Conservative radio host Monica Crowley on Friday smacked down Newsweek's Eleanor Clift over racism in the Tea Party.

In the second segment of "The McLaughlin Group," the host addressed July's controversial resolution by the NAACP condemning so-called racist elements within the Tea Party.

Liberals Clift and Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune predictably supported the NAACP while bashing the conservative organization.

Crowley with the support of Pat Buchanan defended the Tea Party while calling the NAACP irrelevant.

With McLaughlin surprisingly taking Crowley and Buchanan's side, sparks flew in an oftentimes heated discussion (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

The most surprising thing about Jimmy Breslin's article in Harper's Magazine is that he is still around. Who knew?

Not so surprising is that Breslin hasn't lost any of his barely coherent rage which seems to be his trademark. This latest example from Breslin is so off the wall and all over the place that it is actually hard to get upset over it. Just mark it up to typical Breslin and savor it for the flat out nuttiness of the proposition that people attending last week's Glenn Beck rally in Washington, D.C. are somehow like assassins. Breslin jumps right into it from the start in which he somehow connects assassinations with free speech with the Glenn Beck crowd. It makes no sense but, hey, that is Jimmy Breslin for you:

There are these sudden loud noises in the hotel kitchen, one, two, three, probably a tray falling, and then there is so much screaming and a hand holding a gun high in the air and Robert Kennedy, who had walked into the gun, is on the floor with his eyes seeing nothing. On this June night in 1968 he has just won a Presidential primary and suddenly he is fit only for a gravedigger’s dirt.

It happens this way when the claws of madness swipe through the sky. In 1919 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called it for all time, and crashingly so today, when he wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”

...All day on television yesterday you had the aimless babbles of this Beck, who looks like he eats Bibles.

The Essential Global News Network's fascination with Steven Slater continues.

Mr. Slater (picture at right is from his Facebook page) is the JetBlue flight attendant who reportedly "grabbed the plane's intercom and made an expletive-laced speech, grabbed a beer from the galley, opened the door and slid down the emergency evacuation chute." Slater was charged with "criminal mischief and reckless endangerment."

Three weeks ago (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), Associated Press writer Samantha Gross rhapsodized over how Slater's actions had fulfilled "a working man's fantasy ... rekindled memories of workers' liberation ... (and) sparked wistful excitement among workers who have long fantasized of choosing pride over pay."

Before getting to the AP's latest sympathetic piece, let's take a look at something originally associated with a magazine report about Slater that is not currently present in that story.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Greta Van Sustern Americans are afraid of the radicalism of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

Thoughts?

The Boston Globe, long notorious as promoters of global warming doom and gloom -- see Ross Gelbspan, for example -- sometimes get embarrassed by the actual climate. On "The Green Blog," the Globe's Beth Daley projected that a "global warming double punch" could make Hurricane Earl much worse for Massachusetts -- except when it actually passed by, it turned out to be a dud for Bostonians and it could be watched on the coast with a glass of wine:  

The large waves, storm surge, and flooding that Hurricane Earl will spawn as it strikes Massachusetts tomorrow night comes with an added dollop of trouble; Sea level rise.

Very gradual -- and in some cases accelerating -- rises in sea level off our coast over the last century will boost the height of Earl’s storm surge -- expected to be one to four feet -- meaning the wall of water will be able to travel that much farther inland and over higher elevations to flood basements, streets, and other low-lying areas....

A Washington Post news story earlier this week served to demonstrate that mainstream media journalists apply the same prism overseas as they do domestically when covering illegal immigration and the Ground Zero mosque: When an overwhelming majority of the public goes against the media’s position, journalists see division and portray politicians sharing the majority position as causing rancor.

Case in a point: An article from Paris on page A6 of the Tuesday, August 31, Washington Post, “Crackdown on Roma divides French: Unease grows as Sarkozy razes camps, expels residents,” in which the newspaper’s Edward Cody led: “Much of France has returned from summer vacation in a rancorous mood, disturbed by a crackdown ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy against illegal Roma camps and naturalized immigrant youths who attack police in troubled suburbs.” Yes, the French people are “disturbed” that the police are reacting against immigrants who attack them.

Cody proceeded to assert “the unease over the action against illegal Roma immigrants, most from Romania and Bulgaria, has been particularly strong, with the expulsions drawing criticism at home and abroad.” Indeed, “for many, such policies undermine France's idea of itself as a haven for exiles and a beacon for human rights. Similar fears of intolerance were raised in July when, at Sarkozy's urging, the National Assembly passed a law banning women from wearing full-face Islamic veils in public.”

Jay Leno on Friday ribbed Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the poor state of the economy.

In his opening monologue on the "Tonight Show," the comedian began with a lot of politics first joking about the President's Middle East peace talks, then moving to the war in Afghanistan, and eventually a poke at airline security.

On the day the Labor Department announced an uptick in the unemployment rate, Leno had a number of jokes about how bad the economy is.

Finally, the monologue concluded with a nice tribute to a United States Marine Corps unit in the audience (video follows with commentary):

Laura Ingraham and Greg Gutfeld had some fun Thursday evening bashing NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel for absurd comments he made on the "Today" show this week.

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, Engel that morning told NBC's Ann Curry:

If there had been no invasion Saddam would still be in power. He was probably getting more moderate. He was being welcomed into the, into, by, by a lot of European countries, he was being welcomed in Eastern Europe in particular. He was heading in a, in a direction of accommodation.

Liberal "comedian" Kathy Griffin thinks there is no line of rudeness she can't cross, including calling the daughters of Sen. Scott Brown "prostitutes." On Monday's Joy Behar Show on CNN Headline News, Griffin proclaimed "But yes, whenever a statement is issued against me, I`m in heaven. I feel my next special is half written for me. And then I get to read statements allowed in my live shows which you can go to KathyGriffin.net and see the many, many cities I`ve picked up for my current tour."

Not even Rep. Barney Frank could make her feel bad about it:

BEHAR: So you're really feeling bad about it all? Okay, I mean, when Barney Frank turns on you, one of your gays, you have to start to wonder.

Rap star Kanye West bashed former President George W. Bush on Saturday while apologizing to country singer Taylor Swift for his appalling behavior at last year's MTV Video Awards.

Our story begins with West making a fool of himself - again! - when he interrupted Swift last September during her acceptance speech for best female music video of 2009 (right).

With the 2010 Awards quickly approaching, West must have felt it necessary to make amends.

As People.com reported moments ago, West took to Twitter early Saturday morning issuing a bizarre stream of consciousness apology:

The following headline appeared at Time.com shortly after the release of Friday's jobs report:

What's Good About Rising Unemployment

What should jump out at the eagle-eyed reader is that headline didn't end with a question mark.

Time senior writer Stephen Gandel was actually making the case that the rising unemployment rate was good news.

Watch just how far a liberal media member is willing to go today to make economic data look favorable for the Party currently in power, and imagine the unlikelihood of such a thing happening if a Republican was in the White House (h/t Rusty Weiss):

For almost two years, Sarah Palin has been complaining about media members making things up about her.

On Friday, one finally admitted it.

As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, Vanity Fair's October issue has a hit piece on its cover about the former Alaska governor that Palin-hating press members have been predictably fawning and gushing over.

Now, the Associated Press is reporting that the author, Michael Joseph Gross, has admitted making a mistake in his piece:

What follows indicates that at least one limit has been found to the establishment press's willingness to serve as this government's official apologists.

Not surprisingly, it relates to Iraq. The press obviously and bitterly opposed the war from the start, to the point of doctoring photographs, making stuff up, pretending that its sources knew what they were talking about when they didn't, and ignoring enemy atrocities and Saddam Hussein's mass graves for years, while often having their journalistic failures and biases exposed by milbloggers and bloggers. So if one were to have guessed ahead of time where a clear break might occur, Iraq would have been a leading choice.

That break comes in an AP email to staff from "Standards Editor" Tom Kent. He must have or at least should have known that its contents would get out. Jim Romenesko at Poynter Online (HT Legal Insurrection) appears to have posted it first, about 16 hours after Kent hit the "send" button:

Subject: Standards Center guidance: The situation in Iraq

Colleagues,

... we should be correct and consistent in our description of what the situation in Iraq is. This guidance summarizes the situation and suggests wording to use and avoid.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: George W. Bush talks about Patriot Golf Day:

Thoughts?

Newsweek has once again gone over the top in their support of Barack Obama, but at least the cover reflects that Obama's popularity is collapsing. It's called the "The Making of a Terrorist-Coddling, Warmongering, Wall Street-Loving, Socialistic, Godless, Muslim President." There's an asterisk that leads to the note "who isn't actually any of these things."

Perhaps to be true to their fanboy image, they should just leave that Obama photo on their logo every week. Liberals hate the cover already. Take Michael Shaw on The Huffington Post: "So, the question is, how much more is this desperate-to-stay-in-business "news" publication going to pander to the haters and the far-right crazies as we hurtle through the mid-term sprint?"

The cover story by Jonathan Alter comes with the whining subhead "Obama’s enemies have painted him as an alien threat. Can he fight the flight from facts?"

Children today are often so voracious and versed in the latest communications technology that they make their parents feel like Miles Standish and Betsy Ross. Three-fourths of young people between 12 and 17 now own cell phones, reports the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  And get this: 87 percent of those who send text messages told researchers that they sleep with or next to their phones. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, and one in three send more than 100, or more than 3,000 texts a month. By contrast, only 30 percent of teenagers talk on those caveman “land line” phones.

But all this cell-phone (not to mention Internet) usage carries new risks – even new crimes.

Last year, the hot trend was sexting – teenagers sending each other lascivious messages (and often nude or semi-nude photographs). If a teenaged boy received a nude photo of a friend and e-mailed it to buddies or posted it on a Facebook or MySpace page, there was the very real possibility of being prosecuted for distributing child pornography.

Now there’s a new and related crime in the court houses. It’s called “sextortion.”

Nationally syndicated liberal radio host Thom Hartmann is no Keith Olbermann -- he's not allergic to conservatives on his show. But that doesn't mean he's kind, or even fair. Focus on the Family has a new "True Tolerance" campaign focused on stopping school bullying -- against everyone -- but without programs that promote moral acceptance of homosexuality. FOTF's Candi Cushman appeared on CNN this week to debate this, but Anderson Cooper wasn't half as rough as Hartmann on Thursday afternoon. He mentioned that gay teens are much more likely to attempt suicide than straight teens and then just asked Cushman, point blank: "How many more children will have to die before you guys back off?"

This, in itself, is a form of bullying. You must accept left-wing lesson plans formulated by Obama "safe schools" czar Kevin Jennings and his group GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) or you favor gay teen suicide. Like a typical liberal, Hartmann wants the liberal, secular worldview on sexuality taught because it's based on "science" and the opposing conservative view is infected by religion, which must not be allowed to inform a viewpoint anywhere in a public school. He lectured Cushman:

The Labor Department announced the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a point, to 9.6 percent in August so, as the AP noted, it “has exceeded 9 percent for 16 straight months,” while the economy lost 54,000 jobs. Yet, without avoiding the dire numbers, ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find a “mixed picture,” “mixed bag” or even a “silver lining” for President Obama and Democrats two months before election day.

“It's a mixed picture here, but it's giving some encouragement to those who are out there looking, some who are hanging onto their jobs and their businesses by a thread,” Brian Williams insisted on Friday's NBC Nightly News. On the CBS Evening News, fill-on anchor Erica Hill saw “a bit of a mixed bag” before Anthony Mason asserted that “weak as the job numbers were, they were better than Wall Street expected” and he touted: “With American businesses creating 67,000 jobs in August, the private sector has now added jobs for eight straight months.”

Over on ABC, fill-in anchor David Muir elevated Obama's spin, teasing World News: “More jobs lost and the President, just today, taking the Republicans on. Are they standing in the way?” He introduced the subsequent story: “This country lost another 54,000 jobs in August, and the President today took on the Republicans, saying they're the ones blocking help for small business.”

Chris Matthews must really be getting tired of watching the man that used to give him tingles up his leg continue to get crushed in the polls, for on Friday he recommended a serious shakeup in the Obama administration.

First, he want's Defense Secretary Robert Gates to be replaced by Hillary Clinton.

"With her at the Pentagon, he would forge confidence in Middle East policy," said the "Hardball" host.

But the real surprise was Matthews calling for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to either replace Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner or Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Can you imagine the cries of police state, racism, incipient fascism and fill-in-your-favorite-epithet if a conservative pundit—let alone a Republican president—proposed the massive insertion of US military forces into American inner cities for law enforcement purposes?

But that's precisely what Ed Schultz proposed on his MSNBC show this evening.

Ed is apparently unaware that the use of the military for such law-enforcement purposes would raise serious issues under the Posse Comitatus Act.  But beyond that, it would utterly distort the mission of our military, and provoke valid civil-liberty concerns.  Schultz should try bouncing his brainstorm off the Joint Chiefs and see what kind of reception it receives.  

But hey, Ed announced on this evening's show that he will be part of a Big Labor march on Washington in DC in October.  Let that be a Dem pre-election theme: troops into Chicago! Here's Ed at his detached-from-reality best . . .

Give the woman credit -- liberals are seldom this candid about their impulse toward totalitarianism. Usually it takes a bit of prodding before you'll hear that voice of the guard in the gulag.

Lizz Winstead, co-founder of The Daily Show and alumna of the late, hardly lamented Air America Radio, revealed her pathological side while appearing on Ed Schultz's radio show yesterday, as described by Brian Maloney over at The Radio Equalizer --

WINSTEAD: Ed, I've always wished that somebody would invent, maybe you and I could go into business and do this, if somebody would invent, you know those shock collars that you put on the dog? (Schultz laughs) That when they bark they get jarred? If we could make one that actually fact-checked and we just put it around Glenn Beck's neck and when he spoke (pause), or just fake tears, if it could detect when tears were actually crocodile tears, and then you just get electrocuted by the water and jarred, like, that would be awesome! Force him to wear it.

ABC's Claire Shipman waxed ecstatic over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday's Good Morning America, as she reported on Mrs. Clinton's efforts in the Middle Eastern peace process. Shipman exclaimed how the Secretary had a "distinct, quite public moment of triumph" in her meetings with leaders from both sides, and noted how Clinton has become an "international political celebrity."

Anchor George Stephanopoulos, former communications director for President Bill Clinton, introduced the correspondent's report, which aired 44 minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour. Stephanopoulos noted past administrations' failure "to broker a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians" and then proclaimed how it was Mrs. Clinton's "turn to try to make diplomatic history." Shipman began by highlighting how Hillary "remains one of the most popular members of the administration" and how she was now "squarely center stage" with the possibility of bringing "something different to this Middle East process."

The massive revolving door between the mainstream media and the Obama administration has spun once again, this time as former White House budget director Peter Orszag signs on as a New York Times op/ed columnist.

Orszag is the eighteenth individual (that we know of) to transition between the White House and the mainstream press. He will surely not be the last. That amazingly high number again underscores the ideological similarities between members of the Obama administration and members of the press.

The New York Times Co. broke the news in a press release today:

In Time Magazine Managing Editor Rick Stengel's mind, it's really "sad" that the wall between Israel and the West Bank - intended to keep murderous terrorists in the Palestinian territory - has been a success. Stengel apparently considers Isreali deaths worthwhile if they lead to more productive peace talks.

In a "Morning Joe" segment yesterday titled "Why Israel doesn't care about peace" - after the upcoming Time cover story - Stengel posited that the lack of violence in Isreal is responsible for that country's supposed reluctance to reach a peace deal. Stengel stated (video below the fold - h/t Jim Hoft):

They haven't had a car bombing in two and a half years. And the sad truth really is that the wall with the West Bank has actually worked. I mean, most Israelis in the course of their lives don't come into contact with any Palestinians at all. The wall is functioning. And the Gaza strip is so small and so isolated they feel that those folks, the Hamas folks are not that big of a threat...

I mean, the Israelis feel like, you know what? The status quo isn't so bad and we don't mind is there is no peace at all.