NBC's Matt Lauer, at the top of Thursday’s "Today" show, was careful to note the party affiliation of Mark Sanford as he announced "The political future of South Carolina's governor Mark Sanford, a once-rising star in the Republican Party, is very much in doubt." However when he invited on former Democratic New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey – who resigned after admitting an affair with a gay man who he appointed to office – to discuss the story, he never mentioned McGreevey was a Democrat.

After a set-up piece by Mark Potter, Lauer interviewed McGreevey and asked him the ex-governor, "If it comes out that the governor used taxpayer money to go to Argentina on one or more occasions, does that complicate the issue? And, and would that make it more difficult for him to survive in office?" Interestingly Lauer failed to mention the fact that this was one of the reasons that forced McGreevey to step down.

The following are the relevant teasers and then full segment as they were aired on the June 25, "Today" show:

This could be a world record: a news outlet on Friday thoroughly bashed two prominent conservative women -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Miss California Carrie Prejean -- in only two minutes.

Two minutes.

In a new online program Yahoo launched in May as a daytime TV recap for women on the go, "Daytime In No Time" host Nikki Boyer disgracefully attacked Palin and Prejean (video embedded below the fold, h/t NBer Blazer):

NBC host Matt Lauer interviewed Sarah Palin on June 12, and defended comedian David Letterman and his joke about the statutory rape of Palin’s daughter by baseball player Alex Rodriguez.
 
When Palin began to condemn the joke as wildly inappropriate and offensive, Lauer defended Letterman: “Since David Letterman’s not here, let me just say that he did not mention Willow by name, and he then went on to say he was not referring to your 14-year-old daughter,” as though to Lauer the excuse diminished the vile nature of Letterman’s joke.

 At the end of the segment, Lauer did admit that, “a lot of people feel the joke was in extremely bad taste, no matter which daughter of yours he was referring to,”  but not before Palin pointed out that, “regardless, it was a degrading comment about a young woman,” and no joke of that nature should be tolerated, no matter how old the victim of the joke is.
 

NBC’s "Today" picked their leader to revive the Republican party: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. The former congressman (and former conservative) who admitted to bashing Republicans more than Democrats, appeared on the June 9 edition of "Today" to promote his new book "The Last Best Hope."

Host Matt Lauer inquired as to who should speak on behalf of Republican principles and quickly added "leave your name out of it for a second." Lauer then branded Christopher Buckley, who endorsed Obama, "a modern conservative" and then proceeded to quite "Obamican" promoting Scarborough as the "new face" of the Republican party.

"Today" show host Matt Lauer on Thursday inadvertently mixed up the names of Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama, an error similar to one made by Dick Cheney and used by MSNBC's David Shuster on Tuesday to attack the former Vice President in his daily "Hypocrisy Watch segment. Will Shuster now take on his NBC colleague? Talking with journalist Richard Wolffe, Lauer mentioned a new bin Laden audiotape and jumbled, "In it he mentions Osama, he mentions Barack Obama..." [Audio available here]

On June 1, giving a speech to the National Press Cub, Cheney said of bin Laden, "I don't think he can have much impact now in terms of managing the organization because that link between Obama and the people under him is pretty fragile." During a June 2 "Hypocrisy Watch" segment on "MSNBC News Live," Shuster played the clip and then erupted, "Obama, Osama. Good grief!" He sarcastically added, "Now, I'm sure, I'm sure that was an innocent mistake." (The cable anchor also attacked the ex-VP for other reasons in the piece.)

Thursday night, as my colleague Brent Baker noted, ABC and NBC fretted that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor might not adhere to a strict liberal orthodoxy on abortion. NBC reporter Pete Williams said Sotomayor’s views on abortion were a “mystery,” while ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg declared “both sides in the contentious debate want to know more.”

On Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Wyatt Andrews sounded the same alarm: “Pro-abortion rights groups worried aloud today that the President — who promised an abortion rights nominee — never asked Sotomayor, who is Catholic, where she stands.”

On Thursday’s Today, co-host Matt Lauer opened the show by demanding to know “Where does she stand? Liberal activists voicing concerns over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and her stance on abortion. This morning, they’re demanding to know if she’s pro-choice or pro-life — and why President Obama never asked.”

But this isn’t the first time the networks have channeled the worries of liberal pro-abortion groups about a Democratic President’s Supreme Court nominee.

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Wednesday's "Today" show greeted viewers with the following teaser: "Good morning, Supreme showdown. Republicans gear up for a fight over President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court," and then asked the racially loaded question: "But will taking on the first Hispanic nominee cost them down the road?" Lauer and other "Today" correspondents repeatedly questioned if Republican opposition to Sotomayor would cost them Hispanic votes in upcoming elections. However no one on "Today" mentioned it was Democrats, back in 2003, as the MRC's Tim Graham pointed out, who opposed the nomination, by Republican President George W. Bush of Miguel Estrada at the circuit court level.

While NBC's Matt Lauer, Pete Williams and Chuck Todd all appropriately applied the liberal label to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, on Tuesday's "Today" show, Lauer did try to sell the concept, advanced by the Washington Post, that Sotomayor wouldn't be "reflexively liberal."

MATT LAUER: Right, however in the Washington Post, back in May Pete, when writing about her judicial philosophy they said this, quote, "Sotomayor would probably be a reliably liberal vote on the Court, split into conservative and liberal blocks, on many issues, but her friends and colleagues and former clerks say, she would not be reflexively liberal or results oriented but would adhere to the law and the Constitution." We talking about a fine line there?

The following is a full transcript of the segment as it occurred on the May 26 edition of the "Today" show:

MATT LAUER: NBC News has learned that President Obama has tapped federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor as his first nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. We'll get more on this right now from NBC's chief justice correspondent Pete Williams. Pete, good morning, what can you tell me.

Network anchors and reporters didn't hesitate to apply strong ideological labels (not just quoting others) to President Bush's two Supreme Court nominees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Will they be as willing to tag President Obama's nominee, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, as “staunch,” and “hardline” and “ultra” liberal, or at least as “very liberal”?

In July of 2005, on the night Bush announced Roberts, ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Ted Koppel both described him as not just conservative, but as “very conservative.” NBC's Brian Williams called Roberts “a kind of 'bedrock conservative,' not what is called a 'movement conservative.'”

The next night, CBS Evening News anchor John Roberts (now with CNN) wanted to know of his namesake: “Has President Bush attempted to move the court further to the right with this pick?” On NBC, Chip Reid (now at CBS) highlighted how one liberal activist “says he worries that Roberts might be a stealth candidate, moderate on the outside but as conservative as Justices Scalia and Thomas on the inside.”

"Today" reporter Chuck Todd on Thursday spun the dueling speeches of President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney as not "a fair fight." Speaking of the two May 21 addresses on the subject of terrorism, the NBC correspondent proclaimed, "Our latest poll indicates it's the most popular member of the Democratic Party facing off against one of the most unpopular members of the Republican Party."

In a follow-up interview with Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, host Matt Lauer asserted that with regards to issues like closing Guantanamo Bay and the use of enhanced interrogation, "this debate has been settled." He added, "It was settled back in November during the last election, when Americans chose to elect Barack Obama and move away from the legacy of the Bush administration." He mused, "So what does Dick Cheney have to gain or lose today?"

When NBC's "Today" show, on Wednesday, devoted an entire segment asking the question "How Should the GOP Battle Back?" who did they turn to, to offer strategic advice? Leftist Nation editor/publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel and self-described "moderate" radio talk show host Michael Smerconish. What? Was Meghan McCain not available? Not surprisingly neither guest suggested the Republican Party should be consistent in expressing and acting on conservative principles as Vanden Heuvel railed:

NBC's Matt Lauer and Al Roker, on Tuesday's "Today" show, revealed they enjoyed a "nice" evening at the theater last night, in the presence of Michelle Obama, as she "dazzled New York City for a second time," when she visited the Metropolitan Opera House. After an Amy Robach piece that celebrated Mrs. Obama's return to the Big Apple, Roker and Lauer bragged that they too were in attendance at the American Ballet Theater Spring Gala, along with the First Lady, as Roker gushed: "It was fantastic!"

For her part Robach joined in the Obama family myth-making as she cheered, "Everyone takes notice when the First Lady is out on the town here in the Big Apple and Monday was no exception." Robach, in her piece, even included several soundbites from a delighted New York Times' Jodi Kantor who enthused: "You look at the kind of parties that the Met hosts and if you look at the top ballet galas in New York they always have big celebrities there, but Mrs. Obama is a different order of magnitude."

After three weeks of virtual silence, all three broadcast networks provided full reports last night (Thursday) about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s shifting story about what she knew about the interrogation methods used against al Qaeda terrorists, methods that liberals have decried as criminal torture. This morning (Friday), NBC and CBS also provided full reports, but ABC’s Good Morning America weirdly relegated Pelosi’s rant that the CIA “misleads us all the time” to a brief, 28-second report during the 8am ET hour.

That’s about as much time as the newscast gave to the rescue of a kangaroo caught in deep water off an Australian beach.

NBC’s Today was by far the toughest on Pelosi this morning, with co-host Matt Lauer opening the show by demanding: “What did she know and when did she know it? The CIA claims in a 2002 briefing, they told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi they were using harsh interrogation techniques. She says that’s a lie. So who’s telling the truth?”

For your TGIF viewing fun, NBC “Today” show co-host Meredith Vieira has lost control of her verbal filters again.

From Vieira’s Super Bowl week performance, in which she claimed that she and NBC weatherman Al Roker were “moist,” to the last unfortunate double-entendre involving speculation on the past tense of “Tweet,” the morning show hostess today wondered whether the Statue of Liberty was wearing undergarments beneath her robes.  

Once again, colleague Matt Lauer played the long-suffering professional, keeping a straight face.  Weatherman Al Roker, however, pounced.  Video of the latest gaffe is embedded at right.

In a piece that could've been crafted by Hillary Clinton's PR shop, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, on Monday's "Today" show, gushed on and on about the Secretary of State's new "role of a lifetime," as a "a foreign policy superstar," and cheered Clinton has the "highest approval ratings of any time in her career."

Mitchell's theme throughout her story was that the "anger of the primaries," between Clinton and Barack Obama was long gone and that in her role of Secretary of State she has proven to be a "key asset to Team Obama," as "Today" co-anchor Matt Lauer observed in the intro. There wasn't a hint of skepticism or negative note in the story as Mitchell threw in soundbites from John Podesta, Joe Klein and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin who chimed: "She seems to be really enjoying herself, as does he."

The following is a complete transcript of the segment as it was aired on the May 4, "Today" show:

On the Today show of April 30, 2009, VP Joe Biden tells Matt Lauer that in light of the swine flu epidemic, he would advise family members not to travel by plane or train.

Introducing a segment, on Thursday's "Today" show, featuring Time magazine's photos of the President from his first 100 days, NBC's Matt Lauer, over a shot of Obama in Oval Office, marveled that the stills were "captivating." In an ensuing segment Lauer's colleague, Meredith Vieira asked the easily impressed Time photographer Callie Shell how Obama was "handling" the job, to which Shell cooed: "I think he does very well," and "He reads each night, at least 10 letters from 10 different people...and he answers them, usually the next day."

The following is Matt Lauer's tease and then the full segment as it was aired on the April 23, "Today" show:

NBC's Matt Lauer and Andrea Mitchell, on Thursday's "Today" show, pressed their guests (Lauer with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Mitchell with Mexican President Felipe Calderon) about reinstituting the assault weapons ban. First up, Mitchell – who pushed Hillary Clinton last month to bring back the ban -- offered Calderon an open to blame Mexican drug cartel violence on guns imported from the U.S.:

ANDREA MITCHELL: President Obama will not deliver long-promised Blackhawk helicopters, nor a ban on assault weapons smuggled south. He campaigned as a candidate against the assault weapons. Now that he's in office, he's had to back off.

FELIPE CALDERON: But most of the weapons, almost 16,000 are assault weapons and 90 percent of those were sold in United States.

Then Lauer, in his segment with Napolitano, repeated Calderon's inaccurate line that 90 percent of drug cartel weapons came from the U.S.:

MATT LAUER: You know President Calderon wants a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban that was, that expired during the Bush administration. When you look at the numbers, that 90 percent of the 12,000 weapons Mexican officials recovered from these drug cartels in the last year or so were made and sold in the United States, and many of those, as we just heard from President Calderon, are assault weapons, how can President Obama, who ran on an issue against assault weapons, how can he not deliver on that?

The announcement that Goldman-Sachs may be able to pay back its bailout loan, sooner rather than later, was met with a grim assessment by NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's "Today" show as the co-anchor fretted to the Obama administration's Christina Romer: "I'm worried if you think if that's a good thing. Are they doing this because of financial stability or might they be talking about that, simply to get out from under the thumb of the federal government and be allowed to go back to running the business the way they want to run it as opposed to the way the government wants them to run it?"

Lauer invited on Romer, the chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers to preview the President's speech on the economy and pressed her about companies going back to "business as usual" but Romer assured Lauer that, "We are going to be working on financial regulatory reform."

The following is a complete transcript of the interview as it was aired on the April 14, "Today" show:

Just this past Monday, NBC’s "Today" show studiously avoided mentioning disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer’s Democratic affiliation during his interview with Matt Lauer, but fast forward to Wednesday’s "Today" and a story about another governor embroiled in a sex scandal -- in this case Nevada Republican Governor Jim Gibbons -- and NBC’s Michael Okwu was careful to note he is a Republican at the very top of the story:

MICHAEL OKWU: If voters in Nevada were betting on a nasty gubernatorial divorce, this week they hit the jackpot. That's Republican Governor Jim Gibbons. There's his future ex-wife, Dawn. After 23 years of a polished political marriage to Dawn Gibbons, a former state assemblywoman, the governor has filed for divorce citing incompatibility in what's become a very public war of the roses.

Back in March of 2008, when they first covered Spitzer’s prostitution scandal "Today" devoted an entire 4-hour program to ignoring the "D" next to Spitzer’s name and in that same month "Today" also bypassed the party affiliation of yet another Democrat caught in compromising position, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

The following is a complete transcript of the Okwu story as it was aired on the April 8, "Today" show:

The "Today" show devoted much of last week's coverage of Obama's European trip to obsessing over such frivolous matters as what Michelle Obama was wearing and what kind of gift the Obamas gave the Queen, so when Laura Ingraham was invited on Wednesday's "Today" show, the conservative radio talk show host couldn't resist knocking the silly coverage, as seen in the following exchange with NBC's Matt Lauer (audio available here):

MATT LAUER: So let's be fair and say that he didn't come away accomplishing what he went there to accomplish, but is it possible to say, look at it slightly differently, Laura, and say some of these things take a while to bear fruit and that perhaps some of these leaders, other leaders were reluctant to come forward with some of these things under the glare of the summit spotlight and they may be more forthcoming in the coming weeks and months?

LAURA INGRAHAM: Well I don't know, I guess that's possible. But look we, we know that Europe loves President Obama. He had adoring crowds. The press loves Obama. The question is how will this date end? Okay? The question is, to what end? Why do they love President Obama? They love his personal story, they love his wife. North Korea, China and Russia don't really care about Michelle's arms and, you know, whether they gave an iPod to the Queen, okay? They care about whether America is still going to lead, exhibit strength and doesn't just talk about these vague concepts, Matt, of global cooperation.

NBC's Matt Lauer invited on former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, on Monday's "Today" show, to help restore his reputation after he lost his governorship due to solicitation of prostitute and while the former governor expressed regret for hurting his family, it was Lauer who suggested the greatest loss was that Spitzer missed a chance to regulate Wall Street. Lauer also failed to mention the disgraced governor's Democratic party affiliation, something that has become a bit of a tradition over at "Today."

The following are just some of the pro-regulatory questions Lauer tossed to Spitzer:

LAUER: You said something to the effect, and I'm paraphrasing here. You said that the regulations were there but the will to regulate was not there...So, so now that we've had, that the economy is story number one, two and three in this country, right now, and there's been so much public outrage, is the will to regulate there now?....And, and finally do you ever ask yourself, "What if?" I mean you were a person with the knowledge and the position to perhaps do something about this? First as attorney general, and then governor of New York, until you were brought down by this scandal? Do you ever shake your head and say, "I missed a golden opportunity?"

The following is a complete transcript of the segment as it was aired on the April 6 "Today" show:

NBC's Dawna Friesen, reporting from London on Thursday' "Today" show relayed how "Michelle's Magic," has "dazzled everyone," in the United Kingdom and co-anchor Matt Lauer joined in, as he loved the tacky gift of an iPod to the Queen: "I like this idea. I think it's a, it's a very creative idea to bring her the iPod." Friesen also played down Michelle Obama's gaffe of contact with the Queen, "There was no curtsy, but plenty of easy charm, and it seems Mrs. Obama made another new friend, never mind that royal protocol forbids touching the Queen." This despite the fact that just yesterday, her colleague Keith Miller made a big deal out of past presidential gaffes with the Queen like when George W. Bush winked at Her Royal Highness.

The following is a complete transcript of the full segment as it was aired on the April 2, "Today" show:

NBC's resident Queen of Green, Ann Curry, welcomed actor Ed Norton and Carter Roberts of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to come on Friday's "Today" show to champion their cause to combat "global climate change" by getting everyone to turn off their lights for an hour as a symbolic move that actor Norton compared to the march on Selma, Alabama. Co-anchor Curry called Norton's cause, "really cool," and prompted the Incredible Hulk star to offer up the following historical comparison:

ED NORTON: I think it's, it's a call to action. It's, it's, it's-, turning off the lights won't solve the problem, obviously. But in the same way that the, the march on Selma, Alabama was a symbolic gesture for the civil rights movement I think those who care about climal [sic] change, climate change and carbon mitigation - which is a global movement - are, are trying to find ways to symbolically demonstrate the, the unity of purpose around the planet and, and really get our leadership to take action.

Acting as if he's been living in alternate media reality for the past year NBC's Matt Lauer, interviewing Howard Fineman, on Thursday's "Today" show made the very odd assertion, that the "establishment," of "Washington insiders," and the "New York-based media," didn't help put Barack Obama "in the Oval Office." Lauer, made the head-scratching point, after reading a portion of Fineman's most recent column to the Newsweek editor:

MATT LAUER: Let, let me read something. You wrote a column for Newsweek.com this week, and you said, that although President Obama still enjoys that high approval rating, he's starting to lose, what you call, the establishment, Washington insiders, the New York-based media and corporate America. When it comes down to it, those people didn't put him in the Oval Office. Doesn't he in some ways benefit by not catering to those people?

HOWARD FINEMAN: Well, not only did they not put him in the Oval Office, they're largely responsible for the mess we're in now. So, I think that's one reason why he remains very, very popular with the American public. But as I said, everybody's looking to take his measure, and he's got to not only be a popular president, but a powerful one and make his will fact in Washington. He really hasn't done that in the details yet.

The following is the full transcript of the segment as it was aired on the March 12, "Today" show:

According to the Politico Democratic strategists, months ago, planned to paint Rush Limbaugh as a bad guy to hurt the GOP and on Wednesday, the "Today" show followed that blueprint as Matt Lauer pilloried RNC Chairman Michael Steele over his flap with the talk show host:

Doesn't Rush Limbaugh put people like you in a very tough position? If you agree with him publicly it sounds like you're rooting against the economic recovery and yet if you disagree with him and call him an "entertainer" and say he's provocative and sometimes what he says is "ugly," you're put in the position where you gotta run and apologize to him.

Lauer repeatedly misinterpreted Limbaugh's comment that he wants Obama's to fail, never clarifying that Limbaugh is rooting against his policies precisely because they will hurt the economy as Lauer presented the false choice of, you're for Obama or you're against the economic recovery, to Steele:

Mr. Steele, let me try it this way, there are as many Republicans out there as well as Democrats who are unemployed right now. People are hurting across this country. Republicans, as I mention, like Democrats are losing their homes, they're unable to send their kids to school. Do you think those Republicans want the policies of Barack Obama to fail right now?

Although an admitted Barack Obama supporter during last year's campaign, CNBC's Jim Cramer has certainly changed his view concerning our 44th president.

On Tuesday's "Today" show, the outspoken "Mad Money" host said: we have "an agenda in this country now that I would regard as being a radical agenda";  Obama's just announced budget "put a level of fear in this country that I have not seen ever in my life," and; "This is the most, greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president."

He also called Timothy Geithner "an invisible treasury secretary," and expressed hope that the next time he goes to Capitol Hill "he doesn't throw the drowning man the anvil like he did the last time he spoke" (video and transcript below the fold, file photo):

Confronted by Sarah Palin documentarian John Ziegler, on Monday's "Today" show, NBC's Matt Lauer was forced to admit that the media perception of the Alaska governor as an "idiot" was "a lie." However Lauer displayed some disbelief that the media heavily pushed that line during the campaign as he professed, "I don't think that everybody in the media ran out saying, 'Sarah Palin is an idiot.'" Ziegler got the confession from Lauer, while promoting his film Media Malpractice, in the following exchange as aired during the 7:30 am half hour of the February 23, "Today" show [audio excerpt here]:

JOHN ZIEGLER: Oh wait a minute I, I urged people and I urge you Matt because you've been up to Wasilla. You, you know Sarah Palin. You know that this is a lie that she's some sort of an idiot or a moron.

MATT LAUER: No, no, no. Okay but that's, but that's an extreme state-

ZIEGLER: You know it! Tell, tell America right now what you know.

LAUER: That's an extreme, that's an extreme statement. I'm just asking you-

ZIEGLER: You-

LAUER: -when she-

ZIEGLER: Is it not a lie that she's an idiot? You know it Matt.

Karl Rove was invited on Tuesday's "Today" show to discuss Obama's stimulus plan and NBC's Matt Lauer pressed the former Bush senior adviser about the one-sidedness of the vote on the bill by the GOP as he pressed Rove: "219, if you add up the House and the Senate we have what, 219 Republicans. All but three of them voted against this plan...do those 216 Republicans run the risk of being on the outside looking in, if this starts to work?" Lauer also went on to cite Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod ridiculing any member of Bush administration for offering economic advice as Lauer doubted: "Do you have credibility on this subject... would you say that the eight years of the Bush administration were lax on regulation?"

However this prompted Rove to hit back, in the following exchange, as he noted Democrats like Barack Obama were the ones who stood in the way of the Bush administration regulating some of the main culprits behind the mortgage mess - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Matt Lauer invited on two Senate supporters and no opponents of Barack Obama's stimulus bill, on Monday's "Today" show and asked pro-stimulus bill questions to his guests, even chiding those who opposed it, when he asked Republican Senator Susan Collins about two of her GOP colleagues who are against it: "So what do you get that those two are not getting?" Lauer, also depicted a gloomy picture for the states because of "draconian cuts," made in the bill as he ominously asked: "Senator [Ben] Nelson, to get the support from even these moderate Republicans, cuts had to be made...You lose $40 billion in aid to the states, that means states are gonna have to make draconian cuts in jobs, teachers, cops, firemen. You lose the $16 billion in school construction money. So is it still a real stimulus package? Will it have clout?"

The only voices of opposition came in a Chuck Todd set-up piece, where a soundbite from John McCain saying the negotiations were not "bipartisan," was aired. A soundbite of stimulus opponent Sen. John Ensign was also aired but it only highlighted him admitting the bill will pass.

Lauer, in the interview segment, did cite concerns from Senators Richard Shelby and McCain, as he noted: "Richard Shelby the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking committee said Sunday, 'This bill could put our country on the road to financial disaster.' And John McCain said, 'It was generational theft,'" but then added the, "So what do you get that those two are not getting?" line he asked Collins.

The following is a complete transcript of Lauer's interview segment with Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic Senator Ben Nelson as it occurred on the February 9, "Today" show: