Asked what he thought of privatizing airport security, the head of the TSA laughably responded that “no matter how you do it, you need federal oversight of the system to ensure consistency and high standards.” Even more laughable, two NBC hosts just accepted that answer and moved along to asking if Congress needs to pay the TSA more.

Amid record lines, staffing turnover and scandal, the crew at NBC’s Today tried to help Peter Neffenger, the TSA Administrator, find someone else to blame during an interview on May 26. Naturally, the Obama administration and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson were off limits.

This type of kid glove treatment is typical for the networks. Throughout their nearly 49 minutes TSA coverage, ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows have been careful never to blame the Obama administration in any of their coverage. Not even once.

While the interview included some criticism of the TSA as an agency, Lauer and Guthrie both seemed to accept that Neffenger wasn’t at fault, and that he was doing his best to rectify the situation. “People might not mind waiting in a line if they didn't also read that when federal inspectors went in there, those screening tests failed 95% of the time,” Guthrie observed. “Just kind of adds insult to injury, doesn't it?”

“Well, as I said, we had to get better at our mission,” Neffenger responded. “And I’m going to focus on – this is a critically important mission, and we’re in a pretty high threat environment too. So you’re going to make sure that you do the thing you’re hired to do which is to protect the aviation system.”

“It’s life and death.” Lauer agreed, before moving on to the next question

Naturally, Congress bore some of the blame for Neffenger’s failure. “You need to be able to pay people more, don't you?” Lauer asked, “Average TSA worker makes about $30,000 a year. That's about the same as a manager at McDonald's. Nothing against the people at McDonald's. But shouldn't a guy or a woman responsible for keeping a bomb, a gun or knife off a plane be paid more and does congress need to loosen up the purse strings so you can pay these people more?”

The airline companies also came under fire. “Are the airlines doing enough?” Guthrie asked. “I know the DHS Secretary asked for airlines to waive those checked baggage fees, the theory being that if people check more bags, the line will go faster, and essentially they said ‘no thanks.’ Do they need to step up?”

However, despite repeated questioning, the Neffenger couldn’t say for certain whether or not the baggage fee change would affect lines at all.

“You know, I’ve been working with the airlines, all the U.S. airlines, and they’ve done a tremendous amount to help us in recent weeks. Hiring out contract staff to carry out non-related – or non-security-related duties, things like carrying the bins back and forth, and helping people, you know, to remember to take the right things off as they move across the checkpoint line.”

Lauer pressed him. “But if they drop those fees, would lines get shorter?”

“What I’m focused on is getting people moving efficiently through, I think that if they could help us enforce the one plus one rule, that’s very important. Because, if you can reduce pressure at the checkpoints –”

Lauer: “With all due respect, if they dropped those first bag fees, would lines get shorter?”

Neffenger: “You know I...I don’t know if there’s a direct correlation. But I do know that there’s a direct correlation between people carrying prohibited items through the checkpoint and long lines at the checkpoint.” In sharp contrast NBC reported that last year Neffenger said long lines were partly due to "an increase in checkpoint screening of baggage due to fees charged for checked bags."

An additional 6 minutes and 26 seconds of TSA coverage on last night's evening news story bring the total amount of TSA coverage on the evening news broadcasts up to 49 minutes and 20 seconds, still without finding any fault in the Obama Administration for the debacle.

Transcript of portions of Neffenger interview on NBC's Today follows: