CNN continued to hype Big Bird as a key debate issue on Friday morning's Starting Point as Soledad O'Brien brought on PBS "Reading Rainbow" host Lavar Burton who laid into Mitt Romney's promise to cut PBS funding. "Save Big Bird!" and "Romney Takes Aim At Big Bird" read CNN's headlines on screen. "I was outraged. I couldn't believe the man actually fixed his mouth to say that. I interpreted it as an attack on children, Soledad," Burton ranted. "PBS is the nation's largest classroom. It guarantees equal access to the wonderfulness that PBS has provided for almost 50 years in... continue reading
On Friday's CBS This Morning , Nancy Cordes trumpeted that the Obama campaign is " turning lemons into lemonade " as she reported that the Democratic operation is "arguing that Romney had a great performance at the debate, but only because he was untethered from the truth ." Not once did the correspondent or colleagues Norah O'Donnell and Bill Plante critically examine the claims from the incumbent or his operatives. O'Donnell even spotlighted how "we heard David Axelrod say that they're going to change some things. They're even suggesting that Mitt Romney is a liar for what he said in... continue reading
In a display of just how badly President Obama performed in Wednesday's presidential debate, Friday's NBC Today played a clip of Daily Show host Jon Stewart ripping into Obama: "There is no red America. There is no blue America. There is only the America that can't believe how bad this guy did in the debate. Romney won with the sound up....Romney won with the sound off." [ Listen to the audio ] Stewart mockingly implored the President: "...think of your supporters. Look what your performance did last night to one of them." A soundbite followed of the meltdown of MSNBC's... continue reading
Appearing on Friday's NBC Today , left-wing MSNBC host Ed Schultz desperately tried to explain away President Obama's bad debate performance: "I think that there were so many lies coming across that stage, and so many inaccuracies, it was hard for the President to comprehend it and decide which one he wanted to attack first." [ Listen to the audio ] Co-host Savannah Guthrie called him out on the liberal talking point: "That sounds a little bit like you're making excuses for the President." Schultz doubled down on his lame attempt to defend the President: "[Romney] was the guy in... continue reading
On Thursday's CBS This Morning , just hours after Mitt Romney's "crisp" debate performance , Norah O'Donnell stuck to her fixation on playing up the Republican's supposed negatives. O'Donnell maligned how Romney phrased his opposition to the federal government's subsidization of PBS: " This may have been the first time in a presidential debate that Big Bird was mentioned. It seems kind of like a silly thing to bring up ." Gayle King, an admitted friend of Michelle Obama and donor to the President's reelection campaign , also spotlighted a Tweet that referenced a decades-old anecdote about Romney placing his... continue reading
President Obama left his "greatest hits on the cutting room floor" for Wednesday night's debate, claimed CBS This Morning co-host Norah O'Donnell after the debate. According to her, "contraceptive rights" and "free mammograms" in ObamaCare are some of the President's "greatest hits." "There was no mention of Bain," she said on Wednesday night's Charlie Rose. "There was no mention of the auto industry saved. There was no mention of the wars ended, and in the discussion about ObamaCare, he didn't mention that that would turn back many provisions that protect women's health, free mammograms, contraceptive rights." [Video below. Audio here... continue reading
When CNN laughably focused Thursday morning on Mitt Romney cutting funding for "Big Bird" as a key debate moment, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) took CNN to task on Thursday for hyping such a frivolous detail. "I think focusing on a light moment, which was clearly what it was, is doing a disservice to the people of America who are struggling," Diaz-Balart ripped into CNN. He also mocked anchor Carol Costello, "that's the take-away that you found from the debate? I mean frankly that's the best you can come up with from this debate?" [Video below. Audio here .] Costello had... continue reading
A puzzled George Stephanopoulos on Thursday wondered what happened to Barack Obama during the previous night's presidential debate. Talking to fellow Democrat Donna Brazile on Good Morning America , the host quizzed, " ...A lot of the President's supporters, you see it on Twitter and in the blogs, you heard it on television last night, where was the president? Where was the fight?" Brazile stayed on message, only allowing that Obama was "a little rusty." But Stephanopoulos worried, "But at least a lot of those early polls of the viewers who watched said that the President lost." In a tease... continue reading
On Thursday's NBC Today , in an attempt to deflect from Mitt Romney's strong debate performance, fill-in co-host David Gregory grilled Romney advisor Ed Gillespie on the Governor's tax plan: "...he wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, he wants to have further tax cuts beyond that, he wants to increase military spending and he rejected a 10 to 1 ratio when it came to cutting spending and raising revenue. So the math simply doesn't add up, does it?" Gillespie fact-checked Gregory's supposed fact-check: There have been six studies now that have analyzed what Governor Romney has proposed in terms... continue reading
Politico editor Jim VandeHei appeared on MSNBC, Thursday, to blame Barack Obama's poor debate performance on the burdens of the office. The journalist spun, " The President had to be the President, and had to be a candidate, and so he didn't have nearly as much prep time." [MP3 audio here .] VandeHei did not try and sugarcoat the debate performance itself, knocking the President for thinking he could "just walk on there, play it safe, and do well." But the former political reporter for the Washington Post journalist did offer this whopper about how the triumphant Mitt Romney would... continue reading