In the days and weeks following the disaster in New Orleans, many in the media suggested that the federal government’s “slow” response to Hurricane Katrina was caused by the race and economic condition of those impacted. President Bush had to regularly answer the questions of reporters concerning this, while media members opined at will.

Most famous of such assertions was reported by NewsBusters when rapper Kanye West said during a televised Katrina relief fundraiser that, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Earlier that day, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said, “Almost all of them that we see, are so poor and they are so black.” And, as also reported by NewsBusters, CBS News’s Nancy Giles said: “[Bush] has put himself at risk by visiting the troops in Iraq, but didn't venture anywhere near the Superdome or the convention center, where thousands of victims, mostly black and poor, needed to see that he gave a damn."

In an attempt to downplay the scope of the communist infilitration into our government in the 1950's and the true role Joseph McCarthy played during the era of so-called "McCarthyism", George Clooney stated on the Early Show that: "Yes, there were communists infiltrating some areas of government. Not many, a couple of guys" in promoting his new movie.

A couple of guys? As I pointed out in my most recent column, there were more than just "a couple" of Soviet spies in various levels of our government and society. (See the end of this posting for a brief list).

But CBS wouldn't challenge this claim of downplaying McCarthy against famed CBS reporter Edward Murrow. After all, as they note: Clooney's "latest project falls firmly into the latter category and is very close to Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith and those working at CBS News." Why would CBS challenge anything positive that is said about one of its own reporters?

As the CIA leak investigation comes to a conclusion, America’s media have started to sell the public the man in the middle of the maelstrom, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Tonight, CBS News jumped on the bandwagon in a report filed by Jim Axelrod for “The Evening News” (video link to follow).

Like many such reports in the past week, Axelrod began by trying to dispel the notion that politics are in any way involved in this episode: “44-year-old Pat Fitzgerald, an intense and, by all accounts, apolitical prosecutor who's pursued mob bosses, crooked politicians, and Osama bin Laden like a pit bull with lockjaw.”

I searched for some information on google regarding Maureen Dowd's commentary on Judith Miller (I wasn't ready to subscribe to editorials on the Times website) and found this pathetic site.

All of you are a bunch of hate mongers, researching every and any instance of a possible "liberal bias"...looking with blinders past a history of Bush coddling in the media as well as Clinton bashing that preceeded that. I can find as many, if not more instances of those, but I don't want to waste my time. So, if I might ask anyone, is any criticism of the Bush White House considered Liberal Media Bias?

Since the Right Wing Republicans have a "mandate", control both houses of the Senate and a leader in the White House, it is their responsibility to UNITE this country and find a middle ground for everyone to be happy with. That has not happened. This country is more divided than before, and this site doesn't help.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews assumed pernicious wrong-doing on the part of Bush officials and cited facts not in evidence as he opened Wednesday's Hardball by presuming Valerie Plame was a victim, though her publicity-seeking husband was incompatible with keeping her employer secret. Matthews declared that the “FBI closes in on the bad guys,” described Plame as “undercover CIA agent” and touted how she “was a courageous spy for her country,” even though she was working at CIA headquarters and her specific status is in dispute. Bob Novak, for instance, reported that her overseas career was over. Matthews proceeded to assert that her neighbors had “no idea” of what job she held “until quote, 'high administration officials,' closed quote, exposed her to America's enemies.” Full transcript of the show opening delivered by Matthews follows.

     With the nomination of a new Federal Reserve chairman, “inflation” is the buzzword of the week. But the media have been warning about rising inflation since Hurricane Katrina hit – some even likening today’s situation to the Jimmy Carter 1970s, a notorious time for both high oil prices and inflation.

     “For the second day in a row the stock market took a drop,” said CNN’s Miles O’Brien on the October 6 “American Morning.” “And I think it’s – what do we need, those ‘Whip Inflation Now’ buttons, maybe.” Andy Serwer agreed: “Back to the ’70s. Turn your thermostat down, get your cardigans out.”

Not to worry, America. The Associated Press, with its vast worldwide resources, has uncovered some vital information on the Miers nomination: The high school she attended was “all-white.”

And because of this, “Miers (Was) Isolated From Social Turmoil As Teen.” So says the title of the latest in the AP’s series of insightful articles on the possible Supreme Court Associate Justice.

Harriet Miers spent her teens in an all-white high school far removed from the racial and social upheaval of the early 1960s, consumed instead with academics, tennis and even a stint as the school newspaper's assistant sports editor.

In regards to the "poll" on this website regarding Al Franken's remarks about Libby and Bush on Letterman.  How can you realistically give this poll any kind of justification due to the very website that it is on...."liberal bias in the news."  Of course you are going to have a higher percentage of people who think he went too far, by the very website this poll is on. Now, who wants to talk about biasness? This is as blantant as you can get.

"It must be obvious to everyone, by now, that Michael Jordan has difficulty letting go of his past glory. Now he's returned with a new book, a new clothing line for women and appearances on 60 minutes and Oprah to announce to the world that he wants his privacy. He has every right to maintain the Jordan brand and Jordan legacy as he sees fit. One thing he cannot expect is for us to believe, or buy, what he's selling."

Any way to stop this idiot ?

Earlier today Matthew Sheffield posted how “the last casualty of the CBS Memogate scandal happened earlier today” with the announcement that CBS News President Andrew Heyward will be replaced. In 2000, appearing on C-SPAN the day before the start of the Republican convention in Philadelphia, Heyward denied a caller's contention that CBS reflected a liberal bias and denigrated MRC President Brent Bozell and the late Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media as “activists and extremists of the Right.” Heyward argued that viewers confused “tough questions” to “the establishment” posed by CBS reporters with liberal bias and went so far as to seriously maintain that of "the people I work with, many of them are surprisingly conservative." Plus, he said with a straight face: "Our job is to communicate the truth to people." (A 2000 MRC article about Heyward's comments follows.)

Video excerpt tracked down, by Karen Hanna, from the MRC archive: Real or Windows Media

Earlier today NewsBusters contributor Bob Owens noted that USA Today doctored an image of Condoleezza Rice.

Original:

Altered:

USA Today has now removed the doctered photographed of Condoleezza Rice and included a note from the editor with the correction:

Editor's note: The photo of Condoleezza Rice that originally
accompanied this story was altered in a manner that did not meet USA
TODAY's editorial standards. The photo has been replaced by a properly
adjusted copy. Photos published online are routinely cropped for size
and adjusted for brightness and sharpness to optimize their appearance.
In this case, after sharpening the photo for clarity, the editor
brightened a portion of Rice's face, giving her eyes an unnatural
appearance. This resulted in a distortion of the original not in
keeping with our editorial standards.

CBS's David Martin filed a report on today's Early Show on the sacrifice paid in Iraq by small towns across the country as 25 percent of the Iraq war dead are from rural areas compared to 20 percent of the military as a whole hailing from rural America. Martin focused on the July death of Sergeant Victor Anderson in his story. Anderson was a reservist from Ellaville, Georgia, a town with a population of 2,000, which Martin noted in the closing of his report, the same number of US deaths in Iraq.

Martin's piece put a face on the 2,000 benchmark and used the number to illustrate the loss of life in the Iraq war already as equal to that of a small tight-knit, patriotic Southern town. But in August, the Atlanta Journal Constitution gave its readers a fuller look at Anderson as a person, a Reservist who worked hard to lose weight and pass physical muster to be shipped out to Iraq rather than work a desk stateside:

Editor and Publisher reports:

Bloggers who actually gather news would be protected under the proposed federal shield law, the legislation's first author, U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., told the Inland Press Association Monday.

Pence's view of who would qualify as a journalist under the Free Flow of Information Act differed from the assessment of the bill's co-sponsor in the Senate, Indiana Richard Lugar.

Exactly two weeks before speaking at the Inter American Press Association, Lugar said bloggers would "probably not" be considered journalists eligible for the act's protections.

Pence said bloggers would likely have to be considered on a "blog-by-blog" basis.

This morning’s NY Time’s front page story reads "Prosecutor in C.I.A. Leak Case Is Said to Focus on Rove's Role". General media has informed the public of the guilt of Bush administration for months regardless of the fact that it remains nothing more than supposition.

Today the liberals are endorsing Fitzgerald. He is the pilot who is taking their cause to the gladiators. He is their new great white hope.

In 1997 Ted Olson wrote the following excerpt in Slate:

"Starr had twice been overwhelmingly confirmed by a Democratically controlled Senate for two of the nation's most important positions. His appointment as independent counsel was almost uniformly praised, even by Clinton's staunchest supporters.

In the months leading up to the imminent announcement from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald concerning “Leakgate,” there has been an endless stream of gloomy predictions from mainstream media representatives that indictments would destroy the Bush administration, and totally dismantle the president’s agenda for the rest of his second term. For example, as was reported here, David Gergen stated on yesterday’s “Early Show,” “If indictments are handed down, it's going to be a real blow to the administration and comes at a terrible time.” And, “If [Bush] were to lose Karl Rove, he'll lose a right arm. And it’s really hard to climb out of a hole without your right arm.” 

By contrast, CBS’s Hannah Storm had Democratic strategist James Carville and Republican strategist Ed Rollins on “The Early Show” this morning, and the two high-profile pols didn’t agree with this assessment. In fact, both stated that if indictments are issued for Lewis Libby and Karl Rove which force them to resign, it could end up being a good thing for this White House (video link to follow):

Michelle Malkin busts the photo editor of USA Today for manipulating a photo of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in a way that makes Dr. Rice look just a wee bit possessed.

As she notes, Richard Curtis is USAT's Graphics and Photos Managing Editor, and while I don't know if he directly had a hand in deciding to run the doctored photo, he is ultimately responsible for a manipulation that would appear to be a violation of most people's concept of photo ethics (If you have a problem seeing this ethics violation, slap a pair of Linda Blair eyes on Hillary Clinton or Jesse Jackson and you should be able to suddenly see it clearly).

What are responsible photo ethics? When is it acceptable to manipulate photos, and to what extent? Fred Showker at 60 Second Window has a wonderful practical guide for photo ethics, which defines in part what acceptable photo ethics entail:

The last casualty of the CBS Memogate scandal happened earlier today. Andrew Heyward, the long-time president of CBS News will no longer be directing the organization:

CBS announced Wednesday it is replacing embattled CBS News President Andrew Heyward with Sean McManus, chief of CBS Sports, who will keep both jobs.

Heyward served more than 10 years as head of the legendary news division, and it was a surprise to many in the industry when he kept his job in the fallout from the network's botched investigation into
President Bush's National Guard service.

CBS still hasn't named a replacement for Dan Rather, who stepped down in March as anchor of the third-rated "CBS Evening News," and network chief Leslie Moonves had expressed discontent over ideas presented to him for revamping the broadcast.

Heyward presided over the delicate transition at his best-known broadcast, "60 Minutes," replacing founder Don Hewitt at the helm without any real impact in the show's popularity. He also established the spinoff "60 Minutes II," which was canceled this spring due to poor ratings. [...]

McManus will take over as news chief on Nov. 7, one day after [fired producer Mary] Mapes's book on the episode is due to be published.

During an appearance on CNN's American Morning, Al Franken repeated once more his "joke" that Karl Rove and Lewis Libby will "definitely be executed" for their involvement in the CIA leak investigation. When asked by substitute host Zain Verjee during the 8:20 am interview about the investigation, Franken maintained that Rove and Libby had committed treason.

Zain Verjee: "So you, you and your other liberal friends really salivating the prospect of seeing an indictment here?"

Al Franken: "Well–"

Verjee: "Are you out in your apartments sort of having a good laugh and–"

Franken: "Yes. Well, I’ll tell you why. Because there is an important aspect to this. This is really about covering for lying about why we went to Iraq. So what I see and, and of course, it looks like definitely Rove and Libby outed a CIA agent, an undercover CIA agent, which George H.W. Bush, the president’s father, who was head of the CIA, called treason. So I think, you know, people ask me what’s going to happen. I–this is treason and I think Libby and Rove definitely be executed. I think that’s, you know, I’m not–I’m against the death penalty."

Bush's approval rating is a reflection of media bias, rather than the true, reasoned opinion of an informed public. I hereby challenge the "mainstream" media (The NYT, LAT, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN etc.) to perform a test to see if I'm right or wrong about this: 

For two weeks emphasize good news.  There is plenty of it:  Iraq has a new constitution and is already a strong ally in the war on terror; Gas prices are coming down; Unemployment is down; The economy is growing;  etc. etc. They wouldn't have to lie, or "spin" anything.  All they would have to do is change their emphasis from negative to positive, i.e. do things they way they did them when their hero, Willy Clinton, was in office.

After the two weeks are up, take a poll.  I guarantee that Bush's approval rating would go over 50%, or at least go up by 10 percentage points, which would prove the Liberal agenda of the MSM.

The New York Times again portrays the far-left anti-war outfit IraqBodyCount as an objective source of casualty counts for civilians in Iraq.

Wednesday's story from Baghdad-based Sabrina Tavernise, "Rising Civilian Toll Is the Iraq War's Silent, Sinister Pulse," is clearly intended as a bookend to the paper's front-page story on the 2000th fatality among U.S. troops in Iraq. Iraq Body Count apparently has not issued a new report, so Tavernise is merely referencing the web site's death clock, based on this database of newspaper clippings.

"The war here has claimed about 2,000 American service members, but in the cold calculus of the killing, far more Iraqis have been left dead. The figures vary widely, with Iraqi and American officials reluctant to release even the most incomplete of tallies….In one count, compiled by Iraq Body Count, a United States-based nonprofit group that tracks the civilian deaths using news media reports, the total of Iraqi dead since the American-led invasion is 26,690 to 30,051."

Tavernise never clarifies how many of the dead are being killed by terrorists killing Iraqi civilians, and ignores the far-left</