Meet the Press

An otherwise straightforward report on bad economic news on Friday's NBC Today cited economist Diane Swonk, who argued government stimulus prevented things from getting worse: "We basically had a massive coronary during the financial crisis....Financial stimulus and monetary stimulus, you know, got us to the stage where we're healing but we're in still in a lot of rehab." Correspondent Tom…

“Do you think the Tea Party is losing some of its appeal?” So Harry Smith cued up a hardly independent guest on Sunday’s Face the Nation: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic Congresswoman and Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Earlier, the fill-in host was astonished House Majority Leader Eric Cantor would want to find cuts to afford extra spending for tornado recovery efforts…

NBC's David Gregory on Sunday accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of not having said publicly if he's for Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Medicare plan. This oddly came four days after McConnell and 39 other Republicans voted for the proposal on the floor of the Senate (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing on Friday's NBC Today, Meet the Press host David Gregory largely dismissed the possibility of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan entering the 2012 presidential race: "He's got some of his own problems in terms of being the intellectual force behind Medicare reform that is actually hurting the Republican Party." While Gregory noted that Ryan "didn't close the door" to a potential run,…

For many in the media Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's reaction to Barack Obama insistence that his country return to the 1967 borders was out of bounds. ABC's Christiane Amanpour declared she was "stunned" by his "public lecture" of the President and NBC's Andrea Mitchell hissed, "it was really rude," and charged he treated Obama "like a school boy." Mitchell didn't reserve her criticism to…

At the end of Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell scolded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for daring to criticize President Obama's call for Israel to return to 1967 borders: "...he criticized the President, and in such a fashion! He lectured him in the Oval Office....basically treating him like a school boy." Mitchell went on to declare…

Contrary to what NBC's David Gregory said Friday, U.S. News & World Report editor Mort Zuckerman believes that in the wake of President Obama's Mideast speech, "The Israelis do not feel they have the Americans at their back for the first time since the founding of the state of Israel." Such was said during a heated debate about the subject on PBS's "McLaughlin Group" (video follows with…

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Sunday conceded “Paul Ryan has shown considerable guts” with his Medicare plan, but she declared liberal Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen is “correct that nobody on the Republican side is showing any courage on the tax front. And unless taxes are part of the mix,” NBC’s chief foreign correspondent insisted in repeating the standard media refrain, “every grown-up…

NBC's David Gregory must have thought he had performed another gotcha on a prominent Republican Sunday when he cited a poll to his "Meet the Press" guest Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) finding people aren't interested in reducing Medicare spending in order to balance the budget. Without skipping a beat, Ryan marvelously educated his host saying, "I don't consult polls to tell me what my…

"Meet the Press" host David Gregory said Friday there are "prominent views within Israel" that support President Obama's controversial Mideast peace ideas expressed the day before. When asked by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, "What major Israeli public figures have come out supporting the President's speech," Gregory couldn't name one (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin on Monday accused NBC News of racism and promoting racial division in this country. On Wednesday, Levin ratcheted the discussion up a bit telling Fox News's Neil Cavuto, "David Gregory should not get off the hook for his race baiting" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

New York Times political reporter Matt Bai still hasn’t forgotten the "overtly racist" Willie Horton ad and sees "a racial element" in just about every attack against President Obama, no matter what the issue. His latest "Political Times" column, "Race and Republican Attacks on Obama," posted online Tuesday, pivoted from Newt Gingrich’s latest press drubbing to the matter of racism and the G.O.…

As NewsBusters has been reporting, so-called "news" organizations have been routinely calling leading Republican figures racists for having the nerve to criticize the policies of President Obama. On Monday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin specifically called out NBC News not only for its on-air talent being "blindingly white," but also for "promoting racial division in this country" (…

Ed Schultz re-introduced his "Psycho Talk" segment on Monday after deciding in January to shelve the feature following the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in Tucson. This ended up being quite fitting, for earlier in the program, Schultz engaged in some psycho talk of his own accusing Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich of wanting to end the food stamp…