I was just reading on the Druge Report that Charlie Sheen was questioning the "offical story  what the government told us what really happened to the twin towers on 9-11" Granted  the web site that carried it sounded like o-o-h where's the black helicopters ?The site is called infowars.com  his article was on the prisonplanet.com but nevertheless it's worth reading when he's called " highly credible public figure". For example he questioned when Andy Card told him at elemenrary school "why didn't secret service men whisk the president away from there right away" In other words he impiled that the president knew what the targets were beforehand. These comments were made on the the Alex Jones Show  [is he like Art Bell?] Anyway there must be plenty of koolaid to spread around. It's worthy to read.

To paraphrase that famous George Santayana phrase, perhaps political reporters who highlight liberal efforts to embarrass the President on Friday are destined to find those same moves inadequate on Monday. Having awarded liberal Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold with the "political play of the week" for his motion to censure President Bush on the March 17 The Situation Room, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider during today’s 4pm hour wondered why the senator isn’t proposing impeachment.

Bill Schneider: "Wolf, the philosopher George Santayana wrote those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. But sometimes that happens with those who remember the past all too well. Senator Russ Feingold’s motion to censure President Bush raises a question. If he believes the President broke the law, why isn’t the senator proposing impeachment?"

Schneider then highlighted four panels from the March 19 Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau’s left-wing cartoon strip:

With all the criticism heaped upon it by bloggers, including NewsBusters' very own Clay Waters, the New York Times has finally decided to do a story about bias..... That is, bias by Amazon.com.

Amazon.com last week modified its search engine after an abortion rights organization complained that search results appeared skewed toward anti-abortion books.

It turns out that one of Amazon's helpful search hints is biased in favor of the pro-life position.

Until a few days ago, a search of Amazon's catalog of books using the word "abortion" turned up pages with the question, "Did you mean adoption?" at the top, followed by a list of books related to abortion.

Amazon removed that question from the search results page after it received a complaint from a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a national organization based in Washington.

Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, and while progress has been made, CBS’s the "Early Show" attempted to paint as bleak a picture as possible when discussing the war. In total, there were four stories regarding the Iraq war on this morning’s broadcast.

The first such story was a piece by CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Bill Plante. Substitute co-host Russ Mitchell introduced the piece:

Russ Mitchell: "Despite escalating violence, President Bush insists the administration’s Iraq policy is working."

Bill Plante followed with a bleak assessment:

Bill Plante: "Well three years into the Iraq war with casualties mounting and no end in sight, the President and Vice President both see reason for optimism and they say there’s progress."

Greg Sheffield mentioned earlier the wacky al Jazeera-Fox comparisons in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. I would only add in that Gail Shister report, former ABC reporter Dave Marash is coming out swinging again in defense of his new employers, Al-Jazeera, against those "hysterical" Americans who aren't fond of Arab propaganda channels: 

Marash says he expected a backlash when he was hired. When it comes to the Arab world, Americans display an "anxiety and suspicion that sometimes rises to the hysterical level."

Note: Marash was talking on a speakerphone in Washington, with AJI publicist Jazayerli in the room. Network policy, she said.

A March 20 Boston Globe story, Guantanamo transcripts paint a picture of war's combatants, includes this statement:

The documents offer the most detailed picture yet of whom the U.S. government feels it is at war with, and give a rare glimpse into the psyche of Al Qaeda foot soldiers.

How can The Globe say something like "the US government feels it is at war?" How can it not?

If The Globe admits America is at war, its readers will ask: "Who is the enemy?"

The Globe doesn't want to identify an enemy. It perfers to talk about "insurgents" and "militants." When really pressed it will say, "Bush's war on terrorism" But never "America's war."

Anderson Cooper sounded more like a political pundit than an objective journalist during a discussion with Time columnist Joe Klein on March 17 on the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Cooper expressed outrage that "none of us have been asked to sacrifice" during this time of war, while Klein asked, "why aren't we collecting clothing for the children of Iraq," even though there are numerous organizations and programs established to do just that.

First, though, Cooper set up Klein to take this shot at Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:

Anderson Cooper: "I mean, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, there’s a lot of people who’ve been calling for his head, and you’ve talked to a lot of people in the Pentagon who are surprised he’s still there. But he looks like he’s–there’s no sign of him going."

Joe Klein: "Rumsfeld ran the most criminally incompetent military campaign, you know, in, in, in the last 100 years, perhaps in American history."

The English-language version of Al Jazeera is coming to America, but Philadelphia Inquirer TV columnists Gail Shister wonders: "is America ready for Al Jazeera?"

The English version will be called Al Jazeera International (AJI) and has recruited journalists from the mainstream media. Dave Marash, formerly of ABC's "Nightline," and former CNN anchor Riz Khan have been recruited.

The new network promises "accurate, impartial and objective reporting," and one journalism instructor said Al Jazeera is no different than Fox News.

Al Jazeera "clearly has a point of view, but so does Fox," says Kelly McBride, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"There's a market for that in the world, and in the United States, it's probably a growing market."

Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda may know more about novels than anyone else who lives or works inside the Beltway, but that doesn't mean his take on Communism isn't straight out of pulp fiction (granted, some of it high-level pulp fiction like Zola's Germinal). In a Monday online chat, a reader asked about the Communist beliefs of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago. Specifically, the reader wondered "how...someone so attuned to the absurdity, corruption, and abuse of power by the State [could] be an advocate of the most statist form of government available."

Dirda's response:

The Communist ideal is a noble one, it just doesn't seem to work in our fallen world. How can anyone believe it right for people to inherit vast wealth and privilege simply because they were lucky enough to be born into a family named Rockefeller or Kennedy? Why should a man cough his lungs out in a coal mine to barely support his children, while drones around him live like kings? It is easy to be in sympathy with communist ideals. But as Kant and Isaiah Berlin used to say: Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

Following shortly after a segment discussing a poll showing 59 percent of Americans believe the economy is doing well, CNN's "In the Money" crew wondered why Americans were not scaring easily with fears of a bird flu pandemic. [For article, click here.]

“We’ve fanned the flames of fear about this stuff,” said CNN’s Jack Cafferty on March 18. He was talking about bird flu, and his admission just confirmed the Free Market Project’s ongoing analysis of media coverage.

The “In the Money” co-host’s comments came as the show’s panel looked at “Stock of the Week” Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN), which has seen a 20-percent loss in value recently from overseas bird flu scares. Co-host Jennifer Westhoven marveled at the American public’s apparent nonchalance about the H5N1 avian flu virus.

On the Wal-Mart watch: Slate.com wondered "Is Whole Foods Wholesome," in a March 17 posting by The New Yorker's Field Maloney which found a left-wing use for Wal-Mart's constant evolution and innovation to capitalize on market trends and expand revenue. Maloney argued that if not for Wal-Mart's entry into selling organic groceries, "poor" Americans will be doomed by obesity-inducing non-organic, highly-processed foods while "rich" Americans might well shop at boutique organic outlets like Whole Foods.

The organic-food movement is in danger of exacerbating the growing gap between rich and poor in this country by contributing to a two-tiered national food supply, with healthy food for the rich. Could Wal-Mart's populist strategy prove to be more "sustainable" than Whole Foods? Stranger things have happened.

As Tim Graham noted this weekend, the Times "messed up in its attempt at yet another juicy Abu Ghraib story."

Reporter Hassan Fattah’s interview with Ali Shalal Qaissi, who claimed to be the subject of an infamous Abu Ghraib photo, made the front page of the March 11 Times, complete with a picture of Qaissi holding a photograph of “himself” -- that archetypal image of a hooded man standing on a box attached to wires.

The headline trumpeted: "Symbol of Abu Ghraib Seeks to Spare Others His Nightmare."

Fattah stated:

“Mr. Qaissi, 43, was prisoner 151716 of Cellblock 1A. The picture of him standing hooded atop a cardboard box, attached to electrical wires with his arms stretched wide in an eerily prophetic pose, became the indelible symbol of the torture at Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.”

In the daily Washington Post online political chat, reporter Shailagh Murray (that's Shay-la, and not Shay-laugh, although you might call this exchange Shay-laughable) quips with very little originality that Dick Cheney sounds over-optimistic on talk shows because Bush is like a tenth-grade kid without much potential:

New York, N.Y.: Before the invasion, Vice President Cheney said that we will be greeted as liberators. Ten months ago he said the insurgency was in its last throes. Yesterday, he said that both of these statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."

Is the vice president the most clueless person on earth, or is he just a big liar?

What's news this Monday?

Got any thoughts on the NCAA tournament? Or the 2008 presidential tournament?

Columnist Don Feder has viewed the new shaved-Natalie Portman movie, "V for Vendetta," and he is not a fan, as he reports for Front Page Magazine:

"V for Vendetta," which opened on Friday, combines all of the celluloid left’s paranoid fantasies – Christian conservatives in charge of a brutal regime, the war-on-terrorism as an excuse for the suppression of civil liberties, homosexuals harassed and killed by conservative Christians, a pedophile priest (who works miter-in-hand with the regime) and an attack blamed on terrorists that’s really a right-wing conspiracy.

On the third anniversary of the Iraq war, the Today show ran a generally predictable segment assessing successes and failures and looking to the future. To be sure, former Clinton administration official Wendy Sherman insisted that the President needs to start "telling the truth." And Gen. Barry McCaffrey thought that not deploying what he considered to be an adequate number of troops was a huge mistake. And yes, former Bush admin spokesman Dan Senor was more sanguine.

But when it came to revealing Today's bias, most telling were the three man-in-the-street interviews.

The first was a man who expressed support for the Commander-in-Chief, if not for the war per se, and hoped for the mission "to go through as smooth as possible, with as many, with the least number of lives lost as possible."

The Washington Post reports that anti-American or anti-U.S. military movies and plays are all the rage in Egypt. It's like George Clooney wearing a towel.

CAIRO -- When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited this city last month, Egyptians had an unusual choice: watch her on TV as she expounded on issues of war and peace in the Middle East, or go to a neighborhood movie theater and see her portrayed by a look-alike actress belly-dancing and placed in "adult" situations.

The film in question is "The Night Baghdad Fell," which depicts Egyptian obsessions with war, sex and the United States. Wildly anti-American, it has done a brisk business for two months, a long screen life for Egyptian-made films. In "Night," Egyptians fret about an American invasion of Egypt and the potential destruction of their capital. Americans are bullies, rapists and mindless killers.

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

"Bush's Agenda Loses Focus" is one article.

"A Sliding Scale for Victory" is another; it's a "news analysis" with the sub-head, "As the conflict in Iraq enters its fourth year and civil war threatens, the Bush administration is again working to lower expectations."

It's just another day on the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times, right? Wrong. It's the above-the-fold front page (.pdf image) of Sunday's paper (March 19, 2006).

On CBS and "Face The Nation" Sunday, host Bob Schieffer had an interesting exchange with his guest, Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney, who will rarely do Sunday morning interviews, was again pressed with questions of his almost expected and impending "resignation."

Also reported in a story titled "White House Shake-Up Isn't Needed, Says Cheney" by Douglass K. Daniel for the Associated Press (AP) as well, it seems the media fascination and obvious distress with the vice president's unabashed conservative views continue.