Matt Lauer's Friday morning interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended badly. It wasn't that Rice brought bad answers to the interview. It wasn't that Lauer mocked or insulted Rice. It was that Lauer elevated a tired publicity stunt from the radical leftists at Code Pink to something approaching "Newsworthy" status (video available here):

LAUER: Let me end on just a different subject. On Wednesday you were set to appear before the House Foreign Relations Committee, and a protestor walked right up to your face, Madam Secretary, and said, with red paint on her hands and said, quote, "the blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands." She was taken out of the room. Not on a policy level, on a personal level, what was your response to that moment? Were you angered? Were you upset? Were you frazzled? How did you respond to it?

Quote from a Mexican mayor: 

"Asked why he chose the conference to promote the idea of a North American Union, Perez told WND, "It's as good as any place and the right people are here."

"This is not a new idea," he said. "In fact when there are border meetings between border governors or border legislatures this is a topic that continually comes up."" (emphasis mine)

Did you read that "Unsane"?  Let's quote that last part again:

"This is not a new idea," he said. "In fact when there are border meetings between border governors or border legislatures this is a topic that continually comes up."

I do not care if he is just a City mayor, what is important is that he is giving us a peek into discussions that are being held elsewhere.

From this article here:  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57762

BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK WASHINGTON -

It's one thing for the creators of the wildly successful "Obama Girl" to produce a new video attacking conservative author Ann Coulter for her recent statements regarding Jews needing to be perfected.

Yet, as the song refers to Coulter as "a whore," "petty," "hateful," and someone that "ignores civilian casualties," it seems rather absurd that ABC's Jake Tapper not only blogged about it, but also that ABC would actually post the video at its website.

Sadly, there it was at Tapper's blog Political Punch Friday:

As NBC's "Meet the Press" continues its "Meet the Candidate" series leading up to the 2008 elections, it is infinitely clear that some guests will receive different treatment than others.

Such was unquestionably apparent Sunday when host Tim Russert mercilessly pounded Democrat presidential candidate Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on a number of issues including his vote in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War resolution.

Russert presented statement after statement made by Dodd in support of the war before he became a presidential candidate, and continued to probe why the Senator's position changed so dramatically actually asking if it was due to political expediency.

Yet, five weeks ago when Russert had Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on as his guest, her ever-evolving position on this matter wasn't nearly exposed or explored. For instance, here's the text of Russert's Dodd interview concerning Iraq (video available here, relevant section begins at 6:30):

Most everyone on the center-right knows the media are biased in a leftward direction, much fewer on the left are able to see this phenenomenon--skewed stories are are just saying the truth after all. Because of this, it's always refreshing to see a liberal news organization sit down and notice something that's left-biased such as the Boston Globe did recently when it correctly observed that ABC's "View" is skewed against conservatives and religious people.

The paper made this observation in a profile of Elisabeth Hasselbeck, "View's" sole conservative who is going to be leaving the show for two months' maternity leave.The profile is also remarkable in that it notices the sheer amount of hatred that is heaped upon a woman who is by anyone's standard a soft-spoken and nice person:

Is the New York Times lobbying to eliminate the term "illegal immigrant" because, in its view, this designation is both politically incorrect and racist?

Such appears to be the case judging from an editorial written by Lawrence Downes and published Sunday.

Downes began (emphasis added throughout, h/t Hot Air):

Your turn...

In schools and colleges across America, teachers and professors recall the "Free Speech Movement" of the hard left at Berkeley in the 1960s. But today's left often shreds that idea in its own intolerant behavior. At Michigan State University, British Nationalist Nick Griffin was shouted down from a speech on the danger of radical Islam. The Lansing State Journal reported: "Hurling obscenities and using chants to interrupt his address, rambunctious student organizations forced Griffin to abandon his speech and allow an informal question and answer session." This liberal quote is a classic:

"We have all come from different backgrounds," said Authra Khreis, 17, a pre-med student and a protester. "We should accept one another. I don't think he should be allowed to speak. You can use free speech until you hurt another person."

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it -- George Satayana.

Well and good. But becoming a prisoner of the past presents dangers, too. Stay tuned for an example of how reliance on a corollary of Satayana's rule went horribly wrong for the U.S.

Maureen Dowd's column of this morning "W.M.D. in Iran? Q.E.D." is the latest example of what passes for MSM wisdom on Iran. The argument, in a nutshell: we attacked Iraq over ill-founded concerns about WMD and got bogged down. So perish the thought of using force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

In her interview tour of left-wing, Bush-hating Web sites, Valerie Plame threw a bone to Firedoglake (the one that refers to Joe Lieberman as "Rape Gurney Joe" for not forcing Catholic hospitals to provide "emergency contraception" for rape victims). She also granted one to BuzzFlash.com, which just this week awarded its "Wings of Justice" Award to Pete "Bush Is Amused by Soldiers Dying" Stark. She amused them with lines like "I want a t-shirt that says, 'I was slimed by the Republican administration.' You can make a lot of money on that."

But the really interesting section of the interview is her continuing hatred for The Washington Post. (On NBC and elsewhere, she compared the Post editorialists to Pravda, the hoary state propaganda newspaper of the Soviet Union.) Here, the BuzzFlash guru and Plame take turns bashing the Post:

News item: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right, is confronted by CodePink member Desiree Sairooz, her hands painted red, as she arrives to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007, before the House Foreign Relations Committee

I'm just wondering why we keep looking over the Top Tier Candidates hoping against hope they really have had "Road to Damascus" experiences regarding Borders, Abortion, Taxes, Morality?

Meanwhile Mike Huckabee plods along singing the same song most of us sing.  Sure, we all know the words to "Country Roads" and secretly like the tune, but maybe we're just a little averse to letting our friends know.

Fatties and Mopeds.  Here we go.

Army Captain Mark L. Stoneman took issue with the Washington Post placing an article regarding the Medal of Honor ceremony for the late Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Navy Seal killed in action in Afghanistan, on page A4, when the Post devoted prime real estate on the front page to a profile of Democratic strategist Joe Trippi (emphasis mine).:

I was disappointed in your coverage of the posthumous presentation of the Medal of Honor to Navy Seal Lt. Michael P. Murphy [news story, Oct. 23].

While Ann Scott Tyson did a good job of covering the ceremony itself, it would appear that her editor felt that such an event deserved only a few column inches and some perfunctory context of the actions for which Lt. Murphy was recognized.

This insult was compounded by your decision to bury the story on Page A4. While I understand that the fires in California and the tension between Turkey and Kurdish rebels were the two big stories of the day, you cannot tell me that a feature article about one of presidential candidate John Edwards's campaign strategists is more newsworthy than the presentation of only the third Medal of Honor since Sept. 11, 2001.

Stoneman was referring to a front-page profile of former Howard Dean Internet strategist and current John Edwards adviser Joe Trippi. The story by staffer Chris Cillizza is a feature in a profile series entitled "The Gurus."

The Trippi profile was hardly a time-sensitive front-page story. Capt. Stoneman went on to note a double standard in Post coverage of the military: