At the end of Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator Chuck Todd led his panel of guests in warning Republicans against any effort to oppose ObamaCare if they win the Senate majority in the upcoming midterm election: "...the biggest, I would argue, false promise of the...midterm campaign has been about [repealing] the Affordable Care Act....[Mitch McConnell's] never gonna have the ability to do it."

Politico's Manu Raju asserted: "That's right. Even if he gets the majority, it's going to be a 51-49 majority." Todd wondered: "Are Republicans over-promising here? Because their base is gonna expect to see that and it ain't gonna happen." Raju agreed: "It isn't gonna happen."

On Tuesday's New Day, CNN's John King targeted President Obama and his administration for their "textbook case...of do as I say, not as I do" on the issue of equal pay for women. After playing a clip of Press Secretary Jay Carney playing up how the 88 cents on the dollar women in the White House apparently make compared to men is "better than the national average," King quipped, "I guess the coach would say, is that the best you got?"

The journalist also spotlighted two past studies involving the White House and congressional payroll at the time Mr. Obama was serving as a senator from Illinois, and pointed out the bad optics of the situation: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

In a story published early this morning by Manu Raju at the Politico which is primarily about Senate Majority Harry Reid's plans to aggressively pursue reelection in 2016, the Nevada senator took shots at the establishment press for "trying so hard to be fair that you are unfair."

Proving Reid wrong in real time, Raju failed to mention Reid's response last week to a question by Dana Bash at CNN — which by the way, as Matt Hadro at NewsBusters noted earlier today, has been pounding Republicans ever since as if to compensate. Bash asked Reid if it would be worth it to continue to fund clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health if doing so could help one child with cancer. His answer, on tape: "Why would we want to do that?" Excerpts from the Raju's report follow the jump (HT Ed Driscoll; bolds are mine):

In his brief time in the United States Senate, Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is already making a name for himself on Capitol Hill, with the February 15 edition of Politico suggesting that his “no-compromise, firebrand style could turn off voters.” 

In the 36-paragraph article, Politico’s Manu Raju waited until the 18^th paragraph to include any direct quotes from the freshman Tea Party senator. What's more, Raju peppered the piece with numerous anecdotes meant to cast Cruz's assertive style in a negative light:

Behind closed doors, some Republican senators report that Cruz, in his stone-cold serious prosecutorial style, speaks at length when it’s far more common for freshman to wait before asserting themselves, particularly ones who were just sworn in. 

"Congress took a collective step backward in wrapping up a bitter year of legislating, as President Barack Obama’s top priority over the payroll tax holiday became mired in a battle over unrelated, partisan issues," groused Politico's Jake Sherman and Manu Raju in a December 14 story.

"House Republicans jammed through a version of the payroll tax bill Tuesday evening" Sherman and Raju complained, noting that the bill "calls for construction of the controversial Keystone KL [sic] oil pipeline, scales back an air-pollution rule, cuts Obama’s health reform law and reduces the length of unemployment benefits."