In an interview with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer used attack lines from deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter to question the honesty of Paul Ryan's vice presidential nomination acceptance speech: "[She] said, 'Forty minutes of vitriol and half a dozen previously debunked attacks.' Was it an honest speech or was it just a campaign convention speech?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
This is the same Stephanie Cutter who in July made the wild accusation that Mitt Romney was a felon. In an interview with Cutter shortly after that outrageous comment, Lauer failed to even mention the remark, let alone challenge her on it.
Stephanie Cutter
By Kyle Drennen | August 30, 2012 | 10:46 AM EDT
By Tom Blumer | August 29, 2012 | 12:46 PM EDT
On August 27, PolitiFact, the once promising but now largely co-opted "fact check" site run by the Tampa Bay Times, finally got around to evaluating Obama campaign spokesperson Stephanie Cutter's August 22 lie that "over the past, you know, 27 months we've created ... more jobs than in the Bush recovery, in the Reagan recovery." Apparently, the evaluators lost their matches as they only gave Cutter's statement a "False" tag.
In doing so, PolitiFact clearly ignored its own rating guidelines, wherein "False" means that "The statement is not accurate," while "Pants on Fire" means "The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim." Cutter made an utterly ridiculous claim, which I will illustrate beyond what was already shown on Sunday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog):
By Tom Blumer | August 26, 2012 | 9:40 AM EDT
Obama campaign spokesperson Stepanie Cutter, appearing on MSNBC earlier this week, claimed that "over the past, you know, 27 months we've created 4.5 million private-sector jobs. That's more jobs than in the Bush recovery (or) in the Reagan recovery."
A Thursday Investor's Business Daily editorial plaintively asked: "Where are those allegedly unbiased fact-checkers when you need them?" As will be seen shortly, the answer is "AWOL."
By Matthew Balan | August 21, 2012 | 4:26 PM EDT
On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King applauded colleague Nancy Cordes for her "great question" to President Obama on Monday about a dishonest ad from a supporting super PAC that blamed Mitt Romney for a woman's cancer death. However, they failed to mention Cordes's earlier question on how Obama's campaign has "suggested that Mr. Romney might be a felon for the way that he handed over power of Bain Capital."
The President falsely claimed that "nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon" in his answer to Cordes, an additional detail that went unnoticed by the CBS on-air personalities. Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager, made the felony suggestion on July 12, 2012: "Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony, or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people."
Obama Campaign Manager: Entertainment Tonight and People Mag 'Equally Important' to Press Conferences
By Noel Sheppard | August 19, 2012 | 10:57 AM EDT President Obama's deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter made an astonishing statement on CNN's State of the Union Sunday.
According to her, the current White House resident giving interviews to Entertainment Tonight and People magazine are "equally important" to doing an actual press conference with the national news media (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
By Kyle Drennen | August 13, 2012 | 2:46 PM EDT
On Monday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer actually used the President's own past statements about Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to grill deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter: "President Obama said this of Paul Ryan, that he was 'absolutely sincere about wanting to reduce the deficit'...gave him 'credit for at least being willing to put out there some very tough choices.' Does he still feel that way?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Cutter attempted to rely on the usual Democratic fearmongering, accusing Ryan of a plan "that balances the budget on the backs of the middle class." Lauer called her out for that tactic, again citing Obama's own words: "...he said this, quote, 'We're not going to be able to do anything about these entitlements if what we do characterize whatever proposal's are put out there as well, you know, that's the other party being irresponsible...the other party trying to hurt our senior citizens.' Which sounds exactly what – like what you just said."
By Kyle Drennen | July 17, 2012 | 11:34 AM EDT
In an otherwise tough interview with Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter on Tuesday's NBC Today about the negative tone of the President's re-election bid, co-host Matt Lauer failed to challenge her on the nastiest attack hurled by Democrats so far, Cutter's own charge that Mitt Romney may have committed a felony.
Lauer repeatedly grilled Cutter on President Obama abandoning the rhetoric of hope and change from the 2008 campaign: "If you think about what your candidate is out there on the campaign trail saying and compare it to what he was saying as a candidate four years ago....are you proud of the message he's out there delivering?...would you say the President has run an exceedingly positive or exceedingly negative campaign?" However, the obvious question about Cutter leading that "exceedingly negative campaign" never came.
By Jack Coleman | July 16, 2012 | 9:46 PM EDT
Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter succeeding in getting under Ed Schultz's skin by canceling her appearance on his radio show Friday with only 15 minutes' notice. (audio clips after page break)
Schultz tried to hide his irritation but it was a losing battle (audio) --
By Matt Hadro | June 11, 2012 | 4:36 PM EDT
Does CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien's job description include spoonfeeding Democratic talking points to Obama's deputy campaign manager? Quoting a study used by the Democratic-appointed CBO director to defend the stimulus plan, O'Brien asked Stephanie Cutter if there should be another stimulus, on Monday's Starting Point.
"So, is the takeaway from this, the stimulus worked, so there should be another stimulus?" O'Brien asked after touting a survey of economists that included the Obama's former economic advisers.
By Matt Hadro | March 28, 2012 | 12:45 PM EDT
Apparently, Soledad O'Brien's idea of a balanced discussion is three-to-one Democratic majority. Three out of the four guests she hosted on Wednesday's Starting Point to discuss the ObamaCare hearings were Democrats, and the CNN host did not press them to defend the health care bill's constitutionality.
Her questions simply focused on the state of the legislation and the implications of the Supreme Court decision, teeing up the Democrats to defend the bill and downplay the chance that the individual mandate will be overturned.
By Matt Hadro | February 23, 2012 | 3:44 PM EST
While she grilled Rick Santorum's press secretary over his debate performance, CNN host Soledad O'Brien asked an Obama aide nothing even approaching a critical question on Thursday's Starting Point, and even teed her up to bash Republicans.
O'Brien mirrored her own network's treatment of President Obama in Wednesday night's debate – avoiding critical questions on the President's record and past statements. Instead, she kept the focus squarely on Republican missteps in her interviews with both Republican and Democrat staffers.
By Matthew Balan | August 1, 2011 | 4:48 PM EDT
On Monday's Early Show, CBS slanted towards supporters of a new Obama administration mandate which requires private insurance companies to cover contraception as part of women's "preventative services." Anchor Chris Wragge labeled the development "good news," while correspondent Michelle Miller failed to include sound bites from opponents during her report on the new regulation.
After using his "good news" phrase, Wragge trumpeted the "historic new women's health guidelines" during his introduction for Miller's report, which aired at the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour. The correspondent herself picked up where the anchor left off when she stated that new mandate was "welcome news to the women we spoke to." She then played two sound bites from women on the street who gave supposed horror stories about the cost of birth control.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Sometimes, $20 a month can definitely be hard to scrape together.