“Democrats used the word 'giddy' to describe their reaction when they got the cost estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO),” NBC's Kelly O'Donnell relayed Thursday night, but she could have been talking about CBS's Katie Couric and Nancy Cordes who  shared the giddiness in touting the CBO numbers, favorable to Democratic spin on the health bill, without any caveats or reservations -- yet with a dose of exaggeration.

“The price tag certified,” Couric trumpeted in teasing the CBS Evening News before leading with how the CBO “put out a report that may help win over some Democrats,” reciting: “It says the plan, which would cost $940 billion over 10 years, would reduce the deficit over that same period by $138 billion.” She then cited a claim CBO didn't make: “It would cut the deficit over 20 years by more than $1 trillion.”

Cordes pegged  $1.3 trillion as “the amount by which the final health care bill would reduce the deficit over the next 20 years,” bucking up the CBO's credibility: “That's according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which is trusted by both parties as the authority on budget matters.”

As the Media Research Center's latest Media Reality Check details, over the past year, the media have served as cheerleaders for ObamaCare, praising the proposed legislation, while continually slamming its critics.

As Congress moves closer to a final vote on the bill in the coming days, it's a good time to take a look back at the friendly spin that has dominated the airwaves in support of it, as well as the harsh attacks that have been launched against its opponents.  

Here is a video compilation with just a sampling of some of the slanted coverage from the past 12 months.

In a bizarre choice, ABC News President David Westin has decided to make Christiane Amanpour, CNN's New York City-based international affairs correspondent, the host of ABC's Washington, DC-based This Week -- thus passing over many qualified ABC journalists in favor of replacing a Bill Clinton operative with the wife of an operative for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Amanpour is married to Jamie Rubin, Assistant Secretary of State for public affairs during the Clinton administration and an adviser in 2007-08 for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. (Of course, until early January, the show was hosted by George Stephanopoulos, a 1992 Clinton campaign operative and subsequently a top Clinton White House adviser.)

At 3:28 PM EDT today, TV Newser reported Amanpour accepted the slot and that Jake Tapper will helm This Week until she takes over in August. Do Sunday morning interview show viewers really desire more international news from someone unfamiliar with domestic politics?

A quick perusal through the MRC's Notable Quotables archive confirms her standard liberal outlook on the world:

She told Hillary Clinton “a lot of the women that I meet from traveling overseas are very impressed by you and admire your dignity,” scolded Mikhail Gorbachev by raising how he's been “criticized heavily by those who say you opened a pandora's box,” argued the press was “muzzled” and not tough enough on President George W. Bush, warned of scary “totalitarian” Christians and, quite oddly juxtaposed French President Nicolas Sarkozy's criticism of rioters with his welcoming of Barack Obama. Plus, she justified awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize: “He’s obviously done something very significant” since the U.S. now has a “new relationship with the rest of the world.”

Nonetheless, last year she insisted: “Nobody knows my biases.”

Is there a conscious effort to give female conservatives a rough time in the mainstream media, especially in this highly politicized environment? Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., says there is.

Bachmann, in an interview with the White House Brief Channel, was asked if conservative women have a tougher go at it when comes to dealing with the press.

"I only know from my own experience that that's what I have had in my state and also on the national level," Bachmann said. "Clearly there is an effort to silence the voices of conservative women."

But according to the congresswoman from Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District, the public aren't fooled.

Huffington Post blogger Tamara McClintock Greenberg gave one more reason in support of same-sex marriage - without it, her friends "might be forced to leave the country."

Greenberg lamented her friends' situation: "As same-sex partners, not only do they lack the basic rights of any couple in love to marry, since one person is an immigrant on a student visa, they may have to move to another country that acknowledges gay rights and marriage."

With that unique argument out of the way, the rest of Greenberg's post was a textbook-perfect liberal screed against those standing in the way of marriage for gay and lesbian couples. She was ashamed of America and compared it to countries where atrocious human rights violations are committed everyday. She blamed Christianity for our intolerance, and argued that homosexual couples are no different than heterosexual couples.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Thursday lobbied Representative Jason Altmire, a Democrat who is undecided on the health care legislation, over what it will take "to change your vote from no to yes." The former Democratic operative turned journalist pressed for details: "Well, the House bill was about, what, $950 billion. The Senate bill came in about $875 billion. What number do you need to see?"

Stephanopoulos chided Altmire over whether he was ready to take down Obama's presidency. Citing another Democrat who changed sides, he argued, "You know, yesterday, when Congressman Kucinich said he was switching from no to yes, he said one of the factors guiding his vote was the fact that if this went down, it would cripple President Obama's presidency. How big a factor is that for you?"

The ABC anchor even concocted a hypothetical situation in which Altmire held the key to everything: "Okay, Congressman, it's Sunday afternoon. The vote's been called. The clock has run out. The Democrats are stuck at 215 yes votes. Speaker Pelosi comes up to you on the floor. The President gets you on the phone and says, 'It is all up to you.' Can you imagine voting no under those circumstances?"

Yesterday the Associated Press and Newsweek latched onto a pro-ObamaCare letter circulated by a left-wing group and signed by 59 nuns. Today, liberal Washington Post columnist and practicing Catholic E.J. Dionne took to the op-ed page to encourage House Democrats to "listen to the nuns."

Dionne ably expressed the sentiments of perhaps many a liberal journalist giddy over the news:

House members voting on health care will be representing primarily their positions as Americans and as agents of their constituents, though many will also be influenced by their faith. Those with a special affection for the Roman Catholic Church have an extra reason for voting in favor of the health bill.

By passing it, they would save the bishops from the moral opprobrium that would rightly fall upon them if they succeeded in killing the best chance we have to extend health coverage to 30 million Americans. I suspect that many bishops would be quietly grateful. In their hearts, they know the nuns are right.

But today, National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez noted another group of nuns that probably won't get as much, if any, media coverage precisely because they stand with the nation's Catholic bishops with their concerns about inadequate protection for the unborn in the legislation before Congress.

The liberal media's favorite targets - Wall Street "fat cats" - have endured a firestorm of outrage and attack over bonuses since the financial meltdown. As some, like CNBC contributor Rick Santelli pointed out however, part of the screaming is the result of it is Obama and the White House whipping up political outrage. 

Now we'll have a chance to see if it's also selective outrage.

Fox Business anchor Eric Bolling uncovered embarrassing and questionable bonuses being received by those charged with keeping an eye on banks - government regulators. But who watches the watchers?  

Bolling told FNC's "Happening Now" that even as the economy has struggled, the government was handing out millions of dollars in bonuses to workers - and not even for a job well done.

Surprise: Congressional Democrats pounce on yet another New York Times story to their liking and are swapping it among themselves "as exhibit A against Republicans."

From Michael O'Brien's Wednesday evening report from the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill (hat tip NB's Seton Motley):

Democrats are seizing on a report that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had long plotted to slow or halt Democratic priorities in Congress, planning to use it as a key piece of evidence in their case against GOP "obstructionism."

In a memo to a broad group of Democratic lawmakers, communications staff and party strategists obtained by The Hill, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Communications Director Brad Woodhouse advised using a New York Times report Wednesday on the Senate GOP leader as exhibit A against Republicans.

Near the end of the 10AM ET hour on MSNBC Thursday, anchor David Shuster criticized Fox News anchor Bret Baier for having "interrupted the President numerous times" in a "contentious" and "heated" Wednesday interview. Shuster later accused the network of bias: "Fox is far more – far more conservative overall than MSNBC could ever be liberal."

Shuster brought on left-wing Mother Jones editor David Corn and David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner to discuss Baier's interview with Obama. He asked Corn if Baier's questioning was "inappropriate," Corn didn't think so, but joked: "I was just disappointed overall, though, because there were no questions about where the President was born." Freddoso thought Baier got "bogged down" asking the President about the controversial 'deem and pass' procedure possibly being used to pass ObamaCare.   

Turning to Freddoso, Shuster cited former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn claiming that Fox News is the "communications arm of the Republican Party." Freddoso discounted that criticism: "You can call names and sling mud. I mean, Fox News definitely – it has more of a center-right perspective than MSNBC, which generally has more of a center-left, political perspective." Prompting Shuster to reply: "But the difference is that – and I've worked at both places – and you can find this from every sort of media analyst who's objective, Fox is far more – far more conservative overall than MSNBC could ever be liberal. It's not a question of their – one's five points to the right and one's five points to the left. It's not like that at all."

NPR reporter Eric Westervelt ended a story on Catholic sex-abuse charges in Germany on Wednesday’s All Things Considered with a leftist critic who attacked Pope Benedict XVI as personally responsible. The reporter did not note that his critic was leftist – he was merely "renowned" – or that his critic even lamented that Pope Benedict should have run the church like Barack Obama. He declared:

In a scathing op-ed in today's edition of the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the renowned German theologian Hans Kung charged that the pope should be held personally accountable for the secrecy and what Kung called the worldwide cover-up that has protected priests and harmed children for decades. Eric Westervelt, NPR News, Berlin.

Westervelt also omitted that Kung was stripped of Vatican approval to teach Catholic theology in 1979 by Pope John Paul II. In the same German newspaper as the one NPR cited, Kung wished in January 2009 that the pope wasn’t "trapped" in regressive thinking like George W. Bush:

Finally! A reporter who stands up to the media's Chosen One and isn't afraid to ask the tough questions.

Kudos to Bret Baier. He prepared for a difficult interview and came right out of the gate asking the questions that matter most to the millions of Americans protesting government takeover of health care. Other networks have had this opportunity in innumerable interviews, but Fox has proved itself to be the only network willing and capable of showing backbone and doing their journalistic duty.

How have the left-wing media reacted? While they should hang their head in humiliation for making the fair, hard questions in this interview monumental, they have instead criticized Baier's interview as ‘contentious,' as if it's unprofessional for a journalist to deviate from lapdoggery.

And we wonder why America has chosen Fox News Channel over the competition time and time again.

In a textbook case of liberal-hysteria, Henry Rollins and Vanity Fair fear the Texas Board of Education will wipe Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Charles Darwin, the Civil Rights movement, and even the outcome of the Civil War from the pages of history in the "Great Texan Rewrite."

At question is a recent victory by conservatives on the Texas Board of Education to adopt more traditional curricula to be used in writing history textbooks. Due to its size, books adopted by Texas tend to be used extensively throughout the nation.

To Rollins, any attempt to restore balance to the teaching of history is an attempt to turn back the clock.

"I fear for the New Deal reforms and any other bits of history that may somehow be seen as inconvenient truths to the architects of the Great Texan Rewrite," Rollins wrote. "I cringe when I think that the Civil Rights movement may magically vanish from the state's history or be seen as an uppity peasant uprising. What will become of the Emancipation Proclamation? The outcome of the Civil War?"

Only Good Morning America on Thursday played the cringe-inducing clip of Joe Biden incorrectly asserting that the mother of Ireland's Prime Minister is dead. Speaking at a St. Patrick's Day event, Wednesday, the Vice President ad-libbed, "His mom lived in Long Island for ten years or so. God rest her soul. And- although, she's- wait- your mom's still- your mom's still alive. Your dad passed. God bless her soul." [Audio available here.]

However, the ABC hosts then attempted to cover for Biden. News anchor Juju Chang lauded the Vice President's "quick recovery." Co-anchor George Stephanopoulos excused, "And that smile takes him a long way as well." Chang agreed, "Exactly. I think it gets a lot of forgiveness."

Given recent liberal statements disparaging having children, it's easier to understand left-wing opposition to a pro-life amendment to the health care reform bill. Just one day after Rosie O'Donnell essentially stated that public funding of abortion would solve the problem of paying for "all of the unwanted kids and the half-million of them in foster care," she disparaged the QuiverFull movement as "even scarier" when she found it was made up of conservative evangelical Christians.

QuiverFull became a topic of discussion on O'Donnell's March 16 Sirius XM "Rosie Radio" after she mentioned that her new girlfriend enjoyed watching the TLC program "19 and Counting," about the Duggar family. [Audio available here .]

The Duggars have 19 children and are part of the movement, in which married couples forgo birth control to give God complete control over how many children they will have.

"That's their religion. It's a movement among [stated in a fake-Southern accent] conservative evangelical Christians," explained Pete Mele, a staff member.

"Oh. Uh-huh. Even scarier," O'Donnell interrupted.

Possible starter topic: Scott Brown, part deux?

It worked in Massachusetts, so Illinois Republicans are looking for a repeat.

"This is not Obama's seat, it's the people's seat," Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, the Republican candidate running for Illinois' Senate seat vacated by the president, declares at campaign stops.

Eager to tap the voter angst and stump lines that propelled Sen. Scott Brown to unexpected victory in another Democrat-dominated state, Massachusetts, Mr. Kirk has made it clear that even though the president remains popular in his home state, his policies aren't.

And with just 38 percent of all Illinois voters giving Mr. Obama good or excellent ratings for his handling of health care reform, the five-term lawmaker is actually putting the Democratic stronghold in play.

Contrary to how most of the President's sycophants saw his interview with Bret Baier Wednesday, a media critic from the Baltimore Sun felt it was "a textbook encounter of how the press should engage the executive branch of government."

"As much credit as I give Obama for taking his healthcare message to Fox News and staying on point, I also praise Baier for being thoroughly prepared and hitting a very difficult tone of being appropriately aggressive without being hectoring or rude," wrote David Zurawik Wednesday.

"Think of it as the antidote to NBC anchorman Brian Williams' bow to Obama in his prime-time White House special last year" (video of part one of the interview embedded below the fold, h/t TVNewser):

Recycling a theme which President Barack Obama used last year at media dinners, that shows self-awareness of how journalists are allies, headlining Wednesday night’s Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner carried live on C-SPAN2, Vice President Joe Biden quipped those in the audience are Obama’s “base.” One of Biden’s lines:

The truth is I can't believe I'm here with you guys tonight. Here I am, the first Irish Catholic Vice President in the history of the United States of America. Barack Obama, the first African-American in the history of the United States of America. He's hosting a St. Patrick's day dinner and I'm here with you all [audience laughter]. Go figure. He's with my base, I'm with his.

That elicited groans from the audience of journalists at the Washington Convention Center. Too close to the truth?

During an interview on Wednesday’s Larry King Live on CNN, actress Betty White recounted a controversial joke from October 2008 when she called Sarah Palin a "crazy b****" during an appearance on CBS's Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as she pretended to be then-presidential candidate John McCain’s speechwriter for a skit. Her recitation of the line inspired laughter from host King, as he praised the actress as having "good delivery." White also informed King that the line had been written by Ferguson or his writers as it was part of a pre-planned sketch.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Wednesday, March 17, Larry King Live on CNN, followed by a transcript of the relevant clip of the Late Late Show on CBS from October 2008:

When did Larry O'Donnell rip the "Question Authority" bumper sticker off his old Volkswagen van?

Liberals normally love to celebrate those who "speak truth to power." But Larry O'Donnell is bent out of shape that Fox News' Bret Baier had the chutzpah to challenge and, yes, interrupt, Pres. Obama when interviewing him today about ObamaCare.  Larry displayed his sudden deference to high-office on this evening's Countdown, subbing for Keith Olbermann.

Amusingly, one of my liberal faves declined to subscribe to Larry's script . . .

CBS and NBC, which have delivered very friendly interviews with President Barack Obama (link below the jump to examples), on Wednesday night characterized Bret Baier's sit-down with Obama for the Fox News Channel as “contentious,” while ABC decided to devote nearly two minutes of World News (1:50) to Obama's college basketball tournament choices.

Anchor Diane Sawyer teased at the start of the March 17 newscast, “Top picks: Stream of consciousness as the Fan-in-Chief completes his college basketball bracket.”

On the NBC Nightly News, Kelly O'Donnell referred to the “contentious interview with Fox News.” Chip Reid, on the CBS Evening News, added a modifier as he saw “a very contentious interview.”

The ABC story on Obama's basketball picks consisted of highlights from corporate cousin ESPN's session with Obama as he filled out a big bracket chart, and World News included Obama's spelling challenge. “Should be an R in there,” ESPN's Andy Katz corrected Obama upon spotting how the President had misspelled “Syracuse” as “Sycacuse.”

(Click on screen shot for a larger jpg image of Obama's misspelling.)

The CBS Evening News’ latest installment of “Where America Stands” failed to mention that some Americans actually stand opposed to embryonic stem research. Instead, last night’s program only featured medical professionals and industry experts who support the controversial research method.

Setting the stage for the segment, "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric emphasized the potential promise of embryonic stem cells while neglecting to acknowledge pro-life objections.

 

“It’s been a year since President Obama loosened restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research,” Couric noted, adding, “Those stem cells come from unused human embryos at fertility clinics and they can be transformed into any cell in the body.”

 

Dr. Jon LaPook, CBS News medical correspondent, chronicled the progress that researchers have made in recent years, declaring, “The report card on stem cells is promising, but incomplete.”

"Hot on the heels of Kucinich's declaration of support for health-care reform, the Associated Press is reporting that Catholic nuns are urging Democratic lawmakers to support health-care reform," Newsweek's Katie Connolly informed readers of the magazine's The Gaggle blog this morning.

"This is a major break with the church's bishops, who have strongly opposed the legislation on the grounds that some federal subsidies may end up funding abortions," Connolly gushed, later closing her blog post with the conclusion that "[a]t the very least, the letter damages the validity of [pro-life Democrat Rep. Bart] Stupak's argument."

Both Connolly's post and the underlying AP story failed to delve into this, but the letter in question was not simply cobbled together by apolitical nuns. It was pushed out to the media by a group with a left-wing agenda, reports CatholicCulture.org:

With a disparity of five-to-one, the same network morning and evening news programs that displayed an eager interest in Republican Mark Foley's E-mail scandal minimized the groping and tickling of Democrat Eric Massa. In 2010, these shows offered a scant 30 stories to Democrat Eric Massa and details of how he engaged in naked shower fights. Over a 12 day period in 2006, 152 segments were devoted to Foley.

Additionally, this number of 30 is a generous one. From March 5 through March 16, the networks conducted only 13 full reports on Massa and eight anchor briefs. The remaining nine examples were mere mentions where Massa's name was simply highlighted. NBC's Nightly News showed the least interest in the Democratic Congressman. Anchor Brian Williams featured Massa in a quick 25 second anchor brief on March 5 and, briefly, the next day, during a Mike Viqueira piece on health care.

Media outlets from CNN to NPR to the Washington Post have picked up on the Los Angeles Times story suggesting there could be conflicts of interest for Virginia Thomas to start her group Liberty Central while she's married to Justice Clarence Thomas. But none have attacked the couple like leftist talk-show host Mike Malloy did on his syndicated radio show Monday night.

Malloy called Justice Thomas a "Nazi" and a "house negro" who slavishly imitates Antonin Scalia and his wife was "an ignorant son of a bitch." At his strangest, Malloy claimed Justice Thomas has never authored a majority opinion for the high court. (In truth, he's written at least 140.)

He seemed race-obsessed as he claimed the "teabaggers" were racist, that they would object once they discovered "She’s a very, very, very, very, very white Omaha, Nebraska woman married to a very, very, very, very black South Georgia man." He began (click here for audio):