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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...