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Today's Gaggle: April 24, 2006

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Andy Rooney Shills For a Woman President; Might That be Hillary, Andy?

On Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” Andy Rooney didn’t come right out and say that Americans should vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008…but you didn’t have to be telepathic to figure it out (hat tip to Expose the Left with video link to follow).

In his regular closing arguments – in which he has had free reign for decades to say whatever he feels with total impunity – Rooney suggested that women are smarter, nicer, more disciplined voters, and more honest than men. This makes one wonder how many men were still watching the broadcast when Rooney got around to actually making his point. After all, it's not often that one runs across such an unashamedly proud and outspoken male misandrist during prime time, is it?

Kennedy's Gas Solution: Steal From The Rich Give To The Middle Class

On Meet the Press this morning, Senator Edward Kennedy (D - MA) did not suggest or imply, but straight-out said that the government should take away oil companies' profits and hand it out to middle income families. Hmm, redistribution of wealth, what does that sound like? Socialism.

MR. RUSSERT: What are we going to do about $3-dollars-a-gallon gasoline?

SEN. KENNEDY: The president, the president should have called the head of the oil companies into the White House and started jawboning. He should have done that a week ago. Why he doesn’t do that, I do not understand. He ought to be pointing out that hard-working Americans, middle-class people, who have their sons and daughters in Iraq and in Afghanistan, that this is not a time for greed. And he ought to activate and call the Federal Trade Commission—which is basically a sleepy organization that has given an interim report in terms of price-fixing and gouging—he ought to get them off and have them working seven days a week, 24/7, to make sure that we know exactly who is price-gouging. And third, we ought to have a bipartisan effort to recapture, recapture these excessive profits that are going to the oil industry and return them to working families and middle-income families.

The new idea in the Democratic Party is to play the "troops card" in any situation because it will win the hearts of people instead of invoking true thought. That is exactly what Kennedy did in this situation. Shame on him.

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Liberal Bias at Wikipedia?

Does Wikipedia, the online community encyclopedia that anyone can edit, have a liberal political bias? Over at PBS's MediaShift blog, Mark Glaser hosts a fascinating debate on the subject between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Olbermann Watch blogger Robert Cox.

The discussion revolves around Cox's attempts to edit Wikipedia's entry on MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to make it more politically neutral (a stated goal of the site) and to include facts that were left out. Cox contends that his changes were continually discarded by fans of Olbermann who monitor the article, seeking to ensure that it reflects their liberal views, something he believes has happened to Wikipedia articles about partial-birth abortion, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.

Pop Star Pink Attacks Bush in New Song ‘Dear Mr. President’

For those that haven’t heard, the female singer Pink (Alecia Moore) – who quite recently joined PETA in a protest against Kentucky Fried Chicken’s alleged cruelty to animals – has joined the ranks of musicians voicing their opinions against George W. Bush. In her song “Dear Mr. President,” Pink attacks, amongst other things, “No Child Left Behind,” his positions on abortion as well as same-sex marriage, his former drug and alcohol abuse, and, of course, the war in Iraq. Some of her more poignant lyrics include:

  • How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
  • How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
  • What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
  • And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
  • You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

What follows are the complete lyrics of this piece along with a video link to a recent performance of the number courtesy of YouTube.

Russert Doesn’t Challenge Kennedy’s Numerous Historical Misstatements

Sunday seemed to be “Let’s Not Challenge Democrats From Massachusetts Day” on America’s top political talk shows. Similar to what occurred on “This Week” as reported here, Tim Russert on “Meet The Press” seemed content to allow his first guest, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass), to say whatever he wanted to about American history regardless of accuracy, with total impunity, and with no fear of being challenged (video link to follow).

The first historical misstatement made by Kennedy was that we have now been in Iraq as long as we were in Korea: “You know, Tim, as of this week, American forces will have been in Iraq as long as America was in the Korean peninsula in the Korean war.” Certainly, any journalist worth his salt would have challenged his guest on this statement, as America more than 50 years later still has troops in Korea. In fact, according to Global Security.org, as many as 67,000 American troops were still in South Korea in 1970, 43,000 in 1991, and 37,000 as recently as October 2004. Today, this number appears to be about 30,000. Yet, Russert chose not to bring this fact to Kennedy’s attention, even when Kennedy reiterated this misstatement later in the interview.

Kennedy’s second unchallenged misstatement came when Russert asked him whether there could be huge consequences to pulling all of America’s troops out of Iraq:

Stephanopoulos Doesn’t Ask Kerry About CIA Leaker’s Contributions to His Campaign

Dontcha just love it when a high-profile Democrat goes on ABC’s “This Week” largely to get softball questions thrown at him or her by one of President Clinton’s former advisers? Well, this Sunday, it wasn’t just a function of softballs. Instead, it was the obvious question that George Stephanopoulos chose to not ask Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) that was so confounding and disturbing (video link to follow).

Stephanopoulos addressed recent revelations of a CIA agent named Mary McCarthy who was fired this week for leaking information about secret terrorist detention centers to The Washington Post’s Dana Priest. When Kerry seemingly praised McCarthy for doing what she did – “So I'm glad she told the truth” – Stephanopoulos didn’t bother asking the senator whether his feelings on this matter related to yesterday’s revelations by The New York Times that “Public records show that Ms. McCarthy contributed $2,000 in 2004 to the presidential campaign of John Kerry.” (In reality, donations to Kerry and other Democrats by McCarthy and a man believed to be her husband likely totaled $7,500 in 2004 as described by NewsBuster Christopher Fotos and the JustOneMinute blog.) Yet, for some reason, Stephanopoulos never broached this possible conflict with Kerry during his interview.

Kerry: "Glad" CIA Leaker McCarthy "Told The Truth"

There is no doubt that the leak of classified information concerning possible CIA prisons in Europe by CIA analyst Mary McCarthy has harmed U.S. national security and put our relationships with European allies on the line. Regardless of these facts, however, on today's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Sen. John Kerry said he was "glad" McCarthy "told the truth." 

Video available here.

Here's the transcript via Drudge:

STEPHANOPOULOS: On another -- on another front, excuse me, CIA official Mary McCarthy lost her job this week for disclosing classified information according to the CIA probably about a WASHINGTON POST story which reveal revealed the existence of secret prisons in Europe. A lot of different views. Senator Pat Roberts praised action but some former CIA officers described Mary McCarthy as a sacrificial lamb acting in the finest American tradition by revealing human rights violations. What's your view?

Impeachment Insufficient: Gannett Editor Calls for World-Wide Boycott of USA

On the public-access TV show I host, 'Right Angle', the topic this past week was immigration. A Cornell campus radical expressed the view that not only should our borders be completely open, but that we shouldn't screen immigrants for criminal history or even . . . for being known Al-Qaeda members.

Now, if the radical making these sophomoric suggestions isn't quite a sophomore - he's in fact a grad student - perhaps some slack can be cut him as he continues to live, largely divorced from reality, within the liberal cocoon of the ivy-league tower.

The same defense cannot be offered to explain away the equally churlish remarks that Dave Rossie serves up week after week. Rossie is associate editor of the Gannett newspaper, the Binghamton [NY] Press & Sun Bulletin. In addition to his editing duties, Rossie writes a syndicated weekly column that, in its juvenile tone, reads like something worthy of an over-the-top 10th grader.

On 'The Sopranos,' Mob Boss's Daughter Denounces Bush for Abusing Civil Rights

[Text and video include a vulgarity] Another fresh episode of The Sopranos, HBO's series about a New Jersey Mob boss and his family, will air tonight (Sunday), and that reminded me of a left-wing shot at President Bush's anti-terrorism policies, which aired on last Sunday's edition. Daughter “Meadow Soprano,” played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler, is a volunteer at a legal aid clinic where she meets an Afghan family whose son was arrested. "The government is just completely fucking this family over," she later complains while sitting next to her boyfriend “Finn” at the kitchen counter of her parent's home, adding: "The FBI snatched their son off the street like we're some Third World dictatorship." When her younger brother suggests that maybe the guy is a terrorist, she angrily retorts: "9/11, 9/11. Bush is using it as an excuse to erode our constitutional protections and you're falling for it!" (A little more dialogue follows.)

Video clip (1:45): Real (3 MB) or Windows Media (3.4 MB), plus MP3 audio (600 KB)