On Tuesday’s Today, NBC brought out old anchorman Tom Brokaw to fondly remember the first Earth Day in 1970, when ultraliberals first declared the need for dramatic government intervention into the planet-despoiling capitalist system. He hailed how green protests saved rivers, eagles, and America itself from ruin: "The air turned brown, rivers died. Eagles almost disappeared. America the beautiful was America the endangered." Then the first Earth Day was a "massive success." He talked like a bumpersticker: "Mother Earth – love your mother. She’s the only one we have." He sounded a lot like the environmental lobbyist that the Clinton administration unsuccessfully invited to run the National Park Service back in 1993.

At 8:51 a.m Eastern time, the lecture began (as transcribed by MRC’s Geoff Dickens):

MEREDITH VIEIRA: We are celebrating "Green Week," here on "Today." And on this Earth Day we asked Tom Brokaw to give us his take on this nation's environmental history.

True to the liberal penchant for blaming every ill in the world on the USA, ABC News has produced a "report" claiming that the increasing number of guns and drug cartel violence in Mexico is all the fault of... the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's right, it isn't the drug dealers and killers in Mexico that are at fault, it's James Madison and the Founding Father's fault! Now, before you imagine that I am employing hyperbole in my introduction, just look at the title of their piece: "U.S. Guns Arming Mexican Drug Gangs; Second Amendment to Blame?"

ABC wrote that "U.S. gun stores and gun shows are the source of more than 90 percent of the weapons being used by Mexico's ruthless drug cartels," but then noted that "It's virtually impossible to buy a firearm in Mexico as a private citizen." To anyone really thinking about it, this fact sort of confirms the pro-gun bromide that "if you make owning a gun a crime, only criminals will have guns," doesn't it?

CNN's Carol Costello focused on Nora Ephron's Huffington Post rant against white male voters in Pennsylvania during a report on Tuesday's "The Situation Room." "Ephron uses provocative language to make a point. She says, 'let's not kid ourselves. Try as we might, white men will still decide who gets to be president.'" While Costello used results from previous primaries to cast doubt on Ephron's theory, she and CNN chose to highlight Ephron's words and found voters who apparently agreed with it.

Got election results? Post 'em here as the returns come in. Pennsylvania polls close at 8:00pm ET just minutes from now...

Update 20:36. We've opened up a chat room tonight if you want to discuss live. Note: You must be a registered NB user in order to read or participate in chats.

Update 04-23. Did Clinton pull off a political Michael Myers (image courtesy of RedRover)? Analysis here, here, and here.

On "The American Experience," PBS is going to critique some of the modern day POTUS. In the promo there is a vignette of various Presidents and to a man each democrat is positively viewed as "down to earth or wanted to do what was best for the country, while, Nixon claims "I am not a criminal" and as for Reagan, "no one really KNEW Reagan!"

I hope NBs keeps and eye on this. 

As the international disaster of ethanol begins taking its toll on the planet -- and, maybe more important, as press outlet after press outlet finally begins recognizing it -- will media remember that Vice President Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate requiring this oxygenate be added to gasoline?

After all, regardless of recent reports blaming ethanol for world hunger problems, rising food costs, and increased greenhouse gases, it seems highly unlikely green media will want to tie any of these problems to Nobel Laureate Gore.

Yet, as inconveniently reported by States News Service on August 3, 1994 (no link available, emphasis added throughout):

In today's left-dominated media world, political correctness rules the roost, especially when it comes to the so-called "gender wars." Why there must be any in the first place isn't ever answered but suffice it to say, the elite American press is decidedly anti-male.

It isn't just the news and entertainment media that caters to man-bashing, either. Advertisers are very much to blame for this as well as Glenn Sacks and Richard Smaglick write in Advertising Age:

The evidence is clear: "Man as idiot" isn't going over very well these days.

Defenders of the advertising status quo generally put forth the following arguments: Males are "privileged" and "it's men's turn," so it's OK to portray them this way, and that men simply don't care how they're portrayed. Both of these arguments are highly questionable.

The problem with Chris Matthews playing footsie with the idea of running for US Senator from Pennsylvania: when he says something nowadays, how can you tell whether he means it, or is just trying to position himself for a possible run?

Take this evening's Hardball, during which Matthews castigated Joe Lieberman as having been a "terrible" running-mate for Al Gore in 2000. Kiki McLean, a senior Clinton advisor, was Chris's guest. McLean mentioned that she had been an aide to Lieberman in 2000, and to Gore when he was the Veep candidate [1992?]. That set Matthews off.

And here we go again. I'm all for catchy headlines, but CNN has to be a bit more responsible with its choices when reporting on gasoline prices.

"Gas prices climbing with no end in sight," reads a hyperbolic April 22 CNN.com headline. "No end in sight" might make for great left-wing populist rhetoric, but it's hardly balanced economic reporting.

Indeed, the only thing to justify the "no end" language was citing gasoline analyst Trilby Lundberg as saying "she does not expect the prices to go down anytime soon," hardly a dire "no end in sight" forecast that conjures up notions of never-ending price increases rather than an eventual price plateau.

ABC generously offered the Democrats a gift that the Republicans were not given in this electoral cycle – a two-hour debate, in prime time, on a weeknight. Not only that, it was hosted by former Democratic aide George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. Left-wing bloggers promptly greeted this gift by smacking ABC in the mouth. Like an abused spouse, ABC responded by repeating all the leftist complaints on its airwaves and supinely saluting the impressive dexterity of the Obama campaign.

Question: What did ABC do wrong? Answer: For once it veered from liberal orthodoxy.

Question: Why did ABC feel the need to atone? Answer: Because it veered from liberal orthodoxy.

As part of its celebration of Earth Day, NBC's "Today" show invited on actor/environmentalist Ed Norton to promote his National Geographic special on PBS and the "Fight Club" star actually decried America's environmental progress compared to China as he charged the U.S. had to "catch up," to them in the area of banning plastic bags.

ED NORTON: Yeah and when, and when China is ahead of us in banning these things [plastic bags], when other countries around the world are banning these things that we, we need to get in line with that and catch up.

The following is the full segment as it occurred on the April 22, "Today"

MATT LAUER: Two-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton packed a punch with his performance in the film "Fight Club," now he's fighting for a cause, planet Earth. He's narrating National Geographic's series "Strange Days On Planet Earth," which is back for its second installment premiering this week. Edward Norton, good morning, nice to see you.

If you were looking forward to "An Inconvenient Truth, Part II," but this time with a happier ending, don't get your hopes up.

Alison Lehrer, a spokeswoman for Paramount, the production company behind Al Gore's Oscar-winning 2006 film, told the Business & Media Institute April 22 that no movie sequel is in the works.

"There are no plans for a sequel," Lehrer said. "That is the official word."

On Tuesday's Today, NBC's Ann Curry treated both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as victims of unfairness -- worrying Obama will be “swift-boated” by Republicans and asking Clinton if she agreed “the playing field has been not level because you are a woman?” (Mark Finkelstein's posting this morning, “Curry Concerned About GOP 'Swift-boating'; Hillary: I'm Like Ginger Rogers,” highlighted these two questions.) My addition: This was at least the third time an NBC News host or anchor has fretted to Obama about him being “swift-boated” by odious Republican tactics, questions which presumed the criticisms of John Kerry in 2004 were mendacious. Two previous incidents:

The February 20 MRC CyberAlert, “NBC's Matt Lauer Raises Notion of GOP 'Swift Boating' Obama,” recounted:

Even though the general election campaign has yet to begin, some in the media seem pretty anxious to start condemning Republicans for dirty tricks. In an interview with Barack Obama shown Tuesday morning [February 19] on Today, Matt Lauer asked the Democratic frontrunner: "Have you stopped to think what the Obama version of 'Swift Boating' might be in this campaign cycle if you get to the general election? What they did to John Kerry, what's that version going to be with Barack Obama?"

According to “Good Morning America”, 20% of American women are not achieving longer lifespans like most of us, mainly in the “deep south”.  The reason, or so said the report, was “preventable diseases and lagging public health care”. Their health expert stated that the leading causes of health problems in women were cancer, diabetes, and heart & lung diseases.  Mainly, the cause of these diseases were entirely behavioral and preventable; mostly the result of obesity and smoking.  Any why women?  The report says they have a high rate of obesity because they don’t earn as much as men and don’t have the same access to health care.  Of course, it’s not because of poor personal habits or diet.  I guess if they only had personal physicians nagging them more then they’d be better off. 

The only surprise was no mention to perhaps it was all because they tend to “cling to guns and religion”.

Is sexism strictly an American phenomenon? That’s what Whoopi Goldberg asked to former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers. Appearing on the April 22 edition of "The View" to promote her book "Why Women Should Rule the World," Whoopi, noting that there has never been a female president, framed her question in this fashion.

"Do you think that this issue, this, this idea that women can’t do the same things as men is strictly an American idea or is this a worldwide idea? Because I look at other countries that have women that have run their countries that have women prime ministers and such. So are we just lagging behind a little bit?"

No Whoopi. In fact, in many countries, sexism is far worse. In many Islamic states, a show with four or five women voicing their opinions would not be allowed. "The Daily Telegraph," for example, reported that women in Saudi Arabia have fewer rights than infants in the United States.

President George W. Bush’s days in the White House may be numbered, but that isn’t stopping the media from taking a few cheap shots on the way out. ABC’s April 21 “Nightline” reported on the increased cost of gasoline, but did so in terms of the Bush presidency.

“Tonight, $3.51 – that’s the average price nationwide of a single gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. That means a 15-gallon tank now costs more than $50 to fill. As a little reference point, the week George W. Bush was sworn in as president, the price of a gallon of gas was $1.47.”

Update at end of post: did ABC get these numbers from the DNC?

She didn’t stop there.

New York Times reporter John Broder's front-page Week in Review story was titled "Gore-Lieberman: A Hyphen Apart? Try Poles." Much like the story itself, Broder's lead was a lazy attempt at provocation. (NewsBuster Warner Todd Huston also dissected the piece on Sunday.)

Imagine for a moment the Supreme Court had gone the other way in Bush v. Gore in 2000. We would now be in year eight of the Gore-Lieberman administration. Well, maybe not the Lieberman part.

A panel of "mainstream" media judges have demonstrated that someone reads the articles in Playboy magazine, not just gapes at the nude pictorials. The 2008 Wistar Institute Science Journalism Award went to Los Angeles Times writer Terry McDermott, but the Honorable Mention went to Playboy writer Chip Rowe for a series on male sexuality. The press release explained:

Rowe received the honorable mention for three articles that are part of an ongoing series on male sexuality: “Flight of the Spermatozoon,” “Are We Not Boys",” and “Sex on the Brain.” The judges lauded Rowe’s delightful, yet scientifically grounded, exploration of his topic. They complimented his vivid and lively writing style and the appropriateness of his articles for his audience.

"Vivid and lively" would seem to be a required tone for writing about scientific topics for a pornographic magazine, wouldn't you think? It takes skill to write with "appropriateness" for a magazine dedicated to the inappropriate, designed to cross the frontier of naughtiness.

During a report by CNN correspondent Dana Bash on Monday’s "The Situation Room," an on-screen chyron or graphic described John McCain’s campaign stop in Selma, Alabama in the following terms: "McCain: Off the GOP Path -- Courts Blacks, Moderates in Ala." Bash herself described McCain’s campaign "really trying to... choreograph events all week long to create his own brand of Republicanism, show, like you said, in impoverished areas, in heavily black areas, that he's a different kind of Republican." Bash then described how "if you took one look at the kind of people who came out to hear John McCain today, it was very clear he has a huge hill to climb."

It’s odd for the CNN graphic to describe McCain as being "off the GOP path" by courting moderates, since the media itself has consistently emphasized the importance of moderate voters in elections, and how both parties have courted them.

Today is Earth Day, and you don't have to look any further than the home pages of the top Internet companies to see it. Green is the politically correct color of choice for firms that want to score cheap environmental points online.

The bias is most blatant at Google and its video-sharing subsidiary, YouTube. Google's logo has gone completely green, and the television screen within YouTube's logo is a snapshot of the earth.

YouTube also has turned over the prime real estate on its home page to earth-friendly videos, with headlines like "5 Easy Ways To Save The Planet" and "Veggie Cars." Oh, and don't forget, "Paris Hilton Is Greener Than You."