And here we thought the MSM was biased against President Bush. Wrong! On this evening's Fox News Watch, reliable lefty Neal Gabler informed us that just the opposite is true. Turns out. . . the MSM has uncritically propagated an overly positive image of the president. Who knew?

Gabler's shocking revelation came in the course of a discussion of the recent Katrina revisionism. In particular, News Watch aired footage from an ABC interview from this past week in which the president made this frank acknowledgement:

"Here's the problem that happened in Katrina. There was no situational awareness, and that means that we weren't getting good, solid information from people who were on the ground, and we need to do a better job. One reason we weren't is because communications systems got wiped out, and in many cases we were relying upon the media, who happened to have better situational awareness than the government. And when you have the media [with] better situational awareness than the government, the American people are saying, 'Wait a minute. What is happening? How come the federal Government and state government and local governments couldn't do a better job of providing information necessarily so that people could react better?"

[Be advised that this item includes accurate quotations of vulgarities.] Actor/comedian D.L. Hughley, the star of the 1998-2002 ABC sit-com, The Hughleys, and the host of Comedy Central's Weekends at the DL, which is now on hiatus, launched some derisive tirades against President George W. Bush while a guest panelist Friday night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. After Hughley charged that Bush “has spent, and the Republican Party have spent, the last five years making us ignorant and afraid,” he mockingly suggested that the “J.J." character, from the 1970s sit-com Good Times, “could run the country better than this guy!” When host Bill Maher remarked that “what scares me about a guy like George Bush” is the “certitude” he has because of his faith which means that “no matter how low his approval rating goes, he doesn't care because he sees himself as a messianic figure,” Hughley launched this rant: “If I hear one more person tell me how this man is a man of faith, I think I'll lose my mother-fucking mind [audience applause]. Let me tell you why. I'll tell you why. He left his ranch in Crawford to see about one woman, Terry Schiavo, he left his ranch early. But when thousands and thousands of people were being, dying in New Orleans, this son of a bitch didn't do shit, and that's very un-Christlike to me.” (Transcript follows.)

The New York Daily News is reporting (hat tip to Drudge) that film director Spike Lee has some truly unkind words for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an interview he did for “Stuff” magazine. According to the article:

“Says Lee: ‘I dislike Condoleezza Rice more than [President] Bush. The thing about it is that she's gotten a free ride from black people.’"

Lee didn’t stop there:

“‘People say, 'She's so successful' and 'Look at her position as a black woman.' She is a black woman who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., and said that she never experienced a day of racism in her life,’ Lee tells the April issue of Stuff magazine.”

Or there:

It appears former CNN anchor Aaron Brown is still licking his wounds. Speaking to a group in Medford, Oregon, on Wednesday, Brown suggested that the decline in television news is due to the choices being made by viewers, and that network executives are now basing their content decisions on what they believe the public wants to see versus what is really important.

As reported by the Medford Mail Tribune: “‘The news in this country is a business,’ he added. ‘You might not like to think of it that way, but it is."

First, Brown blamed TV executives:

“He admitted that cable news reporters and editors have failed viewers by not telling stories that are important, that truly matter.

“‘Cable indulges too often in what amounts to mud wrestling — just two people shouting at each other,’ he said.”

Then, Brown blamed the public:

Our colleagues down the hall and in Los Angeles at the Parents Television Council were not thrilled to see the Washington Post TV writer Lisa de Moraes (pronounced de-more-ice) crack wise over their study on Friday. Just check the headline: "Violence! Violence! Violence! Burps! Nose Picking!" She began with a dismissive tone: "Self-appointed TV watchdog Brent Bozell has put out the gazillionth study on children's television, in which he reveals that there is more violence on children's entertainment programming than in prime time." She makes fun that the study's author, Kristen Fyfe, and the PTC gang that watched the kiddie shows counted for gross bodily functions.

On her Friday afternoon online Post chat, when asked why she even bothered with the PTC study, since the questioner thought, "why do they deserve your attention? I think their claims are so ridiculous that they shouldn't even appear on the TV pages," she replied, "because, my avid reader, having covered the TV industry for so long, you get a sense of when there is going to be a 'pile on.' And you never want to miss a good pile on..."

Who would have thought it?: in the crucial first half-hour of their respective shows this morning, Fox & Friends Weekend didn't cover the incident at the University of North Carolina in which an Iranian drove an SUV through a crowd, injuring five people - but the Today show did.

Interviewed by Today co-host Lester Holt, one of the students who was injured stated: "I personally think it was definitely, definitely intentional, for sure."

As the injured student described the incident, involving an SUV driven by recent UNC grad Mohammed Reza Taheriazar of Iran:

"I look up and i see a car coming through in the middle of campus, which is pretty odd to begin with. I keep walking. He's going really slow. It doesn't seem like he has any malicious intent. All of a sudden I just hear the car's engine rev. I look up and the car is right there coming right at me, about five feet from me. I ended up on the hood and luckily rolled off without serious injuries."

The Associated Press Friday evening published a clarification of its March 1 story regarding a controversial video of a White House briefing before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. At this point, I can find no actual link to this article. However, both the Drudge Report and Power Line have reported similar findings. The following comes directly from NexisLexis:

“In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.

“The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.

“The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.” 

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I saw this on line and thought it was great.  Very insightful about Cheney.  LOL!

www.LincolnVsBush.com