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Green Week is upon us again, time for more global warming scare-mongering by the NBC family of networks. Kicking things off during half-time of last night's NBC Sunday Night Football, Meredith Vieira put Al Gore's alarmism to shame. [H/t reader Mick L.] Gore predicted a measly 20-foot rise in sea levels, enough to drown much of Manhattan. Vieira outdid him by a factor of 10, raising the spectre of a sea-level rise of 200 feet. That exaggerates the increase predicted by scientists by literally hundreds of times. Vieira, speaking from Sydney, Australia, where she is focusing on water shortages, chatted...

It's Green Week again at NBC, time for more global warming scare-mongering by the network. During half-time of last night's Sunday Night Football game, Meredith Vieira helped, uh, kick things off with a bit of alarmism that would put Al Gore to shame. The Today show co-host raised the spectre of the oceans rising . . . at least 200 feet! [H/t reader Mick L.] Readers will recall that Al Gore's claim, propagated in An Inconvenient Truth, of a Manhattan-drowning 20-foot sea-level rise has been widely rejected as so much alarmist hooey. But compared to her apocalyptic vision, Vieira made...

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...

Hard to believe, but Meredith Vieira is apparently not a regular NewsBusters reader. The Today co-anchor would otherwise have avoided an embarrassing lapse. On Today this morning, Vieira claimed that it was only "blogs" that went after Sarah Palin's family matters. That left her vulnerable to McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt's zinger, pointing out that one of her own network's anchors had questioned Palin's ability to serve as vice-president while attending to her children' needs. Schmidt was presumably referring to Brian Williams. As we noted yesterday in Williams Hides Behind Pantsuits to Take 'Who's Minding Baby?' Shot, the Nightly News...

Was George Soros behind the publication of Scott McClellan's book? Meredith Vieira had the perfect opportunity this morning to find out—but chose to punt. The Today co-anchor certainly had the time: her much-touted exclusive interview with the author of What Happened ranged over the show's first two half-hours. But even when McClellan himself put the issue on the table by citing his publisher by name and alluding to its philosophy, Vieira failed to pursue a line of questioning that could have put matters in an explosive new light. As MRC's Brent Baker has detailed, McClellan's publisher, PublicAffairs: is part of...

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.—Archilochus (7th-century BC) Mark Penn might not be appearing before the cameras on Hillary's behalf nowadays, but bet that he is beavering away behind the scenes on his polling. And judging from Hillary's dogged [to mix an animal metaphor] performance on this morning's Today, it's obvious that Penn's turned up one big thing: Dem primary voters hate oil companies. Meredith Vieira gamely tried to get Clinton onto other subjects during her interview. But no matter the question, the answer was almost invariably the same: I Hate Big Oil. Since...

NBC says some find bookcase and Christmas lights offensive Candidate wishing voters Merry Christmas upsets some folks The latest effort to spread the idea that religion has no place in the public square comes as a response to a TV spot produced by presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. I urge you to watch the two video clips I have placed in this e-mail. First, is the ad by former Governor Huckabee wishing people a Merry Christmas. Click here to watch the 30-second ad. Next, is a clip from the Today Show (Dec. 18), hosted by Meredith Vieira, on which Governor...

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...

Ah, those diversity-loving liberals. You know, the kind who would stifle free speech with their Orwellian "Fairness Doctrine," who threaten legal action against mom-and-pop T-shirt makers who criticize MoveOn.org. Wesley Clark would now take things one step further, whacking Rush Limbaugh off the Armed Forces Network radio airwaves. "Today" co-anchor Meredith Vieira interviewed the retired general and former Dem presidential candidate on this morning's show. MEREDITH VIEIRA: He wants Congress to pull Rush Limbaugh off the Armed Forces Radio Network, which is funded by taxpayers . . . You started this email campaign to get Limbaugh off the Armed Forces...

Warning to Bush administration officials: when being interviewed by Meredith Vieira, be prepared to make your point in 7-10 seconds, or risk being rudely caught off by the "Today" co-anchor. Twice in the course of her interview of Condoleezza Rice this morning, Vieira intemperately interrupted the Secretary of State just seconds after she began responding to her host's question. MEREDITH VIEIRA: Yesterday Senator John Warner asked General Petraeus whether the war in Iraq is making us any safer, and the general responded "I don't know." [Note: in subsequent testimony before the same committee, Petraeus made clear the link between Iraq...

Honeymoon? Forget about it. The morning after his announcement, "Today" wasted no time in going after Fred Thompson. Like a Las Vegas bride with a bad hangover, Meredith Vieira seemed particularly grumpy. At 7:05 a.m. EDT, the "Today" co-anchor interviewed Tim Russert. MEREDITH VIEIRA: The other candidates are out debating last night, and he's on Leno, he's yukking it up announcing that he's running for president as if it is a punch line. Was that a smart thing for him to do? By her acerbic tone, Vieira left no doubt that, in her mind, it wasn't. Russert suggested that Thompson...

NBC Today co-host Meredith Vieira opened her Today at the Pump segment cheering the recent decrease in gas prices as "sweet relief" but then wondered: "Would we be better off...if gas prices were even higher?" On this morning's Today show, Vieira invited on Chevron’s CEO, David O’Reilly, to harass him about getting America off its "dependence" on oil and cited critics of Chevron’s allocation of profits to find alternative sources of energy as merely, "symbolic."

Assembling a panel to discuss how the presidential contenders' marital histories may affect their candidacies, "Today" resorted to one of its favorite tricks this morning: match a loyal Dem with a renegade former Republican. Former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers was matched with Bay Buchanan, who served as her brother Pat's campaign manager when he left the GOP and ran against George W. Bush as a third-party candidate in 2000. The strategy paid dividends from NBC's perspective, as two of the roughest shots at the Republicans were taken by Bay. Consider these two bombs Bay dropped. Regarding Rudy: "If...

Could Meredith Vieira be emerging as one of the morning shows' most incisive inquisitioners? As we noted here, Katie Couric's replacement at "Today" recently gave Ted Kennedy a rather rough going-over regarding his legislative proposal to require the president to obtain congressional approval for a surge. This morning, she took on the hitherto untouchable Barack Obama. And while her tone and line of questioning were not disrespectful, neither was there any hint of the kind of MSM cheerleading that the junior senator from IL has no doubt come to expect. Before we get to Vieira's questions, take a good...

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times on this morning's "Today." Throughout the show's long opening segment on Iraq, and regardless of the visuals: from David Gregory to President Bush, troops on the ground, Nancy Pelosi, Gordon Smith, etc., the screen graphic skeptically continued to ask "Lost Cause?" So when Meredith Vieira began her subsequent interview of Ted Kennedy, there was every reason to expect her to lob softballs to the senator on the legislation he's introducing requiring Pres. Bush to obtain specific congressional authorization of a surge.Surprisingly, that was not the case.View an...

Rather than the "liberal bias" rubric, file this one under "coarsening of the culture." We had a dubious first this morning: a network news host informing the world that one of her guests had just experienced a hot flash. Dr. Nancy Snyderman was Meredith Vieira's guest for purposes of discussing the good news that scientists have discovered a way to extract stem cells from amniotic fluid and placentas, a breakthrough that could render moot the embryonic stem cell controversy. But at the end of the interview, in promoting an upcoming segment devoted to menopause, Vieira "outed" Snyderman in these...

Meredith Vieira gave herself some cover. It might have been a bit awkward for her to openly avow that she was excited as an anti-war protester, or as a Democrat, a liberal, a proud member of the MSM, etc., to see Nancy Pelosi sworn in as Speaker. Meredith settled for the less controversial formulation: "It's a very historic day on Capitol Hill. Nancy Pelosi, first woman to become Speaker of the House. I'm excited as a woman to see that happen." View video here. Think Meredith would be similarly excited if, say, Republican Deb Pryce of Ohio were about to...

Someone should let Meredith Vieira know: when trying to ingratiate oneself with Hillary Clinton, it's best to avoid words bringing "imperious" to mind. But if the execution was flawed, no one can deny the fervor with which Vieira endorsed Hillary's paean to big-government, 'It Takes A Village'. Here's how Vieira opened her interview with Hillary on this morning's Today:"I'll get to Hillary '08, but first I want to start with 'It Takes a Village' '07 because this book came out ten years ago, and a lot has happened in the past ten years that makes it I think even more...

Chris Matthews just couldn't wipe that grin off his face. Interviewing him on this morning's 'Today,' Meredith Vieira began by suggesting that despite the tough electoral environment for Republicans, polls over the weekend were showing movement in their direction. She started to pose a question, but so distracting was Matthews' mugging that she couldn't continue, asking instead "why are you smiling?"Replied Matthews: "Because I think it's going to be a wipe-out. I think the Democrats are going to carry the House by 20-some, high-20s and I think the Senate seats are perhaps not six, but five, and I can see...

The annual Halloween extravaganza on the "Today" show took a rather ghoulish turn on Tuesday morning, when Meredith Vieira's first big entrance as a "Today" co-host was conspicuously unseen. After Ann Curry and Natalie Morales sauntered somewhat awkwardly onto the stage as Cher and Madonna, respectively (the theme: divas), the big reveal -- Vieira coming out Bette Midler-style as a mermaid in a clamshell -- fell flat, and viewers were treated to the truly horrifying sight of a stagehand's denim-ed bottom, and several seconds of confused fans in Rockefeller Plaza.

by Mark Finkelstein September 21, 2006 - 08:24 For NewsBusters types, the question has always been whether Meredith Vieira would be as liberal as her Today show predecessor, Katie Couric. As of this morning, we have our answer. Hugo Chavez stood on the world stage and called the President of the United States a "devil" and claimed the speakers platform still stunk from his presence. But Meredith Vieira has warned us not to be too quick to dismiss his message. Interviewing Bill Clinton, she said: "Now, it's easy to dismiss somebody like Chavez - and some have - as a...

<p>In her Today show debut this morning, Meredith Vieira gave a flash of her ego - but not of her liberal politics. There was the obligatory opening love-in with co-host Matt Lauer in which Vieira claimed "I feel like it's the first day of school and I'm sitting next to the cutest guy." But then there was an interesting exchange that might presage conflicts to come. In what is apparently a Today show tradition, Matt had the crew replay the opening voice-over announcing "Meredith Vieira, live from Studio 1-A in Rockefeller Plaza."</p>

Meredith Vieira makes her Today show debut this morning at 7 AM EDT, replacing Katie Couric, departed for CBS. Will Meredith - who marched in an anti-war/anti-Bush demonstration at the 2004 GOP convention - let her liberal slip show? What will the chemistry be like with Matt Lauer, not to mention Ann Curry and other women on the show who might have been hoping to be Katie's replacement? Let's have at it! PS: I'll surely be doing a separate posting at NewsBusters and here a bit later.

NEW YORK - A day after Katie Couric announced she was leaving for CBS, NBC has chosen Meredith Vieira as Matt Lauer’s new partner on the “Today” show. NBC scheduled a news conference for Thursday afternoon to announce its new “Today” host, and confirmed in a statement that Vieira had been selected. “Meredith's vast experience as an award-winning journalist, as well as talk show host, make her the ideal candidate for this job,” said network CEO Jeff Zucker.

Meredith Vieira, the widely presumed replacement for Katie Couric as co-host of NBC's Today this fall -- Wednesday's New York Times reported that “NBC has nearly concluded an agreement with Meredith Vieira of ABC to replace Ms. Couric as co-host of the Today morning show” -- marched in an anti-Iraq war protest back in August of 2004. On the Monday, August 30, 2004 edition of the ABC daytime show she quad-hosts, The View, the former CBS 60 Minutes reporter told viewers that she attended the anti-Bush protest held in New York City on the Sunday before the Republican convention opened,...