Who cares if our next president has chosen as his "spiritual guide" someone who calls on God to damn America, and believes the US brought 9-11 on itself? Completely off track! Let's get back to the important stuff. You know, like the fine print of the candidate's plan to nationalize health care.

That in a nutshell is Anderson Cooper's kvetch about the controversy over the outrageous statements made by Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., the pastor of Barack Obama's church and the man Obama has described as his spiritual guide and advisor.

Cooper made his comments on his 360 show this evening.

ANDERSON COOPER: Is this just the kind of thing that happens in campaigns? It seems we're almost at a point now where it's this or other issues for the Clinton campaign where people are just latching onto anything to strike a blow against their opponent. All this seems to have nothing to do with actual issues that the country is facing which these candidates should be talking about and we probably should be talking about.

And a bit later . . .

OK, folks, grab the popcorn and settle in for this hilarious tale of union against union. It's an epic battle of lies, underhandedness, brute force, and sweetheart deals that pits the California Nurses Association (CNA) against the Services Employees International Union (SEIU). The two unions are at each other's throats for the prize of representing employees in the Catholic hospitals of the state of Ohio.

Oh, it’s a battle royal, all right. But for the most part the MSM is ignoring this story. One wonders why the media isn’t too interested in it? It has everything the media generally loves. It has back room deals, lies, and strong words against each other on every side of the issue, conflict galore. But I suppose this fight between unions makes them both look bad, so the MSM isn’t interested. After all, the media’s pro-union agenda takes a hit in reporting THIS one, for sure.

 

 

Thanks to Newsbusters for posting this Editors Favorites link:

Rhodes and bloggers blame Bush for Spitzer's downfall (RadioEqualizer)

 

When I read this, I noticed why it is that Ms. Rhodes thinks the Bush Administration "set-up" Elliot Spitzer.

But the idea that the guy who ran the escort service that caused Eliot
Spitzer to get caught that this man was an enrolled IRS agent . . .

Now, on the face of it, this seems to mean that the man was an IRS employee. However, Ms. Rhodes demonstrates her ignorance of the facts with her assumption. An enrolled agent is merely someone who has passed the IRS examination to prepare taxes. Got that Randi? Your BDS is causing you to leap to conclusions.

 

Update: Don't expect Obama to repudiate these remarks.  He still hasn't addressed his friendship with the terrorists of the Weather Underground. 

Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been Obama's pastor for 20 years.  Obama named his book, "Audacity of Hope" after a sermon of his, and he and his wife were married by the pastor.  He is even a part of Obama's campaign.

Now video has surfaced of Rev. Wright preaching a very radical message where he accuses the government of creating drugs and giving them to the poor, creating AIDS to destroy blacks, and blaming America for 9/11. 

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

NewsBusters readers are well aware of our contention that the press have adopted the 1992 strategy of making every economic report look like the world is coming to an end, and we'll all be in soup lines next year if the Democrat presidential candidate isn't inaugurated in January.

No finer example is available than Thursday's Associated Press article concerning February's very disappointing retail sales report. To be sure, store traffic was much worse than expected last month, and we are not trying to paint a rosy picture.

However, there are two truly disturbing elements in Martin Crutsinger's piece entitled "Retail Sales Plunge by 0.6 Percent" (h/t NBer Par for the Course):

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, substitute NBC Nightly News anchor Ann Curry and reporter Mike Taibbi failed to identify disgraced outgoing New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat, but on Thursday night Curry finally informed NBC viewers of the party affiliation -- a fact network journalists always consider relevant when a Republican gets caught in scandalous behavior. Curry set up a story on incoming Governor David Paterson by uttering the word she's avoided all week:

Now to the fast moving developments in the wake of the revelations that New York's Democratic Governor, Eliot Spitzer, was a client of a prostitution service. NBC's Mike Taibbi now with the man who's to take over for Spitzer on Monday.

But, reverting to her default conduct, in an item about the passing of very liberal ex-Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Curry never mentioned his ideology or party as she hailed his life as “the classic American success story” of a man who “always fought for the little guy, taking on the oil and insurance industries” while he “stuck to his populist principles.”

Even Tucker Carlson, MSNBC's uninhibited house libertarian, was a bit taken aback. But good Dem Bill Press has had the, um, gumption to say what others may have thought about Hillary Clinton: that she has "balls of brass."

Press's comment came on this evening's Tucker in the course of a discussion of Clinton's shameless assertion that the Michigan primary was "fair" despite the fact that the DNC had agreed it wouldn't count and that Obama's name did not even appear on the ballot.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know this term "Orwellian"? Everything's "Orwellian." But rarely do you hear a statement that is in fact Orwellian. That actually reaches the threshold of "war is peace," "hate is love" and it's this right here. Hillary Clinton talking about the Potemkin primaries in Michigan and Florida and saying this: "If you're a voter from Florida or Michigan, you know that we should count your votes. The results of those primaries were fair and should be honored." They were fair in Michigan? Barack Obama was not on the ballot!

View video here.

That shadowy, vast right-wing conspiracy in the Ivy League has done it again. Economists at Harvard have found a link between negative media coverage of Iraq and an emboldening of insurgents.

Hot Air has more:

Caveats aplenty — the data didn’t include Baghdad, there’s no way to tell if attacks increased because of the rhetoric or were just re-timed to coincide with it — but to no one’s surprise except possibly the left’s, “U.S. out of Iraq” does indeed create an incentive for jihadis to try to push the U.S. out of Iraq.

Allahpundit wonders if the media will report on "this rather media-unfriendly finding" or if it creates an "incentive for the press to at least include more pro-war voices in its coverage?"

On Thursday night’s "Hardball," Chris Matthews compared Barack Obama's writing abilities to those of the great American writer Mark Twain. Prompted by Philadelphia radio talk show host Michael Smerconish’s praise of Obama's first book "Dreams From My Father," the "Hardball" host effused: "It's almost like Mark Twain. It's so American, it's so textured."

The following exchange occurred on the March 13 edition of MSNBC’s "Hardball:"

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I think that this argument that he's an empty suit is gonna get tested and proven false. I just finished and have spent all week long, reading to my radio audience excerpts of "Dreams From My Father," Barack Obama's first book. And I'm telling your audience on "Hardball," if you want to know what makes this guy tick forget the grandiose, highfalutin speeches this is the real deal.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Great book.

As Nobel Laureate Al Gore travels the world warning nations of imminent peril at the hands of global warming, a really inconvenient truth has transpired.

The winter of 2008 was the coldest in seven years.

Hey Al, I gotcha global warming right heeeere!</Brooklyn accent>

As deliciously reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration moments ago (emphasis added, h/t NBer tropicalreport):

Appearing on the March 12 edition of "The Colbert Report," Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz discussed the media’s fawning coverage of Barack Obama, noting Chris Matthews famous "thrill going up my leg" comment when hearing Senator Obama. Kurtz comically stated "we don’t know how high that thrill went." Host Stephen Colbert replied "that thrill is what you call ‘the hardball.’ [see video here]

Kurtz noted the mainstream media’s excitement over Obama and felt they got a little bit tougher when "Saturday Night Live" parodied the pro-Obama bias. When Colbert noted the press probably loved to talk about the potential bias because they got to talk about themselves. Kurtz conceded "we are a very self absorbed profession."

Amy Menefee also wrote on the Kurtz interview noting that the big three networks are still relevant and opining that journalists put their "feelings aside."

The transcript is below.

Who's watching the watchers? Well, the Media Research Center, and Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz says he's "sort of like the internal affairs cop." But just how tough is he? You can be the judge reading his column.

"We try to hold them accountable, exactly what they do to politicians - why did you do that? Why did you make that mistake? Why did you jump the gun?" said Kurtz, who's also the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources," in a March 12 appearance on "The Colbert Report." Kurtz was on to plug his new book, "Reality Show," about television news.

Host Stephen Colbert baited him: "The three big anchors still really matter, and I agree. ...Who are they, again?"

My colleague Brent Baker has painstakingly documented how the big three broadcast networks have gone out of their way to avoid labeling scandal-scarred New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a “Democrat.” An examination of the fifteen ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows through Wednesday night finds Spitzer was called a Democrat just 20% of the time — twice on CBS, once on ABC, and never on NBC.

So how do the networks treat Republicans involved in sex scandals? Always, always as Republicans, and as problems for their party.

Last July, Louisiana Senator David Vitter’s name surfaced in the phone records of the “DC Madam,” Deborah Jean Palfrey. Over the next week, ABC talked about Vitter twice on World News and twice on Good Morning America, labeling him as a “Republican” or “conservative Republican” all four times.

From the ridiculous to the absurd

Contemplating the Switch

Those of us who have been participating in the Eliot Spitzer Media Waiting Game -- halting our respitory activity in anticipation of the Jurassic Press actually ascribing Party affiliation to the recently resigned Big Apple Governor -- can finally breathe easy.

The Agence-France Presse and Yahoo! have teamed up to finally do what's right.

Only they do it so VERY wrong.

After getting a huge amount of publicity for accusing the media elite of being "in the tank for Obama," the popular NBC show "Saturday Night Live" is trying now to combat allegations that it is biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times reports:

Executive producer Lorne Michaels has long maintained that the show risks its comedy credentials if it appears partisan. So he is troubled by the recent chatter that the venerable late-night program has exhibited a pro- Hillary Clinton bent.

"That's a major concern," Michaels said. "I can assure you that there's no agenda, that there's only a reaction to what's going in the world."

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith talked about race in the Democratic presidential campaign with Republican Ron Christie, author of "Black in the White House," and the Politico's Mike Allen, who declared that: "...there's a certain percentage of what Geraldine Ferraro said that's simply factual, and that is the pioneering nature of Senator Obama's candidacy is clearly part of his appeal. But there's a certain part of it that's very dark, right, the Archie Bunker side."

Just prior to this odd comparison, Allen explained that: "Until now, we had been looking at the historic side of race and gender in this race. But with this episode, these clips we just saw, we're seeing the dark side of it." Allen’s analysis of Ferraro’s "Archie Bunker dark side" followed yesterday’s "Early Show" coverage, which fawned over Obama while interrogating Ferraro.

Allen was not done yet, when asked by Smith, "...is there any safe harbor here?" Allen responded by observing: "One of the most interesting discoveries in exit polls, is among voters for whom race is most important, they're voting for Senator Clinton. That shows you something very ugly is going on out there."

In Spring of 2007, magazines such as Vanity Fair and Elle offered readers ways to "green" their lives and help the environment. Now, the April issue of Glamour brings readers another "57 Little Ways to Save the Planet."

Announcing "Mother Earth needs our help," the article begins by accusing "we use too much fuel (which causes pollution), chop down too many trees, conserve too little water; toss too much waste into landfills."

Glamour tells readers it has consulted its "panel of experts" and come up with the best small ways to fight "these major problems." Of course, Glamour's "panel of experts" is comprised mostly of members of radical left-wing environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

In the latest entry on his "Outposts" blog at nytimes.com, former New York Times reporter Timothy Egan tells a potentially interesting tale about the Irish of Butte, Mont. Apparently "the city had a higher percentage of Irish than any other in America -- including Boston."

But Egan, the Times's former Pacific Northwest correspondent, also uses "Outposts" as a convenient tree-stand from which to target prominent conservatives, and he used a ten-year old conversation to slam unnamed Fox News hosts (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity?) and revere JFK. (In February Egan called Rush Limbaugh "talk radio's leading gasbag.")

It is only when the Irish forget about the underdog, as the keeper of the graves said, that they stray. In the 1930s, there was Father Charles Coughlin, a virulent anti-Semite who had a radio audience larger than that of Rush Limbaugh's today. He used his microphone for hate. In the 1950s, another man with a link to Ireland, Senator Joseph McCarthy, twined ignorance and fear to make a mockery of congressional inquiry. Today, there are television bullies with Irish surnames on Fox, backing more tax cuts for hedge fund managers, and doing everything they can to keep the poorest of Americans from getting health care.