2008 Presidential

At the top of the 9 a.m. ET hour on Friday's NBC Today, co-hosts Al Roker, Tamron Hall, and Natalie Morales came up with an odd imaging of a 2008 meeting between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama following the bruising Democratic primary. Roker joked: "Well, during that date, they did play Kenny G. That really helped." Hall added: "No, no, they played Kenny G. Bill Clinton came in with the sax…

During his lengthy interview with NSA leaker Edward Snowden, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams found time to ask if the wanted fugitive was an Obama supporter: "Did you vote for President Obama?" After Snowden refused to answer, Williams worried: "Did he disappoint you?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Snowden replied: "...whether or not I voted for President…

In an effort to promote Hillary Clinton's upcoming memoir, Hard Choices, on Monday's CBS This Morning, co-host Gayle King proclaimed: "Former Secretary of State, that would be Hillary Clinton, says no one had a bigger influence in her life than her mom. In a excerpt from her new memoir...she remembers Dorothy Rodham and the lessons that she learned." [Listen to the audio or watch the video…

On Friday morning, CNN host Jake Tapper tweeted “On Hillary Clinton's assertion of media double standard, strongest complaints by her campaign in 2008 were against pro-Obama male journos”. MRC's Dan Gainor alerted me that the responses from other national journalists about Hillary Clinton’s treatment of the press in the ‘08 cycle were surprising. Perhaps this should be a segment on Tapper's…

Friday's NBC Nightly News played up the latest dust-up between Senators John McCain and Ted Cruz over the latter's criticism of three of the Republican Party's presidential candidates, including Bob Dole. Brian Williams underlined the apparent "genuine and palpable tension today in Washington," after Senator Cruz criticized Dole, McCain, and Mitt Romney's campaigns during a speech at CPAC: "…

Anyone who's heard Hillary Clinton sing would know that comparing her to one of the great rock singers is a ludicrous comparison. But it stands out as a notable air-kiss in the new book HRC by White House reporters Jonathan Allen (Bloomberg News) and Amie Parnes (The Hill). When Hillary arrived at the State Department to begin work "as the new boss" in 2009, they wrote, "she brought with her…

During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin made what has turned out to be a prescient remark about the relevance of a U.S. president's resolve and its potential impact on Russia's posture with the old Soviet Union's satellite states. She observed: "After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and…

Democrat and former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, who has been "shadowing" Chris Christie while taking every possible opportunity to accuse New Jersey's GOP Governor of either "lying" or of being "the most inept, incompetent chief executive imaginable," tried his schtick yesterday morning on Chris Wallace's Fox News show. Unfortunately for Ted, establishment Republican and former George W.…

In an interview that aired on Friday, CNN's Jake Tapper asked President Obama if he was "naive" back in 2008 when he bragged that his presidency would be remembered as when "the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." "Do you think you were naive back then, or have you recalibrated your expectations and your ambitions?" Tapper pressed Obama. [Video below the break.…

Barbara Walter’s admission Tuesday evening that she used to believe President Obama was the next messiah is predictably the target of derision and satire in conservative circles. Making a guest appearance on Fox News’s The Five Wednesday, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said, “Five years to realize the man isn't a messiah? I think it took some of us…an hour and a half” (video follows…

Yes, she really said it. On CNN’s Piers Morgan Live Tuesday, in a brief discussion about President Obama, Barbara Walters actually said, “We thought that he was going to be - I shouldn't say this at Christmastime, but - the next messiah” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Jay Leno took some more shots at the current White House resident Friday. During his opening monologue, the NBC Tonight Show host likened Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III to President Obama saying, “He had a great first year in Washington, he showed incredible promise, then the whole thing fell apart” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In a March 2008 column, I criticized pundits' concerns about whether America was ready for Barack Obama, suggesting that the more important issue was whether black people could afford Obama. I proposed that we look at it in the context of a historical tidbit. In 1947, Jackie Robinson, after signing a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization, broke the color barrier in Major League…

  MSNBC has announced that Chris Matthews, Barack Obama's most excitable fan, will be interviewing the President on Thursday's Hardball. Fawning over the liberal politician is incredibly common among journalists, but Matthews has taken it to a whole new level. According to the network host, Obama is a "perfect," "cool," brilliant figure who is comparable to Jesus, Abraham Lincoln and John F.…