Catching up with a quote from a British newspaper interview published May 24 that got some play in the U.S. late last week, actress Susan Sarandon told John Hiscock of London's Telegraph she'll consider moving to Italy or Canada if John McCain wins over Barack Obama. In an interview to promote the British release of the Speed Racer movie and the DVD release of her anti-Iraq war film, In the Kingdom of Elah, Sarandon fumed:

If McCain gets in, it's going to be very, very dangerous....It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people. If they prove me wrong, I'll be checking out a move to Italy. Maybe Canada, I don't know. We're at an abyss.

Friday night, however, FNC's Bret Baier noted in the “Grapevine” segment on Special Report with Brit Hume, that “celebrities in the past do not have a stellar track record of making good on threats to flee if their candidate loses.”

Earlier today, NewsBusters' Matt Sheffield caught a Washington Post editorial which told us, "Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war." The editorial noted "a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war."

The Post also suggested that the situation "ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Maybe, but if the results continue, both in military progress and reduced casualties (May 2008 had the lowest single-month number of US and total coalition troop fatalities ever), how about an "I was wrong, I am sorry" first?

Even more remarkable than WaPo's editorial was that the Associated Press's Kim Gamel included "the S-word" four times in her Friday afternoon coverage of Iraqi terrorists/insurgents turning themselves in. Not in the headline, of course (What do you want, miracles?), but twice in the first six paragraphs:

Robert Koehler of Variety is upset at Director Mark Pellington over his new film, "Henry Poole Is Here." He can't believe the audacity of a movie with religious themes actually having religious themes in it. Why it's a crime, you see. Koehler is so upset that he blurts out the memorable critique of, "not since 'The Passion of the Christ' has a mainstream Hollywood product insisted so firmly in faith"!

Wow, "insisted" firmly in faith? Oh, the humanity. Why there oughtta be a law!

You can just feel the anguish that Koehler has that this director dared to feature religious conversion, religious discussions, and a serious attempt to legitimize faith in his film. Of course, to Koehler, that fealty to faith absolutely must be at the expense of science. In fact, he sees "jabs at science" at every turn in the flick. Koehler is entirely incensed that anyone dare make a movie that presents belief in God in a positive light as a force that can affect "growth" in people. The outright hostility that Koehler has for religion is shocking. It has to be seen to be believed.

Who says there's no humor in politics? Obama communications director Robert Gibbs went on ABC's This Week today, and in one of the better deadpan bits since Buster Keaton actually said that Barack Obama's decision to quit the Trinity United Church of Christ was "not political."

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: In Philadelphia, just in April, Senator Obama said of Reverend Wright "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Now he's cut all ties to Reverend Wright, and left his church. What is it a mistake to wait this long?

ROBERT GIBBS: No, George. I think obviously what Barack Obama made in the past few days is a deeply personal, not a political decision. And as you heard the reasoning, he made that decision for two reasons. One, even guest speakers that were at Trinity, their views were ascribed to him even though he didn't hold those views, and secondly, the members of Trinity couldn't do what members of a church do, and that is, sit in quiet reflection and worship God.

View video here.

 The police said " we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station.""

From an article by David Harrison in the "Telegraph" as quoted by "Dhimmi Watch."

 Article may open in comments portion so you may have to scroll up to read. 

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, CNN host Howard Kurtz ended the Scott McClellan analysis segment of his show with his own two cents: "For McClellan to turn on Bush is clearly a ticket for him to be embraced by the media. I watched all the interviews and I've read all the interviews. He's not fully been able to answer these questions. Why didn't he speak up before even in private? Why didn't he resign if he was so troubled by the questions? And is he doing this for money?"

Former White House speechwriter David Frum, whose own Bush memoir was fairly supportive and hence was largely ignored by the media, let loose on McClellan: "One of the things that President Bush, one of the great failures as a manager is he put loyalty ahead of competence. And Scott McClellan is proof positive. He had no business being press secretary. He was awful at the job. It was painful to watch him. He got the job because he was somebody's deputy. And one of the way the Bush administration works is they promote the deputy then the deputy of the deputy of the deputy and then the deputy of the deputy."

What's on your mind this Sunday evening?

Scott McClellan upbraiding the press for being unchallenging certainly doesn't match the record of combative exchanges we recall. Here are a few eyebrow-raising examples of McClellan being pounded by the network stars from our Notable Quotables newsletter:

1. Won't Bush bury Saddam's sons with respect, according to the rites of the religion they held dear?  

"Article 17 of the Geneva Conventions requires countries at war to, quote, ‘ensure that the dead are honorably interred, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which they belong.’ Does the President, as Commander-in-Chief, believe that the United States is bound by that, when it comes to the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein?" – ABC’s Terry Moran questioning new White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan at the July 23, 2003 briefing.

2. What would you have the media do? How dare you answer my question by suggesting what you would have the media do?  

ABC White House correspondent Terry Moran: "Scott, you said that the retraction by Newsweek magazine of its [phony Koran-in-the-toilet] story is a good first step. What else does the President want this American magazine to do?"

The past few days have brought some good news for people frustrated by the elite media's systemic liberal tilt: First we had the Project for Excellence in Journalism admitting that Democratic presidential candidates get better coverage than their Republican counterparts, then came the news that left-wing blowhard Keith Olbermann was exposed (yet again) as a hypocrite for failing to pay taxes.

Now here's some more good news for your Sunday afternoon: The center-left Washington Post editorial page calls out the foreign policy Chicken Littles who've been eager to pronounce Iraq a failure from the start. In an editorial headlined "Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war," the paper presents some essential facts:

There's been a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington's attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now."

Saturday night’s All Things Considered on National Public Radio came to an overtly pacifist conclusion. Substitute host Guy Raz (an NPR Defense Department correspondent) conducted a seven-minute interview with John Cusack on his satirical anti-war, anti-Bush film "War Inc.", and Cusack predictably denounced the war and Bush as absurd. Then came a six-minute interview with a smitten John Lennon fan who’s hoping to make a half-million dollars auctioning the original hand-written lyrics to "Give Peace a Chance," since she was there in Montreal for the original "bed-in" protest that produced the anthem. Then, as the music continued, Raz unloaded a little editorial.

Raz decided to read from Dwight Eisenhower, a "man who knew war better than most," on the need for peace: "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."

When Karl Rove went on Fox and suggested former White House press secretary Scott McClellan sounded like a left-wing blogger in his book, he was hardly alone. Reporter Mike Allen of the Politico completely endorsed that view on a giddy Wednesday night "special edition"of MSNBC’s "Hardball" exploiting the McClellan book, even though he thought the valiant David Gregory yelling at a series of press secretaries proved them wrong. MRC’s Geoff Dickens sent me the transcript:

MIKE ALLEN, POLITICO: The other great power of this book is that it validates, as David [Gregory] said, these criticisms that have come from the liberal and left wing bloggers.

MATTHEWS: Right.

ALLEN: Most especially his point that the White House press corps was too deferential to this administration. David and I have fought back about those charges over the years. Largely because of the work of people like David Gregory it just wasn’t true. But now the left can say, "Even Scott McClellan says you guys were too easy on the Bushies."

If you're going to accuse a president of lying and committing crimes, it might be nice to provide some particulars. But Frank Rich sees no need for such niceties in his New York Times column of today.

The putative topic is the McClellan book, but the real subject is Rich's abject Bush hatred. After referring to Pres. Bush as "the loathed lame duck," Rich writes:

Americans don’t like being lied to by their leaders, especially if there are casualties involved and especially if there’s no accountability. We view it as a crime story, and we won’t be satisfied until there’s a resolution.

So Bush lied and people died, is that it? What was the lie, where was the crime? Is Rich referencing WMD here, the same WMD that President Clinton, every major Dem leader at the time, and countries from France to Russia also said Saddam had? Rich doesn't say. If not WMD, something else? If so, what? And just what is the "resolution" Rich demands? Even Keith Olbermann recently, regretfully, recognized it's probably too late for impeachment.