Wednesday’s Washington Post drew an uproar in rural Virginia when the Style section made unfunny jokes about rural Virginia being a place of drug labs, Cracker Barrel, the NRA, and "freshly killed venison," while Northern Virginia liked urbane things, like "Alfred, Lord Tennyson." Libby Copeland’s syrupy tribute to James Webb in that section Wednesday presented him as a wonderful match for lovers of both venison and Tennyson. The title was "Don’t Call Him Redneck: James Webb Hates the Expression, But Is Very Proud of the Culture."

The most notable part was Webb’s "towel-head" expression for Arabs. In describing screenwriting and typical movie villains to Copeland, Webb said: "Towel-heads and rednecks – of which I am one. If you write that word, please say that. I mean, I don’t use that pejoratively, I use it defensively. Towel-heads and rednecks became the easy villains in so many movies out there." Did someone step in Macaca? Not if the Post is judging.

I tried to send a memo. For some reason, I got:
"There are errors in your form.
"The form could not be processed due to the following errors:

"Error: E-Mail address error:
"SMTP Info: 550 5.7.1 Invalid local user
"NewsBusters.org"

What error or errors occurred? I can't imagine. So I'll try to get the message to you this way:

Does MRC have the resources to find stuff from the 1994 campaign? I recall an NBC report showing who would head committees in the House. It had slamming, harsh sound and graphics, to make the new, likely chairmen as threatening as possible. You've mentioned some of the things "correspondents" said; that graphic and the words show what a number of NBC people worked together to produce. What a correspondent says reflects the person's own biases; that item, which involved the cooperation of so many people, contrasted with what's going on now, reveals the biases of a much larger group of people.

CBS News today is carrying the AP story, "Dems to Use Moderation if They Win House." Written by Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor, the article appears intended to quiet any anxieties about what a Democratic majority in the House will mean.

Writes Taylor:

"They're mostly a liberal bunch. Yet the would-be chairmen in a House under Democratic control promise to rule from the center. They'd have little choice, given the likely balance of power they would confront if elected."

Later in the story:

"What won't be seen is any serious move to impeach Bush, even though the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, has introduced a bill calling on Congress to determine whether there are grounds for impeachment over the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

"Conyers already has been overruled by Democratic leaders including would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, who dismiss any talk of impeachment."

Just who is David Kuo? For starters, he used to be the Deputy Director of the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. Additionally, he has now written a book claiming the Bush White House is selling out evangelical Christians. But is he as conservative as the media would have Americans believe? The author appeared on the October 18 edition of "The Colbert Report" and seemed to fit right in with "pretend right-winger" Stephen Colbert:

Stephen Colbert: "Let's get Jesus in the Oval Office. You heard me at the top of the show. Why not do it? How does that hurt to equate God with the President? How does that- How does that hurt?"

Kuo: "Because it gives the impression that Jesus endorses a particular political agenda, you know, that Jesus is somehow, you know, pro-life, anti-homosexual, pro-Iraq war and pro-estate tax. You know, when Jesus actually wasn't about those things. You know, It's the good news. Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus comes to give life, give it in full. That's Jesus. One is politics. A big difference."

Matt Drudge highlights an item from today's White House news briefing where press secretary Tony Snow said media coverage was designed to suppress Republican voter turnout.

Q Tony, what does it say about the trouble that the Republican Party is in right now that the President is having to go out and campaign today in what should have been two safe Republican races?

MR. SNOW: This is a close election contest. On the other hand, what does it say, you've got Bill Clinton running around and campaigning for people. Does that mean Democrats are suddenly worried? I think it's important that you have a President going out and engaging. I'll tell you why we're confident about what's coming up. We think we've got better candidates, we got better issues, we got better solutions to the problems that face Americans. On a tactical level, Ken Mehlman says he's got 55 million bucks more than the Democrats have in get-out-the-vote measures. And just from my fractional experience out there, every time people read these stories that almost look like suppression efforts to bring down Republican morale, the Republicans say, man, I'm ready, I'm going to get out there and do it.

“Big Brother is Watching You!” Such was the cautionary phrase the citizens in George Orwell’s “1984” were regularly reminded of. According to a recent article in Mother Jones, today it is Google that is watching you:

Over the years, Google has collected a staggering amount of data, and the company cheerfully admits that in nine years of operation, it has never knowingly erased a single search query. It’s the biggest data pack rat west of the nsa, and for good reason: 99 percent of its revenue comes from selling ads that are specifically targeted to a user’s interests. “Google’s entire value proposition is to figure out what people want,” says Eric Goldman, a professor at Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara School of Law and director of the High Tech Law Institute. “But to read our minds, they need to know a lot about us.”

The article eerily continued:

Viewers of Thursday’s edition of ‘The View’ were granted another glimpse into the liberal world view of co-host Rosie O’Donnell. Today, O’Donnell recounted her teary phone conversation with former President Bill Clinton, in which he apologized for the Monica Lewinsky affair. Later in the program, during an interview with Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, O’Donnell slammed John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for President, for conceding the 2004 election before all the votes were counted and accused the Republicans of "cheating" by tinkering with the voting machines.

During the "Hot Topics" segment of the show, the ‘View’ women were discussing congressional sex scandals, which led Rosie to recount her phone call with the former president:

O’Donnell: "And I said to him, you know, to tell you the truth, sir, you broke my heart. I said, you know, I loved you like my mom loved Kennedy and, you know, I had faith in you, one of the few men I had real faith and hope in."

Rosie’s full tale of her presidential phone call behind the cut:

Oftentimes, many right-of-center folks just don't realize how powerful the media is at shaping public opinion. Usually, a media outlet's endorsement of a political person or point-of-view doesn't have that much of an impact. Where the media excel, however, is in creating negative perception.

Left-wingers are intimately aware of this ability, which is why so many of them choose to get into the media (why more conservatives don't is another question). Liberal journalists care very much about their objective pose and are loathe to admit this in most cases, which makes times like now all the more worth nothing as journalists talk about the "lesson" America learned during the Vietnam War and the Tet Offensive, a campaign mounted by the communist Vietnamese in which they failed to win militarily.

Republican Congressman James Saxton is not exactly an endangered incumbent, as CQ and C-SPAN rate him as safe. But, you wouldn’t know that from watching Thursday’s "Early Show" on CBS. Correspondent Randall Pinkston, who offered some wishful thinking, narrated a two and half minute piece on New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District where Congressman Saxton is being challenged by Democrat Richard Sexton. Apparently, the fact that the two men have similar sounding last names is enough to warrant a full story. Pinkston highlighted that the similarity in names could cause confusion at the polls, then proceeded to offer a shameless plug of another Viacom channel, Comedy Central, and its star of fake news, Stephen Colbert.

NBC's efforts to reestablish itself have gone poorly, and its cable network MSNBC is still stuck in last place. Execs are considering putting MSNBC's two biggest stars, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, on business channel CNBC, and using the rest of MSNBC for taped programming about "murder mysteries" and similar tabloid material. From Broadcasting and Cable:

NBC Universal employees are bracing for the worst as Chairman-CEO Bob Wright and NBC U TV Group CEO Jeff Zucker are convening town hall meetings in Los Angeles and New York for what is expected to be news of restructuring and job cuts.

Sources say Wright will appear on the Universal Studios lot near Burbank on Thursday while Zucker holds a similar meeting with East Coast employee in New York. NBC press reps were not available at press time.

Back in 1994, the last time Democrats had majorities in the House and Senate, the broadcast networks tried to suffocate the Republican challenge with negative spin. NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw scoffed at the GOP's Contract with America: "It is long on promises, but short on sound premises."

No Republican got worse press that year than the man who would be Speaker, Newt Gingrich. ABC's Jim Wooten slammed Gingrich as "the national poster boy for the politics of resentment and rage." CBS's Eric Engberg skewered Gingrich as "bombastic and ruthless....the family values candidate who divorced his ailing first wife."

Fast forward 12 years, and now Republicans are defending their House and Senate majorities in a tough election. But the broadcast networks have so far refused to scrutinize the Democrats who wish to lead the next Congress.

These days, it is almost as telling what little gems media organizations choose to hide from the public about their own polls as what they share. The release of the most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is a fine example. As NewsBusters reported, the good folks at the “Today” show on Thursday seemed quite giddy over numbers that suggest the Republicans are in a lot of trouble in the upcoming midterm elections. However, as is typical, what wasn’t shared from this study conceivably gives a different picture.

For example, as is typical these days, news organizations don’t like to share the political affiliations of those questioned. Certainly, you can’t blame them, for this might give the public some pause to trust the veracity of the data. This instance was no exception, for those that were either “strong Democrat,” “Not very strong Democrat,” or “Independent/lean Democrat” totaled 43 percent of the respondents. The tally for “Strong Republican,” “Not very strong Republican,” and “Independent/lean Republican” was only 37 percent. As such, 16 percent more Democrats or those who leaned Democrat were polled versus Republicans and those who leaned Republican. Color me not surprised.

But, that’s only the beginning.

Last night Lou Dobbs hosted a one hour-long "War on the Middle Class" special on CNN. The biased town hall forum shares a title with Dobbs's big-government-friendly book that bears the same title.

Dobbs is part of CNN's ramped-up pre-election coverage that, surprise, surprise, has been gloomy and pessimistic about the economy, the war in Iraq, and pretty much everything else touching on the Bush administration or Republican Congress.

Dobbs has two more evening specials before the election and CNN's Jack "X-Files" Cafferty has a special tonight which, I'm sure is also a must-TiVo.

Here's an excerpt of the take my colleague Julia Seymour and I had on Dobb's program after reviewing it. You can find the full article here:

On Wednesday, the Washington Post endorsed James Webb’s “independent-minded challenge” running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate against Sen. George Allen. If ever an endorsement has seemed less necessary to identify a newspaper’s position on a federal election, I’m not sure what it is. To match the endorsement, Wednesday’s Post had a classic Webb-fanzine story on the front of the Metro section.

The Metro section article was titled “Webb Is Reluctant To Advertise Duty: Veteran Blasts Allen’s Public Comments.” In a typical display of utter shamelessness, Michael Shear and Tim Craig reported “Webb said it is improper to use military service in an overtly political way.” Webb’s quote: “I don’t think it’s right to use someone’s service directly for a political reason.” This article should have been laughed away from the Metro desk. Webb’s biography as a Vietnam veteran and eight-month Navy Secretary under Reagan has been his constant, everyday calling card in this race. The man with the motto "Born Fighting" on every bumper sticker and yard sign? Need we remind the Washington Post of the Webb campaign's first TV ad? It went like this:

Senator Barack Obama got NBC's Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer and even Al Roker in a tizzy as he made this morning's Today show his latest tour stop. Vieira called the Democratic senator an "electrifying," "rock star" and never once threw a tough question his way, even getting him to call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

On to promote his book and Democrats in the midterms, Obama received the full TRL treatment on the October 19th Today show, complete with Vieira offering guest musical performer Vince Gill as an incentive for Obama to announce his presidential candidacy.

First up Vieira and Lauer did their best Vanessa Minnillo and Carson Daly imitations as they teased the upcoming interview at the top of the 8:00am hour:

Remember Chris Hedges, the former Times reporter and Middle East bureau chief for the paper who got unplugged for his anti-war ranting at a Rockford College graduation ceremony in 2003?

Here was his stirring opener to the assembled graduates:

“Thank you very much. I want to speak to you today about war and empire. The killing, or at least the worst of it, is over in Iraq, although blood will continue to spill, theirs and ours; be prepared for this. For we are embarking on an occupation that if history is any guide will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security. But this will come later, our empire expands and in all this we become pariahs, tyrants to others weaker than ourselves."

But not for the reasons reporters think, or are willing to admit.

From the Washington Post:

GREENSBORO, N.C., Oct. 18 -- President Bush said Wednesday that the current surge of violence in Iraq "could be" comparable to the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, a succession of battles that became a milestone because it helped turn the American public against the conflict and its political leadership.

What the WaPo won't come right out and say is that it wasn't the Tet Offensive itself that had such a devastating effect upon civilian morale, it was the abjectly incompetent reporting of the event by American journalists.

Discuss the news of the day and whatever else here.

In another apparent win for the Internet and New Media, NBC Universal announced on Thursday (hat tip to Drudge) a restructuring of some of its on-air programming (emphasis mine throughout):

NBC Universal plans to cut US$750 million in operating expenses by the end of 2007 by eliminating employees, cutting back on scripted shows, and slashing its news budget, according to a report Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.

The moves come as more and more viewers and advertisers gravitate toward new media, NBC Universal chairman Bob Wright told the newspaper. He said the moves would restore the company to double-digit growth next year.

The article continued:

On the 30th of September I wrote a post on Newsbusters about how the BBC is using their reporting on the Global War on Terror to advance their ideological bias against the war instead of merely reporting the facts of the news.

On the BBC website a segment called The Editors appeared on Oct. 2nd and raises this very posting of mine and makes an attempt to refute it.

Alistair Burnett (editor of "The World Tonight") made a weak attempt to nay say my point.

Is the BBC trying to make a political point when it uses the expression 'so-called War on Terror' or 'The Bush Administration's War on Terror' or 'the American-led War on Terror'?

It’s been almost six years since Al Gore wasted five weeks of America’s time trying to steal Florida from George W. Bush. As much as we all knew at the time what a seminal moment in history this was, no one could have predicted that in every subsequent election, a major political party would use voter fraud to contest the legitimacy of the victors.

Well, in preparation for such infantile carping and whining, the New York Times on Thursday published an article entitled “New Laws and Machines May Spell Voting Woes” just to set the groundwork for complaints nationwide if the Democrats don’t take back Congress. After all, the votes have to be there somewhere even if the results suggest otherwise (emphasis mine throughout): “As dozens of states are enforcing new voter registration laws and switching to paperless electronic voting systems, officials across the country are bracing for an Election Day with long lines and heightened confusion, followed by an increase in the number of contested results.”

The Times clearly wasn’t negligent in identifying states where key races are occurring:

Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer and Tim Russert were so excited to announce the "perfect storm" of negative poll numbers for the GOP that they couldn't wait to report it. On this morning's Today show viewers were greeted with these first words out of Vieira's mouth:

Vieira: "Good morning, poll plunge. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that huge numbers of Americans are losing faith over the war in Iraq and the news isn't any better for Republicans in Congress."

Then right after Today's theme music played Lauer and Viera jumped right back poll:

Matt Lauer: "This new poll shows a startling drop in public confidence when it comes to the war in Iraq. It's down 24 percentage points since June of this year and these are numbers that Republicans are gonna find very troubling. We're gonna talk to Tim Russert about that and some other poll numbers in just a minute."

On his show yesterday, MSNBC's Tucker Carlson congratulated Diane Sawyer of ABC for leaving the comforts of home to report from North Korea. Judging by her report this morning, you'd have to say the rigors have been worth it. Sawyer has been on a week-long stay in Dear-Leader Land,