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

CBS reporter Jim Axelrod on Wednesday night described how “this is what awaited Mr. Bush upon his highly-publicized arrival in India: Tens of thousands turned out to protest America's presence in the Islamic world.” Also from New Delhi, NBC's David Gregory relayed how, over video of crowds and a few men around a burning effigy of Bush, “Mr. Bush has already been met by large anti-U.S., anti-war protests.” But while ABC's Martha Raddatz noted how Bush's “warm reception in Afghanistan stood in stark contrast to the scene when the President arrived later in India,” where “tens of thousands of demonstrators, mostly Muslim, lined the streets,” she pointed out what Axelrod and Gregory skipped: “Despite the demonstrations, the President has a strong approval rating here in India, roughly 70 percent."

Actually, the “2005 Pew Global Attitudes survey,” posted again Tuesday, “found that about seven-in-ten Indians (71%) have a favorable view of the United States,” not Bush, and that “while U.S. favorability ratings have plunged in many countries, Indians are significantly more positive about the United States now than they were in the summer of 2002.” As for Bush personally, the Pew poll discovered that he's “widely admired” in India where “just over half (54%)...say they have a lot or some confidence that Bush will generally do the right thing in world affairs, a significantly higher percentage than in any other country except his own.” (Transcripts, and more on the Pew poll, follow.)

Rap and hip-hop make up a multi-billion-dollar industry and represent the most powerful pop-cultural influence in the nation.

The sound can be loud and boorish, but it can also be quite unique and interesting. What’s not debatable is that it has an ugly past and a present that – lyrically – continues to escape much mainstream scrutiny. And, with no discussion or debate, it’s being given a home in the Smithsonian Institution alongside the flag that inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner” and other national artifacts.

The announcement this week of the new exhibit received universally uncritical coverage by mainstream media outlets, such as The New York Times. The Washington Post’s David Segal came closest to straying from the PC line, opening his piece this way:

A telephone tipster made a very interesting point to us today about The Washington Post. In the midst of their coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith case, and a Vermont campaign-finance limit case, the Post found no room Wednesday for the pro-life win in NOW v. Scheidler. (That's the case where NOW tried to have clinic protesters charged under a mob-racketeering statute.) The Post could argue that the case is a bit of a rerun: the court dismissed it in 2003, only to have a federal judge keep the case alive like a zombie. But the court ruled 8 to 0 and the feminists were routed in the opinion by none other than liberal Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer. USA Today published a fairly prominent, thorough piece Wednesday on Page A-4.

This past Monday, CBS, otherwise known as See? BS!, Al-Jazeera West, and the Corrupt Broadcasting System, proved once again that it is nothing but a shameless propaganda tool of the Democrat party, by releasing the results of a poll it rigged... uh... conducted recently showing that President Bush's popularity rating has plummeted to an all-time low of 34 percent.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/27/opinion/polls/main1350874.shtml

Of course, when one looks at the internals of the poll, one sees that, of the 1018 people who responded to it, only 28 percent were Republicans. 38 percent, however, were Democrats (big surprise there), and the remaining 34 percent were described as Independents.
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/poll_bush_022706.pdf

Now, to begin with I have a problem with any political poll that doesn't identify the ideological leanings of over a third of its participants. The word Independent doesn't tell me anything about a person, other than he or she is not registered with either of the two main parties. For all I know, the vast majority of the "Independents" who took this poll are mind-numbed Communists. Unless it can be shown that this 34 percent is comprised of an equal number of left-wingers and right-wingers, I have to assume that it's made up mostly of leftists, since the people conducting the poll are leftists, and they've already picked nearly a hundred more Democrats to poll than Republicans.

Wednesday's CBS Evening News devoted about 20 seconds to anchor Russ Mitchell highlighting how “it was revealed today” -- as if it were some kind of cover-up being exposed -- “that the [Supreme] Court's newest member, Justice Samuel Alito, sent a personal thank you note to a conservative Christian leader who supported his nomination.” Mitchell then identified that recipient as James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, and stressed how he “is a leading opponent of abortion.” What did Alito write that CBS considered so newsworthy? Mitchell relayed: “Dobson read the note in his radio program today, quoting Alito as saying he appreciated those who prayed for him and he'll remember the 'trust' that's been placed in him." But a reading of the actual letter (reprinted below) suggests Dobson just got a form letter Alito sent to all of those who congratulated him on his confirmation, not a coded commitment to Dobson's agenda on abortion.

Neither ABC or NBC mentioned the matter on their Wednesday night newscasts, but that could just be due to the AP not distributing a dispatch on it until late in the day. The AP's Colleen Slevin allowed a Supreme Court spokesman to explain how the same language appeared, in Slevin's words, “in many replies he wrote to congratulatory letters." Slevin, however, felt compelled to consider potential improprieties, turning to a professor who “said Alito's letter did not appear to violate ethical standards,” before she related how “Americans United for Separation of Church and State called the letter 'grossly inappropriate.'” (More from the AP story, the text of the letter and CBS's item in full, all follow.)

According to a poll commissioned by the McCormick Tribune Foundation (details here) reveals that Americans know more about the long-running Fox cartoon family the Simpsons than they do about the First Amendment.

Only one-tenth of one percent (1 in 1000 people) of those surveyed were able to name all five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment--speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition--while 22 percent could identify the five members of the Simpson family--Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.

Awareness of freedom of speech was pretty high in the survey at least. Well over half of respondents (69 percent) named it as a freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. Knowledge of the other four, however, was low with the next most-cited freedom being religion with just 24 percent. That's 1 percent less than those who were able to name all three of the "American Idol" judges, Randy, Paula, and Simon.

A charismatic anti-American dictator commands a South American country's large state-owned oil reserves and rails frequently against American capitalism, yet the media coverage of his human rights abuses and his threats to the United States ranges from little to none.

That's the key finding of a new Free Market Project study, "Hugo the Boss: Media criticize ‘greed’ of energy executives, but go easy on Venezuela’s oil strongman."

American media have covered the ports controversy with almost 24-7 dedication. But the networks have ignored a far bigger security threat. As energy prices have spiked and world demand increased, the United States’ reliance on oil controlled by Venezuela’s anti-American despot Hugo Chavez has become a real danger. But it’s a danger the networks barely even mention.

Former UPI White House reporter Helen Thomas gave an interview to Campus Progress, the campus project of the liberal Center for American Progress. Her theme, unsurprisingly, was that the Washington press corps is a bulk pack of weenies:

Starting after 9/11, they rolled over and played dead—they were so afraid of being called unpatriotic and un-American and they thought the American people were watching on television. They lost their guts and they did a lousy job. It was so clear, for two years, that President Bush wanted to go to war. Every day on the podium in the press room, we heard Ari Fleischer and then Scott McClellan say in one breath, “9/11—Saddam Hussein—9/11—Saddam Hussein—9/11—.” So later on when they said, no, Saddam Hussein had no links with them it was a little late in the game.

When asked if Hollywood is liberal (culturally or politically), whether it's outside the American mainstream, or attempting to drag it to the left, two big stars told CNN's Larry King no. On Monday night, MRC's Megan McCormack noticed that Jon Stewart, preparing to emcee the Oscars, said the idea that Hollywood is liberal and getting in the face of conservatives is not a real issue:

Male caller: "Hello. I was wondering, regarding the, the cultural war we have between Republicans and Hollywood, how Jon feels this year’s crop of nominees and the films that Hollywood chooses to celebrate, is that Hollywood thumbing it’s nose at Republicans, or does it give a kind of vindication to the Republican party, and possibly allow some backlash? Could Hollywood find, in a time when censorship’s becoming a real issue again, could it hurt ‘em?"

Immature arrogance is the only way to describe NBC White House reporter David Gregory’s recent questioning of Scott McClellan (regarding Vice President Dick Cheney’s shooting accident). Gregory’s behavior is a symptom of a debilitating political virus infecting mainstream media. To borrow a phrase from the liberal lexicon, today’s media is a “toxic work environment.”

Many people recall similar unprofessional, if not reprehensible, behavior by MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell just before the 2004 presidential election. He shouted down Swift Boat veteran John O’Neil, an earnest man who sought to have his qualified say about John Kerry’s Vietnam experience. Calling this man a liar, as O’Donnell did repeatedly on national TV, reveals a flawed temperament and narrow intellectual pursuit.

Minnesota ABC affiliate KSTP continues to defend its refusal to run an ad from the conservative group Progress for America which says the American news media is witholding good news about the war in Iraq.

"The first spot had two statements that implied the media intentionally withheld good news and intentionally distorted reporting from Iraq. We know that's not true about KSTP. So we declined to run the ad," station general manager Rob Hubbard is quoted as saying in a Chicago Tribune article which gives a good background on the controversy.

Are the "Midwest Heroes" (ads viewable here) set to become the Swiftboat Veterans of 2006?

The Columbia Missourian reported on CBS's on-air apology for using a fake photograph on "48 Hours."

CBS News issued a public apology at the end of Saturday’s “48 Hours” episode and on the newsmagazine’s Web site for altering a photo on the front page of The Columbia Daily Tribune. The photo was shown during a “48 Hours” segment about the conviction of Ryan Ferguson for the murder of Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt.

Henry J. Waters III, publisher of the victimized Tribune, took CBS to task for its "show business masquerading as journalism."

In an interview with NPR's "On The Media," former ABC reporter Dave Marash, now signed up for the English-language version of al-Jazeera, goes almost faint singing the praises of his new employer:

Al-Jazeera in Arabic is, I believe, one of the most revolutionary and positive influences on the Arabic-speaking, mostly Islamic Middle Eastern world in, literally, centuries. It has opened up public discourse and it has brought American standards of reporting to an area that previously had nothing but really moronically state-controlled television and news operations.

Is Chris Matthews rooting for civil war in Iraq? It's hard to interpret his words otherwise when, after asserting that officials in previous administrations and former President Bush had warned that going into Iraq would lead to civil war, Matthews observed:

"The problem is it took a little time for this to take shape."

"The problem," Chris?

Matthews' hoping for the worst was just the capper on the Bush-bashing fest he conducted with Matt Lauer on this morning's Today show. Those nature documentaries of vultures on the Serengeti plain have little on the way Matthews and Lauer went after President Bush's political bones.

NewsBuster Tom Johnson has condensed his time reviewing NPR broadcasts for MRC (poor man) into an article for The American Enterprise magazine. His general theory is that NPR has traveled from a fairly radical past to a present in which it's fairly indistinguishable in its biases from the rest of the "mainstream" media establishment. Here's an excerpt:

Most old-school or throwback leftist bias on NPR falls into one of three categories, listed below in ascending order of importance.

The first contains examples of a frequently amusing sociopolitical exoticism. In October 2004, for example, All Things Considered co-host Melissa Block referred to Ralph Nader as a "major" Presidential candidate. A few days after the election, reporter Pam Fessler gave "international monitors" plenty of time to gripe about how voting rules in the U.S. vary from state to state.

A poll to be released today shows that U.S. soldiers overwhelmingly want out of Iraq — and soon.

Kristof: Poll Finds U.S. Troops in Iraq Urge Pullout