On her 1 p.m. ET MSNBC show on Thursday, host Andrea Mitchell whined about Senate Republicans blocking some of the President's recent nominees and worried about the impact of Obama's sagging poll numbers: "...in terms of presidential power, polls affect votes....this is diminishing the President's clout, when he can't frighten – you know, have enough political weight to frighten everybody into line to try to peel off some Republican votes."
Noting that one of the nominees was sitting Congressman Mel Watt, NBC senior political editor Mark Murray warned: "You know, this something where we've often seen filibusters, we've seen nominations being blocked, but this is getting into very rare territory here."
More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.