CBS anchor Katie Couric used news, that Senator Ted Kennedy is suffering from a brain tumor, as the hook for a lengthy story in which she railed against reduced federal funding for cancer research, though her own numbers and official numbers contradict her premise of any significant reductions. Noting how “nearly one in two men, and more than one in three women, in this country will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime,” Couric regretted: “Yet since 2004 federal funding for research into the four most common kinds of cancer -- lung, colon, breast and prostate -- has been cut by more than $100 million.” In fact, National Cancer Institute numbers show a 4.4 percent overall budget increase since 2003, not enough to match inflation but hardly a huge cut, while spending on “brain & central nervous system” (Kennedy's plight) grew by 33 percent and spending on pancreatic cancer, which killed Couric's sister, rose 75 percent.

Relying on a March report published by seven research companies and universities interested in more grants, “Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk,” Couric asserted that “experts worry this small, elite army” of cancer scientists “is leaving the field in droves because government funding, which once allowed cancer research to flourish, is now drying up.” Seconds later, however, Couric reported that “between 1998 and 2003, Congress doubled the National Institutes of Health budget, allowing research to thrive,” but “since 2004, funding has flat lined.” So it has “flat lined” at a level double where it stood ten years ago.

I was checking out CNN's election returns this evening when I came across an interesting article by Roland Martin, one of CNN's resident excuse makers for Barack Obama.

The article, Commentary: Make wearing a flag pin the 28th Amendment, is listed as one of the site's most read articles. I already knew what I would be getting into by reading the article. It turned out exactly as I had expected, a typical liberal defense of Barack Obama's patriotism as done by diminishing others; especially those that dared question the anointed one on the issue by classifying them as zealots.

See, if it is so important, then take it all the way. Don't make it optional. Don't leave it up to someone to choose to wear a flag lapel pin. Let's really show those politicians that nothing is more important to us than seeing them with the U.S. flag on our chest.

That's what zealots do. They take something so simple, so personal, so voluntary, and absolutely lose their mind, trying to force someone else to do as them, and everyone else be damned.

Even before I heard Chris Matthews mention it, it struck me too . . .

Among the visuals a big-time campaign carefully choreographs is the human backdrop when the candidate speaks—particularly when it's a matter of an important, nationally-televised speech. So it's very hard to imagine that it was coincidence that the crowd visible behind Hillary this evening as she gave her Kentucky primary victory speech . . . was comprised 100% of people of pallor. Kibitzing with co-anchor Keith Olbermann immediately after Clinton's comments, Matthews mentioned it.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I thought a giveaway line was "who is best positioned to win in November?" That is not exactly a self-crediting commentary. When you position yourself in politics, it's a deliberate effort to try to find a space, not necessarily your own passionate position, or your real position, but to find a place, to triangulate, to try to find a place that appeals to a certain percentage of the voters that will carry you over. And to advertise yourself as the "best-positioned" is not really a statement of authenticity, it's a statement of political positioning. It's a Dick Morris phrase, if anything. It's certainly an odd way to portray it.

I think I know what she's saying, which is "I'm perhaps stronger on defense, perhaps I'm white, perhaps I'm appealing to the working class." I do think it's interesting that her entire crowd was white tonight. That was interesting. Usually they try to mix it up a bit, up near the lectern on purpose, to give it a sense of random selection. It didn't look very random there.

View video here.

No Chat, Again? Did we have too much fun last time? :-(

Maybe my expectations are too high . . .

**Shocking Image Below the Fold**

Yesterday, Barack Obama began crying again. Someone should remind him... there's no crying in politics. He has whined that we can't use his middle name, he has whined when we bring up his close relations with aging hippy terrorists, that we ask aloud about his "spiritual mentor," the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and now he is crying that we are highlighting the anti-American statements made by his wife as she campaigns for him all across the country. So, on Monday he whined "lay off my wife." Well, fast on the heels of Obama telling us we can't use the anti-American statements of his wife as a campaign issue we get the kiddies over at the DailyKos doing their best to "help" Barack Obama by making an image of Michelle Obama hanging from a tree with robbed KKK figures torturing her with a branding iron and claiming that this is the "NEW IMPROVED" GOP strategy. So much for the subtleties and civility that Barack claims he wants, eh?

Even more damning, Kos pulled the entire post off the website, photoshopped image of Michelle as KKK victim and all. Little Green Footballs has a great screen shot of the original post, but here is the original photoshopped image:

Media Research Center Director of Research and NewsBusters Senior Editor Rich Noyes appeared on Fox News's "America's Election HQ" program shortly before 6 p.m. EDT today. The topic: The Bush White House's complaint about NBC's misleading editing of President Bush's interview with correspondent Richard Engel.

You can find an excerpt of the transcript below the page break, or the full segment by clicking the play button on the embed at the right. [audio available here]

For more of NB's archive on Engel's reporting, click here.

From CNN to the New York Times, the media hyped Barack Obama's Portland, Oregon rally on Sunday, some comparing him to a rock star.

Unmentioned in national reporting was the fact that Obama was preceded by a rare, 45-minute free concert by actual rock stars The Decemberists. The Portland-based band has drawn rave reviews from Rolling Stone magazine, which gave their 2005 album Picaresque four and a half stars (out of five), and another four and a half stars for 2007's The Crane Wife.

How many of the people showed up to hear Obama, and how many to hear the band?

Here's how the local paper The Oregonian, which estimated the crowd at 72,000, reported the rally:

According to the American Fire Safety Council (AFSC), flame-retardant chemicals save a lot of lives. But you would never know that from watching the May 19 "CBS Evening News" because correspondent Wyatt Andrews hyped the danger of such chemicals.

Andrews report featured a liberal politician who wants to ban the chemicals in Maine, and has made it one of her pet causes.

"You know, it makes me angry that I could have a child in the next couple years who would be impacted by these chemicals in my body," Democratic Maine State Rep. Hannah Pingree said on CBS May 19. Pingree is also the House majority leader in the Maine legislature according to "Evening News."

In early May, Richard Wolf at USA Today tried to make a big deal over a very small statistic, and wrote one of those "signs of hard times" pieces that have become all the rage these days in Old Media (previous examples are here and here).

Wolf's piece was hampered by a possibly excusable math error, courtesy of the data supplied. But he also showed no curiosity as to why there have been such wide variations in state-by-state changes in the number of those receiving "welfare" (now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF).

Here's how his report began:

States' welfare caseloads starting to rise

State welfare rolls, which declined for more than a decade after a 1996 overhaul of the nation's cash-assistance program, are beginning to rise, due in part to the struggling economy.

Has "Good Morning America" host Diane Sawyer finally answered her now infamous question about whether America is more racist or sexist? On Tuesday's program, she discussed how being a woman effected Hillary Clinton's run for the White House and wondered, "...Is it an argument that she can make, that in some sense, sexism has cost her the race?"

For the last year and a half, Sawyer has been fascinated by this question. On November 13, 2006, she asked Senator Barack Obama if America is "secretly, I guess, more racist or more sexist?" The very next day, on November 14, she quizzed liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd about America's hidden prejudices : "Let me ask you, do you think that there is secret sexism, secret, secret genderism in this country?" On February 16, 2007, Sawyer darkly proclaimed that the 2008 presidential race is turning "a spotlight on questions about race and what Americans really feel inside."

The media love Warren Buffett and CNN's "American Morning" was no exception on May 20. Buffett's interviewer, CNN's Becky Anderson, absolutely gushed over him.

"[S]o a fascinating guy, great to meet. And he makes it all seem so simple," Anderson said to "American Morning" fill-in host Kyra Phillips, who concurred and noted Buffett's political affiliation.

"Oh, he's so down to earth," Phillips said. "He just seems like a very genuine, real person you could have a great time with. And he's a Democrat, right? I'm curious. Did he talk to you about who he is backing?"

Matt Bai, a major contributing writer for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, described John McCain's service in Vietnam in his big cover profile, "The McCain Doctrines," by suggesting that McCain's five years spent isolated in a POW camp meant he didn't learn the correct liberal lessons from the Vietnam War, resulting in his support for the Iraq War.

While the Times found Sen. John Kerry's service in Vietnam gave him credibility on his opposition to the Iraq War, McCain's five years spent isolated in a POW camp has evidently cursed him with the narrow perspective of America, right or wrong.

Explaining why McCain still supports the Iraq War, Bai wrote:

Celebrating one year now...

http://www.muslimgirlworld.com/mgmag/

I know alot of the anti-Muslim bigots here think mostly with the little generals - so I'm going to promo some foxy Muslim ladies and see if east-west relations might improve somewhat...

So rog - check out the lovely cashmere and lace suicide bombs in this months issue! Sharia - schmia! Hubby wouldn't dare try any honor killings with one of those strapped on:)...

you go girls...

partner with with this Islam!!

Lou Dobbs, during an interview on Monday evening with James Rubin, challenged the Clinton campaign advisor over his accusation that John McCain was a "hypocrite" and a "flip-flopper" in terms of dealing with Hamas, noting that CNN’s own interview of McCain contradicted Rubin’s charge. Dobbs chastised, "I would not have taken it as far. I would not put it as forward-leaning as you on the issue."

Dobbs’ approach contrasts with CNN’s promotion coverage on Friday morning, when "American Morning" substitute host Kyra Phillips brought Rubin on board to attack McCain without any balance from any Republican or any suggestion that CNN’s own archives contradicted Rubin.

News Flash!: Liberal politician decries price gouging, vows to use government to fix problem, mugs for cameras to hog credit.

Oh wait, that's not really news at all. Unless you work for the Chicago Sun-Times.

The online edition of the paper gave Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin a virtual press release with a 9-paragraph story by reporter Maureen O'Donnell. Here's an excerpt:

The Second City has become first in the nation for high gas prices, with consumers struggling as oil company profits soar, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Monday.

"We've got to stop the price-gouging,'' Durbin said.

He took credit for a new Federal Trade Commission probe into record fuel prices as he spoke before a BP station at Roosevelt and Wabash with regular gas selling for $4.25.

At no point did O'Donnell mention that previous FTC studies on price gouging have given liberals little if any ammo on the price gouging charge. Perhaps most notable among them the spring 2006 FTC study conducted to probe if there was price-fixing after Hurricane Katrina (available here as PDF).

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is a drug-trafficking terrorist group that has vexed Colombia's government and citizenry for years. Yet the T-word was missing from a May 19 CNN.com article regarding the surrender of FARC Force 47 commander Nelly Avila Moreno, although Colombia's recent military pressure was cited by Moreno as the cause of her surrender:

[Moreno] said she and her longtime male companion made the decision jointly to abandon the FARC group, based in the jungle, at 5 a.m. Sunday.

She said pressure from Colombian soldiers had been key to their decision, and she called on her fellow rebels to follow her example.

"I invite them to change the sensibility that is among the guerrillas," she said, seated by her companion, who said nothing during the news conference.

CNN went on to note that Moreno, whose "nom de guerre was Karina," may be personally responsible for a bus hijacking and arson in 2004, as well as the maiming of a passenger on that bus:

ABC reporter Kate Snow, who has repeatedly gushed over the Hillary Clinton campaign in the past, appeared to be edging away from the Democratic candidate on Tuesday's "Good Morning America." Discussing the long odds the New York senator now faces to the nomination, Snow gratuitously offered this comparison: "And here's a metaphor. Last month, supporters gave Clinton an inflatable doll. The other day, it was spotted all shriveled up, deflated."

The GMA correspondent also made sure to point out that "[Clinton's] biggest Kentucky crowds are closer to a thousand and Obama just pulled 75,000 in Oregon." She also explained, "An event in Oregon in a dimly lit room had more reporters than voters. Clinton was somber." This type of downbeat reporting is quite a change from Snow's cheery, pro-Hillary journalism. On January 7, 2008, she marveled at the senator's knowledge and enthused, "No subject is too small. No issue too dense." On October 1, 2007, Snow rhapsodized at Clinton's ability to disarm "her critics with a gleam in her eye and a roar straight from the belly."

Doesn't Mika Brzezinski have any Republicans in her Rolodex? With Joe Scarborough home in Florida awaiting the birth of a baby, Mika has been filling in as anchor, and I sense doing much of the show's booking [mention is often made of her work in that regard]. Today's guest lineup consisted of six Dems/liberals versus a sole Republican, brought in almost at show's end.

Here's the list, in order of appearance, of today's political guests coming from outside the NBC/MSNBC family [Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell also appeared as guests, and Harold Ford, Jr. and Pat Buchanan served as panelists]:

• Jonathan Capehart--WaPo editorial writer
• Ted Sorensen--former JFK speechwriter
• Doris Kearns Goodwin--historian and former LBJ aide
• Tom Daschle--former Dem senator [check out the spiffy red spectacles]
• Terry McAuliffe--Clinton campaign chairman
• Jon Meacham--Newsweek editor and contributing editor of the center-left Washington Monthly
• Mitt Romney--former GOP presidential candidate