TASS probably couldn't have done it better. And NBC correspondent Jim Maceda seemed to be channeling that Soviet Russia official state-run news agency in his glowing account of Russia Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's heavy-handed dealings with some small businesses. Putin was, he said, "combating Russia's deep recession hand-to-hand."

Maceda, in a July 6 "Nightly News" segment, spoke admiringly of Putin's evolution from bureaucrat to Russian president, and now Renaissance man.

"Over the past decade, Vladimir Putin's morphed into more roles than a Hollywood star," Maceda said. "From Boris Yeltsin's shy obedient yes-man to the imperious leader, the action man, bomber pilot, artist and lately the people's prime minister combating Russia's deep recession hand-to-hand - harassing a supermarket manager for marking up pork prices."

It took a bombing which killed 51 Iraqis for NBC anchor Brian Williams to acknowledge “there's been a letup in the violence of late in Iraq.” Unlike his ABC and CBS colleagues, two weeks and a day earlier Williams failed to report the death toll for Americans in Iraq in May was the lowest for any month since the war began. On Tuesday night, however, he announced:

Last night here we reported there were more Americans killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq in the month of May. It's generally believed there's been a letup in the violence of late in Iraq. That is until today.

From Baghdad, Jim Maceda reported on the deadly bombing in a shopping area, but then he contrasted the incident with improving Iraqi expectations:

Not only did the blast break the relative calm here, but it shattered a growing sense of security as well. After three to four months of relative low violence, people were starting to come out into streets, returning to schools, stores and banks were opening.

On Friday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Jim Maceda reported that Europeans have an unusually high interest in this year's presidential election as "they say they'd be very happy with anyone who makes a clean break with the past eight years. In a word, change." Maceda also suggested that Hillary Clinton reminds some of President Bush because of her "talking tough on Iran and terrorism." Notably, while liberals have long criticized Bush for his "You're either with us or against us" line after the September 11th attacks, according to USA Today, Senator Clinton, a week before Bush's speech, used similar words as she argued that Bush should articulate "to every nation in this world, you're either with us or you're not, and there will be consequences." And, appearing on the CBS Evening News the same day, she spoke approvingly of Bush's plan to "make it clear that every nation has to either be with us or against us." (Partial audio available here.)

A “war on terror” is also a war on democracy? On Thursday’s NBC Nightly News, the broadcast closed with substitute anchor Lester Holt asking reporter Jim Maceda for his thoughts on the day’s top story, the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Maceda relayed that Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf would probably be saying “I told you so,” as he had warned against Bhutto holding a rally in the park in Rawalpindi. After the death, Maceda expected that Musharraf would “continue his crackdown on political rallies, on liberties, on protests, basically on democracy, all of that in the name of heightened security and Musharraf’s war on terror.”

MRC’s Kristine Lawrence found the item and offered the transcript: