CNN's Malveaux Endorses Reporter's Question from the Left to Obama

Published: 2/15/2011 8:21 PM ET

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux complimented a media colleague on Tuesday's Newsroom who hit President Obama from the left that morning. April Ryan cited the liberal Congressional Black Caucus's criticism of Obama's proposed budget, that "rebuilding our economy on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans is something that is...not acceptable." Malveaux stated that Ryan "brought up a very good point."

Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, twice raised Mr. Obama's past as a community organizer in her two questions to the President during his 11 am press conference. The reference to the Congressional Black Caucus came in her first question:

RYAN: You started your career of service as a community organizer, and now, we are hearing from people like- organizations like the CBC, saying rebuilding our economy on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans is something that is simply not acceptable, like the cuts to community service block grants, Pell Grants, heating oil assistance, and freezing salaries of federal workers. Now, Roderick Harrison of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Study says it's not good to make these type of cuts at a time of recession, instead of doing it in a time of recovery.

After the President defended his proposed budget, the American Urban Radio Networks correspondent followed up with her second reference to the Democrat's past occupation: "But do you understand when they say, 'is the President feeling our pain?'- especially as you were a community organizer?"

About a half hour later, just after the top of the 12 noon hour, Malveaux made her compliment of Ryan as she asked correspondent Jessica Yellin a question about the press conference:

MALVEAUX: Jessica [Yellin], what did you think about the argument he [President Obama] made? He kept talking about, 'I'm going to use a scalpel as opposed to a machete here,' because a lot of people are looking at it- and April Ryan brought up a very good point- is that those suffering the most are dealing with some pretty severe cuts here in some of these programs.

On the July 16, 2009 edition of Anderson Cooper 360, the CNN personality gushed over the President's speech to the NAACP, which the Democrat had made earlier that night: "When we saw President Bush go before this group [the NAACP] in 2006, a lot of tension, he ignored this group for five years or so. But his message was similar. He talked about the need for accountability, responsibility. He did not have the same kind of credibility that President Obama does."

- Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.