Twelve days ago when Democratic Congressman John Murtha, who had long been critical of the Bush administration’s running of the war, advocated withdrawing troops from Iraq, the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts all emphasized his importance and influence as they led with his press conference. CBS showcased Murtha’s attack on Vice President Dick Cheney’s lack of military service and ABC ran a 90-second excerpt of Murtha. But on Tuesday night, after the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed (“Our Troops Must Stay”) from the 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Joe Lieberman, in which he cited “real progress” in Iraq and argued against withdrawing troops, ABC and CBS didn’t utter a syllable about his assessment. The NBC Nightly News, at least, squeezed in a soundbite from Lieberman, though David Gregory also highlighted a puny protest as he relayed how “opposition to the war followed the President today to a Denver fundraiser, as more than a hundred angry critics met Mr. Bush's motorcade.” In his op-ed, Lieberman had bemoaned: “What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.”

ABC’s World News Tonight, which led with multiple stories from New Orleans on the three-month anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, held its coverage of Iraq to a brief item on “peace activists” taken hostage and anchor Elizabeth Vargas provided a 20-second preview of Bush’s Wednesday speech on his Iraq policy.

Snowstorms topped the CBS Evening News before David Martin provided a story on how Secretary of Defense “Rumsfeld rattled off signs of progress,” which Martin ran through. “For all the progress cited by administration officials,” Martin then ominously concluded, “one key factor shows no sign of improving: For the past two months, an average of three Americans has been killed each day in Iraq, and that's the highest since January." Anchor Bob Schieffer then turned to Lara Logan in Baghdad who said one of Rumsfeld’s assertions “simply isn't true” and undermined a couple of others. (Full transcripts of the CBS and NBC stories follow, as well as more on Murtha coverage.)

Associated Press reports today that routinely wacky CNN founder Ted Turner lectured at Kansas State University and echoed Howard Dean's line as a presidential candidate: "Media mogul Ted Turner said Monday that Iraq is 'no better off' following the U.S.-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003."

Turner also said he thinks it's plausible that President Bush will launch a nuclear war:

He warned that a nuclear war could "kill everything on the planet" and said it could take place in an afternoon. Turner said he was afraid someone in power could make the mistake to launch a nuclear war, including President Bush, based on his previous decisions.

Today, in his weekly web chat, syndicated Washington Post humor columnist Gene Weingarten provided an unintentionally funny response to a "conservative-leaning" reader. Here's the exchange:

Anonymous: I love (not) that the designations on your poll are "pro-choice" and "anti-abortion." Did you do this purposefully to stir up the righteous indignation of conservative-leaning chatters like myself? Why not change "pro-choice" to "anti-life?" At least make it even, either "pro-choice or pro-life" or "anti-life or anti-abortion."

Gene Weingarten: Bullhockey. These are designations that best describe the positions. They are the ones used by almost all newspapers, which are striving for objectivity.

Apparently George W. Bush was quite the Texas Governor. Aside from completely duping Congress with faulty intelligence that led them to believe Saddam Hussein was a threat years before he moved into the White House, now the London Sunday Times' Simon Jenkins reveals this:

"That Blair and Bush should have discussed bombing the Al-Jazeera building in Qatar is hardly surprising. They agreed to bomb the headquarters of Serbian television during the Kosovo war."

And all while just a Governor.

Secular liberalism emerges in the funniest places, or pages. There was a Washington Post review yesterday of Carrie Underwood’s new country album. In attacking the entire album as a pre-fabricated mishmash, Dave McKenna had to mock her mention of Jesus Christ in the music: 

Perhaps the media's most cherished holiday tradition is the middle-class poverty story, which alleges that hunger and homelessness are now stalking the previously impervious middle class, stories often based on dubious numbers from the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Now, clear a place: Heating bills are joining hunger and homelessness at the liberal groaning board.

The Times discovers middle-class needy in Stony Brook, N.Y., in Sunday's Metro section story by Paul Vitello ("Middle Class Gets in Line for Help With Rising Heating Bills").

"The main government assistance office in Suffolk County sits just off a busy road in an office park surrounded by a neighborhood of deep lawns and two-car garages. Everyone for miles around uses that road every day. But until recently, hardly anyone from the neighborhood -- people whose status in the middle class was thought secured unquestionably by homeownership -- ever turned into the office park to seek help inside the county's nondescript building. This year, they have come in from the fear of the cold. They are retirees, young couples, the temporarily unemployed, the two-income families stretched to the limit of second mortgages and credit cards, a slice of the suburban demographic that social workers call 'mortgage rich and pocket poor.'"

The media is buzzing about Ramsey Clark going to Iraq to serve on the defense team of Saddam Hussein. Every article called Clark “the former US Attorney General” and played up his role in the administration of an American President. Reuters called Clark a “U.S. civil rights lawyer”. The BBC called Clark “an outspoken critic of the trial” and a “left wing activist”. The New York Times did make mention of Ramsey Clark’s penchant for “offering legal advice to toppled foreign leaders”. According to the AP, Clark was just a “consultant” on Milosevic’s trial.

Ramsey Clark is so much more than a “left wing activist” and “anti-war advocate”. Clark is a Saddam apologist who is responsible for an anti-American group masquerading as an anti-war protest organizer.

After Lyndon Johnson left office, Ramsey Clark became the poster boy for the far left. He began supporting anyone that was against America. Clark visited with Qaddafi after the US bombed Libya. He even represented the PLO in a lawsuit filed by the family of murdered American, Leon Klinghoffer.

Re Mark's report, the "Today" show also brought up Hersh yesterday in assessing the war with Barry McCaffrey and Richard Haass. But I was struck (I shouldn't be surprised) by how gloomy and negative Hersh was in his interview on CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday. Here's the first few exchanges:

BLITZER: All right. Before we get to some of the specifics, Iyad Allawi, these comments he makes in the new issue of "The London Observer" basically saying some of the torture, some of the issues that are going on in Iraq today are as bad if not worse than under Saddam Hussein. In this new article, you report that he has emerged as what you call the favorite of Washington in the run-up to the elections in Iraq.

Give me a moment, please.  Got to let my head stop spinning.  Been watching the Today show.

See, I thought we all agreed it was bad for presidents to be poll-driven, in the image of a Bill Clinton deciding everything from foreign policy to vacation destinations based on the latest shift in public opinion.

Turns out I was wrong, at least according to this morning's Today.

Matt Lauer interviewed New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh, or "Sy" as Lauer chummily called him, regarding Hersh's piece in the magazine's current edition.  As Lauer described the article, it portrays Pres. Bush as believing he has a "divine mission" to bring democracy to Iraq.  Asked who was telling him that, Hersh responded:

Some of the people in the last few months with whom I've been talking for years are suddenly opening up and telling me some of  their deeper concerns about this president's inability to adjust, to accept new information.  I think he really does think that he's not going to be judged by today. The events on the ground will be judged in 20 years, 30 years or whatever.

Fox News Watch is a Sunday program about journalism. This weekend, it demonstrated how not to be a journalist. The star of this dreadful segment was Neil Gabler.

Much of the discussion was on the coverage of the Iraq War. Gabler has frequently demonstrated his bias to the left on this program. This time, he was over the top.

Twice in the course of this discussion he yelled, not merely said,

"Iraq is a DISASTER. Get it? EVERYBODY gets it now."

Therefore, anyone who disagreed with his conclusion, whether a spokesman for the Administration, or even anyone on the program including the token conservative on the program, Cal Thomas, is wrong.

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.

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