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Barack Obama's weeklong headline streak was broken by ABC. The only network newscast in the last five days not to lead with the new President and his administration was anchored by substitute Diane Sawyer. Instead she chose the approval by the Food & Drug Administration for Geron Corporation, a biotech firm, to conduct clinical trials using human embryo stem cells on newly paralyzed spinal cord patients. Otherwise Obama's dominance continued unabated. The Story of the Day saw the new First Family settling in at the White House. NBC led with the President's negotiations with Congressional leaders over fiscal stimulus for the economy. For the third straight day, CBS chose a round-up of Obama's busy daily calendar.

CBS' White House correspondent Chip Reid checked off the President's economic talks, his reversal of his predecessor's global funding policy for family planning and his continuation of George Bush's cross-border raids from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Reid reported that a pair of missiles killed "at least one al-Qaeda operative." From the Pentagon on NBC, Jim Miklaszewski spelled out the lethality that lay behind Reid's "at least" euphemism: the drone attack reportedly killed 14 people in Pakistan, only five of whom were "militants." Miklaszewski did not identify the other nine that the CIA terminated.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos (embargoed link) of This Week lavished praise on Obama's first week in office as "disciplined and strategic" in its implementation of his campaign slogan of Change. Stephanopoulos highlighted Obama's commitment to open government, to new ethics rules and to dismantling the legal foundation for his predecessor's War on Terrorism. He conceded, however, that Obama's bid to halt the revolving door between Beltway lobbying firms and government bureaucracies was "meeting hard reality." The role of deputy at the Pentagon "is a highly specialized job that only about a dozen people in the country can fill." Obama's nominee, William Lynn, happens to be a lobbyist, so he became his first ethics exception.

Stephanopoulos' Sunday morning competitors also both pitched in on the President's first week. Bob Schieffer (no link) of CBS' Face the Nation called Obama's program "ambitious" and opined that "the huge crowds that came to Washington have changed the tone here" making its passage more likely. David Gregory of NBC's Meet the Press focused on fiscal stimulus and the potential closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, calling the question of what to do with those inmates "a big concern." By contrast, NBC's Miklaszewski Thursday estimated that fewer than 20 of Guantanamo's inmates posed problems. Gregory contrasted critics of the $825bn spending plan: those conservatives who criticize its excesses do "not appear significant enough;" whereas those "on the left" who criticize its caution emphasize that "the government is really the spender of last resort" amid consumer belt-tightening.


Andrew Tyndall 1/26/09 4:27:26 pm

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