This Week

“I was struck looking at this,” Washington Post columnist and former foreign editor David Ignatius expressed on ABC’s This Week in admiring how Barack Obama on Friday adjusted the contraception mandate, hailing “the ability to do a do-over quickly” since the administration was not “done deaf” and “they did make changes and this is now a policy that you can defend.”

Unaddressed, how it’s just an accounting gimmick and Catholic institutions would still be required to cover what they morally oppose, to say nothing of what gives the government the right to require private insurers to offer a service for “free.”

Over on NBC’s Meet the Press, when Peggy Noonan noted how Obama picked the leftist position over the First Amendment, another Washington Post columnist and former reporter, E.J. Dionne Jr. fired back: “Barack Obama is a moderate progressive with the emphasis on moderate. Most socialists are insulted when Barack Obama is called a socialist.”

The broadcast network evening and morning newscast blackout, of the Obama administration plan to force health insurance offered by Catholic charities and hospitals to cover sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception without a co-pay, continued over the weekend, yet the ABC and NBC Sunday morning talk shows took up the topic.

Meanwhile, the media double standard in ignoring the ObamaCare imposition on religious institutions while jumping to defend Planned Parenthood when Komen pulled funding, is being noticed by media observers ranging from from Fox News to even a New York Times columnist.

Conservatives must have thought they died and went to heaven when the Roundtable segment of ABC’s This Week began Sunday.

There were syndicated columnist George Will and talk radio’s Laura Ingraham facing off on the state of the Republican presidential race (video follows with transcript and commentary):

By many measures, Barack Obama has left the State of the Union in tatters, but the liberal media, led by the highly rated Big Three network (ABC, CBS, NBC) news shows, have attempted to cover up those holes in the Union by mostly ignoring the Obama administration’s greatest failings. From record numbers of people on food stamps, to the administration’s support of failed energy companies while rejecting an oil pipeline that would result in thousands of jobs, the Big Three networks haven’t told their viewers the full story of Obama’s pathetic track record.

The following are just a few of the glaring examples of Obama’s failed administration and the coverage, or lack thereof, the Big Three networks on their evening news shows (ABC’s World News, CBS’s Evening News, NBC’s Nightly News), morning shows (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’s The Early Show, recently re-titled This Morning, NBC’s Today) and Sunday political roundtable shows (ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press) have given them.

Given his high unfavorable rating, Newt Gingrich “cannot win a national election,” MSNBC’s very liberal host Lawrence O’Donnell insisted early Saturday night when it became clear Gingrich would win the South Carolina primary, “it’s impossible.” O’Donnell’s assessment, however, is held beyond left-wingers animating MSNBC shows.  

Saturday night, Fox News veteran Brit Hume asserted: “Republicans in Congress will be terrified to run with this man for fear they will lose the House and the Senate.” Sunday morning on ABC, George Will imagined “people are waking up who are running for office as Republicans – from dog-catcher to Senate – and they’re saying, ‘good God, Newt Gingrich might be at top of this ticket.’”

George Will on ABC's This Week Sunday had a truly epic smack down on the perilously liberal editor of the perilously liberal magazine The Nation.

After Katrina vanden Heuvel waxed rhapsodic about President Obama at next week's State of the Union address laying out "a vision for a different economy, one that is not about crony capitalism, but is about a democratic capitalism that lifts all boats," Will struck back, "His slogan will be, what, 'No More Solyndras?'" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday proved once and for all what a joke he is.

Not only did the This Week host give twice the airtime to faux political candidate Stephen Colbert as Texas governor Rick Perry, he did so after the Comedy Central star called him "a political operative" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In pointing out how Barack Obama only won in 2008 by a slim margin, so this year’s Republican nominee doesn’t have to win over all that many Americans, ABC’s Jake Tapper on Sunday morning listed the media amongst the factors “going” for Obama four years ago: “You had the media, perhaps, tilting on the scales a little bit.”

That’s an understatement, but a noteworthy realization when it comes from the chief White House correspondent for a major network.

In her next to last week hosting This Week, ABC’s Christiane Amanpour moderated a show-long debate, touted as “The Great American Debates,” devoted to the proposition: “There’s Too Much Government.” George Will and Congressman Paul Ryan took up the affirmative case, squaring off against Robert Reich and Congressman Barney Frank. But Amanpour was hardly neutral.

She began by framing the debate around the “conundrum” that “people who oppose big government still want to collect their entitlements” and, without any matching ideological policy arguments presented to Reich and Frank, pressed Ryan and Will with liberal contentions, such as how “during the Great Depression the government did create big programs to get people back to work. Why shouldn’t they do that right now, why shouldn’t there be that kind of action?”

George Will on Sunday marvelously told liberal economist Robert Reich something that many conservatives have been dying to say for years.

During a fascinating Right vs. Left debate on ABC's This Week, after Reich predictably pined for higher income tax rates to solve all that ails us, Will struck back with the line of the weekend, "You are a pyromaniac in a field of strawmen" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the wake of the news that Christiane Amanpour is leaving ABC’s This Week, after just 15 months as host, we'd like to remind you of six of the most egregious biased remarks from Amanpour:

“This is reverse Robin Hoodism, if you like — take from the poor, give back to the rich again.”
— Christiane Amanpour talking to Rep. Paul Ryan about his budget proposal, May 1, 2011.

On December 13 Christiane Amanpour announced she would no longer be host of ABC's This Week. Her run as host of that show was filled with shots at conservatives and their issues as she called Tea Party candidates "bizarre," and scolded that tax cuts would "hurt" the poor.

On the November 6 edition of This Week she lectured House Speaker John Boehner: "Some 75 percent of Americans agree with an increase in tax on millionaires as a way to pay for these jobs provisions. Do you not feel that by opposing it you’re basically out of step with the American people on this issue?...Are you concerned that these budget cuts are going to hurt the people who can least afford it?" (video after jump)

ABC’s Christiane Amanpour just can’t comprehend why Jon Huntsman, with his “eminently sensible” anti-conservative positions, could be losing to Newt Gingrich who is full of “bombast” and “does say some pretty alarming things, some might say outrageous things.” More upsetting, Hunstman is supposedly “reversing” himself on those “eminently sensible positions.” 

Interviewing Huntsman, who appeared from the Granite State, Amanpour noted on Sunday’s This Week that “you are at the bottom of the pack despite the fact that some independents, for instance, in New Hampshire call you the sanest one running,” yet “ what you’re offering does not seem to be resonating. It appears that the Newt Gingrich, sort of bombast and brash in your face against Obama, is what’s resonating.”

There was a rather telling moment on ABC's This Week Sunday.

When during the Roundtable segment the Washington Post's Michael Gerson criticized Barack Obama for his lack of leadership involving the now failed Super Committee, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts quickly came to the President's defense (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Colin Powell on Sunday blamed the media as well as the Tea Party for the divisive political tone in Washington.

Not surprisingly, neither the class warfare stoked by President Obama and his Party nor the resulting Occupy Wall Street movement was mentioned during this seven minute interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC's This Week (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Paul Krugman, who three months ago called for space aliens to invade earth in order to get the government to spend more money, attacked Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on ABC's This Week Sunday referring to the former House Speaker as "a stupid man's idea of what a smart man sounds like" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Through the month of October, as this MRC study found, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks completely ignored the numerous charges of sexual assaults at OWS protests on their evening and morning news shows. In fact, it wasn’t until this weekend that one and only one network, ABC reported on the rape of a woman in Philadelphia, and that was only after that city’s Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter expressed concern about safety.

On the November 13 edition of ABC’s World News reporter Cecilia Vega mentioned: “In Occupy Philadelphia, an arrest after a woman was dragged into a tent and sexually assaulted.” Vega then threw it to a soundbite from Nutter charging: “Occupy Philly has changed. We’re seeing serious health and safety issues playing out on an almost daily basis. The people of Occupy Philly have also changed and their intentions have changed.”

These things take time, especially when it comes to a politician initially touted as walking on water.

But it's finally happening with liberal media mogul Arianna Huffington -- a willingness to criticize the Obama administration's penchant for theatrics over substance. (video after page break)

ABC’s Christiane Amanpour, on Sunday’s This Week, hit House Speaker John Boehner repeatedly from the left to raise taxes, a hostile, political agenda-driven approach she failed to apply a month earlier to the House’s top Democrat, Nancy Pelosi.

Amanpour demanded of Boehner: “Do you not feel that by opposing” a tax hike on millionaires to pay for Obama’s jobs bill “you’re basically out of step with the American people on this issue?” She followed by yearning: “Do you agree at all that there should be any kind of tax increases?” (video compilation below)

Call it Niall Ferguson's Pauline Kael moment . . . During the roundtable segment this morning on ABC's This Week, Ferguson, an academic with appointments at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, said that "all the Texans I know" can't stand Rick Perry.

Ferguson was reacting to host Christiane Amanpour's question about Perry's highly-animated New Hampshire address.  Ferguson professed to like the "swaggering Texan" side of Perry he apparently saw in the speech.  George Will had a caustic comeback.  Video after the jump.

One of the leading liberal propaganda outlets in the nation is the website ThinkProgress which specializes in selectively editing news reports and spreading misinformation to receptive media outlets from coast to coast.

A fine example of how they deceptively operate transpired Sunday with an article promoted at their website with the teaser "Bill Gates 'In Favor' Of Higher Taxes On Wealthy" (videos follow with transcript and commentary):

President Barack Obama’s new infrastructure spending plan “makes all of the sense in the world” and is an “eminently sensible idea,” ABC’s Christiane Amanpour enthused Sunday morning on This Week as if there is no rational reason to oppose the additional federal money and without a look at the impact of the already-spent stimulus spending.
 
Following up on President Obama’s boast that “when you got the AFL and the Chamber of Commerce agreeing on anything, that’s a sign that it’s a good idea,” Amanpour brought aboard the chiefs of those two organizations to tout the self-interested spending and fret over Republican opposition.

A 19-year-old student with a learning disability was allegedly raped at this weekend's Occupy Cleveland rally, an extension of the protests happening on Wall Street.

WKYC, the local NBC affiliate, reported at its website Tuesday (video also follows with commentary):

Add the CLASS Act to the ever growing list of damaging stories (Solyndra, Fast and Furious) to the bungling Obama administration that the media are, for the most part, whistling by. The news last Friday that a key part of Obamacare, the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act (CLASS), meant to provide long-term care for the elderly – was deemed not sustainable by the Obama administration itself, drew a total of just 40 seconds on the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) broadcast network news shows.

ABC's Good Morning America, on Saturday, included just a 20 second brief by Ron Claiborne who alerted viewers that the "Obama administration is killing a key part of its signature health care overhaul" because it was not "financially viable." Then, later that evening CBS Evening News -- seen by few since college football meant it did not air in the Eastern and Central time zones -- also aired a 20 second brief with weekend anchor Anthony Mason notifying viewers: "The Obama administration has scrapped the long-term care component of the health care reform law before it even took affect." NBC has yet to cover the topic on either NBC Nightly News or the Today show. There wasn't even a word of it on the political roundtable Sunday shows (ABC's This Week, CBS's Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press).

Remember all that talk about returning civility to political discussions following Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) shooting in January?

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus clearly doesn't, for on ABC's This Week Sunday, she said of Texas governor Rick Perry's presidential candidacy, "He's like Monty Python's parrot - he's not dead yet" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Offering the kind of respect, admiration and promotion ABC News has yet to offer Tea Party activists, Christiane Amanpour on Sunday asserted the far-left protesters are a “populist movement” representing a “revolution,” cited how it has “finally” been recognized by politicians, characterized it as an answer to the Tea Party and included an “Occupy Wall Street activist” on her roundtable.

“The revolution is being televised and tweeted and Facebooked,” she trumpeted in plugging the roundtable, proclaiming: “The Occupy Wall Street protests are suddenly all that Washington can talk about. Are we witnessing the birth of a new kind of Tea Party?”