Just heard Mark Levin mention this point on his show tonight.

The item he referred to is from Mark Perry at istockanalyst.com, who commented on CNNMoney.com's coverage of Exxon Mobil's profit report today:

According to CNN, Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter.

That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second.

Like the other network morning shows, NBC’s Today on Friday took exception to John McCain’s ad mocking Barack Obama’s celebrity, featuring very brief pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Matt Lauer suggested it was "bizarre" and said it was "a new and some would say very negative ad from John McCain." Meredith Vieira agreed, suggesting it was "over the top" and saying "the ad suggests that Obama is just like these two celebutantes, more style than substance." In an interview with McCain aide Nicolle Wallace and Obama aide Robert Gibbs, Matt Lauer told Wallace the ad was "much more personal and demeaning" than Hillary Clinton’s "It's 3 AM" ad, and after Wallace replied, he repeated it was "demeaning."

But Lauer asked Gibbs about whether it could become a negative that Obama draws adoring crowds: "So this issue of celebrity, what we're saying is there's all this raw excitement. There's this screaming and cheering. Hundreds of thousands of people turning out at these events and maybe they're trying to touch on this. Is there a possibility and a fear on your part that celebrity starts to overwhelm the message, or become the message itself?"

Second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled to 1.9 percent, up from 0.9 percent in the first quarter, the Commerce Department announced Thursday morning as consumer spending rose 1.5 percent in the quarter ending June 30, up from 0.9 percent in the first quarter, and U.S. exports soared 9.2 percent, way up from 5.1 percent in the first three months of 2008.

Yet the CBS Evening News centered a story around “disappointing” news about the supposedly “struggling economy” (with that on screen) -- while ABC and NBC, which on April 30 led with full stories on the news of a 0.6 percent (since revised to 0.9) first quarter GDP, didn't utter a syllable Thursday night about the big GDP jump. On the last day of April, ABC's Betsy Stark declared the economy had “flat lined” and NBC anchor Brian Williams warned “it's getting rough out there” as the new GDP number “stops just short of the official declaration of a recession.” Thursday night, however, ABC's World News and NBC Nightly News made time for full stories on outrage over ExxonMobil earning “the largest profit ever made by a U.S. company.” The “oil industry says it is not out of line, but some motorists feel otherwise.”

CBS anchor Katie Couric, picking up on the 4th quarter 2007 GDP revision from 0.6 percent to a minus 0.2, stressed how “the government now says the economy was receding, not growing, in the final quarter of last year” though “it picked up a bit in the first quarter of this year.” She then twisted the fresh news of a 1.9 percent jump into a negative:

But look at this: In the second quarter, when all those rebate checks were supposed to stimulate the economy, it grew less than two percent. Jeff Glor has more about the disappointing numbers.

The good folks at MSNBC's "Hardball" might be pointing fingers at presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama for playing the race card with his response to a new ad by the McCain campaign, but the editorial board of the New York Times ain't buyin' it!

Forgive the obvious pun, but color me -- amongst other things! -- unsurprised.

In a posting at the Times' blog "The Board" published moments ago, representatives of the Gray Lady predictably came to the junior senator's defense (emphasis added, h/t Hot Air):

You might say nothing could be more unsurprising than a panel of political pundits admitting the obvious: that Barack Obama is playing the race card when he accuses John McCain of saying the Dem candidate "doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency."

But what makes the punditry panel's unanimity notable is that no one would accuse them of being McCain backers, and what's more, that they turned up on Hardball.  Surely Chris Matthews, were he not on vacation, would have found one diehard to deny reality.  But with Mike Barnicle guest-hosting, a consensus of truth-telling broke out.

Barnicle began by playing a clip of McCain, interviewed by CNN's John King, saying that it is legitimate to accuse Obama of having played the race card.  The video is worth viewing if only to watch McCain end the interview by shaking a surprised King's hand and walking away. Then the panel commented.  Perry Bacon of the Washington Post said he would decline to answer directly, but his answer left no real doubt as to his view.

View video here.

On Thursday’s "Early Show," correspondent Priya David reported on homeowners in Philadelphia trying to avoid foreclosure: "Yajaira Cruz-Rivera thought she was choosing a responsible mortgage plan. But dreams of remodeling crumbled just days after her family moved in...Yajaira fought with her loan company, saying her new mortgage was unfair and unaffordable." However, David then introduced the hero of the story: "That's when she saw an ad on TV for ACORN, a community organization committed to helping homeowners fight foreclosures. Together they rallied the city for change."

ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, in reality, is a left-wing activist organization that seeks to implement radical socialist policies. According to an August 6, 2006 article in the Wall Street Journal by Steven Malanga:

While ACORN now operates in more than 100 cities with a national budget of $37 million, it never truly left behind the welfare-rights mentality. One is hard-pressed to find in the organization's many antipoverty initiatives any programs that address social dysfunctions like illegitimacy and single parenthood. Instead, as ACORN's executive director, Steven Kest, said several years ago, "We are more focused on irresponsible behavior in the corporate sector. I don't think [illegitimacy] comes anywhere close to the irresponsible behavior of people running the largest businesses in this country."

In addition, Stanley Kurtz outlined Barack Obama’s involvement in ACORN in a May 29 article on National Review Online.

  If a tree falls in the forest and nobody sees it fall, did it really fall? If a supporter of a campaign scores a vitriolic tune and nobody reports the lyrics, does the song matter? MSNBC hopes not.

On the July 31st "Morning Joe" during the "News You Can't Use" segment, co-host Willie Geist brought attention to a recent rap song penned by platinum selling rapper and Barack Obama supporter, Ludacris . The song calls for Senator John McCain to be paralyzed. Geist first attempted to down play the hate-filled nature of the song by saying "I think it's an actual controversy. Isn't it? Some are saying it is."

Geist proceeded to play only a short non-offensive part of the song. Guest-host David Shuster agreed that the tame lyrics MSNBC selectively showcased were "pretty good."

There's Ludacris, and then there's ludicrous.:

"There are things you can do individually, though, to save energy," Obama said. "Making sure your tires are properly inflated - simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling - if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You'd actually save just as much!"

Yes, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) actually suggested on the campaign trail that inflating your tires will save as much oil as can be procured by expanding domestic oil drilling, a suggestion that is downright laughable and mathematically impossible (see below the page break for more on that).

So where are the mainstream media on this?

The July 31 edition of "The View" predictably picked up McCain’s now famous celebrity ad, and predictably, three of them were not pleased. Whoopi Goldberg specifically objected to the use of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and called such an action "beneath him." Joy Behar simply felt McCain was "jealous" and said he is no longer a good person. Sherri Shepherd, who probably could not pass a high school geography test, called such an action "very high school."

Elisabeth Hasselbeck dared to offer an opposing opinion noting McCain simply is suggesting qualifications matter more than celebrity. When Joy Behar mocked McCain’s celebrity appeal and displayed a picture of McCain with Willford Brimley. Hasselbeck quickly reminded the panel of many of Barack Obama’s friends like Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, and Ludacris.

After months of adulatory press (minus a few weeks of Jeremiah Wright), have the national media finally begun responding to a large-scale critique of Barack Obama? Yes, argues Politico reporter Carrie Budoff Brown in a piece which she alleges that the Illinois senator is now being hit for being too arrogant:

Barack Obama’s critics laid down the foundations of the strategy months ago: The Republican National Committee started the “Audacity Watch” back in April, and Karl Rove later fueled the attack by describing the first-term Illinois senator as “coolly arrogant.”

It wasn’t until the last week, however, that the narrative of Obama as a president-in-waiting — and perhaps getting impatient in that waiting — began reverberating beyond the inboxes of Washington operatives and journalists.

Perhaps one of the clearest indications emerged Tuesday from the world of late-night comedy, when David Letterman offered his “Top Ten Signs Barack Obama is Overconfident.” The examples included Obama proposing to change the name of Oklahoma to “Oklobama” and measuring his head for Mount Rushmore.

The broadcast networks exhibited gross mismanagement in their coverage of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage powerhouses now in need of a $25-billion government rescue.

"It's partially a bias and partially just sort of gross mismanagement on their part," Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor said on CBN's "Newswatch" July 30. "All they had to do was pick up a Wall Street Journal. You know people at the network news shows read the Wall Street Journal at least sometimes. The Journal's been on this case since February 2002 when they had a piece headline, ‘Fannie Mae Enron?'"

The networks - ABC, CBS and NBC - ignored six years of concerns about the two companies' management, Gainor wrote July 28.

"The combination of stock losses, government fines and proposed bailout comes close to $150 billion," he wrote. "It's a huge story largely ignored by network news until a taxpayer bailout was almost guaranteed."

But the networks were more interested in attacking private companies with Enron comparisons than likening Fannie and Freddie to the infamous corporate debacle.

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased an upcoming segment on John McCain’s latest ad criticizing Barack Obama declaring: "War of words...The race for the White House gets ugly as John McCain and Barack Obama spar over negative ads." When Rodriguez later introduced the segment, she specified who was "getting ugly": "The race for the White House has officially turned negative with the McCain campaign drawing first blood and Barack Obama responding quickly." On Monday, co-host Russ Mitchell declared that another McCain ad showed that the "gloves are off" and was a sign of how "nasty" the campaign was getting.

Thursday’s segment began with a report by correspondent Chip Reid, who decried the negative turn: "You know, it's more than three months before election day and the McCain campaign has already decided to go negative. Recently they've released a series of attack ads and the latest one compares Barack Obama to pop stars Britney Spears and Paris Hilton." Reid then described the Obama response: "The Obama campaign rushed out a response ad," a clip of the ad was played: "John McCain. His attacks on Barack Obama not true, false, baloney, the low road." Reid then proclaimed that: "Campaigning in Missouri, Obama took the high road."

Reid then described how the ad would probably backfire on McCain: "Political analyst David Mark says the ad is sure to get a lot of attention as it's replayed again and again on the internet and cable news. But he says it could well turn out to be a mistake." Mark, from politico.com, then commented: " McCain's campaign is predicated on the notions of honor, being upright. This seems a little bit beneath him." Reid concluded his report by wondering: "And one big question for Obama now is how long can he continue to take the high road with McCain increasingly on the attack?"

InBev has assumed control of AB.

Considering growth by acquisition, what will be InBev's cost cutting measures?

As American as apple pie, AB has been our beer. How does the beer drinker react to a foreigner eliminating the tradition of his Bud?

How will unions be affected?

How will AB drinkers react?

What are the other options?

 
JDW

The hosts and correspondents on Thursday's "Good Morning America" did not hold back in expressing their displeasure over a new John McCain ad that depicts Barack Obama as a celebrity and compares him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Co-host Diane Sawyer hyperbolically derided the spot as a "political nuclear attack" and asserted that the campaign is taking "a strange new turn."

GMA news anchor Chris Cuomo seemed equally flummoxed. He opened the show by asserting, "Some odd campaign news today. There's a round of new campaign commercials that really have us scratching our heads here." A bewildered Sawyer agreed: "What sort of committee meeting do you have where you say, 'Let's use Britney!' 'Let's use Paris!' Yes, that'll be a blow!" In a second segment, former Clinton aide-turned journalist George Stephanopoulos claimed the commercial could be seen as "angry, cranky, too negative" and McCain himself might be viewed as "a bit of a whiner given the fact that most polls that he is behind."

Disclaimer: Yes, Joe and Chris.  We know Jim was joking.

Money maven Jim Cramer is a self-described Democrat, one who idolized Lenin back in his Harvard days [Cramer's, not Lenin's] and was on the verge of tears over the downfall of his old college buddy Eliot Spitzer.  But one Dem not high on Cramer's list is Jimmy Carter, so much so that Cramer feigned dismay to be informed that—contrary to his [tongue-in-cheek] belief—the former president is still among the living.

The host of CNBC's "Mad Money," a guest on today's Morning Joe, was buoyant about the economy, saying the surge in oil prices is over and that happier, if not downright happy, days are ahead.  It was when he cautioned people about being sure not to exceed FDIC insurance limits on their bank deposits that Carter came up . . .

View video here.

Government is notorious for moving slowly, but when it comes to adapting to technology, government's pace can be downright troublesome.

Consider Capitol Hill efforts to update Watergate-era laws and Internet-usage rules from the 1990s for use in Congress in the 21st century.

Many members of Congress and their staffs routinely participate in Web 2.0 at YouTube, Digg.com and Facebook, despite the fact that current congressional communication rules do not allow members to post any official communication (i.e., non-campaign material) on a Web site that is not House.gov or Senate.gov.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: U.S. loses fewer troops in Iraq last month than since the start of the invasion:

Eleven US soldiers were killed in Iraq in July, the lowest monthly toll since the 2003 invasion, according Pentagon figures, highlighting what US commanders say is a marked drop in overall violence. The number compares with the deadliest month of November 2004 when 137 American troops were slain, an independent toll by icasualties.org showed. The previous low was in May this year when 19 soldiers were killed.

Think this might have something to do with the surge? Will media report it? Will this impact the upcoming elections?