Fretting over how “Americans give back 438 million vacation days a year” when they could be “sitting on a beach,” ABC anchor Charles Gibson concluded the Presidents’ Day World News by channeling envy of European socialist rules as he complained that “America is the only major country in the world that has no government-mandated time off.” Citing how “psychologists say people are better workers, less stressed, if they take their time,” he helpfully suggested “you might consider moving to France. There, the government requires 31 vacation days plus holidays.” No mention, of course, of how that (plus a 35-hour work week) hurts French productivity and job creation, to say nothing of requiring significant immigration.

The anchor of the newscast on the network owned by Disney showed a picture of smiling vacationers with Mickey Mouse before he ended by noting: “And someone asked me today, ‘Why are you making a big deal of this? You're at work today.’ Good point.”

Slip of the tongue, or was the man who gets a thrill up his leg from Barack Obama's rhetoric voicing his innermost apprehension at the prospect of Hillary Clinton regaining the upper hand?

On this afternoon's Hardball, host Chris Matthews was discussing the March 4th Texas primary with Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News, John Heilemann of New York magazine, and Norah O'Donnell. The MSNBCer made the point that under the arcane Texas rules in which the race is a hybrid of caucus and primary, it's possible for one candidate to win the popular vote and the other to walk off with more delegates.

That seemed to trigger Chris's anxiety reflex at the prospect of Hillary getting good publicity . . .

First she said that only Obama can "fix America's broken soul," and now this. If anything can stop Obama from getting the nomination or eventual Presidency, his wife running her mouth could be it.  See video here.

“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country,” she told a Milwaukee crowd today, “because it feels like hope is making a comeback.”

We all know that the constant drumb beat from the MSM on their news casts and political programs is part of the reason for the publics turn left. Constant reports of casualties without context (lowest of any war we've had and comparable to deaths in our own country to civilians uninvolved in war) or any attention to progress. Also the unrelenting "culture of corruption" theme and practice of usually mentioning party affiliation when Republicans are accused of a crime and rarely doing so when it's a Democrat. The major Networks of ABC,CBS, & NBC are all filled with left wingers and left wing views with little attention given to conservative views. CNN and MSNBC are even worse and the only halfway fair cable channel is FOX.

On Sunday’s "60 Minutes," anchor Morley Safer did a segment on Demark being ranked the happiest country in world consistently for the past three decades and wondered: "What makes a Dane so happy? And why isn't he wallowing in misery and self doubt like so many of the rest of us?" Later in the segment, Safer discovered that low expectations of the Danish people was the key to their happiness and he concluded that:

Wanting it all is a bacterium that stays with us from youth to old age -- wanting a bigger house, fancier car, more stuff. And when we get more, there's always someone with even more stuff who's just as unhappy. Some suggest that the unhappiest zip codes in the country are the wealthiest, like the Upper East Side of New York.

It’s interesting that many liberal media figures reside in New York’s Upper East Side.

Associated Press reporter David Bauder wrote an article on the emergence of "pundit police" in the wake of MSNBC suspending reporter David Shuster for two weeks over his pimped-out-Chelsea outburst. Bauder began by noting how NewsBusters (Mark Finkelstein) was on Shuster's case within ten minutes:

Fewer than a half-million people were watching MSNBC when David Shuster made his comment that Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign had "pimped out" daughter Chelsea by having her make political phone calls.

Among them were monitors at Newsbusters. The Web site posted video of Shuster 10 minutes after the show was over, beginning a reaction that led to his two-week suspension. The pundit police never go off duty.

I see that Bill Clinton is once again taking credit for the "good things" that happened in the 1990s, as Jack Tapper at ABC's Political Punch reports:

"There are two competing moods in America today," Clinton said. "People who want something fresh and new -- and they find it inspiring that we might elect a president who literally was not part of any of the good things that happened or any of the bad things that were stopped before. The explicit argument of the campaign against Hillary is that 'No one who was involved in the 1990s or this decade can possibly be an effective president because they had fights. We're not going to have any of those anymore.' Well, if you believe that, I got some land I wanna sell you."

I also see that Tapper is letting Mr. Clinton's claims pass as if they are undeniable facts, as others in Old Media have done for so many years:

BusinessWeek, one of the leading business publications on the market, has come out with a piece that blatantly panders to the Obama crowd called "Is Barack Obama Good for Business?". Look at the source breakdown for the article:

2 quotes from Democratic Consultants (including the subtitle)
0 quotes from Republican Consultants

1 Example of a CEO who likes Obama and corresponds with him regularly
0 Examples of CEOs who disagree with Obama or even think Clinton is better

1 Quote from the head of a Chamber of Commerce about Obama’s character
0 Quotes from anyone about the damaging effects of Obama’s liberal policies in Illinois

Fans of NewsBusters are quite familiar with how we track instances of labeling bias: where the media don't label liberal activists or employ double standards in labeling conservatives vs. liberals, Republicans vs. Democrats, etc.

But sometimes, a news agency gets it right and while that's how it should be, it's also worth noting in certain cases, like Los Angeles Times reporter Howard Blume's February 18 story, "Judgment day for L.A. teacher union officials."

Blume noted that three years of hard-left control of an L.A. teachers union will come to a head in recent school board elections for L.A. Unified, the second-largest public school district by enrollment in the United States:

"Good Morning America" co-host Chris Cuomo presented a decidedly one-sided segment on Monday about the "gender discrimination" expressed by a private religious school in Kansas that refused to allow a female basketball referee the chance to call a boy's varsity game. Cuomo announced, "many" think that "religious belief does not give the school the right to discriminate."

The ABC host offered almost no consideration to the argument, made by St. Mary's Academy, that men are best equipped to guide boys and prepare them for future life endeavors. (The referee in question, Michelle Campbell, asserted that she was not allowed to call the game because the school believes women shouldn't have authority over men.) Instead, he offered loaded questions to Campbell, who appeared on the show: "Gender discrimination is not something new. We know about it. But were you surprised that something this obvious still confronted you today....Were you surprised?"

During a live interview with the President and the First Lady from Africa on Monday's "Today" show, NBC's Ann Curry pestered Bush about the Iraq war and its economic effect on Americans as she told the President: "I mean they say they're suffering because of this war."

ANN CURRY: But you're saying you're gonna have to carry that burden, you're saying you're gonna have to carry that burden. Some Americans believe, that they feel they're carrying the burden because of this economy.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah well-

CURRY: I mean they say they're suffering because of this war.

Every event is a chance for the media to spin. CNN twisted the latest college shooting to blame it on business, instead of a crazed killer.

On the Feb. 17 "American Morning," Veronica De La Cruz showed how two Web sites, operated by "the same owner," sold products to the shooters in both the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University tragedies. She said it was "pretty shocking to figure this out." Anchor Kiran Chetry agreed, calling it an "eerie connection."

But De La Cruz was just getting started. She was even upset at the sympathy banners on the site because they were near banners that still advertised the company's business. "I want to show you the strange juxtaposition if you move down the page. Here's the NIU shooting and then ‘Save big on rifles and handguns' right underneath. You know, something that kind of turns your stomach, if you will," she added.

The British newswire that strenuously avoids calling a terrorist a terrorist also has trouble identifying the radical religious motivations for rioters setting Denmark ablaze.

Roger Kimball of Pajamas Media has the story:

Consider the opening of this story from Reuters about the latest rash of rioting in Copenhagen:

Danish youths riot for sixth night [Update: make that the seventh straight night]

Gangs of rioters set fire to cars and garbage trucks in northern Copenhagen on Friday, the sixth night of rioting and vandalism that has spread from the capital to other Danish cities, police said on Saturday.

[...]

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: What should folks that believe in manmade global warming be called?

The results of yesterday's poll indicate most NBers feel those that don't believe in anthropogenic global warming should be called "climate realists." Now, it's time to come up with a name for those that believe man is responsible for climate change.

However, before starting a new poll, I'd like some ideas. The purpose here is not to be inflammatory, or insulting -- although those looking to poke some fun should feel free to.

Instead, I'm looking for serious considerations to include in a poll. At this point, the options are: Climate Pessimist, Warm-monger, Warmaholic, Climate Alarmist, Warminator (courtesy of Anthony Watts), and Hot Head. Any other suggestions?

In a multicultural extravaganza, the Boston Globe celebrated the Chinese New Year, the "year of the rat," by giving us a nice list of "famous" Americans who are "rats." (Rats are those born in the years 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, and 1996) The Globe defined a "rat" as someone who is "charming, clever, hard-working, intelligent, practical, and social," this according to "Chinese astrology." Well, the Globe is here to tell us that "rats" are really great folks. But, looking over their list of American "rats" will reveal not a single conservative or Republican name. Apparently, the Globe can't find any conservative "rats" who are "charming, clever, hard-working, intelligent, practical, and social." On the other hand, do we really want to be considered as "raty" as the Globe's favorite Dems?

To celebrate this famouse (sorry, famous) holiday coming out of their favorite communist nation, the Globe does their best to give us a nice warm feeling about "rats"... at least certain ones, anyway.

Update: Rush Reads From Item

Rush Limbaugh read the first two paras of this item during his first half-hour today, citing "our buddies at NewsBusters." Thanks, Rush! Audio here.

If a supremely prominent Republican who was John McCain's chief surrogate had gotten into an angry confrontation at a campaign event, do you think the broadcast networks would have promptly let us know his interlocutor was African-American?

I do. But none of the broadcast network's morning news shows, at least during this morning's crucial first half-hour, disclosed the African-American identity of the man with whom Bill Clinton got into just such an argument yesterday in Ohio.

Not a word of any incident whatsoever at GMA or the Early Show, at least during the first half-hour. Today did mention that Clinton "showed his temper . . . after an Obama supporter tried to disrupt his speech in Canton," but nothing about the man's identity.

View video here.

Complaints about the size and placement and content of photographs are a constant at newspapers. On Sunday, Washington Post reader's advocate Deborah Howell tried to look at the big picture of presidential primary photos on the newspaper's front:

One day's photo choice does not mean much, but so many readers mentioned Page 1 photos that my assistant Jean Hwang and I looked at two months' worth of images. Between Dec. 16 and Friday [Feb. 15], Obama was on the front page 16 times; Clinton, 13; McCain, 12; Mitt Romney, 7; Rudolph Giuliani, 4; and Mike Huckabee, 2. John Edwards and Fred Thompson appeared on the front page only when they pulled out of the race. Democrats were on the front page 29 times, including two photos of Bill Clinton, and Republicans, 25 times. The difference is small but noticeable. We will continue to monitor it.

Here's one media bias everyone accepts (and expects): showing compassion and sympathy for a community after a horrifying mass murder, such as the killings at Northern Illinois University. The leftist website Alternet proved the exception to the rule, printing a bizarre article by an author named Mark Ames that trashed NIU as a mediocre school for mediocre students, and suggested that the "flat" plains of Middle America could make anyone shoot up a school or a post office. The headline was:

Northern Ill. University: Was the Killer Crazy, or the Campus Hopeless? Bracket this massacre as the work of a lunatic on drugs, and you miss the chance to consider the horrors of life in middle America.