CNN's scrutiny of the Obama administration's scandals has fallen sharply from last week. From 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. ET on Monday, CNN spent about as much time on Obama's "triple trouble" of controversy as it did on Saturday's Powerball-winning ticket.
CNN spent 12 full minutes reporting that one single ticket won the $590 million Powerball jackpot over the weekend, and had yet to be claimed. In comparison, three Obama administration scandals merited about the same coverage, 12 minutes, 21 seconds. Yet over three minutes of that coverage focused on the President's rising approval ratings amidst the controversies.
During the 1 p.m. ET hour of Newsroom, Wolf Blitzer and political analyst Gloria Borger focused only on poll numbers favorable to Obama. Borger noted the President's approval ratings rising from April, and reported how Congressional Republicans and Democrats, as well as the IRS, all have lower approval ratings.
"He's very, very popular, particularly compared to the people who are involved in these controversies," Borger said of Obama. "So we went and we looked at the popularity of the IRS, and of the Republican leaders in Congress. That speaks for itself, Wolf. We also looked at the popularity of the Democratic leaders in Congress. And that's not much better. It's at about 35 percent." CNN's screenshot showed the low ratings of the IRS and the Congressional GOP, but not the Congressional Democrats.
Borger and Blitzer ignored that the same CNN poll showed a majority of Americans think the Republicans are "reacting appropriately" to the IRS controversy, and that the IRS, AP, and Benghazi scandals are all "very important" to the country.
During CNN's 12 p.m. ET Around the World, co-hosts Michael Holmes and Suzanne Malveaux focused only on Obama's rising approval rating. "All right, a week filled with problems and controversies apparently not taking a toll on President Obama's approval ratings. A new CNN/ORC poll shows it all holding steady," reported Holmes.
Meanwhile, correspondent Jim Acosta reported both Obama's approval rating and the public thinking the scandals "very important" in his story that aired on both the 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. ET hours of Starting Point.
