On Thursday, the Moody's credit-rating agency downgraded its assessment of U.S. health insurance companies from "stable" to "negative," citing ongoing woes in ObamaCare's rollout. This is, of course, is yet another piece of bad news for President Obama, coming just five days before his State of the Union address and shortly after a new Quinnipiac poll finding 53 percent of respondents believing the president is incompetent at his job.
Fortunately for Mr. Obama, the president enjoys a liberal news media intent on shielding the president -- and with him his congressional Democratic allies -- as best they can. On Thursday evening, none of the Big Three network evening newscasts even bothered to briefly mention the Moody's downgrade. Likewise none of the Big Three morning news programs thought it worthy of even a brief mention in a news-desk roundup. The New York Times -- motto: All the news that's fit to print -- also ignored the story in its Friday print edition.
As far as the damning poll numbers regarding President Obama's competence as the nation's chief executive, a search of Nexis revealed no mention of the recent Quinnipiac poll, which also shows that 47 percent believe the president simply isn't paying attention to the workings of his administration and that almost half of respondents think Obama is not trustworthy (49 percent).
It's not as though, however, the networks simply don't know about Quinnipiac's work. In the past week, CBS News noted some poll numbers from another Quinnipiac survey, one pertaining to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
From the January 21 Evening News:
SCOTT PELLEY: Today, Chris Christie was worn into a second term as governor of New Jersey in the middle of a snowstorm and under a cloud of scandal. In his inaugural address, he did not mention the traffic jams engineered by his close associates to punish a political opponent. But a new Quinnipiac poll shows the toll that the scandal is taking on his presidential ambitions. Last month, Republican Christie led Democrat Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical matchup forty-two percent to forty-one; today Clinton leads Christie forty-six to thirty-eight.
From the January 22 CBS Morning News (4 a.m. Eastern):
ANNE-MARIE GREEN, anchor: The New Jersey state legislature has decided to combine two investigations into allegations that Governor Chris Christie abused his power. Christie was inaugurated for a second term yesterday and did not mention the investigations. Christie is considered a likely Republican presidential candidate in 2016. And a just-released Quinnipiac poll indicates the corruption charges are hurting him. Last month Christie was in a virtual tie in a hypothetical match up with Hillary Clinton. Now Christie trails Clinton thirty-eight to forty-six percent.
A search of Nexis also confirms that neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times have mentioned the latest Obama poll numbers from the Quinnipiac survey.
The media are intent on flogging the Garden State governor to bloody him up prior to a 2016 run, but not so eager to highlight President Obama's unpopularity and the ongoing troubles related to ObamaCare as we barrel towards what promises to be a bruising midterm election year for congressional Democrats.
