A report on Thursday’s "The Situation Room" tried to make an issue out of the fact that President Bush’s name was only mentioned a few times at the Republican presidential debate that they organized with YouTube. CNN correspondent Carol Costello compared the President’s name to a curse word in her introduction to the report. "It sure seems like Bush has become a four-letter word you don't want to mention if you are a Republican running for office. They've taken to talking about him in code, not daring to say 'Bush,' but not shy about promoting his agenda."

During the report, which aired at the bottom half of the 5 pm Eastern hour, Costello went on to say that "the Bush moniker [was] uttered just four times in two hours." This is indeed the case if you look at the CNN transcript of the debate. But this doesn't tell the entire story.

The fake news keeps on coming: a former intern at the radical Islamist group CAIR was another questioner chosen by CNN at its "average joe" debate.

Long-time conservative Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, a hero to conservatives for his ideological consistency and efforts to limit abortions, passed away Thursday morning at a Chicago hospital (Chicago Tribune obit with video clips). While ABC and NBC noted his death, at age 83, on their Thursday evening newscasts, and even managed to avoid any pejorative ideological labeling, the CBS Evening News ignored Hyde. But Katie Couric made time to highlight how, in a Time magazine interview, Barack Obama said if he wins he'd give Al Gore a job “in a minute” and a position to Bill Clinton “in a second.” Couric added on Clinton: “Obama said 'there are few more talented people out there.'”

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith teased the lead story of the day on a scandal involving Rudy Giuliani and the possible misuse of taxpayer money during Giuliani’s affair with now wife, Judith Nathan, "Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani goes on the attack against Romney as the former New York Mayor's extramarital scandals of the past return to haunt his campaign." This story came prior to analysis of the Republican YouTube debate on CNN and followed a story about the scandal on Wednesday’s "CBS Evening News."

CBS of course pounded Giuliani on the indictment of former NYPD Commissioner, Bernard Kerik, just three weeks ago. Meanwhile, the CBS "Early Show" never covered the Hillary Clinton fund raising scandal involving Norman Hsu. In addition, when Harry Smith interviewed author Sally Bedell Smith on her new book on the Clinton marriage in October, he never once referred to any of Bill Clinton’s "extramarital scandals."

Co-host Hannah Storm later introduced the segment, "But first the scandal that is rocking the presidential campaign of Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani. CBS News National Correspondent Byron Pitts has the story that won't go away." Apparently the Hillary-Hsu scandal never even arrived.

Do none of the Republican presidential candidates, including the former mayor of New York City, care about crime in the African-American community? According to "The View’s" Sherri Shepherd, they do not. Joy Behar says those encouraging a more stable family structure are "mental midgets" because they will not discuss racism.

On discussing the Republican YouTube debate, Joy Behar said she was "slightly annoyed" that Mitt Romney stated a large factor in black on black crime are unstable families, and that he did not address racism. Sherri Shepherd scoffed that "not one of these candidates ever thought about black on black crime."

Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg also exclaimed why no one ever asks about "white on white crime." Joy Behar did concede that Rudy Giuliani dramatically reduced black on black crime in New York City, but questioned "the way he did it." Sherri Shepherd responded "because one of my cousins called me from jail."

CNN is defending its job in vetting questions for last night's debate, reports Politico's Kenneth Vogel:

The retired general who quizzed Republican presidential candidates about gays and lesbians in the military was not the only person linked to a Democratic presidential candidate who got to ask a question at Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate.

CNN also aired questions from supporters of Democratic candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama.

And that’s fine by the network, which is standing by its question selection process and lashing out at critics who say the debate demonstrated CNN’s liberal bias.

“We’re focused on the questions, not the questioners,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s political director.

There might be something to that approach. As our own Brad Wilmouth reported, the questions largely pressed the Republican field from the right.:

At the now infamous CNN/YouTube Republican debate held last night in Florida, candidates received a number of questions from the over 5000 videos submitted for review. The questions were selected by a panel who went through them all, whittling down the choices to just a small number. Out of all those 5000 questions, CNN failed to choose one question about the issue of health care reform. And then CNN has the audacity to snivel about it on the Political Ticker last night. [Emphasis mine]

The issue of healthcare has sparked some of the most heated debate this campaign season on the Democratic front, but the Republican presidential contenders seemed to all but ignore what is considered a major priority for many voters.

Recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation polls show healthcare reform is consistently at the forefront of voter concerns along with the war in Iraq and the economy.

Candidates often find a way to include their talking points and campaign priorities in debate answers regardless of what the question posed to them actually is. Since no question was posed to the candidates about their healthcare reform plans, they all but ignored the issue choosing instead to emphasize their stances on illegal immigration and the war in Iraq.
–CNN's Emily Sherman

Hmmm,confederate flags,gays in the military,toys from China,what would Jesus say???What in the hell does this bunch of screwballs at CNN think the presidential race is  about anyway??? Cornering our candidates into  slipping up and  debate  that they are racists,homo-phobes and against GOD and the unions???What an outright display of  liberals in their finest mode.Every one of those candidates should have told  those clowns to shove it and walked off the stage and said they would  have a real debate later on when  the debate was about "being for real"and talk about the issues that  matter to americas' future , not to pander and look stupid for the  government medias' entertainment.JUST A TRAP IS ALL IT WAS.A BIG LAUGH FOR THE CNN GOV'T MEDIA MACHINE.Lets give Hillary a pass, no hard questions, but make the republicans out to be a bunch of bigots!!!Liberals can't help it though, the poor victims they are... hee hee

Can the media talk a recession into existence? I wrote yesterday about journalists' endless repetition of the prediction. They've been mentioning it almost once a day for the past month, despite the Federal Reserve's declaration that '08 would NOT see the r-word. Even The New York Times ran the headline "Fed Expecting '08 Slowdown, Not Recession" (November 21)!

But I'm not the only one who's noticed. Chris Pummer of MarketWatch wrote a scarily similar story the same day highlighting Starbucks as an economic indicator, Christmas shopping pessimism, and distortion of the Fed's we-will-not-have-recession-in-'08 report. Pummer says we're "needlessly skittish." The Business & Media Institute couldn't agree more!

The surveyor will see you now     

Journalist and Pollster (Either Or)

As an increasing number of Americans exhibit knowledge of and confidence in the success of the surge in Iraq, pollsters seeking a gloomier picture have turned to their single most reliable focus group for bad news.  They have in fact skipped the middle men and women and gone to its very font: the media.

In a November 28^th Reuters story, we are subjected to the opinions of people who are paid not to express any. 

Nearly 90 percent of U.S. journalists in Iraq say much of Baghdad is still too dangerous to visit, despite a recent drop in violence attributed to the build-up of U.S. forces, a (Pew Research Center) poll released on Wednesday said.

One wonders if this is the same 90% of correspondents who admitted to voting for President Bill Clinton twice; certainly a great deal of overlap exists between the two polling samples.

The quarterly report on home prices issued by the government's Office for Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) is the most comprehensive and most reliable measure available of what is happening in the housing market.

Here is how today's OFHEO press release describing results for the third quarter of this year started off (bolds are in original):

For the first time in nearly thirteen years, U.S. home prices experienced a quarterly decline. The OFHEO House Price Index (HPI), which is based on data from sales and refinance transactions, was 0.4 percent lower in the third quarter than in the second quarter of 2007. This is similar to the quarterly decline of 0.3 percent (seasonally-adjusted) shown in the purchase-only index. The annual price change, comparing the third quarter of 2007 to the same period last year showed an increase of 1.8 percent, the lowest four-quarter increase since 1995. OFHEO’s purchase-only index, which is based solely on purchase price data, indicates the same rate of appreciation over the last year.

Are U.S. journalists missing the news right in front of their eyes? Even as the violence ebbs and Iraqi refugees are returning home by the thousands, a new survey of Iraq war correspondents finds most are still deeply pessimistic about conditions in Iraq, with one in six (15%) saying that they believe news coverage "makes the situation look better than it is," compared to just three percent who think news reports have been inordinately negative.

The poll of 111 U.S.-based journalists who are now covering the Iraq war or who have been posted there over the past four-and-a-half years was conducted over the past several weeks by the Pew-funded Project for Excellence in Journalism, which promises to release a content analysis of the media's Iraq war coverage later in the year. At the same time, polls show the public is having growing faith in the success of the war effort.

Thursday’s “American Morning” program, while reporting retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr’s connections to the Hillary Clinton campaign, failed to mention one key revelation made by debate moderator Anderson Cooper during the post-debate coverage - that Cooper knew that Kerr was “an activist of some sort.”

Co-host John Roberts not only reported on Kerr’s membership of Clinton’s “LGBT Americans For Hillary Steering Committee” during all 3 hours of “American Morning,” but conducted a live interview of Kerr during the 7 am Eastern hour. Six minutes into the 6 am Eastern, Roberts gave the following brief on the Kerr story.

Did you know that the US is still at war with Korea, Germany, Japan, Bosnia and Kosovo? Based on “Hardball” host Chris Matthews' recent claims, we are still at war with those countries and will be until our troops leave their soil. (h/t Weasel Zippers)

On his November 28 show (transcript here), MSNBC's Matthews discussed Iraq with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, wondering when “will we be able to come home.” In the process, the former Carter speechwriter said, “If we can't ever come home, we can't ever say we won.”

Silly me, I thought WWII, the Korean War, the Bosnian War and the Kosovo War were over. I guess the US troops still stationed in those countries prove otherwise (bold mine throughout):

In the greatest of ironies, after Democrats refused to participate in debates sponsored by Fox News due to its supposed partiality, CNN has now shown itself in back-to-back debates to be as biased as biased can be.

After either participating in or allowing the planting of campaign operatives at November 15's Democrat presidential debate in Las Vegas, it has now become apparent that similar stocking of audience questioners occurred in Wednesday's Republican debate.

As NewsBuster Matthew Balan reported Wednesday, "a member of Hillary Clinton's "LGBT Americans For Hillary Steering Committee" not only asked a question via YouTube, "but he was also present in the audience, and got to ask the candidates for a ‘straight answer.'"

On Thursday morning, Michelle Malkin identified two plants from the Obama and Edwards campaigns. As her website is having some problems at the moment, Inside Cable News reported that according to Malkin, one plant was David Cercone, a declared Obama supporter, who asked the following question:

Here’s a headline that suggests an objective article will not follow: "Hillary Hatred Finds Its Misogynistic Voice." Newhouse News Service reporter Jonathan Tilove, whose beat is usually race relations, indicted John McCain, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, former RNC spokesman Cliff May, "South Park," and Facebook groups as historic forces of hatred and vitriol, putting poor Hillary through a punishing gauntlet never run by men: "Thanks to several years of phallocentric history, there is no comparably vocabulary of degradation for men, no equivalently rich trove of synonyms for a sexually sullied male." The story began:

In the coming months, America will decide whether to elect its first female president. And amid a techno-media landscape where the wall between private vitriol and public debate has been reduced to rubble, Sen. Hillary Clinton is facing an onslaught of open misogynistic expression.

Economic growth for the third quarter, which was estimated at 3.9% a month ago, was revised upward to 4.9% by the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The BEA announcement is here.

This of course explains why a Google News search I just did on "recession" has hundreds and hundreds of articles talking about a possible recession, including 481 in the first 20 listings (/sarc).

Key excerpts from the BEA report (bolds are mine):