Ladies and Gentlemen, The Lamestream Media

The media coverage of the more than 800 Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party protests that took place in all fifty states on April 15 ranged from disdainful dismissal of their nature, significance and import, to outright hostility towards the events and individual participants, to sexual innuendo-based full-on ridicule.

In this summary, we focused on the three major networks - NBC, ABC and CBS, the two left-of-center cable news networks - CNN and MSNBC and the three major "national" newspapers - the USA Today, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

While not an exhaustively comprehensive oeuvre of TEA Party bias, it contains many, many examples which serve to illustrate the broader antipathetic themes.

To wit:

The broadcast network evening newscasts on Wednesday provided prominent coverage of the “Tea Party” rallies across the nation with time for the views of participants, but they tried to discredit the protests as a front for “corporate interests” or a “fistful of rightward leaning Web sites” -- a concern for motives and hidden agendas the same programs lacked when championing the 2006 pro-illegal immigrant marches. All three also cited polls to undermine the premise the public shares the concerns on taxes and spending espoused by the “tea party” protesters.

“Cheered on by Fox News and talk radio, the hundreds of tea parties today were designed to protest the bailouts, the stimulus plan, and President Obama's budget,” Dan Harris explained on ABC before asserting: “But critics on the left say this is not a real grassroots phenomenon at all, that it's actually largely orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests.” Harris proceeded to argue that “while the Boston Tea Party in 1773 was about taxation without representation, critics point out that today's protesters did get to vote -- they just lost. What's more, polls show most Americans don't feel overtaxed.”

CBS's Dean Reynolds noted a tea party organizer “insisted these events were non-partisan,” but, Reynolds maintained as if it were an embarrassment, “a fistful of rightward leaning Web sites and commentators embraced the cause.” Reynolds stressed how “it's important to keep in mind that fresh polling indicates there is not all that much passion about high taxes in the country at large right now. Gallup this week found 61 percent of Americans see their federal income taxes as fair.” (What percent surveyed even pay income taxes?)

On Monday’s The Situation Room, CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre conveyed a dissenting view of whether retired General Eric Shinseki, Barack Obama’s choice for Veterans Affairs Secretary, can accurately be described as having advised the Bush administration to send more troops to occupy Iraq. McIntyre: "But Shinseki has his critics, too, who say, in fact, he never stood up to Rumsfeld, never pressed for more troops for Iraq, and, when asked in a private meeting of the Joint Chiefs if he had concerns about the war plans, never said a word, according to two people who were in the room. Asked by Newsweek two years ago to respond to the criticism he didn't press his concerns, Shinseki e-mailed back: ‘Probably that's fair. Not my style.’"

On Monday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Dean Reynolds reported on Barack Obama's announcement of an economic team, but instead of getting reaction from Republicans or financial experts, Reynolds decided to stick with the president-elect himself: "Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, as Treasury secretary. Obama said Geithner has an 'unparalleled understanding of our current economic crisis.' And Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary himself, to chair the National Economic Council. Obama called him 'one of the great economic minds of our time.'

The only mention of Republicans in the story was about how cooperative they will be if Obama backs off tax increases: "As a candidate, he favored raising taxes on the rich, but as president-elect he now says he's inclined to wait on that, a concession that could bring congressional Republicans to his side."

Following the report by Reynolds, Smith played a clip of an interview with former Clinton Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, Arthur Levitt. At one point, Smith asked Levitt: "Barack Obama puts his economic team in place today. It's two months until he takes office. Is this audacious or is this good management on his part?" Levitt replied: "This is smart. I mean, we have an administration that is virtually powerless. Certainly a president who nobody listens to. What we've seen now with the new administration is we have a shadow administration in power, in place, acting in a constructive and in a cooperative way...We cannot afford a lost two-month period where public confidence would disappear. We cannot afford that."

On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman about Barack Obama’s proposed stimulus package: "What about the $500 billion economic stimulus plan that President-elect Obama is planning? Do you think it's realistic to get that done in two years?" Not only was Krugman in favor of the plan, but he argued: "I'm actually worried that this plan may be too small... I'm still worrying that they're going to be a little bit short, because you just have to put all your notions of what is prudent aside. Being cautious is actually a very foolish thing right now."

Rodriguez’s discussion with Krugman was preceded by a fawning report by correspondent Dean Reynolds on Obama’s economic plan: "Well, the incoming administration is making it abundantly clear that it plans an active multi-billion dollar approach to kick-starting the economy. As one top economic adviser to Barack Obama put it, the era of dithering is over." Reynolds continued by declaring: "...with the actions taken so far to stem the tide proving to be totally ineffective, the incoming administration is setting the table for a long struggle to make things right."

In a story on President-elect Barack Obama's Monday meeting with Senator John McCain, CBS's Dean Reynolds listed some “areas of potential cooperation,” but he worried: “Will it be McCain the bipartisan maverick who reemerges in the Senate or the campaign conservative who might want to join fellow Republicans in frustrating the new President's plans?”

Reynolds then turned to the Politico's Jim VandeHei, a veteran of the Washington Post, who assured viewers McCain will want to “fix any damage that he did during this campaign” -- presumably a reference to McCain going to the right -- by returning to his old Senate ways journalists liked: “This is a man with a very rich appreciation for history and his place in history and I think he'll want to, you know, fix any damage that he did during this campaign by ending on a high note in the Senate.”

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton = “breathtaking!” Meanwhile, in Jake Tapper's Monday night story on ABC's World News about speculation over Hillary Clinton getting a cabinet spot, Clintonista Lanny Davis hailed: “The combination of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the world stage is literally breathtaking!”

At least on the CBS Evening News. On Thursday's newscast, reporter Chip Reid explained that John McCain campaigned in northern Ohio towns Reid described as “conservative areas” while CBS colleague Dean Reynolds, with Barack Obama in Sarasota, Florida, marveled at how he's “not just concentrating on Republican states now. He's stumping in their most conservative strongholds.”

Over the past few weeks Reid has referred to how Sarah Palin campaigned “in conservative rural Pennsylvania,” how Obama in Roanoke “drew a crowd of more than 8,000 in this conservative corner of Virginia” and how a McCain rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin put him in a “deeply conservative suburb of Milwaukee.”

From my memory, and a check of Nexis, only once in October did a CBS Evening News story describe any area of the nation as liberal -- and that came in tandem with a conservative tag. In a Friday, October 17 story, Kelly Cobiella described how in Florida “Obama has the southeast and its large number of African-American, Jewish and liberal white voters. McCain is the favorite among military and socially conservative voters in the southwest and north.”

Consistency on the CBS Evening News: Wednesday night Dean Reynolds concluded his piece on Barack Obama's campaign day by asserting “McCain's campaign tactics...have drawn criticism even from some Republicans” and next Chip Reid ended his story on John McCain's day on the trail by highlighting how “Gordon Smith of Oregon,” otherwise unidentified, “today became the fourth Republican to urge John McCain to stop those robo-calls to people's homes linking Barack Obama with William Ayers” -- all before a full report on how Sarah “Palin's carefully cultivated Joe Six Pack image is now bumping up against a six-figure wardrobe.”

Reynolds helpfully previewed some additional CBS News bias in advance as he reported “this afternoon, the Early Show's Harry Smith asked Obama about McCain's campaign tactics that have drawn criticism even from some Republicans,” and after a clip of Obama declaring he would never make unfair attacks on his opponents, Reynolds concluded: “Obama says he understands that politics is a rough business, but he insisted there is no equivalence between his campaign tactics and John McCain's.”

Anchor Katie Couric soon announced: “Sarah Palin may think the world of Joe the Plumber, too, but that doesn't mean she intends to dress like him. In fact, the Republican Party has spent $150,000 on Governor Palin's wardrobe, something that may not square with her image as a down-to-earth every woman.” The story from reporter Nancy Cordes ended with another media-generated controversy: 

CBS News' Dean Reynolds may get in hot water with his mainstream media associates for doing the unforgivable:  He's committed the truth.  On CBS's "From the Road" blog yesterday, Reynolds wrote,  "Reporter's Notebook: Seeing How The Other Half Lives." The reporter recently switched from covering Barack Obama's campaign to that of John McCain.  His rumination includes these interesting tidbits:

The (Obama) national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans. Nor is there much sympathy for those of us who report for a newscast that airs in the early evening hours. Our shows place a premium on live reporting from the scene of campaign events. But this campaign can often be found in the air and flying around at the time the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" is broadcast.

With “Where's the Fight?” on screen under video of a man in New Hampshire who pushed Barack Obama (“When and how are you going to start fighting back?”), Katie Couric teased Friday's CBS Evening News: “Supporters of Barack Obama are frustrated and letting him know it.” Couric set up the story by highlighting how “an Obama campaign official sent out a memo saying 'today is the first day of the rest of the campaign,' and vowing to take the fight to John McCain. But Dean Reynolds reports the new edge Obama tried out today wasn't sharp enough for some of his supporters.”

Indeed, Reynolds, who soon asserted that “many think” McCain's ads are “lies,” began his piece by showcasing the one questioner: “At a stop in New Hampshire today, Glenn Grasso of Dover asked Barack Obama a question on the minds of many Democrats.” Grasso pleaded: “When and how are you going to start fighting back against attack ads and the smear campaigns?” After a clip of Obama insisting “our ads have been pretty tough,” Reynolds focused on how “the audience here was clearly expecting more” and “what bothers many Democrats is what happened next. The audience literally coaxing a word from him that baldly describes what many think of the McCain camp's tactics.” Viewers then heard a man in the audience yell “lies!” before Obama endorsed his word: “Lies, that's the word I was looking for.”

Television journalists were nearly uniformly enthralled with Barack Obama's Thursday night acceptance speech, relieved he showed the toughness to take on John McCain directly, unlike, in their world view, all too-soft past Democratic nominees. Only FNC offered a contrarian view or mentioned the word “liberal” while David Gergen on CNN trumpeted the address as a “symphony” and a “masterpiece” with elements of Lincoln, MLK and Reagan.

ABC's Charles Gibson insisted that “four years ago John Kerry” was “held accountable for not being tough enough on George Bush,” and “Obama was obviously not going to make that mistake.”

On CNN, Gloria Borger decided: “If anybody ever thought that Barack Obama was not tough enough to run against John McCain, this speech should really put an end to that.”

CBS reporter Dean Reynolds on Wednesday night described the attacks on the other candidate by Barack Obama and John McCain, but only felt McCain's required a correction. After conveying how Obama is painting McCain as “out of touch and asleep at the switch are two...Obama favorites,” Reynolds cited a new McCain “ad attacking what it said was Obama's position on Iran.” Viewers saw a clip of the ad: “Iran. Radical Islamic government, known sponsors of terrorism. Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a serious threat.' Obama, dangerously unprepared to be President.” Reynolds pounced:

But the ad is a stretch because this is what Obama really said last May in Pendleton, Oregon, on the need for diplomacy.

CBS then played a clip of Obama on May 18, part of the statement the McCain campaign cited to support its ad: “Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. I mean, think about it, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.”

CBS’s Early Show and NBC’s Today on Monday morning touted, without offering specifics, what CBS reporter Dean Reynolds called Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden’s “wealth of experience” and “long record of accomplishment” on foreign policy; NBC’s David Gregory asserted that Biden had “deep foreign policy experience.” On Sunday’s Good Morning America, reporter John Berman also declared “Biden’s foreign policy expertise fills some holes in Obama’s resume.”

But CNN’s American Morning asked their Iraq reporter, Michael Ware, to rate Biden’s major contribution to recent foreign policy debates, his plan to partition Iraq into three separate regions. “Madness,” Ware declared, adding: “No one is for partition unless of course you're an Iranian-backed political party because they'd love to have a self-governing zone in the south that effectively would become an extension of Iran.”

Appearing later in the same show, Ware again scoffed at Biden’s proposal: “No one supports it. It ain't going anywhere.”

Four years ago when Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry made his “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” remark, the CBS Evening News instead ran a soundbite of Kerry promising “we're going to build an army of truth-tellers” as it took the newscast six months (!) to finally air the vote for/voted against clip and the NBC Nightly News didn't play it for nine days. Yet on Thursday night, both newscasts led with what NBC's Lee Cowan declared is “John McCain's personal housing crisis.”

ABC, which in 2004 aired Kerry's comment a day later when Dick Cheney raised it, didn't lead Thursday with McCain's failure Wednesday to say how many homes he and his wife own, but devoted a full story-plus to it with Jake Tapper deciding “it could be a seminal moment” in the campaign before George Stephanopoulos relayed how the Obama camp thinks “this is one of those metaphorical moments.” He recalled 1992, “when it seemed like President Bush didn't know what a supermarket scanner was.”

Fill-in CBS anchor Maggie Rodriguez led: “John McCain couldn't answer a question most Americans would find simple, how many homes do you own?” NBC's Brian Williams, back in Manhattan from Beijing, opened with how though “reporters are busy chasing down all available clues” on Obama's VP pick:

This was not the biggest political story of the day. That came from John McCain in response to a question about how many houses he owns. He didn't answer. The actual answer is a sizable number.

On Thursday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Dean Reynolds reported on Barack Obama’s upcoming announcement of a running mate and also highlighted John McCain’s criticism of Obama’s foreign policy: "But McCain is seen by most voters as better on foreign policy and much more likely to be an effective commander-in-chief. That may explain why he's been hammering Obama on the Iraq war, all the while denying that he's calling Obama's patriotism into question."

On Tuesday’s CBS Evening News, Reynolds declared: "Obama is pivoting toward a more combative style, rebuking the Republicans for habitually turning differences over policy into questions about patriotism, a habit he said John McCain has readily embraced." Similar to Thursday’s Early Show comment, on Wednesday’s Evening News, Reynolds was skeptical of McCain denying to question Obama’s patriotism: "Yet the McCain campaign continues to run ads attacking Obama on a personal level, belittling him as a shallow celebrity and describing him as fussy, hysterical, or testy."

On Thursday’s Early Show, in addition to reporting on Obama being "on the verge of making his running mate announcement," Reynolds also described how McCain "keeps getting worried questions about his selection...fielding persistent questions about whether he or his running mate will be conservative enough." Reynolds went on to tout new poll numbers: "...according to our poll, McCain's supporters are less fervent than those who support Obama, who is also seen as better able to deal with domestic issues like the economy."

CBS News reporter Dean Reynolds, who on Tuesday night centered a story on how “Obama is pivoting toward a more combative style, rebuking the Republicans for habitually turning differences over policy into questions about patriotism, a habit he said John McCain has readily embraced,” on Wednesday night countered John McCain's assurance he is “not questioning” Barack Obama's “patriotism, I am questioning his judgment.” After playing that soundbite from McCain in story pegged to how a new CBS News poll found McCain has cut Obama's lead in half since two weeks ago, Reynolds retorted:

Yet the McCain campaign continues to run ads attacking Obama on a personal level, belittling him as a shallow celebrity and describing him as fussy, hysterical, or testy. And while Obama's been fighting back lately, our poll found a majority believes McCain spends more time attacking Obama [52%] than explaining what he would do as President [38%].

Reynolds then concluded by acknowledging that “with the race getting closer, there's a sense that whatever voters may think about it” -- and, though he didn't say it, journalists -- “McCain's strategy may be helping him catch up.”

CBS and NBC led Tuesday night with speculation over the VP picks, but moved quickly, without citing any proof of John McCain's supposed scurrilous attack on Barack Obama's patriotism, to Obama condemning McCain for questioning his patriotism.

“Patriot games,” CBS Evening News anchor Harry Smith teased, “Barack Obama fights back.” Viewers then heard a clip of Obama before the VFW: “I will let no one question my love of this country.” Reporter Dean Reynolds described how “Obama is pivoting toward a more combative style, rebuking the Republicans for habitually turning differences over policy into questions about patriotism, a habit he said John McCain has readily embraced.” CBS ran two Obama soundbites, yet on Monday, when McCain addressed the VFW, CBS didn't show a second of him. Reynolds soon asserted that McCain and Republicans “had the stage to themselves last week while Obama vacationed.” Certainly not on the CBS Evening News which spent the week puffing Obama.

On the NBC Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell touted how “Obama strongly defended his patriotism today to veterans, the same group that heard John McCain attack him yesterday,” and relayed how Obama's “hearing a lot of messages from all across the country that he has not been tough enough. He has to go after John McCain, he's got to be more aggressive.”

For the third weekday as Barack Obama vacations in Hawaii, John McCain on the campaign trail received more hostile coverage from the broadcast network evening newscasts -- to the extent they bothered to cover the presidential campaign. In a full story on CBS, Dean Reynolds recalled how McCain promised “to conduct a respectful campaign,” but citing McCain's celebrity ad, charged “now it frequently seems respect takes a backseat to ridicule.”

NBC, which also didn't touch the campaign on Monday or Tuesday, ignored it again Wednesday, though in a story on TV ads during the Olympics Chris Jansing asserted the Obama ads deliver “optimism and hope” while McCain's have a “more negative tone.” For the first time this week, ABC skipped the campaign, but anchor Charles Gibson raised Obama's “windfall profits” proposal with Exxon Mobil's chief: “When the public sees the kind of profits that the oil companies are making, isn't it fair that they wonder, 'why not?'”

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is hardly reticent about touting himself as a Democrat. After all, he's the Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and in January was re-elected its representative to the Democratic National Committee. But in ABC and NBC news stories Thursday night about how a Michigan judge ordered him to jail immediately for violating his bond, neither identified him as a Democrat (verbally or on screen) -- not even in a full two-minute NBC story. On CBS, fill-in anchor Russ Mitchell didn't mention Kilpatrick's party in three teases/plugs for the upcoming story, nor in the introduction to it, but two-thirds into his report, Dean Reynolds, who in a March story failed to ID Kilpatrick, referenced: “Once a rising star in Democratic Party politics...”

Making that same “rising star” point, from a smoggy (or foggy?) Beijing, NBC anchor Brian Williams managed to avoid mentioning Kilpatrick's party affiliation:

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was once viewed as a rising political star in the United States. Tonight he has fallen pretty far from those early lofty and glowing predictions...

Two of the cable news networks were no more accurate. Filling in on MSNBC's Hardball, Mike Barnicle avoided Kilpatrick's party in a brief item on news of his jailing while on CNN's The Situation Room anchor Wolf Blitzer did not note Kilpatrick's Democratic affiliation in several updates and plugs and, in a full story in the 5PM EDT hour, the MRC's Matthew Balan noticed, Mary Snow failed to verbally name Kilpatrick's party in her piece.The only hint came in this chyron at the bottom of the screen for barely three seconds: "MAYOR KWAME KILPATRICK (D) DETROIT."

The CBS Evening News on Wednesday night delivered a campaign story that was little more than a recitation of John McCain's supposed misdeeds in lowering the tone of the campaign as reporter Dean Reynolds criticized McCain for spending “three times as long chatting” with a college football team “as he did talking issues to workers at a cabinet-making company,” took at shot at his access to journalists -- “the man who rides the Straight Talk Express took no questions from reporters” (as if Barack Obama takes questions every day) -- before highlighting how “McCain's own mother” said using Paris Hilton to insult Obama in an ad “was, quote, 'kind of stupid.” Running a clip from Paris Hilton's mock ad in which she describes McCain as “that wrinkly white-haired guy,” Reynolds decided: “And now it appears mother knows best.”

Earlier in the story, Reynolds recounted how a new CBS News poll found “seven out of ten” believe “the candidates are not addressing the issues that matter most to them. And that may be because they're hearing as much or more about persona as policies.” After one clip of Obama attacking McCain, Reynolds lectured:

McCain's campaign has been playing offense much more aggressively than Obama and emphasizing style a bit more than ever over substance. Today at Marshall University, for example, McCain spent three times as long chatting with the Thundering Herd football team as he did talking issues to workers at a cabinet-making company. The man who rides the Straight Talk Express took no questions from reporters. Some Republicans wonder about the new approach. McCain's own mother said using Paris Hilton in this controversial ad to insult Obama was, quote, "kind of stupid."

On Friday’s CBS "Early Show" correspondent Dean Reynolds described how the Obama campaign was defending itself against the latest McCain ad: "Spurred by what it considers below-the-belt attacks on his character, fitness, and even his fame...Barack Obama is firing back." Reynolds went on to highlight a new Obama website designed to counter McCain’s "low blows": "And Obama's campaign has just created a new website, the 'Low Road Express.' Playing off McCain's campaign bus dubbed the 'Straight Talk Express.' The new site will chronicle what the Obama folks consider low blows from McCain, who, it alleges, ‘doesn't seem to stand for anything but negative attacks and false charges against Barack Obama. This isn't the John McCain we used to know.’"

Reynolds offered a similar campaign report on Thursday’s CBS "Evening News," in which he declared: "What is striking about McCain's sharper edge, criticized by several newspapers recently, is how it appears to conflict with some of his more high-minded talk of the need for civility on the stump." Introducing the segment, anchor Katie Couric referred to the McCain ad as "infamous."

ABC, CBS and NBC all aired stories Thursday night about McCain's Britney Spears/Paris Hilton anti-Obama TV ad as well as John McCain's charge that Barack Obama is playing the race card, but only Katie Couric characterized the McCain spot as “infamous” before Dean Reynolds empathized with Obama by citing his “exasperation” with McCain's ad, based on headlines over liberal newspaper editorials asserted that McCain's “sharper edge” has been “criticized by several newspapers,” declared “a voter in Racine called” McCain on his lack of civility, and ended with how, to address McCain's unfair attacks, the Obama campaign created a Web site called the “Low Road Express” -- a page which highlights the very editorials the CBS story displayed (jpg image).  

With images of a St. Petersburg Times and a New York Times editorial on screen -- “From 'straight talk' to smear campaign” and “Low-Road Express,” the inspiration for Obama's new site -- Reynolds maintained: “What is striking about McCain's sharper edge, criticized by several newspapers recently, is how it appears to conflict with some of his more high-minded talk of the need for civility on the stump. Today a voter in Racine called him on it.” Reynolds continued to see events through Obama's eyes: “Obama said critics were trying to paint him as strange and scary.” Presuming Obama is the victim of scurrilous attacks, Reynolds concluded:

Today the Obama campaign went so far as to create a new Web site designed to deal with what it considers to be unfair or untruthful tactics by the McCain camp. And it's called the “Low Road Express.”

The broadcast network evening newscasts stories Thursday night all described Barack Obama's decision to opt out of public financing as a “flip-flop,” a “reversal” and/or a “direct contradiction” of a pledge, but CBS's Dean Reynolds also relayed Obama's rationalization -- that “he's opting out of the system to have enough money to fight the unlimited spending and what he called the 'smears' from unregulated Republican-allied organizations” -- and then, with a 2004 anti-John Kerry ad clip on screen, forwarded his own example of a supposed past smear from the right: “Such as the Swift Boat group which attacked John Kerry in 2004.”

On FNC, however, reporter Carl Cameron pointed out what didn't fit the CBS prism (nor ABC's or NBC's) in which outside groups only unfairly attack liberal Democrats: “Right now it's Obama who's getting the most outside help. He met with AFL-CIO leaders today who pledged more than $50 million to defeat McCain and the anti-war group MoveOn.org is running this attack ad nationally.” Viewers then saw the MoveOn ad with a mother and a baby:

John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can't have him.

Monday provided a great example of a network correspondent advancing Barack Obama's political cause by treating him as a victim of a nefarious GOP attack, thus allowing him to appear virtuous in his reply, an answer the other networks then highlighted to enhance the victimization theme. ABC, CBS and NBC on Monday night showcased Obama's scolding of the Tennessee Republican Party for posting a video on You Tube contrasting Michelle Obama's February admission that “for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country,” with people declaring their pride in the U.S.

(As detailed, with video, in the earlier NewsBusters posting by Scott Whitlock, on Monday's Good Morning America ABC's Robin Roberts asked if he is “prepared” for “more and more” such attacks. Obama called the ad “low class” and ominously warned his opponents should “be careful” in making his wife an issue “because that I find unacceptable.”)

Monday night, ABC's David Wright reported that “Obama tried to subtract one potential issue from the general election -- his wife.” But without playing the February Michelle Obama soundbite to remind viewers what she said, Wright asserted “certain Republicans have already questioned her patriotism.” As if the concern is baseless. On CBS, Dean Reynolds played the February clip before relaying how Barack Obama “blasted a Republican Internet ad which uses a controversial statement she made about her husband's campaign to question her love of country.” Lee Cowan, on NBC, related Obama's “Rule Number One: lay off his family. When asked on ABC's Good Morning America about this Republican ad criticizing his wife for saying that 'this was the first time' that she'd been 'proud of her country,' he fired back.”

The ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts on Friday conveyed Barack Obama's charge of hypocrisy by John McCain on dealing with Hamas, all based on one January 28, 2006 soundbite fed to them by the Obama campaign via the Huffington Post -- “They're the government, and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with them in one way or another” -- though, in fact, in an interview that same day with CNN, in the same snowy setting, McCain made clear the U.S. could deal with Hamas only if it were to “renounce” its “commitment to the extinction of the state of Israel. Then we can do business again.”

CBS's Dean Reynolds presumed Obama had caught McCain in a flip-flop: “Obama called McCain a hypocrite for backing Bush, and pointed to an earlier statement McCain had made about Hamas, which runs the Gaza strip.” After the “they're the government, and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with them in one way or another” McCain soundbite, Reynolds reported that “today McCain clarified,” as if he had to adjust his earlier view. On NBC, Lee Cowan highlighted how “Obama pointed to this interview two years ago when the Arizona Senator seemed to hint that eventually talking with Hamas might well be a political necessity.” Following the clip, Cowan allowed: “McCain says, though, that quote was taken out of context.”

The general election has apparently begun. This week, the liberal media launched a pre-emptive attack on Republican campaign tactics even as TV interviewers slobbered all over Barack Obama. Here are the Media Research Center’s "Worst of the Week" (audio and video links below the fold):

# GOP: Merchants of Slime and Hate. It’s Hillary Clinton’s campaign, not the GOP, which has pummeled Barack Obama these past weeks, but journalists are nevertheless impugning Republicans as dirty campaigners. The May 19 Newsweek cover story channeled Democratic talking points to claim "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968." (Ever listen to Democratic rhetoric on Social Security?) Co-authors Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas questioned whether John McCain really wanted to "rein in the merchants of slime and sellers of hate who populate the Internet...who exercise their freedom in ways that give a bad name to free speech."

Demonstrating how the mainstream media will view criticism of Barack Obama through the prism of past attacks on Democrats they consider illegitimate, Dean Reynolds concluded a Sunday night CBS Evening News story on Barack Obama by suggesting Democrats are well-justified in fearing Republicans will succeed in portraying Obama as “out of the mainstream,'” which Reynolds described as “code for 'unpatriotic'” in forwarding the red-herring, since it has worked “even against those who've received the purple heart.” To make his reference clear, as he spoke viewers saw video from the 2004 campaign of John Kerry.

Reynolds had relayed how Obama has “been mocking suggestions that he's out of the mainstream.” CBS then played a clip of Obama, in a stump speech, repeating the questions about him: “'We're not sure he shares our values.' 'We haven't seen him wear a flag pin lately.' 'His former pastor said some terrible things' and so, you know, 'can we really trust this guy?'”

Next, Reynolds ended his May 4 story from Indianapolis:

But 'out of the mainstream' is a charge Republicans habitually make against Democrats. It's code for 'unpatriotic.' And it worries Democrats that it's been so effective against their candidates in the past -- even against those who've received the purple heart.

To its credit, the May 1 CBS "Early Show" continued coverage of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, although the co-hosts also hoped for an Obama comeback, as co-host Julie Chen wondered: "A new CBS poll shows Barack Obama has been hurt by the Reverend Wright controversy. Does he have time to recover?"

Correspondent Dean Reynolds's field report went on to flesh out worrisome poll numbers: "Our new CBS News poll had more troubling news for Obama. At the beginning of April, 69% of Democrats thought the Illinois Senator would be their nominee. Now, only 51% do. While those who think Clinton will be nominated has gone up by 13 points."

But Reynolds held out a ray of hope for Chen and co-anchor Harry Smith, as he observed that:

At his National Press Club appearance on Monday, Reverend Jeremiah Wright re-affirmed several of his past incendiary allegations -- and added at least one new one equating U.S. troops to the Roman legions who killed Jesus -- but only ABC's World News noted that as the network journalists preferred to paint Barack Obama as a “victim” of Wright and all three evening newscasts highlighted Wright's attack on Dick Cheney for not serving in the military.

CBS's Dean Reynolds, who spent more time on Wright's attack on Cheney than on anything crazy Wright said Monday, explained that “as for questions about his patriotism, Wright pointed to his Marine service compared to Vice President Cheney's five deferments from duty.” Wright: “I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?”

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams set up the story from Andrea Mitchell by stressing how “one veteran politico today” dismissed Wright's comments as “a 'circus' and a 'sideshow.'” Mitchell soon repeated how “Obama supporters described the whole thing as a media circus.” Viewers then heard from former Senator Bill Bradley followed by Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart, the man who in March hailed Obama's speech on race as “a very important gift the Senator has given the country.” Monday night Capehart lamented how “the victim in all of this is going to be Senator Obama's campaign.”

Anti-Barack Obama ads from Hillary Clinton's campaign didn't concern CBS, but on Wednesday night anchor Harry Smith denounced an accurate ad from the North Carolina Republican Party, pointing out Obama's closeness to Reverend Jeremiah Wright and showing the very same “God Damn America” soundbite the CBS Evening News ran a month earlier, as proof the campaign is getting “nastier.”

Smith teased his top story: “The first day of the rest of the campaign, and if you think it can't get nastier.” Viewers than saw a clip of the ad, “He's just too extreme for North Carolina,” before Smith finished his sentence: “Republicans roll out a new attack ad as the battleground shifts.”

After playing clips of the ad -- the narrator saying “For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor,” Wright yelling “Not God Bless America, God [bleep] America!” and the narrator declaring “He's just too extreme for North Carolina" -- Reynolds focused on how “John McCain disowned it.” Reynolds used the ad as another chance to resurrect Bill Cunningham (with a “Barack Hussein Obama” clip) as Reynolds rued: “McCain has been down this path before, repeatedly apologizing or rejecting statements from supporters who have questioned Obama's patriotism.” McCain's requests, Reynolds lamented, “have not been effective” since the North Carolina Republicans “put their ad on the Internet.” Reynolds then highlighted how “Obama said McCain could do more to stop it.”