Obama's 'evolving' revelation

This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Watch," May 11, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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JON SCOTT, HOST OF “FOX NEWS WATCH” (voice-over): On “Fox News Watch” --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I just concluded that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

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SCOTT: -- following years of confusing comments, flip-flops on the issue, a surprise statement from his V.P., pressure from the press and partisan groups, Mr. Obama finally said it. Did his big revelation get the positive press he might have hoped for?

And in light of the president's gay marriage position of The Washington Post hits Mitt Romney, telling the tale of high school mischief and painting the GOP front runner as a gay-bashing bully. What was behind the timing of this hit piece?

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MITT ROMNEY, (R), FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That simply is just not accurate.

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SCOTT: Another underwear bomb plot is uncovered, foiled by a British double agent. The Associated Press breaking the news of the plan this week, but they knew about it last week. Was holding the story the right thing to do?

Joe Biden strikes again, giving his off-the-wall take on the Iran's nuclear threat. Is it time for the media to ignore the vice president?

And does dancing on stage make you a bad journalist?

(LAUGHTER)

(on camera): On the panel this week, writer and Fox News contributor, Judy Miller; syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas; Jim Pinkerton, contributing editor, the American Conservative magazine; and Daily Beast columnist, Kirsten Powers.

I'm Jon Scott. “Fox News Watch” is on right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: At a certain point, I've just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: After a bit of hemming and hawing there, President Obama making it crystal clear on where he personally stands on gay marriage. Here is a quick look how the media reacted.

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BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: President Obama today became the first American president to say he approves of same-sex marriage.

SCOTT PELLEY, CBS EVENING NEWS ANCHOR: President Obama's stand on same-sex marriage completed its evolution today, changing from opposition to support.

DIANE SAWYER, ABC WORLD NEWS ANCHOR: Announcing something no U.S. president has ever said, that he supports same-sex marriage.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST OF “ANDERSON COOPER 360”: The president did not mince words. He didn't say there was work to be done or that his position is evolving, as he said so often before. He said, in no uncertain terms, that he thinks that same-sex marriage should be legal.

BRET BAIER, HOST OF “SPECIAL REPORT”: Evolution or damage control? President Obama reverses his stance on gay marriage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: So after years of conflicting statements and sometimes vague answers, Mr. Obama's newly evolved position on gay marriage was big news. But why now?

Was it big news, Jim? Deserving the coverage it got?

JIM PINKERTON, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MAGAZINE: Deserving the coverage like the Washington Post on Thursday, historic step by Obama on gay marriage, and Friday, Obama's evolution on gay marriage, next to Mitt Romney's hit piece. Evolution is a great word, given the fact that Barack Obama first had the pro-gay marriage in 1996. As Brent Bozell (ph) said, when Obama moves from supporting gay marriage to opposing it, back to supporting it again. That's evolution. When Mitt Romney does something they don't like, that's a flip-flop.

SCOTT: Why is it not a flip-flop?

KIRSTEN POWERS, COLUMNIST, THE DAILY BEAST: It is a flip-flop. Of course, it is. And they treat it -- when Mitt Romney changed his opinion on abortion, for example, which I think he would say is evolving, they call it a flip-flop and see it as this craven move. And when Obama switches his position twice -- there's hardly anybody, if anyone referred to the fact that he used to support it in 1996, and pretty -- in a very craven way, switched his position. And you know, somebody said this is less evolution and more intelligent design.

(LAUGHTER)

POWERS: It really --

CAL THOMAS, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Very good.

POWERS: -- was not just some accidental thing that happened.

SCOTT: Joe Scarborough called it the big, fat nothing burger.

(LAUGHTER)

But most in the media were pretty euphoric over this move by the president.

JUDY MILLER, WRITER & FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I think most were because, as we know, most journalists admit that they are liberal, and most admit that they are Democratic, and most people who cover the news think that this is a great thing for the president to do.

Now, i think what we think about this, as individuals, is irrelevant. And I'm just delighted to see that after the hosannas and isn't it wonderful, the media calms down, and went back to covering what it should be covering, which is how did this happen? Was Vice President Biden's statement a gaffe or a kind of sensing of the waters? Could they get away with this? And what does it mean for the election.

SCOTT: What they got, Cal, was several days of coverage of the president's evolution on this issue.

THOMAS: It's a diversion and a distraction, as the Romney campaign has said, from the real issues, and that would be the economy and jobs, and the threat of Iran. The media always liked to be a crusader. They crusaded properly on civil rights for African-Americans. And now see this as a crusade, led by The New York Times. On same days, I have read a pro-gay story on the front page, on the op-ed page, on the editorial page, on the business and science and even sports page. Now, that's a crusade.

SCOTT: The terminology is interesting here, Jim, because the people who are in opposition to gay marriage are often described as haters or bigots, where those, you know, who have evolved to the president's position generally get more positive terms.

PINKERTON: Right. Let's take what Judy said and agree with it. Savannah Guthrie and Mark Alpine (ph), on NBC or MSNBC, just on Thursday just said we're all -- everybody knows --

(CROSSTALK)

THOMAS: We're all gay now.

PINKERTON: We're all supportive of this. And the civil rights analogy is exactly what, for example, Jonathan Rouch (ph), at the National Journal, said; President Obama crossed the bridge at Selma, which is a reference to the 1065 civil rights march and so on, which is historic. And that's the way it will be remembered.

In the liberal narrative of American history, President Obama put himself in the history books right next to Lyndon Johnson.

SCOTT: And there was that Washington Post two-page cover story that came out on Friday, describing Mitt Romney as, at least as a teenager, as essentially a gay-bashing bully. The family of the young man, who supposedly had his hair cut in a vicious way by Mitt Romney, is now saying that he didn't even talk about this event. He died in 2009. And that one of the main witnesses was apparently not even there when all of this happened.

Here’s what Romney had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: I had no idea what that individual's sexual orientation might be. Going back to the 1960's, that wasn’t something that we all discussed or considered. So that simply is just not accurate. I don't recall the incident myself but I've seen the reports, and not going to argue with that. There's no question but I did some stupid things when I was in high school. And obviously, if I hurt anyone by virtue of that, I would be very sorry for it and apologize for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: So, where is the 5,000-word report on the president's cocaine experimentation, for instance, when he was a teenager?

MILLER: That's right. If we're going to start looking at 50-year-old pranks or things that Mitt Romney may be embarrassed about now, you have to ask, where are the comparable pieces about Barack Obama's missing background. Where is the law school period in New York? Where are the string of girlfriends he now doesn't want to talk about? And is that fair game? Ad you know what? I don't care what Mitt Romney or Barack Obama did when they were 15 or 17 or in law school. I really don't care. I want to know where they stand now on the issues. And I think that's what we should be concentrating on. And frankly, I'm just puzzled by The Washington Post playing this story.

SCOTT: All right, we have to take a break now. Up next --

ANNOUNCER: A new and improved al-Qaeda underwear bomb plot exposed and foiled. The story breaking this week. But the Associated Press knew about it last week. Why did they wait to report the details?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. VICE-PRESIDENT: We were the problem.

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ANNOUNCER: Another Joe bomb, launched by VP Biden, trying to blame the Bush administration for Iran's nuclear threat. How should the media react to old Uncle Joe and his off-the-wall antics? Answers next, on “News Watch.”

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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LEON PANETTA, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Our whole effort is to try to be able to get individuals that can provide intelligence and work with us, and to be able to do that and do that effectively, you have to protect these people and you have to protect the confidence and the classification and the covert nature of this kind of work. And when these leaks take place, I can't tell you how much they damage our ability to be able to pursue our intelligence efforts.

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SCOTT: That's Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, addressing the leak of information about a plot to explode a bomb on a U.S.-bound plane around the one-year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden. The explosive and updated underwear bomb turned over to intelligence agencies by a mole inside al-Qaeda.

We're discussing it today, Judy, because the AP apparently had the story for a week and held it that long. The White House asked them to hold it for an additional day but they let the story out the day before the White House wanted it out. Why all of that cloak and dagger?

MILLER: The AP was asked to hold the story to protect Americans and to protect the Saudi double agent, a fact that the administration has not yet confirmed. If ever, if ever there was reason for secrecy, this case was it. This investigation was it. This was a tremendous coup by the Saudis to penetrate al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to win the confidence of senior people. A number of lives were at risk. And the AP should have absolutely held the story for as long as the administration felt it was necessary--

(CROSSTALK)

SCOTT: So you argue we should not be knowing about -- we shouldn't be talking about it today. They should still be a secret

MILLER: They were going to make an announcement on Tuesday and the AP was asked to hold the story until Tuesday, just as the -- and the L.A. Times, by the way, did additional damage by reporting that there was a Saudi double agent involved. And that story broke so quickly that the administration didn't even have a chance to ask them not to run it because the man might still be at risk or his family or his friends.

SCOTT: If the story hadn't come out, could we be gathering more information about al-Qaeda and terrorism operation?

PINKERTON: Sure. What comes to mind is we crack of the codes of the Japanese and Germans early in World War II and spent the rest of the war enjoying knowing what Tojo and Rommel were going to be doing in advance. What if that leaked out? We haven't won a war since the dawn of the information age, television-wise, and this proves how it happens, how you lose because your stuff gets blown the in the middle of it.

THOMAS: There are leaks and then there are leaks. There are leaks that this administration and any administration don't want out, and then there are leaks that they do. For example, Israel's efforts at defending itself against what they consider a very likely attack from Iran. That gets leaked by the Obama administration because the administration doesn't want Israel to attack Iran. So that kind of leak is OK. But this kind of leak is not. So which is it?

SCOTT: And then there was information that came out about -- from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. This, after the president was accused in some circles of spiking the football over his reaction to the anniversary of the death of bin Laden. This Leon Panetta memo said this, "The timing, operational decision making and control" -- of this bin Laden operation -- "are in Admiral McRaven's hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the president. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the president for his consideration."

Admiral McRaven obviously in charge of Special Forces.

The media reaction to that -- essentially, the memo seems to say, you guys do this thing, but if anything changes, it's not necessarily with the president's approval and, therefore, he gets plausible deniability.

POWERS: I don't read it that way.

SCOTT: You don't?

POWERS: I read it as it shows he's component. He's saying to them, I'm approving what's in front of me. If anything changes, come back for more approval. That seems like a basic competency issue that that's what he should be doing. Also, I should note that this memo, as you can see, is handwritten scribble and scribbles. They say it was really meant for historical records, it was just going in a file and it wasn't meant as any CYA or anything like that. The president, if something changes, he didn't approve that, it should be brought back to him.

SCOTT: Jim?

PINKERTON: The parallel is D-Day in 1944. General Eisenhower wrote a note saying, if anything goes wrong on D-Day, it's my fault, Eisenhower's fault, not President Roosevelt's back in Washington. There’s a lot of for- the-history-books stuff written here, including in 1944. I can't see this as something to really at President Obama's feet.

SCOTT: All right, more “News Watch” ahead.

If you see something that you feel shows evidence of media bias, e-mail us at newswatch@FOXnews.com.

Up next, another week and another Joe Biden moment.

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BIDEN: I promise you the president has a big stick.

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ANNOUNCER: Known for some whacky comments, the vice president's at it again, giving everyone his take on who’s to blame for Iran's nuclear buildup. What's a responsible press to do with ole’ Uncle Joe? Find out next, on “News Watch.”

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BIDEN: When we took office, let me remind you, there was virtually no international pressure on Iran. We were the problem. We were diplomatically isolated in the world, in the region, in Europe. The international pressure on Iran was stuck in neutral.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: Vice President Joe Biden going off, trying to blame the Bush administration for failures to stop Iran's drive toward a nuclear weapon. The fact is the Bush administration pushed four resolutions through the U.N. Security Council, calling for Iran to halt its nuclear program, and the last three ratcheted up the sanctions against Iran.

So did the media go after the vice president on this one, Kirsten?

POWERS: I mean, he never lets facts get in the way --

(LAUGHTER)

-- Of a good anecdote or story. Part of the problem is, because he does this so often, there's this attitude, oh, there he goes again, so you never have to report any of the things that he says.

SCOTT: And the media let him get away with it.

THOMAS: If they applied the same standard to Joe Biden as they did to Dan Quayle, for example, over the misspelling of the word potato, then Biden would be a raging idiot and Quayle would be an intellectual. I mean, this is so -- everything he said is so objectively untrue that somebody in grade school could have put holes in it.

SCOTT: All right.

(LAUGHTER)

Let's move on to another story of buckling under pressure. This one, political correctness run amok.

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NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY, JOURNALIST: On Thursday, the Chronicle editor said, well, we think this is a provocative piece, but this is an invitation to debate. So that was Thursday. You know, a long weekend goes by, by Monday night, I was fired. So I can't tell you what happened at the Chronicle in the interim, but it seems like they caved to public pressure and these people who were calling me names and, you know, saying horrible things about me. And the Chronicle, I guess, couldn't take the pressure.

SCOTT: That's Naomi Schaefer Riley, a woman who was writing a blog. One of the entries in her blog was titled "The most persuasive case for eliminating black studies, just read the dissertations." That's what got her fired -- Judy?

MILLER: Well, that's not what the Chronicle says. The Chronicle says she was fired because she failed to back up her 510-word blog with -- what is it, quote, "Even the cursory research." Of course, she was fired for expressing a view which is politically incorrect in academic circles. This is an outrage.

PINKERTON: It's worth noting that she's married to an African- American.

(LAUGHTER)

So she's probably not, obviously, a racist by any stretch. But -- and even Andrew Sullivan, who’s a strongly pro Obama pundit out there, said, this is obviously a case where the Chronicle caved into pressure and unfairly fired someone.

SCOTT: It was suggested that maybe she was fired from the Chronicle of Higher Education simply because the readers of the Chronicle of Higher Education didn't like the views that she wrote in her 500-word blog post.

THOMAS: I think that's perfectly legitimate. She crossed the line here of liberal dumb. You don't tug on Superman's cape and don't spit in the wind and mess around with the holy trinity of liberalism -- liberal women, African-Americans and gays. That's it. You touch any of those and you're out.

(LAUGHTER)

SCOTT: Kirsten?

(LAUGHTER)

THOMAS: Follow that one.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: It's really hard.

POWERS: Well, I don't know about that. But, look, I find it troubling that we now live in a world where people cannot hear opposing views, and that people need to be able to just respond. The person doesn't need to be fired, just have a debate.

SCOTT: Up next on “News Watch,” a journalist's other job gets her fired.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCOTT: At the end of another “News Watch” now, and we try to pick stories that will bring you entertainment. This one, this time, we picked just for Cal.

(LAUGHTER)

Cal meet journalist, Sarah Tressler.

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SARAH TRESSLER, JOURNALIST: I felt very lucky to land a job as a reporter for The Houston Chronicle. I liked the work and I felt I had good editors who provided me with opportunities to cover stories in Houston that might have otherwise been overlooked.

I was very upset I was fired because I had been told by many editors that I was doing a great job. I was covering high society and also doing general assignments, human interest stories, men's and women's fashion, and other stories. I don't believe that I should have been terminated because of a claim that I did not disclose on my application that I worked as an exotic dancer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: That's former Houston Chronicle society reporter, Sarah Tressler, appearing with her attorney, Gloria Allred, of course, announcing this week that she has filed a federal gender discrimination complaint against the chronicle. She alleges she was fired because she failed to reveal the fact that she also had worked as an exotic dancer, what some would call a stripper.

(LAUGHTER)

Allred adds, "Sarah's work as a dancer is lawful and into the crime. It does not, has not and will not affect her ability to perform her job as a journalist."

Ms. Tressler also writes on her blog, Diary of An Angry Stripper.

No comment from the Houston Chronicle. we are keeping an eye on what might come next.

She says, in her two months at the Houston Chronicle she did a great job.

THOMAS: I'm not touching that one, Jon. Thank you for the opportunity.

(LAUGHTER)

SCOTT: Thank you. I'm not sure if there is a morals clause issue here --

(LAUGHTER)

-- Depending on the high society people she was covering, were throwing clean dollar bills at her that would be a problem.

THOMAS: Oh.

SCOTT: She was also outted by a rival newspaper, by the way.

That's a wrap on “News Watch” this week.

Thanks to Judy Miller, Jim Pinkerton, Cal Thomas and Kirsten Powers.

I'm Jon Scott. See you next week.

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