On Thursday, the Moody's credit-rating agency downgraded its assessment of U.S. health insurance companies from "stable" to "negative," citing ongoing woes in ObamaCare's rollout. This is, of course, is yet another piece of bad news for President Obama, coming just five days before his State of the Union address and shortly after a new Quinnipiac poll finding 53 percent of respondents believing the president is incompetent at his job.

Fortunately for Mr. Obama, the president enjoys a liberal news media intent on shielding the president -- and with him his congressional Democratic allies -- as best they can. On Thursday evening, none of the Big Three network evening newscasts even bothered to briefly mention the Moody's downgrade. Likewise none of the Big Three morning news programs thought it worthy of even a brief mention in a news-desk roundup. The New York Times -- motto: All the news that's fit to print -- also ignored the story in its Friday print edition.

On Tuesday, Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas noted a new Quinnipiac survey finding that only 35 percent of Americans believe that New Jersey governor Chris Christie would make a good president -- down from 49 percent in November -- and that Christie trails Hillary Clinton by eight points in a hypothetical presidential contest (he led her by one point in November and December Quinnipiac polls).

Moulitsas concluded from these numbers that "people care about" Bridgegate but not about the "fake" Benghazi scandal. He called the fourteen-point drop in Christie's would-make-a-good-POTUS rating "pretty much an epic collapse" and asserted that Bridgegate "is nowhere near its conclusion."

Chris Matthews really doesn’t listen when he speaks.  On every program since Chris Christie’s bridge scandal broke on January 8, the MSNBC anchor has smeared the Republican governor as just like Richard Nixon in Watergate. Matthews has done this for nine straight shows, including the January 20 edition.

However, on the same program, with no sense of self awareness, a thought occurred to the anchor.  He announced that if “it is discovered that Governor Christie did not encourage political revenge, did not signal that this is the way he wanted political business conducted, then he will be exonerated before the eyes of the country. The facts will decide it. And that`s the way it should be.”  [See video below.]

All three networks on Tuesday morning continued to pile on Chris Christie, offering gloating coverage about how his “glory days” have gone terribly wrong.  After recounting everything that has gone awry for the Republican, Good Morning America's Jim Avila imagined, “You can almost see at the inauguration today, Governor Christie raising his right hand and shaking his head at the same time. “ [See video below.] Co-host Robin Roberts added, “It’s not what they thought today was going to be.”

After reiterating that  the new year is “not at all going to plan” for Christie, Avila continued, “Instead, [the governor has been] forced to play scandal whack-a-mole, with new poll numbers falling.” CBS This Morning offered a network graphic that trumpeted, “Christie Crisis.” Journalist Elaine Quijano featured  Alex Burns from the liberal Politico to lecture that in order to run for President, Christie needed to “run up the legislative score board in New Jersey. I think we can safely say that all those plans are on hold.”  

In an online piece teased on the Time.com landing page as "Christie Dodged 'Bully' Bullet," Time’s Mark Halperin hyped his “EXCLUSIVE: Christie Rival Called Him ‘Bully’ In Unaired Ad.”

At issue in the January 20 piece is how State Sen. Barbara Buono produced an unaired anti-Christie ad in which the Democratic nominee for governor asserted that, “she clearly saw the very traits in Christie that have laid him low now.” The Time contributor and frequent MSNBC guest claimed in his piece that, "At the top of Buono’s list was the notion that Christie is a “bully” who lacks the temperament to be an effective leader."