Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday became emotional over the passing of John Murtha, named by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as one of Congress’ most corrupt politicians. He lauded the Democrat as "one of those guys who make the [House of Representatives] work." [Audio available here.]

Neither Stephanopoulos, nor Juju Chang, who filed a news brief on Murtha, mentioned his 2006 smear that U.S. Marines killed Iraqi civilians "in cold blood." Stephanopoulos, a former Democratic operative, reminisced as he tried to maintain control: "I’m going to get a little choked up. I miss him already. You know, I went to Capitol Hill as an aide almost 30 years ago."

He cooed, "And he did it with such a sense of joy and fun and he taught me an awful lot." Stephanopoulos skipped the following quote from Murtha in May of 2006 about a supposed massacre in Haditha, Iraq: "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

ABC on Tuesday devoted a fourth day of interviews to the John Edwards sex scandal and still failed to identify the ex-vice presidential nominee as a Democrat. After 67 minutes of coverage on two programs, the network has highlighted most of the salacious details of the Senator’s story, all while avoiding the D-word.

Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday talked to former Edwards aide Andrew Young and his wife, Cheri. Interviews with Mr. Young, who falsely claimed to be the father of what turned out to be Edwards’ love child, also appeared on Monday and Saturday.

On Monday, former Democratic operative turned journalist Stephanopoulos did not react well to Young's assertion that the campaign believed "all of the viable candidates had some type of skeleton in their closet." Stephanopoulos fretted, "That is a very serious charge." When Young tried to backpedal, the host complained, "You just said it."

Since Friday, ABC has devoted 60 minutes and 23 seconds to interviews covering the most salacious details of John Edwards' sex scandal. Yet, the network's anchors have refrained from referring to him as a Democrat. 20/20 on Friday spent the entire hour talking to Andrew Young, a former top Edwards aide who allegedly holds a sex tape involving the politician. The D-word was never used by reporter Bob Woodruff.

Good Morning America again featured the story on Saturday. On Monday’s GMA, former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed Young about his role in covering for Edwards. Over two segments that lasted 14 minutes and 50 segments, Stephanopoulos never highlighted Edwards’ party affiliation.

The only time it came up is when Young, who has written a tell-all book about Edwards, tried to justify covering for the candidate: "At that point, I genuinely- genuinely believed that he was the only Democrat that could beat McCain or any other opponent."

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates appeared on Friday’s Good Morning America to promote a new series on genealogy and revealed to George Stephanopoulos that he might be related to Hillary Clinton. Gates told the former Democratic staffer turned journalist, "You are very likely a maternal cousin with Hillary Clinton."[Audio available here.]

Gates, who very famously was involved in an altercation with the Cambridge police in 2009, recounted how Stephanopoulos (to promote the GMA segment) submitted a swab sample for the DNA company 23andMe: "According to 23andMe, George, you most likely share an ancestor with a very prominent American woman, a person who, like your haplotype, is an intrepid traveler yourself."

Of the three morning shows on Thursday, only NBC’s Today show skipped any mention of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s Republican response to the President’s State of the Union address. Both ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’s Early Show gave McDonnell’s rebuttal at least minor attention.

On the Early Show, Chip Reid explained, "Virginia's newly inaugurated governor Bob McDonnell gave the Republican response. He echoed the sentiment of many in his party who believe big government is not the solution." Reid then featured a clip of McDonnell calling for limited government.

ABC co-host George Stephanopoulos only referenced McDonnell as an intro to a question for former Governor Mitt Romney: "Jobs. That's the President's number one priority. In the Republican response last night, Governor McDonnell said the same thing."

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):

Both ABC’s Diane Sawyer and CBS’s Katie Couric interviewed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as part of their networks’ run-up to tonight’s State of the Union address, but the contrast was stark. While Sawyer attempted to feel Emanuel’s pain over the setbacks for health care legislation (“Two times you have rolled the health care rock up the hill....and two times you have seen it crash back down”), a much feistier Couric interrogated Emanuel over the White House’s political failings.

“As you know, people were pretty disgusted by deals that were made up on Capitol Hill like the one given to Ben Nelson to win his support. If the White House was so involved, was this done with your blessing?” Couric demanded. Moments later, she hit Emanuel with this zinger: “You are considered a master political operative, you were the guy four years ago, of course, who orchestrated the Democratic takeover of the House. Where were you when Massachusetts was going down in flames for the Democrats?”

Rosie O’Donnell appeared on Tuesday’s Good Morning America and lectured host George Stephanopoulos, "You just have to relax and remember that not everyone's a politician. And you don't have to grill them." The liberal comedienne needn’t have worried. Stephanopoulos only gently approached O’Donnell and her new gay-themed HBO documentary.

After being dressed down by O’Donnell, the GMA host offered this softball question about A Family Is a Family Is a Family: "So, tell us about this amazing documentary." He quickly followed up to see if the query was benign enough: "How was that?"

Although O’Donnell asserted that the documentary is about "equality," Stephanopoulos didn’t bring up the details of the special. A plot synopsis explains that the film features "children with two fathers or two mothers...a pair of mothers who are getting married to make one big family," in addition to stories on kids being raised by grandparents and who are adopted. So, it’s odd that Stephanopoulos would allow O’Donnell to get away with claiming to be non-political.

Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos played defense for the White House on Tuesday. While talking with John McCain about Obama’s 2010 proposals, he sounded annoyed that the Senator’s ideas for job creation would include tax cuts: "But, those tax cuts are going to increase the deficit, aren't they, sir?"

After McCain declared his opposition to Democrat spending proposals, the host pressed, "If you're against that, what job creation proposals are you for?" Continuing the Democrat-friendly theme of McCain as obstructionist, Stephanopoulos quoted Harry Reid’s attack on McCain in Sunday’s New York Times: "‘My amazement has been John McCain. I thought he'd turn out to be a statesman, work for things. He is against everything. He's against everything.’ Your response?"

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos appeared on The View, Monday, and attempted to deflect some of the over-the-top praise heaped on him after he joined Good Morning America. He protested, "I did not like all of the introduction stuff, all the ‘let's go back and talk to everybody from your entire life.’ But we got through it."

On the January 4, 2010 show that Stephanopoulos was referring to, his friend, Democrat James Carville, appeared to coo, "I once said, 'If you converted his IQ to Fahrenheit, you could boil water.'" A graphic on that program proclaimed, "George Is Smart."

On Monday, View co-host Barbara Walters asked Stephanopoulos if President Obama could "recover" from a string of electoral losses. The Democratic operative turned journalist was emphatic [See video above]: "Yeah. I mean, look, he's more popular now than Ronald Reagan was his second year in office, the same time." Of course, Reagan didn’t have a willing media ready to spin failures from his first year.

Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos on Monday did not go easy on his friend and former colleague James Carville. Discussing the Massachusetts Senate election, he quoted Carville’s words from his 2009 book 40 More Years: "Republicans have no hope of making serious inroads into democratic advantages in 2010 or likely 2012 or 2014 and so on. It's time to call T.O.D., time of death, on the GOP."

Stephanopoulos then challenged, "Care to revise that opinion?" On May 5, 2009, the day before 40 More Years was released, GMA brought Carville on and gave him generous amounts of time to promote his book. So, ABC should be commended for calling the author out on his wildly inaccurate prediction.

The ABC journalist noted the cloudy forecast for Democrats in the 2010 midterms and pressed, "Is the Democratic majority at risk in the House?" Carville bluntly replied, "You have to think unless something is done to change direction, I think everything is at risk." A surprised Stephanopoulos marveled, "Wow!"

With a complete lack of irony, Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Thursday commented on the revelation that John Edwards had fathered a love child. The former top aide to Bill Clinton marveled, "How did he ever think he was going to get through a presidential campaign sitting on all this?"

Stephanopoulos, perhaps not thinking of his old boss and the Gennifer Flowers scandal during the 1992 campaign, chided Edwards: "It is just unbelievable." In a second story on the subject, correspondent Bianna Golodryga introduced the story by explaining, "Former presidential candidate John Edwards, now admits that he did father a child with a former campaign worker."

Golodryga is engaged to Obama White House official Peter Orszag. On January 7, Orszag announced that he had fathered a baby with another woman, venture capitalist Claire Milonas. Perhaps ABC should be a little more careful in who they assign stories to?

The day after President Barack Obama's policies were rebuked by the voters of one of the most liberal states when Massachusetts picked a Republican to replace Ted Kennedy, the White House turned to former Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos as their preferred vehicle to forward their spin as Obama sat down for an interview with the ABC News journalist.

An accommodating Stephanopoulos, in the excerpt run on Wednesday's World News, failed to consider Obama's policies were too liberal as he asked the chastened President to confirm he was “surprised and frustrated by the vote” and to agree “this has been about the most packed year of your life” and “the most fulfilling?” Obama, naturally, concurred with the puffball inquiry.

The toughest Stephanopoulos got was to advance the notion Obama was a victim of his own ambition: “In your inaugural address, you said then, 'there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.' Looking back now, don't those critics have a point?” Stephanopoulos also cued up Obama with an informational request: “ What is the strategy on health care going forward? A lot of people have talked about getting the House to pass the Senate bill.”

On Tuesday’s Good Morning America, former Democratic-operative-turned-journalist George Stephanopoulos appeared glum about the prospects of Democrats in Massachusetts’ special Senate election. He intoned, "And White House and congressional Democrats are hoping for a miracle but they're expecting, right now, the Democrat, Martha Coakley to lose."

In a previous segment, reporter John Berman spun, "And, finally, perhaps, civility is at stake" in the Senate election. As videos of health care protests appeared onscreen he added, "President Obama promised to reach across the aisle to govern. Yet, Scott Brown has been able to tap into voter anger and frustration that seems so prevalent." [Audio available here.] So, would the election of the Republican somehow create incivility? Would a victory by Coakley prevent more? Berman didn’t say.

ABC on Monday night again empathized with the Obama White House’s disbelief that they could lose “Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat” -- and thus ObamaCare -- if Republican Scott Brown beats Democrat Martha Coakley in Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts. George Stephanopoulos saw a “Shakespearean” tragedy just over a week after PBS’s Judy Woodruff, on ABC’s This Week, described such a scenario as “a tragedy of Greek proportions.”
 
Stephanopoulos conveyed on Monday’s World News how “Democrats in the White House and Capitol Hill are braced for a shattering loss. And it's really hard for them to wrap their head around it, the idea that...health care reform may be in peril because Democrats can't hold the seat that Teddy Kennedy held for nearly half a century. You know, one White House official summed it up in a single word: ‘Shakespearean.’”

During the roundtable on the January 10 This Week, CNN and NBC veteran Woodruff despaired: “I was just going to say, quoting somebody in the White House, a tragedy of Greek proportions if Ted Kennedy's successor is the one, is the one who was responsible for the death of health care.”

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos is worried enough about tomorrow’s Massachusetts Senate race to be thinking about a “Plan B” for Democratic plans to push ObamaCare onto an increasingly unwilling public.

“You have top Democrats like Barney Frank of Massachusetts who said flatly if Martha Coakley, the Democrat, loses, health care is dead. So what kind of planning is the White House doing right now for backup?  What's their Plan B?” Stephanopoulos fretted to White House correspondent Jake Tapper.

Tapper replied that the current “Plan B” is for the House leadership to force an up or down vote on the Senate version of health care as it was passed Christmas eve, obviating the need for a new Senate vote that could be filibustered. But “House Speaker Pelosi has told the White House she does not think the votes are there,” Tapper informed Stephanopoulos.

In this edition of NewsBusters Notable Quotables comedy web show, NBC bids “good riddance” to Sarah Palin, MSNBC’s David Shuster is a defender of the faith, and ABC promotes their boy genius George Stephanopoulos. Enjoy!

To view current and past episodes in a larger screen format visit the NQ Show channel on the Media Research Center’s video sharing website Eyeblast.tv.  

Former Democratic aide turned Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday derided Sarah Palin’s debut as a Fox News analyst, asserting that the Republican "was in pretty loving hands there with Bill O'Reilly." The former Clinton operative, seriously asserted, "...I went through this transition, going from politics to being an analyst. It's very different going from being an advocate to someone who steps back and analyzes the news." [Audio available here.]

Stephanopoulos even proclaimed Palin’s political career over: "I gotta say, I don't think she’s going to come back into politics...I think this is the alternative to politics for Sarah Palin." Tina Brown, creator of the liberal Daily Beast website, appeared as part of a panel. She dismissed, "As a politician, she was often in error, but never in doubt, right? So, now, she can be a pundit, where it doesn't matter where you're in error, frankly."

Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos on Monday talked to the authors of a new book on the 2008 presidential campaign and appeared unsurprised that journalists knew about the affair John Edwards was having, but ignored it. Stephanopoulos blithely acknowledged, "And a lot of Edwards insiders, Mark, and you even say reporters covering the campaign, knew something about this."

Co-author Mark Halperin appeared to see journalists ignoring the relationship, and Edwards likely fathering a child with his mistress, as something almost admirable. He mused, "Well, reporters stayed away from it. It's an interesting case. We think in this day and age where there's so much out there, so much media, the standards are so low, that everything gets reported."

A somewhat surprising debate occurred Sunday when conservatives George Will and Liz Cheney took different sides of the Harry Reid racist remark issue.

Appearing on the Roundtable segment of ABC's "This Week," the former Vice President's daughter said, "[O]ne of the things that makes the American people frustrated is when they see time and time again liberals excusing racism from other liberals."

Will, after shaking his head, replied, "I don't think there's a scintilla of racism in what Harry Reid said. At long last, Harry Reid has said something that no one can disagree with, and he gets in trouble for it."

Likely to the surprise of many viewers, Cheney responded, "George, give me a break" (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

At the end of Sunday’s This Week this morning, George Stephanopoulos announced it was his last broadcast as the host (“That’s our show for today. It is also my last regular Sunday here at This Week. Thanks to all of you for watching so faithfully for all these years and thanks to the outstanding crew and staff here at This Week for making it the special program it will always be”) and an item in Sunday’s Boston Herald revealed that ABC had to purchase a special chair for Stephanopoulos, in his new job as co-host of Good Morning America, so Robin Roberts would no longer “tower over” the “diminutive talking head.”

The Herald's “Inside Track” disclosed: “All it took was a new chair from Staples.com!” Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa relayed that “when Stephanopoulos began his early-morning gig last month, the anchor desk appeared out of sync -- with Roberts, who is 5-foot, 10-inches tall, and George, who is soooo not.”

(The accompanying top screen shot is from December 14, Stephanopoulos’s first day as the new permanent co-host and the image below is from this past Thursday’s program. Judge for yourself, but Stephanopoulos is certainly lower in both.)

It was the thinnest of reeds, but that didn't stop George Stephanopoulos from clinging to it—twice—in doing his best for Harry Reid . . .
 
Appearing on GMA today, Steph stressed that Reid's remarks about then-candidate Obama being "light-skinned" and having no "negro dialect" were supposed to be "private."

Stephanopoulos tried to put the best face on things during a conversation with weekend co-host Kate Snow.

On Friday’s Good Morning America, co-host George Stephanopoulos aggressively pushed Rudy Giuliani to admit that Barack Obama has "taken responsibility" for the government’s reaction to a failed Christmas Day bombing. However, when he chatted with Democratic operative, and friend, James Carville on Thursday, the ABC anchor mostly worried about the "political fallout" for the President. [Audio available here.]

After discussing the criticism for Obama’s handling of the attempted plane bombing, Stephanopoulos fussed at the former mayor, "So, bottom line right now, the President has stepped up. He's taken responsibility. He's calling it a war. Are you satisfied now with his response?" He teased the segment by declaring, "[Obama’s] taking full responsibility for the government failures in the wake of the failed Christmas Day attack."

The entire interview consisted of Stephanopoulos, a former top aide to Bill Clinton, promoting this White House "responsibility" line. He began by disputing the idea that suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has stopped talking now that he’s being tried in a civilian court. He instructed Giuliani, "But, FBI officials say they've talked to [the suspect] for over 30 hours. He's singing like a bird. He's providing usable intelligence. What's wrong with that?"

For the second time in two days, ABC attempted to exonerate Barack Obama from responsibility for a failed Christmas Day airline bombing. On Friday’s Good Morning America, Brian Ross spun, "Well, like another young president almost 50 years ago, Barack Obama found the so-called intelligence professionals, the veterans, the old hands, failed him and failed the country." [Audio available here.]

After placing the blame on everyone but the President, Ross oddly continued, "And as John Kennedy did when the CIA blew an invasion of Cuba in 1961, President Obama took responsibility for the failure to stop and spot the underwear bomber."

On Thursday’s World News, anchor Diane Sawyer touted the same Kennedy comparison to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: "George, I have to say, 'the buck stops here.' It's an echo of another young President in another time." The former Democratic operative turned journalist hopefully replied, "John Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. Huge intelligence failures at the Bay of Pigs. The President took responsibility, his popularity shot up."

Chris Cuomo says there's no proof Mutallab will talk less as a lawyered-up criminal defendant than as an enemy combatant.  Suggestions to the contrary are just politics. George Stephanopolous manifests the same problem his old boss did: he doesn't know what the meaning of "is," is.  Steph claims Mutallab "is" singing.  But reports are that the would-be mass-murderer was singing—but isn't any more.
 
It was all part of Good Morning America's defense today of Pres. Obama's decision to give the NWA 253 bomber the full ACLU treatment, rather than dealing with him as the enemy combatant he is.
 
Fortunately, Rudy Giuliani was there to set things straight . . .