NBC's special presentation of Rock Center on the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's assassination wasn't just a victory lap for Barack Obama.
It was also a chance for host Brian Williams to praise Bill Clinton for going after the former al Qaeda leader without mentioning all the times his administration passed on chances to get him (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Are you starting to feel the media are spiking more footballs as the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's execution nears than the President himself?
On CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, the host actually called this "the biggest decision" of Barack Obama's presidency (video follows with transcript and commentary):
In an interview with senior Mitt Romney campaign adviser Ed Gillespie on Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory noted how President Obama was "certainly using" the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden "against Governor Romney" and quickly justified the crass political move by claiming "the same sort of tactics that were used in a lot of people's eyes" by President Bush.
After playing a sound bite of Vice President Biden suggesting Mitt Romney would not have ordered the killing of Bin Laden, Gregory proclaimed: "Here's an example, back in 2004, of an ad that he [President Bush] ran as he was running for reelection....Using images from the World Trade Center. A lot of people see that as the very same thing. Is it not?"
On Monday's The Ed Show on MSNBC, as host Ed Schultz and MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe - formerly of Newsweek - discussed Mitt Romney's crack on President Obama that even President Carter would have had the judgment to order the killing of Osama bin Laden once the 9/11 mastermind had been found, the two MSNBC personalities fretted that Romney had taken a "cheap shot" at Jimmy Carter.
It seems a metaphysical certitude that when Charlie Rose asked the perilously liberal publisher Arianna Huffington about Barack Obama's new campaign ad featuring former President Bill Clinton praising the current White House resident's decision to take out Osama bin Laden the CBS This Morning co-host didn't expect this answer.
"To turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Classic MSM jujitsu. Chuck Todd has attempted to turn the issue of President Obama's unseemly spiking of the football on the anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, into an attack on Republicans for reacting to Obama's politicization of the event.
On his MSNBC show The Daily Rundown, Todd began his discussion of the matter this morning by asking the Washington Post's Dan Balz whether he was surprised by how "aggressive" the Romney campaign has been on the matter. A bit later Todd suggested to Clarence Page that Republicans were "overreacting" to Obama's boasts. Right. Romney should run a passive campaign, like, say John McCain did! Good-loser Republicans: yeah, that's the MSM ticket! Video after the jump.
Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, said Sunday that President Obama was informed by CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell in December 2010 "that the circumstantial case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was better than the circumstantial case that bin Laden was in Abbottabad."
This astonishing revelation was made on CBS's Face the Nation (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Hillary Clinton says the expression on her face in that now iconic picture of the White House Situation Room taken the day Osama bin Laden was killed is "the way I usually look when my husband drags me to an action movie."
Such was told to NBC's Brian Williams for a Rock Center special to be aired Wednesday which was previewed on Sunday's Meet the Press (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):
The media were predictably orgasmic over a new Obama campaign ad out Friday featuring former President Bill Clinton in a strong message implying Mitt Romney wouldn't have made the decision last year to kill Osama bin Laden.
The problem with their glee is that Clinton himself passed up numerous opportunities to kill or capture bin Laden prior to leaving the White House in January 2001 thereby making this entire ad totally hypocritical as is the press's joy for it (video follows with commentary).
Debuting his first radio show yesterday on WABC in New York City, Geraldo Rivera reminisced about his storied career in media with guests including Donald Trump, former NYC mayor Ed Koch and Fox News colleague Mike Huckabee.
The show turned unintentionally hilarious when Rivera described how he begged Fox chief Roger Ailes to send him to Afghanistan as a war correspondent after 9/11, and Rivera's response to the stunning news last May that bin Laden was dead (audio) --
Somebody check the calendar. Aren't we almost in 2012? Yet there's Kathleen Parker on Chris Matthews's weekend show today, still gushing over Barack Obama like a member of the liberal media in the deepest throes of 2008 Obama-adulation.
After extolling Obama's foreign policy approach as "cool" [mangling a basketball metaphor along the way], Parker defiantly declared: "I know everybody's going to say [I'm] an Obama lover. Whatever." Video after the jump.
Will Herman Cain ever catch on that certain subjects -- such as the alleged sanctity of Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas -- are no joking matter? (video and audio clips after page break)