ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, a co-host of Wednesday night’s Democratic debate, quizzed presidential candidate Barack Obama about his relationship with William Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground, a radical group that conspired to bomb buildings such as the Pentagon in the 1970s.

Prefacing the issue under the “general theme of patriotism,” and previous questions about why Obama has, at times, refused to wear an American flag lapel pin, Stephanopoulos noted, “[Ayers] never apologized for [the bombings]. And in fact, on 9/11, he was quoted in the New York Times, saying, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.’” The ABC host pointedly observed that Obama’s campaign has described the relationship with Ayers as “friendly.” Stephanopoulos then asked, “Can you explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won’t be a problem?”

[UPDATE, from Brent Baker. The question enraged MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who charged at the start of his 10 PM EDT live post-debate second edition of Countdown: "The campaign may have seemed dirty. It had nothing on one of the moderators of the debate tonight." He soon elaborated on his anger at Stephanopoulos [audio here]:

The real story of his debate may not be found where they found the answers, but where one of the moderators found his questions: Sean Hannity of Fox News, and separately a local New York right wing radio host [presumably Steve Malzberg], each insisting during interviews this week with George Stephanopoulos of ABC that he ask Senator Obama about his tenuous past link to 60s and 70s terrorist radical William Ayers. Tonight, Stephanopoulos did that.]

A broadcast network anchor again worried Wednesday night about how much the ongoing Democratic primary battle “is hurting” the candidates and their chance to beat Republican John McCain in the fall. After CBS's Bob Schieffer pointed out how a new ABC News/Washington Post poll found the percent who consider Hillary Clinton to be “honest and trustworthy” has fallen from 52 to 39 percent over the past year, Couric fretted: “How much do you think this infighting is hurting both candidates?” Schieffer confirmed the fighting is “taking a toll on the Democrats” as he marveled at how McCain is even with the two Democrats despite Bush's very low approval rating:

Oh, I think there's no question about that. Look, Katie, 82 percent of the American people in recent polls have said they believe the country's headed in the wrong direction. George Bush now has his lowest approval rating yet. It's only 28 percent. And yet when you match either of these Democrats against John McCain, you show that they're running about even. There's no question that this is taking a toll on the Democrats. Both of them.

In light of the brouhaha surrounding Barack Obama's comments about high unemployment in small towns making Americans "cling to guns, or religion," one has to wonder whether press outlets are going to go gaga over derogatory statements Hillary Clinton made in 1995 about working-class white southerners.

This is especially the case given how media ignored revelations about Bill Clinton's 1991 and 1992 campaign remarks about "economically insecure white people."

As reported by the Huffington Post's Sam Stein Wednesday (emphasis added, picture courtesy AP):

The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld Kentucky's lethal injection procedure for capital punishment. The decision will likely end self-imposed death penalty moratoriums in several states. As of writing this article, Virginia had already lifted its moratorium.

The decision had been long-awaited by advocates on both sides of the death penalty debate. Court prognosticators had mostly believed the court would uphold Kentucky's lethal injection program. But it was a surprise to many that the affirmance came with a 7-2 vote. The Roberts court has been known for a series of contentious 5-4 splits of any number of decisions, often with Justice Kennedy being the key swing vote.

In the Roberts court a 7-2 decision is a landslide, but that did not stop Associated Press writer Mark Sherman from describing that the "splintered Supreme Court cleared the way" for the resumption of capital punishment.

We have another incident of empty showboating by a college kid who imagines herself to be making "art" and a "statement" by placing American flags on the floor in hopes that people would disrespect them enough to walk upon them. One Miss Susan Crane of the University of Maine at Farmington decided that her "art" was going to be an exercise in desecration. Keep your eye on this and see if the MSM will cover it. It is just starting to make the blog rounds.

Unfortunately, all we have is another disrespectful kid doing the same thing that a dozen other disrespectful kids have done at anti-American campuses across the country over the last 40 years or so. There isn't a thing "new" or even unexpected about it at this point. This makes her "statement" empty and pointless. But Crane has been fooled by her anti-American professors into imagining she is sparking a "conversation" about patriotism and the flag.

Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," has ticked off Chris Matthews. On Wednesday's "Hardball" Matthews insulted Limbaugh's listeners, who are voting in the Democratic primary, as he questioned: "What kind of klutz do you have to be to take orders on how to vote from Rush Limbaugh and to change your party identity so that you can vote against, for somebody to screw the other party?"

The following discussion occurred at the top of the show on the April 16, edition of "Hardball."

JOHN BAER, PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS: And we have seen evidence in Pennsylvania of the kind of thing that was rumored earlier in the campaign which is Republicans changing their registration in order to vote. As you know in Pennsylvania you have to be a Democrat to vote in the primary. There has been evidence that, that's happened in Pennsylvania.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: To do what?

BAER: The Republicans have gone over, have gone over--

MATTHEWS: You mean strategic voting?

BAER: Strategic voting and vote for Hillary to get her on the ballot because--

MATTHEWS: You mean "Ditto-Heads." "Ditto-Heads!"

Discuss the debate as it happens here on this thread or in our live NB chat. The faceoff airs tonight on ABC stations at 8pm ET, 7 Central. For West Coast airing times, check your local ABC affiliate's web site.

Some of the toughest competition American businesses face comes not from other companies, but from the media. Journalists often exaggerate an issue to make a story sexier. Other times, "consumer groups" work with the media to advance an anti-business agenda.

All too often, those exaggerations or manipulations result in lost jobs, lost revenue, unfounded health scares, unnecessary government intervention or even the death of millions of innocent victims.

The Business & Media Institute has compiled a lit of the Nine Worst Business Stories. The list illustrates the lengths to which the media have gone in the last 50 years to attack agriculture, restaurants, the automobile industry, chemical manufacturers and health care.

It also details the ill effects of those stories, which range from "Oprah's Beef with Beef" to Connie Chung's silicone scare to Wendy's "Finger Food" to the infamous "Dateline" exploding trucks, to coverage that resulted in a ban on DDT. Relive foul Food Lion, rolling Jeeps, accelerating Audis and Alar on apples with video from most of the reports!

Check out the list, then come back to NewsBusters to add your comments and suggestions for other bad business coverage!

If you didn't know any better, you might think ABC correspondent Lisa Stark has a personal vendetta against airline mergers.

For the second consecutive night, Stark gave viewers every reason to oppose a merger between Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) and Northwest Airlines (NYSE:NWA) on the April 15 "World News with Charles Gibson." This time it came in the form of opposition on Capitol Hill.

"But there was swift opposition," ABC correspondent Lisa Stark said. "A powerful lawmaker from Minnesota, where Northwest is based, called it one of the worst developments in aviation history."

MSNBC has refused to air a dishonest anti-gun ad:

The cable network MSNBC has refused to air an advertisement from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group created by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg,on the grounds that the ad is too "controversial."

The ad, below, features each of the three leading presidential candidates pledging to make it harder to buy guns at gun shows, and images of three mayors urging viewers to call Congress and ask that a bill closing the "gun-show loophole" be passed.

The ad is airing on CNN and Fox, and on affiliates around the country, a Bloomberg aide said.

One man's pork spending is another's "relative bargain" according to the "Follow the Money" segment on the April 15 "CBS Evening News."

The newscast commemorated Tax Day by featuring what federal tax dollars are spent on, but what they chose to highlight was peculiar.

"The biggest tab for taxpayers is defense," CBS correspondent Bob Orr reported. "The average American household is paying $2,761 in 2007 - or put another way, enough to cover 12 car payments for a new Honda Accord. Social security is nearly as expensive, $2,663 - enough to heat and cool a home for a year. In total, the average tax bill this year tops $13,000 and most taxpayers have no idea what the government is doing with their cash."

During a panel discussion on the April 9 edition of "The Situation Room," CNN’s Jack Cafferty described the Chinese government as "basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." In response, according to a report from the Associated Press from April 15, "China demanded an apology from CNN." "‘We are shocked and strongly condemn the vicious remarks by Cafferty,’ Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. ‘We solemnly request CNN and Cafferty himself take back the malicious remarks and apologize to the Chinese people.’"

Cafferty had also blasted China for the substandard quality of many of the products that it exports from the U.S. "[W]e continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart."

Can you predict a person's politics based on the food they eat? Yes, according to the New York Times:

If there’s butter and white wine in your refrigerator and Fig Newtons in the cookie jar, you’re likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Prefer olive oil, Bear Naked granola and a latte to go? You probably like Barack Obama, too. And if you’re leaning toward John McCain, it’s all about kicking back with a bourbon and a stuffed crust pizza while you watch the Democrats fight it out next week in Pennsylvania.

If what we eat says a lot about who we are, it also says something about how we might vote.

Although precincts and polls are being parsed, the political advisers to the presidential candidates are also looking closely at consumer behavior, including how people eat, as a way to scavenge for votes. The practice is called microtargeting, as much political discipline as buzzword. The idea is that in the brand-driven United States, what we buy and how we spend our free time is a good predictor of our politics.

Thank heavens. Pope Benedict XVI has finally stepped off of Shepherd One onto American soil to begin a six day visit that is sure to be everything the American left hopes to make it out to be. The media is working overtime to resurrect old wounds, create some new controversies and repeat liberal talking points that so perfectly judges a man as only the selective memory of liberal hypocrisy has the ability to do.

And just in time too. What better way to take the pressure off of Barack Obama’s Rev. JeremiahWright controversy than to reignite the flames of the Catholic Church priest sex scandal? Finally, a target has appeared that is worthy of the left’s criticism and utter disdain. If only he had visited 2 or 3 weeks back.

I had at one time thought that the mainstream media had been pretty well represented by articles filled with your typical leftist anti-Christian/anti-Pope Benedict slant. To see examples of such bias we need only stop by the magnifying glass of Wikipedia. Their archive and discussion pages are unique in the way in which they channel common themes that circulate in the public realm of the left; a sort of lib-cyclopedia if you will.

Los Angeles Times reporter and blogger Andrew Malcolm drew an interview on MSNBC Tuesday for his report at Top of the Ticket that Oprah Winfrey is suffering in popularity due to her endorsement and campaigning for Barack Obama. (MSNBC also blamed a popular YouTube video called The Church of Oprah Exposed). Malcolm and Don Frederick reported that while Oprah certainly boosted Obama’s star power, it came with a price:

But little attention has been paid to the effect of Obama on Oprah. Now along comes Costas Panagopoulos, an assistant professor of political science at New York's Fordham University, to ask and answer just that question.

Writing at Politico.com, he suggested Winfrey has paid a price for getting into the dirty business of politics. By August 2007, a CBS poll found her favorable rating had dropped, from 74% to 61%. Recently, her rating dipped a bit more, to 55%.

Imagine for a moment you're an upscale realtor in the exclusive southeastern part of France called "Provence" driving around with a couple of well-healed prospective buyers hoping to see gorgeous vistas on a sunny, April day only to get caught in a snow storm.

What would you do?

Well, the manager of a British real estate company called VEF, whose office is in Haute Provence, was so angered by this that he wrote a complaint letter to the General Manager of Global Warming in Europe (uncontrollable laughter alert, emphasis added):

Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom is something of a throwaway feature that senior editor Jonathan Alter could easily churn out in between his morning constitutional and brushing his teeth.

His choices are almost always reliably liberal, as his recent takes on Pope Benedict XVI and Vice President Dick Cheney reflect.

Alter gave the pontiff a sideways arrow on April 16 for his U.S. trip. It's dripping with the usual talking points in the liberal media:

Tag is a violent game that should not be allowed says "View" co-host Joy Behar. Discussing the game’s suspension at an elementary school in McLean, Virginia on the April 16 edition, Elisabeth Hasselbeck felt kids needed an outlet, like playing, to get out their aggression. Behar instead advocated a "psycho-drama technique where you reverse roles with the other child." Whoopi Goldberg then jumped in to note the absurdity of Behar’s argument.

GOLDBERG: They don’t care about this. They just want to play, why not?

BEHAR: But they’re hitting.

GOLDBERG: No, you adults are saying they’re hitting. They’re playing! They’re having fun!

Barbara Walters also defended the school adding that they said the game had grown out of hand and was becoming dangerous for the children. The entire transcript is below.

If Barack Obama is looking for proof there are indeed bitter Americans out there, he need look no further than across the kitchen table.

Morning Joe opened today with a clip of Michelle Obama on the stump that I can only call stunning. By her tone, and her language both verbal and physical, this is one angry lady. The transcript below doesn't begin to convey Mrs. Obama's apparent rage.

That Bill Clinton was elected twice is proof that an angry wife is no bar to office. But Michelle Obama's level of ire can certainly be no asset on the campaign trail. Morning Joe did air it, but just how much MSM coverage will we see of what I would sincerely call an astounding piece of video?