On Wednesday's American Morning, CNN political correspondent Candy Crowley assembled a piece arguing strongly that President Bush is a "severely weakened commander-in-chief" who is "now running out of cards" on Iraq.

Crowley: "Less than four years ago 71 percent of Americans approved of the way the president was handling Iraq. Each spring thereafter shows a president in slow free fall. Americans come to believe the war was too slow, the objective far from sure; within 12 months the insurgency began to take hold."

Bush (2004 footage): "We will not waiver in the face of fear and intimidation."

Crowley: "Every good thing -- elections, new governments, a constitution -- was followed by something horrendous -- roadside bombings, prison abuses."

ABC and CBS (not NBC) featured interviews Wednesday morning with White House communications director Dan Bartlett. Both networks were fairly harsh in their questioning. ABC’s Diane Sawyer read a long list of eminent people who opposed a surge, and pressed, "What don’t they get?" She even used soundbites of soldiers saying it was a hopeless civil war and "I don’t think we need to be here." CBS’s Harry Smith aimed his barbs at Bartlett more from the right, questioning whether 20,000 troops would be enough, and insisting that the Iraqis weren’t up to the "blood and guts" job of security. He also hammered on the president’s low approval ratings and asked "Why should the American people have faith in the president at this moment?"

MRC’s Justin McCarthy reported that Sawyer opened Good Morning America with the spin that the President was going exactly against public opinion: "Amid calls in this country for a withdrawal of American troops, the president is going to be sending more troops to Iraq."

While there's never been much doubt as to where Norah O'Donnell stands politically, I've never heard her express a political position in such unmistakably personal terms as she did this afternoon on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show. Said Norah, discussing the President's imminent announcement of a surge:

"The President has chosen a military solution to the sectarian violence. As Brownback said today, and an increasing number of Democrats, it should be a political solution."

When Tucker countered that the military is traditionally used for the express purpose of ultimately achieving a political solution, Norah again expressed her own view: "Perhaps when there's a clear enemy. But in this case there's not really an enemy. We're in the middle of a civil war between Sunnis and Shias."

View video here.

Matt Naugle at Human Events' Rightometer found part of the excerpt that follows at Rush Limbaugh's web site; I looked for more, since Rush's content will disappear behind his subscriber wall shortly.

Fortunately, I found a Google cache transcript of the entire interview involved. Its original address was:

democraticleader.house.gov/ press/articles.cfm?pressReleaseID=590

In other words, what follows is from an officially released May 30, 2004 interview of Nancy Pelosi by Tim Russert. At the time, what Pelosi said was blessed by the party, and what she said is that there should be more troops in Iraq (bolds are mine):

Click here for instructions on running Gaggle daily on your own site. There's also an archive of previous toons available here.

Well, not any more. At least from where I'm sitting in lovely Old Town Alexandria. Darn global cooling!

Anyway, at the MRC's Business & Media Institute, we're on top of the media's hype of global warming like white on polar ice.

Here's my colleague Julia Seymour's latest newsletter article.

To get Julia's newsletter articles piping hot in your inbox every Wednesday afternoon, just sign up right here.

From a 72-degree January day in Manhattan to "polar bears in peril," the media have done anything but chill about the weather lately.

"Never has good weather felt so bad. Never have flowers inspired so much fear. Never has the warm caress of a sunbeam seemed so ominous. The weather is sublime, it’s glorious, it’s the end of the world," wrote Joel Achenbach on the January 7 Washington Post Style section front.

"Thank God for blogs," said White House Press Secretary Tony Snow this afternoon, commenting on the Bush administration's communications efforts. The comment came in the course of a conference call for bloggers conducted this afternoon by Snow and Brett McGurk [pictured here], the National Security Council's Director for Iraq, giving a preview of President Bush's speech of tonight on Iraq. I had the opportunity to participate on behalf on NewsBusters.

Snow described the problem with the traditional media - generously I would say - not in terms of bias but as a function of the "if it bleeds it leads" tendency.

Snow indicated that he reads the blogs represented in the conference call. It's clear that the White House views blogs, NewsBusters among them, as playing an important role in cutting through the MSM clutter. Snow also described the frustration of military people in Iraq with media coverage that does not comport with the reality they experience in the field. Snow predicted that service people would begin using their own video cameras and sites such as YouTube and LiveLeak to get the word out. Along those lines, I can say that one of the most empowering aspects of my recent trip to Iraq was the ability to put video up on NewsBusters, at times within an hour of events in the field, as with this report on a training exercise of Iraqi soldiers on the Euphrates river in Anbar province.

Among the encouraging details emerging from the conference call:

Reporter Craig Smith wrote Friday on the uproar over the Catholic clergyman who admitted collaborating with Communist authorities during the era of Soviet dominion over Poland ("Ties to Communist Secret Police Snare Polish Bishop").

Check the lead:

"Warsaw's new archbishop, Stanislaw W. Wielgus, caught in Eastern Europe's widening witch hunt for former Communist secret police informers, admitted Friday that he had collaborated with the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, or Security Service, known as the S.B."

ABC continued its global warming hype with, quite appropriately, the weather man. Wednesday’s Good Morning America started its weather forecast with, as he put it, "big, big, big news" that 2006 was the warmest year in 112 years of recording weather. Weatherman Sam Champion asserted the politically correct belief of global warming and then sought to clarify the distinction between individual weather patterns and long term trends. But check out the map: America is apparently on fire, and with an average temperature of 55 degrees.

Then in an unintentionally comical moment, Champion turned to the weather map and discussed a big snowstorm in the northwestern United States. "This is a big system that brings winter to a lot of locations." The transcript is below.

Hard to believe that a woman with a master's degree from the Northwestern Medill J-school would do this, but CNN correspondent Lisa Sylvester did, and where else but on "Lou Dobbs Tonight", that bulwark of "advocacy journalism."

In its rush to anger viewers about private company “ownership” of public roads, the January 9 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” presented only one proponent of privatized toll roads, and then misrepresented his position on the issue, cutting out his defense of private investment.

Anchor Lou Dobbs sounded the alarm about federal highways “now being sold to the highest bidder” as he introduced a story by Lisa Sylvester. Sylvester began by suggesting that “Wall Street is paving the road to highway privatization” and that far from being sound policy, “states are eyeing privatization as a quick fix.”

Sylvester, who earned her master’s degree from the distinguished Medill School of Journalism, then aired a clip of the Reason Foundation’s Robert Poole. The sound bite featured the transportation policy expert observing that while “people are frustrated” with congested roads and that “nobody really wants to raise gas taxes.”

Those sound bite selections left viewers with the impression that Poole favors more taxes and government spending on highways, which is far from true. Yet when asked by the Business & Media Institute (BMI) about his reaction to Sylvester’s presentation, Poole assured BMI that he “addressed all their concerns in the material we taped.”

“I was afraid they would selectively use what I said,” Poole lamented in an e-mail, adding he’d “debated whether even to be interviewed” given the show’s previous biased presentation on transportation.

[more follows the jump]

CBS’s Sandra Hughes was once again impressed with California’s liberal policy initiatives. On October 31, 2006, Hughes praised California for tackling liberal issues that ‘the federal government won’t touch," such as funding embryonic stem cell research and for enacting "the nation’s most restrictive law on greenhouse gas emissions. And on Wednesday’s "Early Show," in reference to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s health care initiative, Hughes continued to laud California for once again leading "where the federal government fears to tread."

Recently added "Early Show" news anchor Russ Mitchell introduced the piece calling Schwarzenegger’s health care idea a "bold plan." Hughes’ report tried to gain support for the plan by featuring an uninsured man who suffers from diabetes, who claimed that there are a lot of uninsured people in his community, and manyof them are single mothers. Yet, Ms. Hughes neglected to mention that Schwarzenegger’s plan would cover illegal aliens as well as legal California residents. Wouldn’t this type of benefit encourage more illegal immigration, and shouldn’t it, therefore, be explored?

The Associated Press crowed on Jan. 4 that their controversial source "Jamil Hussein" did indeed exist, as it announced:

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

But Flopping Aces has the latest development.

I've been in touch with Bill Costlow (the CPATT (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) representative) since he has been back in-country and I have a few interesting developments on this story.

Despite the AP's claim that a Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf had confirmed Hussein's existance:

Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf never acknowledged that there was a Capt. Jamil Hussein assigned to the Khadra station, he confirmed to the AP that there was a Capt. Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim assigned there. Apparently he is the source for the AP even though he still, to this day (according to Bill Costlow), denies being the source.

So what do we have so far?

What's news?

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, a squabble between ABC’s Rosie O’Donnell and Barbara Walters was either a sign of increasing troubles between the co-hosts of the daytime coffee klatch “The View,” or a publicity stunt for ratings. On Wednesday, we may have gotten the answer as the twosome said some disparaging comments about Rosie’s new foe Donald Trump, and expressed solidarity with an on-camera high-five (video available here, hat tip to Drudge).

For those not getting bored with this story – truth be told, I am at this point, and would suggest Trump, who has already written a response to the twosome, stop feeding this silly fire any further – a transcript follows:

End the Darfur Genocide – 21st Century’s Most Outrageous Crime Against Mankind

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

It is not Iraq where the main problem lies; it is not Iran that consists in the worst threat; it is not Palestine that endangers the world peace; it is not Afghanistan where the Islamic Terrorism shapes a menace. It is in Darfur where we will all testify to Our Human Nature; leave the murderous Pan-Arabist El Bashir tyrant longer stay at Khartoum, and you prove that you never learnt anything out of the Nazi lesson. Further tolerate Darfur, and prove that you are not really a human being anymore. The present plan offers a fast intervention and liberation perspective for the oppressed and tyrannized peoples of Sudan. America is to lead the effort; as Dwight Eisenhower said “Pessimism never won any battle”.

The Secret Reasons of the Darfur Genocide: fake Arabic imposed on Non-Arabs

Only through an exhaustive, in-depth approach to the reasons that have caused the ongoing Darfur Genocide, and following a thorough understanding of the criminal work of the French, namely the fabrication of a false language, an inexistent culture, and a bogus-nation, can people realize the tragedy befallen on the various peoples of Sudan – that are all non-Arabs.

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

All people in Khartoum know already that they live the end of a long tyrannical experience; they have not identified the forthcoming solution, but they have the real feeling that the nightmare named ‘Sudan’ has already its expiry date. It was about time!

No one knows the details of the final, ultimate division of Sudan; even the number of the emanating countries is not precisely told. Will there finally be a Free Nubia? Will the Red Sea coast’s Beja / Blemmyes ultimately get the freedom they have fought so many centuries for? What will the various borders among the possibly 6 or 7 countries in the east of Chad look like?

Usurping the name 'Ethiopia', Abyssinia provokes Islamic Terror

Today, the worst threat for Islamic Terror diffusion in Africa emanates from the tyrannical realm that has been fallaciously named 'Ethiopia'; call it correctly 'Abyssinia' and liberate the oppressed Oromos, Ogadenis, Sidamas, and Afars, and you avert the Islamic bomb of East Africa.

Leave it as it is, falsely named 'Ethiopia' - a barbaric realm of oppression, and you will have a domino effect throughout Northern – Northeastern Africa, leading to the final rise of Ossama bin Laden. The cultural – political equation is as simple as that.

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Few know that if Afghanistan had been called Bactria, there would have been extremely few chances for that impoverished and unfortunate country to be the basis of Taliban and Ossama bin Laden.

Meles Zenawi – Eastern Africa’s Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden’s puppet?

In an earlier article, we stressed the subtlety of the Horn of Africa issues; by letting an anachronistic and murderous coalition of Amhara and Tigray Monophysitic rulers further tyrannize both, the Amhara and Tigray Muslims and the (Christian, Muslim, and Animist) Afars, Oromos, Ogadenis, and Sidamas, the West signs the warranty certificate for an Islamic Terror Volcano Explosion of incommensurable dimensions and ominous impact on global developments.

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

The combination of disproportionate elimination from the decision making and miserable underdevelopment due to mistrust and ethnic hatred is an alarming factor in the Horn of Africa politics. When the Oromos (42%), the Ogadenis (10%), the Sidamas and other Southerners (10%), and the multi-split Afars (8%), who are dispersed among three states, namely Abyssinia, Djibouti, and Eritrea, face inhuman oppression and absolute alienation within their own historical lands that have been colonized by the Amhara Kingdom before 110 years (or even more recently), the despair and the desolation run high. Anyone, especially the Islamic Courts of Somalia and Ossama bin Laden, can capitalize on this and by promising an alternative gain momentum.

Avert an East African Islamic Terror Volcano – Break down fake ‘Ethiopia’!

When all the world focuses almost exclusively on Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Israel, forgetting at the same time the Darfur Drama, and tolerating the existence of the African Hitler, President Al Bashir of Sudan, critical developments take place in Somalia and Abyssinia, a country falsely called Ethiopia. The next rendezvous of the Islamic Terror is with Abyssinia.

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

A bogus-state plunged in ethnic tyranny, underdevelopment and starvation

Abyssinia, do not call it ‘Ethiopia’ if you please, the reasons are to be found in this article, has all it takes to present the rest of the world one of the nastiest surprises we have ever had: an Islamic Revolution that will pressurize over Sudan, Yemen, Kenya, and Egypt.

Time magazine devoted its "Ten Questions" interview this week to NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer. Time’s Jeanne McDowell had a light touch, asking about Meredith, and Katie, and squabbling with Tom Cruise. The interview quickly draws the reader to this comparison: Lauer was tougher on Tom Cruise than he was with Hillary Clinton in the famous "vast right-wing conspiracy" interview of 1998, despite the great difference in importance between a president lying in court and an actor/Scientologist fighting with Brooke Shields over anti-depressant pills. It unfolded like this:

What do you consider your best interview?

Hillary Clinton because of the convergence of events that were happening at the time. It was a few days after the Monica Lewinsky story broke. I fully expected Mrs. Clinton to cancel. She was a scorned woman whose husband had just been exposed for cheating. [The exchange] went extraordinarily well and resulted in the often quoted "vast right-wing conspiracy" interview. But it required as deft a touch as I ever have had to use. 

Islamic Terror Societies: an Anatomy of the West's Lethal Enemy – Part 1

In a previous article we analyzed why the term 'Islamic Terrorism' is wrong and why it should be replaced by “Islamic Terror Societies”. Before entering into details about the lethal plans of the Islamic Terror Societies against the West, we will focus and describe extensively their structures – a subject viciously kept secret in the West.

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Definition

What are the Islamic Terror Societies?

The Islamic Terror Societies are groupings of Muslim individuals whose commonly shared behavioural, linguistic, educational, cultural, religious, theological, ideological, philosophical, intellectual, academic, political and economic elements and patterns, either at the individual or at the organized/institutional level, either as system components and aspects or as independent factors, tend to generate an overwhelming support for, and materialization of, unjust, iniquitous, inhuman choices, barbaric options, and ultimately terrorist acts of all scopes, as humanly justified revenge against, or divinely demanded castigation of, parts or the totality of the Western World.