In the Fox News Channel's “Buzz on the Blogs” segment at about 9:39pm EST Tuesday night, columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin began her look at blog critiques of election coverage by citing “grievances, mostly from the right side of the blogosphere, over the leak of exit polls and what they consider the premature calling of a lot of these races.” She then pointed to NewsBusters' take: “At NewsBusters.org, which is one of the leading mainstream media critic blogs, they've been highlighting the early calls in Pennsylvania.”

As Malkin spoke, viewers saw a split-screen of her and of this NewsBusters posting, “Polls Remain Open in Pennsylvania, But CBS Announces Casey Victory,” by Rich Noyes.

Video clip (1:07): Real (1.8 MB) or Windows Media (2.0 MB), plus MP3 audio (310 KB)

"Newsweek" editor Marcus Mabry, appearing on CNN to deliver a postmortem on Republican Rick Santorum’s loss, attacked the Senator as a "firebrand partisan" and wondered if Republicans would learn a lesson from his loss. A transcript of his comments follows:

11/7/06 10:05pm

Marcus Mabry: "I think while we’ve heard some laudatory things tonight about the bipartisanship, on occasion, of the Senator from Pennsylvania, who only has another two months in office now, we have to remember this was an incredibly politicizing, divisive partisan, both on the floor of the United States Senate, but also back in Pennsylvania.

Speaking of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, Chris Matthews said, "We’re getting diversity, finally, religious diversity in the United States Congress."

But Andrea Mitchell toned down his optimism, saying the Senate was still racist if Harold Ford loses.

"Before we get too heady about diversity in Congress, if you look at historically what has been going on, if Harold Ford does not win in Tennessee, we will still have one African American in the Senate. There has never been more than one African American at a time in the Senate. It’s quite remarkable. We talk about Ed Brooke, we talk about some of the other senators in past history, but never more than one. It is still the All-White Club, the most exclusive club."

All drive by media has stated that Charlie Christ has won the governors seat in Florida.

Winding up the 8pm EST hour of election coverage on MSNBC, “Scarborough Country” host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, indignantly lectured Chris Matthews about how he has “spent the past two years trying my best to be very critical of my party. In fact, if you look at my transcripts you will see that I have been bashing my party more than the Democratic party because I want to make sure that I am fair and down the middle.”

So “far and down the middle” means hitting Republicans harder than Democrats? Too bad Matthews, a former staffer to Democratic President Jimmy Carter and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, doesn’t routinely attack Democrats to prove how “fair and down the middle” he is.

Video clip (3:25): Real (5.6 MB) or Windows Media (6.4 MB), plus MP3 audio (1 MB)

As NewsBusters reported on Tuesday, the media have been all over allegations that Republicans are using a variety of tactics to intimidate Democrat voters in Virginia. Information obtained from the Virginia State Board of Elections (VSBE) suggests that these reports are exaggerations based upon information released by the James Webb for Senate campaign.

Furthermore, there is evidence that liberal bloggers were used to disseminate this material, in particular Daily Kos.

It appears that this firestorm began Monday when the Webb for Senate campaign created a press release that was e-mailed to a variety of recipients (complete text here). Oddly, this release doesn’t appear to be at the Webb for Senate website, and is not materializing in any LexisNexis searches. It does, however, appear at some blogs; more on that later.

The press release began (emphasis mine):

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

Here's how to connect to the NewsBusters real-time chat server:

20:40. Wolf Blitzer continues framing his coverage in what the Democrats need to do to win.

"Just to be precise. Thirty-three senate seats are up for election this time around, a third of the senate. If Democrats are going to be in the majority, they need to capture 6 and not lose any of their own. They're a little bit of the way there because they didn't lose in New Jersey..."

Jeff Greenfield continues the line, saying journalists are competing to come up with the best cliche to describe what Dems need to do, get an inside straight, etc.

On the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer tonight, they honed in on allegations of voter irregularities and election-stealing, and Lehrer began suggesting a need for the federal government to rule over a regime of nationalized election standards. In the show’s second installment of the panel of liberal Mark Shields and guest conservative Ramesh Ponnuru, the veteran liberal clearly won the battle of the clock: Shields took about twice as much air time to lay out his answers as Ponnuru the newcomer did. Here’s how Lehrer pushed nationalized election systems:

Lehrer: "Ramesh, do you think there should be national standards for all elections, and take it out of the hands of local precinct workers and county judges and people like that?"

During an election night discussion of the Missouri embryonic stem cell debate, CNN analyst Paul Begala slammed Rush Limbaugh as a "drug-addled gasbag who is self discredited." Bill Bennett, also on the panel with James Carville and J.C. Watts, chastised Begala: “Well, it's a nasty comment.”

The discussion, with Democratic strategist Begala's insult, began at about 8:08pm EST Tuesday night on CNN:

CNN's Wolf Blitzer made a point of saying his network would refrain from calling any of the races in Pennsylvania, where polls remain open in two areas where there were problems earlier in the day.

But in an 8pm EST CBS News break-in, new anchor Katie Couric couldn't wait to share the good news with her fellow liberals, announcing that Bob Casey, Jr. had beaten Rick Santorum.

UPDATE, 8:40pm EST: Most of the networks have joined CBS in declaring Casey the winner, and Howard Dean just told Chris Matthews that he would personally invite Senator Casey to speak at the Democratic Convention despite being pro-life (Casey's father, the late Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey, Sr., was excluded from the 1992 Democratic convention that nominated Bill Clinton). But CNN's Web site lists Pennsylvania as "still voting," so hasn't yet called Casey the victor.

CNN’s Bill Schneider reported tonight that the veteran vote went for Republican Senator George Allen. The anchor seemed baffled as to how such a thing could happen. During election night coverage, he mentioned that Webb was a "veteran" or "decorated hero" three times in four sentences:

11/7/06 7:09pm

Bill Schneider: "These are veterans. Now they could be voting for James Webb because James Webb was the Secretary of the Navy. James Webb is a decorated hero and a veteran of the Vietnam War. He might have done very well with veterans. But this is– If women were a breakthrough for Webb, the veteran vote was a breakthrough for George Allen. George Allen, the Republican, carried 57 percent of the veterans vote in Virginia, despite the fact that Webb is a decorated veteran and a former Naval Secretary."

Around 7:10EST, CNN's Wolf Blitzer continued to frame his coverage from a Democratic perspective, stating, "the Democrats need just 7 seats to become the majority party in the U.S. Senate" he did the same for the House as well.

That is the standard fare for the press, frame things from what the Democrats can do to get things going.

Update 19:20. CNN is highlighting its coverage of its blog party. Each time the network listed liberal bloggers first. Liberal bloggers interviewed: 1. Conservatives: 0.

Update 19:24. Paula Zahn and Bill Schneider surprised that Iraq was not the #1 issue. Schneider pronounces as well: "voters are not rewarding the Republicans for the economy."

19:31. CNN cuts to a live feed of Democratic National Committee. The TVs are tuned into CNN. Blitzer: "Which is encouraging that people are watching."

19:34. John King, asked if he was surprised by an apparent GOP loss of Ohio governorship "I'm not surprised because Ohio is a cesspool--this year. The current governor, the Republican incumbant Bob Taft, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, that's where Bob Ney the congressman pleaded guilty to corruption charges--"

Anderson Cooper: Bob Taft was term-limited though so he had to --

King: Yeah so he couldn't. Yeah but the whole environment is just horrible--anti-Republican.

20:23. CNN continues pushing things from Dem perspective in calling India House race for Dem Ellsworth. "One down fourteen more to go," Jeff Greenfield pronounces.

I am listening to the radio coverage of the elections and I hear nothing but exit polls, blah, blah, blah.  This is a work in progress follow me on this.  A note will be at the end when my thoughts are finished.

/rant on

There was a drive in 1996 to adopt the scientific method of polls as hard evidence or fact.  That did not make it through, thank goodness.  What is this method?  Survey 600-1220 people by randomly calling the home phones of these people, and asking them a series of fixed questions.  They compile these questions and present the numbers as a factual event.  This may work in area of production where there is a consistent set of variables, when you mix in human thought and emotion; there is NO SCIENTIFIC method that can accurately predict ANY outcome in any instance that involves human thought.

CNN’s Jack Cafferty, who recently called Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal, chose Election Day to accuse the President of going to war in Iraq for oil and of condoning torture. He also wondered if George Bush was "elected at all." A transcript of the November 7 "Cafferty File" segment is below:

4:15pm EDT

Wolf Blitzer: "Jack Cafferty is here with ‘The Cafferty File.’ Jack?"

Jack Cafferty: "Thank you, Wolf. However today’s election turns out, it’s a safe bet it’s going to be a good long while before anyone successfully pedals a neo-conservative agenda to the American electorate again. George Bush was elected twice by the thinnest of margins, if, in fact, he was elected at all.

Not waiting for voters to finish their work, at least one CNN producer has begun referring to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi as "Madame Speaker." CNN's Dana Bash revealed at about 4:20 on the Situation Room how "Nancy Pelosi came into the Capitol this afternoon. Our producer Ted Barrett bumped into her and jokingly said 'How are you, Madame Speaker?' She smiled ear to ear and said 'I like the title,' but quickly caught herself and said 'Not yet.'"

Bash added that Democrats are busy high-fiving themselves and measuring the drapes: "Now in public Pelosi may be cautious, but we understand that in private she and her staff are already talking about whether or not they should move their office suite into the bigger space now occupied by the Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert. And there was not a lot of caution in a briefing just a short while ago from the two chairmen of the Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. They were actually bubbling with optimism, Wolf."

NBC's Today correspondents on Tuesday made sure to underline that Republicans were seen as racist in the Senate campaigns in Tennessee and Virginia. Reporter Tom Costello began his report:

"Matt, good morning. This has been a hard fought race. It's been injected with advertisements viewed by many as being racist by the Republican National Committee. The Corker campaign repudiated those ads, as did the Ford campaign, of course."

By many? Try "by many Democrats," at least. From there, David Shuster (usually assigned to Chris Matthews on MSNBC), also underlined the alleged-racist angle on the Virginia race:

"Meredith, good morning. A statistical dead heat is not at all where the incumbent Republican George Allen ever thought he would be. Allen had been talked about being a presidential contender in 2008 but his campaign has been set back by a series of missteps including his use of the term macaca and allegations about his use of the N-word to describe blacks, but the key issue in this race has been the Iraq war...

Nasty and bitter is how the Virginia and New Jersey Senate races were described on Monday’s "Early Show" on CBS. No not necessarily the campaigns in general, but the Republican candidates and Republican ads. Additionally, Harry Smith highlighted that while Northern Virginia is "Webb country," the rest of Virginia "clings to its conservative roots." Notice how Smith omits the phrase "liberal" while commenting on Northern Virginia.

Smith noted how the Virginia race is "mean" and "nasty" before remarking on Allen’s gaffes and how they have kept this race close:

Harry Smith: It's been mean --

As Chris Matthews sees it and decrees it, if voters in Maryland decide to go for Republican Michael Steele today it will be because they prefer African American candidates who are “unthreatening” or “almost...castrated,” and that the “funny” “lighthearted” Steele strikes voters as “a guy I would like to have living next door” — although he quickly added that “that may be pushing it in some cases.”

As Joe Scarborough, one of the rotating anchors of MSNBC’s continuing election coverage tried to interrupt, Matthews justified his comments by insisting that, “I have to tell you, we have an ethnic problem in this country. And it’s coming to the fore, this race problem we have.”

On Monday night’s edition of Nightline, just hours before the polls opened for Tuesday’s midterm election, ABC’s Terry Moran prematurely promoted a potential 2008 Democratic presidential contender. Moran went along with Illinois Senator Barack Obama as he campaigned for Democrats across the country. Moran’s piece was full of praise for the "American political phenomenon," whom, according to Moran, millions see as "the savior of the Democratic Party."

Terry Moran: "You can see it in the crowds. The thrill, the hope. How they surge toward him. You're looking at an American political phenomenon. In state after state, in the furious final days of this crucial campaign, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has been the Democrat's not-so-secret get-out-the-vote weapon. He inspires the party faithful and many others, like no one else on the scene today...And the question you can sense on everyone's mind, as they listen so intently to him, is he the one? Is Barack Obama the man, the black man, who could lead the Democrats back to the White House and maybe even unite the country?"

In his Election Day essay on this morning's Today show, NBC's Tom Brokaw found a shaky Republican in Montana, a squishy GOP senator on the war and thought the Ted Haggard and Mark Foley stories would turn independents the Democrats' way. Running down the various issues voters face today, Brokaw did highlight some positives in the economy but then turned negative as he noted: "But there's so much wrong and a fierce debate about the road ahead. And many more think this country is headed in the wrong direction than in the right direction...Gas prices, health care, housing cost, immigration, gay marriage and the war, always the war." Brokaw then scared up three even Republicans:

One of the most routine (and inaccurate) tics of news coverage of Missouri's cloning amendment and other medical-research stories is to describe the controversy over embryo-destroying stem cell research as simply a fight over "stem cell research." To declare that a pro-life politician is "against stem cell research" is quite inaccurate (since they favor research on adult stem cells and from umbilical cord blood). But Kevin Tibbles did that twice this morning to Sen. Jim Talent on Today, and never once even used the word "embryo"  or "embryonic" to describe the specific human lives being destroyed in the research process.

Co-host Meredith Vieira: "You know Kevin we heard a lot about the race after Rush Limbaugh criticized those ads that Michael Fox did supporting stem cell research and the Democratic candidate Claire McCaskill. How much do you think that controversy will play into the voters' minds today when they go to the polls?"

Dems will go to court this afternoon to ask for polls to stay open
ANITA WADHWANI, Tennessean

Lawyers with the Tennessee Democratic Party will file suit early this afternoon asking that voting hours be extended due to reports of infrastructure problems, a party spokesman said.

The party has received reports that some precincts lacked enough voting machines, voting machines that are not working, long lines and delays in the openings of polling paces, said the spokesman Mark Brown. ...

Missouri has been under dem control for decades yet just rated as maybe the most dangerous state. This state is an ACORN home. ACORN was just investigated by the feds who found thousands of dead registered voters. How many of them 'voted' last election?

The last Florida election problems all occurred in dem districts. Fraud amongst their voters, their machines, or their officials?

They voted in and voted to supplement the spending for electronic machines yet today are arguing against them and in favor of the punch ballots they voted out?

In the 6:00 AM hour of CNN's American Morning on T