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It took a tough question from Matt Lauer, but after having laughably claimed that "the system worked," Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano has now conceded the obvious: that the security system that permitted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board NWA 253 with explosives "failed miserably." On Today and in other interviews this morning, Napolitano attempted to use her own ignorance as a shield. Each time she was hit with a hard question, her response was to the effect "yeah, we're wondering about that ourselves." She also continued to point the finger back at the Bush administration, repeatedly mentioning that the security procedures...

Matt Lauer always seems as if he is the emptiest of empty suits, and today was no different.Former George W Bush adviser Karl Rove appeared on the Today Show this morning, and Lauer looked kind of confused as he read of the list of questions probably written by the White House. He began by telling his liberal viewers that Rove was a right wing nut, or as Matt called him "a Fox News contributor". The guy is one of the most successful political strategists in our lifetime, but to Matt and his puppeteers he is simply a a Fox News...

Here is video from The Today Show where the cast and crew give Matt Lauer the business by showing a robbery suspect apprehended who is a real look-alike of Lauer! . . . (VIDEO)

CLICK ON ABOVE LINK TO WATCH MATT LAUER LOSE IS COOL AS HE INTERVIEWS MICHELLE MALKIN ON HEALTHCARE, SOTOMAYOR AND THE BIRTHERS ISSUE. Michelle Malkin was GREAT !! Articulate, informed and quite astute in her presentation. She was always the lady. As for Matt Lauer, what can I say ? Liberals always show their true colors when they cannot muster up any logical arguments.

Here’s that intriguing morning appearance I teased in Monday’s Hannity post. A bunch of you thought I was talking about “The View,” which broke my heart because how awesomely awesome would that have been? Ah well. Enjoy Lauer affecting shock at the idea that a guy who tried to prove his “authenticity” by spending 20 years in Reverend Wright’s Church of the Perpetual Grievance, who once famously accused Team McCain of having a problem with the fact that he doesn’t look like the other presidents on U.S. currency, and who was known to reference “Malcolm X” while addressing black audiences...

Matt Lauer interviewed Gov Sarah Palin today. They talked about the gas pipe line and then got into the Letterman comment (from about the 4:00 minute mark). Sarah told it like it was when Lauer pressed her. Matt tried to excuse Letterman and Sarah said "he was naive" and then he really got interesting! Matt finally had to give in (even thou he tried to defend Letterman). Was great! REALLY WORTH LISTENING TO!

You can view Bristol Palin's appearance on "Good Morning America" here. We are hoping to post the video as soon as we can. I believe that Bristol did an excellent job in the interview. Chris Cuomo also seems to be a very nice guy, unlike most members of the media when it comes to the Palin family.

Miss California vs. pageant officials: It’s war - Group blasts Miss USA runner-up as she campaigns against same-sex unions and Matt Lauer says some compare you to Sarah Palin. Video: http://www.butasforme.com/2009/04/30/matt-lauer-to-miss-california-some-compare-you-to-sarah-palin/

He fought a deer, and the deer won. Well, not exactly. But "Today" show co-host Matt Lauer was absent from his morning talk show Monday after an incident with a deer that caused the TV personality to flip off his bicycle. Lauer was riding his bike over the weekend when a deer suddenly jumped into his path. Lauer flipped over the handlebars and sustained minor injuries, reps at NBC said. "Matt's banged up with a displaced shoulder, it popped out," said co-host Meredith Vieira Monday. "Hopefully he'll be on the mend soon."

Suddenly, bloggers, opinion people, columnists and, yes, pundits who haven't paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me. Suddenly, I find myself in the center of a firestorm over Obama's economic policies, taking enfilading fire from the "liberal" media (from serious columnist Frank Rich to entertainer Jon Stewart) while being defended by Rush Limbaugh, the standard-bearer for the Republicans. I'm uncomfortable being in the crosshairs of columnists and comedians I enjoy, and I find the embrace of Rush Limbaugh most certainly strange if not antithetical to many of my...

According to the Politico Democratic strategists, months ago, planned to paint Rush Limbaugh as a bad guy to hurt the GOP and on Wednesday, the "Today" show followed that blueprint as Matt Lauer pilloried RNC Chairman Michael Steele over his flap with the talk show host: Doesn't Rush Limbaugh put people like you in a very tough position? If you agree with him publicly it sounds like you're rooting against the economic recovery and yet if you disagree with him and call him an "entertainer" and say he's provocative and sometimes what he says is "ugly," you're put in...

Do press secretaries need press secretaries? If so, Robert Gibbs would be well-advised to retain the services of Matt Lauer. Jousting with Rick Santelli this morning, the Today co-anchor made a spirited defense of the White House press secretary. At one point, Lauer emphatically denied that Gibbs intended to threaten the CNBCer by calling out Santelli contemptuously by name. Santelli let it be known that it was his wife who had put the ominous interpretation on Gibbs’ words. View video.

Filmmaker John Ziegler has released a new documentary about the media’s coverage of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin before the election — and he asserts that Palin was held to a “completely different standard” than the other candidates. Ziegler, whose film is “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted,” appeared on the “Today” show on Monday morning. In a sometimes heated exchange with host Matt Lauer, he said: “I was outraged during the primaries. I think the Hillary Clinton supporters have an awful lot to be outraged about. A lot in this film is about the primaries...

Barack Obama wants Roland Burris gone. That was the unmistakable implication of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ remarks to Matt Lauer on Today this morning. MATT LAUER: The president has talked a lot about transparency in government and transparency with government officials. In your opinion, does Roland Burris meet the threshold for transparency that the president wants to see? ROBERT GIBBS: Well Matt, what I talked about here just last week was, obviously many of the representations that Senator Burris made in order to get into office have now proved to be true [sic]. I think he has to...

MATT LAUER: I sat down with the president at the White House for a wide-ranging conversation. First up, the economy. After failing to win a single House Republican vote for his stimulus plan, I asked the president if he's worried about his promise to build bipartisanship in Washington. PRESIDENT OBAMA: Oh, listen, it's only been ten days. People have to recognize that it's going to take some time for trust to be built, not only between Democrats and Republicans but between Congress and the White House, between the House and the Senate. You know, we've had a dysfunctional political system...

Apparently, President Barack Obama thought that Jessica Simpson's weight was something he needed to make fun of during his pre-Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer on NBC Sunday. Seriously. Obama called Jessica Simpson a fatty on national TV. Lauer displayed for the audience the cover of a recent issue of the tabloid entertainment magazine US Weekly that featured the President's wife and daughters and also had an insert photo pushing a story about singer Simpson. As he viewed the cover, Obama decided to smack the singer down for being "in a weight battle." Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

The link for this thread goes to The Today Show video.This Link goes to the Jan 5th Hannity & Colmes Coulter interview which You Tube refused to upload, and Google (You Tube's Baby Daddy) removed.This site seems to be a good video repository.

Ann Coulter on the Drudge Story about her being banned for life from NBC: That was from a reliable news report that, by the way, had never, has never had to retract a report on exploding GM trucks. But I do know that, like NBC. Um, it apparently took-It apparently took eight hours for the "Today" show to remember that there was a Wednesday show that I could be invited back to. It took the Drudge Report posting that, for the Wednesday invitation to appear. OK maybe it's the equivalent of taking candy from a baby, but Ann Coulter made...

When during its first half-hour this Christmas morning "Today" moved to a conversation between Matt Lauer and Pastor Rick Warren, I braced myself. Don't tell me, I thought, they're going to get into the invitation Pres.-elect Obama extended him to give the invocation at the Inauguration, and the reaction of some gay-rights groups. Well, surprise! They didn't: not in word or implication. Warren appeared strictly in his role as pastor, and the conversation focused exclusively on the meaning of the day. The video clip is of the portion of the conversation in which Warren describes the origin and practice of...

Whoops. It's turning into quite the morning for gaffes on the NBC/MSNBC family of networks. As noted here, on Today, Meredith Vieira stumbled into the sensitive area of Matt Lauer's marital history. Then, during Morning Joe's 8 AM hour, Joe Scarborough accidentally used an F-bomb, leading to an extended apolog-a-thon. [H/t reader P.C.] View video here [warning: contains unexpurgated F-bomb 20 seconds in]. During a break, Time's Jay Carney had apparently told a story of some politico who had used the F-word. Back on the air, Scarborough had actually been praising the discipline of the Obama team. He described them...

Reciting all the messianic nicknames given to Barack Obama, such as "The One," "The Savior," and "The Messiah," NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's "Today" show asked the Democratic presidential nominee, how he will "manage" such great, "expectations." During an interview, aired in two parts in the first hour of "Today," Lauer rarely hit Obama with a tough question, instead choosing to focus on recent campaign highlights such as all the recent endorsements for Obama from Colin Powell to the Washington Post. In the later portion of the interview Lauer recounted the biblical descriptions of Obama: People have called you "The...

Poor Joe. Ann Curry is concerned that the senator from Delaware was the victim of a double-standard during last night's debate that caused him to hide his light under a barrel. The Today show co-anchor [subbing for Meredith Vieira] expressed her misgivings this morning to Obama supporter Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) ANN CURRY: But he restrained himself to some degree. I mean, she called him "Joe," he called her "Governor." She attacked him, he didn't attack her. Do you think there was a double-standard at play here? Did Joe pull down his full game, and did that hurt him last...

Let's award a point of light to Matt Lauer. On this morning's Today, he called out Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) for calling for an end to the blame game . . . right after the congressman blamed John McCain for failing to rally his Arizona troops to vote for the bailout. But that didn't stop Clyburn from continuing to try to pin the tail on the elephant. JAMES CLYBURN: We promised 50% of our caucus; they promised 50% of their caucus, or their conference. We produced 60%, and they produced 33%. MATT LAUER: Yeah, but in fairness, Congressman Clyburn, the...

<p>NEW YORK — NBC News reporter Luke Russert said he made a "dumb" misstatement on the "Today" show Wednesday when he suggested that smart people supported Barack Obama for president.</p> <p>Almost immediately, Russert took a hazing in the Web world. Wrote Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center on the NewsBusters blog: "Out of the mouths of young, untrained reporters come the unspoken beliefs of the liberal media."</p>

NBC's "Today Show" this morning covered the battleground state of Virginia, and interviewed a family named "The Jansen's" from Leesburg, VA. Until recently, Ann Jansen and her husband Stacey (sp?) had been 'undecided' between Obama or McCain, but have now opted on voting for Obama. What the piece fails to point out is that Ann Jansen is a bigtime Democratic campaign official/contributor in Loudoun County, VA, or as someone in the D.C. Radio & Television blog pointed out this morning: "Today show gets duped!!! On the Today Show they highlighted a Leesburg, VA family who claimed to be a family...

While Chris Matthews was waxing so rhapsodic about Barack Obama over on MSNBC this morning that he made Mika Brzezinksi ask if the Hardball host had endorsed him, Matt Lauer was doing his bit on NBC, wondering whether Hillary would be seen as having stolen the nomination if she managed to get it. The Today co-anchor interviewed Bill Richardson, who's been getting maximum media mileage out of his Obama endorsement. Lauer's suggestion came toward the end of the segment. MATT LAUER: Let's talk about political reality. Right now as we stand, with the delegate count, the popular vote count, the...

If Hillary Clinton's latest gambit--floating Obama as her VP--had been a play rather than a ploy, and the Today crew the theater critics, they would have left at intermission to begin penning a blistering pan. Interviewing Tim Russert, Matt Lauer kicked off the kicking around of Hillary's idea. MATT LAUER: Let's talk about this idea. Is it being floated seriously? Is this light-hearted, and who's behind it? TIM RUSSERT: Well the Clintons are behind it, and New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin said today that he talked to a Clintonista who said it's an attempt to belittle Barack Obama,...

In MSM circles, "swiftboating" is shorthand for false attacks on Democrats, even though John O'Neill and other members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stand adamantly behind their allegations about John Kerry's war record. In an interview of Barack Obama conducted yesterday and aired on this morning's Today, Matt Lauer employed the "swiftboating" code to ask whether the candidate is prepared for the Republican onslaught. For good measure the NBC anchor wondered if Obama is ready for Republican racism. Lauer, introducing the issue, stated that "Senator Clinton has questioned whether he can withstand negative attacks from Republicans in the fall."...

You don't suppose NewsBusters has become Matt Lauer's guilty pleasure; one having a salubrious effect on his thinking? The Today co-anchor this morning suggested an MSM double-standard on the Dem and GOP races and acknowledged the success of the surge. Matt's guest on Today was Tim Russert, impressively fresh after red-eyeing to NYC after moderating last night's Nevada debate. Lauer, after playing clips of the candidates' take on Iraq, suggested that the war is no longer the winning issue the Dems once thought it was. MATT LAUER: How much of a tightrope are they walking with the apparent success of...

To know what's on a morning-show anchor's mind, it's often easy to read between the lines. Katie Couric famously employed the "some say" technique to put her own views in the mouths of unidentified others. But it's relatively uncommon to hear an anchor flatly express an opinion in the way Matt Lauer did this morning. The topic was whether there were racial overtones to Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" tirade directed at Barack Obama in the closing days of the New Hampshire campaign. Matt's guests were radio talk show host Michael Smerconish and former Clinton advisor Paul Begala. View video here.

Talk about damned-if-you-do . . . On this morning's Today show, Matt Lauer discussed with Tim Russert the Middle East peace conference that began today. After years of MSM criticism of President Bush for not getting more involved in the Israeli-Palestinian situation, how does Lauer react when the president undertakes an historic initiative bringing together leaders of all the area's countries for the first time? You guessed it. View video here.

Talk about talking down the economy! No fewer than three times today, Matt Lauer invited Barack Obama to declare that the U.S. economy is headed into recession. At the end of a "Today" interview that focused largely on Hillary-related issues and Iran, Lauer turned to the economy and pressed Obama to predict the worst. View video here.

Tyler Savage: he is fed through a tube in his stomach A boy of 12 suffers from so many allergies that he is able to eat only five foods. Tyler Savage is violently ill every time he is given dishes containing dairy products or wheat, gluten, eggs, lactose and soya. The sole foods he is allowed are chicken, carrots, grapes, potatoes and apples. To help him survive, minerals and vitamins are pumped directly into his stomach through a tube. Tyler started to fall ill at the age of six when even a morsel of food would leave him writhing...

He might be a middle-aged white guy from the West, but Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) suddenly understands the travails of people stopped for "DWB": driving while black. In the course of his interview with Matt Lauer, aired last night and excerpted on this morning's "Today," Craig tried to play the profiling card. MATT LAUER: The fact that these motions seemed to replicate a well-established sequence of signals for soliciting anonymous sex, it's a coincidence?View video here. LARRY CRAIG: I now know that this cop, this officer [shades of "that woman, Ms. Lewinsky"?] is a profiler. He said looking into a...

To celebrate Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize a jovial Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira called up Jimmy Carter on this morning's "Today" show. During the interview with the former President, the "Today" co-hosts even prodded Carter to push for a Gore in '08 candidacy: Matt Lauer: "Let me just go over what you said a second ago, and you also said in The Denver Post this morning. You said, 'I have confidence in and I know him well. He,' quote, 'is the best qualified person in America to be president.' And you said you would endorse him. Do...

It's rare to see a leading MSM light directly confronted over the liberal media's bias. But it happened in spades this morning as Tom DeLay (R-Tx.) called out Matt Lauer for the MSM's double-standard in handling Republican, versus Democrat, scandals. The "Today" co-anchor opened his interview of the former Republican congressman and Majority Leader with a laundry-list of GOP scandals. MATT LAUER: By all accounts these are some tough times for the Republican party. Last fall Democrats took control of both houses of congress, largely because of opposition to the war in Iraq. In 2006 the Republican party was also...

Scanning the columns at Townhall.com is part of my early-morning routine, and it was at about 6 A.M. today that I read Charles Krauthammer's "Obama Bombing." I marveled at how perfectly the Pulitzer Prize-winning author had captured the essence of Hugo Chavez, calling the little Venezuelan thug "a malevolent clown." Krauthammer's words obviously impressed Matt Lauer, too. For barely an hour later, I was pleasantly surprised to find the psychiatrist-turned-pundit's phrase turning up on the screen at "Today," with Lauer clearly seeming to advance the conservative commentator's theory. Lauer was interviewing MSNBC's Chris Matthews on this week's Hillary-Obama dust-up. "TODAY"...

Does NBC have some inside dope? Is John McCain, till now one of the staunchest supporters of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, about to turn tail? An unusual question from Matt Lauer to Tony Snow this morning seems to suggest that possibility.Here's the exchange that came on this morning's "Today" at 7:08 A.M. EDT, toward the end of Lauer's interview of White House press secretary Snow: TODAY CO-HOST MATT LAUER: If, and you hate hypotheticals, I know, so hate me later, but if John McCain comes back [from his current Iraq trip] and joins the ranks of those other Republicans...

NEW YORK - Matt Lauer and NBC's "Today" show will broadcast live from Cuba next Tuesday to report on the political and economic climate there. Although Lauer is a frequent round-the-world traveler for "Today," it took 18 months to arrange the visit to a country only 90 miles from the United States, said Jim Bell, the show's executive producer. Bell used his ability to speak Spanish in the negotiations. "It's always timely to go to Cuba," Bell said. "There's always news there. Being there is news in itself." There is no expectation NBC will interview ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro,...

Producer of a MSM morning news show? Got a few minutes to fill at the end of your first half-hour? Why not resort to a tried-and-true winner: a bit of good old class warfare? That was the "Today" formula this morning. Matt Lauer introduced the segment, enviously entitled "Share the Wealth?: The Rich Get Richer," fanning the flames of envy and resentment with this opener: TODAY CO-HOST MATT LAUER: Do you feel like you're working harder and harder nowadays just to stay financially afloat while fat cats get richer and richer? It's not just a feeling, and you're not...

Does it give the Dem leaders of Congress pause to realize that the enemies of the United States in Iraq, the people killing our troops, are banking on their political success? Harry and Nancy shouldn't dismiss this as the raving of a right-wing blogger. It is in fact the considered view of someone they surely see as a respected, nay, an authoritative source: no less than the Baghdad bureau chief of the New York Times, John Burns. Burns was a guest on this morning's "Today." In the set-up piece, NBC White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell rolled a clip of precisely...

Before this is over, I predict that Virginia Tech President Charles Steger will apologize for errors that he and his administration made in dealing with yesterday's massacre. But as of this morning, Steger was still seeking to defend the failure to alert students for two hours after the initial murders. As Matt Lauer politely pointed out, his explanation would seem to fail a simple test of logic."Today" host Lauer interviewed Steger during the show's first half-hour.LAUER: As you continue to mourn here at Virginia Tech University, you're also facing some very difficult questions from students and from parents and from...

A Democratic senator has just announced his presidential candidacy. On the next morning's "Fox & Friends," a Fox News reporter who recently denied that Fox has any conservative leanings or that Sean Hannity is a conservative narrates a segment on the announcement. To analyze the news, she plays clips of someone from the National Review and then a writer from Weekly Standard. Host Brian Kilmeade follows, schmoozing over the senator's prospects with a former senior aide to a conservative Republican governor. Total lack of balance! Couldn't Fox News have found at least one Democrat to discuss a Democrat's candidacy?...

When it came time to pass an anti-war resolution, the Democrats were no better than a bunch of timid pre-teens on Halloween. That was the view Matt Lauer expressed in a colloquy with Tim Russert on this morning's "Today." Lauer: "The Democrats in the Senate failed to pass this vote so they could even debate this Iraq strategy and there's even some who are talking about possibly bringing up the idea of revoking the 2002 authorization to go to war. If they can't pass a kind of symbolic vote, how do they ever have the kind of strength to do...

The world could be coming to an end, but not to worry: "the Democrats are now in charge of Congress." That, in a nutshell, was NBC's message on global warming on this morning's "Today." Here's how Matt Lauer, apparently in the throes of a global-warming panic attack, kicked off the segment: "Now to a controversy in Washington over what literally could be the end of the world as we know it."View video here.The segment focused on allegations, made before a hearing chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman [D-CA] by the advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists, that the Bush...

There are, to quote Imus, "tension conventions" breaking out all over MSNBC today. Earlier, I noted the shots Andrea Mitchell took at Nancy Pelosi over her "unseemly, imperial" celebrations marking her ascension to the speakership. Now, Chris Matthews locked horns with Matt Lauer over the funding of our troops in Iraq. It was a very rare display of real anger between fellow members of the NBC/MSNBC stable. Alluding to President Bush's speech of yesterday calling for the Democrats to avoid the kind of politics that will lead to stalemates, Lauer asked Matthews: "What kind of stalemate are we going...

Was it just good-natured joshing, or did some MSM elitism creep into Matt Lauer's interview-ending question to Tim Russert on this morning's "Today"? "What's up for the New Year for you? Same thing as usual: keg of Old Milwaukee and a noise-maker?"What's this? Condescension to Russert's blue-collar image leavened with a touch of drunken-Irishman humor? The camera crew burst into guffaws, but check the video - was Russert's laugh a bit more strained? Matt and Dutch-born wife, former-model Annette Roque, might be well be staying in for New Year's, the couple recently having welcomed son Thijs into the world. But...

How do you know the Iraq Study Group's suggestion of reaching out to Iran and Syria is in trouble? When even a leading MSM light like Matt Lauer approvingly cites, of all people, leading neo-con Richard Perle to shoot down the idea.The Baker-Hamilton duo were making the TV rounds this morning, and it wasn't long into their chat with Matt that he hit them with this:"Let's talk about this idea of reaching out to the people in the neighborhood - Syria and Iran. Richard Perle said recently that 'talking to Iran about Iraq will be seen throughout the region as...

In all my years of Today-watching, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like the display Matt Lauer put on this morning. In beseeching Al Gore to run for president, Lauer literally portrayed him as the planet's potential savior. "If you were to run for president, you could take this issue to the next level, even if just during a campaign. And if you were fortunate enough to win the presidency, you would sit in the most powerful office in the free world with a real chance to make . . . " Matt stopped himself at the enormity...

Some leading US media have decided to call the violence raging in Iraq a "civil war," despite White House insistence that the strife has not reached that stage. NBC News became the latest news organization to decide to use the term on Monday, saying the violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims combined with the government's inability to quell the strife fit the definition of civil war.Matt Lauer, the presenter of NBC's "Today" morning show, said the network had thought carefully whether civil war was an appropriate phrase for the violence plaguing Iraq."We should mention we didn't wake up on a...