After President Obama's victory lap Tuesday over the rollout of his health care law, ABC's Matthew Dowd told Republicans to let Obama celebrate and stop trying to repeal ObamaCare.
"You have to give the President ground to have some celebration," Dowd insisted. "A little bit of dancing in the end zone. I think Republicans would be really smart, let him have the touchdown, don't ask for instant replay."
The networks all hyped the new United Nations report on climate change on Monday evening, touting it as a dire call for action and an "urgent new warning."
NBC's Brian Williams gave by far the most dramatic take on the report, even starting the Nightly News with the story. "Good evening, the world has never been spoken to quite this way," he soberly began. [See video below.]
Hours before ObamaCare's enrollment deadline, the networks provided an overall positive take on the law and allowed the White House to defend its signature legislation, leaving no room for a Republican response.
CBS highlighted the last-minute rush to sign up on the exchanges but when it reported that the final enrollment numbers would fall short of the White House's original prediction, it turned to President Obama who downplayed the shortfall. At least NBC and ABC noted that questions still need answering, like how many enrollees actually paid their first premium.
The network evening news casts have yet to report an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that President Obama's proposal to hike the minimum wage would cost the private sector $15 billion and raise the deficit.
The CBO report came out on Wednesday, but as of Friday evening the networks have ignored it. As the Washington Free Beacon pointed out, the CBO says that Obama's minimum wage would raise the deficit by $5 billion over 10 years and cost private employers $15 billion.
To accompany ABC's tough interview of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Friday's Nightline quoted New Jersey Democrats slamming him as a vengeful "bully."
World News anchor Diane Sawyer noted that "critics remember the lure of Christie's brash personal style" before airing clips of Democrats pounding him. Sawyer pressed Christie repeatedly over New Jersey's bridge closure scandal, but she barely mentioned Benghazi in an October 2012 interview with President Obama, a month before the election.
All the networks gave positive coverage on Wednesday evening to President Obama's meeting with Pope Francis, but ABC left out the elephant in the room, the massive conflict between the Obama administration and the U.S. Catholic Bishops over the birth control mandate.
Each network reported a happy meeting; both ABC and NBC called it "historic." All the networks highlighted the consensus between the two men on fighting poverty, as ABC noted a "bond" between the two men.
In the latest of countless hate-filled smears, venom, and name-calling towards conservatives by his MSNBC colleagues, Ed Schultz accused right-wing radio on Thursday of launching a "jihad" against ObamaCare.
Announcing the new ObamaCare enrollment numbers, Schultz touted, "to me, I think this is amazing, when you consider the countless hours on right-wing radio, 600 stations across the country that basically did a jihad on Obamacare."
Without a hint of irony, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews savaged “flunker” Mitt Romney on Wednesday for his criticism of President Obama’s foreign policy.
“These Republicans, Romney, Rumsfeld, remind me of kids who flunked out of high school but come back to tap on the classroom windows,” Matthews sneered. “They're only there to get attention and otherwise disrupt those that are trying to learn. Got it? Dropouts. Flunkers.”
NBC was the only network to report on the Democratic mayor of Charlotte's arrest on Wednesday evening, but they left out his party affiliation.
Anchor Brian Williams reported that Mayor Patrick Cannon was "busted today by the FBI after a sting operation several years in the making" but ignored that he was a Democrat. This isn't the first time the networks have left out the Democratic party affiliation of a scandal-embroiled mayor.
Both ABC and NBC ignored the latest delay for ObamaCare on Wednesday evening's news casts, and CBS whitewashed any controversy until the end of its report.
The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would extend ObamaCare's enrollment deadline until mid-April for anyone who would have trouble signing up at the last minute. Not only was the administration changing its long-established deadline, but it would only use the "honor system" to verify those who had legitimate problems enrolling. CBS was the only network to report this big delay on Wednesday evening.
While on Tuesday evening the networks hyped President Obama "talking tough" to Russia and "belittling" them, only ABC pressed him on whether he was wrong about Russia during the 2012 campaign.
ABC's White House correspondent Jonathan Karl asked the President, "In the light of recent developments, do you think Mitt Romney had a point when he said that Russia is America's biggest geopolitical foe?" The World News aired the clip, as well as Obama's response that Russia is only a "regional power."
Monday's NBC Nightly News gave a nice shout-out to First Lady Michelle Obama's trip to China without mentioning the controversy that no press contingent was allowed to accompany her and her daughters.
Anchor Brian Williams warmly recapped the Obamas' trip abroad: "They have walked along a section of the Great Wall, they have visited the incredible Terra Cotta army at 6,000 strong. And the First Lady has jumped rope by local invitation."
With only a week to go before ObamaCare's sign-up deadline, the networks ignored the law entirely on Monday evening even though the latest estimate has the administration one million sign-ups short of its revised goal.
As NewsBusters reported, the networks skipped the story on Monday morning as well. That continues their trend of shelving bad news for ObamaCare, including the low enrollment numbers among young people and the administration's latest delay that let many keep their current insurance plans that the White House once called "shoddy."
While the networks swooned over President Obama's mock interview with comedian Zach Galifianakis, only ABC noted Obama's appearance on Thursday's Ellen DeGeneres Show where he plugged ObamaCare.
And ABC focused only on the shallow, touting Obama's exchange with DeGeneres over her "selfie" at the Oscars. Interestingly, they left out the President plugging his health care law. Neither NBC nor CBS even mentioned the interview after all three networks touted Obama's interview with Galifianakis where he pushed for ObamaCare.
In an interview with Chelsea Clinton on Thursday's Tonight Show, comedian Jimmy Fallon told the audience "Go to Healthcare.gov" after Clinton prodded him to shill for the law.
"I told everyone to go there," Fallon said of his interview with Michelle Obama, and added "Go to Healthcare.gov." Clinton had teed him up as an "authority" on the issue and asked him to plug the website.
Comedian Jimmy Fallon isn't known for his animosity towards the Obamas, but he "burned" the President's health care law on Wednesday's Tonight Show.
Impersonating Russian president Vladimir Putin on a mock phone call with Obama, Fallon took a swipe at ObamaCare after the President accused him of forcing Russian allegiance upon Crimea:
None of the network evening news casts have yet mentioned President Obama’s delay of the individual mandate for anyone claiming "hardship," which reportedly would exempt millions from having to purchase health insurance for two more years.
As insurance industry expert Bob Laszewski put it to CNBC’s Larry Kudlow on Thursday, Obama “essentially said if you find health insurance unaffordable, you're not going to be mandated to buy it.” And as the Wall Street Journal reported last week, ObamaCare’s newest mandate delay allows for just that:
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow launched a crusade on Wednesday night against a Michigan measure that would prevent the public from having to cover abortion in insurance plans. Maddow joined state Democrats and called the bill the "rape insurance" bill.
"Your insurance cannot even cover you getting an abortion if you got pregnant because you were raped. That's why the law's opponents are calling it the 'rape insurance' bill," Maddow reported. "I continue to maintain that over the last few years, Michigan state government has become way more insane than anyone nationally gives them credit for."
NBC ignored its own poll Wednesday evening that had President Obama at an all-time low approval rating.
Obama received just 41 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, but NBC only reported the findings on Wednesday morning's Today show in a news brief. NBC ignored that ObamaCare's approval was also underwater.
After a Republican won a bellweather election in Florida on Tuesday night, the networks made no mention of it on Wednesday evening. That came after they gave a pittance of coverage to the victory on Wednesday morning.
CBS was the only network to report on the race Tuesday evening, but even they were nowhere to be seen the night after. Correspondent Nancy Cordes had made it clear Tuesday that the race had serious implications: "Both parties see this race as a referendum on the President's health care law."
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