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As for the President's State of the Union speech, all three White House correspondents filed a preview: CBS' Major Garrett concentrated on Barack Obama's plans for the economy; ABC's Jonathan Karl on the invitations extended to supporters of gun control legislation to attend, including Kaitlin Roig, the Connecticut teacher his anchor Diane Sawyer made famous; NBC's Chuck Todd ticked off all major points.
The networks' Sunday morning anchors had all been briefed. Both David Gregory of NBC's Meet the Press (no link) and George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week (at the tail of the Karl videostream) expected a confrontational tone from the President. Bob Schieffer of CBS' Face the Nation reflected on the attitude of Speaker John Boehner, who went on the record as calling the President gutless. In an interview with CBS anchor Scott Pelley, Majority Leader Eric Cantor declined to endorse the Speaker's insult.
ABC's John Donvan acknowledged Eliot Engel's sycophantic claim to fame.
Donvan also reminded us about Lenny Skutnik, the first State of the Union gallery guest to be saluted by name by a President. Kimberly Munley was such a guest three years ago. She was the police sergeant who helped stop the shooting spree at Fort Hood that killed 13 soldiers. Now Brian Ross files an Investigates feature on ABC about her lawsuit against the army for classifying the shooting as workplace violence rather than combat, meaning no Purple Heart casualty benefits. The lawsuit gave Ross the opportunity to bring us Exclusive videotape of the carnage itself. See a gory Major Nidal Hasan.
Absent, but still to be mentioned by name, will be Hadiya Pendleton. All three newscasts covered the murder of the 15-year-old in a Chicago park last month. Only CBS, which paid most attention to Chicago street violence all of last year, followed up with the arrest of Michael Ward and Kenneth Williams for killing her. Dean Reynolds' colleague John Miller reported at the time that strict gun laws are useless unless violators are punished; Reynolds turned Ward, aged 18, into a case in point.
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