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Kellyanne on CNN's CAMPBELL BROWN: NO BIAS, NO BULLMystery of Flight 447; Did President Obama Undercut U.S. Military?Aired June 5, 2009 Excerpts of Kellyanne's panel participation on CNN's Campell Brown: No Bias, No Bull are included below. Click here to read the full transcript of the show, or visit the show's website. CAMPELL BROWN: And now it's time for tonight's first big question. Is blaming the media a cop-out? There has been an outcry from the right that this president's speech to the Muslim world recycled a lot of what the former president said, and that reporters are embracing Obama just because he's not Bush. We're going to talk about that right now with our panel. We have got NPR contributor John Ridley back with us, Kellyanne Conway, president of The Polling Company, Gideon Yago, host of "The IFC Media Project," joining us tonight, along with CNN senior political analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Welcome, guys. Kellyanne, let me start with you on this. You have probably heard conservatives say over the last 24 hours that what we heard from Obama was very similar to many of the things that President Bush had said and -- before, that it was just a matter of different packaging, and you had a case where the media was criticizing Bush and applauding Obama. What do you think? Do you agree? KELLYANNE CONWAY, PRESIDENT & CEO, THE POLLING COMPANY: Well, to some extent, that's true of some journalists and some outlets, Campbell. And the reason is very simple. When you're so besotted with the messenger, that spills over into how you cover the message. Even Pew has found that the coverage of Obama has been different from Bush and Bill Clinton in two ways. First, it's much more about the personality than the policies. And that's important here, because Obama the person is so far more popular than Obama's policies. And, second, that he just has much more positive coverage. Four out of 10 stories were positive. So many more were neutral, whereas, for Bush, 22 percent were positive, for Clinton, 27 percent were positive. So, it's not even partisan, so much as Obama. BROWN: Is it -- but to the speech, particularly, Jeff, do you think that there was a friendlier spin put on things? JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: I think you have to remember where we are in the Obama presidency, how early it is. Early on, presidents get the benefit of the doubt. After 9/11, George Bush got the benefit of the doubt. Remember, he gave a speech in a mosque after 9/11 that got very good publicity, where he said many of the same things that Obama did. But events matter. The war in Iraq changed everything about the Bush presidency and poisoned a lot. Obama is still so early in his presidency, that he's not really responsible for the bad things yet. BROWN: Gideon? GIDEON YAGO, HOST OF "THE IFC MEDIA PROJECT": Well, I actually agree with Katty (ph). I think that you look at that Pew content analysis that they put out about a month ago, and it's spot on. He is getting a free pass. Or he's getting somewhat of a free pass. And some of that is because I don't think that there's a bigger star in America right now than Barack Obama. He sells magazines. He sells newspapers. And he keeps eyes on the screen on broadcasts. BROWN: But -- but couldn't you also argue that the Bush gave -- or the media, rather, gave President Bush a lot of leeway in the lead- up to the Iraq war? You could have said... YAGO: Sure, just as they are giving President Obama a lot of leeway in his handling of economic policy. You look at, for example, a story of this week like the coll |