Tucker Carlson, on his MSNBC show this evening, describing the Clinton campaign's press relations . . .

TUCKER CARLSON: They're awful to the media: let's be totally blunt. They're awful to the press. They treat the press like enemies. [Clinton Communication Director] Howard Wolfson's always calling around threatening people. Threatening people! News organizations! They do that! People hate you if you do that. I mean, they've earned the enmity of the press, in my view. They have. I mean, it's been hard but they've done it.

View video here.

The affable Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post tried to defuse matters, to no avail . . .

A Sioux Falls, SD, TV station (KELO) has gone down a very predictable path in the aftermath of the fatal bus crash in Cottonwood, Minnesota. An illegal immigrant, just identified as Guatemalan Olga Marina Franco by the Minneapolis Star Tribune (link: http://www.startribu...), has been charged with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide in the deaths of four children riding on a school bus on a rural road.

Now, true to MSM form, KELO-TV offers the utterly predictable: a story entitled "Immigrants fear backlash from Morales" (link: http://www.keloland....). Morales is the false name Franco allegedly gave to police. It appears the story aired last night (2/24) on KELO's statewide network of stations.

One telling quote from the story: A Mexican (immigration status not offered, naturally), said, "Because of one incident, they judge everyone." There was no apparent attempt to point out that this is the latest of many such incidents across the country.

One reason the quality of journalism is so poor is that so many journalists follow a formula and rarely deviate from the party line.

FNC’s Brit Hume, in his Monday “Grapevine” segment, undermined CBS’s Sunday night 60 Minutes scoop about Karl Rove’s smear efforts to destroy former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat now in federal prison for bribery, “some say, only because of his politics,” CBS’s Scott Pelley framed his story. Hume relayed how “Rove says he does not recall ever meeting the woman who is accusing him of asking her to help dig up dirt on” Siegelman “and he say he was never given a chance to respond to the charges she made Sunday on 60 Minutes.”

Specifically, Jill Simpson “said Rove asked her to get pictures of Siegelman in a compromising sexual position with an aide” but, Hume pointed out, “the Associated Press reports Simpson has never made that allegation before -- despite several hours of interviews with congressional lawyers, reporters and a sworn affidavit.” As for CBS’s claim they had “contacted Rove” for a response, Hume noted:

But Rove and his lawyer, attorney Robert Luskin, say CBS brought up the allegations only in an off-the-record telephone interview last October. Luskin says, quote: "After 60 Minutes made the decision to publicize these charges, no one from 60 Minutes approached Mr. Rove or gave him an opportunity to respond on the record," end quote.

The airwaves have been filled today with the clip of an angry Hillary saying "shame on you, Barack Obama," and another of Clinton mocking the notion that, to believe Barack, "celestial choirs will be singing."

But on this evening's Hardball, Chris Matthews unearthed yet another clip of Hillary at her harshest. And after playing it, a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth Matthews ripped the Clinton campaign strategy. Words won't do justice to Clinton's fingernails-on-blackboard tone, but here's what a raspy-voiced Hillary said in the video Matthews played.

HILLARY CLINTON: Quit misleading people about what I do. [Ed.: shades of Bob Dole's unsuccessful line to George H.W in 1988: "stop lying about my record.'] Quit telling people what is not true about my plan. You know, come on: enough is enough! Let's get real here, and compare exactly what both of us stand for!

View video here.

CNN’s Jon Klein, in an internal memo obtained by the TVNewser blog, bragged about the strong ratings the network won during its recent debates and primary coverage, and spun the reason for this success. "CNN is proving that with innovation, execution, and passion, the sky's the limit. Our deep-seated commitment to independent coverage that is unbiased — without an agenda — is more powerful and popular than the partisan rants that permeate the airwaves." Klein might have had Keith Olbermann in mind when he referred to "partisan rants," but one would only need to look at the past three months to disprove such an outrageous claim by Klein.

The first and most egregious example of CNN’s bias occurred at their joint debate with YouTube at the end of November 2007. Retired general Keith Kerr, a member of the "LGBT Americans For Hillary Steering Committee" and an open homosexual himself, not only asked about homosexuals serving openly in the military played at the debate via his Internet video, but was also present at the debate to follow-up with the Republican candidates personally. For a week, CNN and its operatives denied that they knew Kerr’s affiliation with the Clinton campaign, and even some in the mainstream media, such as Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times, slammed CNN for "this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate."

On Sunday’s CBS "60 Minutes," anchor Scott Pelley interviewed former Alabama Republican attorney, Jill Simpson, about a supposed effort to smear the former Democratic governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman: "Now this woman tells us there was a covert campaign to ruin the governor, a campaign that she says involved Karl Rove, at the time the president's top political advisor." In a story that violated more journalistic ethics than last week’s New York Times hit piece on John McCain, Pelley went on to ask Simpson: "Karl Rove asked you to take pictures of Siegelman...In a compromising sexual position with one of his aides." Simpson responded: "Yes. If I could."

Siegelman, a Democrat who was governor of Alabama from 1998-2002, is currently in federal prison after being convicted of bribery in 2006. Simpson claimed that this conviction was part of a grand conspiracy led by Rove. Pelley introduced the story this way:

If you're the New York Times' Jim Rutenberg or Bill Keller the last person you probably want in your corner is Dan "National Guard Forgery Story" Rather. Yet on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," Rather jumped to their defense, on last week's McCain hit piece, by declaring them "outstanding journalists."

Now Rather did hedge a bit saying if the story wasn't true they could be "in a heap of trouble," but he concluded, that in the end, their reporting should be trusted because they were: "Very responsible journalists."

When Chris Matthews asked the former "CBS Evening News" anchor for his opinion on the Times story, Rather offered the following take on the February 24, edition of "The Chris Matthews Show:"

Old Media coverage of government budget difficulties usually focuses on the here and now, and all the "tough decisions" that have to be made.

Seldom is there ever an examination of how a state or local government entity got into its current fix. Scratch just a little bit beneath the surface, though, and you'll almost inevitably find that an annoying habit of overspending during the good times has left the state or municipality unprepared for when things go even a little bit sour, as they invariably and eventually do.

Sunday's Associated Press report on the budget situations many states governments face was no exception.

(A full vetting of the article, and a chart showing steep rises in spending in most states, is after the jump)

Below the page break I've included screen grabs taken around 3:50 p.m. today for top stories at Newsweek.com, one having to do with John McCain and how his denial of an affair with Vicki Iseman "invited a game of catch me if you can," the second about the rise of a Raul Castro, a dictator who "promises change."

The latter, flashing a peace sign, looks somewhat avuncular. McCain, however appears to bear a scowl on his face in a photo shot apparently aboard a campaign airplane.

A Time.com article by Bryan Walsh encouraged readers to go to an environmentalist Web site because it might be their last chance to see the "polar world."

"Man your computers - GlobalWarming101.com might give you a last glimpse of a dying polar world," Walsh wrote on February 22.

The Web site is run by Will Steger, who identified himself as an author, photographer and "ceaseless advocate for the Earth's well being."

"To help raise awareness of the damage climate change is wreaking on the polar regions, next month Steger will be leading a team of six young adventurers on a 1,400-mile, 60-day-long dogsled expedition across Ellesmere Island, in the far Canadian Arctic," wrote Walsh.

You know the Times had a bad week when even Clark Hoyt, the paper's public editor (and often toothless internal watchdog) thinks its big McCain blockbuster reeked:

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said the article about John McCain that appeared in Thursday's paper was about a man nearly felled by scandal who rebuilt himself as a fighter against corruption but is still "careless about appearances, careless about his reputation, and that's a pretty important thing to know about somebody who wants to be president of the United States."

Apparently the Washington Post isn't the only newspaper to be taken aback by aging Communists holding a tight grip on the Communist regime in Havana. "Old guard in Cuba keeps reins," blares the February 25 headline in the Los Angeles Times.

Oddly enough, the "old guard" is still labeled "revolutionary" twice in the story by Miguel Bustillo and Carol J. Williams:

MIAMI -- Cuba's parliament signaled Sunday that the status quo of a stunted state-run economy and strained relations with the United States will persist for now as it named Raul Castro to replace his ailing brother, Fidel, as president and chose another aging revolutionary as the nation's No. 2 leader.

[...]

"View" co-host and reliable left winger Joy Behar, who previously exclaimed to have the "hots" for Bill Clinton, announced another political figure she is infatuated with: Ralph Nader. Discussing Nader’s announced presidential candidacy on the February 25 edition, Behar noted the 75 year old candidate "looks fantastic," and "I find him sexy."

All of the co-host appeared shocked that Joy would find Nader sexy. Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked "what is wrong with you?" with a bewildered expression, Whoopi Goldberg inquired "who?" Even normally mild mannered Barbara Walters joked "your eyes are going with your memory."

Behar also fawned over Nader’s "intelligence" and that he is "on the right side of the issues very, very, very often." Why? Nader called the Bush administration a "criminal and recidivistic regime," and "the most multipliable impeachable president in American history."

As people that actually pay attention to weather are aware, the winter in the Northern Hemisphere this year is following the same pattern as last year's extraordinarily frigid conditions in the Southern Hemisphere.

In fact, all kinds of cold and snow-related records are occurring all over the supposedly warming planet this winter despite continued claims by climate alarmists that the world will come to an end if we all don't immediately reduce our emissions of that awful -- naturally occurring and necessary for most life on earth! -- gas, carbon dioxide.

Makes one wonder how climate alarmists will spin the winter of 2008 so as to keep alive their precious global warming myth. Fortunately, as NewsBusters has reported for many months, foreign press outlets are much more honest with their citizens than America's, as observed in this fabulous article in the Canadian National Post Monday (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer Oscar Goldman):

Barbara Walters was interviewing ABC "Ugly Betty" star Vanessa Williams in her pre-Oscar show last night and after discussing how she grew up as an overachiever because of her race, she asked:

WALTERS: Does the fact that Barack Obama is running for president have special meaning to you?

WILLIAMS: Uh, I'm very proud. I think it's such an exciting time, um, not only for Barack, but also for Hillary. I live in Chappaqua. She's my neighbor. The fact that she might be able to be the first female president – It's a no-lose situation, and I'm really, really excited that it's happening at this point.

The actress has apparently donated to Hillary in the past (and to Wesley Clark).

So much for Washington Post staff writer Manuel Roig-Franzia waxing poetic about the tech-savvy younger generation of Communists in Cuba. "Party Elders Triumph in Cuba," as Raul Castro has been formally named the new dictator, a February 25 Post headline informs readers. Party elders?! That's language suitable for a story about the role of  superdelegates in the presidential nomination process for the Democratic Party, not when describing window-dressing "elections" in one-party Communist dictatorships.

Roig-Franzia opened his article with a lament that a "younger generation" of Communists has been "bypassed" by the Geritol crowd:

HAVANA, Feb. 24 -- Cuba's revolutionary old guard consolidated its hold on power Sunday when the National Assembly bypassed a younger generation of politicians and named Fidel Castro's brother, Raúl, president and a hard-line communist first vice president.

It's an extraordinarily clever claim. It gets your attention. It's misleading. And of course, Old Media isn't questioning it.

I am referring to the following statement made by Barack Obama in radio ads currently running in Ohio and Texas:

Some CEOs make more in 10 minutes than some American workers make in a year.

In the full context of the ad, I believe that what Obama wants listeners to take away is that "Quite a few CEOs typically, year after year, make more in 10 minutes than some American workers make in a year."

But let's limit things to the literal wording. Start with a full-time minimum-wage worker who earns (rounded) $12,000 annually ($5.85 per hour times 2,080 hours is a bit more than that). How much would a CEO have to make in a year to be earning over $12,000 every 10 minutes?

In their post-Oscar coverage on Monday, Washington Post writers suggested that Hollywood's celebration of dark movies with dark characters has a political genesis, that it came from moviemakers depressed over the Bush re-election, Iraq, and global warming. In his front-page piece, reporter Hank Stuever theorized:

But these were dark movies -- the feel-bad films of the year -- conjured up in what movie people seem to collectively sense as grave times, hatched in producers' offices and on writers' laptops not long after the 2004 election and amid increasing setbacks in the Iraq war and gloomy environmental warnings. Some of the filmmakers and actors wore orange ribbons or rubber bracelets to protest alleged incidents of torture by the United States at its prison in Guantanamo Bay, and in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the subject of "Taxi to the Dark Side," which won Best Documentary Feature.

When not offering a surfeit of death and gloom, Academy nominees this year f