The media love comparing Iraq to the Vietnam War. So why didn't Reuters relate Iraq to this July 31 story about a joint Cambodian-UN tribunal that charged one of Pol Pot's top henchmen with crimes against humanity related to the deaths of 1.7 million people in that country's “Killing Fields?”

They also like to link America's actions to unpleasant world events. So why not even mention how the US pulling out of Vietnam and Congress halting aid to Vietnam and Cambodia, allowed the rise of Pol Pot's brutal and deadly communist Khmer Rouge regime that killed, tortured and displaced millions? Maybe take it a step further and connect it to what might happen if the US follows the wishes of many Democrats and withdraws from Iraq too soon?

The tribunal charged Duch with the deaths of 1.7 million people after confessing to “committing multiple atrocities during this (sic) time as head of the capital's notorious Tuol Sleng or S-21 interrogation center.” (emphasis mine throughout):

Among the very few Huffington Post bloggers willing to break the predictable liberal mold is John Ridley (pictured) who has frequently appeared as a guest panelist on Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe show on MSNBC. Although many of Ridley's previous opinions might have made the Huffington Post readers somewhat uncomfortable, I doubt that any of his other postings sparked the firestorm of outrage of his July 31 blog, The Left Fringe Needs to Quit Being Scared of the Fox. The only problem I have with that title is that it isn't just the "Left Fringe" that is afraid of appearing on Fox. It is also the mainstream Democrats, including such pandering presidential candidates as John Edwards and Barack Obama.

Wednesday's CBS Evening News trumpeted two liberal efforts to expand government power, leading by heralding “landmark legislation” to have the FDA regulate cigarettes followed by a story slanted in favor of, as reporter Thalia Assuras described it, an “historic expansion of health care coverage for children” of the “working poor.” Assuras, however, ignored such inconvenient facts as how a family of four with an income as high as $82,600 could get on the taxpayers' dole. Katie Couric had teased her top story: “Tonight, landmark legislation that supporters say could save millions of lives. Congress takes a step toward regulating everything about cigarettes for the first time ever.”

Next, Couric introduced a look at “getting medical coverage for the millions of American children who don't have it.” Assuras touted how a proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) “boosts funding by $50 billion over five years, almost doubling the number of uninsured kids covered from the current six million children to about 11 million.” Sinking to the all too common media technique of exploiting a victim to push a liberal policy, Assuras cited “children like seven-year-old Pilar Edwards whose ear ache was so severe her mother brought her to this mobile medical clinic where she could get help even though Pilar is uninsured.” Assuras did pass along how critics contend “the legislation is a slippery slope toward a universal health care plan,” but against two negative soundbites, viewers heard from four advocates as Assuras concluded with a Senator's charge that “it would be a travesty if the President vetoed this legislation,” followed by these final words from Assuras: “With kids caught in the middle.” More like taxpayers.

Arizona senator John McCain is certainly one of the best-known Republican presidential candidates but that notoriety hasn't helped him much when it comes to winning over the conservative base. He hasn't been helped by his support for the recent immigration bill debacle but I think McCain's overall problem has been that he is perceived as a sellout to the left, particularly the media left.

With his support continuing to plummet by the day, McCain doesn't have a lot of chances left to get back in the good graces of the GOP. Over at Slate (h/t Glenn Reynolds), Mickey Kaus wonders if the only chance McCain has left is to turn on his old friends in the liberal media:

Are you getting sick of all those global warming reports on the network news? Well, now on NBC you'll know when to change the channel.

During global warming reports "NBC Nightly News" changes the color of the signature peacock logo to green. That's the color it was during the "fresh" urban garden segment on July 31.

“Finally tonight, a small solution being offered up in the fight against climate change – something you can do in your own backyard or at least very close to home,” said anchor Brian Williams.

Correspondent Kevin Tibbles praised urban gardens that have been springing up in cities around the country, but bashed the U.S. field crop industry in the process.

Airing tonight on Soapnet is a new reality show called “The Fashionista Diaries.” The show documents six newcomers to the cutthroat fashion industry and, like most reality shows out there, would be hard to distinguish if not for its advertisements, which use Communist imagery and slogans for promotion. (side-by-side comparison shown at right)

The main graphic for the ads has a woman dressed up like Che Guevara wearing a beret and sunglasses complete with a Communist red star. The slogan placed with the picture is "the revolution will be accessorized."

According to CNN business reporter Ali Velshi, the relationship between oil and gas prices is difficult to grasp.

"A lot of folks are saying, 'Why have my gas prices come down 17 or 18 cents in the last couple weeks when oil prices are going up?'" said Velshi on the August 1 "American Morning."

Trust me Ali, that's not what I've heard at the pump.

"Well, I hope we've all figured out there's no way, there's no mathematician in the world who can figure out the relationship between gas and oil prices, but you can expect with oil up at 78 bucks a barrel, gas prices will soon follow and that takes things—that takes money out of the pockets of consumers who keep this economy going," he continued.

But Velshi, has not always had such a tough time making sense out of oil and gas economics.

Due to a bug in Internet Explorer 7, several NB readers have had trouble getting into the site. We're working on the issue. In the mean time, I recommend you download the Mozilla Firefox web browser onto your computer as it does not have the bug.

Update 19:23. The problem should be fixed now. Please post a comment on here if you continue to have troubles with IE 7.

Time magazine's Joe Klein doesn't like Rudy Giuliani's health care plan for three reasons. Well, one really, but three manifestations of the same beef: It's not socialistic enough.

What follows are Klein's complaints from his August 1 "Swampland" blog post, followed by my snarky translation:

--it doesn't mandate that insurance companies cover everyone at the same rate, regardless of pre-existing conditions (community rating).

Who cares if you're a chain-smoking, trans fat-loving, Burger King-is-your-second home kinda guy with diabetes, high cholesterol and a coronary bypass under your belt? Health insurance companies shouldn't charge you a penny more than the marathon-running vegan next door whose idea of splurging is a little extra sugar in his mango strawberry soy milk smoothie.

You'd think it was the news media that "got a raise" last week for all the cheering. The federal minimum wage was increased on July 24 by 70 cents to $5.85 an hour and will go up by the same amount in 2008 and 2009.

CNN's Ali Velshi gleefully greeted the change on "American Morning" July 24. He called it "unmitigated good news."

ABC's Claire Shipman also called it "good news for thousands of low-paid workers," on "Good Morning America" the same day.

Media merriment over the 13.5 percent increase was to be expected since CNN, PBS, ABC, USA Today and The Washington Post all showed support for an increase when it was on the Democrats “100 hour” agenda.

Here's something you don't read every day: force-feeding a hunger striker violates medical ethics.

Hmmm. So, preventing someone from starving to death is medically unethical? Wouldn't it be more unethical to let someone starve to death, even if it is their wish?

After all, suicide is against the law in this country.

Regardless of the odd dichotomy, the Associated Press reported Tuesday (emphasis added, h/t NBer allanf):

On the online networking site Facebook, Time Inc. employee Betsy Burton asks "Who would you like to see as a guest blogger on Swampland," the Washington/Campaign 2008 blog on the magazine's Web site. "Self nominations [are] not accepted," Burton added.

I've already left my suggestions. If you're on Facebook, you can join their group and place yours. With its solidly liberal blogger bullpen and wildly liberal fan base (read the comments threads on an empty stomach), the blog could use a conservative voice to bring in balance in reporting and analysis of the '08 race and the Democratic Congress.

While you're at it, join NB's home on Facebook and say "hi" on our wall.

Who says the MSM only report bad news? An online ABC News story reports that emigration from the US to Canada has increased dramatically . . . and that the departees are largely liberals. Hollywood stars never get around to making good on their promises to leave. But many everyday liberal folks are apparently carrying through on their plans.

According to the article:

In another example of hand-wringing, excessive, faux compassion that ignores the real statistics, the Charlotte Observer has given space to one of their writers to vent against the evil gun, once again. I love how these people want to present themselves as more "caring" than an evil, stupid gun owner, yet their "compassion" is predicated not on facts, but on mere feelings.

The Observer's Dannye Romine-Powell (God save us from another hyphenated named liberal) gets all amush over the "unruffled thinking" of her gun hating husband and tries her hand at citing statistics to such poor effect... poor once some perspective and reality is brought to bear on the issue, that is.

Democratic catfights are usually papered over on liberal networks. But NBC’s Wednesday morning coverage of the ongoing battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over his goofy declaration to meet with America-hating tyrants without preconditions came jam-packed with words of praise for Bill Clinton, the "peacemaker" of the duel. Matt Lauer began: "Now to Bill Clinton, peacemaker. Every president would like that label but they don't normally get it for keeping the peace between their own party's candidates, especially when one of them happens to be his wife." Lauer later added that Clinton is an "elder statesman" and "experienced voice of reason" within the Democratic fold.

In David Gregory’s story, viewers witnessed the usual Bill-adoring lingo from John Harwood, CNBC's chief Washington correspondent: "One of the things that we know about Bill Clinton is that his political instincts are second to none, and if he thinks that there's a dangerous point in this fight with Barack Obama that's a pretty good sign that Hillary Clinton ought to back off a little bit."

Normally liberal media snobbery is irritating (and career-threatening if you're a young conservative journalist), but not when that snobbery is completely ineffectual to stop the thing which the whiney reporters hate. Schadenfreude is the word of the day after reading this Los Angeles Times piece about how "aghast" many reporters in the Wall Street Journal newsroom are at being employed by the son of Satan himself, Rupert Murdoch:

Reporters reacted bitterly to the prospect of Murdoch's gaining control of the Journal, which has long been regarded as a beacon of financial journalism.

They voiced concern that Murdoch would diminish the paper's quality, imbue it with some of the glitzy style of his crosstown New York Post and slant the Journal's news coverage to advance his business interests.

"People are aghast that this could have happened," said one reporter, who like others spoke on condition on anonymity. "It's a sickening realization to know that this really great iconic newspaper is [not only] no longer going to be independent, but is also going to be controlled by a man whose values are inimical to ours." [...]

During the month of July, CNN's "Larry King Live" both began and ended with interviews of vice presidents. On July 5, host Larry King interviewed former vice president Al Gore. On July 31, King interviewed sitting vice president Dick Cheney. The difference between the two interviews is like night and day. King, for the most part, did not press Gore for an answer to his questions, and asked a few light questions (such as, "How did you get Madonna?" for "Live Earth"). On the other hand, King's questions to Cheney pressed the vice president on a number of hot political topics (for example, "General Powell says he would close Guantanamo yesterday. Would you?" and the oh-so-typical follow-up, "You have to torture them when they're there?") and the interview was almost completely serious.

Click here for instructions on running Gaggle daily on your own site. There's also an archive of previous toons available here.

On a regular basis, anthropogenic global warming skeptics wonder how folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his band of not so merry climate change sycophants can so easily get seemingly intelligent people to buy their junk science hook, line, and sinker.

With this in mind, the comedy duo of Penn and Teller set out to see whether they could get people at an Earth Day rally called "WorldFest" to sign a petition banning water.

For those unfamiliar, this was the "6th Annual WorldFest, a solar-powered celebration of music, the environment, animals, health and social consciousness" held at Woodley Park in Encino, California, April 2006.

Penn Jillette marvelously described their intentions (absolutely hysterical video available here, grateful h/t to Gary Hall):

Video (0:55): Real (1.51 MB) or Windows (1.74 MB), plus MP3 audio (305 kB)

As part of a new segment on the "Today" show called "Candidate Cribs," NBC's Jonathan Alter went on a cab ride, with Democratic candidate Mike Gravel behind the wheel. However, Alter received more than a calm cruise through the city from the former Alaskan senator. In a gimmicky stunt, meant to showcase the candidate's past life as a New York City cabbie, Alter slid into the back seat for a ride but just after Gravel started griping about Iraq he crashed the taxi.

Alter: "Gravel is best remembered for helping end the Vietnam era draft with a filibuster and for reading the Pentagon Papers in the Senate. Now, after a quarter-century out of politics, he's an