Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief, has been known to hail Palestinians as "victims" before. He has also been known often to blame Israel for all the ills suffered by Palestinians, so Fletcher is an expert at assigning blame while excusing the behavior of Palestinians. Here is a story that fits in perfectly with Fletcher's penchant for blaming everyone but the guilty party along with extolling the supposed victimhood of the Palestinians.

Fletcher's tale starts with the pitiful story of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot in the neck by an "Israeli soldier" paralyzing him from the waist down. He was shot because he and his other young friends were throwing rocks at Israeli security forces. Apparently, those security forces had had enough of that nonsense.

Journalists were giddy with excitement last week over Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama, but a Rasmussen poll taken in the days afterward, which FNC's Brit Hume highlighted early Tuesday night, discovered more said the endorsement made them less likely than more likely to back Obama. Hume relayed how “34 percent of Democrats surveyed said Kennedy's support would make them less likely to vote for Obama. Thirty-three percent said it had no impact. Only 30 percent said it would make them more likely to support the Illinois Senator.” And “if you throw in the Republicans and independents with the Democrats, the endorsement looks even more damaging” with 46 percent saying “the Kennedy nod makes them less likely to support Obama” and only 16 percent saying it made them more likely to vote for Obama.

The night of the endorsement, ABC's David Wright adopted campaign slogans as he enthused about how “today the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny. The Kennedy clan anointed Barack Obama a son of Camelot.” NBC's Lee Cowan radiated over how “the endorsement brought the Kennedy mystique to this campaign, not in a whisper, but a roar.”

Maybe it was a joke.

However, when a presidential candidate accuses one of the leading broadcast anchors of "getting too many memos from the Clinton camp," we at NewsBusters have to take notice...while we chuckle, of course.

Here's the setup: Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama was Brian Williams' guest on NBC's "Nightly News" Monday, and was asked: "Let's talk about the Latino vote. Could you admit now, as we are one day away from super Tuesday, you perhaps didn't take it -- the shot at it seriously enough?"

Obama offered viewers the following absolutely delicious response (video available here, relevant section at minute 1:29):

She wouldn't debate on Fox News before her nomination was considered inevitable.

However, now that the supposed heir to the throne, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), is in the fight for her political life with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), FNC doesn't look so bad.

Maybe Hillary thinks there are a lot more conservatives like Ann Coulter that will support her if Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wins the GOP nomination.

Regardless of her reasons, the junior senator, according to Fox News, has accepted an invitation to debate Obama on the supposedly conservative cable network (emphasis added):

Discuss the various elections taking place here or in the NB live chat. Some links to get everyone started:

• Chelsea Clinton violating election laws at Conn. polling place?
• Are Democrats headed toward a brokered convention?
• McCain accused of 'back room deal' with Huckabee in West Virginia
• Debunking the claim Ron Paul has widespread military support

At the top of Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," CBS Correspondent Chip Reid began the day’s Super Tuesday election coverage with a report that described the Democratic race this way: "With more than 20 states on the line, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are locked in a neck-and-neck sprint, campaigning almost around the clock. Focused, like voters, on the economy." Reid then went on to describe the Republican race:

REID: Mitt Romney, now well behind McCain in the national polls and trying to hang on, spent Monday in a frantic race from Tennessee to Georgia to Oklahoma to the big prize, California. Then through the night to West Virginia. All the while continuing his bitter feud with Mike Huckabee. Fighting for the same pool of southern conservatives, Huckabee accused Romney of trying to manipulate the election. Romney hit back hard.

MITT ROMNEY: First, a couple of rules in politics. One, no whining. And number two, you get them to vote for you.

REID: No whining in politics, those are fighting words. And one reason it's so bitter between Romney and Huckabee is that today one or both of them could be knocked out of this race.

As Mitt Romney tries to close the gap with John McCain before the voting on Super Duper Tuesday, New York Times reporter Michael Luo took an unsympathetic look at Romney's political makeover in Tuesday's "Meet the New Mitt Romney, The Anti-Insider Populist."

(Back on December 20, Luo wondered whether "Romney had jerked the wheel too hard to the right" in appealing to conservatives.)

Mitt Romney is leading a citizen revolution, or at least that is what he has been telling people these last few days as he has tries to right his bid for the Republican nomination.

There’s one little three-syllable word that has been left out of most of the Democratic primary coverage on the TV: "liberal." We’re constantly told by anchors and reporters how the Republican contenders are fighting over the "conservative" vote and who’s more "conservative," and that’s true. But exactly the same fight is taking place on the left side, with the Clintons trying to suggest Barack Obama’s not sufficiently liberal (he praised Ronald Reagan!) and Obama trying to take Hillary’s Iraq war vote and turn her into Rumsfeld in a black pantsuit.

But the news media cannot routinely bring themselves to say that word, "liberal." Obama landed a major victory in the who’s-more-liberal sweepstakes. He’s been endorsed by MoveOn.org, the screechy hard-left group that distinguished itself last year by taking out newspaper ads denouncing our commander in Iraq as "General Betray Us."

Standing outside "Good Morning America's" New York studio on Tuesday, Democratic supporters waved signs backing Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and, fittingly, weatherman Sam Champion. GMA viewers have long known that the ABC forecaster is an avid promoter of left-wing environmental causes, but to celebrate "National Weatherman's Day," Champion got a boost from fans of two other liberals.

Taking a break from chanting slogans for Obama and Clinton, the crowd momentarily held signs, given to them by ABC, reading "In Sam We Trust" and "Sam's Our Man." Co-host Diane Sawyer couldn't have been more pleased at the synergy. She extolled, "It's the Sam surge, taking over the race to '08!"

None of the Republican presidential candidates have a health care plan, according to “The View’s” Joy Behar, known for putting ideology over facts. On the February 5 edition, where Super Tuesday was the dominant subject, Elisabeth Hasselbeck told her struggles voting as a Republican in New York City. First, Joy Behar charged that Republicans “never mention health care.” After Hasselbeck noted the media just does not promote their plan, Behar responded in a mocking tone.

BEHAR: Your party never mentions health care. The Republicans never bring up the subject. I’ve been watching them. I watched every single debate.

SHEPHERD: Because they’re more on the spending on the war.

BEHAR: Why not even bring it up as a possible solution? Come up with- Republicans have their own ideas. What is their idea on health care? Nothing! Zero!

First, to be fair to Keith Olbermann, I personally doubt the MSNBC anchor harbors prejudicial sentiments towards Mexican-Americans, but really, can you imagine the ire, or very least wide-open speculation if say Don Imus had said this?:

New York Senator Clinton, an adopted Giants fan watched the game in Minnesota and told the Associated Press, quote, "Super Bowl, Super Tuesday, we've got one down, let's get the other." This as her husband watched the game in New Mexico with the former governor, or with the governor and former presidential Bill Richardson, possibly asking Richardson for an endorsement and then, "would you please pass the guacamole?"

Video from Feb. 4 "Countdown" (22 secs): Windows (1.25 MB), plus MP3 audio (149 kB).

Greg Pollowitz of NRO's Media Blog already beat me to the punch, but it bears repeating on NewsBusters. The only fresh angle I can bring to this is that, to my recollection, this is the first time Rosie O'Donnell has attempted an original blog post in prose. For the occasion she blamed President Bush for a nasty staph infection back in 2000.

I'm sure given enough time and inspiration from Joni Mitchell's greatest hits she can re-work her post into her groundbreaking poetry.

Without further ado, the relevant portion of her blog, unedited (lousy formatting left intact), with portions in bold reflecting my emphasis. Oh, by the way, what Rosie really wants you to get out of this anecdote is the importance of voting:

From the "a picture says a thousands words" file, take a gander at the New York Times' campaign graphic (right side of page, scroll down). It shows a happy and smiling Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama all of whom are smiling widely, showing teeth and looking quite inviting. Then comes the photo of Mitt Romney. For Mitt the NYT chose a picture with a closed-mouth, wry smile, looking down at the viewer, eyebrows heavily shadowed. Romney looks sinister compared to the photos the other three picked by the Times.

Now, why do you suppose that is? Could it be that they want to make Mitt look uncomfortable, or sinister? Can it be that the Times wants people to see Romney in a worse light compared to the others?

As I mentioned earlier today, Newsweek's Richard Wolffe has an article on Republicans for Obama. This is a little like Vegetarians for McDonald's. The star of this piece is "dedicated" Republican Susan Eisenhower, a granddaughter to the distinctly non-ideological president of the Fifties. There are two problems. First, she's not much of a Republican. Second, this is the second time she's starred in an anti-GOP Newsweek piece in this election cycle. Wolffe began: 

Susan Eisenhower is more than just another disappointed Republican. She is also Ike's granddaughter and a dedicated member of the party who has urged her fellow Republicans in the past to stick with the GOP. But now Eisenhower, who runs an international consulting firm, is endorsing Barack Obama. She has no plans to officially leave the Republican Party. But in Eisenhower's view, Obama is the only candidate who can build a national consensus on the issues most important to her—energy, global warming, an aging population and America's standing in the world.

I am hard pressed to call anything that happens in the Entertainment media "news," but Rolling Stone is reporting that singer John Cougar Mellencamp has told John McCain to stop using his music during McCain's campaign rallies.

At some recent John McCain campaign rallies, John Mellencamp’s “Our Country” and “Pink Houses” have been booming out over the speakers. Uplifting heartland rock must have seemed like a smart pick, but there’s just one problem: Mellencamp is an ardent Democrat. And, until recently, he supported John Edwards – who had been playing “Our Country” and “Small Town” at his rallies. Mellencamp hasn’t yet made a public response, but his reps are quietly reaching out to McCain and asking him to stop playing his tunes.

Aside from the general "who cares" of this incident, it is just one more example of the intolerance of the left in America today.Then again Johnny Cougar always was a guy that took himself waaaay too seriously.

Over this past summer, NewsBusters frequently pointed out to its readers that parts of the southern hemisphere were experiencing their coldest winters in more than a century.

Of course, a global warming obsessed media chose not to share such inconvenient truths with their patrons.

Now that summer has turned to winter in our hemisphere, will press outlets be able to be so selective in what weather information they share?

Take for example the following Reuters piece featured at Yahoo concerning China's harsh winter (emphasis added, h/t NBer MikeB):

The writers' strike is giving conservative fans of "24" a temporary reprieve from a maddening, preachy plots planned in the new season. So argues Bryan Preston at Hot Air, noting that Hollywood praises liberal anti-military, anti-war on terror fare like "Redacted," while it can't abide a pro-American, pro-war on terror far like "24," despite the latter being vastly more successful as a commercial enterprise than the former.

Preston notes that Day 7 of "24" opens by featuring lead character Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) defending his actions before a congressional committee that will doubtless rail against his methods in obtaining intelligence from terrorists. He notes this merely gives fictional liberal senators air time to echo arguments "24" fans here time and again from real life liberal politicians and the mainstream media (emphasis mine):

Here's something you don't see every day: a Republican publicly chastising one of the leading conservative voices in the nation.

After all, it's one thing for liberal media members across the fruited plain to bash talk radio's Rush Limbaugh.

But former Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole?

Well, hold on to your seats, for Politico reported late Monday (h/t NBer coffee260, emphasis added throughout):

National Review's Jonah Goldberg has a new book out, "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left," that argues essentially that liberalism is a sort of happy-faced fascism. It's a reasonable argument when one thinks about the endless crusades of liberal nanny-state promoters (state-run universal pre-K, the food police, anti-smoking zealots eager to stamp out smoking in bars, etc.).

Yet apparently online bookseller Amazon.com thinks it's something of a joke, categorizing the book among a list of best-selling parodies such as "The Zombie Survival Guide" and "Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition." (see screencap below page break):

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Obama and Romney take surprising leads in late California polls:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama surged to a big lead over Hillary Clinton in California hours before "Super Tuesday" voting began in 24 states, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Tuesday.

In the Republican race, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney held a 7-point advantage on Arizona Sen. John McCain in California, while McCain added to commanding double-digit leads in New York and New Jersey.

Here are some other numbers: