NBC's Meredith Vieira played the role of disappointed Democrat on this morning's Today as she repeatedly asked Ralph Nader if he's worried he'll be remembered in history as Al Gore's "spoiler." On to promote his book The Seventeen Traditions, Nader deflected Vieira with his usual spiel about the need for more "progressive" voices in the process, even going as far to push for a Bill Moyers campaign. The following are all of Vieira's questions to the former Green Party candidate on the January 30th, Today.

Meredith Vieira: "Consumer rights activist, humanitarian, election spoiler. Ralph Nader has been called a lot of things during his remarkable career but now he's out with a new book called The Seventeen Traditions, about lessons that he learned during his childhood. He's also the subject of a new documentary called An Unreasonable Man, a profile which examines the charge that his presidential campaign cost Al Gore the election in 2000."

Proving that even the weatherman can be biased, "Good Morning America’s" Sam Champion used Tuesday’s edition of the ABC program to tout an apocalyptic study on global warming. In a report that featured no skepticism about the cause or genuine threat of climate change, Champion utilized dire language to discuss an impending report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It should be noted, as previously reported by NewsBusters, that this meteorologist has a committed agenda when it comes to global warming and environmental issues. He recently touted the "very sexy" group of actors and environmental activists/actors. Champion began Tuesday’s report by forshadowing the immediate future:

Sam Champion: "This morning, 500 of the top scientists in the world are meeting behind closed doors to finish up a landmark report on global warming. And the picture they're painting isn't pretty. We're talking about change that's not 100 years away, but within the next 10 years. This is not the future -- it's happening today."

The morning weatherman went on to cite the liberal position on global warming: A call for reducing carbon emissions and he also noted that the IPCC scientists cite humans as the cause: "No one’s really gotten together to blame it on humans--this big of a crowd."

CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported Monday night from the Center for the Intrepid, the new rehabilitation facility for wounded soldiers in San Antonio, Texas. Cooper announced he had a problem that this facility was privately, not publicly funded, as if raising private funds for Iraq vets was outrageous and inappropriate. This prompted the CNN anchor to ask Hillary Clinton a softball question using a quote from partisan hack and unwavering Clinton supporter Paul Begala about how the government could fund Halliburton and tax cuts, but not its heroes. Hillary said: "And I say Amen." But Cooper unintentionally answered his own question later in the show as he fussed over bureaucracy stalling funds for Hurricane Katrina recovery.

Throughout the show, Anderson Cooper was horrified that this $50 million state of the art facility was funded through the generous donations of the American people rather than government funds. He inquired to Bill White, president of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund: "This center was $50 million in donations from corporations, and even individuals, school kids giving them dollars here and there. Why didn’t the government do it?"

NPR's weekly show On The Media routinely tilts strongly to the left. On the January 26 version, it includes a segment with ex-Greenpeace researcher/Washington Post writer William Arkin denouncing the Iraq surge as a worthless political smokescreen, and an analysis of the Bush State of the Union address with former Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman (exaggerating the negative reviews Clinton received for his annual yawnfests). But the real eye-opener of the show was a segment defending Hugo Chavez for censoring opposition media outlets. What? An NPR segment with only one guest, making the case for censorship? Yes.

On Tuesday’s "Good Morning America," co-host Diane Sawyer and reporter Jake Tapper highlighted the Democrats’ strategy to "get tough on the White House." The ABC correspondent discussed plans to begin hearings on holding the Bush administration accountable for issues such as global warming, Hurricane Katrina, Darfur, and Iraq. Tapper indicated that the President would soon be assailed from all sides. A sampling of the report’s phrasing seems to indicate approval for these hard-nosed Democrats:

Diane Sawyer: "Well, global warming. We said that the Democrats had promised to get tough on the White House. They're doing it with hearings on all fronts. But up first, global warming, and the charge that scientists who warned about global warming were muzzled by the Bush administration."

Next, Jake Tapper apparently found a phrase that he enjoyed:

Jake Tapper: "It's just one of many Democratic investigations where they hope to hold the White House's feet to any number of fires. The White House is under attack from every angle. From global warming, to the rebuilding of New Orleans, to Darfur, to Iraq."

Later in the report, he discussed hearings on Hurricane Katrina and returned to the fire analogy:

Tapper: "This week, a Senate committee went to New Orleans to hold the President's feet to the fire on Katrina recovery."

Comment on the news of the day and most anything else you like.

This is really too funny. On Monday, Reuters released the findings of an international ACNielsen Internet poll concerning global warming. As one might imagine, Reuters took the most dire assessments from the study and made them the focus of the piece.

Yet, the most startling conclusions from this survey – that only “50 percent reckoned [global warming] was caused by human activities,” and that “Americans [are] least convinced” about this – were buried deep in the article.

Instead, Reuters led with the following two paragraphs:

http://foreignobjectdamage.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-updates-clinton-program-nyt.html

This is surprising. President Bush has signed an executive order, that according to the NYT requires each federal agency to "...have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries..." That policy office is required to "...analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities."

What the NYT fails to mention is that this executive order is actually only updating one originally signed by President Clinton under the "reinventing government" push of the early 1990's. It's implementing the "good guidance practices."

The angle of the NYT article is this "This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats." An angle confirmed by Columbia professor Strauss, is "Having lost control of Congress,” Mr. Strauss said, “the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch.”

That's just not right. The meat of this order was orginally published for public comment on on November 30,2005. Heck, the comment period was even extended and the Whitehouse got 30 plus comments on the thing. Why wasn't any of this in the NYT story?

If the NYT story is right then Bush knew he was going to lose Congress over a year before the election. The other option? NYT got the story wrong.

Yesterday NBC's Today show pondered if Hillary Clinton was referring to Bill as one of the 'evil men' she had much experience with but never got around to fully answering the question. Well NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, on this morning's Today, attempted to answer the question and found, via a Clinton surrogate, the 'evil men' Hillary was talking about were Ken Starr, Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush. During the piece Mitchell ran a soundbite from Lisa Caputo claiming: "Certainly Ken Starr and Newt Gingrich would be at the top of that list as would be this White House." Having addressed that question Mitchell moved on to analyzing the Clinton's "complicated marriage" and how the former President "overshadowed his senator wife," but concluded that Bill’s presence was mostly positive as she regurgitated this old Clinton-line: "So as they used to say back in 1992, 'Buy one, get one free.'"

Fox News "Special Report" anchor Brit Hume led off his "Political Grapevine" segment Monday night by citing a piece that appeared that day on Times Watch, on the paper's double standard regarding the expressing of personal opinions on television. Here's Hume:

"A New York Times reporter has been rebuked by his superiors after voicing the hope that the U.S. can accomplish its goals in Iraq. Here's what Times chief military correspondent Michael Gordon said on the Charlie Rose show earlier this month, quote:

'As a purely personal view, I think it's worth it, one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we've never really tried to win. We've simply been managing our way to defeat. And I think that if it's done right, I think that there is the chance to accomplish something,' end quote. Times Public Editor Byron Calame writes that Washington Bureau Chief Philip Taubman said Gordon quote, 'stepped over the line' and quote, 'went too far.'

"Timeswatch.com points out that last summer Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar appeared on the Rose show, and criticized Bush administration practice of sending bombs to the Middle East, saying the policy, quote, 'erodes and erodes and erodes America's reputation.' MacFarquhar received no reprimand for his comments."

2006 will go down as the year that the media universally tried to sell America on the unproven theory that man-made global warming is destroying the planet, and will cause our imminent doom. Part of this hysteria includes fallacious assertions by all involved that there is a scientific consensus regarding these dire predictions.

Though they are likely to get little attention from an hysterical press, two books by prominent scientists have recently been released that scientifically disprove global warming theories, and supply a little sanity for those who like to proceed with caution before jumping on tenuous bandwagons.

As reported by the Center for Global Food Issues Tuesday (emphasis mine throughout, h/t Drudge):

This one could make waves.

When a NBC military analyst made the case that US withdrawal from Iraq would have very harmful consequences, you might have expected Meredith Vieira to argue the point. But not only did the NBC host seem to buy into his logic, she took it a significant step farther toward its logical conclusion.

Retired LTC Rick Francona was Meredith's guest on this morning's "Today." The appearance was sparked by reports that the US has amassed firm evidence that Iran is supplying a variety of weaponry to Shia militias in Iraq, including shoulder-fired missiles and sophisticated IEDs responsible for the deaths of many Americans. The screen graphic posed the question "Is U.S. Fighting Iran in Iraq?"

Francona made his thesis clear from the get-go: "We're in a power struggle with the Iranians over who's going to exercise influence in the future in Iraq, and they want to be that power. It's either us or them."

Vieira set the stage for her off-the-Dem-reservation remarks with this question: "So they're hoping if and when we leave Iraq they will fill the power vacuum that is left?"

View video here.

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The New York Times thinks you are a criminal if you own a gun. The editorial writers at the Times simply don't believe that you could possibly be a law abiding citizen if you are interested in self defense, their most recent anti-gun piece reveals.

Their January 30th piece, incongruously titled "A Day Without Guns ..." -- incongruous because the piece itself does not address any such subject as a day without guns -- cannot be interpreted too many other ways than contempt for both the citizenry as well as the Constitution.

Twenty years ago, the Florida Legislature cravenly decided to allow "law abiding" citizens to carry concealed weapons merely by declaring their preference for self-defense. Then last July, at the prodding of the gun lobby, the current crop of state lawmakers proved they could be even more corrupt and cowardly than their predecessors by deciding to make the list of gun-toting Floridians a secret.

The quotes around "law abiding" says it all. In such a case, the usage of quotes marks obviously denotes sarcasm as opposed to a mere quote and their position that no gun owner could be a law abiding citizen rings through loud and clear.