ABC's Mark Litke, checking in from Seoul on Monday's World News, seemed to rationalize North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il's pursuit of a nuclear weapon as he treated as credible the contention the regime has had, for decades, a reasonable fear of U.S. invasion, a fear exacerbated by President George W. Bush. Litke proposed: “It's difficult to imagine Kim Jong Il as a clever and calculating leader who knows exactly what he wants, but, in fact, he may be much smarter than most people realize." Litke soon outlined, leading into a soundbite from Clinton administration UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, how “Kim has justified his missile tests and nuclear program as a deterrent to what he sees as an eventual U.S. invasion. It's a longstanding fear dating back to the Korean War when Kim's father, Kim Il Sung, feared the U.S. would use nuclear weapons against his country. That historic fear was reinforced 50 years later when the U.S. labeled North Korea part of an 'Axis of Evil' with Iran and Iraq. Kim Jong Il feared he would always be next after Iraq." (Transcript follows)

As they padded for time waiting for a live statement on the North Korean nuclear test from President Bush in the 9 am hour of Today on Monday, NBC's Andrea Mitchell scolded that Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright were building reconciliation between North and South Korea, but Bush came in and ruined it, overruling his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, "cutting him off at the knees." Typically, Today co-host Matt Lauer insisted the North Korean nuclear test was just the latest in a string of bad news for Bush, from Iraq and Iran to the Mark Foley page scandal.

Matt Lauer led into the Clinton-praising section: "Andrea, I have to say as David [Gregory] mentioned a second ago, when I was there a few years ago it was surprising to me that there is starting to be this communication and actual physical contact between South and North Korea. This, there's a super highway being built that really connects the two."

These two videos will certainly shock people. Speaking in front of the National Press Club, media mogul Ted Turner actually spoke out against news programs showing the American flag during coverage of the Iraq war. Maybe more shocking, he said that he’s unclear what side to take on the war on terror.

What follows are the full transcripts of both sound bites, with videos here and here (grateful hat tip to Drudge).

A new CBS News/New York Times poll discovered, that despite day after day pounding from the news media, two-thirds said the Foley matter will make “no difference” in how they vote -- with 72 percent of independents saying so as well as a majority of Democrats (51 percent). But, Monday's CBS Evening News ignored that response as Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer found plenty of other bad news for the GOP to highlight. Couric asserted that Mark Foley's “tawdry story continues to unfold just 29 days before the midterm elections,” as if she and her media colleagues are not active participants in fueling it, and the “poll tonight indicates the GOP is in big trouble.” Schieffer declared: “This poll is about as bad as it can get for Republicans” because it suggests “that more and more Americans just don't believe them anymore, whether they are in the White House or in Congress.” Specifically, “a sizable majority, 57 percent, believes the President had warnings before 9/11 of a terrorist attack,” “nearly half, 47 percent, believe Democrats are more likely to share American moral values compared to 38 percent for Republicans” and “by two to one, Americans now believe Republicans are more corrupt than Democrats.”

Over on ABC, George Stephanopoulos listed a lot of bad news for Republicans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, but anchor Charles Gibson began with how the fresh survey found “just 18 percent of voters consider the scandal an important issue.” NBC's Martin Savidge undermined the premise of how GOP voters are disillusioned. For the NBC Nightly News, he traveled to Tennessee where he learned that “Christian conservatives blame former Congressman Foley, not the party. Everyone we talked to said they'll be there come election day.”

The show bills itself as 'Hardball.'  But in surrounding himself with regulars who are either certified liberals or renegade Republicans, doesn't Chris Matthews prove himself to be a softy, unwilling or unable to take the high heat from true-blue Republican flamethrowers?

Let me say something that might surprise some NewsBusters readers and dismay others.  I like Matthews.  Not that conservatives are the arbiters of patriotism, but I do consider Chris someone who loves his country and, as misguided as he may be on various policy issues - has its best interests at heart.  He's no Keith Olbermann.

That said, although he professes not to be a partisan and will speak to Democrats about "your" - not "our" - party, there can be little doubt that his rooting interest hasn't changed much since the days he was a top aide to Tip. 

Quite a simple concept really, each show reviews a "generally accepted" historical premise such as Vietman as "Nixon's War" as I just read in a blog comment.

The purpose of each show would be to ask the simple question of each premise, that doesn't ever seem to be asked. WHY?

Examples:

WHY is it considered Nixon's War?

WHY are liberals considered weak on national security?

WHY are conservatives considered racist?

WHY is Fox considered bias?

Feel free to add you own.

I just happened to breeze by this on Drudge, a couple of links for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J-mUwkmw-M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPIA95SLv6g

See them for yourself.  Suffice it to say, that in WWII, Ted Turner (if he wouldn't have been already) would have been arrested for subverting the war effort.  Today's politikal korrectness, however, states that treason is the highest form of patriotism.  It's not highly likely that CNN or any of the other broadkast companies will come within 1000 yards of this, for fear of losing their jobs to a man who still has influence in the media industry.

It's really sad to see how many people in this great nation are so willing to encourage and support the enemy by shifting the problem to be on the US.  I'm suprised he hasn't volunteered his personal jet for the next aircraft terrorist attack.

Both Time and Newsweek are out with another set of “bad news for Republicans” covers this week, as Tim Graham pointed out earlier this morning. In her magazine’s cover story, Time’s Karen Tumulty suggests that Republican are about to lose control of Congress. “It took 40 years for the House Democrats to exhaust their goodwill. It may take only 12 years for the Republicans to get there.”

For millions who will only notice Time, Newsweek, or U.S. News & World Report as they’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, the picture and headline on the cover will convey the news magazine’s editorial summary of the week’s important news. This week, Time showcases a huge shot of an elephant’s rump, symbolizing the end of the GOP’s control of Congress. Newsweek has a huge close-up of the disgraced Mark Foley’s face, an image that dwarfs a picture of President Bush.

Shailagh Murray's front-page story in the Washington Post today is called "A Balancing Act in the Upper South." A better title might have been "I'm NARAL-Endorsed, But I'm Hoping You Don't Notice." It's funny how Murray can't seem to locate that endorsement, and she doesn't call McCaskill a pro-abortion liberal, but she is merely in the "mainstream" -- of the liberal Democratic Party:

As a supporter of abortion rights, McCaskill fits into her party's mainstream on the biggest of all lightning rods for cultural conservatives.She responds by mostly not talking about it, and is attempting to define her values more broadly.

Jim Robinson, founder of the popular conservative forum FreeRepublic.com, was trashed by a spokesman for the (formerly) country music ensemble Dixie Chicks. Reports the New York Post:

THE Dixie Chicks' biggest detractor, FreeRepublic.com founder Jim Robinson, declined to appear in their documentary, "Shut Up and Sing." Now Ken Sunshine, who reps the George Bush-bashing Chicks, calls him "a coward. A real man would put his money where his mouth is, but this Robinson guy, he'd rather hide behind his keyboard than have a real discussion about his ideas .

First, Katie Couric wondered who made America the "boss" of the world, now ABC’s Diane Sawyer wants to know if "the U.S. can tell other countries whether they can have nuclear weapons or not...." Sawyer asked the question on the October 9 edition of "Good Morning America." The GMA anchor talked with Donald Gregg, former ambassador to South Korea under the first President Bush, about North Korea’s apparent test of a nuclear weapon. Ms. Sawyer composed the following query to Gregg about whether America has the right to criticize such testing:

On FNC's two-hour Sunday special (8-10pm EDT) to mark the channel's tenth anniversary, former CBS News and MSNBC executive Erik Sorenson articulated what the AP's David Bauder last week paraphrased him as acknowledging: How New York-based news media executives were so out of touch that they did not recognize the depth of belief in liberal media bias into which FNC tapped. “There was a full-on commitment” to the “fair and balanced” premise, Sorenson proposed during FNC's special, Fox News at 10: Thank You America, in explaining FNC's success: “There were far more people in America who seemed to hold that opinion of the liberal media bias than anyone in New York City -- the media capital of the world -- had estimated."

As detailed in an October 2 NewsBusters posting, Bauder had reported: “Before Fox, many in the media scoffed at the notion of a liberal bias and figured only a handful of people really believed that, said Erik Sorenson, former MSNBC President. 'Fox proved it's a much larger group than anybody realized,' he said.”

Gary Trudeau, creator of the 'Doonesbury' comic strip, says cartoonists should draw the line when it comes to offending people. In an interview published in the Santa Barbara Independent:

Q. What did you make of the Danish cartoon mess? I understand that you said you would never play with the image of Allah. But did you feel you should have done so out of a sense of professional solidarity, or to make a statement about freedom of speech?

A. What exactly would that statement be? That we can say whatever we want in the West? Everyone already knows that. So then the question becomes, should we say whatever we want? That, to me, is the crux. Do you hurt people just because you can? Because you feel they shouldn’t be deeply hurt, does that mean they aren’t? Should the New York Times run vicious caricatures of blacks and Jews just to show the First Amendment in action? At some point, common sense and sensitivity have to be brought to bear.

Of all the photos of President Bush and Mark Foley available, this is the one Newsweek chose for its big story on the scandal this week.

UPDATE 10-20-2006: The New York Times is displaying the same photo in its online edition of today. Seems that this is the photo of choice in the MSM. Hat tip to Gary Hall.

At the conclusion of CNN’s "Your World Today," which features an international take on the news of the day, anchors Stephen Frazier and Rosemary Church read a variety of e-mails on North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons. Only in the morally relativistic world of CNN, where all opinions are equal, could a letter like this repeated aloud:

Church: "And a completely different view. Soh, from Singapore writes: ‘The North Koreans have done the right thing. Since the end of the Korean War, they have been subjected to hostilities from the United States. and other western powers. This bomb is a source of tremendous pride for the Korean people, north and south. The world should congratulate the North Korean people for this achievement."

One can imagine a 1930s CNN reading German e-mails congratulating Hitler on his triumphant liberation of Poland.

Open for discussion on the news of the day and anything else.

Monday's Business section story by Tom Zeller Jr., "A Slippery Slope of Censorship at YouTube," defends conservative columnist's Michelle Malkin right to free expression at the popular video website -- with palpable reluctance.

"Last week, as YouTube continued its recent campaign to spit-shine its image and, perhaps, to look a little less ragtag to potential buyers (including Google, which was said to be eyeing the upstart in the $1.6 billion range), the company took a scrub bucket to some questionable political graffiti on its servers, including a video entry from the doyenne of right-wing blogs, Michelle Malkin."

     It takes a lot of effort to miss 810,000 new jobs. The Labor Department managed it, but at least they corrected the problem. The networks have over-reported job losses and now this huge piece of good news got lost in the shuffle.

     The October 8 Washington Post highlighted the incredible revision. “Unemployment is down to 4.6 percent, the lowest in five years, the Labor Department reported, adding with some embarrassment that it had suddenly discovered an estimated 810,000 net new jobs that it had somehow overlooked in the year ended in March,” wrote Steven Pearlstein.

Buried on page 6 of the New York Times Business section, Noam Cohen reported a juicy media-bias story: "At Reuters, a New Book and a Lost Job," which suggests that Reuters, the supposedly unbiased wire service, is dismissing a financial editor for authoring a book attacking Ann Coulter. After all, the company principles state Reuter highly values the principles of “integrity, independence and freedom from bias.” As they did with Adnan Hajj's fauxtography? And their failure to use the word terrorist as "two planes" attacked New York on 9/11? 

Liberal comedian Jon Stewart regularly analyzes and criticizes the cable and broadcast news programs. When someone tries to do the same to his "Daily Show," however, the Stewart says he's just a comedian doing "fake news."

That used to be true back in the day when "Daily" was primarily comprised of spoof reports and fake interviews. But since Iraq war started, "Daily" has largely turned into a nightly bash-Republicans program, with the news of the day as the cudgel. In so doing, Stewart has evolved his show into a news program, despite his protestations to the contrary.

Here at NB, we've long thought that "Daily" should be treated as a news show, even if its host is too timorous to want that kind of scrutiny. Now, a new study has come out confirming our point of view:

Click here for instructions on running Gaggle daily on your own site. There's also an archive of previous toons available here.

In all the many media interviews with Bob Woodward about his book, State of Denial, they were almost exclusively focused on the supposed mistakes of the Bush administration. The pundits almost unanimously concluded that Woodward's book would therefore be harmful to the Republicans going into this November's elections. However, overlooked by them is a section of the Woodward book that is now causing a firestorm in the Leftwing blogosphere against perhaps the most important Democrat political operative of them all, James Carville. M.J. Rosenberg in "The Coffeehouse" blog asks, "Did Carville Tip Bush Off to Kerry Strategy (Woodward)"?

At a Capitol Hill news conference today top democrat party leaders announced their plan to protect congressional pages and 'put it to' the GOP.

For BREAKING story, CLICK HERE=> http://www.aliennationreport.com

Doc

Led by Howard Dean and Barney Frank, the democrats announced today that they are forging ahead with sweeping legislation to protect future congressional pages from unwanted advances.

Dean told the only reporter at his news conference today that he personally appointed admittedly gay Representative Barney Frank to HEAD up the bill. For MORE on this breaking story, VISIT HERE=> http://www.aliennationreport.com

Doc