Ann Curry

In the only network morning show interview with Rick Santorum in the wake of his three-state victory on Tuesday, NBC Today co-host Ann Curry on Friday pestered the former Pennsylvania senator on whether he would "commit" not to do any negative campaigning and attempted to portray his recent comments on women serving in military combat roles as a gaffe.

Curry put this question to Santorum early in the interview: "...it is clear that negative campaigning generates votes....aren't you going to now have to go negative? Will you commit that your – you and your PACs will not? Or are you going to have to now?"

Discussing the recall of two Pfizer brands of birth control pills on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry pressed Dr. Keri Peterson on an "option" for women who "may be now vulnerable to being pregnant." Peterson offered this tip: "There are options....You're going to want to use condoms immediately...there are also over-the-counter termination kits available that you can take right away." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

What was in Ann Curry's coffee this morning? In an uncharacteristically challenging interview with Obama advisor David Plouffe on Tuesday, the NBC Today co-host actually defended Mitt Romney's wealth and questioned why Democrats would criticize his success: "Now, what's wrong with that?...is that not the American dream?"

Her question became even more pointed as she pressed: "...isn't making a lot of hay over how much money he's earned and how much money he's paid in taxes, you know, really not just fanning the flames of this sort of idea of politics of envy?"

You know liberals are desperate if they’re playing the race card so early in the 2012 campaign cycle. The latest edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables is now out, and this week’s collection was heavy with media quotes attacking both Republican voters and their presidential candidates as racist.

Among the lowlights: NBC’s Ann Curry accusing Newt Gingrich of “intentionally playing the race card” when he talked about President Obama’s dismal economic record, and ex-CNN correspondent Bob Franken nastily asserting that conservative voters harbor “a real resentment against blacks,” and “would love to see us return to the good old days of Jim Crow.”

The worst quotes are below the jump; the full issue can be read at www.MRC.org. (PDF version)

In an attempt to make the Republican presidential race appear chaotic, on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry turned to White House correspondent Chuck Todd and declared: "Even the word 'tumultuous' seems inadequate to describe what has happened to the GOP race in the last 24 hours." The on-screen headline screamed: "Campaign Craziness."

Todd saw only problems for the Republican candidates: "Mitt Romney still has an inability to win over conservatives and what does the party establishment do if Gingrich indeed does win South Carolina.... Do they try to rally around Romney one more time? Or do they try to say, 'You know what? Maybe it's time to look for somebody else again, because we don't think Gingrich is electable but now we're worried that Romney's not nominatable.'"

Having apparently run out of actual news to cover on Friday, the cast of NBC's Today gushed over President Obama singing a line from the song "Let's Stay Together" during a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater. After a clip played of the musical moment, weatherman Al Roker proclaimed: "He could be on The Voice." News anchor Natalie Morales excitedly added: "Sign him up." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Co-host Matt Lauer agreed, declaring Obama was "really very good." The sycophantic group went even further when fellow co-host Ann Curry touted: "...our editors actually did...a little mash-up between a little Obama, a little [singer] Al Green. Let's take a listen." After the ridiculous video, Curry admitted: "We obviously had too much time on our hands." Yeah, no kidding.

Using the same predictable liberal smear of shouting racism at any conservative who criticizes President Obama, on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry ranted: "...you've been increasingly stepping up your characterization of President Obama as a 'food stamp president,' interestingly, in the lead-up now to South Carolina....Are you intentionally playing the race card to win votes?" [Audio available here and view video below]

Gingrich dismissed the assertion and rightfully condemned those hurling the outrageous accusation: "You know, modern liberals are just, I think frankly, totally off the deep end....their only answer is to yell racism and hide."

This week NBC’s Today show has been celebrating 60 years on the air, and for over 20 of those years the MRC has been documenting that show’s morning show’s liberal agenda. Earlier this week, Newsbusters took a look at that show’s Top 10 Most Obnoxiously Liberal Quotes, today it’s time to review some of the silly moments on Today. From former anchor and millionaire Katie Couric fretting about high gas prices to current co-anchor Ann Curry’s inability to find the state of Illinois on a map, MRC analysts have documented some of the silliest moments from that show’s hosts.

The following are five of the silliest Today show anchor  moments plucked from the MRC archive. (Top 5 Video Countdown after the jump)

Appearing on Thursday's NBC Today, special correspondent Tom Brokaw touted GOP presidential candidates attacking Mitt Romney's business experience at Bain Capital: "It's the Republican Party equivalent of a jihad....the real danger for the Republicans is that it will deeply divide the party at a time when they want it to be united." [Audio available here]

While promoting the Republican infighting, Brokaw repeatedly confused Mitt Romney with his father and former Michigan Governor George Romney: "[Senator Jim DeMint said] George Romney is going to win this primary in South Carolina....They're going hard after George Romney....George Romney seems to be holding his own and the momentum continues for him..." At one point, co-host Ann Curry corrected him: "Mitt Romney." Brokaw explained: "His father was George Romney, that's my generational slip." [View video after the jump]

Talking to MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry portrayed one of Mitt Romney's strength's as a weakness: "How vulnerable do you think Mitt Romney could be in highlighting his business background, given this sort of anti-Wall Street Occupy climate we're in?"

Ratigan seized on the opportunity and ranted: "Mitt Romney's liabilities as an American businessman are among the highest of any businessman in this country.....there is a second class of business person that was invented in the past 30 years of this country who literally exploits their ability to borrow money at the risk to this nation....and then taking other people's jobs away to do so is not capitalism. It is, in effect, an exploitation."

Curry followed up: "So you're saying this could hurt Mitt Romney?" Ratigan replied: "100%."

For many months, the liberal media elite has made no secret that in its mind, the field of Republican presidental candidates includes Mitt Romney and a collection of clowns. Clearly, Romney is the opponent that Barack Obama and the liberal establishment want nominated.

Journalists have mercilessly savaged every single conservative alternative to Romney who’s ascended to the top of the polls. Palin. Bachmann. Cain. Perry. Gingrich.  It’s too bad for them that the results from the Iowa caucuses threw off their bold predictions that the Romney Juggernaut would achieve liftoff in Des Moines. Yet Romney won by only eight votes over surprising Rick Santorum. This means one thing only: Senator, step up to the guillotine.

On Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry predicted that following his strong finish in Iowa, Rick Santorum was "about to face the meat grinder of tough scrutiny for the first time." Turning to Meet the Press host David Gregory, she wondered: "So is he going to have to change his conservative message as he's looking...into New Hampshire, which is a much less conservative state, David?"

Gregory suggested some lines of attack: "Well, he's going to be under a very intense scrutiny by the other candidates....you could go back about apparent contradictions between small government conservativism and some of his activism. Some of his attempts to moderate his positions...when he was running for re-election in Pennsylvania in 2006."

As the broadcast network morning newscasts on Friday all reported on House Republicans backing down on a temporary extension of the payroll tax cut without extracting additional concessions from Democrats, the CBS team on The Early Show saw humor in the House Republican move as substitute co-anchor Jim Axelrod quipped that "the word of the day in Washington will be 'cave,'" evoking laughter. (Video below)

On Thursday, as NBC's Today show covered the eruption of more than a dozen bombings in Iraq just days after the pullout of U.S. troops, correspondent Richard Engel argued against the view that the Obama administration should have been more effective in negotiating an agreement with the Iraqi government for an extended U.S. troop presence which might have helped ward off such attacks. (Video below)

As Engel appeared on set, co-anchor Ann Curry posed:

On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry led off an interview with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann by wondering if House Speaker John Boehner was a liar or just incompetent: "Did House Speaker John Boehner mislead the Senate into thinking this payroll tax extension was a done deal? Or has he lost all control of Republican Tea Party members of the House?" [Audio available here]

Bachmann pointed to the Democrats: "...there is a real lack of leadership in Washington, D.C. The President, unfortunately, has been awol in this process since early last summer, and now here we are....Harry Reid essentially threw a grenade over into the House and left, and said take it or leave it. So it was very difficult for John Boehner, because this was just a two-month temporary gimmick..." [View video after the jump]

During a fawning interview with Bill Clinton on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry asked for the former President's thoughts on Newt Gingrich running for president: "You also, having worked with him, I'm wanting to know, putting aside politics, do you see Newt Gingrich as a man who has the temperament, the leadership qualities, to be President of the United States?"

Clinton took the opportunity to relish GOP infighting during the primary season: "That's what the presidential election is for....you find out a lot about people in the crucible of battle and they're all turning on him now and running all these negative ads. And basically, It's funny, they're basically doing to each other now, in a serial way, what they did to the Democrats in 2010."

Following Time managing editor Rick Stengel revealing the magazine's "Person of the Year" to be "The Protester" on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry attempted to compared the Arab Spring democracy movement in the Middle East to Occupy Wall Street: "Are there links between what had happened in the Arab Spring...and also what's happening now on Wall Street and all across this country?" [Audio available here]

Also noting the suppressed 2009 Green Movement in Iran and the recent election protests in Russia, Curry added: "...there seems to be this kind of global protest." Stengel enthusiastically agreed with Curry's comparison: "Absolutely. There's this contagion of protests....what happened in the Arab world did influence Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Oakland and the protests in Greece and Madrid." [View video after the jump]

Liberals love to pose as free-speech defenders against the “chilling effect” of societal censorship. But when it comes to the gay agenda, they intend to intimidate dissent of any kind. They even line up mourning parents to accepting public shame for their child's suicide for not being "progressive" enough. That is chilling.

On the December 12 Today, NBC reporter Kerry Sanders updated viewers on the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, who jumped off a bridge after being mocked on Facebook. Sanders asked Clementi’s mother if her son picked up on her shock when he came out as gay to her, and she said yes. Sanders then poked her in the face: “Tyler later tweeted to a friend ‘Mom has basically completely rejected me.’ Has that tweet haunted you in any way?” She said yes.

Updated [12:15 ET]: More analysis and full transcript added.

In an interview with Obama campaign advisor Robert Gibbs on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry teed up the President's former press secretary with this softball: "In 2008, the President campaigned on this idea of hope and change....Can you give us one example of what the President has done that has inspired hope or created change in this country?" [Audio available here]

Gibbs proclaimed: "Ann, we'd have to – you'd have to give me about an hour to go through them all." He then argued: "There's thousands of examples of what this president's done to make this country a better place....I think this campaign is going to be a positive future-oriented campaign about who best can get the American people and the middle class to a place of greater genuine security." [Video video after the jump]

In an interview with Vice President Joe Biden in Iraq aired on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry depicted the war effort there as a failure: "In a war that was started to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction that were never found, can the United States claim victory?" [Audio available here]

Biden agreed with Curry as he took a jab at the Bush administration: "We're not claiming victory. What we're claiming here is that we've done the job our administration set out to do, to end a war we did not start, to end it in a responsible way, to bring Americans home, to end the bleeding, both financially and physically that this war has caused..." [View video after the jump]

In a live report from Baghdad on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry described her arrival to the country with Vice President Biden: "Security is heavy amid an uptick in violence as the U.S. brings its divisive eight-year war in Iraq to an end. The Vice President timed his trip to the last days of America's war in Iraq."

Later in the report, Curry listed the cost of the war: "Eight years after 'shock and awe,' after the toppling and death of Saddam Hussein, after at least 4,473 American lives lost, and 32,226 wounded in action, and a roughly estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, America leaves a significantly less violent but not completely stable Iraq."

The three network morning shows, which have been mostly ignoring crimes at the Occupy Wall Street protests, hyped the "ugly" and "disturbing" "outrage" of students at the University of California, Davis campus being sprayed with pepper. Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos interviewed the school's chancellor and repeatedly berated her about resigning.

On NBC's Today, Ann Curry warned, "And also this morning, some disturbing video. Take a look at this, two police officers have been placed on administrative leave for using pepper spray on seated protesters at an Occupy demonstration on the campus of a California university." The Today show, as well as GMA made sure to push the protest as "peaceful," but only GMA pointed out that the students had encircled the police.

On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry asked chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd about Herman Cain's long pause when answering a question about Libya: "How much do you think this new video is expected to add to Herman Cain's current slip already in the polls?" Todd proclaimed: "I think it's close to being the disqualifying moment for his campaign."

In a prior report, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell touted how "Herman Cain is finding out that in politics, silence may not be so golden." However, after playing a clip of Mitt Romney going after Obama for calling America "lazy," O'Donnell dismissed the gaffe: "Now, the President had used the word lazy when he was talking to CEOs, saying that the U.S. should have done more to try to attract business here....But the President's re-election campaign only responded to Romney saying that when he was CEO he was more concerned about out-sourcing than helping the middle class."

Four years ago, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows celebrated the “rock star” Democrats running to replace George W. Bush, and no candidate set journalists’ pulses racing faster than Barack Obama. Now, after three years of high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits and an onerous new health care law, how are those newscasts covering Obama’s re-election campaign and the candidates vying to replace him?

To find out, the MRC’s Geoff Dickens and I (with a huge assist from Scott Whitlock, Kyle Drennen and Matthew Balan) examined all 723 campaign segments, including 101 interviews, which aired on the three broadcast network weekday morning programs from January 1 to October 31, 2011, using the same methodology we employed to study campaign coverage on those same programs for the same time period in 2007. Excerpts following the jump; read the full report here. (or download the printer-friendly PDF version)
 

Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts bashed her own network, Monday, decrying GMA's obsession with tabloid stories. In a Daily Beast article, she lamented, "I’ll be honest, it’s been an adjustment for me, the lighter fare...I want to be No. 1. I don’t want to sell my soul to the devil to be No. 1."

The Howard Kurtz piece contained several gossipy nuggets, including a possible icy relationship between Roberts and co-host George Stephanopoulos. Kurtz related that the two "almost never chat during the show when the cameras are off, with Stephanopoulos usually tapping on his BlackBerry."

Former President Bill Clinton is making headlines again, this time touting his liberal prescriptions to fix the economy. Those remedies are laid out his new book Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy. The news media is doing their part to promote Clinton's work and his economic legacy, portraying him as the economic savior of America.

This should come as no surprise, since Clinton is still beloved by liberal journalists. New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani called Clinton's book "a lucid one-man rebuttal of the Tea Party's anti-government agenda." Kakutani also summarized Clinton's plan, saying "Mr. Clinton serves up a succinct common-sense argument, why both spending cuts and increased tax revenues are necessary for addressing the debt problem."

Updated [11:41 ET]: More analysis and transcripts added.

Interviewing Texas Governor Rick Perry on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry asked the Republican presidential candidate about a flub in Wednesday's CNBC debate and wondered: "One of your fundraisers told The Wall Street Journal, simply, 'He just ended his campaign.' Have you thought about ending your campaign? Are you staying in this race, sir?" [Audio available here]

On CNN's American Morning, Christine Romans struck a similar tone with Perry: "How is this not the end? Convince us that this is not the end of your – of your candidacy....across the board you're hearing folks say that this was one of the worst, if not the worst, debate moment, those 54 seconds, you know, in modern primary history." [View video after the jump]

Appearing on Wednesday's NBC Today, Meet the Press host David Gregory discussed the political fallout of sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain and the possibility of the Republican presidential candidate being urged to drop out, declaring: "Well, there is no, you know, grand wizard in the party right now who can really force the issue." [Audio available here]

The term "grand wizard" was used as a leadership title in the Ku Klux Klan. Gregory later apologized via Twitter: "'Wizard' remark this morning was a very poor choice of words. Did not mean to make that connection at all. Was not thinking. I apologize." While Gregory may have simply used poor phrasing, if a Republican official or conservative commentator had made that kind of remark, Gregory and others in the media would certainly jump on it. [View video after the jump]

The same networks that ignored sexual allegations against Democrats for months all leaped on Tuesday to interview Sharon Bialek and her liberal advocate Gloria Allred on the morning after she came forward. Between them, ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC devoted over 21 minutes to Bialek, who accused GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain of groping her over a decade ago. CNN had Bialek on for eight and a half minutes, and played up how Rush Limbaugh apparently said "not so nice things" about her [audio clips available here; video below the jump].

CBS's The Early Show gave the softest interview, failing to mention the accuser's past bankruptcies or Allred's liberal political leanings, something the other three at least mentioned. Anchor Jeff Glor asked Bialek if she would still vote for Cain if he became the GOP presidential nominee, only after her attorney, Gloria Allred, mentioned that her client was a registered Republican. None of the interviewers raised why Bialek had been fired by the National Restaurant Association before her meeting with Cain (correspondent Jan Crawford noted the firing in a setup piece on CBS).

Updated [12:35 ET]: More analysis and full transcript added.

In a fawning interview with Bill Clinton on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry played an ad from the former president's 1992 campaign and remarked: "First of all, how cute were you and your hair hasn't changed. But number two, but number two, you talk about vision there and leadership. So what is President Obama's vision on the economy?" [Audio available here]

Moments later, Curry noted high disapproval of Obama's handling of the economy and wondered: "You know, you often speak of your wife's extraordinary gifts. Do you ever think that the country would be better off if she had won the presidency?" [View video after the jump]

Despite talking about the current presidential campaign with Clinton, Curry avoided asking him for comment about sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain.