Mark Preston

President Obama basically admitted failure when he said that Washington cannot be changed "from the inside," but CNN tried to explain his gaffe on Friday's Early Start while later dumping on Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks.

CNN's John Berman insisted "I know what he [Obama] is trying to say there" and political director Mark Preston argued that "What President Obama said was correct." In contrast, Berman later swung at Romney by saying "I think the 47 percent is more than just another gaffe or misspeak." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN analyst John Avlon may have worked a while back for Rudy Giuliani, but on Saturday morning, he sounded like an Obama White House spinner. On the show Your Bottom Line, host Christine Romans asked if the economy will hurt or help Obama.

Avlon tried to compare Obama in 2012 with Ronald Reagan in 1984. This is dicey because the unemployment rate had plunged 3.6 percentage points from its cyclical peak of 10.8 percent that had been reached two years earlier (November 1982). That coincided with the bottom of the deepest recession since World War II (and liberal media types always skip over how badly the economy did under Jimmy Carter). Obama's only down a point and a half from his 10.0 percent high.

Reporting on Monday morning that Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was not seeking re-election, CNN's political team whitewashed his controversial tenure in office with some fond words like "titan," "larger-than-life," and "teacher at heart."

CNN's Joe Johns lauded Frank's skills as a teacher -- especially as the first openly-gay congressman. "He's taught this country so much about the gay community in the United States and what it means to be an openly gay member of Congress. A leader, in fact, on Capitol Hill," Johns gushed.

Political editor Mark Preston praised Frank as a "titan" of financial sector matters in Congress while saying nothing of the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under his oversight. While noting that Frank was tough to deal with, Preston added that he was "one of the best debaters in Congress" and "always the smartest person in the room." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]