Chris Matthews sees W's favorables going up and the Dem generic congressional edge going down. He's ticked, and on tonight's Hardball he made clear his explanation for this revoltin' development: the MSM isn't churning out enough bad news from Iraq.

Matthews first floated the idea during a segment with GOP strategist Ben Ginsburg and Dem counterpart Steve McMahon.  I'll mention as an aside that McMahon strikes me as one of the more reasonable, straightforward Dem partisans.

Quoth Chris: "Does it bother you gentlemen both that when you watch television now that the war seems to have left the TV screen to a large extent and that's helping your [GOP] party? Does that bother you that this war is largely off television now? We're not being shown it that much."

For the second week in a row, Bob Schieffer used his Wednesday “freeSpeech” slot on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric to forward a left of center outlook on the world. Last week (NewsBusters item), he denounced the Bush administration's “secret prisons,” arguing in establishing them the U.S. has adopted “the methods of our enemies.” This week, the network's Chief Washington correspondent and host of Face the Nation said he rejected equating Iraq with Vietnam, but “I am beginning to see parallels in the remarkably similar way the government then and the government now reports war news. During Vietnam, the government was on a never ending search for good news. Victory was always just around the corner. Over and over there were sightings of that light at the end of the tunnel. In 1964, a Senator returned from the war zone and declared: 'We are winning and everybody knows it, but Americans.' Sound familiar?”

Schieffer, anchor of the newscast until just a few weeks ago, cited some misinformation about Iraq and then argued: “Two different wars, but when the government spin machine starts spinning, it is hard to tell the difference.” (Transcript follows)

Read this and ask yourself (if you have not already) when/if the liberals and/or the media will end their relationship with the enemy.

A volunteer military is sacrificing their lives for their country yet a backwards judicial system endorsed by a political party driven by hate manifests their complete lack of concern for anyone but themselves.

AP 9/20

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, is expected to face a hearing here within three months, a military official said Wednesday...

The 14 new detainees will be invited to appear at the hearings, which will determine whether they are combatants...

A striking bit of journalistic malpractice seems to have affected the mainstream media web sites this morning, as news site after news site failed to provide their readers with the transcript of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech last night to the United Nations.

As of noon at ABC News, it is as if Ahmadinejad never spoke, as their was no reference to his address in front of the United Nations on their Web site’s front page, and is notably absent from the headlines of their political section as well. I had to search Google News to find this report on their site, which did not link to the transcript, nor provide Ahmadinejad's closing remarks.

Likewise, Ahmadinejad’s speech was not easily found on the CBS News site, and when an article was found buried below the fold of their International news section, their story, as well, did not provide a transcript nor a summation of his closing remarks.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has released its list of media and elected “elitists” who are doing the most to prevent passage of meaningful immigration reform. This “motley crew” of media organizations that promote “unfettered immigration” and are completely out of touch with public opinion include (who else?) the New York Times and the Washington Post…and, even the Wall Street Journal.

There is “no other domestic issue where there is this gap between the elite and public opinion,” CIS Director of Communications John Keeley told CNSNews.com in an interview discussing CIS’s list of open border elitists.

This story about a Vietnamese man who was a spy for the communists during the war as well as a reporter for Reuters and Time magazine is nothing short of an outrage. It also makes you wonder how many agents for totalitarianism are working in the press today. An's assertions of impartiality are all too familar as well. (An old MRC MediaWatch item on him is here.)

HANOI, Vietnam - Pham Xuan An, who led a remarkable and perilous double life as a communist spy and a respected reporter for Western news organizations during the Vietnam War, died Wednesday at age 79. [...]

In the history of wartime espionage, few were as successful as An. He straddled two worlds for most of the 15-year war in Indochina as an undercover communist agent while also working as a journalist, first for Reuters news service and later for 10 years as Time magazine's chief Vietnamese reporter — a role that gave him access to military bases and background briefings.

He was so well-known for his sources and insight that many Americans who knew him suspected he worked for the CIA.

Before Saigon fell to the communists, An worked to help friends escape, including South Vietnam's former security chief who feared death if he was found by northern forces. An later revealed his true identity as a Viet Cong commander, but said he never reported any false information or communist propaganda while in his role as a journalist.

I was thrilled to find this article featuring Bilal Hussein, the AP stringer who is currently under arrest by the U.S. military for colluding with terrorists.

AP Photographer Flees Fallujah
Witnesses US Helicopter Kill Fleeing Family of 5

by Katarina Kratovac

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the weeks before the crushing military assault on his hometown, Bilal Hussein sent his parents and brother away from Fallujah to stay with relatives.

The 33-year-old Associated Press photographer stayed behind to capture insider images during the siege of the former insurgent stronghold.

Thrilled, because along with several mil blogs, I followed the Fallujah battle intensely, including with maps. See here and over a dozen links at bottom. But to the point. Here's Bilal's dramatic account of his escape from Fallujah. Jolan, his neighborhood was a hotbed of terrorists, they were being killed there in large groups the very day he fled.

The New York Times editorial board goes back to lecturing Pope Benedict today in an editorial titled "The Pope's Act of Contrition." They suggest that both Catholics and Muslims should move "forward in a conciliatory spirit" beyond the Pope's "ill-considered comments." It concluded huffily:

As his unfortunate comments show, the pope needs high-level experts on Islam to help guide him. In offering his regrets, the pope said that in its totality, his speech was intended as “an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.” In living up to that, he and other top Vatican officials will have to accept that genuine communication cannot occur on their terms only.

Hilary White tracks how the Pope's scholarly lecture on Muslim-Christian relations was spun into a hate-filled tirade by manipulative media outlets. What is fact and what is media coverage are never the same, and White tracks the "meme," how the coverage of the Pope's remarks was slightly altered over time.

Media outlets expect the masses to be beholden to these manipulative techniques, and expect politicians to hyperventilate over the latest version of events.

The BBC started the flames by being the first to promote a bogus version of the event. Then later it reported that "Muslim anger grows at Pope speech."

The day after the speech, Wednesday the 13th, the Pope’s lecture elicited little response from apparently bored secular journalists who had little interest in what was considered his “obscure” and “academic” points on the relationship between religious belief and the secular world.

Catholic news sources who reported the day after the lecture were also quiet. “Pope spends quiet afternoon at home with brother,” was the leading headline at Catholic World Report.

When Newsweek likes a book, it can give it good play. Take former Republican Sen. John Danforth's brand-new book attacking the religious right, titled "Faith and Politics: How the 'Moral Values' Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together."  Newsweek plugged it in the magazine's print edition (with the headline "'St. Jack' Examines His Conscience -- And His Party"); published an excerpt on its website; and even conducted a Live Talk with readers to give him more exposure. But newly minted Newsweek editor Jon Meacham went beyond that. He's the top celebrity plugging the book on the back cover.

On Monday night, CNN’s John Roberts previewed the United Nations appearances of President Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a manner that seemed to offer moral equivalence between Bush and the avowed Holocaust denier. Roberts, who filed the September 18 report for "Anderson Cooper 360," was introduced by an announcer tease that set a tone of comparative moral ambiguity:

ANNOUNCER: "He's a president on the ropes. He's a radical on the rise. The leaders of Iran and the United States on a nuclear collision course -- and now the whole world is watching."

First off, "on the ropes" is an odd description for a President with rising poll numbers. Secondly, the language here seems to indicate two leaders, both of whom refuse to back down, rather then one who has threatened to destroy Israel and one who wishes the other would desist in such behavior.

Roberts reported the conflict, in a segment that aired at 10PM EDT, as though he was discussing a political contest between two candidates. Summarizing the problem, he stated:

ROBERTS: "But how did the mudslinging between Tehran and the White House get so bad? Certainly, Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust and insistence that Israel be wiped off the map were part of it. Some people also fault President Bush for what they call increasingly Islamophobic language that alienates Muslims."

Austin Bay has a new term to describe the technique used by the media and Muslim activists to manipulate fake events in order to inflame Muslim outrage: "CBS ambush."

The ambush technique coordinates blood-spilling violence with sensational imagery and rhetoric using a dispersed network of media operatives, guerrillas and terrorists. Networked, Coordinated Blood-spilling plus Sensationalism -- hence the technique's acronym: the CBS ambush.

The media hyped Muslim outrage during the first Gulf War.

Remember the "Arab street," that riot-in-the-road featuring flammable Israeli flags, Saddam Hussein posters, clenched fists and chants threatening "Death to America"? The street may have lacked pavement and a fire hydrant, but it had beaucoup television cameras.

Anyone who doubts the Times has a predominantly liberal audience should check out the paper's new political blog, The Caucus. The posts themselves( by Times staffers) aren't terribly slanted, although liberal assumptions and conventional wisdoms aren't hard to sniff out. But when it comes to liberal hostility the commenters give the left-wing mobs at the Daily Kos a run for their money.

Check out this comments thread on a post about Sen. George Allen of Virginia's response to a weird, hostile question about his Jewish ancestry during a televised debate with Democrat opponent James Webb. In a charming turn, the left net-roots and the Webb campaign have taken to spelling out the senator's full name "George Felix Allen," and "Felix" crops up in the Times' comments section as well.

CNSNews.com is reporting today that "Global Warming Could Boost Illegal Immigration" ( http://www.cnsnews.c... ).

What does global warming NOT cause? According to one nut in the article it even helped bring about AIDS.

Let's take a look at the short list of catastrophes that Al Gorians try to link to the myth of global warming :

1) Katrina,

2) hurricanes and tornadoes (even though they've been around for milleniums),

3) global destruction ... "a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced" (direct quote from the "Inconvenient Truth" website),

In a clear attempt to throw cold water on the potential positive economic impact of falling energy prices, an Associated Press article yesterday got sloppy with the credentials of those it sought out for quotes. It also conveyed a false impression that all of those quoted were not impressed with what falling energy prices might do for the economy.
Here is the headline and first paragraph of the article:

Economists Wary of Falling Energy Prices

WASHINGTON (AP) — It should only be this simple: Oil prices plunge 20 percent, leading businesses and consumers to ramp up their spending, which gives a nice jolt to the economy. That seems to be the conventional wisdom on Wall Street right now, where the pullback in energy prices is being cheered by investors. But some contrarians think that view could be missing the point.

But not all of those quoted are economists, and not all of those quoted are contrarians.

Here is the roster of the quoted (not in the same order as the article):

Over at The Corner, Andy McCarthy goes on the warpath against Rajiv Chandasekaran (who later appeared on MSNBC's Hardball), the Washington Post's Baghdad Bureau Chief, in particular a Page One excerpt on Sunday from his anti-war book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" dealing with Simone Ledeen, the daughter of Michael Ledeen of AEI and National Review: 

Chandrasekaran writes: “The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator … [was] tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though [she] didn't have a background in accounting.”

This is just disgraceful.

Simone did not manage any budget in Iraq. She executed the budget, which was actually managed by her superiors. Moreover, Simone was highly qualified to do this work. She had an extensive background in accounting, including a master's degree in business administration.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough aired an interview Tuesday that he did with comedian Bill Maher (time uncertain). Maher was his typical, despicable, loathing self speaking vitriol about President Bush, disdain for Republicans, and a longing for Bill Clinton (video and transcript to follow).

As the conversation initially centered on the President’s intelligence quotient – what else? – Maher made the case: “I think the science has decided: Yes, George Bush is an idiot.” Yet, in Maher’s view, it’s not just that “he can`t string a sentence together” or that he “looks like an idiot when he speaks.” It’s his policies: “It really doesn`t explain not getting on board with global warming, or fighting the wrong war, or sitting there for seven minutes on 9/11. All that stuff doesn`t have to do with articulation; it has to do with someone who really is in way over his head.”

Maher continued his attacks:

A place to discuss anything not covered by other postings...

Far be it from ABC to take sides in the fight against nuclear terrorism. As depicted by Good Morning America today, yesterday's UN speeches by Pres. Bush and Iran's Ahmadinejad were simply a battle of equals. And if anything, the guy who wants to wipe Israel off the map came off looking better in ABC's portrayal.

Host Chris Cuomo [son of Mario, brother of current New York AG candidate Andrew] set the tone: "We begin with the showdown at the United Nations, pitting President Bush against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The philosophical battlefield: Iran's nuclear program. Senior national correspondent Claire Shipman is in Washington with more on two leaders, sharply divided."

To keep this idea going, I wanted to first share the results from yesterday’s “What Might Get Unreported by the Media?” The Nets went 0-for-6 last night, sports fans. Not one of the broadcast network evening news programs felt the president’s approval rating at a twelve-month high, or inflation declining for the second month in a row, would interest their viewers. Amazing.

What might they ignore today? Well, as reported by Bloomberg, oil prices have now totally erased their gains this year:

Interviewed by 'Today' host Matt Lauer this morning, former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey blamed the "immoral and ugly" way he acted out on his homosexuality on the fact that his parents were straight and thus couldn't serve as role models for him.

McGreevey was on to promote his new book, "The Confession."

Lauer: "Not only as governor but as a state employee, you were living a very risky life-style. Anonymous sex with random men at places like highway rest stops. You write 'I was promiscuous and sexually active in ways I consider immoral and ugly, and I justified this by telling myself I had no other choice and that my sexual urges were irrepressible.' 

Asked a sympathetic Lauer: "How hard was it to try to control them?"

That's when McGreevey got off his blame-the-straight-parents defense:

President Bush might have successfully avoided Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN yesterday, but he couldn't escape Meredith Viera's backseat driving on Iran policy on this morning's 'Today.' Perhaps convinced of the value of a good gabfest by her years on "The View," Vieira left little doubt she thinks that George and Mahmoud should soon sit down for nice coffee klatsch.

Vieira's guest was Tim Russert. Alluding to the way that Pres. Bush and Ahmadinejad avoided each other yesterday, Vieira asked him:

"Eventually will [Pres. Bush] have to sit down with this man? How much saber-rattling can you do if you're talking about the potential of going to war?"

If there's one thing you might have thought Meredith would have learned over the last 51/2 years, it's that when George Bush raises the sword, he ain't necessarily planning just to rattle it.