Newly-announced presidential candidate and neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson broke onto the national scene at a National Prayer Breakfast in 2013 when he, while sharing the same stage as the President, had the courage to rail against the deficit, political correctness, and the tax system while also standing up for religious values and advocating health savings accounts as an alternative to Obamacare. 

Not only did the Metropolitan Police Department warn producers for Meet the Press back in December 2012 that then-host David Gregory possessing a high-capacity ammunition magazine at NBC studios would be a misdemeanor weapons offense, the MPD shortly thereafter worked up an arrest warrant for Gregory when he displayed such a magazine on national television from the NBC network's Washington, D.C. studio. But it took some legal wrangling for a conservative blogger to get a federal judge to order the District of Columbia's finest to hand over the affidavit that MPD officers filed in the course of seeking an arrest warrant for Gregory.

As reported by Politico, recently dumped Meet the Press moderator David Gregory moderated a panel for the No Labels Strategic Agenda conference in Washington on Wednesday and lectured his media colleagues: "[I]n Washington political journalism the narrative gets set, and it gets set early and built on. And things that fight the narrative get harder to report out, I think, often because of laziness in media."

Given that Meet the Press on his watch was routinely a place to promote the conventional wisdom of Washington, Gregory is hardly one to accuse other journalists of lazily accepting inside-the-beltway spin in political coverage.

In an effort to reverse the perpetual and disastrous ratings slide Meet the Press experienced during David Gregory's tenure as anchor of the Sunday morning program, NBC is going all out and bringing in Joe Scarborough, the co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe program, to provide a “right-leaning voice” during panel discussions, and the son of the late -- and still beloved -- former host Tim Russert.

These changes will take effect on Sunday, the first edition under the guidance of the show's 11th moderator, Chuck Todd, who was formerly the chief White House correspondent for the network and host of The Daily Rundown on MSNBC.

Filling in as host of NBC's August 17 Meet the Press, Andrea Mitchell looked back at departing moderator David Gregory's years anchoring the broadcast. The tribute followed Thursday's announcement that Gregory was being replaced by political director Chuck Todd and leaving the network. The switch marked the end of a tenure in which Gregory behaved more like a Democratic Party spokesman than an objective news anchor. Perhaps that contributed to the faltering ratings of the Sunday talk show on his watch.

Unlike his predecessor, the late Tim Russert, Gregory failed to be the tough-but-fair newsman who grilled all guests equally, no matter their party affiliation. Instead he played favorites, smearing Republicans like Paul Ryan as uncaring towards the poor while teeing up Democrats like Congressman John Lewis to attack conservatives as resentful racists. Here is a sampling of some of Gregory's most liberal quotes at the helm of Meet the Press: