Bob Woodward

In a stunning display of group-think on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, a panel of journalists all concluded that no American president could have possibly prevented the ongoing crisis in Middle East or responded to it any better than Barack Obama. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

The hand-wringing began with The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg absolving the President of any responsibility for chaos in the region: "There are some very, very deep and troubling things going on in – in the Middle East that have very little to do with what a president does or doesn't do.... so to blame the President for – for an attack on – on these embassies, I think, is a bit much."

For several years, the Obama-loving media have harped on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) October 2010 remark, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

On MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward not only proved that the media have been misrepresenting this quote since it was made, host Joe Scarborough apologized to McConnell for being part of the echo chamber (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bob Woodward singled out congressional Republicans as the main party to blame for the 2011 debt ceiling showdown during an interview on Wednesday's CBS This Morning and minimized President Obama and Senate Democrats's responsibility regarding the looming fiscal cliff: "The Republicans are like a brick wall, and it's very difficult to deal with them."

Woodward also bemoaned that the press apparently wasn't doing enough to press the budget issue with Obama and Romney: "What's astonishing to me, is it clearly is the key domestic issue. We have a presidential campaign going on....and no one is pressing the candidates – if we had the candidates here, we would say, what is your plan? What are you going to do? This is not something to do by the seat of your pants....we need to have answers."

Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday attacked Bob Woodward and his new expose from the left, worrying that "Speaker Boehner [is] using your book as a sign that voters should turn away from President Obama." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Woodward appeared on ABC to promote The Price of Politics, his new book on the 2011 battle over the debt ceiling. According to Stephanopoulos, Woodward paints a picture of a president who failed to "work [his] will." The former Bill Clinton operative parroted Obama talking points, complaining, "As you know, the White House takes exception to the conclusion" that "the President lacked the stamina to build the relationships he needed to get this done." 

ABC's Diane Sawyer, in a Nightline interview with the Washington Post's Bob Woodward Monday, aggressively defended President Obama from any blame for last summer's debt ceiling crisis.

"Barack Obama was hostage to events outside his control" due to a "Republican Congress newly dominated by the Tea Party" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist had himself quite a day on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday dispelling liberal media myths.

In the course of about five minutes, Norquist gave a much-needed education to CNN political contributor Hilary Rosen and the Washington Post's Bob Woodward on which political party in Washington is obstructionist (video follows with transcript and commentary):