Al Franken, the biggest name on the now-bankrupt Air America Radio, will soon be leaving the network. Radio Equalizer has the details:

We're hearing tonight that Al Franken is leaving Air America and giving up on talk radio for good.

His last day on the air will be December 8. A few libtalk stations have already begun to leak word of Franken's impending exit.

This confirms rumors we'd been hearing for several weeks that are now confirmed by these on- air announcements.

We'll have much more on this breaking story as details emerge.

Wal-Mart, according to CNN's Ali Velshi, is the store "everybody kinda loves to hate."

Well, yeah, Ali, maybe to the liberal journos you lunch and have cocktails with who probably last set foot in a Wal-Mart sometime back in grad school.

See the story here. Looking forward to your feedback.

Oh, one more thing, the idea of politicians beating up on Wal-Mart for political gain didn't poll that well before the election.

The Democrats may have selected Steny Hoyer to be Majority Leader, but CNN’s sympathy clearly went to Representative John Murtha. "American Morning" aired two reports on a 1980 bribery investigation that involved the Congressman and, despite a damning video in which Murtha indicates possible future interest in a bribe, both accounts gave him more than the benefit of the doubt. Andrea Koppel began her segment, which included a dismissive onscreen graphic that read "Old Allegations," by playing the grainy video footage of Murtha. She then shifted into defense mode:

Andrea Koppel: "January 7th, 1980, an undercover FBI agent shows off the bribe he's about to offer a couple of congressmen. One of them is Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha. Murtha turns down the offer, but suggests he might be interested in the future."

FBI Agent: "You are telling me that's not what you -- you know -- that's not --

Murtha: "I'm not interested."

Agent: "Okay."

Murtha: "At this point. You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't."

Koppel: "Murtha was never charged. And to this day, professes his innocence."

In an editorial entitled "The Republicans Really Won," which is posted on the CBS website, contributor Lloyd Garver claims, among other things, that the midterm election results are a ploy by the Republicans to solidify long term power, and that the reemergence of veterans of the Bush 41 administration, James Baker and Robert Gates, are part of a plan to elect Bush 41 to a second term in 2008. Garver leads his piece:

Democrats stop celebrating, and Republicans, don't despair. I know the Democrats won the recent election on paper, but in the long run the Republicans just might be the big winners of Election 2006.

In fact, I think the Republicans set the whole thing up so the Democrats could fail over the next two years, which will bring about a big Republican presidential win in 2008.

What other explanation is there? I mean, do you think that Karl Rove and the rest of the Republican brain trust suddenly got stupid? I don't think so.

After comparing Al Jazeera's core audience to that of Fox News, Alessandra Stanley's review of the Arab-language channel's American debut notes: "A promo for an upcoming program described American policy in Iraq as George Bush's 'alleged war on terror.'"

Sound familiar?

From Wednesday's lead Times editorial: "The nation's image is at stake, as well as the safety of every man and woman who is fighting Mr. Bush's so-called war on terror."

So House Democrats have resoundingly rejected anti-war Congressman John Murtha as their next Majority Leader, not the best news for his patron Nancy Pelosi. (For details, everybody but Larry King can click here.) But as an MRC Media Reality Check pointed out earlier this week, a secret ballot by network reporters might have led to a very different result.

Murtha has been a liberal media darling since he demanded retreat without victory in Iraq almost exactly one year ago, on November 17, 2005. ABC, CBS and NBC that night all led by touting Murtha’s credentials. “John Murtha is not a household name, but on military matters, no Democrat in Congress is more influential,” CBS’s Bob Schieffer gushed.

The next night, CNN’s Bill Schneider awarded Murtha his “Political Play of the Week,” likening his call for withdrawal to Walter Cronkite’s 1968 anti-Vietnam War commentary. The media’s bias became even more obvious when another top Democrat, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, wrote a November 29 Wall Street Journal op-ed saying the troops should stay: "What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory." The same networks that led with Murtha’s defeatist rhetoric two weeks earlier said nothing about Lieberman.

What did Murtha have that Lieberman did not? The rhetoric that liberals liked to hear.

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

Yesterday saw the opening day of the month-and-a-half-long re-enrollment period for Medicare Part D, also known as that damn $700 billion-over-10-years boondoggle.

In other news yesterday, Wal-Mart expanded its $4/month generic prescription drug plan to 11 more states. Oh, and BJ's Wholesale Club got in on the cheap drug action too, saying they'll offer $4 generics, and you don't even have to be a member of the Club.

Great news, right? So why were those stories left out of Charlie Gibson's "World News" in favor of footage of confused or angry seniors grappling with government red tape and prescription plan fine print?

See my story on that here.

Comment on the news of the day and anything else. The New York Times thinks Dan Rather's new HDNet show "so far seems to favor Democrats who love America."

CNN reports: "House Democrats have chosen Rep. Steny Hoyer as House majority leader, the No. 2 leadership post, a Democratic spokeswoman said."

Mr. Hoyer had opposed Nancy Pelosi's choice, Congressman Jack Murtha.

Ever have one of those days, Nancy?  It should be a fun two years coming up.

In today's "Another Election Winner: The Mainstream Media," the Washingtonian's Harry Jaffe begins:

"Except in a few races, the outcome of last week’s midterm election was determined in large part by the Mainstream Media."

To support his contention, he then cites evidence. A major campaign issue was corruption, which was detailed by the Washington Post, the San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service.

The New York Times tapped into voter unease by reporting on "the government’s intrusion into private conversations by secret wiretapping of calls in the name of combatting terrorism."

The Mark Foley scandal broke on ABC News' Web site, but "then other mainstream media outlets advanced it."

Hanging Saddam Hussein: the Aurora for a New Middle East!

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

(first published in: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=16439)

It is high time for America’s Democrats and Republicans to shape in detail a New Middle East. Without murderous tyrants names presidents! Hang Saddam, respecting both, the feeling of the majority of the Iraqis, and the verdict the Iraqi Court of Justice! 

Saddam’s trial was fair. And it must be executed. Iraqis have decided about this. It was not an American judge who pronounced the verdict; he was an Iraqi.

A free Iraqi, free of the mental pestilence of Pan-Arabism. He was free of any criminal intimidation expressed by any criminal bogus-ambassador of a Pan-Arabist tyranny! And the verdict was a victory for the long tyrannized peoples of that land.

Talk-radio hosts warned before the election that a Democratic takeover could mean a real legislative push-around of conservative talk radio. It could be happening. On The Corner at National Review Online this morning, Kathryn Jean Lopez reports, "A Senate source tells me : At a civil rts enforcement hearing, after botching her name several times, leahy is asking whether the administration would investigate Laura Ingraham encouraging listeners to jam phone lines set up by dems to report election day abuses".

The Daily Kosmonauts were in full cry about Ingraham doing something 'VERY ILLEGAL ON AIR.'  The "ThinkProgress" Clintonistas put up the transcript here. It's interesting to know how the Democrats may feel very much indebted to their Kosmonaut/MoveOn.org funders....

It has been interesting, to say the least, to watch the MSM twist itself into knots trying to report this story of Pelosi backing the extremist Murtha for Party leadership over the objections of the so-called "blue dog" Democrats who were recently elected to Congress.

Pelosi has decided to ardently back the extreme anti-war activist, John Murtha (Dem, PA), for the Democrat's Majority leader position in a move that has 'baffled" many Democrats, especially those incoming Democrats who ran as conservative alternatives to Republicans -- as well as other incumbent moderate Democrats -- who are instead backing Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer.

Hoyer is well known on the floor not to be quite as extreme as Murtha is on a pull out from Iraq (Hoyer voted to give Bush the OK to go into Iraq in 2002, but he IS for gradual withdraw to be sure), but few Americans will have even heard of Steny Hoyer, he not being much of a "national" figure. On the other hand, anyone who had paid politics much attention knows that Murtha is against the war and is a vocal critic of President Bush. Murtha is well known for his many extreme positions and statements.

President Bush traveling to Vietnam was guaranteed to bring out the Iraq-Vietnam comparisons, especially on National Public Radio. On Wednesday's "Morning Edition," co-host Steve Inskeep interviewed liberal author David Halberstam, who reported on Vietnam for the New York Times. Halberstam warned that we needed to withdraw from Iraq because it wasn't worth the death of "some kid in the Ohio National Guard" for an "undoable" goal. Mysteriously, he suggested withdrawal because the Arab media portrayed America as "weak Christian aggressors." He didn't explain how withdrawal would help that image.  

Inskeep asked him specifically about how during the Vietnam War, President Johnson sent out Robert McNamara (like Bush dumped Rumsfeld) and appointed new defense secretary Clark Clifford, who turned out to be firmly anti-war:  

We were down on the Euphrates this morning with Navy LT Torres and eleven Iraqi soldiers that he is training. On today's menu: learning to board crafts encountered while on patrol on the the river. The rule is to board every craft, again and again, as encountered. Yesterday's friendly fisherman could be today's insurgent, or someone who is perhaps being coerced by others on board.

See video of a practice boarding here.

We were in a three-boat unit. The technique consists of the lead boat coming alongside, greeting the passengers in a polite fashion, at the same time ordering them to the front of the boat with weapons trained on them. The second boat in our unit will align directly behind the first, and the third off to the left, forming an 'L.' One of the men from the first boat will then board, inspect whatever there is to see aboard, and as appropriate give an all-clear sign and return to our boat. The men are trained to keep their weapons aimed at the passengers till we are well clear. Passengers could be waving a friendly good-bye, only to grab weapons or hurl a grenade as soon as our guard is down.

At roughly 11:00AM Eastern Time Wednesday, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration announced that for the second straight month, America saw below-average temperatures. As a result, regardless of how warm July was, it now appears unlikely that 2006 will surpass 1934 as the hottest year on record. Yet, a Google News search suggested that not one news agency bothered to report this announcement. Not one.

For those not in the media who might be interested (emphasis mine throughout):

For the second consecutive month, temperatures across the continental United States were cooler-than-average, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Drought conditions improved in some areas, but large parts of the nation remained in moderate to extreme drought. October ranked as the 12th wettest October when compared with historical precipitation records for the month.

The announcement continued:

CBS anchor Katie Couric on Wednesday night empathized with the plight of incoming Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, as his wish to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq hits roadblocks. After a story by David Martin on testimony before the committee by General John Abizaid, chief of the Central Command, Couric ran a taped Q & A with Levin. She began with a very leading question: "Senator, were you as frustrated with General Abizaid's position today as John McCain and Hillary Clinton?" Levin expressed how he was similarly “frustrated” by Abizaid's “stay the course” position, leading Couric to empathize with his frustration: "So as the future Chairman of the Senate Arms Services Committee, where does that leave you, Senator Levin? I mean, what are your options? You have long advocated a phased withdrawal, but how are you going to make that happen? It seems almost impossible right now."

As the guest on Wednesday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, Ted Koppel ribbed host Jon Stewart for not ridiculing President George W. Bush over his trip to Vietnam and then Koppel offered his own sharp-edged joke about it. Koppel scolded Stewart, "I'll tell you what I have been thinking: I can't believe you haven't done anything on George Bush in Vietnam." Koppel then delivered his wisecrack: “Thirty-five years ago, he joined the Texas Air National Guard to stay out of Vietnam. And now, he's going to Vietnam to stay out of Washington.” That generated loud applause and laughter from the audience in the Manhattan studio, as well as hearty laughter from Stewart, and Koppel chuckled at his own one-liner.

Seconds earlier, Koppel delivered another politically-loaded quip: "Remember the joke before -- it wasn't that much of a joke -- before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, we used to say in Washington, 'we know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, we still have the receipts.'" That prompted Stewart to express bafflement with why Koppel's news agenda isn't shared more widely: "This is the thing that always befuddles me and you and I have this conversation all the time: Why isn't that joke the lead of every news story about Iraq? You know, the context that we sold them all those weapons, why isn't that more prominent in all this?" (Partial transcript follows)

Video clip (1:55): Real (3.2 MB) or Windows Media (3.7 MB), plus MP3 audio (670 KB)