Some noteworthy quotes from Tuesday's broadcast network evening newscast coverage of the Senate's confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. ABC's Linda Douglass saw civil rights through a liberal prism as, over a picture of Roberts with Ronald Reagan, she relayed how “Democrats hammered him about things he wrote as a young government lawyer 25 years ago, when the Reagan administration was fighting against expanding civil rights laws.” Conservatives would contend Reagan was just trying to ensure equal treatment of all races. Douglass also highlighted questions about the improper influence of Roberts' religious beliefs, as if anyone with them is disqualified: “Democrats made clear they suspect Roberts, a devout Catholic, will lower the wall between church and state. One Senator quoted John Kennedy.” Viewers then heard Senator Dianne Feinstein recite: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

Over on CBS, Gloria Borger negatively framed Roberts' views on another topic: "The only woman on the panel grilled Roberts on his old legal memos, which appear to disparage women and their complaints about unequal pay." Borger repeatedly used the term “abortion rights” and Bob Schieffer hoped: “When he says today that Roe v. Wade is a 'settled legal precedent,' as he calls it, does that mean he supports abortion rights?"

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams trumpeted the liberal ideology of Arlen Specter, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and how Specter is "unafraid to act independently." Williams touted: “He says his brushes with death have made him hyper-aware of the life-saving possibilities of stem cell research. He brought an hour glass to a Senate hearing, he says, to point out time's a-wastin'." Williams soon championed how “from his earliest days in politics, on the staff of the Warren Commission, running for mayor of Philadelphia in 1967, to his 25 years in Congress, Specter has been unafraid to act independently. It's a virtue he believes will serve him well throughout these hearings."

Transcripts, compiled by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth, follow.

Some good economic news was released by the Labor Department today.  However, if you rely on the AP as your source for such things, you’d never know it:

“Surging costs for gasoline and other energy products fueled inflation at the wholesale level in August, pressure that is expected to become even more intense once the full impact of Hurricane Katrina is felt.

“The Labor Department said its Producer Price Index, which measures inflation before it reaches the consumer, jumped a sharp 0.6 percent in August following an even bigger 1 percent increase in July.”

Curiously, this AP reporter felt that it was unnecessary to inform the reader that this inflation figure was less than expected, and signaled to Wall Street that prior to the advent of Katrina, rising fuel prices have not dramatically impacted our economy.  Here’s how Bloomberg reported the same data:

A little something from Sunday's Face the Nation that shouldn't go unnoticed: Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu (LA), unable to cite, off-hand, examples which illustrated her allegation that the White House was orchestrating a smear campaign of local officials who responded to Hurricane Katrina, told host Bob Schieffer that he need only ask various "journalists throughout town."

About eight minutes into the program, host Bob Schieffer asked Landrieu: "Do you think the White House is trying to put the blame on local officials?"

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) began a stemwinder of an answer: "I am unfortunately aware that, yes, they are. While the president is saying he wants to work together as a team, I think the White House operatives have a full-court press on to blame state and local officials, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, whether it's Haley Barbour or Kathleen Blanco, whether it's Mayor Nagin or a Republican mayor from Mississippi. And it's very unfortunate.

Landrieu then went on to assert that FEMA was underfunded and underequipped for the disaster, after which Schieffer pressed her, "That's a very strong charge you've just leveled. What are some examples of that?"

Landrieu replied, "Well, I think that there are journalists throughout town that can give you those examples, and I'll be happy to provide more detail as the week unfolds..."

Schieffer didn't press the case further than that, but it's rather telling that a liberal Democrat, unable to substantiate her rhetoric, would urge a liberal journalist he need only consult his colleagues to see that her claims are valid.

Criticism for budget deficits has been replaced by calls for big government

     As quickly as the water started rising in New Orleans, America’s media began blaming Hurricane Katrina-related damages on the president’s 2001 and 2003 economic stimulus packages. The overriding theme the first week after Katrina hit was that the levees of Louisiana failed due to a lack of federal funding stemming from “tax cuts for the rich.” However, a closer look at the federal budget reveals that funding for departments and agencies administering U.S. “Physical Resources” – Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Transportation, Environmental Protection, etc. – increased by 35 percent during George W. Bush’s first term.

     But the media have claimed that tax cuts reduced our nation’s ability to protect New Orleans from a natural disaster.

Early Show co-host Julie Chen interviewed CBS's resident homeland security expert, Randy Larsen, about FEMA director Mike Brown's resignation. Larsen offered perhaps the most balanced analysis of all the Hurricane Katrina coverage on CBS, noting that FEMA's scope and mission are not all-encompassing, and that local and state officials are supposed to remain in charge of disaster recovery, rescue, and cleanup efforts, with FEMA in a secondary role. This of course, cuts against the bias CBS News has had on hurricane relief. CBS has failed to ask New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin nor Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco on where they failed before and after the hurricane struck and what they are doing, if anything, to take responsibility.

Below is the transcript of the Larsen interview.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer caps off a silly editorial about Rep. Richard Pombo's plans to strengthen/weaken (depending on whom you ask) the Endangered Species Act with this concluding paragraph:

As critics point out, the act hasn't restored many threatened species to robust health. If consensus can be found, it's possible that Congress could craft better ways of restoring endangered species. But the starting point must be to prevent extinction. On that basic responsibility, Congress must not mess with the Endangered Species Act's great success.

In other words, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer simultaneously is putting forth the following self-contradictory theses:

Schadenfreude is defined as taking pleasure in other people's misery. To watch and hear the reports littering the airwaves like so much garbage outside the Superdome, one can almost sense a palpable joy on the part of the MSM, that hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands displaced have finally provided them with an almost orgiastic opportunity to promote there political agenda. While simultaneously lamenting the dead and dying their focus seems to be less on solutions and the alleviation of untold pain and suffering and more so on how this unprecedented tragedy can this be laid at the feet of George W Bush.

            Like the rats that undoubtedly ran from the floodwaters of New Orleans the Left has flocked towards Louisiana to, as one, decry the horrific actions and inactions of George W Bush. The realities of Physics and the Law mean nothing to the braying donkeys of the Left. As one they sing the Road Song of the Bander-Logs. Sitting in their branchy row, thinking of beautiful things they know, dreaming of deeds they mean to do, all complete in a minute or two, something noble and grand and good, won by merely wishing they could.

As predicted, the new blog for CBS News, Public Eye, whose stated purpose was to "bring transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News," has instead turned into a spin machine, a way to counter what is going on in the blogosphere. After CBS's unpleasant ordeal with blogs last year (this month marks the one-year anniversary), CBS News president Andrew Heyward realized the news division had to get in on the act in order to in effect have it both ways, an MSM presence and a blog presence.

Public Eye and Media Matters should combine operations, as both are now taking it upon themselves to counter the latest material circulating in the conservative blogosphere.

The subject was an item picked up by Matt Drudge.

Following the resignation of Michael Brown as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Richard Stevenson writes in Tuesday's New York Times:

"Mr. Brown had become a political liability to the White House, even in his constrained new role. Democrats in Congress had been questioning how the administration could retain him in such an important job as director of FEMA after his performance in responding to the hurricane. A poll taken over the weekend by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a nonpartisan research organization, found that more than 6 in 10 respondents judged the federal government's response to be fair or poor. A variety of polls in recent days have found Mr. Bush's approval ratings at or near their lows, with his support eroding even among Republicans."

Katie Couric brought on presidential historian Michael Beschloss to ask if Katrina will damage Bush's legacy. At the top of the show at 7:00 am Couric teased the upcoming segment: "Will this storm hurt President Bush's ability to accomplish his second term agenda and what impact will it have on his legacy? We'll talk with a top historian about that."

At 7:12 am Couric sat down with Beschloss in studio and opened with the following questions: 

Couric: "On Close Up this morning how much damage has hurricane Katrina done to the Bush presidency? Michael Beschloss is NBC's presidential historian. Michael, good morning...So President Bush went to New Orleans to, to view the devastation for the third time. It's the first time he saw it, actually from the ground. Will the damage done, in terms of the slow response by the federal government, continue to haunt this President?"

The Boston Globe reports that sociologists believe the bad news coming from the media about the behavior in New Orleans was overblown. They blame "credulous reporters" for creating a misleading situation.

"'The evidence is overwhelming,' says Enrico Quarantelli, an emeritus professor of sociology and the founding director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, 'that in the standard natural disaster or technological disaster'--like a chemical spill--'you're not going to get looting.'

"Quarantelli and a half-dozen other experts on disaster aftermaths and crowd behavior contacted last week insisted that follow-up investigations will reveal that the impression of Hobbesian violence in New Orleans over the past two weeks was created in large part by rumor and amplified by sometimes credulous reporters."

The Washington Post has fun juxtaposing hurricane headlines and graphics today. The top left of the front page reads "45 Bodies Found In La. Hospital." The subhead is "Bush Visits New Orleans and Defends Federal Response; FEMA Chief Quits." I doubt the Post would have merged a Democratic president's actions with the somewhat unrelated discovery of bodies. Reporter Doug Struck notes "The news of the grim recovery, the largest such discovery since Hurricane Katrina struck, came hours after President Bush completed a tour of parts of the city and spoke to local officials."

But right under the 45-bodies-found headline is a pie graph showing "Bush Approval Falls," with 54 percent disapproving of Bush's handling of "the situation caused by Hurricane Katrina." (For poll analysis on how the Post purposely oversampled blacks, and then merged them into the "record low" Bush rating, see the Ankle Biting Pundits.)

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.

There will be a new Gaggle strip, fully colored, every weekday.

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