Tag Archives: NewsBusters

Picking up the Sunday paper on November 15 could make a reader a little airsick – even while standing in the driveway. The Washington Post "news analysis" on the front page carried the headline "9/11 trial could become a parable of right and wrong: Before worldwide audience, both prosecution, defense seek control of narrative."

Does The Washington Post really think that the death and destruction of 9/11 "could" be right, or "could" be wrong?

Liberals cannot stand it when the national media won’t simply declare contentious debates over and their viewpoint settled truth. Take, for example, the allegedly inevitable impending destruction of global warming. It is the left’s position that the media should conclude one side is right and the other wrong. Conservatives should be ignored when they object. But that’s a debate over the future. It’s grotesque for an American newspaper to publish a "news analysis" that stares 9/11 in the face and said it "could" be a matter of right and wrong.

The Post’s analyst was reporter Barton Gellman, the author of a hostile biography of Dick Cheney (so he does have some definite feelings about who’s evil, after all.) He began by noting the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM for short) would make for "riveting drama." Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed on PBS it would not be a "show trial," but Gellman echoed the headline: "both sides hope to use the case to define Sept. 11 as a parable of right and wrong."

One might dismiss the willful moral ignorance as a simple journalistic endorsement of anything done by Holder and President Obama. But it sends a clear signal of the differences between the Bush era and the Obama era, and the media’s obvious preference for the latter. Liberal journalists always admonished President Bush for his "arrogance" and "certitude," and this is what they meant: he remained certain that the Americans who died on 9/11 were victimized, and were denied their civil liberties in the most complete and horrific way.

Liberals, on the other hand, have such a talent for finding moral "complexities" that they wind up showing more outrage for the fact that KSM was waterboarded than for the fact that KSM successfully plotted the death of 3,000 Americans. While liberals beat their breasts at the outrageous prospect of KSM being tried by a military commission, most Americans would prefer hustling KSM to the top of the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty and throwing him off.

Putting KSM on trial in a courtroom just blocks from his "accomplishment" is a decision that Holder and Obama made not in the interests of justice, but in the interests of flashiness, showing "the eyes of the world" in the most attention-grabbing, and increasingly tiresome way possible, that they are in no way comparable to Bush.

Liberals find "world opinion" to be a much more desirable and cosmopolitan standard than the worldview of simple-minded Americans. In the Post, Gellman quoted Georgetown law professor David Cole, without even calling him a "liberal," let alone what he should really be called, a radical defender of the civil liberties of terrorists. Cole argued that this trial marks a "sea change," that the sentencing will be "seen around the world as legitimate and not fixed," since the "world" thinks military commissions would be fixed.

Journalists don’t seem to consider whether "the world" is qualified to judge America as right or wrong, when "the world" is full of thuggish regimes that aren’t a fraction as punctilious as Americans are about the rule of law. Should the butchers of Tiananmen Square get to judge us? Should the Russians get to complain after their consolidation of power in the wake of the 2004 Beslan school massacre by radical Islamists? How about most of Europe, Great Britain and a handful of others excepted, that has redefined moral cowardice in the face of radical Islam? They should judge us, too?

Why can’t our media have enough respect for facts and for their fellow countrymen that we can all see a mass-murderer like KSM as a much greater villain than say, our naked-pyramid builders at Abu Ghraib? Will our media show 9/11 footage during this trial near Ground Zero with as much repetitive ardor as they bombarded us with Abu Ghraib clips in 2004?

It’s much more likely that they’ll wonder, in that wonderfully neutral way of theirs, whether Americans or terrorists will "control the narrative." And then we can get back to real problems, like the plight of the kangaroo rat.

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, President Obama caused a bit of an international incident this weekend when he bowed before Japanese emperor Akihito.

Not surprisingly, his adoring fans in the media have done everything in their power to cover for this peculiar demonstration by the most powerful man in the world.

With this in mind, the College Republicans at the University of Connecticut have put together a marvelous video to demonstrate how world leaders across the globe have addressed the emperor recently without bowing (video embedded below the fold, h/t Andrew Malcolm):

Now THAT'S entertainment!

CNN's Rick Sanchez hosted a forum of 'average joes' yesterday in a sort of focus group on Sarah Palin. CNN did not feel, however, that it needed to invite any Palin supporters. Despite claims that the group accurately represented American opinion, its responses demonstrated a total disconnect from actual public sentiment.

Sanchez, shown right in a file photo, asked the group to inform viewers of their political and party affiliations, concluding that there was "a pretty good cross-section" of Americans participating. He then asked about Palin. None of the viewers said they would vote for her in a presidential run, and none said they plan on purchasing her new book (video and transcript below the fold - h/t Townhall).

A screening of the show's guests would hardly be a surprise given Sanchez's history of playing fast and loose with the facts when conservatives are involved. He touted one of the quotes falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh, and later apologized for his mistake, adding to his long list of retractions. He has blamed the murder of a police officer on "right wing radio" and berated Fox News for alleged bias while ignoring CNN's.

Sanchez's coverage of Palin herself has not exactly been stellar. He suggested after she stepped down as governor that she might be pregnant.

Alright let's go to the folks joining us here today as what I sometimes affectionately call our twitter tour. How many of you call yourselves republicans? Raise your hand.

[One]

One. Conservatives? Raise your hand if you're a conservative.

[Two]

Okay, raise your hand if you're an independent, or a moderate.

[Seven]

Okay, raise your hand if you are a Democrat.

[Two]

Okay, good. So we've got a pretty good cross-section. I've never met you guys before. How many of you are planning to go out and buy Sarah Palin's book?

[None]

None? How many of you would vote for her for president?

[None]

None? How many would consider voting for her for president?

[None]

None? That surprises me.

Palin's poll numbers are not fantastic, but she has a decent base of support. As of November 13, according to a CBS News poll, 23 percent of Americans have a favorable view of her, compared to 38 percent who answered unfavorably. An ABC/Washington Post poll (see the link above) conducted from November 12-15 found that 46 percent of Americans would at least consider voting for Palin for president.

Given these poll numbers, it is plainly obvious that this group of citizens was not an accurate cross-section of Americans, despite Sanchez's claims. At the very least CNN could have brought one Palin supporter on out of the nine that appeared (a truly representative sample would have had roughly 4 voters considering supporting Palin, one of which would definitely vote for her).

Even if this were a completely random sampling of voters, Sanchez's claim that they comprised a "pretty good cross-section" of Americans is simply wrong. According to Gallup, 40 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative and 36 percent call themselves moderate. Only two of Sanchez's cross-section said they were conservative, while seven dubbed themselves moderates.

CNN should have made a better effort to portray the actual views of the country. Bogus cross-sections such as this skew Americans' views of the political stances of their fellow citizens, and can do nothing but confuse or misinform the channel's audience.

Rachel Maddow wants you to stop referring to Nidal Hasan as a terrorist. Please. You know what short fuses they have.

Responding to Republicans' condemnation of Hasan's actions as terrorism, Maddow furrowed her brow and played devil's advocate, as befitting an honorary member of the al Qaeda Legal Defense Foundation --

MADDOW: Remember this one? Yes, it is the old paint-the-Democrats-as-soft-on-terror routine. But in order to play that politicizing terrorism, anti-Democrat greatest hit, the Fort Hood case has to be terrorism. Regardless of how you feel about the political issue of politicizing terrorism, it's worth asking -- was Fort Hood, technically speaking, terrorism? It's not just a political question. It's not just a judgment call. It's not just a matter of taste. It's a question to which there is an answer, a legal answer. And the charges today didn't include anything related to terrorism.

Terrorism is not just conceptual political jargon. This is a legal term and it has, interestingly, changed over the past few years. In order for something to be legally considered terrorism, do you have to be taking instructions from a terrorist group? Do you have to have some sort of clear political motive behind the violence? Is it about the way that you commit the crime? What sort of weapons that you use in doing? Is it about how many people that you kill in your crime? Is it about the specific type of people you target, whether they're civilian or military?

If you're interested in more than just making political hay out of the Fort Hood case, these are the sort of legitimate questions you would want to ask before labeling this, or any case, an instance of terrorism. Those who are calling this terrorism are making their case in large part because Major Hasan is a Muslim and because he is alleged to have said, God is great, before the shootings. And while it might make for exciting politics to argue that murders committed by religious Muslims are presumptively terrorist acts, those exciting political allegations actually say a lot more about the people making them than they do about the real character of the tragedy at Fort Hood and how we as a country should respond to it.

That's Maddow on her MSNBC show Nov. 12. What a contrast to her first MSNBC broadcast after the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller in late May. Here's how Maddow described it right at the start of her show June 1 (click here for link to YouTube video) --

MADDOW: We begin tonight with another deadly act of domestic terrorism.

As Maddow said this, a photo of Tiller was shown situated above the word TERRORISM in capitalized block letters, lest anyone miss the point.

Maddow proceeded to describe a chronology of violence in the last two decades by the "modern anti-abortion terrorist movement in America." For good measure, she mentioned the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, which Maddow said was "a terrorist act committed by an anti-abortion extremist."

Here's what Maddow also said on June 1 to bolster her contention that Scott Roeder, Tiller's accused killer, had engaged in an act of terrorism (the embedded video starts with Maddow's remarks on Nov. 12, then shows a portion from her show on June 1, and finishes with another segment from Nov. 12. The YouTube clip linked above shows the June 1 segment in its entirety) --

MADDOW (initially referring to Roeder): He's known in extremist, anti-abortion circles. He has had writings published in a newsletter called Prayer & Action News which promotes the idea of killing people who provide abortion services as justifiable homicide. Someone calling himself Scott Roeder had participated in anti-abortion discussions at a website of the group called Operation Rescue.

Much as Hasan's name appears on "radical Internet postings," the Associated Press reported Nov. 5. "At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of the law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades," the AP story reads.

More from Maddow on June 1 -- 

MADDOW: The group's founder, Randall Terry (of Operation Rescue), spoke at the National Press Club today and celebrated Dr. George Tiller's death.

A response foreshadowing that of radical imam Anwar al Awlaki (whom Maddow keeps referring to as a "cleric," as if he's no different than those fiery Christians), who praised Hasan as a "hero" and "a man of conscience."

To bolster her case, Maddow invited frequent guest Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, on her show Nov. 12. Turley, who as a guest on June 1 was more circumspect than Maddow in describing Tiller's murder as terrorism, was more receptive to her point of view this time around --

TURLEY: Criminal investigators and lawyers and judges don't have the luxury that some people have on television to just simply say this must be terrorism, why?, because we want it to be terrorism. Words have meaning in the criminal code and that's what brings the integrity to the code, it brings its legitimacy. And you can't just simply say that because somebody kills a large number of people that it's terrorism. There are plenty of people that act out of rage. If you take away a few of the aspects of this case, you would have a typical disgruntled worker shooting.

Just as if you ignored a "few of the aspects" of the Manson murders -- the victims, for example -- the man who set their deaths in motion might now be just another graying, pony-tailed hippie. 

I'm not a legal scholar, as the saying goes, but it's my understanding that guilt is determined on the basis of evidence against the accused, by jurors asked to refrain from overlooking problematic "aspects" of a case.

The willful ignorance of Maddow and like-minded leftists in response to the Fort Hood terrorist attack reminds me of a scene in the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk" and the title character's response to a sniper trying to kill him (1:15 into YouTube clip linked here) -- "He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!"

On Friday's Ed Schultz radio show, NBC chief legal correspondent Dan Abrams came on to discuss the Manhattan trials of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and four other accused terrorists. He was not optimistic that it would help Obama politically at all:

I think that on sort of the international front, that once the proceedings start, I think it's just going to provide nugget after nugget for these people who want to use propaganda....I don't know that Obama had much of a choice here but to move forward with this. But from a propaganda point of view, and from a political point of view, I think it may be a lose and a lose.

When Schultz asked what the chances were of these terror suspects getting acquitted, Abrams guessed that the chances for KSM were "not very high," but it could happen with the other suspects, which would create political problems. As far as KSM, Abrams said, "I think he's gonna make a mockery of the proceeding...What if Khalid Sheik Mohammed says he wants to represent himself, and as a result, he wants to create a mockery of the proceeding. I see that as a real possibility here."

Schultz asked: "Politically, is this risky territory for Obama?"

ABRAMS: Absolutely. Think about it. This isn't gonna happen, trials aren't gonna happen for many months. there's a 45-day requirement to give Congress an opportunity [to question allowing the suspects into America] -- these guys aren't gonna be setting foot on American soil until middle 2010 at the earliest. What's happening in 2010? We've got some elections happening in November...

SCHULTZ: Why didn't he do it in the summer? Why didn't he do it in the first month he was in office?

ABRAMS: Well, look, I think it was smart in my view to take your time on Guantanamo. I think one of the big mistakes they made was, I think it was a smart political move to say we're gonna close Guantanamo. [But] By saying it's gotta close within a year. I mean, this is complicated stuff. There are really bad bad guys in Guantanamo. and they have to think long and hard about how to deal with these cases. The legal system moves slowly. It just does. Everywhere, not just Guantanamo Bay. So when you start setting timelines, political tiemelins for legal proceedings, you risk getting into trouble.

There was also this exchange, as summarized above:

ABRAMS: I don't see how Obama gets credit.

SCHULTZ: No, I don't think he gets credit, but he takes the critics out of the game.

ABRAMS: I'm not sure he does, on either front, meaning, I think that on sort of the international front, that once the proceedings start, I think it's just going to provide nugget after nugget for these people who want to use propaganda. I'm not saying he shouldn't have done it. I think, look, in the end, I don't know that Obama had much of a choice here but to move forward with this. But from a propaganda point of view, and from a political point of view, I think it may be a lose and a lose.

Posing the question, "Will Gun Measure Threaten Amtrak [with] Terror Attacks," Newsweek's Michael Isikoff informed readers of a legislative battle to allow passengers aboard Amtrak to transport unloaded firearms in their checked luggage.

Isikoff pitted supporters of gun rights, particularly the National Rifle Association (NRA) against "security-minded" legislators worried about gun use in terrorist attacks on the nation's railways:

Just how much clout does the gun lobby have on Capitol Hill? This week may prove to be a crucial test: A House-Senate conference committee is about to take up a massive transportation-funding bill that is pitting advocates of gun rights against security-minded members worried about the threat of terrorist attacks on Amtrak trains. Tucked into the measure is a controversial National Rifle Association-backed amendment that would cut off $1.5 billion in subsidies to Amtrak unless the federally backed national passenger-train company reverses its post-9/11 security policies and permits train passengers to travel with handguns and other firearms as part of their checked luggage.

[...]

"Deadly terrorist bombings of commuter trains in Madrid in 2004 and the 'commando-style' terrorist attack on a major rail station last November in Mumbai have emphasized the importance of passenger rail security in large urban areas," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Peter King, the panel's ranking Republican, in a recent letter to House conferees urging them to reject the amendment. According to Thompson and King, Amtrak has twice revised and enhanced its security policies in recent years after the Madrid and Mumbai attacks revealed a "significant firearm specific threat" from terrorists to passenger trains.

(In last year's Mumbai attacks, which Indian authorities have blamed on the Pakistani-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba,  10 terrorists struck in 13 places in the city, including the city's main railway station, and killed 174 people. In the railway part of the attack, two of the terrorists indiscriminately fired at passengers with AK-47 assault rifles.)

Thompson and King argue that the new measure could make Amtrak similarly vulnerable. But NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam calls those arguments "bogus."

The implication is clear: the NRA wants a policy in place that might help terrorists commit mass murder on the Metroliner. 

While he did quote let Arulanandam articulate his defense of the NRA position, Isikoff didn't consider how current security protocols for Amtrak may be insufficient to prevent an armed terrorist attack.

For example, while some passengers are randomly screened by Amtrak officials, there is no airport-style security to check passengers and/or their unchecked carry-on luggage for weapons. Passengers aboard commercial flights can be reasonably certain that the only firearms on board are securely on the person of undercover air marshals, while Amtrak's lack of screening eliminates that certainty for train passengers.

Posing the question, "Will Gun Measure Threaten Amtrak [with] Terror Attacks," Newsweek's Michael Isikoff informed readers of a legislative battle to allow passengers aboard Amtrak to transport unloaded firearms in their checked luggage.

Isikoff pitted supporters of gun rights, particularly the National Rifle Association (NRA) against "security-minded" legislators worried about gun use in terrorist attacks on the nation's railways:

Just how much clout does the gun lobby have on Capitol Hill? This week may prove to be a crucial test: A House-Senate conference committee is about to take up a massive transportation-funding bill that is pitting advocates of gun rights against security-minded members worried about the threat of terrorist attacks on Amtrak trains. Tucked into the measure is a controversial National Rifle Association-backed amendment that would cut off $1.5 billion in subsidies to Amtrak unless the federally backed national passenger-train company reverses its post-9/11 security policies and permits train passengers to travel with handguns and other firearms as part of their checked luggage.

[...]

"Deadly terrorist bombings of commuter trains in Madrid in 2004 and the 'commando-style' terrorist attack on a major rail station last November in Mumbai have emphasized the importance of passenger rail security in large urban areas," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Peter King, the panel's ranking Republican, in a recent letter to House conferees urging them to reject the amendment. According to Thompson and King, Amtrak has twice revised and enhanced its security policies in recent years after the Madrid and Mumbai attacks revealed a "significant firearm specific threat" from terrorists to passenger trains.

(In last year's Mumbai attacks, which Indian authorities have blamed on the Pakistani-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba,  10 terrorists struck in 13 places in the city, including the city's main railway station, and killed 174 people. In the railway part of the attack, two of the terrorists indiscriminately fired at passengers with AK-47 assault rifles.)

Thompson and King argue that the new measure could make Amtrak similarly vulnerable. But NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam calls those arguments "bogus."

The implication is clear: the NRA wants a policy in place that might help terrorists commit mass murder on the Metroliner. 

While he did quote let Arulanandam articulate his defense of the NRA position, Isikoff didn't consider how current security protocols for Amtrak may be insufficient to prevent an armed terrorist attack.

For example, while some passengers are randomly screened by Amtrak officials, there is no airport-style security to check passengers and/or their unchecked carry-on luggage for weapons. Passengers aboard commercial flights can be reasonably certain that the only firearms on board are securely on the person of undercover air marshals, while Amtrak's lack of screening eliminates that certainty for train passengers.

At the top of Monday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric teased a story on the President’s trip to China by casting him as Reaganesque: “Mr. Hu, tear down that firewall. President Obama challenges China’s government to allow unfettered access to the internet.”

Couric introduced the segment that followed by continuing to play up the idea that Obama took a hard line on Chinese censorship: “In China today, he challenged leaders of the communist government to give people greater access to the internet.” Correspondent Chip Reid reported that the President’s actual statement on the matter was hardly so dramatic: “It’s one of the touchiest topics in China and the President’s long answer took on the tone of a polite lecture.”

A clip was played of Obama declaring: “I have always been a strong supporter of open internet use. I’m a big supporter of non-censorship....I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me. I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger...” Reid described those comments as a “rebuke” that “was aimed at China’s leaders.” However, He went on to admit: “...if they were watching it on TV, most Chinese were not, because the government allowed it to run on only one local channel in Shanghai. In the rest of China, they aired a soap opera.”

Reid noted: “...there did appear to be a crack in the great firewall. A CBS News analysis shows Mr. Obama’s comments were posted in full on government web sites available to more than 300 million Chinese with access to the internet. If that’s a moral victory for the President, he’ll probably want to savor it, because otherwise this visit to China is expected to bring more disappointment than success.”

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

6:30PM TEASE:

KATIE COURIC: Also tonight, Mr. Hu, tear down that firewall. President Obama challenges China’s government to allow unfettered access to the internet.

6:37PM SEGMENT:

KATIE COURIC: Now to President Obama’s trip to Asia. In China today, he challenged leaders of the communist government to give people greater access to the internet. China is the most important stop on a tour that started in Japan and Singapore and will end in South Korea on Thursday. Our chief White House correspondent Chip Reid is traveling with the President.

CHIP REID: At a town hall with students in Shanghai, the President was asked about what critics call the great firewall The Chinese government’s tight grip on the internet, which includes blocking access to sites like Facebook and Twitter.

BARACK OBAMA: I have always been a strong supporter of open internet use. I’m a big supporter of non-censorship.

REID: It’s one of the touchiest topics in China and the President’s long answer took on the tone of a polite lecture.

OBAMA: I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me. I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader, because it forces me to hear opinions that I don’t want to hear.

REID: The White House said the rebuke was aimed at China’s leaders. But if they were watching it on TV, most Chinese were not, because the government allowed it to run on only one local channel in Shanghai. In the rest of China, they aired a soap opera. But there did appear to be a crack in the great firewall. A CBS News analysis shows Mr. Obama’s comments were posted in full on government web sites available to more than 300 million Chinese with access to the internet. If that’s a moral victory for the President, he’ll probably want to savor it, because otherwise this visit to China is expected to bring more disappointment than success.

OBAMA: As you know, this is my first visit to China.

REID: The President says a top goal in coming here is to create jobs for Americans by convincing President Hu Jintao to open China’s markets to more U.S. goods, but China expert Peter Navarro says China has the Obama administration over a barrel because of the nearly one trillion dollars China holds in U.S. debt.

PETER NAVARRO [BUSINESS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE]: The problem in the White House is that they want China’s money more to finance the U.S. budget deficits in the short term than they want China to reform its trade policy.

REID: Later today, the President will meet with Chinese president Hu Jintao for about two hours. The economy is at the top of the agenda, but no major breakthroughs are expected. Resorting to the language of diplomacy, White House officials say they are laying the foundation for future progress. Katie.

COURIC: Chip Reid reporting from Beijing, thank you, Chip.

At the top of Monday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric teased a story on the President’s trip to China by casting him as Reaganesque: “Mr. Hu, tear down that firewall. President Obama challenges China’s government to allow unfettered access to the internet.”

Couric introduced the segment that followed by continuing to play up the idea that Obama took a hard line on Chinese censorship: “In China today, he challenged leaders of the communist government to give people greater access to the internet.” Correspondent Chip Reid reported that the President’s actual statement on the matter was hardly so dramatic: “It’s one of the touchiest topics in China and the President’s long answer took on the tone of a polite lecture.”

A clip was played of Obama declaring: “I have always been a strong supporter of open internet use. I’m a big supporter of non-censorship....I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me. I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger...” Reid described those comments as a “rebuke” that “was aimed at China’s leaders.” However, He went on to admit: “...if they were watching it on TV, most Chinese were not, because the government allowed it to run on only one local channel in Shanghai. In the rest of China, they aired a soap opera.”

Reid noted: “...there did appear to be a crack in the great firewall. A CBS News analysis shows Mr. Obama’s comments were posted in full on government web sites available to more than 300 million Chinese with access to the internet. If that’s a moral victory for the President, he’ll probably want to savor it, because otherwise this visit to China is expected to bring more disappointment than success.”

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

6:30PM TEASE:

KATIE COURIC: Also tonight, Mr. Hu, tear down that firewall. President Obama challenges China’s government to allow unfettered access to the internet.

6:37PM SEGMENT:

KATIE COURIC: Now to President Obama’s trip to Asia. In China today, he challenged leaders of the communist government to give people greater access to the internet. China is the most important stop on a tour that started in Japan and Singapore and will end in South Korea on Thursday. Our chief White House correspondent Chip Reid is traveling with the President.

CHIP REID: At a town hall with students in Shanghai, the President was asked about what critics call the great firewall The Chinese government’s tight grip on the internet, which includes blocking access to sites like Facebook and Twitter.

BARACK OBAMA: I have always been a strong supporter of open internet use. I’m a big supporter of non-censorship.

REID: It’s one of the touchiest topics in China and the President’s long answer took on the tone of a polite lecture.

OBAMA: I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me. I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader, because it forces me to hear opinions that I don’t want to hear.

REID: The White House said the rebuke was aimed at China’s leaders. But if they were watching it on TV, most Chinese were not, because the government allowed it to run on only one local channel in Shanghai. In the rest of China, they aired a soap opera. But there did appear to be a crack in the great firewall. A CBS News analysis shows Mr. Obama’s comments were posted in full on government web sites available to more than 300 million Chinese with access to the internet. If that’s a moral victory for the President, he’ll probably want to savor it, because otherwise this visit to China is expected to bring more disappointment than success.

OBAMA: As you know, this is my first visit to China.

REID: The President says a top goal in coming here is to create jobs for Americans by convincing President Hu Jintao to open China’s markets to more U.S. goods, but China expert Peter Navarro says China has the Obama administration over a barrel because of the nearly one trillion dollars China holds in U.S. debt.

PETER NAVARRO [BUSINESS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE]: The problem in the White House is that they want China’s money more to finance the U.S. budget deficits in the short term than they want China to reform its trade policy.

REID: Later today, the President will meet with Chinese president Hu Jintao for about two hours. The economy is at the top of the agenda, but no major breakthroughs are expected. Resorting to the language of diplomacy, White House officials say they are laying the foundation for future progress. Katie.

COURIC: Chip Reid reporting from Beijing, thank you, Chip.

NBC and CBS’s morning shows on Tuesday completely ignored the revelation that the Obama administration’s Recovery.gov website claims to have saved or created jobs in congressional districts that don’t exist. ABC’s Good Morning America devoted 21 seconds to the developing story.

On ABCNews.com, Jonathan Karl wrote, "In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending." There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona. On Monday night’s World News, the network did manage a full report by Karl. He elaborated, "And it lists $34 million spent in Arizona's 86th district. That district doesn't exist either. In fact, in virtually every state, the website lists millions of dollars spent and hundreds of jobs created in fictional congressional districts."

And yet, NBC’s Today show and CBS’s Early Show on Tuesday skipped the report. Good Morning America opted for a single news report by Chris Cuomo. He quickly recapped the story and added, "The administration blames human error, but says the job count is still correct."

A transcript of the November 17 GMA news brief and the November 16 World News full report can be found below:

GMA 

11/17/09 7:13

CHRIS CUOMO: A White House website set up to track new stimulus jobs lists places that do not exist. The site says 30 jobs were created in Arizona's 15th congressional district. The problem is, there is no 15th district. For nearly every state, the website lists fictional congressional districts. The administration blames human error, but says the job count is still correct.

World News

11/16/09  6:38

CHARLES GIBSON: One of the great curiosities in Washington involves the economic stimulus program. How many jobs does it save? How many jobs has it created? There's a government website that is supposed to track those questions region by region across the country. Our Chief Congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl has been checking it and has found it puzzling. Jon?

JONATHAN KARL: Charlie, nobody is suggesting any wrongdoing here, but the $18 million website created by the White House to track the stimulus lists millions of dollars spent and jobs created in places that don't exist. The Recovery.gov website has a wealth of information about stimulus spending.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN (UNITED STATES): We got a new modern website that's going to blow you away in terms of how detailed it is. I really mean that.

KARL: You can track the money and the jobs created by state, by zip code and by congressional district. The website, for example, says 30 jobs were created and over $700,000 spent in Arizona's 15th congressional district. The problem, the sate has only eight congressional districts, there is no 15th district. And it lists $34 million spent in Arizona's 86th district. That district doesn't exist either. In fact, in virtually every state, the website lists millions of dollars spent and hundreds of jobs created in fictional congressional districts. Check out Connecticut, where in the 42nd congressional district, 25 new jobs are listed for zero dollars spent. Again there is no 42nd district. The website also lists stimulus spending in US territories including the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, where 142 jobs were supposedly created in the non-existent 99th district and another .3 jobs in the 69th. The administration chalks it all up to human error and says the mistakes were most likely made by grant recipients who filled out their forms correctly and may not even have know what congressional district they live in. Charlie, they say that the overall numbers given by the White House about job creation are still accurate. We'll keep looking at it.

NBC and CBS’s morning shows on Tuesday completely ignored the revelation that the Obama administration’s Recovery.gov website claims to have saved or created jobs in congressional districts that don’t exist. ABC’s Good Morning America devoted 21 seconds to the developing story.

On ABCNews.com, Jonathan Karl wrote, "In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending." There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona. On Monday night’s World News, the network did manage a full report by Karl. He elaborated, "And it lists $34 million spent in Arizona's 86th district. That district doesn't exist either. In fact, in virtually every state, the website lists millions of dollars spent and hundreds of jobs created in fictional congressional districts."

And yet, NBC’s Today show and CBS’s Early Show on Tuesday skipped the report. Good Morning America opted for a single news report by Chris Cuomo. He quickly recapped the story and added, "The administration blames human error, but says the job count is still correct."

A transcript of the November 17 GMA news brief and the November 16 World News full report can be found below:

GMA 

11/17/09 7:13

CHRIS CUOMO: A White House website set up to track new stimulus jobs lists places that do not exist. The site says 30 jobs were created in Arizona's 15th congressional district. The problem is, there is no 15th district. For nearly every state, the website lists fictional congressional districts. The administration blames human error, but says the job count is still correct.

World News

11/16/09  6:38

CHARLES GIBSON: One of the great curiosities in Washington involves the economic stimulus program. How many jobs does it save? How many jobs has it created? There's a government website that is supposed to track those questions region by region across the country. Our Chief Congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl has been checking it and has found it puzzling. Jon?

JONATHAN KARL: Charlie, nobody is suggesting any wrongdoing here, but the $18 million website created by the White House to track the stimulus lists millions of dollars spent and jobs created in places that don't exist. The Recovery.gov website has a wealth of information about stimulus spending.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN (UNITED STATES): We got a new modern website that's going to blow you away in terms of how detailed it is. I really mean that.

KARL: You can track the money and the jobs created by state, by zip code and by congressional district. The website, for example, says 30 jobs were created and over $700,000 spent in Arizona's 15th congressional district. The problem, the sate has only eight congressional districts, there is no 15th district. And it lists $34 million spent in Arizona's 86th district. That district doesn't exist either. In fact, in virtually every state, the website lists millions of dollars spent and hundreds of jobs created in fictional congressional districts. Check out Connecticut, where in the 42nd congressional district, 25 new jobs are listed for zero dollars spent. Again there is no 42nd district. The website also lists stimulus spending in US territories including the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, where 142 jobs were supposedly created in the non-existent 99th district and another .3 jobs in the 69th. The administration chalks it all up to human error and says the mistakes were most likely made by grant recipients who filled out their forms correctly and may not even have know what congressional district they live in. Charlie, they say that the overall numbers given by the White House about job creation are still accurate. We'll keep looking at it.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has responded to Newsweek's cover of her, and needless to say she was none too pleased.

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, Newsweek ran a cover story on Palin in its most recent issue, and the picture they decided to use was of her in jogging shorts and sneakers.

"The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now," wrote Palin in a posting at her Facebook page Monday evening:

The choice of photo for the cover of this week's Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this "news" magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

- Sarah Palin

Politico's Michael Calderone reported receiving the following e-mail message from Newsweek editor Jon Meacham Tuesday concerning this matter:

We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard.

He's got a point. After all, the image certainly DOES convey EXACTLY what they were saying, doesn't it? 

CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin fretted in a column in the November 23, 2009 edition of The New Yorker that “abortion, as the academics like to say, is being marginalized,” and even turned his ire on some in his left-wing camp, including President Obama. He accused “many modern pro-choice Democrats,” including the President, of ceding “the moral high ground” to pro-lifers.

Toobin began his “Not Covered” column by outlining the history of abortion, particularly in the U.S.: “Abortion is almost as old as childbirth. There has always been a need for some women to end their pregnancies. In modern times, the law’s attitude toward that need has varied....Throughout this long legal history, the one constant has been that women have continued to have abortions.” The analyst continued with his lament that the legalized murder of an unborn child isn’t more accepted, given the “constant” he had outlined: “It might be assumed that such a common procedure would be included in a nation’s plan to protect the health of its citizens. In fact, the story of abortion during the past decade has been its separation from other medical services available to women. Abortion, as the academics like to say, is being marginalized.”

His proof? The inclusion of the Stupak amendment with the House health care “reform” bill:

One reason that the Democrats won back control of Congress is that the Party adopted a “big tent” philosophy on abortion. The implications of that approach became clear when, during the health-care vote, the House considered a last-minute amendment by Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, which proposed scrubbing the bill of government subsidies for abortion procedures....

A clear understanding of the structure of the health-care proposals currently under consideration shows why the Stupak amendment is such a threat to abortion rights....

Restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion go back to the Hyde amendment, which became law more than thirty years ago; for example, there has long been a ban on abortions under Medicaid or in military hospitals. But the implications of the Stupak amendment are broader, because of the structure of the exchange. To start with, Stupak states that anyone who buys insurance with a government subsidy cannot choose a plan that covers abortion, even if that person receives only a small subsidy, and even if only a tiny portion of the full premium goes for abortion care. And the influence of the amendment reaches beyond the recipients of federal subsidies. Stupak would prohibit the public option from offering any plans that cover abortion. Further, it is expected that each year more Americans will use the exchange, including people who don’t need subsidies, but under the Stupak amendment insurance companies would have no incentive to offer those people coverage for abortion services, since doing so might cost them the business of subsidized customers. Today, most policies cover abortion; in a post-Stupak world, they probably won’t. With a health-care plan that is supposed to increase access and lower costs, the opposite would be true with respect to abortion. And that, of course, is what legislators like Stupak want—to make abortions harder, and more expensive, to obtain....

Later in the column, Toobin also complained about the impact of “the proliferation of ‘conscience clauses,’ which allow medical professionals to refuse to conduct procedures they disapprove of” as contributing to a climate where “abortion services are being treated like a second-class form medicine.”  The CNN analyst also turned his ire towards pro-abortion politicians, all but accusing them of being too weak towards pro-lifers (but he did throw out a typical left-wing line against the Catholic Church’s efforts against abortion, just to be “fair”):

The President is pro-choice, and he has signalled [sic] some misgivings about the Stupak amendment. But, like many modern pro-choice Democrats, he has worked so hard to be respectful of his opponents on this issue that he sometimes seems to cede them the moral high ground. In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” he describes the “undeniably difficult issue of abortion” and ponders “the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion.” Elsewhere, he announces, “Abortion vexes.” The opponents of abortion aren’t vexed—they are mobilized, focussed [sic], and driven to succeed. The Catholic bishops took the lead in pushing for the Stupak amendment, and they squeezed legislators in a way that would do any K Street lobbyist proud. (One never sees that kind of effort on behalf of other aspects of Catholic teaching, like opposition to the death penalty.) Meanwhile, the pro-choice forces temporized. But, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed not long ago, abortion rights “center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” Every diminishment of that right diminishes women. With stakes of such magnitude, it is wise to weigh carefully the difference between compromise and surrender.

This isn’t the first time that Toobin has revealed his extreme left-wing views on abortion and related life issues. He labeled Sarah Palin “very extreme” on embryonic stem cell research during a segment on Campbell Brown’s program in September 2008. He foretold the overturning of Roe v. Wade if the Republicans won the 2008 presidential election in a September 2007 article on Time.com. It also isn’t the first time he blasted Democrats for playing nice with Republicans and conservatives. The CNN analyst expressed his disappointment that the Democrats didn’t go far enough in their attacks against the GOP during the first night of their convention in Denver in late August 2008. There’s no doubt that Toobin is a committed leftist.

Anderson Cooper brought on his network’s senior legal analyst 46 minutes into the 10 pm Eastern hour of his program on Monday, where he summarized the arguments in the New Yorker column:

ANDERSON COOPER: The health-care battle is heating up. The fight is turning to an issue that has divided the nation for decades, abortion. The House added tough restrictions on abortion to its version of the health-care reform bill. Now under the amendment, anyone who buys insurance with the government subsidy cannot choose a plan that covers abortion. But according to the Gutmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights think tank, about a third of all women of reproductive age in the United States will have an abortion- one-third. So will the amendment make it harder for all women to get abortions?

Jeffrey Toobin, our legal analyst, raises this issue in the current issue of The New Yorker. He joins us now. It’s interesting, because you say that abortion is being marginalized. This is what Representative Stupak says about his abortion amendment. He says, ‘Passage of the Stupak Amendment does not impose a new federal abortion policy; it simply continue what has been the law of the land since 1977.’ You say it’s being marginalized. How so?

JEFFREY TOOBIN: Well, it’s- what he’s referring to is the Hyde Amendment, which says there can be no director federal expenditures for abortion, like Medicaid can’t pay for abortions; military hospitals can’t pay for abortions. But what’s different about the health-care plan is that individuals are putting up their own money- now, maybe with some federal help. But they are putting up their own money to get an insurance policy, and even if they pay for most of the policy themselves and, even if only a tiny fraction of their premium would go towards abortion services, they can’t get it because that’s perceived by Representative Stupak and his allies as subsidizing abortion. That’s new and that’s different.

COOPER: And what kind of an impact is that going to have?

TOOBIN: Well, if the Obama plan works, as the Obama administration says it will, 40 million people will get insurance that they haven’t gotten before. Half of them, approximately, are women. So that’s 20 million people who will get health care. But abortion, for the vast majority of them, will be cut out of it. And this is the thing about abortion that’s changed over the years, is that abortion is not treated like any other medical service. You know, whether it’s an insurance or doctors being trained to do it, hospitals being allowed- you know, being ready to do it, it’s just being treated more and more different from other kinds of procedures.

COOPER: And that’s why you say it's being marginalized?

TOOBIN: That’s right, yes.

COOPER: So there are basically fewer doctors who are performing it, fewer doctors who are in the pipeline, training to perform it, and fewer places where it can actually be done?

TOOBIN: That’s right, and if this passes, there will be a great- the whole idea behind the health-care reform is greater access and lower prices, and if this goes through, there will be, probably, less access and higher prices for abortion because it’s just treated as different from any other medical procedure.

COOPER: And I was surprised by this figure from the Guttmacher Institute, if they are accurate, that one-third of women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

TOOBIN: It’s- it was very striking to me, too. I hadn’t heard that, too, and one of the interesting things, as you study this around the world, is that abortion rates really don’t change much if abortion is illegal. Brazil, abortions are illegal totally, but there are more abortions per capita than there are in the United States because women have abortions. They get them one way or another, either legally or illegally.

COOPER: It’s an interesting article in The New Yorker right now. Jeff Toobin, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

The New York Times dismissed the controversy over Obama’s long, deep bow before the Emperor of Japan over the weekend -- a story all over the Drudge Report and conservative blogs -- in its Monday story praising Obama’s “progress” in getting Russia on board for sanctions against Iran: “In China, Obama to Press For Tough Stance on Iran -- Seeking to Replicate Progress With Russia.”

And if that “progress” with Russia fades, will the Times follow up? Watch this space.

Diplomatic correspondent Helene Cooper and David Barboza emphasized the positive:

President Obama, fresh from making progress in his efforts to get Russia on board for possible tough new sanctions against Iran, arrived in China on Sunday, where he will attempt the even more difficult task of prodding China’s leaders to get tough on Iran.

Making his first trip to China, Mr. Obama landed in Shanghai during a late-night downpour and was set to begin three days of meetings to discuss climate change, North Korea and the global economic crisis with President Hu Jintao.

Cooper and Barboza dismissed the bowing controversy as an unfair attack by conservative bloggers, and used as its source...the Obama administration itself. There’s a non-balanced protocol expert for you.

During Mr. Obama’s trip, his first to Asia as president, he has taken to referring to himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” a term he first used during a speech in Tokyo on Saturday morning.

Mr. Obama drew some fire from conservative American bloggers who accused him of going too far to reassure Asian leaders: they complained that he should not have bowed to Emperor Akihito of Japan when he went to the emperor’s residence for lunch.

“During his meetings and his speech in Tokyo, the president observed protocol and enhanced the status of American interests in Japan and across Asia,” said an administration official traveling with the president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity according to protocol. “Those who suggest otherwise are way off base and only looking to score political points.”

ABC News wasn’t as sanguine. White House reporter Jake Tapper ran a knowledgeable source’s observation:

Obama's handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush's back-rub of Merkel.

Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs.

Back in June 1994, Times reporter Douglas Jehl was a lot harder on President Bill Clinton for a less embarrassing show of obsequiousness before the Emperor of Japan:

It wasn't a bow, exactly. But Mr. Clinton came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together. It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan.

Canadians still bow to England's Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with royalty, what else were 1776 and all that about? But Mr. Clinton, alas, is not the only one since George Washington who has seemed not quite to know what to make of monarchs.

Sarah Palin appeared on Tuesday’s Good Morning America to promote her new book and hit back at liberal condescension from journalists, most notably attacking Katie Couric as arrogant. Speaking of her infamous interview with the CBS anchor during the 2008 campaign, Palin interpreted Couric’s question about what newspapers she read as "How up there in Alaska, in this kind of nomadic, Neanderthal atmosphere that you live in, how are you connected to the world?"

The former governor admitted to interviewer Barbara Walters: "Unfortunately, I was wearing my annoyance on my sleeve. And I shouldn't have done that. Because, it seemed to me that she was asking ‘Do you read?’" After noting that, at that point in the campaign, she had just completed an op-ed for the New York Times, Palin chided, "And that surprised me that [Couric] hadn't done that homework."

Walters conducted a mostly friendly interview with Palin, calling her "charming" and remarking that she "answered every question." The ABC host also gave the Republican an opportunity to respond to the current Newsweek cover that referred to Palin as "bad news" and featured her in running shorts.

Palin derided Newsweek as "cheesy" and instructed, "For me personally, it's a wee bit degrading. Newsweek should be more policy-oriented, more substance-oriented, than showing some gal in shorts on the cover."

Although Walters was often chummy with Palin, at one point she asked the ex-Governor about her daughter Bristol, who is a teenage mother. The journalist wondered, "If Bristol had wanted to have an abortion, would you have let her?" That type of question mostly comes to pro-life politicians. Liberal, pro-choice Democrats are not often asked if they would encourage their daughters to have an abortion.

The interview aired in two parts. A transcript of the first segment, which aired at 7:01am EST on November 17, follows:

DIANE SAWYER: And, of course, when it comes to Republicans, the undisputed center of the stage this week is Sarah Palin.

ROBIN ROBERTS: And as we said, ABC's Barbara Walters had a chance to sit down with her and talk about the book and so much more. Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA WALTERS: Good morning. Well, she was very charming. Answered every question. And, of course, the most important thing is, what does she want for her political future? Well, here is the big question: Do you ever want to be president of the United States?

SARAH PALIN: That certainly isn't on my radar screen right now. But when you consider some of the ordinary turning into extraordinary events that have happened in my life, I am not one to predict what will happen in a few years. My ambition, if you will, my desire, is to help our country, in whatever role that may be. And I cannot predict what that will be, what doors would be open in the year 2012.

BARBARA WALTERS: Will you play a major role?

SARAH PALIN: If people would have me, I will.

WALTERS: To many, you are a possible presidential candidate. Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign's senior adviser says publicly, and I quote, "She would not be a winning candidate. And if she was, the result would be catastrophic."

PALIN: Sounds like Steve Schmidt. I guess I really, really disappointed him. And she's the one who was in charged of that vetting, is I was told. So, everyone's entitled to their opinion, though. I know truth. And I'm fine with who I am and where I am.

WALTERS: One way you could have enormous influence is, of course, to have a talk show.

PALIN: I probably would rather write than talk.

WALTERS: Have you been offered your own talk show?

PALIN: There's been lots and lots of offers in these last months coming our way. Some bizarre things.

WALTERS: Like?

PALIN: Funny things. Reality shows.

WALTERS: You say no to that?

PALIN: Absolutely not. I would never. No, I would never want to put my kids through such a thing. Shoot, our life has become kind of a reality show.

WALTERS: Whether she joins the media or not, Palin, who was mercilessly lampooned during and after the campaign, will be associated with Tina Fey's iconic impersonation of her on Saturday Night Live. Did her impersonation of you harm you?

TINA FEY (as Sarah Palin): First off, I want to say how excited I am to be in front of the liberal elite media, as well as the liberal regular media.

PALIN: I think there was a blurred line there between what Tina Fey was parodying and saying. And what I was saying, for instance. She was saying, "I can see Russia from my house," pretending that she was me.

FEY: And I can see Russia from my house.

PALIN: Well, of course, I never said that. Of course, I’ve never said that. And yet, the line was blurred. And I think people because it was repeated so often, perhaps believed that I had said such a thing. I think she was funny, though. And I think she was very talented and spot-on.

WALTERS: At the time, what Palin did say to Charles Gibson, was that there's an island in Alaska where one can see Russia. And this strategic proximity was part of her foreign policy experience. Her response to that question came back to haunt her again, in an interview with Katie Couric, as did Couric's question about what she reads.

[From Couric interview] KATIE COURIC: What specifically, I'm curious?

WALTERS: Why didn't you answer?

PALIN: Unfortunately, I was wearing my annoyance on my sleeve. And I shouldn't have done that. Because, it seemed to me that she was asking "Do you read? How up there in Alaska, in this kind of nomadic, Neanderthal atmosphere that you live in, how are you connected to the world?" When I had just done an op-ed in her hometown newspaper, the New York Times, when I had just been interviewed by all those national media outlets. And that surprised me that she hadn't done that home work. Very unprofessional of me, though. My fault, my bad, that I answered the way I answered. And that was with that proverbial roll of the eyes. Like, are you kidding me? Are you really asking me that?

WALTERS: But the result of that interview, which Palin says was unfairly edited, was that she was considered unqualified to be vice president. Palin says in her book, this impression was reinforced by deliberate leaks to the press, by some anonymous members of John McCain's staff. Towards the end of the campaign, the press reports quoted unnamed McCain aides, calling you a diva. You know this. A whack job. A narcissist. Why do you think these people were trying to destroy your reputation?

PALIN: For some people, this is a business. And if failure in this business was going to reflect poorly on them, they had to kind of pack their own parachutes and protect themselves and their reputation so they won't be blamed. I'll take the blame, though, because I know at the end of the day what the truth is. And if it makes them feel better to be able to say, "She's the one that caused the downfall because she had a lousy interview," then, so be it.

WALTERS: You know, Governor, it has been said, though, that no candidate was picked on and made fun of as much as you were.

PALIN: Oh, there's so much bull crap out there. About my family. About my record. About my state. And it really hurts when I hear the negativity about the state of Alaska. And, of course, my family. So, a lot of bull.

WALTERS: It's still going on, this kind of ridicule. David Letterman, who is not your best friend, here is the latest:

DAVID LETTERMAN: That brings us to a little segment we call "things more fun than reading the Sarah Palin memoir." Things more fun. Take a look. Watch this.

ANNOUNCER: Number 14, driving into a tree.

WALTERS: Can you just shrug this kind of thing off?

PALIN: Well, I can ‘cause those aren't even funny.

WALTERS: Would you like to go on the David Letterman show?

PALIN: I don't think I'd want to boost his ratings. I do want him to sell my book, though. So, I hope he keeps it up.

WALTERS: Smart girl.

ROBERTS: I know. She is. Going Rogue. And she was very critical of the McCain aides. What's been their reaction?

WALTERS: Well, she says they muzzled her, that they wouldn't let Palin be Palin. They say her book is total fiction.

ROBERTS: You spent some time with her. She has had a tumultuous up couple of years. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. How did you find her, Barbara?

WALTERS: Very confident. Very appealing, whether you agree with her or not. And when she says bull crap, I went, what? But, you know, she says she tells it like it is. And I think that's what made her to so many people and the people who do like her, makes her so popular.

ROBERTS: Yeah. She has been through a lot. And has handled it. You're going to come back in our next half hour. You have other questions that you ask her about President Obama, even.

WALTERS: About President Obama. And you will meet two of her children. [Laughs.] I laugh because what they like most, as you will hear, is something I won't want to eat.

ROBERTS: That is a tease. She is teasing us. Okay. We'll see you.

SAWYER: I'm suspecting it involves moose.

WALTERS: How did you know?

SAWYER: Just guessing.

Sarah Palin appeared on Tuesday’s Good Morning America to promote her new book and hit back at liberal condescension from journalists, most notably attacking Katie Couric as arrogant. Speaking of her infamous interview with the CBS anchor during the 2008 campaign, Palin interpreted Couric’s question about what newspapers she read as "How up there in Alaska, in this kind of nomadic, Neanderthal atmosphere that you live in, how are you connected to the world?"

The former governor admitted to interviewer Barbara Walters: "Unfortunately, I was wearing my annoyance on my sleeve. And I shouldn't have done that. Because, it seemed to me that she was asking ‘Do you read?’" After noting that, at that point in the campaign, she had just completed an op-ed for the New York Times, Palin chided, "And that surprised me that [Couric] hadn't done that homework."

Walters conducted a mostly friendly interview with Palin, calling her "charming" and remarking that she "answered every question." The ABC host also gave the Republican an opportunity to respond to the current Newsweek cover that referred to Palin as "bad news" and featured her in running shorts.

Palin derided Newsweek as "cheesy" and instructed, "For me personally, it's a wee bit degrading. Newsweek should be more policy-oriented, more substance-oriented, than showing some gal in shorts on the cover."

Although Walters was often chummy with Palin, at one point she asked the ex-Governor about her daughter Bristol, who is a teenage mother. The journalist wondered, "If Bristol had wanted to have an abortion, would you have let her?" That type of question mostly comes to pro-life politicians. Liberal, pro-choice Democrats are not often asked if they would encourage their daughters to have an abortion.

The interview aired in two parts. A transcript of the first segment, which aired at 7:01am EST on November 17, follows:

DIANE SAWYER: And, of course, when it comes to Republicans, the undisputed center of the stage this week is Sarah Palin.

ROBIN ROBERTS: And as we said, ABC's Barbara Walters had a chance to sit down with her and talk about the book and so much more. Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA WALTERS: Good morning. Well, she was very charming. Answered every question. And, of course, the most important thing is, what does she want for her political future? Well, here is the big question: Do you ever want to be president of the United States?

SARAH PALIN: That certainly isn't on my radar screen right now. But when you consider some of the ordinary turning into extraordinary events that have happened in my life, I am not one to predict what will happen in a few years. My ambition, if you will, my desire, is to help our country, in whatever role that may be. And I cannot predict what that will be, what doors would be open in the year 2012.

BARBARA WALTERS: Will you play a major role?

SARAH PALIN: If people would have me, I will.

WALTERS: To many, you are a possible presidential candidate. Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign's senior adviser says publicly, and I quote, "She would not be a winning candidate. And if she was, the result would be catastrophic."

PALIN: Sounds like Steve Schmidt. I guess I really, really disappointed him. And she's the one who was in charged of that vetting, is I was told. So, everyone's entitled to their opinion, though. I know truth. And I'm fine with who I am and where I am.

WALTERS: One way you could have enormous influence is, of course, to have a talk show.

PALIN: I probably would rather write than talk.

WALTERS: Have you been offered your own talk show?

PALIN: There's been lots and lots of offers in these last months coming our way. Some bizarre things.

WALTERS: Like?

PALIN: Funny things. Reality shows.

WALTERS: You say no to that?

PALIN: Absolutely not. I would never. No, I would never want to put my kids through such a thing. Shoot, our life has become kind of a reality show.

WALTERS: Whether she joins the media or not, Palin, who was mercilessly lampooned during and after the campaign, will be associated with Tina Fey's iconic impersonation of her on Saturday Night Live. Did her impersonation of you harm you?

TINA FEY (as Sarah Palin): First off, I want to say how excited I am to be in front of the liberal elite media, as well as the liberal regular media.

PALIN: I think there was a blurred line there between what Tina Fey was parodying and saying. And what I was saying, for instance. She was saying, "I can see Russia from my house," pretending that she was me.

FEY: And I can see Russia from my house.

PALIN: Well, of course, I never said that. Of course, I’ve never said that. And yet, the line was blurred. And I think people because it was repeated so often, perhaps believed that I had said such a thing. I think she was funny, though. And I think she was very talented and spot-on.

WALTERS: At the time, what Palin did say to Charles Gibson, was that there's an island in Alaska where one can see Russia. And this strategic proximity was part of her foreign policy experience. Her response to that question came back to haunt her again, in an interview with Katie Couric, as did Couric's question about what she reads.

[From Couric interview] KATIE COURIC: What specifically, I'm curious?

WALTERS: Why didn't you answer?

PALIN: Unfortunately, I was wearing my annoyance on my sleeve. And I shouldn't have done that. Because, it seemed to me that she was asking "Do you read? How up there in Alaska, in this kind of nomadic, Neanderthal atmosphere that you live in, how are you connected to the world?" When I had just done an op-ed in her hometown newspaper, the New York Times, when I had just been interviewed by all those national media outlets. And that surprised me that she hadn't done that home work. Very unprofessional of me, though. My fault, my bad, that I answered the way I answered. And that was with that proverbial roll of the eyes. Like, are you kidding me? Are you really asking me that?

WALTERS: But the result of that interview, which Palin says was unfairly edited, was that she was considered unqualified to be vice president. Palin says in her book, this impression was reinforced by deliberate leaks to the press, by some anonymous members of John McCain's staff. Towards the end of the campaign, the press reports quoted unnamed McCain aides, calling you a diva. You know this. A whack job. A narcissist. Why do you think these people were trying to destroy your reputation?

PALIN: For some people, this is a business. And if failure in this business was going to reflect poorly on them, they had to kind of pack their own parachutes and protect themselves and their reputation so they won't be blamed. I'll take the blame, though, because I know at the end of the day what the truth is. And if it makes them feel better to be able to say, "She's the one that caused the downfall because she had a lousy interview," then, so be it.

WALTERS: You know, Governor, it has been said, though, that no candidate was picked on and made fun of as much as you were.

PALIN: Oh, there's so much bull crap out there. About my family. About my record. About my state. And it really hurts when I hear the negativity about the state of Alaska. And, of course, my family. So, a lot of bull.

WALTERS: It's still going on, this kind of ridicule. David Letterman, who is not your best friend, here is the latest:

DAVID LETTERMAN: That brings us to a little segment we call "things more fun than reading the Sarah Palin memoir." Things more fun. Take a look. Watch this.

ANNOUNCER: Number 14, driving into a tree.

WALTERS: Can you just shrug this kind of thing off?

PALIN: Well, I can ‘cause those aren't even funny.

WALTERS: Would you like to go on the David Letterman show?

PALIN: I don't think I'd want to boost his ratings. I do want him to sell my book, though. So, I hope he keeps it up.

WALTERS: Smart girl.

ROBERTS: I know. She is. Going Rogue. And she was very critical of the McCain aides. What's been their reaction?

WALTERS: Well, she says they muzzled her, that they wouldn't let Palin be Palin. They say her book is total fiction.

ROBERTS: You spent some time with her. She has had a tumultuous up couple of years. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. How did you find her, Barbara?

WALTERS: Very confident. Very appealing, whether you agree with her or not. And when she says bull crap, I went, what? But, you know, she says she tells it like it is. And I think that's what made her to so many people and the people who do like her, makes her so popular.

ROBERTS: Yeah. She has been through a lot. And has handled it. You're going to come back in our next half hour. You have other questions that you ask her about President Obama, even.

WALTERS: About President Obama. And you will meet two of her children. [Laughs.] I laugh because what they like most, as you will hear, is something I won't want to eat.

ROBERTS: That is a tease. She is teasing us. Okay. We'll see you.

SAWYER: I'm suspecting it involves moose.

WALTERS: How did you know?

SAWYER: Just guessing.

Here's a news story that should be interesting to watch as it develops further.

The New York Police Department executed a raid on the circulation offices of four New York newspapers earlier today.

The Associated Press reported the story shortly after 1 p.m. EST (h/t Alex Yuriev):

By COLLEEN LONG

NEW YORK (AP) - A law enforcement official says the New York Police Department raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers as part of a union corruption probe.

The official says the offices of The New York Times, the New York Post, El Diario and the Daily News of New York were raided Tuesday. The official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The official says the newspaper delivery system around the city is under investigation and the news organizations are not involved.

The 1,600-member union that delivers papers was previously accused by the Manhattan district attorney's office of being run by the mob.

Calls to the four newspapers weren't immediately returned Tuesday.

Leftists including those in the White House who presumptively and obsessively attack Fox News will not be pleased with this.

At Forbes (HT Hot Air Headlines), S. Robert Lichter of George Mason University's Center for Media and Public Affairs, asks the question, "Fox News: Fair And Balanced?" -- and answers in the affirmative. In the process, the GMU Professor of Communications also makes a number of interesting points about Fox's competitors, discusses the convergence of news and analysis, and provides useful historical context.

Using a methodology that would be difficult to refute, Lichter's work relating to campaign 2008 is in sync with what CMPA found in late 2007 (noted at the time at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) during the opening stages of the presidential campaign.

Here are key paragraphs from Lichter's commentary (bolds are mine):

Fox News has become embroiled in a nasty controversy over its ill treatment of President Obama. But are the charges true?

What if I told you that Fox gave Obama his worst press and John McCain his best press of any network during last year's presidential election? If you work for the White House, you'd probably take this as proof that Fox is just a mouthpiece for the opposition. Now what if I told you that Fox had the most balanced coverage of any network during the same campaign? If you work for Fox, you'd probably say we told you so.

But what if I told you that both scenarios are true?

While it seems unlikely, that conclusion is precisely the case, based on an ongoing study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA). That both these seemingly contradictory scenarios are true tells us something important not only about the war between Fox and the White House, but about the changing nature of television news in America.

.... The CMPA study compares ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows and the first half hour of Fox News Channel's Special Report, which most closely resembles its broadcast news counterparts.

.... So how could Fox have both the most balanced and the most anti-Obama coverage? Simple. It's because the other networks were all so pro-Obama. CMPA analyzed every soundbite by reporters and nonpartisan sources (excluding representative of the political parties) that evaluated the candidates and their policies. On the three broadcast networks combined, evaluations of Obama were 68% positive and 32% negative, compared to the only 36% positive and 64% negative evaluations of his GOP opponent John McCain.

In fact, Obama received the most favorable coverage CMPA has ever recorded for any presidential candidate since we began tracking election news coverage in 1988. The totals were very similar--within a few percentage points--at all three networks. (These figures exclude comments on the candidates' prospects in the campaign horse race, which obviously favored Obama.)

Meanwhile, Fox's Special Report was dramatically tougher on Obama, with only 36% favorable vs. 64% unfavorable evaluations during the same time period. But McCain didn't fare much better, garnering only 40% favorable comments vs. 60% negative ones. So the broadcast networks gave good marks to one candidate and bad marks to another, while Fox was tough on both--and most balanced overall.

Other points Lichter makes:

• The historical pattern during a president's first year in office is that the establishment press tends to go negative. Lichter interestingly asserts that all networks have done so this year, with the Big 3 nets tallying 35% favorables for Obama vs. 27% for Fox on Special Report. Lichter's take is that "Fox's coverage has gone from being the worst of all to merely the worst among equals."
• The White House claim that Fox "really isn't a news organization" is risible, given that in Special Report the channel at least runs "nightly news modeled on the broadcast networks." MSNBC and CNN don't even try.
• Longtime NewsBusters and BizzyBlog readers will probably have a hard time with the final sentence of this assertion -- "Obama differs from his predecessors mainly in the false hopes generated by sometimes fawning campaign coverage from jaded journalists who temporarily let themselves get carried away by his eloquence and the historic nature of his candidacy. When politics returned to normal, their coverage returned to form." I definitely disagree, especially if you include the Big 3's morning shows, which attempt to position themselves as every bit as objective as their evening news counterparts. But if anything, they're worse. Perhaps a gravitation back to the norm has begun more recently, as the continued decay in the economy as people are experiencing it and the awful results of the administration's attempts to do something about become ever more obvious.

Leftists who will predictably howl that CMPA is conservatively biased (because SourceWatch says so, as if that proves anything beyond paranoia) are going to have to explain what is wrong with CMPA's scorekeeping methodology, which appears to be relatively immune from partisan slant, even if one had that as an objective. In any event, the footage is out there, and they are free to try to replicate and poke holes in what CMPA did any time. I bet they won't; whining is so much easier.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Openly gay actor Ian McKellen recently told Details magazine that he proudly defaces Bibles left in hotel nightstands, ripping out pages containing verses which condemn homosexual behavior. USA Today's Leslie Miller picked up on this yesterday for the paper's "Faith & Reason" blog, after spying a blog post by colleague Barbara De Lollis in a November 16 post for her Hotel Check-In blog for USA Today.

For her part, De Lollis relayed the news item and wondered, "Could word of McKellen's habit spark a movement?" De Lollis went on to ask:

What do you think about Sir Ian McKellen's habit? I'm also curious how often you find hotel Bibles in your room, since many hotels - especially boutique hotels - no longer provide them in guestrooms.

Miller similarly failed to pass judgment on McKellen's defacement of hotel property and indeed seems to have failed to wonder if McKellen's petulant vandalism constitutes a property crime:

Readers: What do you think about this? Is McKellen's action sacrilegious -- or an acceptable political statement? Might others follow suit? 

Perhaps De Lollis and Miller should reserve this question to ask McKellen should they ever get the chance: Would he dare extend his vandalism of sacred texts to other religions, say ripping pages out of Korans left in his hotel room in an Islamic country?

That the Associated Press's basement-level poll-cooking and poll-reporting standards are quite low, and quite agenda-driven, might as well be an article of faith by this time.

But the wire service-commissioned poll on health care, and Erica Warner's report on it (saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes; HT JammieWearingFool via Instapundit; the full poll report in PDF format is here) plumbs new depths of partisanship while making errors of both omission and commission.

Warner and AP want the big takeaway to be that taxing "the rich" is the idea the public overwhelmingly favors to pay for ObamaCare -- never mind that the same public also opposes the plan itself.

What follows is a graphic containing selected paragraphs from Werner's report:

Werner's excerpted text compared to the actual poll betrays a fundamental misunderstanding that sadly permeates most discussions of income taxation:

• Werner and AP turned the actual poll question about income taxes, which involved "increasing income taxes paid by people who earn more than $250,000 a year," into "Tax the Rich." It's really "Tax the Incomes of Anyone Who Happens to Have a Very High-Earning Year." It only coincidentally has something to do with going after those who are actually wealthy, i.e., "the rich." It's not exactly a secret that quite a few high-earners are anything but rich, for a variety of reasons.
• Of course, the "objective" Warner somehow couldn't restrain her enthusiasm in how her misstated finding "will be welcome news for House Democrats." This Erica gal is really talented; her ability to wave pompoms and type at the same time is a sight to behold.
• Werner compounded her obvious conceptual misunderstanding of the difference between income and net worth by highlighting the quote from Ms. Rondthaler, who seems to believe that anyone with very high earnings has a whole bunch of cash just lying around doing nothing that could be sent to Uncle Sam with no personal consequences, and no effect on the overall economy.

As to more important findings in the poll -- all totally ignored by Werner -- here is some of what JammieWearingFool noted:

Of course what the Associated Press does not even mention in their story is probably the most relevant part: "In general, do you support, oppose or neither support nor oppose the health care reform plans being discussed in Congress? (IF SUPPORT/OPPOSE Is that strongly support/oppose or somewhat support/oppose?" To no surprise that's opposed by 43-41%. Eleven percent neither support or oppose and 4% "don't know."

Also conveniently left out of their story is the response to whether people should be penalized if they do not buy the government-run health care: Sixty-four percent oppose. Why do you suppose that was left out?

Also left out was of the respondents, 37% are unemployed or retired. No wonder they want someone to pick up the tab.

Forty-two percent think the economy will get worse if this scam is shoved down our throats, while 28% think it will improve. Again, this is left out of the story.

..... Another question left out: "How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right – just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time?" A total of 24% said all or most of the time. And we're going to trust them?

Fans often complain about "home cooking," where the referees' calls seemingly tend to favor the home team over its opponents. In this case, Werner's and AP's home-cooking nullified the effect of every play it didn't like.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

On Monday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, presumably picking up on a posting by the far left ThinkProgress.org -- one of his regular sources of information to attack conservatives -- made the arguably inaccurate claim that FNC political analyst Bill Kristol had on the Thursday, November 12, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, called for Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan to be convicted and executed without trial. After calling the FNC analyst's words "anti-American," and quoting a portion of Kristol's words, Olbermann lectured:

But seriously, the men and women that this man killed – however you define him – those men and women of the U.S. military, Mr. Kristol, were fighting for the right to trial, due process, justice. Thanks for spitting on the dead of Fort Hood, William Kristol, today’s “Worst Person in the World.”

But a trial is where a criminal normally is "convicted," so the fact that Kristol argued that "they should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death," does not necessarily mean that he was suggesting skipping the trial phase. Additionally, the purpose of Kristol's comment about convicting Hasan was to point out that that part of the process should be a straightforward open-and-shut case since there is so much evidence of his guilt, as the FNC analyst was complaining that Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano made a statement about exacting justice on Hasan being her "number one issue." Napolitano: "And the number one issue, I think right now, is that Major Hasan be brought to justice."

Kristol thought that her highest priority at present should be to determine why the military had ignored suspicious behavior by Hasan so that in future these kinds of attacks within the military might be minimized. Kristol:

The number one, if you’re the head of Homeland Security, shouldn't you say the number one priority is figuring out what went wrong? This is what is most disturbing about this. What is disturbing is that it happened, and there were huge failures, I think, within the Army and the intelligence community connecting the dots.

But Olbermann omitted Kristol's reasons for disagreeing with Napolitano's statement -- as did the posting at ThinkProgress.com -- and went on to attack Kristol.

Notably, just last Wednesday, Olbermann included FNC's Bill O'Reilly in Countdown's "Worst Person" segment after O'Reilly argued on his November The O'Reilly Factor show that the Fort Hood massacre should be called "terrorism," although part of Olbermann's complaint was that O'Reilly had jokingly claimed that he had the right to decide whether the event should be called a terrorist act because the popularity of his show on FNC gives him the right. Olbermann:

Our runner-up, Billow: He’s back in fine delusion of grandeur form, having decided that Fort Hood was terrorism. Now, I could read this in the Ted Baxter voice, but then you’d get the impression that O’Reilly was kidding here or being self-deprecating. Nuh-uh.

After showing a clip of O'Reilly and FNC political analyst Alan Colmes in which O'Reilly glibly commented that "I have the highest rated show, Colmes, so ... I can decide, okay?" Olbermann continued: "So Dancing with the Stars drew nearly 16 million viewers last night – nearly three times O’Reilly’s highest rated show. Does that mean host Tom Bergeron gets three votes on the 'what actually happened' ballot?"

Below are transcripts of relevant portions of the Monday, November 16 Countdown show on MSNBC, the Wednesday, November 11, Countdown, and the Thursday, November 12, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC:

#From the Monday, November 16, Countdown:

KEITH OLBERMANN: But our winner is William Kristol. This is about Fort Hood and Major Hasan, and it is, in short, anti-American.

"I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano's comment. I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He’s not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death."

Firstly, Bill, if this is the new rule, please report to Leavenworth in the morning. You are guilty of 931 counts of federal felony factual mistakes. But seriously, the men and women that this man killed – however you define him – those men and women of the U.S. military, Mr. Kristol, were fighting for the right to trial, due process, justice. Thanks for spitting on the dead of Fort Hood, William Kristol, today’s “Worst Person in the World."

#From the Wednesday, November 11, Countdown:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Our runner-up, Billow: He’s back in fine delusion of grandeur form, having decided that Fort Hood was terrorism. Now, I could read this in the Ted Baxter voice, but then you’d get the impression that O’Reilly was kidding here or being self-deprecating. Nuh-uh.

ALAN COLMES: “-facts before we decide, okay, it’s terrorism."

BILL O’REILLY: Okay, I’ve decided it’s an act of terror because-"

COLMES: Well, okay, you’ve decided.

O’REILLY: Yeah. I have the highest rated show, Colmes, so I can [UNINTELLIGIBLE], I can decide, okay?

COLMES: Excuse me, that makes you the authority on defining things. I understand.

OLBERMANN: Yeah, he’s not kidding, is he? So Dancing with the Stars drew nearly 16 million viewers last night – nearly three times O’Reilly’s highest rated show. Does that mean host Tom Bergeron gets three votes on the “what actually happened” ballot? And what happened to, “We report, you decide”? They don’t mean you, Billy.

#From the Thursday, November 12, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, "Fox All Stars" segment:

CHRIS GREY, ARMY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DIVISION: U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old psychiatrist assigned to Darnell Medical Center here at Fort Hood, has been charged with 13 specifications of premeditated murder under article 118 of the uniform code of military justice.

JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: This is a matter under investigation. It's going to be looked at, obviously, very, very fully. And the number one issue, I think right now, is that Major Hasan be brought to justice.

BAIER: Well, it's official. Major Nidal Hasan has been charged, and now he will face a military trial on these charges. In addition to this, a new discovery. Today, officials coming out with this business card that was found inside his apartment, boxes of these business cards that he had made. There you see it there. No mention of his military affiliation with the U.S. Army, but underneath his name, you can see SOA and then SWT. SOA is commonly used on jihadist Web sites as the acronym for "Soldier of Allah." SWT is commonly used, we're told, as an acronym for "Glory to God." Again, no mention of the U.S. Army on that card.

We are here to analyze the investigation and where it’s heading from here. Let's bring in our panel, Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Charles, in addition to that, ABC News is reporting that he used numerous names, e-mails, to get onto jihadist Web sites and had contact with other jihadists even in Europe outside of this one radical imam in Yemen that we’ve reported on.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Look, this is the kind of evidence you’d expect from someone who was reported at the time of the shooting to have been shouting out "Allah Akbar," which is the battle cry of jihadism. I mean, this is not a surprise. The amazing part is in the business card. Here’s a man whose entire adult life essentially, or professional life has been spent in the U.S. Army. This is a business card. There’s no mention whatsoever of the U.S. Army, but he says himself, in the business card – imagine, it is a card. It is not just something in his head. It’s something he presumably wants to hand out, "Soldier of Allah." I mean, if that’s not slam-dunk evidence of what he thought of himself, then nothing is.

This, remember, comes after days and days of the media trying to avoid any implication that there was any connection between his Islamist beliefs, which many of which he expressed to colleagues and in lectures, and his actions. I mean, what we heard about was secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a disorder which incidentally doesn't exist. If you look in the DSM IV, which is the current statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association, it isn't in there.

And those who do believe it exists have a synonym, "compassion fatigue." Imagine. What we're say, something this is a guy who killed 13 people cruelly. He pursued the wounded to finish them off. And the cause, excess of sentiment and compassion. If we can't speak clearly in moral terms about this kind of absolute evil, then we are in trouble.

BAIER: Mort?

MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: You know, with all due respect to Secretary Napolitano, the number one issue here is not to bring this guy to justice. The number one issue here is to find out, and even the President said that they're going to conduct an extensive investigation and so is Joe Lieberman on the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate, of why weren't the dots connected here?

I mean, his colleagues at Walter Reed knew that he was uttering this wild jihadist stuff, that he was also, by the way, incompetent and belligerent. We had evidence -- the NSA undoubtedly had intercepts of his contacts with various jihadists. And there was even a Defense Department analyst who tracked all this stuff, his connections with Al Alwaki. So why wasn't something done?

I mean, 100 years ago when I was in the Army Counterintelligence Corps, there was a category of people called "disaffected," and we conducted security investigations on these people. This guy was totally disaffected and blatantly disaffected, and why he wasn't closely monitored is the question.

BAIER: Bill?

BILL KRISTOL, WEEKLY STANDARD: I guess parts of the Army are not on war footing, they’re on diversity footing here at home, maybe especially in the medical services profession, especially not on the front lines.

I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano's comment. I hadn’t read it before. To see her say that, that the number one priority is bringing him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He’s not going to be innocent of murder. [STARTS LAUGHING] They’ve got a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death.

But Mort is absolutely right. The number one, if you’re the head of Homeland Security, shouldn't you say the number one priority is figuring out what went wrong? This is what is most disturbing about this. What is disturbing is that it happened, and there were huge failures, I think, within the Army and the intelligence community connecting the dots. We know that. This Al Alwaki, the cleric, he's not just a radical cleric. He’s an Al Qaeda cleric. And that connection alone is just a huge alarm bell that should have gone off.

But what has happened since the killing, that’s what, in a way, has me most upset. The FBI director says, oh, right away, no terrorist connections without thinking really about a terrorist connection. Then they had these business cards, presumably, with these "Soldier of Allah," "Slave of Allah," I guess it is, acronym on it, General Casey goes on TV, the Army chief of staff, Sunday, diversity can't be a casualty of this. And now we have the Homeland Security Secretary saying, well, we have to bring people to justice. Are we still not going to be serious about dealing with jihadists in the U.S., in the Army who are killing soldiers at a base here in the United States?

BAIER: So is there a point where this evidence adds up and it’s a tipping point and somebody starts talking about terrorism?

KRISTOL: Yeah, I think so.

BAIER: From the administration, not from, you know, the commentators or the news people, but from the administration?

KRISTOL: And we don't know everything yet. I mean, there were multiple e-mail accounts, some which seem to have been disguised. He had a shredder in his apartment which shredded stuff and it apparently was emptied out before people got there. That's why they're searching through these garbage cans and dumps, you know, elsewhere in Killeen near fort hood. I mean, we don't know what the terror connections were. At best, he’s a lone, you know, a lone terrorist with connections with jihadists, which is itself a huge problem. At worst, there actually were much more serious connections with people abroad and elsewhere in the U.S.

BAIER: Charles?

KRAUTHAMMER: I think it’s worse if he acted alone, because if there are connections, then  you have people, sort of agents of those abroad. We have been rather good since 9/11 at having prevented outsiders from infiltrating, but the idea of somebody who grows up here and who, on his own, becomes a jihadist with the sort of spiritual or intellectual influence of outsiders. He’s not a directive, he’s not hired he’s not owned.

He’s not an agent but he acts as a self-agent on behalf of jihadism, that is harder to find, and it’s harder to go after because, as happened at Walter Reed, people will be worried about if you questioned this guy, and it was a question among all the psychiatrists, is he a nut, is he a terrorist? They didn't want to raise it. Why? Because you would be accused of prejudiced against him on the account of religion.

KONDRACKE: There’s a, you know, the STRATFOR, which is a private intelligence gathering operation, had an e-mail that got sent out about another Yemeni terrorist, the guy who’s in charge of al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula sent out worldwide this e-mail saying, you know, you don't have to knock down buildings, you don't have to stage spectaculars, you can engage in small attacks with knives, guns, whatever, on soft targets. And for all we know, you know, this was inspired by that.

KRISTOL: Al Alwaki was a big hero to the people who wanted to kill the soldiers at Fort Dix two or three years ago. They found all of his sermons preserved on the computers of those people. This guy, the idea, it’s one thing I agree there’s a terrible problem with self-starting jihadists who read something who get inspired and do things. He was in touch with Al Alwaki should have been such an unbelievable alarm bell, that that didn’t go off is worrisome. And then afterwards, that half the U.S. government seems to be saying, well, let's not be alarmed even though we now know that that's the case is even more worrisome.

Only four days after airing faked photographs purporting to be of Sarah Palin wearing a bikini and holding a gun, MSNBC hosts on Tuesday decided they were qualified to fact check the ex-governor of Alaska. Contessa Brewer chided Palin’s new memoir: "But can this book really be classified as fact, fiction or a little of both? Okay, so here is a bit of fact-checking."

Brewer, who was part of the Morning Meeting segment on Friday that also featured a doctored photo of Palin’s head on the body of someone wearing a black mini-skirt, delighted in mentioning John McCain aides who disputed the book. "One, in fact, called it pathetic score settling," she announced. The MSNBC graphic hyped, "Palin Book: Fact of Fiction?"

Of course, much of the brief "fact checking" piece amounted to Brewer recounting how Palin said one thing and ex-McCain aides said something else: "In another part of the book, Palin claims she was pushed into risky network interviews including that rocky one-on-one with Katie Couric. McCain's former campaign says that is a fabrication." Brewer breathlessly explained that "McCain aides deny ever forcing Palin or her family to dress up in designer clothes." These are not examples of "fact checking." They are simply accusation swapping.

Perhaps Brewer and Morning Meeting host Dylan Ratigan should let a few days pass before deciding to question the veracity of someone else. After all, airing photoshopped, "sexy" photos of Palin, misleading viewers into thinking such images are real, these are not the most reliable actions.

On Monday, host Ratigan apologized for the fictional images: "We should have never used those photos in the first place and you can rest assured we spent the weekend and Friday afternoon taking measures to make sure it will never happen again. I apologize."

A transcript of the November 17 segment, which aired at 10:47am EST, follows:

MSNBC graphic: Palin Book: Fact of Fiction?

DYLAN RATIGAN: Day one for Sarah Palin’s highly anticipated book, Going Rogue: An American Life. How highly anticipated, you ask? Even if you didn’t, it’s already number one on Amazon.com. Contessa’s on the beat. What’s going on with this thing?

CONTESSA BREWER: A lot of people lining up to buy this one. As the former Governor prepares to kick off her book tour, some folks linked to the McCain campaign are already pushing back against her accounts of the past year and a half. One, in fact, called it pathetic score settling. But can this book really be classified as fact, fiction or a little of both? Okay, so here is a bit of fact-checking and here is what we found: In the book, Palin claims the McCain campaign billed her $50,000 for legal fees involved in vetting her as a running mate, but Senator McCain himself says that bill was from Palin's own lawyer to clear up ethics charges stemming from Troopergate. In another part of the book, Palin claims she was pushed into risky network interviews including that rocky one-on-one with Katie Couric. McCain's former campaign says that is a fabrication. He says, as far as he knows, all interviews were arranged by the campaign with her agreement. And, finally, remember the whole dust up with her wardrobe, well, Palin is pinning the blame on the campaign for deciding to spend $150,000 on new clothes for her and her family. She says, she was shocked at the price tag. McCain aides deny ever forcing Palin or her family to dress up in designer clothes. By the way, we should mention, John McCain has been asked about the book. The senator said, quote, "I'm just moving on. I've got too many other things to worry about, except to say that I'm proud of my campaign," unquote. Dylan?

On Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez previewed an exclusive interview with Levi Johnston on the CBS entertainment show, The Insider: “Levi Johnston says he is winning the war of words between Sarah Palin and him. We’ll hear from him.” Later, correspondent for The Insider, Chris Jacobs, declared: “Sarah Palin lashing out at Levi and now Levi fires back.”

Rodriguez has conducted three exclusive interviews with the estranged father of Palin’s grandson in the last six months, the latest on October 29. In The Insider interview, Johnston is given the opportunity to continue his vicious, personal, and unsubstantiated attacks against the former Alaska governor, claiming: “I think she’s going out and talking and she’s just digging a bigger hole for herself....I just look at her in disgust. It’s almost funny that she’s like 46 years old and she’s battling a 19-year-old and I’m winning and I’m telling the truth. She’s lying and losing.”

The preview segment of the interview, in which Johnston reacts to Palin’s interview with Oprah Winfrey on her new book, goes on to feature an expletive laden rant by the would-be Playgirl model: “She’s really underestimating me right now and that’s not a smart thing to do....You know, she’s basically calling me a liar, which is total [expletive]. I did for, you know, a few, you know – a couple months and then we split up and that was it. You can totally tell, if you pay attention, that she’s the one [expletive].”

Rodriguez concludes the segment by encouraging viewers to watch the rest of the interview on Tuesday’s edition of The Insider: “Alright Chris, we’ll be tuning in. Thank you so much....Tune into The Insider tonight for more on Levi Johnston’s take on Sarah Palin. Be sure to check your local listings.”

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

7:00AM TEASE:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Sarah Palin hypes her new book on Oprah and slams the McCain campaign.

SARAH PALIN: I did not want that message sent out that we were giddy happen to become grandparents.

RODRIGUEZ: While the father of her grandchild, Levi Johnston, fires back.

LEVI JOHNSTON: I think she’s going out and talking and she’s just digging a bigger hole for herself.

RODRIGUEZ: We’ll have more of his exclusive reaction.

7:12AM TEASE:

HARRY SMITH: Up next, Sarah Palin hypes her book on Oprah while Levi Johnston watches and claims victory. We’ll tell you what both had to say.

7:24AM TEASE:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Still to come, Levi Johnston says he is winning the war of words between Sarah Palin and him. We’ll hear from him when we return.     

7:31AM SEGMENT:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: But first, Sarah Palin. She didn’t hold back when she talked to Oprah. And Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson, was watching. The Insider’s Chris Jacobs is live in L.A. with Johnston’s exclusive reaction. Hey Chris, good morning.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Levi vs. Sarah; Grandson’s Father Goes Rogue on Palin]

CHRIS JACOBS: Good morning, Maggie. Only The Insider’s cameras were rolling as Levi watched Sarah Palin talk tough about his choices to take their spate public and then pose for Playgirl. Levi shared his thoughts with us.

SARAH PALIN: A bit heartbreaking to see the road that is he on right now.

LEVI JOHNSTON: I think she’s going out and talking and she’s just digging a bigger hole for herself.

PALIN: Kind of this aspiring – aspiring porn, some of the things that he’s doing. It’s kind of heartbreaking.

OPRAH WINFREY: The Playgirl centerfold?

PALIN: Right. It’s – I call that porn, yes.

JOHNSTON: I just look at her in disgust. It’s almost funny that she’s like 46 years old and she’s battling a 19-year-old and I’m winning and I’m telling the truth. She’s lying and losing.

JACOBS: Sarah Palin lashing out at Levi and now Levi fires back.

JOHNSTON: If you look at her face, she’s got – she’s really – you can tell her mind’s going 100 miles an hour when Oprah asked her those Levi questions. I got a lot more knowledge and, you know, credibility than she gives me credit for.

PALIN: And by the way, I don’t know if we call him Levi. I hear he goes by the name ‘Ricky Hollywood’ now. So if he – if that’s the case, we don’t want to mess up this gig he’s got going.

JOHNSTON: She’s really underestimating me right now and that’s not a smart thing to do.

JACOBS: With daughters Willow and Piper in the audience, Sarah implies Levi’s a liar.

PALIN: The whole premise of Levi ever having lived with Bristol is false. And from there, though, I mean, you take that foundational untruth and you can kind of measure all the other things that he’s saying.

JOHNSTON: You know, she’s basically calling me a liar, which is total [expletive]. I did for, you know, a few, you know – a couple months and then we split up and that was it. You can totally tell, if you pay attention, that she’s the one [expletive].

JACOBS: But Levi is especially irritated by this moment.

WINFREY: What happens when he comes to see the baby?

PALIN: He’s quite busy with his media tours and he hasn’t seen the baby for a while.

JOHNSTON: You know, I’ve been gone a lot on the media. That is – yeah, I haven’t seen him a lot, but that’s not always why.

JACOBS: Levi’s long contended that the Palins are keeping him away from his now 10-month-old son, Tripp, and that he’s gearing up for a custody battle.

JOHNSTON: We’re going to court. It’s – all this is going to be over with and I won’t have much else to say about Sarah Palin because I will have my kid.

JACOBS: Palin appears to extend an olive branch to her grandson’s father, but Levi says there’s no truce yet.

PALIN: An open invitation for Levi to come to Aunt Katie’s house for Thanksgiving dinner in Washington, there.       

JOHNSTON: That was a real convincing invite. I think if I go there, I’m going to need – I’m going to need an army because it’s – it’s not going to be good.

JACOBS: And this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Levi Johnston. Tonight we’ve got a whole lot more. The Insider is inside Levi’s Playgirl photo shoot, shirtless and stripped down. Now the answer to the million dollar question is will he take it all off. You’re just going to have to wait and see tonight on The Insider.

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, you’re going to tell us?

JACOBS: Maybe.

RODRIGUEZ: Alright Chris, we’ll be tuning in. Thank you so much.

JACOBS: Thank you very much.

RODRIGUEZ: Tune into The Insider tonight for more on Levi Johnston’s take on Sarah Palin. Be sure to check your local listings.

As several networks run around with new ratify-our-liberal-bias polls insisting that Sarah Palin is completely unqualified to be president -- exquisitely timed to ruin her book tour and channel all their very obvious and partisan Palin-loathing -- where are the polls that are about 2009, as opposed to 2012?

A scan of Gallup.com and Pollingreport.com suggests that neither Gallup nor any of the networks are asking about the Fort Hood shooting -- either about whether it was terrorism or about whether it shakes people's confidence in the government's ability to protect American citizens from domestic terrorism attacks. Rasmussen had a poll that found 60 percent think Major Nidal Hasan should be tried for terrorism (and liberal blogger Greg Sargent also pulled out of that poll that a majority worried about a backlash against Muslims.)

On the KSM trial decision, there is one poll by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation, but there is no question about the judgment of President Obama or Attorney General Holder. As Polling Report listed the questions:

-- "Now here are some questions about Khalid Sheik Mohammed who may be responsible for planning the 9/11 attacks and who is now in custody at a U.S. military prison in another country: If you had to choose, would you rather see Khalid Sheik Mohammed brought to trial in a criminal court run by the civilian judicial system, or would you rather see him tried by a military court run by the U.S. armed forces?" (Civilian court 34 percent, military court 64 percent, 2 percent unsure. )

-- "And regardless of which court system you think he should be tried in, if you had to choose, would you rather see Khalid Sheik Mohammed brought to the U.S. to stand trial or would you rather see him tried in a U.S. facility in another country?" (Brought to the U.S., 60 percent, another country, 37 percent, 3 percent unsure. )

-- "If Khalid Sheik Mohammed is tried in a civilian court in the U.S., do you think he would get a fair trial, or don't you think so?" (64 percent fair trial, 34 percent not, 2 percent unsure. )

-- "If Khalid Sheik Mohammed is found guilty of planning the 9/11 attacks, which of the following statements best describes your view? You generally support the death penalty and believe he should be executed if he is found guilty. You generally oppose the death penalty, but believe he should be executed in this case if he is found guilty. You generally oppose the death penalty and believe he should not be executed if he is found guilty." (Generally support death penalty and execution, 59 percent ; generally oppose death penalty but support this execution, 19 percent; generally opposed death penalty and oppose this execution, 19 percent.)

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show, actually asked Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, if he and the network parted ways because he was "too conservative" and if CNN was okay with Dobbs' push for immigration reform when he was attacking George W. Bush but wasn't happy when Dobbs started slamming the Obama administration on the issue, as he queried the former CNN host, "You got much less kickback from CNN than when you started to speak out about the policies of Barack Obama. So, was this an issue that CNN wants to appear neutral but maintain a more liberal stance?" [MP3 audio available here]

For his part Dobbs claimed the home of the very liberal Rick Sanchez "made it very clear, they wanted the network to go middle of the road and to be very neutral."

The following is the full transcript of the entire segment as it was aired on the November 17, Today show:

MATT LAUER: Lou Dobbs is a former anchor at CNN who abruptly resigned last week from his job as host of "Lou Dobbs Tonight." He's with us exclusively this morning. Lou, good to see you.

LOU DOBBS: Great to be with you, Matt.

LAUER: I want to talk about Sarah Palin.

DOBBS: Alright.

LAUER: I'd love to get your take on her in a second. But I can't introduce you as the guy who resigned abruptly from CNN last week without starting by saying what happened?

DOBBS: Well CNN decided to go one way and ultimately it became clear to both CNN management and myself that we were going to go separate directions, and the primary issue was over the way in which I wanted to anchor a broadcast and host a broadcast and the way in which they wanted to go.

LAUER: The way it's been reported is that, that CNN got tired of your opinions. And I'm curious, do you think CNN got tired of opinions in general? Did, in other words, did they want to stay in the middle of the road, or did they get tired of your specific opinions, too conservative?

DOBBS: Well, well since I take it a little personally, perhaps it was just mine, but they made it very clear, they wanted the network to go middle of the road and to be very neutral. And Matt, you and I have known each other for a long time. You know I'm not a very neutral fellow.

LAUER: No, that's true. So when you continued to talk about things like illegal immigration and the Birthers movement, did they come down, did they sit down with you in a meeting -- I'm talking about the brass at CNN -- did they threaten to take you off the air if you didn't toe the line?

DOBBS: Never. Never. In my almost, well just about 27 years with CNN, and I'm very fortunate to have been one of the folks who helped build the place, no one ever tried to interfere with my editorial judgment, for which I'm very grateful. But when you start moving to the issue of whether or not I was gonna be able to do analysis, to be able to express my opinion, which is something that, frankly, my audience has not only given me permission to do but demand-

LAUER: But they want you, seem to want you to do it.

DOBBS: Exactly.

LAUER: And, and you went on in an interview last night and you seemed to lead people to believe that when you were speaking out against President Bush and his immigration policies, you got much less kickback from CNN than when you started to speak out about the policies of Barack Obama. So, was this an issue that CNN wants to appear neutral but maintain a more liberal stance?

DOBBS: You know, I think that's a question left to others better.

LAUER: What do you think, though?

DOBBS: Well, my personal view is that, and all I can go by is what they said. They said the issue is one of advocacy, one of neutrality, that they will prefer, but we had this conversation now, and as it were, and not back then.

LAUER: You've had some critics over the last year or two...

DOBBS: No! Say it ain't so.

LAUER: I'll tell you it is true. Now some of them are cheering your exit as a victory.

DOBBS: Right.

LAUER: Roberto Lovato of Presente.org, it's a Hispanic group, said quote, "We're thrilled that Dobbs no longer has the legitimate platform from which to incite fear and hate." What's your reaction to that?

DOBBS: Well first, if by saying that I believe illegal immigrants are the only rational actors in this nation's illegal immigration crisis, then you know, forgive me. If saying that people should be absolutely honoring our borders and our ports as a sovereign nation, then forgive me. If saying that we should have a rational, effective and humane immigration policy in this country, but as a condition precedent, we have to secure our borders, then forgive me. I've said all along Matt, that there is one logical syllogism that, that I can't overcome. And if anybody can defeat that logic of the syllogism, then I'll sign up for whatever they want. I've said you cannot, you cannot substantively reform immigration law unless we can control immigration, and we can't control immigration if we don't control our own borders and ports. Now, if somebody can defeat the logic of that, I'll sign up for whatever they've got in mind.

LAUER: While we've got a sampling of your views on things. Let me ask you for your view-

DOBBS: Sure.

LAUER: -on Sarah Palin. She's everywhere right now. She's on her book tour. Is she staking out her claim, an early claim for the Republican nomination for 2012?

DOBBS: Well she's certainly the front-runner in terms of her popularity in the Republican Party, and therefore, de facto, it seems to me Matt, she is staking out her territory.

LAUER: Is, is she someone that if, if the election were held today, Lou, would you consider voting for her?

DOBBS: Would I consider voting for her? Frankly, based on from what I have seen personally, no. I'm an independent. I've got no dog in the, in the hunts of either the Democrats or the Republicans. But I think the woman had a brilliant address at the Republican Convention last year. I think that since then, she's, she's left a lot to be -- I'll put it this way -- desired as a person who is seeking votes. But that may be what this is about, campaigning for those votes like mine, that certainly are not persuaded at this point.

LAUER: You haven't been specific about your future plans. Safe to say, though, you're not gonna shy away from the public forum and, and continue to express your views on issues?

DOBBS: Absolutely safe, Matt. I'm going to, no matter whether, you know, I'm blessed with a lot of opportunities. No matter what it will be in the public arena, I guarantee you.

LAUER: We'll hear from Lou Dobbs. Lou, thanks for spending time with us this morning.

DOBBS: Great to be with you, Matt.

LAUER: Appreciate it.

His state voted Democratic in the 2008 presidential contest for the first time in 44 years, he's personally popular with voters, and he's currently the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Yet not once in her November 17 11-paragraph story did Washington Post's Rosalind Helderman raise the notion that Gov. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) might share blame for his party's gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds getting thoroughly trounced in the voting booth 14 days earlier.

Helderman's story, "Democrat Deeds ran without his base, Kaine says," was based on Kaine's recent "meeting with editors and reporters of The Washington Post." Helderman's reporting makes clear, however, that the paper was only interested in dutifully relaying Kaine's spin on the 2009 gubernatorial election, not in challenging any of his claims.

Kaine told the Post that Deeds:

squandered the opportunity to sell his own appealing life story.... Instead, the rural state senator took the advice of campaign consultants who wrongly assumed Deeds's Democratic support was solid and believed he should instead focus on wooing independents by attacking Republican Robert F. McDonnell.

And that makes sense, how? If in hindsight Deeds had trouble energizing his base, how could Kaine expect him to win an election in which he'd have to carry an energized base to the polls while also winning over independents?

But instead of challenging any of Kaine's analysis or asking him if McDonnell's win was a repudiation of the direction Democrats, led by Kaine, were taking Virginia, Helderman simply relayed the outgoing goveror's hand-washing for the 2009 electoral bloodbath, which saw double-digit losses by all three statewide Democratic candidates and a net pickup of a handful of seats for Republicans in the state House of Delegates:

Kaine's post-election analysis echoes criticism of the Deeds campaign that emerged from Washington and top aides to President Obama even before the election. It is a narrative that shields Obama from counterarguments by Republicans, who have contended that Virginia voters backed McDonnell to send a signal that they were displeased with Obama's leadership. 

It is also a critique that Kaine, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, might be hoping will persuade congressional Democrats to be more supportive of Obama's policies, not less, as they contemplate their reelection efforts next year.

Kaine said the key to victory for Democrats in a highly competitive Virginia is recognizing that party members need not be "apologetic" about their affiliation to find success. He noted that about 200,000 more people voted in the Democratic primary for president on a frigid February day in 2008 than cast ballots for Deeds this year, and said McDonnell successfully spooked Deeds by suggesting that Virginians had grown anxious about the Democratic agenda.

"I think the issue of being nervous about the Virginia electorate was overdone and I think Creigh did exactly what the McDonnell campaign hoped he would do, which was distance himself from the president and national issues," Kaine said.

As he prepares to leave office, Kaine said he was pleased that Virginia's economy has remained dynamic, with unemployment below the national average, and that its education system has been widely praised.

He also said that Virginia benefits from more national attention because of its status as a competitive state in presidential politics.

He expressed optimism that Democrats will extend their one-vote majority in the state Senate by winning a special election to replace Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II, a Fairfax County Republican who was elected attorney general.

Twitter has announced that it will end a list service that blatantly favored Democratic politicians by attracting viewers to their profiles while excluding GOP officials from the service.

The list service provided new Twitter users with lists of prominent message-posters they might like to follow. Watchdog groups discovered late last month that Democratic officials were prominently listed by the service, and gaining large swaths of followers as a result, while many prominent GOP politicians were excluded.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has since withdrawn his bid for Governor, was one suggested user, and had roughly 1.2 million followers when the Associated Press reported the story on October 27. His opponent in the race for the Democratic nomination also appeared on the lists, and garnered 960,000 followers.

But none of the GOP's gubernatorial contenders appeared on the lists, and all three had fewer than 5,000 followers.

"It's a dumb move," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, an independent nonpartisan think tank in Los Angeles. "Somebody should have been thinking that it's pretty obvious you don't put just the Democrats on it."

Such apparent favoritism does not violate any California campaign regulations, but it has caught the attention of the state's watchdog agency. The California Fair Political Practices Commission has formed a committee to examine how campaigns intersect with social media and to determine whether additional regulations are necessary.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in a March posting on his blog that he and a handful of other company employees make the final choice about who will be featured, a list that has grown to about 500 people.

He compared it to "your local book store's staff picks," a benign way of introducing new authors.

New users are linked automatically to 20 people they might want to follow, selected at random from the list of 500, but can reject or include as many from the master list as they like...

"Our observation of the list is it tends to be left-leaning politicians or celebrities. [Gubernatorial candidate Rep.] Tom Campbell is neither, so we're not surprised not to be on there," Campbell spokesman James Fisfis said.

Said [State Insurance Commissioner Steve] Poizner spokeswoman Bettina Inclan: "We think there's no doubt that getting a Twitter recognition by being featured on the suggested users list gives an advantage. It does make it an uneven playing field."...

"The suggested user list has been controversial for a while," [Twitter co-founder Evan] Williams said. "It's gone on too long, and I desperately want to kill it or evolve it."

Twitter has now announced that it will replace the list service with "something that is more programmatically chosen, something that actually delivers more relevant suggestions," according to Stone. The company declined to provide further details.

The political disparity in the list service was probably not deliberate, and most likely was reflective of the political homogeneity of Twitter's staff. Still, Twitter can be a powerful tool, and its owners must take care not to restrict accessibility on political grounds.

Although many in the mainstream media write off the Democratic Underground as somewhat sanity challenged, they continue to praise the Daily Kos Kossacks as somehow being "reasonable progressives." The truth is that the Kossacks are every bit as loony as their DU cousins as you can see in this Daily Kos thread about what they hope will be the real outcome of the civilian trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The conviction or acquittal of KSM is pretty much beside the point for most of the Kossacks. Their real hope for this trial is that they can use it as a weapon against what they call "BushCo." which is also the desire of many others on the left along with their MSM allies.

As you take the plunge into the depths of lunacy, keep in mind that many prominent people in both politics and the MSM continue to post at the Daily Kos. However, despite despite the clear Kossack derangement, we do need to thank them for being honest enough to post openly what many others are secretly thinking.

And now the Kossack KSM trial outcome fantasies begin:

Americans will be reminded again of what the Bush administration's reckless, immoral and counterproductive pro-torture policies have meant both for those we have detained and for our ability to prosecute them for their alleged crimes.

You will have a hard time finding any sense of Kossack outrage at the actual terrorists in this thread. Almost all the anger is directed at "BushCo" and the EVIL Republicans. And I love how the terrorists acts are referred to as "alleged crimes."

Next up, a Kossack fantasy that Islamic terrorism is just a Republican fantasy:

The Republican's holy grail of prestige--in their minds--is Islamic terrorism. 

Yeah, and 9/11 wasn't caused by Islamic terrosism. Oops! That is exactly what the 9/11 Truthers such as Van Jones think. They blame it on you-know-who.

Of course, what Kossack thread on this topic would be complete without the usual blame America routine?

there's much truth to the notion that America has committed acts of terrorism, violations of human rights standards (directly and indirectly), and unwelcome intrusions into other nations' sovereignty.

Republicans love to edit history they love myths like "the US is always right and good" and we had done nothing to have the violence of 9/11 visit upon us...

Our fault! Our fault!

A related post asserts that perhaps the terrorists did have good reasons for attacking us:

Many terrorist -- I would say almost all of them -- do have legitimate complaints. We should be asking ourselves about that since that is one area where we can actually mitigate the danger and probably save a lot of money in doing so. 

The terrorists who will be going on trial pretty much get a pass from the Kossacks but note in which direction their sense of outrage is focused:

The GOP is all about power and nothing else, there is no other legitimate explanation for their actions all these years ... same mindset as rapists and pedophiles except politics is their weapon instead of sex. 

A bit of Kossack praise for the political ulterior motive of the Obama administration:

For those who are upset that obama hasn't gone after the Bush admin, this could be a very good stepping stone.

And for you folks in politics and the media who still post at the Daily Kos and continue pretending that the motivation for this trial isn't political, this Kossack spells it out for you:

The question is really what is to be gained by a civilian trial? I think the answer is that Bushco goes on trial as well--for years this will be in the news. All sorts of crap about torture and fraudulent confessions and a war built on lies. 

Somewhere in this Kossack thread there must be some anger directed towards the actual terrorists. Wire me if you find it. In the meantime, the sense of outrage pretty much follows this theme:

War crimes trials for the entire GOP. Keep these craven f---ers on the run.

The final post on the thread pretty much sums up the prevailing attitude rampant among the Kossacks:

We are getting closer to Torture Indictments
It is going to happen. Keep up the rabble rousing.
Start organizing regular Pro-Prosecution street actions in front of your local congressional District offices.
At every public event Ask your politicians Loudly "Why they support Torture". Embarrass them!!
If they haven't recently called for enforcement of our Torture Laws against the Bush-Cheney Conspiracy To Change Federal Torture Laws,
THEY Are Supporting Torture!
And SIGN the PETITION calling for Prosecution 

And, of course, this Kossack isn't calling for prosecution of KSM and his fellow terrorists. That is pretty much of sideshow for the Kossacks...and many others on the left. The true purpose of the trial for them has been pretty much spelled out by the folks at the Daily Kos.

You can read even more anti-Bush/GOP (but not anti-terrorist) rantings from that Kossack thread at the DUmmie FUnnies.

UPDATES AT END OF POST: Picture has been changed!

USA Today's Oval blog Monday used a picture of a Sarah Palin-hating book called "Going Rouge, An American Nightmare" instead of the former Alaska Governor's "Going Rogue."

This despite the opening paragraph of the piece actually referring to Palin's book:

In her much-discussed new book, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin praises Hillary Rodham Clinton for her 2008 presidential campaign.

As the Huffington Post reported last month, "Going Rouge" was created by the editors of the far-left magazine The Nation with the expressed intent of mocking Palin:

An alternative, liberal judgment of Sarah Palin's legacy will appear in book stores on November 17, the same day Palin's own autobiography, "Going Rogue: An American Life," hits the shelves. "Going Rouge: An American Nightmare" is the brainchild of Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, editors at the progressive magazine The Nation. In addition to their nearly identical titles, the two books share similar covers, both showing Palin smiling into the distance.

Just in case USA Today opts to change it, here's a screencap courtesy NB reader Sinistar:

Maybe the good folks at USA Today should explain why the picture of a liberal book attacking Palin was used instead of the real one.

*****Update: Within minutes of this post going up, the picture has been changed to Palin's REAL book (h/t NB reader Thomas Charles Stewart)...

That's MUCH better.

For the record, the picture was still "Going Rouge" shortly before I posted this piece at 10:09 AM.

Maybe someone at USA Today should add an update to the article explaining why "Going Rouge" was there for at least 21 hours. 

*****Update II: The author has issued a correction...

ERRATUM: An earlier posting featured the photo of a different Sarah Palin book. The Oval regrets the error.

Joe the Plumber was certainly on to something when he got then-candidate Barack Obama to admit he wanted to redistribute the wealth, according to former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. 

Huckabee, who now hosts a show aired on the weekends on the Fox News Channel, told "On The Record" host Greta Van Sustren on Nov. 16 that Obama's policies go beyond just the redistribution of wealth, especially on health care. He likened a provision in the House health care bill that would require people to have some sort of health care coverage to a "poll tax."

"[W]hile we really wish [the president's priorities] were recovery, getting jobs back - that's the number one thing we ought to be focused on - but it appears to be redistribution," Huckabee said. "That's what's going on in the health care world, where we're trying to make sure that we've redistributed health care, taking it from people who have it, taking from them, giving it to people who may not even desire to have it, and forcing people into an unconstitutional system where they're going to have to virtually pay into a private marketplace in order to get full rights of citizenship. It's the equivalent of a poll tax."

And it goes far beyond health care, Huckabee explained.

"But we're also seeing this whole idea of redistribution, even in terms of world power - the United States no longer really intent on being a superpower but spreading the power around," Huckabee said. "We have a president bowing to Japanese emperors, dismantling our missile forces in Eastern Europe. There are many signs of it. And a friend of mine in San Francisco said that the difference is redistribution versus recovery. I think she's right, think she's on to something, and it's probably not in the best interests of the people of the United States."

Huckabee told viewers he thought Obama was well-intentioned, but was simply wrong in his policy decisions.

"I think he really wants there to be peace on earth, good will toward men," he said. "But the fact is, you don't create jobs by putting the government in a position where it starts picking winners and losers in the marketplace, anymore than you have a good football game when the referees start deciding the outcome, rather than just simply making sure that game is being played fairly."

Van Sustren asserted Obama wanted "full employment," and Huckabee said he agreed. However, he explained that Obama is creating a sense of insecurity and that insecurity is making small business owners reluctant to hire people back and improve unemployment, and by extension the economic recovery.

"Small business owners across America, Greta - and believe me, I'm on a 64-city book tour in three weeks," Huckabee replied. "I'm talking to thousands of people firsthand, face to face. Every small business owner says, ‘I'm laying people off. I'm hunkering down because I have no idea what the government is about to do to me'."

The uncertainty stems from a fear of increased taxes and regulations, in addition to a lack of available credit.

"That is the kind of action on the part of the government, whether it's fear of more taxes, fear of greater regulation, fear of the lack of credit so they can't put a floor plan together and stock inventory - this is the kind of stuff that kills jobs, it doesn't bring them back," Huckabee said. "Now, do I think the Obama administration wants to do good things? I really do. But I just think they're going about it in the worst possible way if they're really serious about recovery."

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Federal bureaucrats say costs of mammograms outweigh benefits.

Women in their 40s should stop routinely having annual mammograms and older women should cut back to one scheduled exam every other year, an influential federal task force has concluded, challenging the use of one of the most common medical tests.

...the independent government-appointed panel recommended the changes, citing evidence that the potential harm to women having annual exams beginning at age 40 outweighs the benefit...

The new guidelines also recommend against teaching women to do regular self-exams and concluded that there is insufficient evidence to recommend that doctors do the exams or to continue routine mammograms beyond age 74.

A sign of things to come?

Comedienne Joy Behar on HLN Monday jokingly accused former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean of releasing seven additional sex tapes "just in time for the holidays."

Surprisingly able to do simple arithmetic, Behar quipped, "Maybe she made one for each night of Hanukkah."

This nicely set up guests Perez Hilton, Heidi Montag, and Spencer Pratt to join in the Prejean bashing.

Particularly vile and hateful was Hilton who called Prejean "a hypocrite and a liar" and claimed she "makes Heidi Montag look like a genius" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obviously everybody wants to know about this sex tape that surfaced last week. There is one, correct?

CARRIE PREJEAN: You can call it whatever you want to call it. If you want to call it a sex tape, that`s fine. But --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well what do you call it?

PREJEAN: It was me by myself. There was no one else with me. I was not having sex. I sent it to my boyfriend at the time. I was a teenager. I cared about him. I trusted him. I was by myself. I sent it to a boyfriend. It was for, you know, private use, but did that justify what I did? No. It was the biggest mistake of my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOY BEHAR, HOST: She makes them by herself. She`s such a little camera hog. That`s the ex-beauty queen turned drama queen on "The Today Show" admitting to making a sex tape. Since then, news of seven more tapes has surfaced, just in time for the holidays. Maybe she made one for each night of Hanukkah, who knows, who knows. Joining me to discuss this and other things are Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, authors of "How to be Famous" and Perez Hilton, blogger and author of "Perez Hilton`s True Bloggywood Stories." Hi everybody. OK Heidi and Spencer, now you wrote a book on being famous.

SPENCER PRATT, AUTHOR: As did Perez.

BEHAR: As did Perez. But all of you then, are she doing it right?

PRATT: Well let me start here. I`m very impressed if she hits it off the bat with seven tapes. I`ve heard to come out with one sex tape but to come out with seven, that`s setting a bar I have to live up to.

BEHAR: What do you think, Perez?

PEREZ HILTON, AUTHOR: I think Carrie Prejean is a hypocrite and a liar and I love her. I love her.

BEHAR: Why do you love her?

HILTON: Because she`s so stupid, but she doesn`t know how stupid she is. You know, goes back to what I first said. She`s a dumb beep.

BEHAR: Let`s take a look at the moment that made Carrie Prejean a household name.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PREJEAN: Well I think its great Americans are able to choose one or another. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage, and you know what? In my country and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there, but that`s how I was raised and that`s how I think that it should be between a man and a woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: OK. You know, Perez, you`re the reason she`s so famous. Now that she has this sex tape, do you feel vindicated?

HILTON: I feel like this last two weeks have been wonderful, and, you know, Carrie Prejean makes Heidi Montag look like a genius.

PRATT: She is a genius.

BEHAR: Be nice to Heidi. Be nice to Heidi. You know, listen, Perez, one thing I have to say to you, she did answer the question honestly. She believes marriage is between a man and a woman. I don`t happen to go along with that. I think its people who are in love want to get married they should get married. Let them get married. But that`s what she believes. So shouldn`t she get some credit for that?

HILTON: Absolutely. She gave the politically incorrect answer in her words. Even watching her interviews recently, she`s like, I didn`t want to be politically correct, but I flip that back to her and say, do you want a politically insensitive miss USA? No. You have to know what you`re running for.

BEHAR: Heidi, what do --?

PRATT: Before we get into this Joy, I really have a question for Perez. I love your outfit. Did you borrow that from your wifey Lady Gaga?

HILTON: No, I got this on my own at American Apparel. Shameless blood, I paid for it.

BEHAR: OK Heidi, your Christianity was on full display on "I`m a celebrity get me out of here." let`s take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONTAG: I just don`t know why there`s such mean people and Tory saying she`s this Christian and you know, born again and blah, blah, blah. But it`s like, Christians don`t do that. Now I`m just going to try to pray to forgive them and try to get some sort of -- to forgive them. I`m not going to be, like, best friends with them. I`m going to love them like Jesus tells me to love them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BEHAR: Now Heidi, you have also posed topless.

HEIDI MONTAG, AUTHOR: I have posed topless.

BEHAR: Now you`re a good Christian girl. How do you reconcile those two things?

PRATT: There were no nipples. So technically posing topless has nipples.

MONTAG: No, no, no. I was halfway topless. But for me I feel like.

BEHAR: But will you make a sex tape? Would you make one? It makes you famous.

MONTAG: No, I don`t think I would make one. But let`s clarify, not only did she make a sex tape but she`s a solo artist in the sex tape. That`s unique, that`s new. A new type of pop culture. I`m very impressed with her antics because I don`t think its accident.

BEHAR: But Perez, why do you think she made a sex tape all by herself?

HILTON: Because she`s horny. You know, and also just to clarify something that you said earlier, Joy, or that was shown on the program, she claims she was underage, 17, but according to this ex-boyfriend that sold or leaked the video, she was definitely in her 20s and I have this big announcement. I have secretly been working on my own book, a new book, "True Bloggywood story where I talk about Carrie and I talk about will I am and the Dustin Lance Black, naked pictures and all the controversies I`ve been in this year. It`s juicy.

BEHAR: But politically speaking, why do you think Conservatives hate here? Prejean? Perez? She seems to get the Liberals -- why do Liberals hate her? I`m sorry. Did I say Conservatives? Oh my god, no. The liberals hate her. The Conservatives I think like her. Now with the sex tapes I think they`re turning. What do you think?

HILTON: I think what`s interesting is she was a blank canvass for a lot of Conservatives. They were projecting all of these ideas on to her and who she could be. But the more we find out about her, the more we learn she`s anything but that.

BEHAR: Uh-huh. Do you think she`s a hypocrite?

HILTON: Yes.

MONTAG: I mean, a little bit.

HILTON: A pretty one.

MONTAG: A very pretty one. A beauty queen one. None of us are perfect and I think that`s the thing about Christianity. Are we all making mistakes and none of us are perfect. It`s a crazy world we live in. But if we do it on purpose, which she very well could be like Perez is saying, maybe she made it last month; maybe she made it half a year ago after he got her fame off of Perez.

Honestly, where DOES all this hatred come from?

In an unorthodox move, The Washington Post on Tuesday published two book reviews of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue -- one by liberal Ana Marie Cox of Air America radio, and one by conservative Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard. Continetti's is genuinely supportive. Cox's is genuinely snarky. (Obviously, it would have been nice if Hillary Clinton had received that treatment, but let's not overlook the balance here.)

There's also a snarky article by Post writer Jason Horowitz and Michael Shear headlined "The Book of Sarah embraces God & Todd."

Inside the Style section, the headline of the Cox review is "Rogue: Mostly flash, little substance. Surprised?" Isn't "mostly flash, little substance" a beautiful summation of the career of Ana Marie Cox? It's like Katie Couric suggesting Palin isn't deep.

Cox slams Rush Limbaugh in her review for calling the book substantive, even as she later confessed she only read part of the book:

Rush Limbaugh last week proclaimed "Going Rogue" to be "truly one of the most substantive policy books I've read," though that certainly raises questions about what other policy books Rush has read and by what lights he considers the Palin book to be one. For all I know, it may be true. There may truly be substantive discussion of policy, something that goes beyond the thudding "taxes bad"/"government small" rhetoric that characterizes the moments when Palin turns her personal narrative into a discussion of government workings.

I cannot claim to have completely read "Going Rogue" -- I had to skim the last 150 pages (or more than one-third). I only got the thing into my hands late Monday afternoon with a deadline of early evening. It's terrible, I know, but if I didn't read it all, neither can Sarah Palin claim to have completely written it.

That's an incredibly lame excuse -- one that would get you a solid D-minus or worse in high school. (As if most politicians write their own memoirs without assistance?)

Continetti's review has a headline inside Style that says "To the right, she's the thriller from Wasilla."

Palin should be pleased that the three articles  suggest this book is a Major Event. That's not even counting the snarky article by perpetually snarky TV writer Lisa de Moraes on the Oprah interview:

Based on what we heard Monday it appears that Palin's book...is a charming coming-of-age tale along Rebecca of Wasilla Farm lines -- the narrative of a naive girl who thinks we're so naive that we would believe she's a naive girl who never could have guessed, say, that a candidate form the party of the Decency Police might face just a widdle bit of a problem to have a teen daughter who was pregnant and not married.

Former CNN host Lou Dobbs stuck to his guns when questions were raised if he was forced out at CNN in an interview with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly.

However, Dobbs did make one distinction - how his detractors decided to pile on when he was critical of President Barack Obama instead of former President George W. Bush. He elaborated on this on Fox News Channel's Nov. 16 "The O'Reilly Factor."

"I discerned more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration, whom I was criticizing and now when it is the Obama administration and an entirely different tone was taken, not so much in the case of CNN management certainly, because there is no - my contract is very explicit. I have absolute editorial control. What I reported is what I chose to report."

In fact, Dobbs even suggested Bush should have been impeached during the summer of 2008 for the tainted-tomato salmonella scare on his June 19, 2008 broadcast. However, it was shortly after Obama's inauguration when the anti-Dobbs bandwagon kicked into high gear by the left-wing noise machine.

However, Dobbs said it was only recently that CNN President Jonathan Klein told him he decided he wanted to take the network in a different direction.

"The only issue that came up in the last 90 days of my employment there was John Klein and I talked about the issue of opinion itself and advocacy journalism," Dobbs said. "He wanted to take the network in a different direction. I quite understood that and tried to accommodate him."

And Dobbs reiterated his point that CNN management never tried to exercise editorial control over him in his 27 years with the network. He did take issue with those who conflated his anti-illegal immigration stance as being anti-immigrant, but he didn't outright say CNN's management treated him differently between the Bush and Obama administrations.

"I don't know if that was the distinction that triggered any response or difference in perspective on the part of CNN's management, but it is the only difference in between the way I was conducting myself under this administration and the previous administration," Dobbs continued.

O'Reilly pressed further and asked Dobbs if he had "heard" any rumblings over his opinionated program.

"What I heard, very directly, was they decided to take CNN in direction in which advocacy journalism would not be a part of it," Dobbs said.

O'Reilly said he was perplexed over that decision because CNN continues to struggle in the primetime cable news ratings, even against its sister network, HLN - which features opinionated hosts including Nancy Grace and Joy Behar.

Naomi Wolf on Monday accused former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin of being part of a "cabal" involving George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove.

The feminist author and political consultant made this accusation on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Fortunately, former Bush adviser Mary Matalin was there to contest Wolf's absurdities:

[T]his is why people think liberals are such fringies. I mean you -- you run around saying that she's such a dope, but you were all duped by the dope. That's what you've said about George Bush, too.

In the end, the paranoia on display, as well as the unchecked hatred for Palin, was nothing less than remarkable -- but Matalin was there to bring some sanity to the discussion (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

LARRY KING, HOST: Naomi Wolf, somebody said today that they don't remember a vice presidential concession speech.

Anyway, you want to comment on what she said?

NAOMI WOLF, FEMINIST: Yes, I personally have no idea whether it's traditional or not. I don't think tradition should matter that much. I think what's more important is what I keep hearing -- the refrain I keep hearing from people is, you know, oh, we should have rolled her out more narrowly, she's genuine, I like her, she's got all these kids, she speaks from the heart.

You know, all of those are lovely in a neighbor or in a co- worker. But what people have to remember is do we really want to hand our country over to consultants like -- like my colleagues on other side of the aisle on this panel, with all due respect, who seem to want to roll her out like a product.

And let's look at what she was fronting for. She wasn't just doing what the McCain team wanted. She was carrying water for policies of Rove and Cheney and Bush, including policies on torture.

(LAUGHTER)

Bear with me.

And it -- history has seen plenty of examples of a cabal -- a group of people who get into power. And then she is a telegenic, charming, Evita-type front person to kind of lure the masses...

KING: All right, let...

WOLF: ...while the same old guys remain in power with some very dark and negative policies...

KING: All right, Mary...

WOLF: ...that our country is still recovering from.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: All right, you worked with -- you want to...

WOLF: I'd like to hear what you have to say about that.

KING: Do you want to respond, Mary?

MARY MATALIN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I don't know where my friend, Naomi, who was the third wave leading feminist and has turned into a Grassy Knoller. There is no Cheney/Rove cabal. Sarah Palin a grass...

WOLF: There's no Cheney-Rove cabal, huh?

MATALIN: See, you've got -- I don't -- this is why people think liberals are such fringies. I mean you -- you run around saying that she's such a dope, but you were all duped by the dope. That's what you've said about George Bush, too.

She's just a mainstream American. And if you read this book and the framework of her philosophy of government, it goes all the way back to the founders -- what's the role of government, can we afford this?

She has a very timely philosophical framework. And to put her in some kind of cabal...

WOLF: Mary...

MATALIN: ...says more about you guys than...

WOLF: Mary...

MATALIN: ...her.

WOLF: Mary, I admire you and I like you and you're...

KING: All right.

Katrina?

(CROSSTALK)

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, EDITOR, "THE NATION": Yes, I was going to say...

(CROSSTALK)

VAN DEN HEUVEL: I was going to say, you know, Sarah Palin today spoke of "united we stand." Her friend, "Joe the Plumber," spoke of mobilizing people to be part of the government.

I mean Sarah Palin, at the end of the campaign, traveled this country, Larry, at a time of unprecedented economic pain and hurt and fomented rage and anger, talked about President Obama palling around with terrorists...

WOLF: Terrorists.

VAN DEN HEUVEL: ...who are targeting our country.

WOLF: Yes, that's right.

VAN DEN HEUVEL: This -- this is not about united we stand. And these are people who hate government. They are government bashers at a moment when we need government for the common good.

So I'm not sure -- I'm all with Joe, by the way, we don't need more experts in our government. We need people who care about using government for the common good.

But this is not what Sarah Palin...

KING: All right, Nancy...

VAN DEN HEUVEL: ...stood for on the campaign trail...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Nancy...

VAN DEN HEUVEL: ...or what she stands for now.

KING: All right. We're running close on time.

Nancy...

NANCY PFOTENHAUER, FORMER MCCAIN CAMPAIGN ADVISER: I find it...

KING: Nancy, quick questions for you.

Do you think she wants -- Nancy, do you think she wants to run in 2012?

PFOTENHAUER: I think that she's considering it. And I think that she's done -- from the standpoint, that standpoint, stepping out and being able to go out and -- and basically raise some money, raise her profile, etc. All -- all makes sense.

However, the idea that candidates are not rolled out is point blank laughable. And if you're worried about the direction of the country, maybe we should be talking about the 10 percent unemployment rate, the two wars...

VAN DEN HEUVEL: Certainly we should.

PFOTENHAUER: ...that are still going on and etc. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's true.

PFOTENHAUER: We didn't -- shouldn't be ascribing poor motives to other people who want to engage who just happen to disagree with you.

VAN DEN HEUVEL: Nancy -- Nancy, bear with me...

KING: All right, guys...

VAN DEN HEUVEL: She supported torture.

KING: We've got another panel coming.

Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

KING: We'll have you back.

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter looked on Tuesday at MSNBC hosts pushing Team Obama from the left. Stelter stuck to supportive sources who believe they apparently have ideological integrity and independence where Fox News has none. They claim to have little contact with the Obama White House, but the staff there love how they’re supposedly "progressive but not partisan." Stelter explained:

It is certainly reaching the White House. Anita Dunn, the departing White House communications director, calls Mr. Olbermann and Ms. Maddow "progressive but not partisan," and in doing so, distinguishes them from Fox News, which she considers a political opponent.

The MSNBC hosts, she said in an e-mail message last month, "often take issues with the administration’s positions or tactics and are never shy about letting their viewers know when they disagree."

Maddow is much rougher on what she calls the "Conservadems" than she is on the Obama team. She wants a much narrower, more leftist Democratic Party. She favors a small tent. Stelter doesn’t wonder whether MSNBC’s advocacy is actually going to help the Democrats politically, or drag it too far away from the independents in the middle.

Ms. Maddow said that apart from an off-the-record meeting between Mr. Obama and commentators that she attended last month, she has heard little from the White House.

Mr. Griffin said, "We heard a whole lot more from the Bush White House."

Stelter doesn’t define how much that would be. Did the Bush White House call daily? Weekly? This part of the story is unintentionally funny:

MSNBC’s liberal points of view have made the channel an occasional thorn in the side of G.E., but the channel has also fostered a diversity of opinions that people like Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Campaign Change Committee, say were lacking in the past.

"There’s been a huge market void for a long time," Mr. Green said. Speaking of the MSNBC hosts, he said, "They are creating an environment where progressive thinkers and activists can thrive."

MSNBC is certainly making a space for radical leftists at The Nation and Mother Jones and hardcore blogs like Firedoglake. But "diversity"? Since when has Keith Olbermann’s show ever shown "diversity" in its selection of guests? Has he interviewed a conservative since 2003?

But here’s where it’s really amusing. Mr. Green’s group, the PCCC, is surely a beneficiary of this new space for leftists. Their campaign page shows three YouTube videos touting the impact of their leftist ads through repeated free advertisements and mentions on MSNBC programs. Green is interviewed by Ed Schultz as they promote an ad pressuring Sen. Max Baucus to support a "robust" government option in health care.

In the New York Times funhouse, MSNBC portrays themselves not only as "diverse" and nonpartisan, they’re even somehow in the political center:

Ms. Maddow, not surprisingly, agrees [MSNBC has created space for progressives]. "What looks like the middle of the country ought to look like the middle on TV," she said in an interview this month.

She paused and added, "Maybe that would have helped us make better policy decisions in the country in the past."

Does Maddow really think she’s in the middle? Should she call her show Maddow In The Middle?

Fox News' Glenn Beck isn't catching a break anywhere - from "Saturday Night Live," The New Yorker, Al Gore's Current TV and Comedy Central's "South Park." They have all taken shots at the popular TV host.

On his Nov. 16 program, Beck responded to the "South Park" interpretation of him - that he wasn't making accusations, but phrasing them in the form of a question. The show's character Eric Cartman played a spoof of Beck in which he railed against his school's president, Wendy Testaburger. Beck maintained he wasn't making the "accusations" in the form of a question - but playing the words of the "accused" themselves.

"Have we gotten to a place you can't ask questions?" Beck asked. "What were my crazy accusations or questions? Well, the accusation was that Van Jones was a communist revolutionary," Beck said. "I didn't describe him that way. In his own words he described himself that way. He was a 9/11 Truther. He was forced to step down. Was it that the administration was using NEA as a propaganda arm for the administration? That was a question. We played tapes of the call with Yosi Sargent and Yosi Sargent had to step down."

In addition to the Van Jones and NEA stories, Beck went through several other storylines his show broke open in its nearly 11-month history - former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn expressing her admiration for Mao Tse Tung, ACORN corruption and the sway the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has over the Obama administration.

"How about this crazy accusation, was it that Anita Dunn was a left-wing nut job?" Beck said. "We played the tapes of her preaching the virtues of Mao to a bunch of high school students. Yeah, she just stepped down a few days ago. How about this, maybe it was a crazy accusation that ACORN was deeply corrupt? I know that was crazy, huh? We played the tapes of them trying to help underaged prostitutes come into this country illegally. They fired the employee and lost their federal funding. Or was it that Andy Stern of SEIU has undue influence in this administration? Well, the visitor logs now show that he has visited the White House more than anyone else that we know of since Obama took office."

In the episode of "South Park" about Beck, the character Eric Cartman "asks" if Wendy is a "slut," which is meant to be an analogy to Glenn Beck questioning those harboring anti-American ideals inside the Obama White House. According to Beck, sometimes the questions he asks turn out to be true.

"To complete the ‘South Park' analogy, here in the real world, all of those Wendys really were sluts," Beck continued. "In fact, most of them called themselves sluts. They spoke about it - the benefits of slutdom on tape and then they were caught being slutty over and over again and we put them on television saying that. It is just that no one wants to believe that their representatives are ‘sluts,' even when they say it themselves. But America, no matter what The New Yorker says, sometimes our politicians really are ‘sluts.'"

The New Oxford American Dictionary on Monday named its 2009 "Word of the Year," and listed as one of the finalists "teabagger."

Fortunately, its definition was different than the sexual connotation many media members and liberal bloggers conveyed by using the term.

Regardless, its inclusion is still quite offensive to millions of Americans.

I guess the good folks at NOAD weren't concerned with that when they wrote the following press release:

Facebook fans will undoubtedly recognize the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year, unfriend.

unfriend - verb - To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook

"It has both currency and potential longevity," notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford's US dictionary program. "In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most 'un-' prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar 'un-' verbs (uncap, unpack), but 'unfriend' is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of 'friend' that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal." [...]

Word of the Year Finalists: [...]

Politics and Current Affairs

• Ardi -(Ardipithecus ramidus) oldest known hominid, discovered in Ethiopia during the 1990s and announced to the public in 2009
• birther - a conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama's US birth certificate
• choice mom - a person who chooses to be a single mother
• death panel - a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed
• teabagger - a person who protests President Obama's tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as "Tea Party" protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773

It really is a different America, isn't it?

On CBS’s Sunday Morning, New York Daily News Washington correspondent James Meek related President Obama’s visit to the graves of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead at Arlington National Cemetery: “Now, cynics may say this was just an Obama photo-op. But they weren’t there looking him in the eye. I saw a man fully carrying the heavy burden of command on a weighty day.”

In an article Meeks wrote for the Daily News on Thursday, he used harsher terms to denounce any “cynics” critical of Obama’s visit: “If they’d been standing in my boots looking him in the eye, they would have surely choked on their bile. His presence in Section 60 convinced me that he now carries the heavy burden of command.” To use such a personal experience to promote the current administration and attack critics seems rather cynical.   

In the Sunday Morning piece, Meek almost poetically described the President’s appearance at the section of the cemetery reserved for Iraq and Afghanistan war dead: “I was in Section 60 that morning when he made an unscheduled stop before huddling with his war council on sending more GIs into harm’s way. In a bone-chilling drizzle, he and the First Lady walked through the rows of gleaming white headstones. I saw the President embrace grieving widows, mothers, and battle buddies tending to the graves of loved ones. He asked about each one.”

Meek later noted the risk Obama took in paying his respects: “He didn’t have to go to Section 60. And White House aides didn’t screen any of us. If a widow or grief-stricken parent had chewed him out, the press there would have reported it.” He concluded his CBS commentary by retelling the President’s words on comfort to him: “I did tell him I’m a journalist. You know what the President said? ‘Just because you’re a journalist, James, doesn’t mean you can’t honor your friends here.’”

In an April 22 article for the Daily News, Meek reported on former Vice President Dick Cheney defending aggressive interrogation tactics used on terror suspects: “U.S. counterterrorism officials are reacting angrily to ex-Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that waterboarding 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times was a ‘success’ that produced actionable intelligence. ‘Cheney is full of crap,’ one intelligence source with decades of experience said Tuesday.”

More recently, on November 2 Meek took on Republican critics of Obama’s indecision on Afghanistan: “With the Afghan presidential election decided today, and Hamid Karzai remaining in power, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Obama ‘has no further pretext for delaying the decision on giving Gen. McChrystal the resources he needs to achieve our goals in Afghanistan. Delaying the decision puts our men and women fighting there in greater danger every single day...There are no more excuses.’ Maybe not, but what excuse did Boehner and the rest of the Congress have over the past eight years while the shamefully under-resourced war in Afghanistan was deteriorating into a possibly unwinnable disaster? It’s not as if the war began on Jan. 20, 2009.”

Here is a full transcript of the Sunday Morning segment:

10:15AM

CHARLES OSGOOD: This past week’s Veterans Day observances had deep personal meaning for countless Americans, not least, our guest contributor James Meek.

JAMES MEEK: I hear ‘Taps’ playing every night. I live near Arlington National Cemetery. I’m a Washington correspondent for the New York Daily News, but when I visit the Gardens of Stone, I go as a friend and relative of our honored dead. Men like Korean War veteran Ed Lenard, who was in our family; and Pearl Harbor fighter ace Ken Taylor, who was like family; and Iraq War hero Dave Sharrett, whose father is a close friend.

Ken and Ed survived their wars and died as old men. But Dave was twenty seven when he was killed last year in battle. He’s buried in Section 60, with the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Obama laid a Veterans Day wreath on Wednesday at the Tomb of the Unknowns. I was in Section 60 that morning when he made an unscheduled stop before huddling with his war council on sending more GIs into harm’s way.

In a bone-chilling drizzle, he and the First Lady walked through the rows of gleaming white headstones.

I saw the President embrace grieving widows, mothers, and battle buddies tending to the graves of loved ones. He asked about each one. And then the President suddenly extended his hand as he strolled over to Dave Sharrett’s grave. I gripped it and told him who I was visiting.
He read Dave’s headstone carefully and asked about him.

Dave’s father was my high school English teacher. And we knew his son as a funny kid we called ‘Bean,’ who used to crawl around at our feet. We used to look after Dave, but when he grew up, he watched over all of us. He was one of the toughest troopers in the 101st Airborne, I told the President.

What I didn’t tell him was that Dave was killed by friendly fire, or that the Army tried to whitewash it. It wasn’t a moment for complaint; it was all about a young hero’s ultimate sacrifice.

Now, cynics may say this was just an Obama photo-op. But they weren’t there looking him in the eye. I saw a man fully carrying the heavy burden of command on a weighty day. He didn’t have to go to Section 60. And White House aides didn’t screen any of us. If a widow or grief-stricken parent had chewed him out, the press there would have reported it.

I did tell him I’m a journalist. You know what the President said? ‘Just because you’re a journalist, James, doesn’t mean you can’t honor your friends here.’

OSGOOD: Commentary from James Meek.

Sarah Palin, in an interview that is a part of the lead up to the Nov. 17 release of her new book "Going Rogue," appeared on Oprah Winfrey's TV show on Nov. 16.  Aside from the questions about the campaign, she expressed her irritation with "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric, or as she referred to her - "the perky one."

"Now, obviously, you've why didn't you just name some books or magazines?" Winfrey asked.

Palin explained that she didn't want to come off as unprofessional, but she detected an elitist vibe from Couric with the infamous question about her reading habits.

"Well, and, obviously, I have, of course, all my life I'm a lover of books and magazines and newspapers," Palin said. "By the time she asked me that question, even though it was kind of early on in the interview, I was already so annoyed, and it was very unprofessional of me to wear that annoyance on my sleeve, but it was like ... ‘Are are you kidding me? Are you really asking me?' To me, it was in the context of, ‘Do you read? How do you stay informed, you're way up there?' It seemed like she was discovering this nomadic tribe, a member of a tribe from some Neanderthal cave in Alaska, asking me, ‘How do you stay in touch with the real world?'"

She said she thought Couric was indicative of the state of journalism today and the fundamental problems with it.

"That's how I took the question, so I kind of-- well, didn't kind of, I did. I rolled my eyes and was annoyed with the question and thought, ‘You know, I think that this is a problem with the state of journalism today, is no matter what I say to her, it will probably be twisted, perceived as a bit negative.'"

Palin then explained the circumstances leading up to the interview, after some campaigning, and then she had to encounter Couric, also known as "the perky one" (emphasis added).

"Well, I was annoyed with where we were, what we were doing at the time, and one of these segments, too - we had just come off the most amazing rally, working the rope line for I don't know how long, these energized, awesome people, and I'm pumped up, just over the top pumped up with energy and so happy, and we're running backstage, and my friend Betsy, she opens the curtain for me to get backstage, and there's the perky one again with the microphone and the cameras rolling, and I'm like, ‘Dang, you know, give me just a couple of minutes to gather.'"

President Obama told Chinese students in Shanghai Sunday that he doesn't use the website Twitter because his "thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone."

Are media going to buy this (audio available here, h/t Steve Malzberg)?

After all, the press were almost as smitten with candidate Obama's Blackberry as he was.

Have they forgotten that he fought to keep it after he was elected?

In fact, on January 23, ABCNews.com reported that Obama won the Blackberry Battle:

Now that Barack Obama and his tech-savvy team have ascended to the White House, the more apt expression appears to be "Berry to the Chief."

Since winning the election, Obama has argued that he should be allowed to bring his BlackBerry to the Oval Office, despite national security concerns and a tradition of e-mail-free presidents.

On Thursday, he finally got to say, "I won the fight."

Although Obama will only be able to communicate with senior staff and a select group of personal friends, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed that officials had negotiated a secure way for the president to hold on to his precious device.

"He believes it's a way of keeping in touch with folks, a way of doing it outside of getting stuck in a bubble," Gibbs said at his first White House press briefing. [...]

In addition to the BlackBerry, experts expect Obama to use the Sectera Edge, a high-powered mobile communications device made by General Dynamics and approved by the National Security Agency.

"You could have a two-device scenario here," said Sascha Segan, lead analyst for mobile devices at PCMag Digital Network.

Obama could shoot off an offhand note to Malia with his BlackBerry and then pick up the Sectera to answer a call from Gen. David Petraeus, one of America's top military leaders, Segan told ABCNews.com.

Hmmm. So in January, Obama had the dexterity to "shoot off an offhand note to Malia with his BlackBerry," but in November his thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.

Will media that were once fascinated by candidate Obama's love of his Blackberry take him to task for now claiming this?

Consider that a Google search of "Obama Blackberry" produced over 23 million results.

There are also 2.9 million images of Obama with his Blackberry at Google, including this one:

Thumbs don't look too clumsy to type in that picture, do they?

Somewhat comically, Obama's Blackberry is so important that someone even created a mock campaign picture of it:

And, in case you were interested, there are also 946 videos of Obama's Blackberry at Google including this one from the Associated Press:

Will Obama-loving media recall ANY OF THIS as they report his too clumsy to type in things on the phone comment?

After airing what she described as a "hard-hitting" ad by the Center for Reproductive Rights which ominously warned, "Don't let Congress ban abortion coverage millions of women already have," MSNBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman today lamented to Politico's Jeanne Cummings that with Sen. Ted Kennedy gone, Democrats lack a unifying figure who could defuse an abortion battle that could mar Democratic unity on health care reform.

Snyderman praised the late pro-choice politician as a "man of his church and of his faith" (MP3 audio here):

Well, now the Catholic Church is lobbying hard to get House language into the Senate bill and then hopefully get it passed. Politico's assistant managing editor Jeanne Cummings wrote about this. And she joins me now.

Jeanne, I've said and I will continue to say there is no more divisive issue where I think people on either side can't expect to get people to cross over to their views. But nonetheless, we are now looking at pro-choice or abortion language, however you want to couch it, as part of [the] health care issue.

And I can’t help but think about someone like Ted Kennedy who walked a very, very, very narrow line and still was so much a man of his Church and of his faith. So that raises the question, is there someone who is going to pick up sort of, his voice, and continue to walk that fine line?

Snyderman, you may recall, admitted last Monday that she found the pro-life Stupak-Pitts Amendment "infuriating" and practically lobbied on-air last Thursday for the IRS to launch an investigation into the Catholic Church.

New York Times lead book critic (and avowed political liberal) Michiko Kakutani does the expected demolition job on Sarah Palin's new memoir, "Going Rogue." But in her rush to bash Palin as having an image of "an easily caricatured ignoramus" (a caricature in itself), Kakutani unwittingly made an anti-Obama argument.

"Going Rogue," the title of Sarah Palin's erratic new memoir, comes from a phrase used by a disgruntled McCain aide to describe her going off-message during the campaign: among other things, for breaking with the campaign over its media strategy and its decision to pull out of Michigan, and for speaking out about reports that the Republican Party had spent more than $150,000 on fancy designer duds for her and her family. In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet -- someone who could command a reported $5 million for writing this book.

Kakutani took a questionable angle of attack on Palin, mocking her supposed lack of experience:

A CNN poll taken last month indicates that 7 out of 10 Americans now think Ms. Palin is not qualified to be president, and even as ardent a conservative as Charles Krauthammer lamented in September 2008 "the paucity of any Palin record or expressed conviction on the major issues of our time."

Yet, Mr. McCain's astonishing decision to pick someone with so little experience (less than two years as the governor of Alaska, and before that, two terms as mayor of Wasilla, a town with fewer than 7,000 residents) as his running mate and Ms. Palin's own surprisingly nonchalant reaction to Mr. McCain's initial phone call about the vice president's slot (she writes that it felt "like a natural progression") underscore just how alarmingly expertise is discounted -- or equated with elitism -- in our increasingly democratized era, and just how thoroughly colorful personal narratives overshadow policy arguments and actual knowledge.

Hmm. Barack Obama was sworn in to the U.S. Senate in January 2005. In February 2007 he announced his candidacy for president of the United States. If Kakutani thinks two years as an Alaska governor is "little experience," what does she make of Obama's two years as a U.S. Senator, a job that entails far less executive decision-making? And what "expertise" did Obama's previous seven years as an Illinois state legislator give him that Palin's six years as a mayor did not?

She talks about being "a Commonsense Conservative" and worrying about the national deficit. And she attempts to explain, rationalize or refute controversial incidents and allegations that emerged during the 2008 race.

She says she "never sought to ban any books" as mayor of Wasilla, and in fact has always had a "special passion for reading." She suggests that the $150,000-plus designer clothes were the campaign's idea, that she and her family are actually frugal coupon clippers who shop at Costco. And she says she was manipulated into doing that famous series of Katie Couric interviews (which would do much to cement an image of her as an easily caricatured ignoramus) by Nicolle Wallace, a communications aide for the campaign, and that Ms. Couric just seemed to want "to frame a ‘gotcha' moment."

In an interview published November 11 at Salon.com, titled, "Woody Harrelson on war, death, LBJ and Obama," by Andrew O'Hehir, actor Woody Harrelson, who stars in the new film, The Messenger, recounts his conspiracy theory that America invaded Afghanistan not because of the 9/11 attacks, but because Chevron wanted to overthrow the Taliban and build an oil pipeline. Harrelson:

The guys from Chevron went in and met with the Taliban and realized those guys just weren't in control enough. That's why they wanted to oust them. Otherwise it's an absurd concept: You're going to war because a guy from some other country, a Saudi, is living somewhere in the mountains?

Harrelson, known for being anti-capitalism, continued: "It's a foreign policy gone way wrong. But that's how it always is. American foreign policy has always been not about spreading democracy, but about spreading capitalism."

He also made known his concerns that Barack Obama could become another LBJ because of an unwillingness to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and opined that while JFK was "one of our last great Presidents," Jimmy Carter "was pretty great, too."

After suggesting that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were about "resources," the interviewer asked him to clarify, and Harrelson continued:

Iraq's about the oil and Afghanistan's about a pipeline. It always has been. They started building a pipeline as soon as there was a moment to do so. They started building a pipeline to the Caspian Sea, that's always been their directive. The guys from Chevron went in and met with the Taliban and realized those guys just weren't in control enough. That's why they wanted to oust them. Otherwise it's an absurd concept: You're going to war because a guy from some other country, a Saudi, is living somewhere in the mountains? So we're going to bomb Kabul, bomb the cities? That's absurd. It's a foreign policy gone way wrong. But that's how it always is. American foreign policy has always been, not about spreading democracy, but about spreading capitalism.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the November 11 interview from Salon.com:

Q: So you think both Iraq and Afghanistan are wars over resources?

A: Iraq's about the oil and Afghanistan's about a pipeline. It always has been. They started building a pipeline as soon as there was a moment to do so. They started building a pipeline to the Caspian Sea, that's always been their directive. The guys from Chevron went in and met with the Taliban and realized those guys just weren't in control enough. That's why they wanted to oust them. Otherwise it's an absurd concept: You're going to war because a guy from some other country, a Saudi, is living somewhere in the mountains? So we're going to bomb Kabul, bomb the cities? That's absurd. It's a foreign policy gone way wrong. But that's how it always is. American foreign policy has always been, not about spreading democracy, but about spreading capitalism.

It does feel sometimes like our government suffers from some kind of amnesia or OCD. It's like they keep making the same foreign policy mistakes and just hoping it won't turn out quite as badly the next time.

I'm hoping that other countries look at us and say, "OK, there's the government and then there's the people." Granted, you'd like the will of the government to be conjoined with the will of the people. But it's the same way I've made the evolutionary step of looking at the war as separate from the soldiers. When I look at Russia, I don't look at Putin as representing the Russian people. I'm sure they'd love to get him out of there. Regardless, the Bushes and their various oligarchies have gotten us into a situation that's just very unfortunate.

Q: At least at this point, it appears that Obama is pushing onward with the war in Afghanistan. Is he just constrained by geopolitics? Is he simply not free to say, "Look, we're not going to do this anymore"?

A: I think there's a lot of persuasive and powerful people around Obama. For a president to make his own decisions, I think that's a rarity. Even someone who we think of as our guy -- this is a guy with integrity, a guy who cares, for the first time in a long time -- in the Oval Office, even with him we don't really know who's pulling the strings. I think of every president as being a marionette. Whether he's any different, I don't know. Certainly his military advisors all want him to prosecute this war to the end, just as they did in Vietnam with LBJ.

It's just too depressing, I think we're going to have to hit the streets. Obama has the chance of becoming JFK or LBJ. I think JFK was one of our last great presidents, although I thought Carter was pretty great too. LBJ could have been a great president if he hadn't gotten bogged down in war, but that was quite a war to get bogged down in. Notwithstanding the fact that the war was wrong and they were talking about the Red Scare and the domino effect, if you go and read the Pentagon Papers they were also talking about rubber, tin and oil. They killed 2 and a half million people. What was it all for? In Korea they killed 4 and a half million. Like, we're liberating these people?

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan apologized on Monday for using photoshopped images of Sarah Palin firing a gun while wearing a bikini. The pictures, which were first brought to light on NewsBusters, appeared during a November 13 segment on the former governor and also included a doctored photo of the Republican in a black mini-skirt.

The Morning Meeting host explained, "I want to apologize to Governor Palin and all of our viewers. On Friday, in a very misguided attempt to have some fun in advance of Sarah Palin's upcoming book Going Rogue, our staff mistakenly used some clearly photoshopped images of Ms. Palin without any acknowledgment."

Calling the use of such faked images "unacceptable," Ratigan continued: "We should have never used those photos in the first place and you can rest assured we spent the weekend and Friday afternoon taking measures to make sure it will never happen again. I apologize."

It’s encouraging that Ratigan promptly apologized, especially given that many on his own network criticized Fox News’ Sean Hannity for taking video images from the 9/12 health care protest and then portraying the footage as from a more recent tea party event. (Hannity quickly noted the error on-air.)

[Thanks to MRC intern Mike Sargent for the video.]

A transcript of the November 16 apology, which aired at 9:18am EST, follows:

DYLAN RATIGAN: Before we begin this one, I want to apologize to Governor Palin and all of our viewers. On Friday, in a very misguided attempt to have some fun in advance of Sarah Palin’s upcoming book Going Rogue, our staff mistakenly used some clearly photoshopped images of Ms. Palin without any acknowledgment. And on behalf of the show, I would like to say that this was completely unacceptable. We should have never used those photos in the first place and you can rest assured we spent the weekend and Friday afternoon taking measures to make sure it will never happen again. I apologize.

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable."

That was President Barack Obama speaking to college students as part of his current trip to Asia. The quote surfaced during a town hall discussion in Shanghai, and was widely regarded as a shot toward human rights violations at the hands of the Chinese government.

It's great to see that our President believes in free speech. But apparently, it should only be applied in countries where there is no Rush Limbaugh.

Associated Press reporter Charles Hutzler was quick to offer glowing coverage of the speech in an article titled "Obama to China: Uncensored Society is Healthy." The piece emphatically praised Obama's "animated defense" of free speech while completely ignoring the President's own record of attacking news outlets in the States and urging fellow politicians not to listen to talk radio.

Before continuing, readers are encouraged to set down all beverages and reach for the duct tape, for the blatant hypocrisy to come is unbelievably rich:

"I'm a big supporter of non-censorship," Obama said. "I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet - or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged."

Given where Obama was speaking, such a comment carried strong implications. And he appeared to be talking directly to China's leaders when he said that he believes free discussion, including criticism that he sometimes finds annoying, makes him "a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear."

That's right, folks. The same President who stood on a stage in McLean, Virginia, and told conservatives to stop talking is now suddenly praising himself for becoming a better leader through listening to critics.

The AP was happy to repeat the revisionist line without any effort to challenge it.

As for free speech on the internet, again Obama's record at home does not line up with the persona offered in China. It was just a few months ago when the White House openly singled out the Drudge Report as a peddler of "disinformation" and set up a snitch line to report on so-called fishy things published on the internet.

Also not addressed was Obama's appointment of Mark Lloyd as FCC diversity czar, who famously praised Hugo Chavez for controlling the media in Venezuela, or the administration's plans to legislate the internet through the FCC under net neutrality.

In President Obama's world, the internet will somehow be more free and "uncensored" with the help of FCC busybodies - and the AP couldn't be bothered to ask for an explanation.

Obama then went on to encourage more diverse views in political discussion:

Then he added that freedom of expression and worship, unfettered access to information and unrestricted political participation are not unique to the United States; instead, he called them "universal rights."

Universal rights to participate in democracy? If only our President felt that way about TEA party organizers here in America, whom he recently mocked as "folks waving tea bags around" and complained about them appearing too much "on certain news channels."

The issue with a certain news channel progressed into an all-out attack in October when Obama advisors Anita Dunn, Rahm Emmanuel, and David Axelrod launched a smear campaign against Fox News. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs aimed a direct hit at Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity by mentioning Fox's programming at 5:00 and 9:00 pm.

Back then, President Obama wasn't so much worried about free-flowing information. In fact, the White House went to the point of attempting to ban Fox from a press-pool interview before other networks, disgusted by the blatant act of censorship, pressured the administration to back off.

For some perspective on the truth not supplied by the AP, let's walk down memory lane to see how Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace described Obama's record on free speech in September:

They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington...They are constantly on the phone, or emailing me complaining...I mean, they are working the umps all the time.

Obama's record and reputation among the American media simply does not line up with his self-congratulating narration overseas. If the AP was an honest news outlet, it would have presented the truth instead of parroting Obama's speech.

Thanks to compliant reporters, many readers will not be confronted with the facts about the state of free speech in America.

On Monday’s American Morning, CNN’s Jim Acosta rehashed a three-month-old report from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center about the apparent rise in militia activity in the U.S., and extensively featured a militia from Michigan whose members purportedly “could not specify which of their constitutional rights are being peeled away.”

Acosta didn’t use any specific ideological labels to classify the militias during his report, which aired just before the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour, but it was clear that the featured militia, the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, held right-of-center views, as its members expressed concern about gun rights, anti-Obama sentiment, and even flew the yellow Gadsden flag (with its “Don’t Tread on Me” slogan) featured at Tea Party protests. The Gadsden flag showed up in many of the clips of the militia during the CNN correspondent’s report, which was the first in a series titled “Patriots or Extremists.” The Tea Party tie was reenforced with a shot of a truck of one of the militia members, which had a sticker of the famous “Obama as the Joker” image on it.

Midway through the report, Acosta cited how “[e]arlier this year, Mark Potok, with the Southern Poverty Law Center, put out a report warning of a surge in militia activity that came with the election of President Obama. Since that report was issued, Potok says his staff has counted 100 new militia groups across the country.” The correspondent played two clips from Potok, and in the second, the SPLC “expert” made sure to tie the militias to the wider sentiment against President Obama’s agenda: “There really is this kind of terrible fear, mixed with fury, about the idea that President Obama is somehow leading a kind of socialistic- you know, takeover of America.” Potok appeared with CNN’s Rick Sanchez in August 2009, the month his militia report was first released, and the two touted the apparent militia connection to the anti-ObamaCare town hall protests.

The CNN correspondent twice claimed near the end of the segment that “[b]esides the Second Amendment, those militia members could not specify which of their constitutional rights are being peeled away.” Anchor Kiran Chetry followed her colleague’s lead in not using any labels, but hinted that she suspected the Michigan militia group of bigotry: “When you take a look at least the group you profiled there, there’s no women and there’s no minorities.” Acosta corrected her that there were at least two women present, and continued that “the gun control issue specifically is really unrealistic in many ways, because the Obama administration knows...that it will be political suicide for them to go after gun control measures. In fact, the attorney general has indicated just recently that he’s not even going to go back to the assault weapons ban that was enacted during the Clinton administration.”

Actually, Attorney General Eric Holder did give a statement earlier in 2009 expressing the Obama administration’s desire to reinstate the Clinton-era assault weapons ban. According to a November 15, 2009 piece by Sam Youngman of The Hill, Holder “adopted a much different tone” recently in response to questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committe: “His response to a reporter in February, Holder claims, is not akin to ‘call[ing] for a new assault weapons ban, but rather restating the previously expressed campaign position on this issue.’” Even with this shift in “tone,” Acosta is misleading in his claim that the attorney general is “not even going to go back to the assault weapons ban,” and it appears that he and his CNN colleagues are definitely leaning towards the “extremist” label in their series’s title.

The full transcript of Acosta’s report from Monday’s American Morning:

KIRAN CHETRY: Since President Obama’s election, legal experts have been tracking a huge increase, they say, in militia activity here in the U.S., with at least 100 new groups cropping up since January.

JOHN ROBERTS: We spoke with one group, and while some members will not show their faces, they are not afraid to talk about their mistrust of the government, and they are even more suspicious of the President.

Our Jim Acosta is with us live for part one of an A.M. original series, ‘Patriots or Extremists.’ So do these groups have a right to form, first of all?

JIM ACOSTA: They absolutely- even their critics will admit that. And we did contact nearly a dozen different militia groups across the country, and only one, the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, allowed us to take our cameras to one of its training exercises. Armed with a small arsenal of semi-automatic weapons, the militia’s leader say they are simply defending their rights.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Once a month in the woods 30 miles outside the nearest city.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 1: We’re practicing target acquisition.

ACOSTA: Members of the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia meet for training.

ACOSTA (on-camera): Is it getting bigger?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 1: Oh, absolutely.

MILITIA MEMBERS: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Training for what depends on who you ask, but this militia member, who didn’t want to give his last name, worries the government will eventually take away his gun rights.

‘BRIAN,’ SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN VOLUNTEER MILITIA: Well, any time we get a Democratic president in the office, people become concerned, including myself, and we get a resurgence out here.

ACOSTA: Others just don’t like President Obama.

ACOSTA (off-camera): So, you don’t trust him?

MICHAEL LACKOMAR, SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN VOLUNTERR MILITIA: In short, I think he could be dangerous for the nation.

ACOSTA: Michael Lackomar sees the militia as a check against government overreach.

LACKOMAR: Just the simple fact that we are out here and we are doing this will give somebody pause, will make them think twice.

ACOSTA: Because you’re ready to defend your rights?

LACKOMAR: Ultimately, yes. Down this fire.

ACOSTA (on-camera): Right.

ACOSTA (voice-over): And they’re prepared to teach anyone, even this reporter, how to fire a semi-automatic weapon, like this Russian assault rifle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: There you go.

ACOSTA (on-camera): The members of this militia insist they are not enemies of the government. They say they just want to be prepared in case the government becomes the enemy.

MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: The truth is, is that these groups are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Earlier this year, Mark Potok, with the Southern Poverty Law Center, put out a report warning of a surge in militia activity that came with the election of President Obama. Since that report was issued, Potok says his staff has counted 100 new militia groups across the country.

POTOK: There really is this kind of terrible fear, mixed with fury, about the idea that President Obama is somehow leading a kind of socialistic- you know, takeover of America.

LEE MIRACLE: This is not an Obama-centered organization. So we put this across his wound-

ACOSTA: But militia leader Lee Miracle says his group is different, teaching survival skills that might be needed after a natural disaster.

MIRACLE: Two at one, put your rifle back down.

ACOSTA: As a military veteran who’s now a postal worker, Miracle urges respect for the President.

MIRACLE: As a postal worker, that’s my boss. He’s (unintelligble) my boss, but-

ACOSTA (off-camera): He’s your boss?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He’s my boss, yeah. He’s my boss. He should come out and have some barbecue with us.

ACOSTA (voice-over): If he did, he’d find a movement that’s not just gaining new members-

ACOSTA (on-camera): How many of you are new to the militia?

ACOSTA (voice-over): It’s getting more worried.

ACOSTA (on-camera): How many of you are worried about the Constitution right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 3: Worried as in the sense that it’s not being followed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 1: It's going away.

ACOSTA (live): Besides the Second Amendment, those militia members could not specify which of their constitutional rights are being peeled away, and the Obama administration, we should mention, has not proposed any new gun control measures. It is unclear just how closely militias are being watched by federal authorities. The FBI and ATF both declined our request for interviews- John and Kiran?

CHETRY: And when you take a look at least the group you profiled there, there’s no women.

ACOSTA: That’s right.

CHETRY: And there’s no minorities.

ACOSTA: Well, there’s one woman there.

CHETRY: There was one woman?

ACOSTA: Yeah.

CHETRY: Okay- one woman and no minorities.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

CHETRY: So who are the people joining these groups?

ACOSTA: And I should mention more than just one woman. There was the 13-year-old daughter there and the reason why I mentioned that. The gentleman that you saw towards the end of that piece, Lee Miracle, the leader of that militia- we’re going to go home with him and his family to figure out just who is joining these militias, who are these folks. He includes his children in these activities, including his 13-year-old daughter who was firing a shotgun, I should mention, better than myself out there on militia day.

CHETRY: You weren’t too bad.

ACOSTA: And we’ll have more of that tomorrow.

ROBERTS: All right. Is it all about gun rights then?

ACOSTA: A lot of it is about gun rights. A lot of it is about distrust. They just don’t trust this president. They think he is out to peel back rights and the gun issue is their big one.

ROBERTS: But they don’t know which ones- exactly which ones, other than gun ones-

ACOSTA: They do not, and- you know, we should mention that the gun control issue specifically is really unrealistic in many ways, because the Obama administration knows and Democrats know that it will be political suicide for them to go after gun control measures. In fact, the attorney general has indicated just recently that he’s not even going to go back to the assault weapons ban that was enacted during the Clinton administration.

ROBERTS: There’s no support for that in the Senate.

ACOSTA: Exactly.

CHETRY: It’s interesting though that one of guys in your piece said, we’re doing this perhaps so that we’re a deterrent-

ACOSTA: Exactly.

CHETRY: To having anything happen.

ACOSTA: They want to give people pause.

CHETRY: Right. I’m very interested to meet the family tomorrow.

ACOSTA: You will.

CHETRY: Thanks, Jim.

ROBERTS: Great story, Jim.

ACOSTA: You got it.

CHETRY: We also want to know what you think about it. Are militia members patriots or are they extremists? And do you think that your rights are slipping away or do you think that these militias go too far? Join us tomorrow and we're going to have part two of Jim's piece, and also head to our blog, CNN.com/amfix.

Chris Ariens at TV Newser reports that CNN reporter Emily Chang was detained for two hours today in Shanghai for holding up a T-shirt depicting Barack Obama wearing a Red Army uniform. "Chang bought the T-shirt at a basement souvenir shop in Beijing and brought it with her to Shanghai as she covers President Obama's visit to the city."

The front of the t-shirt says "Serve the People" in Chinese. On the back, it reads "Oba Mao" in English. The shirts have been seen in Chinese shops for months, but were "banned" ahead of Obama's trip.

When Chang held up the shirt up for a live shot outside a Shanghai metro stop, she was approached by two security guards. She recounted the scene in her In The Field blog:

Bad move? Maybe. But it ended up being great television.

Two security guards happened to pass by at the moment I announced to the camera: "This is the T-shirt everybody is talking about." And that was it. They scrambled towards us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands. I didn't give in.

There was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle. My producer Jo Kent emphatically stated our case. Photographer Miguel Castro kept his cool. By this point, we had everything on tape.

We ended up being detained for two hours in the cold, maze of a market. A crowd gathered round. More security and then police showed up. They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt.

They weren't the only ones. What do we make of this?

The shirt got attention on the air and sparked buzz online. In fact, some members of the White House pool and a few colleagues in Atlanta actually tried to bribe me for it.

Chang says the Chinese also make wallets and trading cards featuring the "Communist Obama" image.

On any other day, NBC "Nightly News" would be attacking coal for being a dirty pollutant and advocating reliance on other forms of energy.

But on Nov. 15, as it began the first of its "Our Planet" segments for green week, the network used coal power as part of the argument in favor of destroying manmade dams.

"This is what the dams harness: the power of the Elwha to generate electricity. Impressive, even vital 100 years ago. But today the dams are no longer needed. Now with coal, wind and solar power, repairing the dams is just too expensive," said chief environmental correspondent Anne Thompson.

Thompson has often attacked coal power on NBC. On Feb. 21, 2009 she offered viewers plenty of reasons why building a much needed coal plant in Nevada was a bad idea. She has also supported the idea of capping carbon emissions, which would increase the cost of coal power.

But in this segment, Thompson presented the destruction of hydroelectric dams as a positive thing, bringing rivers back "to their natural state" for the sake of fish.

"The Chinook salmon in Washington State's Elwha River are between a rock and a hard place. The hard place is this 108-foot high dam - one of two dams on the Elwha - blocking the salmon's journey upstream to spawn. Not for much longer," said Thompson.

Thompson reported that about 40 dams per year are being torn down in the U.S., but failed to mention that many tear-downs are controversial, and included no criticism of plans to tear down the Elwha dam.

That's in keeping with network practice. In 2007, the Business & Media Institute found the network news ignoring such dam removals, which were being promoted by left-wing environmental groups like Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club and others.

A BMI Special Report found that in 13 months of coverage, not one network story touched on the subject of dams coming under siege by environmentalists. During that same time, the top five newspapers did 65 stories on the controversy surrounding just one of the potential tear-downs.

Hydroelectric power is a renewable energy resource according to the Environmental Protection Agency, so the form of power should be embraced by environmentalists who want to end reliance on fossil fuels and end global warming. Yet those are the very people crusading to destroy these dams.

Good Morning America on Monday began a week of coverage on Sarah Palin’s new book by repeatedly fact checking claims from the Republican and highlighting a attack by the liberals’ favorite "conservative," New York Times columnist David Brooks. Reporter Kate Snow asserted that "even conservatives are on the attack" against Palin.

She then played a clip of Brooks, who has previously gone after Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others: "Yeah, she's a joke. I mean I just can't take her seriously. The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it'll never happen."

Snow began the piece on Palin and her book Going Rogue by pointing out that "the blitz has begun and so has the fact checking." She then launched into a series of supposed corrections:

KATE SNOW: In her book, Palin says top aide Steve Schmidt yelled at her over the phone. "The force of his screaming blew my hair back. How could anyone be so stupid?" But, staffers say there was no yelling, just an e-mail saying "Who set this up? Are you kidding me?" And then there's Saturday Night Live. In her book, Palin says she wanted to appear on the show. "Let's go on and neutralize some of this and have some fun." But, in an e-mail Palin writes "These folks are whack. What's the upside in giving them or any celebrity venue a ratings boost?"

The 2008 campaign is over. Why is GMA relying on anonymous e-mails from disgruntled staffers to rebuff Palin? (Secondly, is it possible there could have been both e-mails and yelling?) Snow closed with more gossip:

SNOW: And what about Senator John McCain? There was a conference call, we've learned on Friday between McCain and many of his top Former aides. On that call, McCain essentially told them he would prefer they stay out of the Palin book coverage and not engage her. He apologized that they were going through this and told them he understood if they needed to refute factual errors or protect their own reputations. But he also said something like "This will pass and will pass faster if you all just keep quiet." He, by the way, does have a copy of the book signed by Palin. But I'm told he hasn't spoken to her in months.

Since Palin is going on the record, wouldn’t it seem justifiable for news outlets to expect the same from those criticizing the former governor?

And Snow’s insistence on fact checking is odd, considering that she repeatedly fawned over Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign and didn't challenge the Senator very often. On October 1, 2007, she described Clinton as "the master of a shrewd political skill, disarming her critics with a gleam in her eye and a roar straight from the belly." On October 25, 2007, as the then-presidential candidate turned 60, Snow marveled that "instead of facing gray hair and retirement, for Hillary Clinton, being a member of AARP is fund-raising gold."

To ABC’s credit, a follow-up segment did critique Newsweek for putting Palin on the front cover in running shorts. Co-host Diane Sawyer wondered, "And, as we know, a lot of the guys have done running shorts pictures for running magazines. Was it fair of Newsweek to put that on their cover?"

Guest Cokie Roberts chided, "Look, she posed for that picture. So it's fair game, but it is- it is a way of saying, don't take this person seriously. She's just a chick in shorts."

A transcript of the segment, which aired at 7:07am EST on November 16, follows: 　

DIANE SAWYER: Okay, well, all of this seems ripe for a comment from our political observer ABC's Cokie Roberts. Cokie, come in this morning. Governor Palin, as you know, firing from both barrels at her own former camp. They're firing back. Ever seen anything like this before?

COKIE ROBERTS: No, this is quite remarkable. And she will be out, you know, in her bus which is covered with her picture, the cover of the book, out around the country expecting to draw huge crowds and she'll have- she'll have the loudest voice on this, for sure.

SAWYER: We have a brand-new ABC News/Washington Post poll out this morning that shows 60 percent of all Americans say they do not feel she is qualified to be president. Do not feel it, but it seems that her book strategy is gaining ground among Republicans. Because, our poll shows her numbers are up, 61 percent of Republicans do think she's qualified. Go out on a limb here. You think she's running for 2012?

ROBERTS: I think she's finding out if she's running for 2012 I think that she'll see how this goes. She'll see how bruised she gets, whether people take her seriously, whether, you know, she is the joke that you just heard David Brooks saying of her or whether she's the new Ronald Reagan, which Newt Gingrich says she might be.

SAWYER: That's right. What about a Hillary Clinton/Sarah Palin, what, coffee summit, I think they're calling it instead of the beer summit this morning. Think it'll ever happen?

ROBERTS: Wouldn't you and I like to be there with them?

SAWYER: Oh, please invite us.

ROBERTS: Well, I think it might happen someday. But, it's not likely to happen while Sarah Palin's running as a Republican and Hillary Clinton is in the Obama administration, but they could share some true stories about the sexism during the last campaign aimed at both of them.

SAWYER: I want to ask you about something going back to this Newsweek cover, and Kate showed in her piece, because the cover picture was a picture that Governor Palin did for Runners World. And, as we know, a lot of the guys have done running shorts pictures for running magazines. Was it fair of Newsweek to put that on their cover?

ROBERTS: And we haven't seen those guys in shorts on Newsweek's cover, have we? Look, she posed for that picture. So it's fair game, but it is- it is a way of saying, don't take this person seriously. She's just a chick in shorts.

SAWYER: All right. Well, thanks to you, Cokie. Checking back in with you later. And a reminder to everyone, you can see Barbara Walters' exclusive interview with Sarah Palin this week on ABC. And, of course, you know, she's also appearing other places this week and beginning tomorrow on GMA be sure to tune in to see Barbara's interview and, of course, on Friday night on 20/20.

ABC’s Good Morning America finally picked up on the deep bow President Obama performed for the Emperor of Japan over the weekend. Co-host Diane Sawyer ran through how other U.S. Presidents have greeted either Emperor Akhito or his father, the late Emperor Hirohito over the years — some bowing, some not. Sawyer claimed that Americans are “not trained to greet royalty” and “it’s just too confusing.”

Actually, the government employs lots of experts on culture and protocol to make sure that our presidents are fully “trained” on what to do when they represent our government overseas — which is not to say that all of our presidents perform these duties flawlessly.

Missing from Sawyer’s run-down is a tidbit that ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper posted on his “Political Punch” blog Sunday afternoon. Tapper said he received a note from an old friend whom he described as “an academic with expertise about the Japanese Empire, and in general a supporter of President Obama.” According to this expert, it wasn’t necessarily incorrect for Obama to bow, but the President’s “forward lurch” was “jarring and inappropriate.”

The expert described the bow as “in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs. The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms.” He noted also that Japan’s Kyodo News emphasized footage of Obama’s more restrained bow to the Emperor’s wife, pictures that “show the president as dignified.”

Here’s Sawyer on Monday morning’s Good Morning America, as transcribed by the MRC’s Scott Whitlock:

DIANE SAWYER: And before we leave the topic of the president's trip overseas I've often thought the hardest subject for every President, what do you do with royalty? We're not trained to greet royalty since 1776. [Onscreen photo of Obama bowing.] The President, as we saw with the emperor, went the full way, lots of comment about that. But we look back over the years and you have, of course, George Bush, former president George Bush Sr. there, head nod. There was Ronald Reagan, hand shake. [Pictures appear onscreen.]

ROBIN ROBERTS: Hand shake. That’s always good.

SAWYER: Richard Nixon went from the waist [Nixon appears to be leaning in.] and Bill Clinton, what was that? [Picture of Clinton clasping his hands, could be clapping.] Kind of yoga thing there. Anyway who can blame them for not knowing what to do? Allegedly, Teddy Roosevelt said once “If I see another king I'm going to bite him.” It's just too confusing when you're American.

That Teddy Roosevelt quote, by the way, came from a 1994 New York Times “Week in Review” item that made the rounds this weekend after Obama’s bow. If Sawyer read the whole item -- related the controversy over then-President Clinton’s much milder bow before the Emperor -- she would have learned that there’s not that much “confusion” over American protocol. According to the Times (then): “the ‘thou need not bow’ commandment from the State Department's protocol office maintained a constancy of more than 200 years.”

A Washington Post item from that same week (retrieved via Nexis) quoted Clinton’s top protocol officer talking about the arrangements for Emperor Akihito’s state visit to Washington: “‘Americans do not bow,’ said Chief of Protocol Molly Raiser. ‘The emperor is known to shake hands. This emperor is much more informal than his father was.’”

Today's New York Times briefly mentions the bow controversy, blaming it on the "conservative American bloggers" who critized Obama. "'During his meetings and his speech in Tokyo, the President observed protocol and enhanced the status of American interests in Japan and across Asia,' said an administration official traveling with the President, who spoke on the condition of anonymity according to protocol. 'Those who suggest otherwise are way off base and only looking to score political points.'"

Appearing on Monday’s CBS Early Show to discuss Sarah Palin’s upcoming book tour, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer dismissed the former vice presidential candidate’s political ambitions: “I think she’s going to sell a lot of books. I think she’ll be a great attraction out, you know, as an amusement....But I can’t imagine that she has much future in politics. I really don’t.”

Early Show co-host Harry Smith began by asking Schieffer about Palin’s criticism of the McCain campaign in her book, ‘Going Rogue.’ Schieffer responded: “Well, this is Sarah Palin’s turn to get even....I don’t think it’s going to work.... it’s kind of like a baseball player going into a slump and blaming the manager or blaming the bat boy or blaming the fans or something.”

Schieffer went on to write Palin’s political obituary: “But I don’t think it’s going to help re-establish her as a, you know, as a political candidate. I – my guess is she’s not ever going to run for anything and I think if she did, I don’t think she would get very far.” Even Smith seemed to think that was premature, replying in a surprised manner: “Really?”

Trying to convince Smith of Palin’s political irrelevance, Schieffer attacked her decision to step down as governor of Alaska: “...let’s not overlook the fact that she had to leave the governor’s office in Alaska because that was too much for her. Can you imagine her going through a primary with an opponent? You know, I mean, what would she say? ‘When the going to gets tough, I’m ready to quit?’ I mean, that is not how one builds a political base.”

After Schieffer deemed that Palin was nothing more than “an amusement,” Smith wondered about her endorsement of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the New York 23rd congressional race: “...one of the most important endorsements for that rogue candidate up there was from Sarah Palin. She’s very popular among the tea party set. Do you not think this is part of a growing base of folks from which will ascend into more power in the Republican party?”

Schieffer explained: “Well, the Republican Party is very split right now....And you have that segment, mostly the people on the Right, but you also have candidates like Mike Huckabee, who ran the last time out, who generally made a good impression....She will not be the only person who comes at it from the Right, if she should decide to run.” He once again concluded: “I think the purpose here for Sarah Palin right now is to sell some books and to try to sell her side of the story....It’ll sell books, but I don’t see it going beyond that.”

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

7:01AM TEASE:

HARRY SMITH: Everybody is waiting for the release of Sarah Palin’s memoir. And it’s been reviewed in all kinds of papers all over the country, I’m reading the review in the Wall Street Journal this morning. And she comes down hardest, really, on the McCain campaign.

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: I know.

SMITH (Pumps fist): Really.

RODRIGUEZ: And they are fighting back.

SMITH: Right. So we’re going to talk Bob Schieffer about it – that and some other things a little bit later on this morning.     

7:11AM TEASE:

SMITH: Coming up next, Sarah Palin ‘Going Rogue’ to promote her new book. We’ll take a look at why the McCain camp is up in arms.

7:15AM SEGMENT:

HARRY SMITH: Sarah Palin’s new book is already a best seller, but it doesn’t officially hit the bookstores until tomorrow. Some of what she’s written has already been leaked and that is stirring up a lot of controversy. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston has the latest. Randall, good morning.

RANDALL PINKSTON: Good morning, Harry. Though Sarah Palin talks about her role in governing Alaska in her book, it’s her elevation to the national stage as John McCain’s running mate and her clashes with his campaign staffers that will likely make this a real page turner. Among the moments Sarah Palin writes about in her memoir, friction with senior McCain strategist Steve Schmidt.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Palin, Politics & Publishing; Fmr. McCain Staffer: The Book Is ‘Fiction’]

PETER WALLSTEN [REPORTER, WALL STREET JOURNAL]: She is uncomfortable with his language at one point. He seems to be cussing in front of her children.

PINKSTON: Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Wallsten reviewed Palin’s ‘Going Rogue.’

WALLSTEN: She was really bruised, her image was battered after that campaign.

STEVE SCHMIDT: She’s going to have broad appeal across the country.

PINKSTON: During the campaign, Schmidt championed Palin on the Early Show, but in a phone interview with CBS News on Sunday, Schmidt called Palin’s book ‘fiction,’ saying ‘it’s not true.’

ED GOEAS [REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST]: Certainly some of the staff that was assigned to her did not do her a great service.

PINKSTON: But Ed Goeas, who was program director at last year’s GOP convention, says Palin’s recollection of events are accurate.

GOEAS: She had a very unique kind of style that connected with people out there, and I think that was contrary to necessarily where they were trying to take her as a candidate.

PINKSTON: Soon after her book hits the shelves, Palin will hit the road, on a tour some say is an effort to re-establish herself ahead of the 2012 election.

WALLSTEN: She’s taking a tour of small towns and mid-sized cities where her base lives and the point right now is just to sell as many books as possible.

PINKSTON: Palin’s book tour begins this week in Michigan, a state that the McCain campaign pulled out of against Palin’s wishes. That makes it a perfect place, strategists agree, to prove that Sarah Palin is ready for a future campaign. Harry.

SMITH: We’ll find out. Alright. Randall Pinkston, thank you so much. Joining us now is CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of Face the Nation Bob Schieffer. Bob, good morning.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Good morning, Harry.

SMITH: It really is amazing how much attention has been paid to this book and it hasn’t even hit the stores yet in large part. What do you make of all of the criticism in this book, especially focused on the McCain campaign?

SCHIEFFER: Well, this is Sarah Palin’s turn to get even, as it were. She – she came under this intense criticism all during the campaign and now she’s giving her version of why she didn’t succeed as a candidate. I mean, I don’t think it’s going to work. I – you know, it’s kind of like a baseball player going into a slump and blaming the manager or blaming the bat boy or blaming the fans or something. You know, it makes for provocative reading. I think she’ll sell a lot of books. But I don’t think it’s going to help re-establish her as a, you know, as a political candidate. I – my guess is she’s not ever going to run for anything and I think if she did, I don’t think she would get very far.

SMITH: Really?

SCHIEFFER: No. I mean, well, what’s she going to say? I mean, let’s – let’s not overlook the fact that she had to leave the governor’s office in Alaska because that was too much for her. Can you imagine her going through a primary with an opponent? You know, I mean, what would she say? ‘When the going to gets tough, I’m ready to quit?’ I mean, that is not how one builds a political base. I think she’s going to sell a lot of books. I think she’ll be a great attraction out, you know, as an amusement. She’s interesting, she’s a celebrity. But I can’t imagine that she has much future in politics. I really don’t.

SMITH: It’s so interesting because, for instance, in this House race up in the 23rd district, one of the most important endorsements for that rogue candidate up there was from Sarah Palin. She’s very popular among the tea party set. Do you not think this is part of a growing base of folks from which will ascend into more power in the Republican party?

SCHIEFFER: Well, the Republican Party is very split right now, as you know Harry. And you have that segment, mostly the people on the Right, but you also have candidates like Mike Huckabee, who ran the last time out, who generally made a good impression. Someone who won the Iowa caucuses. She will not be the only person who comes at it from the Right, if she should decide to run. But I think the purpose here for Sarah Palin right now is to sell some books and to try to sell her side of the story. One of the problems you have, though, when you start taking on campaign aides, people don’t know who these people are, you know. And so she’s fighting against people that most people don’t know who they are. It’ll sell books, but I don’t see it going beyond that.

SMITH: Bob Schieffer, thanks for getting up early for us this morning. We do appreciate it, sir.

SCHIEFFER: You bet.

SMITH: Alright.

Too often "objectivity in journalism" is code for agreeing with the left. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz demonstrated this sentiment in his profile of Fox News Channel's Shep Smith.

Kurtz lauded Smith as an "outspoken newsman at the network defined by high-decibel conservatives, a stance that has earned him respect even from some Fox-hating liberals."

But was it really his "newsman" status that has earned him this respect, or is it the numerous instances in which Smith has agreed with the left? Kurtz documents a number of such instances, intended to demonstrate Smith's purported objectivity.

During the runup to the last presidential election, Smith berated Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher for accusing Obama of not taking a hard enough stance on Israel. "Barack Obama has said repeatedly and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend to the United States no matter what happens once he becomes president -- his words," Smith said.

Lest readers take Smith's defense of Obama's Israel policy as a show of objectivity, consider that only six percent of Israeli Jews consider Obama "pro-Israel," while half think he is "pro-Palestinian." Quality journalism must entail a critical look at a candidate's policies, not just a regurgitation of his talking points. But Kurtz still considers this quality reporting.

Smith has also toed the liberal line on health care. "Every vote against the public option is a vote for the insurance companies," he said in an October interview with Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. Such hyperbole is hardly a hallmark of objectivity.

On detainee interrogation, Smith also sides with large swaths of the left. He erupted in a fit of rage during a Fox roundtable in April, screaming "We are America! I don't give a rat's a** if it helps. We are America! We do not f***ing torture!" Smith apparently is emotionally invested in many of the left's positions.

Smith has garnered praise from some of the left's most divisive commentators. New York Times columnist Frank Rich--who makes his living attacking Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and tea party protesters--lauded Smith for "refus[ing] to go along with the big hate." Praise from Frank Rich generally indicates a refusal to question the President or Democrats, as he is so quick to deride anybody who does.

All of the examples that Kurtz mentions demonstrate his standard for objective journalism: agreeing with the left. That a Fox News anchor opines for liberal policies does not make him objective. But when the mainstream media is dominated by liberals, a journalist espousing liberal opinion means he is doing his job.

CNN on Monday featured a fifth grade student who is refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance in his classroom until gays and lesbians have equal rights.

Not surprisingly, he was treated with far greater respect by the cable news network than Tea Party and town hall meeting protesters were earlier in the year.

The boy and his father appeared on CNN's "American Morning," and John Roberts began the segment:

A 10-year-old boy from Arkansas is taking a stand by sitting down. Will Philips is refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag in his fifth grade classroom until there really is, as the pledge says, liberty and justice for all. He says until gays and lesbians have equal rights. 

During the interview, the boy's father accurately noted, "Well, actually before we heard from anybody, my first thought was oh, my God, this is the type of thing you see on CNN" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t NBer SkipperMLM):

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN: The president told the students the more freely information flows the stronger society becomes. He is now in Beijing to meet with China's president.

A 10-year-old boy from Arkansas is taking a stand by sitting down. Will Philips is refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag in his fifth grade classroom until there really is, as the pledge says, liberty and justice for all. He says until gays and lesbians have equal rights.

Joining us now in an exclusive interview are Will Phillips and his father, Jay. They're in West Fork, Arkansas this morning. Will and Jay, good to see you this morning. Thanks very much for being with us. And Will, let me ask you first of all, when did you decide that you weren't going to stand up and recite the pledge?

WILL PHILLIPS, WONT SAY PLEDGE UNTIL GAYS HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS: I decided that I was going to do that the weekend before when I did it. I was analyzing the meanings of it because I want to be a lawyer.

ROBERTS: All right. So what did you decide in analyzing the meanings of it that caused you not to stand up and recite the pledge?

WILL PHILLIPS: Well, I looked at the end and it said "with liberty and justice for all." And there really isn't liberty and justice for all. There's -- gays and lesbians can't marry. There's still a lot of racism and sexism in the world, yes.

ROBERTS: All right. So you think that the country isn't living up to the ideals of the pledge and you took it upon yourself to sit down and not recite the pledge of allegiance until the country comes in line to embody the ideals that are embodied in the pledge?

WILL PHILLIPS: Yes.

ROBERTS: All right. So, your teacher, who is a substitute teacher at the time, was giving you grief about not standing up. This went on for a few days. What did you eventually say to that teacher?

WILL PHILLIPS: I eventually very solemnly with a little bit of malice in my voice said, "Ma'am, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge."

ROBERTS: You said, solemnly, with a little bit of malice in your voice, maybe you can go jump off a bridge. And we saw your dad, Jay, put his face in his hands just then. That obviously, earned him a trip to the principal's office. And you were contacted after that, what did you think when you heard what was going on there at school?

JAY PHILLIPS, FATHER OF WILL PHILLIPS: My initial response was measured and considered, thoughtful and was -- he's dead. That's it. He's doomed. However, when I got home and I talked to him, the more I heard from him, the more it became apparent that this wasn't a typical act of juvenile delinquency. This was a very atypical act of juvenile delinquency.

He just made it clear that he sat for four days and took brunt of the criticism. And reminded her that it was his first amendment right and that he didn't have to stand or say the pledge. And on the fourth day, he lost his temper.

Now, he did apologize in writing to the teacher and we really want to emphasize, we have a wonderful school district, a wonderful town. This is a great community and that the teacher, in our opinion, was just trying to...

ROBERTS: Got you.

JAY PHILLIPS: ... to handle what probably to her seemed like a student who was trying to give the fill-in teacher a hard time.

ROBERTS: Got you. All right. Let's bring in Will here again. Will, why is this issue so important to you that you would commit as your dad said this atypical act of juvenile delinquency?

WILL PHILLIPS: Because I have many -- I've grown up with a lot of people and good friends with a lot of people that are gay and I really -- I think they should have the rights all people should. And I'm not going to swear that they do.

ROBERTS: So what's the reaction been from your fellow students at school to you not standing up for the pledge and the views that you hold about this issue?

WILL PHILLIPS: Not very good. They've taken from what I said an assumption that I'm gay and the halls and the cafeteria, I've been repeatedly called a gay wad.

ROBERTS: A gay wad. What's a gay wad?

WILL PHILLIPS: I really don't know. It's a discriminatory name for homosexuals.

ROBERTS: OK. All right. Well, Jay, were you prepared, this has obviously gone well beyond the school. This is the sort of thing as you know gains the attention of the national media, were you prepared for the type of reaction both positive and negative that your son's actions have precipitated?

JAY PHILLIPS: Well, actually before we heard from anybody, my first thought was oh, my God, this is the type of thing you see on CNN. And I sat down and talked to him and I said, you know, you realize there's potentially severe ramifications to this.

And we ran through everything and his words to me were that if there was a chance to talk to the local newspaper or something like that, that he wanted -- he saw it as an opportunity to raise awareness and for education and he was very, very clear in that he felt that just because he's 10 years old doesn't mean he doesn't have opinions...

ROBERTS: Right.

JAY PHILLIPS: It doesn't mean he doesn't have rights and doesn't mean that he can't make a difference.

ROBERTS: He does seem to have very strong opinions we should say and obviously they are very reasoned out. We should say that he's an extraordinarily bright child. He skipped the fourth grade, went right from the third grade to the fifth grade.

But Will, as we prepare to leave you here, what will it take for you to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance? And I ask this question based on what we saw in the off year election just a couple of weeks ago. Same-sex marriage initiative was put to the test, put to the voters in the state of Maine. And every state across the nation where it has been put through the voters, it has gone down to defeat.

So, the Democratic process is taking place here, it seems to be something that voters at large do not support. So what will it take for you to return to saying the pledge?

WILL PHILLIPS: For there could truly be liberty and justice for all.

ROBERTS: And what does that entail?

WILL PHILLIPS: That entails everyone being able to marry.

ROBERTS: All right. Will Phillips, Jay Phillips, great to see you this morning. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll keep watching the story. It's certainly an interesting one.

ROBERTS: Wow. He's got his arguments down.

CHETRY: He does. He's a really, really well spoken little kid.

ROBERTS: He is and he is certainly impassioned about this as well.

CHETRY: He is.

"Well, actually before we heard from anybody, my first thought was oh, my God, this is the type of thing you see on CNN."

Truer words may never have been spoken.

Despite all its pretense of being an impartial, neutral network compared to MSNBC, the advocacy of CNN comes through in almost every story it does.

For many months this year, CNN excoriated regular citizens who had the temerity to protest healthcare reform and the expanding size of government at Tea Parties and town hall meetings across the fruited plain.

Now, a singular fifth grader is being lauded for mounting a protest of his own.

Why the disparity in treatment for those willing to stand up for what they believe in? 

That said, I applaud what this young boy is doing. 

I just wish media would praise ALL who stand up for what they believe in and NOT just those standing for what so-called journalists believe in.

The Culture & Media Institute’s report on network coverage of Major Nidal Hasan and the Ft. Hood murders continues to gain media attention. On Nov. 14, Fox’s “News Watch” program led off with CMI’s findings.

“The Culture & Media Institute noticed something about the news coverage,” said host John Scott said of the Ft. Hood shooting. “Until President Obama spoke on Tuesday at a memorial service for the victims of the Ft. Hood attacks, 29 percent of evening news reports mentioned that Major Nical Malik Hasan was a Muslim. 93 percent of the stories ignored any terror connection. But after the president hinted at what ABC called ‘Islamic extremist views,” all three networks mentioned terrorism.”

Scott listed CMI’s other findings: 85 percent of reports didn’t mention the word “terror,” and the three broadcast networks referred to the terror connection just seven times in 48 reports.

The host then turned to syndicated columnist Cal Thomas for comment. “There’s a double standard in the media,” Thomas said. “Back in the 1980s, when the so-called ‘religious right,’ the conservative Christians came up in the political system, the media sent cameras to their churches. They stereotyped little old ladies and men driving pickup trucks. They labeled them ‘ultra-right,’ ‘extreme right,’ ‘fundamentalists’ – they didn’t care about labeling then. But now it’s hands off – no cameras in the mosques, no labeling of Islamic extremists beyond that word: a terrible double standard.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: 47 world leaders, one bow.

So if bowing is "protocol," as the administration claims, why is Obama the only one doing it?

Joe Scarborough was surely right about one thing . . . when he warned that his pronouncement would "enrage conservatives."

The Morning Joe host today proclaimed that comparing Sarah Palin to Howard Dean was an insult . . . to Dean's intelligence.

Joe's jab came in response to an analogy Time's Mark Halperin drew between the excitement Palin creates and that drummed up by Dean's presidential campaign in 2004.

MARK HALPERIN: Think about it compared to Howard Dean in 2004.  He was exciting too, and he had these huge crowds, and people said, this guy's going win the Democratic nomination --

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Not the same, sorry --

HALPERIN: Well, it's big crowds and it's excitement, but it doesn't translate into a governing majority.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I'm just going to stop here.  I'm going to enrage conservatives, but --

OFF-CAMERA VOICE [Katrina vanden Heuvel?]: Go for it!

SCARBOROUGH: I know Howard Dean.  I've spoken to Howard Dean. It is such a disservice to compare--forget ideology, conservatives!--I think Howard's way left and all that.  But it is such a disservice to compare Sarah Palin in any aspect to Howard Dean. Yes, because that is an insult to Howard Dean's intelligence.

Looking at Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue: An American Life, NBC's Andrea Mitchell caught a passage about herself in which Palin recalled that when she invited some reporters to go fishing with her this past July that “I wanted to see Andrea and her colleagues sporting fish-slimed waders, banging around in a skiff, stuck in the mud,” but, she regretted, the weather was too good so “dang it -- none of them got slimed.”

On Sunday's NBC Nightly News, Mitchell recounted, over video (with the book text over-layed) of Mitchell and Palin on a boat:

Remember when we went fishing with her after she resigned as Governor? Palin writes: “Now I wanted to see Andrea and her colleagues sporting fish-slimed waders, banging around in a skiff, stuck in the mud and trying to pull themselves back over the bow. At the very least they'd see there was no diva in me.”

But the weather didn't cooperate. She writes: “It was sunny, hot and flat calm, so -- dang it -- none of them got slimed.”

— Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center

Amazon has announced its 2009 best selling books, and Mark Levin's "Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto" and Glenn Beck's "Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government" are number two and three respectively.

This will certainly ruin Chris Matthews' day, as the MSNBCer back in September agonized over there being "so much right-wing crap on the best seller list these days."

And who can forget Arianna Huffington last Monday wondering if "The New York Times [should] create a separate bestseller list for conservative blockbusters?" 

With this in mind, we at NewsBusters hope the following announcement by Amazon brings tears to liberal media members' eyes from sea to shining sea:

Best Books of 2009Customers' Bestsellers: Top 100 BooksEverybody knows what our bestselling book of 2009 was: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's long-awaited follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. But the race was closer than you might think: following Brown on our year-ending list are three books from authors with their own radio platforms, political talkers on the right Mark R. Levin and Glenn Beck and comedian-turned-radio-host Steve Harvey, and then the word-of-mouth fiction breakout of the year, Kathryn Stockett's The Help, which has earned over 900 five-star reviews from Amazon customers.

Isn't it interesting that the names of Levin and Beck's books were not included in Amazon's summary along with embedded links to their respective sales pages?

Neither was Steve Harvey's.

I'm sure that was just an oversight on Amazon's part.

Regardless, congratulations Messrs. Levin and Beck. 

Liberal radio host and MSNBC bobblehead Ed Schultz deserves credit -- he's that rare left-winger willing to throw political correctness to the wind and describe accused Ft. Hood killer Nidal Hasan as a terrorist.

After finding such clarity unsettling, however, Schultz quickly reverts to form.

Here's what Schultz told his radio listeners on Thursday (click here for audio) -- 

SCHULTZ: We've gotta stop being so damn academic about what a crime is. I think you could easily make the case that the guys that stepped on the planes on Sept. 11, 2001 had the exact same motivation as this guy did, vice versa. And I'm not afraid to take nasty email from people who think that I'm leaning to the right. There's no left, right, center, blue, green on this. You know, we're gonna get hung up on definitions on what a terrorist act is. There's 13 people dead! What was the motivation for that? It was hate. It was ideological. It was religion. It was faith-based, all of that, and we missed it. And now people are dead and many injured.

This is where I cut ties with a lot of Americans when it comes to whether it's politically correct or not. We have to, in the cable industry and talk radio, we're going to ask the provocative question about, well, what do you think? But I want to be very clear. I think that this was an act of terrorism. I do, I think it was premeditated. He was out to take people down in an institution that he opposed and he was unfortunately a part of. I think he was a terrorist, I think he's a murderer and I think he ought to be hung!

By the end of Thursday's radio show, Schultz's kneejerk habit of blaming the previous administration for all manner of woe in the world returned with a vengeance (here for audio)--

SCHULTZ: Where the hell was Mr. Tough Guy, Dick Cheney? Because they were checking this guy out during the Bush administration, the Department of Homeland Security under the Bush years, the biggest rearrangement of government in the history of America, the Department of Homeland Security, and all the checks and balances ...

CALLER: Is that true?

SCHULTZ: Wait a minute! And all the checks and balances. They knew who this guy was, the FBI did, back in 2007. And they knew exactly what the writings he was having, the contacts he was having. So, where the hell's Dick Cheney on this one?! Hell, we got hit on their watch again 'cause they didn't stop us from that guy doing what he did!

CALLER: So, are you telling me that Dick Cheney knew about this guy back in 2007?

SCHULTZ: I think we should ask the question. I mean, come on (crosstalk) this, this happened on, this happened on the Bush administration's watch! He slipped through the cracks!

Don't be surprised if Schultz refrains from pushing this line of argument -- seeing how it also places the blame for nearly 3,000 Americans murdered on 9/11 squarely on the Clinton/Gore administration.

Newsweek has done it again: a few weeks after acknowledging half its letters were critical of Joe Biden (but publishing none of them), they proclaimed their Al Gore cover was unpopular. Forty-six percent of their letter writers wrote on the subject of Gore, and 74 percent of them were critical. Still, Newsweek ran only positive letters. The first, most prominent one (in larger red type) read: "Until each nation makes responsibility for this earth a priority, we will continue to devastate it – and ourselves."

The next letter praises Gore's courage and conscience, but still presses him from the left to crush the problem of human overpopulation:

As a six-continent bicycle traveler for the past 35 years, I admire Al Gore addressing climate change. However, he fails to highlight the basic factor accelerating it: human overpopulation. Either we address it, or Mother Nature will do it for us. – Frosty Wooldridge, Golden, Colo.

Then the reading gets really hair-curling. Lee Bidgood Jr of Gainesville, Florida compared global-warming deniers to people who denied the Holocaust:

Propaganda by global-warming skeptics and deniers reminds me of 1944, when as an Army officer I saw living skeletons in striped pajamas. Horror stories about Nazi concentration camps suddenly rang true. I wondered how intelligent people could commit such atrocities. History records the effectiveness of Joseph Goebbels's propaganda. I hope Al Gore and others can prevail over today's anti--science propaganda.

Newsweek even included a letter from a professional liberal complaining that all the goo for Gore was ruined by including an essay by Karl Rove. It was (as usual) an "unworthy" counterpoint: "Rove's essay repeats debunked claims about cap-and-trade systems and fails to offer an alternative method for significantly reducing carbon emissions to the levels scientists say are necessary. Rove's opinion piece was an unworthy counterpoint to Gore's serious call to action."

It was signed Aaron Huertas, Press Secretary, Union of Concerned Scientists, Washington, D.C.

In the alternative universe known as Government/General Motors Land, you can:

• Talk about how your financial results are going to be better than last year's and in the next breath caution that the numbers won't be comparable.
• Inform the public that the financial information to be released on Monday isn't going to be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and is going to simply skip about 3-1/2 months of activity that will apparently never be reported, even though your majority-owning government forces your publicly-held competitors and every other publicly-held company to prepare full-blown financial statements under those same GAAP rules.
• Tell the world that you're a private company, even though the federal government owns a majority of your stock (in effect making you more of a public company than any other public company around), and thereby insist that you're doing the world a favor by releasing any financial information at all.

In the alternative reporting universe known as the Associated Press, you parrot these points without questioning whether they are correct, proper, or even less than fully transparent.

Here are key paragraphs from that Wednesday unbylined AP report (bolds after title and footnotes are mine):

GM to announce 3rd-quarter earnings on Monday

General Motors Co. said Tuesday that it will release its preliminary third-quarter earnings on Monday morning, the automaker's first earnings release since emerging from bankruptcy this summer.

The company is not expected to make a profit but has hinted that its results for the quarter will show a big improvement over the same period last year. (1)

.... GM last released a quarterly earnings statement in May, when it reported losing $6 billion in the first quarter of 2009. At the time, it was trying to stave off collapse and was staying afloat from infusions of government aid.

GM lost $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2008 and a huge $30.9 billion for the entire year.

The company says the numbers it releases Monday cannot be compared with other quarters because they do not comply with U.S. accounting principles. (2) The period also is not a full quarter (3) as it covers only the period from its emergence from bankruptcy to Sept. 30.

.... As a private company, GM is not required to file financial updates, (4) but company officials have said they plan to continue to make regular disclosures. (5)

Following the footnoted bolds:

(1) and (2) -- How can a company get away with telling the world that its number will be better when they've admitted they won't be comparable? Answer: They can't, except in Government/General Motors Land. Shoot, there isn't even a "same period as last year" to discuss in the first place.

(3) -- How can AP headline its story as being about "3rd-quarter earnings" when the article content says the report isn't for a full quarter? Answer: It can't, and doesn't, unless it's taking stenography in Government/General Motors Land.

(4) and (5) -- Since when is it acceptable that the full-blown "financial statements" required of any company in which the investing public has an ownership interest are allowed to turn into mere "financial updates" and "regular disclosures," even though the entire taxpaying public has a vested interest in its government's majority ownership? Answer: Since we've arrived in Government/General Motors Land.

Other questions logically arise:

• When, if ever, will we see financial results for the period GM was in bankruptcy? Will Motors Liquidation Company, the shell of old GM, file a report for April 1 - July 9 with the SEC, or will those financial results be buried in oblivion forever?
• Will GM even attempt to tell us how its "accounting" differs from GAAP and roughly what GAAP income or loss would have been, or will we just forced to go "uh-huh" at whatever level of incomplete information the company and its government owners are willing to give us about its balance sheet, income and expense, and cash flow?
• Are outside Big Four or other auditors involved at GM in looking over whatever passes for financial statements (oops, I meant "financial updates") to see if they're even reasonable or credible? If they are, what is their level of involvement, and do they have an opinion to issue on the financials? Oh, and when's the outside audit going to take place?

These and other questions never get asked, let alone answered, in AP La-La Land, while tens of billions of taxpayer dollars disappear down what has thus far been a bottomless money hole, and the press stands by with its collective mouth hanging open.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

A seventeen year veteran of CNN claimed Sunday that Lou Dobbs' surprising exit from the network was because "his opinions are out of lockstep with the rest of the mainstream news media."

Discussing the issue with Howard Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Chris Plante, a former CNN correspondent and current talk radio host, said Dobbs, as "the last conservative voice on the channel," no longer fit in.

"They had Glenn Beck, he's gone. They had [Dobbs], now he's gone," claimed Plante.

When Plante said CNN hosts Campbell Brown, Anderson Cooper, and Larry King weren't "completely neutral," Kurtz asked, "Are you suggesting that those hosts lean to the left?"

Plante marvelously responded, "Yes, I am" (oftentimes contentious video embedded below the fold with full transcript, file photo): 

HOWARD KURTZ, CNN ANCHOR: His name has been synonymous with CNN for nearly three decades, but Lou Dobbs has become an increasingly opinionated and divisive figure in recent years. And the more he has crusaded on such issues as illegal immigration, the more he has seemed at odds with a network that tries to define itself, indeed, tries to market itself as a straight news operation that doesn't lean to the left or the right.

Those starkly different approaches cause rising tensions at CNN, even as some liberal and Latino groups were mounting a campaign to force the veteran anchor off the air. On Wednesday, Lou abruptly told viewers that this was his final broadcast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOU DOBBS, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: Over the past six months, it's become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us. And some leaders and media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at role at CNN and to engage in constructive problem solving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Dobbs could get riled up on the air as he did three years ago during a clash with a Hispanic anchor and days later in an interview with me on this program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are sick and tired of being treated as criminals, being treated as racists.

DOBBS: As criminals? Maria Elena they are -- wait a minute, wait a minute. That is precisely what they are, they have broken the law.

KURTZ: You told "The New York Times" this week, "There is nothing fair and balanced about me because there's nothing fair and balanced about the truth, but shouldn't a cable news anchor be fair?"

DOBBS: A cable news network should be fair always. On "Lou Dobbs Tonight," I broadcast, my viewers, my audience, expect to come at them with the unvarnished reality and the truth irrespective of how the chips fall in the political spectrum.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: So was this television divorce inevitable and what does it mean for Dobbs and for CNN? Joining us now in Tampa, Eric Deggans, television and media critic for the "St. Petersburg Times." Here in Washington, David Zurawik, television critic for "The Baltimore Sun" who writes the blog "Z on TV." And Chris Plante, host of "The Chris Plante Radio Show" on WMAL. Chris Plante, many liberals cheering Dobbs' sudden exit. A "New York Times" editorial called him close to a right wing ranter who distorts the facts. Is the media being fair to Lou Dobbs?

PLANTE: Well, of course not. Well the reason Lou Dobbs was in trouble is not because he has opinions, it's because of what his opinions were and his opinions are out of lockstep with the rest of the mainstream news media. "The New York Times" in their -- pretty much every report also say that he's a crusader against immigrants, or immigration and that's false. It's a misrepresentation and it speaks to their point of view. And maybe "The New York Times" should be taking a look at itself rather than Lou Dobbs.

KURTZ: Eric Deggans, Dobbs for years was a conventional business anchor, but do you believe in recent years that he became more of a crusader than a journalist?

DEGGANS: I think it's obvious and I could not disagree more with your previous panelist's assertions. It became obvious that Lou was pressing this world view about illegal immigration being at the root of a ton of evils in America, and I think a lot of his conclusions were debatable.

"60 Minutes" exposed that he had said things about illegal immigrants causing a rise in leprosy in the United States that just could not be backed up. And he's also made assertions of the criminality of illegal immigrants that statistics just don't bear out. So opinions are one thing, but to be unfair and to make assertions that are not true or to exaggerate using selective data, that is just not something that's very ethical and very fair or anything that helps anyone.

KURTZ: David Zurawik, whether Dobbs was opinionated on the left or the right, he was a very opinionated guy in recent years. CNN doesn't style itself as that kind of operation. Could they have continued this sort of uneasy co-existence?

ZURAWIK: No, it's impossible. You know, by July I think I was writing he's a liability, you have to get rid of them. And even, Howie, forget the larger sense. Just in a business sense, in terms of the CNN brand, Dobbs was a disaster with the birther controversy this summer, first of all, cut against it.

And secondly, you know, CNN has "Latinos in America" coming out, really fine series that they had with Soledad O'Brien. At the same time, they're being protested by Latino groups because of Dobbs' positions. How can you function that way? Listen, I think Jonathan Klein has made a really important stand with this culture with the kind of news he's trying to do.

KURTZ: Just to clarify, CNN president Jon Klein said that he had asked Dobbs several months ago to take the opinion off his program and Dobbs had largely complied. But Lou ultimately was unhappy and decided to cut the cord.

PLANTE: That's why he's gone. Let's boil it down to the facts here. It's not that Campbell Brown is completely neutral. Anderson Cooper is completely neutral. Larry King is completely neutral.

KURTZ: Wait, let me finish the question. Are you suggesting that those hosts lean to the left?

PLANTE: Yes, I am.

KURTZ: In anything like the degree that Lou Dobbs?

PLANTE: So it's a matter of degrees? It's also a matter of bounty. It's also a matter of what the reality -- of course, you're not.

ZURAWIK: Of course I don't because it's a fact, that's why I don't agree with you! I couldn't --

PLANTE: And the news media -- I'm supposed to be the radio talk show host and you're the newspaper guy here. In Washington, we've got a chief White House correspondent for CBS News Chip Reid who was a former employee on Capitol Hill of Joe Biden. We've got a senior White House correspondent of NBC News who was a former staffer for Tom Harkin.

KURTZ: Let's stick to CNN.

PLANTE: We have a senior Washington correspondent for ABC News who is a Clinton administration official. David Axelrod is a former "Chicago Tribute" reporter. We've got Jay Carney leaving his job at "Time" magazine to go to work for this administration. Look, the pattern is clear, everybody knows it except you guys, you know?

KURTZ: What does it is say about CNN? None of those people work at CNN.

PLANTE: It's the news media as an industry and as a company, the last conservative voice on the channel is gone. They had Glenn Beck, he's gone. They had him, now he's gone. Lou Dobbs is gone.

DEGGANS: Is it possible for someone else to break here?

KURTZ: I'm going to let you break in, but I want to play some sound for you, and then tee it up for you. Zurawik mentioned the birther controversy that really erupted over the summer, was President Obama really born in this country? Lou had some things to say on that, too. Let's roll the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: We've been reporting on the accusations widespread on the Internet that President Obama wasn't actually born in the United States and therefore some believe he's not eligible to be president. It's out there. There are those who claim that he was born, Dom, in a different country. The president, obviously, all he has to do is just produce the original birth certificate in Hawaii and be done with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: And unlike illegal immigration, Eric Deggans, where a lot of people in this country feel passionately against that, this birth thing is pretty fringe stuff.

DEGGANS: Yes, and it's surprising, if you actually look at the ratings for his show, they really took a hit when he started talking about the birther controversy. I think it's obvious that he started to go further and further out on a limb with some of these conspiracy theories and he left some of his viewers behind.

I would also note that the problem with opinionated anchors isn't the opinion, it's when they are not accurate. It's when they say things that are false. It's when they say things that are not fair. That's when there's the biggest problem and we've seen this over and over again with certain news outlets and I think that was Dobbs' biggest problem and what drew the biggest protest. And I'll also say Diane Sawyer is about to become the top anchor on ABC News and she once worked for the Nixon administration.

PLANTE: It's been 30 years.

DEGGANS: It's obvious that there are lots of people in journalism who used to work in politics on both sides of the aisle and what you have to do is look at their work and not look at where they came from.

PLANTE: Right, OK, well, I've got to say, this is an essentially an attack on Lou Dobbs. Let's call it what Lou Dobbs said. Lou Dobbs raised a question. I saw him raise questions that a lot of people are asking out there. Do you know who Chiyome Fukimo is, either one of you?

ZURAWIK: Chris, if a lot of people are asking the question, they weren't watching him. This is not some ratings juggernaut. Lou Dobbs was finishing third in his time period. This was not some great populous groundswell of support for what he was doing.

PLANTE: Based on that standard, there are a lot of other anchors who would be gone, too, aren't they, but they're not gone, are they?

Exactly. After all, CNN's prime time shows are often in third place behind Fox and MSNBC.

A look at Tuesday's numbers makes Deggans and Zurawik's point about Dobbs' ratings rather absurd:

7PM - P2+ (25-54) (35-64)
The Fox Report w/ Shep -2,444,000 viewers (605,000) (1,151,000)
Lou Dobbs Tonight-879,000 viewers (208,000) (356,000)
Hardball w/ C. Matthews-711,000 viewers (198,000) (358,000)
Kudlow Report - 132,000 viewers (60,000) (81,000)
Issues- 679,000 viewers (263,000) (389,000)

8PM - P2+ (25-54) (35-64)
The O'Reilly Factor- 3,938,000 viewers (1,078,000) (1,903,000)
Campbell Brown - 786,000 viewers (190,000) (315,000)
Countdown w/ K. Olbermann - 1,207,000 viewers (374,000) (538,000)
Big Mac: Inside McDonalds - 200,000 viewers (94,000) (106,000)
Nancy Grace - 970,000 viewers (393,000) (520,000)

9 PM - P2+ (25-54) (35-64)
Hannity -2,534,000 viewers (739,000) (1,279,000)
Larry King Live -1,690,000 viewers (668,000) (768,000)
Rachel Maddow Show -995,000 viewers (267,000) (404,000)
Executive Vision 2 - a scratch w/70,000 viewers (a scratch w/47,000) (a scratch w/44,000)
Joy Behar- 551,000 viewers (184,000) (258,000)

So, on the night before he resigned, Dobbs was actually second in his time slot.

By contrast, Campbell Brown was third in hers, with less viewers than him!

So, as Plante said, this certainly wasn't about ratings.  

ZURAWIK: Chris, this is also about trying to run a news organization. Jonathan Klein fired a nice shot across his bow back in July. If an editor did that to me, I would stop being a hot dog gas based stop off guy like Lou Dobbs and I might think about reining it in. You can't run a news organization with somebody --

PLANTE: You represent -- you're a media writer for a newspaper, for a Baltimore newspaper and you represent the mainstream news media point of view.

ZURAWIK: Which is what? PLANTE: And this goes right to my point. Howard, you know that every survey --

ZURAWIK: I think that is the mainstream point of view. PLANTE: You know that every survey that's ever been taken involving the politics of the news media finds it between 85 and 95 percent of the news media votes Democratic, goes along with the liberal agenda and newsrooms are stocked with this point of view. Now --

KURTZ: I want to come back to your point, do you contend that Campbell Brown and Larry King and Anderson Cooper, that their programs are built around their personal opinions to the extent that "Lou Dobbs Tonight" was?

PLANTE: Now you're going by a different standard.

KURTZ: It's what you do on the air.

PLANTE: Let me tell you something. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine in Washington, a longtime Washington journalist type and we were talking about a reporter that we both know who is very liberal. And my friend said, yes but I think that he does a great job of hiding it. The idea is not to have a room full of people who are hiding their political beliefs and failing, by the way. Lou Dobbs wore it on his sleeve and he at least put it out there. You knew where he stood unlike others.

KURTZ: Eric, I'm sorry that we have slighted you. Let's move the conversation to you can say whatever you want about Dobbs, but by naming John King, my colleague at "State of the Union" to take over the 7 p.m. slot that Dobbs has now vacated, is CNN doubling down on straight news and is that a good strategy?

DEGGANS: Well, of course it seems obvious that by replacing Dobbs with someone who doesn't present the opinions the way that he did, that there may be a return to more standard reporting and more objective analysis. But one of the things I wanted to talk about is I'm concerned that we're losing the forest for the trees here.

DEGGANS: One of the things that we've seen increasingly in modern -- in present years is the presentation of news that fits the world view of the audience that wants to watch it.

And when the news gets distorted to fit someone's world view, regardless of what that world view is, there's a problem. The problem with Dobbs wasn't necessarily that he was expressing conservative views; it was that he was distorting facts and distorting the situation to fit the world view that he wanted to present to his viewers.

And that's also a problem. You know, David and I have written about this as it relates to Fox News or as it relates to MSNBC, at times. When -- when the news is distorted to fit a world view to draw viewers, that's when we have a problem.

KURTZ: In fairness, Dobbs did correct some of those mistakes. And here is my two cents. I've been on Dobbs's program. He's been on this program. It's not about his opinions. He has a lot of them. He's a smart guy. He can say what he wants. It's about CNN wanted to be. And there increasingly was just a divergent path between Lou's opinionated approach to the world and CNN saying it was going to be -- it was going to market itself as the straight news network.

Now, I think a divorce was inevitable. Now Lou can run around the country, raise money, speak to groups, say whatever he wants on the face of the earth and CNN can get back to journalism.

I think CNN tries to be fair. Chris Plante may disagree -- former CNN correspondent, here -- but we're going to leave it there. David Zurawik, Chris Plante, Eric Deggans, thanks very much for joining us.

Video courtesy Story Balloon.

Your humble correspondent has just returned from the Caribbean paradise of Culebra. Politics were far from my mind as I snorkled the Culebran reefs. However, on my way home, I picked up a copy of the Puerto Rico Daily Sun in the western outskirts of San Juan and a certain story by Robert Friedman of their Washington, D.C. bureau caught my eye because it had the word "rum" in the title: "Debate heats up in D.C. over rum rebate." As a lover of that delightful beverage, I naturally scanned the story which, much to my amusement, illustrated the state of Washington politics without exactly spelling out what the problem is.

So let us now join Robert Friedman as he lays out the situation in which Captain Morgan rum (one of my favorites) is planning to move its production from Puerto Rico to the U.S. Virgin Islands:

The three stateside Puerto Rican House members have escalated the billion-dollars battle over rum rebates with a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., indicating that the recent deal to move the production of Captain Morgan rum from Puerto Rico to the U.S. Virgin Islands could set the stage for corporate ripoffs of taxpayers.

Oh yes! Nancy Pelosi. She who loved to sing the dulcit tunes about the "culture of corruption," meaning Republicans of course. But let us continue as Friedman begins to point out certain disturbing facts in this rum deal:

The deal could also damage Puerto Rico’s rum producing industry with unfair competition from the USVI, the lawmakers told the House leader. 

 

The Captain Morgan deal could set the stage for “providing corporate largesse at the expense of the taxpayer,” wrote fellow Democratic Reps. Nydia Velázquez and José Serrano of New York and Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois.

 

The three lawmakers asked for a meeting with Pelosi to discuss the issue, which earlier had been in the hands of House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who so far has not acceded to requests to have his committee hold a hearing on the matter. 

 

Velázquez, Serrano and Gutiérrez had also joined Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi is sending a letter this week to Rangel, urging him to call the hearing on a bill by Pierluisi addressing the issue. The measure is meant to both nix the move of Captain Morgan from Ponce to St. Croix and to set a limit on how much of the tax rebate that goes to the islands for rum sold in the states could be returned as an “incentive”to the rum producer. 

While Puerto Rico uses about 6 percent of its annual rum rebate — which most recently totaled $370 million — to promote island-produced rum, the British-owned Diageo that produces Captain Morgan will get subsidies up to 50 percent in U.S. tax dollars from the USVI. Pierluisi’s bill would cap the amount of the money that could go to the private liquor interests at 10 percent. The rum-tax rebate is supposed to be used to support the budget of the territories.

“The end result of this massive subsidy,” which supposedly will amount to $2.7 billion to Diageo over 30 years, “is an uneven playing field for rum producers elsewhere, including in Puerto Rico, who will have trouble remaining competitive with Diageo unless they also receive significant subsidies.” they wrote.

After the bill was filed, Rangel had said he would not interfere in what he said was a fight between “friends.” But on Friday, Pierluisi said that the matter “goes beyond a feud between two territories. This is a federal program that, in my view, is being abused,” said the resident commissioner, who said he has informed all the Democrats on Ways and Means about his request to Rangel.

 

Rangel has been close to both Puerto Rico and the USVI for many years in supporting their funding needs. He has also counted on the two territories to contribute generously to his campaign coffers.

The Hill reported on Thursday that contributions to Rangel from the Virgin Islands totaled more than $167,000 between 1999 and 2008, and more than half of that — $84,800 — was given during the 2007-08 election cycle, just as the islands were finalizing the deal to relocate Diageo’s rum operations.

The newspaper, which circulates in Congress, noted: “Since Puerto Ricans found out about the deal, their giving to Rangel also has shot up. Puerto Rico now ranks second only to New York this cycle in places from which Rangel has collected contributions … Donors in Puerto Rico have written $36,600 in checks to Rangel this cycle.

Sheiner said the donations do not play a part in the congressman’s decisions in matters involving the two territories. 

It failed to make his master's thesis at the university Pat Robertson founded a campaign killer, but the Washington Post is still intent on finding ways to damage governor-elect Bob McDonnell even before he takes office.

In a Metro-section front-pager today, Post staffer Rosalind Helderman insisted that some recent remarks by Robertson about the nature of Islam following the Fort Hood shooting have "put McDonnell in a bind" and are forcing the Republican governor-elect "to confront how he plans to handle his friendship with" the "long-time ally" and "highly controversial figure."

Just four paragraphs into her story, Helderman cast McDonnell as one who "tried during the race to convince Virginians that he was a social conservative who could speak more broadly to issues that cross party lines."

Of course, McDonnell did just that, winning the Virginia governor's race by an 18-point margin (59-41 over Democrat Creigh Deeds) in a race where the economy, taxes and transportation were the key issues, so it's specious for Helderman to paint the governor-elect as though he were someone of whom moderate voters were skeptical.

Helderman went on to quote "Virginia political analyst Robert D. Holsworth" as positing that "he will not be able to simply say 'no comment,' himself, forever," about Robertson's characterization of Islam as a "violent.... political system" that was "bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination."

Just as President Obama had to formally denounce Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "McDonnell will probably face continued questions about Robertson's stands through his four-year term," Helderman insisted, citing Holsworth.

Of course, for that analogy to hold true, President Obama would have to be persistently dogged by the media throughout his presidency every time Jeremiah Wright says something stupid, something which hasn't and won't likely happen, in large part because the media are not intent on damaging Obama in the way that the Post was and is with McDonnell.

What's more, Wright was Obama's long-time pastor. He married the Obamas baptized their children. McDonnell, a Roman Catholic, has received financial contributions from McDonnell and earned a law degree from his university, but has never been under the weekly spiritual authority of the Protestant evangelist. The relationships between Wright and Obama and Robertson and McDonnell are hardly analogous.

All the same, the paper that tried to make McDonnell's thesis his "macaca" moment seems now intent on morphing Robertson into McDonnell's Rev. Wright. It's abundantly clear the Post is not aiming to be a neutral observer and chronicler of McDonnell's tenure in the governor's mansion, but rather the weaver of a negative narrative. 

The Associated Press recently assigned eleven of its writers to fact-check Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue." AP's team of truth-seekers only found six errors the former Alaska Governor's book, most of which were trivial and presumably not worth the time of a team of reporters.

"AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report", reads the sign-off of Calvin Woodward's fact-check. Even with this impressively large crew, the AP seemed to stretch to find objectionable statements in "Going Rogue".

Here's a fact-check that supposedly required a squad of reporters to unearth:

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking "only" for reasonably priced rooms and not "often" going for the "high-end, robe-and-slippers" hotels.

THE FACTS: Although she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) for a five-hour women's leadership conference in New York in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000.

Mark Steyn notes the absurdity of this statement.

That looks like AP paid 1.8333333 fact-checkers to agree with Mrs Palin: She says she didn't "often" go for "high-end" hotels; they say she "usually opted for less-pricey hotels". That's gonna make one must-see edition of "Point/Counterpoint".

Or is AP arguing "four nights" counts as "often"? Is that the point? AP assigned 11 reporters to demonstrate that four is a large number?

The AP also fact-checks something as intangible as Palin's motivations for writing the book.

PALIN: "Was it ambition? I didn't think so. Ambition drives; purpose beckons." Throughout the book, Palin cites altruistic reasons for running for office, and for leaving early as Alaska governor.

THE FACTS: Few politicians own up to wanting high office for the power and prestige of it, and in this respect, Palin fits the conventional mold. But "Going Rogue" has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto, the requisite autobiography of the future candidate.

The AP does unearth a couple interesting--but hardly damning--inconsistencies in Palin's work, such as her criticism of her predecessor in Anchorage for staffing former lobbyists. She did in fact employ her own. But it hardly seems like an efficient use of the AP's resources to task 11 writers with uncovering this truth.

"It appears to be a tribute to the factual accuracy of Palin's book that eleven hostile AP reporters can't come up with anything better than this," writes John Hinderaker at PowerLine.

The AP tried very hard to find things to fact-check in "Going Rogue". 1.83 reporters per mistake is quite an operation for little substantive news gathering. That the story included quips that didn't seem to contradict what she said in the book, or speculated about her emotional and intellectual background, demonstrates the lengths to which the AP will go to criticize Palin and her work.

The roundtable members on Sunday's This Week derided or dismissed Sarah Palin, with David Brooks, the putative conservative columnist for the New York Times, declaring “she's a joke” and insisting “Republican primary voters just are not going to elect a talk show host” -- leaving it to PBS's Gwen Ifill, of all people, to come to her defense as a fellow woman.

Left-winger David Corn yearned for how she will damage Republicans while the Washington Post's Bob Woodward agreed with Brooks and George Will wondered: “Some conservatives think they have found in Sarah Palin a Republican William Jennings. Why they would want somebody who lost the presidency three times I do not know.”

The derogatory take from David Books on the November 15 This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC:

Yeah, she's a joke. I mean, I just can't take her seriously. We've got serious problems in the country. Barack Obama's trying to handle war. We just had a guy elected Virginia Governor who's probably the model for the future of the Republican Party, Bob McDonnell. Pretty serious guy, pragmatic, calm, kind of boring. The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters just are not going to elect a talk show host.

Bob Woodward:

I agree with David on this. You talk to Republicans and they say they voted for Obama because Sarah Palin was John McCain's pick.

Gwen Ifill:

As the girl at the table, I feel like I can say you cannot underestimate the degree to which women will be drawn to her story. And that's who she's speaking to. These are people who are ignored, who nobody counts into their thinking, it's why she's appealing to Hillary Clinton. It's  why -- when she made her own a announcement, she used the term glass ceiling back in the summer. Don't underestimate that factor.

In a report that is so riddled with bias and factual errors it's hard to know even where to begin, Associated Press Writers Tom Raum and Andrew Taylor yesterday gave making President Obama look like a born-again deficit hawk their best shot.

The pair's work is partially saved here for fair use, discussion and in this case entertainment purposes.

The biggest error Raum and Taylor made was publishing the following "we wish it were true" statement:

The national debt is the accumulation of annual budget deficits. The deficit for the 2009 budget year, which ended on Sept. 30, set an all-time record in dollar terms at $1.42 trillion.

Well, Tom and Andy, using this readily available tool, if that's the case, why was the national debt on September 30, 2008 $10.02 trillion and then $11.91 trillion on September 30, 2009? That's a difference of $1.89 trillion, a whopping $470 billion more than the past year's $1.42 trillion deficit.

The answer is, sadly, that the national debt is NOT the accumulation of annual budget deficits, as shown in the graphic that follows:

In the past five fiscal years, the national debt has increased by over $4.5 trillion, or over $1.9 trillion more than the $2.6 trillion sum of the five years' reported deficits.

Thus, Raum and Taylor promulgated quite a whopper yesterday. Perhaps the "real journalists" at the Associated Press don't agree that being off by that much is that big a deal. If readers don't see a correction, we'll just have to assume that's the case.

I have addressed why these differences exist several times in the past (one such example is here), but the main point here is that the supposedly Essential Global News Network has two guys on board and presumably a gaggle of editors behind them who are so utterly clueless.

Here are some of other howlers the pathetic pair put forth in their embarrassing effort:

• They wrote that "the economy surged at a 3.5 percent annual pace in the July-September quarter" -- Calling such growth a "surge" is wildly inconsistent with the known and acknowledged fact that Cash For Clunkers, the homebuyer's credit, and other unsustainable government-paid steroids made up most of the growth. Similar or better growth that was not artificially induced during the previous administration was rarely described as positively.
• They described fiscal 2010's anticipated budget deficit as "trillion-dollar-plus." That's an odd term considering how big the "plus" part is. The Congressional Budget Office's August report projects a $1.381 trillion shortfall.
• With the help of a an "expert" from the Pew Research Center, they claimed that the public's concern about deficits is the highest since Ross Perot's 1992 presidential candidacy, conveniently forgetting that the first year of the Gingrich Congress in 1995 up to and including the government shutdown was dominated by the issue of reining in annual deficits.
• The piece's headline focused only on spending. But in the story's sixth paragraph, Obama's budget director informed AP, in the wire service's words, that his "spending blueprint .... would include a mix of spending cuts and new revenue-producing measures." In the real world, "new revenue-producing measures" are known as "tax increases."

The AP's Tom Curley has said he has plans for protecting and monetizing the wire service's content. Before attempting that, I would suggest that Mr. Curley and his crew put a bit more effort into making that content worthy of protection and worth paying for. You're not even in the neighborhood, Tom.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Days after announcing another huge layoff, Al Gore's Current TV referred to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a "Gun-Ho" and a "TWILF."

These disgraceful, sexually-charged epithets were part of an attack on prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and came in the form of a cartoon ironically titled "The Stupid Virus":

When a lab-monkey declares that President Obama wasn't born in America, he becomes Patient Zero for a new brand of fear-based news virus - Fearus Ignoramus. We watch as the virus goes ear-borne, spreading from Rush Limbaugh to CNN to the mainstream-media to the general public. America devolves into panic, convinced its President is an illegal alien anti-Christ.

In the end, this was just a lot of conservative bashing in very bad taste, especially the shot of Palin's Twitter page and her astonishingly offensive screen name "Gun-Ho" (video embedded below the fold, vulgarity alert, h/t Breitbart TV):

Did you notice Palin's screen name at Twitter was "Gun-Ho?"

After Palin tweeted, Brian Williams of NBC's "Nightly News" reported it as the "Top Story," and in the right of the screen was the word "twilf" with a question mark after it (h/t Amanda Carpenter):

This appears to either be a take on the acronym MILF with the "TW" standing for "Twitterer," or an urban dictionary reference way too disgusting to address.

Regardless, is that what a former Vice President and Nobel Laureate believes is acceptable to call a former Governor and vice presidential candidate?

Lest we not forget the vulgar attack on Beck at the end.

And these folks wonder why they're continually having to lay people off!

Screencaps courtesy of Story Balloon.

If Hillary Clinton had been any less supportive of the Obama admin's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan, she might have had to quit her Secretary of State job . . .

Clinton damned the decision with faint praise during her Meet The Press appearance today.

Asked by moderator David Gregory where she stood on the matter, her response was the ultra-tepid: "I'm not going to second-guess any decision the Attorney General made." Translation: I'd love to second-guess it. I pretty much just did.  But I'm not about to end my Obama admin career by saying so outright. 

And a bit later: "If the Attorney General and veteran prosecutors think this is the best way to achieve [the desired] outcome, then I think that they should be given the right to move forward as they see appropriate."

Thanks for nuthin'! Consider that Yale-lawyer Hillary did not say she supports the decision. She did not say that she thinks it's the best way to achieve the desired outcome.

Is Hillary keeping her powder dry for possible use against PBO down the road? Will the MSM report  this potential rift within the Obama admin?

Barack Obama had his Beer Summit.

Will they call a meeting between former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the Coffee Summit?

Such seems possible after Clinton's discussion about Palin with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday's "This Week."

In fact, the following exchange seems destined to be quite the water cooler subject in newsrooms all over America in the coming days (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: While you've been gone Sarah Palin is making quite a splash back here in the United States. Her book "Going Rogue" is about to be released but there are already excerpts out. And she has some kind words for you in the book. She says she was wrong to criticize you last year for whining and now she says that she realized the media was biased when they were talking about your candidacy. And she goes on to say this, to write this.

"Should Secretary Clinton and I ever sit down over a cup of coffee, I know that we will fundamentally disagree on many issues. But my hat is off to her hard work on the 2008 campaign trail. A lot of her supporters think she proved what Margaret Thatcher proclaimed. 'If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.'" It sounds like she's fishing for a coffee date. Is it going to happen?

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, you know, I've never met her. Look, I'd look forward to sit down and talk with her. Obviously we're going to hear a lot more from her in the upcoming weeks with her book coming out and I would look forward to having a chance to actually get to meet her.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Was the media fair to her?

CLINTON: Well, you know George, I'll leave that for my book if I ever write another one.

It seems a metaphysical certitude that with all the attention Palin is getting with her book coming out, along with high-profile interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters this week, this exchange between Clinton and Stephanopoulos will get a lot of media focus. 

How it will be covered is a different matter entirely.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Video of the protest prior to Gore's speech!

Nobel Laureate Al Gore was heckled during a global warming speech he gave Saturday in Boca Raton, Florida.

Addressing a crowd of a thousand people at the Mizner Park Amphitheater, Gore was repeatedly booed by about 200 protesters stationed outside the open-air facility.

As reported by the Sun Sentinel Saturday (h/t NBer Blonde):

Stationed outside the Mizner Park Amphitheater, the protesters jeered at Gore as he took the podium and at those walking into the open-air venue to listen to the speech.

"This is the most dangerous crisis we've ever faced," Gore said of climate change. He spoke over a chorus of boos from protesters, who were monitored by at least a dozen uniformed city police officers.

Many of the protesters were with the groups Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow and South Florida Tea Party, the latter of which feels that Gore's views will eventually lead to increased taxes and flawed business legislation.

The protesters carried drums, bullhorns and posters. One read "Practice what you preach," accusing Gore of not living a green lifestyle. Another poster read "The masses follow the asses," depicting the protesters' opinion that Gore's message is not backed by scientific evidence.

I'm verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. 

*****Update: Video of the protest prior to Gore's speech (h/t NBer dbo)...

Other videos available here, here, here, and here.