NBC's Today and CBS's Early Show on Thursday turned to Obama advisor David Plouffe on Thursday to offer his spin on the President's 67-minute presser on Wednesday, instead of interviewing Republicans. Both shows failed to press their guest about Obama's part in raising the nation's debt. NBC's Matt Lauer did toss some hardball questions at Plouffe on the President's "ownership" of the economy.
During her interview of the White House political advisor, which aired eight minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour, Jarvis raised how, in the midst of his anti-Republican press conference, the President compared his congressional opponents negatively to his own kids in her second question. Plouffe replied by foisting all of the blame for the debt on the GOP in his answer:
David Plouffe
It's no great surprise when an Obama administration official takes a swipe at Fox News.
But it is somewhat unseemly when one of the President's top advisers and campaign manager does it in front of Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Barack Obama's 2008 campaign manager on Sunday said Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin are currently the leaders of the Republican Party, and this represents a long-term problem for the GOP.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," David Plouffe was asked about a number of questions facing the nation as well as the President he helped get elected.
Apparently feeling the need to do some conservative bashing, host Gregory asked Plouffe about a section from his book "Audacity to Win" dealing with Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin.
This set the Obama adviser up nicely to go after targets liberals just love to hate (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Speaking to political analyst John Dickerson on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show about Republican Scott Brown winning the Massachusetts Senate race, co-host Maggie Rodriguez lamented: “When it comes to health care, I think it’s so ironic that the late Ted Kennedy’s passion was health care. He dedicated his career to it. And the man who will replace him could be the one to derail it.”Rodriguez wondered: “Do you think that’ll happen? Do you think that Senator Brown will be seated in time to vote no?” Dickerson replied: “I think so. It looks like there’s not any appetite to try and rush something through quickly. Health care is already unpopular in Massachusetts and across the country. It’s a very tricky thing indeed to take an unpopular bill and then sort of sneak it in through this back door way. So that’s politically too painful.”
Interestingly, Rodriguez’s concern over Kennedy’s health care legacy was almost identical to a question NBC’s Meredith Vieira asked Senator-elect Brown on Wednesday’s Today: “...you plan to do whatever you can to derail what Ted Kennedy called, called ‘the cause of his lifetime,’ which is health care reform?”
From accusing her of igniting a civil war within the Republican Party to calling her "nutty" antics a "treasure" to the Democrats, the mainstream media is once again shamelessly slamming Sarah Palin.
On Nov. 3 CBS' "Early Show" interviewed Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, co-authors of "Sarah from Alaska," a "very revealing" book about Palin on the campaign trail.
"Later this month, Palin's highly anticipated memoir hits bookstores," said CBS' Harry Smith. "But another book beats her to it."
To start off the interview, Smith asked Conroy (who, by the way, also works for CBS) to explain what was going on "behind the scenes" when John McCain gave his concession speech on Election Day last year.
Conroy wasted no time painting Palin as a media hungry mongrel, saying:
Would you ever in your wildest dreams have imagined a year after Barack Obama's historic victory a new website created by former MSNBC GM Dan Abrams and crawling with ex-Huffington Posters would declare in a headline, "If The Election Were Held Today Obama Would Lose?"
Granted, the article written by ex-HuffPoster Glynnis MacNicol took its cue from a recently released Rasmussen poll, and discounted its findings.
Regardless, the headline and opening paragraphs by themselves indicate just how much the bloom has come off the Barose (h/t Matt Lewis):
It seems that the moratorium on appearances by White House officers on the Fox News Channel has ended. But high-ranking Democratic officials continue to peddle false information about the cable network, leveling unsupported charges of bias and political favoritism against it.Noel Sheppard reported last week that Fox Senior Vice President Michael Clemente and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reportedly reached a truce during a meeting at Gibbs's office Wednesday.
David Plouffe all but confirmed the truce when he told The Swamp today that he is planning on promoting his new book "The Audacity to Win" on Fox's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" Thursday night. Plouffe had cut Fox out of his regular network news appearances.
In deciding which Sunday talk shows to focus on, I typically tap into Politico's Sunday talk show tip sheet, which provides a helpful round-up of the Sunday line-up.
Scrolling there today, I came upon the photo you see here. Of all the innumerable images of the three men, these are the pictures Politico chose to announce the appearance of Joe Lieberman, Rush Limbaugh and David Plouffe on Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press, respectively.
You don't suppose Politico's pic picks might reflect its biases, do you? Let's break it down . . .
Here's the relative tempest in a teapot that happened on Thursday:
Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe made an unusual request for his speech today at the National Press Club: he wanted it off the record.
..... Politico editor-in-chief John Harris said that after hearing of Plouffe’s request, and decision not to reverse course, he backed out from moderating the lunch-time event.
Harris said that as a news organization, he doesn't want Politico "being in the the business of sponsoring, or co-sponsoring, an off the record talk with a newsworthy person.”
Here's a much more relevant issue: How is David Plouffe (picture above is at Media Bistro) a "former" campaign manager?
Based on this e-mail I received on Friday, I'd say he's still in that role (bold is mine):