Ladies and Gentlemen,

On January 1, 1989, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev wrote a shared New Year's message to the citizens of their respective countries. On the eve of 2007, their words have just as much meaning as they did eighteen years ago:

President Reagan's Message

On behalf of the American people, I send you greetings on the coming of the New Year.

In your country and mine, the New Year is a time of hope and renewal. Never have these qualities of the spirit been more necessary than now, as Soviet Armenia begins to heal from its wounds. You have our deepest sympathy. You have our prayers. And you have a personal hope from my wife, Nancy, and me that in the effort to rebuild what was shattered you will find your solace.

On Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Time magazine Washington Bureau Chief Jay Carney called “unpardonable” the late President Gerald Ford's failure to share with the nation, as well as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld -- who worked for him as Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense, respectfully -- his discomfort with the decision to go to war in Iraq. "Had he spoke out at the time,” Carney sighed, “it would have had an impact.” This Week opened the roundtable with audio of Gerald Ford in a 2004 interview with Bob Woodward: "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraqi war. I can understand the theory of wanting to free people. I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people unless it is directly related to our own national security."

Carney's wife, ABC's Claire Shipman, echoed what she expressed on Thursday's Good Morning America (NewsBusters item by Megan McCormack) as she scolded Ford for cowardice since “he could have made a real difference” if he had spoken out: “If this was a man who was unafraid to take the hit on something like the pardon [of Nixon], this was a man who had the experience of Vietnam, presiding over the end of the Vietnam war, he clearly felt strongly about what was happening in Iraq, he could have made a real difference if he had decided to speak out."

What should the media's New Year's resolutions be?

This previous post from Friday night shortly after his hanging noted that CNN was giving Saddam Hussein the "Deceased Statesman" look.

The NY Times (HT Hot Air; scroll down, and look on left; direct link to pic is here; pic below is from my host's hard drive) has in a sense outdone CNN by giving Saddam the look of a charismatic, and from all appearances beloved, leader:

One suspects that this is just a warm-up for Castro when his time comes.

In today's Washington Post, Dana Milbank tells of the dearth of dignitaries attending the late President Ford's rites at the Capitol on Saturday.

He writes: "Everything was in place for Gerald R. Ford's state funeral last night -- everything, that is, but the statesmen."

The third paragraph continues:

"President Bush sent his regrets; he was cutting cedar and riding his bike on his ranch in Texas. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his deputy, Richard Durbin, couldn't make it, either; they were on a trip to visit Incan ruins. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a pass, too -- as did nearly 500 of the 535 members of Congress."

Reading this, one might conclude that while the lack of interest in paying respects to the late President is bipartisan, the failure of the current President, a man of the same political party as Mr. Ford, is particularly egregious.  How dare Mr. Bush opt to cut cedar and ride his bike rather than participate in a state funeral for another Chief Executive?

Remember how MSMers such as Tim Russert recently taunted President Bush for claiming that Al Qaeda is behind much of the violence in Iraq?

Well, this morning comes a report from a certified MSM source lending credence to W's assertion. NBC's Richard Engel, who nobody would confuse with a Bush administration defender and who only yesterday was deploring the execution of Saddam as "primitive and vindictive," appeared on this morning's "Today" to discuss the aftermath of Saddam's death.

Asked host Lester Holt: "Lots of concern that there would be a violent response to the execution from Saddam loyalists, supporters. What has the reaction been so far?"

The passing of President Ford has New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof fantasizing about the ignominy that President Bush's obituary will heap on him for his handling of Iraq. In what Kristof claims to be "the holiday spirit," he offers W ten suggestions to rescue his legacy. After all, what says "holiday spirit" more than dreaming about someone's death?

You can read all ten suggestions here if you've anted up to the Times, but for those loath to lard the Times' coffers, let me focus on two of Kristof's recommendations:

"Seriously engage Iraq’s nastier neighbors, including Iran and Syria, and renounce permanent military bases in Iraq. None of that will solve the mess in Iraq. But these steps will suggest that you are belatedly trying to listen and are willing to give diplomacy a chance."

We haven't listened to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Sure we have: he wants to develop nuclear weapons and erase Israel from the map. For starters. And just why should we renounce the prospect of bases giving us the ability to defend American interests in the most volatile region of the world?

There were more guess-what-I'm-liberal picks of the Washington Post arts writers in Friday's Weekend section, so since it's a slow Sunday morning, here's the others. The movie critics listed their favorite actors of the year. Ann Hornaday closed out her list with this flippant pick:

5. Ted Haggard in "Jesus Camp." In this documentary, the evangelical preacher leers at a camera operator and says, "I know what you did last night." Well, it turned out what he had done last night was score some crystal meth and get together with a male prostitute. Meanwhile, this prevaricator and moral hypocrite had thousands of followers convinced he was a straight and sober man of God. Well played, sir!

Like a mother hen jealously guarding her flock [less flattering but unmentionable metaphors also come to mind], the New York Times is loath to see any government program escape the clutches of the state. And even if Social Security is a sick chick, the Times zealously holds her close because she is the biggest money-pot of the bunch.

For the Times, the fox stalking the social security henhouse has been privatization, epitomized by the social security system of Chile, which was privatized more than 25 years ago and has served as a model for many other countries. Even Borat has more Social Security freedom than Americans. His Kazakhstan is among at least twenty countries, including the UK and Sweden, that have implemented a variety of privatized plans.

Journalists just can't resist highlighting how the late President Gerald Ford expressed disagreement with President George W. Bush's Iraq policy and with Vice President Dick Cheney's adamant pursuit of it. A fresh example: Barely two minutes into MSNBC's Saturday coverage of Ford's funeral, Newsweek political reporter Howard Fineman ruminated about how “the interesting thing is that Gerald Ford himself, toward the end of his life, in conversations with Bob Woodward...said basically I disagreed with the idea of going to war in Iraq and he wondered about Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld,” who “were known for their probity and caution and for their lack of ideology, for their realistic view of the world. How was it, Ford wondered toward the end of his life, that those two guys, part of that all-star team of realists, had gotten hooked up in what Ford regarded as a mistaken war?"

Tom Brokaw took the occasion of the ceremonies attending the death of President Ford to take shots at the foreign policy of both Presidents Ford and Reagan. Speaking with Chris Matthews on MSNBC during the 6 PM ET hour, Brokaw observed:

"President Ford and Henry Kissinger, fairly I think you can say, were over-infatuated with the Shah of Iran. Iran was an important launching pad for the United States should a war with the Soviet Union break out. It was also the source of great oil [sic], but there was already at that time very strong evidence in Iran that there was an Islamic uprising that eventually overthrew the Shah of Iran."

The Shah fell largely because Jimmy Carter abandoned him. Is Brokaw saying the US should have jumped earlier on Ayatollah Khomenei's bandwagon?

Entertainment Weekly TV critic Ken Tucker put both Keith Olbermann and Rosie O'Donnell on his Best of TV List for 2006.

6 Countdown With Keith Olbermann MSNBC  The best anchor in the biz right now books off-the-beaten-pundit guests, refuses to maintain the ridiculous pose of ''objectivity,'' and is funny as hell. Which is where some of his competitors wish he'd go.

7 The View ABC   Detonate the small nuclear bomb called Rosie O'Donnell and watch a mere chitchat show explode with barbed wit and fierce sociopolitical debate. She's forced Elisabeth Hasselbeck to try to learn how to form coherent thoughts, made a revitalized Joy Behar her ally in common sense, and frequently left her boss Barbara Walters speechless.

Newspaper cultural critics often seemed to be bringing their politics and not just their artistic senses to the table when judging the "best" products of 2006. Friday’s Weekend section of The Washington Post compiled a set of lists of the best in art, music, and movies, and some of the Post critics were dropping some liberal (and radical, even Marxist) politics into their choices. The music critics were the most political. Curt Fields had two liberal/radical Bush-hater favorites on his Best list:

7. Dixie Chicks. The trio had several quality moments, including its defiant "Not Ready to Make Nice" single and the intriguing "Shut Up & Sing" documentary. But best of all was the way the Dixie Chicks appeared onstage at some of their live shows to the strains of "Hail to the Chief."...

9. The Coup, "Pick a Bigger Weapon." This Oakland, Calif.-based act mixes revolutionary politics, humor and sweet beats. Smart and catchy, a rare double. Plus, it has the song title of the year, "Babyletshaveababybeforebushdosomethingcrazy."

Here's another angle on a story previously covered by NB's Tim Graham.

Friday's New York Times editorial (requires registration) makes it clear, without having the courage to specifically say it, that it opposed the impending execution of the Iraqi dictator, even characterizing the three-year legal process as "The Rush to Hang" him.

The Times may have taken it too far this time. I would think more than a few in the Manhattan wine-and-cheese set, even those who oppose the war, will be astute enough to substitute the name "Osama bin Laden" and his "orchestration of the 9/11 attacks" for "Saddam Hussein" and his "vile and unforgivable atrocities" in the Times' Friday editorial. Here are a couple of easy examples:

Atheist activist Sam Harris recently proclaimed on National Public Radio that America needed a lot more mockery of religious belief. "I think the criticism of irrationality just has to come from 100 sides all at once,” he declared. “In the entertainment community, maybe you'll just have people making jokes that are funny enough and true enough so as to put religious certainty in a bad light."

Harris said he’s been trying hard to make contacts among the mind-benders in the news and entertainment media to find those God-scorning people who feel “a profound sense of relief that comes with hearing somebody call a spade a spade.”

At the top of the Saturday Washington Post Style section is the headline "The Hard Core of Cool: Confidence, Grace, And Underneath It All, the Need to Be Recognized." Right next to the headline is a Reuters photo of Sen. Barack Obama, his head tilted up and eyes gazing toward the heavens. It's an essay by Metro section columnist (and former Post reporter) Donna Britt, part of the Post's ongoing "Being A Black Man" series.

Britt theorized that while white, Latino, and Asian men "have been deemed cool, black men remain cool's most imitated, consistent arbiters. I mean, there's cool -- and then there's brothercool. (Italics hers.) Think of Barack Obama's instantaneous ascension to 'coolest man in Congress.'"

Free speech is certainly wonderful to watch when practiced by one in possession of compelling ideas mixed with two doses wit and a splash of sarcasm. Such was the case on Thursday evening when comedian Dennis Miller was given the stage on “Hannity & Colmes” to pontificate anew with nary a discouraging word from the resident liberal antagonist (video available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated):

Looks like they found evidence of water on Mars, but unfortunately, they also found a sucker fish in water, so we're not allowed to study it any more.

Do you know why I'm no longer liberal? Because I wanted to stop my sentences one word short of the word "but." You know, as a liberal, I found myself using the word "but" more frequently than a proctologist filling out his day planner.

Then, Miller made an observation that most NBers are likely to find somewhat objectionable:

On CBS's "Saturday Early Show," co-anchor Tracy Smith offered a look ahead at the year 2007. The show consulted a set of experts for what would be hot and happening in the new year. In between predictions about a hot stock market and more wines in capped bottles, there were liberal sentiments thrown in, and not just the one where "earthy crunchy" and organic would be in.

Hotline's John Mercurio predicted that Al Gore would get an Oscar nomination for his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which would spur interest in a Gore 2008 presidential campaign. Soul singer Gladys Knight talked gauzily about how we should all show more love and have an end to all wars. Tracy Smith popped back in to applaud a "lovely sentiment from Gladys Knight."

Most NBers are familiar with an hysterical interview that former Partridge Family star Danny Bonaduce had on the streets of Hollywood with a 9/11 conspiracy theorist two weeks ago. On Thursday, Bonaduce was on “The O’Reilly Factor” with guest-host John Kasich to discuss the incident (video available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated):

I tell you what happened was I think I was eating dinner -- or lunch, rather, at an outdoor cafe. And I think this guy who -- I don't know if he believes in what he's doing or thinks he's helping, but I think, my belief was what he was saying was blatantly anti-American.

If you make the sitting president a murderer, you make my little brother-in-law who I've known since he was 6 a murderer, because he's on the ground in Iraq for his second tour and he's been shot.

Then, Bonaduce went after other Hollywoodans:

This morning's "Today" show characterized the execution of Saddam Hussein with a multiplicity of negative terms. According to NBC reporter Richard Engel, reporting from Baghdad:

"The Iraqi government is now going to great lengths to say that this execution was carried out with the utmost respect for human rights; that it was a very organized, precise event. However, interviews that we've conducted with witnesses, judges and other people who attended and followed all the proceedings say it was much more emotional and chaotic."

Continued Engel: "The execution was primitive and vindictive. "

Engel stated that the site of the execution was one of Saddam's most notorious intelligence headquarters in Baghdad, where Shia radicals were executed, "Shia from the same party now leading the Iraqi government." As video of Prime Minister Maliki, a Shia, flashed on the screen, Engel concluded: "today was their revenge."

View video of Engel here.