Eventually, and soon, the United States should return to the foreign policy admonition of George Washington’s farewell address to steer clear of foreign entanglements. No, that is not isolationism. We are talking about government meddling in the affairs of other countries; not the sharing of commercial, industrial, banking, and personal relationships.

However, as a background and immediate expedient, it is the earlier policy of the CIA in helping and backing Saddam Hussein that aided in “cementing” him into power. Then later, our attack of Iraq worked to create a political vacuum there. This resulting absence of any kind of order allowed the emergence of the terrorist groups. So in a sense, we are at fault nationally.

Many military writers, in addition to our experiences in Vietnam, the Philippines and similar conflicts, teach that it is impossible to combat terrorism (insurgencies) with general volunteer troops; or even conscripts, if a draft were in place. Regular troops simply are not trained for this particular type of combat. Our second major mistake is trying to "fight" in a mostly defensive mode.

The ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts on Friday all hyped the “dire” warning on global warming from the UN's “prestigious” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with the CBS Evening News leading with two full stories. But ABC's Charles Gibson acknowledged “a bit of irony on the day global warming report was released,” given “parts of the Northeast are digging out from April snow” as “temperatures could be 20 to 40 degrees below normal,” making it “colder on Easter day than on Christmas day." NBC anchor Brian Williams followed up his newscast's global warming story with how “the problem isn't warming but what could be a record cold Easter weekend in parts of this country.” CBS anchor Russ Mitchell didn't point out any contradiction with the hyperbolic stories on global warming as he described the current weather simply as “strange” since “a Spring freeze is on” in the Northeast.

Mitchell teased his top story of the day: “Tonight, dire new predictions about disappearing species, melting glaciers, shrinking continents and more. Scientists say all the results of global warming.” Over on ABC, Gibson echoed: “Dire warning. The world's top scientists issue a stark forecast of drought, crop failure and floods because of climate change.” NBC's Williams hailed the “new report on global warming from a prestigious panel of scientists” who issued “blunt” findings: “Climate change is happening, it will lead to tremendous changes around the world that could have a very negative impact on the well-being of people, animals and entire ecosystems.”

[This first posted on March 15. CBS will re-run this episode tonight, Friday April 6] Appearing on Wednesday's (March 14) Late Show with David Letterman, actor Richard Gere declared: “We have a President right now who lies constantly and gets away with it apparently.” Gere's comment, which drew applause from the audience in Manhattan, came in response to Letterman asking Gere, who was on the show to promote The Hoax, a movie opening in April in which he stars as Clifford Irving who wrote and sold a bogus autobiography of the reclusive Howard Hughes: “Is this the kind of thing that can happen now?”

Gere also contended that “the second Watergate where they got caught actually had a lot to do with the material that's in this book, in the fake autobiography, because Clifford made up a lot of things about Hughes and Richard Nixon and they ended up being true. But Nixon was the only one that knew they were true and so the break-in was actually to find out how much the Democratic Party knew.”

Video clip (1:00): Real (1.8 MB) or Windows Media (2 MB), plus MP3 audio (350 KB)

Original caption:

In this undated handout photo provided by ABC, Barbara Walters, right, poses with Judith Giuliani, left, and her husband, presidential hopeful and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. during an interview in New York. Giuliani says if elected, he'd be open to his wife attending Cabinet meetings on issues in which she's interested.

Time is money. Those words took on special meaning when Time magazine gave its readers “51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference” and stop global warming.

Number 5: "Pay the carbon tax."

Liberalism at its finest ... taxes and more taxes. The magazine was neutral on which major government regulation should control our lives – caps or taxes. But when it came to taxes, Time writers were quick to point out even a “10% flat carbon tax” “may not be enough.” Even worse, according to the magazine, it might not be either cap-and-trade or big taxes – the “environmental equivalent of Elvis vs. the Beatles.” The publication claimed “in the end, the world may need both.”

Number 40: "Get a carbon budget."

In AP writer Anne Flaherty's piece headlined "Pelosi: Mideast Trip Strengthened Ties", there are two egregious examples of blatant anti-Bush bias that attempt to deliberately deceive its readers.

http://www.breitbart...

The last sentence of the article reads:

"Bush earlier in the week assailed Pelosi for making the trip to Damascus, saying it sent mixed messages to the Syrian government, which his administration considers to be a state supporter of terrorism."

An unknowing reader would take from this that it is uniquely Bush administration policy to consider Syria a state supporter of terrorism.

Syria has been on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism since the list's inception in 1979, when Democratic President Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

The mainstream media unabashedly continues its soft-touch approach with Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On Thursday's "American Morning," CNN foreign correspondent Aneesh Raman gave a report from Amman, Jordan on the release of the 15 British sailors and marines by Iran. He began with the describing the P.R. conducted by Iran and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as one of "precision." Later in his report, Raman then described the P.R. campaign as "sophisticated." These are hardly adjectives CNN employs for American officials.

Though Raman does state that Iran "used the media to its advantage" and that its broadcasts of the British sailors and marines making statements were "staged confessions," it's unsurprising, to say the least, that the CNN correspondent would use such glowing terms for the Iranian regime's propaganda coup. It was only a few months ago that Raman's colleague at CNN, Suzanne Malveaux, asked President Bush for a show of respect for Ahmadinejad.

It appears that “Doonesbury” isn’t the only political comic strip in America. Now, cartoonist Brian Basset has begun spreading the word of man-made global warming to the funny pages via his "Adam@Home” series.

Below is his most recent installment as offered by Go Comics:

According to NB reader Steve Edwards:

"There is a danger lurking in millions of kitchens," warned CNN anchor Kiran Chetry on the April 6 "American Morning."

That danger? Stoves that can tip over and injure you.

But instead of simply educating viewers and telling them about the 50-cent anti-tip bracket that can prevent stoves from tipping over, reporter Greg Hunter promoted more nanny-state nonsense.

"Manufacturers and the government recommend all stoves be bolted down, but it's not mandatory," said Hunter before quoting someone from the left-wing group Public Citizen.

Public Citizen's, Joan Claybrook called them "killer stoves," and attributed 26 deaths and "almost a hundred injuries" to falling stoves.

Indy Mayor Bart Peterson is said to be a shoe-in in this years election. Even though the crime rate is way up in Indy and the new police dept. is in a state of chaos with all the officers mad with the consolidation of IPD and the Sherrifs Dept. Bart has $2.2 million in the bank to spend on re-election, many people say they are tired of big money being waisted on campaigns however it does take some money for a campaign, check out my website www.simpson4mayor.co... and give me a chance to make a change in our city. Thank You And Good Day, Michael A. Simpson

Arutz Sheva, an Internet based news outlet in Israel, reported on Friday the existence of anti-Semitic content at the liberal website Daily Kos (h/t Little Green Footballs, emphasis added throughout):

The Daily Kos blog, one of the most popular American political websites, is featuring anti-Semitic graphic content since Thursday. The Daily Kos reportedly receives 600,000 visits a day, and between 14 million and 24 million visits per month. It is often used by politicians – including Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and many others – for dissemination of their materials.

The article continued:

So much for Easter joy. The Washington Post today publicized how liberals and leftists will use Monday’s traditional White House Easter Egg Roll as another excuse for politicized protest. Sprawled across the top of Friday’s Metro section was a story headlined "The Family-Friendly Easter Bomb Hunt."

Reporter Sue Anne Pressley Montes explained that across the street from the president’s home, children will look for fake cluster-bombs and learn of the evil America does by manufacturing cluster bombs. The story carried all the typical marks of a lightly reworked press release. There were no liberal labels in the story for the "peace groups" assembling, and no conservatives were quoted for balance. There was a reference to "right-wing" Internet threats. The story began:

On Friday’s "Good Morning America," weatherman and liberal environmental activist Sam Champion hyped a new global warming study released on April 6. The ABC anchor also featured a representative from a left-wing environmental group and failed to identify the organization’s political slant.

Only minutes after reporting on the "arctic blast" of unusually cold temperatures that much of the country is facing, Champion touted a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that noted "we’re already facing earlier springs."

Remember that wonderful picture of stranded polar bears on an ice floe that were used by folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore to demonstrate how dire the man-made global warming issue is?

Well, ABC television in Australia, on a show called “Media Watch,” recently debunked the entire issue (video available here, h/t NB member dscott).

It turns out -- as NewBuster Jake Gontesky reported on March 20 -- the picture was taken in August, “when every year the fringes of the Arctic ice cap melt regardless of the wider effects of global warming.”

The photographer, Australian marine biology student Amanda Byrd, didn’t think the bears were in any jeopardy:

The last story of Holy Thursday’s Nightly News broadcast featured anchor Brian Williams acknowledging “we are a very religious nation.” The lead-in was for a story on workplace chaplains, a growing trend being offered by companies seeking to provide amenities that are meaningful to their employees.

The story featured the nondenominational Corporate Chaplains of America which serves 450 firms in 26 states. Corporate chaplains offer on-site opportunities for employees to talk with a person of faith about any issues that are bothering them.

Over at the liberal website Slate.com, Jack Shafer mocks former ABC personage Ted Koppel his latest commentary for National Public Radio on Iran's British hostages, claiming "If history is any guide, Iran may wait until Tony Blair's tenure as prime minister comes to an end in a few months." Oops. Shafer also finds the subject of Iran is too close for Koppel to ignore himself:

Is there a more pompous egomaniac purring on the airwaves today than Ted Koppel?

Two days ago, the bouffanted one filed a commentary piece on NPR pegged to the seizure of 15 British sailors and marines by the Iranians. For self-obsessives like Koppel, all journalism is autobiography, so the story doesn't seem new to him. Instead, it echoes the hostage-taking of American diplomats 28 years ago in Tehran because, as Koppel doesn't have to remind listeners, it was the news event that started the show America Held Hostage that became Nightline and made his career!

Simply wow, is all I can say to the segment on last night's O'Reilly Factor. Both of them lost their cool in the extreme.

O'Reilly screams that Geraldo wants "anarchy", Geraldo yells that O'Reilly wants to take illegal aliens and "do something to them" over the infuriating story of a drunk illegal who killed two teenaged girls in a Virginia Beach car accident.

(Click Image to go to video)

I have to say, in my opinion they were both wrong a little and right a little, but neither did his case any good by getting into a shouting match. O'Reilly made it solely an illegal alien issue, and Geraldo completely excused illegals of all wrongs. O'Reilly had the better point, of course, but both tried to make it a single issue discussion with Geraldo accusing O'Rielly of, in effect, being a racist and O'Reilly screaming that Geraldo might not care about his own teenage girls.

Today's joke:

A man walked into a bar one day, walked up to the bartender and said, "Bartender, I'd like to buy the house a round of drinks."

The bartender said, "That's fine but I'll need to see some money first."

The guy pulled out a huge wad of bills and set them on the bar. The bartender couldn't believe what he's seeing. "Where did you get all that money?" asked the bartender.

"I'm a professional gambler," replied the man.

In some ways, Army Colonel Jack Jacobs [ret.] is the perfect military analyst for an MSM outlet like MSNBC. His Medal of Honor, awarded to him for exceptional heroism in Vietnam [read account here], puts him above reproach. Yet his take on Iraq and other military affairs is anything but a parroting of the Bush administration line.

But while MSNBC might see him as one of their own, there come moments, as today, when Jacob leaves no doubt that he remains altogether a military man, upholding the highest traditions of valor and sacrifice. At about 10:30 AM EDT this morning, he was brought in to comment after the just-concluded press conference by a number of the British sailors and marines who had been held captive by the Iranians. A clearly outraged Jacobs made no effort to hide his contempt for them.

View video here.

Imagine if you will that in September 1996, just days after America launched a missile strike on Baghdad to expand the “no fly zone,” Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich met with Saddam Hussein to discuss foreign policy matters without the permission of President Clinton.

Would the media have vociferously discussed the possibility that Gingrich had violated federal law in doing so?

If the answer is a resounding “Yes,” then why have extremely few press outlets broached this issue as it pertains to current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) recent potentially law-breaking trip to Syria?

To best understand the issue, a little history is necessary. The Logan Act was created in 1799, and reads as follows:

A new report from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds the public has relatively little confidence in what the military and the media are telling them about the war in Iraq, although the press has less credibility than the Pentagon.

Interestingly, a majority of self-described Democrats say they are putting their confidence in the media, while Republicans have generally opted to trust the military. In 2005, a major study by the Media Research Center found the vast majority of network news reports highlighted the bad news coming out of Iraq, with few reports detailing the accomplishments or personal bravery of U.S. troops.

Usually, media coverage comparisons of Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi take place across about twelve years, from Gingrich's rise in 1995 to Pelosi's new job in 2007. But Friday's Washington Post makes it all contemporary on the front page of the Style section. At the top, Jose Antonio Vargas whacked Gingrich as he apologized in a YouTube video for his recent remarks "equating bilingual education with 'the language of living in a ghetto.'"

At the bottom of the page came the latest in a series of print high-fives for Pelosi from Post fashion critic Robin Givhan, who insisted the scarves Pelosi used to cover her hair in Syria were fabulous. Over a large photo of Pelosi with head scarf, the headline read "Nancy Pelosi, Respectfully Maintaining Her Own Image."

Call it a flying-pig moment, or chalk it up to his concern for Dems' long-term best interests if you will. But there's no denying that on this morning's "Today," Matt Lauer absolutely unloaded on Nancy Pelosi and her ill-conceived venture into foreign policy.

The segment was entitled "Democratic Diplomacy: Has Pelosi Gone Too Far?", virtually answering the question by its very asking. In the set-up piece, David Gregory rolled two telling clips. The first was of VP Cheney's comments on the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday to the effect that Pelosi's statement regarding her trip was"nonsensical." The second was of former congressman Lee Hamilton, warning that if his fellow Dems box in the president on foreign policy, Americans might conclude that the Democrats have gone "too far."

Interviewing Tim Russert at 7:06 AM ET, Lauer came out guns ablazin'.

LAUER: Vice-President Cheney called Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria "bad behavior," a Washington Post editorial on Thursday called it "counter-productive and foolish," and op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning goes a step further and suggests her trip may actually have been a felony, that it may have violated something called the Logan Act. Tim, is this the way the Democrats wanted to get off the mark in terms of foreign affairs?

View video here.