Today (Sunday, January 21, 2007), the Los Angeles Times toasted Sen. Hillary Clinton's entrance into the 2008 race. Her announcement of a presidential exploratory committee was met with a whopping 2,050-word, front-page article ("Clinton joins 2008 race for president") (see image).

As we reported on Wednesday (here), the Times celebrated Sen. Obama's announcement of an exploratory committee with front-page treatment, accompanying photos, and a generous 1,469 words.

But how has the Times been treating similar announcements by Republicans?

With the love-fest that is currently going on over Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois), it is certainly no surprise when a group of mainstream media members gets together to discuss Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings. Yet, it is quite odd to hear someone like Chris Matthews state that the current frontrunner for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination – and a former first lady – is a female incarnation of one of the biggest left-wing failures in decades (video available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated). (Please also see update with a humorous photoshopped picture of the one to the right!)

To set this up, the panel in the first segment of Sunday’s “The Chris Matthews Show” was discussing presidential candidates. As they moved in Al Gore’s direction, Norah O’Donnell stated that Democrat party leaders are concerned about Hillary’s chances in the general election, and that a more senior and experienced candidate like Gore might be the ticket so to speak.

That precipitated this rather shocking exchange between O’Donnell and Matthews:

This one was pretty deplorable. On Sunday’s “The Chris Matthews Show,” the liberal host said something truly disrespectful about a former House Speaker, and a highly-regarded member of the political establishment (video available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated).

In the predictions segment, the New York Times’ David Brooks said:

Newt Gingrich is going to come in a close second in one of the first three Republican primaries, be on the cover of Time and Newsweek. He will have his moment, and he will be the alternative for whoever the real nominee is.

In response Matthews despicably said:

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” did a wonderful sketch last evening that in one fell swoop made fun of “Hardball” host Chris Matthews, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and the media’s sycophantic enthrallment with the former first couple from Arkansas (video available here).

The skit began with the mock Matthews gushing over finally getting the chance to interview Madame Clinton. After he finally composed himself, the first question he asked admittedly was “actually written by a member of [her] staff.”

Sounds about right, correct?

Then, the mock Matthews said that he’s got some questions of his own, and demurely asked, “Is it all right if they’re about Iraq?”

The mock Hillary said:

Another Democratic presidential candidate, another chance for ABC's George Stephanopoulos to push for higher taxes on energy. On Sunday's This Week, when just-announced candidate Bill Richardson outlined how his energy policy would be based on conservation and improved technology, listing how “it's going to take more efficient air conditioning, it's going to take green buildings, it's going to take fuel-efficient vehicles,” Stephanopoulos jumped in: “Higher gas taxes?” The Governor of New Mexico rejected the plea from Stephanopoulos: “No, you don't have to do it with taxes. You need a conservation effort that every American participates in, inspired by the President.” Stephanopoulos remained unpersuaded, proposing: “But aren't higher energy taxes the best way to get people to conserve?”

On the December 3 This Week, as recounted in my NewsBusters item, Stephanopoulos told Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, a then just-announced Democratic candidate for President, that "just about every expert on energy says the best way to become energy independent is to raise the price of oil and gas, to have a serious energy tax. Why not call for it?" Stephanopoulos followed up by pointing to Europe as a model to emulate: "Couldn't we become independent much more quickly if we had the kind of energy tax you see in Europe?"

CNN’s Howard Kurtz invited NewsBuster Dan Riehl and liberal Daily Kos blogger Mike Stark on Sunday’s “Reliable Sources” to debate the recent attacks by the left on conservative radio station KSFO.

As Riehl posted Saturday evening, Stark was rather cocky leading up to this debate stating at his own website that “CNN will want to hire me as a sanitation engineer because I will have mopped the floor with Mr. Riehl.”

Well, the reality is that CNN might indeed want to hire Stark as a janitor, for he certainly didn’t come across as qualified to do much else as this video of the segment (provided courtesy of Ms Underestimated) clearly demonstrates.

Don't look for ABC's Cokie Roberts to turn up anytime soon on that comfy couch featured in Hillary's announcement video, enjoying one of those cozy "conversations" Clinton claims to want.

Appearing on This Week today, Roberts left little doubt that she views Hillary as a seriously flawed candidate - if not person. Roberts began by damning Hillary with faint praise:

"I think she's got a lot of great attributes: she's a very disciplined candidate, she's very smart, she can raise more money than God, she has a terrific staff, she's been through a presidential campaign or two and knows how rough it is, which is really important as everyone at this table knows. And I think that all works for her."

Roberts than inserted the shiv: "What works against her is that issue of anger. And not just anger, sort of coldness."

View video here.

On ABC's World News Saturday, correspondent Laura Marquez filed a story on the upcoming trial of Lewis Libby regarding his role in leaking CIA analyst Valerie Plame's identity. Marquez relayed the theory that Bush administration members deliberately leaked her identity "to get back at" her husband, Iraq War critic Joe Wilson, without mentioning the revelation that Richard Armitage, formerly an assistant to Colin Powell and a dove in the run-up to the Iraq War, admitted to having inadvertently been the original leaker. Instead of mentioning this aspect of the story which undermines the theory of a deliberate conspiracy, Marquez suggested "dirty politics" was behind the leak as she pointed out the trial's bad timing with the President's upcoming State of the Union speech. Marquez: "It will remind the American public just how dirty politics can get." (Transcript follows)

Fans of Fox News's the "O'Reilly Factor" are familiar with a war started by the host over liberal bias in the media. It appears that Bill O'Reilly's employer is also interested in this fight, and that the battle over media bias is on:

For its opening salvo, Fox News aired a new promo Saturday which pointed a huge and unmistakably accusatory finger at its liberal competitors (hat tip to Hot Air with video available here). In it, the script deliciously read:

I'd say Bill Kristol nailed it on this morning's Fox News Sunday. And while his comments were directed at Democrats, they're equally applicable to the MSM IMHO, making them NB-worthy.

Kristol: "People are being too complacent or forgiving to the Democrats: 'Oh, it's politics; one of them has a non-binding resolution and another one has a cap.' It's all totally irresponsible. It's just unbelievable. The president is sending over a new commander, he's sending over troops, and the Democratic congress, either in a pseudo-binding way or a non-binding way is saying: 'it won't work -- forget it! You troops, you're going over there on a pointless missions. You Iraqis who might side with us, forget it, we're going to pull the plug." It's so irresponsible . . . You really wonder: do they want it to work or not? I really wonder that. . . Do they want this to succeed or not?"

Proving that Al Gore isn't interested in any dispassionate investigation or debate about global Warming, Gore perpetrated a last minute disappearing act and skipped an interview with the biggest Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, that was set up months in advance.

Flemming Rose, the Jyllands-Posten culture editor, penned an interesting expose of Gore's ducking out on the Wall Street journal's Opinion Journal site today taking the former VP to task. How many other papers do you think will mention Gore's cowardice?

Bet, few... if not no... others do.

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Last week he was in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore's tune.

So when are the Big Three Networks going to do something about their hopelessly outmoded and out-of-touch evening-news dinosaurs?

The 2006 report on The State of the News Media from Journalism.org, which covered 2005 results, showed that the Big 3 Networks' evening news audience that year averaged 27 million (the exact number is not noted, but inferred from reading the graph at the link; if anything, the actual number may have been slightly higher).

TV Newser says the final 2006 evening news averages were:

NBC: 8,785,000 / ABC: 8,069,000 / CBS: 7,429,000

Rounding up slightly, that's a total of 24.3 million -- not exactly the disaster yours truly thought might occur this summer after a particularly bad week for evening news viewership, but a pretty steep decline nonetheless. On average during 2006, over 200,000 fewer people each month tuned in to see NBC's Nightly News (currently anchored by Brian Williams), ABC's World News Tonight (currently with Charles Gibson), or the CBS Evening News (with Katie Couric).

Eyeballing the following graph from last year and looking at the 2006 numbers above, it looks like NBC was down about 14%, ABC about 11%, and CBS about 6%:

Earlier this week, I wrote about NBC’s giddy, pop-music-backed "No Man Required" segment on "choice moms," single women who choose to have babies without fathers. The primary subject of reporter Janet Shamlian’s piece was attractive businesswoman Stacy Madison: "Having spent years focused on her career, when she wasn't in love at 39, Stacy Madison went shopping at a Boston sperm bank and came home with twins." At story’s end, Madison rebutted Dan Quayle’s "Murphy Brown" speech this way: "I would have loved to have started a family the traditional way, met somebody, fallen in love, been younger. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen that way."

Guess what? "Never in love" Stacy was married for five years and decided to be a mother after the divorce. Which means NBC lied by omission. Wouldn’t anyone see this story as presenting a never-married 39-year-old? Or when a woman says she wishes she had "met somebody" and "fallen in love," does NBC think it’s perfectly clear that you’ve been around the marriage merry-go-round? I regret not Googling the name right away, which quickly revealed NBC’s dishonesty. The first article came from a 2004 article in Jewish Woman magazine. I was stunned to read:

Interesting panel discussion about "24" on last evening's Fox News Watch. On the one hand, lefty Neal Gabler actually defended the show. Mentioning that he likes Keith Olbermann "very much," Gabler continued:

"I disagree with Keith Olbermann in this situation. I look at '24' as being like a 527 [tax-exempt groups that engage in political activity]. It's bringing up that issue about terrorism, it certainly serves the Bush administration. But unlike the 9-11 show that was on ABC which specifically cited Bush as a great hero, this does not do that. It is entertainment, and I don't think it ought to be censored, or pulled off the air, or anything like that."

At the same time, Gabler later claimed: "I had dinner with the creator of '24' [note: IMDB lists Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran as co-creators. A well-positioned source informs me Gabler was referring to Surnow], and let me say, he was a right-wing fanatic. Let's not pretend that he isn't."

Actual caption:

In this photo released by ABC, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, poses with 'Good Morning America' co-host Diane Sawyer, in Washington, DC, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007. The interview airs on 'Good Morning America' Friday, Jan. 19. (AP Hotot/ABC, Lauren Victoria Burke)

CNN Saturday Morning News included the customary mainstream media genuflection to Senator Barack Obama. Anchor T.J. Holmes and senior national correspondent discussed Senator Hillary Clinton's announcement of an exploratory committee to examine her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in 2008.

HOLMES: "So, has Senator Barack Obama just really shaken things up in the Clinton camp to where they have to change things, shake things up, move a timetable up a little bit because of just the rock star power that this guy has and all the attention that he's generating?"

ROBERTS: "I think that Barack Obama really has changed the dynamic for the Clinton folks. . . Suddenly, in comes Barack Obama, steals a lot of the limelight. And he's just one of those guys that the spotlight loves. You know, he doesn't love the spotlight so much as the spotlight loves him, if you understand what I mean."