What's wrong with this picture: a young, prominent, liberal blogger gets a respectable and highly-coveted position with a leading, leftwing magazine, and for some reason, can't shake himself from the vulgarity and vitriol prevalent in his past writing?

Such appears to be the case for Ezra Klein, a virtual rising star in the liberal blogosphere, who despite being on the staff of The American Prospect, still feels the need to drop an f-bomb now and again while attacking one of the nation's leading television journalists.

As reported by new blogger Unpopular Front (vulgarity warning!):

After playing a clip of Hillary Clinton slamming George W. Bush as "pathetic", during the Democratic debate in Nevada, Chris Matthews compared Clinton to former British Prime Minister and Cold War hero Margaret Thatcher as he exclaimed of the former First Lady's attack on the President: "It just struck me as very Thatcher-ite!"

The following exchange occurred between Matthews and fellow MSNBC host Tucker Carlson on the January 16, "Hardball":

While Wednesday morning shows on Fox, CNN, and even NBC covered the outcome of the Democratic primary in Michigan, in which Hillary Clinton got 55% of the vote with 40% going to ‘uncommitted’ and lost the black vote 32% to 68%, ABC’s "Good Morning America" and CBS’s "Early Show" made no mention of the Democratic primary.

On the "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith and "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer made mention of the Democrats once, early in the 7am hour, and then it was only about Tuesday’s Nevada debate:

SMITH: Let's talk about the Democrats for a second because there was this truce called. I watched the debates on cable last night. And it was so peaceful and so calm and, you know, if you were looking to get a little rest, that might have helped you a little bit.

You don't normally associate liberal pet causes like global warming with fascism, but National Review Editor at Large Jonah Goldberg makes a good case for why you could.

Goldberg appeared on January 15 at a Borders Bookstore in downtown Washington, D.C. to promote his new book, Liberal Fascism. According to Goldberg, tactics like comparing climate change skeptics to people "who believe that the Earth is flat," is comparable to those used by the power brokers within the rise of fascism during the early 20^th century.

[Click Here For Audio]

"The only people who say we need to get beyond ideology, get beyond labels, are the people who want you to shut up, you to stop disagreeing and agree with them," Goldberg said.

In spite of recent polls of economists by leading financial publications predicting a less than 50-percent chance the U.S. economy will enter a recession in 2008, the media's coverage of "recession" since the beginning of the year makes it seem inevitable.

ABC, CBS and NBC reported "more signs of a looming recession," "deepening troubles," "new fuel for recession fears," "rattled consumers," "an economy on edge" and "bracing for recession," or some scary variation a total of 32 times just in the first two weeks of 2008.

The segments predicted a recession or reported fears of a looming recession four times as often as they reported optimism about the New Year, even though recent surveys of economists put the chance of recession at 40 percent to 42 percent.

 "And the major concern heading into 2008 is that big ‘R' word, recession," David Muir ominously reported on January 1. "When does the mortgage mess, the housing market, lead to that?" he asked, assuming that a mortgage "mess" inevitably leads to recession.

ABC reported "growing concerns the economy may be heading toward recession." CBS mentioned that "when companies stop hiring, it's often a sign we're slipping into a recession." NBC noticed that in a speech about the economy, President Bush

"Bush allows Navy to use sonar in whale areas," blares the headline to an AP story on MSNBC.com about President Bush granting the Navy the right to continue to test mid-frequency active sonar in coastal waters despite a federal court judge's order for the Navy to stop.

"Judge had earlier ordered 12-mile no-sonar zone off California," reads the subhead.

Gee, I wasn't aware that whales had legal claims on U.S. coastal waters, let alone that they are considered "whale areas."

The issue at hand is whether environmental laws can and should be shelved from time to time for national security exemptions, and if the president can make that determination as commander-in-chief. So why not a headline that's more straightforward?

Perhaps this:

"Bush allows Navy to use sonar in coastal waters. Decision challenges court ruling aimed at protecting whales."

Quote:  Nazi's were Christian - blessed by the pope and protestant leaders - and were much closer to taking over the world than al-queda will ever be...

I understand you deny this - fine - go ahead...- Truthmonger

Amazing statement.  I'm still breathlessly trying to get my head around why TM would ever try to slip this little nugget into the open thread to begin with (???).  I can just hear Dietrich Bonhoeffer doing barrel-rolls in his grave.  

Since I'm (intellectually but cautiously) open to the possibility of this assertion as long as the proof is cited, I'm not going to put this topic in The Woodshed.  So here's some questions to start it all off.

1. Was the Jesus of the Nazi-endorsed Positive Christianity the same Jesus of the Bible?

2. Was the Galilee of Jesus' incarnate lifetime racially distinct from the rest of Judea?

Writing in the January 16 Financial Times, reporter Marc Frank takes a look at Cuban politics as though it were an actual liberal democracy, not a Marxist dictatorship. Frank finds no irony or contradiction-in-terms in the way he qualifies the election as a public ratification of a pre-determined outcome. And in what amounts to a laughable print edition subheading, Frank's editor wrote this in the subhead to "Castro keeps world guessing on retirement":

Even if the head of state stands down, he may still be able to exert power from the sidelines, writes Marc Frank.

Gee, ya think?!

Here are the first few paragraphs of Frank's page 3 report, with my emphasis added:

The GOP label is prominent.  His term (years) is office is not stated.  The reason he is no longer in office is also absent. 

 If this is old news, sorry. 

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8U75TFO2&show_article=1

 WASHINGTON (AP) - A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

Yes, the Democratic primary last night in Michigan was a beauty contest -- the delegates selected to represent their candidates will not be seated at the convention in Denver -- but it is something of a story that 45 percent of that primary's voters cast ballots in favor of alternatives to Clinton, including a sizable portion of them to uncommitted delegates.

Essentially this means that over 264,000 Wolverine State Democrats took time out of their day yesterday to vote against Hillary Clinton --voting uncommitted or for Kucinich, Dodd, or Gravel -- even though it didn't matter for much of anything.

The Washington Post picked it up on page A7 of the January 16 paper and Congressional Quarterly reported story on its Web page, noting the Clinton campaign heralded the victory with triumphant rhetoric even though her delegates will not be able to vote for her nomination at the convention:

As a conservative media critic, I often hear liberal journalists say that the reason there aren't more libertarians or conservatives in the media is simply because lefties are more interested in news writing and opinioneering than righties. They are quite quick to deny there is any kind of discrimination--despite the experiences of Susan Molinari at CBS, Ben Domenech at the Washington Post and pretty much any right-leaning journalist in the business who doesn't make a habit of bashing Republicans like Pat Buchanan.

This pattern of vitriolic anger and rage at the temerity of a right-winger daring to venture into the left's inner sanctum of the press is once again on display with the New York Times's recent hiring of Weekly Standard founder Bill Kristol to be a columnist. Things have gotten so out of control that even the paper's public editor (aka public fig leaf) is protesting the hire. As before, inevitably, leftish reporters and editors are raising objections about the slightest thing. In Kristol's case, as Gabriel Schoenfeld writes (h/t Power Line), Times public editor Clark Hoyt is straining at a comment he made during an appearance on Fox News Channel:

The VRWC rides again, but this time it's apparently going after a Republican . . .

Mike Huckabee went on Morning Joe today and toyed with suggesting a "conspiracy" composed of the "Washington power circles" was out to get him. At 7:41 AM ET, the former Arkansas governor was discussing his efforts in South Carolina with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

View video here.

"The New York Times" uses fuzzy math to smear volunteer soldiers and "Fox and Friends" picked it up. MRC’s Clay Waters reported on the "Sunday Times" January 13 story, "Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles," essentially smearing soldiers linking some committed murders to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict.

However, the numbers show that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are far less likely to commit murder. On the January 16 edition of "Fox and Friends," co-host Steve Doocy noted that veterans are "five times less likely to commit murder." Gretchen Carlson noted the danger of putting out these dubious stories adding "You don't have time to actually get to the bottom of all of these articles. People just assume that what they read, wrong or right, is truth."

Another liberal Democratic governor has backed off an illegal immigrant-friendly challenge to the new federal Real ID law. Yet in their coverage of Gov. Martin O'Malley's (D-Md.) reversal, the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post failed to note how drastic the Democratic governor's reversal was, nor to consider if low polls numbers and public disapproval were driving factors for the change of plans.

Here's how the Sun's Timothy B. Wheeler opened his January 16 article:

Bowing to federal pressure to crack down on undocumented immigrants, the O'Malley administration announced yesterday that in two years it would begin requiring all driver's license applicants to present a birth certificate, passport or some other documentation to prove they are legal residents of the United States.

[...]

Once again, the news media is trying to create reality instead of merely reporting on it. In this case, we have MSNBC trying to create a McCain-Lieberman ticket out of whole cloth with wild speculation not born of any real life news. What we end up with here isn't any sort of journalism, but a wish list based only on the author's desires and not any reading of reality. This fantasy does, however, fit in quite well with the media's love of John McCain and his "gutsy" positions and their desires to override what Republicans want to instead have McCain anointed by the media as the GOP standard bearer.

I have an idea and I know that it's a novel idea in most "journalist's" circles. Let's let Republicans decide who they want. The media should just report the matter not try to influence it. But, that advice aside, MSNBC's Tom Curry floats his dream ticket anyway...

A recent "news" report in the News & Observer from Raleigh, North Carolina is a perfect example of a pointless story with a predictable outcome all meant for the purpose of furthering a political end -- in this case to promulgate the impeachment of President Bush and VP Cheney. Staff writer Cheryl Johnston gives us a report on a "debate" that occurred in Carrboro, NC in which impeachment was the topic. The story attempts to create an air that the issue was fairly and legitimately debated, yet no one at the so-called debate was actually against impeachment. Not only were all present basically for impeachment, but the event was also staged by an impeachment advocacy group and attended solely by impeachment fans. Some, debate. Then the article claims that "Few in the audience appeared persuaded" to turn against trying to impeach Bush and Cheney as if anyone was there to actually hear a real debate and weren't there as impeachment activists already!

Rachel Sklar at The Huffington Post's Eat the Press page certainly flies a flag for feminism. She frowns at anyone discussing Hillary's cackle or cleavage. In any socio-political squabble between a Katie Couric and a Mike Huckabee, she would clearly be in the Katie Corner. She certainly believes a woman can carry the burden of an evening newscast -- which might explain why she's angry at the latest leaked Couric behind-the-scenes video. How can Katie seem so blithely uninformed? Doesn't she know she's supposed to be bathing in an aura of gravitas? Sklar found the video unremarkable, until Couric typically proclaimed she was still clueless about one of the leading Republican presidential contenders: