On CNN’s “Larry King Live” last night, retired CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite said Americans are ignorant, and that the majority of the population isn’t smart enough to make the proper decisions at election time to vote for president.

In a tirade about America not paying its teachers enough, Cronkite said:

“We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable I do not think the majority of our people of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency of course.”

What follows is a full transcript of this encounter, and a video link.

On CNN's In the Money today, Jack Cafferty suggested that President Bush is devoting too much time to the natural disasters in the southeastern United States: "President Bush is calling on Americans to drive less, in between the trips on Air Force One to the Gulf Coast, which seems to be happening about every six hours in the last week or ten days."

Yet only weeks ago, Cafferty was berating the President for not doing enough. On August 31, he sarcastically asked Wolf Blitzer, host of CNN's The Situation Room, "Where's President Bush? Is he still on vacation?" When Blitzer told him that Mr. Bush was cutting his vacation short because of the devastation, Cafferty said that "would be a good idea."

Brian Williams and Mike Taibbi on last evening's “NBC Nightly News” did exactly what they reported Bill Bennett claims started this whole controvery in the first place – took his radio remarks totally out of context.

In his introduction to the segment, Williams stated “[Bennett] says his remarks are being taken out of context.”  Then, Taibbi only played back the offensive sentences made by Bennett, along with the text of those sentences printed on the screen adjacent to Bennett’s picture.  However, Taibbi did not play, read, or print out for the viewer the question that was asked of Bennett by the caller to his radio program, nor what was said by Bennett before or after these sentences.  As a result, Williams and Taibbi did exactly what Williams said Bennett is asserting – took his words out of context.

In addition, Taibbi only solicited or quoted opinions on this issue that were antagonistic towards Bennett.  These included Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal), Harry Reid (D-Nev), and the president of a civil rights group.  Taibbi also reported the White House’s denouncement of what Bennett said.  As a result, not one person was interviewed or quoted who supported Bennett’s contention that when taken in their entirety, his words are not as contentious as what is being reported.

What follows is a full transcript of this report along with a video link.

“Bill Bennett is the poster child for racism” and “you cannot say that statement that was made by Bill Bennett is not a racist statement,” Colby King, the Washington Post’s Deputy Editorial Page Editor and columnist, declared on this weekend’s Inside Washington. King contended that “there's no way you can parse his words and get away from what he said. What he said was morally reprehensible. He has said, in effect, that blacks have a predisposition for being criminals.” No, Bennett simply based his proposition on how a higher percentage of blacks than other races commit crimes and, like King, Bennett rejected the idea of systematic abortion as “morally reprehensible.” Nonetheless, King proposed, “Now the question is: How will his party handle him? Will they come to his defense? Or will they take the right position?"

For King’s weekly columns published on Saturdays. For a bio of King, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. Full transcript follows.

In an article October 1 by Kelly Brewington, the Baltimore Sun takes Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett to task for his unusual comment on his radio show this week. The article is focused mostly on the reactions to that comment.

The reporter writes, "Democrat leaders leapt on Bennett, a prominent Republican analyst, describing his statement as the latest in a long trail of public comments by white conservatives unfairly linking blacks to crime and sexuality."

Source: hard copy, Baltimore Sun, page 6A, 10/01/0522

Here is Bennett's statement, "...if you wanted to reduce crime, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

In an article entitled “The Time is Right,” Newsweek used an interview with long-time feminist activist Marie Wilson to hype a Hillary Clinton presidency as well as ABC’s new series about a female president, “Commander in Chief.” Newsweek set the piece up by referring to a possible Hillary-Condi matchup in 2008. However, Wilson is never asked what she thinks of the second female Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, which certainly would have been a natural question for a woman who is president of the White House Project, a non-profit organization designed to assist the advancement of women in the workplace and in politics. Instead, the only female politician discussed with Wilson was indeed the junior senator from New York.

As for ABC’s new series, Newsweek and Wilson made it very clear what the intention of this show is (Newsweek’s questions in bold):