On ABC's World News on Wednesday night, reporter Terry McCarthy gave time to how moves in Washington, DC to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq will undermine progress against al Qaeda. Reporter Terry McCarthy, who traveled with General David Petraeus in the Sunni Triangle's al Qaeda stronghold south of Baghdad, highlighted how the commander of all forces in Iraq “is still very optimistic about the military battle, if the politicians give him enough time.” McCarthy asked him: “Are you concerned that the U.S. political clock could start ticking too fast and undermine security here? Undermine confidence here?” Petraeus replied that “obviously, that's in the back of our minds. And there is not a great deal we can do about it, other than to continue to press forward.” McCarthy concluded: “The fields south of Baghdad are still a major battlefield in the fight against al Qaeda. But increasingly, Petraeus knows the most important battle in the Iraq war is being fought out in Washington.”

Under the guise of "food safety," USA Today called for stricter regulation and more labeling of foreign food.

A sidebar to the newspaper's cover story on July 11, cited two left-wing food police groups supportive of more country-of-origin-labeling (COOL), but buried opposition until the last paragraphs.

"Will knowing where food comes from make it safer?" asked USA Today's Elizabeth Weise before quoting a spokeswoman from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and pro-regulation nutritionist Marion Nestle.

(h/t Katie Favazza of Townhall.com)

Townhall.com's Josue Sierra's blog today shares with readers just how "SiCKO" the state of Cuban health care is.

Not every Cuban gets the Potemkin village treatment Michael Moore gave 9/11 workers featured in his latest documentary.

Click on this link to see how ill-equipped and run-down the average Cuban hospital is. Sierra links to the original blog post by Stefania Lapenna at "Free Thoughts." The photos were taken by one Dr. Darsi Ferrer.

Retired Army Major General John Batiste – recently cashiered as an official CBS News expert after appearing in a partisan political commercial for “Vote Vets” bashing Bush for not listening to generals like him – was invited on to ABC’s “Good Morning America” this morning.

Substitute host George Stephanopoulos played the skeptic about the possibly heavy costs of a hasty pullout from Iraq, but General Batiste sounded almost like an official spokesman for Senate Democrats in hailing Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island: “I had the opportunity yesterday to read the Levin-Reed amendment in the Senate, two pages carefully crafted that makes incredible sense. That is, we need a better plan to get out than what we had to get in. We need to recognize that our all-volunteer military cannot sustain the current cycle of deployments. And this ought to really worry every American.”

On Wednesday, Republican Representatives Mike Pence (Indiana) and Greg Walden (Oregon) joined Republican Senators Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Jim DeMint (South Carolina), James Inhofe (Oklahoma), and John Thune (South Dakota) in a press conference to discuss preventing the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine.

For those that are interested, the entire event can be heard on MP3 in two parts here and here.

Barbara Walters, an alleged objective journalist, used her perch on the July 11 edition of “The View” to mock Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s “gut feeling” about the terror threat wondering "how does this help us to know this?"

Joy Behar took it a step further citing “the boy who cried wolf” to exclaim that the Bush administration no longer has credibility due to past so-called “lies.” And dismissed this new warning as “a joke.”

Token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck very boldly responded noting Secretary Chertoff’s “gut feelings” were likely based on intelligence. She also noted Joy Behar’s and other leftists’ catch 22 standards for the administration’s terror policy stating: “If he didn’t say it and then there were an attack, what would we be saying? Why didn't he say it?”

Sweltering heat is sweeping the nation, ushering in fears that the “slammed” power grid won’t be able to meet the demands of consumers desperate to keep cool.

But as much as journalists are now focused on that threat, they have largely ignored nationwide power issues while rabid environmentalists have battled nuclear and coal power plants.

CNN’s Jim Acosta explained on “American Morning” that energy analysts are very concerned if new power plants are not built:

“[T]he next crisis is looming unless the nation starts building new power plants within five to seven years. Energy analysts fear the return of the blackout of ’03,” said Acosta on July 9.

Well, sports fans, Rosie O’Donnell is at it again.

On her well-publicized cruise for gay and lesbian families, Ro decided it was time to unbury the hatchet, and stick it right in her former “View” co-host’s back – in front of a rather large audience, no less.

As reported Wednesday by Us magazine (h/t Hot Air):

The comedian, 45, laid into Elisabeth Hasselbeck -- her former friend and cohost -- in front of a 1,500-person audience on her cruise (from NYC to a private island in the Bahamas) for gay and lesbian families.

Readers are hereby warned that Ro's comments included vulgarity (emphasis added throughout):

The Washington Post today reported how the White House expects the federal budget deficit to shrink, but placed it in a five-paragraph story below the fold on page A6. Yet a Reuters story on the same development noted something that the Washington Post's Lori Montgomery left out of her story. The new White House figure of $205 billion "is still higher than many private forecasts, which have pegged the deficit at around $150 billion."

What's more, Post reporter Montgomery included a reference to President Bush crediting his tax cuts with the revenue surge, but added "that has been challenged by many economists." Montgomery failed to name any such economist, much less his/her rationale. After all, if tax revenue is growing at unexpected rates following tax cuts, are there many economists who actually expect tax revenues to roll in at a faster pace when levied at their pre-Bush tax cut levels?

Even CNN can swallow only so much of the Michael Moore, socialized-medicine Kool-Aid.

Just when you thought all hope was lost, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta took on Moore on the July 10 “Larry King Live.” Gupta criticized inaccuracies in the data used in Moore pro-universal health care flick “SiCKO.”

Moore had lost his cool the day before on “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer because a report by Gupta claimed Moore had “fudged” some his numbers. Those numbers were primarily data about the costs of health care for Cubans, even though Gupta had committed his own blunder with one of the numbers.

As NewsBusters has reported here and here, Congressman Mike Pence (R-Indiana) is on a mission to prevent the reinstitution of an archaic Federal Communications Commission edict disingenuously called the Fairness Doctrine.

As most sane people are aware, folks calling for this reinstatement are interested in anything but fairness, and, instead, are looking to kill conservative talk radio.

With that in mind, Congressman Pence spoke on the floor of the House Wednesday about the urgency to pass the Broadcaster Freedom Act which would permanently prohibit the reinstitution of this pathetic doctrine (video available here):

The 2008 presidential campaign could be one of the most critical in recent history. As things now stand, it could also be one of the most tiresome. Nowhere is media snobbishness more evident than when the big picture begins with the snide liberal elitist take on America: is the country "ready" to elect a black like Barack Obama or a woman like Hillary Clinton?

If Americans reject the icons of liberalism and vote Republican, apparently they will be proving the country is stuffed with benighted bigots who refuse to "expand America's sense of possibility." Those gauzy words came from Newsweek in their Barack-and-Hillary cover at the end of 2006. Obama's back on the cover of Newsweek again for the July 16 edition, photographed in black and white, with another question from left field: Will Obama be black enough for blacks and yet conciliatory enough for whites?

"Good Morning America" has scheduled a second town-hall style special with a presidential candidate and, unsurprisingly, the recipient is another Democrat. 2008 contender John Edwards will appear on Monday, July 16 to discuss poverty with ABC co-host Diane Sawyer.

Readers of NewsBusters will remember that the last such event, anchored by Robin Roberts and airing March 26, featured Hillary Clinton for almost 30 minutes worth of softball questions. Also, the New York senator spoke, unchallenged, for 18 of her 26 minutes of air time. Co-host Roberts told Clinton that "many" thought her 1993 plan for universal health care was "ahead of its time." Two questions come to mind: Will John Edwards receive similarly easy queries? And when will "Good Morning America" feature a Republcian presidential candidate in this forum?

For those NewsBusters readers interested in participating, GMA’s website allows viewers to submit questions and videos to Mr. Edwards.

Updated with link below fold.

Yesterday's testimony by a disaffected former Bush official gave the mainstream media the opportunity to resurrect a favored meme: President Bush hates science.

Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona yesterday testified before a House committee on White House meddling in Carmona's speeches. Of course, Drs. C. Everett Koop and David Satcher also complained of political meddling from the Reagan and Clinton administrations respectively, but this fact was buried deep in the print accounts I've read.

But rather than exploring the complaints of political interference as a "systemic problem"-- Carmona's words -- that transcend party line and administration, news coverage in the mainstream media has sought to single out the Bush administration as anti-science.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a member of the mainstream media blaming high gas prices on somebody other than President Bush or Vice President Cheney.

Better strap yourselves in, for the culprit is truly shocking.

Not only did Wednesday’s Washington Post deflect responsibility for the rise in prices paid at the pump away from the White House, much of the blame was actually shifted to – wait for it! – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

I kid you not.

As offered by columnist Al Kamen (h/t Glenn Reynolds, emphasis added):

Are White House reporters taking cue from liberal bloggers? A bit near the end of the New York Times "White House Memo" by reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "An Ebbing of Coverage With '08 on the Horizon," certainly puts the idea out there.

White House correspondent Stolberg again indulged herself in portraying Bush as a fallen and failed president.

"Back when he was riding high in the polls, when his every utterance made headlines and the press planes trailing him around the country were still full, President Bush had little need to indulge reporters with ceremonial pleasantries.

Have it your way...

The Stamford Advocate has an article out today describing the efforts of one John Orman to determine if Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) broke election laws last year when he created the Connecticut for Lieberman party but did not officially join it. The party was created after Lieberman lost the Democrat primary to Ned Lamont, who as we know, ultimately lost to Lieberman in the general election.

Orman, a political science professor at Fairfield University, is described in the article as being a "longtime Lieberman critic." We're also told that Orman joined the Connecticut for Lieberman Party in order to bring attention to Lieberman's "abandonment of it."

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay-left lobby, announced yesterday that it will host a one-hour Democratic presidential debate on August 9 on Logo, the Viacom gay channel and sister network to CBS. (CBS News has its own newscast on Logo with gay anchor Jason Bellini, formerly of CNN.) Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have confirmed their attendance. As a colleague joked yesterday about Democrat refusal to acknowledge Fox as a news network: "Oh, so the Democrats won’t go on networks with an agenda."

The debate won’t be moderated by Bellini or any journalist, but by HRC Chairman Joe Solmonese and rock singer Melissa Etheridge. Actually, it’s not so much a debate as a series of interviews, a lot like the CNN/Sojourners magazine event designed to highlight the Democrats’ religious views – except this pander-to-the-libertine-left event ought to cancel out the impression that these candidates are devoted to their Bibles.

If I hear one more MSM outlet ascribe the implosion of John McCain's candidacy to his support for the war in Iraq, I'm going to scream . .

Let's see. Why don't we check out this morning's "Today"?

NBC REPORTER CHIP REID: He's been falling steadily in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from 29% in December to 24 in March and last month just 14%. His unwavering support of the Iraq war is unpopular with moderate Republicans and he insists he won't change his position for political purposes.

Yeeeeeeeearrrrrrhhhhh!

Reid did go on to mention McCain's support for "immigration reform" [read amnesty] as another issue hurting his campaign. But anyone who thinks McCain's support for our Iraq policy [a position shared by the frontrunners] is his main problem with GOP primary voters is as out of touch with the Republican base as only the MSM can be.

View video here.

This one is a hoot. The L.A.Times has posted a piece in their politics section about the supposed revelations of Drew Westen, a psychologist who is advising Democrats that they are too logical and rely on "facts" too much in their campaigns. Westen is warning Democrats that they need to be more "emotional" in their appeals to the voters because, according to his "research", Democrat and independent voters are just too darn stupid to understand logic and facts. And Westen makes this claim as if Democrats don't already campaign almost strictly on pure emotion with little appeal to intellect now!

WASHINGTON — Drew Westen, a genial 48-year-old psychologist and brain researcher, was talking to a rapt liberal audience about the role of emotion in politics, how to talk back aggressively to Republicans, and why going negative is not to be feared.

One wonders when, exactly, Democrats didn't follow this path toward using overly emotional campaign methods? Have we so soon forgotten the James Byrd ad where then Governor Bush was accused of agreeing with the racist dragging death of a black Texas man? How about LBJ's famous Daisy ad where Democrats accused Barry Goldwater of wanting to start a nuclear war? How about today where John Edwards is campaigning on "two America's" or his 2004 claims that Democrats would make sure the crippled could walk if America elected he and John Kerry to office? And how often are Republicans cast by Democrats as those evil people who want to poison the water, keep blacks from voting, take away women's rights, and starve the children?

...only EVERY election!

For those NBC brass who would lamely insist that there was no "political issue" in their broadcasting of the Al Gore Live Earth concerts all across their channels, Mark Hemingway at National Review Online sat through it and reports that gravel-voiced lesbo-rocker Melissa Etheridge unveiled a new anti-Bush, pro-Cindy Sheehan song. On Monday morning’s edition of the Stephanie Miller radio show, Cindy Sheehan made one of her routine interview stops and said she saw that and loved the song and hoped to use it as her campaign theme song if she ran for Congress against Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Hemingway explained: 

6:26 [PM]: Al Gore’s personal troubadour, Melissa Etheridge, takes the stage. Etheridge wrote the turgid theme song for An Inconvenient Truth, and today is premiering two new songs. The first, "Imagine That," near as I can tell, is written from the perspective of Cindy Sheehan. Etheridge is the only musician I’ve seen today that seems really revved up about the cause. Unfortunately, for her there’s really just no way for her to sing lyrics this overtly political and not have it be extremely awkward:

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