In short, HELL YES!

This one is for you "Gorgeous Gregory" ! 

 

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On the very day a USA Today/Gallup poll was released showing President Bush's approval rating up to 44 percent, “his highest rating in a year” according to USA Today's front page story on the survey, a poll that also found the generic Democrat versus Republican choice for Congress even at 48 to 48 percent amongst “likely voters” -- closing from a ten point advantage for Democrats (53 to 43 percent) in a CNN poll of “likely voters” just two weeks ago -- Tuesday's CBS Evening News aired a story on how Bush is hurting GOP incumbents and issues are trending in favor of Democrats.

Gloria Borger traveled to Missouri where “voters have a history of reflecting the national mood, and right now President Bush is unpopular here. That's why running as a Republican incumbent requires some distance from the President.” Looking at the Senate race between incumbent Republican Jim Talent and Democrat Claire McCaskill, Borger contended: “Missouri may be a red or Republican state, but Democrats believe the key issues are now turning blue. And it's not just about the war. In this state, it's also about local issues like an increase in the minimum wage and support for stem cell research, both statewide ballot initiatives the Democrats hope will bring out their voters.” And what campaign story would be complete without the obligatory disillusioned Republican: “Missouri Democrats are targeting voters like Lindsay McCarroll, a Republican who thinks her party has lost touch.” McCarroll complained: “I don't think they're listening to the people, I don't think they're doing what the people want, so I'm going to vote for someone else this time.” (Transcript follows)

MRC president and NB publisher Brent Bozell will be a guest on the MSNBC show "Scarborough Country" Tuesday night at 9:00pm Eastern (re-airing at 4am Eastern Wednesday morning). We're told he'll be on during the first segment of the show to discuss the media's coverage of Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam and the Muslim world's reaction to them.

Post your reactions to the show on this page.

The MRC's Comcast cable service went out just as the segment began and didn't come back until five minutes into the session, but in time to catch a heated exchange amongst Joe Scarborough, Brent Bozell and Joan Walsh, the editor of Salon.com. Video is of that.

Video clip (2:45): Real (4.6 MB) or Windows Media (5.3 MB), plus MP3 audio (970 KB)

Gen. says U.S. may boost forces in Iraq reads an AP headline from today. Forget that they buried his real position a few graphs down. Read this passage, then the one below.

"If it's necessary to do that because the military situation on the ground requires that, we'll do it," he said. "If we have to call in more forces because it's our military judgment that we need more forces, we'll do it."

Abizaid said that right now the current number of troops "are prudent force levels" that are achieving the needed military effect.

This below is from a transcript of General Abizaid on CNN with Wolf Blitzer from yesterday.

There are moments where it becomes painfully apparent that the media elites think that the only thing redeeming about Western culture is its ability to regret its existence. Their dream president is a lip-biting man from Arkansas, traveling the globe apologizing for every historic fault, real or imagined, America has ever committed.

This was exactly their mentality with Pope Benedict XVI over his remarks at the University of Regensburg. One wonders if any of his critics had bothered to read his address, the theme of which was the inseparability of faith and reason. He quoted a Byzantine emperor – who argued that God could never countenance the coercive violence of radical Islam, and therefore a radical Islam invoking God is irrational. Lost on the outraged was the other argument posed by Benedict: A religion that embraces reason but not faith is also bankrupt. That message was directed at radical Catholics. His call was for a serious and urgent "genuine dialogue of cultures and religions" based on faith and reason.

Friday's Good Morning America featured a segment with Robin Roberts in Memphis with three Southern women, identified as Republicans, who are all supposedly "having second thoughts about their party" and now plan to vote for Democrats. But a quick Internet search found that two of the three have backgrounds which raise questions about their fidelity to the GOP. Janna Herbison, identified on screen as "Former Republican turned Democrat," declared: "I used to consider myself to be a Republican." She scolded Republicans: "Don't say they're [Democrats] aligning themselves with the terrorists because they disagree with you. That's un-American." But while Herbison was Press Secretary to Republican Tennessee Governor Donald Sundquist, best known for a failed effort to enact a state income tax, she was also the Press Secretary for the Tennessee House Democratic Caucus. The other, Robin Rasmussen, who insisted that "I voted Republican in every election since I was 18," appears to be on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood for the Memphis area, which doesn't make it impossible for her to be a Republican, but certainly suggests she's long been politically active for a liberal social cause.

Chief political reporter Adam Nagourney today writes the first edition of "Political Action," a new political column in the Times that will run in the paper every Tuesday until the November elections. The first entry is (rather predictably) "The Republican Divide."

"With fewer than 50 days left until Election Day, as many as 40 House and 10 Senate seats are in play, fueling Democratic hopes of capturing power in November. Washington is awaiting polling data that will show how much success the White House has had in trying to put Democrats on the defensive on national security -- and whether that effort has been undercut by the battle among Republicans over what is permissible in interrogating terrorism suspects.

Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, well known for slamming conservatives, talked last night with former President Clinton and proceeded to offer him non-stop softball questions. The ex-President plugged his new Clinton Global Initiative program to fight poverty, global warming and support racial reconciliation. (Stewart did not press as to what specifically the project will do.) The tenor of the comedian’s questions can be summed up in this query on what makes Clinton happy:

Stewart: "All right, so what, in your mind, you’ve worked, you’ve worked in government for most of your career. Now you are out and doing private initiatives, these types of things. What’s more effective? What are you having more fun doing and what do you think is more effective?"

Yes, that’s right. Jon Stewart asked the former President what he found "fun," political or private life? It became clear, very early in the program, just how the talk show host differentiated between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Stewart: "We got a fine program for you tonight Former president Bill Clinton will be sitting down with us today. And uh, I'll ask him probably questions about the political climate and the complex issues, and he will be like [high pitched, hysterical voice], duh, I don't know. Oh, no, wait. That's, uh, oh, right, no, this is President Clinton."

On Monday's edition of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central -- the same edition rolling out the red carpet for Bill Clinton promoting his latest Global Initiative talk-a-thon -- Jon Stewart opened his show by trashing conservative columnist Robert Novak over his C-SPAN critique of Stewart as a self-righteous comedian with airs of grandeur. Admitting he's "mean" and "sophomoric," Stewart described Novak as a heartless "vampire demon," a "terrible person," and even an "enemy of American democracy."

Video clip (4:06): Real (6.8 MB at 225 kbps) or Windows Media (2.5 MB at lower quality 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (1.16 KB).

New "The View" co-host Rosie O'Donnell recently sparked controversy by saying that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam." Her behavior has been so offensive, reports the National Ledger, that she frequently brings conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to tears on the set.

The transition from Star Jones to Rosie O'Donnell hasn't been easy at "The View," especially not for Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

"She is crying every day," an insider tells us. "No one can control Rosie, and Elisabeth can't contain her feelings. She gets so upset all the time."

Apparently it's not just me.

Back when I was in college, I was involved in journalism in various capacities, in the classroom and at student newspapers. I couldn't help but notice in each place I went, women far outnumbered men. The Star-Tribune of Minnesota has picked up on a similar trend in the television industry. Men seem to be disappearing:

In TV news these days, a good man is hard to find.

At the networks, men still rule -- Katie Couric notwithstanding -- but at the local level, women have taken the lead. Nationally, they account for 57 percent of TV news anchors. [...]

The male disappearing act starts in the classroom. At the University of Minnesota this fall, women outnumber men 227 to 125 in the professional journalism major, which includes broadcasting. Ken Stone, a broadcast journalism professor who spent 20 years working in radio and TV news, has 10 women and six men in his advanced reporting class; he said that's as balanced as it gets.

Stone traces the trend to the 1970s, when women and minorities protested about domination of the airwaves by white men. One of his first journalism professors asked the men in his class to stand up, then told them, "Get a new career, there are too many of you." [...]

Why can't you conservatives be more like this, unelectable? That is the message of HBO's documentary, "Mr. Conservative," profiling the life of Barry Goldwater. Many Democrats are quoted praising Goldwater, which should set off alarm bells that the purpose of this seemingly congratulatory 90-minute film has ulterior motives.

Reports Newsday:

One major quibble: William F. Buckley Jr. is quoted nowhere in this program, which is such a ridiculous omission that viewers, particularly conservatives, will be agape at the oversight. What's the answer? Who knows, although a legion of Democratic admirers - Al Franken, Hillary Rodham Clinton (who campaigned as a "Goldwater Girl" in '64), Sen. Edward Kennedy (his brother John F. Kennedy and Goldwater were close friends, as well as potential presidential rivals) - are quoted. At least George F. Will is his usual eloquent self.

Al Franken's praising Goldwater? Does Franken admire Goldwater's racial policies, or does he admire Goldwater's embarassing defeat at the hands of Lyndon Johnson?

The essence of the documentary: longing for that old-style conservative who would readily wear a target for liberal potshots.

Well sports fans, the plot is getting so thick you can drive a truck over it. TV Newser is reporting that Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time” who went on quite a rant Friday night about being denied his free speech rights by CBS, might be mistaken. According to the New York Daily News (emphasis mine): “‘If I or my representatives got it wrong about how the 'Free Speech' segment of the 'CBS Evening News' is, sorry, our bad,’ Maher said yesterday in a statement. ‘I'm ready, willing and able to speak about the topic I originally suggested.’"

Isn’t that special? In fact, according to Vaughn Ververs at CBS’s “The Public Eye,” the “Evening News” is in no way opposed to addressing religion:

Breaking in a parallel universe somewhere: NBC is set to air live footage of actor Jean Reno portraying the Islamic prophet Mohammed engaging in sex acts with another man.

In our real world, according to Matt Drudge, the network is going to be airing a "special" concert featuring over-the-hill singer Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (aka Madonna) singing her song "Live to Tell" while standing on a disco-style crucifix and sporting a glittery pretend crown of thorns. It's a repeat of shows she's done in Europe.

Frankly, I have to yawn at this point. There's nothing new here. If these Hollywood types had any real guts or edge, they'd do PR stunts in the style of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's "Team America." But since they and Ciccone are pseudo artists, that's not likely to happen.

Note to the professionally offended: I am not advocating ridiculing any particular religion here. Just saying what Ciccone et al. would do if they ever thought about living up their supposed ideals.

With the election now less than 50 days away, I thought it might be fun to highlight some late evening/morning news items that the media might chose to ignore. After all, in the past three business days, the press have chosen to mostly ignore plummeting natural gas and heating bills as reported here, and plummeting gas prices as reported here. What might represent their most absurd negligence today?

Well, here are two obvious candidates; you decide. First up has to be the just released results of a USA Today/Gallup poll indicating that President Bush’s approval rating has risen to 44 percent (highest in a year), and that likely voters are now evenly split between Democrats and Republicans in the upcoming elections (details to follow).

In the course of the last few weeks Keith Olbermann's "Special Comments" have become a Countdown staple in which the host plays to his Daily Kos demographic with vitriolic condemnations of all things Bush. I thought Olbermann had reached the nec plus ultra of nastiness with his suggestion a couple weeks ago that the Bush administration represented "a new type of fascism."  I might have been wrong.  MRC's Brad Wilmouth has comprehensively documented Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comment' of last night.  In the course of those comments, Olbermann chose to invoke, of all things, the people's right to overthrow a tyrannical government.

The online chat sessions with Washington Post reporters Monday at washingtonpost.com had a few revealing answers. In the daily politics chat, reporter Shailagh Murray seemed to disappoint the Post's natural audience by suggesting Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold was too liberal to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. This spurred Murray to turn around and find today's GOP is way beyond Ronald Reagan's conservatism:

Ames, ia: Re: Feingold. You may be right, but I recall when Ronald Reagan was universally considered "too conservative."

Shailagh Murray: That just shows you how polarized politics has become. Reagan would practically be a moderate today.

And then:

Here's my first-hand account as a journalist of bias in a New York Times story about a study about the intellectuall differences/similarities of males and females, where it referred to controversial remarks by former Harvard president and Bush economic adviser.

The story said Summers said there were innate "deficiencies" between men and women, when in fact he said, according to the Boston Globe story that broke the news in 2005, "differences." Why would the story get that wrong? The reporter? An editor?

The story also failed to mention that Donna Shalala, who led the story, was President Clinton's secretary of health and human services. How come? Why omit that?

The story also had "innate" in quotes, but not other statements by Summers. Why is that so special? Innate is not so odd a word that it need to be emphasized, and its meaning wasn't changed through Summers' statement.

http://www.freerepub...

Iraqi Documents Rebut the Senate Intelligence Report on WMD.
Pentagon/FMSO website for Iraq Pre-war documents http://70.168.46.200... ^
| September 18 2006 | jveritas

Posted on 09/18/2006 12:33:19 PM PDT by jveritas

"It was clear that there is another branch committee from
the Industrial Committee headed by Dr. Mahdi Shakr Ghali that currently
evaluates the researches that cannot be declared (researches with relation to the previous Prohibited Programs) through presenting the Specialized Staff that ask to evaluate its researches, to conclusion related to these researches. This is an important subject and it is dangerous in case this information is leaked one way or another.”
Mohamad Hussam Al Amin, Director of the Iraqi National Monitoring
Directorate, September 16 1998, pages 63 and 64 from captured Iraqi
document CMPC-2003-002284 .

Remember last year at this time when you couldn’t turn on your television set without coming across a story on rising gasoline prices? Well, a year later, gas is now $2.50 a gallon, down 50 cents in just one month, twenty-nine cents lower than last year, and the broadcast network news programs couldn’t care less. As reported by Reuters Monday:

The freefall in U.S. gasoline prices continued as the average pump price dropped 12 cents over the last week to $2.50 a gallon, the government said on Monday.

The fall comes on the heels of an 11-cent drop the previous week.

The national price for regular unleaded gasoline is down 29 cents from a year ago and the lowest since late March, according to the federal Energy Information Administration's weekly survey of service stations.

And, the news is set to get even better: