Friday's morning shows offered more of the same election coverage. On ABC, Kate Snow highlighted how everyone Republican is running from Bush (with Rick Santorum touting his work with Hillary, God forbid) and gave Michael J. Fox another huge soundbite. On NBC, David Gregory explored how Democrats would rule. The first rule: hike the minimum wage.

ABC's Megan McCormack took down the Snow report, which is true enough, but has to play to a regular news viewer like the same old news in heavy rotation:

Chris Cuomo: "It's less than two weeks now until the congressional elections and we're seeing a new trend among GOP candidates: putting some distance between themselves and the White House. Here's ABC's Kate Snow." 

Taking their cue from big mainstream media, other outlets are joining in the fun by unabashedly bashing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.

The editor of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times checked in today with his offering: "Plain talk: Limbaugh should be ashamed, but isn't." Dave Zweifel's column starts objectively enough:

"Rush Limbaugh may not be this country's most disgusting human being, but he surely ranks among the top 10." Mr. Limbaugh, we learn, is part of "the well-honed Republican attack machine" that so viciously attacks liberal Democrats.

Zweifel additionally notes: "The pity of it all is that all too many Americans fall for these tactics of character assassination."

Character assassination is something with which Zweifel is intimately acquainted. Five years ago, he examined the relationship between White House reporters and President George W. Bush and - amazingly - introduced Adolph Hitler into the equation.

As reported by OpinionJournal.com, Zweifel wrote:

"I swear that if this current bunch of supposed White House reporters were covering Adolf Hitler back in the early days of his administration, they'd be writing glowing accounts of how successful the German chancellor was in achieving his goals.

All that was missing was the theme music from Deliverance. Not content to condemn George Allen for raising the issue of Jim Webb's racy writing, Chris Matthews decided on this evening's Hardball to slur the entire Commonwealth of Virginia south of the DC suburbs.

Interviewing senior Webb campaign advisor Steve Jarding [Chris did indicate that he had unsuccessfully tried to get an Allen representative on the show], Matthews had this to say:

"Not to take sides but they've had this material since the day Jim Webb announced, and they've chosen to use it now with the risk that it implies, because everybody in Northern Virginia, in this area of the country, reads books, they think."

Pilots for 9/11 truth have looked at the animation released by NTSB that shows the flight path of AA 77 that supposedly hit the pentagon. However, it completely contradicts the "official" flight path presented by the gov't.

Here is their page with the NTSB video comparing the "official" path to the one NTSB released. Why the discrepency? I don't know what this means, but NTSB won't address this issue or issue a correction.

http://pilotsfor911t...

During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Lynne Cheney turned the tables on the cable network and bluntly asked if Blitzer wanted the U.S. to win in Iraq:

Lynne Cheney: "Right, But what is CNN doing running terrorist tape of terrorist shooting Americans? I mean, I thought Duncan Hunter asked you a very good question and you didn’t answer it. Do you want us to win?"

Wolf Blitzer: "The answer, of course, is we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There’s no doubt about it. You think we want terrorists to win?"

The Vice President’s wife was referring to an October 23 segment with Congressman Duncan Hunter, in which he criticized the network for airing footage of insurgents killing Americans. Mrs. Cheney, who appeared on the October 27 edition of "The Situation Room," continued her harsh analysis of CNN. "Why," she wondered, "are you running terrorist propaganda?"

Video clip (1:16): Real (2.2 MB) or Windows Media (2.6 MB), plus MP3 audio (450 KB)

David Letterman treated FNC's Bill O'Reilly and conservative views with disdain as the two got into a bit of tempest when O'Reilly last appeared on the Late Show back on Tuesday, January 3, as detailed in my NewsBusters post of the time (with video), “Letterman Denounces Iraq War, Sheehan Critics.” O'Reilly will be a guest again on tonight's (Friday) show which was, oddly, taped on Monday and thus allowed Letterman to talk about it a bit on Thursday's program. Letterman hasn't gained any admiration for O'Reilly in the past ten months, as demonstrated by how he recalled: “The last time he was on the show I caught him lying. And I said to myself, well you better do something, you just can't sit here and let this guy lie, so I jumped all over him and there was a bit of a dust-up.” Letterman also revealed his strategy for the interview: “He's a blowhard, I'll be a blowhard too. So when he comes out what I do is I attack him. And I just make a fool of myself and, of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about and neither does he.” (Summary of Letterman's remarks back in January follow.)

Update, 8:15pm EDT: The Late Show Web site has posted (on its "Big Show Highlights" page) a 3:39 streaming Real video from Friday's show of a very heated argument between O'Reilly and Letterman, with some insults from Letterman, over Iraq.

With less then two weeks to go before the midterm elections, two separate programs, on two different networks, speculated that the Republicans are colluding with big oil to lower gas prices. The "Today" show wondered if this indicated "a vast right-wing conspiracy."

Fox’s Geraldo Rivera speculated that America was seeing a case of "gas pump pimping."

Meanwhile, ABC’s "Nightline" weighed in on political commercials and lamented GOP "mudslinging." They also characterized Rush Limbaugh’s comments about Michael J. Fox as a "vicious attack." (They apparently didn’t find any mudslinging or vicious attacks done by the Democrats)

CNN had their own take on Limbaugh’s comments. They wondered: "Could it be a new low?"

Speaking of the cable network, CNN also previewed a new Bush special by noting that "many say" the President has "stretched" and "trampled" the Constitution.

As NewsBusters reported Friday, some rather steamy sex scenes are depicted in the novels of the Democrat challenger to Sen. George Allen (R-Virginia), Jim Webb. In NB’s report, the question was raised as to how the media would handle these revelations. An article posted at CNN’s website likely gives us a clue. In fact, you can tell the slant of the story just from the headline, “Webb on sex passage recital: 'It's smear after smear.’”

What followed came straight from the liberal media playbook. First, you need to give the offended Democrat an extraordinary amount of print-space to explain his or her position, and allow the “victim” to blame the attacks on the vast ring-wing conspiracy. Second, you need to discredit the offending Republican. Third, you need to give examples of other Republicans doing exactly what the Democrat is accused of doing.

With that in mind, step one was accomplished thusly:

CNN’s "American Morning" devoted four minutes of air time, and free advertising, to a faux documentary that includes a digitally created assassination of George W. Bush. The network, which has refused to air commercials for the controversial "Death of a President," instead featured the film’s director on the Friday edition of its morning show. Anchor Miles O’Brien opened the interview with some free promotion in the form of a 13 second clip of the movie. The film's director, Gabriel Range, certainly understood the benefit of what a CNN appearance offered him. He explained late in the interview:

Miles O’Brien: "Some of these theaters that have said no to your film, in the end, all the buzz surrounding this, I guess that might be good for business, huh?"

Gabriel Range: "I think the distributor, New Market, are keen to -- they've got the film out in a lot of theaters. And they're very confident that it will reach a wide audience. I hope the fact you and I are talking about it today will mean that a lot of people will want to see the film. I would say, it's not what you think. Judge it for yourself."

On last night's syndicated Fox show, Geraldo At Large, Geraldo Rivera went on a rambling rant on issues meant to motivate Democrats to the polls and then urged his viewers: "Don't forget to vote." Rivera railed against the President's signing of  the "dumb" and "dishonest," immigration bill, the "outrageous" RNC ad against Harold Ford, "meant to stir up racist fears," and even repeated his charge about a Big Oil price conspiracy.

The following is the entire October 26th final commentary from Rivera that, with the exception of his reference to Madonna, focused on anti-Republican themes:

Geraldo Rivera: "With the election just two weeks away and Republicans in danger of losing their control of Congress, President Bush buckled today, holding his nose and signing a really dumb, maybe even dishonest, bill, authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border. That meaningless and inflammatory legislation is just one of the things really bugging me today."

For these people with short memories who think the Jim Webb novel passages with lusty or just strange sexual episodes have no place in political news, clearly they do not remember the Newt Gingrich Bodice-Ripper as it broke to liberal media jokes in December of 1994. Webb’s strange passages drew no attention on the network morning shows Friday, unlike the liberal Gingrich fun in 1994:

-- CNN ended its afternoon show Inside Politics on December 1, 1994 with this exchange between anchors Bernard Shaw and Judy Woodruff on the enterprising New York Times:

Shaw: "Well, Gingrich is taking a sense of history into a new surprising realm. He's co-authoring a novel about World War II at its aftermath. Gingrich describes it as 'historical science fiction,' but others might categorize it as a sexy potboiler, at least based on an excerpt obtained by the New York Times. Now one passage reads - and let me emphasize I'm quoting now - 'Suddenly the pouting sex kitten gave way to Diana the Huntress. She rolled onto to him and somehow was sitting athwart his chest, her knees pinning his shoulders. 'Tell me, or I will make you do terrible things,' she hissed.' What are political watchers to make of this offering from the speaker-in-waiting and a proponent of family values? Well, incoming Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was asked for his comments today."

ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” reporter Mike von Fremd offered a ridiculous comparison between Exxon Mobil and Iceland during a segment about Exxon’s third-quarter profits. Stating that Exxon’s profits of $10.5 billion were “about the same as Iceland’s entire Gross National Product,” was an absurd attempt to persuade the audience that Exxon is making too much money.

Iceland’s entire GNP is created by a population of just under 300,000 people which is roughly equivalent to the city of Newark, New Jersey. But neither comparison has much to do with the price of eggs, or in this case: oil.

Camille Paglia, cultural scholar and maverick liberal Democrat, has given a politically themed interview to the left-wing online magazine Salon in which she touches on some media issues. (HT: National Review Online's Hot Links.)

Previously, Paglia has readily acknowledged that liberal media bias exists, and that it's hardly a new phenomenon; she's said that Barry Goldwater was the target of a "vicious media assault" during the 1964 presidential campaign.

In the Salon interview, Paglia argues that the media and Democrats were guilty of "gargantuan overkill" in their treatment of the Mark Foley matter, but that the excessive coverage actually wound up being a "tremendous boon" to President Bush because it distracted the public from the Iraq war.

With the elections getting very close, Chris Matthews appears even more rabid, if that's possible. Recently, he's taken to speaking for others. Not just for other liberals, but for everyone everywhere.

Last night's "Hardball" offered an example of this. The topic was the political ads Michael J. Fox is doing for Democrats around the country. There's considerable controversy - and misunderstanding - about what Rush Limbaugh said about Fox's ads and the entire question of Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

For Matthews, however, there's no room for disagreement as the facts speak for themselves:

"Everybody likes Michael J. Fox and nobody agrees with Rush Limbaugh that he was faking it or went off his meds to do a good show."

Everybody likes Michael J. Fox? Nobody agrees with Rush Limbaugh?

CBS’s "The Early Show" followed last night’s Michael J. Fox bonanza on the "Evening News" with more of the same on Friday morning. "The Early Show" aired more than 13 minutes of coverage to stories mentioning Fox, more than 10 minutes of that focused on Fox alone, while just a mere 40 seconds dealt with a response ad starring Patricia Heaton and Jim Caviezel.

Hannah Storm called Fox "courageous" and asserted "you just couldn’t take your eyes off the television last night." Harry Smith thought Fox’s interview was "powerful" and urged all those opposed to embryonic stem cell research to "at least listen to these arguments." Additionally, CBS tried to make Fox out to be nonpartisan, despite the fact that he is running commercials for Democratic candidates. Yet in their awe of Michael J. Fox, there was no exploration of the claims made in his political commercials and whether they are indeed factually accurate. Nor did CBS take the opportunity to differentiate between different types of stem cells. In fact, in a live interview, Katie Couric called Rush Limbaugh, someone who raised questions about Fox’s ads, "heartless."

MSNBC's Chris Matthews invited the Dixie Chicks on last night's Hardball to promote the new documentary Shut Up and Sing and asked them if they felt their anti-Iraq position has been vindicated, to which the Chicks responded in martyred terms of being put on Free Republic's and "Christian fundamentalist" country fans' "hate list."

The following exchange occurred on the October 26th edition of Hardball:

Chris Matthews: "Martie, I get the feeling at the time that you folks, when you made that statement and you all stood behind it and took the heat for it, that the country world out there and country music was definitely for the war. I mean, I think of Toby Keith singing that song, 'Remember How You Felt' which is basically a pitch that if you didn't like 9/11 you had to like Iraq, that they were basically lining up and saying this was a smart thing for the U.S. to do. It turns out most Americans all over the country think it's not a smart thing that we did."

The campaign ad mocking Tennessee Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. may be fading from the airwaves, but not in the pages of the New York Times, which is still pushing the "racism" angle, as it does in Anne Kornblut and Jim Rutenberg's Friday story, "Federal Rules Help Shield Creators of Political Advertisements." Their opening paragraph was also strategically located on Friday's front page with the little headline "A Provocative Attack, A Familiar Creator." It read:

Newsweek's cover story this week about Rep. Harold Ford. Jr is illustrated in the Table of Contents by a dramatic black and white picture of Ford glancing heavenward in a church under the headline "Racing to the Center." The Ford cover story by Jonathan Darman, framed by an enormous photo of Ford's head taking up two glorious pages, began with 300 people coming out of the darkness to hear "Ford praise the Lord and lecture man" at a historic hotel, as people sang "Amazing Grace" and shouted Hallelujah. "'I love Jesus, I can't help it,' the congressman tells the crowd." On page 33, there's a half-page photo of Ford bowing his head  and joining hands with staff in a prayer before a debate. Nowhere, in this 3,944-word story is any mention of this fervent Christian attending that 2005 Playboy-bunny party in Jacksonville on Super Bowl weekend.

Don't think it's because Newsweek was flat-footed and unaware. In the March 27, 2006 Newsweek, Darman related those nasty Republicans were going negative early:

Today's starter: The Secret Service is investigating death threats against President Bush that were posted on the leftist bulletin board Democratic Underground.

Drudge reported Friday morning that Sen. George Allen (R-Virginia) has released passages from his opponent Jim Webb’s novels that contain some rather lurid scenes. Due to their content, they will not be reprinted here. However, there are depictions of homosexuality, and underage sexual activity.

Given the media frenzy over Mark Foley’s electronic messages to male pages, the question is raised as to whether the press will give these revelations any coverage eleven days before Election Day. Should the fiction writings of a candidate seeking such high office be fair game for scrutiny, or is this a Hail Mary pass the media shouldn’t bother with?

Drudge reported quite a shocker Thursday evening: “In an Ironic Twist of Events, NBC and The CW Television Network Refuse to Air Ads for Documentary Focusing on Freedom of Speech…NBC Claims that the Network ‘Cannot Accept These Spots as They are Disparaging to President Bush.’”

Shocking. For those that are interested, the ad is available here. In it is the famous line from one of the Chicks, "We're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas," as well as one clearly referring to Bush as a "dumb s---".

Drudge's report continued:

Yahoo has a new videa feature for uploading videos. Obviously a challenge to YouTube. It will be interesting to see if Yahoo allows political videos and commentary and if so what kind of senorship regulations are applied.  Yahoo's isn't as categorized yet but I am sure in time it will be.