Michael Barone of U.S. News told FNC's Chris Wallace tonight that “if a World War II era Cindy Sheehan had gone to Hyde Park and Warm Springs and camped out and demanded a meeting with President Roosevelt,” she “would just been thought to have been a person who was the victim of a personal tragedy and who had gone over the bend as a result of it, and they would have mercifully given her no publicity.” Barone, co-editor of the bi-annual Almanac of American Politics, credited the change in media attitude to how in “World War II, the press almost unanimously wanted us to win the war,” but “today we have many in the press -- not most I think, but some at least -- who do not want us to win this war and think that we don't deserve to win this war.”

Transcript of Barone's comments on Special Report with Brit Hume follows.

Described alternately as “insular,” “Mayberry-like,” and “nearly all-white,” AP writers Tom Coyne and Ashley M. Heher have raised serious questions about the racial integrity of John Roberts’ boyhood town.

Having delved into Roberts’ religious affiliation, his wife’s social activities and even the adoption of his children, the AP, in the ultimate reach, is now conducting investigations into Long Beach, Indiana. The indictment begins:

Like many towns across America, the exclusive lakefront community where Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. grew up during the racially turbulent 1960s and '70s once banned the sale of homes to nonwhites and Jews.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which is in the same city as CNN, reports:

"CNN's Jim Walton got the message people were upset with the network's airing of an ad that targeted Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. More than 10,000 messages, actually...

"In a note Monday to fellow executives, Walton, the network's president, said the phone would be the only way to reach him for a while, given that his e-mail was temporarily clogged."

But their spokeswoman, Laurie Goldberg, said CNN "doesn't pay attention to mass campaigns." Additionally, "We welcome individual feedback," but "when a message is clearly mass produced, that counts as one e-mail."

Unless it's a campaign from FAIR or Media Matters.

As Clay Waters points out in his previous posting, a New York Times article by Eric Lichtblau sheds some interesting light on warnings issued by the State Department to the Clinton administration back in 1996 concerning Osama bin Laden's move from the Sudan to Afghanistan:

In what would prove a prescient warning, the State Department intelligence analysts said in a top-secret assessment on Mr. bin Laden that summer that "his prolonged stay in Afghanistan - where hundreds of 'Arab mujahedeen' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate - could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.

On the one hand, it is quite shocking that the Times would publish a story so critical of President Clinton.

Yet, maybe most surprising is the continuous reference to America's Public Enemy Number One as "Mr. bin Laden". In fact, thirteen times in this article, Osama is so respectfully referred to.

Are the Times editors compensating for their tremendous discomfort with publishing an article critical of their favorite modern president by raising Osama to a level deserving of the title "Mister"?

Two generally anti-Bush intelligence reporters, Eric Lichtblau and Philip Shenon, have important scoops in Wednesday's paper about anti-terrorist inaction on Clinton's watch. But will network news notice?

First up is Lichtblau's "State Dept. Says It Warned About bin Laden in 1996," buried on A12: "State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam 'well beyond the Middle East,' but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show."

Lichtblau explains: "The declassified documents, obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to The New York Times, shed light on a murky and controversial chapter in Mr. bin Laden's history: his relocation from Sudan to Afghanistan as the Clinton administration was striving to understand the threat he posed and explore ways of confronting him. Before 1996, Mr. bin Laden was regarded more as a financier of terrorism than a mastermind. But the State Department assessment, which came a year before he publicly urged Muslims to attack the United States, indicated that officials suspected he was taking a more active role, including in the bombings in June 1996 that killed 19 members American soldiers at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia."

Oil and gas prices had their biggest one-day decline in months today after an Energy Department report suggested that the highly-touted shortage that has been all over the news in the past couple of weeks is actually not the case.

The September crude oil contract declined by $2.78 to $63.30 per barrel -- a 4.2% decline -- while September gas fell by 9.86 cents to $1.885 per gallon -- a 5% decline.

According to Bloomberg:

Demand for gasoline fell 75,000 barrels to an average 9.4 barrels a day, the lowest in a month, according to the report.

``There are signs that gasoline demand is tapering off, which has reduced supply fears," said [Tom Bentz, an oil broker at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York].

U.S. gasoline demand last month was lower than in July 2004 because of higher retail prices, the American Petroleum Institute said in a report released today. The total amount of gasoline supplied in the U.S., a measure of demand, was 9.28 million barrels a day in July, down 0.8 percent from a year earlier, the industry-funded group's report showed.

Isn't that fascinating? Gasoline demand was lower this July than last July. Moreover, crude oil supplies are now 9.6% higher than they were this time last year.

That's right -- I said HIGHER. (cont'd)

The media continue their daily gas price hype on all networks. It's more than high-priced TV talent whining about the cost of a gallon of gas. Many of the stories contain serious factual errors. In an attempt to address the problems in the coverage, the Media Research Center's Free Market Project has launched a daily item called "Gas Hysteria" that will include the best and worst gas hike news.

A few notes from today: CBS's Trish Regan seems to think $2.55 (the average price for a gallon of gas) is somehow "hovering near $3.00 a gallon." NBC explained that hybrid cars don't save any money and while ABC's Charles Gibson seems to understand that gas in some places is "well over $3.” Gibson could have noted that if gas is “well over $3” some places, it is well below the national average of $2.55 in others.

Times Watch reports on the latest Civility Update from the newspaper that put the anti-Gore "RATS" ad non-controversy on the top of the front page. They're loving a blogger whose site slogan is "Proudly Lowering the Level of Political Discourse." Lefty blogger Lee Papa's one-man show at the New York International Fringe Festival is all the rage to Times critic Margo Jefferson: How do we liberals show we're strong, he asks, and answers firmly: 'We have to rape Republicans. We have to show them this is what liberals are.'…Mr. Papa's ruling metaphor is always some form of aggressive to abusive sex."

TimesWatch notes Jefferson isn't fazed, she's a fan: "I still enjoyed the show. It's just that I enjoy his blog more. As a new fan, I also liked the fact that several members of the Listserv I belong to sent me links to their favorite Rude Pundit columns and discussions of his work that read like short, smart reviews. Those are the kinds of shrewd, passionate fans mainstream theaters would kill to attract."

The New York Times relates a touching story in an editorial about a lady (Victoria Ruvolo) who not only forgave, but powerfully comforted a man who had nearly killed her (Ryan Cushing) when the two met face to face outside the courtroom where Cushing had just entered his guilty plea.

Cushing tossed a turkey through Ruvolo's car windshield last fall. She "needed many hours of surgery to rebuild her shattered facial bones."

According to the Times, Ruvolo cradled Cushing's head as he sobbed and begged for her forgiveness. She told him, "It's O.K.; it's O.K. I just want you to make your life the best it can be."

Curiously couched in the middle of this otherwise fine editorial was this gratuitous paragraph:

Which side of the talk radio wars do you suppose our "mainstream" media outlets favor? If you have to ask, then just look at the news coverage of talk radio scandals.

When Rush Limbaugh acknowledged an addiction to painkillers in 2003, the news media couldn’t get enough of his misfortune. The Newsweek cover story by Evan Thomas called Rush "a childless, twice-divorced, thrice-married schlub whose idea of a good time is to lie on his couch and watch football endlessly." CNN anchorman Aaron Brown confessed that "the subject is Rush, made worse no doubt by the permanent smirk that seems to be attached to my face."

Or what about radio and TV talker Bill O’Reilly? When ex-producer Andrea Mackris sued him for sexual harassment last fall, the networks and other media outlets pounced with glee. ABC and NBC were so excited to put O’Reilly’s accuser on the air with her lawyer that they gave them seven- and eight-minute interviews – an eternity in TV land – almost as many minutes as those networks devoted to covering and analyzing the final presidential debate that morning.

Yesterday MRC's Rich Noyes posted to Newsbusters and issued a Media Reality Check regarding the broadcast media ignoring the Able Danger story. Today, the Early Show's Hannah Storm interviewed Anthony Shaffer, the Army officer at the heart of the story, which centers on al Qaeda intelligence that he claims military lawyers did not allow him to forward to the FBI during Clinton's administration, as well as the 9/11 commission leaving this fact out of its final report. In an otherwise good interview, however, Storm failed to mention 9/11 commissioner and former Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick's culpability in writing the controversial "wall" memo which enforced a strict separation of intelligence sharing between the military or CIA and the FBI, as CNSNews.com's Scott Wheeler reported in April 2004:

Would you think of the group Judicial Watch, do you think of it targeting any specific administration?

The New York Times certainly does. In an article today, the paper would lead us to believe that the group particularly vexed the Clinton Administration, and only criticized the current administration a little, and only on 9/11 matters. Interestingly enough, this characterization is made in the midst of an article that reflects very poorly on the last administration. Here's what the Times said:

"The declassified documents, obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to The New York Times..." [emphasis mine]

In today's Washington Post on page A04, staff reporters R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker penned this headline: "Library Missing Roberts File"

The headline, and the first paragraph, were seemingly written to set the tone of possible file theft by the Bush Administration:

"A file folder containing papers from Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s work on affirmative action more than 20 years ago disappeared from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library after its review by two lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department in July, according to officials at the library and the National Archives and Records Administration."

Senators Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy wasted little time in calling for investigations.

When the Today show sprung a surprise this morning -- an unannounced trip to Iraq by Matt Lauer -- one US soldier had a little surprise of his own for Today and the media at large.

Lauer interviewed a group of soldiers at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, and at one point asked about the state of morale. After getting two responses to the effect that morale was good, Lauer had this to say:

"Don't get me wrong, I think you're probably telling the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that could be possible with the conditions you're facing and with the insurgent attacks you're facing. " (video available: Windows Media and Real Media)

The MRC's Free Market Project