An hour before that anti-war ER scene, the wife noticed this, and so did the Catholic League:

"CSI chose to advance a pro-abortion rights agenda by portraying those who are opposed to abortion as religious nuts not to be taken seriously.  The murder victim, who gave life to a baby who would otherwise be left to die, is described as a ‘prude’ for being chaste.  A remark is made about her being ‘our Virgin Mary.’" She was implanted with an embryo.   

“According to the CSI website, the doctor in charge of Project Sunflower is ‘a very unlikable woman.’  The pro-abortion rights forensic investigators sneer at her work and beliefs, informing us that a pope once decreed that a baby isn’t a human until quickening.  (Of course, it is not explained that the Church has always considered abortion to be illicit, regardless of the status of the baby.  Never mind the fact that we have learned a few new things about biology in a few hundred years.)" 

Hoisted on their own petard? Washington journalists have formulated outrage over how “Scooter” Libby fed information to New York Times reporter Judy Miller which ended up on the paper's front page one Sunday, and then Vice President Cheney appeared on a Sunday talk TV interview show where he insidiously cited the story as proof of the potential nuclear threat from Saddam Hussein. On Friday night, the broadcast networks pulled the same maneuver as they 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.

"The President also found himself shadowed by the controversy that has helped drive his popularity to record lows, the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA officer," ABC anchor Bob Woodruff announced on World News Tonight, which led, as did CBS and NBC, with stories which covered the violent protests as well Rove. ABC's Jake Tapper noted how “Bush came to this summit to talk about his free trade policy that he says would help ease poverty and create jobs in the region,” but pointed out how “questions about the CIA leak scandal, and the role of top aide Karl Rove, continue to dog him." CBS's Bob Schieffer echoed Tapper's terminology: "President Bush is in Argentina tonight, dogged by questions from back home.” John Roberts began his story, as if the media were observers and not participants: "President Bush was thankful for the chance to get out of Washington. But it didn't take long for Washington to catch up with him." 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.”

Fred Barnes, during the panel segment on FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume, scolded the reporters for posing questions “Senator Durbin or maybe Senator Schumer drafted them for them” since “they were Democratic 'talking points.'” He suggested: “Somebody should explain to members of the mainstream media, that they are not a part of the political opposition. They're supposed to be reporters. They don't have to echo Democrats." (Barnes in full, a bit more from ABC, CBS and NBC, plus the questions posed to Bush, follow.)

Rachel Sklar, an occasional New York Times writer who posts at Mediabistro's blog Fishbowl NY, goes over the deep end in rejoicing at the end of Kenneth Tomlinson's tenure opposing liberal bias (or more accurately, trying to bring on some conservative balance) on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting:

"The board does not believe that Mr. Tomlinson acted maliciously or with any intent to harm CPB or public broadcasting." I swear to God, this reminds me of a line at the end of "Cujo" by Stephen King, which I read as an eleven year old and made me cry; paraphrased it went something like this: "It must be remembered that Cujo never meant to kill all those people, biting and slashing at their jugulars. He always wanted to be a good dog." Stephen King said it better than me, but it amounts to the same thing: we can't all agree on what it means to be a good dog.

Outcry continues over the Times' omission of quotes from the last letter of Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Starr. As recounted yesterday on TimesWatch, a Times story by James Dao last week marking the death of 2,000 U.S troops in Iraq printed one part of a letter from Cpl. Starr, to be delivered to his girlfriend in case of Starr's death. That portion of the letter showed the Marine foreseeing his own death.

But as Michelle Malkin first revealed, after receiving a letter from Cpl. Starr's uncle, the Times left out the very next part, which explained what Starr considered the greater meaning of his sacrifice in Iraq. In doing so, the Times left readers with a diminished, one-dimensional portrait of a doomed Marine, instead of one who saw his sacrifice in the context of something greater and worthwhile.

Wild guess: Be a conservative partisan. Campaign against the war? Not a problem; welcome to Nonpartisanville.

In today's front-page story Youths in Rural U.S. Are Drawn To Military by Ann Scott Tyson, we learn, as the subhed tells us, Recruits' Job Worries Outweigh War Fears. The story appears to be inspired by a Nov. 1 press release from the National Priorities Project. What's that? Let's find out and give the Post's sense of neutrality its proper place. Tyson writes:

Nearly two-thirds of Army recruits in 2004 came from counties in which median household income is below the U.S. median.

Today's Washington Post features an article about the October employment numbers, which are planted firmly between humdrum and "house afire". The economy seems to have absorbed the hurricanes of the past two months, and high energy prices and posted 56,000 new jobs in October.

The Post, though, seems a bit confused about whether that's good news or bad.

Featured at the top of the page today is the headline "October's Job Growth Stalled". The same article is linked lower on the page, in the business section, with the headline "Payrolls Expand in October".

If you click on the Business section you'll find the same article with the headline, "Payrolls expand in Oct., Jobless Rate Dips".

On Friday morning’s Imus in the Morning program on MSNBC, Andy Rooney, from CBS, interrupted the I-Man’s positive description of Democratic Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., to state that he doesn’t like the term "African-American" and considered "Negro" to be "a perfectly good word."

Imus described Ford as an "African-American" prompting Rooney to interject, "I object every time I hear the word, words ‘African-American.’ You know? I don’t know why we have gotten caught with that." After saying he doesn’t want to be called an ‘Irish-American,’ Rooney went on to state his preference for another term, "The word ‘Negro’ is a perfectly good word, it’s a strong word and a good word. I don’t see anything wrong with that." Video Available: Windows Media or Real Player

We interrupt our regular programming for a left-wing blast at American foreign policy.

About three-fourths of the way through last night’s ER on NBC, a character giving a dinner table blessing began her prayer with rhetoric that could have been lifted from MoveOn.org's Web site: “Thank you, Lord, for the blessings we are about to receive. Look over those now who cannot be with us, including the countrymen who fight to protect us in an overseas war founded on lies told to us by our government.”

Video available: Windows Media or Real Player

Up to that point, there had been no discussion of the war or politics at all (the main plot line was about a sick baby monkey being treated secretly by the ER docs). After the anti-war protest, the story resumed without any further political references.

A bit of a stunner from this morning's Washington Times: "Former President Jimmy Carter yesterday condemned all abortions and chastised his party for its intolerance of candidates and nominees who oppose abortion. 'I never have felt that any abortion should be committed -- I think each abortion is the result of a series of errors,' he told reporters over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, while across town Senate Democrats deliberated whether to filibuster the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. because he may share President Bush and Mr. Carter's abhorrence of abortion. 'These things impact other issues on which [Mr. Bush] and I basically agree,' the Georgia Democrat said. 'I've never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion.'"

It will be curious to see if the CBS Evening News, which on September 21 relayed a post-Katrina criticism from Carter of Bush for stripping FEMA of its independence, finds the ex-president's provocative comments on the "hot-button" issues of abortion and religion equally newsworthy.

In constructing a balanced panel to discuss a president's fortunes, one does not normally select one person who opposes him and. . . another person who opposes him and ran against him in a general election.

But that was the Today's show notion of 'fair & balanced' this morning.  In to discuss W's drooping poll numbers were former Clinton spokesperson Dee Dee Myers and Patrick Buchanan.   In introducing Buchanan, Couric highlighted his GOP credentials.  But while stating Buchanan had been an aide in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan White Houses, Katie conveniently omitted mentioning that in 2000 he had, as the presidential nominee of the Reform Party, run a bitterly critical campaign against George W. Bush and has since been an incessant Bush critic, particularly on the centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy - the war in Iraq.

To listen to the way it is spun in the Washington Post and crowd on the left, you'd think that President Bush's "all time low" job approval rating was the end of the world:

On virtually every key measure of presidential character and performance, the new survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.

But if you look closely, these numbers are just for Bush in his own two terms, not for Presidents in general. How does he compare overall?

According to a 10/17 USA Today article, he compares pretty well:

Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings at one time or another that were lower than Bush's current rating. Those ratings include Lyndon Johnson's 35%, Richard Nixon's 24%, Gerald Ford's 37%, Jimmy Carter's 28%, Ronald Reagan's 35%, the elder George Bush's 29% and Bill Clinton's 37%.

Bush's worst to date is still several points better that the next best in President Clinton, and substantially better than all other presidents of the past four decades. Perhaps naysayers shouldn't crow so loudly when Bush is still at the top of the heap.

There is no headline in the Washington Post today to tell readers that Virginia Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine has been endorsed for Governor by one Michael Schiavo, the man who campaigned for years to get his wife's feeding tube pulled. It's buried at the end of an article on page B-4. (But wait -- I can't even find the story in my newspaper today.) It may not be a huge story, but it's fascinating placement after the Post has published two front-page articles this week stressing Kaine's Catholicism -- how much he believes it, and promises to never allow it to influence his decisions as Governor.

This, to some extent, is like running for Mayor of Washington D.C. stressing your credentials as an NRA member as a reason to like you, but promising to never overturn the federal city's handgun ban. Isn't stressing the NRA membership a bit irrelevant, then? Wouldn't it make people who belong to the NRA believe you're taking advantage of the positive angle of that membership while campaigning as an empty suit? The Post seems to believe that Kaine's Catholicism makes him sound moral, and perhaps more socially conservative. But stressing his faith is either irrelevant, or a sign of terminal insincerity. (Imagine someone running for governor of Virginia in the 1960s saying he believed in ending segregation, but would make no move to change the laws. Would he get credit for his unimplemented views?) Kaine says he's stressing his faith for "values voters." But he's stressing "I have values, and I promise not to use them."

The Bush administration created a journalistic shield to stall investigation into the CIA leak case until after the 2004 election. So proclaims the Washington Post in a column by E. J. Dionne Jr. on Tuesday, November 1, 2005.

The writer claims that “As long as Bush faced the voters, the White House wanted Americans to think officials such as Libby, Karl Rove and vice president Chaney had nothing to do with the leak campaign to discredit its arch-critic on Iraq, the former ambassador Joseph Wilson.”

The writer claims that to assure a delay in the inquiry the administration had Libby state his information concerning Wilson’s wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame was provided by a number of reporters.

In tomorrow’s (Friday) Washington Post is a front page article entitled “Youths in Rural U.S. are Drawn to Military.” The title is correct. The lede, however, is a single sentence that displays for all to see the bias of the Post against the war and against its volunteer military. It reads:

“As sustained combat in Iraq makes it harder than ever to fill the ranks of the all-volunteer force, newly released Pentagon demographic data show that the military is leaning heavily for recruits on economically depressed, rural areas where youths' need for jobs may outweigh the risks of going to war.”

The second paragraph reads:

“More than 44 percent of U.S. military recruits come from rural areas, Pentagon figures show. In contrast, 14 percent come from major cities. Youths living in the most sparsely populated Zip codes are 22 percent more likely to join the Army, with an opposite trend in cities. Regionally, most enlistees come from the South (40 percent) and West (24 percent).”

A couple of years ago, when Fox News sued Al Franken over the use of the trademark "Fair and Balanced" on his book cover, many in the MSM were happy to play it up big time. Franken's Lies book shot to #1 with the help of all the free publicity.

Today, the tables may be turning. How will the media react if Al Franken decides to file a lawsuit of his own against a conservative writer? According to Peter Schweizer, author of a new book Do As I Say (Not As I Do), Franken is threatening to sue him over material in his book that Franken's lawyer says is "legally actionable."

As NewsBusters has been reporting the past 24 hours here, here, and here, CBS News released a poll yesterday depicting President Bush’s declining job approval numbers that were based on a sample that was in no way reflective of the country’s population. Just hours ago, some new poll numbers were released by the Washington Post and ABC News, and they too have over-sampled Democrats and Independents.

As stated at the ABC News website:

“An increasingly unpopular war, an ethics cloud, and broad economic discontent have pushed public opinion of the Bush administration from bad to worse, infecting not only the president's ratings on political issues but his personal credentials for honesty and leadership as well.

Filling up at the pump is costing less and less each day – 45 cents per gallon less since its post Rita peak of $2.94 as of October 30. Despite that huge drop, all three broadcast networks have reported on rising or high gas prices four times as often as falling prices. Here are some of the key results:

• ABC the Worst: ABC mentioned falling gas prices only once out of 11 reports and that was only after three straight weeks of price declines.

• Dropping Prices Have Little Impact: Gas prices dropped every business day from October 6 through October 30, but the three networks still mentioned rising or high prices 79 percent of the time.

  
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