In a head spinning effort to make McCain the bad guy of a story, CNN has taken the voiced support for Barack Obama by the terrorist organization Hamas and turned it into a finger pointing at Republican John McCain for being mean to Obama. Talk about spin, CNN has really done a doosie here. Taking the words of the terrorists in Hamas and placing them in McCain's mouth is simply unbelievable. But that's exactly what they've done.

CNN's Political Ticker Blog showed us some gymnastics worthy of the Olympics -- or more correctly a contortionist -- to turn the words of a terrorist into those of John McCain in their ridiculously titled post, "McCain camp says Hamas wants Obama."

Let's give them an "A" for feeling, but an "F" for history. Photographer Rowan Benum captured an amusing sign at a Pro-Tibet rally in California not long ago and it says loads about our fetid educational system in the US these days. History isn't one of the better understood subjects, but feelings are there in spades.

Of course, we understand the sentiment. The Nazis now serve as the single worst example of human evil. Say someone is a Nazi and you can't get a worse epithet. And the left in the US just loves to throw that name around at whom ever they don't like. Bush is a "Nazi," Bill O'Reilly is a "Nazi," conservatives are "Nazis," etc., etc.

On Saturday, NewsBusters reported that former White House advisor Karl Rove recently sent a letter to MSNBC's Dan Abrams asking him to identify exactly what investigative research was done to verify allegations by the network that Rove was involved in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

On Thursday's "Verdict," Abrams told his audience, "Karl Rove has sent me an angry five-page letter," but chose not to share ANY of its contents, or address ANY of the 58 questions posed to him by Rove in the correspondence.

Instead, Abrams continued to point fingers at his target of disaffection (video embedded upper-right):

Long-time White House correspondent turned loose-cannon Helen Thomas hasn't been sold on Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama like many of her colleagues in the mainstream media.

Thomas, now a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, told a Bethesda, Md. audience the race between Obama and Clinton has gotten mean-spirited. She attacked the role of bloggers in the news cycle, but that wasn't before she had some very harsh criticisms of Obama's rise in popularity.

"We're in the midst of a presidential campaign which is really getting rotten - down and dirty between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama," Thomas said. "The Democratic candidates - Obama has the edge, he's a rock star. He's galvanized the youth vote of this country, but I have yet to see what he has done to take the highest office in the land. He is no Martin Luther King and his campaign, like all others, is backed by people with deep pockets."

Ohio's Old Media needs a collective medical intervention to battle Chronic Reporting Amnesia (CRA).

Ohio's Democratic Attorney General, who has been no stranger to controversy since his election in November 2006, is in major hot water over the conduct of two employees on his staff:

An attorney representing two women whose sexual harassment allegations have triggered a widening scandal at Attorney General Marc Dann’s office says his clients have abundant evidence of their claims.

In the second half of today's "As The Left Eat Their Own," the New York Times' Bob Herbert goes after Democrats for "doing everything they can to blow this presidential election."

And that was just the first sentence of his scathing rebuke of all things currently left-leaning.

With that as an appetizer, readers are advised to strap themselves into their comfiest chairs with a nice bucket of popcorn at their sides, and prepare for a ride guaranteed to thrill beyond their wildest expectations (emphasis added throughout):

CosmoGirl! magazine is a great resource to find out which lip gloss looks best with your prom dress, but it fails miserably as a religious guide. In the May 2008 article "Religion by Design," author Marina Khidekel does not give any indication that she understands the essence of religion: the acknowledgement of a Being greater than the individual, the community, and any earthly concern, who revealed His will to humanity in holy books.

Instead, Khidekel reduces religion to personal preference, endorsing the phenomenon of teens moving away from the organized religion of their families and creating their own belief systems by picking bits from various religions and philosophies, whatever makes them feel good.

Dubbed "Starbucks spirituality," these mix-and-match beliefs could contain "a shot of Catholicism, a sprinkle of Buddhism, a pinch of Hindu teachings – or whatever else [teens] are in the mood for that day."

Although the cover of the April 21 Time magazine has gotten widespread complaints from the veterans and has been scrutinized by the media, a spokesman from Time offered no apology. The magazine had changed for their decision to use the iconic image of the Iwo Jima flagraising to promote global warming activism.

"TIME has the utmost respect for our nation's veterans and we well understand the power of the iconic image of the raising of the flag over Iwo Jima," Daniel Kile, associate director of public relations at Time, said in an e-mail to the Business & Media Institute (BMI). "We believe this is a respectful use of this symbol of American valor and courage and serves to highlight another great challenge facing our nation."

The magazine's cover replaced removed the flag in the famous photo and replaced it with a tree.

In today's episode of "As The Left Eat Their Own," a tape of Hillary Clinton complaining after Super Tuesday that activists from MoveOn.org "flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support [her]" was published at The Huffington Post Friday.

This has set off a predictably hostile reaction from the liberal blogosphere, and was considered such a bombshell that Barack Obama-loving MSNBC actually began Friday's installment of "Verdict" with this revelation.

But, before we get there, here's the text of Hillary's remarks (audio embedded upper-right):

Houston Chronicle blogger Bob Cavnar needs to take some time off, or lay off the caffeine, or maybe someone should gently tell him that the black helicopters aren't following him after all. Whatever the case, Cavnar used his April 19th posting to go off on a wild eyed rant that is so twisted that it ends up blaming Republicans and Mickey Mouse for the fact that Barack Obama isn't patriotic enough to wear an American flag lapel pin! This is just another hilarious example of the overheated far left's panty bunching extravaganza that we've seen since the ABC debate aired.

During the last Democratic presidential debate, a woman from Pennsylvania was shown on videotape pointing out that Barack Obama refuses to wear an American flag lapel pin unlike most of the other candidates who do from time to time and Cavnar has decided that some dark, Obama hating conspiracy at ABC pushed this woman into the debate.

Although many press outlets have reported a so-called nefarious connection between former White House advisor Karl Rove and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, none has focused as much attention on this conspiracy theory as MSNBC.

In the last four months, MSNBC has addressed this issue thirteen times, with nine involving former General Manager Dan Abrams.

Seemingly fed up with the continued unsubstantiated and poorly researched reporting by Abrams, Rove sent him a rather strongly-worded letter on April 13 (emphasis added throughout, h/t NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez via NBer Jonah Johansen):

Imagine for a moment that a Fox News reporter was arrested in Central Park early in the morning with a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals. Do you think this little nuance would be included in press coverage of this bizarre event?

Probably in the headline and the opening paragraph, right?

Well, for some reason, though news outlets did report the odd happenings in NYC Friday morning when CNN's Richard Quest was officially arrested for loitering and drug possession, from what I can tell, only the New York Post included the "kinky" elements in its article Saturday (emphasis added, h/t NBer Gat New York, picture courtesy CNN):

When it comes to news, much as comedy, timing is everything -- and it's clear the good folks at the New York Times don't have it.

On Saturday, the Times published an op-ed by graphics director Charles M. Blow carping and whining about the now infamous Democrat presidential debate broadcast on ABC Wednesday, and, in particular, that no time was spent talking about climate change.

Well, Charles, maybe that's because in an ABC poll that was embargoed until 11:35 PM Thursday, exactly ZERO respondents felt global warming was the single most important issue in their choice for president.

Zero!

Alas, that didn't prevent Blow from blowing his top concerning the matter (emphasis added, h/t Chris Horner):

For sports-related discussion this weekend. Possible talking points:

• Who do you like in the NBA playoffs?
• How are the NHL playoffs going for you?
• Are you ready for some baseball, or does something seem missing this year?
• How's the NFL draft going for you? Any big surprises yet?
• Are racing fans interested in this weekend's Corona Mexico 200?
• How's Tiger's surgery going to impact him and the game?
• Anything else on your mind?

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: another former Clinton administration official backs Obama:

The endorsement in question is that of Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Labor and a friend of both the former president and his wife for four decades. Around 1 p.m. EST, Reich informs me, he intends formally to declare his support for Obama on his blog.

What do these high-level defections mean? Are they more about what folks think of Obama or Hillary? Or Bill?

If so many supposed "friends" and "associates" of the Clintons don't want them back in the White House, doesn't it suggest that conservative disdain for this couple is much more appropriate than the media's reverence?

Bill Maher on Friday night's "Real Time" made something crystal clear that conservatives have known for decades: Liberal means never having to say you're sorry.

Update at end of post includes response from the Catholic League.

Having on last Friday's program (as reported by my colleague Matthew Balan) "stated that the Pope 'used to be a Nazi,'" Maher was supposed to apologize for his transgression.

Well, if the nonsense he uttered last evening is what liberals call an apology, it should act as a grander indictment as to what's wrong with the extreme-left in our nation (video embedded upper-right courtesy our friend Ms Underestimated):

Time magazine is using the fact that the Democrat presidential candidates are currently being forced to raise more money to battle each other as evidence that the Democrats are much better at online campaign fundraising than the Republicans. Political blinders were firmly in place on Time writers Michael Scherer and Jay Newton-Small when they triumphantly put forth their reality-challenged  thesis of Why Democrats Rule the Web:

Republicans, who once were far ahead of Democrats in whizbang TV technology, let their party fall behind the nerd curve as Howard Dean and later John Kerry revolutionized and then exploited online fund-raising in 2004. Four years later, the Democrats have widened that gap, using the Internet not only to raise cash but also to organize canvassers and plot get-out-the-vote efforts. Republicans say the Democrats' Web advantage is due to not just greater enthusiasm but also smarter strategies...

Several friends and co-workers have asked me what it was like to attend the Papal Mass at Nationals Park in DC. It certainly didn’t seem reflected in many news media accounts. The standard AP template was largely secular and political. Reporter Victor Simpson summarized that Pope Benedict focused on "decrying that the nation's promise has been left unfulfilled for some." As I listened to the homily, I thought in that line, the Holy Father expressed that America did not begin in perfection, but there was hope for the oppressed in this country, whose freedoms were later guaranteed, that America has tried to improve, to live up to a promise, not unlike the Christian life.

A cynic might suggest that the Pope brought up slavery and the Native Americans to throw off the press from thinking he was a right-wing Reaganite. It certainly seemed greeted by reporters and pundits as a sign of his intention to make all American believers a little uncomfortable about not living up to the Gospels. (I heard this line from E. J. Dionne on NPR yesterday.) A cynic might also find political calculation in the many languages and musical styles used in the liturgy, that it was almost hard to find a white, English-speaking American reader or singer on stage, other than the Archbishop of Washington. (I was a little puzzled that one of the prayers was read in Igbo – are there a lot of American Igbo-speakers?) But I found it a wonderful reflection of a universal church, a global church, and I saw it reflected not just on stage, but on the incredible diversity in race and age all around me in the stands.

With the Olympics coming on, what's more poignant than the image of the sprinter hopefully awaiting the official time, only to learn he missed the record by 1/100th of a second? I'm in that same heartbroken mood for the Associated Press this morning. The wire service came so close to equalling the world record for revealing the Republican party affiliation of someone finding himself sideways of the law. Check out the first sentence from this AP story of April 17th:

A Republican congressional candidate was charged Thursday with felony burglary and criminal trespass stemming from an encounter last year with an ex-girlfriend.

The left-wing blogosphere's outrage against ABC ["Boycott Fig Newtons!"] over its allegedly unfair questioning of Obama during Wednesday's debate has seeped over into the MSM in the form of Derrick Z. Jackson's Boston Globe column of this morning. While the headline moots the matter in the interrogative "Tough questions or just plain bias?", there's no doubt as to the answer in Jackson's mind. Just two paragraphs in, the columnist unleashes [emphasis added]:

In some 1,600 words of transcript, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos tried to eviscerate Obama in Philadelphia on Wednesday.