Declaring that "I think the next President's got to be stronger and smarter than this one," on Tuesday's Imus in the Morning, MSNBC's Chris Matthews went on a tirade for over two minutes against President Bush and those around him who filled his intellectual vacuum. Don Imus pleaded: "Did you plan on taking a breath at any point?"

"It's all ideology with this crowd. All they care about is ideology,” Matthews fretted as he charged: “The President bought it hook, line and sinker.” Matthews delivered insults as he asserted that Bush “trusts the intellectuals, the guys he knew at school. You know, they're a bunch of pencil-necks and now he buys completely their ideology because he didn't have one of his own coming in. That was his problem. I don't know what Bush stood for except 'I'm a cool guy and Gore isn't.'” The Hardball host yearned: “I hope the next election isn't a problem of who goes to bed with their wife at 9:30 at night or who knows how to tell a joke on a stage, but it's who has the sense of strength that comes from having read books most of their life, tried to understand history.” Though Matthews didn't warn of “every single” bad development in Iraq, he contended that “every single thing that's happened in Iraq was predicted by history” and lamented that “Bush didn't have the academic background to challenge” the ignorant ideologues who ignored history. (Transcript follows)

Audio clip (3:12): MP3 (1.3 MB)

Former CNN and MSNBC commentator Bill Press has denounced bloggers as people "with no credentials, no sources, no rules, no editors and no accountability."

On his official site, BillPressShow.com, Bill Press offers a podcast and commentary. He would have been well to ask for "credentials" and "sources" when he reported on the "Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania" and their IQ study that the last six Republican presidents have had an average IQ of 115.5, while the last six Democrats had an average IQ of 156. Press proudly noted that it was with "President Clinton leading the class at 182."

As for George W. Bush:

You guessed it again: George W. Bush, with his rock bottom IQ of 91: seven points lower than his Daddy.

So now we know. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Social Security, Medicare, Stem Cells, FEMA, the deficit, immigration…

On Monday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," CNN’s Anderson Cooper related his visit to a Hezbollah-controlled section of Beirut where he was supposed to photograph certain damaged buildings, part of the terrorist group’s strategy of generating news stories about Lebanese civilian casualities caused by Israeli bombs.

But instead of merely transmitting Hezbollah’s unverified and unverifiable claims to the outside world, Cooper — to his credit — exposed the efforts by Hezbollah to manipulate CNN and other Western reporters. It’s quite a contrast from the much more accommodating approach taken by his colleague, Nic Robertson, in a report that aired on a variety of CNN programs (including AC360) back on July 18, a report that Robertson himself has now conceded was put together under Hezbollah's control.

Unlike Robertson, Cooper was explicit about how Hezbollah’s operatives had set all of the rules: “Young men on motor scooters followed our every movement. They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings,” he explained. He countered Hezbollah claims that Israel targets civilians by pointing out that the group based itself in civilian areas and that Israel's air force drops leaflets warning of attacks.

In a Tuesday USA Today article on the 90th birthday of NPR's left-wing commentator, Daniel Schorr, Peter Johnson revealed the ignorance of NPR producers about modern history. Johnson began his July 25 puff piece on the CBS News veteran, “60 years later, NPR's Schorr is still a 'precious resource,'” with some anecdotes about how NPR producers turn to him for basic facts:

Daniel Schorr is used to producers popping into his Washington, D.C., office at National Public Radio to ask, on deadline: Which war came first, Korea or Vietnam? (Answer: Korea.)

But when one asked, "You covered the Spanish-American War, didn't you?” Schorr couldn't help but respond, matter-of-factly: “That was 1898.”

“Oh, sorry, of course,” the younger man said, excusing himself.

Jason Leopold

If there ever were a contest for the most deranged left-wing journalist, the guy with the biggest head start would have to be Jason Leopold, the fabulist most recently embarrassed for his phony report that White House aide Karl Rove had been indicted May 12. Since his journalism was exposed as fraudulent, he's been on a tear lashing out at anyone daring to question him.

But Leopold hasn't stopped there. Most recently, he's been involved in complicated sock puppet scandal, posting comments defending himself under pseudonyms on various blogs, disclosing others' private information, and hurling around accusations of forgery and pedophilia. Instead of being alone in his deranged quest, however, Leopold seems to have a few others helping him in his quest for truth, including Larry Johnson, an obsessed former CIA employee who has become known as one of the most quoted defenders of Bush-hater Joe Wilson. Leopold's retinue also seems to include his former colleague at the leftist news site RawStory, Larisa Alexandrovna.

The whole affair was uncovered by the Seixon blog (here and here), run by a formerly anonymous American blogger living in Norway whose identity was exposed by Leopold's monkeys.

The story begins where any tale of leftist idiocy should begin, at the Daily Kos, where Leopold's false reports had finally begun to attract suspicion from the community.

New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise, in Beirut while parts of the city are being bombarded by Israeli air strikes, files "Beirutis Try to Plumb the Abyss Between Elegance and Chaos."

She describes the divide between the Shiites in the vulnerable South and the more cosmopolitan Lebanese of the North and uses the term "folk hero" in a description of the leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah:

"For the south, which suffered for more than a decade under Israeli occupation, Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, is a folk hero who helped drive out the Israelis. But many middle-class Lebanese who have worked for the past decade to generate an economic revival are tired of war and resent Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12."

Someone get Lou Dobbs a dictionary. He certainly needs one.

Interviewing the anti-free trade liberal Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) on his July 24 program, Dobbs told viewers his guest was "no protectionist."

Below is an excerpt. You can find the full article of my story at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org:

“Senator Byron Dorgan is no protectionist. In point of fact, he is calling for expanded markets for U.S. exports,” Dobbs insisted, praising Dorgan for his “critical examination of what this country is doing to itself,” with tax and trade policy.

But Dobbs is confusing his viewers, if not outright insulting their intelligence by insisting Dorgan isn’t for protectionist policies. Dorgan supports various tariffs, including one on foreign sources of ethanol, a fuel additive mandated for gasoline by the EPA.

Calista Flockhart, formerly star of the 90s Fox hit "Ally McBeal" is set to return to television as a Republican pundit. Amazingly, she doesn't seem to be particularly conservative:

ABC reportedly has huge hopes for a new series to air this fall called "Brothers & Sisters," which will follow the hit "Desperate Housewives" on the schedule. Calista Flockhart, best known as Ally McBeal, plays a conservative radio host turned TV pundit. [...]

Flockhart recently explained, "I really want to go back to work. It just seemed like the perfect time and the perfect project."

Asked to describe the pundit, producer Ken Olin (formerly a star of “Thirty Something’) said, "She's not Ann Coulter. She's not insane."

Writer Jon Robin Baitz added, "No, I think she's a thoughtful conservative. She's ideologically, in some respects, very much in mind with the older parts of the party, the sort of Eisenhower Republican, the William Buckley conservative. She's also a humanist."

At the bottom of a BBC Online article entitled "Gaza offensive 'disproportionate," there is a solicitation for residents of Gaza to tell the BBC how the Israelis have caused them hardship.

Do you live in Gaza? Have you been affected by violence in the region? Send us your experiences using the form below. If you are happy to speak to us further please include contact details.

This should correspond with: "Do you live in Israel? Have you been affected by missiles targeted at your neighborhood by terrorists?"

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence introduced their new President, Paul Helmke, in a rebuttal to Florida Governor Bush’s recent statement on the state’s decreasing crime rate:

The truth is that, across the Nation, violent crime, particularly gun crime, has been in sharp decline since the Brady Law went into effect in 1994. Weak gun laws have not made Florida a leader in fighting crime: Arguably, they have helped to make it one of the two most violent states in the Nation.[1]

Premeditated Genocide; Racism as a case for war in Lebanon

Report and Comments by A.J. Ward; 7-25-06

 

When I first began to write down my thoughts about this new battle front in the Middle East, my first words went like this: “Whether by proxy or by design, The Israeli leadership have now laid claims that the recent abductions of three of their occupation soldiers by the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance have given them cause to use deadly force upon the sovereign citizens of the countries just mentioned.” 

Keith Olbermann, who did the Nazi salute with an O'Reilly mask covering his face, has responded to FOX News' Roger Ailes remark that the MSNBC host's action was over the line.

Unsurprisingly, Olbermann's response was made available to TVNewser:

"'Over the line?' Where was Roger when O'Reilly defended the Nazi SS stormtroopers from Malmedy in World War II? The SS shot 84 American POW's there in 1944, and three different times in the last year, Bill called has called those dead Americans war criminals.

The founder of Fox News, Roger Ailes, says MSNBC host Keith Olbermann went too far when he did a Nazi salute while wearing a Bill O'Reilly mask.

Reports the Associated Press:

Fox News Channel chairman and CEO Roger Ailes responded to Keith Olbermann's latest critical volley against Bill O'Reilly on Monday, saying the MSNBC host's behavior "is over the line."

Ailes, appearing Monday at the summer meeting of the Television Critics Association, was referring to a weekend incident at the gathering in which Olbermann whipped out a mask of O'Reilly and gave a Nazi salute.

Ailes said Olbermann picks on Fox's O'Reilly to boost his ratings.

So there you are enjoying your morning coffee, perusing Sports Illustrated’s Web site for the latest training camp information on your favorite NFL team and then whammo, you get hit with liberal bias. Is anyplace safe from it? Sports Illustrated’s Peter King couldn’t finish his ramblings about the goings on of the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants without plugging Al Gore’s enviro-flick An Inconvenient Truth. King pleaded to his readers:

"This is not exactly the venue to warn the world about global warming, but all you football junkies readying for your fantasy drafts should do one real-world thing in the next couple of weeks: take two hours to see this movie. I'm not saying you'll be glad you did, because it's going to slap you around mentally a bit. But it's something you need to see. You don't want to wake up in 15 years with the Earth permanently damaged and huge portions of the Earth's surface under water, forever."

Those who are familiar with Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) know he is a straight shooter who speaks his mind, and that he has been a strong antagonist to the theory of global warming. Well, over the weekend, he was interviewed by Tulsa World, and Inhofe was once again attacking those that are unduly spreading alarm regarding this matter: “The Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee concedes that those on the other side of the global warming debate have dominated the air waves lately, but he remains confident that his side will be proved right in the end. Indeed, Inhofe insists that he feels even stronger about taking on what he sees as the current hysteria about global warming than he did several years ago when he first uttered that now-famous hoax statement.”

For those unfamiliar, Inhofe made a speech on the floor of the Senate back in 2003 declaring global warming as the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” He clearly hasn’t changed that view:

Bill O'Reilly's down to his last strike. As noted here, on his radio and TV shows yesterday, Bill propounded the theory that the big-city newspapers have tread lightly in the current Middle East conflict for fear of alienating their liberal Jewish readers. As Bill put it, liberal Jews "are all the papers have left" when it comes to significant market niches.

While Bill singled out the NY Times as the paper most loath to offend its liberal Jewish readers, he also mentioned the Boston Globe by name on his radio show. As discussed here, the NY Times came out this morning guns ablazin', so to speak, for an immediate cease-fire.

Turns out the Boston Globe has done the same thing. Excerpts from its editorial of today, While Lebanon Burns:

Back to the drawing board for Bill O'Reilly. As noted here, on his radio and TV shows yesterday, BOR propounded the theory that the big-city newspapers have tread lightly in the current Middle East conflict for fear of alienating their liberal Jewish readers. As Bill put it, liberal Jews "are all the papers have left" when it comes to significant market niches.

BOR particularly singled out the New York Times as a paper reluctant to take any positions that could be construed as contrary to Israel's interests. As of this morning's NY Times editorial, No More Foot-Dragging, that theory might be 'inoperative.' For the Times, in flat contradiction of Israeli desires, is now calling for an immediate cease-fire:

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