Flipping stations on my radio dial on the drive home, I tried WTWP (the new Washington Post Radio outlet in D.C.), and their new afternoon-drive host Bob Kur, formerly of NBC News, invited Keith Olbermann and Howard Kurtz on to discuss Katie Couric's future, between 6:10 and 6:20 PM. It began in a very staid way, as Olbermann said it remains to be seen whether viewers will accept Katie at night, and whether perhaps she could recreate the evening newscast into a new form. He also relayed that Couric's rumored replacement, Meredith Vieira, has a personal connection: His mother and sister have both taught Vieira's children.

It turned much more interesting when the topic shifted to Kurtz's Monday Olbermann profile. When Kur asked Olbermann what he thought of Kurtz's notion he was "catering to an anti-Bush crowd," Olbermann denied it, defining "catering" as "deliberately changing information or perspective" to please viewers. He said his show was the same in 2003 and 2004 as it is now. No disagreement here: it's been a snarky liberal show from the get-go. But that doesn't mean the show isn't a flagrantly anti-Bush show, just that Keith is suggesting it's not a ratings or marketing ploy. It's letting Keith be Keith...

Be the death literal or figurative, in recent days Democrats and their MSM claque have demonstrated a ghoulish penchant for dancing on the graves of their political opponents. As documented here, on the very day of his death last week, MSNBC's Alison Stewart, subbing for Keith Olbermann on Countdown, took nasty parting shots at Caspar Weinberger. Stewart disparaged as both a budget "slasher" and a big spender the man who, as Ronald Reagan's Defense Secretary, contributed mightily to winning the Cold War.

Today, it was Tom DeLay's retirement announcement that brought out the worst in the left. Bob Shrum was Chris Matthews' guest on Hardball, and so avidly did Shrum exult in DeLay's predicament that former GOP Rep. Susan Molinari was plainly repulsed. But far from taking Shrum to task for his unseemly asperity, Matthews commended him.

When it comes to combining campy, staged video with liberalism nobody tops Geraldo Rivera. On last night's Geraldo At Large, in a story about proposed legislation to lower the hunting age in Wisconsin Rivera, seen holding a rifle outside the Fox studios in New York, crouched down to get a child's opinion on the law: "So get this, there’s a new bill pending in the state of Wisconsin that would lower that state’s legal hunting age, putting loaded guns into the hands of children between the ages of eight and eleven. Kids like William here, making them bonafide gun-toting hunters. So what do you think of that idea William?"

William: "I hate it."

Rivera: "You hate it? Ooh!"

And later in the show Rivera, supposedly on vacation, called for Puerto Rican statehood from the deck of his sailboat:

A leading hurricane forecaster, name not given, was to release his predictions today for the 2006 hurricane season, and Harry Smith of CBS’ "The Early Show" used this as an excuse to relive the problems with FEMA during hurricane Katrina. As his guest, Smith interviewed Jane Bullock. Smith introduced Ms. Bullock:

Harry Smith: "Jane Bullock is a former Chief of Staff at FEMA."

Yet he never mentions that while she worked for several decades at FEMA, she held this lofty position exclusively during the Clinton Administration for Clinton buddy James Lee Witt. Her high place in the Clinton administration could have helped put her anti-Bush comments into some context. (The same omission occurred on the CBS News website.) Bullock claimed:

Well it happened, Chris Matthews has finally descended into name-calling. On last night's Hardball during a segment with General Anthony Zinni, Matthews resorted to calling supporters of the Iraqi invasion fools and chowderheads. Matthews asked General Zinni:

"What fool thought that a third world country would let us march into their country and start calling the shots without resistance? I mean, I am just saying. Who believes that?"

After Zinni blamed Pentagon planners Matthews took aim at Vice President Cheney:

"Well, Chalabi, the head of the National Congress, who had such good relations with Cheney and Scooter Libby, was running around town here telling everybody, ‘don’t worry, the minute we get this guy knocked off, Saddam Hussein, we’re going to have a government of people there who are pro-Israeli, pro-Western, aren’t going to cause any trouble in the region. They’re gonna be swell guys to deal with and there is not gonna be any resistance.’ What kind of a chowderhead would believe that in the middle of the Arab world? That we were gonna face this magical situation where everybody is gonna be giving us flowers, the girls will be kissing us, they’ll be jumping on the tanks, in love with our G.I.’s. Who sold that picture?"

Michelle Malkin has posted an "apparent Dateline NBC solicitation to Muslim groups." With the comments about the April 1st weekend, perhaps we should hope this is an elaborate April Fools prank. If this is as authentic as John Green's "Bush makes me sick" e-mails, the most enjoyable part is how these anti-discrimination producers want to make sure their professional victims "look Muslim" and have full beards and skull caps, and then send them to a NASCAR race. (Hmm. In fact, since NBC still airs Nextel Cup races, wouldn't it be seriously off-putting to its racing-broadcasting arrangements?)

Let's hope Dateline doesn't try to put the Muslims in exploding GM trucks, since that would be taking the staged segments to a whole new level. Here's how it reads:

On the front of Monday’s Arts page stands Felicia Lee’s “Gay Moms And Dads Can Bring The Family,” based on Rosie O’Donnell’s new HBO special on “the first-ever cruise for gay families.”

The piece reads more as pro-gay mainstreaming than a news item, leading off with unusual criticism by a reporter of a question from another reporter.

“Rosie O'Donnell, the former talk show host, actress, lesbian mom and a candid blogger, can certainly duck, weave and bob her way through a conversation. But she was caught off-guard by a reporter at a press event for ‘All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise,’ a new documentary about the first-ever cruise for gay families. Did she intend to raise her children to be gay?, the reporter asked.

In Bid to Unseat Clinton, Challenger Reaches Out to Rally the National G.O.P.
PATRICK HEALY, NYT, April 4, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 3 — John Spencer, the former Yonkers mayor running against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, is planning a 30-state fund-raising drive to try to rally the national Republican Party to defeat her re-election bid this year, and has already secured support from some prominent conservatives.

In letters sent last month to more than 200 members of Congress and 13 possible presidential candidates for 2008, Mr. Spencer's national fund-raising consultant wrote that Mrs. Clinton was on a "presidential march" toward a bid for the White House in 2008, and that the party needed a strategy to stop her: ideally, for the Spencer camp, spending to derail her in New York this year.

Even though Mr. Spencer is still competing for the Republican Party's nomination against another candidate, Kathleen Troia McFarland, a former spokeswoman in the Reagan Pentagon, some conservatives have signaled early support for him. ...

The Washington Post isn't very good at hiding its feelings about abortion when it lets its political reporters profile the Washington elite in their Style section. The latest example was a star turn for Cecile Richards, the new leader of Planned Parenthood. By gum, she's a lovable, open, down-to-Earth girl, the perfect soccer mom -- who also just happens to run a chain of abortion factories.

A few weeks back, reporter Darragh Johnson began her profile of the new CEO of the nation's leading abortion provider with sympathy for her personal life. Her mother, former Texas Gov. Ann Richards (the one who taunted President Bush in 1988 and then lost to his son in 1994), is undergoing cancer treatment, but she still had advice for her granddaughter's attire for an interview with CBS for a summer internship. She needs a "new spring suit." But Mom said she would just buy her a new shirt. Johnson also makes sure to mention she's following the NCAA basketball tournament so she can talk brackets with her husband.

The Associated Press held their annual luncheon yesterday and invited media darling Senator Barack Obama to lay out the media's talking points for the next election. The only surprising thing about the event was that it opened with a prayer.

Apparently Democrats want the press to focus on global warming as the core issue in the next election cycle. No doubt focus groups have reaffirmed that it is the only topic democrats can successfully obfuscate. If I may, I'd like to respond to one paragraph of Obama's message, and perhaps he can respond back to me - should he happen to be a faithful  reader of Newsbusters.

(14:49) "What we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to the point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to potential catastrophe. Since 1980 we've experienced 19 of the 20 hottest years on record."

That's interesting, because since 1980 we've also experienced 28 of the 29 most powerful solar flares ever recorded. This just 400 years after a lack of solar flares, which just happened to coincide with the "Maunder Minimum", otherwise known as the Little Ice Age. In science, that's known as a pattern.

Perhaps Barack can explain how fossil fuels caused NASA to detect a sharp increase in recent global warming - on Mars.

And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.

Perhaps it is all the SUVs used by Martian soccer moms.

Even if democrats actually had a plan to move away from fossil fuels, they have no authority to force the rest of the world to follow it. It would seem the best play for democrats is try to make political inroads by continuing to blame man for all the problems in the universe. All the better if the media goes along with them. Now what are the chances of that? 

Conspiracy monger and Hollywood director Oliver Stone apparently isn’t happy with how some in the media – guilty as charged! – denigrate the political views of Hollywoodians. As reported by ContactMusic.com (hat tip to Drudge), Stone “has blasted media groups who ‘slander’ celebrities for their political comments - because intelligent stars have every right to question their leaders.” Intelligent stars? Now there’s an oxymoron.

Stone, who has focused most of his film career on serious subjects, apparently missed the humor in this statement, and mercilessly continued: “‘We're Hollywood wackos and all that stuff, left-wing... (It's) an easy and facile dismissal.’” And continued: “‘I'm still a citizen, I've served my country as a veteran, I've had many jobs before the film business. I know something of life, having lived to this age.’” And then said something rather telling:

Today's starters: Hollywood now seems to be thinking that enough time has passed since 9/11 that it's now possible to make movies about it. Is America ready for such films? Writing in Newsweek, Sean Smith and Jac Chebatoris argue no. Anoniblogger American Barbarian (HT: Ace) says it's more a case of liberals wanting the public not to remember those gut-wrenching hours. In any case, London's Guardian has a roundup on which 9/11 films are coming down the pipe. For the lazy: Oliver Stone (who recently charged sites like this one with "slandering" celebs who speak publicly about politics) and Nicolas Cage team up in a movie about NYC police officers; the director of the Bourne Supremacy is releasing another about United Flight 93, the airplane that passengers crashed (the trailer for which some are trying to keep out of theaters). Two other less-promising films include one based on the story of former paper-pusher and Bush critic Richard Clarke, and one starring the execrable Adam Sandler.

In politics: Former House GOP leader Tom DeLay announces he's resigning from congress, while GOP Senate head Bill Frist tries to rehabilitate his image among the Washington elites. Meanwhile, Democratic representative Cynthia McKinney may start having to avoid the Capitol Hill police since there's soon to be a warrant out for her arrest.

You could see this one coming a mile away. As soon as Matt Lauer announced that Today was inaugurating a series called 'One Nation Under God' on the role religion plays in our country, and that the first episode would focus on President Bush, you knew we were in for a bumpy ride.

The series plays off a new book, 'American Gospel', by Newsweek Managing Editor Jon Meacham. In his set-up [and I do mean set-up] piece, David Gregory claimed that "the Bush era has created not just a political but a religious divide."

Continued Gregory: "Critics have accused the president of using religion to close himself off from opposing points of view." Oh, I don't know, David. He seems to hear you pretty loud and clear.

The New York Post reports that Arab news channel Al Jazeera is having trouble finding any U.S. cable providers willing to carry its new English-language channel.

AL-Jazeera International, the English-language network of the controversial Arab channel Al-Jazeera, is set to launch this summer - but still does not have a single cable company signed up to carry it.

The network is staffed largely by Western journalists, including "Nightline" correspondent David Marash and veteran interviewer David Frost.

It had been set to launch last month, but for unexplained reasons, postponed its start date until summer.

U.S. News' Washington Whispers reports:

Foreign Affairs, the Economist, and certainly U.S.News & World Report are titles you'd expect to see at the two State Department newsstands visited by the public, employees, and their kids, but Playboy and Penthouse? Yikes! Or so thought Condoleezza Rice a while back when she began receiving briefings in Foggy Bottom before her confirmation hearings as secretary of state. Alerted by an aide that the skin magazines, partially clad in brown paper covers, were placed beside newsmagazines and close to candy, nuts, and stuffed animals, she said, "I want them out."

A few weeks later, when she took over from Colin Powell, the eviction began. "The secretary wanted them gone immediately," says senior adviser Jim Wilkinson." She didn't understand how a department that claimed to fight for the rights of women worldwide could sell pornography that degrades women." And, he adds, the magazines "could be seen as contributing to a hostile work environment." He teamed with State's internal manager and several State women who had been campaigning against the publications but had gotten nowhere. Now that they have succeeded, some of those women are eyeing other lad mags like Maxim and FHM. But State News's Richard Williams isn't listening. It was no problem banning the XXX fare: It didn't move very fast. "But Maxim," he says, "is a bestseller."

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

I’m really beginning to love Alec Baldwin. Honestly. You know, if you want to get a pulse of how the extreme left thinks in our nation, you can visit websites like Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, or Moveon.org. Maybe watch a Michael Moore “film,” listen to a Barbra Streisand tune, or even play a videotape of Howard Dean shouting non sequiturs at the top of his lungs...as if there was much of a difference.

On the other hand, you can just as easily check out the most recent blog entry by actor Alec Baldwin at Huff-n-Puff. The beauty is that whether he’s making himself look like a vacuous political imposter on HBO’s “Real Time,” or auditioning for a position as a talk radio host in New York City only to be so embarrassed by callers Sean Hannity and Mark Levin that he is forced to stomp out of the studio like a two-year-old, Baldwin never disappoints.

This is why his most recent blog entry at Huff-n-Puff on Monday should be must reading for those interested in seeing up close what true liberal media bias is all about. Right from the opening paragraph, the discerning reader was made aware of the great likelihood that Baldwin was apt to stick his foot so far into his mouth that he would end up looking like one of those Mummenschanz performers:

As reported by Newsbusters on Sunday (April 2, 2006), Middle Tennessee State University is hosting a journalism conference this week called, "Self-Inflicted Wounds - Fact and Fiction in Journalism: Fabrication, Plagiarism and Confidential Sources" (Al Gore is delivering an opening address.) Here's a question: On the topic of plagiarism, will the conference breach the subject of Al Franken?

In his recent book Pants on Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears, and Deceives, Alan Skorski (who has been featured on C-SPAN's Book TV) analyzed Al Franken's body of so-called "research," including his 2003 bestselling book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Skorski provides compelling evidence that "Franken appears to have plagiarized" passages of his book from a 2001 report on the Fox News Channel by the liberal organization FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting). Skorski's most striking examples:

FAIR, July/August 2001: "The Most Biased Name in News" by Seth Ackerman, writing about Hannity & Colmes:

Even Fox's "left-right" debate show, Hannity & Colmes--whose Crossfire-style format virtually imposes numerical equality between conservatives and "liberals"--can't shake the impression of resembling a Harlem Globetrotters game ...

FRANKEN, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (Dutton, 2003, hardcover 1st edition), page 63:

For those of you unfamiliar with the Hannity and Colmes dynamic, it's a conservative-versus-liberal talking head show, kind of a combination between Crossfire and a Harlem Globetrotters game.