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Previewing the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library on Thursday, rather than positively reflect on the legacy of the Bush presidency, MSNBC unsurprisingly chose to mock and minimize his eight years in office. During The Daily Rundown, host Chuck Todd introduced a segment on the former president with a spew of Bush “gaffes." He then mocked, "I miss this part of Bush because Obama never does this stuff." After playing the clips, Todd spun, "Some of the lighter moments there from Bush's time in office. President Obama's always a little more careful. President Bush would dip into some...

CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS: You know, Peggy, what's been interesting about this week is all of the big polarizing issues of the last two generations culturally all popped up in one week, and one of it had to do with the Supreme Court with gay marriage, with abortion. This culture wars, normally when it comes back, it's something that's helpful to Republicans. Is it good this time for the conservative movement to have these issues out there? PEGGY NOONAN, WALL STREET JOURNAL: I don't know. Yeah, I think, all of these cultural issues, as I guess- we call them, have...

President Obama went after MSNBC host Chuck Todd for asking too many questions at a press conference today in Jerusalem, Israel:

During their joint press conference this afternoon in Jerusalem, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mocked NBC’s Chuck Todd for asking too many questions. The two leaders dropped their own set of jokes to taunt Todd for asking at least five questions in a single sitting. “I want to follow up a little bit on the peace process. You began your term — first term, big fanfare — speaking to the Muslim world, the decision to have a Middle East envoy early, you said you weren’t going to let this slip to your second term.

Via Mediaite, I like this clip because it captures the essence of the Do Something gun-control impulse, even though Todd's not talking about guns. The "Halo" games have sold 50 million copies worldwide. Microsoft estimates that people collectively have spent five billion hours playing them. Violent crime has been declining for 40 years and mass shootings are no more common now than they used to be. I'd bet that, if anything, video games reduce violent crime by providing an innocuous outlet for thrill-seeking. But who cares? The point of Do Something isn't to craft a policy response carefully tailored to...

CHUCK TODD: The problem is there is public opinion in general and there's public opinion in the Republican congressional districts, which is a different America. Anyway, thank you all. (MSNBC's Daily Rundown, December 17, 2012)

NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd today called U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice a "victim" of conservative "advocacy media" while addressing her decision to withdraw from consideration for secretary of state. "She became victim of the attacks. ... and it was all driven, in many cases, by conservative outlets who were making her the center of the Benghazi story," Todd told MSNBC's Martin Bashir. "There were legitimate questions to ask about the Benghazi story, but the idea that she belonged in the center of those attacks never made a lot of sense. She sort of became a victim of this....

Q. When is the Obama lead in Ohio a "mountain not a molehill" for Romney to overcome, and when is the race actually much tighter? A. When you first ask Joe Scarborough and then Chuck Todd. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough, focusing on a Time poll showing Obama with a five-percentage point lead in the Buckeye State, saw an electoral Everest for Romney to climb. Appearing later, NBC political director Todd reported that the Democrats themselves have acknowledged to him that the race has gotten "a lot tighter" in the last week. View the video after the jump.

Coming down the stretch of the presidential campaign, it looks like NBC political director Chuck Todd has put getting it right over any personal or network partisan leanings. On Morning Joe today, Todd declared that seven out of ten challengers in Mitt Romney's position in the polls win the election. In an assessment sure to send shivers down Obama-camp spines, Todd added that "Romney appears to have the advantages going into the next couple of weeks." View the video here.

Last week, Chuck Todd came in for criticism at NewsBusters for sniffing off a Rasmussen poll favorable to Mitt Romney as "slop." But has yesterday's slop become today's sirloin for the NBC political director? Sure looks like it. In a remarkable shift, on today's Morning Joe Todd stated that in recent days he has seen a "structural shift" in the polling data in Romney's favor. With a strong performance at tomorrow's townhall-style debate in which he connects with average Americans, Todd declared that Romney could "win this election" and "close out" President Obama, putting him in a hole too deep...

I say "Joe Biden," you say . . . . Joke? Gaffe machine? Not Chuck Todd. In his pre-game commentary for tonight's debate, the NBC political director claimed that, as with Cheney versus Edwards and Bentsen versus Quayle, Biden—matched up against Paul Ryan—has "gravitas" going for him. View the video and a list of some of Grandpa Gravitas's most famous gaffes here.

Did the enthusiasm gap detected by the Politico/GWU poll published today have to do with the debate performance by Barack Obama on Wednesday night? Not necessarily, and it might mean that the full impact of the debate has yet to materialize. On yesterday's Meet the Press, Chuck Todd detailed the falloff in enthusiasm among key Democratic demographics, both compared to stronger Republican demos and to the 2008 election. And Todd points out that these numbers came from a survey before the debate (via NewsAlert):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO The HuffPo has the transcript: Well, it’s simply an enthusiasm gap....

He's right, and for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is the unrest in the Middle East. One would think that an American head of state would take advantage of a UN meeting to grab some quality time with leaders in the region and try to hammer out some support. Instead, Barack Obama will be on The View --- and the RNC is making sure everyone knows it:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO NBC’S CHUCK TODD: “Meanwhile, today the president comes to New York for the United Nations General Assembly where he delivers his speech tomorrow but...

NBC News reporter Chuck Todd mocked this FReeper on Twitter tonight for my pointing out that the media would rather lose money than cater to conservative consumers of news. The conversation started over a comment by Slater reporter Dave Weigel on media bias in polls:Do people actually think news networks would pay for unreliable polls with bad samples b/c they love Obama so much? Don't answer that.I replied: News media has deliberately alienated conservatives, willfully losing money to further liberalism. Skewed polls just a part.Weigel retweeted my comment with a slight modification to his 75,849 followers: MT @KristinnFR: Media has...

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, NBC White House correspondent and MSNBC “The Daily Rundown” host Chuck Todd more-or-less predicted that President Barack Obama would win Florida in November, citing the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that gives Obama a five-point edge over Republican candidate Mitt Romney in that state.

MSNBC host Chuck Todd asked the co-chair of the Democratic party's convention, L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, why there are more Republican women and Hispanic governors: "Let me ask you though, this one question, why is it that the Republicans have elected more women governors and have two Hispanic governors and the Democrats don’t?," asked Todd. "Don’t have as many women governors and don’t have Hispanic governors, why do you think that is?"

"This was brilliant timing on the president's part. All last week the Romney campaign was on offense and Obama was dealing with Vice President Race-Baiter and a campaign that had gotten so vicious it had finally backfired. But with the media all excited and eager to use GOP senate candidate Todd Akin's rape comments to damage the Romney-Ryan ticket and the GOP as a whole, Obama picked the perfect time to come before the White House press corps." "First off, by surprising the media, Obama knew the few good ones in there wouldn't be as ready to hit him with...

Now that Mitt Romney has come out with two different statements strongly condemning Republican senate candidate Todd Akin's comments about rape and abortion, the media finds that they will need to gin up another reason to aid and abet Barack Obama in tying these comments to a Romney-Ryan ticket. To the rescue rides the ever-insufferable Carol Costello. This morning, CNN's Costello was almost as giddy to talk about the damage the media wants Akin's comments to do to the GOP brand as MSNBC's Chuck Todd (who could not stop smiling as he concern-trolled). After covering Akin's comments, Costello brought on...

While discussing gun control on Wednesday's The Daily Rundown on MSNBC, correspondent Mike Viqueira lamented: "...the anti-gun control, pro-gun rights crowd has won the argument at this point....they've succeeded in framing the issue as one of essential American national values." In response, host and chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd ranted: "...nobody has sort of a rational policy debate about it." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Todd began the segment by whining over the lack of gun regulation: NBC's Todd Whines Over Lack of 'Rational Policy Debate' About Gun Control I wanted to look...

Collectivism: a political or economic theory advocating collective control especially over production and distribution. If Chuck Todd is right, our country is in trouble. On Morning Joe today, discussing President Obama's "you didn't build that" remarks, NBC political director Todd opined that "half this country believes" we are about collectivism. View the video here.