NBC’s Today show on Sunday devoted a three-minute report to President Obama’s speech to “gay rights” proponents, where he promised a repeal of the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The report had several sound bites from homosexual critics of the President, and none from proponents of keeping the policy. On the other hand, ABC’s GMA on Sunday had only one 23-second news brief on Obama’s speech.

It took Van Jones' resignation, around midnight Saturday night on a holiday weekend, for ABC and NBC to mention him for the first time in Sunday morning news shows which broached, but failed to quote, the insidious “911truth” petition he signed, while ABC's George Stephanopoulos, seemingly trying to rationalize ABC's spiking of the subject, came aboard Good Morning America to dismiss the matter as “a summer squall.” Stephanopoulos was impressed by how the White House handled it: “The fact they got it out of the way before the end of the Labor Day weekend, before his spokespeople like Robert Gibbs, who's appearing on This Week come on this morning, I think will contain any kind of damage.”

That, and a compliant news media. As Bill Kristol observed on Fox News Sunday: “The mainstream media did not cover this story.”

Mike Viqueira reported on NBC's Today: “Van Jones, that's the President's 'green gobs' czar, has resigned overnight after it became known that before joining the administration he signed a petition put forward by those who believe that the government had a hand in 9/11.” Later, Viqueira relayed how “Jones says he is the victim of a 'vicious smear campaign' from the right, but he says he's resigning because he doesn't want to draw attention from the fights to come this fall over health care and energy and climate change legislation.”

Newsweek engaged itself deeper in the battle for nationalized health care by turning over its cover story -- “We're Almost There” -- to Senator Ted Kennedy for his lengthy personal recitation of “the cause of my life.” ABC and NBC on Sunday night dutifully championed his cause as World News anchor Dan Harris highlighted how “Kennedy is using his own battle against brain cancer to make an emotional pitch for health care reform” and NBC reporter Mike Viqueira touted:

Today, another dramatic push, this time from an ailing Ted Kennedy, absent from Washington but appearing on the cover of Newsweek and writing: “This is the cause of my life. We will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not just a privilege.”

This wasn't the first time NBC has enlisted Kennedy to trumpet Obama's quest. Back in early March when the White House held a summit on health care, reporter Chuck Todd appropriated the coach who inspired “win one for the Gipper” by touting on NBC Nightly News how “the President's drive to pass health care got a Knute Rockne-like boost with a surprise appearance” by Kennedy.

A night after NBC White House reporter Chuck Todd predicted Sarah Palin will now make fundraising appearances for GOP candidates where she'll draw in “car-wreck watchers,” Todd's colleague, NBC's Mike Viqueira, after relaying how Alaska's Lieutenant Governor “says the decision was vintage Palin,” asserted over video of Ross Perot dancing: “Others describe her performance yesterday as erratic, comparing it to Ross Perot's on-again/off-again presidential run in 1992.” Unlike Palin, Perot did leave and enter the presidential race months before the election date.

Viqueira, Capitol Hill producer for NBC News who regularly appears on MSNBC, earned rare air time on the real network's NBC Nightly News because of the holiday, and proceeded to highlight how “Democrats, meanwhile, are questioning Palin's motives.” So who are these “others”? Viqueira's press corps colleagues? After all, as Rich Noyes reminded us in “Notable Quotables Flashback: Ten Months of Media Scorn for Sarah Palin,” when John McCain named Palin last year Newsweek's Eleanor Clift revealed the media reaction: “It’s been literally laughter...in very, very many newsrooms.”