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The White House correspondent was assigned the lead spot to cover the Georgetown speech on each newscast. CBS' Bill Plante offered dueling economists--Lakshman Achuthan forecasting a revival of economic growth before the end of 2009; Peter Morici forecasting no "sustainable growth path" while the banks remain dysfunctional and trade deficits with oil producers and China persist.
ABC's Jake Tapper got Biblical in explaining the title of Obama's speech, The New Foundation. It is an allusion to the Sermon on the Mount, which contrasts the soundness of a house built on rock with the instability of a house built on sand. The pillars of a sound foundation, Tapper told us, consist of regulation of high finance; investments in education, healthcare and energy; and deficit reduction--"even though the proposed budget will double total debt." In what may have been an allusion to those teabags, Tapper quoted Obama as calling critics of deficit spending "disingenuous" if they fail to address Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
NBC's Savannah Guthrie wallowed in synergy. The economist she chose was Steve Liesman from CNBC: "It is going to be a rough and rocky road back." Her evidence that the speech was a major one was that it was carried live on cable news channels. Her political analysis came from her own boss, DC bureau chief Mark Whitaker, on MSNBC: "There was a moment of church in that speech but the rest of it was pure law school."
ABC and CBS both followed up with in studio crosstalk with their business correspondents. Is it true that there are signs that the recession is ending? "Conflicting numbers," answered Anthony Mason (at the tail of the Plante videostream) on CBS; "mixed messages," replied Betsy Stark on ABC.
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