How quickly can you hear a falsehood on the Al Franken Show on Air America Radio? Well, today, for me, it was about 15 seconds. (Is that a world record?)

I flipped on my radio. Bill O'Reilly was on commercials. So was Dennis Prager. I pressed a button, and for the first time in months, I stumbled upon the voice of Al Franken on Air America Radio. He was interviewing a guest, a nice, but naive-sounding, woman whom I later found out to be Anya Kamenetz.

In a few seconds, I heard that Al and her guest were discussing the economy, college, and the military. Within 15 seconds of tuning into Air America, Al's guest spewed the following whopper (audiotape on file):

"Well, the facts are this. The military is not meeting its recruiting targets. It's missing them year after year."

Yikes! Did she say "facts"? Well, here are some facts:

Every now and then, a storyline for an article hits you that it is so comical it makes it difficult to type between the laughter. This is one of them.

Drudge is reporting (hat tip from reader Sarcasmo) that former vice president Al Gore’s name has been omitted from the posters that advertise his new film: “Former Vice President Al Gore's name is nowhere to be found on PARAMOUNT's poster campaign for the new 'global warming' movie 'AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.'"

Stopped laughing yet? Well, here’s another punch line: “‘It's not a political movie,’ a top source at PARAMOUNT explained, offering no other explanation on why Gore's name does not appear, even in the film's credits on the poster.”

That’s worth a replay, isn’t it (emphasis mine): “It’s not a political movie.”

I really love that line.

Ready for another hoot? Are you sure? Here goes:

There’s an old saying in business: money talks and, well, something that comes out of a male cow walks. In the case of Google, it appears that dollar signs, regardless of the foreign or domestic nature of the currency involved, have been more important than principle in some of its business dealings.

To be more specific, one of Google’s co-founders has admitted that his company caved in to demands from Chinese leaders to censor information available through its search engine to Chinese citizens in exchange for, well, yuan…which is dollars to you and me. As reported by the Associated Press: “Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged Tuesday the dominant Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands.”

As Dorfman said in “Animal House,” boy this is great!

The article continued: “Google's China-approved Web service omits politically sensitive information that might be retrieved during Internet searches, such as details about the 1989 suppression of political unrest in Tiananmen Square. Its agreement with China has provoked considerable criticism from human rights groups.”

Curiously, this seems to go against one of  the “Ten things Google has found to be true” as expressed in its corporate philosophy statement: “You can make money without doing evil.” 

But here’s the coup de grace:

Rick Kaplan, who as reported earlier by Matthew Sheffield, announced his departure Wednesday from MSNBC where he’d run the least-watched cable news network as its President since February of 2004, has a long record of friendly relations with former President Bill Clinton and hostility to conservatives -- as well as admiration for Dan Rather combined with condescension for conservative critics of Dan Rather -- during his career with ABC News, CNN and MSNBC. The AP’s David Bauder on Wednesday night noted “speculation” that Kaplan “might be a candidate to run Good Morning America” now that the ABC show's Executive Producer, Ben Sherwood, “announced five days ago he was stepping down.”

At the News and Documentary Emmy Awards presented by the National Television Academy at a September 19, 2005 ceremony, Kaplan asserted that "Dan was meticulously careful to be fair and balanced and accurate" during his career. Kaplan then lashed out: "When did we allow those with questionable agendas to take the lead and convince people of something quite the opposite? It's shameful." Kaplan went so far to declare that Rather's "legacy" is "the gold standard journalists today have struggled to live up to." Check this October 4 NewsBusters posting for a full transcript accompanied by a video clip in Real and Windows Media formats.

Hillary Clinton has bashed Ann Coulter for her "vicious, mean-spirited" attack on 9/11 widows who criticize President Bush.

Coulter had said in her book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," that the group acts "as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them," and that "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

Reports the AP:

Clinton, who has felt Coulter's wrath over the years, responded angrily on Wednesday.

MSNBC president Rick Kaplan has resigned from the network. TVNewser is on top of all the latest developments. Here's Kaplan's fairwell note:

I want to let you all know that today I'm leaving MSNBC. It is not often in professional life that someone has the opportunity to end his tenure on such a high note. I couldn't be more proud of the progress we've made together over the last 2 and a half years.

Together, we've increased MSNBC's viewership 25% in primetime and 19% in dayside. Over just the last year, we've had great success across the board, with Hardball and Countdown coming into their own. All of our primetime programs have improved tremendously in their production and content. Together we had a great election year in '04 and you're poised to improve on that excellence this fall.

Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera came out in favor of same-sex marriage on the June 5 edition of his syndicated Geraldo At Large. Throughout the show, Rivera teased his final commentary proclaiming: "25 years after the discovery of AIDS is this the time to ban gay marriage?....The gay community takes another hit, 25 years to the very day that AIDS first ravaged their community." At the end of the show, Rivera chastised the President and advocated same-sex marriage as a way to prevent the spread of AIDS:

Rivera: "Exactly 25 years ago today federal officials first warned gay men that five homosexuals in Los Angeles had contracted a rare form of pneumonia. The disease that became AIDS was largely spread initially by the promiscuous, sometimes drug-fueled sex exemplified by the gay bathhouses where an uninformed generation contracted the disease that ultimately killed tens of thousands of them and many millions of others here and around the world. Beginning soon after the outbreak responsible voices began an aggressive campaign to educate young men raised in the era of those anonymous sexual contacts of the grave dangers involved. Public service announcements and information campaigns were launched. Red ribbons were also worn in sympathy as one after another public figure like actors Rock Hudson and Brad Davis, Queen’s Freddie Mercury and tennis great Arthur Ashe were diagnosed, some succumbing to the disease. While they are not all gay and may have contracted the disease in other ways like bad blood transfusions the majority got AIDS through sex. The recognition of that scary fact led to profound changes in social conduct. Most bathhouses were closed or closely regulated. Safe sex became a mantra. And something even more profound happened, marriage, where at least solid, stable relationships began replacing promiscuous sex as the norm in the gay community. Which is why on the 25th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic the current efforts to breathe life back into the amendment to ban gay marriage seems so counterproductive and blatantly anti-social."

The New York Times isn’t the only media outlet to try to find signs of GOP defeat in the midst of Brian Bilbray’s Republican victory in a San Diego special election for Congress. CBS reporter Jerry Bowen carried a sense of Democrat Francine Busby’s moral victory throughout his story on The Early Show this morning. Bowen began:

"In the end, California’s closely watched 50th District stayed Republican...When disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham went off to prison for taking millions of dollars of bribes, no one predicted what just might happen as voters in this 25-year-long Republican stronghold picked his replacement...That a Democrat, local school board member Francine Busby, even had a chance."

CBS’s Early Show co-hosts, in the wake of the June 6 loss in a special congressional election, did the best they could to put a positive spin on the fortunes of Democrats. Co-host Hannah Storm interviewed Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer at 7:11AM EDT about yesterday’s election. The Democratic candidate lost, but that didn’t stop Schieffer from prognosticating what this event signified for the future:

Schieffer: "So, who knows what's going to happen? But this has to be a sign to Republicans that they, they might lose the House, I think. I mean, not just, I'm not just saying this, this particular race....But I think this is just one more sign that you might see something happen this time."

Now, keep in mind, this is a race that the Republicans won. A victory that was achieved despite the media’s constant parroting of the Democratic "culture of corruption" talking points.

In a report on Wednesday's American Morning, CNN entertainment correspondent Brooke Anderson reported on the deal between People magazine and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt over the exclusive rights to the photos of the couple’s daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. During her report, Anderson made this rather strange analogy between the birth of Jolie-Pitt and Jesus Christ:

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s newborn baby finally arrived on May 27th. Her name, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Some biblical references define Shiloh as, quote, ‘generally understood as denoting the Messiah.’ And perhaps not since Jesus has a baby’s arrival been so eagerly anticipated, at least in some circles.

Perhaps Anderson was attempting to be witty with her remark, having explained the biblical connection to the name Shiloh. Still, one wonders how the arrival of Pitt and Jolie’s child is different from any number of other high-profile births: Britney Spears’ son Sean Preston, Julia Roberts’ twins Hazel and Phinneaus, and of course, who can forget the earthshaking arrival of Suri Cruise?

The Nation magazine is trying to soft sell the election in California's 50th District of Republican Brian Bilbray who is now replacing disgraced Republican, Randy "Duke" Cunningham. And they aren’t the only one’s trying to blow off the importance to the Democratic Party’s immediate future at the polls that this election might portend.

"Busby lost to Republican Brian Bilbray in a special election last night by 49 to 45 percent, in (a) heavily Republican district(s)."

But this claim of a "heavily Republican district" is not really the correct, up-to-date analysis of the district's voting trends.

50th District polling results over last week of the race show that the numbers did not move very much between Busby and Bilbray, but it does show one thing clearly. The district was competitive in that the candidates were never separated by more than 10 points most of the time.

Several Washington members of the "mainstream" media elite gave the Washington Examiner their picks for what books they'll be reading this summer. ABC's George Stephanopoulos was the most ambitious with five books, but he put the liberal-tilting ones at the end: Michael Kazin's biography of William Jennings Bryan, and Karen Armstrong's The Great Transformation: The Beginnings Of Our Religious Traditions. Get a load of Karen Armstrong, and how much she sounds like a liberal's favorite:

ArtsJournal.com has a problem with the NY Times art critic Grace Glueck being on the board of the trustees for the Clark Art Institute. The Journal wants to know:

• Did Glueck's role at the museum in any way influence this past Sunday's Times story on the Clark?
• In June, 2005, the Times reviewed a Jacques-Louis David show at the Clark instead of at the originating institution, the J. Paul Getty Museum. Did the Times skip the Getty presentation in deference to a colleague's institution? The Times ran two stories on David at the Clark -- and none on David at the Getty.
• Why are there so many more stories in the NYT's arts section about the Clark than about virtually any other museum outside New York City that has a comparable (~$11 million per year) budget?

Good questions. And it's not as if this is business as usual for the Times. Their own ethics policy clearly states:

"[Times staff] may not join boards of trustees, advisory committees or similar groups except those serving journalistic organizations or otherwise promoting journalism education,"

Talk about losing your base! What say you, Pinch?

Writing at Editor and Publisher, the bible of the newspaper industry, senior editor Joe Strupp blasts newspapers for not doing enough to promote gay marriage:

The gay marriage debate has wasted time, energy and effort long enough. It barely shows up in a list of issues that concern Americans in a Gallup Poll released in the past week. And the current proposal for a constitutional ban on gay marriage may be the height of abuse.

It is bad enough that newspapers have not taken a harder stance in favor of gay rights in the past. But to allow this short-sighted misuse of the Constitution to move ahead without condemnation would be the ultimate irresponsibility.

James Taranto at Opinion Journal received an email from a U.S. military officer stationed in Iraq who asked that his name not be identified.

I am currently stationed here in Iraq and have been here for the past 11 months; I am an adviser to the Iraqis and meet them on a daily basis. I have been in many locations in the country and am involved on a daily basis together with the Iraqis fighting the insurgency.

The media manipulation by the insurgents is brilliant and extremely effective. The press has become a puppet for the insurgents; the insurgents know exactly what they are doing with these "massacres" (quoted here because the investigation has not been completed, nor have any charges been filed) and the political nightmare they will cause the current administration. Bodies are produced for film, and there is zero fact-checking by the media--the media eat up this "news" like there is no tomorrow. A couple of hundred bucks paid by the insurgents to a few guys/ladies in the town where this "massacre" occurred to make up some bad news and pine for the BBC's or CBS's or whoever's cameras is a nice month's salary for many and money well spent by the insurgency.

According to this article in the New York Times, Americans out in the heartland don't like the UN . . . and its all the fault of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

Said Mark Malloch Brown, a Briton who is deputy to Secretary General Kofi Annan, there is "too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping." He added:

"Much of the public discourse [about the U.N.] that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News," he said.

Human Events Online reports that "The Passion of the Christ" is in no danger of being passed up by "The Da Vinci Code" in ticket sales, even after 15 days.

As reported here earlier, The Passion of The Christ, which IMDb ranks No. 10 in U.S. box office sales for all time, continues to outpace The Da Vinci Code’s U.S. box office performance in head-to-head match-ups of day-by-day sales—a trend that continues to send Hollywood this unmistakable message: “Blasphemy doesn’t pay.”

Imagine it as a horserace between Passion and Code.

Passion, at the week three, Day 15 turn had sold $228,134,000 at the U.S. box office, while Code lagged behind at $172,656,000 in U.S. ticket sales....

John Updike has joined the ranks of novelists to take on the subject of terrorism and, in fact, that’s the title of his new book, “Terrorist”. It should be on the shelves even as we speak. I haven’t read it as yet, but I have checked out some pre-publication interviews and reviews and I assume that what we have here is a balancing act between good and evil.

I don’t know what good is, exactly, but I do know evil, precisely. That’s when a group of misfits hijack airplanes and crash them into our buildings.

One thing we should never do is judge a book by its reviews, which is exactly what I seem to be doing right now, so apologies to Updike in case I’ve got him all wrong. I should wait, yet I can’t help but be impatient since I’ve got my own novel on terrorism running as a monthly serial on Amazon.com (“The Bathsheba Deadline”) and am curious to know where we converge, where we depart.

A Republican won a special congressional election in Southern California yesterday – so why does the Times make it sound as if the Republicans got beat?

Chief political reporter Adam Nagourney’s online filing Wednesday morning on last night's electoral victory by Republican Brian Bilbray begins:

There comes a point at which denial drifts into delusion, and Mary Mapes has crossed it. Incredibly, she is out with a Huffington Post piece calling the assertion of the irrefutable fact that the Rathergate documents were blatant forgeries a 'lie.'

It's one thing to say those who claim forgery haven't made their case. But to call their assertions a 'lie' is affirmatively to assert the authenticity of the Rathergate documents. Mapes thus lurches one giant step deeper into delusion.  Her accusation also shifts the burden of proof. If indeed the documents are authentic, why then: prove it, Mary.

For weeks, the MSM has been billing as a bellwether the congressional by-election in California to replace convicted felon Randy 'Duke' Cunningham. As per the conventional wisdom, if the Democrats managed to take the seat in what is normally a GOP-stronghold, it would be seen as a harbinger of horrible things to come for the Republican congressional majority.

Well, the election was held yesterday, and - whoops! - the Republican, Brian Bilbray, won. So how did Today spin it? Why, silence was suddenly golden. At least as of the crucial first half-hour, there was time for coverage of dust in the Arizonan desert, but not a word of the Bilbray victory. Insert your imagine-if-the-Dem-had-won comment here.

MRC's Geoff Dickens told me that Geraldo Rivera's syndicated program "Rivera At Large" -- which I'm told airs alongside the network evening news shows on some Fox affiliates -- carried a big segment on the 25th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS on June 1. Rivera found one actress who was an angry activist.

Rivera: "But many are unsatisfied with the pace of progress. Even as world leaders gathered at the United Nations Wednesday to find new ways to tackle the epidemic the actress Rosie Perez led AIDS activists at a rally outside."

Rosie Perez: "I’m disappointed in our leadership here in the United States. Yes the United States is giving a lot of money for the, for the fight against AIDS but to push a program of abstinence is just insane. It, it doesn’t work. We have to be realistic and we have to do even more than what’s being done."

<