jodi Arias murder trial. Hayes flippantly referred to the crime stories as "the next Lifetime original movie" as he teased the segment at the top of the show:

Comcast is holding a shareholder meeting in Philadelphia next week, and the Tea Party is planning a protest of the company's so-called news outlets NBC and MSNBC.

FreedomWorks recently sent the following email message out to 60,000 Tea Partiers around Philadelphia (published with permission):

Have you seriously wondered why the media have largely boycotted the Benghazi story?

Dennis Miller has, and on Fox News's O'Reilly Factor Tuesday, he compellingly said, "If you’re the one who brings down Barack Obama, you will be out of the game" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell pressed Senator Joe Manchin about a possible new push for gun control in Congress. Rose wondered how Manchin and his allies could make legislation "more palatable to those people who may be afraid of it", while O'Donnell bluntly asked the Democrat, "Are you frustrated with the NRA?"

Manchin was their only guest on the gun issue. The CBS anchors had an opportunity to provide balance by asking Senator Bob Corker about his support for gun rights. Instead, Rose and Gayle King peppered the Republican with questions about his recent game of golf with President Obama: "Do you pull out all of the stops to beat him, or do you think, he's the President – I'm going to let him win this one?" [audio available here; video below the jump]

There are times when I really think I live in different country than liberal media members.

Take Al Sharpton for example who in his most recent Lean Forward ad for MSNBC said that America isn’t living up to the Pledge of Allegiance’s creed of “One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Conservative author Ann Coulter made a statement about the press Monday that should embarrass all the so-called "journalists" in America.

Appearing on Fox News's Hannity, Coulter said, "The media is now the Praetorian Guard to protect the President from the dumb things he does" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

This past April, celebrity Obama donors Beyonce Knowles and husband Jay-Z took a controversial trip to the communist country of Cuba. Knowles appeared on Monday's Good Morning America and Nightline, but ABC continued to offer no skepticism about the details of the visit. Instead, reporter Amy Robach discovered her inner-entertainment journalist, wondering, "What did you make of the controversy?"

That was the extent of Robach's questions on the topic. No mention of the fact that Knowles and her husband raised over $4 million for Obama in 2012, prior to being given special permission to make the trip.  (American tourists are barred from traveling there.) Robach simply summarized, "But the busy star took a break last month, traveling to Cuba with her husband Jay-Z for their fifth wedding anniversary, igniting a firestorm from lawmakers." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

CBS used its Sunday evening and Monday morning newscasts to keep the spotlight on the question of a "possible cover-up" surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Jeff Glor led CBS Evening News with the scoop from earlier in the day on Face the Nation – that a "career U.S. diplomat is raising new questions" about the Obama administration's claim that the attack spontaneously erupted in response to an early protest in Egypt.

Monday's CBS This Morning also aired a report on this latest development on the September 11, 2012 attack. Meanwhile, ABC and NBC have yet to pick up on the veteran diplomat's allegations, despite the fact that he is set to testify publicly to Congress on the issue on Wednesday.

It really is amazing how excited liberal media members can get when the economy produces 165,000 jobs and a 7.5 percent unemployment rate under a Democratic president.

So enthralled was Chris Matthews that he actually asked guests on the syndicated program bearing his name Sunday if this will give Democrats including Hillary Clinton "bragging rights" in 2016 (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Dan Rather on Sunday once again made a comment about President Obama's opponents that some might find a bit over the top.

Appearing on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Rather said, "These people politically want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It really is amazing how liberal media members regularly make false statements on national television with total impunity.

Consider MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell who twice on HBO's Real Time Friday arrogantly claimed that the Obamas' federal income tax rate was "in the high twenties" (video follows with transcribed lowlights and commentary):

Bill Maher said something on HBO's Real Time Friday that Barack Obama's fans in the media didn't consider when they promoted the former junior senator from Illinois to the White House.

"This president wouldn't be president if they had caught him" smoking pot. "He'd still be a community organizer" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NPR has a seriously bad habit of running “news” stories that are stuffed with liberals...who then aren’t called liberals. On Thursday’s All Things Considered, NPR health policy correspondent Julie Rovner reported on how Team Obama is queasy about letting girls under 15 – middle-school girls -- get access to “emergency contraceptives,” even after a federal judge mandated they be sold to all ages. 

As Rovner put it, “the administration's decision to appeal that ruling has outraged many of the president's allies in the women's health community.” That’s what they call the aggressively “sex-positive” feminists. The only “conservative” view in this story was...Obama! Well, that's not fair. The Obama quotes they used were liberal-pleasers, too. Everyone else wanted to make America safe for sixth-grade sex.

Jan Crawford touted how ObamaCare going into full effect in early 2014 is "causing all kinds of concern and anxiety, especially with...small business owners" on Friday's CBS This Morning. Crawford also pointed out Senator Max Baucus' April 17, 2013 "train wreck" label of the upcoming implementation of the health care law. This was the first time that a Big Three morning or evening newscast mentioned Baucus' blunt remark.

The correspondent zeroed in on a California bakery whose owner asserted that he "can't make any decisions, because the federal government is giving no guidance" with regard to ObamaCare.

Last Friday, Obama made “history” by being the first president to address Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest purveyor of abortions. Obama did this in spite of the terrible timing, during the Kermit Gosnell trial. But like the Gosnell trial, Obama’s speech drew a blackout: no story on  ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, or NPR.

MSNBC's Chris Hayes hailed it was a "history-making" speech, but complained that Obama never used the A-word, which he should never feel ashamed to use. Rachel Maddow praised Obama for “putting a new capstone” on bold proclamations for the “right to choose.” USA Today and the Los Angeles Times somehow missed it. The New York Times blogged it – with this amazing paragraph from reporter Peter Baker as he mentioned Gosnell:

Thursday's CBS This Morning singled out the FBI's pursuit of three persons of interest who could provide information on the September 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Margaret Brennan touted how "what happened that night is still the topic of debate in Washington", and noted that members of Congress "want to speak to those Americans evacuated from Benghazi, but claim the White House won't release the names."

ABC devoted a news brief to the FBI's investigation on Wednesday's World News, but didn't cover the development the following morning on Good Morning America. NBC apparently didn't find the story newsworthy, as they failed to cover it on their evening and morning newscasts.

CNN's Erin Burnett hosted a liberal roundtable on her Wednesday show to gripe about President Obama's shortcomings and whack Republican members of Congress for obstructing his agenda.

How often would CNN host a conservative roundtable to complain about the Republican leadership? Regardless, liberal comedian Dean Obeidallah warned that Obama could become a "lame duck president" while lefty radio host Stephanie Miller and Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen largely focused more blame on Republican obstructionists. [Video coming soon. Audio here.]

More potential jihadist attacks against American civilians in the wake of the Boston bombings? Not worthy of further attention from Rachel Maddow. Instead, Maddow is more concerned with that "real crisis" down at Guantanamo, of prisoners starving themselves.

If future media critics ever want a quintessential example of the Maddow show, they could do worse than watch her program from April 30, 2013. And after cringing through it, they'll want a bleach bath. (Video clip after page break)

While NBC's chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd pressed President Obama during a Tuesday news conference on the possibility of ObamaCare being a "train wreck," the network coverage of the presser completely avoided any mention of the question, instead seizing on Obama being pressured from the left to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Anchor Brian Williams lead off Tuesday's Nightly News by declaring: "The hunger strike at Guantanamo that's now gotten so bad prisoners are being force fed, as the President faces tough questions." Introducing a report on the topic, Williams lectured: "We don't get to see them or know their names, and most Americans actually prefer not to spend a whole lot of time thinking about the men who've been rounded up as enemy combatants and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba."

Barack Obama during his Tuesday press conference said once again that he wants to close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno offered the President some advice Tuesday saying, "He should do what he always does: declare it a small business and tax it out of existence":

You've got hand it to some (probably most) of the reporters at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. Their story is that the economy is all right, and by gosh, they're sticking to it.

Tom Raum's dispatch yesterday is a case in point. Along the way, he pulled out several of the tired spin-driven claims which have long since been taken down but which haven't yet penetrated the skulls of low-information voters. Raum and AP seem puzzled that the supposedly okey-dokey economy doesn't seem to be helping President Obama or Democrats' 2014 congressional and senatorial election prospects (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

During live coverage of Barack Obama's Tuesday press conference Chuck Todd surprisingly pressed the President about Democratic Senator Max Baucus calling ObamaCare a "train wreck." It was surprising because his own network has yet to report on the almost two-week old warning that the Montana senator made to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during an April 17 hearing.

Until Tuesday morning's press conference not one of the Big Three (ABC, CBS and NBC) network reporters or anchors reported on Baucus's criticism. (video after the jump)

During a Tuesday press conference at the White House, CBS's Bill Plante channeled his colleague Bob Schieffer's 2009 "open sore" pronouncement about Guantanamo Bay as he asked President Obama about an ongoing hunger strike among many of the detainees there. Plante hinted at sympathy for the prisoners as he wondered, "Is it any surprise, really, that they would prefer death rather than – have no end in sight to their confinement?"

The correspondent's leading question allowed the President to revisit the issue and call for the closure of the facility, just over three months after his administration closed the office tasked with shuttering the prison camp [audio available here; video below the jump]:

President Barack Obama will take to the podium in the White House press briefing room at 10:30 a.m. Eastern for a press conference. The occasion: today is the 100th day of his second term in office. We at NewsBusters will be watching and I'll be live-blogging the questions from reporters. Pardon my inaccuracies as I'll be transcribing on the fly.

In the comments section, leave some question that YOU would ask if you were in the room. Which questions should be asked but likely won't?