Author Archives: NewsBusters.org

To cohabit or not to cohabit? It seems like every year a new study on the consequences of shacking up before marriage negates everything that had been said about it the year before. Cohabitation increases divorce - no, wait! It makes your marriage last longer – no! It only lasts longer if you were engaged before you cohabited … It’s a never-ending argument that keeps the presses happily rolling along.

On March 9, CBS’ the Early Show joined the fray by inviting Hannah Silegson, author of "A Little Bit Married," to cite yet another "new study" that claims "if you only live with one person before you get married, you’ll have a no higher chance of getting divorced."

CBS’ Harry Smith introduced Silegson’s book as a "cautionary tale," saying that "playing house" could be a "losing game," but the criticism of cohabitating ends there. Silegson and three other pro-cohabiting panelists discussed living together as "the new romantic right of passage."

"You want to try before you buy," Silegson told Smith.

"I think you actually need to move in with each other before you get engaged, before you get married because it’s such a big commitment and you want the next 50, 60 years of your life to work out nicely together," said panelist Chris Edmund.

Edmund’s soon-to-be cohabiting girlfriend called living together a "trial period before engagement" and  a "bridge to marriage." Silegson agreed with her, citing a new study that says you’ll be at no greater risk of divorce if you only live with one person before getting married. This contradicts past studies that found that cohabiting leads down a fateful path to divorce.

Silegson was probably referring to a study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics that was released last week. It claims that cohabiting has little effect on marriage success – success being defined as "not getting divorced."

But is "not getting divorced" the best measuring stick to determine a successful marriage?

While divorce statistics give the media a nice round number to flash on their screens, separating happy marriages from the unhappy doesn’t boil down so easily. Many studies, for example, have shown that, while cohabiting before marriage may not lead to divorce, it also doesn’t end with a "happily ever after" either.

A 2005 article published in Psychology Today titled "The Perils of Playing House" found that those who cohabited before getting married had "poorer-quality marriages."

"Those who cohabited first report less satisfaction, more arguing, poorer communication and lower levels of commitment," wrote the author Nancy Wartik.

A compilation of studies gathered by Focus on the Family also report that cohabitation increases the risk of domestic violence for women and physical and sexual abuse for children. A 2005 article co-authored by Scott M. Stanley, author of "The Power of Commitment: A Guide to Active, Lifelong Love," found that couples who lived together before marriage were more likely to cheat, and a 2006 study conducted by the Alabama Policy Institute found that couples who cohabited before tying the knot were more likely to hit or throw things during arguments, considered their relationship more likely to end, and reported higher levels of depression than couples who did not live together before marriage.

How could something that sounds so sensible as a "trial run" be so damaging? There’s been a few hypotheses but the most likely is the inertia theory. As Nancy Wartik explained in herPsychology Today article, going from living together to married can happen "almost by accident."

"We move in together, we get comfortable, and pretty soon marriage starts to seem like the path of least resistance. Even if the relationship is only tolerable, the next stage starts to seem inevitable," she wrote. " Because we have different standards for living partners than for life partners, we may end up married to someone we never would have originally considered for the long haul."

Neither Silegson nor any of the panelists during CBS’ interview mentioned these possible consequences of cohabitation. Maybe living together doesn’t increase the chances of divorce (a new study next year will probably refute everything anyway), but perhaps "not getting divorced" shouldn’t determine a marriage’s success either.

Brent Baker recounted how CBS Evening News spotlighted fifth-grade protester Marcelas Owens on Tuesday night. David Shuster interviewed him on MSNBC on Tuesday morning. What neither network shared with the viewer is how Marcelas has become a constant talking point for his home-state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, and how he is a spokesman for a liberal lobby, the Washington Community Action Network.

On February 26, Les Blumenthal of The Olympian reported Murray shared the Marcelas talking point at the White House health care summit:

"Sen. Patty Murray has told the story of Marcelas Owens dozens of times before, but Thursday she may never have had a bigger audience as she talked of the 10-year-old Seattle boy whose mother died after she lost her health insurance coverage."

…Marcelas, in a statement released by the Washington Community Action Network, thanked Murray for sharing his story with the president.

"I lost my mom because she didn’t have health care," Marcelas said. "Every day it’s hard not having her around. I don’t want any other kid to go through what I have gone through."

Senator Murray’s campaign website had a fuller version of the statement:

Marcelas Owens, whose entire family have been longtime members of the Washington Community Action Network, issued the following statement today thanking Senator Murray for her leadership:

"I want to thank Senator Murray for sharing my story with President Obama and other people in Congress. I lost my mom because she didn’t have health care. Every day it’s hard not having her around. I don’t want any other kid to have to go through what I went through. That’s why I don’t understand why some politicians are saying that Congress should stop working to pass the health care reform bill. Every day we wait, more kids like me will lose someone they love. Thank you for fighting for me, Senator Murray."

Clearly, a ten-year-old boy who lost his mother is a heart-tugging anecdote. But, aside from the desirability of using grade-schoolers in political debates, more knowledge about how organized this Marcelas campaign is displays that CBS and MSNBC are receptive recyclers of liberal Democrat video-press-release ideas.

On Wednesday’s CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith underwent a live colonoscopy in order to raise awareness of colon cancer. Hosting the momentous occasion was CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, who dressed the part, wearing green scrubs, a white lab coat, and a stethoscope around her neck as if she was a medical doctor.

Couric famously taped herself undergoing the same procedure in 2000, while still co-host of NBC’s Today, in the wake of her husband, Jay Monahan, dying of colon cancer in 1998.  

In the Early Show segment, Couric stood by Smith’s bedside as they discussed the procedure and later dressed in full surgical garb as the colonoscopy was being performed.

Co-host Maggie Rodriguez led the coverage by touting the "Couric effect" of Americans getting colonoscopies in wake of Couric’s televised exam and hoped for a similar "Smith effect."

—Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

HDNet’s Dan Rather, in a piece for the Huffington Post, apologized for his use of the word "watermelons" during a segment about Barack Obama’s ability to pass health care, that was aired on the March 8 Chris Matthews Show. In his explanation Rather offers his Texas background as an excuse saying, "I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It’s an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas" but then goes on to plead "I’m sorry people took offense."

The following is the most relevant portion of the statement, from the former CBS Evening News anchor, as it appears in The Huffington Post:

I was talking about Obama and health care and I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It’s an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas, when country highways were lined with stands manned by sellers of all races. Now of course watermelons have become a stereotype for African Americans and so my analogy entered a charged environment. I’m sorry people took offense.

But anyone who knows me personally or knows my professional career would know that race was not on my mind. Reporting on the injustices of race was part of the reason I became a reporter. I grew up in segregated Texas on the same side of the tracks as the African American community. At the time, enlightened people called them Negros. Many people called them much worse. When I covered the Civil Rights movement, I saw sheer hatred in ways that still haunt and shock me. For doing my small part in reporting on the South in the 1960s, I was called a traitor to my roots and other names not fit for print. I was threatened with death by people who would have welcomed me to their church on Sunday on account of my white skin if they didn’t know what I was there to do. I do not take this issue lightly.

I can understand why someone who just happened upon my comments could take offense or want clarification. But what has caused this comment to "go viral" is the trumpeting of an online and cable echo chamber that claims the banner of news but trades in gossip, gotcha, and innuendo. Furthermore, even for those who brook no prejudice, when everything is condensed to 140 characters or a small YouTube clip, many people who got this "news" did so without any context, just a headline that popped up on their phone or inbox.

For the full piece visit The Huffington Post.

A report released Monday says that California’s new global warming law will increase unemployment in the Golden State.

The announcement was in stark contrast to continual claims by the Left and their media minions that proposed cap and trade legislation at the federal level will result in an explosion in green jobs.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times Wednesday, the nation’s most populated state, which is the first to impose laws concerning carbon dioxide emissions, might see a net reduction in employment as a result:

The state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office examined 2008 economic modeling by the California Air Resources Board and concluded that it "may overstate the number of jobs" attributable to future implementation of the 2006 climate law.

While acknowledging the uncertainty of such projections, the report said, "On balance, however, we believe that the aggregate net jobs impact in the near term is likely to be negative, even after recognizing that many of the . . . programs phase in over time."

The report comes at a politically charged moment, when polls show employment to be Americans’ top concern. Signature gathering began last week on a November ballot initiative that would delay the law, known as AB 32, until unemployment drops to 5.5% for at least a year. California joblessness is over 12% today.

With U.S. unemployment near ten percent, and the economy consistently viewed as the nation’s top priority in poll after poll, one would think this report would be quite newsworthy.

After all, with belief in Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s favorite money-making myth plummeting, and Congress beginning to work on compromise cap and trade packages, the public should be informed that California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office believes its state’s climate change legislation will result in job cuts.

Unfortunately, Google news and LexisNexis searches found that outside of California, American media have not shown much interest Monday’s announcement.

The Associated Press ran a story about this Tuesday, but only on its State and Local Wire. 

Reuters also did a piece on the matter Tuesday which ran in the U.K.

From what I can tell, outside of California, the only major media outlet to find this issue newsworthy was Investor’s Business Daily.

I wonder why.

ABC and CBS on Tuesday night picked up on the cause of a small anti-health insurance industry protest in DC organized by left-wing labor groups, but instead of denigrating them as the networks with did with much larger Tea Party and anti-ObamaCare rallies, the two newscasts empathized with their cause, each relaying an anecdote about a victim of the current system. Both ABC’s Jonathan Karl and CBS’s Nancy Cordes did, however, proceed to point out the small profit margin for health insurance companies.

“Taking their cue from President Obama, protesters took their complaints about insurance company premiums and excess profits to the insurance industry and the streets,” ABC anchor Diane Sawyer announced. Karl noted the ideology of the “coalition of liberal groups” and recognized “the attacks are pretty harsh. They’re accusing the insurance company CEOs of bribery, money laundering and manslaughter.” But he then showcased “Leslie Boyd, whose son Michael died of colon cancer after he couldn’t get insurance or afford a colonoscopy.”

On CBS, Katie Couric set up the story on how “angry protesters targeted the insurance industry.” Cordes found “eleven-year-old Marcelas Owens” who “flew here from Seattle” because “his mother Tiffany lost her job and the health insurance that went with it after a prolonged illness caused her to miss work. She stopped going to the doctor and died at 27 of pulmonary hypertension.” The kid [in the screen capture] delivered a perfect soundbite: “She ended up passing away because she didn’t have the equal rights to health care as some people with more money.”

As for Sawyer’s “taking their cue from President Obama, protesters took their complaints about insurance company premiums and excess profits to the insurance industry and the streets” formulation, they were also taking their cue from her. In late February she took to World News to demand to know who will “keep insurance companies from jacking up premiums while making huge profits?” and touted “the growing outrage at insurance companies, the ones that raise premiums on ordinary Americans while racking up big profits.”

Monday night: “NBC Applauds Obama’s ‘Fighting’ Mode as He Catches Up with Sawyer’s Insurance Demonization”

The networks weren’t so friendly last year to anti-Obama protesters:

“ABC: Obama Critics ‘Driven By Refusal to Accept Black President’; NBC Trumpets Carter’s Racism Charges”

“CNN’s Situation Room Charges: ‘Racial Tinge to Tea Movement‘”

“Nets Disparage Protests: Getting ‘Ugly’ and ‘Unruly,’ Scold Limbaugh But Skip Pelosi”

A wrap-up of the coverage from April 15, 2009: “Tea Parties Hit with Hostile & Crude Media Response”

The stories on the Tuesday night, March 9 newscasts, transcripts provided by the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth who corrected the closed-captioning against the video:

ABC’s World News:

DIANE SAWYER: And now we go to Washington, the battle over health care reform reaching a heated fever pitch today. Taking their cue from President Obama, protesters took their complaints about insurance company premiums and excess profits to the insurance industry and the streets. And the industry fought right back. Jon Karl watched the confrontation unfold.

JONATHAN KARL: It’s now an all out assault on the insurance companies. The first salvo was fired by the President.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher and higher.

KARL: And today, a coalition of liberal groups took to the streets in Washington, marching outside an insurance industry conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

HOWARD DEAN, FORMER DNC CHAIRMAN: This is a vote about one thing: Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?

KARL: The attacks are pretty harsh. They’re accusing the insurance company CEOs of bribery, money laundering and manslaughter. Among the marchers, Leslie Boyd, whose son Michael died of colon cancer after he couldn’t get insurance or afford a colonoscopy.

LESLIE BOYD, PROTESTER: I sat with him as he died, and I really thought my heart would stop when his did, and it didn’t. And so I do this now.

KARL: But while the protesters and the White House were blaming the insurers, the insurance companies launched an ad campaign blaming others in the health care sector for skyrocketing costs.

CLIP OF TV AD: Health insurance companies’ costs are only four percent of all health care spending. Doctors, hospitals, medicines and tests are the biggest slices.

ROBERT ZIRKELBACH, AMERICA’S HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS: There’s been almost no focus on the skyrocketing increases in the cost of medical care. You know, our members are seeing increases in hospital costs in some parts of the country by as much as 40 percent. Where’s the focus there?

KARL: For all the White House focus on insurance profits, the top insurance companies actually have a relatively low profit margin – about four percent last year – compared to 20 percent for drug companies and 29 percent for biotech firms. And consider this: While the top five insurance companies raked in $14.7 billion in profit last year, that represents just about one half of one percent of total health care costs. But there’s one number you can expect the White House to hit over and over again in the coming days – 128 percent. That’s the amount that the average American has seen their insurance premiums go up over the last 10 years, Diane, and it’s a number that far surpasses inflation.

DIANE: That’s a question of the premiums there. Thank you, Jon.       

CBS Evening News:

KATIE COURIC: Now to the battle over health care reform and the push for a House vote by the end of next week. Emotions are running high on both sides of the debate, and, in Washington today, angry protesters targeted the insurance industry. Here’s Nancy Cordes.

CLIP OF PROTESTERS: Health care now!

NANCY CORDES: Supporters of health care reform descended not on the Capitol or the White House today-

CLIP OF PROTESTERS: What do we want? Health care!            

CORDES: -but Washington’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel where executives from the nation’s largest insurance companies were holding an annual conference. Eleven-year-old Marcelas Owens flew here from Seattle.        

MARCELAS OWENS, PROTESTER: No other kid should go through the pain that our family’s gone through.

CORDES: His mother Tiffany lost her job and the health insurance that went with it after a prolonged illness caused her to miss work. She stopped going to the doctor and died at 27 of pulmonary hypertension.

OWENS: She ended up passing away because she didn’t have the equal rights to health care as some people with more money.

CORDES: Inside the Ritz, attendees were well aware of the anger directed their way.

KAREN DAVIS, THE COMMONWEALTH FUND: We’re never going to have a rational system in this country if we continue the way we are now.

CORDES: The protesters were taking a page from the President who has made insurers public enemy number one.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We can’t have a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people.

CORDES: Now insurers are pushing back.

CLIP OF TV AD: Health insurance companies’ costs are only four percent of all health care spending.

CORDES: They point out that the average profit margin for health plans is just over three percent compared to nearly 19 percent for drug companies. They argue it’s not their greed that’s driving premiums up but sharp increases in the cost of hospital stays, outpatient surgery, emergency room visits and specialty drugs.

KAREN IGNAGNI, AMERICA’S HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS: You know, just this whole notion of "find a villain, aim the rhetoric and go after them," but that doesn’t get anybody covered.

CORDES: But for anxious Democrats, health insurers make for an easy target, especially when they jack up rates by 20 or even 40 percent, Katie.

COURIC: Nancy Cordes reporting from Capitol Hill. Nancy, thank you.

In a clear sign liberal media elites are growing weary of the White House, comedian David Letterman went after President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel Tuesday evening.

During the "Top Ten" segment of the "Late Show," Letterman counted down the signs that Emanuel is nuts.

Before beginning the list, Letterman explained with shocking detail that this was precipitated by Rep. Eric Massa’s (D-N.Y.) assertion that Emanuel once cornered him in the Congressional shower room wearing nothing but an evil grimace.

Maybe most surprising, Letterman managed to lampoon the COS without once referencing to Sarah Palin (video embedded below the fold with transcribed list, h/t Story Balloon):

10. Every morning takes a leak off the Truman balcony
9.  President Obama smokes cigarettes; Rahm eats them
8.  Spotted today at Toyota dealership
7.  He’s leaving Obama to become a special advisor to Richard Nixon
6.  In a fit of rage, he snapped Dennis Kucinich in half
5.  Changing his name to Rahm Emanuel Lewis
4.  Refers to every cabinet official as "Clarkie"
3.  Recently got into heated policy debate with his stapler
2.  You mean, besides walking around D.C. naked?
1.  Even Andy Dick is telling him to chill  

Following "Saturday Night Live’s" pointed attack on the Administration this weekend, it appears broadcast network comedians and their writers are finally beginning to feel comfortable going after this White House. 

Share thoughts on the latest health care poll numbers: 68 percent now oppose passing the plan without GOP support.

Theoretically, the AP’s sample might support reconciliation eventually, if further attempts at compromise with the GOP failed. But that’s academic: There aren’t going to be any further attempts, and frankly I’m skeptical that many who oppose reconciliation now would come around to it down the line. After nine months of this garbage, who seriously believes that just a little more effort at detente will break the impasse? If you don’t want them to go it alone now, you don’t want them to go it alone period, so wavering Dems will simply have to swallow that 68-percent figure. Good luck, kids.

Are Dems stuck with the legislation, or should they just drop it and move on?

What’s a principled stance on the life of an unborn fetus if it means achieving the be-all and end-all victory for liberal ideologues – a government intrusion into health care? According to The Nation’s Chris Hayes, it’s just "one giant obstacle."

Hayes, filling in for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC’s March 9 broadcast of "The Rachel Maddow Show," didn’t seem impressed with Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. Stupak, who has a documented history of having a pro-life position on abortion long before so-called health care reform was even a possibility, has been taking heat from left-wingers in this political battle. But according to MSNBC, it’s just his "15 minutes of fame."

"If health reform is finally going to happen this year, Democrats have one giant obstacle standing in their way, his name is Bart Stupak," Hayes said. "Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak from Michigan has threatened for the last week to pretty much anyone who will listen, to bring down the health reform bill if the anti-abortion language he prefers is not in it. And Bart Stupak says he’s not just speaking for Bart Stupak. He is speaking for the Stupak dozen."

At issue is whether or not Stupak can push through language into a House health care reform bill similar to that in an amendment that passed back in November in the House’s first go-around that won the vital support of pro-life Democrats and even one Republican. Stupak vowed that necessary support would not be there this time to MSNBC’s "Hardball" back on March 3.
"There are at least 12 of us who voted for health care who have indicated to the leadership and others, and unless you fix this abortion language, we can’t vote for a final version of the bill."

This impediment apparently has some on the left frustrated because it would violate a key constituency’s stance. The pro-abortion movement that has some strong Democratic allies in the U.S. House and opposes restrictions on abortion, at least as it pertains to federal funding. Determining precisely what Stupak insists upon had Hayes perplexed.
"As Democrats in the House scramble to find every last vote they can to pass health reform, a 12-vote block committed to voting no just might be the single biggest obstacle they face," Hayes said. "And so Democrats have apparently started negotiating with Congressman Stupak who told reporters yesterday, quote, ‘I’m more optimistic than I was a week ago … I think we can get there.’ So where exactly is there?"

Stupak has maintained his intentions are not to expand or restrict current law on abortion despite receiving strong opposition from those in Congress who maintain any language on this issue would be a setback.

If anyone was looking for a self-righteous extreme feminist, they found one in Angie Jackson. This is a woman who was so proud she was aborting her baby that she announced she would "tweet" her chemical-cocktail abortion live, as it happened, on Twitter. The liberal media found this made-for-TV slaughter fascinating, and not at all a controversy worthy of discussing with two sides.

Newsweek’s Sarah Kliff proclaimed: "One hundred thousand people have watched Angie Jackson’s abortion. Late last month, Jackson posted a video of herself to YouTube, recorded after she took RU-486, a medication used to end pregnancies." Kliff asked only "why shame remains" about the act of killing one’s baby. Jackson was honored for her courage in "demystifying" and "destigmatizing" the procedure: "We need 10,000 more of her," proclaimed Peg Johnston, chair of something called the Abortion Care Network. This desire for 10,000 more unashamed abortions is what "pro-choice" is all about.

Overall, this was just another classic tale from the "news" magazine that lamented 20 years ago that "Sadly, many home [abortion] remedies could damage a fetus instead of kill it." What about the pro-life side?

Newsweek devoted just one sentence to Silent No More, a website where women tell a different abortion story, and now speak publicly of their shame and regret. But women are increasingly coming forward everywhere, just like the original "Jane Roe," Norma McCorvey, publicly admitting the horror of their actions, genuinely penitent – and genuinely forgiven. But their stories aren’t deemed "newsworthy."

CNN interviewed Angie Jackson on the morning of March 8, and they were explicit in rejecting any notion that Jackson deserved a rebuttal. Anchor Kyra Phillips declared after the interview that "as you can imagine, we received a lot of response about even doing this story because abortion is such a controversial issue, and we really didn’t want to get into a debate about abortion, but rather, look at what people are doing now, using social networking."

That’s a unique concept: abortion is so controversial that we feel it’s best to only let one side talk, the side that’s taking a child’s life on camera.

CNN claims these days that they are the sober and neutral center between MSNBC and Fox News, but there was nothing neutral about their sympathy for Angie Jackson. Phillips rushed to proclaim that the most savage part of Jackson’s abortion was the pro-lifer comments.

"These are really harsh," the anchor warned. "But people wrote in and said – they called you all kinds of names, from being a whore to someone who just couldn’t keep her legs closed. They called you a baby killer. I mean, it’s even hard for me to say these things because some of those- the e-mails and the responses were so brutal."

As brutal as an abortion? Worse than that, Phillips never acknowledged that pro-lifers most certainly filled Twitter (and the heavens) with their hopes and prayers for her. CNN cannot deny those e-mails were there.

CNN also showed some of Jackson’s horrific YouTube video, where she admitted that her baby had the "potential" for life, "but it [it!] was more likely to kill me, and you’re not going to shame me….I do not feel sorry that I saved my life. I do not feel sorry that I stayed here for myself, for my boyfriend, for my kid that I’ve already got."

CNN didn’t define that sentiment – or lack of it – as "really harsh." CNN never told their viewers that Jackson’s nom de plume on Twitter is "Anti-Theist Angie." Nor did CNN consider the "brutal" contents of Jackson’s Twitter page to be worth commentary. Here are some examples of statements Jackson "retweeted" as worthy comments about Jesus after she popped up on CNN:

"Who would Jesus do? He’d totally do Anti-Theist Angie just to prove a point to those who sully his/her name."

And: "Where would Jesus donate? To science-based education, and better abortion techniques!"

And: "Jesus hates the little women, all the women of the world."

To their credit, when ABC’s "World News" hyped this story on February 28, they at least allowed conservative Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council to declare "Your heart breaks for this woman. And I hope that it doesn’t encourage, I hope that what she’s doing won’t encourage others to take this path." ABC’s online story also allowed a few paragraphs of pro-life argument.

ABC weekend anchor Dan Harris noted Jackson was an "outspoken atheist," and quoted her saying "I hope everybody on YouTube has a great and godless day. Peace."

Jackson said she was four weeks pregnant when she aborted her child. The technology now exists to see just about every human feature – eyes, hands, feet, even the human nipple – on a "fetus" one inch in size, and only two weeks older. Peace.

On Tuesday’s The O’Reilly Factor on FNC, during the show’s regular "Pinheads and Patriots" segment, host Bill O’Reilly picked up on Dan Rather’s recent gaffe connecting "articulate" President Obama with "selling watermelons," as the FNC host gave on-screen attribution to NewsBusters as his source while a clip of Rather’s words from Sunday’s Chris Matthews Show played.

O’Reilly then observed the double standard between the likely media interest if a right-leaning personality like himself made such a statement which seems to employ racial stereotyping versus the lack of interest in such words being uttered by the left-leaning Rather.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Tuesday, March 9, The O’Reilly Factor on FNC:

BILL O’REILLY: On the pinhead front, listen to Dan Rather on President Obama.

DAN RATHER: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case – and a lot of independents will buy this argument: Listen, he just hasn’t – look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority, and it took him forever to get it through, and he had to compromise it to death. And a version of, listen, he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate – this is what’s going to be used against him – but he couldn’t sell watermelons if you gave him watermelons to flag down the traffic.

O’REILLY: Now, if I had said the word "watermelon" within a 100- mile radius of President Obama, I would have been hammered beyond belief by the liberal press. And you know it. But not a word about Mr. Rather, who really didn’t mean anything derogatory, in my opinion. But you can decide if he’s a pinhead.

Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.   —Derek Zoolander

I don’t know which is funnier; a global warming themed fashion show or the fact that the Associated Press reports on it with a completely straight face. They assume the polar ice caps are melting so what to do? Waste carbon shipping giant icebergs from Sweden just to adorn a Paris fashion show runway. Jenny Barchfield delivers the report on "Chanel does climate change, with real icebergs" which sounds like a story pitch for a Zoolander sequel:

PARIS — Models in head-to-toe yeti suits picked their way around towering but quickly melting icebergs, sloshing through a deep puddle of Arctic melt in their shaggy fake fur.

Call it climate change chic, Chanel style.

Designer Karl Lagerfeld looked Tuesday to global warming, turning the melting of the polar ice caps into fodder for Chanel’s fall-winter 2010-11 ready-to-wear look. Because, after all, what use is the threat of a catastrophe of global proportions if not to fuel fashion trends and inspire clever variations on Chanel’s iconic styles?

Models in classic Chanel suits with fur trim or tweed jackets paired with pants that looked like they were made out of Chewbacca, the "Star Wars" Wookiee, struck poses in front of the giant icebergs, which had apparently been special-delivered from Sweden.

Could Al Gore do an audit on how much carbon was wasted putting on this Global Warming fashion show complete with special delivery icebergs? Oh, there was also a sort of serious note in the report:

Fur panels dressed up the hemlines of the classic Chanel skirtsuits and the label’s blockbuster chain-strapped handbags, and the Chewbacca trousers were paired with little tweed jackets.

Animal lovers can breathe easy. Lagerfeld assured journalists that the fur was fake.

"One of the most beautiful furs in the world is Chanel’s fake fur," he told The Associated Press Television News in a post-show interview. "This fake fur gives a very beautiful new volume. It’s a pleasure to touch and to wear it. It’s light and warm."

Still, Lagerfeld, a born provocateur, couldn’t resist taking just one little jab at anti-fur activists.

"It is easy to be against fur, but people in the North have to make their living, they are living with nothing else … (and) have no other jobs," he said in his rat-a-tat diction.

 Fake fur. About as real as the Global Warming threat…and both used as fashion show props. There has to be real justice in that.

Call it a conflict of interest or what you will – but how should The Washington Post handle formal inquiries into its business practices as it pertains to news coverage?

In July 2009, when the Post got in embroiled in controversy over its own pay-for-play scandal, the Post’s media reporter Howard Kurtz took on the newspaper’s publisher Katharine Weymouth. However, as the March 8 issue of Barron’s pointed out – you would have to be on top of Security and Exchange Commission filings to have caught wind of the newest trouble for the Washington Post Co.’s (NYSE:WPO) relating to it’s education division.

"The Washington Post covers government agencies as closely as any daily newspaper. Yet an investor would have had to scroll through the Washington Post Co.’s (WPO) 10-K filing last week to see news of a Department of Education inquiry into its important education unit," Michael Santoli and Bill Alpert wrote for Barron’s. "The Post’s education business, anchored by the Kaplan for-profit college and test-prep businesses, contributed 58% of 2009’s revenue and all of its $195 million of operating income."

As the Barron’s article explained, the online education division of Kaplan, Kaplan University, has a high default rate on its student loans. Barron’s reported that at four of the institution’s 33 reporting units default rates were above 25 percent and subject to Department of Education sanctions. 

However, Santoli and Alpert pointed out any mention of this news has been absent from the Post’s business coverage, despite the potential impact on the Post’s stock price from the successful portion of the company’s operations.

"Most intriguing in the 10-K is the passing (and first) mention that the Education Department has been conducting a ‘Program Review’ of Kaplan University’s main offices in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., since September," Santoli and Alpert wrote. "The Post business desk seemed not to notice any of this, but Post investors might want to."

Concluding a report on proposed soda taxes across the country on Monday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Michelle Miller gleefully proclaimed how such a tax would help fight obesity and fill local government coffers: "New York’s mayor estimates a tax would raise a billion dollars, suggesting what’s good for the waistline could be good for the bottom line."

Miller began the segment by touting: "When former President Bill Clinton enlisted the beverage industry in fighting childhood obesity, he did not expect this much progress in just four years." A clip was played of Clinton reporting: "There has been an 88% reduction in the total beverage calories shipped to schools." Miller then declared: "That’s still not good enough, say some public health officials. A growing number of cities and states wants to reduce adult consumption of sugary drinks by taxing them."

Revealing how bad such a tax would be for the "bottom line" of consumers, Miller explained: "New York has revived a proposal to impose a penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages….[that] would mean this two-liter bottle of coke, which now retails for $1.79, would cost you 68 cents more, for a total of $2.47." She managed to find one man who was happy to pay an even higher amount: "I think it should be two cents per ounce. I don’t mind paying more for it, it would probably discourage me from drinking it."

Miller noted how the American Beverage Association was opposed to a tax and played a clip of president and CEO Susan Neely explaining: "It won’t work. If it’s supposed to solve a complicated problem like obesity, the tax is not going to change behaviors." Miller disagreed: "A study released today suggests it would, claiming an 18% price increase on soda would lead people to trim 56 calories from a daily diet. That’s a five-pound weight loss over a year." Bobby Popkin from the Nutrition Department of the Gilling School of Public Health, UNC added: "It’s the first study to actually follow people over time and show this…increase in prices will matter for our public’s health."

Anchor Katie Couric introduced the story by equating the American people with school children: "For years there’s been an effort to make students healthier by keeping sugary soft drinks out of schools. And a report out today says it seems to be working….Now Michelle Miller tells us this campaign is expanded beyond the classroom and from kids to adults."

Concluding a report on proposed soda taxes across the country on Monday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Michelle Miller gleefully proclaimed how such a tax would help fight obesity and fill local government coffers: "New York’s mayor estimates a tax would raise a billion dollars, suggesting what’s good for the waistline could be good for the bottom line."

Miller began the segment by touting: "When former President Bill Clinton enlisted the beverage industry in fighting childhood obesity, he did not expect this much progress in just four years." A clip was played of Clinton reporting: "There has been an 88% reduction in the total beverage calories shipped to schools." Miller then declared: "That’s still not good enough, say some public health officials. A growing number of cities and states wants to reduce adult consumption of sugary drinks by taxing them."

Revealing how bad such a tax would be for the "bottom line" of consumers, Miller explained: "New York has revived a proposal to impose a penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages….[that] would mean this two-liter bottle of coke, which now retails for $1.79, would cost you 68 cents more, for a total of $2.47." She managed to find one man who was happy to pay an even higher amount: "I think it should be two cents per ounce. I don’t mind paying more for it, it would probably discourage me from drinking it."

Miller noted how the American Beverage Association was opposed to a tax and played a clip of president and CEO Susan Neely explaining: "It won’t work. If it’s supposed to solve a complicated problem like obesity, the tax is not going to change behaviors." Miller disagreed: "A study released today suggests it would, claiming an 18% price increase on soda would lead people to trim 56 calories from a daily diet. That’s a five-pound weight loss over a year." Bobby Popkin from the Nutrition Department of the Gilling School of Public Health, UNC added: "It’s the first study to actually follow people over time and show this…increase in prices will matter for our public’s health."

Anchor Katie Couric introduced the story by equating the American people with school children: "For years there’s been an effort to make students healthier by keeping sugary soft drinks out of schools. And a report out today says it seems to be working….Now Michelle Miller tells us this campaign is expanded beyond the classroom and from kids to adults."

Concluding a report on proposed soda taxes across the country on Monday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Michelle Miller gleefully proclaimed how such a tax would help fight obesity and fill local government coffers: "New York’s mayor estimates a tax would raise a billion dollars, suggesting what’s good for the waistline could be good for the bottom line."

Miller began the segment by touting: "When former President Bill Clinton enlisted the beverage industry in fighting childhood obesity, he did not expect this much progress in just four years." A clip was played of Clinton reporting: "There has been an 88% reduction in the total beverage calories shipped to schools." Miller then declared: "That’s still not good enough, say some public health officials. A growing number of cities and states wants to reduce adult consumption of sugary drinks by taxing them."

Revealing how bad such a tax would be for the "bottom line" of consumers, Miller explained: "New York has revived a proposal to impose a penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages….[that] would mean this two-liter bottle of coke, which now retails for $1.79, would cost you 68 cents more, for a total of $2.47." She managed to find one man who was happy to pay an even higher amount: "I think it should be two cents per ounce. I don’t mind paying more for it, it would probably discourage me from drinking it."

Miller noted how the American Beverage Association was opposed to a tax and played a clip of president and CEO Susan Neely explaining: "It won’t work. If it’s supposed to solve a complicated problem like obesity, the tax is not going to change behaviors." Miller disagreed: "A study released today suggests it would, claiming an 18% price increase on soda would lead people to trim 56 calories from a daily diet. That’s a five-pound weight loss over a year." Bobby Popkin from the Nutrition Department of the Gilling School of Public Health, UNC added: "It’s the first study to actually follow people over time and show this…increase in prices will matter for our public’s health."

Anchor Katie Couric introduced the story by equating the American people with school children: "For years there’s been an effort to make students healthier by keeping sugary soft drinks out of schools. And a report out today says it seems to be working….Now Michelle Miller tells us this campaign is expanded beyond the classroom and from kids to adults."

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) has caused students across the Old Dominion to "rise up for gay rights,"* reporters Daniel de Vise and Rosalind Helderman insisted on the March 9 Metro section front page of the Washington Post.

Helderman and de Vise failed to consider the liberal leanings of the protesters, tagging the demonstrators in the lead paragraph as mere "campus activists" who are steamed over the state AG’s "letter advising public universities to retreat from their policies against discrimination on the basis of sexual orienation." A few paragraphs later, Helderman and de Vise suggested that an "erosion in gay rights at state universities" would have detrimental effects on attracting and retaining students and faculty.

The problem is, Cuccinelli’s legal opinion does not mandate a "retreat" from discrimination, he just noted that under Virginia law, any change in non-discrimination policy wording must be authorized by legislation.

Counseled Cuccinelli:

It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification, as a protected class within its nondiscrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.

What’s more, reports the Associated Press, Virginia colleges and universities cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation anyway, pursuant to a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court:

The attorney general said his letter merely stated Virginia law, which prohibits discrimination because of "race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, or disability," but makes no mention of sexual orientation.

Cuccinelli said the criticism was coming from people who have been frustrated in their attempts to change the law.

"None of them suggest our reading of the law is wrong. It’s people who don’t like the policy speaking up because it’s their opportunity to go on the attack," he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia legal director Rebecca Glenberg said colleges are bound by U.S. Supreme Court decisions not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Attorney General’s ruling cannot overrule the High Court on this matter of policy, but Cuccinelli has every right to advise state agencies if and when they are deviating from the letter of the law.

The Virginia electorate, acting through their legislature, is more than free to change the law to specifically list "sexual orientation" on state institution non-discrimination policies. 

But that’s not as juicy a newspaper article as one that loads its language with the objective of demonizing a conservative Republican office holder.

*"Students rise up for gay rights" was the print headline. The washingtonpost.com version headline reads, "Students irate at Cuccinelli over gay-rights policies."

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) has caused students across the Old Dominion to "rise up for gay rights,"* reporters Daniel de Vise and Rosalind Helderman insisted on the March 9 Metro section front page of the Washington Post.

Helderman and de Vise failed to consider the liberal leanings of the protesters, tagging the demonstrators in the lead paragraph as mere "campus activists" who are steamed over the state AG’s "letter advising public universities to retreat from their policies against discrimination on the basis of sexual orienation." A few paragraphs later, Helderman and de Vise suggested that an "erosion in gay rights at state universities" would have detrimental effects on attracting and retaining students and faculty.

The problem is, Cuccinelli’s legal opinion does not mandate a "retreat" from discrimination, he just noted that under Virginia law, any change in non-discrimination policy wording must be authorized by legislation.

Counseled Cuccinelli:

It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification, as a protected class within its nondiscrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.

What’s more, reports the Associated Press, Virginia colleges and universities cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation anyway, pursuant to a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court:

The attorney general said his letter merely stated Virginia law, which prohibits discrimination because of "race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, or disability," but makes no mention of sexual orientation.

Cuccinelli said the criticism was coming from people who have been frustrated in their attempts to change the law.

"None of them suggest our reading of the law is wrong. It’s people who don’t like the policy speaking up because it’s their opportunity to go on the attack," he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia legal director Rebecca Glenberg said colleges are bound by U.S. Supreme Court decisions not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Attorney General’s ruling cannot overrule the High Court on this matter of policy, but Cuccinelli has every right to advise state agencies if and when they are deviating from the letter of the law.

The Virginia electorate, acting through their legislature, is more than free to change the law to specifically list "sexual orientation" on state institution non-discrimination policies. 

But that’s not as juicy a newspaper article as one that loads its language with the objective of demonizing a conservative Republican office holder.

*"Students rise up for gay rights" was the print headline. The washingtonpost.com version headline reads, "Students irate at Cuccinelli over gay-rights policies."

MSNBC’s David Shuster on Tuesday continued to attack the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) for the organization’s reference to Charlie Rangel as a "Harlem Democrat." He reiterated, "I pointed out the NRCC did not call him a corrupt New York Democrat or just corrupt. Rather, a corrupt Harlem Democrat. And I asked a guest if this was racially tinged."

Shuster, however, was silent on the fact that MSNBC reporter Luke Russert basically did the same thing. Appearing on the March 3 edition of the Ed Show, he commented on Democrats who wanted to strip the controversial Rangel of his chairmanship.

Russert explained that these politicians are in "conservative districts, who really saw problems back home in their rural districts in the mountains being associated with a Harlem Democrat who writes the nation’s tax laws who a lot of folks say is not paying their taxes." Does this mean that Luke Russert is using "racially tinged" language? Will Shuster call on his colleague to apologize? (Hat tip to Clay Waters of Times Watch for noting the Russert comment.)

Shuster recounted the E-mails he received slamming him for challenging the NRCC: "First of all, I didn’t say the NRCC or the press release was racist. I asked a guest if it was racially tinged." So, Shuster wasn’t calling Republicans racist, just wondering if they were racist-leaning?

Shuster first attacked the NRCC on Monday for releasing a press release on Rangel which used the supposedly controversial term. More on the original story can be found here.

A transcript of Shuster’s comments, which aired at 3:55pm EST, follow:

DAVID SHUSTER: Finally, I received several complaints about a segment I did yesterday that touched on New York Democrat Charlie Rangel. During the segment, I reported on a press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC. It described Rangel twice as, quote, "a corrupt Harlem Democrat " I pointed out the NRCC did not call him a corrupt New York Democrat or just corrupt. Rather, a corrupt Harlem Democrat. And I asked a guest if this was racially tinged. Several of you e-mailed, "You blank-edy blank! Harlem is in Rangel’s district? And how dare you say this was racist?" First of all, I didn’t say the NRCC or the press release was racist. I asked a guest if it was racially tinged. Secondly, note the difference between the NRCC’s treatment of Rangel and their approach towards other Democrats. An NRCC press release criticizing Representative Earl Pomery calls him a North Dakota Democrat, not a Bismarck Democrat. A press release criticizing Representative Michael McMahon calls him a New York Democrat, not a Staten Island Democrat. But, Rangel gets called a corrupt Harlem Democrat. I stand by my reporting on this and I stand by my questioning as to whether the press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee was racially tinged. I’ve asked officials at the NRCC to come on the show and respond. So far, they’ve refused. I’ll keep you posted.

MSNBC’s David Shuster on Tuesday continued to attack the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) for the organization’s reference to Charlie Rangel as a "Harlem Democrat." He reiterated, "I pointed out the NRCC did not call him a corrupt New York Democrat or just corrupt. Rather, a corrupt Harlem Democrat. And I asked a guest if this was racially tinged."

Shuster, however, was silent on the fact that MSNBC reporter Luke Russert basically did the same thing. Appearing on the March 3 edition of the Ed Show, he commented on Democrats who wanted to strip the controversial Rangel of his chairmanship.

Russert explained that these politicians are in "conservative districts, who really saw problems back home in their rural districts in the mountains being associated with a Harlem Democrat who writes the nation’s tax laws who a lot of folks say is not paying their taxes." Does this mean that Luke Russert is using "racially tinged" language? Will Shuster call on his colleague to apologize? (Hat tip to Clay Waters of Times Watch for noting the Russert comment.)

Shuster recounted the E-mails he received slamming him for challenging the NRCC: "First of all, I didn’t say the NRCC or the press release was racist. I asked a guest if it was racially tinged." So, Shuster wasn’t calling Republicans racist, just wondering if they were racist-leaning?

Shuster first attacked the NRCC on Monday for releasing a press release on Rangel which used the supposedly controversial term. More on the original story can be found here.

A transcript of Shuster’s comments, which aired at 3:55pm EST, follow:

DAVID SHUSTER: Finally, I received several complaints about a segment I did yesterday that touched on New York Democrat Charlie Rangel. During the segment, I reported on a press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC. It described Rangel twice as, quote, "a corrupt Harlem Democrat " I pointed out the NRCC did not call him a corrupt New York Democrat or just corrupt. Rather, a corrupt Harlem Democrat. And I asked a guest if this was racially tinged. Several of you e-mailed, "You blank-edy blank! Harlem is in Rangel’s district? And how dare you say this was racist?" First of all, I didn’t say the NRCC or the press release was racist. I asked a guest if it was racially tinged. Secondly, note the difference between the NRCC’s treatment of Rangel and their approach towards other Democrats. An NRCC press release criticizing Representative Earl Pomery calls him a North Dakota Democrat, not a Bismarck Democrat. A press release criticizing Representative Michael McMahon calls him a New York Democrat, not a Staten Island Democrat. But, Rangel gets called a corrupt Harlem Democrat. I stand by my reporting on this and I stand by my questioning as to whether the press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee was racially tinged. I’ve asked officials at the NRCC to come on the show and respond. So far, they’ve refused. I’ll keep you posted.

MSNBC’s David Shuster on Tuesday continued to attack the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) for the organization’s reference to Charlie Rangel as a "Harlem Democrat." He reiterated, "I pointed out the NRCC did not call him a corrupt New York Democrat or just corrupt. Rather, a corrupt Harlem Democrat. And I asked a guest if this was racially tinged."

Shuster, however, was silent on the fact that MSNBC reporter Luke Russert basically did the same thing. Appearing on the March 3 edition of the Ed Show, he commented on Democrats who wanted to strip the controversial Rangel of his chairmanship.

Russert explained that these politicians are in "conservative districts, who really saw problems back home in their rural districts in the mountains being associated with a Harlem Democrat who writes the nation’s tax laws who a lot of folks say is not paying their taxes." Does this mean that Luke Russert is using "racially tinged" language? Will Shuster call on his colleague to apologize? (Hat tip to Clay Waters of Times Watch for noting the Russert comment.)

Shuster recounted the E-mails he received slamming him for challenging the NRCC: "First of all, I didn’t say the NRCC or the press release was racist. I asked a guest if it was racially tinged." So, Shuster wasn’t calling Republicans racist, just wondering if they were racist-leaning?

Shuster first attacked the NRCC on Monday for releasing a press release on Rangel which used the supposedly controversial term. More on the original story can be found here.

A transcript of Shuster’s comments, which aired at 3:55pm EST, follow:

DAVID SHUSTER: Finally, I received several complaints about a segment I did yesterday that touched on New York Democrat Charlie Rangel. During the segment, I reported on a press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC. It described Rangel twice as, quote, "a corrupt Harlem Democrat " I pointed out the NRCC did not call him a corrupt New York Democrat or just corrupt. Rather, a corrupt Harlem Democrat. And I asked a guest if this was racially tinged. Several of you e-mailed, "You blank-edy blank! Harlem is in Rangel’s district? And how dare you say this was racist?" First of all, I didn’t say the NRCC or the press release was racist. I asked a guest if it was racially tinged. Secondly, note the difference between the NRCC’s treatment of Rangel and their approach towards other Democrats. An NRCC press release criticizing Representative Earl Pomery calls him a North Dakota Democrat, not a Bismarck Democrat. A press release criticizing Representative Michael McMahon calls him a New York Democrat, not a Staten Island Democrat. But, Rangel gets called a corrupt Harlem Democrat. I stand by my reporting on this and I stand by my questioning as to whether the press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee was racially tinged. I’ve asked officials at the NRCC to come on the show and respond. So far, they’ve refused. I’ll keep you posted.

The New York Times published a scathing editorial Sunday condemning Americans who have the audacity to request that attorneys who represented terrorists not set national legal policy. The Times smeared them and their elected representatives as McCarthyites, and criticized them for noting that colossal conflict of interest.

"It is not the first time that the right has tried to distract Americans from the real issues surrounding detention policy by attacking lawyers," the Times states of controversy over Attorney General Eric Holder’s reluctance to inform Congress who in the Justice Department has represented alleged terrorists, and in what capacity are they now serving.

But the left has done just that — use nominees’ records as means to block their appointments — and the Times hasn’t complained. So why the sudden outrage? Well, the paper’s liberal editorial board doesn’t mind when the left attacks. But when conservatives demand answers, they are evil McCarthyites on a political witch hunt.

Of course the Times uses nice-sounding terms like "democratic justice" to argue that detainees deserve the same rights as criminal defendants, conspicuously ignoring not only rationale to the contrary, but in fact the chief complaint of Holder’s critics: people who argued for the release of individuals waging war on the United States are now in charge of prosecuting those same aggressors. Holder knows that the American people would not approve, so he has been stonewalling.

But the real dishonesty in the Times’s complaints is the paper’s glaring double standard on executive appointments. It seems that when nominees or appointees are criticized for some past position that the Times supports, the attacks are reminiscent of McCarthyism and designed to score "cheap political points."

But when the Times agrees with the attackers, well, this sort of outrage is noticeably absent.

Where was the paper’s disdain for the ideological and political attacks on Carolyn Kuhl, President Bush’s nominee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals? As a 29-year-old lawyer with the Justice Department, Kuhl had urged the Attorney General to reverse an IRS decision denying tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University.

The Times doesn’t like Bob Jones University, so there was no outrage over the use of Kuhl’s stance on the issue to block her nomination.

Or what about William Myers, nominated to the same court — why was the Times not outraged over his blocked nomination? Well, the Times didn’t like him either because he was a former lobbyist for the mining industry.

The Times even made sure to quote Sen. Charles Schumer condemning Myers’s record: ”Your record screams ‘passionate advocate’ and it doesn’t even whisper ‘impartial judge,’ ” Schumer said. Why didn’t this spark an angry editorial from the Times? Aren’t lobbyists agents of our First Amendment right to redress, just as the "Gitmo 7" are supposedly agents of the Sixth?

Former Bush Administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen, author of the new book Courting Disaster, provided another stark example of the Times’s double standard in a column for the Washington Post:

Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack? Their critics did not demand simple transparency; they demanded heads. They called these individuals "war criminals" and sought to have them fired, disbarred, impeached and even jailed. Where were the defenders of the "al-Qaeda seven" when a Spanish judge tried to indict the "Bush six"? Philippe Sands, author of the "Torture Team," crowed: "This is the end of these people’s professional reputations!" I don’t recall anyone accusing him of "shameful" personal attacks.

The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.

Thiessen also dispels the Times’s claims that alleged terrorists are entitled to legal defense of the same order as everyday criminals.

Some defenders say al-Qaeda lawyers are simply following a great American tradition, in which everyone gets a lawyer and their day in court. Not so, says Andy McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who put Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik," behind bars for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. "We need to be clear about what the American tradition is," McCarthy told me. "The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused — that means somebody who has been indicted or otherwise charged with a crime — a right to counsel. But that right only exists if you are accused, which means you are someone who the government has brought into the civilian criminal justice system." The habeas lawyers were not doing their constitutional duty to defend unpopular criminal defendants. They were using the federal courts as a tool to undermine our military’s ability to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield in a time of war.

If lawyers who once sought to free captured terrorists are now setting U.S. policy when it comes to the release of Guantanamo detainees, moving terrorists to the United States, trying senior al-Qaeda leaders in civilian courts, and whether to give captured terrorists Miranda rights, then, as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put it, the public has "a right to know who advises the attorney general and the president on these critical matters." Only when this information is public can members of Congress judge whether these individuals have properly recused themselves or whether they should be involved in detainee matters at all. The charge of McCarthyism is intended to intimidate those raising legitimate questions into silence. But asking such questions is not McCarthyism. It’s oversight.

Of course for the Times, oversight was only important when Republicans were the ones setting policy.

The New York Times published a scathing editorial Sunday condemning Americans who have the audacity to request that attorneys who represented terrorists not set national legal policy. The Times smeared them and their elected representatives as McCarthyites, and criticized them for noting that colossal conflict of interest.

"It is not the first time that the right has tried to distract Americans from the real issues surrounding detention policy by attacking lawyers," the Times states of controversy over Attorney General Eric Holder’s reluctance to inform Congress who in the Justice Department has represented alleged terrorists, and in what capacity are they now serving.

But the left has done just that — use nominees’ records as means to block their appointments — and the Times hasn’t complained. So why the sudden outrage? Well, the paper’s liberal editorial board doesn’t mind when the left attacks. But when conservatives demand answers, they are evil McCarthyites on a political witch hunt.

Of course the Times uses nice-sounding terms like "democratic justice" to argue that detainees deserve the same rights as criminal defendants, conspicuously ignoring not only rationale to the contrary, but in fact the chief complaint of Holder’s critics: people who argued for the release of individuals waging war on the United States are now in charge of prosecuting those same aggressors. Holder knows that the American people would not approve, so he has been stonewalling.

But the real dishonesty in the Times’s complaints is the paper’s glaring double standard on executive appointments. It seems that when nominees or appointees are criticized for some past position that the Times supports, the attacks are reminiscent of McCarthyism and designed to score "cheap political points."

But when the Times agrees with the attackers, well, this sort of outrage is noticeably absent.

Where was the paper’s disdain for the ideological and political attacks on Carolyn Kuhl, President Bush’s nominee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals? As a 29-year-old lawyer with the Justice Department, Kuhl had urged the Attorney General to reverse an IRS decision denying tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University.

The Times doesn’t like Bob Jones University, so there was no outrage over the use of Kuhl’s stance on the issue to block her nomination.

Or what about William Myers, nominated to the same court — why was the Times not outraged over his blocked nomination? Well, the Times didn’t like him either because he was a former lobbyist for the mining industry.

The Times even made sure to quote Sen. Charles Schumer condemning Myers’s record: ”Your record screams ‘passionate advocate’ and it doesn’t even whisper ‘impartial judge,’ ” Schumer said. Why didn’t this spark an angry editorial from the Times? Aren’t lobbyists agents of our First Amendment right to redress, just as the "Gitmo 7" are supposedly agents of the Sixth?

Former Bush Administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen, author of the new book Courting Disaster, provided another stark example of the Times’s double standard in a column for the Washington Post:

Where was the moral outrage when fine lawyers like John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Jim Haynes, Steve Bradbury and others came under vicious personal attack? Their critics did not demand simple transparency; they demanded heads. They called these individuals "war criminals" and sought to have them fired, disbarred, impeached and even jailed. Where were the defenders of the "al-Qaeda seven" when a Spanish judge tried to indict the "Bush six"? Philippe Sands, author of the "Torture Team," crowed: "This is the end of these people’s professional reputations!" I don’t recall anyone accusing him of "shameful" personal attacks.

The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.

Thiessen also dispels the Times’s claims that alleged terrorists are entitled to legal defense of the same order as everyday criminals.

Some defenders say al-Qaeda lawyers are simply following a great American tradition, in which everyone gets a lawyer and their day in court. Not so, says Andy McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who put Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik," behind bars for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. "We need to be clear about what the American tradition is," McCarthy told me. "The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused — that means somebody who has been indicted or otherwise charged with a crime — a right to counsel. But that right only exists if you are accused, which means you are someone who the government has brought into the civilian criminal justice system." The habeas lawyers were not doing their constitutional duty to defend unpopular criminal defendants. They were using the federal courts as a tool to undermine our military’s ability to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield in a time of war.

If lawyers who once sought to free captured terrorists are now setting U.S. policy when it comes to the release of Guantanamo detainees, moving terrorists to the United States, trying senior al-Qaeda leaders in civilian courts, and whether to give captured terrorists Miranda rights, then, as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put it, the public has "a right to know who advises the attorney general and the president on these critical matters." Only when this information is public can members of Congress judge whether these individuals have properly recused themselves or whether they should be involved in detainee matters at all. The charge of McCarthyism is intended to intimidate those raising legitimate questions into silence. But asking such questions is not McCarthyism. It’s oversight.

Of course for the Times, oversight was only important when Republicans were the ones setting policy.

CNN’s Kate Bolduan aired a slanted report on Catholic Charities of Washington’s decision to no longer offer benefits to spouses of new employees on Saturday’s Newsroom, playing four sound bites from proponents of same-sex "marriage" and none from opponents. Bolduan also omitted the liberal affiliation of one of the homosexual "marriage" advocates.

During the report, which first aired 11 minutes into the 10 pm Eastern hour (and reran during the 1 pm Eastern hour on Monday), the correspondent noted how homosexual couples could get their civil marriage licenses in DC starting on Tuesday, and that there was "controversial fallout" from the move: "Catholic Charities, the social services arm of the Archdiocese of Washington, just announced it will no longer offer health benefits to spouses of any new employees or current employees who aren’t already covered under its plan. As a result, the nonprofit is effectively avoiding having to give benefits to same-sex partners, keeping with the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage."

Bolduan spent the rest of her report playing the four clips from the supporters of legal homosexual "marriage." Three came from Chris Hinkle, who was labeled a "gay Catholic activist" on-screen and described by the correspondent as "gay and a practicing Catholic" (who admitted he wasn’t practicing the Church’s teaching on sexuality by maintaining a relationship with her "partner" for 10 years), and the remaining one came from Chris Korzen of Catholics United. CNN mentioned Korzen’s organization on-screen, but Bolduan didn’t mention their liberal affiliation, nor that he served as an organizer for the left-wing Service Employees International Union.

BOLDAUN (on-camera): How long have you and your partner been together?

CHRIS HINKLE, GAY CATHOLIC ACTIVIST: We’ve been together for 10 years.

BOLDUAN (voice-over): Chris Hinkle is gay and a practicing Catholic. He lives in Virginia and worships in Washington. Hinkle views the developments in D.C. as two steps forward, and quickly, two steps back for the gay and lesbian community and its strained relationship with the Catholic Church.

BOLDUAN (on-camera): Why is it disappointing to you?

HINKLE: It’s a slap in the face. Yeah, it’s prejudice.

BOLDUAN: Catholic Charities declined to comment, but the Archdiocese of Washington made a point to say that less than 10 percent of Catholic Charities employees take part in its health insurance program, suggesting that a small portion of the staff will be affected by the change in policy.

BOLDUAN (voice-over): And in a statement, the archdiocese says, ‘This approach allows Catholic Charities to continue to provide services to the 68,000 people it now cares for in the city, to comply with the city’s new requirements and to remain faithful to our Catholic identity.’ A stance some Catholics say is damaging the Church’s public image.

CHRIS KORZEN, DIRECTOR, CATHOLICS UNITED: They’re getting a view of the Church that isn’t necessarily consistent with our values. We don’t say that people don’t deserve health insurance because they happen to be in a certain kind of marriage or a certain kind of relationship. That’s just not what we teach.

BOLDUAN: The very same message Chris Hinkle is trying to send as he fights for acceptance.

HINKLE: I want people to treat others with justice. That is a message that I think Jesus Christ himself had exemplified.

BOLDUAN (on-camera): And in today’s world, you think that applies to health care, as well as the right to marry?

HINKLE: Absolutely it does. Absolutely.

The CNN correspondent did read the excerpt from the Archdiocese of Washington’s statement, but she couldn’t seem to find any orthodox Catholics who would vouch for the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality.

Nightline’s Chris Bury on Monday investigated the so-called 9/11 Truth movement, but made no effort to look at the ideological make up of those who believe that the government was behind the 2001 terror attacks. Reporting from the group’s convention, he asserted, "Over the weekend hundreds of Americans calling themselves 9/11 Truthers gathered at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They come from all over the political spectrum."

However, according to a 2007 poll by Rasmussen, 35 percent of Democrats believed that President Bush knew about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in advance. Yet, Bury blandly explained, "They are an eclectic group with widely different agenda, including war protestors, first responders who feel neglected and families of some 9/11 victims."

Bury did highlight one attendee, Sander Hicks, noting, that he "want[s] treason charges brought against members of the Bush administration." However, there is no mention of the Rasmussen poll about Democrats. Now, Truthers don’t reside only on the left, but why ignore the fact that many do?

In contrast, on August 14, 2009, ABC reporter Brian Ross tried to tie conservative town hall protesters to hate groups. Appearing on Good Morning America, he played clips from the spokesman of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok. Potok hyped that Barack Obama "triggered fears among…white people…that they are somehow losing their country."

On the February 02, 2010 edition of MSNBC News Live, host David Shuster asserted that "Most Republicans are birthers," referring to the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn’t born in America.

To his credit, Bury did at least explain, "Former Obama environmental czar Van Jones forced out after signing an online petition for 9/11 truth that he later repudiated."

In an interesting exchange, the reporter noted that a former Time magazine Person of the Year appeared at the 9/11 Truth convention: "Others such as former FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, one of Time’s 2002 Persons of the Year, are convinced that the government is still covering up what it knows."

She repeatedly refused to say whether the U.S. government murdered its own citizens on September 11. (Time Magazine sure knows how to pick their Person of the Year.)

A partial transcript of the March 9 segment follows:

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: The three Pentagon police officers who killed gunman John Patrick Bedell during his attack on the Pentagon last week spoke publicly today for the first time. One officer described Bedell’s demeanor as, quote, "one you know from combat." But why did Bedell do it? Before the shooting, authorities say he had posted anti-government rants online, including his belief that 9/11 was a vast government conspiracy. As Chris Bury now reports, he is hardly the only person to feel that way.

[Montage]

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Our government is absolutely complicit in a grand cover-up.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: The United States orchestrated, facilitated the death of my son.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: It’s extremely important that we know the whole truth about 9/11.

CHRIS BURY: Over the weekend hundreds of Americans calling themselves 9/11 truthers gathered at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They come from all over the political spectrum. What they share is a deep and unbending distrust of the official explanation. Many believe the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.

BETSY METZ (CONFERENCE ORGANIZER): I just call it a cover-up. There’s a cover-up. There’s absolutely a cover-up.

BURY: The driving force here, a housewife from suburban Philadelphia who plunked down $20,000 of her own money to stage the convention. A lot of people are going to look at this and wonder are you part of kind of a lunatic fringe.

METZ: There is a lunatic fringe, absolutely. But, we’re trying to keep the crazies out of here, because we’re just average Americans. I’m just a housewife and mom that wants the truth.

BURY: Such doubts have spawned an entire cottage industry of 9/11 conspiracy. The movement is knitted together on the internet, a viral community of true believers. It’s gospel, the film Loose Change is the most downloaded videos in Google history. Its young producers, stars in this convention, disavow any connection to violent extremists such as John Patrick Bedell, killed in that Pentagon shootout last week.

DYLAN AVERY (DIRECTOR): We know that the news said that he might have been a truther, but that’s it. That’s all we know. I don’t support violence. It’s that simple.

KOREY ROWE (PRODUCER): They’re trying to already equate us with this man and trying to say that the 9/11 truth movement is a militia, gun toting, you know, anti-government conspiracy. It couldn’t be any farther from the truth.

[Loose Change clip]: And we are told that these massive structures were destroyed by 10,000 gallons of jet fuel.

…

BURY: They are an eclectic group with widely different agenda, including war protestors, first responders who feel neglected and families of some 9/11 victims. Some of the truthers including Sander Hicks want treason charges brought against members of the Bush administration. What do you do in your day job?

SANDER HICKS: I play music in the church.

BURY: Do you consider yourself a conspiracy theorist?

HICKS: That is a loaded question, Chris, because the word conspiracy theorist tends to mean discredited whacko. I consider myself a scientist and a historian. I would not base any of this 9/11-

BURY: A scientist and a historian? I thought you were a musician?

HICKS: I am an author and researcher. I rely on science and history in my work on 9/11.

BURY: Others such as former FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, one of Time’s 2002 Persons of the Year, are convinced that the government is still covering up what it knows. A lot of the people here believe that the government helped murder innocent Americans. Do you share their belief, the belief of the people at this convention?

COLLEEN: ROWLEY (Ex-FBI): Well, you know, of course, anytime you get a group together, I don’t care what group it is-

BURY: So do you believe it or not?

ROWLEY: Do I believe what?

BURY: Yeah. Do you believe that the American government helped kill innocent Americans?

ROWLEY: Well, when you – again, let me – you’re kind of trying to almost put me on an interrogation.

BURY: No. Well let me put it-

ROWLEY: You know what you me of is when I was an FBI agent.

BURY: Okay, let me do it – let me do it a different way.

ROWLEY: No, what I believe is that the full truth, and actually the 9/11 commissioners now say this too, is not known. Absolutely.

Nightline’s Chris Bury on Monday investigated the so-called 9/11 Truth movement, but made no effort to look at the ideological make up of those who believe that the government was behind the 2001 terror attacks. Reporting from the group’s convention, he asserted, "Over the weekend hundreds of Americans calling themselves 9/11 Truthers gathered at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They come from all over the political spectrum."

However, according to a 2007 poll by Rasmussen, 35 percent of Democrats believed that President Bush knew about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in advance. Yet, Bury blandly explained, "They are an eclectic group with widely different agenda, including war protestors, first responders who feel neglected and families of some 9/11 victims."

Bury did highlight one attendee, Sander Hicks, noting, that he "want[s] treason charges brought against members of the Bush administration." However, there is no mention of the Rasmussen poll about Democrats. Now, Truthers don’t reside only on the left, but why ignore the fact that many do?

In contrast, on August 14, 2009, ABC reporter Brian Ross tried to tie conservative town hall protesters to hate groups. Appearing on Good Morning America, he played clips from the spokesman of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok. Potok hyped that Barack Obama "triggered fears among…white people…that they are somehow losing their country."

On the February 02, 2010 edition of MSNBC News Live, host David Shuster asserted that "Most Republicans are birthers," referring to the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn’t born in America.

To his credit, Bury did at least explain, "Former Obama environmental czar Van Jones forced out after signing an online petition for 9/11 truth that he later repudiated."

In an interesting exchange, the reporter noted that a former Time magazine Person of the Year appeared at the 9/11 Truth convention: "Others such as former FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, one of Time’s 2002 Persons of the Year, are convinced that the government is still covering up what it knows."

She repeatedly refused to say whether the U.S. government murdered its own citizens on September 11. (Time Magazine sure knows how to pick their Person of the Year.)

A partial transcript of the March 9 segment follows:

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: The three Pentagon police officers who killed gunman John Patrick Bedell during his attack on the Pentagon last week spoke publicly today for the first time. One officer described Bedell’s demeanor as, quote, "one you know from combat." But why did Bedell do it? Before the shooting, authorities say he had posted anti-government rants online, including his belief that 9/11 was a vast government conspiracy. As Chris Bury now reports, he is hardly the only person to feel that way.

[Montage]

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Our government is absolutely complicit in a grand cover-up.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: The United States orchestrated, facilitated the death of my son.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: It’s extremely important that we know the whole truth about 9/11.

CHRIS BURY: Over the weekend hundreds of Americans calling themselves 9/11 truthers gathered at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They come from all over the political spectrum. What they share is a deep and unbending distrust of the official explanation. Many believe the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.

BETSY METZ (CONFERENCE ORGANIZER): I just call it a cover-up. There’s a cover-up. There’s absolutely a cover-up.

BURY: The driving force here, a housewife from suburban Philadelphia who plunked down $20,000 of her own money to stage the convention. A lot of people are going to look at this and wonder are you part of kind of a lunatic fringe.

METZ: There is a lunatic fringe, absolutely. But, we’re trying to keep the crazies out of here, because we’re just average Americans. I’m just a housewife and mom that wants the truth.

BURY: Such doubts have spawned an entire cottage industry of 9/11 conspiracy. The movement is knitted together on the internet, a viral community of true believers. It’s gospel, the film Loose Change is the most downloaded videos in Google history. Its young producers, stars in this convention, disavow any connection to violent extremists such as John Patrick Bedell, killed in that Pentagon shootout last week.

DYLAN AVERY (DIRECTOR): We know that the news said that he might have been a truther, but that’s it. That’s all we know. I don’t support violence. It’s that simple.

KOREY ROWE (PRODUCER): They’re trying to already equate us with this man and trying to say that the 9/11 truth movement is a militia, gun toting, you know, anti-government conspiracy. It couldn’t be any farther from the truth.

[Loose Change clip]: And we are told that these massive structures were destroyed by 10,000 gallons of jet fuel.

…

BURY: They are an eclectic group with widely different agenda, including war protestors, first responders who feel neglected and families of some 9/11 victims. Some of the truthers including Sander Hicks want treason charges brought against members of the Bush administration. What do you do in your day job?

SANDER HICKS: I play music in the church.

BURY: Do you consider yourself a conspiracy theorist?

HICKS: That is a loaded question, Chris, because the word conspiracy theorist tends to mean discredited whacko. I consider myself a scientist and a historian. I would not base any of this 9/11-

BURY: A scientist and a historian? I thought you were a musician?

HICKS: I am an author and researcher. I rely on science and history in my work on 9/11.

BURY: Others such as former FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, one of Time’s 2002 Persons of the Year, are convinced that the government is still covering up what it knows. A lot of the people here believe that the government helped murder innocent Americans. Do you share their belief, the belief of the people at this convention?

COLLEEN: ROWLEY (Ex-FBI): Well, you know, of course, anytime you get a group together, I don’t care what group it is-

BURY: So do you believe it or not?

ROWLEY: Do I believe what?

BURY: Yeah. Do you believe that the American government helped kill innocent Americans?

ROWLEY: Well, when you – again, let me – you’re kind of trying to almost put me on an interrogation.

BURY: No. Well let me put it-

ROWLEY: You know what you me of is when I was an FBI agent.

BURY: Okay, let me do it – let me do it a different way.

ROWLEY: No, what I believe is that the full truth, and actually the 9/11 commissioners now say this too, is not known. Absolutely.

Late night talk show host and author Chelsea Handler was invited on Tuesday’s Today show to plug her new book Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang and couldn’t leave the show without taking a dig at earlier guest Karl Rove, as well as Sarah Palin who she called "Really stupid." When asked by 10:00am hour Today host Hoda Kotb how she felt about having her book released at the same time as the former White House advisor’s the E! talk show host quipped she was worried about competing for the "stupid" audience with him and Palin, as seen in the following exchange that was aired on the March 9 Today show: [audio available here]

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD: It is, it is, It’s laugh out loud though, it really is.

HODA KOTB: Yeah it really is fun.

GIFFORD: I’ve been reading it since we got it, for a couple weeks. I’m not a slow reader. It’s just that I just read it in the morning.

CHELSEA HANDLER: Well it’s an easy. It’s like a third grade reading level.

GIFFORD: It’s an easy read! Yes.

HANDLER: I like to write for my audience and I know that my audience are going, mostly going through some tough times.

KOTB: What do you think about your book coming out at the same time as Karl Rove’s?

HANDLER: Well I was on earlier with Matt Lauer this morning and talking about Karl Rove. And obviously I’m wildly attracted to him like any, any young girl is.

GIFFORD: Aren’t we all? 

HANDLER: I mean he’s a silver fox is what he is. And he, yeah his book came out and my publishers didn’t tell me I had competition. I was like, you didn’t tell me. They said, "Well we don’t think it’s the same audience." I’m like yeah but it’s, I mean there’s a lot of really, really stupid people out there that might buy this book. Look what happened to Sarah Palin. She’s really stupid.

GIFFORD: Ohhh!

HANDLER: Is that a really close friend of yours? I’m sorry.

GIFFORD: I never met the lady.

HANDLER: Good.

GIFFORD: Never met her.

HANDLER: Let’s try and keep it that way.

Late night talk show host and author Chelsea Handler was invited on Tuesday’s Today show to plug her new book Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang and couldn’t leave the show without taking a dig at earlier guest Karl Rove, as well as Sarah Palin who she called "Really stupid." When asked by 10:00am hour Today host Hoda Kotb how she felt about having her book released at the same time as the former White House advisor’s the E! talk show host quipped she was worried about competing for the "stupid" audience with him and Palin, as seen in the following exchange that was aired on the March 9 Today show: [audio available here]

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD: It is, it is, It’s laugh out loud though, it really is.

HODA KOTB: Yeah it really is fun.

GIFFORD: I’ve been reading it since we got it, for a couple weeks. I’m not a slow reader. It’s just that I just read it in the morning.

CHELSEA HANDLER: Well it’s an easy. It’s like a third grade reading level.

GIFFORD: It’s an easy read! Yes.

HANDLER: I like to write for my audience and I know that my audience are going, mostly going through some tough times.

KOTB: What do you think about your book coming out at the same time as Karl Rove’s?

HANDLER: Well I was on earlier with Matt Lauer this morning and talking about Karl Rove. And obviously I’m wildly attracted to him like any, any young girl is.

GIFFORD: Aren’t we all? 

HANDLER: I mean he’s a silver fox is what he is. And he, yeah his book came out and my publishers didn’t tell me I had competition. I was like, you didn’t tell me. They said, "Well we don’t think it’s the same audience." I’m like yeah but it’s, I mean there’s a lot of really, really stupid people out there that might buy this book. Look what happened to Sarah Palin. She’s really stupid.

GIFFORD: Ohhh!

HANDLER: Is that a really close friend of yours? I’m sorry.

GIFFORD: I never met the lady.

HANDLER: Good.

GIFFORD: Never met her.

HANDLER: Let’s try and keep it that way.

At the top of Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith proclaimed: "President Obama makes a tough final push, going on the offensive against health insurance companies. Will it work?" Later, co-host Maggie Rodriguez gushed: "It looked like a campaign rally yesterday with President Obama center-stage taking his fight for health care reform out of Washington and into America’s heartland."

White House correspondent Bill Plante followed up Rodriguez’s fawning intro by reporting: "It did indeed look like a campaign. I’ll tell you, the President is racing hard to get across the finish line with health care reform. He’s trying to convince the public to ignore what he calls ‘Washington’s obsession with keeping score in politics.’" An on-screen headline read: "Obama on the Offensive; Attacks Insurers In Latest Push for Reform."

Plante ignored the Obama administration’s constant political score-keeping and instead lamented how despite the President "taking on the pundits and the political establishment…polls show Mr. Obama has an uphill battle." Plante cited a recent Gallup poll showing 49% of Americans oppose ObamaCare, though failed to point out that only 42% of respondents in that poll favored the plan.

On Thursday, the Early Show claimed that ObamaCare was on the "fast-track" to being passed.

Rather than feature any Republican opponents of the legislation in his piece, Plante simply summed up the GOP response this way: "Republicans are calling the President’s pitch ’snake oil’ and predicting failure." He then added: "Still, Mr. Obama vows to push ahead."

Plante concluded that the "reason for the President’s urgent tone" was "the insurance industry is planning to mount a comeback campaign, an ad campaign for about a million dollars, this week."

Following Plante’s report, Smith discussed the President’s latest push with Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer. Smith noted how Obama’s "trying to get public support for this and in our latest CBS News poll, 52% of the public concerned about the economy versus health care. He’s got an uphill fight here." Schieffer argued: "I think they would tell you in the White House that this was the President’s signature issue. This is what he campaigned on, was getting health care for all Americans." Schieffer added: "I don’t question his sincerity. I also think it’s – he thinks it’s the right thing to do."

Smith then wondered about the amount of support for ObamaCare in Congress: "Does he have the numbers?" Schieffer replied: "No, he does not have the numbers. And one test of how you can always tell when they have the votes is that leaders in the Congress bring it to a vote. I don’t think there’s anybody who would say that at this point the President has the votes in the House of Representatives to get this passed."

Schieffer went on to highlight the President’s tactic of going after health insurance companies: "a very important shift. He suddenly is not so much running against Republicans as he’s running against the insurance companies themselves….this is the shift, this is what is different now." Plante made a similar observation in his report: "The new strategy, raise the temperature on insurance companies, and hope audiences, like the one in Pennsylvania Monday, will pressure Congress to pass the bill." In reality, Obama and the Democrats have been employing that failing strategy for months.   

Here is a full transcript of Plante’s report:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: And now to health care reform. It looked like a campaign rally yesterday with President Obama center-stage taking his fight for health care reform out of Washington and into America’s heartland. CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante is at the White House this morning with more on how the President is turning up the heat. Good morning, Bill.

BILL PLANTE: Good morning, Maggie. It did indeed look like a campaign. I’ll tell you, the President is racing hard to get across the finish line with health care reform. He’s trying to convince the public to ignore what he calls ‘Washington’s obsession with keeping score in politics.’

BARACK OBAMA: What does it mean for your poll numbers? Is this good for the Democrats or good for the Republicans? Who won the news cycle?

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Obama on the Offensive; Attacks Insurers In Latest Push for Reform]

PLANTE: The President may be taking on the pundits and the political establishment, but polls show Mr. Obama has an uphill battle. 49% of those in a Gallup poll now oppose the Obama health care plan and in a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, the bitter fight left 48% believing that the President has spent too much time on the issue and 52% saying he’s spent too little time on the economy and jobs.

JOHN DICKERSON: Everybody who’s looking for an explanation of what went wrong is now focusing on the staffers inside the White House. What these stories miss, though, is the fact that it’s the President who has kept going forward on health care.

PLANTE: The new strategy, raise the temperature on insurance companies and hope audiences, like the one in Pennsylvania Monday, will pressure Congress to pass the bill.

OBAMA: They’re telling their investors this, ‘we are in the money, we are going to keep on making big profits even though a lot of folks are going to be put under hardship.’

PLANTE: But Republicans are calling the President’s pitch ’snake oil’ and predicting failure. Still, Mr. Obama vows to push ahead.

OBAMA: I don’t know how passing health care will play politically. But I do know that it’s the right thing to do.

PLANTE: There’s a reason for the President’s urgent tone, time is short. The insurance industry is planning to mount a comeback campaign, an ad campaign for about a million dollars, this week.

NBC’s Ann Curry invited former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura to promote his new book of conspiracy theories, on Tuesday’s Today show, and pressed the former professional wrestler to throw out the loony charge that the Bush administration had foreknowledge of 9/11. On to promote his book American Conspiracies, Ventura charged that the CIA was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and when prompted by Curry accused the Bush administration of allowing the 9/11 attacks to happen. [audio available here]

ANN CURRY: And you say what the, the, the constant in all of these assassinations, virtually all of them, is this, is starting with Kennedy, is the CIA.

JESSE VENTURA: They, they come up.

CURRY: What are you implying, why are you, what are you implying with that?

VENTURA: I’m not implying anything. That’s the documents. That’s where it leads you. The common denominator is always the Central Intelligence Agency to a great many of these. And, and it’s not me making it up, you know. I didn’t make this book up. I offer opinions at the beginning of chapters and at the end of chapters, but everything in it is all documented off of government documents, other articles, interviews that people have given and everything of that.

CURRY: The biggest bombshell of the book is your writing that, that quote, "I am convinced that some people inside our government" — about 9/11 — "knew that the attack was going to happen and allowed it to come to pass because it furthered their political agenda?" Who are you talking about, whose political agenda?

VENTURA: Whoever was in charge at that time. They knew about Osama Bin Laden…

CURRY: Are you saying the Bush administration?

VENTURA: Yep. Yep.

Incidentally Ventura received a less skeptical and friendlier treatment than Karl Rove did from Curry’s colleague Matt Lauer in the half-hour just before his segment. The following is a complete transcript of the interview as it was aired on the March 9 Today show:

ANN CURRY: Jesse Ventura rose to fame and earned the nickname "The Body" as a professional wrestler and he became the governor when he successfully ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998. Well now Jesse Ventura is a best-selling author. His new book is called American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies and More Dirty Lies that the Government Tells us," an explosive look at what he believes are cover-ups by the U.S. government. Governor Ventura, good morning.

JESSE VENTURA: Good morning.

CURRY: That is some title!

VENTURA: Well, you know, I can’t take credit for that, you know. The publishers do get a little leeway when you write a book, and so I’m not responsible for the title. In fact, the title scared my wife.

CURRY: Oh, well.

VENTURA: She said, "You’re gonna put your name on this?"And I said, I’m afraid so. You know, but they came up with the title, but everything inside the book is mine-

CURRY: Okay.

VENTURA: -and Dick Russell, my co-writer. I want to give Dick credit because Dick did the yeoman’s work on all the investigating and, and you know digging in to get all the knowledge. And then of course, when you do a book like this, it’s really like throwing a jigsaw puzzle on the floor and you have to do it piece by piece, put it together until you develop, and will you ever get the whole picture? No, but you’ll get enough of the picture to understand what it’s about.

CURRY: You’re talking about what you say are alternative theories-

VENTURA: Yep.

CURRY: to what everybody is studying in school, what they’re learning from the history books. In fact, you go on to write about some things that people really basically don’t believe are debatable. For example, you talk about John Wilkes Booth, which is debatable, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, men who were responsible for the deaths of four presidents. And you basically say that these men are part of what you call the "Lone Nut Theory," which you don’t buy into. Why not?

VENTURA: No. I mean, to me, you’re telling me, I grew up in the sixties, and all of these guys were killed by lone nuts who never spoke to anyone, never planned anything.

CURRY: Why don’t you believe that?

VENTURA: And yet, they were failures, supposedly, at everything else in life, but hugely successful when it came to assassinating someone. And let me make this – this is not stuff I make up. Everything in this book is documented. If you look, there will be a little number after every paragraph. You can go right to the book. So, this is not my imagination running wild. This is based upon facts, many of them government documents.

CURRY: The biggest government cover-up in your lifetime you say, is the assassination of JFK, and you go so far as to outright say that there was a second gunman. And so, you’re making a conclusion that the Warren Commission did not.

VENTURA: Absolutely.

CURRY: How do you do that?

VENTURA: Well, the 1978 House select committee came out and said it was a probable conspiracy, so now you have two government agencies that contradict each other, and yet, no one investigates it. And the key to this are the three bullets. It’s not the magic bullet, it’s not the head shot. It’s the one that missed, because that had to be a near miss. And if you go to where it hit on the ground and injured Mr. Teague, it’s 22 feet wide or 22 feet high and 33 feet wide from the target area.

CURRY: And you say what the, the, the constant in all of these assassinations, virtually all of them, is this, is starting with Kennedy, is the CIA.

VENTURA: They, they come up.

CURRY: What are you implying, why are you, what are you implying with that?

VENTURA: I’m not implying anything. That’s the documents. That’s where it leads you. The common denominator is always the Central Intelligence Agency to a great many of these. And, and it’s not me making it up, you know. I didn’t make this book up. I offer opinions at the beginning of chapters and at the end of chapters, but everything in it is all documented off of government documents, other articles, interviews that people have given and everything of that.

CURRY: The biggest bombshell of the book is your writing that, that quote, "I am convinced that some people inside our government" — about 9/11 — "knew that the attack was going to happen and allowed it to come to pass because it furthered their political agenda?" Who are you talking about, whose political agenda?

VENTURA: Whoever was in charge at that time. They knew about Osama Bin Laden…

CURRY: Are you saying the Bush administration?

VENTURA: Yep. Yep.

CURRY: The Bush administration had a political agenda in allowing the 9/11 attacks to occur?

VENTURA: Well, it’s not so, you know, look back in history. This isn’t the first time. The Gulf of Ton-, well see, let me say this, the government has no credibility with me anymore. They lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. That didn’t happen. That put, killed 58,000 of us in Vietnam, probably a million Vietnamese and was the catalyst of whole Vietnam War. I was teaching at Harvard in 2004 when McNamara came through and admitted the Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened.

CURRY: Is it fair to say that your book does not conclusively, offer conclusive evidence that these histories are incorrect?

VENTURA: I think it does. I think it offers a great deal of evidence. Now, as I said, it’s like-

CURRY: Conclusive evidence?

VENTURA: It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. You’re not, years have gone by. You’re not gonna fill in every hole of the jigsaw puzzle, but you’re gonna to get enough pieces to where you get a picture.

CURRY: And so, what is your goal then in questioning all of these histories?

VENTURA: My goal is this — I believe 100 years from now, I want people to be able to read that not all of us bought the stories. That there was other people who felt the government did not tell the truth, and I want that to be out there 100 years from now so that people understand that this was not a slam dunk on any of these conspiracies.

CURRY: On that note, we have to leave it because we’re out of time.

VENTURA: Sure.

CURRY: Jesse Ventura, thank you so much.

VENTURA: My pleasure.

CURRY: Great to meet you. And the book is called American Conspiracies.

Imagine the audacity of wanting to dispose of your own money as you see fit? The idea is hateful to Bill Scher of the Huffington Post, who demanded in "Super Wealthy Deathly Afraid Estate Tax Would Reduce Deficit" on March 9 that the wealthy "pay their fair share."

Scher railed against the Bush tax cuts, and asserted that a 35-45 percent inheritance penalty (the estate tax or death tax) isn’t punitive enough to stem the deficit crisis. 

"But those massive tax breaks to the superwealthy don’t quite have the same juice they used to. Especially, the estate tax – levied on the inheritances of the wealthiest heirs in America," Scher wrote. "This year, because of the Bush tax plan from his first term to gradually phase out the estate tax altogether, the estate tax is literally wiped off the books."

But all that wealth is not lost to redistribution forever. "But in 2011, it returns! Inheritance income above the $2 million threshold would be subject to a 55% tax. And after fanning the flames of deficit hysteria to squelch progressive reforms, corporate lobbyists are terrified that the estate tax would actually help reduce the deficit."

Citing a Bloomberg report saying, "‘a revived estate tax at pre-2001 levels would collect more than $34 billion next year and about $410 billion through 2019.’ The wealthiest heirs having to pay their fair share and help cut the deficit. The horror!"

As the National Taxpayers Union and Daniel J. Mitchell of the Cato Institute note, truth is the "estate tax" hampers job-creation, promotes the concentration of wealth, hits minorities particularly hard (reminiscent of "sin" taxes), and contributed just 1.14 percent to federal revenue in 2008.

And as previous reported by the Business & Media Institute, the U.S. already has one of the highest estate tax rates in the world.

But Scher could grasp neither the practical reality nor the immorality of confiscatory taxes on legal, fairly earned wealth. "What’s stunning is the superwealthy’s lobbyist posse and the Senate’s conservative minority could just take what the House has already passed: locking in the estate tax at 45%, while exempting all inheritances below $7 million. That ain’t chump change! But that’s not good enough for the heirs who have no interest in paying their fair share and reducing the deficit."

But those greedy rich aren’t satisfied.

"A $10 million exemption and a 35% rate above that is not very sweet at all," Scher continues, alluding to previous proposals from Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AK) to lower the rate. "It’s a bitter windfall to the Paris Hilton set. But thanks to the combination of their greed, and their exploitation of deficit hysteria, the superwealthy may actually have to pay their fair share on their inheritances after all." 

In a world where the top-10 percent of income-earners in America regularly pay 70 percent of the nation’s federal income tax, and the bottom-50 percent pay close to nothing, what exactly is it you mean by "fair share"?

Cartoon by Paul Combs, image via the National Tax-Limitation Committee

Rush mentioned this on the air as his show opened.

It comes from the Associated Press, in a later paragraph of an Obama cheerleading item ("Obama pitches health plan in spirited appearance"; AP picture at right is from that story) by Julie Pace and David Espo.

The paragraph in question opens by giving readers the impression that either Pace, Espo, or another AP person has actually seen language in whatever iteration of ObamaCare happens to be floating around House chambers these days. But then it backs down and says it’s only "described by a Democratic aide," meaning that the wire service is willingly serving as a trial-balloon enabler:

In a new change sought by House Democrats, the fix-it bill would require businesses to count part-time workers when calculating penalties for failing to provide health coverage for employees. Smaller businesses would be exempt. The Senate bill would count only full-time workers in applying the penalties, but under the change, described by a Democratic aide, two part-time workers would count as one full-time worker. Businesses say that’s unduly burdensome, but Democrats contend it would prevent businesses from avoiding penalties by hiring more workers part-time.

A graphic of the paragraph in question, in case it’s revised, is here.

This would serve to penalize business that rely almost entirely on part-time or seasonal help. Just a few examples: amusement parks, fast-food operations, much of retail, and call centers. These businesses would have to pay a tax for not offering health care coverage to employees who are not and never have been eligible for full-blown company-provided benefits.

This is beyond bizarre. It’s as if there’s something wrong with having employees who have of their own free will committed to not working 40 hours a week.

As to the expected business reaction of going to more part-timers in the absence of such a provision — My gut reaction is that this idea would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and and thousands of businesses and more than a few industries in one fell swoop, meaning that there would be few businesses of any kind to worry about, period. It’s almost as if they want to accomplish just that.

I’m sure commenters will have other insights based on their understanding of the circumstances of other businesses.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Has Chris Matthews’s brain been exiled to the Phantom Zone?

The "Hardball" host has a penchant for making loopy cinematic references, such as the time he compared Rush Limbaugh to the villain in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die."

Well, yesterday the MSNBC host made some odd, labored metaphor that found the former vice president being compared to Jor-El, the biological father of Superman (audio here; transcript via NB’s Geoffrey Dickens):

One of the new ideas that Dick Cheney’s trying to sell right now is his daughter, Steve. He reminds me of that Marlon Brando character in, in Superman up on Krypton. The island is about to, the planet is about to blow up. So he puts his little kid, in this case Superman, into a little capsule and sends him to Earth.  It’s like Cheney knows his whole world is blowing up, so he’s put his little daughter in this capsule and is sending her to us. It just seems like he’s spending all his time, it’s kind of like a booster rocket, building one for his offspring. What’s going on with this family?!

"How stupid. Can’t Matthews get ANYTHING right? Everyone knows that if you are of Matthews’ political persuasion, Cheney=Zod!" the New York Post’s Robert A. George tweeted in reaction to my post of yesterday’s video.

Good point.

Perhaps Chris has just been spending way too much time in his den Fortress of Solitude late at night watching action flicks on cable.

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday showed little interest in grilling Robert Gibbs over serious allegations made by a Democratic Congressman. Talking to the White House press secretary, the Good Morning America host could only manage a single question: "[Representative Massa has] made very specific and pointed charges against Rahm Emanuel, Democratic leaders in the House. What’s the White House response?"

And that was it. Stephanopoulos simply moved on to health care. He didn’t ask about allegations that a naked Emanuel once approached Massa in the shower of the House gym and screamed at him. Further, wondering about "the White House response" is a very weak question. How about, "Are the charges true?" or "Did the White House pressure Massa to resign?"

Later in the piece, the GMA anchor asked if President Obama would be "willing to negotiate new language" with Congressman Bart Stupak over the issue of abortion and the health care bill. When Gibbs asserted, "This is not a bill about abortion," Stephanopoulos again offered no challenge. He simply accepted the declaration and moved on.

To be fair to ABC, reporter Jonathan Karl did highlight Massa’s complaints against Emanuel and the allegations of intimidation in the House shower. But Stephanopoulos, given his close friendship with high profile Democrats such as Emanuel and James Carville, is a walking conflict of interest.

On the Bottom Line blog on ABCNews.com, Stephanopoulos managed to completely skip any mention of Emanuel. If a chief of staff in a Republican White House was accused of having a naked shower confrontation, it seems safe to say that the GMA host would have more interest.

A transcript of the March 9 segment, which aired at 7:07am EST, follows:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s bring in Robert Gibbs now from the White House. Now, Robert, the resignation may take effect this morning. But Massa’s going on Glenn Beck this afternoon. Was all over Rush Limbaugh yesterday afternoon. On Larry King Live tonight. We expect to hear a lot more about how he was pushed out because of his vote on health care. He’s made very specific and pointed charges against Rahm Emanuel, Democratic leaders in the House. What’s the White House response?

ROBERT GIBBS: Well, look, I think this whole story is ridiculous. I think the latest excuse is silly and ridiculous. George, let’s go through from what we’ve heard from Congressman Massa. Last week, on Wednesday, he was having a recurrence of cancer. On Thursday, he was guilty of using salty language. On Friday, we learned he’s before the Ethics Committee to be investigated on charges of sexual harassment. So, look, I think, clearly, his actions appear to be in the appropriate venue of the Ethics Committee to look at. But we’re focused not on crazy allegation, but instead on making this system work for the American people, rather than work for insurance companies, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s talk about that. The President was fired up yesterday. He took aim at the insurance companies. He also took aim at Democrats worried about the election in November. But, a lot of Democrats think this could cost Democrats’ control of the House. They’re joined by independent analysts like Charlie Cook, partisans like Karl Rove. Is losing control of the House a price worth paying to get health care?

GIBBS: Well, look, George, as the President said yesterday, we need a system, as I said, that works for the American people, not for insurance companies. How much longer are we going to wait while insurance company rates go through the roof to get something done? I think the President understands that good policy always makes for, ultimately, good politics. His focus is on getting something done so that we can make sure that small businesses and families aren’t struggling with the high cost of health insurance that goes up each and every year. He’s going to lead this fight, George, to get this done over the next couple of weeks. And it will be something that Democrats can be proud to run on in November.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, it won’t cost them the House? And if it does, so be it?

GIBBS: I don’t think it’s going to cost Democrats the House. I think this will be an accomplishment that members can be proud of, not just in this election, George, but for decades to come. We’ll have finally done something on health insurance reform that means something real to American families, to small business owners that are struggling with those high costs. That’s what’s important to the American people. We were sent here to do something.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, Congressman Bart Stupak, on the program last week, said he was ready to bring down the bill if the health care bill if the President didn’t change the abortion language. Now, he’s more optimistic, telling the AP he can work out a deal. Is the President willing to negotiate new language on abortion?

GIBBS: Well, look, this President is willing to keep the promise that we made throughout this. This is not a bill about abortion. This is about health care reform. I think there’s no doubt that we can come to a solution that maintains the rules that are in place, that federal funds aren’t used for abortions, while protecting a woman’s right to choose.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, we’re just about out of time. But there’s been a flurry of stories lately about White House infighting, tension between the President, his chief of staff, other senior aides. What does the President think about these stories? And does he have confidence in his chief of staff and his senior team?

GIBBS: The President has confidence in each and every person that works here, George. We’re privileged to serve the American people from the White House. The President is not focused on palace intrigue. It says something about this town that this goes for entertainment. He wants us to focus on getting something done for the American people, getting health care reform though the Congress, focusing on the economy and getting jobs coming back here to this country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, Robert Gibbs. Thanks very much.

In the final and easily most combative portion of Matt Lauer’s three-part exclusive interview with Karl Rove, the Today co-anchor assaulted the former White House advisor, on Tuesday’s Today, with accusatory charges on the run-up to the war in Iraq to the handling of Hurricane Katrina, to his role in the CIA leak scandal. The most volatile moments came during the Iraq and Katrina topics where Lauer’s line of questioning began with reading a harsh line from a Rove critic, usually one of his media colleagues from the Washington Post, to Rove, as seen in the following heated exchanges:

MATT LAUER: The book only comes out today. Already the critics have gotten a hold of it. And some are saying this is 500 pages of you rewriting history, that this is putting the best possible spin on some very controversial episodes. Dana Milbank, who wrote about the Bush White House for the Washington Post writes "That business about President George Bush misleading the nation about Iraq? Didn’t happen."

[On screen graphic read: "That business about President George W. Bush misleading the nation about Iraq? Didn't happen....Condoning torture? Wrong!...Rove had two-and-a-half years to reflect on what turned Bush into the least popular president in modern history. Yet Bush's Brain is still in the war room."]

KARL ROVE: Well let’s stop right there.

LAUER: Go ahead.

ROVE: Let’s stop right there. He said one sentence. I devote an entire chapter to showing that Bush did not lie about Iraq. In fact, I quote Democrats. There were 110 Democrats who voted for the Iraq war resolution. 67 of those Democrats, including John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, on the floor of the Congress said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. So, he may be able to dismiss it in one snarky line, but I have, I have, I have the facts in here.

LAUER: What you write in the book is that the President, President Bush, would not have invaded Iraq if he had known there were no weapons of mass destruction. And what you write is-

ROVE: Yeah.

LAUER: "Would the Iraq war have occurred without WMD? I doubt it. Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD." But since the war Karl, you know so many people have come forward saying there was intelligence, there was intelligence pointing that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction, but there was also intelligence pointing in the other direction and there were voices of dissent, and those voices were ignored so the President could make his case.

ROVE: Look the intelligence was worldwide agreed that he had WMD. That he had ignored 14 resolutions following his surrender after Kuwait to account for his WMD. He had spent 12 years stiffing the international community. We now know because of two international reports by two international weapons inspectors, Kay and Doefler, that he was diverted tens of millions of dollars a year to Oil for, from the Oil for Food program to keep together the necessary dual-use-

LAUER: But agreement was not worldwide. Here’s from, from Bob Woodward’s book State of Denial. He writes in October of 2002, the top intelligence officer, Major General James "Spider" Marks, in charge of looking for WMD in Iraq looked at a list of 946 WMD sites and found quote, "He couldn’t find with confidence there were any weapons of mass destruction or stockpiles at a single site."

ROVE: Well, that’s one, but there were many intelligence…

LAUER: But you said it was worldwide. There was disagreement!

ROVE: There was, there was a consensus. It doesn’t imply that everybody agreed, but it implies that the vas-, the preponderance of evidence and the majority of agreement was that there were WMD. And look, this is a bipartisan agreement. It was Al Gore and Bill Clinton, as well as Republicans who said he had WMD. And look…

LAUER: Even former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a memo in 2002 wrote, quote, "President Bush had made up his mind to take military action even if the timing was not yet decided, but the case was thin."

ROVE: Well, he agreed with the decision. And again, the British intelligence also believed that he had WMD. In fact, again, it’s a worldwide consensus. You can go back and try and rewrite history, but at that moment, we as a nation were faced with the belief that he had WMD, that he was a threat to the stability of the region, and in the aftermath of 9/11, the calculus changed, and it was, I repeat, a bipartisan agreement.

LAUER: Did, was President, you say the President didn’t-

ROVE: And so if the President lied, if President Bush lied then President Clinton lied and Senator Clinton lied, Senator Kerry lied, Senator, Senator Edwards lied, Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy lied.

LAUER: Did the President share all of the information with the American public, all the intelligence, all he dissenting voices? Because if you go back to your assertion that Congress wouldn’t have voted for the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD, you don’t have to be too big a cynic to say, well of course they beat the drums about WMD.

ROVE: Well, this will be surprising to you. The President was restrained. The President said, "I don’t, you know, if there are things that we don’t have confidence in, we’re not gonna say ‘em." In fact, you know, Secretary Powell, for example, went out to the CIA to review the evidence for several days, literally 24 hours a day, talking to the experts, reviewing the evidence to come to his own conclusion. The President encouraged that kind of review. We made the information available to Congress. Congress had access to that intelligence as well.

LAUER: You write in the book that the biggest, one of the biggest mistakes you think you made was not staying on the offensive against the critics of President Bush after this thing started to fall apart. So, the mistake wasn’t saying, "Hey, we made a mistake, we got bad intelligence or we acted on the wrong intelligence," you were worried more about the political damage to the President?

ROVE: No what I was worried about was this, and let’s be clear about what it was in the book that I talked about, and that is that in July of 2003, on one day, Senator Ted Kennedy goes out and says Bush lied about WMD. This is a man who two days after the vote — which he voted against the Iraq war resolution — nonetheless, went out and made a speech saying Iraq has WMD, there are other ways besides war that we can use to constrain that. The same day, Senator Tom Daschle, leader of the Senate Democrats, went out and said the President is misleading the American people. The next day, Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards in separate appearances say the President misled the American people, and was lying about WMD. They’re joined by Jane Harman. When you have five major Democrats in two days pick up the same line, which they know is incorrect, that Bush lied about WMD, it was a political attack aimed at the heart of the administration and we should have responded more than we did.

LAUER: Let me move on because we’ve got a lot to cover. Hurricane Katrina, by all accounts, the federal response, the federal government’s response in the first couple of days, few days after Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, and there was that picture, Karl, of the President looking out the window of Air Force One, looking down at the flooded region, and, and it made him look terribly out of touch-

ROVE: Disconnected, disconnected.

LAUER: -with the tragedy on the ground. From the book, you write quote, "I am one of the people responsible for that mistake." When did you realize that PR-wise and image-wise for the President, it was a disaster?

ROVE: Well, I knew it was, I knew it was, look, let’s put it in context. The President of the United States, if he had dropped into New Orleans that morning, would have discombobulated recovery efforts. They would have had to close the air space. We would have, there would have been, you know rather then, rather then a cargo plane coming in with, with rescue people it would have been President Bush.

LAUER: But that picture almost would have been, was worse than no picture.

ROVE: Well we should, we should have gone to Baton Rouge, which is where the governor was and where the emergency disaster center was, and that’s where we should have gone.

LAUER: You also write in the book "We did not have the ability to get realtime information so did not realize the initial reports we were getting were wrong." This is the President of the United States.

ROVE: Sure.

LAUER: Did anyone at the White House turn on the TV? We had realtime information.

ROVE: Well you know what? The media did not have realtime information. For example, the media led people to believe that there were snipers. So, as a result, rescue personnel refused to go into some of the, some of the, some of the-

LAUER: But we showed the suffering though at some of these places.

ROVE: Let me finish, you showed, you know what? And that’s the point is, is that you, for example, you didn’t know about the suffering at the convention center until the government did, but the government should have known about it earlier. And that’s one of the big reforms to come out of Katrina is that the federal government’s now aimed at getting realtime information and not depending, as it has in past emergencies, for the state and local people to provide the information about what’s going on, on the ground.

LAUER: Dan Bartlett said Katrina was quote politically "It was the final nail in the coffin." Do you agree with that?

ROVE: I’m not sure I agree it was a nail in a coffin, because I don’t believe the Bush administration was by any means dead.

In the final and easily most combative portion of Matt Lauer’s three-part exclusive interview with Karl Rove, the Today co-anchor assaulted the former White House advisor, on Tuesday’s Today, with accusatory charges on the run-up to the war in Iraq to the handling of Hurricane Katrina, to his role in the CIA leak scandal. The most volatile moments came during the Iraq and Katrina topics where Lauer’s line of questioning began with reading a harsh line from a Rove critic, usually one of his media colleagues from the Washington Post, to Rove, as seen in the following heated exchanges:

MATT LAUER: The book only comes out today. Already the critics have gotten a hold of it. And some are saying this is 500 pages of you rewriting history, that this is putting the best possible spin on some very controversial episodes. Dana Milbank, who wrote about the Bush White House for the Washington Post writes "That business about President George Bush misleading the nation about Iraq? Didn’t happen."

[On screen graphic read: "That business about President George W. Bush misleading the nation about Iraq? Didn't happen....Condoning torture? Wrong!...Rove had two-and-a-half years to reflect on what turned Bush into the least popular president in modern history. Yet Bush's Brain is still in the war room."]

KARL ROVE: Well let’s stop right there.

LAUER: Go ahead.

ROVE: Let’s stop right there. He said one sentence. I devote an entire chapter to showing that Bush did not lie about Iraq. In fact, I quote Democrats. There were 110 Democrats who voted for the Iraq war resolution. 67 of those Democrats, including John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, on the floor of the Congress said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. So, he may be able to dismiss it in one snarky line, but I have, I have, I have the facts in here.

LAUER: What you write in the book is that the President, President Bush, would not have invaded Iraq if he had known there were no weapons of mass destruction. And what you write is-

ROVE: Yeah.

LAUER: "Would the Iraq war have occurred without WMD? I doubt it. Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD." But since the war Karl, you know so many people have come forward saying there was intelligence, there was intelligence pointing that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction, but there was also intelligence pointing in the other direction and there were voices of dissent, and those voices were ignored so the President could make his case.

ROVE: Look the intelligence was worldwide agreed that he had WMD. That he had ignored 14 resolutions following his surrender after Kuwait to account for his WMD. He had spent 12 years stiffing the international community. We now know because of two international reports by two international weapons inspectors, Kay and Doefler, that he was diverted tens of millions of dollars a year to Oil for, from the Oil for Food program to keep together the necessary dual-use-

LAUER: But agreement was not worldwide. Here’s from, from Bob Woodward’s book State of Denial. He writes in October of 2002, the top intelligence officer, Major General James "Spider" Marks, in charge of looking for WMD in Iraq looked at a list of 946 WMD sites and found quote, "He couldn’t find with confidence there were any weapons of mass destruction or stockpiles at a single site."

ROVE: Well, that’s one, but there were many intelligence…

LAUER: But you said it was worldwide. There was disagreement!

ROVE: There was, there was a consensus. It doesn’t imply that everybody agreed, but it implies that the vas-, the preponderance of evidence and the majority of agreement was that there were WMD. And look, this is a bipartisan agreement. It was Al Gore and Bill Clinton, as well as Republicans who said he had WMD. And look…

LAUER: Even former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a memo in 2002 wrote, quote, "President Bush had made up his mind to take military action even if the timing was not yet decided, but the case was thin."

ROVE: Well, he agreed with the decision. And again, the British intelligence also believed that he had WMD. In fact, again, it’s a worldwide consensus. You can go back and try and rewrite history, but at that moment, we as a nation were faced with the belief that he had WMD, that he was a threat to the stability of the region, and in the aftermath of 9/11, the calculus changed, and it was, I repeat, a bipartisan agreement.

LAUER: Did, was President, you say the President didn’t-

ROVE: And so if the President lied, if President Bush lied then President Clinton lied and Senator Clinton lied, Senator Kerry lied, Senator, Senator Edwards lied, Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy lied.

LAUER: Did the President share all of the information with the American public, all the intelligence, all he dissenting voices? Because if you go back to your assertion that Congress wouldn’t have voted for the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD, you don’t have to be too big a cynic to say, well of course they beat the drums about WMD.

ROVE: Well, this will be surprising to you. The President was restrained. The President said, "I don’t, you know, if there are things that we don’t have confidence in, we’re not gonna say ‘em." In fact, you know, Secretary Powell, for example, went out to the CIA to review the evidence for several days, literally 24 hours a day, talking to the experts, reviewing the evidence to come to his own conclusion. The President encouraged that kind of review. We made the information available to Congress. Congress had access to that intelligence as well.

LAUER: You write in the book that the biggest, one of the biggest mistakes you think you made was not staying on the offensive against the critics of President Bush after this thing started to fall apart. So, the mistake wasn’t saying, "Hey, we made a mistake, we got bad intelligence or we acted on the wrong intelligence," you were worried more about the political damage to the President?

ROVE: No what I was worried about was this, and let’s be clear about what it was in the book that I talked about, and that is that in July of 2003, on one day, Senator Ted Kennedy goes out and says Bush lied about WMD. This is a man who two days after the vote — which he voted against the Iraq war resolution — nonetheless, went out and made a speech saying Iraq has WMD, there are other ways besides war that we can use to constrain that. The same day, Senator Tom Daschle, leader of the Senate Democrats, went out and said the President is misleading the American people. The next day, Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards in separate appearances say the President misled the American people, and was lying about WMD. They’re joined by Jane Harman. When you have five major Democrats in two days pick up the same line, which they know is incorrect, that Bush lied about WMD, it was a political attack aimed at the heart of the administration and we should have responded more than we did.

LAUER: Let me move on because we’ve got a lot to cover. Hurricane Katrina, by all accounts, the federal response, the federal government’s response in the first couple of days, few days after Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, and there was that picture, Karl, of the President looking out the window of Air Force One, looking down at the flooded region, and, and it made him look terribly out of touch-

ROVE: Disconnected, disconnected.

LAUER: -with the tragedy on the ground. From the book, you write quote, "I am one of the people responsible for that mistake." When did you realize that PR-wise and image-wise for the President, it was a disaster?

ROVE: Well, I knew it was, I knew it was, look, let’s put it in context. The President of the United States, if he had dropped into New Orleans that morning, would have discombobulated recovery efforts. They would have had to close the air space. We would have, there would have been, you know rather then, rather then a cargo plane coming in with, with rescue people it would have been President Bush.

LAUER: But that picture almost would have been, was worse than no picture.

ROVE: Well we should, we should have gone to Baton Rouge, which is where the governor was and where the emergency disaster center was, and that’s where we should have gone.

LAUER: You also write in the book "We did not have the ability to get realtime information so did not realize the initial reports we were getting were wrong." This is the President of the United States.

ROVE: Sure.

LAUER: Did anyone at the White House turn on the TV? We had realtime information.

ROVE: Well you know what? The media did not have realtime information. For example, the media led people to believe that there were snipers. So, as a result, rescue personnel refused to go into some of the, some of the, some of the-

LAUER: But we showed the suffering though at some of these places.

ROVE: Let me finish, you showed, you know what? And that’s the point is, is that you, for example, you didn’t know about the suffering at the convention center until the government did, but the government should have known about it earlier. And that’s one of the big reforms to come out of Katrina is that the federal government’s now aimed at getting realtime information and not depending, as it has in past emergencies, for the state and local people to provide the information about what’s going on, on the ground.

LAUER: Dan Bartlett said Katrina was quote politically "It was the final nail in the coffin." Do you agree with that?

ROVE: I’m not sure I agree it was a nail in a coffin, because I don’t believe the Bush administration was by any means dead.

In the final and easily most combative portion of Matt Lauer’s three-part exclusive interview with Karl Rove, the Today co-anchor assaulted the former White House advisor, on Tuesday’s Today, with accusatory charges on the run-up to the war in Iraq to the handling of Hurricane Katrina, to his role in the CIA leak scandal. The most volatile moments came during the Iraq and Katrina topics where Lauer’s line of questioning began with reading a harsh line from a Rove critic, usually one of his media colleagues from the Washington Post, to Rove, as seen in the following heated exchanges from the March 9 Today show: [audio available here]

MATT LAUER: The book only comes out today. Already the critics have gotten a hold of it. And some are saying this is 500 pages of you rewriting history, that this is putting the best possible spin on some very controversial episodes. Dana Milbank, who wrote about the Bush White House for the Washington Post writes "That business about President George Bush misleading the nation about Iraq? Didn’t happen."

[On screen graphic: "That business about President George W. Bush misleading the nation about Iraq? Didn't happen....Condoning torture? Wrong!...Rove had two-and-a-half years to reflect on what turned Bush into the least popular president in modern history. Yet Bush's Brain is still in the war room."]

KARL ROVE: Well let’s stop right there.

LAUER: Go ahead.

ROVE: Let’s stop right there. He said one sentence. I devote an entire chapter to showing that Bush did not lie about Iraq. In fact, I quote Democrats. There were 110 Democrats who voted for the Iraq war resolution. 67 of those Democrats, including John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, on the floor of the Congress said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. So, he may be able to dismiss it in one snarky line, but I have, I have, I have the facts in here.

LAUER: What you write in the book is that the President, President Bush, would not have invaded Iraq if he had known there were no weapons of mass destruction. And what you write is-

ROVE: Yeah.

LAUER: "Would the Iraq war have occurred without WMD? I doubt it. Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD." But since the war Karl, you know so many people have come forward saying there was intelligence, there was intelligence pointing that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction, but there was also intelligence pointing in the other direction and there were voices of dissent, and those voices were ignored so the President could make his case.

ROVE: Look the intelligence was worldwide agreed that he had WMD. That he had ignored 14 resolutions following his surrender after Kuwait to account for his WMD. He had spent 12 years stiffing the international community. We now know because of two international reports by two international weapons inspectors, Kay and Doefler, that he was diverted tens of millions of dollars a year to Oil for, from the Oil for Food program to keep together the necessary dual-use-

LAUER: But agreement was not worldwide. Here’s from, from Bob Woodward’s book State of Denial. He writes in October of 2002, the top intelligence officer, Major General James "Spider" Marks, in charge of looking for WMD in Iraq looked at a list of 946 WMD sites and found quote, "He couldn’t find with confidence there were any weapons of mass destruction or stockpiles at a single site."

ROVE: Well, that’s one, but there were many intelligence…

LAUER: But you said it was worldwide. There was disagreement!

ROVE: There was, there was a consensus. It doesn’t imply that everybody agreed, but it implies that the vas-, the preponderance of evidence and the majority of agreement was that there were WMD. And look, this is a bipartisan agreement. It was Al Gore and Bill Clinton, as well as Republicans who said he had WMD. And look…

LAUER: Even former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a memo in 2002 wrote, quote, "President Bush had made up his mind to take military action even if the timing was not yet decided, but the case was thin."

ROVE: Well, he agreed with the decision. And again, the British intelligence also believed that he had WMD. In fact, again, it’s a worldwide consensus. You can go back and try and rewrite history, but at that moment, we as a nation were faced with the belief that he had WMD, that he was a threat to the stability of the region, and in the aftermath of 9/11, the calculus changed, and it was, I repeat, a bipartisan agreement. 

LAUER: Did, was President, you say the President didn’t-

ROVE: And so if the President lied, if President Bush lied then President Clinton lied and Senator Clinton lied, Senator Kerry lied, Senator, Senator Edwards lied, Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy lied.

LAUER: Did the President share all of the information with the American public, all the intelligence, all he dissenting voices? Because if you go back to your assertion that Congress wouldn’t have voted for the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD, you don’t have to be too big a cynic to say, well of course they beat the drums about WMD. 

ROVE: Well, this will be surprising to you. The President was restrained. The President said, "I don’t, you know, if there are things that we don’t have confidence in, we’re not gonna say ‘em." In fact, you know, Secretary Powell, for example, went out to the CIA to review the evidence for several days, literally 24 hours a day, talking to the experts, reviewing the evidence to come to his own conclusion. The President encouraged that kind of review. We made the information available to Congress. Congress had access to that intelligence as well. 

LAUER: You write in the book that the biggest, one of the biggest mistakes you think you made was not staying on the offensive against the critics of President Bush after this thing started to fall apart. So, the mistake wasn’t saying, "Hey, we made a mistake, we got bad intelligence or we acted on the wrong intelligence," you were worried more about the political damage to the President?

ROVE: No what I was worried about was this, and let’s be clear about what it was in the book that I talked about, and that is that in July of 2003, on one day, Senator Ted Kennedy goes out and says Bush lied about WMD. This is a man who two days after the vote — which he voted against the Iraq war resolution — nonetheless, went out and made a speech saying Iraq has WMD, there are other ways besides war that we can use to constrain that. The same day, Senator Tom Daschle, leader of the Senate Democrats, went out and said the President is misleading the American people. The next day, Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards in separate appearances say the President misled the American people, and was lying about WMD. They’re joined by Jane Harman. When you have five major Democrats in two days pick up the same line, which they know is incorrect, that Bush lied about WMD, it was a political attack aimed at the heart of the administration and we should have responded more than we did.

LAUER: Let me move on because we’ve got a lot to cover. Hurricane Katrina, by all accounts, the federal response, the federal government’s response in the first couple of days, few days after Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, and there was that picture, Karl, of the President looking out the window of Air Force One, looking down at the flooded region, and, and it made him look terribly out of touch-

ROVE: Disconnected, disconnected.

LAUER: -with the tragedy on the ground. From the book, you write quote, "I am one of the people responsible for that mistake." When did you realize that PR-wise and image-wise for the President, it was a disaster?

ROVE: Well, I knew it was, I knew it was, look, let’s put it in context. The President of the United States, if he had dropped into New Orleans that morning, would have discombobulated recovery efforts. They would have had to close the air space. We would have, there would have been, you know rather then, rather then a cargo plane coming in with, with rescue people it would have been President Bush.

LAUER: But that picture almost would have been, was worse than no picture.

ROVE: Well we should, we should have gone to Baton Rouge, which is where the governor was and where the emergency disaster center was, and that’s where we should have gone.

LAUER: You also write in the book "We did not have the ability to get realtime information so did not realize the initial reports we were getting were wrong." This is the President of the United States.

ROVE: Sure.

LAUER: Did anyone at the White House turn on the TV? We had realtime information.

ROVE: Well you know what? The media did not have realtime information. For example, the media led people to believe that there were snipers. So, as a result, rescue personnel refused to go into some of the, some of the, some of the-

LAUER: But we showed the suffering though at some of these places.

ROVE: Let me finish, you showed, you know what? And that’s the point is, is that you, for example, you didn’t know about the suffering at the convention center until the government did, but the government should have known about it earlier. And that’s one of the big reforms to come out of Katrina is that the federal government’s now aimed at getting realtime information and not depending, as it has in past emergencies, for the state and local people to provide the information about what’s going on, on the ground.

LAUER: Dan Bartlett said Katrina was quote politically "It was the final nail in the coffin." Do you agree with that?

ROVE: I’m not sure I agree it was a nail in a coffin, because I don’t believe the Bush administration was by any means dead.

As did Martin Luther King Jr., I have a dream.

I dream that my 10-year-old son of pale skin hue will one day grow to maturity in a nation where he won’t be dismissed by liberals as some old white guy with a fetish for firearms. Rather, that my son will be judged by a still-revered belief in the singular importance of character.

Agreed, such an expectation is probably more delusion than dream, seeing how often left-wingers in positions of influence gratuitously invoke race.

Here, for example, is Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show this past Thursday talking about a volunteer law enforcement effort called "Operation Exodus" (the segment can be seen in its entirety here) –

MADDOW: These folks, these guys are volunteers in something called Project Exodus in Bossier Parish, La. The sheriff in Bossier Parish, Sheriff Larry Deen, put out a press release recently announcing the creation of this Operation Exodus group. It’s now been reported by the Shreveport Times and that local reporting has been picked up nationally by Zack Roth at Talking Points Memo.

The department, the sheriff’s department there, says that Operation Exodus is designed to build a local paramilitary force to deal with the threat of, you know, threats and stuff. In the words of the Shreveport Times, ‘The Bossier Parish sheriff’s office is launching a program called ‘Operation Exodus,’ a policing plan for an end-of-the-world scenario involving a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a .50-caliber machine gun, inspired in part from the Book of Exodus in the Bible. …

… The way Operation Exodus is going in Bossier Parish is that the sheriff came up with this idea. He put out the press release and then the sheriff proactively contacted people who lived in Bossier Parish, who he wanted to join this little militia. And the sheriff chose 200 people, 195 of the 200 are white men. The sheriff is providing these people with shotguns and with batons and with riot shields. The sheriff has already started training them, as you can see (footage shown of training) in hand-to-hand combat. And then there’s the war wagon, with the 50-caliber machine gun.

Sheriff Deen explains the need for this militia as follows — ‘As evidenced by recent terror threats, it is apparent that homegrown terrorists are in our midst. With the easy accessibility of the Internet, it is quite possible that these local and international terrorists can form a national or multiple-location attack on our nation at any given moment. And no matter whether we are a direct target or not, fear and panic will still permeate our community. Control will have to be regained to ensure the safety of our residents. That is where Operation Exodus comes into play.’

Followed by Maddow saying this –

MADDOW: See, the 195 white guys in town who were just given guns by the sheriff, they’re supposed to reduce your fear. Same with the 50-caliber thingy on the war wagon thingy. 

And more along the same lines from Maddow guest Frank Shaeffer, author of "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back" and a Huffington Post blogger —

SHAEFFER:  Really what this is is just another evidence of the fact that there is a right-wing fringe in this country, sometimes tied to militia movements, sometimes tied to the religious right that I write about in my book ‘Crazy for God’, sometimes just loonies who essentially have given up on the United States government. And let me just add, as the father of a United States Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, I don’t take kindly to looking at a bunch of old white guys about my age with pot bellies grabbing 50-millimeter machine guns and putting them on pickup trucks to look like the technicals as they used to call them in Somalia, that a bunch of terrorists run around and causing havoc. It certainly doesn’t make me feel safer, but in terms of the biblical tie-in, it’s very obvious. …

SHAEFFER: … It isn’t terrorism they’re fighting, they’re just putting together a little militia group here to flee the rulers they don’t agree with, I guess, and kind of the Dick Cheney America, you know, we’ve given up on our government protecting us, we say the president is not doing his job, so we give a 50-cal. machine gun to some old white guy on a pickup truck and some shotguns to some good old boys and I guess they’ll take care of it. …

SHAEFFER: … Look, we have institutions to take care of national emergencies. They’re called fire departments, they’re called the United States Marines, they’re called the CIA and the NSA. These are the people who represent our elected government, whether we always like what they’re doing or not. If a bunch of, if 200 people have to arm themselves, basically what they’re saying is, we don’t believe in the United States anymore. We don’t believe in the military anymore. The guys up at Parris Island tonight who are sweating away in boot camp, like my son did, are wasting their time. We don’t trust them to do their job and so, you know, we’ll get some crazy old white coot on a pickup with a 50-cal. machine gun cruising his neighborhood to do God knows what …

Good gosh, what is it about white people that sets Maddow and Shaeffer to grinding their teeth? And seeing how both are apt to mark the box labeled "white" on a census questionnaire, how can they bear to look in a mirror? (the horror, the horror …)

The "biblical tie-in," Shaeffer claims, is an allusion to the story of Exodus with "the Jews, the people of God, fleeing an unjust ruler. So obviously it’s a backhanded comment about the United States government, Barack Obama, what have you."

The press release posted at the Bossier sheriff’s Web site described it a bit differently, stating the name Operation Exodus "was chosen for three reasons" –

The word ‘Exodus’ literally means ‘going out’ or ‘departure.’ For the Bossier Sheriff’s Office, Operation Exodus is a ‘departure’ from our normal duties to amplify the protection we provide our citizens. As for the volunteers, they will be ‘going out’ of their way to help the people of the community. And the last reason it was chosen is because of its Biblical relevance. In the book of Exodus, the Israelites were totally on their own, learning to be self-sufficient and handle everything alone, just as the plan provides.

Not surprisingly, Maddow glides past aspects of the story and doesn’t share them with her viewers. For example, there’s a reason why Bossier County might sound familiar to people who live far from Louisiana. As reported by the same Shreveport Times story cited by Maddow –

Local residents may remember then-President George W. Bush’s address to the nation was made out of Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City immediately after the (9/11) terrorist attacks. At that time, Deen’s men and about 100 other patrol cars barricaded entry to the base to protect the president from what turned out to be the nonexistent threat of an assault on the base.

In other words, Deen and presumably many of those now involved in Operation Exodus have previous experience along these lines.

Operation Exodus was created, Maddow tells us dismissively, "to deal with the threat of, you know, threats and stuff." Which don’t — wink, wink — actually exist, she insinuates. But the Bossier sheriff’s initiative isn’t limited to responding to civil unrest in the wake of terrorism, but will also "provide for self-sufficiency in the event of a manmade or natural disaster or a terrorist attack," according to Deen’s press release.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Louisiana remain vulnerable to natural disaster, especially hurricanes that can ravage coastlines and cities and replace rule of law with anarchy?

Shaeffer, echoing Maddow’s reverse-racism, also makes a bogus argument about the rationale behind the Bossier County volunteer effort. Shaeffer demeans this as an example of "Dick Cheney’s America" with people who’ve "given up on our government protecting us … If 200 people have to arm themselves, basically what they’re saying is, we don’t believe in the United States anymore. We don’t believe in the military anymore. The guys up at Parris Island tonight who are sweating away in boot camp, like my son did, are wasting their time. We don’t trust them to do their job …"

Which is like saying that any person who owns a gun doesn’t believe local police are doing their job. And while I’m sure there are those who believe exactly that and arm themselves accordingly, I’m also sure that many people own firearms based on the sobering knowledge that local police, and state police, the National Guard, the military, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, cannot protect all Americans all the time.

And contrary to what Shaeffer implies, acting on this awareness is not un-American. That more accurately describes those who would disparage others for exercising their constitutional rights — even allegedly loathsome white coots.

My boss, Brent Bozell, told me that (in his opinion) Dan Rather is not a racist, but let’s not consider his recent faux pas about Barack Obama and his failure to get the health care bill passed as an isolated incident.

It was not.

On Sunday, March 7th, Dan Rather said the following about the president…

"Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate…"

When Rather got to "articulate", I knew we had trouble brewing.

"… this is what’s been used against him, but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."

It’s also clear that Chris Matthews knew this would end bloody when he attempted to cut Rather off and stave off any further damage. I initially thought Matthews’ failure to post the segment (including what could be considered a racial slur against the President of the United States) an oversight, until I remembered that Chris Matthews forgot Barack Obama was black.

My bad.

With all due respect Mr. Bozell, who assured me Rather was no racist, Dan does have a history of making what some have considered insensitive statements.

In 2001 during the whole Democratic Congressman Gary Condit/missing intern Chandra Levy thing, Dan Rather was kind of upset that his network, CBS, succumbed to public pressure (a sin they wouldn’t repeat with John Edwards) and forced him to report a scandal he selectively sat on for two months.

During an interview with Don Imus, Rather said…

"What happened was they (CBS management) got the willies, they got the Buckwheats. Their knees wobbled and we gave it up."

Granted, there are many definitions of the term "buckwheats" ranging from inflicting a slow and painful death to a racial slur named after the Little Rascals character.

Whatever the motivation for both events, Rather may not be a racist, but if not, we must question his competence in the art of the ad lib. As a celebrated, seasoned news professional, one would have to ask Dan after he made those remarks, "What were ya thinkin’?"

I look at it this way: Would Dan Rather have made either of those comments on Black Entertainment Television or addressing an NAACP Convention? I think not.

For Dan Rather to make those comments when he did implies that he felt safe in the company he was in, which may also say something about Chris Matthews and those guests (but that’s a subject for another day).

To state the obvious, had any white conservative said the same thing, instead of omitting the segment’s posting on his website, Chris Matthews would’ve been screaming how that conservative’s words are representative of the thinking of the GOP and any less than a firing and lifetime societal banishment would be too little, too late.

In typical liberal media fashion, they feel if THEY ignore it, it will all go away. The problem is the New Media doesn’t observe their protocol, so THEY did and it won’t. However Chris Matthews will continue to use black people for partisan gain and Dan Rather will not lose what little job he has left.

I’m personally tired of this topic because it always ends the same way. If anything, it defines why there will continue to be a racial divide in America. Racism will never be eradicated when one side can, and will always, excuse the indiscretions of their own.

My boss, Brent Bozell, told me that (in his opinion) Dan Rather is not a racist, but let’s not consider his recent faux pas about Barack Obama and his failure to get the health care bill passed as an isolated incident.

It was not.

On Sunday, March 7th, Dan Rather said the following about the president…

"Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate…"

When Rather got to "articulate", I knew we had trouble brewing.

"… this is what’s been used against him, but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."

It’s also clear that Chris Matthews knew this would end bloody when he attempted to cut Rather off and stave off any further damage. I initially thought Matthews’ failure to post the segment (including what could be considered a racial slur against the President of the United States) an oversight, until I remembered that Chris Matthews forgot Barack Obama was black.

My bad.

With all due respect Mr. Bozell, who assured me Rather was no racist, Dan does have a history of making what some have considered insensitive statements.

In 2001 during the whole Democratic Congressman Gary Condit/missing intern Chandra Levy thing, Dan Rather was kind of upset that his network, CBS, succumbed to public pressure (a sin they wouldn’t repeat with John Edwards) and forced him to report a scandal he selectively sat on for two months.

During an interview with Don Imus, Rather said…

"What happened was they (CBS management) got the willies, they got the Buckwheats. Their knees wobbled and we gave it up."

Granted, there are many definitions of the term "buckwheats" ranging from inflicting a slow and painful death to a racial slur named after the Little Rascals character.

Whatever the motivation for both events, Rather may not be a racist, but if not, we must question his competence in the art of the ad lib. As a celebrated, seasoned news professional, one would have to ask Dan after he made those remarks, "What were ya thinkin’?"

I look at it this way: Would Dan Rather have made either of those comments on Black Entertainment Television or addressing an NAACP Convention? I think not.

For Dan Rather to make those comments when he did implies that he felt safe in the company he was in, which may also say something about Chris Matthews and those guests (but that’s a subject for another day).

To state the obvious, had any white conservative said the same thing, instead of omitting the segment’s posting on his website, Chris Matthews would’ve been screaming how that conservative’s words are representative of the thinking of the GOP and any less than a firing and lifetime societal banishment would be too little, too late.

In typical liberal media fashion, they feel if THEY ignore it, it will all go away. The problem is the New Media doesn’t observe their protocol, so THEY did and it won’t. However Chris Matthews will continue to use black people for partisan gain and Dan Rather will not lose what little job he has left.

I’m personally tired of this topic because it always ends the same way. If anything, it defines why there will continue to be a racial divide in America. Racism will never be eradicated when one side can, and will always, excuse the indiscretions of their own.

A Monday New York Times story by Stephanie Clifford gave one cheer to the National Enquirer tabloid for its work on breaking the news of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’s affair with Rielle Hunter, and their child. It was a story the Enquirer pursued almost alone and which could earn it an unprecedented Pulitzer: "From Rumor to a Hint of Respect."

But the excuses Clifford forwarded on behalf of the rest of the media were unconvincing, especially regarding the Times’s own steadfast silence on the burgeoning scandal.

By being the first and, largely, the only publication pursuing the Edwards story through his denials of the affair and of fathering a child out of wedlock, The Enquirer is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, and it has strong support for its bid from other journalists. The success has Mr. Levine considering opening a Washington bureau to look for more dirt among politicians.

….

But The Enquirer stays ahead by doing what other papers won’t. It threw reporters at the Edwards story, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on expenses, conducted stakeouts, paid informants and ran pieces based entirely on anonymous sources.

Those tactics have set off a debate about whether The Enquirer should even be eligible for a Pulitzer, the most prestigious journalism award. "When you pay people for information, the information itself often becomes distorted," said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, though she said she supported its Pulitzer entry.

Clifford described how the Enquirer got the story that led to Edwards’s confession:

It was a day of record-setting temperatures in the Cary, N.C., area on Wednesday, Dec. 12, with a high of 80 degrees forecast. And that happened to be the day Ms. Hunter, in a light sweater and jeans — and obviously pregnant — had an appointment. "If she was wearing a heavy coat that day, we wouldn’t have been able to get the shot," Mr. Levine said.

A photographer took a flurry of shots as she walked by.

After The Enquirer contacted Mr. Edwards’s camp for comment, the tabloid received calls from lawyers for Mr. Young and Ms. Hunter insisting that Mr. Young was the child’s father. But the Enquirer team didn’t buy it.

"I don’t know a lot of men with the gumption to take their pregnant mistress home to their wife," Mr. Perel said. In its Dec. 31 issue, The Enquirer splashed its scoop across three pages, "John Edwards Love Child Scandal," with seven reporters’ bylines.

Then: nothing. There was virtually no mainstream media follow-up. Today, some news organizations say they couldn’t back up the allegations, and others say the reports seemed untrustworthy, coming from a tabloid. The other reason was political. By late January 2008, Mr. Edwards had ended his presidential bid.

But that "other reason" is misleading, given that Edwards was still in the presidential mix: In the summer of 2008 he made a nytimes.com list (which was kept updated) of Barack Obama’s potential running mate picks, after Obama clinched the nomination on June 4.

According to the Times’s no-doubt impeccable news judgment, Edwards was a possible VP candidate until at least July 9, mysteriously falling off the list sometime between then and August 7 (Edwards confessed to the affair on ABC’s Nightline program August 8, after the Enquirer ran photos of Edwards playing with his "secret love child").

The paper’s excuses for not covering the affair were also contradicted by their own past reporting on similar scandals, like John McCain’s alleged affair, work based on anonymous allegations.

On Monday’s The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan dragged out his standard attack against the tea party movement as he also bashed Liz Cheney for criticizing Justice Department attorneys: "Liz Cheney goes so far off the right-wing deep end, that now even some right-wingers are saying she has gone too far. If only the tea party would do the same with its Nazis and racist members."

In the segment that followed, Ratigan attacked Cheney for an ad put out by her organization KeepAmericaSafe.com, referring to Justice Department lawyers who once defended accused terrorists as the "Al Qaeda Seven." While he condemned Cheney for going "off the right-wing deep end," one of his guests in the segment was Jane Hamsher, founder of the left-wing radical blog FireDogLake.com, which on Monday featured a post on Cheney entitled: "A Blowjob for Liz ‘BabyDick’ Cheney."

In reaction to the KeepAmericaSafe.com ad, Hamsher declared: "I mean, what she’s doing is genuinely McCarthy-esque and un-American." She went so far as to call for Congress to "censure" Cheney. Those proclamations were prompted by Ratigan asking: "Jane, would…are you encouraged by the emergence of other Republican leaders to at least renounce Liz Cheney, which is more than you can say for the tea party when it comes to some of their Nazi and racist members, which they refuse to renounce?"

The segment did featured a Republican, strategist David Winston, who was also critical of Cheney: "In this particular case she went too far with this argument and sort of personally attacking them in terms of a value level. I think she’ll find that her style, unfortunately, overshadowed her substance, which wasn’t her intent."

Before moving on to the next topic of discussion, Ratigan got off one more shot at the GOP: "Listen, I compliment the GOP for renouncing, effectively, some of that behavior. It maintains at least some of the integrity in the dialog, or at least prevents it from slipping even further downhill."

Ratigan is certainly one to talk about people being on the fringe, considering his numerous rants against the tea parties. In addition to claiming the political movement was full of "Nazis and racists" on Monday, on March 2 he asserted some tea partiers wanted to "kill blacks and jews" and on February 11 he proclaimed "birthers, open racists, and outright Nazis" were part of their make-up.

Here is a full transcript of the Monday segment:

 4:13PM TEASE

DYLAN RATIGAN: Liz Cheney goes so far off the right-wing deep end, that now even some right-wingers are saying she has gone too far. If only the tea party would do the same with its Nazis and racist members.

4:17PM

DYLAN RATIGAN: We begin with conservative darling, though, Liz Cheney, and the attacks leveled against her by members of her own party. Cheney under fire for criticizing the values of the Justice Department attorneys that represented accused terrorists. Former independent council Ken Starr, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, joined a group of 19 conservative lawyers that condemned Cheney’s comments, calling them quote, ’shameful and destructive.’ Here to mix it up today, founder of FireDogLake.com Jane Hamsher and Republican pollster and strategist David Winston. David, your thoughts?

DAVID WINSTON: Well, I mean, look. Liz Cheney clearly is frustrated by the fact that she thinks that these folks should be treated as enemy combatants and not someone who should go through the U.S. trial system. And so she was trying to express herself. I think she went too far. I mean clearly, you know, the idea that you can disagree but not be disagreeable. In this particular case she went too far with this argument and sort of personally attacking them in terms of a value level. I think she’ll find that her style, unfortunately, overshadowed her substance, which wasn’t her intent.

RATIGAN: Yeah. Jane, would you – are you encouraged by the emergence of other Republican leaders to at least renounce Liz Cheney, which is more than you can say for the tea party when it comes to some of their Nazi and racist members, which they refuse to renounce?

JANE HAMSHER: I think it’s a good thing, it’s a sign of how off-base she is. That people like Ken Starr and David Rivkin have come forward and denounced her in what she did. I mean, what she’s doing is genuinely McCarthy-esque and un-American. She’s claiming that Repub- lawyers who the Bush administration, the Department of Defense, reached out to and said ‘please help us on this,’ should be shamed and intimidated by being rebuked. That they’re somehow un-American. And so, you know, it’s a ridiculous proposition and I would hope that Congress would treat it with the seriousness they did with – they treated MoveOn with, when decided to censure them.

WINSTON: But if I – but if I may add one more thing.

RATIGAN: Please.

WINSTON: I mean, the other dynamic here, too, is when there was some Bush folks who – the lawyers that the Obama team were thinking about potentially bringing up on charges in terms of some of the things they did during the Bush years, again, that also got politicized. I think to some degree, like, look, we have a Justice Department, they’re trying to do a lot of very difficult things. We can disagree and have real serious policy discussions. But let’s not make this personal. Unfortunately, I think that’s what she did.

RATIGAN: Listen, I compliment the GOP for renouncing, effectively, some of that behavior. It maintains at least some of the integrity in the dialog, or at least prevents it from slipping even further downhill.

On Monday’s The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan dragged out his standard attack against the tea party movement as he also bashed Liz Cheney for criticizing Justice Department attorneys: "Liz Cheney goes so far off the right-wing deep end, that now even some right-wingers are saying she has gone too far. If only the tea party would do the same with its Nazis and racist members."

In the segment that followed, Ratigan attacked Cheney for an ad put out by her organization KeepAmericaSafe.com, referring to Justice Department lawyers who once defended accused terrorists as the "Al Qaeda Seven." While he condemned Cheney for going "off the right-wing deep end," one of his guests in the segment was Jane Hamsher, founder of the left-wing radical blog FireDogLake.com, which on Monday featured a post on Cheney entitled: "A Blowjob for Liz ‘BabyDick’ Cheney."

In reaction to the KeepAmericaSafe.com ad, Hamsher declared: "I mean, what she’s doing is genuinely McCarthy-esque and un-American." She went so far as to call for Congress to "censure" Cheney. Those proclamations were prompted by Ratigan asking: "Jane, would…are you encouraged by the emergence of other Republican leaders to at least renounce Liz Cheney, which is more than you can say for the tea party when it comes to some of their Nazi and racist members, which they refuse to renounce?"

The segment did featured a Republican, strategist David Winston, who was also critical of Cheney: "In this particular case she went too far with this argument and sort of personally attacking them in terms of a value level. I think she’ll find that her style, unfortunately, overshadowed her substance, which wasn’t her intent."

Before moving on to the next topic of discussion, Ratigan got off one more shot at the GOP: "Listen, I compliment the GOP for renouncing, effectively, some of that behavior. It maintains at least some of the integrity in the dialog, or at least prevents it from slipping even further downhill."

Ratigan is certainly one to talk about people being on the fringe, considering his numerous rants against the tea parties. In addition to claiming the political movement was full of "Nazis and racists" on Monday, on March 2 he asserted some tea partiers wanted to "kill blacks and jews" and on February 11 he proclaimed "birthers, open racists, and outright Nazis" were part of their make-up.

Here is a full transcript of the Monday segment:

 4:13PM TEASE

DYLAN RATIGAN: Liz Cheney goes so far off the right-wing deep end, that now even some right-wingers are saying she has gone too far. If only the tea party would do the same with its Nazis and racist members.

4:17PM

DYLAN RATIGAN: We begin with conservative darling, though, Liz Cheney, and the attacks leveled against her by members of her own party. Cheney under fire for criticizing the values of the Justice Department attorneys that represented accused terrorists. Former independent council Ken Starr, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, joined a group of 19 conservative lawyers that condemned Cheney’s comments, calling them quote, ’shameful and destructive.’ Here to mix it up today, founder of FireDogLake.com Jane Hamsher and Republican pollster and strategist David Winston. David, your thoughts?

DAVID WINSTON: Well, I mean, look. Liz Cheney clearly is frustrated by the fact that she thinks that these folks should be treated as enemy combatants and not someone who should go through the U.S. trial system. And so she was trying to express herself. I think she went too far. I mean clearly, you know, the idea that you can disagree but not be disagreeable. In this particular case she went too far with this argument and sort of personally attacking them in terms of a value level. I think she’ll find that her style, unfortunately, overshadowed her substance, which wasn’t her intent.

RATIGAN: Yeah. Jane, would you – are you encouraged by the emergence of other Republican leaders to at least renounce Liz Cheney, which is more than you can say for the tea party when it comes to some of their Nazi and racist members, which they refuse to renounce?

JANE HAMSHER: I think it’s a good thing, it’s a sign of how off-base she is. That people like Ken Starr and David Rivkin have come forward and denounced her in what she did. I mean, what she’s doing is genuinely McCarthy-esque and un-American. She’s claiming that Repub- lawyers who the Bush administration, the Department of Defense, reached out to and said ‘please help us on this,’ should be shamed and intimidated by being rebuked. That they’re somehow un-American. And so, you know, it’s a ridiculous proposition and I would hope that Congress would treat it with the seriousness they did with – they treated MoveOn with, when decided to censure them.

WINSTON: But if I – but if I may add one more thing.

RATIGAN: Please.

WINSTON: I mean, the other dynamic here, too, is when there was some Bush folks who – the lawyers that the Obama team were thinking about potentially bringing up on charges in terms of some of the things they did during the Bush years, again, that also got politicized. I think to some degree, like, look, we have a Justice Department, they’re trying to do a lot of very difficult things. We can disagree and have real serious policy discussions. But let’s not make this personal. Unfortunately, I think that’s what she did.

RATIGAN: Listen, I compliment the GOP for renouncing, effectively, some of that behavior. It maintains at least some of the integrity in the dialog, or at least prevents it from slipping even further downhill.

“During the presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama often used the phrase ‘fired up’ to do just that to the crowd. Democrats have been openly wondering when he was going to bring that campaign energy and fire to an issue like health care reform,” Brian Williams announced at the top of Monday’s NBC Nightly News,” and “today the President chose an event at a quiet Philadelphia suburb to get loud. He made his case and he rallied the troops and now readies to head into battle yet again on this topic.”

ABC’s Diane Sawyer noted “the President made a direct attack on the health insurance industry, accusing companies of putting profits before patient care” — which means he was just catching up with Sawyer’s agenda. A couple of weeks ago, Sawyer demanded to know who will “keep insurance companies from jacking up premiums while making huge profits?” and touted “the growing outrage at insurance companies, the ones that raise premiums on ordinary Americans while racking up big profits.”

Jon Karl asserted Obama “hopes to tie into some of that Tea Party anger by focusing on a group that the White House believes is even more unpopular than Congress” as Karl championed a far-left group’s upcoming protest with “wanted” posters “that will highlight the CEOs of the health care companies making the argument that they are the ones to blame.”

NBC reporter Savannah Guthrie began: “Looking to stiffen the spines of wavering Democrats, the President sharpened his attack, lashing out against insurance companies…against Republicans…and Washington itself,” all “music to the ears of the weary Democratic faithful.”

Williams teased his top story: “On our broadcast tonight, fighting words. President Obama comes out swinging on health care. But is it enough to save his plan?”

The lead story on the Monday, March 8 NBC Nightly News:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Good evening. During the presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama often used the phrase “fired up” to do just that to the crowd. Democrats have been openly wondering when he was going to bring that campaign energy and fire to an issue like health care reform. Today the President chose an event at a quiet Philadelphia suburb to get loud. He made his case and he rallied the troops and now readies to head into battle yet again on this topic. We begin tonight with White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie. Savannah, good evening.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Good evening, Brian. As you mentioned, the President has been criticized for not taking enough ownership of this issue, for not finding a sales pitch that really resonates. Well today he made an impassioned plea for health care reform. The question is, is it too late to make a difference.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I do know that it’s the right thing to do.

GUTHRIE: His most fiery health care appearance yet in Pennsylvania today. The President ratcheted up the rhetoric.

OBAMA: The need is great, the opportunity’s here, let’s seize reform. It’s within our grasp.

GUTHRIE: Looking to stiffen the spines of wavering Democrats, the President sharpened his attack, lashing out against insurance companies.

OBAMA: It’s no secret they’re telling their investors this, we are in the money.

GUTHRIE: Against Republicans.

OBAMA: You had ten years. What happened?

GUTHRIE: And Washington itself.

OBAMA: Every debate, no matter how important it is, with the same question, what does this mean for the next election? What does it mean for your poll numbers? They’re obsessed with the sport of politics.

GUTHRIE: The change in tone was unmistakable.

OBAMA: I need you to knock on doors, talk to your neighbors, pick up the phone.

GUTHRIE: As were the old campaign lines.

OBAMA IN ARCHIVE VIDEO: Knock on some doors for me, and make some calls for me.

GUTHRIE: Music to the ears of the weary Democratic faithful.

GOVERNOR ED RENDELL, D-PA: It was a dramatic presentation, the President did terrific. The crowd — it was like campaign days, it was unbelievable.

GUTHRIE: But Republicans said the President’s push was “heavy on snake oil, light on reality.” And once again vowed to make health care the issue Democrats have to run from next fall.

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN, R-TX: Many endangered Democrats who won their races in 2008 or 2006 I think are going to be in a lot of jeopardy.

GUTHRIE: The President’s powers of persuasion are about to be tested as never before, as he struggles to convince fence-sitting Democrats to go out on a limb one last time.

DEE DEE MYERS, CLINTON PRESS SECRETARY: He’s going to have to personally make the appeal, and he’s going to have to make them do it. He’s going to say, you have to do this for me, for the good of the party, and for the good of the country. They’re not going to want to do it and there are going to be members who lose their seats over this.

GUTHRIE: For the Democrats all the real suspense is in the House of Representatives, whether Democrats have enough votes there is very much an open question tonight, Brian, and of course the President will do all of this again on Wednesday when he goes to St. Louis to try to rally the troops.

From ABC’s World News:

DIANE SAWYER: President Obama launched his final push for health care reform ahead of critical votes in Congress later this month. The President made a direct attack on the health insurance industry, accusing companies of putting profits before patient care.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Every year they drop more people’s coverage when they get sick, right when they need it most. Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher.

SAWYER: Our congressional correspondent Jon Karl joins us from Washington. Jon, is this going to be it the next few days, the President versus the health insurance companies?

JON KARL: Absolutely, Diane. This is going to be the central focus of the President’s closing arguments on health care. He hopes to tie into some of that Tea Party anger by focusing on a group that the White House believes is even more unpopular than Congress. And you’re going to see a grassroots version of this as well. Look for posters tomorrow at a protest in Washington that will highlight the CEOs of the health care companies making the argument that they are the ones to blame. This will be a coalition of liberal interest groups…

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: after some introspection, Dems realize they’ve failed to adequately address the country’s concerns.

You know the Democratic plans to jam their health care bills through Congress are in trouble when Democratic (and Hillary Clinton) pollster Mark Penn writes, "The litmus test of solid public support remains unmet, making this new strategy a potentially dangerous Molotov cocktails." Or when capital veteran and liberal columnist Al Hunt writes of the Obama White House’s "inability to fashion a sustainable strategy for governing, to prioritize the velocity of the issues on the agenda."

That’s Beltway-speak for a failure of an agenda. Anyone surprised?

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: after some introspection, Dems realize they’ve failed to adequately address the country’s concerns.

You know the Democratic plans to jam their health care bills through Congress are in trouble when Democratic (and Hillary Clinton) pollster Mark Penn writes, "The litmus test of solid public support remains unmet, making this new strategy a potentially dangerous Molotov cocktails." Or when capital veteran and liberal columnist Al Hunt writes of the Obama White House’s "inability to fashion a sustainable strategy for governing, to prioritize the velocity of the issues on the agenda."

That’s Beltway-speak for a failure of an agenda. Anyone surprised?

When Rep. Eric Massa resigned Monday and conservative talk radio blazed over a radio interview Massa gave harshly attacking House Democratic leaders and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, the Washington Post suggested Massa’s remarks weren’t really newsworthy on their own. Their headline was "Conservatives point to claim by Massa."

The Post website went even further, with the snotty headline "An unlikely hero for the right."

If the parties were reversed, and a resigning member lit into the Republican majority leader and the Republicans’ top White House aide, the headline wouldn’t be "Liberals point to claim by Republican." Because the Washington Post are those liberals.

Reporter Paul Kane overdeveloped the "unlikely hero" line as well. He began: "Conservative activists rallied Monday to the side of a liberal New York Democrat who had resigned from the House, after he charged that his party’s leaders had conspired to oust him over his opposition to President Obama’s health-care legislation."

Kane did not report that conservatives on Monday said Massa shouldn’t have resigned, or defended him on emerging claims that he sexually harassed a male staffer. (Mark Levin, for one, explicitly said Massa is no hero before running his radio-show excerpts Monday night.) On a positive note, Kane’s report did detail the conservative critique of the liberal finagling to pass a health "reform" bill:

Conservatives have complained about other examples of what they see as illegitimate deal-making to secure votes: what they call the "Cornhusker Kickback" and the "Louisiana Purchase" in the Senate to line up Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), respectively, and Obama’s appointment last week of a Utah professor — the brother of Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), an opponent of the health bill — to the federal appeals bench.

Massa’s allegation that he was the victim of a setup, in order to lower the number of "yes" votes needed to pass a bill, fed into that growing anxiety about Democratic tactics.

His comments spread quickly online, promoted by conservative blogs such as Red State and National Review Online.

Memo to Kane and his copy editors: NRO is not a "blog." It is a magazine website, with many blogs on it. That’s like calling the New Republic website a "blog." It clearly suggests that Kane’s never visited NRO, even in the midst of his research for this story.

Kane also reported that Rush Limbaugh devoted a chunk of his radio show Monday to Massa, and that Glenn Beck announced he will interview Massa for the whole hour on Fox News Channel on Tuesday.

But Kane noticeably downplayed the vivid claim that a naked Emanuel approached a naked Massa in the showers of the congressional gym and screamed at him for disloyalty.

In paragraph 13 of 15, Kane briefly relayed: "Massa also accused Hoyer of lying about his knowledge of the ethics investigation and said Emanuel was the ‘devil’s spawn’ who once confronted him naked in the shower of the House gym." Kane reported denials from Hoyer, but showed no sign he made a call to Emanuel.

Online the Post offered an audio clip of Massa’s radio show appearance, but avoided the shower-confrontation story. Instead, they chose a snippet where Massa described he and Emanuel screaming profanities at each other, but then Massa declared a pox on both parties and criticized the tea-party movement.

The Washington Post must dislike tax cuts even more than it likes President Barack Obama. On March 6, staff writer Lori Montgomery warned that the national debt would climb by $9.7 trillion under Obama’s budget.

Relying on the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for data, Montgomery reported that the debt would be "higher than White House forecast" but not because of spending increases by Obama. Instead, she used the CBO to attack Obama’s "tax-cutting agenda" continuing a media theme of portraying him as fiscally conservative despite the largest budget ever.

"Proposed tax cuts for the middle class account for nearly a third of the ($9.7 trillion) shortfall," Montgomery wrote. Her one-sided article relied solely upon the CBO and its director Douglas W. Elmendorf.

Montgomery implied that President Obama would be maintaining all the Bush tax cuts when she wrote that he"wants to make permanent a series of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration." She didn’t mention that he plans to let the tax cuts for the rich expire. 

The Post writer also supported the idea of letting the full Bush tax cuts expire saying, "Obama is convening a special commission to bring deficits down to 3 percent of the economy, but the CBO report shows that Obama could accomplish that goal simply by letting the Bush tax cuts expire and paying for changes to the alternative minimum tax."

The news media have attacked Bush’s tax cuts for years and have often recently argued that the tax cuts, not overspending caused the huge federal deficit Obama inherited.

Montgomery didn’t include a single non-CBO source in her story.

Back in 2006, economist Gary Wolfram explained how tax cuts work for the Business & Media Institute. He examined a few pertinent history lessons – the Harding-Coolidge, Kennedy-Johnson, and the Reagan tax cuts – there are benefits to tax cuts including economic growth.

Wolfram showed that economic output nearly doubled in the 1920s after the Harding-Coolidge tax cuts. And in 1965, when the top marginal tax rate was reduced from 91 percent to 70 percent, real GDP rose by an average of 5.1 percent and unemployment averaged 3.9 percent (versus 5.9 percent).

Reagan reduced the marginal tax rate from 70 to 50 percent along with capital gains tax cuts, the U.S. government actually reached a record level of tax receipts, something Montgomery neglected to mention in her anti-tax cut story.

Richard W. Rahn of the Cato Institute criticized Obama’s proposed tax increases, arguing that they will "decrease tax revenues, not increase them, and will cost many jobs." Rahn was citing studies done for the Institute for Research in the Economics of Taxation.

ClimateGate, when a hacker broke into computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit and released a myriad of confidential files, continues to cause controversy. The documents showed scientists had attempted to suppress and manipulate data that would hurt the case proving anthropogenic global warming. They also cast doubts about what sort of policy measures should be implemented to attack this alleged global problem.

However, according to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it’s not ClimateGate – but the messenger who is at fault for growing hesitation to enact a cap-and-trade policy that would radically change the U.S. economy. Although traditional media went for weeks without reporting the matter, it was talk radio that busted the story wide open and the target of Kerry’s frustration, which he revealed in an interview with the Boston Globe on March 8. (h/t Matt Dempsey, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee)

"What we have to do is go on the offensive," Kerry said. The science "has been maligned and misinterpreted, and we need to fight back . . . people [need to] stop being moved by these talk show [hosts] and start looking for the facts” themselves."

And the public’s trust in the scientific community’s work on the issue is waning. The Globe explained an ABC/Washington Post poll released last month "found 56 percent of those surveyed don’t trust the things scientists say about the environment – up from 49 percent a year and a half earlier."

This has put Kerry’s efforts, as an influential voice in the U.S. Senate on the issue of climate change in question, as Beth Daley pointed out for the Globe.

"Environmental policy specialists say the controversies, along with the struggling economy, could hurt Kerry’s effort to pass climate legislation," Daley wrote. "Kerry said recently that he is closing in on a bipartisan bill. He vowed to push forward, noting the issue is as much about jobs and national security as about the environment."

Are Israeli Jews much more bigoted than their American co-religionists? An astounding 77% of American Jews voted for Barack Obama.  But according to Ethan Bronner [with a little "help" from Chris Matthews], anti-black "racism" and anti-Arab "prejudice" are significant factors accounting for PBO’s unpopularity in Israel.

Bronner, Jersusalem Bureau Chief of the New York Times, floated his theory to Matthews [in Israel this week] on this afternoon’s Hardball.  Asked by Matthews to rate American politicians from most to least popular in Israel, Bronner ranked them: Bill Clinton, Hillary clinton, Joe Biden, with PBO bringing up the rear.  There’s no disputing that the president is wildly unpopular in Israel: recent polls there have him down in single digits.

But Israeli "prejudice" and "racism" as significant explanatory factors? Here was the exchange:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let’s talk about politics.  Who’s more popular: Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden? Put them in order.  Who’s the most popular figure?

ETHAN BRONNER: I would say Bill Clinton is the most popular of the four. And I would say Hillary is probably next.

MATTHEWS: The Secretary of State.

BRONNER: That’s correct.  And then I would say Joe Biden, and then President Obama.

MATTHEWS: OK, that tells you a lot. So tell me why the President of the United States is so far [inaudible].  Is it his middle name? Hussein?

BRONNER: I would say that there is some level of prejudice about the fact that he had some Islamic background through his stepfather.  But I think it has more to do with the fact that when he came into office a year ago he wanted to recalibrate the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. And the easiest and clearest way of doing that was to put some distance between the United States and Israel. And he did that, and that made people nervous.  I think there’s also some sense here, some degree of racism to be perfectly honest.

MATTHEWS: Yeah, because they see him as a black man.

Note how Bronner, after agreeing with Matthews’ suggestion that anti-Muslim "prejudice" was partly to blame for PBO’s unpopularity first went on to assert that it was Obama’s distancing of the US from Israel that was more significant. But then the man from the NY Times circled back, without further bidding from Matthews, to accuse Israelis of "racism."

[Update, 10:48 pm Eastern: Audio & video clips added.]

On Monday’s Newsroom, CNN’s Kyra Phillips sympathetically interviewed a woman who unapologetically Tweeted her chemically-induced abortion as it happened. Instead of offering the pro-life viewpoint, Phillips lamented how her guest received "e-mails and the responses [which] were so brutal." The anchor later admitted that she "didn’t want to get into a debate about abortion" [audio clip available here].

During the interview, Phillips tossed softball questions at blogger Angie Jackson, who is known on Twitter as "antitheistangie," or "Angie the Anti-Theist" on her blog (Phillips didn’t mention her guest’s political or philosophical outlook during the entire segment). After playing a clip of Jackson from YouTube.com, Phillips first asked, "So, Angie- you know, did it take a while to come to a comfort zone, that you wanted to do this? Tell me how you eventually decided, this is how I’m going to do it and I’m going to let everybody see it happen."

Once the "anti-theist" blogger gave her initial answer, Phillips played another clip of her guest from YouTube, where the blogger flatly admitted, "Yes, it had the potential for that embryo to become a fetus, to become a person….But it was more likely to kill me, and you’re not going to shame me….I do not feel sorry that I saved my life. I do not feel sorry that I stayed here for myself, for my boyfriend, for my kid that I’ve already got."

Later, the anchor brought up the "brutal" responses Jackson received in response to her live-Tweeting her abortion, and instead of reading one of them, or even offering the pro-life view, she just vaguely described the intensity of the posts and openly sympathized with her guest:

PHILLIPS: As you well know, we’ve been looking at all the various comments, both negative and positive to what you did, and these are really harsh. But people wrote in and said- they called you all kinds of names, from being a whore to someone who just couldn’t keep her legs closed. They called you a baby killer. I mean, it’s even hard for me to say these things because some of those- the e-mails and the responses were so brutal. How did that make you feel? Did that bother you? Did it make you think twice about what you did?

After two final softball questions, the anchor brought on CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and flatly admitted that she didn’t want to bring in any opposing viewpoint into the previous segment: "…[A]s you can imagine, we received a lot of response about even doing this story because abortion is such a controversial issue, and we really didn’t want to get into a debate about abortion, but rather, look at what people are doing now, using social networking, and it brought about a lot of questions about RU-486 that we don’t hear a lot about."

The full transcript of Kyra Phillips interview of Angie Jackson, which began one minute into the 10 am Eastern hour of Monday’s Newsroom program:

PHILLIPS: Here’s something you don’t see or hear every day- an abortion play-by-play. Not exactly something to Tweet about, is it? But Angie Jackson did. She actually put it on YouTube, too. Take a listen to the very public abortion that’s gotten more than 125,000 YouTube hits.

ANGIE JACKSON (from YouTube.com): Yeah, I’m having an abortion right now. It’s not that bad. It’s not that scary. It’s basically like a miscarriage. I’m live-Tweeting my abortion on Twitter, not for some publicity stunt or attention or to justify this to myself. I am at peace with my decision.

PHILLIPS: So what motivated Angie to end her pregnancy? She says she used an IUD for birth control, but it failed. She also said that her pregnancy nearly killed her, and her doctor told her not to have another child. So the 27-year-old Florida woman took the abortion pill RU-486, putting this private information out there for everyone to see, and it’s gotten a lot of reaction- positive, negative, even threatening. So why Tweet about it?

Angie joins me now live from Tampa. So, Angie- you know, did it take a while to come to a comfort zone, that you wanted to do this? Tell me how you eventually decided, this is how I’m going to do it and I’m going to let everybody see it happen.

JACKSON: Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m a blogger, and I’m actually writing a book, ‘Birth and Death: Life of a Newborn Cult’ about my experiences, and I talk about a lot of controversial or hot button issues every day. So for me, this wasn’t even that different. This was just an extension of continuing to talk openly about taboo subjects in a way that, just by sharing my own story, allows other people to share theirs or to talk about how they feel.

PHILLIPS: Let’s go ahead and look at another chunk of that live-Tweeting that you did as you were having an abortion.

JACKSON (from YouTube.com): Yes, it had the potential for that embryo to become a fetus, to become a person- hypothetically. It could have been a person that was made up of my boyfriend and my DNA. But it was more likely to kill me, and you’re not going to shame me. You’re not going to silence me. I do not feel sorry that I saved my life. I do not feel sorry that I stayed here for myself, for my boyfriend, for my kid that I’ve already got.

PHILLIPS: What did your doctor say was going to happen to you if you tried to carry that child?

JACKSON: Well, when I had my son, who is four now, I had a tremendously difficult pregnancy and 98-hour back labor, and my doctors advised me to avoid becoming pregnant again, which is why I had an IUD inserted in my cervix. However, there is no 100-percent effective form of contraception, not even tubal ligation or vasectomy. And so, I had prepared that if I became pregnant anyway, I would have an abortion because the risks were too high for me to continue a pregnancy.

PHILLIPS: As you well know, we’ve been looking at all the various comments, both negative and positive to what you did, and these are really harsh. But people wrote in and said- they called you all kinds of names, from being a whore to someone who just couldn’t keep her legs closed. They called you a baby killer. I mean, it’s even hard for me to say these things because some of those- the e-mails and the responses were so brutal. How did that make you feel? Did that bother you? Did it make you think twice about what you did?

JACKSON: Actually, if anything, it showed me more how important it is to talk about taboo things or to talk about personal things. One- about half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy before the age of 45, and one in three American women will have an abortion sometime during their childbearing years. And yet, this is something we almost never talk about, or at least we talk about the political aspects, but not the individual women. Some of the heat that I’ve gotten has certainly showed me what the cost of that silence is, is that when a woman does want to discuss it, she’s- the reaction is quite strong.

PHILLIPS: What would you do if you got pregnant again?

JACKSON: Of course, the goal is to avoid that, but- I mean, my health conditions have not changed, and if I was pregnant again, I would, of course, have another abortion.

PHILLIPS: Final question: what made you decide to do the RU- 486? Is that something you discussed with your boyfriend? How quick did you make that decision? Why that route?

JACKSON: Sure. I investigated – I looked at a couple of websites, one of which is imnotsorry.net, which includes a lot of personal abortion stories, and I read how different women had felt. I thought that the RU-486 abortion-by-pill at home would be a more natural and comfortable experience. I was also too early in my pregnancy to be eligible for a surgical abortion. I was only four weeks. And so, RU- 486 was the medically-recommended choice.

PHILLIPS: Angie Jackson, very interesting. It definitely caught our attention. I actually didn’t believe that you actually did it until I saw it, and it’s pretty fascinating, the reasons that you have for doing it. And we’re going to follow the video and the continued responses that you’ve gotten. You’ve also received a lot of support for what you did, as well, to sort of demystify what it’s like to have an abortion- interesting. Angie Jackson, thanks for your time.

JACKSON: Thank you so much for having me.

PHILLIPS: All right. We heard Angie’s story. Let’s talk more about her method of abortion, this RU-486 pill.

And joining us to talk more about that, also about getting access to it, the safety of it, CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. And, as you can imagine, we received a lot of response about even doing this story because abortion is such a controversial issue, and we really didn’t want to get into a debate about abortion, but rather, look at what people are doing now, using social networking, and it brought about a lot of questions about RU-486 that we don’t hear a lot about.

ELIZABETH COHEN: Right. I think there’s some confusion. People might think it’s the morning after pill. But this is something very different. This is a way that you can have an abortion up until about nine weeks pregnant. That’s according to Planned Parenthood. So up until nine weeks pregnant, you can use RU-486, which is also called Mifeprex. It’s basically a way to have an abortion via a drug, rather than having a surgical abortion, and the way that it works is that a woman takes a pill that kills the pregnancy, and then three days later, she takes a pill that expels that pregnancy. So that’s the way that it works.

PHILLIPS: What are the risks?

COHEN: There are some serious risks. About one in every 100,000 women who takes this has a fatal infection, a kind of infection called sepsis. So there are some serious risks, and that’s why places like Planned Parenthood really spell it out on their website that you take these pills at home, as Angie Jackson just said , but you have to follow up, usually about 14 days after you’ve started the process. So this has to be medically supervised. You don’t just go home and do it. You have to keep up with your doctor.

PHILLIPS: And a lot of people were confused that wrote in, thinking it was illegal, but it is legal-

COHEN: It’s legal.

PHILLIPS: I mean, she went to Planned Parenthood and got it.

COHEN: Right, it’s legal. Planned Parenthood offers it. There are probably other people that offer it, too, but it’s legal in all 50 states.

PHILLIPS: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks for the insight.

After ignoring the Tea Party movement for two months, it took the New York Times just one week to jump on the leftish "Coffee Party" in a report by Kate Zernike criticized by Times Watch and others for its gushing tone and for failing to identify the new group as a left-wing opponent of the Tea Party protesters.

By contrast, a follow up by Zernike on the front-page of the Sunday Week in Review made sure to quickly label the Coffee Party as "a leftish alternative to the Tea Party movement."

But then there’s the headline over her story: "Democrats Need a Rally Monkey." Who says the Democrats "need" anything? Does the Times have a rooting interest in Democrat success?

"Wake Up and Stand Up." So urges the bold motto of a seedling movement calling itself the Coffee Party, a leftish alternative to the Tea Party movement.

But it’s going to take more than a jolt of java, which so far amounts to not much more than a wishful exhortation, to energize the left. The buzz and the intensity for some months now have been on the right, led by Tea Partiers as they’ve zealously and methodically marched with plans for what Sarah Palin called "another revolution" come the fall elections.

For Democrats paralyzed by their "party of no" counterparts and dissension in their own ranks — and more recently, pecked by scandal — the currents look much as they did for Republicans in the summer of 2006 or Democrats in the fall of 1994, when a swelling tide swept the other party into power.

What would it take to get back the intensity Democrats had just a year ago?

Some say it can’t be done.

"When a party’s snakebit, it’s really snakebit," said Charlie Cook, the independent political handicapper, who is predicting a thumpin’ for Democrats in November. "That happened to the Republicans in 2006 and to a certain extent in 2008, and it’s true of Democrats now."

Like reporter Adam Nagourney before him, Zernike glided right past Obama’s plummeting job approval and favorability numbers in a New York Times/CBS News poll taken last month to oddly suggest "the public is already on the president’s side." Zernike interspersed bleak views of Democratic prospects with a thin and unconvincing rebuttal suggesting Republicans may have equal troubles convincing voters in November, ignoring the large drop in Obama’s approval and favorability ratings since last year:

Polls suggest that the public is already on the president’s side. In a New York Times/CBS News survey early last month, respondents were twice as likely to say that President Obama was trying to work with Republicans as they were to say that Republicans were trying to work with President Obama (62 percent versus 29 percent). And by overwhelming margins, they said they wanted both sides to compromise some positions "in order to get things done.

Zernike implied that rancorous primaries, while bad for Republicans, could be good for Democrats:

This is where the Tea Party’s role in the primaries is so crucial for Democrats. Do Tea Partiers push the Republicans to nominate conservatives who can’t win in the general election? In the Senate races, Mr. Cook said, this could mean choosing Rand Paul over Trey Grayson in Kentucky; John Hostettler over Dan Coats in Indiana; or Ovide Lamontagne over Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire.

"If they nominate a whack job, their odds go way down," [political analyst Charlie] Cook said of Republicans.

To rev up their own voters, the Democrats’ best hope might just be that very intensity on the other side.

"The rhetoric from the right is so over the top, I think it does have the ability to create a reaction on the Democratic side," Mr. Greenberg said.

Zernike stated as fact an old liberal excuse: That the right wing is better at public relations, at selling the public on its ideology:

According to that script, there will come a day when Ms. Palin asks, "How’s that hopey changey thing workin’ out for ya?" and Democrats feel strong enough to stand up and yell, "Just fine, thanks!" But therein lies another problem. Just what is the snappy retort to the kind of taunt Ms. Palin tosses at wary Democrats like so many upside-down horseshoes? The left has never been as good as the right when it comes to messaging. "Wake up and stand up"? It’s not bad, but it’s no "death panel."

….

There are other things Democrats can do to energize the base. Bringing up immigration reform, Mr. Alter says, tends to draw Hispanic voters on their behalf. Pushing the Employee Free Choice Act could rally labor. Republicans campaign against it as "card check," but their voters don’t tend to go to the polls on it.

And even rancorous primaries — like the ones for Senate in Colorado and Arkansas challenging the incumbents Michael Bennet and Blanche Lincoln — can stoke voters (just ask the Democrats who came out in record numbers in 2008 — if you can stir them).

Zernike even managed to spin Scott Browns’s shocking Senate victory in Mass. as a warning sign for the G.O.P.:

As President Obama himself noted, the energy that got him elected helped elect a Republican, Scott Brown, to a Massachusetts Senate seat held by a Kennedy for nearly 50 years. "That same energy could knock out a lot of Republican incumbents who are doing cartwheels down K Street right now thinking that they are safe," Mr. Trippi said.

In polls, Americans show more frustration with Republicans than Democrats. In the New York Times/CBS poll last month, 51 percent said they view the Democrats unfavorably, the highest since November 1994, when the Republicans swept into office. But 57 percent said they view the Republicans the same way, near the all-time high of 60 percent.

HDNet’s Dan Rather stepped on one mine after another in the racial minefield that exists when talking about the nation’s first black President as the former CBS anchor, on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show over the weekend, uttered the following take on the President’s ability to get health care passed and how the GOP and independents would view it. [audio available here]

DAN RATHER: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. "Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death." And a version of, "Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate" this is what’s been used against him, "but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."

While Rather may not have been being intentionally racist one has to wonder what the reaction would be if a conservative had used similiar language on the show. (Thanks to the MRC’s Bob Parks for alerting us to the remark and creating the video.)

Earlier Rather called the current legislation a "Republican health care bill" as seen in the following exchange as it was aired on the March 8th Chris Matthews Show:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Will health care, the health care bill of Barack Obama, the one he roughly is for now, coming out of the Senate and coming out of the House. Will it become law? Will he win?
…
DAN RATHER: Yes because what we have now is basically a Republican health care bill, if it gets through. It’s, it’s got a lot…but I think the President finally putting his whole sack in on it, yes he wins but it’s not a certain thing.

MATTHEWS: Andrea?

ANDREA MITCHELL: I think close call it has to win or else this presidency is in serious…

MATTHEWS: So in other words they’ll make it happen.

MITCHELL: They’ve got to make it happen.

MATTHEWS: Joe Klein?

JOE KLEIN, TIME: Congressional Democrats are dreadful but they’re not entirely stupid. They have to pass it.

MATTHEWS: And Nancy Pelosi will have her greatest triumph.

KLEIN: Sort of.

RATHER: When you talk about a triumph though. One, part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. "Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death." And a version of, "Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate" this is what’s been used against him, "but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."

Robert McCartney really, really thinks same-sex marriage is a good idea. Back onDec. 10 the Washington Post columnist took the D.C. Catholic dioces to task for thinking otherwise, and now in his latest column "celebrating" D.C. giving gays their "first-class due," McCartney elevated "local influential gay-rights advocates" to the status of America’s most revered figures.

McCartney described one of the men, 84-year-old Frank Kameny, as the "founding father of the gay rights movement, at the level of a Thomas Jefferson or John Adams." Perhaps McCartney got a little carried away – after all, no rational person could analogize coining the slogan "Gay is good" with founding the greatest system of government yet devised, right?

McCartney also bragged that Kameny is an "in-your-face-militant" that once solicited sex from radio listeners, "especially police chiefs and prosecutors," during a guest appearance on an Alexandria radio show. John Adams indeed.

This "life of advocacy," McCartney said of Kameny, has led to "personal triumph." Triumph such as being on a "first-name basis with President Obama." (And apparently the Library of Congress was "thrilled" to get his "77,000 pages of papers and memorabilia.")

"It’s like a storybook ending," Kameny told McCartney.

Of course McCartney didn’t mention in his article that it isn’t a storybook ending for everybody. With the legalization of same-sex marriage, D.C. city laws now require employers to provide benefits for spouses of same-sex couples. Organizations seeking grants or contracts from the D.C. city government that do not recognize same-sex "marriage," such as the many charities of the Catholic Church, have to certify that they comply with city laws before being considered for grants or contracts.

Even the liberal ACLU voiced its concerns with the bill’s treatment of religion when it was first placed before the D.C. City Council. In a Nov. 17 WaPo op-ed last year, Archbishop Donald Wuerl noted that "the American Civil Liberties Union, the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and nationally recognized legal scholars all called for stronger protections for religious freedom in their testimony on the bill."

Wuerl outlined specifically how the legalization of same-sex "marriage" would effect Catholic Charities:

The proposed legislation offers little protection for religious beliefs, including no protections for individuals, as is required under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Under the bill, religious organizations would be exempt from participating in ceremonies or from teaching about same-sex marriage in religion classes and retreats in accord with their faith beliefs, but they would be required to recognize and promote same-sex marriage everywhere else, including in employment policies, and adoption and foster-care policies, against their beliefs.

Instead of acknowledging this, however, McCartney instead accused the Catholic Church in his Dec. 10 column of "trying to cast itself as a victim of secular authorities’ intolerance of religious teachings" and suggested that the Catholic Church "cut a deal" by allowing same-sex "spouses" to receive benefits but give them a different label. That doesn’t sound like a compromise at all. To quote a fellow more equal to the likes of Adams and Jefferson, "What’s in a name?"

Three months later, McCartney didn’t even bother anymore with a feeble "deal" in his stampede for gay rights. He simply disregarded the entire controversy in his March 7 column, steam rolling ahead and asking Kameny about how he deals with "the regrettable fact that voters have rejected same-sex marriage in every state where it’s been put to a referendum." Kameny’s response, " … be more forceful …"

McCartney has to be just chomping at the bit to write a follow-up for that one.

March 7 marked Barbara Walter’s final Oscar Special, where Oscar nominees are typically interviewed about their particular roles. But last night’s special took an unusual turn when actress Mo’Nique endorsed and spoke about her open marriage, leaving many wishing for Less’Nique.

Nominated for best supporting actress for her role in “Precious,” Mo’Nique is currently married to Sidney Hicks, her third husband. The couple have twin boys and live in Atlanta, along with Mo’Nique’s child from a previous marriage. But although their marriage may appear normal, it is far from it.

Walters questioned a previous statement by Mo’Nique and asked if, “cheating is when you lie and are deceitful, not when you have sex outside of the marriage?” Monique responded with a “yes.”

Walters then asked, “Do you and Sid have sex outside of the marriage?”

Mo’Nique responded, “Do we have sex outside of the marriage? Let me say this. I have not had sex outside of my marriage with Sidney. Could I have sex outside of my marriage with Sidney? Yes. Could Sid have sex outside of his marriage with me? Yes. That’s not a deal breaker. That’s not something that we would say, ‘Oh my God because you were attracted to another person and because you happened to have sex let’s end the marriage.’”

And if it happened multiple times, Walters questioned, “You wouldn’t care?”

Mo’Nique continued to cheerlead for open marriage and stated, “That’s not something that would make us say, ‘pack your things and let’s end the marriage’ because we’ve been best friends for- is it over 25 years? And we truly know who we are. Truly. Often times people get into marriages and they don’t know who they’re laying next to. I’m very comfortable and secure with my husband.”

While Mo’Nique may be secure, she never discussed how her children would handle their parents having an open marriage or how it would impact them.

Perhaps just to clarify, Walters questioned, “You are in an open marriage?” When Mo’Nique responded that she was Walters asked for a definition of “open marriage.”

 “No secrets. Open means, you know what, let me tell you my every secret, my fantasies, my thoughts so that way there are no surprises.”

Maybe the reason Mo’Nique has endorsed open marriage is because she’s been paying attention to the mainstream media. In December Newsweek alleged that open marriages were a way to stop all the ‘cheating scandals.” A Nightline episode in September featured Jenny Block, an author (and participant) who has pushed for open marriages.

Even as early as 2007 Oprah featured a couple that participated in an open marriage, while having experts who advocated for having friends with benefits.

The economics of personality? The concept defies logic not to mention the laws of finance and accounting, but according to Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift it wasn’t the combination of President Ronald Reagan’s attack on inflation and his low tax rates on individuals and businesses – but his personality that rescued the economy from the malaise of the early 1980s.

On the "The McLaughlin Group" March 7, Clift declared that Reaganomics was a failure, at least initially.

"There’s some revisionist thinking going here," Clift said. "Reaganomics did not work, certainly not the first two years. When the midterm elections were held during Reagan’s tenure, unemployment was at 10.8 percent."

So what did turn the economy around? According to Clift, it was Reagan’s personality that led the economy out of the doldrums. And that’s what Obama has lacked she said, despite his hope and change mantra.

"Now, I will grant that with the force of his personality and his – the conviction and the confidence that he projected, he kept Americans believing in him," Clift said. "That’s where, I think, President Obama has failed."

However, she advised that we should rest assured – all the policy initiatives Obama has put into play will save the United States.

"This president inherited an economic situation far worse than what Reagan had because this was a meltdown of the financial system and he has brought the economy back from the brink," Clift said. "The stimulus bill and the other programs, health care, ushering a new green economy – they’ve been interpreted by his critics as all these individual government takeovers. He has failed in projecting a narrative of what – how he’s trying to rebuild this country."

MSNBC’s David Shuster on Monday attacked Republicans as racist for calling embattled Congressman Charlie Rangel a "crooked, Harlem Democrat." Talking to ex-Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, the host complained about a press release by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC): "They could have called him the crooked New York Democrat. They could have called him a crooked Democrat." [Audio available here.]

Shuster continued, "Why crooked Harlem Democrat? And did you see that as being racially tinged?" Clearly, the provocative part of the NRCC’s press release was labeling Rangel corrupt. How is it inaccurate to refer to the Representative as a "Harlem Democrat?" Harlem is in his district.

Shuster has made this type of insinuation before. On September 10, 2009, he railed against the look of the GOP: "You look at the image of the Republican Party, all white males with short haircuts. They look sort of angry. No women, no minorities, and it looks like they’ve sort of become unhinged."

A transcript of the question, which occurred at 10:27am EST on MSNBC News Live, follows;

DAVID SHUSTER: I want to ask you about some of the criticism of Governor Paterson, particularly the National Republican Campaign Committee. They issued a very provocative press release over the weekend. They attacked Charlie Rangel. And we mentioned Charlie Rangel and David Paterson and the problems in New York. But, they mention Charlie Rangel as "the crooked Harlem Democrat." They could have called him the crooked, New York Democrat. They could have called him a crooked Democrat. Why crooked Harlem Democrat? And did you see that as being racially tinged?

DOUG WILDER (former governor of Virginia): Well, this isn’t the first time that these people have reached beyond and over the top. Look at the ad that was being run by the Finance Committee, so-called Finance Committee in the Republican National Committee, depicting the President in the most unflattering capacity that they did showing his picture in grease paint, et cetera. You’re absolutely right. Were they trying to send that message? Was it racially tinged or not is not the issue. The issue is, could it be interpreted that way? And if it could be interpreted that way, don’t do it. You can say any number of things about what he’s done without having to it even have the inference of race at all.

SHUSTER: Former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, thank you for joining us today. Nice to see you.

Near the end of Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Erica Hill touted a new Parade magazine survey on volunteerism in America: "it indicates America is in the midst of what some are calling a compassion boom." Moments later, the magazine’s contributing editor, Emily Listfield, argued: "There’s something we call the ‘Obama Effect.’ People are responding to the President’s call to service."

Interestingly, the Parade article made no mention of an "Obama Effect" in explaining why people are volunteering more. Apparently Listfield only felt the need to make that observation when appearing on CBS.

Hill set up Listfield’s explanation by noting: "91% in the survey said community service, their community service involvement has gone up over the past 18 months." Hill then asked: "Why are you seeing that increase, and where are you seeing it the most?" A headline on screen read: "Compassion Counts; America’s New Volunteering Boom."

—Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

New York Post film critic Kyle Smith disliked Matt Damon’s new movie Green Zone so much he was tempted to call for a boycott of NBC Universal:

I can’t believe what I just saw, so I’ll think about it some more before I go into detail. But if I were the kind of excitable guy who believes in boycotts, I’d say "Boycott NBC Universal" for its appalling new anti-American flick "Green Zone," an absurdly awful would-be actioner that stars Matt Damon as a US warrant officer in 2003 Baghdad.

I would never have accused director Paul Greengrass, who made the astonishingly powerful "United 93," of being simplistic. But he has made a $100 million war film in which American troops are the bad guys. There are moments that we’re supposed to cheer because our soldiers are getting shot down — but it’s okay because they’re evildoers at worst or stooges at best who are trying to kill the one guy in the country who can prevent an insurgency from taking root.

The movie also makes it look as though the flawed intelligence about the war was traceable to a single smarmy jackass (played by Greg Kinnear) working in Pentagon intel who fabricated WMD intelligence, said it came from a mysterious source (a general in Saddam’s army code-named "Magellan"), planted that intel with a Judith Miller-like reporter (Amy Ryan – who, hilariously, is shown working for The Wall Street Journal rather than The New York Times because Hollywood liberals can’t accept that The Times ever gets anything wrong) and then, when his ruse began to be suspected, sent his henchmen out to kill the general, who was willing to deal with the Americans but who vowed to launch an insurgency campaign if the Americans didn’t live up to their promises. In other words, the U.S. wasn’t merely incompetent – it caused the insurgency to occur.

Orlando Parfitt of IGN UK thought the movie was exciting and entertaining, but the politics were shallow and heavy-handed:

Early on Matt Damon’s character doesn’t question why America invaded Iraq. But as the story goes on and he delves further into the conspiracy, Miller ends up virtually going to war with the American army and protecting a ruthless former Ba’ath party general who represents – the film suggests – a preferable alternative as rulers of Iraq to the US government. It’s just the first of several plot developments that – along with some extremely heavy-handed dialogue – reinforces the movie’s implicitly anti-American stance in a way that isn’t particulary subtle.

The problem with taking such a highly opinionated approach is that most of the film is fictitious. Green Zone recalls moments we can all remember seeing on the news (we see snippets of speeches made by George Bush for example). However the bones of the plot – Miller’s investigation into the complex web of fabrication that lead the US to believe Saddam Hussein had WMDs – is almost entirely made up; dreamt up by screenwriter Brian Helgeland.

It’s an approach that undermines the entire argument. Green Zone uses evidence from its invented thriller plot to damn the real-life American government.

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report, which asked "Does Matt Damon Hate America?)

In part one of his exclusive interview with Karl Rove NBC’s Matt Lauer, on Monday’s Today, plucked out a page from the former White House adviser’s new memoir where Rove went after journalists that called his tactics "’fear-based" that played on a stupid electorate, to which Lauer questioned, isn’t that "somewhat true?"

During the interview Lauer also threw out some of the most salacious charges about Rove being behind a racist smear campaign against John and Cindy McCain during the 2000 South Carolina primary something he denied but Lauer pushed: "While Rove denies any involvement in any smears, some prominent Republicans point the finger directly at him. Here’s what Roy Fletcher, McCain’s deputy campaign manager said of the South Carolina smear. Quote, ‘This whole thing, it was orchestrated by Rove.’ Cindy McCain, of that same incident…the smear involved possibly that this was an illegitimate black child." [audio available here]

After Rove blamed a Bob Jones University professor for the allegation, Lauer brought up two more Rove critics who painted Rove as the villain including Cindy McCain who said she would "Stab" Rove "in the front" and a former George W. Bush speechwriter who claimed "He was what all the liberals said he was, the villain…a clumsy one at that….less a Voldermort than a Boris Badenov chasing Rocky and Bullwinkle."

The following is the relevant exchange as it was aired on the March 8 Today:

MATT LAUER: I could do most of this interview on what you write on page 64. Let me give our viewers some examples. Here’s what you write, "I have become an adjective. There is something called a Rovian style of campaigning and it’s meant as an insult." You go on. "One columnist said it consists mainly of ‘throwing mud until it sticks.’ One prominent blogger described the elements of a textbook Rovian race as ‘fear-based, smear-based and anything goes.’"

KARL ROVE: You know, that’s a pretty nasty view of the American voting public. It assumes that these people are easily misled and that people make a decision to vote for somebody, particularly the President of the United States on the basis of mean-spirited, nasty, vicious, you know, despicable reasons and that’s not what a campaign is about. I have more respect for the American public than that. They’re not easily misled. They try and do a good thing when they go into the voting booth.

LAUER: And you say, "To believe all the bad things about Karl Rove. First you have to believe that the electorate is stupid. Easily misled by smash-mouth TV ads, dirty tricks, and fear-and-smear politics." I can’t imagine you ever calling the American electorate stupid. Who would be so stupid to do that?

ROVE: Well those journalists were.

LAUER: Okay but isn’t the rest of it somewhat true?

ROVE: No!

LAUER: People are misled by negative campaigns. Otherwise, why would so many campaigns turn negative?

ROVE: I think most campaigns turn negative because they don’t have something positive to say. And look, I think negative campaigns are like nitroglycerin – unstable, dangerous and ofttimes, most dangerous to the people who are using them.

LAUER: Are you asking me, are you asking the readers to believe that you were the only, only the architect of the positive things-

ROVE: Oh no.

LAUER: -and took no ownership of the negative things?

ROVE: No, no look I outline in the campaign the proper way to handle a negative attack.

LAUER: The charges or the allegations or the constant comments you hear about Karl Rove, that he was the guy behind the whisper campaigns.

ROVE: In South Carolina.

LAUER: Right. That he was the guy with the push-poll question about John McCain-

ROVE: Right.

LAUER: -and suggesting is it possible, how would you feel about John McCain during the 2000 primaries if he were, by some chance, to have fathered an illegitimate black child. You say you had nothing to do with that.

ROVE: Nothing to do with it. In fact, you know, I write about this in detail in the book. This is the kind of, you know, this is, this is a kind of thing the media love. These kinds of allegations. But for people in practical politics, I got to tell you, I was seized with fear when this rumor began to circulate through South Carolina. Not very widely. It was sent out by a professor at Bob Jones University, a fellow named Hand. I thought John McCain would seize it for what it was, which was an enormous opportunity to give an insight into who and his wife are. Because they adopted, Cindy McCain adopted a child from an orphanage in Bangladesh which is, who is their daughter. And this, the story of this is an incredible tale of love and compassion. But rather than doing that, John McCain said, "I’m a victim" and was angry and, and complained about it and pointed the finger at Bush, when he had no evidence whatsoever.

LAUER: Because it’s, it’s hard to turn a smear into a positive.

ROVE: No it isn’t.

LAUER: It takes-

ROVE: It is.

LAUER: It’s an artful process.

ROVE: Well but it, but it’s, it’s doable. And I talk about a number of examples in the, in the book.

LAUER: While Rove denies any involvement in any smears, some prominent Republicans point the finger directly at him. Here’s what Roy Fletcher, McCain’s deputy campaign manager said of the South Carolina smear. Quote, "This whole thing, it was orchestrated by Rove." Cindy McCain, of that same incident, remember we already set it up, the, the smear involved possibly that this was an illegitimate black child.

ROVE: That had emanated from an e-mail sent by a Bob Jones University professor to the people on his e-mail list, which may have been 100 people.

LAUER: She clearly saw it differently. Because when asked-

ROVE: Sure. Oh sure.

LAUER: -if Karl Rove were to walk by here would you stab him in the back she said, I’m paraphrasing here, but no "I would stab him in the front."

ROVE: Right.

LAUER: President Bush’s former speechwriter Mat Latimer said this about you in his book. Quote, "He was what all the liberals said he was, the villain. And to make matters worse a clumsy one at that. He turned out to be less a Voldemort than a Boris Badenov chasing Rocky and Bullwinkle.

ROVE: Yeah. Well I do like Rocky and Bullwinkle. Look Cindy McCain and the McCain campaign, Fletcher and others, they needed somebody to blame and they didn’t want to blame Bush. It was hard to blame Bush. He’s a nice guy. People knew him. It wouldn’t stick. So why not pick out the sort of dough-faced, you know balding guy, who’s the, you know, the grey eminence behind the campaign and blame him. And look that’s the way politics is. Bush had a theory. He’d say, "Better you than me." And that’s right. That’s, that was, that was, that came with the territory

Possible point of discussion: the federal government as Schlitz beer?

…when I think of the federal government’s brand now, I think of Schlitz beer. Schlitz was once a top national brew. But, in search of short-term gains, it began gradually reducing its quality in tiny increments to save money, substituting cheaper malt, fewer hops and "accelerated" brewing for its traditional approach.

Each incremental decline was imperceptible to consumers, but after a few years, people suddenly noticed that the beer was no good anymore. Sales collapsed, and a "Taste My Schlitz" campaign designed to lure beer drinkers back failed when the "improved" brew turned out not to be any better. A brand image that had been accumulated over decades was lost in a few years, and it has never recovered.

The federal government, alas, finds itself in much the same position.

An apt analogy?

At the end of a discussion of Haiti on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, actor Sean Penn went on a rant in defense of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, suggesting prison time for American journalists: "every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

This is a little strange, since a study by our Business and Media Institute of Chavez coverage from 1998 to 2006 found Chavez’s much-criticized human rights record was mentioned in only ten percent of stories, and he was described as a leftist in only 12 percent of stories. Maher shifted to Chavez and the end of the Haiti interview, asking Penn to make a case for his man Chavez:

MAHER: His image in the media is just a buffoon. You have been there. You know him. You’ve talked to him. That’s all I really know about Hugo Chavez, is what I read in the media. A dictator, took over a lot of the branches of government, wants to be president for life. What do you know that I don’t know, that I should not have such a harsh feeling about this guy?

PENN: I think that if you’re more happy with 20 percent of a population having the access to dreams, access to the feeling they have an identity and a voice. If it’s okay with the 20 percent, versus the 80 percent he gave it to, then you can criticize Hugo Chavez. You know, there are a lot of complicated issues that comes simply out of perspective. We in the United States have a difficult time putting ourselves in the shoes of what has been the history of Venezuela, the history of Latin America, and many other places.We’re very monocultural. And then we are hypnotized by the media. For example, Hugo Chavez. Who do you know here who’s gone through fourteen of the most transparent elections on the globe, and has been elected democratically, as Hugo Chavez?

Stay with the transcript here, because Penn’s talk gets very fuzzy and inarticulate, but his primary point is that Venezuela and Cuba helped him provide assistance to Haiti, when he knew next to nothing about how to help, so he is frustrated that anyone would speak negatively about them:

PENN: Hugo Chavez, who when I went to Venezuela, when I went to Haiti, because when I, starting up an NGO [non-governmental organization, in U.N.-speak], how do I , an actor in Hollywood, order bulk narcotics? [Laughter] But meanwhile –

MAHER: Oh, I know you do know how.

PENN: But on a serious note, you know, this is where amputations, reamputations after gangrene sets in – it was Venezuela, Cuba, were – supplied us with those to be able to get them to hospitals. And then later when I – it wasn’t because the Americans weren’t, it was because I didn’t know how – It seemed I didn’t know the same people that I know to be able to do it.

Penn wrapped up the segment by insisting that he’s a little sympathetic to anti-American conspiracy theories about occupation, because this is the kind of gunk that gets thrown at his hero Hugo, and it should be punished by jail time:

PENN: The collaborative opportunity in Haiti, when you talk about Hugo Chavez, and some of the other people who are demonized [think Castro], and you know, when some of these countries accuse us of an occupation — where I believe this was strictly a humanitarian action by the United States military, and an incredible one – I’m a little sympathetic. Because every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.

Penn did not offer praise for the network news reporters who spoke well of Chavez, as BMI reported:

Jessica Yellin of ABC’s Good Morning America" portrayed him as the "wildly popular Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez" and added "it’s clear the real star in these parts is Mr. Chavez, the protest leader" in her Nov. 5, 2005, broadcast.

Ironically, an Aug. 16, 2004, "NBC Nightly News," report actually noted concern had Chavez lost the election. Anchor Tom Brokaw expressed that sentiment: "There had been concerns that a Chavez defeat could further disrupt oil supplies."

Chavez and Penn do seem to agree on George W. Bush, as BMI noted:

A Feb. 5, 2006, Reuters report quoted him [Chavez] saying: "The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the U.S. president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush."

So Penn doesn’t think Chavez isn’t more of a demonizer than a demonizee?

During the final years of the Soviet Union many political dissidents weren’t sent to slave labor camps as happened in the bad old Stalin era if they weren’t outright liquidated. Instead, their divergence from the official party line was viewed as some sort of mental disorder that must be treated, usually with forced confinement in mental institutions which were little more than prisons. And now we have a Marxist blogger for Psychology Today who proposes that Tea Party participants suffer from a mental disorder. The funniest thing is that when one reads the rantings of Michael Bader, he appears like Captain Queeg on the witness stand. The more he writes, the less rational he sounds. Take a look at just the first sentence of Bader’s extended rant and guess who comes off as sanity challenged. BTW, the word "f—ers" in his primal scream article is fully spelled out:

These tea-party folks seem to most liberals-well, to most of us who live in the "reality community," or, as I like to call it, "reality"-like crazy f—ers.

Bader doesn’t hide his outright hate for the tea party folks:

I hate these folks but I also understand them. And, well, uh, I also empathize with them. They share the same psychology as the paranoid patients I treat every day. The only difference is that the paranoid beliefs of the tea-party movement are political while those in my consulting room are of a more personal nature.

So it’s all just a mental disorder, just like what the Soviet dissidents suffered from. Bader then proposes to "understand" the tea partiers…so as to fight them:

I have come to have empathy for the tea-party’ers, even as I despise their influence and work hard to defeat their ideology. It’s crucial that progressives do likewise because if we don’t understand the ways that decent, god-fearing, and victimized people can come to espouse such a dangerous ideology, we won’t be able to fight them effectively.

And now a paranoid theory about tea parties put forward by one Michael Bader:

For new tea-party members, however, the drift toward paranoia is facilitated by the right-wing media machine that offers several ready-made narratives perfectly designed to help its consumers clear up their confusion, understand their helplessness, absolve them of any blame, and offer a way out. The conspiratorial alliance of business and government, a growing tyranny intended to disenfranchise, disarm, and exploit ordinary citizens, secret pacts to overthrow the constitution, etc. all currently led by an un-American, godless, colored, elitist, contemptuous, foreigner–Barack Hussein Obama. A grim and frightening picture of the world to be sure.

Yeah, a "right-wing media machine." Now who is being paranoid, Mr. Bader?

A few final swings with the butterfly net by Bader:

The "problem" is that tea-party activists move from legitimate feelings and normal longings to paranoid political positions that are dangerous and cruel. But because these positions serve an important psychological function, because they resolve an emotional dilemma, they can’t be changed by rational argument. 

…Perhaps the progressive movement shouldn’t waste its time dealing with the tea-party movement except as a spur to get our own house-and movement-in order. A legitimate argument can be made that these people are, simply, the enemy and that our challenge is to build progressive majorities immune to their sabotage and interference. But I would argue that to the extent we want to reach people who are drawn to tea-party, patriot, libertarian, and other right wing movements but are not yet hard-line ideologues, or prevent others from becoming so, we have to begin with empathy. We have to get inside their heads, figure out how their choices are reasonable from their point of view.

As for the claim by your humble correspondent that Bader is a Marxist,  is that some sort of scurrilous "McCarthyite" charge? Nope. The person who claims that Michael Bader is a Marxist is…Michael Bader as you can read in his biography:

I was always a lefty. My father was the only liberal in a family and community of racist republicans.  My older brother went to U.C. Santa Barbara in 1967 and gave an adoring younger brother regular reports from “the front.’  And I went to Berkeley from 1970 to 1976.  ‘Nuff said.

At first, politics for me was all about the New Left, Marxism, and political economy.  I was “out-there,” active in various extremist groups, and fully engaged at the same time with the counter-culture.  Eventually, with the decline of the New Left, I gave up being active in the public political world and chose a profession—psychology.  I never gave up my sentiments or beliefs, but couldn’t figure out how to blend them with my work, since I don’t believe that good therapy should have a political agenda in any way.

Got that? Bader still clings the the stale economic beliefs of a discredited 19th century deadbeat who never held a regular job and spent his days jotting down impractical rantings in a London library reading room while hitting up his friends for money. And yet Bader, who claims to be based in reality, continues to cling to those same beliefs as subscribed to by the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Castro, and Hugo Chavez.

For further proof of Bader’s complete divorce from reality, check out his Why We Should Stop Demonizing John Edwards.

On Saturday’s Fox News Sunday, FNC contributor and panel member Jim Pinkerton of the New America Foundation twice cited the Media Research Center – parent organization to NewsBusters – the first time as he pointed out that ABC News had given six times as much attention to attacking Republican Senator Jim Bunning’s efforts to delay the extension of unemployment benefits – as if doing so were a scandal – as opposed to covering the actual scandal of Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel’s unethical activities. Pinkerton recounted:

Striking, as Scott Whitlock at MRC pointed out, ABC News devoted six times more coverage to trashing Bunning where Jonathan Karl, the reporter, went all Jesse Watters on Bunning, following him around in the Senate and trying to barge into the elevator, than they did on Chairman Rangel’s, of the Ways and Means Committee’s, forced resignation in a scandal. So a two-day procedural thing was six times bigger news to ABC than a genuine corrupt scandal.

The FNC contributor cited the MRC a second time during a discussion of the media’s coverage of Iraq as he noted that the mainstream media have lost interest in the subject and have not asked a question at a White House press conference since June 26. Host Jon Scott brought in Pinkerton by bringing up a recent article in the Daily Beast about positive developments in Iraq which did not mention former President Bush:

JON SCOTT: DailyBeast.com, Jim, did an article on the situation in Iraq. They called it a political miracle, and the entire article did not mention anything about President Bush. Does that surprise you?

JIM PINKERTON: It actually does surprise me because you’d think that they would be sensitive to criticism, like on this show, and say, look, let’s throw in a nice word about Bush just to cover ourselves. But the real story is lack of interest. As Rich Noyes at MRC pointed out, there hasn’t been a question to the White House since June 26 on this whole topic.

Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Saturday, March 6, Fox News Watch:

SENATOR JIM BUNNING (R-KY): I support extending unemployment benefits, COBRA benefits, flood insurance, highway bill fix, Doc fix, small business loans, distant network television for satellite viewers. If we can’t find $10 billion to pay for something that we all support, we will never pay for anything on the floor of this U.S. Senate.

JON SCOTT: That was Senator Jim Bunning making his solo and ultimately unsuccessful stand against a deficit-increasing $10 billion spending bill, a stand which garnered the Kentucky Senator some intense backlash from the mainstream media.

JON STEWART, THE DAILY SHOW: Talking about Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning’s ongoing effort to single-handedly (CENSORED) off the extension of unemployment benefits for 1.1 million of Americans.

ALI VELSHI, CNN: I bet you Senator Jim Bunning has some place warm to sleep tonight, but the Republican from Kentucky is almost single-handedly responsible for cutting a vital financial lifeline to more than a million down-and-out Americans.

ED SCHULTZ, MSNBC: Is this the most heartless thing you’ve seen the Republicans do?

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: And here in the Senate, that lone Senator who had held up unemployment benefits was finally forced to relent.

STEWART: Do you hear that unemployed people in the middle of one of the worst recessions in history? No 30-day extension of benefits until we balance the entire federal government to Jim Benning’s liking!

SCOTT: Well, despite ending his stand, some were calling it a filibuster, and allowing a vote to move forward, the media continued to berate the Senator. All right, Ellis, I’ll give you first chance to defend the liberal media here because they were pretty vicious on this guy, as we just heard.

ELLIS HENICAN, NEWSDAY: Let me just say this to you, Jon: The backlash against Senator Bunning pretty much involves every single person in politics today. Remember, it wasn’t the so-called liberal media that elbowed this guy aside and refused to support his fundraisers. That was his fellow Republicans in the Senate. He’s an old coot. He’s out of touch and he shouldn’t take those kinds of positions if he can’t handle a little criticism

CAL THOMAS, COLUMNIST: Ageism, ageism.

HENICAN: How about that, a little criticism?

SCOTT: Okay, Jim, go ahead.

JIM PINKERTON, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Striking, as Scott Whitlock at MRC pointed out, ABC News devoted six times more coverage to trashing Bunning where Jonathan Karl, the reporter, went all Jesse Watters on Bunning, following him around in the Senate and trying to barge into the elevator, than they did on Chairman Rangel’s, of the Ways and Means Committee’s, forced resignation in a scandal. So a two-day procedural thing was six times bigger news to ABC than a genuine corrupt scandal.

SCOTT: His reasoning, Cal, I mean, he was trying to bring attention to the failures of pay-as-you-go, but did the media pay attention?

THOMAS: This is exactly, right, this is exactly the position of the President of the United States, articulated just a few days ago, we ought to have pay-go. You ought to pay for whatever you’re going to spend. That’s all he was saying. But the way the media treat this is very predictable. If you are against a Republican program or piece of legislation, you are trying to save the children and be helpful to the country. But if you’re against a liberal Democrat program or proposal, you’re evil and must be destroyed.

JUDY MILLER, FNC CONTRIBUTOR: No, no, no.

HENICAN: So thin-skinned.

MILLER: No, no, no, look, even the Philadelphia Inquirer I think had it absolutely right when they said, if you want to start balancing the budget, let’s do it with a $435 million jet engine for a plane that the Air Force doesn’t want.

THOMAS: I’m for that, too.

MILLER: Let’s start by getting rid of a $1 million program to get rid of snakes in Guam. I mean, there’s a lot of fat that could have been cut, not at the expense of 1.8 million Americans who literally are not responsible for the fact that they’re not employed.

PINKERTON: But Bunning didn’t say where the, Bunning didn’t say where he thought the cuts shouldn’t come from. He just said the cuts should come. I mean, Cal had it exactly right.

MILLER: He had a proposal.

PINKERTON: If pay-go is the philosophy that the Democrats talk about when it doesn’t matter, but when it’s, you know, because they say on the out years we’ll have pay-go, but in the here and now, they never want to do it. That’s the hypocrisy Frankly, we should give credit to one member of the mainstream media who did support Bunning curiously enough, and that’s Chris Matthews at MSNBC, who went out of his way in his little editorial at the end of his show to say that Bunning had a point.

HENICAN: Listen, the guy has every right to do it under the Senate rules. I mean, he did it, he did his best. But you know what, you can’t take a position like that and expect everybody to love it. You know, if you’re going to be as an aggressive and frankly as obnoxious as he was over the past few days, people are going to yell at you and you can’t come wah, wah, wah, Cal Thomas, wah, wah, wah.

MILLER: Dana Milbank suggested he was kind of 78-year-old and crazy.

THOMAS: Oh, ageism again.

MILLER: And screwball. It was the last pitch he had left, is what he said.

THOMAS: Let’s see, how old is Charlie Rangel?

MILLER: Because, look, he’s talking about being-

THOMAS: How old is Robert Byrd?

MILLER: -being wrestled to the ground, he and his wife, at a political picnic, by little green men. I mean, you’ve got a problem here.

…

SCOTT: Dailybeast.com, Jim, did an article on the situation in Iraq. They called it a political miracle, and the entire article did not mention anything about President Bush. Does that surprise you?

PINKERTON: It actually does surprise me because you’d think that they would be sensitive to criticism, like on this show, and say, look, let’s throw in a nice word about Bush just to cover ourselves. But the real story is lack of interest. As Rich Noyes at MRC pointed out, there hasn’t been a question to the White House since June 26 on this whole topic.

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, as host Howard Kurtz led a discussion on media coverage of Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel’s ethical problems, guest Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News – formerly of Time magazine and CNN’s Capital Gang – seemed to suggest that Rangel would have lost his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee sooner if the mainstream media were not so biased in favor of the New York Democrat.

Kurtz had just led a discussion with Carlson and the Washington Examiner’s Chris Stirewalt on whether ABC’s Jonathan Karl had slanted his coverage of Republican Senator Jim Bunning’s efforts to delay passage of the extension of unemployment benefits, with the CNN host posing the question: "When the television reports go from Senator Bunning on the floor, clearly ticking off his colleagues, to some poor unemployed person who obviously wants to continue to receive checks, are we loading the dice a little bit?"

After the discussion moved to Rangel, Kurtz recounted that Matthews recently wondered whether the New York Times was going after the Democratic Congressman because of his unethical acts or because he had angered them with some legislative action. The CNN host soon added: "But Matthews went on to say, ‘I’ve loved the guy,’ Charlie Rangel, ‘for years. I feel like recusing myself.’ But do you think this Rangel story got enough attention? All the networks covered it. NBC Nightly News is the only one that did a full story."

The left-leaning Carlson soon acknowledged the media’s negative feelings toward Bunning as a contrast with press affection for Rangel, with either Kurtz or Stirewalt – or possibly both men – voicing agreement that Rangel would have been gone earlier if not for his popularity:

MARGARET CARLSON: And if he weren’t loved – he’s the opposite of Bunning – if he weren’t loved by Chris Matthews and others, he would have been gone.

INDISCERNIBLE MALE VOICE: He would have been gone.

INDISCERNIBLE MALE VOICE: Oh, he would have been gone long ago.

Below is a complete transcript of the segment from the Sunday, March 7, Reliable Sources on CNN, with critical portions in bold:

HOWARD KURTZ: Jim Bunning is a former Major League pitcher, and, lately, writes Dana Milbank, he’s been throwing screwballs. The retiring Kentucky Senator can definitely be cranky and seems to have no patience for the press. In fact, he gave a television producer a middle finger salute the other day. But did Bunning deserve to be portrayed as a heartless fiend intent on snatching away jobless benefits from the unemployed? Take a look at this report and the way he dealt with ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: Sir, we just wanted to ask you-

SENATOR JIM BUNNING (R-KY): Excuse me, this is a Senator-only elevator.

KARL: Can I come on the elevator?

BUNNING: No, you may not.

KARL: Can you tell us why you’re blocking this vote?

BUNNING: I already did.

KARL: We wanted to ask the Senator why he is blocking a vote that would extend unemployment benefits to more than 340,000 Americans, including Brenda Wood, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who has been out of work for two years.

KURTZ: MSNBC’s liberal pundits pounded Bunning hour after hour. While he got little attention on Fox News, though, Sean Hannity cheered him for taking on the rest of the Senate.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: You know, those lousy unemployed people lazing around, loving being unemployed. Jim Bunning, you’re a hero for cutting them off without any rational explanation whatsoever.

SEAN HANNITY, FNC, CLIP #1: What Senator Bunning said is, look, I’m going to stand up against this, we can’t afford it, we’re stealing from our kids and grandkids.

HANNITY CLIP #2: Senator, you’ve become a hero over the last week. Welcome to the program.

KURTZ: So have the media acted as an impartial umpire or a thrown at Bunning’s head? Joining us now to talk about that and coverage of some other political stories, here in Washington, Margaret Carlson, chief political columnist for Bloomberg News and Washington editor of the Week magazine. And Chris Stirewalt, political editor at the Washington Examiner. Margaret, Jim Bunning is an irascible character, but did the media give a fair hearing to his argument, which was Congress was going to extend $10 billion in jobless benefits without paying for it?

MARGARET CARLSON, BLOOMBERG NEWS: We gave a fair hearing to baseball metaphors, which you just did in your intro.

KURTZ: Guilty.

CARLSON: He’s irresistible in that, yes, he did throw a perfect game, and, yes, he is colorful in the sense that he’s just openly cranky. The reason there was a side story to this, which is it was Republicans that felt he was heartless and clueless in that they were ruining, he went rogue on them by doing this obstructionism which wasn’t in the playbook. Republicans are choreographing their filibusters. And although this wasn’t a filibuster – it was a non-unanimous consent – it didn’t fit into the program. And so we jumped on it because it was much more colorful than the others.

KURTZ: When the television reports go from Senator Bunning on the floor, clearly ticking off his colleagues, to some poor unemployed person who obviously wants to continue to receive checks, are we loading the dice a little bit?

CHRIS STIREWALT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well, sure, and, you know, look, this story was catnip for a couple reasons. One, you have somebody who is openly disdainful of Washington. You have a member of the United States Senate who hates both parties, hates Washington-

KURTZ: And openly disdainful of the press.

STIREWALT: Right.

KURTZ: It was day after day, as we saw with Jonathan Karl, when he just literally and figuratively had given the bird to reporters.

STIREWALT: Exactly. And he perfectly fits the narrative of this moment. And the narrative of the moment is Washington’s broken. And here is Mr. Breaking Washington. So he fits perfectly. But the other reason it was catnip was that four reporters to get the finger from Jim Bunning is going to be a badge of honor that you will wear on your-

CARLSON: If only we could have, yeah.

STIREWALT: Exactly. So you have all these people running after him like a pack of barking dogs, running down the hallways, hoping that, like Byron Wolf, they’re going to get the finger from Jim Bunning so they can say I got it, man, it was me, too.

CARLSON: Yes. It’s our perfect game.

STIREWALT: Right, exactly.

KURTZ: But in terms of the substantive argument here, it took some liberal pundits to point out that while Bunning was going haywire over Congress spending this money on the unemployed without coming up with the revenue, that he’s voted for lots of bills during the Republican presidency – the Bush tax cuts, Medicare drug benefit – that weren’t paid for.

CARLSON: And the very law he’s citing, pay-go, he didn’t vote for it, so that’s a-

KURTZ: Pay-go is a Democratic attempt to make Congress-

CARLSON: Make you pay for what you spend.

KURTZ: As opposed to just more deficit spending.

CARLSON: More deficit spending. So, if he had, he would have had a better rationale for picking on the unemployed. And one of his few supporters, Senator Kyl, is saying, and, by the way, we’re not moving on these unemployed until we get that last .25 percent of the estate tax killed – 99.8, gone. So, you’re juxtaposing the unemployed, the teacher at the computer that we had in our intro, and the estate tax.

STIREWALT: I think Senator Bunning, for a person who hates the media and doesn’t usually do very well when it comes to it, did this very well. I thought he ended up doing a very good job of this. He took it right up to the brink, and he forced this vote where you get 53 Democrats going on the record and voting and saying I refuse to pay for this $10 billion even when his amendment would have paid for it by eliminating a special tax for the paper industry.

CARLSON: He overshadowed his accomplishment.

KURTZ: He certainly didn’t look good in the press coverage, despite what you say was something you see as positive.

STIREWALT: I think in the end it’s a wash, perhaps a lean positive for the Republicans because I think Democrats overplayed their hand, they brought in as many sob stories as they possibly could to try to crush Bunning, nobody lost their benefits, there was not the interruption.

KURTZ: Well, some thousands of federal workers were furloughed for at least a couple days. All right, let me turn to Charlie Rangel, who was forced to give up the chairmanship of the House, powerful House Ways and Means Committee after the Ethics Committee found that he had accepted some corporate-paid trips to Caribbean getaways. And it brought an interesting bit of analysis. Mostly liberals were not defending Congressman Rangel, but an interesting bit of analysis from Chris Matthews on MSNBC.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: What is it that has led, for example, the New York Times, I’m always skeptical of motive, excuse me for that, I don’t think all journalism’s objective, why have they been pounding this guy? Is it because of what he did, or did he vote wrong on something?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Well, Chris, I think it was journalism.

KURTZ: Why is Chris Matthews going after the Times? The Times reported the facts.

CARLSON: They did. And also, this is their hometown guy. So they would, I guess, in Chris’s view, over-cover it. There were many other things than this one particular trip to the Caribbean that Charlie Rangel was accused of.

KURTZ: He’s got other problems that haven’t been resolved.

CARLSON: He has other problems, and it looks like he’s been hanging on at a time when it looks like the pendulum could swing towards "Democrats are corrupt, too." That’s how Republicans lost. They don’t want that in 2012.

KURTZ: Well, David Paterson and other Democrats getting involved in problems. That could be a problem. But Matthews went on to say, "I’ve loved the guy," Charlie Rangel, "for years. I feel like recusing myself." But do you think this Rangel story got enough attention? All the networks covered it. NBC Nightly News is the only one that did a full story.

STIREWALT: Well, I think that it became so commonplace, the knowledge that Charlie Rangel had ethical problems, that this, in the end, was sort of like a denouement. It wasn’t an explosion. It was, at the end, well, at long last, Charlie Rangel is finally going to slink out after what was a very sort of shocking two-or-three-year run where you have these ethical charges piling up and piling up. And the fact that the Democrats learned the lesson from 2006 with the Republicans that says you’ve got to act, you’ve got to dump that weight, and in this case Charlie Rangel was dead weight for the caucus.

CARLSON: And if he weren’t loved – he’s the opposite of Bunning – if he weren’t loved by Chris Matthews and others, he would have been gone.

INDISCERNIBLE MALE VOICE: He would have been gone.

INDISCERNIBLE MALE VOICE: Oh, he would have been gone long ago.

It’s bad enough that the Obama administration ("Obama administration encouraged by steady unemployment rate") and Harry Reid (see video snippet at link) both tried to pretend that February’s Employment Situation Report issued by Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed that the official unemployment rate was the same as January’s 9.7% and that 36,000 seasonally adjusted jobs had been lost, was somehow a reason to be upbeat.

As many have pointed out for months, the expanded version of the unemployment rate has been well above 15% for quite a long time, and it at least occasionally gets referenced in media reports and political pronouncements.

But on the jobs added/lost front, what the press, pundits, and even opposition politicians are continuing to ignore is the key information that leads to the "seasonally adjusted" figure on which everyone seems to fixate — to the point where it’s not unreasonable to believe that almost everyone in America believes that 36,000 jobs lost is what really occurred during the month.

It isn’t. Acknowledging that, and seeing what really did happen, is key to understanding what February’s result really reflected a significant deterioration in the employment situation, not an improvement.

Here are the charts for 2004 through February 2010, first for not seasonally adjusted (NSA) jobs, followed by seasonally adjusted jobs:

The NSA table tells us that the government’s best estimate of what really happened in February is that the economy added 473,000 jobs. Absent any other data, that would seem to be acceptable. But when you look at data for previous years, you can quickly tell that it’s not.

Excluding February 2009, when the economy was in free-fall, February 2010’s +473,000 is the worst performance, listed above. The average for 2004-2008 is +714,000, or 241,000 jobs better. In February 2008, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the country was supposedly in the third month of a recession (even though economic growth overall was positive). Why should we be impressed that February 2010’s economy couldn’t even match that?

Beyond that, February’s performance represented a decay from January’s. January is a month when many Christmas seasonal employees get let go. The average job loss for January 2004-2008 of 2,770,000 was only 72,000 better than January revised 2010 number of -2,842,000. Thus, February 2010 was 169,000 jobs worse than January (241,000 vs. 72,000).

This is something to get excited about?

That leaves one mystery, which is this: Why was February 2010’s SA loss of 36,000 an improvement over 2008’s SA loss of 50,000? One would think that February 2010 should have come in worse. The answer is that 2009 was so bad, that it’s distorting the SA calculation — to the point where it’s really not as reliable an indicator of what is going on as it normally would be in a more predictable situation. Additionally, BLS tells me that while it takes the previous five years into account, the more recent years carry more weight in the calculation of the final SA number than the least recent years.

These are things that establishment media business reporters should know. If they don’t, they should either get a quick catch-up course or find another line of work. Media outlets, especially the wire services, should be adjusting their routine jobs reports to tell us the kinds of things this post has revealed.

It’s not that tough. Why won’t they?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

It’s bad enough that the Obama administration ("Obama administration encouraged by steady unemployment rate") and Harry Reid (see video snippet at link) both tried to pretend that February’s Employment Situation Report issued by Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed that the official unemployment rate was the same as January’s 9.7% and that 36,000 seasonally adjusted jobs had been lost, was somehow a reason to be upbeat.

As many have pointed out for months, the expanded version of the unemployment rate has been well above 15% for quite a long time, and it at least occasionally gets referenced in media reports and political pronouncements.

But on the jobs added/lost front, what the press, pundits, and even opposition politicians are continuing to ignore is the key information that leads to the "seasonally adjusted" figure on which everyone seems to fixate — to the point where it’s not unreasonable to believe that almost everyone in America believes that 36,000 jobs lost is what really occurred during the month.

It isn’t. Acknowledging that, and seeing what really did happen, is key to understanding what February’s result really reflected a significant deterioration in the employment situation, not an improvement.

Here are the charts for 2004 through February 2010, first for not seasonally adjusted (NSA) jobs, followed by seasonally adjusted jobs:

The NSA table tells us that the government’s best estimate of what really happened in February is that the economy added 473,000 jobs. Absent any other data, that would seem to be acceptable. But when you look at data for previous years, you can quickly tell that it’s not.

Excluding February 2009, when the economy was in free-fall, February 2010’s +473,000 is the worst performance listed above. The average for 2004-2008 is +714,000, or 241,000 jobs better. In February 2008, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the country was supposedly in the third month of a recession (even though economic growth overall was positive). Why should we be impressed that February 2010’s economy couldn’t even match that?

Beyond that, February’s performance represented a decay from January’s. January is a month when many Christmas seasonal employees get let go. The average job loss for January 2004-2008 of 2,770,000 was only 72,000 better than January revised 2010 number of -2,842,000. Thus, February 2010 was 169,000 jobs worse than January (241,000 vs. 72,000).

This is something to get excited about?

That leaves one mystery, which is this: Why was February 2010’s SA loss of 36,000 an improvement over 2008’s SA loss of 50,000? One would think that February 2010 should have come in worse. The answer is that 2009 was so bad, that it’s distorting the SA calculation — to the point where it’s really not as reliable an indicator of what is going on as it normally would be in a more predictable situation. Additionally, BLS tells me that while it takes the previous five years into account, the more recent years carry more weight in the calculation of the final SA number than the least recent years.

These are things that establishment media business reporters should know. If they don’t, they should either get a quick catch-up course or find another line of work. Media outlets, especially the wire services, should be adjusting their routine jobs reports to tell us the kinds of things this post has revealed.

It’s not that tough. Why won’t they?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Dan Rather and Andrea Mitchell said this weekend that Barack Obama made a huge mistake pushing healthcare reform so soon in his first term.

Appearing on the syndicated program "The Chris Matthews Show," the former "CBS Evening News" anchor said of ObamaCare, "Bad choice. Particularly looking back on it. Jobs should have been the first choice."

A few minutes later, Mitchell concurred, "I agree with Dan and everyone here that this was a big miscalculation to go into it."

Yet, they also both agreed that even if it was a mistake to tackle this issue, Obama has to win (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: The President’s determination to get healthcare against all odds has even some Democrats wishing he had chosen to pursue jobs, something far less partisan. Congress watcher Charlie Cook calls it, "One of the biggest miscalculations in modern political history." Dan, he has made the decision. It’s healthcare. Bad choice?

DAN RATHER, HDNET: Bad choice. Particularly looking back on it. Jobs should have been the first choice. Smart choice for him. Not saying that healthcare is not important, but your question is, was it a mistake, at least in hindsight? Absolutely. Because the economy is what it’s about, jobs, jobs, jobs.

MATTHEWS: Okay, in foresight. Now that he has made the call and he sunk his teeth into this and his feet into this. Does he have to win on healthcare this month?

RATHER: Absolutely positively without question he’s got to win on this. [...]

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC: I agree with Dan and everyone here that this was a big miscalculation to go into it. But now that they’re into it, they’ve got to win it.

Interesting: mistake to go for it, but he’s got to win.

Quite a contrast to when George W. Bush was President and the media were constantly pushing him to admit errors they believed he made.

I guess "character" only matters to these folks when there’s an "R" next to your name. Move that letter far to the left in the alphabet and victory is much more important.

Color me quite unsurprised.

Vulgarian Kathy Griffin on Friday said Sarah Palin performed a sexual act on John McCain when they first met in August 2008.

During a comedy performance in Anchorage, Alaska, Griffin made numerous attacks on Palin and her family, many filled with her usual assortment of obscenities.

But clearly the most disgusting was when the so-called comedienne said, "She was so famous as Governor, you know, when John McCain picked her after meeting her for ten minutes."

That set her up for the following astonishingly offensive punch line (video embedded below the fold, extreme vulgarity warning throughout, relevant section begins at 0:44, file photo):

KATHY GRIFFIN: She was so famous as Governor, you know, when John McCain picked her after meeting her for ten minutes. And, um, that must have been some blowjob. 

Amazing. 

This is what is acceptable to say about a married woman with five children as well as about an esteemed Senator who almost gave his life for our country?

Where are the feminists and the NOW crowd who are always speaking out for women’s rights?

After all, the implication is that the only reason McCain picked her was because of this fictitious act.

Is this REALLY where we are as a nation when this is not only acceptable, but judging from the applause of the crowd, considered fine entertainment?

Heaven help us.

The New York Times’s City Room blog included a Friday piece on the orphaned Web site of Hiram Monserrate, a former state senator who is again running for office.  From "When Not to Accept Comments:"

Now, as many will remember, the former Queens legislator was tossed out of the State Senate in February after he was convicted of assaulting his female companion. His vacant seat will be filled in a special election on March 16 — an election in which, improbably, the disgraced Mr. Monserrate is also a candidate, on the newly formed and hopefully (or is it cynically?) named Yes We Can! line. (This proves, definitively, that you can usually find more than enough New Yorkers to take part in any crazy idea you have.)

Candidate Monserrate (Yes We Can, Queens) doesn’t have a Web site for this campaign. But a few disgruntled residents found his old site and left some less-than-friendly messages.

Conveniently left unmentioned is the party to which Monserrate claimed allegiance as recently as last month.  As reported in The New York Times on February 9, 2010:

The State Senate on Tuesday expelled a senator convicted of domestic assault, the first time in nearly a century that the Legislature has forced a member from office.

The Senate voted 53-to-8 to immediately oust the senator, Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat convicted last fall of a misdemeanor for dragging his companion down the hallway of his apartment building.

Amazing, isn’t it, how quickly party affiliation is overlooked when the perp is a Democrat?  And yet, as documented repeatedly here on NewsBusters, quite predictable.        
 

The "Saturday Night Live" team last evening mocked CNN and many of its most prominent personalities, in particular, Wolf Blitzer.

"Such an exciting name for such a boring man," said actor Jason Sudeikis in a marvelous Blitzer costume.

CNN personalities weren’t the only target, for the sketch also lampooned the network’s use of citizen journalists via the Internet and cell phone videos.

"Once again, CNN asks, are you there?" said Sudeikis. "Are you on the scene?" 

"Then send us your updates and send us your photos," he continued. "In other words, do our job for us" video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

JASON SUDEIKIS AS WOLF BLITZER: Good evening, I’m Wolf Blitzer, such an exciting name for such a boring man. Tonight, on the "Situation Room," campuses across America are in turmoil. Students in over 30 states have rallied to protest a rise in tuition in the face of sweeping budget cuts. Once again, CNN asks, are you there? Are you on the scene? Then send us your updates and send us your photos. In other words, do our job for us.

We go now live to another part of the studio where senior political analyst Gloria Borger will read a stranger’s e-mail.

KRISTEN WIIG AS GLORIA BORGER: Thank you, Wolf. This just in, Mike D’agastino from UC Davis writes — "I think the real problem on campus is the food. Why I got to eat turkey burgers every day? And why they don’t serve dinner at 3AM when I hungry. And where my Frisbee at?" Probing questions, Mike. Back to you, Wolf.

SUDEIKIS: Thank you, Gloria. Now I understand we just received a photo from a student at UC Berkeley. It’s titled breaking development. Let’s just put the photo on TV without even screening it. Terrific. Well, we’ve heard from the young and vibrant. Now, let’s hear from the old and cranky with our own Jack Cafferty.

BILL HADER AS JACK CAFFERTY: Hello, Wolf. I’m reporting live on the scene in the CNN studio, sitting right next to you. I’ve got something here called a tweet from Colorado State. It reads, "Can’t w8 to c u you all @ the par-ty pantz optinal…" I believe he meant optional. "B.Y.O condams, haha. 4 real tho no shirtz." Thank you, @finger-blaster69. Great stuff. Back to you, Wolf.

SUDEIKIS: Thank you, Jack. Breaking news out of the University of Florida. CNN has obtained a cell phone video of what I’m told is a student leader about to give an important speech. ♪♪ It’s a party it’s a party ♪♪

Excuse me, sir. Sir! ♪♪ It’s a party it’s a party ♪♪♪♪

Well, that’s just wonderful. And finally, for an international perspective, we go now to our own Christiane Amanpour on location.

JENNY SLATE AS CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Good evening, I’m Christiane Amanpour. And I am indeed on location in the CNN parking lot after I accidentally locked my ID badge inside my Subaru. I have obtained yet another unverified, unchecked, unscreened cell phone video, this time from the Sorbonne in Paris. ♪♪ It’s a party it’s a party ♪♪♪♪

SUDEIKIS: Fantastic. We’ll take a break. When we return, our own Rick Sanchez signs in to Chatroulette to get a new perspective from America’s genitals. I’ve been Wolf Blitzer, and you’ve been asleep.

Interesting that "SNL" would go after CNN’s fascination with New Media, as NewsBusters noticed the same thing during last Saturday’s coverage of the Chilean earthquake and resulting tsunamis.

In the end, the incorporation of new technologies into reporting should make the content more exciting.

Apparently the folks at CNN haven’t figured that out yet making it perfect material for "SNL" writers. 

Not the biggest deal, but emblematic of how the Washington press corps consider anyone to the right of center, no matter if barely so, to be a “conservative,” while anyone who strays at all from a perfect liberal line is not worthy of an ideological label.

Setting up Sunday’s Face the Nation, CBS’s Bob Schieffer described guest Evan Bayh simply as “the Indiana Democrat” while tagging Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is every bit, if not more, off the conservative reservation as Bayh is off the liberal one, as a “conservative Republican.” Schieffer:

Today on Face the Nation: Is Washington broken? We’ll talk to Evan Bayh, the Indiana Democrat. He’s become so disillusioned with the Senate he’s leaving, but he’s still trying to find a way to ease the partisan rancor by teaming with conservative Republican Lindsey Graham who’s also here to talk about that…

At no time during the March 7 show did Schieffer ever label Bayh as a liberal.

Liberal talk radio host Mike Malloy on Saturday blamed Glenn Beck for Thursday’s shootings at the Pentagon.

"So, a shooting at the Pentagon, a Glenn Beck fan who obviously went beserk and decided to kill police officers at the, at the Pentagon and didn’t succeed," Malloy disgustingly said on his radio show Saturday.

"The perpetrator apparently is not dead yet either, so maybe they can, when they fix him up, they can waterboard him a bit and find out what it was that Glenn Beck said that made him decide to open fire."

Readers are strongly cautioned before proceeding for this is astonishingly offensive (YouTube audio embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Radio Equalizer):

MIKE MALLOY, HOST: So, a shooting at the Pentagon, a Glenn Beck fan who obviously went beserk and decided to kill police officers at the, at the Pentagon and didn’t succeed; at least neither officer is dead yet. [...]

And the perpetrator apparently is not dead yet either, so maybe they can, when they fix him up, they can waterboard him a bit and find out what it was that Glenn Beck said that made him decide to open fire, uh, near the entrance of the Pentagon. [...]

Jesus, God, Glenn, you better back off, seriously. You’re pushing the nut cases in this country to the max. Well, that’s what you’re trying to do, never mind.

Wow. Is this REALLY where the unhinged Left are today?

Exit question: Does Malloy really believe this nonsense, or is he just auditioning for a slot on MSNBC?

For the second week in a row George Will gave a much-needed education to one of the media’s most beloved liberal economists.

During the Roundtable segment of Sunday’s "This Week," Berkeley professor Robert Reich falsely claimed health insurance companies are exhibiting huge profits: "That is money directly out of the pockets of Americans."

Will countered, "[C]onfiscate all the profits of all the health insurance companies, with those profits you could finance our healthcare for 48 hours."

Reich arrogantly responded, "[R]ecipients of health insurance don’t know what they are buying very often. Until there are common standards, minimal standards, then people are going to be taken."

This nicely set Will up to drive the ball out of the park, "There you have the premise of this legislation and the core of today’s liberalism: the American people are such dopes they can’t be counted upon to buy their own insurance" (video embedded below the fold with transcript): 

ROBERT REICH, AMERICAN PROSPECT: The health insurers are not, George, you said they’re popular and everybody likes their health insurer. They like their doctor. They hate their health insurer. And health insurance is going up in terms of rates 20, 30, 40, 50 percent in many states. In fact, Goldman Sachs just this past week has said to its many of its investors, "Invest in some insurance companies because they don’t have competition, and they have, are exhibiting huge profits." That is money directly out of the pockets of Americans.

GEORGE WILL, ABC: A, you say they have huge profits. As you know, confiscate all the profits of all the health insurance companies, with those profits you could finance our healthcare for 48 hours. What you do for the next 363 days I don’t know. Second, you say there’s not enough competition? Fine, let them compete in a national market across state lines.

REICH: Yes, let them compete across state lines, fine. But not a race to the bottom. Set minimum federal standards because we’ve seen over and over again that the recipients of health insurance don’t know what they are buying very often. Until there are common standards, minimal standards, then people are going to be taken. And that is what’s happened over and over again.

WILL: There you have the premise of this legislation and the core of today’s liberalism: the American people are such dopes they can’t be counted upon to buy their own insurance.

For the record, as NewsBusters has previously reported, health insurance companies are amongst the least profitable of all America’s industries. Here are 2008’s rankings done by Fortune magazine:

2008 Industry Rank as % of Revenues
1 Network and Other Communications Equipment 20.4
2 Internet Services and Retailing 19.4
3 Pharmaceuticals 19.3
4 Medical Products and Equipment 16.3
5 Railroads 12.6
6 Financial Data Services 11.7
7 Mining, Crude-Oil production 11.5
8 Securities 10.7
9 Oil and Gas Equipment, Services 10.2
10 Scientific, Photographic, and Control Equipment 9.9
11 Household and Personal Products 8.7
12 Utilities: Gas and Electric 8.7
13 Aerospace and Defense 7.6
14 Food Services 7.1
15 Industrial Machinery 6.9
16 Food Consumer Products 6.7
17 Electronics, Electrical Equipment 6.5
18 Commercial Banks 5.2
19 Telecommunications 5.1
20 Chemicals 5.0
21 Construction and Farm Machinery 5.0
22 Insurance: Life, Health (stock) 4.6
23 Information Technology Services 4.5
24 Computers, Office Equipment 4.3
25 Metals 3.9
26 Wholesalers: Diversified 3.5
27 Insurance: Property and Casualty (stock) 3.3
28 Specialty Retailers 3.2
29 General Merchandisers 3.2
30 Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services 3.0
31 Packaging, Containers 3.0
32 Beverages 2.9
33 Engineering, Construction 2.7
34 Health Care: Medical Facilities 2.4
35 Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care 2.2
36 Petroleum Refining 2.1
37 Food and Drug Stores 1.5
38 Pipelines 1.5
39 Wholesalers: Health Care 1.3
40 Semiconductors and Other Electronic Components 1.0
41 Energy 0.9
42 Home Equipment, Furnishings 0.7
43 Food Production 0.6
44 Wholesalers: Electronics and Office Equipment -0.3
45 Diversified Financials -0.6
46 Motor Vehicles and Parts -0.7
47 Insurance: Life, Health (mutual) -3.0
48 Hotels, Casinos, Resorts -4.5
49 Automotive Retailing, Services -7.9
50 Forest and Paper Products -9.6
51 Entertainment -10.0
52 Real Estate -13.4
53 Airlines -13.5

So, in 2008, health insurers ranked 35th in profitability returning a meager 2.2 percent on revenues. What this means is that for every dollar health insurers brought in, they made 2.2 cents.

Sadly, for liberal media members like Reich, that’s considered TOO MUCH! Nice job of Will to point out his inanity.

Of course, he’ll probably be the next liberal economist in the media to win a Nobel Prize.

But for now, Reich was just the second media darling in eight days to go head to head with Will and lose.

For those that have forgotten, George smacked around New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on last Sunday’s "This Week."

Who’s next?

Old Media’s fatal conceit is the belief that it’s not news unless it’s reported by a major newspaper, magazine, or television station. Reports from new and alternative media, in Old Media’s eyes, are tainted, and not to be believed…unlike, of course, the reliable, factual, and always objective mainstream media.

NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd, at right in a file photo, has been a leading critic of what he now has dubbed "Drudge-driven journalism," perhaps better described as journalism emanating from somewhere outside of Old Media’s newsrooms and television studios. "I just don’t think that that’s the proper way for us to decide what’s news," he told Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher of the Drudge Report’s influence and agenda-setting ability.

"There’s no worse crime in journalism these days than simply deciding something’s a story because Drudge links to it," he added. Apparently he still feels that NBC and its Old Media counterparts are qualified and capable of deciding what is and is not a story.

Which begs the question of where Old Media has been on numerous stories of late that surely the American people consider news, but the MSM did not. Chuck Todd himself decreed that the Van Jones truther story was unworthy of the media’s time.

Surely most Americans believe that having a Marxist, black nationalist, and wacko conspiracy theorist in charge of doling out $80 billion in federal funds is a story worth covering. Drudge agreed. Todd did not. Is he simply complaining that Americans don’t share his view of what constitutes news?

And as long as Todd is complaining about "activist journalism" that "creates controversies that don’t exist", perhaps he should save some disdain for the New York Times. The Times did, after all, run a story on then-presidential candidate John McCain’s alleged affair with a lobbyist without a shred of hard evidence. The story was bogus, but the Times had certainly created a controversy–one that hadn’t been there before.

The point is that journalism is journalism, regardless of its source. The Drudge Report is no more guilty of creating false controversies than the New York Times or other major media outlets (has everyone forgotten Dan Rather?). Neither is the Times any less a bastion "activist journalism" than Drudge.

Todd knows that he and his counterparts in Old Media are the ultimate arbiters of what constitutes news. That is a powerful position, and not one readily relinquished–especially to a (gasp) conservative.

Back in January, Harold Ford, Jr. proclaimed to Chris Matthews no fewer than four times: "I am a New Yorker" [see amusing video after the jump].  

But that profession of Big Apple-hood apparently didn’t cut it with NBC. Even as Ford was discussing today his reasons for not entering the New York Dem senatorial primary against Kirsten Gillibrand, Meet The Press displayed the graphic seen here, labelling Ford "(D-TN)."

If Harold can’t even persuade the folks at NBC of his New Yorker credentials, what chance did he have of convincing a state-ful of cynics?

Note: NBC might defend itself by saying it was simply describing Ford by his most recent elective position, "Fmr. Rep." from the Volunteer State.  But surely Harold would have preferred to be described by his current position: Chairman of the  Democratic Leadership Council–and preferably with a (D-NY) after his name. 

PS: Come to think of it, perhaps NBC was doing Harold’s bidding. Might the ultra-ambitious Ford be planning a return to his home state to take on Bob Corker, the man who defeated him for senator, in 2012?  Sample campaign line: "Yes, it was only when I went up to New York that I realized how much my heart was in Tennessee."

"Saturday Night Live" mocked the entire Democrat establishment last evening taking on President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and healthcare reform.

Fred Armisen playing Obama in a mock address to the American Nursing Association continually referred to healthcare legislation currently before Congress as "surprisingly unpopular."

"Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have assured me that unpopular though it may be, in the days ahead this bill will be passed by both the House and Senate and sent to my desk for signature," assured Armisen.

"Finally, after decades of effort, we will have real healthcare reform even though, as I have said, it may not be popular. Or viewed favorably by Americans. Or what the people want us to do" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

FRED ARMISEN AS PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon. Roughly sixteen years ago in 1993 and ‘94, a newly-elected Democratic President Bill Clinton working with the Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate attempted to pass the first serious health care reform in a generation. Predictably, the forces of the status quo went into action. The bill was attacked relentlessly. Unfairly distorted and became so unpopular it was finally abandoned. That fall of ‘94, the Democrat Speaker of the House was defeated in his own district and the Republicans took over both houses of Congress. I am here today joined by House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid to tell the American people this is not going to happen again. Now, polls may show the healthcare reform bill currently before Congress to be surprisingly unpopular.

KRISTEN WIIG AS NANCY PELOSI: They really don’t like it.

WILL FORTE AS HARRY REID: I thought it would be much more unpopular. Much more popular, excuse me.

WIIG: I was stunned.

ARMISEN: All the same. It is not going to be abandoned. It is a good bill. A good bill hat we have perhaps failed to properly explain. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have assured me that unpopular though it may be in the days ahead, this bill will be passed by both the House and Senate and sent to my desk for signature. Finally, after decades of effort, we will have real healthcare reform even though as I have said, it may not be popular. Or viewed favorably by Americans. Or what the people want us to do.
Naturally the same forces that fought reform sixteen years ago are back trying to convince members of Congress that a vote for this legislation is political suicide.

Now, granted this bill is very unpopular, but come on, does anyone seriously think Nancy Pelosi could lose in her San Francisco district? A place where Republican candidates often finish fourth behind professional dominatrixes – and homeless people. Let’s get real, that’s not going to happen.

Now, Senator Reid, I’ll admit, is in a different situation. He’s up for re-election this fall in Nevada where healthcare reform is especially unpopular. I’m not sure why, but it is.
Really, really unpopular. Angry mob unpopular. So let’s be frank, Harry could lose this November, but let me make something clear, I don’t think he will. Or at least it won’t be because of this unpopular healthcare bill. After all, he’s got other problems. Healthcare could poll at 100% and Harry Reid would still have problems. I think even Harry would agree he’s not the most telegenic or charismatic guy around. Am I right about that?
Plus he has been hurt by some of the sleazy deals he cut with other Senators in order to get health care passed. I mean you have to acknowledge they were sleazy.

FORTE: You’re right, they were. They were.

ARMESON: I mean the Cornhusker Kickback. It just smelled bad.

FORTE: It did.

ARMESON: Also, Harry hasn’t been able to spend much time back in Nevada campaigning as he’s been tied up here in Washington working on this deeply unpopular healthcare bill. But that doesn’t help. But still, I wouldn’t count Harry Reid out. He’s a scrapper. Plus even if he should lose, we’ll still have enough Democratic senators for a majority. I mean, no offense.

FORTE: None taken.

ARMESON: I mean, who knows? We might even be better off without him. I don’t know.

FORTE: Maybe.

ARMESON: But I’ll tell you what, even with all of Harry’s problems, I’ll bet he makes it, although you never know. Nevada is weird. Now, Nancy here, I’m sure of. Come on, San Francisco.

WIIG: I feel pretty good.

ARMESON: As for myself, I will unfortunately not be on the ballot this fall. I wish I could be because unlike this healthcare bill, I am really, really popular. You’ll see what I mean in 2012. Thank you and live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!

Interesting how the folks at "SNL" really harped on how unpopular the bill is, and how Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are willing to force it through regardless of what the people want.

Nice to see some honesty in the media concerning this issue even if from a comedy show.

Although this wasn’t very funny, this skit more accurately depicted what’s going on with healthcare reform than what’s been emanating from so-called "real journalists" for months.

Bravo, SNL. Bravo!

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Oscars.

Are you going to watch? Have any favorites? Will there be any political controversies? Expect some Obama lovin’? Could you care less?

Former Birmingham, Alabama mayor Larry Langford (pictured at right in AP photo), who is a Democrat, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday for bribery.

In reporting the story, Reuters did what a competent wire service should do, informing readers of Langford’s party affiliation early on:

The former mayor of Alabama’s largest city, Birmingham, was sentenced on Friday for his role in corrupt bond deals that threaten to mushroom into a massive U.S. bankruptcy case.

Larry Langford, a 63-year-old Democrat, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors had sought a term of at least 24 years after Langford’s conviction on an array of fraud and bribery charges last year.

As has sadly come to be expected, the same cannot be said for the Associated Press. Though it eventually got around to identifying two associates of Langford as "former Democratic Party" officials, it avoided tagging Langford. In the process, the wire service may have set a "Name That Party" record for most felony convictions (60) handed to a politician whose party affiliation was never identified.

The AP’s breaking news report opened the pathetic journalistic enterprise (HT to two e-mailers):

Former Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for taking some $235,000 in bribes in return for lucrative bond work.

U.S. District Judge Scott Coogler imposed the sentence Friday. Langford was convicted on 60 felony counts in October and removed from office.

Prosecutors had asked the judge to send the 63-year-old Langford to prison for at least 24 years, saying he hasn’t shown any remorse. The defense asked for no more than five years.

Two men who admitted bribing Langford while he was president of the Jefferson County Commission already have been sentenced to prison for at least four years each.

As you can see, no one’s party was named. This breaking report is more than likely what most AP subscribers who jumped on the report used as their source material.

The later full report by the AP’s Jay Reeves seemed to imply that Langford’s two business associates used to be Democrats, never directly identified the former Birmingham mayor’s party, and sent the astonishing 60 felony convictions statistic down the memory hole:

Former Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford was sentenced Friday to 15 years in federal prison for taking clothes, Rolex watches, loan payments and cash worth more than $240,000 as bribes in return for lucrative bond work.

… Langford and his wife have blamed his conviction on vindictive prosecutors, inattentive jurors and racism. Langford is black; most of the jurors were white.

Defense lawyers already are working on an appeal.

Langford, a dapper political figure, was convicted in October of taking cash, loans and gifts – including expensive clothes and jewelry – while he was president of the Jefferson County Commission. In exchange, prosecutors said, he steered county bond work to an investment banker who paid the bribes.

… The defense claimed the cash and other items were personal gifts and loans from friends and did not influence Langford’s decision on the bond work.

But investment banker Bill Blount pleaded guilty to making the payments, and lobbyist Al LaPierre admitted being the middleman. Blount, the former state Democratic Party chairman, last week was sentenced to more than four years in prison. LaPierre, the former executive director of the state Democratic Party, got four years. Blount also was ordered to pay $1 million to the government, and LaPierre $470,000.

There doesn’t seem to be any good reason why the reference to 60 felonies disappeared.

But then again, there wasn’t any good reason for Reeves to avoid naming Langford’s party, so the removal of the felonies stat is least consistent — consistently journalistically negligent.

John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable magazine reported that NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory faced a conservative question at a National Association of Broadcasters state leadership event, but he insisted NBC does a great job of presenting both ends of the political spectrum:

During a Q&A session following Gregory’s talk, a broadcaster in the audience suggested network news execs themselves might be guilty of only looking at a sliver of the country. He said one of the issues he had with networks, particularly as they continued to shrink, is that the decisionmakers had a world view limited by their schooling in the "Boston-to-Washington axis." Covering issues of faith, for example, was one place where they "had no concept of this reality of the rest of the country."

The broadcaster asked whether NBC was doing anything to "stop and realize that they have to look outside the small cocoon that they see as normal."

Gregory said the point was important, but one that could be "overmade." He said he thought NBC was doing a good job in its political reporting of covering "both ends of the spectrum" and had made "pretty good strides absorbing and reflecting different points of view."

Gregory conceded that the point about being East Coast-centric was valid, but he also said that NBC tries to keep in mind the "multi-background point of view that has to enter into our decisionmaking about what we cover and how we cover it."

That’s not the feeling you might get from hearing the rest of his message: that it’s unfortunate there’s no "common purpose" in Washington – that is, no agreement on passing Barack Obama’s legislative agenda. The story began:

Talking to broadcasters in Washington Tuesday at a National Association of Broadcasters’ annual state leadership conference , Gregory suggested that Washington, with the aid of the media, has divided itself into disparate streams that eschew common ground.

The theme of his talk, loosely, was community. That included the community broadcasters can create with the Olympics, the kind of appointment TV broadcasters do well. But he was also talking about the community spirit that seemed to be lacking in Washington. "There is no sense of common cause or common purpose," he said, and "no willingness to compromise. "

He suggested that the current media climate has made it easy for people to seek out only the news that fits their views. "We see in our media as well such a polarized environment that there is this connective tissue on the left and on the right to bond everyone together in a national way. So, you can seek out familiar viewpoints on demand. You can go throughout your whole day in your news consumption cycle without really hearing any contrary points of view to what you believe. And it has led to a very difficult environment in Washington."

He cautioned against misinterpreting the ease with which information can be accessed or disseminated to the weight it should be accorded. "Sometimes we forget how big and vast the country is," he said. "I got on twitter early on and have a lot of followers. I’ll go on there sometimes, though I will try to stop doing this now because you read several pages of venomous attack and you think: "maybe I won’t do that next week.’ But you can also get trapped into thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, this somehow represents what is really going on out there." And I’m sorry, it doesn’t. It represents a sliver of what is going on."

Speaking of Obama’s legislative agenda, on last Sunday’s Meet the Press, it stuck out that Gregory seemed insulted that former Rep. J.D. Hayworth would use the words "socialist" and "Obama" in the same sentence:

GREGORY: You are in a, a primary battle for re-election against former Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona. And on the issue of health care, this is what he says on his Web site, on the issues, "Nowhere is the Obama administration’s socialist agenda more evident than in their attempts to grab control over 17 percent of our nation’s economy." Socialist agenda, do you think that goes too far?

McCAIN: Look, you’ll have to have Mr. Hayworth on to explain the things he says.

GREGORY: All right.

McCAIN: I’m, I’m not ready to do that.

GREGORY: Do you think that goes too far?

McCAIN: Oh, well…

GREGORY: That this is a socialist agenda from the president?

McCAIN: Look, look, there is no doubt in my mind America’s a right-of-center nation and this administration is governing from the left. That’s why the president’s approval rating’s continued to, to decline. And I know you want to get off health care, and I will. But I want to say again–and Eric Cantor who’s coming on later will affirm this–we want to sit down and have negotiations, and we have a positive agenda, and we would love to see that agenda…

GREGORY: But–OK, but…

McCAIN: Yes.

GREGORY: …my question is do you think that kind of–because you’ve heard that description before, not just from J.D. Hayworth but others. Does it go too far to say the president’s agenda is a socialist agenda?

McCAIN: I, I think I gave my description. I think they’re governing from the left on a broad variety of issues, but I’ll let others speak for themselves. I, I have enough time taking care of my own misstatements.

Talk about tough love . . .

Frank Rich believes Barack Obama is approaching a "do or die moment" and that "we face the alarming prospect that his presidency could be toast" if he doesn’t push ObamaCare through.  Rich’s New York Times column of today, The Up-or-Down Vote on Obama’s Presidency, is a crushing compendium of criticism for a president he sees as talented but too timid.  

I’d encourage readers to read the full piece, but let’s have fun with this super-condensed version of Frank’s frustration-venting:

his preposterous backdrop . . .cheesy theatrics . . . This finest hour arrived hastily and tardily . . . We’ve heard this too many times before . . . “They are waiting for us to lead.” Actually, they have given up waiting . . .a sinking sense of disillusionment about his ability to exercise power . . . it won’t even be the opposition’s fault . . . The G.O.P. would be able to argue this fall, not without reason, that the party holding the White House and both houses of Congress cannot govern . . . The leadership shortfall we’ve witnessed during Obama’s yearlong health care march . . . missed deadlines, the foggy identification of his priorities, the sometimes abrupt shifts in political tone and strategy . . . theories as to why Obama has disappointed in Year One . . . In governing, Obama has yet to find a theme that is remotely as arresting to the majority of Americans . . . there is no consistent, clear message . . . the bill became a mash-up that baffled or defeated those Americans on his side and was easily caricatured as a big-government catastrophe . . . His domestic policies, whether on climate change or health care or regulatory reform, are reduced to items on a standard liberal wish list . . . too timid to confront the financial industry backers of his own campaign . . . and too fearful of sounding like a vulgar partisan populist . . . Obama offers no overarching narrative . . . Even. . . Warren Buffett . . . sounds more fired up about unregulated derivatives and more outraged about unpunished finance-industry executives than the president does.

Yikes.  This from one of PBO’s historically most avid supporters.  The column’s concluding words are "the clock runs out on Nov. 2."  If Rich is representative of Dem thinking and emotion, that clock might sound very loudly indeed.

The leftist blog The Raw Story is hyping an exclusive: "Famed NYT reporter tells Michael Moore capitalism driving humanity’s downfall." It’s merely an outtake from Moore’s hostile movie Capitalism: A Love Story. Former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, the radical author of books like "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America," warns of the coming eco-catastrophe.

But in one clip cut from the documentary — which Moore provided exclusively to Raw Story — he interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, who explains how capitalism is actually contributing to the very downfall of the human race and the "degradation of the planet."

Hedges is not a scientist. He’s been a foreign correspondent. It’s anybody’s guess how reporting from Africa or the Middle East makes you an authority on climate patterns:

"All sorts of people who have spent their lives studying climate change, from Bill McKibben on down, have warned us that we don’t have a lot of time left," Hedges said. "So it’s not just that capitalism has destroyed our economic system and hijacked our political system, but it literally is extinguishing the system that sustains life.

If that’s not thwarted, soon — and we already know that the planet will continue to heat up, no matter what we do, even if we were to stop 60 percent of our emissions now, which is sort of the minimum that most people are calling for….we will begin to see massive dislocations, environmental refugees, further depleting of natural resources. Overpopulation is also an issue. The UN estimates that by 2050 the size of the planet will double."

Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, a spinoff of the hard-left magazine The Nation. That’s a comfortable anti-capitalist match. He was awarded an honorary doctorate along with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright last May  from a Unitarian Universalist seminary, the Starr King School for the Ministry, in Berkeley, California.

Hedges recently wrote that Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney were right about Barack Obama being part of the corporate state, and that the time has come to support third-party candidates like Nader for the White House. 

If the New York Times thinks it’s fair to associate the tea-party movement with its most radical elements, can we do the same with them?

It wasn’t on the Fox News Channel (FNC) nor a Fox News production carried on Fox (such as Fox News Sunday), but President Barack Obama received a warm and appreciative session with John Walsh, marking the 1,000 edition of America’s Most Wanted, an entertainment program carried by the network which has failed to air the Obama press conferences shown by ABC, CBS and NBC.

Walsh began by offering Obama “congratulations on all the work you’ve been doing since you were President” and proceeded to praise “the work you’ve done with the Recovery Act,” aka the stimulus monstrosity, “but I know first-hand from the rank-and-file cops on the street what you’ve done for law enforcement on the local and state level.” After Obama recounted how the funding prevented layoffs amongst local police departments, Walsh reaffirmed: “I know first-hand the law enforcement community respects you and is appreciative of you getting that bill through in these tough economic times.”

The host of America’s Most Wanted on Fox also hailed Obama as “a very loud voice for victims, which is much appreciated from the victim community,” and admired him: “I know your daughters are proud of you, but you send a loud message and I feel the same way.”

Several of Walsh’s prompts to Obama in the interview conducted Wednesday at the White House and aired Saturday night:

> Mr. President, thank you for taking the time today, and congratulations on all the work you’ve been doing since you were President. It’s nice to see it again.

> Thank you so much for the kind words and I don’t know if people are very familiar with the work you’ve done with the Recovery Act, but I know first-hand from the rank-and-file cops on the street what you’ve done for law enforcement on the local and state level.

> I know first-hand the law enforcement community respects you and is appreciative of you getting that bill through in these tough economic times. I wanted to talk to you about the Adam Walsh Act. I had the great honor on the 25th anniversary of our 6-year-old son Adam’s abduction, turning a horrible day into a positive day. My family was in the Rose Garden. Elizabeth Smart was there. Many parents of murdered children when President Bush signed the bill. But the problem, of course – I know you’re so well aware and the problem that Vice President Biden and I face – is focusing this Congress in on funding this act. The problem is that states are not becoming compliant because they’re afraid that the federal money will come down. I know you want to try to help get that money.

> I know you’re a very loud voice for victims, which is much appreciated from the victim community.   

> I thank you for your time. I thank you for helping to focus this Congress on the Adam Walsh Act. I know your daughters are proud of you, but you send a loud message and I feel the same way. America’s Most Wanted is the court of last resort. It’s not about Americans being vigilantes or any of that, it’s about saying we need justice, we need these people caught, we need them off the streets, and we need the highest level of politicians to focus in on our needs.

If there’s one thing Rachel Maddow hates, it’s hypocrisy. That and dishonesty, oh, don’t get her started. Especially when they emanate from the GOP side of the aisle, at least as perceived by her.

But when coming from Maddow, well, let’s just say her blind spot is broad of breadth.

On her MSNBC show Tuesday, for example, Maddow repeatedly called Sen. Orrin Hatch a liar in response to a Hatch op-ed that day in the Washington Post criticizing Democrats for their expected use of budget reconciliation to pass health legislation.

In her criticism of Hatch (full segment can be seen here), Maddow cited numerous examples of legislation passed through reconcilation that Hatch voted for, followed by Maddow saying this (first clip in embedded video) –

MADDOW: Now he’s says that doing what he’s done all those times would wreak havoc! Orrin Hatch then goes on to admit that, yes, ‘both parties have used the process,’ he says, ‘but only when the bills in question stuck close to dealing with the budget. In instances in which other substantive legislation was included, the legislation had significant bipartisan support.’

That is a total, utter, complete, 100 percent, unambiguous lie. It is a lie. It is an L – I – E and I do not mean the Long Island Expressway. It is not the truth. I, maybe I’m naive. I find it hard to believe they think they can get away with stuff like this. In 2003 Republicans used reconciliation to get the Bush tax cuts passed, the tax cuts that exploded the deficit …

… but not before inexplicably causing the deficit to plummet. And I would not attribute Maddow’s refusal to accept this reality to her alleged naivete.

As reported by the Associated Press on July 8, 2005 –

WASHINGTON — Higher-than-expected tax receipts and the steadily growing economy have combined to produce an improved picture for the federal budget deficit, congressional analysts said yesterday.

The deficit for the current budget year, which runs through Sept. 30, should be significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion," according to the Congressional Budget Office. …

… Last year’s $412 billion deficit was a record in dollar terms, but economists say the more significant measure is against the size of the economy. In those terms, the current deficit picture — a $350 billion deficit for this year would equal 2.9 percent of gross domestic product — is significantly better than deficits witnessed in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Then, deficits of 4 to 6 percent of GDP were common.

The following year, on July 10 2006, The New York Sun ran an editorial titled "Laffer’s Victory" –

It’s official — Arthur Laffer wins. New data shows federal receipts surged in the first three quarters of the current fiscal year. Corporate tax receipts are up more than 26% over the same period last year, ringing in at $250 billion. Individual income tax collections, at $791 billion, are up 14% over the first nine months of fiscal 2005. …

On Oct. 12 2006, under the headline "US deficit hits four-year low" in the Boston Globe, the Associated Press reported –

WASHINGTON — The federal deficit fell to a four-year low in the budget year that just ended, a result President Bush pointed to yesterday in saying that Republicans are better stewards of the economy than are Democrats.

The administration said the deficit dropped to $247.7 billion — welcome news for Republicans struggling to keep control of Congress. Bush boasted that he had made good on a 2004 campaign promise to cut the deficit in half over five years. …

… Administration officials said the actual 2006 deficit is down to 1.9 percent of the gross domestic product. They said that is below the 40-year average deficit of about 2.3 percent of the GDP, which measures the value of all US goods and services. This continues a positive trend that comes despite soaring war costs and $50 billion in emergency spending for hurricane relief. …

All of which begs the question — what reversed the plummeting deficit and sent it skyward again? Massive federal spending, as described here at The Foundry, the Heritage Foundation blog.

Maddow, in attempting to pain Hatch as a hypocrite, cited numerous votes the Utah Republican took over the years that passed through reconciliation. (starting at 3:45 in the segment linked here and above). The legislation cited by Maddow included the omnibus budget reconciliation act of 1989, balanced budget act of 1995, balanced budget act of 1997, taxpayer relief of 1997 and several others dealing with the budget — for which reconciliation is intended.

 "In instances in which other substantive legislation was included," Hatch wrote in his op-ed, as cited by Maddow, "the legislation had significant bipartisan support." Not surprisingly, Maddow neglects to tell her viewers what Hatch wrote next, preferring instead to repeatedly label him a liar as if repetition makes it so.

Here’s what Hatch wrote next –

For example, Congress used reconciliation to carry welfare reform in 1996, which ultimately passed with 78 votes. And when reconciliation was used to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program that I authored with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1997, the program got 85 votes and served as the glue to passing the first balanced budget in 40 years. Both plans were negotiated with, and signed into law by, President Bill Clinton. …

Nor could Maddow bring herself to acknowledge two Democratic Party leaders cited by Hatch to bolster his case –

Less than a year ago, the longest-serving member of the Senate, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, said, "I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget ‘reconciliation’ process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform … legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted."

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, also a Democrat, said last March, "I don’t believe reconciliation was ever intended for the purpose of writing this kind of substantive reform legislation."

Back in early February, I wrote a NewsBusters post titled "Maddow Excels as Exemplar – of Intellectual Dishonesty." Little did I expect that Maddow would so quickly rack up more examples of her tenuous grasp on truthful reporting. Alas, I was naive.

Here, for example, is Maddow from her show on Thursday, describing GOP robocalls to constituents in Democrat Tom Perriello’s congressional district in Virginia (second clip in embedded video, starting at 0:51) –

NRCC ANNOUNCER: Hello, I’m calling from the National Republican Congressional Committee with a code red alert about an impending health care vote in Congress. Even though a majority of Virginia voters want them to scrap it, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama are planning to ram their dangerous, out-of-control health care spending bill through Congress anyway. What’s worse, Congressman Tom Perriello voted for this bill the last time it was up and might vote for it again. … Please call Tom Perriello now before it’s too late and tell him to vote no on Nancy Pelosi’s dangerous health care scheme. …

Followed by Maddow’s imaginative, read-between-the lines retelling of what was said in the call –

MADDOW: Anyway. So the message from Republicans to, again, a Democratic congressman, Tom Perriello in this case, is essentially, you know, look man, we’ll totally go after you if you vote yes on health reform again. But if you change your vote and vote no, we will leave you alone (laughs), right? We’ll never, ever call you a flip-flopper. We’ll never talk about the time you did vote for health reform, ever. We swear, inky (?) pinky swear.

The premise of this strategy, in other words, is that Democrats are stupid enough to think that after voting for health reform once, Republicans will back off and leave them alone and not try to beat them in November and not run attack ads against them if only they switch their vote and vote no and help out Republicans this second time. Also, they have some watches they’d like to sell you. They’re here inside my coat. I swear they’re real Rolexs.

Operative phrase here — "in other words" — which bear no relation to those actually stated in the call. And rest assured, the watches in Maddow’s coat are accurate only twice a day, though unintentionally so.

Another example, also from March 2, with Maddow going after Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky (third clip in video, at 2:14) –

MADDOW: It is not possible to report accurately on what’s been a very bizarre term of events in the Senate without also explaining that Sen. Bunning has a history of bizarre behavior, behavior that’s not just politically strong-willed, that’s not just him having extreme opinions on issues. But rather we mean literally strange behavior, to the point where even his hometown newspaper has at times questioned his mental fitness …

More accurately, it is not possible for Maddow to report accurately. She claims that Bunning’s "hometown newspaper" has "at times" questioned his mental fitness — followed by a single example of a newspaper doing so. And the paper cited is the Louisville Courier-Journal — Bunning was born in Southgate and, according to his congressional website, still lives there. Maddow falsely claims the Courier-Journal is Bunning’s "hometown newspaper" to imply it possesses more familiarity with him than a news outlet from elsewhere in the state — such as the one she cited.

Another example, from Maddow on Feb. 26 after a major snowstorm swept across the Northeast and caused power outages in several states. The storm was so powerful that it helped popularize a new word in the lexicon of weather – "snowicane". But as described by Maddow, the epic blizzard was hardly out of the ordinary (fourth clip in video, 2:58) –

MADDOW: … So once again the most powerful nation in the world has such decrepit, fragile infrastructure that we are stunned into helplessness and are shivering in the dark because it snowed in the winter, like it does every single year. USA, USA (while pumping arms in mock cheer) …

"Stunned into helplessness and are shivering in the dark" — an apt description of how liberals respond to crisis while waiting for Government to save them. Meanwhile, conservatives light candles, grab shovels and get to work restoring electricity. 

Final example, from Maddow’s appearance on "Meet the Press" on Feb. 14 in which she challenged House Republican Aaron Schock, again for alleged hypocrisy (fourth clip, 3:50) –

MADDOW (on her Feb. 15 MSNBC show): No one should bother engaging with policy hypocrites on policy because by their very hypocrisy they prove that they do not care about policy.

MADDOW (on Meet the Press day before): I mean, you in your district, just this week you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district. You voted against the bill that created that grant. And so, that’s happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them. That’s, I think, a problem that needs to be resolved within your caucus because, I mean, you seem like a very nice person but that’s a very hypocritical stance to take.

SCHOCK: Well, Rachel, with all due respect, I can assure you Republicans were not consulted on the stimulus bill …

MADDOW (from Feb. 15 MSNBC show): Whether or not House Republicans felt adequately consulted on the stimulus bill, that’s not the point. They all voted no on it, every single one of them. And that’s fine. You can be against the stimulus and not think it’s going to work and not going to create jobs. You can also be for the stimulus, you can think it’s going to work and create jobs. But you cannot be both against it and for it at the same time — unless you are a hypocrite. You cannot denounce it as creating no jobs and then claim that it’s creating lots of valuable jobs at the same time — or you’re a hypocrite.

And having allowed Schock all of five seconds to respond, Maddow triggers the trapdoor under his feet, lest her viewers learn that Schock made a strong argument in response — which he did, as can be seen from the rest of his answer (final clip in video, quotes below starting at 5:51) –

SCHOCK: … I can assure you, Republicans were not consulted on the stimulus bill. That bill was filed at 11 p.m. the night before the 10:30 a.m., we began debating it. None of our amendments were considered. There was no debate, no bipartisanship on that bill …

At this point Schock is interrupted by MTP moderator David Gregory, who asks, "to Rachel’s point, does that mean that you will not accept any federal money that comes the way of your district?" –

SCHOCK: No, I think that argument that liberals are making is absolutely ridiculous. With all due respect, Rachel, does that mean you’re going to give back your Bush tax cuts that you continue to rail against? (no response from Maddow)

The fact of the matter is, our country operates and (is) governed by a majority. And I along with almost all of my Republican colleagues and a good number of Democrats have voted against the stimulus, the omnibus, all of this runaway spending. But we’ve lost those battles in the House and at the end of the day …

Schock is again interrupted by Gregory, and Maddow, but he forces through his point that Maddow felt compelled to shield from her viewers –

SCHOCK: … At the end of the day, my constituents and their children and grandchildren will be on the hook for the debt that’s being created by this majority and they deserve to have their fair share of federal spending.

A valid argument Maddow would not let past her inner censor and onto her show — lest anyone inclined to criticize her think she might be honest.

On this past Tuesday’s episode of The Good Wife on CBS, viewers were treated to a scene in which a ballistics expert opens a gift, from a partner of a law firm, to find a book about Sarah Palin made up of, he discovers by thumbing through it, blank pages “satirically representing,” Amazon.com explains, “the mind and thinking of Sarah Palin.” The book, ‘Going Rouge: A Candid Look Inside the Mind of Political Conservative Sarah Palin.’

In the March 2 episode, Chicago law firm partner “Diane Lockhart,” played by Christine Baranski, engages the ballistics expert to help her with a murder trial. In her office, he notices a picture, on her credenza, of her with Hillary Clinton. Visiting him at his home office on a farm, she notices on his credenza a photo of him next to Palin: “Is that photo-shopped? You and the Barracuda?” He doesn’t deny he “photo-shopped” it: “No, she’s at a pro-life rally.”  
 
After his testimony exonerates her client, he sends her a gift in a box: Sarah Palin’s biography: Going Rogue, promptly her to chuckle. In return – the scene in the accompanying video clip – he sends her the book ridiculing Palin. He opens the box, picks up the book and discovers all its pages are blank.

Amazon’s description of the book:

This is a novelty book. The reader opens the book to find no text, just blank pages. The book contains no text. The book contains only blank pages. A parody of one of America’s best known political figures, demonstrated by symbolic blank sheets, satirically representing the mind and thinking of Sarah Palin. Give this book as a useful gift while making a clever and amusing political statement.

CBS’s synopsis of the program which airs Tuesday nights at 10 PM EST/PST, 9 PM CST:

THE GOOD WIFE is a drama starring Emmy Award winner Julianna Margulies as a wife and mother who boldly assumes full responsibility for her family and re-enters the workforce after her husband’s very public sex and political corruption scandal lands him in jail. Pushing aside the betrayal and public humiliation caused by her husband, Peter, Alicia Florrick starts over by pursuing her original career as a defense attorney.

As a junior associate at a prestigious Chicago law firm, she joins her longtime friend, former law school classmate and firm partner Will Gardner, who is interested to see how Alicia will perform after 13 years out of the courtroom. Alicia is grateful the firm’s top litigator, Diane Lockhart, offers to mentor her but discovers the offer has conditions and realizes she’s going to need to succeed on her own merit….

On this past Tuesday’s episode of The Good Wife on CBS, viewers were treated to a scene in which a ballistics expert opens a gift, from a partner of a law firm, to find a book about Sarah Palin made up of, he discovers by thumbing through it, blank pages “satirically representing,” Amazon.com explains, “the mind and thinking of Sarah Palin.” The book, ‘Going Rouge: A Candid Look Inside the Mind of Political Conservative Sarah Palin.’

In the March 2 episode, Chicago law firm partner “Diane Lockhart,” played by Christine Baranski, engages the ballistics expert to help her with a murder trial. In her office, he notices a picture, on her credenza, of her with Hillary Clinton. Visiting him at his home office on a farm, she notices on his credenza a photo of him next to Palin: “Is that photo-shopped? You and the Barracuda?” He doesn’t deny he “photo-shopped” it: “No, she’s at a pro-life rally.”  
 
After his testimony exonerates her client, he sends her a gift in a box: Sarah Palin’s biography: Going Rogue, promptly her to chuckle. In return – the scene in the accompanying video clip – he sends her the book ridiculing Palin. He opens the box, picks up the book and discovers all its pages are blank.

Amazon’s description of the book:

This is a novelty book. The reader opens the book to find no text, just blank pages. The book contains no text. The book contains only blank pages. A parody of one of America’s best known political figures, demonstrated by symbolic blank sheets, satirically representing the mind and thinking of Sarah Palin. Give this book as a useful gift while making a clever and amusing political statement.

CBS’s synopsis of the program which airs Tuesday nights at 10 PM EST/PST, 9 PM CST:

THE GOOD WIFE is a drama starring Emmy Award winner Julianna Margulies as a wife and mother who boldly assumes full responsibility for her family and re-enters the workforce after her husband’s very public sex and political corruption scandal lands him in jail. Pushing aside the betrayal and public humiliation caused by her husband, Peter, Alicia Florrick starts over by pursuing her original career as a defense attorney.

As a junior associate at a prestigious Chicago law firm, she joins her longtime friend, former law school classmate and firm partner Will Gardner, who is interested to see how Alicia will perform after 13 years out of the courtroom. Alicia is grateful the firm’s top litigator, Diane Lockhart, offers to mentor her but discovers the offer has conditions and realizes she’s going to need to succeed on her own merit….

Cam Edwards at NRANews.com passed along a New Jersey Star-Ledger story showing how gun dealers are held in low esteem. Matt Carmel of Maplewood, New Jersey was rejected when he applied to sponsor a little-league baseball team:

Carmel, a licensed gun dealer, applied to sponsor a team in the local Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken baseball league, using the name of his business — Constitution Arms.

He was rebuffed.

"Arbitrary, capricious and unfair," Carmel said of the perceived slight. "I don’t like being pigeonholed."

But what really makes the story maddening (and worth wider attention and commentary) are the sponsors that have been allowed:

But, Carmel notes, other sponsors could be deemed "inappropriate" as well. The league overseers, he said, have permitted sellers of liquor and tobacco, as well as a Cluck-U Chicken eatery whose promos feature a scantily clad woman in a bikini with the suggestive words "Large Breasts, Juicy Thighs. Luscious Legs."

One would think that people who are nervous about controversy might avoid a "Cluck-U Chicken" team for young boys. Here’s more detail:

It all started in October, when Carmel, an NRA certified pistol instructor and licensed firearm dealer, sent a letter to the South Orange-Maplewood Baseball Committee, which oversees 120 softball and baseball teams with 1,250 children ages 5 to 15.

Since his 10-year-old son, Kalman, had played the season before, Carmel wanted to put up the $300 fee to sponsor a team himself.

But in an 8-1 vote, the volunteer committee said thanks, but no thanks.

"I voted against it," said Craig Gruber, secretary of the committee. "Personally … given the nature of that business, I’m certain there’d be quite a bit of contention. We don’t need the headache. … We have our hands full with deciding whether infield fly rules should be in effect for 9-year-olds."

Carmel said he learned of the decision via e-mail last Sunday, after weeks of exchanging letters that warned of the "potential controversy."

The committee, Gruber said, hasn’t taken up-or-down votes on sponsors, at least in his seven years’ experience. But this time, Constitution Arms caught its eye.

"My sense was the backlash would be extraordinary," he said.

To Carmel, the rejection flies in the face of the perception South Orange-Maplewood, which share a school system, is a proverbial big tent open to all ideas.

"Only if you agree with them," he said. "But if you don’t, the tent is not that big."

Cam Edwards at NRANews.com passed along a New Jersey Star-Ledger story showing how gun dealers are held in low esteem. Matt Carmel of Maplewood, New Jersey was rejected when he applied to sponsor a little-league baseball team:

Carmel, a licensed gun dealer, applied to sponsor a team in the local Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken baseball league, using the name of his business — Constitution Arms.

He was rebuffed.

"Arbitrary, capricious and unfair," Carmel said of the perceived slight. "I don’t like being pigeonholed."

But what really makes the story maddening (and worth wider attention and commentary) are the sponsors that have been allowed:

But, Carmel notes, other sponsors could be deemed "inappropriate" as well. The league overseers, he said, have permitted sellers of liquor and tobacco, as well as a Cluck-U Chicken eatery whose promos feature a scantily clad woman in a bikini with the suggestive words "Large Breasts, Juicy Thighs. Luscious Legs."

One would think that people who are nervous about controversy might avoid a "Cluck-U Chicken" team for young boys. Here’s more detail:

It all started in October, when Carmel, an NRA certified pistol instructor and licensed firearm dealer, sent a letter to the South Orange-Maplewood Baseball Committee, which oversees 120 softball and baseball teams with 1,250 children ages 5 to 15.

Since his 10-year-old son, Kalman, had played the season before, Carmel wanted to put up the $300 fee to sponsor a team himself.

But in an 8-1 vote, the volunteer committee said thanks, but no thanks.

"I voted against it," said Craig Gruber, secretary of the committee. "Personally … given the nature of that business, I’m certain there’d be quite a bit of contention. We don’t need the headache. … We have our hands full with deciding whether infield fly rules should be in effect for 9-year-olds."

Carmel said he learned of the decision via e-mail last Sunday, after weeks of exchanging letters that warned of the "potential controversy."

The committee, Gruber said, hasn’t taken up-or-down votes on sponsors, at least in his seven years’ experience. But this time, Constitution Arms caught its eye.

"My sense was the backlash would be extraordinary," he said.

To Carmel, the rejection flies in the face of the perception South Orange-Maplewood, which share a school system, is a proverbial big tent open to all ideas.

"Only if you agree with them," he said. "But if you don’t, the tent is not that big."

Perhaps this was a cry out for relevancy – something she hasn’t been since the Clinton administration, but comedienne Roseanne Barr is showing her social commentary knows no bounds.

In a March 4 post on her blog, Barr used the suicide of Marie Osmond’s son, Michael Blosil, to go on a sick and twisted anti-religion screed. According to the former sitcom star, any underlying issues that led to Blosil taking his own life were a result of "his church and the people in it":

"marie osmonds poor gay son killed himself because he had been told how wrong and how sick he was every day of his life by his church and the people in it. Calling that ‘depression’ is a lie!"

Barr, with a total disregard for the rules of grammar, capitalization and punctuation, continued her rant by doling out criticism against the Mormon faith, ironically in the same way she seems to indicate that particular church acts toward homosexuality.

"Yet, even though the people they say they love the most in all of their public displays and speeches (THEIR KIDS AND FAMILY!!) are gay,– their own children,for crying out loud- these people cannot find the christian decency and compassion within themselves to stop their hypocritical gay bashing!!" Barr wrote. "How sickening. I know so many mormon kids who were gay and committed suicide, and I just cannot and will not stay quiet in order to not offend bigots anymore."

To fix the situation – Barr declared it is time for Marie Osmond to denounce her Mormon faith because in her view it is what God wills.

"Marie please don’t talk about how your faith in your church has helped you get through this one!" Barr wrote. "Please get some integrity and tell that church of yours that you will leave it and stop giving it ten percent of your money if they don’t stop trying to destroy your kids’ and all gay people’s civil rights and dreams and hopes!! G-d is trying to use you for something good and this is your opportunity! Your church is wrong and on the wrong wrong wrong side of things!"

Barr has come back and praised Marie Osmond, but has shown no remorse for her previous anti-religion comments in a post dated March 6.

"I have no more tolerance for any religion in any way," Barr wrote. "They are all obsolete and harmful."

Osmond is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I’m not sure which is worse: Sean Penn hoping his critics die screaming of rectal cancer, or CBS News’s Lara Logan finding that funny.

As NewsBusters previously reported, CBSNews.com on Friday posted a preview of an interview to be broadcast on "Sunday Morning."

In it, Logan asked Penn, "Does it make you angry when people talk about, you know, ‘Sean Penn, the Hollywood star, the movie star, coming in and trying to do something,’ and they’re kind of cynical about it?"

Penn arrogantly answered, "You know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah" (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

Watch CBS News Videos Online

LARA LOGAN: Does it make you angry when people talk about, you know, ‘Sean Penn, the Hollywood star, the movie star, coming in and trying to do something,’ and they’re kind of cynical about it?

SEAN PENN: No.

LOGAN: Do you hate that question?

PENN: No. I guess I’ve been so away from it all, [in] our tent camp in Haiti, that I haven’t had an awful lot of time to pay attention to them. You know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah, you know, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on it.

Isn’t that a special treat for your Sunday morning?

I mean, it’s bad enough CBS actually thinks viewers are interested in what this pompous buffoon has to say about anything.

But wouldn’t it be wise of them to edit out this segment when he’s wishing his critics would die, and one of their high-profile reporters is laughing after he says it?

Of course, if they were at all embarrassed about the disgusting behavior on display, CBSNews.com wouldn’t have previewed the exchange at its website. 

Well, CBS – I’m one of Sean Penn’s critics. Do you want ME to die screaming of rectal cancer?

Somehow I imagine not liking the answer. 

Chris Matthews on Friday referred to Liz Cheney as the Daughter of Dracula.

As the "Hardball" discussion turned to the new television ad released by Cheney’s Keep America Safe, the MSNBCer invited on a Republican and Democrat strategist to offer their views.

"The message of that ad is Dick Cheney`s still out there and he`s still angry about the way his war is being treated by history," said Democrat strategist Steve McMahon.

Matthews interrupted with a laugh, "So, this is Daughter of Dracula?" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

CHRIS MATTHEWS,HOST: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Time now for the strategists. Steve McMahon is a Democratic strategist, and Todd Harris is a Republican strategist. The day will come when I will not have to introduce you gentlemen. Let`s start with a new ad put out by the organization Keep America Safe. It`s a conservative group co-founded by Dick Cheney`s daughter, Liz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The pendulum is starting to swing. America run by progressives is about to happen. We`re going to be looking for people who share our values.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So who did President Obama`s Attorney General Eric Holder hire? Nine lawyers who represented or advocated for terrorist detainees. Who are these government officials? Eric Holder will only name two. Why the secrecy behind the other seven? Whose values do they share? Tell Eric Holder Americans have a right to know the identity of the al Qaeda Seven.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: What do you make of that?

TODD HARRIS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I like it. I think that`s a pretty effective ad.

MATTHEWS: What`s the message?

HARRIS: The message is, basically, are there people who don`t support the military tribunal process formulating detainee policy inside the Justice Department. You`ve got the administration all over the map now on this issue. You`ve got Holder saying one thing. You`ve got the white house –

MATTHEWS: Do you think a person who has played his role as a defense attorney for an accused terrorist, that that person is suspect?

HARRIS: I think someone who has argued in court against military tribunals, if they`re going to be formulating detainee policy within the Justice Department, then the justice administration should just come out and say that.

MATTHEWS: I thought these were just people who defended these guys in court. Now we`re against the whole system.

HARRIS: No, one of them in particular has called military tribunals a kangaroo court. So if that woman`s going to be formulating detainee policy, they ought to come out and say that`s what the policy is.

STEVE MCMAHON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The message of that ad is Dick Cheney`s still out there and he`s still angry about the way his war is being treated by history, by historians, and frankly –

MATTHEWS: So, this is Daughter of Dracula?

MCMAHON: Well, it`s Daughter of Dracula.

MATTHEWS: Like in the old movies, gothic.

Amazing what you’re allowed to call a former vice president and his daughter on MSNBC, isn’t it?

The folks at General Electric and NBC must be so proud.

Comedian Jon Stewart actually called Sarah Palin a genius Wednesday.

As he reviewed her performance on the "Tonight Show" the previous evening, the "Daily Show" host said, "I don’t say this to a lot of comics, especially new ones, but if you had a day job, you should quit it." 

The Comedy Central star continued, "Her ability to do this well is just one more example of the genius of Sarah Palin: she can master anything."

Unfortunately, he was less pleased with Mitt Romney’s performance on the "Late Show" the same evening: "I think Romney is always going to be Gore to Palin’s Bush. He wants it more. He’s worked harder for it. He looks the part. But he ain’t gettin’ it" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Right Scoop):

JON STEWART, HOST: Yeah, that was not bad. That was actually not bad. It was very good, as a matter of fact. It was quite good. You know, I don’t say this to a lot of comics, especially new ones, but if you had a day job, you should quit it. Dive into this comedy thing fulltime. You know what? Her ability to do this well is just one more example of the genius of Sarah Palin: she can master anything. Four-year term of governor, BOOM, done in two and a half years. Standup comic: her first gig as a standup comic is the "Tonight Show." You cannot underestimate this woman.

You know who you have to feel bad for? Mitt Romney. Coincidentally, he was on the "Late Show" with David Letterman at the exact same time making his pitch to be America’s conservative sweetheart. But you know what? I think Romney is always going to be Gore to Palin’s Bush. He wants it more. He’s worked harder for it. He looks the part. But he ain’t gettin’ it. [...]

Yes, yes, yes. Interesting story about your father and how much he meant to you and the inspiration that you found in him. Um, I’m sorry, Gov. Palin, would you like to show Gov. Romney how it’s done?…BOOM. Hey, Romney: enjoy your lobbyist job.

Funny stuff, but it makes you wonder whether Stewart’s view of Palin has actually improved, or if this was just a bit.

Stay tuned.

Comedian Jon Stewart actually called Sarah Palin a genius Wednesday.

As he reviewed her performance on the "Tonight Show" the previous evening, the "Daily Show" host said, "I don’t say this to a lot of comics, especially new ones, but if you had a day job, you should quit it." 

The Comedy Central star continued, "Her ability to do this well is just one more example of the genius of Sarah Palin: she can master anything."

Unfortunately, he was less pleased with Mitt Romney’s performance on the "Late Show" the same evening: "I think Romney is always going to be Gore to Palin’s Bush. He wants it more. He’s worked harder for it. He looks the part. But he ain’t gettin’ it" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Right Scoop):

JON STEWART, HOST: Yeah, that was not bad. That was actually not bad. It was very good, as a matter of fact. It was quite good. You know, I don’t say this to a lot of comics, especially new ones, but if you had a day job, you should quit it. Dive into this comedy thing fulltime. You know what? Her ability to do this well is just one more example of the genius of Sarah Palin: she can master anything. Four-year term of governor, BOOM, done in two and a half years. Standup comic: her first gig as a standup comic is the "Tonight Show." You cannot underestimate this woman.

You know who you have to feel bad for? Mitt Romney. Coincidentally, he was on the "Late Show" with David Letterman at the exact same time making his pitch to be America’s conservative sweetheart. But you know what? I think Romney is always going to be Gore to Palin’s Bush. He wants it more. He’s worked harder for it. He looks the part. But he ain’t gettin’ it. [...]

Yes, yes, yes. Interesting story about your father and how much he meant to you and the inspiration that you found in him. Um, I’m sorry, Gov. Palin, would you like to show Gov. Romney how it’s done?…BOOM. Hey, Romney: enjoy your lobbyist job.

Funny stuff, but it makes you wonder whether Stewart’s view of Palin has actually improved, or if this was just a bit.

Stay tuned.

Filling in for Mark Levin on his national radio talk show on Thursday, Houston radio host Michael Berry picked up on MRC’s recently-released “Media Bias 101” report detailing dozens of polls since 1981 showing journalists liberal attitudes and strongly pro-Democratic voting record. “I’m sitting on a great study done by the Media Research Center, Media Bias 101,” Berry enthused. “It’s one of the best reports I’ve ever seen.” [audio excerpt here]

Berry was making the point that new media technologies such as Facebook lets citizens inform each other and mobilize to affect public policy without being dependent on a relatively few unrepresentative journalists: “The ability for people to communicate and to interact in the way that Facebook allows is an absolute game changer….People that can’t get hired at big newspapers or big TV stations [are now] changing public policy in profound ways.”

Here’s some of what Berry had to say near the beginning of the first hour of the March 4 Mark Levin Show (Levin was off that night getting ready for his Friday night speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.)

If you think about political discussions among societies — you can go back to the founding of the United States, or you can go before that. I’m a student of the history of the American Revolution, the early days, and you look at Ben Franklin and the printing press and the power he had as a publisher, as a printer, as a "leather-apron man," as he called it. And you think about the importance of the newspaper, and you think about the influence of the newspaper, and particularly of those who wrote it, those few who wrote it. They controlled the message. They controlled so much in American life. They influenced so much in American life.

And if you think of the William Randolph Hearsts, if you think of the Horace Greeleys, and if you think of the influential members of early American society, all the way up until the age of the electronic media, the television, and that began to shift it. And there the Edward R. Murrows, and there the Walter Cronkites, and to a lesser extent in a later day, the Dan Rathers. And the influence they had, some of it terrible.

You think about the fact that the average American, the average American on whom governmental policies would be thrust, had so little influence over the medium, so little influence, so little input in the process. And it’s only been — there’s a great piece in the Wall Street Journal today about Facebook as a business, and how they started in ‘04, ‘05, and this, this, this guy [Mark] Zuckerberg being a student at Harvard and, you know, being a geek who just wanted a way, you know, to interact there and find more girls.

And out of that has developed what I originally described as a very silly process, but I have come to understand the content might often be silly, but the platform is important. The ability for people to communicate and to interact in the way that Facebook allows is an absolute game changer on a level so profound we couldn’t have imagined it twenty years ago. Even an e-mail is a one-way street. Even an e-mail requires such a cumbersome process to communicate.

The reason the daily newspaper is dying is we don’t need some pointy-headed, bow-tie wearing, seersucker-suit editor that’s against the death penalty and for abortion, that’s for every liberal — I’m sitting on a great study done by the Media Research Center, Media Bias 101 from 1981, and I reviewed this today. It’s one of the best reports I’ve ever seen showing the inherent bias in the media, the type of people that enter particularly the print media, and how biased they are.

And if you imagine that in only the last few years the process has changed so dramatically that every single American has the ability not just to participate in the process beyond the election, the voting franchise, but has the ability to change public policy. People that can’t get hired at big newspapers or big TV stations, changing public policy in profound ways.

Bill O’Reilly fired back at Tom Hanks on Friday after the Oscar-winning star mocked Fox News on MSNBC earlier in the day.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Hanks was on "Morning Joe" yesterday attacking Fox News, Ann Coulter, and Tea Partiers.

"[H]e goes to a very low rated, left-wing network, where he poses as a producer playing off a video that showed a fight in an Italian TV newsroom," said O’Reilly.

"Now, that doesn’t diminish his talent, which is major, but it does make him kind of a mindless partisan" (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

BILL O’REILLY, HOST: For some reason, actor Tom Hanks, who’s had a great career, has moved far to the left politically. Now Mr. Hanks is promoting an HBO program. But he won’t appear on FOX News, by far, the highest rated cable network.

Instead, he goes to a very low rated, left-wing network, where he poses as a producer playing off a video that showed a fight in an Italian TV newsroom. The whole thing was beyond bizarre.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HANKS: We can go back to the Italian FOX Network.

I want to show that again because I’ll add the translation. I think the problem with the Tea Party members is that right now, they’re not going to get along. We have to all be – I tell you right now, you know, you put that on the Internet like that, I’m going to kill you. That’s not the right story. You can’t do that to Ann Coulter. She’s a pretty woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’REILLY: A real riot, Alice. And here’s the deal with Mr. Hanks. If he has a political beef with FOX News or conservatives or whomever, he should state it. Be a man. Tell us what you think. Most Americans respect that

But over the years, Mr. Hanks has become an ideological sniper. And I still don’t know why he’s like that. What’s his beef? What’s he talking about? Nobody knows. Now, that doesn’t diminish his talent, which is major, but it does make him kind of a mindless partisan. Again, state your case, Tom. Don’t be a pinhead.

Yeah, Tom – don’t be a pinhead! 

"When we see crazy, senseless deaths like this, we can only ask why, why, why couldn’t it have been Glenn Beck?"

So joked Bill Maher Friday evening on HBO’s "Real Time."

During his opening monologue, Maher addressed John Bedell, the man that was shot and killed Thursday when he attacked the Pentagon.

For some reason, the comedian used the incident as a vehicle to go after the Fox News host (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Ed Morrissey, file photo):  

BILL MAHER: Now, speaking of crazy white people, you know about the Truthers? You know who these people are? I had to throw them out of the studio one night. These people who think 9/11 was an inside job, that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile. Well, yesterday one of them tried to shoot his way into the Pentagon. Or did he? This sad, he left a, they got him, but you know, he left a rambling, paranoid manifesto on the Internet about how the government was going after his freedom. You know, it’s sad. When we see crazy, senseless deaths like this, we can only ask why, why, why couldn’t it have been Glenn Beck?

Unlike when Maher wished the assassination attempt on then Vice President Dick Cheney had been successful, this was clearly a joke in an opening monologue.

But is wishing someone dead funny? 

And what does it say about the folks that attend the filming of "Real Time" that they laughed and applauded rather than hissed and booed?

Sickening. Truly sickening.

That said, Maher really did throw a Truther off his set a few years ago.

Now THAT was FUNNY!

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Wanna talk bloat?

President Obama’s proposed budget would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, congressional budget analysts said Friday. Proposed tax cuts for the middle class account for nearly a third of that shortfall. The 10-year outlook released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is somewhat gloomier than White House projections, which found that Obama’s budget request would produce deficits that would add about $8.5 trillion to the national debt by 2020.

How will Obama, the Democrats, and their media minions blame this on George W. Bush?

John Patrick Bedell was a registered Democrat who believed George W. Bush was behind 9-11.  So how does Good Morning America portray him?  As a right-wing extremist, part of a pattern of anti-government violence that flares during Dem presidential administrations . . .

GMA had a two-part segment on Bedell this morning.  First came a reasonable report by Martha Raddatz.  At one point, as images of the WTC in flames appeared, she did state that "there had been internet postings, laced with conspiracy theories about 9-11, and government corruption."  Raddatz stopped short of mentioning that Bedell explicitly accused the Bush admin of being behind 9-11, calling them a "murderous government" and "collection of gangsters" that sacrificed "thousands of its citizens" on September 11th.

But then came co-host Bill Weir, literally waving Janet Napolitano’s report about "right-wing extremism" in the air, and wondering out loud to ABC consultant and former FBI agent Brad Garrett, who was willing to go along, about having seen this before "during past Democratic administrations."

BILL WEIR: Back in April, almost a year ago, the Department of Homeland Security put out this assessment, called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."  And the title alone stirred up a political firestorm for the Secretary, Napolitano. She apologized, had to reaffirm that the government doesn’t monitor people who are opposed to this administration. But as a law enforcement officer, how do you make the distinction between somebody who has a legitimate different point of view from this government and someone who might become unhinged?

. . . .

WEIR: What are some of the, if this is a trend, have we seen this before in past recessions and past [pauses] Democratic administrations?

GARRETT: If you believe the numbers about people involved in extremist movements in this country, they increased in the ’90s when President Clinton was in power, and there’s some belief, at least in the right-wing folks, that Democrats will reduce their ability to have firearms, and they see their rights disappearing I guess under the Democrats.

Note:  I don’t want to fall into the mirror-image mistake of branding Bedell a conventional left-winger.  I’m with Michelle Malkin on this.  The bottom line is that he was insane, and filled with rage toward people across the political spectrum.  

But by the same token, it was entirely wrong of Weir, and reflective of his liberal bias, to associate Bedell exclusively with right-wing extremism and violence during Dem administrations.

It’s quite striking to see the degree to which traditional Islam has come under ferocious attack from the anti-religious impulse in Hollywood and New York and other bohemian centers in America. It is clearly anti-Islamic religious bigotry. Take a look at just some examples over the last year alone.

January: The Source Weekly, a weekly arts publication in Bend, Oregon, featured on its cover an image of Mohammed holding a child with President Obama’s head crudely posted on its body. Muslim protests were greeted with this dismissive response: "What is printed is printed, and we will not apologize."

February 12: The NBC sitcom "30 Rock" poked fun at Muslims when the Alec Baldwin character attempted to ingratiate himself with his beautiful Muslim girlfriend by fraudulently going through the motions at her mosque.

February 16: The Fox drama series "House" concentrated a plot on an imam who had privately lost his faith in Islam, while publicly being suspected of having AIDS. In other words he was a religious hypocrite, a heavy drinker who was accused of being a pedophile and who declared he "hate[d] his job." Ultimately, the doctors would find he was free of AIDS and he would rediscover his faith, but not until after all the negative stereotypes had gleefully marched through the episode.

April 4: On the Washington Post blog site "On Faith," atheist Susan Jacoby insisted Muslim leaders should burn in hell for adhering to their Islamic views on abortion: "Religious authorities ought to burn in hell, if there were a hell, for hypocritical apologies composed of words rather than deeds. There could surely be no better place for leaders who believe in forcing a nine-year-old to bear the children of her rapist."

April 13: In the weekly gay Hotspots magazine, an ad appeared promoting a gay club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The ad was clearly, unequivocally designed to insult Muslims. The ad depicted a DJ dressed as Mohammed ascending to Heaven – with an erection under his robe. Beneath him were several followers making crude comments about his anatomy on the order of, "I’ve seen bigger."

October 18: The annual Halloween special on "The Simpsons" inflamed the Islamic community with a zombie plot. When most of Springfield turned into zombies after eating tainted red meat, Bart Simpson spit out tainted hamburger before he could be transformed, and was hailed as "Mohammed the Prophet."

October 23: The film Eulogy for a Vampire opened in New York. The New York Times described the movie’s mix of religious imagery, whippings, and animal blood surrounding a plot of an all-male Sufi Muslim order whose "whose members seem to spend no time in spiritual reflection but quite a lot of time groping one another."

October 25: On HBO’s "Curb Your Enthusiasm," actor and show creator Larry David used a bathroom in a Muslim home to upset his friends by not only urinating while standing, which Muslims find religiously impure, but also urinating all over the walls, including a picture of Mohammed. David compounded the offense by talking incessantly while using the bathroom, which is also offensive. David seemed to take glee in offending Islamic audiences.

November 12: While discussing Islam on the prime-time "Jay Leno Show," Leno ridiculed Muslims for their faith. He said "Apparently, they ran out of places to send suicide bombers, so they are looking to outer space."

December 7: In a profanity-laced bit on his HBO special "Weapons of Self Destruction," Robin Williams referred to Mohammed as a "Nazi."

On and on it goes, and by now, perhaps you’ve already surmised: None of the foregoing was true. Hollywood would never dare ridicule Islam this way. The same holds true for every other appendage of the cultural left.

In each case, scratch the Muslim reference and replace it (with a few modifications) with the Catholic Church, with its priests and monks, with Pope Benedict XVI, and with Jesus and Mary. All of these incidents were cited in the Catholic League’s "2009 Report on Anti-Catholicism," but they only scratch the surface. There are 68 grisly pages of examples.

Catholicism is the single largest religious denomination in America. In our news and entertainment media today, anti-Catholicism remains "the last acceptable prejudice." It is not that the cultural left is out of touch. It is out to destroy.

It’s quite striking to see the degree to which traditional Islam has come under ferocious attack from the anti-religious impulse in Hollywood and New York and other bohemian centers in America. It is clearly anti-Islamic religious bigotry. Take a look at just some examples over the last year alone.

January: The Source Weekly, a weekly arts publication in Bend, Oregon, featured on its cover an image of Mohammed holding a child with President Obama’s head crudely posted on its body. Muslim protests were greeted with this dismissive response: "What is printed is printed, and we will not apologize."

February 12: The NBC sitcom "30 Rock" poked fun at Muslims when the Alec Baldwin character attempted to ingratiate himself with his beautiful Muslim girlfriend by fraudulently going through the motions at her mosque.

February 16: The Fox drama series "House" concentrated a plot on an imam who had privately lost his faith in Islam, while publicly being suspected of having AIDS. In other words he was a religious hypocrite, a heavy drinker who was accused of being a pedophile and who declared he "hate[d] his job." Ultimately, the doctors would find he was free of AIDS and he would rediscover his faith, but not until after all the negative stereotypes had gleefully marched through the episode.

April 4: On the Washington Post blog site "On Faith," atheist Susan Jacoby insisted Muslim leaders should burn in hell for adhering to their Islamic views on abortion: "Religious authorities ought to burn in hell, if there were a hell, for hypocritical apologies composed of words rather than deeds. There could surely be no better place for leaders who believe in forcing a nine-year-old to bear the children of her rapist."

April 13: In the weekly gay Hotspots magazine, an ad appeared promoting a gay club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The ad was clearly, unequivocally designed to insult Muslims. The ad depicted a DJ dressed as Mohammed ascending to Heaven – with an erection under his robe. Beneath him were several followers making crude comments about his anatomy on the order of, "I’ve seen bigger."

October 18: The annual Halloween special on "The Simpsons" inflamed the Islamic community with a zombie plot. When most of Springfield turned into zombies after eating tainted red meat, Bart Simpson spit out tainted hamburger before he could be transformed, and was hailed as "Mohammed the Prophet."

October 23: The film Eulogy for a Vampire opened in New York. The New York Times described the movie’s mix of religious imagery, whippings, and animal blood surrounding a plot of an all-male Sufi Muslim order whose "whose members seem to spend no time in spiritual reflection but quite a lot of time groping one another."

October 25: On HBO’s "Curb Your Enthusiasm," actor and show creator Larry David used a bathroom in a Muslim home to upset his friends by not only urinating while standing, which Muslims find religiously impure, but also urinating all over the walls, including a picture of Mohammed. David compounded the offense by talking incessantly while using the bathroom, which is also offensive. David seemed to take glee in offending Islamic audiences.

November 12: While discussing Islam on the prime-time "Jay Leno Show," Leno ridiculed Muslims for their faith. He said "Apparently, they ran out of places to send suicide bombers, so they are looking to outer space."

December 7: In a profanity-laced bit on his HBO special "Weapons of Self Destruction," Robin Williams referred to Mohammed as a "Nazi."

On and on it goes, and by now, perhaps you’ve already surmised: None of the foregoing was true. Hollywood would never dare ridicule Islam this way. The same holds true for every other appendage of the cultural left.

In each case, scratch the Muslim reference and replace it (with a few modifications) with the Catholic Church, with its priests and monks, with Pope Benedict XVI, and with Jesus and Mary. All of these incidents were cited in the Catholic League’s "2009 Report on Anti-Catholicism," but they only scratch the surface. There are 68 grisly pages of examples.

Catholicism is the single largest religious denomination in America. In our news and entertainment media today, anti-Catholicism remains "the last acceptable prejudice." It is not that the cultural left is out of touch. It is out to destroy.