hits and misses of the week. mary, first to you, boy, target rich environment. hugo chavez, his death. >> david, as you know the death of the dictator provoked a the lot of expected and moronic comments from people like oliver stone and sean penn, but we also have comments talking about how sad we were to see hugo chavez leave us from the british foreign secretary. and if you can believe it, the president of colombia, juan manuel santos said he was saddened by the death of chavez. >> david: he sergeanted colombia. >> and mike rogers says that hugo chavez was a stabilizing force in latin america and progress in the region. >> a good hit to mr. roger. >> and the nanny state marches on. >> a miss to our mayor here in new york, michael bloomberg whose large soda ban goes into effect next week.

for all of us, even if you're not a big gulp drinker, it's a slippery slope before he goes after large alcoholic beverages and could it be the 24-ounce beer can or the 40-ounce bottle. >> david: the 24-ounce beer can which you commuters love, there would be a riot in the commuting trains. and dan, you have proof, by the way, that there is global warming, or more precisely there was global warm a long time ago. >> a canadian scientist said they found bone fragments that suggested the north pole was populated by giant camels. giant camels on the north pole. and this is simply fantastic. now, there's a global warming aspect because it had to be warm for the camels to live there. so if this is going to happen again, i want to be around when the polar ice caps melt to see the amazing animals. >> david: dan, thank you very much. that's it for this week's show. i'm david asman, be sure to

catch me weekday afternoons after the bell on fox business and each for forbes on fox. all next week, we hope to see you then. >> jon: on fox news watch, the media hyped the president's fear and blame game leading to the sequester and now that we're there have the media changed their tune on exaggeration and hysteria. hugo chavez's rule over venezuela ends. a chance to honor the man of the people dismissing the dark side. >> senator rand paul makes a stand on capitol hill delivering an old-fashioned filibuster demanding the white house come clean on drone strikes. did the media back him or bash him. ann romney speaks her mind the first time since the election, pointing out the failure of the mess for not giving her

man fair treatment. how do you think the media react today that. and the verdict is in, who the best debate moderator was. >> judy miller, editor of the national review, rich lawrie. 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. now. >> these cuts are not smart, they'll hurt our economy and cost us jobs. and congress can turn them off at any time, as soon as both sides are willing to compromise. it's unnecessary. and in a time when too many of ours friends and neighbors are still looking for work, it's inexcusable. hundreds of thousands of americans who serve their country, border patrol agents, fbi agents, civilians who work for the defense department, will see their wages cut and

their hours reduced. >> jon: remember that? the president pushing the doom and gloom scenario over the sequester and as we have discussed on this program, the media pretty much parroted the white house hype. the hysteria never came, the planes and trains running, and lights are on. sewage is not flowing on the streets as far as we are aware, but the media seem to have changed their tune. the washington times, obama poll numbers take a post-sequester dive. "the washington post," did obama cry wolf on sequester? u.s. news and world report, how obama bungled the sequester. and from politico, obama administration sequester claims shot down by fact checkers. and tom brokaw said mr. obama present too much time campaigning, suggesting he should have been at camp david with congressional leaders working out a deal. so, jim, has the coverage changed? have we seen that about-face?

>> i think it has. the media research center's jeffrey dickens pointed out that two-thirds of the mainstream media coverage was alarmist before this happened, but then, i think, last week i said that the administration was getting a little ahead of its skis in terms of sequester and pushing too hard and declaring doom and gloom and i think having watched "saturday night live" last weekend where it had a fake president obama saying, quote, i don't know anything about money, unquote. and i think now you can say the administration has jumped the shark on-- to use a tv cliche and further compounded the problem canceling the white house tours, which is a pr fiasco that even the mainstream media had to make fun of. >> jon: you bring up the media research center, 66% of the stories done from valentine's day february 14th until march 1 when the sequester kicked in, 66% advanced essentially the white house talking points. on abc, 89% of the stories parroted the white house line

about budget, panic, and the sky is going to fall. that doesn't exactly seem to comport with what we're seeing here. >> i think that accounts for the political backlash as jim was saying. i find it interesting that this week in "the washington post" you had two very different columnists, jennifer ruben saying, by the way, where is everybody on trying to figure out the actual impact on the economy of these sequester cuts? and howie kirtz not exactly on the same political ideological spectrum as jennifer ruben, saying, you know, if the media had spent 10% of the time that we've spent on beyonce's lip-sync we might know more about the actual impact of this and i think this is an area where the media fell short. >> did the media just take the white house line as gospel, that all of these people were going to lose their jobs and economic doom was going to result? >> well, i think they took the gospel up to a point, and then it started, as it got closer

to it, people realized some of the stuff they were saying wasn't adding up and they were making very specific claims, the president claimed about janitors not getting paid and turned out it wasn't true, but i agree with what howie was saying, there would be a real impact of this long-term if it is-- if they don't do something about it and that really hasn't been talked about. the cbo, lost jobs in a fragile economy. instead the white house is making up stories about janitors and canceling white house tours. >> jon: we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, rich, and yet, they can't find a way to keep the white house open? >> it seems a classic instance of picking out the painful, high profile cut. there's a hierarchy how this coverage was. local tv, you put out a statement about one of the local talent-- >> it's going to be on the ten o'clock news regurgitated

verbatim pretty much. the network news next worse and some of it was print. there was some fact checking washington post blew the whistle on arne duncan's exaggeration and it wasn't all terrible. >> jon: is there any evidence that they're out on a charm offensive with the republicans. >> or 180 degree reverse course and taking them all out to dinner. yes, i agree with rich that glenn kesseler of "the washington post" handing out pinochios to the white house like candy. and even a post story white house seeks new money for imf. we can't afford the white house tours and the white house is asking for 65 billion dollars for the international monetary fund and as snyder said, talk about awkward timing. the first word of the story. >> jon: kimberly strassel, the wall street journal columnist

pointed out 27 million dollars on a program in north africa that includes pottery making. >> yes, well, we can always do that and look at some silly sounding program in the foreign aid budget, which is a minuscule part of the budget. i mean, let's look a little closer at the pentagon and here again, this notion that the president has no choice, he's just got to cut across the board, that is where the leadership issue that tom brokaw was complaining about really manifests itself. he can make this less painful. >> the other thing, it shouldn't have been a mystery, if the press had gone and talked to some of the government unions, no way they can be fired or furloughed immediately, it's going to take months and even if you agree with kirsten there's long-term harmful effect, no way it was going to happen on the time frame, immediately within weeks of the sequester. >> jon: coming up next on news watch, the media gush over a dictator who is now dead. >> hugo chavez dies and the

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>> venezuela leader hugo chavez died this week, the controversial president was 58. his admirers reacted. sean penn, the actor, says today the people of the united states lost a friend it never knew it had. poor people around the world lost a champion. i lost a friend i was blessed to have. former president jimmy carter, we know a man who expressed to bring changes to his country and people who felt marge allized and michael moore, we spoke for over an hour and he was happy to finally meet

someone bush hated more than him. he was a polarizing figure, kirsten. was the -- did the coverage reflect that? >> i don't think it did. i don't think in the mainstream media, those were quotes from pretty far left people, but i don't think the mainstream media was covered in the way it should have been covered, which really was completely totalitarian thuggish leader. a human rights abuser. somebody who hated america and saying he was a friend to america was absurd. i expect that stuff frankly from the people you just named, but rich wrote a great column, why more troubling things from where it wasn't expected. >> jon: why don't you share thoughts from your column, rich? >> well, it's-- hugo chavez were a figure of the right, if you talked about a 21st century fascism instead of 21st century socialism none of the media would have mentioned his charming colorful personality.

he was basically a fascism, anti-sem might, loved the notion of military dictatorship and said that heroes dictators, and militarized venezuela's politics and got coverage in the major media. >> jon: for a thug he understands a great sense of public relations and worked on the media. you give people in the bronx free or discounted heating oil and good stories written up. >> it'd be fun to trace the money he sent to the u.s. in various forms, if it's true, for example, he had a 2 billion dollar personal bank account, who knows what he was doing that. didn't take it with him and who knows where the money is headed. not a lot of curiosity about elements of his rule. i'm old enough to remember the media reaction when che guevara was killed and mao tse tung. and there's orientation to the left that you used to see in the foreign leaders. castro doesn't have good headlines to look forward to.

>> there are too many positive headlines as far as i'm concerned and they are in the mainstream media, you look at frank bayshack of the associated press, an endless story full of wonderful things that chavez did for his country. the 25th and 26th paragraph mentioned his fondness for havi having-- his thoughts on democracy, and minor problems in the 25th and 26th paragraphs of the story that's unacceptable. >> speaking of dictators, there was a visit to kim jong-un this week, dennis rodman, former nba star went over there in what turned into a pr blunder, i guess you can say. he was there with the harlem globetrotters among a few other people, part of cultural exchange with north korea. the h.b.o. program "vice" was there to document it all and we'll see more. rodman called kim jong-un an awesome guy and praised his

father and grandfather the dictators of north korea and george stephanopoulos had this to say on his return. you called them great leaders, do you believe that? >> what i saw in that country, i saw in that country, i saw people respect him, and his family. that's what i mean by great leaders. >> aren't they forced to? >> huh? >> aren't they forced to. i say no, because i think he's -- this is a different view 'cause i sat with him for two days and one thing he asked me if obama say and do one thing. he want obama to do one thing, call him. >> jon: so why the at all, rich. >> captivating tvment i don't think anyone could take their eye off the train wreck and dennis rodman, a useful idiot with the emphasis on idiot. >> jon: i think the panel

nodded. was ann romney right to blame the media. >> ann romney takes a shot at the media for coverage of her man, mitt. the media takes more shots at her. which side is right? answers next on news watch.

>> all right. what about the media? >> the media. >> do you think the media was in the tank for barack obama? (laughter) i think that if anytime you're running for office you always think that you're being portrayed unfairly and you know, we -- of course on our side believe there's more bias in favor of the other side. i think that's a pretty universal -- universally felt opinion. >> jon: ann romney, along with her husband speaking in an

exclusive interview with chris wallace last weekend. this week, the media reacted, as you might have expected, "the washington post's" eric wimple, there is a mountain of contradiction on one hand ann romney her frustration that the campaign kept too tight a lid on the candidate. on the other hand she says that he wasn't portrayed completely in the media. i suppose it's the complaint na every losing campaign is going to have. >> it is and i think that some people who were watching that interview did not conclude that she was mean or that this was as jonathan said, sour grapes. i think she was trying to balance what was obviously a very difficult and delicate situation, which was her husband's defeat. look, you can blame the campaign by saying they didn't let mitt be mitt. and you can blame the media by saying, they presented-- we presented a false view of mitt, but it's harder to admit

that the american people did see mitt up close and personal and through the media and they didn't like him. >> jon: but they also say a preponderance of stories about barack obama, especially in the final weeks. >> as the pew center pointed out, during this election obama's coverage was lop-sidedly positive and romney's coverage was lopsidedly negative. and mrs. romney has a perfect write to complain about that. and if she want today pursue the media critique function. now that romney has been defeated there's now an upswell of gallantry on her behalf. yes, people are treasuring here, but a piece in the daily beas beast-- >> and someone of united blue.com joins the fray by tweaking out, ann romney is a stepford wife who needs reprogramming. >> that's obviously unacceptable. i think that -- i think even the idea that she was blaming

everything on the media was a lot of sort of people on the left were claiming isn't true. it's just one of her critiques. she had many critiques and one was that the media was unfair to mitt romney. she stipulated every candidate feels this way and she was laughing as she said it. so the idea of sour gripapes was ridiculous. >> jon: and then there was this. did you catch senator rand paul's filibuster. >> the majority of the side doesn't get what we execute. we have a process deciding this, we have courts for deciding this. to allow one man to accuse you, you never get notified af been accused. your notification is the buzz of the propellers on the drone as it flies overhead in the seconds before you're killed. is that what we really want from our government? >> the kentucky senator standing his ground and standing up for 13 hours, demanding the white house

answer his question about whether or not the president could have ordered the death of an american citizen on american soil using a drone without due process. attorney general eric holder finally answered no. here is some media reaction. >> the administration has responded with a letter, as i understand from attorney holder, it's come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question he, does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an american, not engaged in combat on american soil? the answer to that question is no. senator rand paul released a statement saying, he is satisfied and will end his opposition to brennan. the vote as you know has gone through so i guess that's the end of that. >> that was one of the shortest letters i've ever seen from an attorney general, a vi silent f-you in it somewhere. >> jon: and yet, when asked earlier to answer that question, the administration never came up with that two letter answer no.

>> exactly with the way that they've defined it, they've defined it in such a specific way, it leaves open a lot of possibilities and what rand paul was asking for is the legal justification for this action and some guidelines. we want to know what the ground rules are, why aren't more americans standing up there with rand paul asking these questions? and i'm speaking of someone who is not opposed to the drone program. >> jon: rand paul a conservative senator, but the normally conservative editorial page of the wall street journal slammed him. >> this is something where the right is divided. and there's a civil libertarian reflex on the part of the media and great drama having a talking filibuster, but strikes me an incredible hypocrisy that the administration, the memos they have, the white paper they had on this, whoever wrote that if he or she were in the bush administration would be hunted down as a war criminal. you don't see that reaction whatsoever. >> jon: we saw the media erupt

over abu ghraib and electronic spying, but the responsibility of killing americans with a drone-- >> well, one fof the people on the scooter libby-- and accusing him of something he didn't leak. and this is some imperial presidency that needed to handle this information. now when you ask something about blowing up americans without due process, it's f-you from the justice department? >> and noah rothman and rand paul shatters and captures hearts and beyond. that's something the mainstream media does not want to repeat. >> jon: next, what debate moderator out did the others.