It was interesting to watch how the cable news channels covered Pres. Obama’s speech to troops at Elemendorf AFB in Alaska this evening.
On Fox News, Bret Baier broke in to “Glenn Beck” at 5:40pmET to anchor coverage. The network carried Obama’s remarks until 5:45pm, and promoted that the speech could be seen in its entirety on FoxNews.com. Baier then tossed back to Beck who said, “Well, give me a second. We’ll come back with more of the program. Stand by…”
When he returned, Beck showed the speech from Alaska as it was still going on, and commented: “Does anybody — when you see a politician speak now, and you see these people standing behind them… and I go, ‘okay, there is the Asian. There is the elderly person. There is the African-American. There is the handicapped person.’ Politicians are using us as props. I’m sick of it! Especially when it comes to the soldiers. They are not props.”
Beck then promoted tomorrow’s show which will include interviews he conducted on a recent trip to Harlem. “We have a great show planned for you tomorrow,” Beck teased.
As for MSNBC, Chris Matthews was anchoring “Hardball” and remained with a segment on the Ft. Hood shooter, until 5:44 when they began airing the president’s speech. They carried about two minutes of Pres. Obama.
CNN was the only network to carry Obama’s remarks in their entirety from 5:40pmET until he concluded at 5:55.