Wyatt Andrews

After 19 days of controversy, CBS Evening News on Tuesday finally got around to covering the growing dispute between the Obama administration, who wants to impose a mandate for sterilizations and birth control on religious institutions, and the Catholic Church and its allies, who see it as a violation of religious liberty. All of the Big Three networks' evening newscasts on Tuesday covered the issue.

On Wednesday morning, CBS This Morning was actually the only network morning show that devoted a segment to the "hot-button issue," as anchor Gayle King labeled it. NBC's Today show gave a mere news brief on the "uproar" over the new federal policy, while ABC's Good Morning America ignored it.

CBS Evening News on Wednesday hyped the "early success" of a provision of ObamaCare which allows young adults under the age of 26 to stay on their parents' health care. Correspondent Wyatt Andrews spotlighted a young woman afflicted with Crohn's disease as an example of this apparent success, all the while failing to mention the liberal agenda of a "patient rights advocate" featured in his report.

The first part of Andrews's report played as a human interest story, focusing on Caryn Powers, "one of those young adults who already benefits from the health care reform act." The journalist highlighted that "Caryn's medicine alone costs more than $3,000 a month. If she could not stay on her parents' health insurance, she says, she'd be bankrupt and unable to work as a nurse."

At the top of Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams fretted: "The Obama administration blocks a plan to make the 'morning-after' pill more easily available to young girls. Is this about medicine, politics or something else?" Moments later, he proclaimed: "We begin tonight with this surprise decision that takes us right to the intersection of medicine, science and politics."

The CBS Evening News also lead with the decision as anchor Scott Pelley hyped: "No White House has ever overruled a safety recommendation by the Food and Drug Administration, but it happened today." In the report that followed, correspondent Wyatt Andrews announced that by overruling the FDA, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, "stunned many public health proponents."

Like clockwork, as soon as Rick Perry joined the GOP presidential field, the liberal media started slashing at the Texas Governor, impugning him as a “name-calling,” “human tornado,” “anti-science” racist —just “Bull Connor with a smile,” according to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Plus, Perry’s best-in-the-nation record on job creation is really a myth — not a “Texas miracle” but a “Texas tragedy,” according to CBS News.

As for Barack Obama, CNN shows they play no favorites, holding the President’s feet to the fire in a grueling interview: “The last time you were elected, you got Sasha and Malia a cute little puppy, Bo. What are you going to get them the next time, if you’re re-elected?” These quotes, plus many more, in the latest edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables (best quotes after the jump; full issue posted here at MRC.org).

Friday night’s CBS Evening News examined Rick Perry’s record in Texas, citing his claims his policies led to job creation but then pivoting to how “Perry's bedrock pledge to never raise taxes also had a reckoning this year.”

Reporter Wyatt Andrews relayed liberal claims that “with taxes not an option, the state cut deeply into health care and so deeply into education, some 49,000 teachers are being laid off.” He prompted a teacher: “Do you see a Texas miracle?” She retorted, “No, I see a Texas tragedy” as Andrews related that she “calls her layoff the cost of low taxes.”

In the '80s the liberal media filled the airwaves with tales of woe from the homeless as a way to distract viewers from the runaway success of Reaganomics. In the 2000s, the same media chatted with one frustrated gas station customer after another to slam then-President George W. Bush.

However in 2011, with over 44 million Americans on food stamps, a new high according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (See Table 2), the Big Three broadcast network news programs have been virtually devoid of anecdotal sob stories of moms and dads struggling to pay for their kids' box of Frosted Flakes, as a way to hammer Barack Obama's failed economic policies.

On Friday, the morning shows of the Big Three networks barely touched on President Obama approving the renewal of key provisions in the Patriot Act, avoiding the kind of criticism they launched during the terms of former President George W. Bush. During that time, the networks often expressed "concern...that civil liberties are threatened as never before" by the law, as CBS Evening News put it in 2003.

ABC's Good Morning America devoted one news brief to the development 17 minutes into 7 am Eastern hour. News anchor Josh Elliott noted how "President Obama signed an extension of the U.S. Patriot Act. He used a device called the auto pen because the bill had to be signed before midnight Washington time." NBC's Today show devoted the most attention to the presidential action with three news briefs from Ann Curry at 15 minutes past the 7 am Eastern hour, and at the top of the 8 and 9 am hours.

On The Early Show, CBS's Jeff Glor's brief on the Patriot Act extension, which aired at the same time as Curry's first brief on NBC, gave the most negative hint against the law of the three networks:

In the guise of a status report on ObamaCare, Katie Couric on Thursday night derided Republican efforts to repeal it just as it’s “starting to kick in.” She pleaded for viewers to give it a chance as she rationalized “the law is vulnerable because of the complex way it tries to fold 30 million uninsured people into the system,” fretting “damage could be inflicted by choking off funding for programs that support the law, but a greater threat is the legal storm that's brewing.”

Her only expert, Dr. Atul Gawande, touted ObamaCare as “a toolbox.” Couric disingenuously described Gawande as merely “a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and an influential voice on health care policy.” In fact, Gawande, who toiled on Gary Hart’s 1984 presidential bid and then for Al Gore’s quest in 1988 before working in Bill Clinton’s 1992 effort, oversaw a team of 75 toiling on the Clinton administration’s health care task force in 1993-94.

Last year, he penned a piece for The New Yorker, “Watching the Health-Care Vote,” on how he brought his “fourteen-year-old son to see the vote on health reform” since it meant “hope has arrived.”

On Saturday's CBS Early Show, correspondent Wyatt Andrews previewed the Washington DC 'Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear,' organized by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: "Almost all of the folks we found said they hope it's about the moderates of America....Stewart seems to have touched what you might call the anti-anger nerve."

Andrews went on to chide conservative figures for divisiveness: "In a year when the President was called a liar and when Fox's Glenn Beck labeled the President a power-hungry socialist and a Nazi." He described how: "Stewart took Beck on." Andrews then explained that rally participants "told us they wanted less name-calling in the media and more accomplishment in Washington." However, he failed to make any mention of Stewart's own long list of vulgar name-calling incidents.

mod-er-ates: [noun] Fans of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi -- The CBS Dictionary

It would be funny if it weren't so outrageous . . .

CBS is trying to pawn off the rally organized by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart—the guy who had Barack Obama on his show for for a half-hour this week—as a gathering of "moderates."

CBS correspondent Wyatt Andrews used the m-word to describe the assembling masses in his report on this morning's Early Show. View video after the jump.

Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, without Katie Couric, uniquely amongst the broadcast network evening newscasts tied Discovery Channel hostage-taker/bomber James Lee to Al Gore and, even more miraculously, highlighted how Tony Blair, in his new book, describes George W. Bush as “intelligent.” Reporter Wyatt Andrews relayed in his story on the incident in suburban DC:

In an anti-corporate protest two years ago, Lee was arrested while throwing cash outside of Discovery’s offices. He said in court he had been moved to save the planet, partly by Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Neither ABC nor NBC mentioned Gore’s inspiration. (ABC’s Pierre Thomas on World News: Lee “has protested at the Discovery Channel repeatedly, raising concerns about the environment and over-population.” NBC’s Tom Costello on Nightly News referred to Lee “handing out a rambling leaflet that called on Discovery to devote more programming to global warming and animal extinction.”)

In a sympathetic story devoid of critics on Tuesday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Wyatt Andrews described Congressman Charles Rangel's rant over being charged with numerous ethics violations this way: "In an emotional and raw defense against 13 ethics charges, Charles Rangel mixed small doses of contrition...into a speech of political defiance."

Andrews's report featured only sound bites of Rangel's speech that afternoon on the House floor, no critics of the New York Congressman from either party were included. Andrews did explain that Rangel was in "serious trouble" and detailed the charges: "Rangel is charged with not reporting his income on a beach villa in the Dominican Republic, his taxable gains on a condo in Florida. Not reporting several large investment accounts and with raising money for his Rangel Center at the City College in New York from dozens of companies needing favors from his committee."

Continuing to report on Rangel's bombastic address, Andrews observed: "...this was real-world drama. A man who had clawed his way to the peak of political power now shocked to find himself deserted by so many friends." Andrews concluded: "Many Democrats...hoped that Rangel would actually take one for the team and quit before his ethics problem became their election issue. But Rangel called that kind of thinking unfair to him and even asked at one point in his speech, 'what about me?'"

West coast viewers got to see a July 4 CBS Evening News on Sunday, and those who tuned in saw CBS's interim "report card" on Congress's performance so far. Under the headline of "unfinished business," correspondent Wyatt Andrews and his sole expert, Politico's Jonathan Allen, both fretted how Congress is now "paralyzed" due to a "growing fear of the deficit."

Many Americans are probably wishing Congress had become "paralyzed" a few trillion dollars ago.

Andrews rued that supposedly job-creating "stimulus spending" may be sacrificed if enough congressmen feel deficit spending is now "political Kryptonite."

Many members of Congress especially those in tough re-election campaigns are home right now, trying to figure out the spending issue: Will voters support more stimulus spending if it directly leads to jobs, or has deficit spending itself become political Kryptonite?

For years the global warming alarmists' mantra has been "the science is settled." But a recent series of shocking disclosures about climate science has shaken the credibility of that claim.

The first scandal - ClimateGate - came Nov. 20, 2009, after someone leaked thousands of e-mails from a major climate science group: University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The e-mails were full of startling admissions like this one: "We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment."

Since then there has been an avalanche of admissions and disclosures spreading online through Web sites and foreign newspapers. The cumulative effect has impacted the truthworthiness of the climate science movement. Yet the networks haven't even adjusted their news coverage of the global warming issue to reflect the discoveries.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal relayed that CBS reporter Wyatt Andrews noted ClimateGate just long enough to dismiss it. After quoting Rep. James Sensenbrenner finding "fraud" in the data, Andrews rebutted:

But if that's true, it is a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists, along with NASA, the United Nations, the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries including the United States. And to most of them ClimateGate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:

"The last decade is the warmest decade on record," said Michael Mann.

Taranto also objected to Andrews quoting ClimateGate scandal figure Michael Mann as the unquestioned expert of his piece, as if all his talk of playing "tricks" with the data and squeezing skeptics out of scientific journals doesn’t strain his credibility. Andrews continued:

ABC and CBS discounted the scientific relevance of the admissions and obfuscations displayed in the ClimateGate e-mails, but on Wednesday night they finally devoted full stories to the controversy and quoted the “most-damning” of the e-mails, the ones referring to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in a temperature measurement and in which a scientist fretted “we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't.”

The two networks, however, painted the “stolen” e-mails not as laudatory whistle-blowing, but as an unwanted impediment to the left's global warming agenda. “Just as the world seems finally poised to do something about global warming, an inconvenient scandal,” ABC's David Wright began in playing off the title of Al Gore's movie. He despaired that “as the controversy heats up, the consensus about making the tough choices to curb carbon emissions threatens to crumble.”

On CBS, Wyatt Andrews relayed how “to many Republicans, ClimateGate proves that global warming is a deception,” before he countered: “But if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists, along with NASA, the U.N., the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries, including the United States. To most of them, ClimateGate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:” Viewers then were treated to this declaration from the scientist with the “hide the decline” boast: “The last decade is the warmest decade on record.”

Media Embraced Cindy Sheehan's Anti-Bush Push in 2005; ABC Anchor Now Says: "Enough Already"

When Cindy Sheehan arrives on Martha’s Vineyard tomorrow (Tuesday), to protest against President Barack Obama, will the news media be as drawn to her as they were in the summer of 2005 when she was condemning George W. Bush?

Last week, ABC anchor Charles Gibson declared “enough already” when asked on Chicago’s WLS Radio about Sheehan’s plan to travel to Obama’s island vacation spot to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When she camped near Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch four years ago, that was hardly the view of Gibson and his colleagues. At the time, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell aptly dubbed her “a media magnet.”

Back then, the networks were eager to publicize her cause from the moment she arrived. Katie Couric, for instance, showcased Sheehan at the top of NBC’s Today show: “A mother’s vigil. Her son died in Iraq. Now this woman is camping outside the Bushes’ Texas ranch and demanding a meeting with the President today, Monday, August 8th, 2005.”

Reporting on Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court on Saturday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Wyatt Andrews declared: "...she’s not always the reserved, work-aholic judge she portrayed in the Senate hearings....The judge is also known for her can't-miss Christmas parties, which included salsa dancing inside the federal court of appeals in Manhattan." [Audio/video (1:25): Mp3 | WMV]

Andrews offered a detailed report on Sotomayor’s down-to-earth personality as he spoke with her friends and colleagues: "...according to friends, like former law clerk Allison Barkoff, the Judge has a big, engaging, New York personality." Barkoff exclaimed: "She is fun. She – she works hard and she plays hard." No mention was made in the segment of Sotomayor’s infamous "wise Latina" comments.

As an example of how the newest member of the Supreme Court "plays hard" Andrews described: "Melissa Murray clerked for two federal judges, including Sotomayor, and when both judges came to Melissa’s wedding, Sotomayor challenged the other judge to a dance-off." After describing Sotomayor’s "can’t-miss" Christmas party, Andrews added: "Sotomayor knew and invited everyone in the courthouse." Barkoff explained: "The people who work in the cafeteria, the security guards, the custodians, are equally as important as her colleagues."

Monday's CBS Evening News, unlike the ABC and NBC evening newscasts, found time for a story on protesters, against liberal Democratic health plans, who confronted members of Congress at forums over the weekend, though reporter Wyatt Andrews felt the need to insert “scare” quotes as he referred to “demonstrators against what they called 'government-run health care'” and “what they call 'Obama-care.'”  

Anchor Katie Couric set up the story: “The debate over health care reform is not limited to the halls of Congress. Voices are being heard all over the country -- voices of protest. And they're growing louder.” Andrews showed how “angry protestors in Philadelphia shouted down both the HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, and Senator Arlen Specter” before he asserted “the crowds are partly the result of conservative Web sites asking for turnout at town halls.” Andrews, however, acknowledged “the turnouts also reflect real fear over the increased taxes and government controls that are part of the health bills being considered in Congress.”

Andrews concluded with the Democrats' plight: “Avoiding this kind of uproar is partly why Democrats wanted to pass health reform before the August recess. Democrats are now out there without a final bill to defend, but facing opponents trying to kill what they call 'Obama-care' with a show of August heat.”

Two months ago, as President Obama was contemplating a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, many in the media elite — particularly NBC News reporters and anchors — sycophantically touted Obama’s credentials as a constitutional law professor as evidence of his deep experience when it came to the judiciary.

Yesterday, however, Obama’s pick for the Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, explicitly repudiated Obama’s belief that judging should be based on “empathy” or “the heart.” Sotomayor told senators: “I don’t, wouldn’t, approach the issue of judging in the way the President does.”

None of the broadcast networks juxtaposed Sotomayor’s slap at Obama with the President’s supposed brilliance as a constitutional scholar, or explored whether it was credible that Obama’s nominee really disagrees on the role of empathy, what the President previously declared the “essential ingredient” of a good judge.

Reporting on Sonia Sotomayor responding to questions about her "wise Latina" comments during Tuesday’s confirmation hearing, CBS’s Wyatt Andrews glossed over the multiple times she made the remark: "What did she mean in her 2001 speech to Hispanic law students at the University of California that "a wise Latina woman...would reach a better conclusion than a white male?"

In addition to the Evening News story, Andrews similarly reported on Wednesday’s Early Show: "She said it in a speech to a mostly Hispanic audience at the University of California in 2001." In reality, Sotomayor made some version of that controversial statement at least four other times during speeches in 1994, 1999, 2002, and 2004.

In the Early Show story, Andrews went on to depict the comment as an isolated incident: "At the hearing, she first explained she was trying to inspire the students, that she was misunderstood. But pressed hard by Senator John Kyl, she admitted to some overheated rhetoric...But she also argued the comment did not reflect some deep-seeded bias."

On the first day of Senate hearings, CBS's Wyatt Andrews on Monday night again insisted Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor cannot be categorized ideologically and highlighted how “the hearing marked the first spotlight moment for former comedian, now Senator, Al Franken who cast himself as new but ready,” all before anchor Katie Couric fretted “some Republicans didn't really treat her with kid gloves.” Couric and Bob Schieffer squeezed in just a few seconds for how a new CBS News poll discovered “President Obama's overall job approval rating is down six points since June.”

Back in May, Andrews insisted Sotomayor had “no clear ideology on discrimination, gay rights, or abortion and who can't be easily defined by political labels.” Monday evening, he spotlighted vindication in a month-old report (PDF) from the Congressional Research Service, which he stressed is “non-partisan,” that Sotomayor “defies categorization along ideological lines.”

Though the only critical comment CBS showed from a Republican Senator was a pretty mild one -- Lindsey Graham advising “I think your experience can add a lot to the court, but I don't think it makes you better than anyone else” -- Couric wondered: “As we saw, some Republicans didn't really treat her with kid gloves. If she's heading for confirmation, what do you think their objective was?”

On Monday, CBS correspondent Wyatt Andrews reported on the beginning of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and declared: "To Democrats, Sotomayor is the perfect nominee. That a child of the projects would progress through Ivy League schools and later a 17-year career as a federal judge makes hers an all-American story."

The Early Show segment began with co-host Julie Chen citing poll numbers that showed the American people were not fully impressed with that "all-American story": "A new CBS poll finds that 23% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Judge Sotomayor [decrease from 33% in June], while 15% were unfavorable [up from 9% in June]. 6 in 10 are still undecided or have not heard enough yet [62%, up from 58%]. And 35% say it's very important to have another woman on the high court." An on-screen graphic of the numbers showed a shift from June, but Chen failed to note the change in people’s attitudes toward Sotomayor.

In the midst of pretty balanced ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscast stories on the Ricci reverse discrimination case involving New Haven firefighters, who were victorious, one quibble: CBS's Wyatt Andrews framed the ruling as issued by the Supreme Court's “conservative” justices and opposed not by liberals but by “civil rights leaders,” as if the majority of justices who ruled against the racial discrimination were not advancing civil rights.

Andrews announced that “in a close 5 to 4 decision, the court's swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, sided with conservatives,” before he set up a soundbite from a representative of the NAACP: “Civil rights leaders also predicted an era of confusion over when minorities are protected and when they are not.” The NAACP's John Payton declared: “I think it hurts the cause of having a discrimination-free workplace.”

Neither ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg nor NBC's Pete Williams applied a conservative or liberal label.

Reality catches up with CBS News which on Tuesday night ran a “Reality Check” story on how a new CBO report shows President Obama's claim that his government-expansion health care plan won't hike the deficit doesn't match reality. So, will ABC News display similar skepticism when it broadcasts GMA and World News from the White House next Wednesday, culminating in a prime time hour, “Questions for the President: Prescription for America”? (ABC's Jake Tapper on Monday night briefly cited the CBO report, but ABC and NBC were silent on Tuesday evening.)

Fill-in CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor announced “there are growing concerns that President Obama lacks a realistic plan to pay for this sweeping reform.” Reporter Wyatt Andrews related “how the nation really pays for health reform just got a shocking wake-up call. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, said Senator Ted Kennedy's health care proposal could cost one trillion dollars over ten years, and 36 million Americans would still be uninsured.” Andrews proceeded to note how Obama “claims he can achieve reform without raising the deficit,” but, he asserted, “the fact is, this means raising taxes.” Andrews also pointed out that Obama's “more than $600 billion worth of spending cuts” to Medicare and other programs don't comport with inevitable resistance from hospitals.  

Online, the CBSNews.com headline over the Andrews story presumes Obama's plan is necessary: “How Will We Pay For The Health Care Plan?”

NBC provided a platform Friday for President Obama to fire back at conservative critics of his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, as Brian Williams cued him up to agree her comment that a Latina judge would make better decisions than a white male one, is “one of those she'd rather have back.” Obama naturally agreed as NBC Nightly News aired his response for an uninterrupted two-plus minutes -- an eternity on TV news.

Fill-in anchor Lester Holt led with how “critics on the right tonight are finding some traction in comments she made back in 2001 suggesting a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better conclusion than a white male judge. And late today the President addressed it head on.” Viewers soon saw a clip of Williams at the White House with Obama, for a two-part prime time special next week:

This is the quote: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” It's your judgment -- perhaps having talked to the judge -- that, as we say, that's one of those she'd rather have back if she had it to re-do?

Obama began by agreeing “I'm sure she would have re-stated it” -- and he wrapped up his retort two minutes and ten seconds later by predicting “all of this nonsense that is being spewed out will be revealed for what it is.”

A baffled CBS. The CBS Evening News, which in 2005 had no doubt about how John Roberts and Samuel Alito were dangerous conservatives, expressed bewilderment Wednesday evening over where Obama's Supreme Court nominee stands. “Pundits usually label judges as either liberal or conservative, but that won't be easy with Judge Sotomayor,” Katie Couric propounded in setting up a piece from Wyatt Andrews, who concluded:

President Obama, then, has found a judge with 17 years experience but no clear ideology on discrimination, gay rights, or abortion and who can't be easily defined by political labels.

At least not by the CBS newscast, which back in 2005 asserted Roberts would move “the court further to the right” and fretted over the Alito pick “tilting the Supreme Court in a solidly conservative direction for years to come.”

Audio: MP3 clip (50 secs)

Amazingly, after showing no reluctance in 2005 to describe John Roberts and Sam Alito as “conservative” or worse, the Tuesday network evening newscasts, particularly ABC and NBC, applied more “conservative” tags to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's critics than “liberal” labels to her, as the coverage suggested calling her a liberal was a hasty judgment from accusatory partisans. In total, ABC's World News and the NBC Nightly News combined for a piddling two uses of the “liberal” term while issuing a “conservative” tag eight times. (CBS viewers heard “liberal” four times and “conservative” just once.)

Setting up a look at Sotomayer's record, ABC anchor Charles Gibson fretted about how conservatives had “already” assessed her: “Even before the President announced his decision, conservatives were reviewing Judge Sotomayor's judicial record and were already saying she would be an activist on the court.” Jan Crawford Greenburg then framed any notion of Sotomayer as liberal as based on accusations from conservatives: “...which conservatives have called code for,” “...conservatives today seized on this comment” and “already, conservatives have jumped on the decision.”

Over on NBC, Pete Williams presumed a conflict between her rise from poverty and being liberal: “Despite her remarkable personal odyssey, Judge Sotomayor is already being called a liberal activist by some conservative groups.” (That sentence included NBC's only liberal label utterance during four segments.)

Moments after President Obama announced his pick of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, CBS’s Bob Schieffer and Katie Couric enthused over what Couric called Sotomayor’s “very, very compelling life story,” with Schieffer cheering that she was “the political advisor’s dream candidate.”

“This woman has a life story that you couldn’t make up!” Schieffer exulted: “She’s born in the public projects, in the shadow of Yankee stadium, a single parent household, she goes to a Catholic school, she gets scholarships to the best schools in the country, Princeton and Yale, she overcomes all that while dealing with diabetes all her life, and she is Hispanic. This will be a historic pick.”

Couric immediately followed-up with her own salute: “Add to that, Bob, the fact that her father was a factory worker who died when she was nine years old, raised by a single mother who raised her brother to be a doctor and, obviously, her daughter to be an extremely accomplished lawyer and now judge. So it is a very, as you say, very, very compelling life story.”

While reporting on the announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter on Friday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Wyatt Andrews explained: "Souter quickly stunned conservatives in 1992, casting the crucial fifth vote to uphold Roe vs. Wade in the landmark abortion case Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. Souter evolved into one of the court's more liberal justices."

Andrews went on declare that: "Obama specifically promised to appoint justices who are pro-abortion rights." A clip of Obama on the campaign trail was played: "That's why I am committed to appointing judges who understand how our laws operate in our daily lives, judges who will uphold the core values of our Constitution, that's why I won't back down when it comes to defending the freedom of women." Andrews concluded: "In the search for his replacement, the President will face significant pressure, not just to name a liberal justice, but also to appoint a woman justice."