Terry Moran

The journalists on ABC often sound like they are plagiarizing Barack Obama's talking points. On Tuesday night, this was literally true. During live coverage after the State of the Union, George Stephanopoulos informed, "...Vice President Biden just before the speech gave a call to Democrats. And he summed up the speech with this phrase, Bin Laden is dead, General Motors is alive." [See video of the two clips below. MP3 audio here.]

On the same day's Nightline, with no explanation that he was stealing Biden's line, co-anchor Terry Moran parroted, "Osama bin Laden is dead. General Motors is alive. Those points folded neatly into another of the President's goals, to wrap himself in the American flag." Good thing the Democrats, Stephanopoulos and Moran are all coordinating.

Tuesday night, President Obama delivers his third State of the Union address, and his sixth speech to a joint session of Congress since taking office in 2009. But there’s no need to spend a lot of time wondering about what the media will say after The Great One speaks, since — like a gaggle of corporate yes-men — journalists have gushed over every one of these major addresses.

“It was a big and bold speech,” ABC’s Terry Moran applauded on Nightline shortly after Obama’s budget address in February 2009, his first before Congress. “It was his debut and he wowed us,” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews enthused the next day on Hardball.

ABC trotted out the "best of" Newt Gingrich slams on Thursday, finally revealing the results of an exhaustive Brian Ross interview with Marianne Gingrich, the former Speaker's ex-wife. Ross boasted that his scoop could be seen as a "January surprise" to harm Gingrich. Recycling old attacks, Ross eagerly prompted the ex-Mrs. Gingrich: "You know his secrets. You know his skeletons." [UPDATED: See video below. MP3 audio here.]

How bereft of new information was the segment? According to reports that broke on Wednesday, Ross sat down with Marianne Gingrich for two hours. In the eight minute segment, ABC only used two and a half minutes of actual footage from that interview. But Ross breathlessly hyped, "And we begin tonight with a story at the white-hot intersection of presidential politics, private lives and character."

"Nightline" co-host Terry Moran on Monday condemned the "cruel" and "inaccurate" attacks liberal Fox News anchor Alan Colmes made about Rick Santorum and the "crazy" way he handled the death of his newborn son. [See video below. MP3 audio here.] NBC also covered the shocking remarks. CBS skipped them entirely.

On Monday, Colmes taunted Santorum, wrongly claiming the Republican took "his two-hour-old baby, who died right after childbirth, home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real."

Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran on Tuesday huffed that Rick Perry's "controversial" ad, combined with a presidential campaign that could be seen as "denigrat[ing]" "non-Christians" and "gay veterans," might spell doom for the Republican candidate. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The program's other anchor, Cynthia McFadden, teased the segment by proclaiming, "Plus, God and country. Who would Jesus vote for? Rick Perry's on the campaign trail casting himself as the populist Christian candidate."

Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran delivered a surprisingly positive assessment of Tim Tebow on Monday night, lauding the Christian quarterback as "inspired," "lifted up" and "strengthened" by "a power beyond his understanding."

Moran also highlighted, "Psychologists are increasingly finding that the very fact that a person has religious faith can help lead to the kind of success Tim Tebow has had." It wasn't all complimentary, however, the program's journalists repeatedly went out of their way to assert just how "controversial" Tebow is.

ABC's Terry Moran began the final segment of Tuesday's "Nightline" saying, "Simply put - a lot of people despise Ann Coulter."

After this disgusting introduction, the first question Dan Harris asked the conservative author was, "Is it ever uncomfortable for you to be hated?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

According to Nightline anchors Terry Moran and Bill Weir, new Republican Senator Rand Paul is "radical," "controversial" and longs to take a chainsaw to the Department of Education. Using hyperbolic language, Weir profiled Paul for Wednesday's program.

 Co-anchor Moran previewed the segment by attempting to isolate the Kentucky politician: "Up next, even the most conservative Republicans balk at his proposals for slashing government." As a cartoon graphic of a crazed-looking Paul appeared onscreen wielding a chainsaw, Weir hyperventilated, "So, while the President argues for a budget scalpel, Rand Paul would use a chainsaw, shutting down the Departments of Energy and education."

The journalist continued, "He would kill the Consumer Product Safety Commission, shrink the Pentagon and cut off all foreign aid." Dismissing Paul's call for spending restraint, the ABC anchor challenged, "Does the richest nation in the history of nations have a responsibility to take care of its weakest?"

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

“On this first Monday in October, the Supreme Court opened its new term today,” an excited Diane Sawyer announced Monday night, trumpeting how it's “making history for America's mothers, sisters and daughters.” ABC reporter Terry Moran was even more thrilled, marveling that “the most remarkable thing in that courtroom today, on this historic day, was how unremarkable it was.”

Despite the lack anything “remarkable,” however, Moran found new Justice Elena Kagan's performance quite remarkable, trumpeting “the one word that leapt to my mind was 'ready,'” touting how “she was confident and well prepared and fluent and probing” and, at one moment, “you could almost...imagine some of the other justices...looking down the bench at Justice Kagan like a major league scout might say, 'you know, that kid's got some real pop on her fastball.'”

An eager Sawyer wondered: “How was Justice Kagan on her first day?” A giddy Moran expounded:

“Anti-Muslim bigotry is a problem, but it is only exacerbated by the media's tendency to exaggerate and sensationalize it,” the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto observed Wednesday in looking at the media’s focus on the threat, to burn Qur’ans, by one widely condemned Florida pastor with barely a few dozen followers. On Wednesday night, for the second night in a row, two of the three broadcast network evening news shows led with Terry Jones (ABC and CBS on Tuesday, CBS and NBC on Wednesday.)

But what I found amusing is how network journalists decided Sarah Palin, the Pope – and even Pat Robertson – are now sources of wisdom worth publicizing. Over aerial video of the Vatican (screen capture below), Katie Couric teased the CBS Evening News: “Tonight, despite condemnation from the Vatican and a personal plea from Muslims, that Christian minister in Florida is going ahead with plans to burn copies of the Qur'an.”

“This is the news,” an excited Diane Sawyer announced on ABC, “not only is Billy Graham's son Franklin trying to reach out to him, so is Sarah Palin.” Terry Moran relayed how “late today, Sarah Palin tweeted her opposition, writing: ‘Please stand down.’ And long-time televangelist Pat Robertson blasted Pastor Jones this morning.”

Twitter can be a very revealing place to learn about "objective" journalists. ABC Nightline anchor Terry Moran tweeted on Tuesday there was a "Great piece" by Newsweek columnist Dahlia Lithwick on the liberal site Slate.com suggesting that Sarah Palin owed her every success to the real Mama Grizzly, leftist Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who never found an abortion she wouldn't defend. Palin was a fraud next to the real feminist. But Moran (and Lithwick) blamed their fellow liberals for not supporting a left-wing Palin figure: 

In a thoughtful piece in the New York Times, Anna Holmes and Rebecca Traister argued that Democrats have given up on full-throated feminism, and in doing so have ceded the field to Palin and her clan of Grizzlies. Holmes and Traister point out the irony that it was progressives who launched Palin's meteoric rise: "As a teen, she played basketball thanks to Title IX; as an adult, she enjoyed a professional life made possible by the involvement of her load-bearing husband Todd, entering Alaska's governor's mansion at 42 with four children in tow and giving birth to a fifth while there."

While Thursday reports on both ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today featured Proposition 8 supporters questioning the impartiality of California Federal Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to strike down the state's referendum defending traditional marriage, CBS's Early Show failed to provide any such arguments.

On Good Morning America, correspondent Terry Moran explained: "Opponents of same-sex marriage vowed to fight on and blasted the judge for, they said, letting personal interests trump his legal duty." A clip was played of one Proposition 8 supporter: "The judge has imposed his own agenda upon the voters and the children and the parents of California."

On Today, legal correspondent Pete Williams noted: "But opponents of gay marriage, who supported Proposition 8, denounced the ruling and began preparing to fight back." Supporter Randy Thomasson explained: "The judge has shut the Constitution, imposed his own agenda. He's made a lot of people happy in the gay community in San Francisco, but he is the most dangerous type of judge in America."  

The Early Show report by correspondent Priya David-Clemens only featured a couple brief sound bites of gay marriage opponents in "outright disbelief" of the ruling, but no specific criticisms of the judge being biased. In contrast, three sound bites in favor of the ruling were featured.

Of the three network morning shows, only Good Morning America noted that Judge Walker was himself openly gay. Introducing the segment, co-host George Stephanopoulos mentioned: "The judge, Vaughn R. Walker, a Republican first nominated for the bench by Ronald Reagan, he is also openly gay." Both the Early Show and Today skipped over that detail.     

Despite widespread criticism of President Barack Obama's Oval Office address on the Gulf oil spill–including flak from MSNBC's left-wing posse of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Howard Fineman–ABC's Terry Moran and George Stephanopoulos on the June 15 "Nightline" fawned over the president's speech and ignored its obvious shortcomings.

In recapping the address, Moran could not contain his adulation for Obama's ability to assert his presidential authority and inspire the nation:

• "For the first time in the Oval Office, President Obama addressed the nation. A nation anxious and doubtful about his leadership on the environmental catastrophe that's unfolded in the Gulf for 57 days. So, the main goal tonight, show the country he's truly in charge."

• "President Obama, who finished a two-day trip to the Gulf Coast this afternoon, clearly wanted to project power in his handling with the oil spill, and the most direct way to do that is to use the language of war of the commander-in-chief."

• "As the cleanup efforts continue to grapple with the giant spill, residents all along the coast have grown more and more worried, more and more angry and the president spoke to that directly tonight, and he made a promise."

• "At the end, like so many in the Oval Office before him, President Obama asked for prayers."

Nightline's Terry Moran on Wednesday profiled Arnold Schwarzenegger as a "Republican reformist" and never once referred to him as a liberal. Instead, the co-anchor tagged the California Governor as a "lonely figure" in the GOP.

Moran sympathized, "When you look at the way the Republican Party is going, here in California and around the country, rise of the tea party, candidates like Rand Paul, do you think there's still room in the Republican Party for someone like you?" He then prompted, "Or are you being squeezed out?" [Audio available here.]

In quite a contrast to the immediate tagging of the Bush and Obama Supreme Court nominees as “conservative” (and that includes Sonya Sotomayor), on Monday night ABC and NBC refrained from applying any ideological description to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan while CBS snuck in one. CBS's Jan Crawford declared “her career has put her solidly on the left,” but contended “she will have significant conservative support among academics and lawyers” and warned “that support alarms some liberals.”

Amongst the non-ideological superlatives: ABC's Diane Sawyer trumpeted the “historic nomination” of the “five foot three inch powerhouse,” CBS's Crawford insisted “her interests reflect her openness. She loves softball and poker” (poker reflects “openness”?) and NBC's Pete Williams hailed her as an “accomplished poker player, opera lover.”

ABC, CBS and NBC all highlighted Kagan's high school yearbook picture of her in a robe and holding a gavel (ABC's Moran: “Even in high school, check out her yearbook photo here, she had her sights set on the high court”), but none pointed out the explicitly very liberal polemical points she made just a year or two later, nor did CNN's The Situation Room.

During ABC’s live coverage of President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Diane Sawyer and a quartet of correspondents failed to find a single thing to criticize about the new nominee. Instead, Sawyer touted it as a “history making day” (although why is unclear, since she's the fifth woman to be nominated), and touted Kagan as a feminist “trailblazer” and a “conciliator” between “the conservative and liberal wings of the Court.”

Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos agreed Kagan had a “reputation for bringing conservatives and liberals together,” and recounted how he and Kagan worked side-by-side in Bill Clinton’s White House: “She does have a great temperament, very easy-going, a good sense of humor.” Then, as Kagan and President Obama strode to the podium, Sawyer quoted the nominee complimenting herself: “We had a soundbite from her saying she had a reputation for being a very good teacher.”

Given the contentious debate over the proper role of religion in American public life, you'd think an important Supreme Court ruling on the issue would be a big story to the network news. But the Court's April 28 finding regarding a cross on a World War I memorial in the Mojave Desert elicited a yawn from CBS's "Evening News," a 78-word report from NBC's "Nightly News," and a one-sided segment from ABC's "World News with Diane Sawyer" that fretted if the Court "move[d] the bar on the separation of church and state."

The cross in question is part of a memorial built in 1934 in the federal-owned Mojave National Preserve to honor fallen WWI veterans. Lower courts ruled the cross unconstitutional and had it covered with a box, despite efforts taken in recent years by Congress to avoid constitutional questions over it by transferring that portion of the Preserve to private owners.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled this was not a clear-cut violation of the separation of church and state.

"The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion. Kennedy noted specifically about this cross that it "evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."

Wrapping a look at those whom President Obama may nominate to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, ABC’s Terry Moran worried Friday night if Obama can “even hold” the liberal ground espoused by Stevens given “today’s bitter political climate.” He fretted that “the real question for President Obama” is:

Could a nominee with positions as liberal as Justice Stevens on abortion, gay rights, presidential power -- could that nominee even get confirmed in today's bitter political climate?

Moran, from New Orleans, site of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, on the Friday, April 9 World News:

Looking at the state of both parties after President Obama’s health bill win in the House, ABC’s Terry Moran elevated the view of “prominent conservative” David Frum, author a year ago of Newsweek’s “Why Rush is Wrong” cover story, who blamed Rush Limbaugh and Fox News for what he’s dubbed the GOP’s “Waterloo.” On Nightline, Moran contended “anger, stoking it, expressing it, riding it...was the Republican strategy to defeat health care. And over the weekend all that anger got ugly, as some Democratic Members of Congress were called vile, racial and anti-gay slurs.”

But, he warned, “in the wake of the Democrats’ victory, some Republicans are not sure all that anger makes good politics,” as if Limbaugh and other conservative leaders advocated yelling the “slurs.” Moran relayed how “Frum says the real leadership of the Republican Party during the course of the health care battle was not to be found in the halls of Congress, but on the air waves” since “it was talk radio and Fox News, Frum argues, that drove the GOP strategy.” Moran paraphrased Frum’s take: 

It sounds like you're saying that the Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs, hijacked the Republican Party and drove it to a defeat?

Hosting Sunday’s This Week on ABC, Terry Moran noted during the past week the Obama administration “fanned out across the country” to trumpet how “the stimulus worked,” yet President Obama “sounded a little frustrated that people don't get it” as, Moran fretted: “What did they do wrong? They're playing defense on what was one of their major accomplishments.”

Earlier in his interview with California's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell, whom Moran touted as “two prominent Governors who call it like it is,” Moran despaired at the shrinking size of the “jobs bill,” worried $15 billion is not enough and whether “there needs to be another stimulus” bill:

The Senate is taking up a jobs bill this week. $15 billion. When it started at the White House, it was $200 billion. The House passed $185 billion version. There was a deal for $85 billion. We're down to $15 billion now. But do you think there needs to be another stimulus, federal stimulus, like this? Is $15 billion enough?

Later, Moran described former Republican Senator Alan Simpson’s rejection of tax cuts as an effort “to get real.”

George Will on Sunday took on Donna Brazile's claim that the Republicans are the Party of No.

After fill-in host Terry Moran on ABC's "This Week" asked Brazile if President Obama is guilty of not challenging dissenting members of his own Party, the Democrat strategist went into the predictable talking point about the gridlock in Washington all being the fault of Republicans.

"I think President Obama is leading," she unsurprisingly said. "But unfortunately, you have a Republican Party that has decided that by saying no, they can, you know, perhaps gain more at the polls this coming fall."

Will was having none of this, and smartly countered, "I want to say something in defense, particularly to Donna, of being the Party of No. The Republican Party elected its first president because he said no to a bright idea a Democratic Senator had."

Of course, that President was Abraham Lincoln, and what he said no to involved slavery (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 3:30):

George Will said Sunday that people only talk about the government being broken when the Left is having trouble enacting its agenda.

During the Roundtable segment on ABC's "This Week," "Nightline" host Terry Moran brought up the recent announcement by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) that he would not seek reelection in November because "Congress is not operating as it should."

When the baton was tossed to him, Will said, "[W]ith metronomic regularity, we go through these moments in Washington where we complain about the government being broken. These moments have one thing in common: The Left is having trouble enacting its agenda."

Will followed by noting, "No one when George W. Bush had trouble reforming Social Security said, 'Oh, that's terrible - the government's broken'" (video embedded below the fold with transcript and commentary):

CRITICAL UPDATE AT END OF POST: Obama praised the 2009 budget when the Senate passed it!

After President Obama told the nation during Wednesday's State of the Union address that he inherited the huge budget deficits befronting the country, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) turned to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and said, "Blame it on Bush."

In reality, this was one of many Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) moments last night as the President once again played fast and loose with the facts in a nationally televised address.

Sadly, media are deeply at fault here, for if they wouldn't allow the White House to repeatedly blame the nation's current fiscal problems on the previous Administration, Obama would be forced to be more truthful. As NewsBusters has regularly shown, America's so-called journalists have been aiding and abetting these falsehoods for quite some time.

But before we get there, here's what Obama said last night (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript includes McCain saying "Blame it on Bush," file photo):

Nightline anchor Terry Moran started laughing Wednesday night just as George Will finished his critique of President Obama’s State of the Union address while Democratic activist Donna Brazile was also not impressed by Will’s assessment. Leading into the chortling from Moran, who is reportedly under consideration to take over This Week, Will wrapped up:

Finally, he said at one point that we are going to freeze government spending for three years. That’s just not true. We’re proposing to freeze one-sixth of government spending for three years. Finally, the motif of his talk was Washington is tiresome, annoying and dysfunctional -- and Washington should have more of the nation’s revenue and a bigger role directing its affairs.

Was Moran scoffing at Will’s evaluation of Obama’s speech, just amused by Brazile’s disdain for Will as Will spoke which Moran, but not the audience, could see -- or just reacting to something else in the studio? You watch and decide.

Two Democrats on Sunday blamed the soaring budget deficit on George W. Bush, and ABC's Terry Moran didn't challenge either one of them.

First up on "This Week" was senior White House adviser David Axelrod who told substitute host Moran, "President Clinton left a $237 billion surplus, President Obama received a $1.3 trillion deficit."

Moran didn't challenge this, nor did he press Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) when he uttered virtually the exact same Democrat talking point moments later, "When George Bush came to office, he had a $236 billion surplus; Barack Obama was handed a $1.3 trillion deficit."

Here's how a REAL journalist might have responded the second time somebody made the same stupid comment in the course of about 15 minutes:

On Sunday’s This Week, fill-in host Terry Moran, along with Ron Brownstein and Cynthia Tucker, took swipes at Rush Limbaugh for his contention that his good experience at a Honolulu hospital demonstrated the U.S. health system doesn’t need repair. (Friday night NB item “Rush Limbaugh Leaves Hospital ‘Feeling Strong and Rested’”)

After running a clip of Limbaugh from Friday saying “based on what happened to me here, I don't think there's one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine, just dandy,” Moran couldn’t resist pointing out “the delightful irony” that “Hawaii mandates that employers provide health insurance to their employees,” a fact which in no way contradicts Limbaugh’s assessment of the treatment he received.

“What Rush was saying, Limbaugh was saying was great, except for the 47 million people who don't have health insurance and don't have access,” former Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein, now with National Journal, snidely insisted. As he spoke, Washington-based Atlanta Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker chimed in: “And are not as wealthy as he is.”

Is Twitter a place where journalists betray their biases? Yes, in the case of ABC Nightline anchor Terry Moran. If you like the "feeling of hope," then you favor Obama's prize.

Today: "Obama's Nobel is an award to a feeling more than any deed:the feeling of hope.Justified?Depends on what you think of the Nobel--and of hope."

Last week, after the Chicago Olympic fiasco: "Today this Chicago-born die-hard is crestfallen. I know--lots of people are happy: Obama-haters, fiscal cons, etc. But not me. I need a pop."

Moran doesn’t "tweet" multiple times a day – unlike ABC’s Jake Tapper (who joked on Twitter today about Arizona State refusing an honorary degree: "apparently the standards are more exacting for an ASU honorary degree these days.") But Moran did get repeatedly exercised over Rep. Joe Wilson’s yelling at Obama:

In less than 24 hours, ABC devoted 13 minutes to rhapsodizing over liberal Michael Moore’s new, "deeply Christian" film, Capitalism: A Love Story. Featuring the director first on Tuesday’s Nightline, co-anchor Terry Moran took his socialistic agenda seriously and opened the show by teasing, "Is capitalism evil?" (In 2007, the network contributed 21 minutes to Sicko, totaling 34 minutes of promotion for the two films.)

On Wednesday’s Good Morning America, co-host Chris Cuomo cooed, "Many critics are calling the documentary Moore's best ever." He also raved, "You demonstrate the [capitalism] question very well in the new movie. And you do it lots of different ways. People will get where you’re coming from."

On Nightline, Moran offered a few tough questions to the filmmaker, but made no effort to hide his admiration. He extolled, "He's an American populist in the grand tradition, a provocateur, a comic, a rhetorical bomb thrower." The ABC host marveled that Moore hates capitalism "with a savagely funny...and surprisingly religious passion."

ABC’s Terry Moran on Wednesday hyperbolically spun Barack Obama’s congressional speech as a "bold call to action" and theatrically visualized, "There was another ghost in the chamber tonight, the spirit of Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought for decades for universal care."

Earlier in the Nightline segment, which recapped the President’s health care address, the co-anchor introduced his political revision of A Christmas Carol: "Yes, there were ghosts in that chamber tonight. The other Presidents who tried to reform the health care system and failed."

After discussing the outburst by South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson, who accused the President of being a liar, Moran declared, "The President simply moved on. Focusing on his message. Trying to take the high road. Leaving Wilson and others behind."

Wrapping up a preview of his day with President Barack Obama for Thursday's Nightline, live from Cleveland ABC's Terry Moran informed World News anchor Charles Gibson: 

I also took the opportunity at this juncture to ask Mr. Obama about how the presidency is affecting and shaping his spiritual life, and he said, Charlie, that before he was elected, he had a habit of praying every night, but that now he prays all the time.

That earned a grin from Gibson. From the online transcript of the July 23 interview:

TERRY MORAN: As you know there's a lot of curiosity about you and what you do, what you wear, all these things. And where you worship. If I may ask, how has -- how have the responsibilities of the presidency affected your spiritual life, if at all?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I had a habit of praying every night before I go to bed. I pray all the time now (laughter)...

The ABCNews.com home page headline plugging the interview screams:

EXCLUSIVE: Obama Warns Against 'Scare Tactics' on Health Care