Nightly News host Brian Williams on Wednesday oddly obsessed over a portrait of Bill Clinton that could barely be seen in the background as Barack Obama finished his first post-election press conference.
During live coverage, as Obama walked away from the podium, Williams apparently spotted the Clinton portrait and pontificated, "Interesting bit there at the end, with Bill Clinton literally looking on between the pillars, his Presidential portrait overlooking the front entrance hallway there in the White House." The journalist didn't expand on the significance he found in the painting.
On CBS, Evening News anchor Katie Couric introduced Obama's address by recapping, "Earlier today, Boehner said his goal is a, quote, 'smaller, less costly and more accountable government.'" She then spun Boehner's generic comments: "Chip, both the President and John Boehner say they hope to find common ground, but those words from John Boehner, they sound like fighting words to me." Fighting words?
During the press conference, reporter Chip Reid offered a question to Obama that seemed to imply that only government intervention creates jobs:
CHIP REID TO OBAMA: Republicans say more than anything else what this election was about was spending and they say it will be when hell freezes over that they will accept anything remotely like a stimulus bill or any kind of the proposals you have out there to stimulate job growth through spending. Do you accept the fact that any kind of spending to create jobs is dead at this point? And, if so, what else can government do to create jobs, which is the number one issue?
Over on ABC, George Stephanopoulos charted the emotions of Obama's response: "Right now it was a reflective President Obama in this press conference, somewhat rueful. But still unruffled."
Reporter Jake Tapper added, "It was a contrite President. As you said, he alluded to the shellacking he took and he said it was important thing for him to go through it to reconnect with the American people."
NBC's David Gregory sounded a similar theme in his post-press conference description: "I mean, this was a President who was chastened, who was dejected, who was clearly trying to project humility."
- Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here [1] to follow him on Twitter.