Osama bin Laden

CBS This Morning stood out as the only Big Three network morning show on Thursday to cover a conservative group's allegation that the Obama administration gave a movie director and writer "special access to government officials involved in the commando operation that killed Osama bin Laden," as reported by Reuters on Wednesday. ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today ignored the story.

Correspondent Chip Reid outlined that "the documents...obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group...reveal that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal...met with top national security officials; gained access to Seal Team 6; and visited the CIA."

The Obama-loving media had quite a hissy fit this week when the President's America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright suddenly became a campaign issue despite all their efforts.

So opposed to the mere mention of Wright's name is NPR's Nina Totenberg that on PBS's Inside Washington Friday, she said he's irrelevant because the current White House resident - wait for it! - killed Osama bin Laden (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charlie Rose desperately tried to find confirmation from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday's CBS This Morning on whether President Obama is a good commander-in-chief: "You can answer this question as well as anyone I know....do you give President Obama high marks in the national security arena?" Gates exposed Rose's pro-Obama tactic when he laughingly replied, "If I don't, I'm sort of giving myself a flunking grade."

The veteran national security official did his best to nuance his eventual answer, but still ended up giving his former boss the grade that the anchor was looking for: "He [Obama] was as aggressive, if not more so, in going after terrorists and al Qaeda. I think that the relationship with China has been managed pretty well. So, yeah, I think they've done a pretty good job."

In a particularly sleazy allegation, David Letterman on Tuesday night alleged former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney “went soft” on finding Osama bin Laden “because they were worried about upsetting their Saudi Arabian royalty buddies.” Talk about a lack of civility and respect for elected officials.

Letterman’s impugning of the former administration came during a sit-down with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, just after Letterman charged “we invaded Iraq because Cheney wanted to help out his buddies at Brown and Root and Halliburton.”

As NewsBusters noted while the media celebrated Bill Clinton's involvement in an Obama campaign ad spiking the bin Laden's dead football, the former President should never have appeared in such a video given his administration having passed on numerous opportunities to kill or capture the al Qaeda leader before 9/11.

On Sunday, CBS's 60 Minutes detailed such an occurrence in late summer 1999 (video follows with transcript and commentary):

... which proves one thing, namely that attorney and "Ring of Fire" radio show cohost Mike Papantonio doesn't read The Huffington Post.

How can you tell you're dealing with someone whose politics could not be more obviously, obliviously liberal? When he or she denies being liberal. Conservatives, on the other hand, don't scurry from their conservatism. (audio clips after page break)

It's becoming crystal clear that President Obama stepped on his foot while taking a victory lap for the assassination of Osama bin Laden one year ago.

Joining the growing list of even liberal media members offended by this shameless act of self-promotion was PBS's Tavis Smiley who on ABC's This Week Sunday actually said, "I just hate seeing the president play into the hands of the right by running around bragging about having to off Osama bin Laden...I don't think it's presidential" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's become a huge source of contention that in the Obama campaign ad featuring the current White House resident shamelessly congratulating himself for killing Osama bin Laden, former President Clinton says that if SEALs had been captured or killed during the raid, "The downside would have been horrible for him."

Time magazine published an article last week by former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham wherein the words "for him" were mysteriously edited out (video of ad in question also follows with transcript and commentary):

While President Obama and his adoring media did a victory lap on the one year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's assassination, Fareed Zakaria had a completely different take about how the War on Terror is going.

On CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday, the host said, "We don't look like people who have won a war. We look like scared, fearful losers" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NBC's special presentation of Rock Center on the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's assassination wasn't just a victory lap for Barack Obama.

It was also a chance for host Brian Williams to praise Bill Clinton for going after the former al Qaeda leader without mentioning all the times his administration passed on chances to get him (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Are you starting to feel the media are spiking more footballs as the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's execution nears than the President himself?

On CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, the host actually called this "the biggest decision" of Barack Obama's presidency (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In an interview with senior Mitt Romney campaign adviser Ed Gillespie on Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory noted how President Obama was "certainly using" the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden "against Governor Romney" and quickly justified the crass political move by claiming "the same sort of tactics that were used in a lot of people's eyes" by President Bush.

After playing a sound bite of Vice President Biden suggesting Mitt Romney would not have ordered the killing of Bin Laden, Gregory proclaimed: "Here's an example, back in 2004, of an ad that he [President Bush] ran as he was running for reelection....Using images from the World Trade Center. A lot of people see that as the very same thing. Is it not?"

On Monday's The Ed Show on MSNBC, as host Ed Schultz and MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe - formerly of Newsweek - discussed Mitt Romney's crack on President Obama that even President Carter would have had the judgment to order the killing of Osama bin Laden once the 9/11 mastermind had been found, the two MSNBC personalities fretted that Romney had taken a "cheap shot" at Jimmy Carter.

It seems a metaphysical certitude that when Charlie Rose asked the perilously liberal publisher Arianna Huffington about Barack Obama's new campaign ad featuring former President Bill Clinton praising the current White House resident's decision to take out Osama bin Laden the CBS This Morning co-host didn't expect this answer.

"To turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Classic MSM jujitsu. Chuck Todd has attempted to turn the issue of President Obama's unseemly spiking of the football on the anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, into an attack on Republicans for reacting to Obama's politicization of the event.

On his MSNBC show The Daily Rundown, Todd began his discussion of the matter this morning by asking the Washington Post's Dan Balz whether he was surprised by how "aggressive" the Romney campaign has been on the matter.  A bit later Todd suggested to Clarence Page that Republicans were "overreacting" to Obama's boasts.  Right.  Romney should run a passive campaign, like, say John McCain did! Good-loser Republicans: yeah, that's the MSM ticket!  Video after the jump.

The media were predictably orgasmic over a new Obama campaign ad out Friday featuring former President Bill Clinton in a strong message implying Mitt Romney wouldn't have made the decision last year to kill Osama bin Laden.

The problem with their glee is that Clinton himself passed up numerous opportunities to kill or capture bin Laden prior to leaving the White House in January 2001 thereby making this entire ad totally hypocritical as is the press's joy for it (video follows with commentary).

Debuting his first radio show yesterday on WABC in New York City,  Geraldo Rivera reminisced about his storied career in media with guests including Donald Trump, former NYC mayor Ed Koch and Fox News colleague Mike Huckabee.

The show turned unintentionally hilarious when Rivera described how he begged Fox chief Roger Ailes to send him to Afghanistan as a war correspondent after 9/11, and Rivera's response to the stunning news last May that bin Laden was dead (audio) --

Somebody check the calendar.  Aren't we almost in 2012? Yet there's Kathleen Parker on Chris Matthews's weekend show today, still gushing over Barack Obama like a member of the liberal media in the deepest throes of 2008 Obama-adulation.

After extolling Obama's foreign policy approach as "cool" [mangling a basketball metaphor along the way], Parker defiantly declared: "I know everybody's going to say [I'm] an Obama lover.  Whatever." Video after the jump.

Will Herman Cain ever catch on that certain subjects -- such as the alleged sanctity of Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas -- are no joking matter? (video and audio clips after page break)

Appearing on the Sunday, November, 13, Today show on NBC to discuss Saturday night's GOP presidential debate that focused on foreign policy, Meet the Press host David Gregory suggested that, because President Obama's foreign policy, "by a lot of accounts," has been "very successful," the Republican candidates may not be so eager to go after Obama in that realm. Gregory, speaking of the candidates:

As he interviewed former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday's Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN host Piers Morgan seemed to suggest that the war against Muammar Gadhafi's regime in Libya was perhaps better run than the war in Iraq, and went on to ask Powell if he felt "used" when he presented to the United Nations the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq.

After asking Powell did he "admire" President Obama's "audacity" in ordering the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, he followed up with his suggestion that the war in Libya was better run than the Iraq War:

In a report on Friday's NBC Today, news anchor Natalie Morales profiled children who were born after the September 11th attacks and noted how celebrations following the death of Osama Bin Laden in May were "thrilling and confusing" for those children.

One girl worried: "I just don't think it's right to celebrate that somebody died, because they were all like, 'Oh, yay, he died, hooray!' But it's just not very nice to celebrate that somebody died." A boy observed: "I would celebrate a little, but at the same time I wouldn't."

As NewsBusters has been reporting, Obama-loving media have been working overtime excusing the President for taking a vacation at Martha's Vineyard as average Americans struggle in a down economy.

Perhaps the most disgusting example yet came on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" when the host actually connected the attacks on 9/11 to former President George W. Bush's vacation in August the month before (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Is the Obama Administration inappropriately disclosing classified data to movie producers in the hopes of getting a film about the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden released before the 2012 election? That is the question that Congressman Peter King (R-NY) is asking after word got out that the White House is giving inside information about the military raid that killed bin Laden earlier this year to the creators of the Oscar-winning film "Hurt Locker."

"This alleged collaboration belies a desire of transparency in favor of a cinematographic view of history," King wrote in a letter addressed to officials at the CIA and the Department of Defense which asked for full details on the government's involvement with the film. The Defense Department acknowledged the collaboration in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:

In an otherwise typically dismal column about President Barack Obama which is one part pity party and another part an attempt at building him a he-man reputation (not kidding), New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd describes an upcoming movie featuring the exploits of Navy SEAL Team 6 in the operation which killed Osama Bin Laden on May 1.

Dowd celebrates the fact that the movie's currently anticipated opening is October 12, 2012, describing it as "perfectly timed" and "just as Obamaland was hoping." She expects that it will "give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher," and "counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual."

Here are the relevant paragraphs from Dowd's column, including reference to a New Yorker column about the operation which has become the subject of considerable controversy (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

As she steps into her new role as CBS News Chief White House correspondent, Norah O'Donnell may have made a good impression on the man she'll now be covering with comments she made this weekend.

While chatting with the panel of "The Chris Matthews Show," O'Donnell told the host that President Obama has more aggressively prosecuted the War on Terror than George W. Bush (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The New York Times Friday reported two men were arrested in Seattle earlier in the week for plotting to attack a military processing center.

Unfortunately, the Times chose to omit the fact the pair were radical Muslim converts with one of them actually idolizing Osama bin Laden (photo courtesy Agence France-Presse - Getty Images):