Zheesh -- How about "None of the below":

Slim pickings indeed. Perhaps we need to start looking for inanimate objects (e.g., 1982 - The Computer; 1988 - Endangered Earth), symbolic people (1950 - American Fighting Man; 1956 - Hungarian Freedom Fighter; 2003 - The American Soldier), or groups of people (1960 - US Scientists; 1966 - 25 and Under; 1969 - The Middle Americans; 1975 - American Women; 1993 - The Peacemakers; 2002 - The Whistleblowers). The list of all previous winners is here.

Perhaps YouTube, online forums, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and online media should be the Thing of the Year: The Shadow Media. Of course, Time would be writing about its own likely eventual demise, but it would fit.

Or readers may have better ideas.

Guest hosting this afternoon's Hardball, Mike Barnicle claimed to decry the politics surrounding the Iraq Study Group's report.  But when it comes to political cheap shots, does it get much lower than this comment by Barnicle himself?

"Since the report was issued, I think 19 Americans have been killed in Iraq.  Does anybody really think about that at the top level here today in terms of the report? Is it all just the politics of it?"

View video here.

To his credit, John Harwood of the WSJ and CNBC didn't buy into Barnicle's cynical take: "No, no.  I think people do think of that. . . I think [President Bush] gets it."

Actual caption:

President George Bush appears in his first interview since the midterm elections with FOX News Channel's Brit Hume in Washington December 4, 2006. The full interview airs Tuesday on Special Report with Brit Hume. EDITORIAL USE ONLY NO SALES NO ARCHIVES REUTERS/White House/Eric Draper/Handout (UNITED STATES)

On the Iraq War, Sen. Chuck Hagel has long been one of those people we call the "Even Republicans," that species of politician who often side with the Mainstream Media Party to please reporters, who can say "Even Republicans are opposed" to something liberal reporters oppose. On Friday's Today, MRC's Justin McCarthy noted that just after White House reporter David Gregory was finished underlining the importance of swallowing every bite of James Baker's glorious "fruit salad" of negotiating with terrorists and other acts of political wisdom, this comedic line emerged:

Gregory: "Politically, time is running out. The White House has begun to lose critical support even among Republicans."

At 9pm EST/PST (8pm CST/MST) on Friday night (Dec. 8), ABC will air a special edition of Primetime, “North Korea: Inside the Shadows” which will feature Diane Sawyer recounting what she found in that communist nation during a trip there back in October. If her hour-long program matches what aired in October, be prepared for a lot of North Korea officials bashing President Bush and for Sawyer to trumpet “happy” kids.

On the October 19 World News, Sawyer proved little more than a conveyor belt for the repressive communist regime's propaganda. Talking to a North Korean Army General, she relayed how “he said to us, 'make it clear to everyone in the United States, if there is another nuclear test, the person responsible is George Bush,' because he said, 'the Bush administration is backing North Korea into a corner with its pressures and its sanctions.'" In a second segment, Sawyer was taken to a school which she favorably described as “a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school." She gushed: “Ask them about their country, and they can't say enough." A teenage girl declared, in English: “We are the happiest children in the world.” Sawyer ended her piece with video of her and the class singing "Do-Re-Mi" from the Sound of Music. Far from being embarrassed by Sawyer's obsequious approach, anchor Charles Gibson proposed: "A fascinating glimpse of North Korea."

Video clip of Sawyer's segment with the school children (1:09): Real (1.9 MB) or Windows Media (2.7 MB), plus MP3 audio (340 KB)

Ol' Lou Dobbs hit the trifecta today. Three articles posted at BusinessandMedia.org blasting the CNN "advocacy journalist's" fruit-loopy bias. Enjoy all three great flavors.

Seoul-ful Strawberry

(blasting free trade with South Korea)

'Mindless' Mango

(attacking a manufacturing trade group for supporting free trade)

and

Canada Dry

(pushing for socialized health care)

America Alone by Mark Steyn. Quick read, funny, and a perspective you never think of or hear about from the Mainstream Media.

 I bought 4 copies as gifts and handed them out to friends as early Christmas presents.

 (America Alone can be to the War on Terror what Thomas Paine's Common Sense was to the Revolutionary War...if enough people read it.)

 A close second in the best Christmas gift department is The Birth of Plenty, by William Bernstein.

(If more non-westerners read a book like this, they would understand what type of institutions their countries lack, and demand internal reform of their governments, rather than blaming external western influences for their various problems.)

The cancer that is the Liberal media can be stopped through Intelligent ideas and aggressive action.

America Alone by Mark Steyn. Quick read, funny, and a perspective you never think of or hear about from the Mainstream Media.

I bought 4 copies as gifts and handed them out to friends as early Christmas presents.

(America Alone can be to the War on Terror what Thomas Paine's Common Sense  was to the Revolutionary War...if enough people read it.)

A close second in the best Christmas gift department is The Birth of Plenty, by William Bernstein.

(If more non-westerners read a book like this, they would understand what type of institutions their countries lack, and demand internal reform of their governments, rather than blaming external western influences for their various problems.)

The cancer that is the Liberal media can be stopped through Intelligent ideas and aggressive action. 

America Alone by Mark Steyn. Quick read, funny, and a perspective you never think of or hear about from the Mainstream Media.

I bought 4 copies as gifts and handed them out to friends as early Christmas presents.

(America Alone can be to the War on Terror what Thomas Paine's Common Sense  was to the Revolutionary War...if enough people read it.)

A close second in the best Christmas gift department is The Birth of Plenty, by William Bernstein.

(If more non-westerners read a book like this, they would understand what type of institutions their countries lack, and demand internal reform of their governments, rather than blaming external western influences for their various problems.)

The cancer that is the Liberal media can be stopped through Intelligent ideas and aggressive action. 

Here is an old news story about the FBI AT LEAST knowing about the bombing before it happened.

http://www.youtube.c...

Go here and you can hear the original taped conversation between Emad Salem (FBI informant) and special agent John Anticev.

http://en.wikipedia....

In it he mentions how THEY built the bomb (and not the "muslim terrorists")

So you see, this is just one example of state sponsored terrorism...(9/11 anyone?)

What is it about leaving a network gig that makes news anchors even more biased? Ex-host Tom Brokaw told a "Harball" audience that Barack Obama is a "rock star," lavished praise on Jon Stewart, and claimed that Ronald Reagan neglected "Mother Earth."

Speaking of NBC stars who suck up to environmentalists, Matt Lauer recently encouraged Al Gore to run for president and "save the planet." Way to stay objective, Matt!

The "Today" anchor continued his global warming obsession in another segment, lauding actor Leonardo DiCaprio for "standing up to get people thinking" about the issue. (Funny, I don’t recall the "Today" host complimenting many pro-life activists for "standing up.")

Lobbying for global warming can be tiring work, as NewsBusters editor Matthew Sheffield noted when he pointed out that CNN host Miles O’Brien fell asleep during recent hearings on the subject.

This week, the "mainstream" media continued lobbying for a complete acknowledgment of total failure in Iraq. "Time" magazine likened the Iraq Study Report to a drug intervention. Discussing the same subject, "Hardball" guest host Mike Barnicle wondered if President Bush is "delusional," " isolated" or "stubborn." Those are certainly some great options to chose from!

The Media Research Center was saddened to learn on Friday of the passing of the Honorable Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Ambassador to the United Nations for the Reagan administration and a leading conservative author and thinker. (Earlier NewsBusters item with Reuters story.) She had been serving as a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, which has a posted biography of her many accomplishments. The Washington Post's obituary. We will fondly remember her for taking part in our 2004 DisHonors Awards where, in good-humor, she accepted, on behalf of ABC's Diane Sawyer and Dan Harris, the “Baghdad Bob Award for Parroting Enemy Propaganda.”

Video (4:20): You can enjoy Real video or MP3 audio of her comments on March 18, 2004 in which she related her experiences in Geneva at the UN's Human Rights Commission meetings on Iraq where she lobbied the hotel to add the Fox News Channel so her delegation wouldn't have to choose between CNN and the BBC.

Mary Cheney’s announcement of her pregnancy and upcoming lesbian parenthood has inspired national-media stories playing up "furious" conservatives in the Vice President’s Republican base, even as activists on the gay left use the news to lobby against defense-of-marriage policies in Virginia and other states.

CNN’s "Paula Zahn Now" took up the permissive cause on Thursday night with a supportive news story by Mary Snow on how Virginia is "unfriendly" to gay rights, followed by an imbalanced panel discussion in which one liberal insisted homosexuals had to fight for their cause or "You're going to get dragged behind a truck otherwise." MRC’s Robert Knight, featured in the Snow report, told me that CNN didn’t use his remarks that "every birth is a blessing," or that loving fathers are important. Why? Because it wouldn’t match the "furious" conservative template? Paula Zahn started with the conservative fury, right from the beginning:

Today the conservative party exists without a great deal of it’s moderates. Rebuilding can center on conservative values or it can digress to liberal pandering.

The democrats are now sleeping with the enemy. Power hungry liberals opened the chambers to moderates willing to promote conservative values against the conservative party. And after the elections, the meetings began. These new ‘democrats’ are who they are. Just as Lieberman will not support the left’s Iraq focus, these freshman cannot change innate values. They are not leftists.

What is the difference between the future of the new liberal power plan and the old blue blood republicans?

Senator James Inhofe has another exciting announcement concerning the media and global warmingism posted at the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works website:

Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the outgoing Chairman of Environment & Public Works Committee, is pleased to announce the public release of the Senate Committee published booklet entitled “A Skeptic’s Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism. Hot & Cold Media Spin Cycle: A Challenge To Journalists who Cover Global Warming.” (Click here to download the "Skeptic's Guide")

The color glossy 64 page booklet -- previously was only available in hardcopy to the media and policy makers -- includes speeches, graphs, press releases and scientific articles refuting catastrophe climate fears presented by the media, the United Nations, Hollywood and former Vice President turned-foreign-lobbyist Al Gore.

The release of this book to the public is especially timely, as no conservative will want to go anywhere this holiday season without evidence to debate relatives that have totally bought into this farce:

White House press secretary Tony Snow has changed the rules of the daily briefing. No longer will the president's media representative hem and haw while being attacked by leftist reporters. Not every reporter likes this, though, as you can see from the Dec. 6th news conference where NBC's petulant White House correspondent David Gregory got upset when Snow dared to challenge him by accusing the NBC reporter of framing the Iraq Study Group's report "in a partisan way."

It all started with Gregory asking whether Snow could see the report as "anything other than a rejection of this President's handling of the war?" The White House has a video of the entire conference which is available in a streaming Real Video here (fast forward to 3:50 into the clip for the relevant part). The NBCer asked this question after reading aloud three out-of-context setences from the report.

Gregory's question and the little back and forth (see past the jump for the transcript) is yet another example of how news conferences have become less a question of providing useful information to the public and more about the media asking captious, leading questions that no public spokesperson is ever going to answer. This is not to say that reporters cannot ask a tough question, but to put on a show as Gregory very clearly tries to do at each and every conference insults the intelligence of everyone involved, be they reporter, government representative or a person at home sighing in exasperation.

Although this is a week old, it seems fitting for a Friday. Fox News Contributor Dennis Miller did a funny segment of “Real Free Speech” last week concerning flying Imams being detained at airports (hat tip and video provided by our friend at Ms Underestimated). Please be sure to watch while you read or you’ll miss some of the sight gags:

Hey, folks. I want to talk about the six imams who were kicked off the U.S. Air flight in Minneapolis.

NBC is so giddy to report on Bush’s failures in Iraq, they’ll even spin the truth. On Friday’s Today, Ann Curry and Tim Russert deeply implied their shared beliefs on an incompetent, stubborn, and increasingly isolated Bush administration. Curry inquired, "just how extraordinary were the events of this week?"

They got so carried away in their Bush bashing, Tim Russert strayed from the truth claiming, "a new secretary of Defense says, no we’re losing in Iraq."

However, what incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates actually said was that the United States is "not winning but, not losing." As fellow news analyst Michael Rule noted, CBS misquoted Robert Gates as well. The entire transcript is below.

Ann Curry: "Tim Russert is NBC's Washington bureau chief and the moderator of Meet the Press. Tim, good morning."

When it comes to the defamation of gays and lesbians The View's Rosie O'Donnell is the first one to play sensitivity cop, most notably her patrolling of Kelly Ripa's bout with Clay Aiken, but apparently her hypersensitivity doesn't apply to those of Asian descent. On the December 5 edition of The View, O'Donnell universally mocked the Asian community when she attempted to feign a Chinese accent. Former Republican Senator Alfonse D'Amato was tried and executed by the liberal media for similarly making fun of O.J. Simpson Judge Lance Ito. So the question has to be asked where is that same liberal media now when one of their own is accused of making fun of a minority group? Video Clip: Real (416KB) or Windows (465 KB) Plus MP3 (73 KB)

Perhaps in an attempt to surpass even David Gregory for most egregious bias, CNN reporter Suzanne Malveaux derided President Bush as a "Kool-Aid" drinker who won’t admit failure in Iraq. In a report for the Friday edition of "American Morning," the White House correspondent discussed Bush’s news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In additional fits of bias, Malveaux, described the President’s frustration at the lack of progress in Iraq as "the closest you'll get from this president to admitting failure" and noted that "for Mr. Bush, it's not easy to admit mistakes." But nowhere did Ms. Malveaux make her editorial point more clear, that Iraq is a total failure and Bush is in denial, than when she drew an allusion to Jonestown and the infamous mass suicide by Kool-Aid:

Suzanne Malveaux: "President Bush and his closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have stood shoulder to shoulder on the Iraq war since the very beginning. Critics calling Mr. Bush 'the cowboy' for stubbornly leading the charge, and Mr. Blair 'the poodle' for obediently following. But three years since the U.S. invasion, the two are still adamant their Iraq mission is sound. President Bush didn't just drink the Kool-Aid, he made it. But perhaps now it's a little less sweet."

Video available: Real (1.54 MB) or Windows Media (1.73 MB), plus MP3 audio (274 KB)

No starters today, folks, talk about whatever you like. We take the risk of turning the thread entirely over to you, the reader. (HT: Rush Limbaugh.)

Fellow NBers, let’s please have a moment of silence for Jeane Kirkpatrick who has died at the age of 80. As reported by Reuters:

Jeane Kirkpatrick, a key player in former President Ronald Reagan's conservative foreign policy as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has died, the American Enterprise Institute, where she was a senior fellow, said on Friday.

She was 80 years old.

Initially the only Democrat in Reagan's cabinet-level team and for a time the only woman, Kirkpatrick later became a Republican who adopted an activist stance at the United Nations, hitting back whenever the United States was attacked.

Kirkpatrick was a major architect of U.S. policy in Central America.

Al Gore's not just a father of the internet. Not merely a savior of the planet. He's also a venerable psychotherapist. Ask Ann Curry.

'Today' opened its show this morning with a clip of a British reporter snidely asking President Bush, at his joint press conference yesterday with British PM Tony Blair, whether he was "in denial" over Iraq.

Curry kept the psychoanalysis going with this comment-in-the-guise-of-a-question to Tim Russert:

"This has got to be a tough time for this president. We heard earlier on this program from Al Gore, earlier this week, his recommendation to the president not to take all of this personally. Is there a sense in Washington that the president is having such a tough time with this personally that it's making it difficult, it's affecting his judgment, over what to do next in Iraq?"