NPR's got a weekly news quiz program called "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me!" It's actually pretty funny, although like most of NPR's programming, it has a fairly pronouced port-side list.

This week, though, the decidedly unfunny Paula Poundstone (as of this writing, NPR's list of the week's panelists is incorrect) asked, in response to a question about gay marriage:

I don't even know what a gay Republican is. Does that mean they beat themselves up in parking lots?

Which got a predictably hearty laugh from the audience. You can hear it on the first clip listed, the "Who's Carl This Time?" segment.

Howard Kurtz this morning invited National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, The New Republic’s Michelle Cottle, and Time’s Karen Tumulty on to discuss Ann Coulter’s new book, and her recent appearance on NBC’s “Today” show (hat tip to Ian Schwartz of Expose the Left with his video link to follow). The quartet actually did a spectacular job of dissecting this event that is well worth the eight-minute view.

Conceivably one of the most salient points made was that the mainstream media know full well what is going to happen when they invite Ann on their programs, or put her on the covers of their magazines, and that they are doing it to sell their wares like any other corporate entity. Here’s what Jonah Goldberg said of this:

Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, desperately trying to paint his readers and the respondents to his poll as a wide cross-section of Democratic voters to a national audience on Meet the Press, disingenuously suggested that moderate former Virginia Governor Mark Warner is well-received and finished amongst the top three in their nationwide poll. (Ralph Nader finished in the top three in the 2004 election.)

What Kos doesn't divulge and NBC deliberately doesn't share with their viewers, in fear of confirming the conventional wisdom that the visitors to Kos' site are notoriously rabid, left wing anti-war liberals of the Michael Moore/moveon.org variety, are the Daily Kos' poll results.

Feingold 44%
Clark 15%
Warner 10%

http://www.dailykos.com/poll/1148396760_zLpWLTQf

Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, desperately trying to paint his Daily Kos readers and the respondents to his poll as a pragmatic, wide cross-section of Democratic voters to a national audience on Meet the Press, disingenuously suggested that moderate former Virginia Governor Mark Warner is well-received by the liberal blog as demonstrated by the fact that he finished amongst the top three in their nationwide poll. (Ralph Nader finished in the top three in the 2004 election.)

What Kos doesn't divulge and NBC deliberately doesn't share with their viewers, in fear of confirming the conventional wisdom that the visitors to Kos' site are notoriously rabid, left wing anti-war liberals of the Michael Moore/moveon.org variety, are the Daily Kos' poll results.

Feingold 44%
Clark 15%
Warner 10%

Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, desperately trying to paint his Daily Kos readers and the respondents to his poll as a pragmatic, wide cross-section of Democratic voters to a national audience on Meet the Press, disingenuously suggested that moderate former Virginia Governor Mark Warner is well-received by the liberal blog as demonstrated by the fact that he finished amongst the top three in their nationwide poll. (Ralph Nader finished in the top three in the 2004 election.)

What Kos doesn't divulge and NBC deliberately doesn't share with their viewers, in fear of confirming the conventional wisdom that the visitors to Kos' site are notoriously rabid, left wing anti-war liberals of the Michael Moore/moveon.org variety, are the Daily Kos' poll results.

Feingold 44%
Clark 15%
Warner 10%

Without question, one of the most liberally biased journalists and political commentators in the mainstream media today is Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift. Week after week, her columns and her words spoken on “The McLaughlin Group” sound eerily similar to Democrat talking points coming directly from the likes of Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, and John Kerry.

This is what makes her column on Friday quite shocking, for it not only deviates from the party line that she rarely strays from, but is also written without her normal inflammatory hyperbole for anything right of center. And, even more surprising, Clift actually had negative things to say about her left-leaning brethren.

Clift’s rare moment of sanity was evident right in the first paragraph:

“The death of the top-ranking operative of Al Qaeda in Iraq is a welcome moment of clarity in a war desperately in search of a rationale. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi personified the face of evil and was controversial even among jihadists for staging large-scale attacks on civilians. The news out of Iraq has been gloomy for so long that Zarqawi’s demise, along with the agreement on the remaining cabinet ministers to fill out the new government, may buy some time with the American public, and give President Bush the breathing space to figure out what to do next when he meets with his advisers at Camp David next week.”

She continued with the importance of Zarqawi's death:

Dan Balz's outlook on life may be too sunny and stable to regularly read Markos Moulitsas's Daily Kos. That would explain why Balz fails to describe the far-left venom that powers the Kossacks in his account of their Las Vegas conference, Bloggers' Convention Draws Democrats. If Balz had provided some excerpts from Moulitsas's website, it would help explain why every one of the 20-odd candidates they've backed for national office office has lost. But he doesn't mention that either.

Sometimes I think that if you really want to know what’s going on in the world, you should read The New York Times…and assume the exact opposite is true. Take Saturday’s article “Gathering Highlights Power of the Blog” for example. Author Adam Nagourney visited Las Vegas to attend the meeting of mostly liberal bloggers discussing how they’re going to change the world in an event called “Yearly Kos” not so inconspicuously named after the blogosphere’s liberal mainstay, Daily Kos. Unfortunately, after listing and quoting some Democrat dignitaries in attendance – quotes to follow for your amusement! – Nagourney actually wrote (emphasis mine), “Blogging is nowhere near the force among Republicans as it is among Democrats.”

Really, Adam? And exactly how did you come to this conclusion? Could you provide some statistics to support this assertion, or did you pull this non sequitur out off your…hat?

In reality, the data quite refute Nagourney’s contentions. NewsBusters executive editor Matthew Sheffield recently compiled some statistics on this very subject that quite go counter to this report. Now, to be sure, the two most popular political “blogs” as measured by Alexa are the Huffington Post and Daily Kos. Yet, as the following list demonstrates, ten of the top 20 political blogs are conservative leaning:

In Friday’s Style section, Washington Post reporter (and former Sports columnist) Jennifer Frey lovingly chronicled a feminist event where "the object of affection is a self-described agnostic, socialist single mother from Chile" – new Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. The other stars of the fete were, predictably, Geena Davis and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the South American socialist was all the rage:

Everyone wants a picture, and all of them keep gushing: "We love you!" "We support you!" Perhaps Bachelet is wildly unpopular with the right-wing media in Chile and she's suffered attacks for having her third child while unmarried, but, in this room she seems to be universally beloved.

Back in December, Brent Bozell warned that group marriage – polygamy – was becoming the rage on television, including this:

What’s next? Non-fictional "group marriage TV" will arrive on the Bravo channel in the spring, with a documentary called Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family, featuring a New York triple with two gay men, a woman, and two children. Now, reading that last sentence – what was your reaction? Perhaps a bit surprised, maybe somewhat disgusted. But you weren’t shocked, were you? I rest my case.

Well, it’s a little late to qualify as "spring" now, but this film will air on Bravo this month, and it’s now being publicized by Fox News, in their syndicated program "Geraldo at Large." MRC’s Geoff Dickens reported that on Thursday night, Fox anchor Laurie Dhue filed a story for Geraldo on the film with a predictable opening:

You know when the Washington Post publishes three full pages of tight fitting text on the incident in Haditha, Jack Murtha's "murdered in cold blood" story is in trouble:

A sergeant who led a squad of Marines during the incident in Haditha, Iraq, that left as many as 24 civilians dead said his unit did not intentionally target any civilians, followed military rules of engagement and never tried to cover up the shootings, his attorney said.

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told his attorney that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house. The Marine said there was no vengeful massacre, but he described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

Don't miss carefully reading every word of Josh White's page one story, which I have tried to condense for you. Pay particular attention to the account that a fragmentation grenade was thrown into the room, and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and smoke. The time span of the incidents seems to be a matter of minutes rather than several hours as the original Times account suggested.

If this turns out to be true, it will pale Rathergate into insignificance in comparison, and give the MSM another black eye they so dearly deserve.

Talk about the Big Dig . . .

You might say the Boston Globe has taken the condemnation of Ann Coulter to new depths. Its editorial cartoon of 9/11, by staffer Dan Wasserman, suggess that Coulter's criticism of the 'Jersey Girls'- the 9/11 widows turned harsh Bush administration critics - amounts to desecration of the graves of the 9/11 victims themselves. Wasserman also swipes at what he perceives to be Coulter's brand of Christianity.