Marking the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riot in New York City on Sunday, CBS’s Anthony Mason declared: "A night of violence that led to a new day for human rights... Stonewall triggered the modern gay rights movement."

Filling in for Sunday Morning host Charles Osgood, Mason explained: "...it was around 2:00 that morning that young gay patrons started fighting back against police raiding a New York City bar called the Stonewall Inn. Police accused the bar of selling liquor without a license but gays charged the raid was harassment." He went on to tout the progress made since the riot: "By the 25th anniversary of Stonewall in 1994, things had changed so much that New York City was hosting the gay games...In the years since then, six states have legalized same-sex marriage. Legislation is pending that would make New York the seventh."

Mason concluded the brief story by describing the ongoing struggle: "Not that gay rights groups believe their job is done. Among other goals, they're still fighting to overturn the military's ban on openly gay service members. Today, as in years past, gay pride parades will be held in New York and many other cities across the land. Marking the distance the campaign has already traveled from that turbulent night outside the Stonewall Inn."

Teasing an upcoming interview with actress Megan Fox on Tuesday’s Early Show, co-host Harry Smith gushed: "...this woman has jumped from virtual unknown to Hollywood A-lister. It doesn’t hurt she is one of the most beautiful women on the planet...And a very nice young person."

Smith failed to make any mention of the "Transformers" star’s controversial comments in a June 5 interview, in which she wished the villainous robots in the movie could "...just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America." Fox, a self-described bisexual, made the comments while talking with "Total Film UK."

Fellow co-host Maggie Rodriguez similarly fawned over Fox: "Harry already got the chance to meet her and I said ‘how is she?’ You sounded like Tony the Tiger...‘She’s great.’ A lot of people are saying, you know, she’s the new ‘it girl,’ the new Angelina Jolie."

In an interview with Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on Sunday, CBS’s Bob Schieffer wondered: "Do you think that Republicans now should sort of shift the emphasis, though, from stressing social and family values and shift to more – to economic issues and be a party of economic conservatives rather than putting so much emphasis on these social issues?"

Schieffer began the Face the Nation interview by asking Barbour about the sex scandal involving South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford: "How much damage has it done to a Republican Party that is already on the ropes?...Your chances in 2012? This is the party that’s called itself the party of family values and so on and so forth. You’re going through a series of scandals now. This is not the first. Just like in the past, Democrats – we have seen Democrats involved in things like this. What does this do to the image of the party and how you try to project yourself and present yourself as a party, Governor?"

While discussing the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court on MSNBC Monday, guest Eliot Spitzer made a startling observation: "Democratic presidents nominate very centrist justices to the Supreme Court. The Republican presidents over the past 10-15 years have nominated very extremely conservative justices and that’s why the court has eschewed to the right."[audio available here]

Spitzer, the former Governor of New York who resigned from office in 2008 amid a sex scandal with a prostitute, went on to lament the unwillingness of Democratic presidents to appoint more liberal justices: "And the role of the Democratic judges – justices – has been to play the middle... And that is, I think, at a larger ideological point, a discussion we should have, because Democratic presidents have been hesitant to put really liberal justices on the court."

MSNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan, who was premiering his new show "The Morning Meeting," did not challenge Spitzer’s absurd assertions, but rather turned to Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart and asked: "Yeah, Jonathan what do you think about that? That the Republicans have papered it with very conservative judges and that Democrats have tried to go more middle or slightly left of center, as opposed to way left judges?" Capehart agreed with Spitzer: "Well look, I respect everything my – Governor Spitzer says."

In the wake of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s admission to having an affair, evening and morning newscasts on NBC, CBS, and ABC all immediately identified him as a Republican. In contrast, in March of last year, the networks rarely identified disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat in the wake of his affair with a prostitute.

In a 2008 study of evening and morning network newscasts following the Spitzer scandal, NewsBusters’ Rich Noyes found that within the first week of news coverage Spitzer was only identified as a Democrat 20% of the time. However, within the first 24 hours of Sanford’s confession to having an affair, he was identified as a Republican 100% of the time, during coverage on all the networks.

On Wednesday, the NBC Nightly News, which failed to give Spitzer’s party affiliation for three days following his scandal, immediately focused on Sanford’s national role in the Republican Party as anchor Brian Williams declared: "In a Republican Party hungry for young stars, he was one of them: Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina...Tonight his political career is in tatters. His state, his party are in some turmoil. And Mark Sanford is no longer being mentioned as a possible GOP nominee for the White House."

On Capitol Hill today, the Media Research Center along with Americans for Tax Reform and the Health Care Freedom Coalition sponsored an event showcasing Sen. Jim DeMint, Rep. Tom Price and key health care experts who discussed the alternatives to and the pitfalls of President Obama's health care proposal. 

Sen. DeMint explained what he would have said if he had been invited by ABC to participate in this evening's health care special:

Appearing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Tuesday, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer dismissed the notion of liberal media bias: "...there is so much media out there now that the idea of bias in the media, it’s almost become irrelevant. I mean, we’re in this age of opinion journalism, where you can get the news served up almost anyway you want it."

Schieffer went on to compare biased media coverage to ordering eggs: "If you want to hear it from a conservative point of view, you can find plenty of places on the dial to get that. If you want to see it served up from a, you know, a no apology liberal point of view you can get it served up that way. It’s almost like going into a restaurant and ordering eggs, you can get them sunny side up, scrabbled, with a little Jalapeno pepper if you want it."

Clearly, CBS has routinely served up news coverage with a distinctly liberal flavor for years, the latest example being CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith conducting a fawning interview with President Obama in which he asked the President where he "learned to love" and about the behavior of the White House dog.

During an interview with President Obama, Harry Smith asked about recent criticism by Dick Cheney and President Bush: "Leon Panetta intimated that the former Vice President was playing politics with national security issues. The former President has intoned his own displeasure with some of your policy changes. I think they feel like some of the things that you've done, in fact, are treacherous."

Smith failed to provide any direct quote of Panetta’s comments, made during an interview for The New Yorker, in which the CIA director declared: "I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue...It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics."

Instead of asking Obama why a member of his administration would make such an outrageous statement about a former vice president, Smith simply mentioned that Panetta accused Cheney of "playing politics with national security issues."

In an interview with President Obama on Friday, CBS’s Harry Smith asked the "father-in-chief" about growing up without his own father: "In this fatherless world, where did you learn to love?" [audio available here]

The first part of the interview, which aired on Father’s Day on CBS’s Sunday Morning, focused on Obama’s role as "First Dad" as Smith declared: "Maybe it was on election night when we first realized not only would there be a new president but also a new first family. A family with young children...Along with the role of commander-in-chief and leader of the free world, Barack Obama would be First Dad. So, yes, there would be a swing set and, yes, there would be a dog." Sappy piano music was played in the background as a montage of Obama family photos scrolled across the screen.

Throughout the fawning profile, Smith described a young Barack Obama without a father: "He is everything his own father was not...In his first book, ‘Dreams From My Father,’ Barack Obama speaks about both the cultivated myth of his father and the cold, hard truth that he was absent by choice." At that point Smith asked: "In this fatherless world, where did you learn to love?" Obama replied: "Where I learned, I think, to be a father, was looking at some people that I respected...And it just reminded me that, you know, whatever the hardships, whatever the obstacles, you can be a good dad."

Smith then held up the president as role model to all fathers: "Your whole life is under a microscope now and believe it or not every parent in the country is watching your every move as a parent. Are you aware of that scrutiny?...The First Couple has made being present in their children's lives a top priority. The world can wait til’ after Sasha and Malia's soccer or basketball game."

Reacting to a New York Times column in which Frank Rich claimed Fox News was responsible for violent acts like the murder of abortionist George Tiller or the Holocaust Museum shooting, on MSNBC on Friday, John Harwood remarked: "I love Frank's columns, but I don't believe that cable television causes people to become violent."

Harwood, who is a reporter for the Times as well as the co-host of a weekly Friday show on MSNBC, The New York Times Edition, began by quoting Rich’s latest Op-Ed: "And here's Frank Rich on the ‘silent enablers’ of what he calls ‘extremist Obama haters,’ like the actor John Voight. Frank writes, ‘Voight's devout wish was to "bring an end to this false prophet Obama." This kind of rhetoric, with its pseudo-scriptural call to action, is toxic. It's getting louder each day of the Obama presidency and no one, not even Fox News viewers, can say they weren't warned.’"

After Harwood expressed that he thought Rich went too far, co-host Norah O’Donnell agreed and added: "Yeah and I think people end up hearing what they want to hear. They latch on to something. And they hear – I've heard people listen to the same channel before and hear two different – totally different things. That’s part of it, I think."

Whenever Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore releases a new documentary the reaction in the press is typically jubilant. Rave reviews. Fawning interviews which rarely ask tough questions. Oscar buzz aplenty.

But this time could be different.

Moore’s last film, “Slacker Uprising,” didn’t go straight to DVD. It went straight to download. Now, Moore’s catching heat from Movieline.com, the online film magazine which routinely taunts conservative targets like Gov. Sarah Palin. The site’s new Moore-related post swats the filmmaker for a less than sharp attempt at marketing his upcoming film about the country’s economic collapse. The movie blogger sets up his critique here:

CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez wondered on Friday: "Lots of politicians get caught having affairs, as you know. The trick, though, is making a comeback. It’s happened before, but the question is does John Edwards have a political future?"

Rodriguez later introduced the segment by citing Edwards’ recent comments about his political future in a Washington Post interview: "Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, just two of the high profile politicians who’ve survived the scandal of having an extramarital affair. Now John Edwards is speaking out for the first time, since his affair, about testing the waters for a possible political comeback. But is it too late? Is the damage done?"

In the report that followed, correspondent Nancy Cordes quoted Kenneth Vogel of Politico on the topic: "His cancer-stricken wife knew about the affair, asked him not to run for president. He did anyway. He kept it from his staffers. His political committees may have paid hush money. All of these things put together just make it that much more difficult for him to find a way to rehabilitate himself in the public eye." Cordes responded to that seeming political obituary by declaring: "Not so fast. Lots of politicians, after all, have had affairs and gone on to successful careers. Crisis management experts say Edwards may be testing the waters and could still have a political future."

While sitting in the dentist office Wednesday afternoon I could not escape liberal media bias as I picked up the June edition of Scientific American Magazine and found that President Obama was honored as being one of ten people "who have recently demonstrated outstanding commitment to assuring that the benefits of new technologies and knowledge will accrue to humanity."

The ‘Scientific American 10' list that featured the President included an article by Sally Lehrman, who praised Obama’s commitment to science: "After eight long years in exile, scientists have been enthusiastically welcomed back into the White House. In the first few months of his administration, President Barack Obama acted with remarkable speed to place science at the center of policymaking on climate change, energy, health care and research funding. He wiped away science-averse policies."

Lehrman later explained the consideration that went into placing Obama on the list:

In the midst of his June 16 Swampland blog screed leveled against the "unhinged" Sen. John McCain for his criticism of President Obama's low-key response to the Iranian election, Time magazine's Joe Klein [shown in file photo at right] also worked in a comparison of hardliner Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's support base with former U.S. President George W. Bush's core supporters:

It is not even clear that Ahmadinejad--who has significant backing from the sort of people who support Republicans here (the elderly, the religious extremists) plus a real following among working-class Iranians--would have lost this election, if the votes had been counted fairly. (I tend to believe that they weren't counted at all, but that's just my opinion.)

Twelve days earlier, Klein more subtly made the Ahmadinejad/Bush connection in a comparison that favorably compared Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi to Bush's 2004 rival Sen. John Kerry (emphasis mine):

During a CNBC interview, New York Times reporter John Harwood shared an intense moment with President Obama: "He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him during the interview...he swatted his hand and he said ‘I got the sucker’...it was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment."

Harwood described the showdown at the end of the 4PM ET hour on MSNBC, after anchor David Shuster remarked: "John, I know that the President is credited with being sometimes awfully lucky, rainbows appear sometimes when he speaks, but I understand there was an instance today where he killed a fly out of mid-air during your interview." Harwood began to tell the tale: "Well, David, this reminded me of that moment during the campaign when he took a three-point shot at a military base and it swished."

After detailing the President’s courage in battling the insect, Harwood also noted Obama’s cleanliness: "...and at the end of the interview, David, he picked up a napkin off the table and said ‘I clean up after myself’ and he picked up the fly off the carpet." In awe, Shuster observed: "Amazing...An amazing interview...it never fails, great weather, rainbows, incredible speeches, and three-point basket. A fly and he nails it. Unbelievable, unbelievable."

Co-anchor Tamron Hall concluded the discussion by comparing Obama’s quick reflexes to that of the martial arts expert in the movie Karate Kid: "Mr. Miyagi, just snapped it right up. Look at that – look at that intense look."

On Monday, MSNBC anchor David Shuster saw something profound in President Obama ordering a hamburger: "How does he approach a hamburger, I suppose some people might think well, that might also help explain some things about how he approaches foreign policy?"

Shuster was discussing comedian Bill Maher’s criticism that Barack Obama was becoming overexposed in the media with conservative talk radio hosts Martha Zoller and liberal talker Lionel. Shuster began by asking Zoller: "Martha, do you think it's a problem to have the President out there talking about all the issues that people care about?" Zoller replied: "I think that he is a little over exposed and he doesn't have to take the press with him everywhere he goes."

Even Lionel agreed with Maher: "I get the impression, though, that he gets – he's trying to show us, like, ‘hey this is pretty cool, I'm president. Hey, Joe, want a burger?’ Poor Biden’s saying, ‘I want a what?’" At that point, Shuster observed: "Given that we have all the issues, the health care, the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, why shouldn't the American people see Obama dealing with regular things so they get an idea of what type of person, what type of president he is? How he thinks? How does he approach a hamburger, I suppose some people might think well, that might also help explain some things about how he approaches foreign policy?"

On Monday, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer offered some advice to Republicans: "Until they change policies – I mean, that's what it took for conservatives in Great Britain to win – is a real change in focus away from morals and values into things that affect people's daily lives.’

Brewer made the comment during the 2PM ET hour while discussing the future of the GOP with New York Times reporter John Harwood, who completely agreed: "Well, bingo, Contessa, that's exactly right." Harwood added: "The question is what is the right mix? To what extent are they going to focus on economic issues...Or do they focus more on national security...Or those social issues which have repelled some voters. But still motivate a lot of people in the Republican base." Brewer replied: "The one’s who probably vote Republican anyway."

The segment began by Brewer asking Harwood about his latest article in the New York Times, entitled "Rethinking the Reagan Mystique," in which he argued that some Republicans are calling for the party to move beyond Ronald Reagan. Brewer observed: "While there may be disagreement in the Republican about the best way forward, you know, it's been in this sort of Republican mantra to invoke Ronald Reagan's name often and loudly. That could be changing though."

The CBS Early Show continued its usual fawning over Michelle Obama as co-host Harry Smith declared: "They couldn't come from more diverse backgrounds. One grew up in Chicago. The other grew up with a silver spoon...this new royal odd couple, the First Lady and the Queen."

Correspondent Sheila MacVicar reported on the First Lady’s relationship with the Queen: "It’s a friendship that began in April with this encounter between Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Mrs. Obama. A meeting so congenial that at a later reception, as they apparently compared their shoes, the two embraced. That meeting ended with a request from Her Majesty that the First Lady keep in touch. And apparently she has, by letter and phone."

MacVicar went on to describe Michelle Obama’s latest visit with the Queen while in Europe last week: "They spent three hours in the palace and its gardens, including the Queen's new vegetable patch. That's one interest both share. And that is forging a new friendship, helping to keep the trans-Atlantic relationship very warm indeed. In fact, a source with excellent royal connections tells CBS News that the Queen has told members of her family that she adores Michelle Obama and that she hopes she gets to see her again soon."

Conservative blogger and friend of NewsBusters Andrew Breitbart has an excellent column in today's Washington Times entitled "Left cries 'racist' in crowded country."

The creator of the Big Hollywood blog noted in his June 15 column the inconvenient truth the mainstream media did not focus on in the aftermath of last week's Holocaust Museum shooting, even as the MSM furthered the meme that 

The perpetrator, James von Brunn, has far more in common with Rosie O'Donnell's conspiracy theorist views of the world than say the politics of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News fans (emphasis mine):

Some of us have speculated that many newsrooms in America are so hell-bent on maintaining their supposedly hallowed positions -- and that by their way of "thinking" they are exempt from the normal laws of economics -- that they will have be dragged kicking and screaming from their keyboards when the repo men come around to turn out the lights. This week's events at the Boston Globe give validity to that theory.

Let's take it on faith that the Globe, the onetime New England jewel of the New York Times, really has been losing money at the rate of $1 million a week, that the Times really does need to seriously cut costs, and that all of the Globe's unions have to make concessions if the paper is to either survive within the Times, or as rumored, be salable to whatever outside entity might be brave enough to take it off the Old Gray Lady's hands.

Six of the Globe's seven(!) unions have agreed to accept concessions. They include "drivers, mailers, pressmen, electricians, machinists and technical-services workers."

Which one do you think turned the Times down?

On Wednesday, the Early Show continued its obsession with the Obamas’ recent date nights as co-host Julie Chen exclaimed: "If Barack and Michelle Obama can find time for each other, why can’t you? We’re going to hear why it is a good idea to follow the President’s lead."

Earlier, co-host Maggie Rodriguez similarly declared: "We want to encourage everybody in America to bring back, or start, date night. Because if the Obamas can do it, so can we." Correspondent Hattie Kauffman later reported: "It took a couple of helicopters, a private jet, and a limo, but President Obama recently took the First Lady to dinner and a show in New York. Over the weekend, a rendevous in Paris. They may be the busiest couple in America, but the Obamas still manage to pull off date night."

Kauffman got reaction from one married couple: "The Larsens have been married 50 years and they still go out on dates. They say the Obamas are setting a good example." However, Kauffman did have some criticism: "Sure the Obamas will always have Paris, but have they set the bar too high?" Kauffman concluded her report by declaring: "Air Force One may not be available for your weekend retreat, but it's the time spent together that's priceless."

CBS correspondent Thalia Assuras touted the celebrity status of the Obamas on Wednesday: "The paparazzi and the press corps treat them like movie stars. They're on magazine covers and in fashion spreads. Even the presidential pooch is a celebrity. The Obamas are helping turn staid old Washington into Hollywood on the Potomac." [audio available here]

During the Early Show, Assuras reported on numerous upcoming reality TV shows being set in Washington D.C. and credited the first family for turning the nation’s capital into a celebrity hot spot. She cited Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn, who declared: "All of the power is concentrated here and power is a great aphrodisiac. And so, Washington has become the place to be." Assuras added: "And be seen. Even film stars are flocking here for a chance at the spotlight. Now the latest proof that the nation's capital is indeed the new hot spot, the arrival of reality TV."

On Monday, correspondent Richard Roth gave a glowing report on President and Michelle Obama in Paris: "The big tourist treat in Paris this weekend was for the tourists treated to a sight of the Obamas driving by. For the President and First Lady, the treat may have been a European reprise of their date night in New York a week ago."

Reporting for the Early Show, Roth also emphasized the idea that no one in Paris was "inconvenienced" by the Obamas’ visit: "Other tourists at the Eiffel Tower Friday night were surprised when the First Lady and the Obama girls turned up, but not much inconvenienced...And no whining, at least certainly not in public, though what's to complain about when the Pompidou Center’s been opened, especially for a presidential family viewing of modern art and the day's capped with a bit of shopping at a Left Bank children's boutique."

Following Roth’s report, fill-in co-host Debbye Turner Bell showed how impressed she was with the President’s romantic getaway, remarking: "My husband’s got a lot of explaining to do." Co-host Russ Mitchell jokingly added: "If you’re a guy and your name is not Barack Obama, this is not good news. There’s nothing good about this." Bell agreed: "The bar has been raised." Later, weatherman Dave Price concluded: "No, you know what? I think it's great. I said it before. You know, whether it would be President Bush or another president, I think it's great. You know, you try and have some semblance of a – of a relationship or a family life."

While discussing the future of the GOP on Sunday, CBS’s Harry Smith wondered: "Is there room for moderates in the Republican Party?...there’s a brand-new Gallup poll that mostly white, older, very religious, just almost demographically the future of the party can’t just be based in those folks."

Smith, filling in for Bob Schieffer as host of Face the Nation, spoke with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich about the state of the Republican Party and began by asking: "Who’s the most real Republican, you, Dick Cheney , Sarah Palin , Colin Powell, Rush Limbaugh?" Gingrich responded diplomatically: "Oh, all of us are. So is Mitt Romney. So is Bobby Jindal. So is Governor Lindle – Lingle of Hawaii."

In response to Smith wondering if there was "room for moderates" in the party, Gingrich explained: "I am a Reagan Republican. Reagan believed in a very broad base. He always talked about ‘my fellow Republicans’ and those independents and Democrats who want a better future...Here’s my simple test for Republicans. In California, a state which voted 61% for Obama, two weeks ago, 64% of the state voted against higher taxes and more spending in Sacramento."

On Sunday, White House correspondent Chip Reid gave a glowing review of President Obama’s overseas trip: "A trip laden with symbolism and elegant words, asking the world to look beyond old hatreds and wounds. In doing so, he hopes to create a world where there never has to be another D-Day." [audio available here]

During CBS Sunday Morning, Reid reported on Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe, highlighting the President’s speech in Cairo last week and marking of the 65 th anniversary of D-Day in France on Saturday. On the subject of Obama addressing the Islamic world, Reid cited left-wing New York Times columnist and Obama sycophant, Roger Cohen, who declared: "He went out there, he spoke movingly...He spoke in a way that convinced Muslims that he is sensitive to their view of their suffering, to their culture, to their religion. And that's a new message from an American president."

In March of 2008, Cohen jumped aboard the Obama campaign, using his column to praise then candidate Obama’s speech on race: "It takes bravery, and perhaps an unusual black-white vantage point, to navigate these places where hurt is profound, incomprehension the rule, just as it takes courage to say, as Obama did, that black ‘anger is real; it is powerful’...Can an inquiring mind actually explore the half-shades of truth? Yes. It. Can...The clamoring now in the United States for a presidency that uplifts rather than demeans is a reflection of the intellectual desert of the Bush years."

On Sunday, CBS’s Bill Whitaker praised the liberal activism of former TV producer Norman Lear: "But in 1980, the king turned his back on his TV empire. He grew alarmed as evangelical Christian preachers grew more visibly and vocally involved in politics with views and tactics he found divisive. He responded the way he knew best, on TV."

Whitaker, reporting for CBS Sunday Morning, went on to describe Lear’s efforts: "His ads spawned People For The American Way, his grass roots civics organization to keep Americans aware and protective of their rights." No liberal label was given for the left-wing "civics organization." Whitaker asked Lear: "What is it about the approach of the Religious Right that so rankles you?" Lear responded: "Politics and religion are not the American way. My contention is every individual's compact with God, with that, is different from every other individual's. So don't come to me with your compact and insist it must be mine. America is open to all of them."

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Thomas, appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, was reacting to a preceding monologue in which Matthews praised Obama’s speech: "I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful...But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility...The question now is whether the President we elected and spoke for us so grandly yesterday can carry out the great vision he gave us and to the world."

Matthews discussed Obama’s upcoming speech marking the 65^th anniversary of D-Day and compared it to that of Ronald Reagan. He then turned to Thomas and asked: "Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?" Thomas replied: "Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial."

MSNBC’s Tamron Hall attempted to justify multiple stories on Rush Limbaugh supposedly comparing Barack Obama to Al Qaeda: "We have a right to cover people who are speaking out...Many people listen to this man, and we have a responsibility to report all sides and you can't try to duck and hide, throw the rock and then hide in the bush."

Hall was responding to criticism by Republican strategist Alex Conant, who, in the 4PM hour on Thursday, pointed out MSNBC’s excessive coverage of Rush: "Well, let me just make an observation. Two weeks ago, Rush Limbaugh challenged this network, MSNBC, to go a whole month without repeating his name, and this is like the fifth segment you guys have had this afternoon talking about Rush-" Hall immediately interrupted: "Oh, you know – okay, that's ridiculous, absolutely. You know, I don't know if you've ever, ever watched Keith Olbermann, who just obliterated Rush Limbaugh on this topic."

The segment with Conant, opposite liberal talk radio host Bill Press, was the third story MSNBC had done on Rush’s comments on Thursday. Hall herself had covered the story only an hour earlier, with liberal blogger Peter Slutsky and conservative Brian Faughnan from Redstate.com. During that segment in the 3PM hour, Hall asked Slutsky: "...do the Republican leadership, conservatives out there, need to speak out against this kind of language? I cannot imagine, you know, if there was a liberal blogger who had compared George W. Bush directly to Al Qaeda or some of the other language that’s coming out recently."

"Today" show host Matt Lauer on Thursday inadvertently mixed up the names of Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama, an error similar to one made by Dick Cheney and used by MSNBC's David Shuster on Tuesday to attack the former Vice President in his daily "Hypocrisy Watch segment. Will Shuster now take on his NBC colleague? Talking with journalist Richard Wolffe, Lauer mentioned a new bin Laden audiotape and jumbled, "In it he mentions Osama, he mentions Barack Obama..." [Audio available here]

On June 1, giving a speech to the National Press Cub, Cheney said of bin Laden, "I don't think he can have much impact now in terms of managing the organization because that link between Obama and the people under him is pretty fragile." During a June 2 "Hypocrisy Watch" segment on "MSNBC News Live," Shuster played the clip and then erupted, "Obama, Osama. Good grief!" He sarcastically added, "Now, I'm sure, I'm sure that was an innocent mistake." (The cable anchor also attacked the ex-VP for other reasons in the piece.)

On Thursday, CBS Early Show co-host Julie Chen declared: "President Obama seeks to reset Mideast relations in a historic speech in Cairo." Co-host Harry Smith gushed: "Powerful, far-ranging speech this morning...he was not only presidential, he was also professorial. He was very much a teacher this morning. He was giving Americans and Muslims a history lesson."

In a later segment, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer shared Smith’s description of Obama as a history professor: "I mean, one thing I didn't know, he pointed out that Morocco, a Muslim country, was the first to recognize the United States. He also pointed out there is a mosque in every state in the United States of America. This was, as you say, this was Professor Obama...during a lot of this, and I think that will have an impact."

Smith got reaction to Obama’s speech from CBS analyst Reza Aslan, who praised the President’s criticism of Israel: "...some very frank talk about issues, about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict... there were some words that Obama used that had never been used before by any American president, including the word ‘occupation,’ and the word ‘Palestine.’ I think this is going to be really remarkable, the way that the Muslim world reacts."