A night after CNN anchors fretted about how Katrina and the recovering Gulf region were “thunderously missing” from President Bush's State of the Union address, CBS and NBC picked up the cause. CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric regretted on Wednesday night how “there was not one mention of Katrina, though the suffering and hardship continue.” Noting that “there are still 13,000 people living in FEMA trailers,” Couric asserted: “Some who lost everything are asking, 'What about us?'” Reporter Armen Keteyian, a veteran of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, featured one New Orleans man who, “like many here, watched the President's speech, his rage rising with every word." Keteyian listed how “there were 5,596 words in the President's speech last night,” and insisted that “reaction to the fact that not a single one was either Katrina or Louisiana was felt...all across the Gulf." Kateyian concluded with how “words like 'relief' and 'recovery' now seem as empty to them as last night's presidential address.”

Leading into an image of a headline in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “New Orleans left out of president's script,” as if a local newspaper story should have national import, David Gregory highlighted on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News: “That focus on Iraq, and the political toll it's taken, has led the White House to divert its attention from other priorities -- like rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina. Last night, not a word. The omission was headline news.”

Since her successful senatorial campaign in 2000, Hillary Clinton has enjoyed huge financial support from wealthy liberal Hollywoodans. However, a report posted at ABCNews.com suggests that some movie industry heavyweights are jumping off her bandwagon and onto Barack Obama’s (h/t Drudge):

On Wednesday morning, hundreds of Hollywood's movers and shakers received an invitation that they may find hard to refuse.

They've been invited to come meet Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's new superstar. He already has the buzz, but can he bring home the prize?

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. The article continued:

It's Just 'OUR' Opinion...     Written By     Matt Bruce -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SARASOTA, FL. (NS/TWH) - President George W. Bush started out his State of the Union speech bytalking about our Nation's economy... The President said, "A future of hope and opportunity begins with agrowing economy - and that is what we have...Unemployment is low,inflation is low, and wages are rising. This economy is on the move -and our job is to keep it that way, not with more government but withmore enterprise." For all those who forgot that this Nation was attacked in 2001 and wedid dip into a slight depression that started at the very end of theClinton Administration's days in control, I say where have you been??? Then the President addressed Education and what we still have left togo to enhance our Educational system... His comment, "Five years ago, we rose above partisan differences topass the No Child Left Behind Act...And because we acted, students areperforming better in reading and math, and minority students areclosing the achievement gap.

On Wednesday, during an interview with Dick Cheney, "Situation Room" anchor Wolf Blitzer continued to badger the Vice President and quizzed Cheney about the month-old story of the pregnancy of his lesbian daughter, Mary. (Hat tip to Drudge) Cheney bluntly responded to the CNN anchor, " I think you're out of line with that question." That comment came after Blitzer, who appeared to be attempting to drive a wedge between conservatives and the Vice President, quoted a Focus on the Family statement, from December 6, 2006:

A transcript of the segment, which aired at 5:35pm on January 24, follows:

Wolf Blitzer: "Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family: ‘Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child.’ Do you want to respond to that?"

Dick Cheney: "No, I don't."

Blitzer: "She's obviously a good daughter."

Cheney: "I'm delighted -- I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question."

Video clip (1:07): Real (2 MB) or Windows Media (2.3 MB), plus MP3 audio (400 KB)

Vice President Dick Cheney squared off with CNN host Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday in a contentious, multi-part "Situation Room" interview. Blitzer seemed to openly adopt the mantra and talking points of the Democratic Party. In fact, in a tease for the interview, Blitzer promised, "The Vice President takes on his critics, including me." Cheney, whose wife Lynne aggressively sparred the cable anchor back in November, told Blitzer that a question about administration blunders was "hogwash." Elaborating on a clip of Democratic Senator Jim Webb, the "Situation Room" host asked Cheney about Bush failures:

Wolf Blitzer: "And it’s not just Jim Webb. It’s some of your good Republican friends in the Senate and in the House are now seriously questioning your credibility because of the blunders, of the failures. Gordon Smith– Gordon Smith--"

Dick Cheney: "Wolf. Wolf. I simply don’t accept the premise of your question. I just think it’s hogwash."

Blitzer: "That what? That there were no blunders? The President himself says there were blunders."

ABC’s Rosie O’Donnell called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush on Wednesday’s coffee klatch, “The View” (video available here):

Someone I believe should call for the impeachment of George Bush to let the world know…I’ll tell you why. Listen…I think we should do it so the world knows that the nation is not standing behind this president’s choices, that the nation, a democracy, feels differently than the man who was leading as if it were a dictatorship, and that we represent this country. He does not lead as a monarch.

Isn’t that special? Yet, as Allah over at Hot Air wrote of this segment, this wasn’t even the most idiotic thing Rosie said on Wednesday:

Kate Zernike's front-page profile of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (featuring a large picture of Pelosi shaking Bush's hand at last night's State of the Union address) opened with a celebration of Pelosi's femaleness and ends with "poignant commentary" by the left's new favorite Bush fighter, Democrat Sen. James Webb of Virginia.

"The first two words of the evening on Tuesday were evidence of how much has changed here: 'Madam Speaker,” boomed Congressional escorts, 'the president of the United States.'"

With the president mentioning "global climate change" in his State of the Union, CNN’s Miles O’Brien was happy he finally mentioned it. But, of course, he’s not doing enough and "more drastic action is needed.". Because his proposals are voluntary and not mandatory, it is "essentially toothless." O’Brien featured Gene Karpinski of the liberal League of Conservation Voters to call for "mandatory caps on global warming," but featured no contrary view.

The CNN anchor then predicted a very grim future.

Miles O’Brien: "Bush’s remarks were a small concession to what an overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe is a huge problem. They say in the coming decades, climate change will melt glaciers, flooding coastal areas as see levels rise. It will likely increase the frequency of extreme weather events like catastrophic hurricanes and it could lead to entire species going extinct, such as polar bears which are already struggling as their arctic habitat melts."

Energy independence. Cutting the "addiction" to foreign oil.

They're political platitudes shared by pols on both sides of the aisle, but economists and energy experts argue it's not feasible or desirable to be energy independent.

So why do the media uncritically present energy independence not only as a possibility, but a political imperative?

My colleague Julia Seymour wrote about that in an article you can find here. You can get her newsletter stories straight to your e-mail inbox every Wednesday by subscribing to The Balance Sheet here.

Leftists always complain that FNC’s "Hannity & Colmes" is a perpetually uneven match, a game of Strong vs. Weak where Sean Hannity always gets to be more aggressive and that other Colmes fellow is timid. On the PBS "NewsHour," I’d say the situation is reversed. Mark Shields is the Hannity that always sounds a strong partisan tone, and David Brooks is the timid guy, willing to tone it down for the face time and, as Bill Clinton once put it, "preserve his viability" within the network he’s on.

After the State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Shields remembered Bill Clinton’s 1998 speech as a "rhetorical home run" and really drove home how great that prickly Jim Webb was: "I think that the old line that freshmen should be seen and not heard was totally repealed and revoked." After lauding the Webb speech’s eloquence and memorability, Brooks helpfully added: "Mark said ‘A star is born.’"

On Wednesday’s "Early Show" co-host Harry Smith pressed Republican Senator and presidential candidate John McCain on the war in Iraq and the president’s handling of it, but in a subsequent interview with Democratic presidential hopeful and Illinois Senator Barack Obama, Smith only had softball questions. For instance, Smith wondered what Obama was thinking while he was listening to the president’s speech and what running for president has taught the Illinois Senator. Smith also neglected to question Obama regarding his inexperience.

Mr. Smith first talked with Senator McCain, and Smith spent much of the interview discussing Iraq. Given the tone of the interview, it seems unlikely that McCain will be the media sensation he was in 2000. During today’s segment, Smith first wondered if President Bush even deserved another chance on Iraq:

As reported by NewsBusters here, here, here, here, and here, the media were foaming at the mouth last week about the hit television series “24” being a “neocon sex fantasy.” Yet, these same press outlets seemed less interested this week to report on the not-so conservative themes present in Episode 5 (video teaser available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated).

Maybe the greatest example of this glaring hypocrisy was how the terrorist introduced in Episode 1, Hamri al-Assad, was brought to the American government’s Counterterrorism Unit in Los Angeles to be debriefed by the head of the division. Almost straight out of the landmark film “Dr. Strangelove,” this fictional mortal enemy was suddenly right in the heart of the nation’s defense structure, and by the end of the episode, was shaking hands with Bill Buchanan, the head of CTU-Los Angeles.

Tom Brokaw popped up on this morning's Today show to analyze the President's State of the Union address and join Meredith Vieira in casting doubt on Bush's ability to sell his Iraq policy. After Vieira asked how Bush's low approval ratings affected his ability to promote the new surge in troops to Iraq, Brokaw responded: "The question is, now, seven years into his presidency and more than three-and-a-half years into this war does he have any credibility left when he says, 'This is how it will work,' because so much of what he has said about Iraq has not worked the way that he described it."

Then a little later Vieira set up Brokaw on how people outside of the U.S. viewed the policy: "What about with the rest of the world? Where do you think they stand in terms of this troop surge?" To which Brokaw opined: "I think the rest of the world is standing back and saying, 'You got yourself into it, you find a way out of it.' And that's a dilemma. I know that members of the Iraq Study Group are not happy that the President has not embraced any of their diplomatic suggestions that he made, that they made about talking to Iran and talking to Syria again about rebuilding the alliances. This is a White House that it's, in its own bunker at the moment."

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a columnist at a liberal newspaper saying bad things about Democrats. In this case, it’s especially odd given that the targets of the disaffection were primarily media darlings Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Yet, there it was in Wednesday’s Boston Globe:

On January 18, CBSNews.com posted an interview that "Public Eye" blogger Brian Montopoli conducted with business correspondent Anthony Mason. In the interview, Mason explained how he wound up reporting the business beat and why he thinks the media have a tendency to be critical of business, as well as admitting that the media in general have a liberal bias in story selection. You can find the full blog post with a link to the interview audio here.

I also took the liberty of clipping a few sound bites from his interview. It runs almost two minutes and can be found here.

In January 2006, Mason made similar comments about the media's coverage of American business:

The battle of the cable news networks rages on, and gets funnier and funnier by the minute. In this latest installment, a Fox News spokesperson has deliciously disparaged one of CNN’s biggest stars.

As reported by the New York Times (emphasis mine throughout):

A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said CNN was mainly looking for publicity in attacking its higher-rated rival. Of Mr. Cooper’s comment, she said, “Yet another cry for attention by the Paris Hilton of television news, Anderson Cooper.”

What was this recent fracas about? You’ll never guess:

http://www.morecambetoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=34&ArticleID=1989787

A quote from the article:

"Arriving at 8.30am on the morning of 9/11, he went to the maintenance office located on the first sub-level, one of six sub-basements beneath ground level.
Fourteen people were in the office at that time. As he was talking with others, he says there was an incredibly loud and powerful explosion which seemed to emanate from between sub-basement B2 and B3.
There were 22 people on B2 sub-basement who also felt and heard that first explosion. ...Just seconds later he says there was another explosion high above which made the building oscillate momentarily. This, he was later told, was a plane hitting the 90th floor."

At the beginning of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Bush graciously discussed Nancy Pelosi and her history making role as the first female Speaker. He also congratulated Democrats on their new majority status. This, however, wasn’t enough for Paul Begala. The CNN contributor appeared on a post-speech edition of "Anderson Cooper" and digressed into a rant about how Bush referred not to the Democratic Party’s success, but, rather, the Democrat majority. According to the always polite Begala, this is something only the "kook right," "the fringe" and the "Rush Limbaugh crowd" engages in:

Paul Begala: "At the very beginning, [Bush] opened with this beautiful grace note to Nancy Pelosi, talked about how her father, Thomas D'Alessandro, had served in the House, and the daughter had grown up to become Speaker. It was beautiful....And then in the very next paragraph -- I have it marked here on the White House text -- he congratulated the new ‘Democrat’ majority, as he said. Now, the White House transcript says ‘Democratic.’ There is a difference. My party's the Democratic Party. But the sort of kook right, not the responsible Republicans, but the fringe, the Rush Limbaugh crowd, likes to call my party the Democrat Party. They think it's some sort of insult or something. And frankly, I guess it is insulting. Why would you do that when you're the president of both parties and the majority of your country now is affiliated with the Democrat Party? Why would you say that?"

In a fit of rapture over newly elected Democrat Jim Webb, going so far as to speculate that he might be presidential ticket material for team D, Newsweek's Johnathan Alter left the lede at the bottom of this piece. Too bad those who might appreciate it most will likely never get to the bottom of Alter's little Webb romance.

A Powerful Response
Jim Webb tore up his party's playbook—and helped point the Democrats in a new direction.

Alter also failed to point out that a poll Webb used to claim the military doesn't support the war actually favors increasing troop numbers, as proposed by Bush - that item at bottom.

For general discussion and comment...

As liberal members of Congress advocate a return of the decades-old Fairness Doctrine, an intriguing hypocrisy has surfaced: the Democrat front-runner for president in 2008 shuns talk radio interviews. As a result, one of the top liberal talk radio hosts in the nation, Ed Schultz, is slamming Hillary Clinton at his website (emphasis mine throughout):

Cutting to the chase, Hillary's people treat us like dirt. We are constantly disregarded, told things that aren't true, and given speculation an interview might happen someday.

Quite frankly, I'm sick of it.

It appears that one of America's top liberal radio hosts, with an audience of 2.5 million listeners a week, can’t get Hillary to do an interview with him. As a result, Schultz isn’t happy: