On the Saturday Early Show on the morning of July 4, anchor Priya David mocked Sarah Palin’s famous phrase, "You betcha," as she introduced a report by correspondent Nancy Cordes on the Alaska governor’s decision to resign from office. David: "Resign from office? You betcha. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin dropped a political bombshell Friday, announcing that she's leaving her post, but her future plans remain a mystery."

Unlike her report on the CBS Evening News from the previous night, this time Cordes refrained from referring to Palin’s speech as "rambling" and "confusing," but she did run a soundbite of the Politico’s Mike Allen calling Palin’s decision "odd." Allen: "If you’re trying to promote yourself as a steady leader, this is an odd way to run for President." On Friday night, Cordes had run a soundbite of Allen calling the announcement "bizarre." Allen: "This is very unusual, even bizarre. Governors just don't stop in the middle of their terms when there’s no clear reason."

Below is a complete transcript of the relevant report from the July 4 CBS Early Show:

Following up on Monday’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of New Haven firefighters who were denied promotion after no black applicants passed a written exam, ABC’s Bob Woodruff on Tuesday’s Good Morning America approached the decision from a liberal perspective, wondering if “the ruling really make future workplace discrimination harder to prove” — as opposed to wondering whether the ruling will protect workers from discriminatory tactics from employers seeking to achieve nebulous goals such as workplace “diversity.”

Woodruff also asked correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg whether the ruling could “tarnish” the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was part of a three-judge panel that ruled against the firefighters.

Greenburg stressed the arguments of Sotomayor’s supporters: “Oh, Bob, right away we saw critics say this was a clear rebuke to Judge Sotomayor, since she had ruled against those white firefighters. But, her supporters said, ‘Look, she was just following the law,’ and they pointed out that the Court, the Court itself, was deeply divided. The four liberal justices would have agreed with her, including that justice she’s been nominated to replace, David Souter.”

Teasing an upcoming interview with actress Megan Fox on Tuesday’s Early Show, co-host Harry Smith gushed: "...this woman has jumped from virtual unknown to Hollywood A-lister. It doesn’t hurt she is one of the most beautiful women on the planet...And a very nice young person."

Smith failed to make any mention of the "Transformers" star’s controversial comments in a June 5 interview, in which she wished the villainous robots in the movie could "...just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America." Fox, a self-described bisexual, made the comments while talking with "Total Film UK."

Fellow co-host Maggie Rodriguez similarly fawned over Fox: "Harry already got the chance to meet her and I said ‘how is she?’ You sounded like Tony the Tiger...‘She’s great.’ A lot of people are saying, you know, she’s the new ‘it girl,’ the new Angelina Jolie."

The three network morning shows on Thursday devoted a staggering 18 segments to the revelation that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was having an affair with a woman from Argentina, adding up to over 54 minutes of coverage. NBC's Today show spent the most time on the subject, highlighting the infidelity with six segments and 25 minutes of air time.

Co-host Matt Lauer even talked to disgraced former Governor Jim McGreevey to get his thoughts on the matter. (However, while NBC made sure to label Sanford a Republican, the Today anchors failed to do so for the Democratic ex-New Jersey governor who resigned under a cloud of scandal.)

ABC's Good Morning America touted the sex scandal for 17 minutes and 26 seconds, featuring seven stories on Sanford. (It should also be pointed out that GMA came within seven minutes of Today's total, despite the fact that the NBC program is four hours, double the time of ABC's show.) During one such segment, Sam Donaldson insisted that it's hard to forgive Republicans who get involved in sex scandals: "They thump the Bible. They condemn everyone else, and when they- human- they don’t have much credit in the bank for forgiveness."

In the wake of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s admission to having an affair, evening and morning newscasts on NBC, CBS, and ABC all immediately identified him as a Republican. In contrast, in March of last year, the networks rarely identified disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat in the wake of his affair with a prostitute.

In a 2008 study of evening and morning network newscasts following the Spitzer scandal, NewsBusters’ Rich Noyes found that within the first week of news coverage Spitzer was only identified as a Democrat 20% of the time. However, within the first 24 hours of Sanford’s confession to having an affair, he was identified as a Republican 100% of the time, during coverage on all the networks.

On Wednesday, the NBC Nightly News, which failed to give Spitzer’s party affiliation for three days following his scandal, immediately focused on Sanford’s national role in the Republican Party as anchor Brian Williams declared: "In a Republican Party hungry for young stars, he was one of them: Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina...Tonight his political career is in tatters. His state, his party are in some turmoil. And Mark Sanford is no longer being mentioned as a possible GOP nominee for the White House."

When Harry Smith interviewed Pres. Obama earlier this week, I noted that his idea of "speaking truth to power" was to suggest Bo the dog was out of control.  
But when Smith had a Republican in his sights this morning, the mild-mannered Early Show host suddenly went Rambo.  Raising his finger, Smith scolded Mitt Romney for pointing out that Pres. Obama's response to the Iranian repression fell far short of Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" reproach to the Soviets.

View video here if flash player not displaying.

Appearing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Tuesday, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer dismissed the notion of liberal media bias: "...there is so much media out there now that the idea of bias in the media, it’s almost become irrelevant. I mean, we’re in this age of opinion journalism, where you can get the news served up almost anyway you want it."

Schieffer went on to compare biased media coverage to ordering eggs: "If you want to hear it from a conservative point of view, you can find plenty of places on the dial to get that. If you want to see it served up from a, you know, a no apology liberal point of view you can get it served up that way. It’s almost like going into a restaurant and ordering eggs, you can get them sunny side up, scrabbled, with a little Jalapeno pepper if you want it."

Clearly, CBS has routinely served up news coverage with a distinctly liberal flavor for years, the latest example being CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith conducting a fawning interview with President Obama in which he asked the President where he "learned to love" and about the behavior of the White House dog.

During an interview with President Obama, Harry Smith asked about recent criticism by Dick Cheney and President Bush: "Leon Panetta intimated that the former Vice President was playing politics with national security issues. The former President has intoned his own displeasure with some of your policy changes. I think they feel like some of the things that you've done, in fact, are treacherous."

Smith failed to provide any direct quote of Panetta’s comments, made during an interview for The New Yorker, in which the CIA director declared: "I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue...It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics."

Instead of asking Obama why a member of his administration would make such an outrageous statement about a former vice president, Smith simply mentioned that Panetta accused Cheney of "playing politics with national security issues."

In an interview with President Obama on Friday, CBS’s Harry Smith asked the "father-in-chief" about growing up without his own father: "In this fatherless world, where did you learn to love?" [audio available here]

The first part of the interview, which aired on Father’s Day on CBS’s Sunday Morning, focused on Obama’s role as "First Dad" as Smith declared: "Maybe it was on election night when we first realized not only would there be a new president but also a new first family. A family with young children...Along with the role of commander-in-chief and leader of the free world, Barack Obama would be First Dad. So, yes, there would be a swing set and, yes, there would be a dog." Sappy piano music was played in the background as a montage of Obama family photos scrolled across the screen.

Throughout the fawning profile, Smith described a young Barack Obama without a father: "He is everything his own father was not...In his first book, ‘Dreams From My Father,’ Barack Obama speaks about both the cultivated myth of his father and the cold, hard truth that he was absent by choice." At that point Smith asked: "In this fatherless world, where did you learn to love?" Obama replied: "Where I learned, I think, to be a father, was looking at some people that I respected...And it just reminded me that, you know, whatever the hardships, whatever the obstacles, you can be a good dad."

Smith then held up the president as role model to all fathers: "Your whole life is under a microscope now and believe it or not every parent in the country is watching your every move as a parent. Are you aware of that scrutiny?...The First Couple has made being present in their children's lives a top priority. The world can wait til’ after Sasha and Malia's soccer or basketball game."

Obama and Neda: same struggle!

Who says Pres. Obama isn't backing the Iranian uprising strongly enough?  Why, supporters of the struggle have chosen to immortalize Neda, the young student reportedly slain by the current regime, by creating a poster of her in the style of the iconic Obama poster made famous during his presidential campaign.

Might that have been CBS's subliminal message this morning?  Of all the possible posters of the fallen girl who has become the symbol of the Iranian uprising, the Early Show chose the one displayed here in the unmistakeable style Shepard Fairey used to create his Obama poster [displayed after the break].

CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez wondered on Friday: "Lots of politicians get caught having affairs, as you know. The trick, though, is making a comeback. It’s happened before, but the question is does John Edwards have a political future?"

Rodriguez later introduced the segment by citing Edwards’ recent comments about his political future in a Washington Post interview: "Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, just two of the high profile politicians who’ve survived the scandal of having an extramarital affair. Now John Edwards is speaking out for the first time, since his affair, about testing the waters for a possible political comeback. But is it too late? Is the damage done?"

In the report that followed, correspondent Nancy Cordes quoted Kenneth Vogel of Politico on the topic: "His cancer-stricken wife knew about the affair, asked him not to run for president. He did anyway. He kept it from his staffers. His political committees may have paid hush money. All of these things put together just make it that much more difficult for him to find a way to rehabilitate himself in the public eye." Cordes responded to that seeming political obituary by declaring: "Not so fast. Lots of politicians, after all, have had affairs and gone on to successful careers. Crisis management experts say Edwards may be testing the waters and could still have a political future."

As my colleague Mark Finkelstein noted this morning, now that gay activists are unhappy with Barack Obama, CBS has dusted off the “far left” label and used it to describe those who are upset that the President has not done more to advance the gay agenda. Co-host Harry Smith on Thursday: “President Obama gets some pressure from an unlikely source, the far left....”

So when was the last time CBS even used the phrase “far left” to describe fringe groups beyond the liberal mainstream? A Nexis search reveals that the last time the phrase crossed the lips of a CBS reporter was five months ago. On Inauguration Day, anchor Katie Couric mildly described unnamed “people on the far left or far right who don’t want Barack Obama to succeed.”

And the last time the “far left” label was used by CBS to describe a particular person or group was more than two years ago. On the May 17, 2007 CBS Evening News, reporter Sharyl Attkisson was talking about an immigration reform bill: “It’s a complete reform of US immigration law as we know it, worked out by a bipartisan group of negotiators, including Senator Ted Kennedy, politically on the far left, and Saxby Chambliss on the far right.”

During the Bush administration, do you recall the MSM ever describing a gay rights group such as the Human Rights Campaign as "far-left"?  Neither do I. To the contrary, such organizations were sympathetically portrayed as proponents of mainstream values.

But let such groups criticize Pres. Obama and—what do you know?—the MSM suddenly decides they're "far-left."  That's Joe Solomnese, head of the Human Rights Campaign, in the screencap, branded as far-left by the Early Show this morning.

ABC and CBS's morning shows on Wednesday both provided surprisingly tough questioning to Christina Romer, one of Barack Obama's economic advisors. On the issue of health care, Good Morning America co-host Diane Sawyer compared the costs of Medicare to the new health care plan and pointed out past government inaccuracies when it came to accessing cost.

She grilled, "You know, in 1965, everyone was told that over 25 years, the cost of Medicare would be $12 billion. The actual cost, $107 billion." Sawyer added, "Ten-times what the estimate was. Can you know this cost? And can you guarantee it's not going to be more than the administration believes?" Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez quizzed Romer, the Chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, on Obama's repeated insistence that he has no interest in meddling in the private sector. She wondered, "He sounds like he's being forced to do these things. If he believes that big government is actually a bad thing, why doesn't he at least try less intrusive options, which are certainly be offered up?"

The common, everyday act of swatting a bug is something that happens countless times a day at picnics and ball games across the country, especially during the summer, but when Barack Obama was caught on tape by CNBC's cameras doing it, the fawning liberal press couldn't contain their excitement. All three broadcast network morning shows, on Wednesday, praised the presidential kill as they were impressed by the "ninja" Obama's "precision," and "cat-like quickness."[audio available here]

On NBC's "Today" show substitute-host David Gregory opened the show declaring: "You just have to appreciate the, the concentration and the precision! Just a few things going on in the world but it's as if everything was stopped and at a standstill for the President to lower the boom." On CBS' "The Early Show," Chris Wragge marveled: "We've also just confirmed the President is a Ninja." And on ABC's "Good Morning America," they even brought out the Telestrator to break down the video as Chris Cuomo offered play-by-play: "You see? He stares at the fly. How many times have each of us tried to do this? Look at the hand coming up. The poise. The cupping. And the quick slap...Just knocked it away, very rare."

The following exchanges were aired on the June 17 editions of NBC's "Today" show, ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS's "The Early Show":

All three broadcast network morning shows on Wednesday made a point of labeling Nevada Senator John Ensign as a “Republican” after the Senator came forward last night to admit having an extramarital affair last year. NBC, which refrained for days from calling New York Governor Eliot Spitzer a “Democrat” after his relationship with a prostitute was exposed, called Ensign a “conservative Republican,” while CBS made a point of reciting Ensign’s associations with Christian groups.

ABC’s Good Morning America provided the only full report, with the on-screen headline declaring “Leading GOP Senator Admits Affair.” News anchor Chris Cuomo and correspondent Jonathan Karl noted Ensign’s Republican affiliation three times: “A rising star in the Republican Party is coming forward....” “John Ensign is a member of the Republican leadership....” and “The Republican from Nevada admits cheating on his wife...”

Last year, NewsBusters noted how the networks always added the “Republican” label to GOP politicians caught in sex scandals, but not Democrats; with their coverage of the Ensign scandal this morning, the networks are maintaining their perfectly slanted approach.

The CBS Early Show continued its usual fawning over Michelle Obama as co-host Harry Smith declared: "They couldn't come from more diverse backgrounds. One grew up in Chicago. The other grew up with a silver spoon...this new royal odd couple, the First Lady and the Queen."

Correspondent Sheila MacVicar reported on the First Lady’s relationship with the Queen: "It’s a friendship that began in April with this encounter between Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Mrs. Obama. A meeting so congenial that at a later reception, as they apparently compared their shoes, the two embraced. That meeting ended with a request from Her Majesty that the First Lady keep in touch. And apparently she has, by letter and phone."

MacVicar went on to describe Michelle Obama’s latest visit with the Queen while in Europe last week: "They spent three hours in the palace and its gardens, including the Queen's new vegetable patch. That's one interest both share. And that is forging a new friendship, helping to keep the trans-Atlantic relationship very warm indeed. In fact, a source with excellent royal connections tells CBS News that the Queen has told members of her family that she adores Michelle Obama and that she hopes she gets to see her again soon."

On Saturday, CBS’s Anthony Mason blamed tough economic times in a small Iowa town on immigration enforcement: "...the small town of Postville, Iowa, is still struggling to recover from an immigration raid last year that left its economy in tatters."

Reporting for Saturday’s Evening News, correspondent Seth Doane followed Mason’s introduction by similarly arguing: "...last May when Agriprocessors, a kosher meat processing plant, and the town's largest employer, was raided by Homeland Security. Hundreds were arrested, accused of illegally working in the U.S...After the raid, the plant declared bankruptcy. At one point, leaving hundreds of legal workers without jobs." Doane described the town’s commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the raid: "A few weeks ago at the one-year anniversary of the raid, church bells tolled 389 times, one for each person arrested. It served as a reminder, as if anyone here needed one."

In November, Doane issued an almost identical report on the impact of the raid on the Early Show: "With empty streets and shuttered shops, this small town is facing economic calamity. Mayor Bob Penrod is taking steps this weekend to declare a state of emergency here. But it's not a natural disaster. Rather, one that's manmade...It all started May 12th, when hundreds of federal immigration authorities raided Agriprocessors and arrested 389 workers."

Has America become such a sex-crazed, debauched nation that telling disgusting rape jokes about a political figure's daughter could make you more popular?

Such was posed Saturday by the Associated Press's David Bauder in a piece titled "Could Palin flap be Letterman's Hugh Grant?"

Strap yourselves in tightly before proceeding, and please do so with caution:

On Wednesday, the Early Show continued its obsession with the Obamas’ recent date nights as co-host Julie Chen exclaimed: "If Barack and Michelle Obama can find time for each other, why can’t you? We’re going to hear why it is a good idea to follow the President’s lead."

Earlier, co-host Maggie Rodriguez similarly declared: "We want to encourage everybody in America to bring back, or start, date night. Because if the Obamas can do it, so can we." Correspondent Hattie Kauffman later reported: "It took a couple of helicopters, a private jet, and a limo, but President Obama recently took the First Lady to dinner and a show in New York. Over the weekend, a rendevous in Paris. They may be the busiest couple in America, but the Obamas still manage to pull off date night."

Kauffman got reaction from one married couple: "The Larsens have been married 50 years and they still go out on dates. They say the Obamas are setting a good example." However, Kauffman did have some criticism: "Sure the Obamas will always have Paris, but have they set the bar too high?" Kauffman concluded her report by declaring: "Air Force One may not be available for your weekend retreat, but it's the time spent together that's priceless."

A local cop tasers a 72 great-grandmother and it's all caught on camera. How dare that nasty cop!! Which is precisely the reaction you'd get if you watched the segment on this morning's CBS's "The Early Show." The program begins the video right where the police officer tasers the woman, basically ignoring everything that transpired only moments before. "The Early Show" then shows a brief snippet of an interview with the woman:

WOMAN: I wasn't argumentative, I was not combative, OK? All of this is a lie.

All contributor Russ Mitchell noted in the cop's defense was that the cop said the woman "would not cooperate" and "swore at him." The reaction from the show's hosts is, well, not very surprising after Mitchell noted that the constable's office is standing by the officer who tasered the woman:

CBS correspondent Thalia Assuras touted the celebrity status of the Obamas on Wednesday: "The paparazzi and the press corps treat them like movie stars. They're on magazine covers and in fashion spreads. Even the presidential pooch is a celebrity. The Obamas are helping turn staid old Washington into Hollywood on the Potomac." [audio available here]

During the Early Show, Assuras reported on numerous upcoming reality TV shows being set in Washington D.C. and credited the first family for turning the nation’s capital into a celebrity hot spot. She cited Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn, who declared: "All of the power is concentrated here and power is a great aphrodisiac. And so, Washington has become the place to be." Assuras added: "And be seen. Even film stars are flocking here for a chance at the spotlight. Now the latest proof that the nation's capital is indeed the new hot spot, the arrival of reality TV."

On Monday, correspondent Richard Roth gave a glowing report on President and Michelle Obama in Paris: "The big tourist treat in Paris this weekend was for the tourists treated to a sight of the Obamas driving by. For the President and First Lady, the treat may have been a European reprise of their date night in New York a week ago."

Reporting for the Early Show, Roth also emphasized the idea that no one in Paris was "inconvenienced" by the Obamas’ visit: "Other tourists at the Eiffel Tower Friday night were surprised when the First Lady and the Obama girls turned up, but not much inconvenienced...And no whining, at least certainly not in public, though what's to complain about when the Pompidou Center’s been opened, especially for a presidential family viewing of modern art and the day's capped with a bit of shopping at a Left Bank children's boutique."

Following Roth’s report, fill-in co-host Debbye Turner Bell showed how impressed she was with the President’s romantic getaway, remarking: "My husband’s got a lot of explaining to do." Co-host Russ Mitchell jokingly added: "If you’re a guy and your name is not Barack Obama, this is not good news. There’s nothing good about this." Bell agreed: "The bar has been raised." Later, weatherman Dave Price concluded: "No, you know what? I think it's great. I said it before. You know, whether it would be President Bush or another president, I think it's great. You know, you try and have some semblance of a – of a relationship or a family life."

On Sunday, White House correspondent Chip Reid gave a glowing review of President Obama’s overseas trip: "A trip laden with symbolism and elegant words, asking the world to look beyond old hatreds and wounds. In doing so, he hopes to create a world where there never has to be another D-Day." [audio available here]

During CBS Sunday Morning, Reid reported on Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe, highlighting the President’s speech in Cairo last week and marking of the 65 th anniversary of D-Day in France on Saturday. On the subject of Obama addressing the Islamic world, Reid cited left-wing New York Times columnist and Obama sycophant, Roger Cohen, who declared: "He went out there, he spoke movingly...He spoke in a way that convinced Muslims that he is sensitive to their view of their suffering, to their culture, to their religion. And that's a new message from an American president."

In March of 2008, Cohen jumped aboard the Obama campaign, using his column to praise then candidate Obama’s speech on race: "It takes bravery, and perhaps an unusual black-white vantage point, to navigate these places where hurt is profound, incomprehension the rule, just as it takes courage to say, as Obama did, that black ‘anger is real; it is powerful’...Can an inquiring mind actually explore the half-shades of truth? Yes. It. Can...The clamoring now in the United States for a presidency that uplifts rather than demeans is a reflection of the intellectual desert of the Bush years."

On Thursday, CBS Early Show co-host Julie Chen declared: "President Obama seeks to reset Mideast relations in a historic speech in Cairo." Co-host Harry Smith gushed: "Powerful, far-ranging speech this morning...he was not only presidential, he was also professorial. He was very much a teacher this morning. He was giving Americans and Muslims a history lesson."

In a later segment, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer shared Smith’s description of Obama as a history professor: "I mean, one thing I didn't know, he pointed out that Morocco, a Muslim country, was the first to recognize the United States. He also pointed out there is a mosque in every state in the United States of America. This was, as you say, this was Professor Obama...during a lot of this, and I think that will have an impact."

Smith got reaction to Obama’s speech from CBS analyst Reza Aslan, who praised the President’s criticism of Israel: "...some very frank talk about issues, about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict... there were some words that Obama used that had never been used before by any American president, including the word ‘occupation,’ and the word ‘Palestine.’ I think this is going to be really remarkable, the way that the Muslim world reacts."

At the top of Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith cast doubt on talk show host and major Obama supporter, Oprah Winfrey: "And call it the ‘Oprah Effect.’ She speaks, people listen. But is her show actually leading her audience astray?" Oddly, no mention was made of Winfrey’s very public endorsement Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Later, co-host Julie Chen also teased the upcoming segment with similar declarations: "Still ahead in this half hour, it is no secret that Oprah is a great sales person, but just because she's selling, the question is should you be buying?...Well up next, the Oprah Winfrey seal of approval. Is it all that it's cracked up to be? We're going to look at the pros and the cons of Oprah's power." During the latter tease from Chen and briefly in the report that followed, footage of Oprah speaking at an Obama rally was shown, but not discussed.

The report, by correspondent Michelle Miller, featured Syracuse University pop culture professor Robert Thompson, who explained: "She has managed to put the Oprah seal of approval, which is a really powerful seal of approval, on some things that I think most people would call real crackpot ideas." Miller cited Newsweek magazine’s reporting on the topic and quoted senior editor Weston Kosova: "Some of the advice she gives on the show, especially with regard to health matters and medicine, is not good advice. Sometimes the advice that guests give on the show could actually hurt you."

On Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Lara Logan described President Obama’s upcoming speech in Egypt’s capital as if it were a campaign stop: "...everywhere you go in this city it's what everybody is talking about...The one word that keeps coming up over and over is excitement. There is definitely a lot of anticipation about this visit...very excited that he chose Cairo."

Logan was responding to co-host Harry Smith asking about the speech during a segment outlining Obama’s trip to the region: "Is there a way to measure the anticipation there for this speech?" Logan did acknowledge some opposition: "And I mean, although there are the detractors, there are extremists, they are small in number. Most of the people that we've encountered, everyone we've spoken to, says that people have great expectations." Logan fretted those "great expectations" would be Obama’s biggest challenge: "...the only concern is that there may be too much expectation riding on the shoulders of one man, because hopes here are extremely high."

Tuesday's "Today" show completely ignored two facts about a man who murdered a soldier at an Army recruiting station in Arkansas: He had just converted to Islam and was being investigated by the FBI for a trip to Yemen. Instead, NBC's Ann Curry, in anchor briefs throughout the show, vaguely explained that Abdulhakim Muhammad was "upset with the military." Both ABC and CBS mentioned the conversion and the Yemen trip.

In the 8am hour, Curry confirmed, "Police say the suspect had political and religious motives." (What kind? She didn't say.)  The reporter did note that the alleged shooter would be charged "with an act of terrorism," but the rest of her comments were so vague as to be confusing. (The network journalist also never used the individual's name.) "Good Morning America" reporter Pierre Thomas, however, very clearly defined the situation. He pointed out that police say Muhammad is "a Muslim convert" and "was specifically hunting U.S. soldiers." Thomas added, "Sources tell us Muhammad had traveled to Yemen and had been arrested for allegedly carrying a fake Somali passport. Both countries are considered hotbeds of al Qaeda-inspired radical Islam."

On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen mentioned President Obama taking the First Lady on a date night to New York City over the weekend: "The President and First Lady had a long-planned night out in New York City on Saturday, doing dinner and Greenwich Village and taking in the Broadway show, ‘Joe Turner's Come and Gone’" Co-host Maggie Rodriguez commented on the restaurant the first couple went to: "Blue Hill, down in Greenwich Village. It’s a wonderful restaurant." Co-host Harry Smith added: "Probably impossible to get a reservation now, right?"

Later, Rodriguez explained the "long-planned" excursion: "...this is something that he [Obama] promised her, apparently, when he was on the campaign, ‘I'm going to take you out on a date night in New York City.’" Guest co-host Amanda Holden, judge of the talent show ‘Britain’s Got Talent,’ remarked: "Oh, that’s so sweet." Rodriguez agreed: "I know, it is sweet." Holden went on: " They’re such a good looking couple, aren’t they? Fantastic." Rodriguez again agreed: "They’re beautiful."

George Tiller, the Kansas doctor notorious for his commitment to performing late-term abortions, was killed May 31 while attending a Sunday morning church service.

By his count, Tiller performed 60,000 abortions. His clinic, Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, was one of only three clinics in the United States that offered abortions after the 21^st week of pregnancy.

Loss of human life is a tragedy and should be reported as such, and premeditated murder is always wrong - something all the mainstream pro-life groups were quick to affirm in the wake of the killing. But in reporting this tragic story, the news media have much to say about a man who helped provide women with the "right" to end their pregnancies, but have little to say about lives he helped to end. In failing to highlight what Tiller's work actually entailed, reporters do nothing to help their audience understand why this man was targeted.