As Election Day approaches in Iraq, the “CBS Evening News” tonight chose to lead with an al Qaeda video (video link to follow) that showed masked gunmen executing Iraqi police recruits in the middle of the day, as well as two Iraqi women pleading for their lives before being shot. Correspondent Lara Logan interviewed Michael Ware, a western journalist who is so well connected in this part of the world that he is regularly given such videos. During the interview, Ware suggested that this particular tape was “an inspirational video” that aids “recruitment” and acts as a “fund-raising device.”

Ware then interviewed a Ba’athist “insurgent” who used to be a top-ranking military official under Saddam. At the conclusion of this interview, Logan chided the Bush administration for not using this man’s services: “Ironically, this insurgent commander is exactly the type of military leader that the U.S. once turned away, but is now reaching out to, hoping to lure them back into the Iraqi army that's desperately short of experienced leaders.”

Shane Bishop, NBC Producer

A producer for "Dateline NBC" is apparently collaborating with a convicted killer in order to get a sensational story about another one. The Austin-American Statesman reports:

"Dateline NBC" producer Shane Bishop has a deal for Gov. Rick Perry: Promise to waive the death penalty for an imprisoned Arkansas murderer, and I'll help you solve two murders in the Fort Worth area in 1982 and 1983.

The unusual offer came in a Nov. 29 letter from the California-based Bishop to Perry and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, offering to help solve three cold murder cases in the two states if the chief executives would "guarantee not to pursue the death penalty" against an Arkansas convict serving life without parole for murder.

Lara Logan, a correspondent for CBS News who, according to the CBS website, lives in London with her husband, filed a report this morning on the CBS “Early Show” from Baghdad as featured at NewsBusters. The text of her report shows tremendous similarities to an article by Patrick Cockburn published this morning in the British daily The Independent.

To begin with, Cockburn’s article is entitled “Iraq: 1000 Days of War,” with a subheading “From Shock and Awe to a country torn between insurrection and democracy.” Logan’s segment this morning began: “Well, it wasn't long after U.S. Forces unleashed their shock and awe campaign that the Iraq war seemed to be over. But it's now a thousand days since it all began in March 2003 and we're still here.”

On Tuesday morning’s Early Show in the 7:00 half hour, Harry Smith interviewed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. In a humorous moment, during the interview Harry Smith forgot Senator Frist’s name while in the process of asking a question:

"But the violence doesn't seem to be abating Mr. uh , uh , it's, we have 30,000 Iraqis dead, acknowledged by the President yesterday, more than 1,000 United States men and women have died in this conflict thus far, is there a body count at which point the cost of the war is no longer acceptable?"

Smith took a hostile tone with Frist, questioning him with Democratic talking points. While Frist was answering the question, and talking about the dangers of cutting and running in Iraq, Smith interrupted him and asserted that there were no terrorists in Iraq until the United States got there, and that in fact it is the United States who has now created a "terrorist haven" in Iraq.

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) noted the bias of the New York Times on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal." The show's host quoted from a pessemistic NYT story about the military situation in Mosul, Iraq. Kingston, who recently returned from an extensive trip to Mosul and first-hand talks with GI's and officers questioned the story thus: "Now, would that be on the New York Times editorial page or their regular page?" The host said the regular page. Kingston replied with a smile: "And there is a difference? I would only have to say that when you cite the New York Times, it is not exactly objective."

Rep. Kingston also blasted the major networks as "overwhelmingly pessimistic" and increasingly negative." He further cited the MRC study, TV's Bad News Brigade, to buttress his arguments.

I think they should haved called this: "The bill to ensure the continuation of socialist propaganda to lower class viewers via Oprah, Jerry Springer, Big 3 network newscasts and assorted depraved prime-time sitcoms."

George F. Will wrote a column Thursday, December 8, 2005 about the Senate spending $3 billion to "create a new entitlement -- digital television. ... Although programming currently is broadcast in both modes, by April 2009 broadcasters must end analog transmissions and the government will have auctioned the analog frequencies for various telecommunications purposes. For the vast majority of Americans, April 2009 will mean . . . absolutely nothing. Nationwide, 85 percent of all television households (and 63 percent of households below the poverty line) already have cable or satellite service. ..."

As Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco prepares for testimony on Capitol Hill tomorrow, some credit should go to CBS for reporting on surfacing documents that show Blanco "in an embarrassing light." It’s a little balance after the FEMA-pounding Olympics at the time. MRC's Mike Rule found that Bob Orr reported:

"As New Orleans was drowning, the staff of Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco feverishly tried to avoid a public relations disaster. New e-mails just released by Republican congressional investigators show the governor's staff worked to portray her as hands on, in control, and a working executive.

"Please put Governor Blanco in casual clothes, a baseball cap, etc," reads one of the emails from a political consultant. "She needs to visit a shelter in prime time and talk tough, but hug on some folks and be sensitive."

Because a Tuesday afternoon is better spent discussing the news.

Despite some of the optimism that has been expressed in a number of recent media reports leading up to Thursday’s historic elections in Iraq – in particular, the great job that ABC News has been doing the past few days with its “Iraq: Where Things Stand” series – CBS’s “The Early Show” stayed quite glum this morning (video link to follow). Julie Chen introduced the segment stating, “President Bush says progress is being made, but many Iraqis have other ideas.” Lara Logan reporting from Baghdad then played a numbers game that created the appearance that there have been more American deaths in Iraq than is the case:

“Some 18,000 Americans have been killed and injured since the start of this war. But 94% of those casualties occurred after the fall of Baghdad.”

Two stories on the same Manpower employment report:

Hiring Outlook Bright For 2006 - CBS News

New year job market bleak - Newsday

I like the opening to the Newsday article:

Waiting for January to find a new job?

It might not happen even then.

If you need a job, you might not want to just sit around for a month waiting for one to fall in your lap, because as Newsday so insightfully points out, it might not happen even then.

Judging from this article by SF Chronicle staff writer Leslie Fulbright, which Drudge posted, perhaps Tookie Williams should have been canonized and supporters of the death penalty punished in his stead.

The headline set the tone: "Tears, anger, silence at protesters' candlelight vigil; Speakers read from Williams' anti-gang children's books."

The article depicted candle-holding Tookie supporters bravely fighting the cold and singing hymns along with Joan Baez.

The article also offered a quote from the director of a program for 'troubled youths', who reportedly uses Williams' anti-gang book in his program.

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.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2011—Karl Rove, the former Bush official was named ABC's chief Washington correspondent, the network said Tuesday.

In a world where liberal press bias doesn't exist, such a lede could, theoretically, exist. In the real world, ABC named former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos its chief Washington correspondent Monday afternoon.

With former Mario Cuomo adviser Tim Russert heading NBC's coverage, that means two of the three broadcast networks' political coverage will be overseen by former Democratic officials. From Broadcasting and Cable:

The New York Times has proven itself to be selective in its reporting the details about the war in Iraq, but it seems to have no problem running all-out attack ads on President Bush in regards to the same. As Bill O'Reilly reported on FOX News tonight, World Can't Wait's "next phase of the battle to drive out the Bush regime by placing a full page ad in the NY Times" ran on page A17 in the Times today The ad, along with coordinated fliers, make many radical claims including the following:

"Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq...

This weekend you might have seen one of the 370 stories about Mel Gibson signing a deal to make a Holocaust mini-series. They ran with headlines like "Furor over Gibson Holocaust project". Yes, it appears Mel wants to make up for the sins of his father in his own way, and no doubt he will still be flogged by the press for it.

But here's a father-son story you won't see 370 stories about:

Chris Wallace: Mike Wallace Has 'Lost It'
"Fox News Sunday" anchorman Chris Wallace says father Mike Wallace has "lost it" - after the legendary CBS newsman told the Boston Globe last week that the fact George Bush had been elected president shows America is "[expletive]-up."

Arianna Huffington went on quite a rant at her blog today over the president’s speech in Philadelphia. In fact, she pulled no punches. Early on, she stated that “the president’s fanaticism is a scary prospect for the country.” But, that was just the beginning:

“The latest issues of both Time and Newsweek paint a portrait of an isolated president detached from the reality of all that is going on around him. Nothing seems to be penetrating -- not the rising death toll, not his depressed poll numbers, not the continuing revelations about the deceptions his administration used to lead us to war. Not even the growing skepticism about the war being expressed within his own party.”

On Monday's edition of Hardball, host Chris Matthews claimed that Americans were brainwashed into believing there was "a connection to 9/11" and Iraq. Matthews went on to insinuate that the Bush administration brain washed us with the way American soldiers would be greeted and the use of cheap oil.

DOWNLOAD - .WMV

Transcript follows.

A short time ago I was watching the news to see an interview between a reporter and a Marine. The reporter was asking mostly questions about the security for the elections this week, but he then turned the conversation to another aspect. He asked the marine about what he thought about the troops and how they feel about Iraq, and if it was possible to win it. The marine downplayed it with the initial statement, "Well, we've been too busy to think about that right now..." and then continued on to say, "I would say that the moral of my unit and other units I have come across is high and the overall feeling is that we're making progress."
The next article on the news was a discussion about Iraq and the liberal said this at one point, "This shouldn't be about parties and political alliances... we should look at the troops and how they feel about the subject." This was on FOX during Hannity and Colmes.