During a story suggesting that Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of the mortgage company Countrywide, is unworthy of his millions of dollars and perhaps enjoys too much time lying in the sun, ABC's Dan Harris, possibly not picking up on the former CEO's Italian ethnicity which could be the source of his skin's dark complexion, remarked that Mozilo's "deeply tanned face" could become the "face of the mortgage mess." The story ran on Friday's World News with Charles Gibson, substitute hosted by George Stephanopoulos, with Harris beginning his report: "This may well become the deeply tanned face of the mortgage mess. The face belongs to Angelo Mozilo, the once-celebrated CEO of Countrywide, now facing allegations of predatory lending and rapacious greed." Harris also ended the report seeming to lament that Mozilo is not facing foreclosure on any of his homes: "If the sale [of Countrywide] goes through, Mozilo will walk away with about $40 million. And with not one of his homes in foreclosure." (Transcript follows)

If elected, Arizona Senator John McCain would be the first President in the history of the United States who wasn't born in the USA.

John McCain (as reported by Jack Cafferty (Video)) is said to have been born in the Panama Canal Zone, but was he?

McCain claims eligibility to hold the office of the President by virtue of his birthplace, he says, on a US Military Base. McCain claims he was born on the Coco Solo Naval Installation in the Canal Zone. But, is that even possible given that the Coco Solo Naval Hospital wasn't built until after 1941 when FDR commissioned the land on which it was to be built? That's at least 5 years after McCain was supposedly born there.

On Thursday's The Situation Room on CNN, Time magazine's managing editor, Richard Stengel, suggested that the 1961 Bay of Pigs attempt to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro should not have been planned, as he assigned some of the blame for the fiasco to President Eisenhower for planning it in the first place. During a discussion of the importance of experience for a new President, Stengel contended: "John Kennedy, when he was first elected, very inexperienced President, got us into the Bay of Pigs. Terrible mistake. But who planned the Bay of Pigs? Dwight Eisenhower." (Transcript follows)

Employing children in military units, much less terrorist outfits, is a slam dunk case of human rights abuse. But not to Reuters, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs notes:

Just when you think the mainstream wire services can’t possibly debase themselves any further, they release a photograph like this one, taken by Reuters Palestinian propagandist Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, with an unbelievably sick and distorted caption:

God bless the troops – those wife abusers? That was the conflicted message emanating from Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Charlie Rose on PBS stations last Thursday night. Rose ran Pelosi through the usual list of anti-war talking points, and the Speaker suggested our troops are riddled with "mental challenges" and domestic violence, just seconds after blessing the troops:

CHARLIE ROSE: Some argue that the sacrifice had been primarily by the men and women in the armed services and their families. And part of the reason that we ought not go to war, in which the American people are not asked to sacrifice behind the military.

NANCY PELOSI : Well, the one percent of our population is feeling this in a very personal way. And that`s just not fair. The shared sacrifice -- what did we do? We went to war, and the president gave a tax cut to the wealthiest people in America instead of saying we’re going to have a shared sacrifice here so everyone knows what the cost of this war is.

The newspaper that endorsed McCain, once again tries to stir him up. McCain’s temper is one characteristic he needs to watch carefully if he wants to win this. (See Video Here)

Politico:

Bumiller, who took over the McCain beat from Marc Santora in January, quoted a 2004 story in which McCain said the Kerry meeting never happened, according to ABC News. McCain, whose temper does flare up at times, told Bumiller that everyone already knows this story, despite her persistent questioning.

Brietbart:

Republican Sen. John McCain, showing a flash of the temper he is known for, repeatedly cut off a reporter Friday when asked whether he had spoken to Democratic Sen. John Kerry about being his vice president in 2004.

Look out! Here comes a liberal media feud. On his MSNBC program every night, host Dan Abrams hosts a media-criticism segment called "Beat the Press." On Thursday night, Abrams heavily implied ABC’s Jake Tapper is a plagiarist, stealing snarky lines from Jon Stewart. We dislike Tapper putting too much snark in the breakfast buffet. But if you’re going to level a serious charge like plagiarism, you better not take your target out of context. Guess what? Abrams did. Take a look:

ABRAMS: Finally, you have to wonder sometimes whether the folks at ABC News, they get all their material from their own heads, they come up with it. Here's Jon Stewart on CNN over two weeks ago talking about the Democrats and how they allocate delegates, and then ABC’s Jake Tapper.

STEWART: Feel better. Have a delegate and a trophy saying you're number one.

TAPPER: Democrats distribute them proportionately. It’s kinda like T-ball where every child gets a trophy.

Raul Castro gestures during a meeting of the National Assembly in Havana, February 24, 2008. Photo Reuters/Prensa Latina/Pool

[H/t: TS III and the Life of Rubin. Video below the fold.]

The Media, as Sisyphus, Unwinding its Terror Tale

There is a push by the Jurassic Press -- in two directions at once -- to frame just-so their presentation of the murder and murderers engaged in the attempted global implementation of political Islam.

One such shove was again demonstrated by the New York Times this past February 13th. The Media attempt to present these bits of human flotsam -- and their family members and friends -- in the most sympathetic of possible lights. The Times portrayal of the mourning father and grandfather of recently rubbed out Hezbollah serial assassin Imad Mugniyah -- responsible for amongst many other atrocities the 1983 bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut (American death count 241) is nothing more than another attempt to humanize these inhuman creatures.

The other Press effort underway is the minimization of the evil of these acts and actors. There is even a feel to some of these reports that those delivering them almost do not wish to have to do so, but are forced to by circumstances and forces (the Internet, anyone?) beyond their control.

Key facts that would exhibit the depths of barbarism mined by these men (and women and, sadly, their bloodletting-by-proxy children) are left out.

For years, NewsBusters and the Business & Media Institute have regularly complained about the abysmal financial coverage offered by the mainstream press while accusing media of consistently painting a negative -- and oftentimes fallacious! -- picture of the economy.

On Friday, a perfect example of such was illustrated by the Associated Press whose article about the February unemployment data just released by the Labor Department grossly misrepresented what was announced.

In fact, the AP's Jeannine Aversa actually fabricated data that went completely contrary to what was reported. Take a close look at paragraph two of Aversa's article published at Yahoo at 9:39AM (emphasis added):

While the news media concentrates almost all of its attention on the presidential races, one Senate challenger has gotten serious coverage – the silly one. Radio Equalizer, one of the Internet’s funniest Franken-bashing blogs, passes along the latest news of left-wing comedian/Senate aspirant Al Franken failing to live up to the basic government requirements of a businessman. From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

DFL Senate candidate Al Franken owes a $25,000 penalty to the New York State Workers' Compensation Board for failing to carry workers' compensation insurance for employees of his namesake corporation from 2002 to 2005, state officials said.

New York officials have made numerous attempts to contact Franken about the matter since April 2005 but have gotten no reply.

Over the weekend, on Fox News' "Geraldo At Large," actor/comedian Richard Belzer declared his hope for Barack Obama to redefine America from the "warmongering," "far right," "intolerant," atmosphere-"raping", poor-"demonizing" nation that it's become under the Bush administration. Prompted by host Rivera to reveal his choice in the 2008 campaign the "Law and Order" star took off on the following anti-Bush/pro-Obama tirade:

We've been redefined for seven years now as a war-mongering, far right, intolerant nation who's raping our own atmosphere and demonizing the poor and letting the banks rob us blind. I think if, any incremental move away from that would be a Godsend. And I think Obama will, at the very least, put the brakes on this madness and in some ways heal it. Another thing, if I may Geraldo, being a man of color, I think the rest of the world, if they see that America elects a man of color I think they'll breathe a big sigh of relief and not think that we're this warmongering, rich white guy country.

The following is the full exchange as it occurred on the March 2, edition of Fox News’ Geraldo At Large:

Update below (18:45 EDT | March 10).

It happens from time to time, believe me. You're going over your Web site and what do you see but a product or service advertised that, to be charitable, conflicts with your mission, or otherwise is just plain embarrassing. It's the nature of having third-party advertising arrangements, and usually you can get these things resolved with an e-mail or two to your Web ad provider.

So it struck us as humorous when anti-Fox News blog News Hounds -- slogan: We watch FOX so you don't have to. -- was caught with an ad for FoxBusiness.com. (h/t Tim Graham)

Oh, it gets better. On the right-hand sidebar, there's another Fox Biz ad and, wait for it, it comes above an "Advertise Liberally" logo:

While members of the media are often pleased when Republicans fight amongst themselves, it's apparently not so fun to see Democrats do the same thing. On Friday's "Good Morning America," George Stephanopoulos appeared and pleaded for calm in the increasingly contentious battle between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The ABC journalist and former top aide to Bill Clinton proclaimed, "Well, the bottom line is that it's time for a time-out."

Later in the piece, as though refereeing a fight, he declared, "I think there's going to have to be a pulling back from this kind of rhetoric." Co-host Robin Roberts shared that assessment. Earlier, she lamented, "You're just watching this and you're shaking your head a little bit...I mean, it just seems like it's getting a little bit out of hand."

"NBC Nightly News" has found yet another hardship story caused by the credit crunch - prospective college students seeking student loans.

The March 6 "Nightly News" aired a segment about how a lack of funding for student lenders will cause some students not to be able to attend their first choice of college.

"More than a dozen lenders have pulled out of the federal student loan program, unable to raise enough money to make loans," NBC correspondent Tom Costello said. "Now - Pennsylvania, Missouri, Michigan, New Hampshire and Iowa have suspended parts or all of their student loan programs - unprecedented."

Here's is the core information the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa had to work with today in the Employment Situation Report released by the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS):

The "Dec.-Feb. change" column was added by me, but is easily calculated from the data in the BLS report. What Aversa did with this info, and my comments, are after the jump. (see also Noel Sheppard's post here)

Here's how her report began (scare words in bold; the headline is also from AP):

We reported last October the story of reporter Rebecca Aguilar of Fox 4 in Dallas, Texas who confronted and badgered an elderly victim of several robberies who responded to his attackers with deadly force. Aguilar was seen in her interview keeping the poor fellow from shutting his car door as she accusingly asked the man if he was "a trigger happy person" because he had killed the robbers who accosted him.

Well, we have an update on this pushy, unfeeling reporter, It seems she's been fired.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Republican Party leads Democrats in fund-raising:

The Democratic National Committee ended 2007 nearly flat broke, with cash of $2.9 million and debts of $2.2 million. Since then it has raised some money, paid down debt and managed to put $3.7 million in its piggy bank. This compares, however, with $25 million that the Republican National Committee has in cash on hand, after having raised $97 million since the beginning of 2007.

Does this make a difference in the calculus concerning November? More to the point, despite media and Democrat assertions that the GOP is in a lot of trouble, have such prognostications been as accurate as Hillary's inevitability? Do these numbers make some of the conservative Nervous Nellies less anxious about Republican chances on Election Day?

As reported by NewsBusters earlier, Michelle Obama debased America by characterizing it as a mean nation of "cynics, sloths, and complacents". Although this sort of talk is becoming a theme for Michelle-O she wasn't the first Obama to call America mean. A similar sentiment was echoed by Barack Obama in 1995 as he tried to rally the African-American vote for his Senate run after the Million Man March.

"This doesn't suggest that the need to look inward emphasized by the march isn't important, and that these African-American tribal affinities aren't legitimate. These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."

"But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build." (t.t. - all emphasis mine)