Charles Pierce is the infamous Boston Globe writer who tried to insist in 2003 that if Mary Jo Kopechne had survived Chappaquiddick, she would enjoy all the senior citizen benefits provided by Ted Kennedy’s beneficent policies. In the June edition of Esquire magazine, Pierce turns his love goggles on Barack Obama, "a dark blade of a man, loose-limbed and jangly, with small ears and an imperious tilt to his chin, as though something is wrong in a distant part of the world that only he can sense."

Pierce wants to love Obama unconditionally, but he loathes the American people for every time they've spurned liberalism at the ballot box, and now that the Bush era is waning, "Someone will have to measure the wreckage. Someone will have to walk through the ruins. Someone will have to count the cost." But this long era of conservatism from Reagan forward was apparently inevitable: "The people of the United States have been accessorial in the murder of their country."

Pierce fervently pushed for how conservatism and the end of democracy are synonymous:

The following video is a very clever rendition of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable," later marvelously done by his daughter, recrafted as possibly Hillary Clinton's final plea to super delegates (lyrics after the jump, h/t Larwyn):

In the past several months, NewsBusters has seriously questioned the reporting of the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa given her proclivity to misrepresent economic data.

On Saturday, Aversa wrote an opinion piece that fully explained why she sees gloom and doom in every government statistic regardless of whether or not it's warranted.

Here's how Aversa began her analysis entitled "Good Economic News Something of a Mirage" (h/t NB reader R Anthony, emphasis added throughout):

In today's report on the disastrous cyclone that swept through the small Asian country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) it looks like ABC News is trying to start a new meme: The cyclone "was Asia's answer to Hurricane Katrina." How long do you think it will be before the idea takes hold and all manner of comparisons will be made between Katrina and the cyclone in Myanmar? If this idea takes hold it won't be long before the media's Bush Derangement Syndrome starts claiming that the military junta that is preventing relief supplies from reaching the Myanmarian people are just like Bush and FEMA's failures in New Orleans.

"So far some 730 tornadoes have touched down this year, more than double the number for all of last year."—ABC's Bill Weir, GMA 05-10-08, as this graphic was displayed in a segment blaming global warming for increased tornado incidence.

The Society of Professional Journalists has decided that it is best to leave a suspect's race out of crime reporting except for "extraordinary" reasons. Of course, to the SPJ, "good reporting" means race info in a story about crime isn't "useful to people in the community" even if the race of a suspect is part of a police report apparently. Despite their claim that they aren't toeing the PC line, their explanation is filled with just the sort of reasoning based on PC thinking -- one of which is that all whites are racists.

Some of you may remember the story in September of 2007 when the Sacramento Bee announced that they were revisiting their policy of including race in their crime stories. A particularly gruesome crime occurred that brought the Bee to revisit their policy when they reported on the suspect leaving out race while Internet reporting as well as the Bee's own comments section on their internet posting of the story reported the race of the suspect anyway.

For years, NewsBusters has reported the unfortunate incidence of vulgarity and virulence in the liberal blogosphere, as well as how some prominent politicians and left-leaning media members have expressed concern regarding how such behavior negatively reflects on the Democrat Party.

On Friday, this invective hit a new low at Daily Kos when a piece that was quickly promoted to the highly-coveted "Recommended Diaries" list had an extraordinarily deplorable title -- which will NOT be printed here for what will be obvious reasons! -- dealing with relieving oneself on the likeness of former President Ronald Reagan.

This piece of detritus is so vile (h/t NBer lumpy) I won't dishonor the former president, or my readers for that matter, by linking to it; before curiosity sends you over there to see for yourself, be forewarned to do so with an empty stomach and the understanding that you will be revolted beyond your wildest imagination.

This raises an important question:

Dispatch from the Department of Glass Houses . . .

The Good Morning America crew had a bunch of yucks today at the expense of the Sparks, NV streets department employee who spelled "scool" on the asphalt. But within minutes, two ABCers made math mistakes of their own, one of a political sort, the other climate-related.

RON CLAIBORNE: In Sparks, Nevada, someone in the streets department could use a spelling lesson. A sign painted on the street announces a nearby facility is a "s-c-o-o-l" [sound of Claiborne chuckle]. The city plans to fix the sign as soon as possible. That's a first look at the headlines, back to Bill and Kate. Everybody knows school is spelled with a "k."

Great guffaws ensue.

View video here.

For all things sports-related:

• LSU tosses QB Perriloux (by request)
• How are the NBA playoffs going for you?
• Or the NHL?
• Bad day of practice for the Indy 500
• Patriots also stole offensive play signals
• Are you into baseball yet, or waiting for b-ball and hockey to finish?
• Do you like the new look at Darlington?
• Will we get Annika vs. Lorena Sunday?
• Who'll win the Players?

Anything else?

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: airline stops serving beef to placate Hindus (paragraph breaks removed):

British Airways has taken beef off the menu for economy passengers amid concerns about its "religious restrictions". The airline has instead switched to a fish pie or chicken dish option for the so-called "cattle class" passengers. BA's second-biggest long-haul market is to India, where the majority Hindu population do not eat beef because of their beliefs.

What do you think about this kind of "religious correctness"?

Though more easily comprehensible, the comical error (or is it what he truly thought?) in Barack Obama's "57 states" statement (HT Newsbusters' John Stephenson) is nothing compared to the dangerously wrong "history" he recited in his North Carolina Primary victory speech Tuesday night.

Friday, at Real Clear Politics, Jack Kelly recounted the Illinois Senator's egregious error, and its frightening implications (bolds are mine throughout):

Obama Needs a History Lesson

In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.

In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

It must be nice to be on Old Media's "free pass" list.

For years, Apple Computer has been on that list (disclosure: yours truly is a 23-year Mac user). Apple has been the cool, innovative tech darling, the noble foil of big, bad monopolist Microsoft.

Another free-pass beneficiary is Al Gore, who sits on Apple's Board of Directors.

Wait until you see what ClimateCounts.org thinks of Apple's record on "fighting global warming," especially in comparison to its industry peers (HT InfoWorld via Kevin at Pundit Review):

Reporter Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com (a project of the MRC) has found an interesting quote for Tim Russert or others at NBC and MSNBC to ask Barack Obama about in their next live interview. A "social justice" minister at Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago wrote an article for the church bulletin last year that the Don Imus incident on MSNBC proved the networks were run by right-wing bigots:

In a column in the April 15, 2007 bulletin, the Rev. Reginald Williams, the associate pastor for social justice at Trinity United, said he was not surprised by the racially charged remarks that talk-radio host Don Imus made about the Rutgers University women's basketball team because "the major networks are run by right-winged conservatives who still see black people as subhuman and portray black people as such."

In the patriotism category, Trinity's Rev. Williams also suggested the Pentagon was training terrorists in Latin America -- an article of faith on the Castro-sympathizing left:

Last October, Patrick Ruffini wrote a piece for Hugh Hewitt's blog titled Information Gaps on the Right wherein Ruffini reminded us that most news outlets unsurprisingly lean leftward. He pointed out that this is one of the serious disabilities for the conservative viewpoint getting a wider hearing. Ruffini also highlighted the vast sea of paid-for bloggers that lefties like George Soros and the like are floating out there. It all amounts to the left having far longer reach than we do to set the agenda for the national debate.

And it isn't getting any better.

The Left also seems to be developing a lead in powerful feeders mechanisms that do little more than tee up information for other blogs. ThinkProgress provides a valuable service to the left by leveraging a full-time research staff to be the first to report and frame up news stories. Their content is rarely witty and original and isn’t meant to be. It’s just meant to provide context and a prod for others to cover these stories. The research backing also means they do the legwork to connect the dots in ways that bloggers rarely do. If John McCain says something today, they’re all about telling you what he said about the same thing in March, what he said in 2003, what he said in 1999, and so on.

Of course, there are a few places we can go as conservatives to get a more conservative take on the News. There is Michelle Malkin, Powerline blog, and a host of others. Not to mention the great work we do here at Newsbusters and I should remind people to make Newsbusters a daily visit for news on the liberal slant in the media. If you want a site that drives the agenda on that subject (liberal bias in the news) then Newsbusters is the place.