SCOTT: There were a couple of interesting nuggets, Sally, in the CBS/New York Times poll that came out earlier this week. And it drew some reaction from the Obama campaign. It was asked, “Who would you vote for U.S. president?” This poll showed Mitt Romney with a lead there, as we see, 46-43 percent over the president. The Obama campaign said, oh, it's a bad poll, bad methodology.

SALLY KOHN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. So there you go. There you have the bastion of liberalism, according to conservatives, and all of a sudden, they're coming out in favor of Romney. And the White House is attacking him. There two things here. First of all, the liberals like to complain that the media’s biased and so does the other side. The fact of the matter is Romney is new to that as the nominee so he will be vetted the way Obama was before. If conservatives don't like that their candidate is inaccessible to the press, has a history of flip-flopping, and generally not entirely likeable, and has a record of make money by firing people. They shouldn't complain about the media for looking into that. They should get a new candidate.

SCOTT: Interestingly -- I know you've got a mouthful there, Monica. But interestingly, that same time the poll that White House didn't like, also asked this question, did the president publicly support same-sex marriage because he thinks it was the right thing to do. 24 percent said so 67 percent, two out of three, said it was done for political reasons.

MONICA CROWLEY, RADIO SHOW HOST: Oh, yes, which is one of the reasons why The New York Times and CBS both tried to bury some details that came out in this poll. Look, the only political candidates or politicians who can get away with pounding the press are conservatives because the left essentially has a near monopoly on the media. For President Obama, who was the ultimate beneficiary of most fawning, glowing coverage of any candidate or any president ever, for him now to say, well, I was happy to have media coverage and scrutiny in -- scrutiny in 2008, but now that things are starting to go south on me, listen, folks, don't pay any attention to the media.

SCOTT: Sally --

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: Jeremiah Wright still airs. This is not going.

PINKERTON: Sally, did I hear you say something along the lines of -- that Romney be vetted the way Obama was vetted. Did you say something like that?

(LAUGHTER)

KOHN: I did. And I know it's an about bugaboo to conservatives that Obama was not vetted, but --

CROWLEY: Correct.

KOHN: But I don't understand the sort of amnesia--

(CROSSTALK)

PINKERTON: Here, let me help you. Here is why it's a bugaboo. Because at it happened -- just as it happened in '08, it’s happening again in '12. Reverend Wright and Obama's entire history is off limits. McCain said so in 08’, stupidly, as Chris Wallace said, crazy to do so. And now Romney says it, too. Both have been manipulated into saying anything that happened Obama did before age 45 is off limits.

(CROSSTALK)

PINKERTON: Whereas now, Romney is getting killed for something he did allegedly 52 years ago.

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: Jim, to answer that question, first of all, the media, you know, investigated and fanned the flames of the Wright story to the point where the candidate needed to actually go out and a make a full speech. How can you say then that it didn't happen?

PINKERTON: Because Reverend Wright was so flagrant that if John McCain had been sitting in the pews of a right-wing preacher talking about how he hated however, McCain would have been out of the race. What Obama never got investigated on was college, graduate school life. In fact, Miranas (ph), the biographer, is coming out with stuff that should have been out five years ago, is pretty revealing of how lazy and, as Monica said, how fawning they were in '08.

SCOTT: We mentioned the cover of Newsweek that anointed President Obama as the first gay president. Compare that with Mitt Romney's cover appearance on the same magazine roughly one year ago. If you put the two up next to each other, you'll see, there is the -- well, it really talks.

(LAUGHTER)

KOHN: Well, those covers are equally gay, I want to say that.

(LAUGHTER)

KOHN: Come on.

(LAUGHTER)

SCOTT: But --

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: Sally, you’ve done it. You took Jon's breath away.

PINKERTON: OK --

(LAUGHTER)

PINKERTON: -- who is center left, probably liberal guy, founder of USA Today, just said he ought to change its name to "Fantasia," as in fantasy --

(LAUGHTER)

-- Plus, you know --

MILLER: Or as Tina Brown said, let the games begin. Gee, both Time and Newsweek want to sell magazines, isn’t that astonishing?

CROWLEY: But remember, too, the left wing media wants this to all be about Mitt Romney. And this is the statement that you made at the top of the show when you went through his record. And this is not to say that presidential candidates shouldn't be vetted. They should. But the problem is, as Jim points out, Obama has never been vetted. And this election is a full referendum on Barack Obama not on Mitt Romney.

SCOTT: All right, we have to take a break. Up next on “News Watch,” are the media censoring some types of racial crime?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR MARTIN FAMILY: Trayvon Martin was defending himself. It was self-defense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The media keep up the coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting as the FBI considers a hate crime charge against the shooter. But where are the media and the FBI when it comes to black-on-white racial attacks? Is there a coordinated cover-up?