For the seventh straight year, Barack Obama will be interviewed prior to the Super Bowl. Just before the kickoff between the Seahawks and the Patriots, the President will talk to NBC's Savannah Guthrie. This will be the third Super Bowl interview with NBC. Back in 2009, Matt Lauer gushed to the new president: "Has there been any surprise in terms about life in the White House? Is there something at the White House that you didn't think they had or doesn't have that you thought they did have?"
Super Bowl
By Paul Bremmer | February 4, 2014 | 5:45 PM EST
MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry devoted her entire program to football on Super Bowl Sunday, and over the course of two hours she proved that she is a big fan of brash Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman. During a roundtable discussion about head injuries in the NFL, Harris-Perry singled out Sherman’s noggin as especially worthy of protection.
“I just want to run up and put my hands around his head and say, ‘Don't let anyone hit it, you’re so brilliant,’” the Tulane professor pronounced. And just why, exactly, does Harris-Perry find Sherman so brilliant?
By Kyle Drennen | February 3, 2014 | 11:55 AM EST
All three network morning shows on Monday promoted President Obama's attempts to deflect tough questions on a several administration scandals during a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Sunday. On NBC's Today, news reader Natalie Morales described how during the "sometimes contentious interview" the President "said he tries to focus not on the fumbles, but on the next plan." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
ABC's news reader Josh Elliott touted the same line on Good Morning America: "The President said he tries not to focus on the fumbles in his administration, but rather, on the next plan."
By Kyle Drennen | February 3, 2014 | 10:59 AM EST
Not accustomed to being asked difficult questions about his failures in office, President Obama attacked Fox News host Bill O'Reilly during a pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday for daring to demand answers about the Benghazi terrorist attack and the IRS targeting conservative groups. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
O'Reilly pressed: "Your detractors believe that you did not tell the world it was a terror attack because your campaign didn't want that out. That's what they believe." Obama ranted in reply: "And they believe it because folks like you are telling them that." O'Reilly responded: "No, I'm not telling them that, I'm asking you whether you were told it was a terror attack."
By Paul Bremmer | February 5, 2013 | 12:54 PM EST
Take heart, everyone: the NFL is changing. Football players these days are more tolerant, more willing to embrace social progress. They are moving in the direction of the country as a whole. Such were the conclusions reached by CBS’s Jim Axelrod.
In a segment aired one day before the Super Bowl on CBS Saturday Morning, Axelrod proudly told his audience that players’ attitudes toward gay marriage are evolving. Players like the 49ers’ Chris Culliver, who recently said a gay teammate would not be welcome in his locker room, are a dying breed. What’s more -- and this is apparently newsworthy to CBS -- football players are actually capable of disagreeing civilly and rationally about gay marriage. [View video after the jump. MP3 audio here.]
By Matt Hadro | February 8, 2011 | 6:14 PM EST
Seemingly looking for any way to smear the Fox network, MSNBC's Ed Schultz pointed the finger at Fox for singer and four-time Grammy wi
Scarborough Jokes: Will 'Talk Radio' Conservatives Blame Obama for Aguilera's Poor National Anthem Performance?
By Matt Hadro | February 7, 2011 | 12:27 PM EST
During a Monday morning recap of the Super Bowl, "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough asked, tongue-in-cheek, if "right-wing, talk radio conservatives" would blame President Obama for the ghastly national anthem performance by four-time Grammy winner Christina Aguilera.
Amidst the light-hearted banter, Scarborough turned serious and asked "when we talked about what's driving the week – will conservatives, will conservatives – right-wing, talk radio conservatives – blame Barack Obama for Christina Aguilera defacing the national anthem?"
Time magazine's Mark Halperin, and co-host Willie Geist played along. "Glenn Beck's got the chalkboard going right now," Scarborough continued. "With the dotted line," Halperin added. "He's ready," chimed in Geist.
By Colleen Raezler | April 23, 2010 | 10:21 AM EDT 
The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam.
The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, focused on remarks he made after 9/11 in which he called Islam "wicked" and "evil" and his lack of apology for those words.
Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, told ABC News on April 22, "This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue."
By Noel Sheppard | January 30, 2010 | 2:53 PM EST
CBS on Friday rejected an ad submitted by a gay dating website to air during next Sunday's Super Bowl
"The network shot down the commercial Friday in a letter to the site -- ManCrunch.com -- saying the 'creative is not within the Network's Broadcast Standards for Super Bowl Sunday,'" reported Jason Hibberd at The Live Feed.
Hibberd cited a letter from CBS in which the network expressed concern the site didn't have the money to pay for the ad (video of ad embedded below the fold):
By Ken Shepherd | January 26, 2010 | 4:13 PM EST
Discounting the pro-life argument of a planned Focus on the Family Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow's mother, Joy Behar told the audience of the January 26 "View" that the Florida quarterback just as easily could have been a "rapist pedophile." [audio available here]
"What are people flippin' out about," bewildered moderator Whoopi Goldberg -- herself an ardent pro-choice activist -- asked.
"The only argument against any of it is, that, you know, he could just as easily become some kind of a rapist pedophile. I mean, you don't know what someone's going to be," Behar answered, adding:
By NB Staff | January 26, 2010 | 2:38 PM EST
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell called on the CBS television network to stay the course in planning to air a life-affirming Super Bowl commercial featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, who was pressured to abort him during her pregnancy, after a bout of opposition has arisen among left-wing activist groups:
Radical leftist groups like the National Organization for Women have the gall to claim that this life-affirming ad is "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." I have to wonder, what is so offensive about celebrating the decision of a mother to have her baby?
Bozell added that "CBS has the opportunity to make this a game-changer for network television," an "opportunity to show balance and fairness -- and simple decency" and "to stand against liberal liberal political censorship."