NBC's Matt Lauer, along with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, spent a whole segment on Monday's Today show wondering if Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party supporters she appeals to, posed a problem for the GOP, with the Today co-anchor going as far to boldly state: "Republicans are afraid of Sarah Palin. Republicans have a right to be afraid of some of the people she was talking to also." [audio available here]

MATT LAUER: So, let's talk about this speech here. Critics have already weighed in. They said it had a lot of conservative red meat in it but it was short on policy and solutions. Here she was speaking to, what for her, is a friendly audience. How's this fit?

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Right. Well the bottom line is she's a frontrunner right now, if you look at a lot of polls, for the GOP nomination in 2012. So, everything she does takes on significance. What's interesting is, what's being said off the air. People, Republicans are afraid of Sarah Palin right now. Conservatives afraid of Sarah Palin right now. But behind the scenes, they're talking about how embarrassing her performance was and the press conference afterwards, not because of any crib notes, but just because she still doesn't seem to, to, to have a great deal of substance about what her...

Michelle Obama sat down for an exclusive, multi-part interview with NBC's Matt Lauer on Wednesday's Today show and as expected with any Q&A with a First Lady the co-host tossed the perfunctory softballs on topics like family life in the White House and her cause of childhood obesity, but Lauer also extended the favorable treatment when discussing health care reform as he pressed: "Will it pass? Can your husband get it done?" Lauer also reminisced with Michelle Obama about his interview with the President last year when "It was a heady time for you as a family and for Democrats," but noted that the "mood and the tone have changed," and admitted to personally being "worried if that stings a bit." [audio available here]

LAUER: You did get out there and push for health care reform. And, and since the loss of Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts, it's, it's far from certain. And it seems some Democrats are willing to maybe let it go to the back burner and let it go with the whimper as opposed to a bang. Will it pass? Can your husband get it done?

OBAMA: I hope so. The country needs health care. It's hard, it's scary, it's confusing, but I hope for our country's sake that we can do this now and not wait until things get worse. I mean, I agree with the President when he said that we don't have the option to do nothing. He's right.

Immediately following President Obama’s State of the Union address Wednesday night, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos got reaction from Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, who observed: “There were at least three moments where he expressed explicit humility. ‘I’m not – I know that people aren’t sure I can deliver this change. I take my share of the blame for not explaining health care.’”  

At the same time, both Stephanopoulos and Meacham agreed that Obama’s speech was Reaganesque. Stephanopoulos argued: “What I saw there is the President not being contrite like Bill Clinton in 1995, much more defiant, more like Ronald Reagan in 1983.” Meacham replied: “There was a lot of Reagan here.”

On NBC’s Today on Thursday, Matt Lauer cited Obama’s “humility” to press former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Republicans not supporting the President’s agenda: “...you said about the President quote, ‘if he does show humility and does try to find common ground, there are Republicans who will sign up for that.’ He showed humility....will you now get behind this president and will other Republicans?”  Bush rejected the notion that Obama was humble: “I don’t think it’s humble to say that you didn’t communicate a message and that’s the reason why people opposed the health care plan in front of Congress right now by a dramatic margin.”

When the liberal radio network Air America debuted on March 31, 2004, NBC trumpeted it as the “counterweight” to the "right-wing bent" of talk radio. Katie Couric enthused that Al Franken and his colleagues hoped “to break into what has been a conservative lock on the radio.” However, when the beleaguered Air America announced bankruptcy on Thursday, both the Nightly News and Friday's Today skipped the story. [Video of Today's promotion can be found above. Audio can be found here.]

Back in 2004, Today co-host Matt Lauer enthused, “If you're a talk radio fan, chances are you're a conservative, too. But, a liberal talk radio network hits the airwaves today. We're gonna ask new talk show host Al Franken if people will rush to listen to him?” Couric touted, “Also a new voice is launching on talk radio today hoping to be a counterweight to the right-wing bent on the airwaves.”

Couric’s interview that day with Franken amounted to a big promotional push for the left-wing comedian who was debuting as the host of The O’Franken Factor. He was already an alumnus of NBC, having starred in the network’s Saturday Night Live show.

On Tuesday's Today show NBC's Kelly O'Donnell -- apparently reaching to find something negative to say about the surging Scott Brown --  accused the Republican Massachusetts Senate candidate of running away from his own party as she questioned: "You don't mention the Republican Party much in your campaign. Why is that?" To which Brown quickly asserted: "I think people know I'm a Republican. That's never been a secret."

However O'Donnell didn't let Brown have the last word on the topic, as she elaborated: "Not a secret, but clearly not on display. No mention of being a Republican on Brown's bus, signs or campaign ads. So Coakley made it a point in hers." O'Donnell went on to run a clip from a Martha Coakley ad, the first of two clips from ads produced by the Democratic candidate.

Incidentally O'Donnell never aired a clip from a Brown ad. She did, however, air a radio show clip of Coakley embarrassing herself by identifying Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling as a "Yankee fan," but she then quickly introduced a clip of Vicki Kennedy defending the gaffe: "To Coakley's defense came Ted Kennedy's widow Vicki, who told NBC News there are bigger issues at stake."

The following is the full O'Donnell segment as it was aired on the January 19 Today show:

NBC's Tom Brokaw, on Monday's Today show, joined in the chorus of those depicting Rush Limbaugh as some sort of insensitive lout who doesn't want Americans to donate to the Haitian earthquake victims. The former NBC Nightly News anchor, in response to a question from Today co-anchor Matt Lauer, praised America's generosity to the disaster, but then took a swipe at the conservative radio talk show host: "It's a tribute to this country, Rush Limbaugh aside, that you have former President Clinton and former President George Bush, who are political arch enemies, coming together to say, we have to do something about this poorest place in the western hemisphere." 

Limbaugh, in fact, has never discouraged Americans to donate money to help victims of the quake. He only cautioned that giving money through the federal government wouldn't be as effective as contributing to more efficient private charities, as he said on his January 14 show: "Private donations are going to be much better than a government donation. They're all going, go to the Red Cross, do other things, don’t go through the government. It’s just going to go through hands and bureaucracies and a dollar is going to end up being 30 cents by the time they get through with it. I did not say, 'Don’t make donations.'" 

To read more of what Limbaugh actually said, in full context, about the disaster in Haiti please follow this link to the transcript at the official site: 

The following is the relevant exchange as it was aired on the January 18 Today show:

With Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown surging in the polls, NBC's Today show, on Friday, assigned Kelly O'Donnell to highlight the race for the open Senate seat in Massachusetts pitting Brown against Martha Coakley and the NBC reporter – even after airing Brown's zinger that "it's not the Kennedy seat...it's the people's seat," – ordained it "the Kennedy seat."

Today co-host Matt Lauer, in introducing the O'Donnell piece (that incidentally was accompanied by the on screen headline: Will Democrats Lose Ted Kennedy's Seat?") also read from the same song book: "Now to politics and the race to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat."

Over on ABC's Good Morning America Jake Tapper avoided describing the seat as the Kennedy family's personal property in his report that noted "there's a big question...as to whether President Obama will campaign in that special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat...because if the Democrat loses, all bets are off," and warned "It looks like health care might sink." CBS's The Early show aired nothing about the Senate race.

The following is a complete transcript of O'Donnell's profile of the race as it was aired on the January 15 Today show:

NBC's Today show, on Monday morning, invited on former Democratic liberal Congressman Harold Ford Jr. and PBS' liberal Washington Week moderator Gwen Ifill to discuss whether Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should step down for his "Negro dialect" comments about Barack Obama and not surprisingly neither guest suggested Reid should go.

Both Ford and Ifill dismissed any comparison to when Trent Lott was forced to resign for racially insensitive comments as Ford claimed "I don't believe in any way that Harry Reid had any animus, racial animus," and with Lott there were "other allegations and even proof of racial comments that he had made before." For her part Ifill claimed the two cases were "apples and oranges," as seen in the following exchange with Today co-host Matt Lauer:

NBC's Matt Lauer dismissed the idea that Barack Obama was weak on terrorism, as the Today co-anchor, on Wednesday's show, wanted to "get rid" of the notion that "the President doesn't take the threat of terrorism seriously enough because he's not out there talking about it every day." Lauer, in a political roundup segment in the 7am half hour, also spun the retirements of Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan as something "that might work out better in the long haul," for the Dems.

First up Lauer, in a question to former White House press secretary and current Fox News contributor Dana Perino, dismissed the idea Obama isn't taking the threat of terrorism seriously enough.

NBC's Today show invited on Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Census Bureau Director Robert Groves to promote their Portrait of America road tour as a way to encourage people to fill out the Census forms or risk, as Locke warned, miss out on "$400 billion of federal funds," to which Matt Lauer underlined, "This is vitally important to communities."

The entire Today cast braved 20 degree weather outside to stand alongside one of the vans set to tour the country to publicize the Census that, as the former Democratic Governor of Washington state alerted viewers, "will determine the allocation of federal funds to their communities for the next 10 years and could actually give them more political power in the United States Congress."

The following segment was aired on the January 4 Today show:

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's Today show, used the occasion of the bombing attempt of Northwest Flight 253, to press Republican Senator Jim DeMint to stop being the last "hold-out" and "come around," on approving Obama's pick for TSA director Errol Southers. However Lauer failed to mention Obama took eight months to make his choice as well as the fact that DeMint is concerned that Southers' choice could lead to collective bargaining that would "bring the security concerns of TSA under the authority of union bosses."

The following exchange came during the 7am half-hour of the January 4 Today show:

MATT LAUER: You say we're all on the same page. You are the single hold-out, Senator, in, in approving the President's choice for the director of the TSA, Errol Southers and I'm, I'm just curious, in, in light of Flight 253 are you still gonna hold out on that nomination or are you maybe gonna come around?

It took a tough question from Matt Lauer, but after having laughably claimed that "the system worked," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has now conceded the obvious: that the security system that permitted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board NWA 253 with explosives "failed miserably."

On Today and in other interviews this morning, Napolitano attempted to use her own ignorance as a shield.  Each time she was hit with a hard question, her response was to the effect "yeah, we're wondering about that ourselves."  She also continued to point the finger back at George Bush, repeatedly mentioning that the security procedures in place were formulated under the Bush administration.  Whatever happened to "change you can believe in"?

But back to Today, where Lauer laudably asked Napolitano the necessary question: how could she possibly have claimed, as she did yesterday, that the "system worked"?

In advance of Time magazine's Person of the Year choice being revealed on Wednesday's show, NBC's Today show brought on managing editor Richard Stengel yesterday, to reveal the seven finalists, and on Tuesday's show NBC's Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira gave the results of an on-line poll of their viewer's picks and it wasn't good news for Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker of the House finished dead last among the seven candidates but Lauer pitied Pelosi as he cheered on: "C'mon Nancy you can do better."

The following exchange was aired on the December 15, Today show:

Time's managing editor Richard Stengel joined Meredith, Matt, Ann and Al, on Monday's Today, to play a guessing game of who will become his magazine's Person of the Year and praised one of the finalists, Nancy Pelosi, as the "strongest Speaker of the House in decades," who has "piloted what is probably the most important legislation in decades."

Others making the final list included Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, General Stanley McChrystal, the Chinese (not the American) worker and of course Barack Obama, as Today co-anchor Meredith Vieira pointed out, "was the choice last year," and pressed, "Have you ever had that, where somebody has won twice and consecutively?"

The following is the full transcript of the segment as it was aired on the December 14 Today show:

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's Today show, in his first question to RNC Chair Michael Steele, asked if opponents to Barack Obama's health care reform bill, were going to deprive the President of politically joyous holiday season, as the Today co-anchor pressed: "So is the President's stocking going to be empty on Christmas Day?" Lauer then went on to question if the Republican's entire strategy was that of simply "delaying and stalling," as seen in the following exchange:

MATT LAUER: Let's talk about health care reform. The President says he thinks the Senate will pass his version of the bill by Christmas. Joe Lieberman says he's not voting for it in it's current form. So is the President's stocking going to be empty on Christmas Day?

NBC's Meredith Vieira, on Wednesday's Today, invited on radical leftist Howard Zinn to promote a new History Channel documentary, The People Speak (based on his revisionist book A People's History of the United States), in which the Today co-anchor pointed out Zinn makes "a very interesting point that the Declaration of Independence was a, was a statement of, you know, hope and, and positive democracy. And then the Constitution came along and sort of negated that." [audio available here]

Vieira offered Zinn and his co-producer Chris Moore a platform to toss our their left-wing version of history and even make anti-war proclamations, which was awkward considering that the Today show's Matt Lauer and Al Roker are visiting the troops in Afghanistan all this week, something that Vieira pointed out in the following exchange:

Meredith Baxter, known for her role as the liberal matriarch Elyse Keaton in "Family Ties," came out as a lesbian this morning on NBC's "Today."

Baxter told host Matt Lauer that she's a "very private person" and "not a very political person," but that she understands coming out "is a political act."

"My understanding is that so much research has been done that says that if anybody knows someone who is gay or lesbian, then when they are addressing gay or lesbian issues, political issues that affect their rights, they're less likely to vote against them, to take away their rights," Baxter explained.

"If you knew me before, and you cared about me before, I'm the same woman," Baxter continued. "I'm the same mother to all these children. And if I can be that lesbian you now know, okay, well if I vote this way, than, than that actually might affect this person I know, that Meredith."

Previewing the President's speech tonight, NBC's Matt Lauer invited on Karl Rove, on Tuesday's Today show, and pressed the former White House senior adviser if the reason Afghanistan still required the U.S.'s attention is because the previous administration "took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan," and "concentrated too heavily on Iraq." Rove hit back, accusing Lauer and Bush administration critics of "revisionism." And later, when Lauer questioned if there were enough "resources" to counter the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan Rove fired back that any one in the Obama administration was in no position to criticize:

"Well look, first of all, they, resources were sent as they were needed, but I would remind you this, President Obama is in no position whatsoever to criticize what President Bush did. Because in 2007, President Obama, then a member of the United States Senate, voted against war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. If this was so vital, then why did he not speak out? He was chairman of a committee overseeing NATO. He could have easily called a hearing to say, ‘I'm concerned about this issue.' He did not."

The following a complete transcript of the interview as it was aired on the December 1, Today show:

The broadcast networks still haven’t uttered a single word about the revelations late last week of e-mails showing scientists on the left-wing side of the global warming debate plotting to hide data and silence those on the other side in an effort prop up the notion of a “consensus” on the issue. But when the liberal side of the debate charged that their opponents were involved in a “conspiracy” to tilt the debate in their favor, those same networks eagerly jumped on the story and castigated the evil “deniers.”

In 2007, as Brent Baker chronicled at the time in the MRC's CyberAlert, the broadcast network evening newscasts jumped to hype a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing meant to publicize a report from two far-left groups about how the Bush administration supposedly suppressed science about the dire threat of global warming — as if that view wasn’t getting plenty of play in the mainstream media.

NBC's Matt Lauer invited on Newsweek managing editor Dan Klaidman, on Wednesday's Today, to answer Sarah Palin's charge that the magazine's recent cover photo of her, in a jogging outfit, was "sexist," but Klaidman denied the accusation as he claimed: "Well, what it really represented was what the story was about, and that's what our mission is. I mean, look, since she's been on the national stage, there have been these questions about her gravitas, about her seriousness." The photo – which was a reprint of a Runners World cover – was, as Palin noted "taken out of context," and intended to diminish her as a political figure, something that even Lauer, to his credit, noticed as seen in the following exchange with Klaidman and his other guest, the Daily Beast's editor-in-chief Tina Brown: [audio available here]

MATT LAUER: But on this week, as she's launching this book that, that she wants to use to kind of establish herself and perhaps as a run for 2012, why that image? Why do you think that represented what she's all about at this point in time?

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show, actually asked Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, if he and the network parted ways because he was "too conservative" and if CNN was okay with Dobbs' push for immigration reform when he was attacking George W. Bush but wasn't happy when Dobbs started slamming the Obama administration on the issue, as he queried the former CNN host, "You got much less kickback from CNN than when you started to speak out about the policies of Barack Obama. So, was this an issue that CNN wants to appear neutral but maintain a more liberal stance?" [MP3 audio available here]

For his part Dobbs claimed the home of the very liberal Rick Sanchez "made it very clear, they wanted the network to go middle of the road and to be very neutral."

The following is the full transcript of the entire segment as it was aired on the November 17, Today show:

Here is the latest episode of NewsBusters’ Notables Quotables show, featuring the liberal media’s most outrageous sound bites.

In this week’s episode we have Chris Matthews wondering what’s wrong with a quick phone call to terrorists, Matt Lauer worried about America getting a big head, and Actor Scott Wolf revealing the inspiration behind his role as a sell-out journalist in a new TV series.

Enjoy the show and to see current and past episodes in a larger format, visit the ‘Notable Quotables Show’ channel on the Media Research Center’s video sharing website, Eyeblast.

 

 

Reporting live from the Berlin Wall NBC's Tom Brokaw, on Monday's "Today" show, never once mentioned Ronald Reagan's name and his role in helping to end the Cold War, but did find time to praise Mikhail Gorbachev and "Today" co-anchor Matt Lauer even wondered if it was "a little egocentric" to look at the fall of the Wall as an "American victory," as seen in the following exchange:

MATT LAUER: I know, I think it may be a little egocentric but I think most Americans look at that event and they think of it as an American victory. When you talk to Germans today, do they view it that way?

TOM BROKAW: Well, they certainly think that the United States played a major role. But the real payoff came later when Germany was peacefully re-united. I said at a dinner last night, the remarkable thing is that no tanks rolled that day, no shots were fired, no East German leaders were hanged in the streets of East Berlin. And you have to give Mikhail Gorbachev a great deal of credit for that, Matt. Because he was in Moscow and he didn't send in the troops and he said to the East Germans, "You need to learn how to reform."[audio available here]

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the November 9, "Today" show:

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Thursday's "Today" show, handed San Francisco Democrat District Attorney Kamala Harris a virtual campaign contribution in the form of a full interview segment in the 8:30am half-hour as he billed her as the "Female Barack Obama." Harris, who was on to plug her new book, received the full star-treament as Lauer pressed if she had "ambitions for national office." Not surprisingly, the "rising political star" featured the segment all over her official Web site. 

The following teasers and full interview segment were aired on the October 29, "Today" show:

MATT LAUER: And coming up in this half hour, we're gonna meet a woman. Some are calling her "the female Barack Obama." Her name is Kamala Harris. She is a rising political star in California, has written a book on crime, and we're gonna talk, get her take on this, what she thinks we're doing wrong when it comes to fighting crime.

Like everyone else on the morning of October 9, the major media’s first reaction to Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize was shock and disbelief. NBC’s Matt Lauer spoke for the pack when he said he didn’t want to be "rude," but how did Obama earn it? Washington Post columnist (and former reporter) Ruth Marcus was blunt: "This is ridiculous -- embarrassing, even." She said the award is supposed to be for "doing, not being."

That is true, but for the swelling group of Americans who are not enamored of Obama, that could easily be turned around on the media: why would you, of all people, question the inflated judgment of the five Norwegian prize pickers? They are merely doing the same thing you’ve been doing for five years: praising Obama far beyond his actual job experience or accomplishments, and building a powerful myth of a global savior in an effort to put the international socialist Left in power, eclipsing America once and for all.