When the Wall Street Journal in late August broke the fugitive Norman Hsu illegal fundraising scandal, it took ABC's World News three days to get around to reporting it -- and despite developments as the fugitive has moved through the court system, ABC hasn't mentioned him since. But after the Washington Post on Sunday disclosed the criminal past of an adviser to Fred Thompson's campaign, ABC pounced immediately with a full story Monday night. CBS also got into the action with a brief item. NBC, which waited two days to touch Hsu, got to Thompson with even less delay, citing the matter in a larger Nightly News story Sunday about Thompson's appearance on Meet the Press where Tim Russert asked him about the Post story. (In the EST and CST zones, only NBC had a newscast on Sunday night.)

On Monday, Thompson adviser Philip Martin gave the media a hook with his resignation from the campaign, but when the Clinton campaign announced on September 11 that it was returning $850,000 in suspect donations and when the Justice Dept. on September 20 filed a criminal complaint, ABC's World News was silent. Anchor Charles Gibson announced Monday night: “In the presidential race, another candidate has been embarrassed by the conduct of a major fund-raiser. This time it's Republican Fred Thompson.” ABC's Brian Ross explained how “the resignation comes just one day after ABC News,” apparently a reference to a Sunday posting on “The Blotter” blog, “and the Washington Post reported that not only was Martin a convicted drug trafficker, but that he had left a long trail of unpaid taxes in his business dealings.” Ross highlighted how “Thompson has been traveling in style during this campaign on a Cessna Citation Five private jet” owned by Martin.

Chris Matthews can't get enough of John Edwards' brutal-but-funny anti-Hillary ad, playing it twice during this evening's "Hardball." Set to the Blue Danube Waltz and based on clips from last week's debate, the theme is Hillary's double-talk on Iraq, Social Security and immigration [her triple-toe loop on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants].

But in the three-cushion game that is presidential billiards, two of Chris's guests surmised that the ad, in taking down Hillary, would likely redound to Barack Obama's benefit.

View video here [includes the Edwards' ad].

At the end of Sunday’s 60 Minutes, commentator Andy Rooney did his usual rant, this time about politicians. Of course when Rooney speaks of politicians, one always seems to come first to his mind: "I'll bet there hasn't been a day this year that President Bush's name hasn't been in the newspaper." At one point Rooney almost seemed sympathetic to the president, "A lot of people complain about things President Bush does but they wouldn't know what to do themselves if they were in his shoes." However, that sympathy soon turned to contempt as Rooney compared his own public speaking to that of President Bush, "I usually can’t remember what it was I was going to say. The president seems to have the same problem sometimes."

Unfortunately, Rooney seemed to remember exactly what he wanted to say at the end of his little diatribe:

The one thing I have to say for myself that I wouldn't say for President Bush is: I know I'm no where near smart enough to be President of the United States. But I will say I might have been smart enough not to get us into a war in Iraq.

New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt's Sunday column, "Civil Discourse, Meet the Internet," delivered some piping hot news, circa year 2000: Web comments can often be rude and crude.

"WARNING: This column contains rude and objectionable language not normally found in the pages of this newspaper but seen surprisingly often on its Web site.

"As The New York Times transforms itself into a multimedia news and information platform -- the printed newspaper plus a robust nytimes.com offering breaking news, blogs, interactive graphics, video and more -- it is struggling with a vexing problem. How does the august Times, which has long stood for dignified authority, come to terms with the fractious, democratic culture of the Internet, where readers expect to participate but sometimes do so in coarse, bullying and misinformed ways?"

What Hoyt doesn't mention: Roughly 90-95% of Times comments are from liberals.

The Times is clearly buying into the new paradigm of reader interactivity.

Besides the illegal immigrant driver’s license controversy, Hillary Clinton’s biggest stumbling point during last week’s debate involved communications between her husband regarding health care. Senator Clinton’s defense is "that’s not my decision to make."

Documents uncovered by "Newsweek," however, revealed that in 1994, President Clinton named his wife along with his adviser Bruce Lindsey in charge of the former president’s papers. Senator Clinton’s spokesman said "we don’t control their process. We’re not holding anything up."

Senator Clinton also claimed that "all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available." However, "Newsweek" also reports that most records relating to the health care task force have not been released.

All of the networks, and CNN have thus far ignored the story. However, "Fox and Friends" discussed the story on the November 5 edition. The transcript of the discussion is below.

What did America ever do to deserve a major evening news anchor who's afraid of [driving in] the dark?

"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric has a fresh reason to be anxious this fall: more time spent driving in the dark thanks to daylight saving time ending. Here's the tease to her video in a November 2 "Couric & Co." blog post:

Due to Daylight Saving Time this weekend, many drivers will have an extra hour of dark to face on their commute home. And that can be dangerous.

[Shhh, don't break it to Katie that the number of daylight hours we get are not set by an act of Congress, but by the tilt of the Earth on its axis.]

Of course, it's hardly new for Couric to champion petty anxieties on her vlog. In April, Couric used her Notebook segment to clang alarm bells about kids not knowing how to use the library. Her ghostwriter at the time, CBSNews.com's Melissa McNamara, was fired for plagiarizing a Wall Street Journal columnist in the script Couric read from, according to the New York Sun.

Update (Nov. 7 | 10:49): The folks over at the satirical NewsGroper have a "response" from Katie Couric. Enjoy (mild content warning for language).

On Sunday night's episode of "The Simpsons," the normally left-leaning cartoon show took a jab at the New York Times and suggested that the liberal newspaper just might end up helping aliens attempting to invade the Earth. During the Halloween special, a visitor from another planet requested that Lisa help him find the "secret locations of your country's missile defense facilities." The younger Simpson excitedly replied, "They were in yesterday's New York Times!"

A transcript of the exchange, which occurred at around 8:10pm on November 4, follows:

KANG: You are very observant, Lisa. That's why I have a special job for you. Go find out the secret locations of your country's missile defense facilities.

LISA SIMPSON: They were in yesterday's New York Times!

One sure sign the media are taking global warming alarmism too far is when fellow press members begin eviscerating green reporting.

Such was the case Monday when TV and radio writer Tom Jicha published a scathing review of NBC's "Green is Universal" campaign.

Rather than focus on the inanity of the cause - which Jicha did eventually address - the piece began by illustrating the delicious hypocrisy inherent in a major television network pretending to be environmentally friendly (emphasis added throughout, h/t NB reader Stu):

On Monday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith interviewed New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The liberal mayor has followed in the footsteps of Al Gore and implored the government to take action to address an impending environmental crisis, saying "We need to do something now." To match Bloomberg’s alarmist rhetoric, Smith added "Manhattan will be underwater by 2050." Amusingly, even Bloomberg thought that assertion went too far, "There's a -- I don't know that Manhattan will be underwater, but certainly the environment's going to be a lot worse that we leave our children." Smith also pressed Bloomberg on a possible 2008 presidential run.

The interview began with Smith asking about Bloomberg’s proposal to impose a national carbon tax. Smith asked, "Who gets taxed?," to which Bloomberg responded, "People who generate carbon and put it into the air, that pollute the air that you breathe, and that I breathe, and that's causing worldwide changes over the long term in our environment." In other words, everyone. Far from challenging Bloomberg on how people would react to such a plan, Smith instead followed up with, "Something similar to this has been advocated for a long time, the sort of cap and trade...Why is yours better than theirs?" Smith’s assumption that Bloomberg’s plan is "better" is an interesting way of challenging such a policy.

Not that there was any doubt about the ulterior motives behind NBC's "Green Week," but we didn't expect the Peacock Network to be quite this brazen. This morning on MSNBC, an NBC environmental "correspondent," who as you'll see has an impressive resume as a left-wing activist, openly urged viewers [on the eve of Election Day] to vote for politicians with an environmentalist agenda.

Video (2:18): Real (1.70 MB) and Windows Media (1.42), plus MP3 audio (1.04).

Meterologist Jackie Meretsky was in NYC, reporting live 67 stories up at the "Top of the [NBC] Rock," overlooking Central Park. At 10:12 AM ET, she interviewed Simran Sethi [shown on the right], whom she described as the "brand new environmental correspondent for NBC" and "the greenest person in the organization."

"Thank God for CSPAN," Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas declares in his recently released memoirs entitled: "My Grandfather's Son."

Without the "gavel to gavel" coverage made available through an alternative media source Thomas tells readers he may not have had the opportunity to present himself to the American people in a compelling and straightforward manner.

Press coverage of his highly charged confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate 16 years ago was very weighted in favor of his critics, especially Anita Hill, the Supreme Court Justice recalls in his book.

Thomas contends Hill was in fact a "left-winger" who was permitted to serve up a false image of herself in testimony, thanks in no small part to a compliant media.

Back in the 1990s, TV journalists worried that Bill Clinton wasn’t getting enough credit for the wonderful things that happened while he was President. NBC’s then-White House correspondent Andrea Mitchell whined on CNN’s Larry King Live back on August 18, 1994 that her fear was that Clinton “doesn’t get credit for a lot of the good, positive things he’s done.... The economy is in better shape....He should be getting some credit for the economy.”

Now that a tax-cutting Republican is in the White House, however, big media types are working to bury the news of America’s strong economy. Today’s Investor’s Business Daily has a fine summary of recent good news in an editorial headlined, “The Media’s Blackout on the Boom.” Here’s a key excerpt:

Friday's employment report, showing a much-higher-than-expected increase of 166,000 in nonfarm payroll jobs, was only the latest in a spate of remarkable reports showing the economy's stunning resilience.

What is it with the mainstream media painting liberal, pro-choice political action groups as outlets to get women elected, when in fact the groups in question skew leftward and are staunchly pro-choice on the abortion issue.

On November 1, I noticed that CNN's Carol Costello conveniently omitted the fact that liberal political action committee EMILY's LIST only gives money to pro-choice candidates. In Monday's Washington Post, a similar organization, the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), was tagged as "an organization that promotes the election of women."

The description came in the obituary for the late Grace Suydam Orlansky, "a longtime civic activist" who died on October 22. Orlansky "worked for the caucus from 1975 to 1991, chiefly as assistant executive director," readers learn from a 12-paragraph obit written by Adam Bernstein. Not once was the word "abortion" or "pro-choice" featured in the article.

For general debate and discussion. Possible talking point: Did last night's green nonsense interfere with your Sunday Night Football viewing pleasure? Or, like me, have you mostly ignored this game because of Olbermann's disgraceful presence?

In a continued sign of the times, newspaper circulation rates once again plummeted in the most recent reporting period.

According to Editor & Publisher (emphasis added throughout):

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released circulation numbers for more than 700 daily newspapers this morning for the six-month period ending September 2007. Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation (see chart, separate story), only four showed gains.

All together now - awwwwww.

For your entertainment pleasure, here were some of the declining dinosaur totals:

Did Al Gore win his Nobel for "peace," or did it perhaps come in a new category: comedy? I ask in the wake of his rib-tickling routine on this morning's "Today." Al, that inveterate card, actually claimed that the MSM's coverage of global warming is . . . too balanced.

View video here.

Not only Unsane, but all the other people that swear up and down Ron Paul wins all the polls following debates because of spammers.

Some of you may of heard about the drive to raise money for Ron Paul on November 5th. Well it looks like those spammers have some cash too, look at what has happened so far:

Around midnight - $2,773,017

Around 7 o'clock - $3,630,294

Now, 8:40 AM - $3,899,232

So that's 1.1 million before 9 AM.

And this day was not planned or organized by the campaign. No mention is made of it on the website. This is just a grassroots campaign to support the man that supports the Constitution.

If you feel like playing along, check the meter and include the current total when you post either in support or opposition of Ron Paul.

Bias is everywhere in the Washington Post. In the Sports section Monday, a capsule of one-paragraph NFL game summaries concluded with Dallas drubbing Philadelphia, 38-17 on Sunday night. The Post broke out its satirical whack-Limbaugh stick:

This game was overshadowed a bit by Eagles Coach Andy Reid's family troubles. His two sons are in jail, and a raid of Reid's house turned up so many pills that a judge described it as a "drug emporium." As someone who has had his own high-profile problems with prescription drugs, Rush Limbaugh was asked to comment; he declared it a tragedy for Reid that Donovan McNabb was so overrated.

Meanwhile, in the New York Times, the big new contract for Glenn Beck is greeted by the headline "A Folksy Guy, In Recovery, Is About to Land Millons." Brian Stelter began: