In his commentary at the end on Sunday's 60 Minutes, the day before the five year mark since 9/11, Andy Rooney noted that “we're trying to protect ourselves with more weapons,” a policy with which he only grudgingly agreed as he lamented, “we have to do it I guess.” Then, however, he suggested the fault for terrorism lies with American behavior, not the murderous ideology of terrorists who want to destroy Western democratic culture: “But might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn't make so many people in the world want to kill us." By that reasoning, during the Cold War should the U.S. have adopted policies meant to appease the Soviets? Rooney delivered his remarks on the season premiere of the program (delayed in the EDT/CDT zones by tennis for nearly a half hour) which gave two of the show's three segments to Katie Couric's piece on World Trade Center first responders who are suffering from the air they inhaled. (Transcript follows)

Video clip (25 secs): Real (700 KB) or Windows Media (800 KB), plus MP3 audio (135 KB)

In this weekends edition of the Lexington Herald-Leader (Kentucky), left wing political cartoonist Joel Pett has raised eyebrows with his depiction of a swimming president Bush surrounded by Stingrays, perhaps about to sting and kill the president in a comparison to naturalist, Steve Irwin's death last week.

With the words, "Iraq", "budget", "deficit", "global warming", and others, the Stingrays circle the president who is saying "Crikey" in a word bubble.

Many of the Paper's customers wrote in to the paper expressing their disgust at not only devaluing the death of the famed naturalist, but for obviously wishing the president to die in a similar way.

ABC's entertainment division refused to knuckle under to intense pressure from supporters of former President Bill Clinton, including the Democratic National Committee and MoveOn.org, and aired the first part of their miniseries, "The Path to 9/11", with some additional edits:

On today's episode of Meet the Press (Sunday, September 10, 2006), Tim Russert interviewed Vice President Cheney. In the interview, Russert took issue with the fact that the Vice President once stated on his show that it was "pretty well confirmed" that Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001.

Here's the craftiness by Russert: Mr. Cheney made the "pretty well confirmed" remark in a December 9, 2001, appearance, over four-and-a-half years ago. Russert failed to inform his audience this morning when the remark was originally made. In addition, in three following appearances on Meet the Press (3/02, 9/02, and 9/03), when the Vice President breached the topic of the Atta-Prague allegation, he essentially told Russert that he "[didn't] know" if the visit occurred, that it was "unconfirmed," and that intelligence had been unable "to nail down a close tie between the al-Qaida organization and Saddam Hussein." The Vice President's stance on the issue was certainly modified from the one he originally aired in 2001.

In fact, in the very last appearance that the Vice President made on Meet the Press (in September 2003), Mr. Cheney specifically told Russert that "we just don't know" if such a meeting ever happened. And in his September 2002 appearance, the Vice President said almost the opposite of it being "pretty well confirmed"; he said the meeting was "unconfirmed"! Yet this morning Russert harked back to the original 2001 appearance over four-and-a-half years ago to try and hammer the Vice President for the "pretty well confirmed" words. Fairness, anyone? Not at all.

The Washington Post has found an evangelical Christian it likes. Conveniently enough he's not a fan of the Christian right. Here are some nuggets from staff writer Caryle Murphy's September 10 profile of a "progressive" pillar of the "emerging church" movement, Brian D. McLaren.:

“When we present Jesus as a pro-war, anti-poor, anti-homosexual, anti-environment, pro-nuclear weapons authority figure draped in an American flag, I think we are making a travesty of the portrait of Jesus we find in the gospels," McLaren said in a recent interview.

[...]

The opposition to the ABC docu-drama has been using Harvey Keitel’s CNN Interview statements as one of their talking points against "The Path to 911".  But were Keitel’s comments taken out of context and misrepresented? Are certain comments made by Keitel during the interview completely ignored by those vehemently protesting the airing of the movie?

Here is what Bill Clinton’s lawyer wrote in his latest letter to ABC:

"Harvey Keitel, who plays the star role of FBI agent John O'Neill, told reporters yesterday that while the screenplay was presented to him as a fair treatment of historical events, he is upset that several scenes were simply invented for dramatic purposes."

Open for discussion...

Has anyone here ever watched independant cable station RNN broadcast out of Kingston NY? (channel 19 if you have Cablevision) It's got a show called 'Richard French Live' that airs from 7 to 8:30 weeknights and the host, Richard French, is your typical Bush-hating uppity knee-jerk uber-liberal. He's almost entertaining to watch because every night his show tackles whatever the latest anti-Bush conspiracy theory is and they take calls and e-mails from like-minded viewers live. I would LOVE to hear some Newsbusters members and more right-wingers call into his show and watch his reaction. He doesn't take too well to non-Bush haters, and he was downright nasty during the 2004 election when he interviewed the Swiftboat Veterans Against Kerry.

The Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean, as well as Commissioner John Lehman, were George Stephanopoulos’s guests on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, and they both spoke out strongly in favor of the upcoming miniseries “The Path to 9/11” (video link to follow).

At the beginning of this discussion, Stephanopoulos presented concerns expressed by Clinton administration officials about the docudrama, and asked Kean if the program should be aired. Kean responded:

Oh, of course, it should be aired. I mean, I'm not for censorship or not allowing people to see things. In my experience with these people who’ve been working in the film they've been responsive to criticism, mine and other people’s, and have made changes that were necessary. I haven't seen the final cut. It's a miniseries. It's not a documentary. It's not done by ABC news. It's done by ABC news entertainment, but as I've seen it, I think it'll make a contribution.

Stephanopoulos then reiterated concerns of the Clinton administration, in particular about a couple of scenes in the film, and asked, “Did you ask the filmmakers to change those scenes and did they change them?” Kean responded:

Brent Bozell's column on the entertainment media culture this week addressed an amazing double standard from NBC. For Saturday mornings, they've picked up a Christian-media favorite, the cartoon "Veggie Tales" -- but is cutting out the religious angles. That's sort of sad when our media's more tolerant of Islam, the "religion of peace," than they seem to be of Christianity:

The early word from producers is that NBC has grown increasingly fierce about editing something out of “Veggie Tales” – those apparently unacceptable, insensitive references to God and the Bible.

So NBC has taken the very essence of “Veggie Tales” – and ripped it out. It’s like “Gunsmoke,” without the guns, or “Monday Night Football,” without the football.

Sometimes, in spite of itself, ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" shines a light on liberal thinking that liberal political strategists would prefer remain dark. Today Katrina Vanden Heuvel, the Left's answer to Michael Savage, revealed that her thinking remains firmly stuck in pre-9/11 mode.

In Sunday's Washington Post Magazine, on the back page of an issue with a cover story devoted to solemn memorials of 9/11, Gene Weingarten's "Below the Beltway" humor column lived up to its cheeky title with a column comparing George W. Bush to Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Warren Harding. The headline was: "The Bush League: How low can he go?" Weingarten, a former editor of the Post's Sunday Style section, clearly had fun with this column, which began with a dash of whimsey mixed with venom:

We in the media are sometimes accused of letting liberal bias subtly slip into our writing and reporting. That accusation is calumny. We are dispassionate observers and seekers of truth. All we do is ask questions. Today's question: Is George W. Bush the worst president in American history?

The vast majority of the mainstream media has been playing down possible fears of a radical change in governance should Democrats take the House and or Senate in the 2006 mid-term elections. They've reported John Conyers statements regarding backing away from impeachment and we've heard little if anything about what a Democrat controlled legislature might do.

Apparently now someone is talking and it's being reported locally, what remains to be seen is how broadly it'll be picked up by the mainstream press.

At least one report indicates they are privately planning a range of actions including: investigations of the Bush administration on a scale larger than Watergate; using the budget as a lever to dictate actual war strategy and leave Iraq; imposing a range of economic measures negatively impacting the Oil and Pharmaceutical industries; and the launching of a "boatload" of expensive social welfare programs while raising the minimum wage.

In a post entitled Sen. Lieberman Violates His Own Privacy Policy, it appears Ned Lamont, Democrat nominee for Senate in Connecticut, is willing to stoop to spreading an obvious falsehood through his campaign blog in his bid to unseat Senator Joe Lieberman.

As per the title, the Lamont Blog accuses Senator Lieberman of violating his websites privacy policy, from which it quotes extensively:

My office will not share any personal information communicated through my Web site with any outside organization or individual, except in the following situations: (1) when needed to perform constituent casework at your request; (2) in the course of an authorized law enforcement investigation or emergency posing an imminent risk to public safety; or (3) if you choose to participate in my interactive online E-Government comment page, and authorize me to publish your comment, your name, and the organization you represent.

This is not a source I would normally search out, but I have to admit that actor Donnie Wahlberg gives one of the most thoughtful responses I've seen to the controversy over ABC's "The Path to 9/11" miniseries in this TV Guide interview:

TVGuide.com: What do you think of the brouhaha that's going on now? You had to know that this project could be a hot potato. Wahlberg: I didn't think it was a hot potato. I think there's a stink being made because certain people aren't happy with the way they're being portrayed, but the reality is that in most cases, the producers took a gentle hand with this stuff. The writers and the producers and the director tried to use as much integrity as possible.

While it remains unclear to what extent ABC may alter their upcoming 9/11 docu-drama based upon pressure from the Democrat Party, six clips said to include the controversial footage have made their way onto the Internet.

They can be viewed here via RedState. In the event of trouble with that link, they are also available via a website identified as The Traditional Values Coalition.