Michelle Obama

On Monday morning, Washington Post gossips Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger hailed Michelle Obama the fashion plate with the headline "Fit For a Queen (Truly)." For a reception at Buckingham Palace for heads of state, Mrs. Obama wore a "very fancy" jacket priced at  a "princely $6,800." Readers could exhale, the American now fits in.

The very same Washington Post greeted the GOP nominee's wife with a much different spin online, despite a lower price tag. The headline was “Ann Romney's $990 T-shirt is indicative of a tone-deaf campaign” and Suzi Parker began by asking “Does Ann Romney wear her $990 designer shirt while driving one of her two Cadillacs?” At least the Post alerted Washingtonians someone had critized Mrs. Obama for "not dressing up enough" in London:

All three networks on Tuesday absolutely gushed over Barack Obama kissing his wife at a men's Olympic basketball game on Monday night. CBS This Morning guest anchor Norah O'Donnell thrilled, "Whoo-hoo-hoo! Hot in here!" Good Morning America news reader Josh Elliott cheered on the President's ability to kiss his wife in public: "[Obama] is showing the world he's got a little game off the court as well!" [See a video montage below. MP3 audio here.]

Today's Natalie Morales recounted how the President, after being spotted by the Kiss Cam, at first refused to kiss Mrs. Obama. Morales hyped, "...They got a second chance when the "Kiss Cam" found them again. So this time he delivered, planting a very presidential pucker on the First Lady and the crowd went wild." Weatherman Al Roker joked, "Mr. President, get a stadium."

Offering some pro-Obama fluff on Tuesday's NBC Today, news reader Natalie Morales gushed over the President and First Lady getting caught on the "Kiss Cam" at a basketball game during a "date night." After the First Couple initially just waved to the camera, Morales excitedly told viewers: "Not to worry, they got a second chance when the 'Kiss Cam' found them again. So this time he delivered, planting a very presidential pucker on the First Lady and the crowd went wild."

Charlie Rose did his best to avoid asking any tough questions during an interview of President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle that aired on Sunday's CBS Sunday Morning and Monday's CBS This Morning. Rose devoted over four straight minutes to the couple's summer vacation, family life, and marriage. He also touted the Democrat's ObamaCare law as "enormously successful," and wondered if it was his "proudest achievement in the first four years."

Rose, who hounded House Speaker John Boehner over Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan during a April 2012 interview, harkened back to the 2008 Obama campaign and early presidency by showing off a 2009 issue of Newsweek with a picture of the President taking the oath of office. He then asked, "This was also a time of 'yes, we can'; hope and change. What happened to that, because that's not the narrative today?"

On MSNBC, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee can't even get fair treatment when he takes a vacation.

Far from it, host Martin Bashir on the program hysterically bearing his name Monday absolutely trashed the Fourth of July holiday plans of Mitt Romney while practically swooning over what President Obama and his family will be doing (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday, "NBC News is an annex of the Democrat National Committee, and it is posing as a news network."

Perfectly illustrating the point Thursday was MSNBC's Luke Russert who while substitute-hosting the Daily Rundown told Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-Oh.) after she sang the praises of President Obama and asked him to campaign for her in her state, "They watch this at the White House, God willing, so they’ll get the message loud and clear" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Michelle Obama said at a campaign stop in Philadelphia Wednesday, "When we need a leader to make the hard decisions to keep this country moving forward, you know you can count on my husband, your president."

On PBS's Inside Washington Friday, Politico's Evan Thomas surprisingly said, "That’s precisely wrong. You can’t count on him to make the tough decisions, and I think that most voters sense that" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the heels of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest stupid regulations commanding a shrinkage in the size of sugary drinks in restaurants, movie theaters, and stadiums, the Walt Disney Company has announced it will ban ads for products on its broadcast and online platforms that it has scientifically determined are “junk food” that do not meet the company’s nutrition standards.

Curiously, Disney announced that it would begin this new effort immediately – wait, no, at some time in 2015. So why announce this now? It would seem so Disney could be praised and honored by First Lady Michelle Obama – or the other way around. It just smells. It carries a distinct aroma of Campaign 2012.

The Obama administration has done its best to oppose states from instituting new, stricter voter ID laws, complaining that many minority voters lack photo identification. But those same folks it wants voting in November are apparently not welcome anywhere near the First Lady's book signings. Something tells me that the same media outlets comparing voter ID laws to the Jim Crow Laws, however, won't see any hint of hypocrisy here, if they even report the story at all.

As stated on the blog Obama Foodorama:

Did you happen to see a shirtless man masturbating an ax in front of thousands of people June 2? If so, you probably also saw President Obama’s first campaign ad of the season. Both were featured during the 2012 MTV Movie Awards.

Once again, the MTV Movie Awards strewn with crass sex jokes and innuendo. Host Russell Brand began the program talking about having an orgasm to Justin Bieber, his desire for a sex tape between Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, and the size of Michael Fassbender’s genitalia or, as he referred to it his “pink pipe of acting wonder.”  Rarely did he make an appearance on stage where he refrained from alluding to some sort of sexual act. 

Michelle Obama is out with a new book about the White House vegetable garden and Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post is doing her level best playing book publicist.

"One of Michelle Obama's early worries about life in the White House had to do with a plot of land," Thompson gushed in the lead paragraph of today's page A4 story. "[T]he first lady found herself fretting over whether her much-hyped garden would grow," Thompson added, going on to quote a passage from Mrs. Obama's new book:

NewsBusters readers know that one of my guilty pleasures is pointing out the stupidity of America's television personalities.

The award for the most intellectually challenged comment I saw on TV Tuesday goes to MSNBC's Martin Bashir who on the show remarkably bearing his own name said that first lady Michelle Obama based her anti-obesity campaign on warnings from - wait for it! - "obstetricians" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Barbara Walters either deeply adores Michelle Obama or she was just acting like an extreme guest-coddler on The View Tuesday. She suggested that if President Obama lost the election – and she then lifted her hands to her mouth in horror – Mrs. Obama could have a career of her own since she would be “a very popular candidate.”

Walters began: “There have been rumors – if the president is not reelected [dramatic ‘God forbid!’ face], or that in the future, that you might consider running for political office.” Mrs. Obama was dismissing that talk, at least for now: (Video and transcript below)

Over the course of two programs, ABC on Tuesday devoted 38 fawning minutes of time to Michelle Obama and her new book, American Grown. Good Morning America's Robin Roberts, who admitted getting a  "chill" during her last interview with Barack Obama, happily announced that "everybody [on GMA] is on their best behavior" during the First Lady's visit.

Roberts's interview with the First Lady stretched for 13 minutes and included penetrating questions about Obama's "great admiration for Beyonce."  Mrs. Obama appeared on The View for 25 minutes. Supposedly serious journalist Barbara Walters repeatedly wondered whether "racism will be a part of this campaign."               

On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, regular panel member and liberal Washington Post columnist Colby King charged that Republicans and Fox News have "painted Barack Obama as the devil incarnate," and warned that, during this campaign year, "The nastiness is going to come out. The Limbaughs are just going to let it all hang out."

Does Alex Trebek owe Republicans equal time on his Jeopardy! game show? Answer: Yes, the show has become overrun by Democratic politicians and is only going to get even more politically imbalanced in the days to come.

Last week and this week, the popular game show, in which contestants are given clues and must provide the answer in the form of a question, has been presenting its annual "Teen Tournament" shows with young Americans as contestants -- and First Lady Michelle Obama presenting some of the clues. The show is being broadcast from Washington DC during the Teen Tournament.

The news Monday of a thwarted al-Qaeda plot to place another explosive device modeled on the "underwear bomb" that failed on Christmas Day 2009 might make a news consumer wonder: What ever happened to that terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? On February 16, he was sentenced to life in prison for his attempt at mass murder. Did you miss it? The networks weren't very interested. Only ABC's World News filed a full evening-news report by legal reporter Pierre Thomas, but even that left out Team Obama -- especially Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claiming "the system worked" when it obviously didn't. Citizens foiled the attack over Detroit, not the government.

NBC never covered the life sentence in the evening. One 67-word brief by Amy Robach on "Today" was all they did. CBS Evening News mentioned it briefly, but here's one full Obama report they did instead, correspondent Norah O'Donnell explaining how White House tourists were "overcome with emotion" when Michelle Obama made a surprise appearance:

As NewsBusters reported, Ann Romney got mercilessly attacked last week for having the unmitigated audacity to wear a $990 shirt on television.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, Thomson Reuters' Chrystia Freeland said this was "fair" and "fine" because "Michelle Obama gets bashed if she wears expensive clothes" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Unemployment is stubbornly high, mountains of debt are burying the nation, and gas prices appear to be bringing the tepid economic recovery to a halt.

Yet MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday actually spent five minutes bashing Ann Romney for wearing a $990 shirt on television (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On Monday, CBSNews.com's Lucy Madison bizarrely included Vice President Biden as one of the Obama campaign's "most popular surrogates" as she highlighted First Lady Michelle Obama's 69 percent approval rating, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. However, Madison didn't point out that Biden's approval ratings in two polls earlier in 2012 lag far behind Mrs. Obama.

The online political reporter first noted in her article, "In push for battleground states, Michelle Obama heads west," that the First Lady was "swinging by Colorado and Arizona as part of a four-state tour that will include fundraisers and campaign appearances in Las Vegas and Albuquerque." She continued that these "early campaign appearances by Mrs. Obama - whose approval ratings eclipse her husband's...are another indication that President Obama's re-election campaign will make a hard push this November to win Western states with growing Latino populations."

CBS anchor Gayle King, an admitted friend of Michelle Obama and a donor to Mr. Obama's reelection campaign, trumpeted the President's record during an interview with Nicholas Ballasy of The Daily Caller on Saturday: "President Obama has done everything that he said he was going to do, and I think people keep forgetting that....if you ask me, I think President Obama is doing a very good job."

Ballasy, an alumnus of the MRC's CNSNews.com, caught up with King after the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. The CBS This Morning anchor listed several areas where the chief executive apparently kept his promises: "He talked about health care. He talked about Osama bin Laden. He talked about 'don't ask, don't tell.' He's done everything that he said he was doing to do." Of course, the President also promised to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center for terror suspects during the 2008 campaign, but broke that pledge in 2011.

It's tough to believe this actually happened in the year 2012.

During an interview with South Carolina's Republican Governor Nikki Haley, Time magazine's editor-at-large Belinda Luscombe disgracefully said, "In New York City, which you're visiting for a couple of days, a lot of our taxi drivers are Sikhs. If you get one, are you going to give him a slightly bigger tip?"

In the 7 a.m. et hour of Tuesday's NBC Today, news anchor Natalie Morales fawned over Michelle Obama's appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman: "She...talked about her late-night chats with the President, and joked that he's always upbeat, especially about the notoriously deadlocked Congress. I guess you got to keep your sense of humor about you."

Later, in the 8 a.m. et hour, Morales was equally thrilled by a YouTube video mocking Republican front-runner Mitt Romney: "And will the real Mitt Romney please stand up? This video parody of Eminem's famous rap hit is going viral and being shared across Facebook."

It didn't take long for Republicans to get bashed during David Letterman's interview with Michelle Obama Monday night.

In the middle of an election year, the CBS Late Show host actually asked the First Lady, "Has your husband ever come home and said to you, 'Oh, that John Boehner, what an idiot?'” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On Saturday, ABC's Devin Dwyer reported how President Obama gave "a rousing speech to 600 donors in Chicago and closed it with an intimate appeal before 40 'friends' that included...Oprah Winfrey....Oprah was flanked at her table by...longtime friend and companion Gayle King [and] Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett." However, Dwyer failed to mention that King is co-anchor of CBS This Morning.

Though it isn't currently known whether the CBS on-air personality donated to the Obama reelection campaign at this event, she donated $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund during the third quarter of 2011 - before she started working at CBS - and $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee during the same time period.