Hardened NBC watchers know to expect a shift toward the left when Andrea Mitchell is sitting in for Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." On Sunday's big media roundtable, the topic was the administration's "war" on the press. Bennett said Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, whose story on the CIA's secret prisons for terror suspects in Europe outraged Bennett, went all personal on Bennett by saying her story did not break the law: "I mean, some people would like to make casino gambling a crime, but it is not a crime." (The liberal Washington Monthly broke the story in 2003 that Bennett had a bad habit of gambling away thousands of dollars on casino slot machines. The media glee was palpable.)

Most who watched the various talking heads programs on Sunday know that a hot topic for discussion was the New York Times article last Friday concerning the NSA using a Belgian banking cooperative to track terrorist funds. One of the best debates occurred on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” because it included one of the article’s authors, Eric Lichtblau, and an outspoken critic of the article and the Times, Hugh Hewitt (video link to follow).

As the discussion moved around the table, host Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post asked Hewitt if he felt the Times should be prosecuted for its actions. Hewitt responded:

“I don't know enough to answer that question, because 18 USC 798 (ph) has a lot of elements to it, Howard. But I know this. Eric's story helped terrorists elude capture. That's what the outrage is about. That's the widely shared opinion among people with intelligence background. It's widely shared by soldiers in the field, as made evident on their blogs.”

Kurtz challenged Hewitt on how he knew that these revelations helped the terrorists. Hewitt responded:

There have been many complaints about how our media reports the stories from Iraq. Countless articles have been written about the selective nature of reports from the field – focusing on the negative and completely ignoring the positive. Documents uncovered in Iraq have demonstrated how the insurgents use the American media for propaganda dissemination.

Now I have uncovered something even more shocking and disgusting. Our media is using pro al-Qaeda, pro Iraqi insurgency organizations as the basis for their reports – more importantly as sources of information that is damning to our soldiers.

While researching the claims of US soldiers raping a young Iraqi woman and then killing her and her family, I came across an article from Mafkarat al-Islam via Free Arab Voice. The article cites eyewitness testimony about the US rape and murder of the Iraqi family. According to Free Arab Voice, the report was filed on Saturday night at 11:55 Makkah time.

Pardon the pun, but the concept of global warming came under some more heat today from the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen. Some of you might be familiar with the name Lindzen. He has been a strong antagonist to global warmingists – especially Al Gore – and wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal back in April wherein he not only contested media assertions that the Bush administration has been putting pressure on scientists to oppose climate change principles, but avowed that exactly the opposite is the case: “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse.”

Well, Lindzen wrote another WSJ op-ed published on Sunday entitled “Don't Believe the Hype,” with a subheading – “Al Gore is wrong. There's no ‘consensus’ on global warming.” This one further attacked the junk science involved in this theory, as well as the preposterous claim being made by Al Gore that there is actually a consensus in the scientific community about the issue:

With Mexicans going to the polls today to elect a new president, Reuters leaves little doubt as to whom it's pulling for: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party The headline tells you all you need to know, but here are a few choice excerpts to flesh out the picture of an heroic 'leftist' bringing hope to the little people, versus the other major candidate, Felipe Calderon, who is given the shortest of shrift, merely being described once, and then only as a 'conservative.' Nuff said!

• "When the air reeks of sewage, rain makes your street look like a ploughed field and month-long water shortages mean even bucket baths are sometimes a luxury, a flushing toilet can be a dream worth voting for. A two hour commute from downtown Mexico City on the putrid periphery of a vast urban sprawl, many in this town of housemaids and security guards will vote for a leftist in Sunday's presidential election, hoping he will change their lives." [Intead of a chicken in every pot, a potty in every house?]
• "Lopez Obrador gave cash handouts to elderly and disabled people and single-parent families as Mexico City mayor. He has promised to spread those programs throughout Mexico while boosting incomes through welfare payments and fuel price cuts." [Nothing like handouts and more welfare to get an economy going!]
  
  
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New York Times executive editor Bill Keller appeared on CBS' Face the Nation to defend his treasonous decision to publish information about the SWIFT program, which tracked terrorists' banking accounts. (Video available at Expose the Left)

Keller attempted to play the sympathy card saying the public doesn't know when the NY Times DOES NOT publish sensitive information. If that wasn't disgusting enough, Keller continued his defense and summed up the leak as "one man's breach of security is another man's public relations."

The conventional wisdom in Maryland politics is that former Rep. Kweisi Mfume just can't stop the establishment connections and money of Rep. Ben Cardin in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes. Sunday's Washington Post puts a big crimp in that CW -- Mfume leads Cardin, 31-25, albeit with strong racial divisions. (Democrats believe Cardin is the man because he does better in head-to-head polls with Republican nominee Michael Steele.)

It's Michael Steele that really draws out the negative press from the Post, though. While Steele usually can't buy a spot on the front page of Metro for his campaign, it was B-1 all the way last Monday when the Post claimed "Steele's Donor List Raises Racial Questions." Reporter Matthew Mosk explained his rollout of the race card, a la Willie Horton: