Sitting in on ABC’s This Week, guest host Jonathan Karl brought on New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal to discuss an editorial titled “Repeal Prohibition, Again.” The unsigned piece proclaimed “It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol. “ Online, the stars on the flag transform into cannabis leaves.

Karl did something surprising. He quoted the New York Times back to Rosenthal, a 2012 editorial championing a crackdown on smoking by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He wondered: Why bash tobacco smoking and champion marijuana smoking? (Video below)

So just who is in charge in Barack Obama's White House?
 
ABC's Jonathan Karl on Tuesday asked White House press secretary why the letter from the White House to Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) inviting him to a meeting with President Obama regarding the Texas border crisis was from Valerie Jarrett.  While it's routine for staff to draft such letters for elected officials, matters of such magnitude and to other elected officials of stature are almost always in the name of the principle.  The president's spokesman, when asked why the letter was from Jarrett rather than the President, said  "Valerie spends a lot of time maintaining relationships with governors around the country" on behalf of the President. (Video below)

On Monday, July 7, Jonathan Karl, ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent, challenged White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, over whether or not the Obama Administration was deporting illegal immigrants at the rate they claim to be.  

Despite the contentious back-and-forth in which the ABC reporter accused the White House of providing “disinformation” on the number of illegal children being deported, ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer ignored Karl’s questioning of Earnest on Monday night.  

It's the latest viral video burning up the Internet, the talk of watercooler conversation all over the country today: President Obama looking positively goofy strenuously working out with a set of dumbbells. [I'll pause to let you write your own punchline]

It was video too good to ignore for both ABC's World News and CBS's Evening News, while NBC Nightly News decided to take a pass. Of course, both networks worked in a relatively positive spin for the president, with ABC worrying about and subsequently dismissing the notion of the video being a "security breach" while CBS's Maurice DuBois hailed the president as an disciplined athlete who sleepily hit the gym while on a grueling overseas trip. [See the relevant transcripts below the page break; Listen to MP3 audio here; Video follows page break]

Friday's World News on ABC mentioned the ongoing scandal surrounding the Veterans Administration only in passing, despite the fact their own chief White House correspondent, Jonathan Karl, hounded Press Secretary Jay Carney at the regular White House press briefing on the issue. Meanwhile, they set aside two full segments totaling seven minutes and 54 seconds of air time to Barbara Walters' departure from The View.

Diane Sawyer gave a 30-second news brief to a new development in the scandal – about one-sixteenth the amount of time that she and her newscast spent on Walters: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]