You knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time. Al Gore is working on a sequel to his 2006 eco-ganda film "An Inconvenient Truth," which will be called "The Path to Survival" and released on April 22, 2008, otherwise known as Earth Day.

Global warming “deniers” may begin thinking of it as “An Inconvenient Truth 2: Non-Electric Boogaloo.”

Two days before Oprah Winfrey is to host a celebrity-packed fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, NBC's Andrea Mitchell championed her potential ability to “turn her magic into votes for Barack Obama” and ABC's David Wright marveled: “Imagine the power of Oprah in an Obama campaign ad.” In a soundbite, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile gushed that “O plus O equals opportunity for Barack Obama to win in 2008.”

On Thursday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams justified his show's story by asserting that Winfrey's “support for him [Obama] is getting new attention” -- attention NBC decided to give the topic. Mitchell admired how Winfrey “can turn a first-time author into an instant best-seller, single-handedly reviving an industry,” leading her to wonder: “Can the billionaire entertainer, and richest woman in America, turn her magic into votes for Barack Obama?”

Whether or not one agrees with the political views of Markos Moulitsas, there's no getting around the fact his website has become not just a powerful force in the blogosphere, but is also shaping the Democrat Party.

This raises an important question: Why isn't there a conservative website like Daily Kos?

Providing some answers this week were Dean Barnett at the Weekly Standard and David Weigel of Reason.

Barnett accurately frames the issue (emphasis added throughout):

A class on the constitution.

Enjoy

In today's media, anti-male sexism is the rule far more than anti-female sexism. Whether it's calling men "idiots," creating smart mom/stupid dad TV shows, publishing books with titles like "Are Men Necessary," our culture is full of what some scholars are calling the "WAW effect," short for Women are Wonderful. These days, it's tough to catch a break if you're an unapologetic male.

What's interesting about the situation is that it's not really that removed from the way things used to be in Western society in which men were the preferred sex. In a fascinating address provocatively titled "Is There Anything Good About Men?" Florida State University professor Roy Baumeister discusses how we've moved from male superiority to male inferiority as well as the reasons behind that shift (h/t Helen Smith):

I said that today most people hold more favorable stereotypes of women than men. It was not always thus. Up until about the 1960s, psychology (like society) tended to see men as the norm and women as the slightly inferior version. During the 1970s, there was a brief period of saying there were no real differences, just stereotypes. Only since about 1980 has the dominant view been that women are better and men are the inferior version.

Fact: The Fox News polls for text messaging from phones allow ONE vote per phone number.

Fact: Dr. Paul, as usual and despite some pretty-blatant bias this time, kicked ass again.

Fact: Despite these FACTS, Sean said this. How is he NOT lying?? Does it not seem like the honesty and reputation of his own network's poll is secondary in Sean's mind to a certain political agenda??? If not, please explain why in context of the FACTS I have outlined?
JMR

UPDATE A sincere, non-sarcastic hat tip to NB reader "SportPolitics" who helpfully pointed out the bipartisan nature of this politically-biased media prevarication. Good show, it completes this bust which -- despite its location in the Forum area -- is IMO one of NB's best busts of this year.

The Fairfield County [Conn.] Weekly is one of those papers that is available for free at diners and bus stations, and it's usually very liberal in its views. (A sampling of recent article titles includes one where the author claims Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) was checking out her décolletage at an event, and another calling former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a "quaint torture-monkey.")

In the first read-through, this article took me by surprise...could one of Fairfield County's most cherished liberal institutions be going "right"? Entitled You're Worth It! For one measure of your worth to society, look back at all you W2s, author Phil Maymin tries to make sense of who is revered in our society and why. He goes through a series of examples (Bill Gates, sports stars, philanthropists and artists whose work gains wealth posthumously), and finally decides:

If part of NewsBusters' mission is keeping the MSM on its toes, it looks like we're succeeding when it comes to the MSNBC show "Morning Joe." For two days running, host Joe Scarborough has mentioned our site, conscious that we're on the prowl for evidence of liberal bias. Yesterday at about 6:30 A.M. EDT, Joe and newsreader Mika Brzezinski were discussing the fact that President Bush had mentioned to Robert Draper, author of the new Bush biography "Dead Certain," that he was expecting to replenish his financial coffers upon leaving office.

Said Scarborough “I hope NewsBusters heard that cause you said [it was only] a little [untoward on Bush's part].’ I say ‘a lot.’ Let them make me the poster boy today.”

Joe had NewsBusters on the noggin again today. At about 7:07 A.M. EDT Mika injected her opinion into the reading of a news item about Fred Thompson's "Tonight Show" appearance.

Video Clip: Real (2 MB) or Windows (2 MB), plus MP3 (381 KB)

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: In true Hollywood fashion, the former actor made his long-awaited announcement on last night's "Tonight Show." It was sort of underwhelming, but . . . it's done.

When Mika made to move along after taking her potshot, Joe stopped her short.

JOE SCARBOROUGH [presumably speaking to producer Chris Licht]: Hey, can you call NewsBusters?

I just viewed this video via Michelle Malkin of failed sportscaster Keith Olberman naming her Worst Person of the Week and pushing a quote by Geraldo Rivera in doing it:

“Michelle Malkin is the most vile, hateful commentator I’ve ever met in my life,” he says. “She actually believes that neighbors should start snitching out neighbors, and we should be deporting people.

“It’s good she’s in D.C. and I’m in New York,” Rivera sneers. “I’d spit on her if I saw her.”

Now it appears Michelle has had a small ad buy which served to call attention to the quote banned by Quigo. So, Rivera's ugliness is okay for broadcast on MSNBC in another sad attempt to further demean the target in this, but it's not okay to point a finger at Rivera with his own words?

Bill Clinton’s appearance on Wednesday’s "Larry King Live" gave new life to the old nickname for CNN as the "Clinton News Network." Host Larry King fawned over Clinton during the 40-minute interview, asking the impeached former president questions on wide range of topics. King asked Clinton if Osama bin Laden was ever going to caught. After Clinton gave the standard Democrat line that not enough resources are being sent to Afghanistan in the hunt for the al Qaeda leader, King added, "You almost got him." Clinton answered affirmatively, and added that he "never had a chance to deploy large numbers of troops to Afghanistan."

For the third time in less than a week, ABC anchor and former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos appeared on "Good Morning America" to dourly assess Republican Fred Thompson’s 2008 chances. On the Thursday edition of GMA, the host of "This Week" attempted to set an impossible bar for the former senator. "...He can't make a mistake," Stephanopoulos breathlessly claimed.

Earlier in the segment, the ABC host negatively spun Thompson’s standings in the polls. Some might compliment the performance of a candidate who, upon entering the 2008 race, is only narrowly trailing the front-runner. Not Stephanopoulos. After claiming that many thought the former actor would surge into first place early in the summer, he critiqued, "That hasn't happened. Most of the latest polls show that he's in second place behind Rudy Giuliani....He hasn't quite rocketed out the way he expected."

The Canadian Mining Journal is yearning for "impartial journalists" to investigate the organized opposition to a proposed gold mine in the impoverished village of Rosia Montana, Romania - opposition that the CEO of the Canadian gold mining company Gabriel Resources alleges is not local and reflects not the view of the people of the region but, instead, represents the views of radical environmental groups backed by billionaire George Soros.

In a blistering speech at a press conference in Bucharest yesterday, Gabriel CEO Alan Hill outlined the web of connections between Soros and many of the environmental groups and NGOs opposing the project, and also pushed back against the many lies being told by the opposition.

The Canadian Mining Journal reports:

The crew at Power Line has been doing a superb job of following up the case of the Holy Land Foundation, in which the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was named as an unidicted co-conspirator. The offical indictment can be found in the previous link.

I know, it's a dog-bites-man story, but I thought I'd pass along that longtime White House correspondent and left-wing columnist Helen Thomas addressed the College Democrats at the University of Maryland on Wednesday evening.

I live close to the campus, but unfortunately found out about the event after the fact and hence was unable to drop in and take in my own observations. Fortunately Maryland's student paper The Diamondback covered the event. Unfortunately the reporter covering the assignment failed to press Thomas on her commanding respect as a journalist while forsaking any attempt to objectively report news from her perch at the White House. In fact reporter Chidima Okaparanta labeled Thomas's abrasive technique as a "straight-shooting reporting style, especially regarding the war in Iraq."

Below are some excerpts with portions in bold reflecting my emphasis:

Writing at National Review Online, Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War talks about the revitalized Dora Market in Baghdad as a sign of success in Iraq. Kagan attributes the Petraeus strategy significant credit and in doing so takes a swipe at the Washington Post for its slanted reporting on the Dora success (h/t Instapundit):

In Wednesday’s Washington Post, Sudarsan Raghavan, criticized the Dora market in an article called "Weighing the ‘Surge’: The U.S. War in Iraq Hinges on the Counterinsurgency Strategy Of Gen. Petraeus. The Results Have Been Tenuous." The Dora market is a frequent stop for visitors to Iraq assessing the progress of “the surge.” Raghavan criticizes the market, and the frequent visits it receives from distinguished guests of General Petraeus: “[T]he Dora market is a Potemkin village of sorts. The U.S. military hands out $2,500 grants to shop owners to open or improve their businesses. The military has fixed windows and doors and even helped rebuild shops that had burned down, soldiers and others said.”

Yet when one considers the 300 shops reopened in the Dora market in the context of the past year, rather than in pre-2003 terms (more than 800 shops then, according to Raghavan), it is easy to understand why General Petraeus might think it worthwhile for visitors to see the Dora market.

Tennis lovers must watch the following video.

Bill Clinton must love the smell of historical rehabilitation in the morning. His new book is prompting gushy copy from the nation’s largest book-selling chains. I get the E-mails. This week’s E-mail from Borders has a splashy color picture of Clinton shaking hands with colorful natives of Africa under the headline "Our greatest gift." Giving of ourselves is our greatest gift? Or Bill Clinton is? The copy is also syrupy:

From a personality who’s larger than life comes a portrait of actions that speak louder than words. Bill Clinton’s Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World is an inspired and inspiring look at individuals and organizations making a difference every day through charity work. Clinton may have been a polarizing figure who certainly gave us a lot to talk about, but here he offers portraits of efforts anyone can celebrate while giving us plenty to think about.

This has been happening so much in the past few years that it is reaching the point of redundancy to report on it. A politician is caught up in a major scandal and/or corruption. The media dutifully reports on it but leaves out one key factor. The political party of the fallen politician. And can you guess which political party is ALWAYS missing from these reports whenever such an affliliation is conveniently purged from the news stories?

Honeymoon? Forget about it. The morning after his announcement, "Today" wasted no time in going after Fred Thompson. Like a Las Vegas bride with a bad hangover, Meredith Vieira seemed particularly grumpy. At 7:05 a.m. EDT, the "Today" co-anchor interviewed Tim Russert.

MEREDITH VIEIRA: The other candidates are out debatin