MSNBC's Chuck Todd Spins For Obama On NCAA Picks: 'The Schedule Is the Schedule'

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Friday March 18, 2011 @ 09:45 AM EDT

1. MSNBC's Chuck Todd Spins for Obama on NCAA Picks: 'The Schedule Is the Schedule'

MSNBC's Chuck Todd on Thursday fretted over the blame Barack Obama is enduring for making televised NCAA picks during the ongoing crises in Libya and Japan. After gushing over the President's basketball predictions on Wednesday, Todd followed up by lamenting, "Makes people wonder why anyone wants the job." Talking to former Bush aide Tony Fratto, a defensive Todd argued: "[The White House has] been criticized for using him too much in time of crises. Here's a week where, now, people are criticizing, 'We're not seeing him enough.'"

2. CBS Early Show Calls on Obama to Make Tough Decisions...On His NCAA Picks

On Thursday's CBS Early Show, news reader Jeff Glor declared: "President Obama is ready for March Madness, it appears. He broke out the brackets at the White House yesterday and made his picks in the NCAA basketball tournament." However, he lamented how the commander in chief "Didn't exactly go out on a limb....For his Final Four he chose all number one seeds."

3. Jon Meacham: Media Would Have 'Barbecued' Bush If He Did NCAA Brackets During Crises

Jon Meacham, the liberal host of PBS's Need to Know, frankly admitted Thursday that media scrutiny of President Bush would far surpass the mild criticism of Barack Obama when it comes to a 10-minute ESPN segment on the President filling out his NCAA Tournament bracket. "My only point is that Bush would have gotten more barbecued for this," Meacham claimed on Morning Joe Thursday. "Anyone who thinks that he didn't – he wouldn't – is crazy."

4. NPR Slants Towards Democrats By 5-2 Margin in Report on Nuclear Energy

NPR's Scott Horsley favored Democrats over Republicans by a five-to-two margin on Thursday's Morning Edition. Horsley played soundbites or quoted from Obama administration officials or congressional liberals more often than from GOP representatives. During his report, the correspondent highlighted congressional concerns over the safety of nuclear energy during the Tuesday hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Energy Secretary Chu and Nuclear Regulatory Chairman Gregory Jaczko were the main witnesses during the hearing. Horsley first noted that "Chu was cautious in talking about Japan's nuclear crisis and its meaning for the U.S. Damage to the Fukushima reactors seems more serious than Three Mile Island. But Chu confessed we don't really know what's happening, and the situation is unfolding hour by hour."

5. MSNBC Touts Washington Post Columnist 'Taking Apart' GOP Budget Argument by Claiming U.S. 'Not Broke'

On Wednesday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, fill-in host Norah O'Donnell spoke with liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about his claim that the United States is "not broke," but simply needs to "raise revenue" through higher taxes. She teased the segment by wondering: "Is Washington really as broke as lawmakers make it seem?" O'Donnell described Dionne's latest column as "provocative" and asked, "How can you say there is no crisis?" Dionne argued: "...we are in this strait partly because of an economic downturn, when things get better, when the economy gets better, revenue comes in. We're also in this trouble because we cut taxes and started two wars at the same time back at the beginning of the last decade."

6. Liberal Frank Rich Finally 'Gets Sick of His Own Voice,' Quits NY Times

In his farewell column, New York Times columnist Frank Rich admitted the job “can push you to have stronger opinions than you actually have, or contrived opinions about subjects you may not care deeply about, or to run roughshod over nuance to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Believe it or not, an opinion writer can sometimes get sick of his own voice.” He's not the only one. Times Watch has a collection of some of Rich's liberal lowlights, from nonsensical to nasty.