On Wednesday the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a devastating report that blamed the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s State Department for security failures leading up to the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
While the Big Three (ABC, CBS and NBC) networks covered the report for a day, they found another event far more compelling -- The First Lady’s 50th birthday bash, spending twice as much time on the White House party than Benghazi. (chart and video montage after the jump)
Calling in to Monday's NBC Today, weatherman Al Roker was giddy as he told his fellow co-hosts about attending Michelle Obama's White House birthday party: "...it was literally a house party. It was a house party that happened to be in the White House. My wife Deborah and I went. And it was – yeah, there were all these stars, which was kind of terrific." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Referencing Roker's long-running bromance with the Vice President, co-host Savannah Guthrie joked: "Did you and Joe Biden do like a conga line or anything like that?" Roker mentioned seeing Biden but was really thrilled by the First Lady: "I actually got to boogie a little with the First Lady....Deborah and I were dancing and all of a sudden I turned around and there was Mrs. Obama....And I'm thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm dancing with the First Lady.'"
On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson dismissed global warming skeptics pointing to record-low temperatures across the country: "As America the frozen thaws out, some want to reignite the debate over global warming....the Mercury feels like it's been on a bungee jump. Take New York, fifty-five degrees on Monday, down to a daily record low of four degrees Tuesday, back to fifty-five this Saturday. What does that tell us about global warming? Scientists say nothing." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
A sound bite followed of Jeff Masters from the global warming activist group Weather Underground declaring: "You can't look at a single event to prove or disprove global warming. You have to look at a period of 30 years to see what the climate is doing." Thompson added: "Global warming or climate change is measured in decades, not days, and the average temperature trend is up."
Al Roker’s man crush on Vice President Biden took a new and unusual turn on Friday’s Today.
Speaking with co-hosts Natalie Morales and Willie Geist, the NBC weatherman (jokingly?) expressed his desire to, “make the pitch [for Biden to co-host Today] wrapped in a box. I'm going to deliver myself on the front steps. Big bow in a box. He's going to open it. Mr. Vice president.” [See video after jump.]
Vice President Joe Biden unleashed another gaffe on Tuesday while talking to female employees at an internet company in Japan. According to the Examiner, Biden was "scheduled to address the company's female employees" and "discuss the economic impact of women in the corporate world." Instead, while talking to the women, he blurted, "Do your husbands like you working full time?"
ABC's Good Morning America, CBS This Morning and NBC's Today all ignored the remark. Imagine if a conservative Republican like Rick Santorum had made such a similar comment? The politically correct media would likely trot out the "war on women" theme. Instead, GMA's Josh Elliott strictly focused on the VP's agenda in another Asian country: "Vice President Biden is in Beijing, hoping to ease growing tensions with China...But today, Biden visited with Chinese students at the U.S. embassy there, urging them to challenge their government and not accept the status quo." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
All three networks on Tuesday hyped an "interesting" exchange between Barack Obama and a liberal heckler. ABC, CBS and ABC declined, however, to specifically note that the man's concern was that the President simply wasn't liberal enough on the issue of immigration reform. On NBC's Today, Natalie Morales praised, "You know, I think that the President handled it well by engaging." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Co-host Willie Geist defended the President's insistence that he needs Congress to pass legislation. Geist sympathetically noted, "The President's argument was 'I can't wave the magic wand and make this go away.' But he did do that for some of the younger dreamers." The younger dreamers? Quite the loaded term.
Early in the 9 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-hosts Willie Geist, Natalie Morales, and Al Roker mocked a series of new ads designed to promote ObamaCare, even with Geist reading one of them while doing his best impression of Anchorman's Ron Burgundy: "Let's get physical. OMG, he's hot. Let's hope he's as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting it between the covers." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
On Monday's NBC Today, weatherman Al Roker continued his campaign to get Vice President Joe Biden to co-host the morning show: "I mean, we love the VP, just because he's fun and he would fit in perfectly here." Roker was happy to gain support from The Huffington Post, touting an article published on the liberal blog entitled "Dear Joe Biden: Please Co-Host Today!!!" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Yet again, Roker made an impassioned plea for Biden to join the show for a day: "Again, Mr. Vice President, this is where you belong. We want you here. Spend the hour with us, hang out."
On Thursday's NBC Today, Al Roker's self-described "bromance" with Vice President Joe Biden continued as the morning show weatherman pleaded: "Mr. Vice President, once again, we beseech you, please come to the third hour, Today's Take, and co-host our show....right here, Vice President Biden, we want you here." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
The invitation was prompted by Biden's latest gaffe, which Roker giddily explained to viewers: "Our favorite....My man. In an effort to congratulate the new Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Vice President Joe Biden placed a phone call to Marty Walsh....Except he called the wrong Marty Walsh. He said, reportedly, 'Oh, you son of a gun, Marty, you did it!'"
After waiving and yelling like a groupie at President Obama and Vice President Biden back in January, Today weather anchor Al Roker palled around with Biden in a friendly interview that aired on Tuesday's Today show.
"You've got a thing. You and the Vice President. You've got a thing," joked co-host Willie Geist. "It's a bromance," responded Roker. "He's terrific. He's terrific." Roker also asked Biden if a government shutdown could affect disaster relief, and if extreme weather was the "new normal."
ABC and NBC led their morning shows on Tuesday with nearly 10 minutes of "breaking news" coverage of Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy. This celebrity-driven story was apparently deemed more important than abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell being found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, as Good Morning America and Today devoted just 38 seconds to the Gosnell trial. (audio clips of Jolie coverage available here; video below the jump)
Altogether, the ABC and NBC morning newscasts aired 19 minutes and 3 seconds of coverage on Jolie. Tuesday's CBS This Morning waited 12 minutes to cover the Hollywood news item, but ultimately ended up setting aside 7 minutes and 49 seconds of air time to the surgeries, versus a 18 second news brief on Gosnell. The total Big Three coverage of Jolie on Tuesday morning, including CBS's reporting, added up to 26 minutes and 52 seconds, as opposed to 56 seconds on the Gosnell case.
At the top of Sunday's NBC Today, co-host Erica Hill cheered President Obama's performance at Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner as she announced: "Comedian-in-chief....President Obama gets lots of laughs at the White House Correspondents' Dinner." Moments later, fellow co-host Lester Holt gushed that Obama was "very, very funny...very loose." Hill agreed, suggesting the President "take that show on the road." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Following a report on how Obama "embraced his role as comedian-in-chief," Hill asked Meet the Press moderator David Gregory for his thoughts on the presidential stand-up. Gregory happily joined in the Obama praise: "I think the President did well. I mean, the President always does well. Any president does who, you know, is in a position to be sort of rooted on in many ways. And I think that's what happened last night. But I think the President was particularly on last night..." One wonders who Gregory thought had "rooted on" the President at the event heavily attended by media figures.