It’s not unfair that CNN reported on difficult times for the Republican-led Congress. However, in Bill Schneider’s report for CNN’s The Situation Room this afternoon, there was virtually no mention of how the Democrats in the House and Senate may have contributed to the low approval ratings for the legislative branch.

Schneider’s report, which aired at 4:30pm EDT, blamed the low poll numbers on several factors, while barely implicating Democrats in Congress’ inaction. Instead, Schneider wondered "how low" can GOP lawmakers go?

"Approval of Congress has dropped from 35 to 25 percent. Why? Oh let’s see. Congress can’t pass immigration reform. They can’t pass a budget. They can’t even control their own spending. Ethics? Don’t get us started. Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and now a Democrat, William Jefferson, under investigation."

Is it possible that Tim Russert hasn’t been paying attention? The host of Meet the Press appeared on the May 5 edition of NBC’s Today show to discuss President Bush and the midterm elections. Anchor Matt Lauer also asked him about the political fallout from Representative Patrick Kennedy’s car crash:

Russert: "Republicans obviously are watching this very carefully because they want to suggest to the country it's not just Republicans who misbehave or the culture of corruption or whatever. It also could be Democrats. And they're going to really dig into this case, I think, pretty actively."

From my latest article at FreeMarketProject.org:

Continuing her “Eye on the Road” series, CBS’s Sharyn Alfonsi showcased a Washington, D.C.-area teacher who she says can’t afford her commute due to rising gas prices.

But Alfonsi didn’t do her homework. Her featured teacher is a retired Navy lawyer who said in 2003 that she could only afford working as a Catholic school teacher because of her military pension. What Alfonsi didn’t say was that teacher Bonnie McGann made a conscious choice to earn less so she could give back to her church. 

“This was the area where I could afford a home,” McGann informed Alfonsi’s viewers on the May 4 “Evening News.” The CBS correspondent added that McGann’s problem was the cost of the commute. “It’s a burden for me now. It’s something that I am unable to absorb,” McGann added.
The picture Alfonsi painted was incomplete. McGann is a retired Navy Judge Advocate who says she went into teaching in Catholic schools for the emotional and spiritual reward of the experience....

Today was press secretary Scott McClellan's last day on the job. Fox News contributor Tony Snow will take over on May 8.

As he stepped into the press room, everyone applauded.

"Big turnout today, something going on?"

One journalist told him, "I appreciate the way you've treated us all fairly and professionally."

Another said, "We know that you are going to be leaving us soon, today's your last week--"

To which McClellan quipped, "Did you read the stock market today, where it was two and a half years ago, three years ago?" implying that his tenure in the job was related to the market's rise.

Today we're starting a new tradition here at NewsBusters, the weekend captionfest. Basically, we post a picture from the news and NB readers post alternative captions to it.

Our first picture is of now former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's last day on the job. The original AP caption for this photo reads as follows: "White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan waves as he leaves the podium, Friday, May 5, 2006, after finishing his last briefing at the White House."

While President Bush battles the international Islamic jihad, and the networks warn almost daily that his approval ratings are terrible, President Clinton draws coos and congrats for solving the really big issues -- like making sure your kids can't destroy their lives by purchasing a Cherry Coke at school.

On Wednesday, CNN was hyping live coverage of the Miniature-Issues President taking on school soft-drink policies. By Thursday, MRC's Geoff Dickens informed me that NBC was so impressed by his life-saving prowess as ex-president that they were wondering if it outclassed his presidency. Perish the thought:

Ann Curry: "And former President Clinton is speaking out about his mission to end childhood obesity and the plan to eliminate sugary soft drinks from schools. He spoke to NBC's science correspondent Robert Bazell."

Anyone with a working TV set knows that the broadcast networks have hyped the high gas price story (“Pain at the Pump”) to ridiculous levels. A new MRC study of the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows found a whopping 183 stories in just three weeks, an avalanche of TV coverage that (helpfully to Democrats planning their midterm election strategy) has buried far more important good economic news, like robust economic growth, low unemployment and a booming stock market.

One device the networks have used to maintain an outraged tone in all of their coverage has been to plant themselves next to gas pumps and find motorists who aren’t embarrassed about whining on camera. The MRC analysts who went through all of the coverage — Geoff Dickens, Brian Boyd, Mike Rule and Scott Whitlock — counted 151 sound bites from gas buyers during the period we studied, April 12 to May 2.

"Killer of Teen, Fetus Sentenced" read a May 5 Washington Post headline on a man sentenced in Virginia for the brutal beating and subsequent death of his girlfriend and her unborn child. "Although there was evidence that Williams wanted to terminate" girlfriend Cheri Washington's pregnancy, "there was no proof that he intended to kill Washington," staff writer Theresa Vargas noted.

Nowhere in her story is the term "unborn baby" or "unborn child" used.

The Washington Post is hardly alone in using clinical language to describe the murder of unborn children. NewsBusters.org has documented other instances where the media have preferred the term "fetus" for an unborn child.

Finally they are making it official. A liberal activist will directly edit a newspaper and decide what stories will and will not run.

Bono, the lead singer for the band U2, will get to edit the Independent, one of Britain's top newspapers. Will Hillary Clinton edit the New York Times if she decides to run for president?

Reports the rival Guardian:

U2 frontman Bono is to guest-edit the May 16 issue of the Independent as part of a media tie-up to raise money for Red, the singer's initiative to tackle Aids in Africa.

The newspaper has also agreed to donate half of its revenues for the issue a week on Tuesday to the Product Red cause.

As if you needed more proof that the New York Times is a newspaper for liberal Democrats, by liberal Democrats, their "TimesTalks" series continues on Sunday, June 4 with a "Sunday With The Magazine" event. In a colorful full-page ad on the back of the B section Friday, the Times promises "today's most authoritative leaders in important discussions about the way live now." It's one thing to guess the Times staffers are going to be liberal. There's one chat with Magazine "ethicist" Randy Cohen ("How We Think And Act"), and there's a panel of Times writers and contributors on "How We See The War In Iraq" (which could be subtitled: "As A Vietnam Sequel.") But the Democrats are officially on the docket in the "How We Govern" segment (with Howard Dean) and the "How We Save the World" segment (with Madeleine Albright). The ad boasts the two interviews:

Michael Kinsley writes in Slate that "journalists sincerely believe" they deserve "constitutional special treatment" when it comes to deciding when to publish classified material. They believe that for Bush to decide when to publish classified material is to give him dictatorial powers. But for them to decide means a victory for the First Amendment.

Many in the media believe that the Constitution contains a "reporter's privilege" to protect the identity of sources in circumstances, like a criminal trial, in which citizens ordinarily can be compelled to produce information or go to jail. The Supreme Court and lower courts have ruled and ruled again that there is no such privilege. And it certainly is not obvious that the First Amendment, which seems to be about the right to speak, actually protects a right not to speak. Yet many in the media not only believe that it does. They believe passionately that it is not merely OK but profoundly noble to follow their own interpretation and ignore the Supreme Court's.

Why must the president obey constitutional interpretations he disagrees with if journalists don't have to? Upholding the Constitution is actually part of his job description. It is not part of theirs....

Certainly, Nina Burleigh is not a household name – definitely not in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s house. A former TIME magazine correspondent, Burleigh rose in infamy to national prominence in 1998 when, in an interview with the Washington Post, she said that she would be happy to perform a certain sexual act on then President Clinton for keeping abortion legal. For the less prurient and more curious, you can read further about this incident here and here.

On Thursday, the never tight-lipped Burleigh, in a post at HuffnPuff, asked Hillary to not run for president in 2008, while offering a top ten list as to why Al Gore should be the Democrats' candidate: “I’m all for having a female president and the Senator might even make a good one, somewhere and someday. The trouble is she can’t be elected in 2008.”

Burleigh continued:

In reality, the headline says it all, doesn’t it? I mean, there’s not much more to say…but I’ll try.

Remember when Aaron Brown was fired from his anchor position at CNN last November? As reported by NewsBusters, CNN/USA’s president Jon Klein announced in a memo: “We have made some programming decisions which will impact our prime time schedule as well as our colleague Aaron Brown. Aaron will be leaving CNN and is very much looking forward to some well-deserved time off with his family.”

At the time, the New York Daily News had said that the shakeup – giving Anderson Cooper two hours from 10PM to midnight – was designed to improve CNN’s ratings versus Fox News. Well, according to a New York Post article Thursday, the gamble failed:

Matching cable news networks interest during the day, two of the three broadcast networks (CBS and NBC, as well as MSNBC's Countdown) led Thursday night with how, at an event in Atlanta, a handful of protesters confronted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and accused him of “war crimes” and “lying” about Iraq. ABC also aired a story, but put the Moussaoui sentencing first. All three featured former CIA analyst Ray McGovern who demanded: "Why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary?”But all failed to note McGovern's long record of hostility to the Bush administration. As McGovern boasted when he first got to the mike (video not shown by ABC, CBS or NBC), he's a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and if you Google “Ray McGovern of CIA” you get a plethora of returns from far-left sites (DemocracyNow.org, antiwar.com, truthout.org, alternet.org, TomPaine.com and CommonDreams.org).

CBS anchor Bob Schieffer trumpeted: “Not since the Vietnam War has a Secretary of Defense been under the kind of criticism that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been getting lately. A group of retired generals has called on him to resign, and today he caught it from another front when he went to what has been Bush country -- Georgia -- and ran head on into hecklers that included a former CIA analyst.” Of course, Atlanta is hardly “Bush country” and CBS offered no proof the protesters were locals. David Martin concluded by admiring the guts of the protesters: "This is not the first time a former CIA officer has accused the Bush administration of misusing intelligence. But, Bob, it's never been done in such an in-your-face way." NBC's Brian Williams saw a greater meaning: “Today the Secretary of Defense received a blunt and personal reminder of the split in this country over the war in Iraq.” He then showcased a woman shouting in the audience: “You lied to the American people!...You lied! You lied that Iraq's oil would pay for the war! You lied about everything the CIA told you was lies!..You're a liar!" Jim Miklaszewski next touted how “today's protests join a growing chorus of criticism against the Secretary and follow the calls from at least six retired Generals for Rumsfeld's resignation.” (Transcripts follow)

Thank goodness Zacarias Moussaoui came along to capture the headlines. The lollipop coverage by the mainstream media given to illegal aliens got to be a bit too sugary, especially on the day of that big march. Wall to wall, from airwaves to newsprint, the message was this: Oh come let us adore them.

Talking heads made it clear that if you believe in preserving our sovereignty, you are a bigot.

So what about the millions (including Mexicans!) waiting properly in line to get here by following the rules? Suckers, like me.

Though I haven't tried, because it's useless, no "respectable" newspaper would publish this side of the story, my side, which respresents millions.

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