Michelle Obama

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.

ABC's Dan Harris trumpeted the "bromance between President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron" on Thursday's GMA. Harris noted the presence of Vogue magazine head Anna Wintour at Wednesday's state dinner, but omitted that she is a major donor to Obama's campaign. Instead, he gushed over how "Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron [were] both looking very regal in blue, floor-length gowns."

The same morning, NBC's Today show chose to play up the "little star power from George Clooney...and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein" at the dinner, but failed to mention Weinstein's $500,000 contribution to the President's campaign. CBS This Morning did report that "many of the guests included some of the President's top fundraisers," but anchor Charlie Rose, who attended the function, and correspondent Bill Plante, spent more time talking about the wines that the White House served [audio clips available here; video below the jump].

The front of the New York Times Sunday Styles section was dominated by a towering photo of First Lady Michelle Obama regally presiding adjacent a hagiography by Bee-Shyuan Chang, “Wooing the First Dresser – American fashion’s most influential customer may the one far from any show this week.”

The supposedly hard-news Times has long fawned over Michelle Obama the fashion plate, who “has become a powerful trendsetter in fashion,” and her high-end, high-cost dresses, while forgoing the usual liberal sniffing about such conspicuous consumption during a recession. Fashion writer Eric Wilson on April 15, 2010 called her “the First Lady of Fashion,” and Guy Trebay called her “U.S. Fashion's One-Woman Bailout" in a January 8, 2009 story.

While Democrats mock Mitt Romney for his alleged lack of interest in the “very poor” and focus their political pitch on income inequality, one can’t help noticing the Obamas running around to $35,000-a-head fundraisers with the very rich and very famous in New York City and Hollywood.

Michelle Obama kicked off February with an exclusive fundraiser in Beverly Hills at the home of Netflix executive Ted Sarandos and his wife Nicole Avant, who raised Hollywood millions for the Obamas in 2008, and then became their ambassador to the Bahamas. Now Nicole Avant’s back managing Obama’s Hollywood money march. Many of Tinseltown’s titans ponied up: Jeffrey Katzenberg, Harvey Weinstein, Haim Saban, and Steve Bing, among others. (Katzenberg’s also given $2 million to the Obama-affiliated super PAC called Priorities USA Action.)

As NewsBusters reported Friday, CNN's Soledad O'Brien had a completely unprofessional interview with "The Obamas" author Jodi Kantor wherein she mercilessly grilled the writer for having the nerve to criticize the first lady in her book.

Kantor struck back on Monday's Daily Show saying, "By her logic we wouldn't write obituaries because we can't talk to the dead people" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Amid the 60th Anniversary celebrations on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer declared: "Remember the ad campaign over the years that called us, 'America's First Family'? Well, we are honored this morning to have a message of congratulations from America's real First Family." A clip played of Barack and Michelle Obama praising the morning show as "part of American culture." [Audio available here]

Given the broadcast's consistent left-wing slant over the years, and love for the Obamas more recently, it's no wonder why the President and First Lady would join the party. Back in 2006, then-co-host Meredith Vieira pleaded with then-Senator Obama to consider a presidential run: "You know you are the equivalent of a rock star in politics....If your party says to you, ‘We need you,’ and, and there’s already a drumbeat out there, will you respond?" [View video after the jump]

Gayle King made it clear that she is in the tank for the Obama campaign on Thursday's CBS This Morning, specifically vouching that Michelle Obama apparently is "passionate," and that the First Lady is "looking forward to returning for another four years. They're going to work very hard to make that happen."

King continued tossing softballs at her admitted friend, at one point gushing, "Do you ever just sort of marvel at your life?" She completely omitted asking her guest about controversial aspects of her time in the White House, such as Mrs. Obama's travel expenses, or how the First Lady wore $540 designer sneakers as she fed the poor in Washington, DC in 2009.

On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams proclaimed to viewers: "A new book you may have heard about written by a reporter for the New York Times about life in the Obama White House paints what is at times a not-so-flattering picture of First Lady Michelle Obama and today she chose to fight back."

In the report that followed, correspondent Andrea Mitchell gushed over the First Lady: "Michelle Obama in Virginia today promoting one of her top priorities, medical care for military families....A popular cause, like her fight against childhood obesity. That and her signature style have defined her role as First Lady." Mitchell then remarked: "Not the meddling spouse portrayed in the controversial new book, 'The Obamas.'"

On Wednesday afternoon, New York Times political reporter Jodi Kantor hosted a live Facebook discussion on her new book on the Obamas and especially First Lady Michelle Obama. If this Facebook session is any indication, the book matches Kantor’s previous promotional coverage of the First Couple. On Facebook Kantor describes the First Lady as someone “with important ideas of her own about opportunity, access, equality, etc,” who “has redefined the role of first lady for successors...she's really raised the bar for ambitious initiatives.”

Revealingly, when asked about her latest scoops being allegedly used by Fox News and the Drudge Report as a “racial attack against the Obamas,” Kantor emphasized to her predominantly liberal audience how she broke the news about Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s ministry (in a bland story), and wrote a follow up “which I labored and labored over to make fair.” And it was “fair,” at least from the perspective of an Obama supporter.

New anchor Gayle King tossed softballs at admitted friend Michelle Obama on Wednesday's CBS This Morning. King sympathized with the First Lady over how many supposedly see her. When her guest dropped a racially-tinged charge, that "that's been an image that people have tried to paint of me since...the day Barack announced, that I'm some angry black woman," she replied, "How do you deal with that image?"

During the twelve-plus minute interview, which aired in two segments, the close associate of Oprah Winfrey also especially sympathized with Mrs. Obama over charges against her in a recent book: "I think it's frustrating for her to see so many untruths. You know, I read the book, too....and I'm thinking- well, I was there. That didn't happen, that didn't happen, that didn't happen. And she never told Carla Bruni Sarkozy that living in the White House was hell- quite the opposite is how she feels."

During her interview with President and Mrs. Obama which aired on Friday's 20/20, ABC's Barbara Walters made a point of contrasting GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's history of marital problems with the successful marriage of the First Family. 

(Video below)

Walters introduced the topic as she observed:

Barbara Walters, who famously asked Katherine Hepburn what type of tree she was, may have outdone herself in a slobbering interview with Michelle and Barack Obama. In previews of Friday's "20/20" segment, Walters asked the President, "If you were a superhero and you could have one super power, what would it be?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

To the First Lady, the journalist posed a question about reincarnation: "If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would you want it to be?" This appeared to be too much for Mrs. Obama, she interrupted, "Oh, God, Barbara." The fawning piece was teased on Friday's "Good Morning America" and Monday's "The View." It included queries on the romantic life of the couple.

This one definitely does not go into the "how to persuade people that your cause is right" file.

Obama For America's latest attempt to beg people to contribute $3 to enter a drawing for a dinner with POTUS and FLOTUS has a pathetic, insufferable, punkish and privacy-invading twist, wherein you get the opportunity to tell a Republican acquaintance that you just gave money to the Obama campaign.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann demanded an apology from NBC Wednesday for the disgraceful song that was played while she was walking on stage to be a guest on that network's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Monday.

"This wouldn't be tolerated if this was Michelle Obama," Bachmann told Fox News's Bill Klemmer. "It shouldn't be tolerated if it's a conservative woman, either" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Depending on which news outlet you rely on for current events, you may not have heard that convicted Chicago real estate developer Tony Rezko was sentenced to 10½ years in prison Tuesday.

On top of this, unless you read the following report from Reuters, you mightn't have known just how connected he was to a junior senator from Illinois who just so happens to be the President of the United States:

In just a few days, Americans will give thanks for their blessings and celebrate them by stuffing themselves with a bountiful feast. Despite this beloved tradition, many in the news media disapprove of overeating and continue to call for taxes on certain foods, and increased regulation.

Time magazine's website, includes an "Ideas" section with what it calls "Essential Insights. Great Debates. Informed Opinions." It was there that Shannon Brownlee, director of the liberal New America Foundation's (which is funded by George Soros' Foundation to Promote Open Society) Health Policy Program, recently called for more regulation under the guise of "public health."

Chris Matthews on Saturday slammed Barack Obama in his worst criticism to date of the man that used to give him a thrill up his leg.

Speaking to the host of MSNBC's Weekends with Alex Witt, Matthews excoriated the President saying, "The day he got inaugurated, he sent us all home and said, 'Thank you, now watch how smart I am.' That's the worst kind of a notion of the presidency" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, whose book on the Obamas comes out in January, reappeared on Friday’s front page to fawn over Michelle Obama, “First Lady Takes On the Role of Staff Energizer.”

Kantor’s book, “The Obamas,” certainly does not sound like it will afflict the comfortable couple in the White House: “Filled with riveting detail and insight into their partnership, emotions and personalities, and written with a keen eye for the ironies of public life, THE OBAMAS is an intimate portrait that will surprise even readers who thought they knew the President and First Lady.” That promotional tone matches Kantor’s previous Times coverage of the First Couple.

On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Andrea Mitchell filed a report in which she gushed over First Lady Michelle Obama's campaign skills, dubbing her as President Obama's "not so secret political weapon."

Mitchell recounted the First Lady's campaign appearance from earlier in the day:

In an interview with First Lady Michelle Obama that aired on Wednesday's NBC Today, weatherman Al Roker gushed over recent shopping trip to Target and wondered: "...do you sometimes miss the ability to do something like that on a regular basis?...Do you go to Costco? Do you buy a lot of toilet tissue at once?" [Audio available here]

Obama said of her shopping trips: "I do that more frequently than people realize....we try to sneak out as much as possible and it – and it helps to keep our kids' lives normal." To the challenging toilet paper question she replied: "You know, we pretty much have our supply stocked." Roker observed: "One of the perks." [View video after the jump]

Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi is finding a lot of unusual circumstances -- and unusual no-comments -- around Michelle Obama's razzle-dazzle distraction outing to Target after her latest controversy over wearing $42,000 diamond bracelets. He found "there might have been something to the notion of White House orchestration." Farhi's story did not note how the Post's own gossip columnists were eagerly orchestrated to coo over the photo (including on NBC).

Is the AP granting the First Lady a publicity favor to curb the Michelle Antoinette echoes that will give them increased access later in return? If the official White House photographer had taken these shots, Farhi noted, the rest of the press would have seen them as promotional. Somehow they weren't if AP put their prestige on the credit line instead. Farhi lined up all the improbabilities:

Update [12:59 ET]: Full transcript added.

Friday's NBC "Today" devoted an entire segment to photos of First Lady Michelle Obama stopping by a Target store in Alexandria, Virginia, as Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O'Donnell – on location at the shopping center – gushed: "Check this out. Behind those dark glasses, tucked under that Nike cap, one of the world's most famous women. Yes, that is the First Lady of the United States at Target." [Audio available here]

A sound bite was featured of The Washington Post's Amy Argetsinger touting the "wow factor" of the First Lady going to the department store. Later, O'Donnell declared: "Doing ordinary things in tough economic times can be good for a public image." A sound bite followed from left-wing Huffington Post senior politics editor Howard Fineman: "It's great PR for them, because they can say, 'Look, on this trip and others, we know what's going on outside the gates of the White House.'"

View video after the jump

ABC News did not get around to the story that Michelle Obama wore a $42,000 set of bracelets to a Democratic fundraiser. But they certainly helped the Obama campaign by touting her appearance on Sunday night's season debut of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The Obama campaign used the appearance to promote the First Lady's work on behalf of military families (and let's not recall how her liberal husband won the Democratic nomination by promising to clear American soldiers out of Iraq by like, yesterday.) This episode dealt with a woman helping homeless female vets.

On Thursday's Good Morning America, news anchor Josh Elliott prodded Extreme Makeover host Ty Pennington to tell the folks at home just what a "cool lady" the First Lady was, and promote the "very special episode" ABC made. Pennington insisted she wore low-top Converse sneakers [video follows page break]:

Is there anything David Letterman hates more than conservative women?

On Wednesday's "Late Show," the host went after Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann saying, "She is now publishing her memoirs, and I thought, well, wait a minute, why can't we pray that away?" (video follows with transcript and commentary)

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the Obama-loving media have largely been gushing and fawning over the current White House resident taking a vacation on Martha's Vineyard as the economy appears to be heading into a double-dip recession.

Giving an interesting insight into the President's decision to not call Congress back from its summer break to tackle the problems facing the nation was New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd who wrote Sunday: