David Gregory

NBC continues to lead the way in belittling any and all Republican attempts to stand up to President Obama. On Sunday’s Today, David Gregory rehashed the common left-wing talking point that Republicans are opposing Obama at every turn merely for the sake of being obstructionist. 

Commenting on Republican opposition to the Chuck Hagel nomination, Gregory said, “There’s no question that this looks to be similar to what people are criticizing Republicans for doing on the economy or on spending, on these various battles they’ve had over the debt, which is just trying to jam the president up.” [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

While new White House chief of staff Denis McDonough was grilled about the Benghazi terrorist attack on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, NBC Meet the Press moderator David Gregory only lobbed a single softball on the scandal, while fill-in host Jonathan Karl ignored the topic all together on ABC's This Week. The White House was unwilling to even allow Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace to interview McDonough.

On Meet the Press, after providing a fawning biographical intro of McDonough, Gregory only briefly touched on Benghazi, hoping the controversy was over: "I've talked to Republican senators, they've wanted to get additional information about what the President did the night of the attack...Has the President finished on the Benghazi matter? Is there anything else he's going to say or anything else he's concluded that should've been done that was not done?"

It’s bad enough that Chris Matthews gets two hours a day on MSNBC to showcase his anti-conservative rants, but why does host David Gregory undermine any pretense that NBC News is not the same as MSNBC by bringing Matthews aboard Meet the Press? Worse, Gregory prompted Matthews to repeat his Hardball diatribe about how, in freshman Senator Ted Cruz, “I saw Joe McCarthy.”

Seconds later, Matthews charged the Congress has “really become an undemocratic system with the way that Boehner’s had to play this with his right wing.” That led Carly Fiorina, a fellow panelist, to snidely observe: “It’s all the Republicans’ fault in your view, clearly.” A delighted Matthews agreed: “It is. You nailed it.”

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked NBC's David Gregory a question Sunday that should be asked of virtually every media member in this country.

During a heated exchange about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year, McCain said to his Meet the Press host, "Do you care whether four Americans died?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory seized on an item in Politico arguing that upcoming sequester budget cuts could prove to be a "time bomb" for Republicans: "And the political pressure that's being brought to bear....'If sequestration happens now, House Democrats say they'll have tangible proof that the GOP is a dysfunctional party that can't even tie its own shoelaces'....Is that where the pressure is?"

Gregory posed that question to investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff, who replied: "I think the President clearly has the upper hand on the budget. Look, he won the election....Revenues being a part of the equation for cutting the budget, the President won on that....on that particular issue, he's got the upper hand. And it makes sense for him politically to hammer it – hammer it strongly."

On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory demanded Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor admit that the Republican Party's fundamental principles led to electoral defeat in 2012: "Isn't this more than tone that's an issue? Isn't it more than re-branding? Isn't it some of the central beliefs of the Republican Party that have hurt it with the electorate?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Cantor explained that the party needed to "connect our conservative principles with helping people and making their life work again." Gregory interjected: "But Leader, it's core beliefs....There are core beliefs of the Republican Party that the polls show were rejected by a national electorate that you want to try to recapture some of if you're going to get to become a national party."

Allegations of shady campaign contributors and procurement of prostitutes are usually the ingredients of a political scandal that send the media into a feeding frenzy – unless, of course, the figure involved is a Democrat.

When news broke that the FBI opened an inquiry into New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez’s jaunts (that may have included solicitation of prostitutes) to the Dominican Republic with a longtime campaign contributor, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks responded with barely a murmur.

During a panel discussion on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Friday, Meet the Press moderator David Gregory touted President Obama's swagger leading up to Tuesday's State of the Union address: "He's coming at this with a very ambitious agenda at a time when he's feeling pretty confident...You come into the start of your second term, you say, 'Okay, I'm going to walk with a bit more strength in my gate here.'" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Host Andrea Mitchell imagined Obama declaring: "I'm the big sheriff in town." The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza gushed: "Well, I mean, look, this is – if there's ever a time where you can say, 'I have been validated'....It's sort of like, 'I won, deal with this reality, and let's move forward.'"

Talking to Heritage Foundation president and former Republican Senator Jim DeMint on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory eagerly cited recent criticism of the GOP: "Colin Powell on this program a couple of weeks ago talking about a deep vein of intolerance within the Republican Party. How do you respond to that as you take a look at where the party needs to go?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

DeMint refused to give credence to the accusation, instead focusing on the issues of debt reduction and economic growth. However, Gregory refused to the let the topic go: "Senator, do you regret, you know, some of the comments about abortion in this last cycle, about rape, about again, what Colin Powell thought were veiled racist comments from the party?" At no point did Gregory provide a single example of GOP "intolerance" to back up the smear.  

While liberal journalists like David Gregory and liberal politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)* are able to bend and even break District of Columbia gun laws in service of promoting more stringent gun control laws, it's a far different story for apolitical Good Samaritans who use their guns to save lives.

Andrea Noble of the Washington Times noted yesterday that a D.C. man could face numerous gun charges related to his discharge of his gun on Sunday to save an 11-year-old boy from being mauled to death by three pit bulls (excerpt follows page break):

[See Update at bottom on how they caught up with reality the next night]

“Analysts on the left and the right are calling President Obama’s second inaugural address the most liberal speech he has delivered in office,” FNC’s Bret Baier announced at the top of Monday’s Special Report. Those on the left and right may, but that didn’t include the reporters on the ABC and CBS  evening newscasts who scrupulous avoided applying a liberal description to Obama’s address.

On ABC’s World News, Bill Weir innocuously cited how Obana’s speech delivered “a theme of moving forward together,” before George Stephanopoulos asserted: “What you saw today, is the President gave a meditation on freedom and equality, was a President who also felt free.”

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel made some statements about America's role in the world on Sunday's Meet the Press that are guaranteed to raise eyebrows on both sides of the aisle.

"It’s greatly diminished. I think the Chinese model is one that appeals more and more in the developing world" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberal Daily Beast writer Michael Tomasky joined the gang of other liberal journalists expressing their overwrought, melodramatic outrage this morning at the NRA's latest Web ad which calls President Obama to task for dismissing their call for armed guards in the nation's schools.

But, being Tomasky, he had to crank the amp up to 11, suggesting that the ad was darkly coded in a way that might inspire violence against the president's daughters (emphasis mine):

As MediaBistro's TVNewser blog noticed on Wednesday, an image of NBC Meet the Press moderator David Gregory was featured in the newly released ad by the National Rifle Association, labeling him to be one of several "elitist hypocrites" on the gun control issue. [Watch video of the ad after the jump]

Shortly after former Secretary of State Colin Powell attacked the Republican Party for having a supposed "dark vein of intolerance," on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory seized on the smear as he encouraged the show's panel to comment. The discussion that followed was devoid of any criticism of Powell's remarks. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Gregory began by grilling former Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour: "I thought that was striking, some of General Powell's comments, particularly about the Republican Party....He talks about a deep vein of intolerance within the Party. How did that sit with you?" Barbour called Powell a "friend" but added that "we don't see everything the same way." He then noted the demographic disadvantage for the GOP in the 2012 election.

President Barack Obama and his administration have been on the receiving end of a great deal of leftist criticism recently for its "lack of diversity" (to be clear, I find that entire discussion tiresome, as it would be more productive to spend time on problems like John Kerry's anti-American history, Jack Lew's bankrupting budgetary intransigence, and Eric Holder's unprecedented obsession with suing states exercising their sovereign rights).

With that backdrop, it's incredibly convenient that Colin Powell "just so happened" to appear today on NBC's "Meet the Press" with David Gregory, the Washington elitist disguised as a journalist who on Friday escaped prosecution for violating District of Columbia gun and ammunition law three weeks ago, to accuse the Republican Party -- the party whose members ended slavery, provided the margins by which landmark civil-rights legislation passed in the 1950s and 1960s, and whose ranks rarely if ever included members of the Ku Klux Klan while southern Democrats were infested with such members for nearly a century -- of having "a dark vein of intolerance."

It's now official: David Gregory is above the law. Just two days after the DC attorney general's office received the case of NBC star's deliberate exibition of a high-capacity bullet magazine, the agency decided it would not prosecute.

The decision is interesting and disturbing for two reasons: 1) the prosecutors believe that Gregory (and his producers) were guilty of the crime, and 2) they seem to think that it is ok to use the rights granted by the First Amendment to attack the rights granted by the Second.

While many in the media have defended David Gregory's violation of the District of Columbia's strict gun laws when he held up a 30-round magazine during a December 23 Meet the Press interview, the Washington Post's Mike DeBonis is taking things a step further, insisting we don't know for certain whether Gregory held up an actual magazine or just something that "appeared" to look like one.

From DeBonis's page B3 January 10 story (emphases mine):

The police department of the District of Columbia has completed an investigation into NBC television host David Gregory’s possession and exhibition of a high-capacity gun magazine on the Dec. 23 edition of the show “Meet the Press.”

Under DC law, it is illegal for anyone to possess a magazine able to hold 10 or more bullets, even if it is empty. Now that the investigation is complete, the matter has been referred to the district’s attorney general, Irvin Nathan.

The media agenda against guns is nothing new. But recent mass shootings have encouraged supposedly neutral journalists to push for gun regulation instead of reporting the facts surrounding the tragedies.

One thing the media seldom mention is that both the Newtown and Aurora shootings occurred in gun free zones. In the Clackamas Town Center Shooting in Oregon, however, a gunman was stopped when someone with a concealed carry permit intervened. There were only two casualties in this shooting which received little media attention. If this incident was mentioned, the concealed carry part of the story was almost completely ignored.

Getting reactions to the “fiscal cliff” deal/postponement from Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles – they of the much-cited “Simpson-Bowles Commission” – Meet the Press host David Gregory wistfully speculated on what might have been, had only Republicans agreed a year ago to raise income taxes.

He cued up Bowles: “Had Republicans conceded the point on revenue earlier, say, in 2011, could we have had a broader agreement along the lines that you think is necessary?”

On New Year's Day, perhaps before he learned that his current employer's enterprise would be sold to Al Jazeera, Current TV's David Shuster took to the bandwidth of the Huffington Post to ask that former NBC/MSNBC colleague David Gregory apologize for his December 23 gun magazine-waving stunt on Meet the Press.

Get a load of the sense of self-importance Shuster gives the Sunday news show (bolds are mine):

NBC's David Gregory interviewed President Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" Sunday, and a conversation ensued that would have been more fitting for a show called "The President Meets One of His Many Mainstream Media Enablers."

Let's take a look at just some of the exchanges and fantasize how different the nation's political and electoral climate might be if the liberal press were doing its job as watchdog instead of taking sides.

When the White House initiated the “We The People” website for persons to use in getting the attention of the Obama administration by accumulating at least 25,000 electronic signatures, I don't think they expected it to be used as much and as often as it is.

One of the complaints that has surpassed the halfway point is a petition to have NBC News reporter David Gregory arrested for using a 30-round AR-15 gun magazine as a prop during his interview with National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre on last Sunday's edition of “Meet the Press.”

Of all the gushing, fawning, sycophantic things uttered by Obama-loving media members in 2012, David Gregory's fiscal cliff question posed to the President on Sunday's Meet the Press has to be on the list of the year's top ten.

"Is this your Lincoln moment?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

New York Times columnist David Brooks made an astonishing observation about President Obama on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday.

"Sometimes he governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN media analyst Howard Kurtz was impressed last Sunday with how Meet the Press host David Gregory hammered the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre during their interview.

One week later, Kurtz wondered why Gregory "didn’t brandish any weapons or show much firepower" during this Sunday's interview with President Obama.

Howard Kurtz of The Daily Beast has some tough talk for the D.C. Police investigating NBC's David Gregory. In an interview with the NRA's Wayne LaPierre on Sunday's Meet the Press, Gregory had produced an high capacity magazine on-air in violation of D.C. gun laws, thus attracting a police investigation.

Kurtz lamely implied that although Gregory broke the law, he shouldn't be prosecuted for it. "But the D.C. Police Department apparently has nothing better to do than examine whether he violated the city’s gun laws," Kurtz scoffed in his column at the Daily Download.

William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has relayed the latest turns of events in the David Gregory Meet the Press magazine brandishing incident (previous posts here, here, and here). The press is finally paying attention: "Now that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department is on record that it told NBC News not to use the high capacity magazine in its segment with Wayne LaPierre, the big media is paying attention and taking this seriously."

Except that some in the press are, with anonymous sources, trying to excuse Gregory's and NBC's situation by saying that they somehow got permission to display the magazine. Uh, except that the New York Times says that any permission obtained doesn't matter. The permission supposedly came from the federal government's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF):