In the March 11 Washington Post, staff writers Elissa Silverman and Allison Klein took a look at the men and women behind a legal challenge to the Washington, D.C., handgun ban. But in doing so, it seems they buried the lede.

Information on one plaintiff came near the end of Silverman and Klein's 25-paragraph story:

Dick Heller, 65, said he became involved in the firearms debate in 1997 after he read a news story about a burglary in the District in which the homeowner shot the intruder -- and the homeowner was charged with a crime.

"That's what made us really livid," said Heller, who lives with his wife in Capitol Hill. "After that, I knew we had to be proactive."

That's the heart and soul of the case right there. The ban criminalizes law-abiding citizens who have a natural right to protect themselves, yet find that right severely undercut by District law which takes away a significant means of self defense: private ownership of a firearm.

But how crucial is Heller to the case? Without him, the case might well have been thrown out already:

Married gossips from New York’s Daily News, George Rush and Joanna Malloy, describe the celebs who gathered at a gala thrown by global warming activist group Natural Resources Defense Gala to honor Vanity Fair editor, and author of an anti-Bush literary and financial flop, Graydon Carter, and they note that “Mother Earth” cheekily showed the enviro-crowd who was boss by giving them “meat locker weather.” The NRDC’s roster of celebrity speakers, including Anderson Cooper and Robert Kennedy Jr, playfully turned up the heat on the VF chief:

The new media revolution brought about by the Internet Age leaves a constant vacuum to be filled for the traditional entertainment cycle on broadcast TV. You'll notice a lot of broadcast Web sites doing what they can to fill that void with extra footage, behind-the-scenes stuff, bloopers, "webisodes," and the like.

But let's face it, when the new episodes are exhausted on the networks, we're not likely to stick around for reruns. There's too many other things to do, and we've probably already rewatched the best clips of those shows on YouTube. There goes millions in advertising revenue for the nets.

Trying to find a way around that, NBC is taking that to the airwaves with "newpeats" of "The Office." (h/t TVTattle.com)

[continued...]

Kagan wonders aloud (HT Hugh Hewitt) in his Sunday Washington Post column, with this introduction:

A front-page story in The Post last week suggested that the Bush administration has no backup plan in case the surge in Iraq doesn't work. I wonder if The Post and other newspapers have a backup plan in case it does.

Leading journalists have been reporting for some time that the war was hopeless, a fiasco that could not be salvaged by more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy.

Kagan's main point goes to credibility, but it's really a business question too. It applies a bit more to papers and media outlets other than the Post, which has shown occasional sanity (starting at the link's third paragraph) while others have totally lost their bearings. If the Surge succeeds (and it's barely started, so who knows?), aren't readers, listeners, and viewers going to wonder who's been feeding them a load of rubbish about "the hopeless situation" for 3-plus years? Would you not expect even more of them to cancel their subscriptions and turn away in even higher numbers from Formerly Mainstream Media outlets?

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Sigmund Freud is purported to have once said, cautioning that not everything has a deeper, hidden meaning to it. Well, sometimes a blockbuster blood-soaked action flick is just that, a blood-soaked, special effects-laden action flick.

Just try telling that to cynical, left-wing European journalists.

According to Entertainment Weekly, everyone from gay interest groups to foreign journalists have engaged in armchair psychoanalysis of director Zack Snyder's screen adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel "300.":

Yikes! There is still no letup in the passionate love affair between the Los Angeles Times and Barack Obama. Today's paper (Sunday, March 11, 2007) features a 1,468-word smooch to the Democratic candidate called, "Obama's peers didn't see his angst." The profile of the "campaign sensation" (writer Richard Serrano's words) recounts his days as a teen in Hawaii. See an image of the article and the extra-large 52-square-inch photo here.

Today's article is just the latest in a growing, voluminous list of adulatory, flattering coverage of the Democratic candidate by the Times. Just a few examples are here, here, here, here, here, and here. (Images of the Times' articles are available at several of the links.)

Think those advancing anthropogenic global warming theories are serious about their views? Well, an article from Sunday’s Telegraph should scare every person around the world about the zealotry and danger surrounding this issue (emphasis mine throughout):

Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Shocked? Astounded? That’s only the beginning:

Brent Bozell's culture column this week unfolds the new polling numbers for the MRC's Culture and Media Institute on the American people's impression of moral decline and the media's role in it:

A new cultural-values survey of 2,000 American adults performed by the polling firm of Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates for the Culture and Media Institute reveals a strong majority, 74 percent, believes moral values in America are weaker than they were 20 years ago. Almost half, 48 percent, agree that values are much weaker than they were 20 years ago.

Former “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel was one of Tim Russert’s guests on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” As amazing as it might seem, he made some truly shocking and compelling statements about the Iraq war and the war on terror that virtually no Democrat or media member is willing to accept or report:

• First, Koppel made it clear that America’s premature departure from Iraq would turn the entire Persian Gulf region into a battlefield between Sunnis and Shia, “something the United States cannot allow to happen”
• Second, he said the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of the war on terror that “has been going on for the past 24 years” starting when “the precursors of Hezbollah blew up the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon” in 1983 
• Finally, he stated that America’s departure from Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of when it occurs, will not represent the end of this battle, but, instead, that it is just “going to be a different war” after that point. 

Here are the shocking excerpts in chronological order (MSN video available here with segment 1 at minute 14:10, segment 2 at minute 19:00, and segment 3 here. Update: Dan Riehl has all three quotes edited together in one video here):

Deborah Palfrey accused of running a D.C. prostitution ring threatens to sell her clientele lists, and phone records to pay her legal bills. She claims 12 parties are expressing serious desire to purchase the information, so it is evidently clear it will go to the highest bidder. The phone records are purported to have the record of all incoming, and outgoing calls between 1993, and 2006. She has claimed previously that it is in the best interest of several politicians of both parties, and members of the area elite that these records not be released. This should be good stuff...........or not.

The Newsweek feature BeliefWatch has become a true intersection of left-wing ideology and non-traditional religious beliefs. Except of course when it comes to bashing conservative Christians. Then it sticks right with the media’s low standards.

The March 19 BeliefWatch by Lisa Miller called James Dobson of Focus on the Family the “religious right's standard-bearer and junkyard dog.” Miller bashed “Dobson's Lear-like fury” for daring to criticize allegedly eco-evangelist Rich Cizik, “the Washington-based lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals.”

Dobson complained that Cizik wasn’t representing evangelicals about the religion of the moment – the environment. But Miller saw red instead of green and said Dobson’s real agenda wasn’t religion – it was politics. “In other words, he’s thought to be a Democratic sympathizer, and in an election season, displays of evangelical unity are critical,” she said of “tree hugger” Cizik.

As the Managing Editor of Fox News Channel's Washington, DC bureau, you might have thought Brit Hume would have taken great umbrage at John Edwards' high-profile decision to spurn a debate of Dem presidential contenders that Fox had organized for August in Nevada. The Edwards pull-out ultimately led to a cancellation of the debate by the Nevada state Democratic party. Edwards had come under pressure from liberal netroots and organizations such as Move.on, which had organized a petition drive calling for cancellation of the debate.

But in a fair-and-balanced comment reflecting an appreciation of real politik, Hume has praised Edwards' move as "shrewd" -- at least in the short run. During the panel discussion on this morning's Fox News Sunday, Hume observed:

Without a lot of breaking news out there this morning, why not pass some of today's 23 hours with an exhilirating session of one of our favorite games, WIARHSI, which as regular readers know stands for "What if a Republican Had Said It?"

Check out this paragraph from a Newsday article that reports on a Hillary campaign event in Nashua, New Hampsire:

"The former first lady, referring to New Hampshire's roster of female Democratic officials, quipped, 'I don't know about you, but I like seeing women in charge.'"

For purposes of WIARHSI, let's imagine that a Republican had made the mirror-image comment: "I don't know about you, but I like seeing men in charge." Fair to say that the feminist howls of outrage would soon be echoing from sea to shining sea? But what are the odds that Hillary's blatant appeal to sexist solidarity will cause even the smallest ripple in the MSM?

Note how Newsday tries to cover for Hillary, casting her comment as a mere "quip." Real side-splitter!

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With the recent announcement by CBS that they have made ex-Clinton friend Rick Kaplan the new Executive Producer of the CBS Evening News, it was eyebrow raising that another fawning pal has suddenly been ensconced in a "new" position at an American news service.

The AP has announced that long time Clinton friend, Ron Fournier, is joining the newswire service to act as the watchdog for "accountability and governing".

Original caption:

Pedestrians walk past the main entrance to the Washington Post, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2007, in Washington.