Following President Obama’s State of the Union address, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell fawned over the President’s liberal economic proposals of tax increases as “so politically in tune with” most Americans.
“[T]he economic message, also, is so politically in tune with where the broad specter of the American people are,” Mitchell proclaimed.
In addition, she observed that Obama “laying out themes” that happen to be “equidistant between the Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton branches of the Democratic Party, and I think that he's setting up a legacy campaign.”
It’s safe to say that, if the shoe were on the other foot, the liberal NBC News reporter/MSNBC host would be finding a way to characterize a Republican president’s economic proposals as both only catering to some Americans (or none at all) and reflective of just part of the GOP in an effort to divide them.
The relevant portion of the transcript from NBC’s State of the Union 2015 coverage on January 20 is transcribed below.
NBC’s State of the Union 2015 Coverage
January 20, 2015
10:15 p.m. EasternBRIAN WILLIAMS: Andrea Mitchell, listening through your prism as chief foreign affairs correspondent, what did you hear?
ANDREA MITCHELL: Well, first of all, his opening to Cuba which is broadly popular and which he is going to defend aggressively, they can do even without congressionally by lifting the embargo that goes back more than five decades, but I think there – the economic message, also, is so politically in tune with where the broad specter of the American people are. He's laying out themes that are equidistant between the Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton branches of the Democratic Party, and I think that he's setting up a legacy campaign. He wants to take ownership of 2016, and as Chuck points out, he’s not going to be the main Democratic figure this time next year, but he still has a lot of influence over how the Democratic Party evolves, and as you can see from her recent actions Hillary Clinton, just from a tweet, first tweet in 45 days last Friday, is already moving herself away from Wall Street and more towards that economic messaging tone.
