>> this presidential race is over for me. >> rick santorum throws in the towel, ending his quest to be the gop's pick. the ready react, then turn up the heat on mitt romney and his family. >> guess what. his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. >> that attack on a mother of five caused a tidal wave of controversy, forcing top democrats to abandon one of their own. >> our families are civilians. we don't need to be directing comments at them. >> mainstream media reaction was not so fast or fierce. the president takes his show on the road, pushing congress to approve his plan to tax the rich, adding a new twist to his pitch. >> we could call it the reagan rule instead of the buffet rule. >> is mr. obama baffling the

media with his buffet plan? >> i will confirm that mr. decisionserman is indeed in custody. >> a special prosecutor in florida charges george zimmerman with the murder of trayvon martin. did the media coverage and activist protests force her hand? >> if his is the teflon president. >> nothing sticks. >> and old school journalist, mike wallace remembered. >> i'm john scott. "fox news watch" is on right now. >> what you have is mitt romney running around the country saying, well, you know, my wife

tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. and when i listen to my wife, that's what i'm hearing. guess what. his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. she's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school? >> i know what it's like to struggle. if maybe i haven't struggled as much financially as some people have, i can tell you and promise you that i've had struggles in my life. and i would love to have people understand that mitt and i have compassion for people that are struggling, and that's why we're running. >> she's a democratic strategist. she's a cnn contributor as far as i know. and i don't believe -- i don't know how to assess her overall relationship with people here in the white house. i do not -- i have not seen her

here very frequently. >> there you have this week's political controversy. it began on wednesday, but it doesn't really get a lot of mainstream media attention, even until thursday night. it was on the major newscasts. cbs had it on. they repeated the claim that hilary rosen has no ties to the white house. nbc called it's a distraction. >> well, as jay carney said, i haven't seen her in years very frequently. [laughter] >> 30 visits to the white house. >> 35 visits to the white house. >> oh, 35. >> more than some cabinet members. >> right. i mean, look, this story reminds me of -- the potential impact on the 2012 election of the 1884 presidential election when a republican clergyman said that the democratic party was the party of romannism and

rebellism, and that tipped the election. it tipped the election, first democrat to win in 28 years. >> as everybody knows. >> because we were watching tv then. >> we love having jim on, because he's a font of information. the democrats are backing away from this as fast as they possibly can. will they succeed? >> an apology, a second apology, and now hilary rosen said she's not going to be on the sunday show. she'll be at home with her kids. yeah, this was a huge misstep for them, because you have barack obama 18 points ahead of mitt romney when it comes to women. and here you have a woman who only visits the white house occasionally 30, 40 times, coming out and saying what mrs. romney does doesn't matter, doesn't count. why is she authorized to say anything because she doesn't know anything, because she doesn't work. it was a terrible mistake.

>> do you think there are some in the media who agree with her, though? >> oh, sure, absolutely. but look, the media loves a story. this was a big, juicy story. this was a grenade essentially dropped into the presidential election cycle for one of the main reasons, what judy points out, about women. women will be a major battlefield for this election. barack obama won women as they traditionally do, they won them in 2008, but in 2010 republicans won women by a pretty substantial margin. so the democrats know they've got to get the democratic win back into the fold. so they had some success after the hha mandate -- >> is that the democrat line, the war on women? >> that's exactly right. the democrats created this bogus war on women to tar the entire republican party as being anti-women, and they did have success with that, but this comment may reverse a lot of those gains. >> your column, kirsten storks h

was so brilliantly written. >> hilary rosen's and her defenders have been saying, i wasn't talking about the fact that she stayed at home with children, but the fact that they're wealthy, they have financial means, so they can't possibly relate to a common working person, as if hilary rosen is a common working person. it's so absurd. if you follow this reasoning, michelle obama never should have been able to talk about women, hillary clinton should never have been able to talk about women, elizabeth edwards, who was out speaking on all sorts of issues while building a 30,000-foot home. you're capable of feeling compassion for other people regardless of how much money you have. >> ann romney is really mitt romney's secret weapon. he's warm, compassionate, been fighting m.s., fighting cancer. she has five kids. i don't care how many nannies or help you have, she's everything in terms of personal and warm that he's not. >> that is exactly why the obama

re-election team threw hilary rosen went, went after her by name, because they recognized how big a threat she sis. the white house logs, 35 visits, several were directly to the white house office of media surrogates. she's technically a surrogate for the obama team. >> we didn't get to the other big story of the week. rick santorum dropped out. he blamed in part his decision to do so on his treatment in the media. >> i mean, he got a terrible press, but, i mean, let's face it, this has been a slow slide for him since, i guess, he lost the ohio primary. so, you know, he's managed to get out in time to preserve his viability for the future. i think that's a lot further he thought he'd get. >> here's how he put it. >> the one critique i would give is that, you know, the media does drive this a lot more than people realize. they do in fact have a -- have a -- have the ability to drive a narrative beyond the campaign's

ability to really -- to do much about it. and in that respect i give romney a lot of credit, in that he was more effectively able to spin the media effectively to drive his narrative we were. you know, that's -- that was just the relate of the situation. >> well, romney has one more campaign under his belt. fair criticism or sour grapes? >> no. sour grapes. it sounded that way. by the way, it was also inarticulate. there was a fantastic column, snarky column, saying even the flag behind him when he spoke at gettysburg to announce the inevitable, was not ironed, because someone hasn't gotten around to ironing the flag. >> wow. we'll be back with more in just a moment. how are the news media reacting to the president's push for the buffet rule? >> one survey found that 2/3 of millionaires support this deal. >> just days away from tax day. president obama pushes his buffet rule to force the rich to

pay more, but critics claim his plan is pure politics, and the press too baffled to dig for real details. >> we just wanted an arrest. we got it. >> following weeks of protests and racial tension, the man who shot trayvon martin gets charged for murder. did the media play a role? details next. that's on "news watch." ♪ i can do anything ♪ i can do anything today ♪ i cano anywhere ♪ i can go anywhere today ♪ la la lla la la la [ male announcer ] dow solutions help millions of people by helping to make gluten free bread that doesn't taste gluten free. together, the elements of science and the human element can solve anything solutionism. the new optimis

>> there are enough excuses for inaction in washington. we certainly don't need more excuses. i just point out that the buffet rule is something that will get us moving in the right direction, toward fairness, toward economic growth. it will help us close our deficit. it's a lot more specific than anything the other side has proposed so far. >> president obama trying to push his buffet rule as part of his re-election campaign, and just days before tax day. so far he's taken some media backlash from both sides. so mr. obama tried a new tactic. >> i'm not the first president

to call for this idea, that everybody has to do their fair share. if it will help convince folks in congress to make the right choice, we could call it the reagan rule instead of the buffet rule. >> so how about that reagan razzle-dazzle? did the media buy it? >> the rolling you hear is president reagan turning in his grave, to suggest he's a wealth distributor. some folks in the media took him on on this, scot pelly and others on cbs said you can't compare your economic strategies to what president reagan did in office. >> worth noting the president just released his tax returns on friday. $789,000 of income, and an effective tax rate of 20.5%. he escapes the buffet rule. >> he does, but comfortably puts himself in the 1%. as kirsten, the politicos in

both parties are all rich, which is there there's ambivalence about the buffet rule, because they pay it. >> i'm not in that category, by the way. have the media done their due diligence on the buffet rule? what's the figure? 36.7% of all income taxes are paid by the top 1%, and 70.5% of all income taxes are paid by the top 10%. >> we're beginning to hear even if the buffet rule were enacted it would still account for a small portion of one day of federal spending. i mean, i think the media are trying to wrap our little minds around the math, and they're coming up noting that this is more about politics it is about taxes. >> every time i hear the president say everyone should pay their fair share, i wonder about the 41% who pay no federal income tax at all. >> the reason that people aren't paying taxes is because they're not making a lot of money, and a lot of them

racial divide and tainted coverage hurt the chance for a fair trial? answers next on "news watch." @@x

made much more about a white hispanic guy going after a black guy, that producer has been fired. is that the appropriate response here? >> i think it is. i'd still like to know more about the vague steps that nbc has taken to ensure that it doesn't happen again. i'd like to know more about how it happened. i think that it's one thing to have an internal investigation, but when you're dealing with such a racially polarized and politically polarized situation

you had a responsibility to tell the public more about how that happened. >> just the photos, the way they've been used in this case tell so much. you know, the young photo -- well, here's george zimmerman as he looked there on the left when he was arrested for an altercation, a bar fight basically five years ago. and then the picture of him on the right, smiling, you know, corporate photo. the pictures say so much, how they're used says so much. >> oh, absolutely. now we're seeing pictures of trayvon with the same story. innocent-looking pictures of him, him in the hoody and so on. the photographs do tell a good part of this tale. "the washington times" this week had an interesting headline, "trial by media." i think a lot of folks want to get to the truth, justice for trayvon, they want to make sure that george zimmerman also has his day in court, has his access to the justice system as well, but the fact that the media has gone from narrative to narrative

based on what facts of the day have been coming out i think it's an unfair treatment to the memory of trayvon, and we want justice for him, but also unfair to george zimmerman. >> up next, remembering the one and only mike wallace. z. >> lonely? >> yes, it's lonely. >> an old school journalist with a tough reputation. the legacy of newsman mike wallace next on "news watch." [ tom ] we invented the turbine business right here in schenectady. without the stuff that we make here, you wouldn't be able to walk in your house and flip on your lights. [ brad ] at ge we build turbines that pothe world. they go into power plants which take some form of energy, harness it, and turn it into more efficient electricity. [ ron ] when i was a kid i wanted to work with my hands, that was my thing. i really enjoy building turbines.

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came in one day to practice and you were practicing and watching i love lucy on television simultaneously. >> it depends on what you practice. actually the best show to practice on is baseball. it's terrific because you can turn off the sound and you see what is going on and you practice your technique. >> i'm not sure about practicing or anything thinking or anything like this. my greatest practicing when wayness london watching cricket. >> violinist ee zach pearl man. one of the many interviews mike wallace did. >> he was a great news man. something else he was outspoken about depression is something that he was struggled with. he was told by his doctor not to talk about it because it would hurt his image as a tough guy. he decided he was on bob costas show and who is probably

watching this at 1:00 a.m. and he would talk about his depression and he helped a lot of people. he helped a lot of people feel like they weren't so alone. >> i like the fact he came to the show that made him so famous when he was 50 years old proving there are second and third and fourth leifgs. he was an amazing reporter. >> and 60 minutes, including wallace will be recommended remembered as one of the most influential show as a style he spearheaded of the confrontational in your face interview. now it's replicated everywhere. corporations and politicians do not say it but share you 30 million people. >> you worked with richard nicks ontdz and you had an interesting story? >> in fact president nixon had to staff up and he actually

considered mike wallace as his first press secretary. mike wallace thought about it very seriously, he decided to stick to journalism and both sides are probably glad he did. >> jon: history my have been different. chris wallace the son of mike wallace released this statement earlier this week. my dad was everything you saw on television. fascinating and funny, challenging and exasperating. he was the best reporter i've ever known, work came first for him he worked hard to make connections with his family. he was my best friend and he was surrounded by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. i already miss him terribly. chris will have a tribute to his father tomorrow on fox news sunday. that is on the fox news network, check your local listings. that is a wrap on news watch for this week, judy miller, jim pinkerton