A front-page article in today's Los Angeles Times (Saturday, March 10, 2007) trumpets that an "Evangelical Agenda Fight is Heating Up." The piece is by Stephanie Simon, whose slanted coverage we've once cited here. Among the number of problems in Simon's latest piece:

1. In the article, Simon tags James Dobson of Focus on the Family as a "conservative crusader." Fair enough. But the Rev. Jim Wallis, who openly advised Democrats and Sen. Kerry during the 2004 campaign (here), avoids any "liberal" tag. He is simply identified as the "best-known champion of such causes" as "citizenship for illegal immigrants, universal healthcare and caps on carbon emissions." Wallis and some other pastors want to expand the evangelical agenda to include issues such as global warming.

Of the broadcast network evening news shows, on Friday the NBC Nightly News uniquely covered the "history-making" federal court ruling striking down Washington, D.C.'s restrictive gun control laws. While anchor Brian Williams made the story his show's lead item, with correspondent Pete Williams calling it "the most important gun control ruling in 70 years," the CBS Evening News and ABC's World News ignored the story entirely.

Pete Williams set up his report relaying the story of D.C. resident Tom Palmer, "who was once assaulted and wants a gun in the house for self-defense." A party to the lawsuit against D.C., Palmer argued that since "criminals don't obey the law," that "it's the law-abiding citizens who are disarmed by this law." The report then featured opposing viewpoints in the form of soundbites from Democratic Mayor Adrian Fenty and gun control advocate Paul Helmke complaining that the ruling could "weaken gun laws nationwide." (Transcript follows)

I wanted to start this topic, as a way to get every one to chime in on who they would like to see get the nomination, or see run, even, if it is a longshot prospect.

I myself am not enthralled in the least by any prospect out there, but will have to say am leaning towards Romney, unless of course Newt throws his hat in.

I would love to see Rick Santorum somehow gain his footing, anywhere , again. I simply love that guy, his viewpoints, and everything he has to say. This guy has plenty of bite to go along with his bark, unfortunately he lost his seat in Pa. Hopefully he will run again, and soon. I know several of you guys will say "what the hell does Santorum have to do with the price of tea in China?" Nothing I guess but the party sure could use a few more guys with the cajones this guy has. Every time this guy speaks, I feel like he's talking directly to me.

It goes without saying that the majority of NewsBusters articles concerning MSNBC’s Don Imus are not very positive towards the radio host. However, on Friday, Imus completely lit into Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) over some obvious hypocrisies regarding the current controversy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (h/t Larwyn and Macsmind).

As reported by NewsMax, Schumer was trying to lay all the blame for conditions at Walter Reed on the Bush administration. Fortunately, Imus wasn’t buying it (video available here).

What follows is a partial transcript posted at NewsMax. Frankly, it’s too much fun to interrupt with commentary. As such, roll the tape:

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, a documentary skeptical about man’s role in climate change aired in Great Britain on Thursday. The show’s director, Martin Durkin, was interviewed by the British website Spiked the day after the program ran, and he had some rather harsh words for journalists and politicians that are haphazardly advancing the junk science surrounding this issue (emphasis mine throughout):

Durkin’s latest film has won him the accolade – or perhaps slur – of being the ‘anti-Al Gore’. Where the American president-who-never-was transformed his rather dull PowerPoint presentation on the threat of global warming into a marginally less dull big box office flick – An Inconvenient Truth – Durkin has directed a 90-minute made-for-TV movie that basically says: ‘Everything you know about global warming is wrong!’

The article wonderfully continued:

With American media falling all over themselves in unbridled adoration for soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore while they generate totally unwarranted hysteria over climate change, it seems impossible to imagine a televised documentary debunking the junk science surrounding this issue.

Yet, across the Pond, our greatest ally, Great Britain, has done exactly that.

The program is called “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” and the entire must-see video has been posted at Google (h/t Allah and Dan Riehl).

*****Update: Video available here.

EarthTimes.org reviewed the program on Wednesday (emphasis mine throughout):

On CNN's "The Situation Room" yesterday, White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux substituted for host Wolf Blitzer. Ms. Malveaux introduced a segment by Carol Costello on Newt Gingrich:

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich is making a confession. He cheated on his second wife at the same time President Clinton was impeached.

"Let's go back to Carol Costello with more on this story -- absolutely amazing, confessions all around."

"Yes," agreed Carol Costello, "I know. It is amazing."

But how amazing is it really? After all, eight years ago CNN reported in a story titled, "Gingrich return to the spotlight colored by messy divorce" that "Gingrich finds himself in the middle of a messy divorce -- complete with allegations of an affair with a younger staffer."

HBO’s Bill Maher threw quite a Bush bash on the March 9 installment of “Real Time.”

Not only did he stock his panel exclusively with well-known critics of the Administration like Roseanne Barr, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, and former Special Assistant to the President David Kuo who attained notoriety by writing the book “Tempting Faith” after leaving the White House.

Maher also began the program after his opening monologue by interviewing a retired Army major general that had just written a scathing op-ed about America’s top officers published in the New York Times Tuesday. This made him the perfect guest to start such a hate-filled program (video available here courtesy of our friend Ms Underestimated).

In fact, it was quite clear why Major General Paul D. Eaton (Ret.) was present when Maher, after some brief niceties, began the interview:

This USA Today piece from Wednesday is a pretty important one. That's because it showcases so much of what is wrong with the FORMERLY Mainstream Media, and why the uppercase letters in FORMERLY will almost undoubtedly become larger in the coming years.

You see, many, if not more, reporters in the FORMERLY Mainstream Media don't seem to want to do their basic jobs any more. Their main tasks should be to:

• First, objectively decide what is worthy of coverage.
• Second, go and observe what happens, and where needed, ask questions about what's happening (the old who, what, where, when why).
• Third, take thorough notes of what you have found, observed, and discussed.
• Finally, tell your audience what happened in a complete, accurate, thorough, and yet engaging manner.

Anyone who thinks that the above four tasks are "easy" probably isn't doing the job well.

Even though doing the job a reporter should be doing is anything but easy, it would appears that it's too boring. Today's reporters want the excitement of being "advocates":

As I have in the past, to be a fair and honest reporter, I'll bring the good news about the MSM to the fore right along with the bad. Today I have some good in the form of a piece in Editor & Publisher's Shop talk section titled Who's a Journalist These Days? This is an interesting piece that takes journalists to task who share, as E&P puts it, the "big ego disease" that seems woefully prevalent throughout the MSM.

In fact, Mark A. Phillips doesn't at all mince words when taking to task his fellow journalists, not sparing their feelings a bit. He even identifies by name one of the journalistic comrades of whom he is scolding. That being one Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Over on radical Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now" propaganda-cast, they're still recycling lectures from the big National Conference on Media Reform weeks back. On Thursday, they rebroadcast a lecture from actress Geena Davis on how children's entertainment cruelly stereotypes women, especially back in the Dark Ages of the last century. Is Judy Jetson too thin? And what's up with Smurfette? Davis started a foundation to fight for the image of women in children's entertainment, as she explained:

Do you remember the kinds of stuff that they made for us, for kids, in the oldie old days? Let’s see, the first animation, of course, was Disney's Minnie Mouse and -- where is she? I’m pushing the button -- Daisy Duck, who didn’t really do much at all, except ask to go shopping, I think. There were a lot of Hanna-Barbera cartoons -- Magilla Gorilla, Wally Gator, George of the Jungle -- virtually no female characters. I had a vague recollection that Yogi Bear had a girlfriend, and I searched and searched, and I finally found her, Cindy Bear, as you all remember.

At The Corner, Mark Steyn notices once again that the liberal media elite's line that they only love a good story, and not any one political party in particular, can only lead one to fits of giggles:

Here’s something I meant to mention yesterday – the unerring news instincts of the American media . Anyone who wonders why US newspaper sales are heading south should ponder the behavior of the geniuses at The Tennessean. They had the Al Gore electric-bill story a month before the Oscars but somehow never got around to writing anything up:

The libby trial was a sick evil vendetta against bush And cheney who after 7 years have still not not done anything wrong or committed any crimes like the clintons did while they were in power for 8 years , and Like everyone is now saying in the chat rooms, Hey at least libby gave testimony and the clintons said over 150 times during whitwater UHHHH i Dont remember! OHHHHHHHH please The clintons should both be in prison if thats the standard , at least poor libby told what he knew , To bad he did forget what he told other people and MY God Like everyone is saying there was no crime committed !
Valerie Plame was outed and it was done legally by richard armitage assistant Secratary of State to Colin Powell and the whole country knows it! So what did libby or cheney or anyone else do? It was armitage that gave the name to Robert Novak and that democrat partisan Prosecutor fitzgerald knew it, but wanted to hurt Bush and cheney anyways and Everyone now who's not a blind hateful democrat liberal sees that.

Last week, the media got themselves into quite a lather over Ann Coulter making a joke about Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards. Do you think the same “delicate” press will be as close to offended by a major cable personality suggesting that Republicans "love Ronald Reagan in a way that’s just gay"?

On Friday’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher was discussing how various Republicans like to “dress up” in assorted costumes, and quickly moved into a diatribe about one of our nation's favorite presidents that would offend most Americans regardless of what side of the aisle they were on (video available here courtesy of our friend Ms Underestimated):

UPDATE (01:15 EST): Law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh addresses factual errors in reporting in the New York Times and Washington Post (h/t Instapundit).

How are your local TV news shows covering today's federal court decision overturning the D.C. handgun ban?

I live just outside Washington, D.C., and the station I most often watch for local news deployed a few typical media bias tricks: stacking the deck with sources aligned on one side (4 pro-ban, one anti-ban) and focusing on emotional aspects of a debate (highlighting emotional reactions to the court ruling rather than dealing with the legal merits).