NBC Gets Warm & Fuzzy Over ‘Barn-Burning’, ‘Powerful’ Obamas ‘Electrifying’ DNC

Curtis Houck
August 21st, 2024 3:50 PM

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NBC’s Today gave ABC’s Good Morning America a run for its money Wednesday in the Obamagasam department as they too fell head over heels for Barack and Michelle Obama “energiz[ing]” and “light[ing] up the convention hall....with back-to-back barn-burning speeches” “sharing the powerful, contagious power of hope, as [Michelle] described it” doubling as a “takedown” of Donald Trump.

Co-host Savannah Guthrie was ready to fire away from Chicago, starting from the teases: “Fired up and ready to go. Barack and Michelle Obama light up the convention hall in Chicago with back-to-back barn-burning speeches rousing the party faithful....Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the official nominees now after ruckus, music-filled roll call.”

Staying behind in New York, co-host Kotb remarked following the teases that “[t]he crowd seemed super energized” with Guthrie agreeing “the atmosphere here in Chicago was electric among the party faithful” with both Obamas “not minc[ing] words when talking about” Trump.

Chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander emoted a sunny disposition like a Ken doll in fan-boying over the Obamas:

[T]his place was bursting with energy as we witnessed last night. There were a series back-to-back-back addresses. Doug Emhoff kicking things off with a little self-deprecation. Michelle Obama sharing the powerful, contagious power of hope, as she described it. And we also heard from Barack Obama with a forceful call to action. Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama providing a major political, one-two punch overnight at the DNC.

Boasting that Michelle “electrif[ied] the delegates,” he added she “deliver[ed] a takedown of former President Trump, referencing the racist conspiracy theory Mr. Trump pushed for years against her husband.”

Alexander also gushed over Emhoff’s speech, calling it “heartfelt” while making no mention of Emhoff causing his first marriage to fall apart when he had an affair with and impregnated his childrens’ nanny.

He eventually wrapped with a gushing moment of praise masquerading as analysis in touting “[t]he crowd at one point sort of picking up with an organic reaction to some of his words saying ‘yes, she can,’ repeating a line that he first made famous with ‘yes, we can.’”

Guthrie and Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker were cartoonishly stupid in their cockamamie partisanship by wistfully claiming the Obamas embodied a time when civility ruled the day in politics (click “expand”):

GUTHRIE: [I]t was remarkable to hear the Obamas speak so directly about former President Trump. But the larger message of both speeches was really a call to a different era in politics and they seemed nostalgic for the hope and change time and — and really called Americans to a better time where you could disagree but not be divided, not hate each other.

WELKER: Yes. And you heard Michelle Obama say hope is making a comeback. Former President Barack Obama — remember he delivered that speech in 2004 when he said there’s no red America or blue America. There’s only a United States of America. They seem to be making that case again last night, Savannah. And one of the notable aspects of it, urging people to give grace to their neighbors, their fellow citizens, essentially to stop this cancel culture. At one point, Michelle Obama with tough medicine for Democrats, saying there’s not going to be a goldilocks moment. Look, these are human beings, these candidates may make mistakes but Vice President Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, they are the right people for this moment to defeat Donald Trump and, as you say, really just a scorching takedown of Donald Trump as well.

Welker then falsely asserted this funhouse mirror world where Michelle Obama hadn’t been political before (click “expand”):

GUTHRIE: Well, Michelle Obama, of course, so famously said at the last convention — I guess it was 2016 — when they go low, we go high. She — she definitely was ready to take the gloves off and deliver not just one, but several punches against Donald Trump, and that’s very striking. It felt like she had something to get off her chest for the last eight years.

WELKER: We have never heard Michelle Obama like this. It was as if she was saying everything she’s wanted to say since 2016 speaking in such personal terms about the fact the President Trump wept after her and Barack Obama, and basically, as she said, because they are successful, black people. And that was, I think, so powerful, Savannah. But, look, she did take the gloves off, and this is a different moment than, saying when they go low, we go high. She’s making it clear and realizing the reality what Democrats have learned that they’ve got to get into the ring with him if they want to win this fight.

(....)

WELKER: One more note, Obama — Michelle Obama both talked about the power of their mothers, their late mothers. And it was almost trying to give voters a permission slip to vote for the first woman to be president. Barack Obama saying women built this country, and that split screen moment with her in a critical battleground state making the point we are not missing one minute and one chance to reach out to voters.

A simple trip back in the NewsBusters archives to even the largely virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention and the liberal media made identical claims (see here, here, here, and here for a few examples).

Welker also sucked up to Governor Tim Walz’s (D-MN) camp ahead of his speech, telling voters to get over it if they expect Walz or Kamala Harris to say what they’re for in terms of policies: “[T]his is going to be about filling out the biography of Tim Walz, of Vice President Kamala Harris as well. People know them, but they’re not familiar, so don’t expect a whole lot of policy. This is going to be heavy on the biography, the ideals”.

In the second half hour, Guthrie doubled down on the Obamas having “lit this place on fire” as a lead-in to senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson offering a fawning piece on the Obamas since they left office. Here was part of that (click “expand”):

JACKSON: Behind the scenes, former President Obama has been in regular contact with Vice President Harris with some of his former staffers joining her campaign. Both Obamas very popular in the party, but have largely shied away from roles as political king makers, choosing instead to pursue other interests, including partnerning with Netflix to feature documentaries.

MICHELLE OBAMA [on Netflix]: You let people tell their own story.

JACKSON: Each also selling bestselling memoirs and Mr. Obama even joining Bruce Springsteen for a podcast series. Last night, former President Obama criticizing Mr. Trump but also urging Americans to listen to each other.

BARACK OBAMA: If a parent or grandparent occasionally says something that makes us cringe, we — we don’t automatically assume they’re bad people. We recognize that the world is moving fast, that they need time and maybe a little encouragement to catch up.

JACKSON: Tuesday’s speech coming just two decades after a then-unknown Illinois state legislator burst onto the national political stage at the 2004 DNC.

BARACK OBAMA [on 07/27/04]: There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America.

JACKSON: Four years later, Kamala Harris among those who knocked on doors in Iowa to help with then-freshman Senator Obama to pull off a upset win in the caucuses, helping to propel him to the White House as the nation’s next black president.

To see the relevant NBC transcript from August 21, click here.

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