The Situation Room

Apparently at CNN, the phrase "Republicans are the problem" is not challenged, but encouraged. On Thursday's The Situation Room, lame-duck host Wolf Blitzer simply tossed softballs to GOP-bashing Norm Ornstein, who had hit the party before as "extreme" and "unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science."

Ironically, Blitzer was three weeks behind schedule as Ornstein and co-author Thomas Mann penned their critical Washington Post op-ed in late April and were welcome guests on NPR and PBS shortly after. Could he possibly have responded to Media Matters slapping the media the other day for ignoring the two "well-respected, centrist political commentators"?

A new Obama campaign ad – which CNN showed a clip from on Monday – features former steelworkers attacking Mitt Romney and his leadership of Bain Capital. Yet this January CNN piece on Bain Capital's ventures in South Carolina provided the same critical aura of "bad memories" and "bitterness" toward the company from South Carolina steelworkers.

United Steelworkers is one of the heavy hitters of Democratic donors, and yet CNN featured the local Steelworkers president bashing Bain Capital all through the piece without any clarification on the political position of the Steelworkers. The president took a parting shot at Romney for being "very responsible" for Bain's business practices at the steel mill.

It didn't take long after President Obama voiced his support for same-sex marriage for CNN to gauge the enthusiasm of those in favor of the move. After the news broke at 3 p.m Wednesday, the first three guests CNN interviewed were all openly-gay and supported Obama's decision. It took well over two hours for a guest to appear who opposed the decision.

And in the three hours of coverage following Obama's "historic" announcement, five of CNN's guests expressed their support for his decision. Only one, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, opposed it. And the three openly-gay guests were pampered with soft questions, like "What was your first reaction" and "Did you start to cry?"

When a lone attendee at a Mitt Romney rally said President Obama should be tried for treason, Romney ignored and later disagreed with the statement. CNN correspondent Jim Acosta played up the incident big time on Tuesday's The Situation Room, using it as an example of the Romney campaign being "straight off script."

Of course, CNN is helping the Romney campaign to be "off script" by hammering them for a non-story. "I don't correct all the questions that get asked at me," Romney explained to a reporter after the event, and added that he "obviously" didn't agree with the woman. However, this prompt correction was not enough for Acosta, who insisted the campaign had veered off course. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

A liberal protest that CNN.com said contained "about 10 people" still merited inclusion in CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's report on Wednesday's The Situation Room. Of course, Acosta made no mention of the smallness or brevity of the protest -- the chant of "No Swiss Mitt" lasted under five minutes.

Acosta did tout that Democrats were "hounding" Romney to keep him "back on his heels." As an example of their strategy, he mentioned the protesters with a clip of them chanting "No Swiss Mitt." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos got into quite a heated debate about the gender wage gap on NBC's Meet the Press.

CNN's Situation Room decided to find out who was right about this controversial issue Monday, and despite going to great lengths to side with Maddow, correspondent Lisa Sylvester grudgingly admitted at the very end of the segment, "It's about 5 cents of a difference, but it still is there, it's still real, and the truth is, men make more than women" (video follows courtesy Mediaite with transcript and commentary):

After saying Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, Democratic activist Hilary Rosen was trying to spin her way out of the firestorm over her comments. CNN's Wolf Blitzer would have none of it on Thursday's The Situation Room as he reprimanded her, forced her to apologize, and asked her how it felt to be thrown "under the bus" by Democratic allies.

Blitzer grilled Rosen for upwards of ten minutes and ripped her "awful way of saying" what she intended to say about Romney. He then made her "look into the camera" and talk to Romney, and after she dodged an apology a deadly serious Blitzer called her out on it. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

On Wednesday's The Situation Room, CNN used a slanted PolitiFact report to dismiss Mitt Romney's claim that "women account for 92.3 percent of the jobs lost under President Obama." CNN correspondent Jim Acosta aired a clip of Romney making the claim before adding that "the watchdog website PolitiFact rates that claim as 'Mostly False'."

PolitiFact even admitted that the campaign's numbers were "accurate," but added that "their reading of them isn't." According to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Romney campaign's claim is indeed factually correct.

CNN continued to hype the possible negative implications of Mitt Romney's "rich guy image" on Monday evening, even though a new poll reports 71 percent of Americans said Romney's wealth is "not a major factor" in their presidential decision.

The network blared such headlines as "Is his [Romney's] big fortune a big political liability?" and "Wealth Will Be an Issue in 2012." CNN correspondent Joe Johns ran yet another segment on the possibility that Romney's wealthy image could hurt him in the November elections. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

For the second straight day on Thursday, CNN emphasized Mitt Romney's wealth as a possible turn-off to voters. Correspondent Joe Johns aired a segment on Thursday's The Situation Room about "Mitt Romney-isms," or Romney's references to his own wealth and beliefs that seem to "hit the wrong note" for a presidential candidate.

"Mitt Romney the millionaire may still have some problems with the average voter, because of his tone-deaf references to his personal wealth," Gloria Borger introduced Johns' Thursday story. On the previous day, Johns had authored a story about Romney's expensive car elevator at his California mansion. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

If the Supreme Court upheld ObamaCare, would it really be by an eight-to-one margin? CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said it's possible, expressing more confidence in that prediction than the common analysis that the Court is evenly split on the issue with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the tiebreaking vote.

Toobin's analysis echoes the overwhelmingly positive liberal meme that ObamaCare will be upheld by a wide margin. He had already knocked the opposition case as "really weak." [Video below the break.]

CNN's Wolf Blitzer once again aired Obama campaign propaganda by playing a clip of Bill Clinton praising the President, from an Obama campaign film to be released soon. Last Thursday Blitzer had aired two whole minutes of footage from the film's trailer, and he referred back to the film on Monday afternoon's The Situation Room.

Blitzer asked if Clinton stumping for Obama in swing states wouldn't "dramatically" aid the President. Of course, what also wouldn't hurt the President is the free advertising he receives by CNN airing his re-election message. [Video below the break.]

The Obama 2012 campaign didn't even have to pay CNN for helping get its re-election message out on Thursday's The Situation Room. CNN aired two uninterrupted minutes of a trailer for a 17-minute Obama campaign film to be released in the future.

And after the two-minute clip played, CNN saved the Republican criticism for last. Host Wolf Blitzer's first question after the video had to do with the trailer's opening line delivered by actor Tom Hanks. [Video below the break.]

Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum merely stated his affirmation of the Catholic Church's condemnation of contraception, but CNN's Mary Snow ran a critical segment on Thursday asking if such statements would hurt him with voters.

In the video clips which aired in the report, Santorum strongly stated that he would not mix his opposition to contraception with his policies as president, meaning that he would not ban contraceptives. Nonetheless, Snow quoted the pro-abortion and pro-Democrat group Emily's List, as well as phoney-conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin, as slamming him as out-of-touch. [Video below the break.]

Pressing Rick Santorum on his opposition to women serving in combat, CNN's Wolf Blitzer quoted a liberal veteran who harshly criticized Santorum's policy. Blitzer did not identify the veteran or his group as "liberal," thus failing to address the critic's possible political motives against the conservative candidate.

"A very angry response from one veteran," Blitzer noted, before quoting the co-founder of VoteVets.org. The group identifies itself as the "largest progressive organization of veterans in America." [Video below the break.]

According to the Heritage Foundation Barack Obama’s policies, in just two years, have resulted in the number of Americans who rely on a federal program spiking by 23 percent to 67 million. Yet there was no mention of this grim figure on the Big Three network (ABC, CBS and NBC) evening or morning news programs. Since the study was released on Wednesday only Fox News and CNN have mentioned the increase in government dependents was the biggest two year jump since Jimmy Carter was president.  (video after the jump)

CNN's Wolf Blitzer was apparently quite moved by President Obama's speech at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast. Blitzer hailed it as a candid address and noted that the President spoke "very movingly" of his faith.

Of course, Obama's profession of his faith came shortly after his administration mandated religious-affiliated organizations to act against their church's teaching, a decision that caused great uproar. Blitzer did not mention that fact, but did cast Obama in a positive light as opposed to GOP candidate Mitt Romney. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Normally, when a leading charity cuts ties to a large non-profit organization, the news will not spark a media controversy. But when the Susan G. Komen Foundation severed financial ties to Planned Parenthood due to Congressional investigations into the organization, CNN hyped Planned Parenthood's cries of foul play and "bullying from the right."

Correspondent Mary Snow aired a pretty one-sided piece on Wednesday including statements from Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards, evidence supporting her claims of right-wing "bullying," and even vitriolic Facebook posts decrying the de-funding. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Borrowing from a liberal Daily Beast column, CNN's Jack Cafferty set about asking if Newt Gingrich was ignorant and "clueless" about the African-American community, on Tuesday's The Situation Room.

Cafferty dropped the bomb right at the start as he matter-of-factly stated that "Newt Gingrich is clueless when it comes to African-Americans" before backing away and attributing the argument to the Daily Beast's Peter Beinart. Beinart has also been the editor of the liberal New Republic magazine, so Cafferty was not doing his credibility any favors by quoting someone who very well might have a liberal agenda in attacking the Republican candidate.

A report by CNN's David Mattingly that aired on Friday's The Situation Room emphasized the "bitter Bain memories" left in South Carolina from Bain Capital, the private equity firm that candidate Mitt Romney founded.

Mattingly featured the president of the local Steelworkers union at the plant Bain Capital bought back in the 1990s. As the United Steelworkers union has been heavily pro-Democratic, it came as no surprise that the president ripped Bain's practices and held Romney "very responsible." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN touted a study from the liberal Tax Policy Center claiming that Newt Gingrich's tax plan would increase the deficit. On Tuesday afternoon's The Situation Room, business correspondent Poppy Harlow simply labeled the Tax Policy Center "non-partisan" even though it is a joint venture of two liberal think tanks, the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institute.

CNN even reported the Gingrich campaign's claim that the study did not include "many details" of the plan because the campaign "does not recognize them as an independent arbiter of tax policy information." That bit of information was buried at the end of CNN's report, however. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Conservative columnist Rich Galen lampooned CNN for its liberal bias during his appearance on Monday's The Situation Room. During the bottom of the 4 p.m. hour, anchor Wolf Blitzer threw water on right-wing claims that President Obama is waging a "war on religion," and Galen called him out for one-sided coverage of the matter.

GOP candidate Rick Perry had recently produced a campaign ad accusing Obama of running a "war on religion." Blitzer, noting the accusation, played a moving montage of performances from Sunday's "Christmas in Washington" pageant, attended by the President, and then asked how Obama could be considered anti-Christmas if he had attended such a public display.

Donald Trump on Friday took a nice little poke at Wolf Blitzer.

During an interview aired on CNN's the Situation Room, the real estate tycoon said to his host, "I know you like the president and all that stuff, although less than some of the folks at MSNBC" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

Seeking to breathe new life into the political damage of unproven sexual harassment charges against him, CNN's Lisa Sylvester presented viewers with a "developing story" in the 4 p.m. hour of The Situation Room entitled "Is Cain the Anti-Women Candidate?"

Sylvester glommed onto "recent controversial comments" Cain has made, such as referring to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as "Princess Nancy," and saying that "tutti-frutti" is the ice cream flavor that would best describe Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

"Some critics see him as the anti-women candidate," Sylvester insisted of Cain, turning to "CNN contributor Donna Brazile" who "says he has a credibility problem with women." Sylvester failed to note that Brazile is a liberal Democratic strategist who contributed to President Obama's campaign this September.

CNN's Poppy Harlow asked an Occupy Wall Street protester on Tuesday if the movement was "at that scale" of the civil rights movement, and if the cause was "as important" as civil rights.

In turn, the occupier answered that the Wall Street protests are "much grander" than the civil rights movement. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

On Monday's The Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked a female guest if she had a "problem" with Herman Cain's comment about a "manly" man not eating pizza loaded with vegetables.   

Cain made the remark in an interview with GQ magazine -- a men's magazine -- where he was asked specifically "What can you tell about a man by the type of pizza that he likes?" Cain then answered what pizza he thought a "manly man" would like – not what a woman should or shouldn't like. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Colby Hall at Mediaite highlighted how Democratic Party Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz went on The Situation Room on CNN on Friday and trashed Herman Cain for using the word "princess" for Nancy Pelosi: “I thought it was a pretty callous, sexist throwaway line.” Then Wolf Blitzer allowed her to unload a wagon of talking points against the entire GOP field for 66 seconds. When he then asked if she believed Cain or his accusers, she insisted “I think Herman Cain needs to come clean and address them and say far more than he’s said already.”

Mediaite and CNN have short memories, since Wasserman Schultz embarrassed herself back in June by insisting Anthony Weiner didn't have to share anything with the public...other than the bulge pictures he'd already posted on Twitter. Blitzer should have remembered -- since she refused to offer a Weiner opinion on CNN, as Blitzer repeatedly asked for one:

In a recent interview, Time magazine's Richard Stengel asked former President Bill Clinton why he was not a Tea Party "hero." Stengel's "criteria" were that Clinton oversaw a balanced budget and cuts to the rate of growth of the federal government.

However, as CNN's Wolf Blitzer pointed out to Stengel on Thursday, Clinton did so at the behest of a Republican Congress. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Wolf Blitzer – who will be moderating CNN's Republican presidential debate on November 22 – played a highlight reel of largely negative moments from the past GOP debates on Thursday afternoon's The Situation Room.

The "Top 10" video consisted of bloopers, controversial statements, and heated exchanges, all of which Blitzer innocently deemed "memorable moments." Rick Perry's most recent "brain freeze" was listed as the number one moment. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]