This evening's episode of Fox News Watch was more jam-packed than Smucker's at harvest time. But for space restraints, the headline would have been much longer. Let's get this party started:

Jim Pinkerton took an unvarnished shot at Charley Gibson, anchor of ABC's World News. Said Pinkerton, discussing Nancy Pelosi's shameless photo-op, shown here::

"The picture of Nancy Pelosi holding the baby inspired that genius of analysis Charles Gibson on ABC to say 'Oh! Nancy Pelosi is taking care of a baby and taking care of the country at the same time.' That's a total home-run for the spin doctors. They put a picture in front of it, and some dumb TV reporter just said 'oh yeah, well, I guess she's taking care of the country."

View edited video of several clips from this evening's show here.

As NewsBusters has also noted [here and here], Rich Lowry of National Review, pinch-hitting for Cal Thomas, observed: "There has been a big contrast in the media coverage of this takeover and the Republican takeover in 1994. Time magazine ran a cover story on Newt Gingrich in December, 'Mad as Hell'. Democrats were just as angry at George Bush this time around as Republicans were at Bill Clinton, but you would never see that sort of coverage on a major newsweekly now, because of the liberal media bias, right Neal?"

With President Bush presumably about to announce a surge of troops into Iraq, what better time for CNN to run a segment . . . likely to put a damper on recruiting? In theory, there was nothing wrong with a segment aired at 10:30 ET this morning, geared to providing useful information to potential recruits. As discussed during CNN host TJ Holmes' interview of Gina Cavallaro of the Military Times [owned by Gannett, the folks who bring you the liberal USA Today], recruits do need to understand that they are entering into a contract with the military, that they have bargaining power, that it's possible to negotiate, that it's wise to get things in writing, etc.

Well and good. But all that information was provided against the backdrop of a recurring theme: that recruiters are likely to distort or even lie to potential recruits.

Holmes introduced the segment this way: "Between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military recruiters are feeling more pressure to meet their goals. They are overstating the benefits of enlisting right now, is the word. What should you know before your son or daughter signs on the dotted line?"

Holmes' first question to Cavallaro: "The [recruits] you talk to who were just getting into it or have been in for a little bit, do you hear much saying they didn't really know what they were getting to? Did their impressions turn out to be true once they were enlisted?"

Cavallaro took it from there: "I hear people saying, 'my recruiter lied to me. I'm not where I said I would be. I didn't know I would be in Korea for a year.' You definitely hear those things."

The story of James Kim, who died of hypothermia in a remote part of Oregon after setting out on foot to seek help for his stranded family, was a sad capper to the year 2006 for many. A lot of things went wrong for the Kims as they started out for a holiday trip only to have it end in disaster.

Spencer H. Kim, James Kim's Father, has today a plea appearing in the Washington Post titled The Lessons In My Son's Death. It is a message to Oregon's emergency services community to help stop another tragedy such as befell his son from happening to anyone else.

Now that the Democrats control both houses of Congress, the New York Times apparently wants Bush to stop acting like he's the president or something.

Reporter Jim Rutenberg's "White House Memo," "Bush Reaches Out, but Keeps One Hand on the Wheel," paints Bush as out of touch while taking a jab at the Wall Street Journal.

"In an article published on a friendly op-ed page, and from the regal confines of the White House, President Bush greeted the incoming Democratic leadership of Congress on Wednesday with a message of bipartisanship.

After a run of sordid beauty-queen stories, it doesn't get much more refreshing -- or inspiring -- than this. A beauty queen lays aside her crown not because of scandal but . . . to serve her country. Meet Jessica Gaulke, who has given up her crown as Minnesota's Queen of the Lakes because her National Guard unit has been activated. Jessica is scheduled for training at Fort Hood, TX and then deployment to Iraq.

The story gets even more dramatic. In the course of her interview by NBC's Natalie Morales on this morning's "Today," Jessica announced that a week from now she will be marrying her fiance.

"Today" generally played the story in positive terms as the graphic it displayed during much of the interview, "Brave Beauty", suggests. Still, Morales couldn't help but inject NBC's official line on the war into the interview:

"Do you have any reservations about going there, especially as you see how it's basically escalated into civil war there?"

Cam Edwards at NRANews.com offered something interesting to add to the Geoff Dickens list of Matt Lauer's frequent episodes of anti-gun bias. In August 2000, Lauer interviewed Knoxville, Tennessee auto dealer Greg Lambert about how apparently outrageous it was that Lambert offered guns as part of his car sales pitch. (I break down laughing when Lauer says "Even children who come to your dealership are going to get a free water pistol, and some people say that's just going too far.")

But here's the Greg Lambert story Matt Lauer hasn't done. In November 2006, Lambert used his own gun to defend himself against a 19-year-old man who came to buy a car, and then decided to hold him up. When faced with Lambert's gun, the man fled and was later arrested. (A Knoxville TV station offered early details here.) The Knoxville News Sentinel then added that the county sheriff was charging the assailant with a murder that occurred ten hours earlier.

The detritus of Nancy Pelosi's imperial celebrations have barely been cleared, and already at least one member of the liberal punditry, Robert Kuttner, is demanding that the new Dem majority do more of what Dems do best: tax and spend.

It's as if one of the Smithsonian's dinosaurs, taxasaurus democratae, patiently gathering dust all these last dozen years, had suddenly roared to life, broken from its exhibit, and began slouching toward Capitol Hill to be reborn. To mix a metaphor and a poem.

Annotated excerpts from Kuttner's impassioned plea, Get Serious Democrats, from this morning's Boston Globe: