CBS Omits Waterboarding, Other Key Issues From Obama Interview

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Tuesday May 10, 2011 @ 10:19 AM EDT

1. CBS Omits Waterboarding, Other Key Issues from Obama Interview

On Sunday's 60 Minutes, CBS's Steve Kroft failed to bring up key issues related to the killing of Osama bin Laden during an interview of President Obama. Most prominently, Kroft omitted the enhanced interrogation of captured al Qaeda leaders which provided the first intelligence that ultimately lead to the Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan. The journalist set the overall tone of his interview, which he conducted on Wednesday, by tossing a softball in his lead question to Obama: "Mr. President, was this the most satisfying week of your presidency?" After the chief executive gave his initial answer, Kroft followed up by asking, "Was the decision to launch this attack the most difficult decision that you've made as commander-in-chief?

2. MSNBCCCP's Chris Matthews: 'Torture Advocate' Dick Cheney Should Waterboard Karl Rove

MSNBCCCP's Chris Matthews on Monday continued to obsess over Dick Cheney, deriding the former Vice President as a "torture advocate" who should waterboard Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby. The Hardball anchor attacked Cheney for complaining that Barack Obama has ended Bush-era war on terror polices. Matthews offered this aside: "...But Cheney being Cheney- doesn't that sound like a good torture advocate name, by the way- he couldn't help but stick it to the President on this very issue."

3. Juan Williams Refers to the 'Murder' of bin Laden

While discussing what role President Bush and enhanced interrogations played in the death of Osama bin Laden, Fox News Sunday panelist Juan Williams referred to the terrorist's death as "murder." Responding to conservative Paul Gigot, Williams dismissed, "But to somehow say it's because we were engaged in enhanced interrogation, and that led- and it's a very uncertain path that it leads directly to the murder of Osama bin Laden- it seems to me petty, and it seems to me an attempt to diminish President Obama's accomplishments."

4. NBCCCP's Gregory Not Sure if Role of Enhanced Interrogation in bin Laden Killing is 'Objectively Knowable'

On NBCCCP's Meet the Press on Sunday, host David Gregory remained highly skeptical of the role enhanced interrogation tactics played in tracking down and killing Osama bin Laden: "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. And based on reporting this week in NBCCCP News and outside, he never gave up the truth about the courier that led to bin Laden." In response to Gregory's assertions, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff referred to political partisans debating the issue: "...there will be people who will never be persuaded one way or the other about this." Gregory argued: "But it's a question of whether it's knowable....Is it objectively knowable?"

5. Washington Times and Washington Examiner Highlight MRC's 'DisHonors Awards'

Monday’s Washington Times and Washington Examiner wrote up short items on the MRC’s Saturday night gala. “The Media Research Center's 2011 ‘Dishonors Awards’ for the most liberally biased news reporting drew so many guests on Saturday evening that it was staged in the mammoth National Building Museum,” Jennifer Harper wrote in the lead item in her Washington Times “Inside the Beltway” column. “It was exactly what you would expect at a gala with some of the nation's most high-profile conservatives in media and politics - a lot of Keith Olbermann jokes,” observed the Washington Examiner’s “Yeas and Nays” page where Nikki Schwab reported.