Of the three broadcast network evening newscasts on Tuesday, ABC’s World News Tonight delivered the most downbeat take on the public attitude facing President Bush as he delivers his State of the Union (SOTU) address. Anchor Elizabeth Vargas framed the evening around how Bush “is coming off the worst year of his presidency, from the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, to record-high energy prices, to growing unhappiness with the war in Iraq.” George Stephanopoulos soon insisted that “the country is just in a sour mood,” as evidenced by Bush’s 42 percent approval rating, “ten points below where it was last year.” Stephanopoulos added: “And for the first time in his presidency, a majority of Americans...want to follow congressional Democrats rather than President Bush: 51-35.” Stephanopoulos, however, did allow that “on the other hand, President Bush is still very strong on national security.” (Transcript follows.)

What do you get when you cross a so-called editorial cartoonist with a person that hates the Military, Republicans, President Bush and America?  If you answered “Ted Rall”, you hit the nail on the head.

In his latest attempt at cartooning, called "Relative Moralism", Rall depicts two members of the military preparing for a remote missile launch.  One of the soldiers voices concern about the innocent people that will be killed by the missile attack.  The soldier with his finger on the button offers excuses for killing innocents such as their proximity to the bad guys. The same soldier then remarks that “those people don’t like us anyway. The more we kill the better.”  In the final frame, Rall depicts two men with an obvious Middle Eastern appearance and turbans. One has a cell phone to his ear while the other voices concern about killing innocent people.

Before the first advertisements were playing out before the world, I’d already been tipped off that Spielberg had blown an awesome opportunity with Munich. He had a chance not often seen in Hollywood, a chance to show the world a side of Israel they’re rarely allowed to see: hero.

The head’s up came from a source who knew what he was talking about because he is one of them--one of the Hollywood elites without the elitist attitude. Robert J. Avrech has been writing for Hollywood for over 25 years, yet he has managed to remain logical, reasonable, and--horrors!--conservative. He is also an Orthodox Jew, and has a passion for another Jewish story that begs to be told. In spite of being an insider, however, he has yet to get anyone to consider his project on this under-reported yet significant piece of history; one that, had it not happened, would have ended the existence of not just Israel, but eventually the entire world.

According to MSNBC blogger Eric Alterman, the U.S. detaining Iraqi women who may have information about suspected terrorists is very similar to the kidnaping of journalist Jill Carroll. Alterman, best known for writing books such as "What Liberal Media," wrote the following in his MSNBC blog on January 31st:

"I’d like to congratulate the Bush administration for having the good taste to not make too big a deal about the kidnaping of U.S. journalist Jill Carroll by Iraqi insurgents. Since the Bush administration is in the business of politically kidnaping innocent people too, including the wives of people it wants to surrender. I hate to say it because of all the baggage it carries but it reminds me of the deliberate murder of the innocent Ethel Rosenberg, to try to get a confession out of her husband." (Emphasis added)

Conservatives should be happy to see Reuters running a story headlined "Abortion rights groups say battle being lost." But reporter Carey Gillam conducts an almost perfect lesson in how not to label the opposing sides. Not only is one side "pro-choice" or "abortion rights activists," while the other side are "anti-abortion advocates," but Gillam finds "conservatives" on the pro-life side four times, but never finds an L word for the abortion-on-demand folks:

-- "The expected Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court of conservative jurist Samuel Alito, who is favored by anti-abortion advocates, is seen as a key turning point. Yet it is only the latest in a series of blows to abortion rights advocates..."

The Free Market Project has noticed of late how the media are warming back up to the notion of a "windfall profits" tax on oil companies. The windfall profits tax was a hotter topic in the months after Katrina, but the idea didn't stick then. But now with a new session of Congress, a State of the Union address on the way, and 2005 profit reports running over the wires, the push to soak "Big Oil" is on again. [see more below the fold]

Tonight President Bush will deliver his annual State of the Union Address, and Harry Smith of the "Early Show" previewed the speech this morning. Smith interviewed Dan Bartlett, Counselor to the President in the 7:00 half hour and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) in the 7:30 half hour. There were stark differences in the tone Smith took with each of his guests, and in the amount of time allotted to each. Bartlett was on the program for only 3 minutes, and fielded 3 questions, while Senator Kennedy was given 7 minutes to answer four, two of which related to the passing of Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Following a routine introduction of Dan Bartlett, Harry Smith asked some tough questions which in itself is not bias, but when that is combined with the negative tone that was taken and compared to the way Senator Kennedy was treated, it raises questions about fairness. The following are Smith’s questions for Bartlett.

If you thought Teddy Kennedy’s pratfall over Samuel Alito’s membership in a conservative Princeton alumni group was embarrassing (quoting magazine satire articles as if they were real), you should see what ABC’s “Nightline” tried to pull last week.

The subject was the ethics of judicial travel. As investigative reporter Brian Ross explained in the middle of the piece, “Justices at all ends of the political spectrum take plenty of these trips to lots of nice places, all paid for by somebody else." But this was no expose on justices “at all ends of the political spectrum.” It was a shameless hit piece on conservatives, complete with hidden-camera cheap shots.

This past Sunday on Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, viewers were treated to an interview of former President Jimmy Carter conducted by reporter Rita Braver. Most of the subject matter that was covered was fluff, what President Carter does to keep himself busy, trips he’s taken, elections he’s overseen and so forth. Yet, Braver eventually delves into the realm of politics, stressing Carter’s criticism of the Bush administration, but whitewashing over his own shortcomings.

Though the fact that the economy tanked and hostages were held in Iran during President Carter’s term, Braver only mentions that in passing:

"The economy floundered but what really doomed his Presidency was when Iranian radicals took over the US Embassy in Tehran and held dozens of Americans hostage for more than a year."

New York Times "continuous news desk" reporter David Stout posted a story at 1:23 Tuesday afternoon marking the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court by a Senate vote of 58-42.

The teaser sentence: “The vote is a triumph for President Bush and conservatives who have longed to tilt the balance of the court to the right.”

Stout’s text emphasizes Alito’s conservatism again and again:

“Samuel A. Alito Jr., who has been widely praised for his intellect and integrity but both admired and assailed for his conservative judicial philosophy, was sworn in today as the 110th justice in the history of the Supreme Court. The ceremony, at the Supreme Court, came shortly after Justice Alito was confirmed by a sharply divided Senate, which voted 58 to 42, largely along party lines.”

The Washington Post has chosen to run on their opinion page this morning, in advance of tonight's State Of The Union Address, an apparent attempt at humor from someone named David Atkins. It's a mocking, snarky piece, that is, unfortunately for the Post, not close enough to reality to actually be funny. Written in the first person voice of President Bush, though strangely lacking in malaprop and grammatical errors, it purports to be a "fact-check" on things in the SOTU that aren't strictly accurate. Some of the "highlights" include:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has alerted me that the line, "No person is above the law" should instead be "One person is above the law." My comment that "we have carefully listened to critics of our domestic surveillance program" should have read "listened in on..."

From her USA Today's piece on the Alito confirmation, check out this gibberish (3rd paragraph as it appeared at 12:15 PM; obviously it could be corrected at any moment or taken down; NOTE--USAT updated and fixed in their 1:54 PM update; see related comment below):

Alito, 55., who has compiled a mostly conservative record during 15 years on the bench, becomes the 110th. justice to serve on the high court. He succeeds retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,who has provided a deciding vote in favor of maintaining a woman's right to end her pregnancy and other controversies women's right to terminate their pregnancies, among other controversial matters.

So is Ms. Kiely obsessed, or is it just a glitch? Given that abortion is the first legal issue mentioned in her report, my money is on "obsessed."

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

In the past few months, conceivably the greatest attention given by the antique media to any subject has been to quash the confirmation of Samuel L. Alito to the Supreme Court. According to a LexisNexis search, CBS News has done 156 stories on this nominee's background along with objections to his confirmation. ABC News has done 174. NBC News has done 133. CNN has done a staggering 679.

As for the print media, the Washington Post has done 257, while the New York Times has done an extraordinary 339.

Yet, despite all the efforts by the antique media to block it, Mr. Alito was just confirmed in the Senate by the vote of 58 to 42. It appears that the losing streak of the antique media continues unabated.  

Eleanor Clift's online column for Newsweek is titled "Capitol Letter," but perhaps this week the title ought to be "Sour Grapes." She laments the visual of new Justice Alito sitting in robes to watch the State of the Union address. In the lamest of all possible attack lines (on one of the lamest campaign claims), Clift goes back to whapping on the old uniter-not-a-divider Bush theme of 2000.

The problem with this line (and the original Bush line) is that any Democratic decision to go partisan and "divide" against the president can be (lamely) presented as Bush's failure to be enough of a uniter. But who is the divider on Alito? Republicans did not cast "divisive" votes against nominees they clearly understood to be pro-abortion votes (Ginsburg confirmed 89-3, Breyer confirmed 89-9), but Democrats are unwilling to do the opposite for pro-life justices.

On this morning's Good Morning America, Robin Roberts read a brief news item about the latest tape from al Qaeda's #2 terrorist, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The tape was produced and released in part as a response to the U.S. effort to kill al-Zawahiri with a Predator air strike on January 14th. Roberts description of that attempt was incomplete, inaccurate and echoed Zawahiri's own propaganda on the air strike.

Near 7:12AM, Robin Roberts: "The FBI is asking its field offices to review all cases in light of a new video from al Qaeda's number two man. On the tape, Ayman al-Zawahiri called President Bush a 'butcher' and a 'failure'. He referred extensively to the failed U.S. air strike which was meant for him but killed civilians instead."

Toggling between the Today show and Good Morning America this morning offered a perfect illustration of the very different treatment the MSM reserves for Republicans and Democrats.

At Today, Andrea Mitchell was painting a grim picture of President Bush's foreign policy record. Take the recent Hamas victory, for example, which Mitchell unequivocally labelled: "a disaster for the US peace plan."

In fact, reactions to the Hamas victory have been very mixed, with some seeing a significant silver lining, as in this column by conservative [and I might add Jewish] columnist Jeff Jacoby:

Ted Koppel produced his first column as a New York Times contributing columnist on Sunday, and Slate's "Press Box" media critic Jack Shafer didn't mince words. His headline calls it an "embarrassing debut." He makes it sound like Koppel is the editorial-page equivalent of a one-week wonder on "Skating With Celebrities." He begins by noting...

the invitation [to be a Times columnist] came from an "editor friend of mine," so the fault belongs to whomever assigned, accepted, and edited or rewrote Koppel's self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, late-to-the-party, and punishingly obvious 1,500-word piece about the state of television news. (It's bad.) It's not even Koppel's fault if he thinks he's any good at this columnist thing, when he isn't. If we were to belittle every person who stretched his talents until they pop, we'd have little time for anything else.

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