Thanks to the efforts of investigative reporters for WBAL in Baltimore, which has just broken the story, the former third-ranked official for the Democrat Party in Maryland has been outed as the original source for sexual slanders against Baltimore’s Democrat Mayor, Martin O’Malley, who is currently running for Governor.

The original stories in February in the Washington Post blamed the kerfuffel on Joseph Steffen, then an aide to Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich, Jr. The aide was terminated from his position as a result of his name (but not the Democrat’s name) coming out at the time.

Source: www.wbal.com/shows/S... Transcript should be up, shortly.

Personal note: much of the back story on this subject occurred on FreeRepublic.com, known as FR. I have written on that website, and been a speaker at several rallies in D.C., for that website and its founder, Jim Robinson. My association with the website has lasted over seven years.

The richest part of Brent Bozell's column today on liberal media hypocrisy is how the New York Times actually campaigned against the law at the center of its Plame crusade as a menace that should be wiped from the books:

Just read the editorial page of the New York Times for March 22, 1982. Judith Miller’s employers declared that “an angry, flag-waving Congress is making it a crime to print names the Government doesn't want published, even when they are derived from public sources. Last week the Senate refused to be outdone by the House in making the Intelligence Identities Protection Act offensive to the Bill of Rights.”

There was a lot of media excitement today surrounding the rare “closed session” called in the Senate by Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). In fact, a Google news search identified 684 articles and postings on the subject. For example, Reuters reported:

“Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed session on Tuesday to protest what they decried as the Republican-led body's inattention to intelligence failures on Iraq and the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

“Invoking a little used rule, Democrats temporarily shut down television cameras in the chamber, cleared galleries of reporters, tourists and other onlookers, forced removal of staff members and recording devices and stopped work on legislation.”

MSNBC, with the assistance of the Associated Press, even reported this event as a huge win for the Democrats, with a sub-headline, “Following unusual closed Senate session, Democrats claim victory.”

Yet, from what I can tell, there was little if any discussion by most media outlets including Reuters, MSNBC, and AP concerning how rarely this rule is invoked, and under what circumstances in American history it has been employed.

As stated at the Senate’s website:

In denouncing President Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, an editorial in the Tuesday Milwaukee Journal, “A nomination that will divide,” charged that Justice Clarence Thomas really isn't black. After fretting about how a “minus” of the Alito pick “is that the nomination lessens the court's diversity,” the editorial writers argued: “In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.”

A hat tip to Mark Belling, a talk show host from 3 to 6pm daily in Milwaukee on WISN Radio.

Fitzmas having come and gone, the left seeks new topics about which to speculate. In an entry yesterday on the generally lefty group blog the Huffington Post, Nora Ephron, the writer and director of such movies as Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, addressed President Bush's mental health. (Hat tip: Altercation.) 

Parts of Ephron's post:

...I would like to ask another question that I've been wondering about for some time: What's wrong with the president? Is he fighting depression? Is he being medicated in some way that isn't quite working? What's up?

This is another great website to open the eyes of those people who get their info only from the MSM. 

http://www.noagenda.org/

Pass it along to your friends. Also, it allows you to purchase/donate web banners to their noble. Great idea. 

http://www.blogads.com/nbuucmphtgpscvtidpn/noagenda/advertise

Since Clay Waters has brought up Al Franken again, one more note that shows Al Franken has too many wild thoughts about executing political leaders. (And for the record, I'm fairly certain this did not come up in Franken's interviews at the time.) In Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them," he has a supposedly comic story about Vietnam titled “Operation Chickenhawk: Episode One.” On page 250, after courageous commander John Kerry saved Rush Limbaugh from certain doom, he told his imaginary chickenhawk men it was time to go again and “engage the enemy,” and asked  “Are there any questions?” But the chickenhawks weren’t having that. It was time for some friendly fire.  

8.1 How to snare a conservative
Many times we just don't have anything to use against a conservative. That doesn't mean you can't make news by going after a family member of the targeted conservative. It often helps if you try to locate a shirt tail relative, estranged ex-spouse, or some other family member with an axe to grind. Short of that, you can always fall back to an elderly (over 90 a plus!) relative. Tell them it is off the record if you must, but always get it on tape.

Remember, anything a family member does is just as good as the targeted conservative doing it!

Following are some examples; this should in no way be taken as a complete list.

Conservative: Mel Gibson
The Play: Going after his fundamentalist father.
The Peg: Dad may be senile and a little off the deep end religiously [to a liberal anyway], therefore Mel Gibson must be too. If this can't be established, make Mel fustigate his elderly father on prime time TV.

Perhaps not the biggest news of the day -- unless you really, really hate Bill O'Reilly -- but it's always worth noting on NewsBusters when Al Franken is proven wrong (hat tip: Robert Cox).

Newsday reports on Franken's book-tour visit to Long Island: "Sure, he has a book to sell and a radio show to promote, but Al Franken had more urgent reasons to bring his live broadcast to the Book Revue in Huntington Friday.Namely: investigating where on Long Island arch-nemesis Bill O'Reilly grew up. Were O'Reilly's roots in blue-collar Levittown as the Fox television star insists? Or was he a product of the comparatively ritzy Westbury? 'What is this hall of mirrors known as O'Reilly's childhood?' Franken purred into his microphone, beginning his radio program before a crowd of 200 listeners."

There's an editorial at USA Today this morning (Bush picks another justice — and a fight over court's future) that does a wonderful job illustrating all of the problems with the media coverage of the Supreme Court debate. USA Today has chosen sides, and doesn't even seem to understand it.

Neither of President Bush's first two Supreme Court nominees, John Roberts and Harriet Miers, gave conservative and liberal interest groups the ideological showdown they've long been spoiling for.

The liberal interest groups absolutely wanted a showdown over John Roberts. NARAL started with the dishonest ad accusing Roberts of essentially supporting abortion-clinic bombers very early in the process. All of the Democrats on the judiciary committee tried to discredit Roberts. It wasn't possible - they tried to make a bogeyman out of him, and it didn't work. It remains astounding that an institution that could give Ruth Bader Ginsburg 96 votes for confirmation could only muster 78 for John Roberts.

But with Bush's selection Monday of federal appeals court Judge Samuel Alito, the battle is on. And it's shaping up to be as ugly as it is unavoidable.

On this one point, USA Today is correct. The battle is unavoidable, and it is bound to be ugly. As the Roberts battle was in many corners.

Conservative activists, who forced Bush to abandon Miers last week because she lacked the hard-right public record they wanted, were effusive in praise of Alito.

This is where they start to go through the looking-glass. There is some truth here, but just enough to mislead. Yes, there was great concern about Harriet Miers on the right, though most of it was not because she "lacked [a] hard-right public record" - the vast majority of the concern on the right was because of concerns about her qualifications. And it isn't only the political right that was concerned - all of the usual suspects on the left came out against Harriet Miers with their typical knee-jerk response to any Republican nominee.

Abortion-rights, women's rights and other groups declared the gauntlet thrown down and rushed into full counterattack.

There was no "attack" to counter - the "abortion-rights, women's rights and other groups" didn't rush into counterattack - they rushed in to attack. To attack Alito, to attack Bush, to attack conservative interest groups. All of the usual suspects generated all of the usual press releases, and the usual media played them in the usual fashion. As USA Today is doing here.

For Bush, under fire on several fronts and suffering the lowest poll ratings of his presidency, the nomination helped by calming one set of critics. But for observers like us, who prefer pragmatic nominees capable of drawing bipartisan support, it was a disappointing start.

Can we be honest here? This is nonsense. It is nonsense when Sen. Chuck Schumer goes to the floor of the Senate with it, and it's nonsense when the USA Today editorial staff repeats it. It's fantasy. There is no such thing as a "pragmatic nominee capable of drawing bipartisan support," at least not when there's a Republican in the White House. Such a beast just plain does not exist in this universe. (The closest you'll ever see to such is Harriet Miers, whose nomination drew bipartisan criticism...) Much like the abortion issue, on which the entire court system has become so politicized, there is a clash of absolutes in place, and it is not possible to find someone who will satisfy both sides. The liberal position is that they want the courts to enact policy positions that they like. They want a court to issue a Roe v. Wade to remove the abortion debate from legislative oversight. They want a Lawrence v. Texas, to force states to repeal sodomy laws. They want liberal justices to be able to look at foreign law and find support for Roper v. Simmons, ruling the death penalty unconstitutional for minors. They want judges to impose Gay marriage, another position that can't win at the ballot box. The conservative position is that either the Constitution means what it says, or it means nothing. Period. Lawrence v. Texas, Roe v. Wade, Roper v. Simmons are all bad decisions, not because the policy positions they establish are necessarily bad, but because the text of the Constitution does not support them. There is no common ground between these two visions. So it is utter nonsense to complain that the President has nominated someone who is not a "pragmatic nominee capable of drawing bipartisan support" - there just is no such thing.

More so because Alito would make the Supreme Court even less diverse. If Alito replaces Sandra Day O'Connor, the court will be disproportionately white (eight of nine justices), male (eight) and Ivy League (eight). None of these characteristics should disqualify anyone, but the court and nation benefit from diversity in life experience and world view.

This is more of the same. Obviously, there is no reason to suggest that "diversity" would be a bad thing. But the law and the constitution say what they say. If the reading is being significantly influenced by the race or gender of the reader, that's a bad thing.

The more important question, though, is whether Alito fits within a legal mainstream, and that can be answered only after thorough vetting. His credentials are sterling. But unlike other recent nominees, Alito has a long paper trail of judicial rulings, several of which raise questions about his respect for the rights of the individual.

Really? What decisions? What rights?

He has been a darling of anti-abortion activists because of his acceptance of restrictions that the Supreme Court has rejected, such as a Pennsylvania law requiring women to inform their husbands of abortions in advance.

Again, a dollop of truth ladled out to create a lie. Yes, he did dissent on one of the 5 sections of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision in 1992. Yes, the Supreme Court did rule against his position on that section. But, as has been clearly outlined elsewhere, his dissent was based entirely on the precedents that the Supreme Court had established, and which they had to modify (by a 5-4 vote) to rule his dissent incorrect. They're using a half-truth in a pejorative fashion.

He has narrowly interpreted the applicability of federal anti-discrimination laws. And he has challenged Congress' authority to ban possession of machine guns, endearing him to Second Amendment absolutists.

In other words, he has followed the law and the Constitution, rather than his "personal policy preferences." Just a paragraph or so back, they were concerned that his decisions "raise questions about his respect for the rights of the individual." Now they're concerned about Congress' right to ban machine guns from individuals. Does that sound like a concern about judicial principles, or specific policy positions? The latter, obviously.

These and other issues will provide grist for the dueling, multimillion-dollar ad campaigns over control of the court, put in play by the retirement of O'Connor, who has been pivotal in dozens of hot-button cases. If the past is any indicator, the truth will be bent into unrecognizable shapes in some of the advertising.

...and USA Today editorials...

That puts a great burden on the Senate Judiciary Committee. At Roberts' hearings, senators wasted time with speeches instead of questions — and failed to follow up when he responded with knowledgeable but evasive answers. The committee and the full Senate must determine whether Alito is the judicial ideologue welcomed by his cheerleaders and feared by his critics. Or, whether he can be expected to show the respect for the court's precedents that served O'Connor — and the nation — so well.

Which court precedent was Harry Blackmun following when he wrote Roe v. Wade? Which precedent was Sandra Day O'Connor following on Planned Parenthood v. Casey? She wasn't even following her own - Judge Alito was! The fact is, this editorial makes it clear - they're concerned not with precedent, but results. They want a justice to support liberal precedent.

Lyflines - Lyford's other blog…

This title is weak in that "strategy" is not defined. The concept of providing funds to the program is elementary, that in itself is the inception. The play book options end there. All sitting on the edge of their seats drooling at yet a new opportunity to open the big congressional spending vault fell off their chairs when they realized the "strategy".

Bush Outlines $7.1B Flu-Fighting Strategy

AP- President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy
Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a pandemic influenza outbreak,
saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine to protect 20 million
Americans against the current strain of bird flu as a first wave of
protection.

The president also said the United States must approve liability
protection for the makers of lifesaving vaccines. He said the number of
American vaccine manufacturers has plummeted because the industry has
been hit with a flood of lawsuits...

Robert Scheer writes for the LA Times:

[Judith Miller] knew early on that Libby was using the media to punish former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV for exposing President Bush's false claim that Iraq sought nuclear material from the African nation of Niger.

The words I want to examine here are "punish" and "false claim". If there was information given to a reporter, it wasn't to punish Joe Wilson, it was to expose him. By the time he went to Niger, he had a long history of not just being against the war, but being against a regime change in Iraq. This was no impartial panel to examine evidence. This was one guy going over there without even being paid, lying about who sent him [Cheney], to [his words mind you] "drink sweet tea and meet with people." Did he look at spy sat imagery? No. Did he examine hardware with a Geiger counter? No. Did he meet with CIA HUMINT informants? No. He simply asked a dozen people if they were selling yellowcake to Saddam. What would you answer if the U.S. asked you that?

And in the end, Joe Wilson didn't even say it definitely didn't happen. His finding was "that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." Do you read that caveat in newspaper articles?

Meanwhile, the IAEA, an organization that does more than ask people questions, determined that yellowcake was found in scrap metal originating from Iraq. What does Joe Wilson have to say about that?

The Butler Review also found something Joe Wilson apparently missed:

The report indicated that there was enough intelligence to make a “well-founded” judgment that Saddam Hussein was seeking, perhaps as late as 2002, to obtain uranium illegally from Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo (6.4 para. 499). In particular, referring to a 1999 visit of Iraqi officials to Niger, the report states (6.4 para. 503): “The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.”

Back to the claim that Bush made a "false claim". Given that we have intelligence and physical evidence that contradict Joe Wilson, as well as a solid foundation for Joe Wilson's motive, what is this "false claim" Bush made based on?

Is it at all surprising that today's "site pass" advertisement entitling you to look at the left-wing Web site Salon.com is an ad for a PBS documentary starting tonight? Once again, PBS shows by its advertising decisions that it feels its natural audience is liberals.

"Rx for Survival," narrated by Brad Pitt, would be defended as an utterly nonpartisan piece that's pro-"global health." But even the episode descriptions betray a bit of tilt. Episode 5 "examines how an overabundance of nutrition — in the form of over-consumption — is causing an epidemic of obesity that is spreading across the globe." An epidemic of obesity? The tub-thumping on the "pressing need for global health systems" suggests some Carter Center/Clinton Global Initiative bias is going to seep through...

The Times plays up Judge Samuel Alito's conservativism -- but ignored Ruth Bader Ginsberg's liberalism in 1993.

Tuesday's lead New York Times story on Bush's Supreme Court pick (by Elisabeth Bumiller and Carl Hulse) plays up Alito's ideology from the start, nothing the federal appeals court judge has a "conservative record on abortion." Later they note he is "solidly conservative" and has "bona fide conservative credentials" and the paper's front-page subhead emphasizes that he's "Hailed By Right."

By contrast, when President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, Richard Berke's lead story in the June 15, 1993 edition didn't describe Ginsburg, a feminist and former ACLU lawyer, as liberal. Berke even let Clinton get away with saying (without rebuttal from Republicans or anyone else): "Ruth Bader Ginsburg cannot be called a liberal or conservative. She has proved herself too thoughtful for such labels."

The Times' personal profile of Bush's pick by Neil Lewis and Scott Shane takes a similar tone. The headline to the jump page notes Alito's "Clear Conservative Record" and the text describes him as "solidly conservative."

In another contrast, on June 15, 1993, the Times' profile of Ginsburg took Clinton's lead in positioning Ginsburg as a centrist: "Despite her long record as a champion of women's rights, Judge Ginsburg has occasionally disappointed some of her former allies in the liberal advocacy groups. In her 13 years on the appeals court, she has often gone out of her way to mediate between the court's warring liberal and conservative factions."

(On June 27 of that year, the paper ludicrously termed Ginsburg, a former director of the Women's Rights Project of the ACLU, as a centrist: "Balanced Jurist at Home in the Middle.")

“IT'S OFFICIAL: 2005 WILL BE the newspaper industry's worst year since the last ad industry recession.”  

So began an article from yesterday’s Media Daily News.

“‘Sadly, 2005 is shaping up as the industry's worst year from a revenue growth perspective since the recession impacted 2001-2002 period,’ says the report from Goldman Sachs, adding a warning that meaningful growth in 2006 is ‘very unlikely.’"

This morning's Today show made a gift of millions in free advertising for a soon-to-released Wal-Mart-bashing documentary: "The High Cost of Low Prices."

Robert Greenwald, the film's producer, has already established his Michael Moore-wannabe credentials with "Outfoxed," a documentary critical of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News.  

Greenwald should be the last to accuse others of paying low wages. The producer of the anti-Wal-Mart film is on the prowl for unpaid ["volunteer"] field producers! See Greenwald's web site: http://www.robertgreenwald.org/

Today dramatically portrayed the substance of the film's arguments against Wal-Mart: that it forces small competitors out of business, and pays low wages.

The Bush administration is preparing the announcement of a national plan for dealing with a possible influenza pandemic. According to the Associated Press, the plan will cover stockpiling of vaccine, improved vaccine manufacturing capabilities and the potential for travel restrictions. On the whole, it's a news story, dealing in a fairly straightforward manner with the possibility of a pandemic, and the actions and reactions that would be necessary to handle it. But that doesn't seem to be good enough. No, we apparently can't get an AP story that doesn't go out of its way to criticize the administration. So, in the very first sentence, unrelated to anything else in the story, we get the obligatory reference to past failure.

The Bush administration, battered by criticism over its hurricane response, is getting the nation prepared for a possible travel ban and other restrictions in the event of a worldwide flu outbreak. (emphasis mine)

What did the "criticism over its hurricane response" have to do with anything else in the story? Nothing. It was gratuitous and completely unnecessary.

Which is, of course, not a first for the AP...

Gaggle is a daily comic strip about the Washington press corps and Larry the press secretary. Larry deals with the shenanigans of reporters who couldn't imagine anyone voting for a Republican.

Click here for instructions on running Gaggle daily on your own site. There's also an archive of previous toons available here.