NBC

A week after HBO's Bill Maher called Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich "a fat womanizing blowhard," NBC's Jay Leno referred to the former House Speaker as a "hot air balloon." Tonight Show guest Meghan McCain actually thought that was funny (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Friday, CBS's Early Show was the only Big Three morning show to cover Energy Secretary Steven Chu's testimony before a congressional hearing on the $528 million loan to the bankrupt solar panel company Solyndra. NBC previewed the hearing on Thursday's Today show, but avoided it the following morning. ABC's GMA completely ignored it both days. Fill-in news anchor Betty Nguyen gave a 44-…

In a portion of a softball interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aired on Friday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd invited her to bash the Republican field of 2012 candidates as he skeptically wondered: "Any of these Republican presidential candidates ready to answer the 3:00 a.m. phone call?" [Audio available here] Clinton dodged the question by simply…

According to Politico, Barack Obama's "lazy" gaffe is "catching fire," but you wouldn't know that if you got your news from the major networks. The President's remark, made at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Hawaii on November 12, that "We've been a little bit lazy" in attracting "new business into America" received a grand total of just 36 seconds on the Big Three (ABC, CBS…

The network morning shows on Thursday took a mostly light-hearted look at clothing company Benetton's ad campaign featuring the Pope kissing a Muslim cleric. The ads, which have now been pulled under legal pressure, were summarized by Good Morning America's Josh Elliott. He parroted, "It was part of Benetton 's Unhate campaign, challenging people to have the courage not to hate." Elliott…

In an interview with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel set to air on Monday's Rock Center on NBC, correspondent Harry Smith wonders if President Obama's former chief of staff will one day sit in the Oval Office: "They think that you're using this – Rahm Emanuel, first Jewish president." [Audio available here] During a promo that aired Wednesday night on the broadcast network, the NBC announcer…

For years while George W. Bush was in the White House, the three broadcast networks and other media repeatedly hyped the threat of rising gas prices, exaggerated the "record" price of gas and incorrectly predicted, $4, $5 and $6 gasoline or even higher. Now the gas price story has been turned upside down under the anti-oil presidency of Obama, despite sustained high gas prices.

Updated : More analysis added. As reports started coming out on Wednesday on the search for White House shooting suspect Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, one common detail was mentioned, including in The New York Times: "Late on Friday, the police searched the Occupy DC protest camp...after reports that the suspect might have spent time there." NBC, ABC, and CBS left that fact out of their…

Updated : Video added after the jump. During a panel discussion on Wednesday's NBC Today, all of the pundits agreed that it was perfectly acceptable for a school in California to let former porn star Sasha Grey read to a classroom of first graders. Advertising executive Donny Deutsch went so far as to admonish critics: "Shame on people, she's volunteering for underprivileged kids." [Audio…

The Washington Post, no conservative paper it, gave front-page coverage today to the latest development in the Solyndra scandal: E-mail records show that the Obama White House urged the solar energy company to postpone layoffs until after the 2010 midterm elections. "The announcement could have been politically damaging because President Obama and others in the administration had held up…

On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry asked chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd about Herman Cain's long pause when answering a question about Libya: "How much do you think this new video is expected to add to Herman Cain's current slip already in the polls?" Todd proclaimed: "I think it's close to being the disqualifying moment for his campaign." In a prior report,…

Through the month of October, as this MRC study found, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks completely ignored the numerous charges of sexual assaults at OWS protests on their evening and morning news shows. In fact, it wasn’t until this weekend that one and only one network, ABC reported on the rape of a woman in Philadelphia, and that was only after that city’s Democratic Mayor Michael…

She hasn't accomplished a darned thing on television yet, but Chelsea Clinton is already being compared to the late Meet the Press host Tim Russert. Such almost unthinkable praise emerged from NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight Monday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Updated : More analysis and full transcript added. On Monday's Rock Center on NBC, correspondent Kate Snow savaged Alabama's new immigration law, touting left-wing historian Wayne Flynt comparing it to the racism of the 1960s: "This is just mean-spirited. This is – this is finding the most vulnerable people within a society....it's like the blacks in 1963 who could not vote in Alabama." […