With White House in Crisis, NBC Brings On Robert Gibbs to Spin for Oba

November 18th, 2013 4:27 PM
After playing a clip of Saturday Night Live mocking President Obama's "embattled second term" on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie sympathetically observed: "I guess if you're at the White House you laugh so you don't cry." She then turned to Obama's former press secretary Robert Gibbs and wondered: "What do you think the President's state of mind is right now? I mean, have you ever…

NBC Touts President's 'To-Do List' for Containing Political Damage Fro

November 18th, 2013 12:40 PM
On Monday's NBC Today, White House correspondent Peter Alexander lifted talking points directly from an Organizing for Action email while reporting on the political fallout from ObamaCare: "With his signature law under fire, the President faces a daunting to-do list to resuscitate ObamaCare. Number one, fix the website....Number two, clear up confusion....Number three, keep Democratic allies on…

Gillibrand on 'This Week': 'We All Knew' That 'Keep Your Plan' Wasn't

November 18th, 2013 10:19 AM
Well, that settles it. Sunday on ABC's "This Week" (video here) New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand admitted that "We all knew" that Obamacare's core guarantee — "If you like your plan-doctor-provider, you can keep your plan-doctor-provider" — was false. That's "we" as in "all of us Democrats." There's no wiggle room in what Gillibrand said, as will be demonstrated after the jump.…

Politico's Purdum: Obama Had to Lie to Pass ACA Because Public Couldn

November 17th, 2013 8:52 PM
In a pathetic analyis piece at the Politico on Friday morning, Politico's Todd S. Purdum engaged in egregious excuse-making driven by a de facto admission that the Affordable Care Act would never have passed if the public had been told the truth about what was in it. This is the same Todd S. Purdum who recently, as Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters reported earlier this month, accused…

Press Virtually Mum As Arne Duncan Blames Common Core Opposition on 'W

November 17th, 2013 4:56 PM
Will yet another example of rhetorical intemperance by an Obama administration official get a free pass? So far it mostly has. A Washington Post item by Valerie Strauss at its "Answer Sheet" blog quotes a dispatch from Libbly Nelson at the Politico, but does not link to it. I couldn't find a related original story by Nelson at her Politico archive or in a Politico search on Education…

Another 'Obama Lied' Euphemism About Obama's 'Cherished' Law, This Tim

November 17th, 2013 9:07 AM
At the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, who has been the wire service's lead reporter on Affordable Care Act matters for years, came up with a new euphemism to describe the now-broken unconditional guarantee made dozens of times by President Obama, at least 27 Senate Democrats, and many House Democrats, namely that "If you like your plan-doctor-provider…

'Road Trip!' As Obamacare Crumbles and Dems Defect From It, AP's Babin

November 16th, 2013 10:00 AM
In Animal House, when the members of Delta Tau Chi fraternity faced imminent expulsion for poor grades, they decided to take a "Road Trip!" to, as Wikipedia's plot summary indicates, "take their minds off their troubles." The presidential keister-kissers at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, are in a similar quandary. Over the past seven weeks, they've seen their favorite…

CBS: Obama's 'Patch' of Insurance Cancellations 'Fell Flat'; 'Created

November 15th, 2013 5:21 PM
Major Garrett pointed out on Friday's CBS This Morning that the politician's Thursday "attempt to fix the problem of canceled insurance policies...fell flat", as it failed to satisfy his Democratic allies in Congress, who are nervous about the next election. Garrett devoted much of his report on the morning newscast, as well on Thursday's CBS Evening News, to his hard-hitting questioning of the…

NBC Sympathizes: 'Humble President' Was 'Strikingly Contrite' About Ob

November 15th, 2013 4:45 PM
On Friday, NBC's Today tried to cast President Obama's Thursday press conference about the ObamaCare disaster in the most sympathetic light possible, with co-host Savannah leading off the show by proclaiming: "The humble president....President Obama does damage control on the botched health care rollout with his legacy hanging in the balance." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the…

Elections 2014: Katty Kay Keeps Hope Alive For Dems

November 15th, 2013 2:40 PM
Amidst all the liberal doom and gloom stemming from the Obamacare debacle, at least someone's trying to keep hope alive for beleaguered Democrats . . . On today's Morning Joe, the BBC's Katty Kay did her best to paint a scenario in which Dems go into 2014 with Obamacare working, and the election results would not be the "disaster" that Republicans are assuming.  View the video after the jump…

CBS Spotlights House GOP Hammering ObamaCare Managers; ABC, NBC Minimi

November 14th, 2013 6:56 PM
On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, Nancy Cordes zeroed in on the three Republican congressmen who grilled top administration officials during a hearing on ObamaCare, ballyhooing that "none of them were really able to explain why this product they worked on for years was so flawed". Cordes played extended clips from the hearing totaling 51 seconds – nearly twice the combined number of ABC's World…

Comparing NYT Positions on Obama's False 'You Can Keep Your Plan-Docto

November 14th, 2013 4:38 PM
A commenter at my post yesterday ("TomsonaNonGrata") about how a pair of New York Times reporters characterized President Barack Obama's false guarantee to Americans that "If you like your plan-doctor-provider, you can keep your plan-doctor-provider" as an "incorrect promise" — because they couldn't work up the nerve to call it a lie — noted that "All these people (in the press) that were so…

NBC's Todd: There Were Always Going to Be 'Small Number of Losers' Und

November 14th, 2013 3:26 PM
Appearing on Thursday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd matter-of-factly declared that ObamaCare was always going to be a bad deal for some Americans: "There are always winners and losers in any piece of legislation. There is a small number of losers in here, if you want to count losing as in having to pay more for your health insurance....That was always the intention,…

Manchin Mocks Obama's Failure To Communicate: 'I'm Sure He's Very Busy

November 14th, 2013 11:36 AM
A President can deal with being disliked, even despised, by his opponents.  But when he becomes a laughingstock among his own supposed supporters . . . On today's Morning Joe, Dem Sen. Joe Manchin openly mocked President Obama's failure to communicate with Congress.  Asked by Joe Scarborough whether the President is disconnected from the Senate and House, Manchin sardonically said "everybody…