Gun Control "Setback" Not A Problem for Obama?

Instead of calling the fact that there will be no "assault weapons" ban in next month's Democrat gun-control bill, the MSM has called this a "setback" by President Obama and not a "failure" that would surely be the case of a Republican president if he or she had spent months of political capital for not.  Why are they so silent on this failure?  Afterall, they did call his plea at the State of the Union address for Congress to disarm Americans "dramatic and emotional," of course referring to Obama's alligator tears that whipped the left into a sheep-like frenzy.