When you look at a presidential candidate you are faced with the sobering fact that if elected they will be the most powerful person on earth for the next four years, having power over not only weapons of mass destruction, but the economy, foreign policy, social and civil rights issues and the quality of your life.

New candidates have to run on a limited record of public service, their character, their personality and believability. If the person is an incumbent, that person should stand on past achievements and the accomplishments or lack thereof in the last four years.

When the New York Times reported that a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC was toying with a proposal to attack President Obama by highlighting his connections to his former pastor, the controversial far-left Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the liberal media went predictably apoplectic, calling the proposed ad campaign “incendiary and racially-tinged,” ignoring of course the incendiary things Wright thundered from the pulpit for years.

That's why Time magazine's Mark Halperin's defense of Romney and his Super PAC on the May 18 Morning Joe program is striking by contrast. [Audio here. Video below the jump.]

New York Times legal reporter Charlie Savage showed his usual labeling blindness in Friday's piece on strange political bedfellows that oppose indefinite detention: "House to Consider Proposal to Bar Indefinite Detention After Arrests on U.S. Soil."

Savage again showed himself unwilling to label far-left figures like Noam Chomsky as far-left, but has no problem calling the Tea Party "conservative." In the past he has termed the far-left Center for Constitutional Rights "civil libertarians" and "a group of human rights lawyers." Friday he wrote:

"It does appear this year that the ghosts of presidents past have been haunting the current race for the future leader of the country," MSNBC's Chris Jansing noted as she opened up a segment featuring Center for American Progress's Daniella Gibbs Leger and Republican Strategist Joe Watkins about how both President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney, but chiefly Romney, have invoked other presidents in their campaign rhetoric.

Jansing seemed perplexed at Romney campaigning by invoking the liberal Clinton -- saying Obama discarded the Clintonian pronouncement that the "era of big government is over" -- but she wasn't equally incredulous at Obama citing the late conservative President Ronald Reagan to boost his call for tax hikes for the rich. What's more, not once did Jansing highlight recent revelations that Obama has altered WhiteHouse.gov presidents biographies to gratuitously insert himself into them, even though that news item was covered earlier this week by the Bible-for-liberal journalists, the New York Times:

On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams decried a pitch to use President Obama's former radical left-wing pastor Jeremiah Wright in a campaign ad: "...there was an explosive headline this morning. The New York Times reporting that a Republican super-PAC was considering an expensive anti-Obama ad campaign that would have put the issue of race front and center in the campaign..."

Williams conveniently skipped over Wright's viscous anti-American rhetoric in several sermons, preferring to cast the story in racial terms. The only sound bite featured of Wright in the segment was brief and again described in racial terms, as correspondent Peter Alexander explained: "...the plan for a short film to publicize Wright's racially incendiary sermons, including this remark following 9/11." The sound bite that followed showed Wright ranting: "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Warning: Remove all food, liquids, and flammables from proximity of your computer before proceeding.

The folks at Comedy Central actually published an article Thursday with the headline "Conservative Hashtag Games Are Ruining Twitter":

Since that awful Sunday in Sanford, Florida, back in February, the media have shown time and time again they don't understand how the American justice system works.

Take ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams who on Thursday's Nightline said, "So even if Zimmerman was on his back, even if he was losing a fight, he still has a lot of explaining to do and is going to have to prove that Trayvon Martin was the initial aggressor" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Since the 9-11 truther MSNBC contributor who calls himself Toure is in the spotlight, I’d just like to add his appearance on Al Sharpton’s Politics Nation on Tuesday night. He came to proclaim that Obama’s performance on “The View” was masterful: “He was just calm and cool with it. I mean, like I thought there was a really nice way of presenting himself.”
 
In fact, he predicted “If Mitt Romney cannot lay out a plan, a credible plan for America and convince that he can make that happen, then you know, the [Obama] likability is going to crush him.”

Martin Bashir got a scolding on national television Thursday that everyone on MSNBC as well as within the parent companies Comcast and General Electric should receive.

During a contentious interview with the general counsel for Koch Industries, Inc., Bashir's guest said, "The way that your network has handled issues with us, the way that a lot in the far-left media have handled issues with us, attacking us even when there’s no basis like with the Trayvon Martin issues, that situation, that has led to death threats against our owners" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):