Dana Milbank's snarky "Washington Sketch" column in the Washington Post Tuesday employs a bad, even mildly offensive, analogy in comparing Bush and Cheney to the last two Popes: "As vice president, Cheney has always played the hard-line Cardinal Ratzinger to Bush's sunny John Paul II. Before the war, Cheney asserted that Iraq had 'reconstituted nuclear weapons.' Since the invasion, he has gone further than others in the administration in asserting Iraq's ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He caused a stir when he directed an obscenity at a Democrat on the Senate floor, and he has sparred with senators in both parties in his bid to block a ban on torture."

As much as I may admire the president and vice president, comparing them to holy men that millions of Catholics believe were chosen by God to lead the worldwide church of Jesus Christ is just wrong -- starting with Cheney the Ratzinger telling Sen. Patrick Leahy to go (love) himself. Milbank was so pleased with the analogy he used it within seconds on MSNBC with Keith Olbermann Monday night, that Cheney and the Holy Father were both "dour hardliners." This is a caricature of both men. But secular reporters also focus only on where the Pope draws a line on hot-button social issues, and not on his love and care for the church and its members and its traditions.

Another example of network journalists creating their own self-fulfilling story. On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams set up a full story on how President Bush has returned to his Texas ranch “after an overseas trip that was not supposed to be about Iraq, but that topic ended up following him all the way around the world.” As if reporters, who were the ones posing the questions to him about Iraq and making it a topic on their newscasts, had nothing to do with it! Then, over video of Bush trying to open the closed doors in China, David Gregory opened his piece by finding deep meaning in the minor incident: “The President's botched exit from an impromptu press conference spoke volumes about this latest trip abroad." Gregory proceeded to act as if reporters were mere observers when they were directly responsible for imposing their news agenda: "All this month, from Latin America to Asia, foreign travel has provided Mr. Bush no escape from his political troubles. In Argentina, trade talks collapsed overshadowed by anti-America protests and persistent questions about Karl Rove and the CIA leak investigation." (Full transcript follows.)

On November 4, the night of Bush's press conference in Argentina, a NewsBusters item recounted how “the broadcast networks...treated as of great import how President Bush was 'dogged' at the Summit of the Americas in Argentina, with questions about Karl Rove and the CIA leak matter -- a self-fulfilling agenda since those questions were posed by reporters from the Washington press corps. In short, the media made its agenda the news and then marveled over it.” NBC's “Brian Williams stressed how Bush's 'political troubles following him to Argentina from faraway Washington.' Kelly O'Donnell zeroed in on how Bush's 'domestic woes came along, too' with 'four of five' press conference 'questions related to the political fallout from the CIA leak case.'”

Media Matters and the blog Daily Kos are among two liberal mouthpieces who look to be on a slippery campaign to rewrite one of the more ugly episodes in recent memory for Democrats.

It appears they are trying revise the history that Oreo cookies were thrown in the direction of Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele at a gubernatorial debate on September 26, 2002 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Steele is a black man, and an "Oreo" is a terribly derogatory term to describe a black person who is perceived as "black on the outside, but white on the inside.") At the time of the debate, Steele was the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Steele was in the audience for the debate between Democrat Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. weeks before he and Ehrlich went on to rack up a triumphant election victory over the incumbent Townsend.

From the 4pm hour of the Nov. 21 The Situation Room:

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Why, thank you, Wolf. It's getting ugly out there. According to Vice President Cheney, if you question, if you dare question the use of pre-war intelligence, according to that speech this morning, you are dishonest and reprehensible.

Actually, Cheney said the complete opposite:

My remarks today concern national security, in particular the war on terror and the Iraq front in that war. Several days ago, I commented briefly on some recent statements that have been made by some members of Congress about Iraq. Within hours of my speech, a report went out on the wires under the headline, "Cheney says war critics 'dishonest,' 'reprehensible.'"

One thing I've learned in the last five years is that when you're Vice President, you're lucky if your speeches get any attention at all. But I do have a quarrel with that headline, and it's important to make this point at the outset. I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof. Disagreement, argument, and debate are the essence of democracy, and none of us should want it any other way.

DOWNLOAD and view video here.

(NOTE: Video has the Cafferty remark and Cheney's speech)

General Motors has had its share of trials lately – renegotiating worker benefits and now closing plants. The media continue to blame the auto manufacturer’s worries on high gas prices and foreign automakers. The glaring omission in the coverage is the United Auto Workers, the union that has driven GM’s costs to unsustainable heights.

That's not Joe Biden's approach, as CBS's Hannah Storm discovered on Tuesday's Early Show.

Hannah Storm: "Let me ask you about general motors, shifting gears a little bit here. They announced 30,000 job cuts, 12 facilities closing in 2008 because of poor sales and rising healthcare costs. How much does this concern you? What are the implications for other U.S. industries here?"

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The BBC has a funny view of international law - make sure the obligations fall on Israel.

Yesterday, Israel responded to a broad Hezbollah attack - including artillery-supported cross-border raids - by, well, responding:

Hizbullah launched a failed attempt to kidnap soldiers Monday in an assault on Mount Dov and the northern town of Rajar and a coordinated mortar and rocket barrage on northern Galilee towns and kibbutzim.

A fierce Israeli response killed four infiltrators and struck at Hizbullah targets in south Lebanon, but at least 12 soldiers were wounded and a house severely damaged in Metulla by Hizbullah mortar fire.

You decide...

LIZ AUSTIN
/ Associated Press /
11/22/2005

AUSTIN — U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay appeared in court Tuesday for the first
time with his co-defendants as his legal team tried to convince a judge
to drop the conspiracy charges against him without a trial.

DeLay wants the charges dismissed or resolved in his favor by
January or he risks losing his House majority leader position. Under
House rules, he was forced to give up his post after he was charged in
September with a felony...

It may not get much play in the MSM, but the Catalogue for Philanthropy's latest National Generosity Index finds a clear majority of the most generous states are in the Bible Belt where evangelical Christianity is strongest and household income is lowest. The least generous states are mostly in areas in which evangelicals are least common, but household incomes are highest.

Here are the Top 10, including six that are the heart of the Bible Belt and two more that are strongly influenced by it. The dollar figure in parenthesis is the U.S. Census Bureau's latest available (2004) household income figure, followed by the state's national ranking for that factor. The B indicates Bush carried in 2004. K indicates Kerry carried in 2004:

1. Mississippi ($31,642)(50)(B)
2. Arkansas ($32,983)(49)(B)
3. South Dakota ($38,472)(42)(B)
4. Oklahoma ($35,357)(45)(B)
5. Tennessee ($38,794)(41)(B)
6. Alabama ($36,709)(43)(B)
7. Louisiana ($35,110)(48)(B)
8. Utah ($47,074)(17)(B)
9. South Carolina ($39,837)(38)(B)
10. West Virginia ($31,504)(51)(B)

Now take a look at the second 10, which includes another six that are either clearly part of the Bible Belt or strongly influenced by it:

11. Idaho ($39,934)(37)(B)
12. Texas ($41,759)(31)(B)
13. Nebraska ($41,657)(32)(B)
14. North Dakota ($39,447)(39)(B)
15. Wyoming ($44,275))(23)(B)
16. North Carolina ($39,428)(40)(B)
17. Kansas ($41,638)(33)(B)
18. Florida ($41,236)(36)
19. Georgia ($43,037)(24)(B)
20. Missouri ($41,473)(34)(B)

Now, scan the Bottom 10 least generous states, which includes eight Yankee states where Southern Baptists are as scarce as common sense at a Michael Moore fan club meeting:

41. Michigan ($44,905)(21)(K)
42. Hawaii ($53,554)(7)(K)
43. Colorado ($48,198)(14)(B)
44. Minnesota ($50,860)(10)(K)
45. Connecticut ($60,528)(2)(K)
46. Wisconsin ($45,315)(20)(K)
47. Rhode Island ($48,722)(13)(K)
48. New Jersey ($61,359)(1)(K)
49. Massachusetts ($55,658)(5)(K)
50. New Hampshire ($55,580)(6)(K)

The states with the lowest household income are in the Bible Belt and that is where people are the most generous givers to charitable causes. Every one of the Top 10 most generous was carried by President Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

The most secular states with the highest household incomes are the least generous. Nine of the 10 least generous were carried by Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Several times over the past few weeks, Katie Couric has used her Today show to push the idea that the United States is now a country that abuses human rights. But this morning’s Today saw a dead human corpse, stripped of his skin and with his skull removed, located just a few feet from where Katie was sitting next to co-host Matt Lauer on the couch.

The corpse was from a traveling exhibit on human bodies, where the preserved remains are dissected to show different aspects of human anatomy. But according to Friday’s New York Times, human rights groups are extremely concerned that the bodies on this exhibit — presumably including the one that showed up on Today’s set — could be dissidents executed by China’s communist regime:

Ted Koppel closes up shop on "Nightline" tonight. He will be widely revered and remembered as a voice for hard news and serious long-form reporting. Several decades ago, Koppel’s format was even welcomed by conservatives at the time as a place to be heard for more than six seconds. ("The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour" was another. Both were biased at times, but offered some space to be heard.) But Koppel also has a record with some serious (sometimes atrocious) liberal bias. One of the most recent: going to Vietnam to interview communists to prove John Kerry was right about his war record.

The first that comes to mind: "Nightline" devoted a one-hour special resurrecting the October Surprise myth that Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign operatives nefariously delayed the release of American hostages in Iran for political gain. When media and congressional investigations again proved the theory a farce, we asked for a retraction and an apology, and a "Nightline" spokeswoman told us: "That is not a broadcast for Nightline. That's a headline. That's not a half-hour show." There’s a list of bias examples in this Brent Bozell column from 1997. For something more up to date, you can consider the hard-left sources Koppel dug up to explain those thuggish neoconservatives wanting to wage war on Saddam here.

Like Roger Clemens choosing to float one at 68 MPH, do MSMers intentionally toss in the occasional change-up just to keep us critics off balance?

The show was Today, the host Matt Lauer, the guest Joe Scarborough, the topic Iraq, and the on-screen graphic at its biased worst: "VP on the Attack; Can Cheney Save the President?"

But suddenly, Matt tossed in two knuckle balls, and from right field at that.

Asked Lauer: "The assertion by some US senators that there was a misrepresentation of the facts going into the war in Iraq - how long is that charge going to work?"

Scarborough didn't exactly hit it out of the park, offering an agnostic response to the effect that the administration's muscular new counter-attack might have come "too late."

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

Left-wing media bias certainly isn't a problem restricted only to the United States. According to the London Guardian, one of France's top TV bosses admitted earlier this month that his network deliberately refrained from showing burning cars in its coverage of France's domestic rioting for fear that doing so would help "right-wing" political parties.

One of France's leading TV news executives has admitted censoring his coverage of the riots in the country for fear of encouraging support for far-right politicians.

Jean-Claude Dassier, the director general of the rolling news service LCI, said the prominence given to the rioters on international news networks had been "excessive" and could even be fanning the flames of the violence. [...]

"Politics in France is heading to the right and I don't want rightwing politicians back in second, or even first place because we showed burning cars on television," Mr Dassier told an audience of broadcasters at the News Xchange conference in Amsterdam today.

On Monday, during Vice President Dick Cheney's speech which was being broadcast live over CNN, a large black "X" was repeatedly flashed over the Vice President (h/t Drudge). Here's the screen shot, and here's how Drudge describes what happened:

At 11:04:45 AM ET Monday CNN was airing Vice President Dick Cheney's speech live from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington -- when a large black 'X' repeatedly flashed over the vice president's face! The 'X' over Cheney's face appeared each time less than a second, creating an odd subliminal effect.

As this DRUDGE REPORT screen capture reveals, while one 'X' flashed over Cheney's face CNN ran a headline at the bottom of its screen: "CHENEY: I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE."

An Associated Press article dated Saturday, November 19, 2005, quotes Representative John P. Murtha (D-PA) as saying “Our troops have become the enemy. We need a change of direction in Iraq.” The article went on to report that his “call a day earlier for pulling out troops sparked a nasty, personal debate over the war.”

Washington Post writer Charles Babington wrote on Saturday, “Democrats physically restrained one colleague, who appeared as if he might lose control of himself as he rushed across the aisle to confront Republicans with a jabbing finger. They accused Republicans of playing political games with the war.”

Commander Adam G. Alexander, USN (ret), or Whitefish, MT sees more villainy than child play in the political arena. He explains that he had a combat role in two wars, which were lost, naming Korea and Vietnam. He says they were lost, “…not by the military, but by the politicians. The politicians allowed themselves to be controlled by the actions of protesters. It is well understood that the large number of them were using the war for their own good, pushed by a very few people and the Communists. What we have now are the same type of people who are using this war only (in an) attempt to take over Congress and the White House.”

Around twelve hours ago, NewsMax broke a story about Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) having urged former President Clinton to remove U.S. troops from Somalia in 1993:

“Clinton took the advice and ordered the withdrawal - a decision that Osama bin Laden would later credit with emboldening his terrorist fighters and encouraging him to mount further attacks against the U.S.”

At this point, a Google news search identified only a handful of media sources – including Rush Limbaugh, The American Thinker, and Village Soup – as having picked up this story. Yet, there are a number of articles from September 1993 that appear to confirm the NewsMax story, so many so that one has to wonder if and when any mainstream press outlets are going to report this.

For instance, Rowan Scarborough with the Washington Times at that point reported on September 6, 1993: