The ABC and NBC anchors on Thursday night framed stories, on the controversy over President Obama's upcoming Tuesday address to the nations' schoolchildren accompanied by a Department of Education recommendation that teachers have their students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President,” through the prism of Obama as a victim of unfair presumptions.   

“It seemed like a simple idea,” fill-in ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos sighed in offering the most benign description of how Obama's “going to kick off the school year next week by speaking directly to America's classrooms, the kind of pep talk to encourage kids to do their best.” But, Stephanopoulos noted, “the idea ran into a storm of protests. School districts across the country are fielding calls from angry parents. Some fear their kids will be forced to hear a partisan message.”

On NBC, Brian Williams declared Obama's “message will be about the importance of working hard and staying in school” and though “Presidents have done this type of thing before,” those occurred, he rued, before “this hyper-partisan era of instant and vocal outrage immediately on both the right and the left.”

If only Rachel Maddow watched her MSNBC show when someone else is guest hosting, she might avoid inconvenient juxtapositions.

The first part of the embedded clip shows Maddow on Aug. 31 taking aim at former vice president Dick Cheney's unapologetic defense of Bush administration tactics against al Qaeda and the war in Iraq.

The second part shows Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff appearing on Maddow's show Aug. 24 and inadvertently undermining what Maddow would say about Cheney a week later.

Where has Ed Schultz been for the last eight years?  Obviously not out with his progressive peeps.  Otherwise he could not possibly have said what he did on his MSNBC show this evening:

"I never saw anywhere in the news a Democrat carry a picture to any kind of a rally with a picture of Adolph Hitler putting them close to a characterization of President Bush.  Never saw that!"

Oh, really?

Former Democratic strategist turned journalist George Stephanopoulos appeared on Thursday’s Good Morning America to declare that President Obama’s address to Congress on September 9 must "intimidate Republicans a little bit." Stephanopoulos, who was a top aide to Bill Clinton, added that the White House should force the GOP to "make sure they understand the consequences of failure."

The This Week host, who also worked on Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign, didn’t explain why it's the Republicans, in a Democrat-dominated Congress, who would suffer "the consequences of failure." And the President "has to" intimidate the GOP? Is that the official advice of ABC analyst George Stephanopoulos? Or is that the opinion of liberal Democrat George Stephanopoulos?

Check out the Tweet that MSNBC's David Shuster posted a little while ago.  He apparently sees some significant irony in the fact that the ObamaCare protester who had a finger bitten off by a supporter of Pres. Obama's plan was treated by Medicare.

"that's right, it was medicare... a govt run program that represents all the protestor objects to... it was medicare that treated him."

 To which we would respond: so what?

Much of the mainstream media shares the Obama Administration's mistrust of-even outright hostility to-industry leaders, and its reverence for ‘sound science.' Too often, however, ‘sound science' simply is another way of saying conventional liberalism.

A good example of this is David Michaels, tapped by the president as OSHA administrator, praised by the New York Times in an editorial with the headline "A Champion for Workers' Safety." The Times said he would steer OSHA away from "eight years of lax oversight and favoritism to industry under the Bush administration."

Michaels shares the Times's distaste for "industry favoritism," exemplified by the title of his 2008 book, "Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health". In fact, doubt is a central element of sound science. We doubt claims until they are shown to be true.

Do you want to be a servant to the President?

Any President?

Well, a number of some of Hollywood's biggest stars have actually made the following pledge in a public service announcement:

"I pledge to be a servant to our President!"

As this might make some readers ill, the video is safely embedded below the fold (semi-accurate, slightly tongue-in-cheek transcript available here, h/t Don Gallerani):

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller penned a letter to the New York Review of Books, in reply to a Michael Massing article on the Internet and the news business. After defending his paper's Internet presence, Keller found a blog he actually likes, praising left-wing blogger-journalist Josh Marshall, who operates the Talking Points Memo blog. 

I've long been an admirer of the best practitioners of Web journalism, including many of the familiar faces Massing introduces to the Review's readers. My respect for Josh Marshall, to cite everyone's favorite example of a serious journalism venture born online, is all the greater because his success remains, so far, a rarity and a struggle.

Teasing an upcoming segment on Thursday’s CBS Early Show about new attacks on Sarah Palin by the father of her grandson, Levi Johnston, co-host Maggie Rodriguez exclaimed: "And shocking allegations that could shatter former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s conservative family image. If she chooses to believe what Levi Johnston is saying."

In the later report on Johnston’s Vanity Fair rant against Palin, correspondent Kelly Wallace claimed he "took off the gloves" and "debunks the popular image of Palin as hockey mom and moose hunter, telling...that ‘she doesn’t hunt, doesn’t read, doesn’t work hard, doesn’t spend time with her family, but instead spends all night alone in her bedroom.’" Wallace continued: "As for Sarah and Todd’s marriage, Johnston says they constantly threatened each other with divorce. ‘Once the cameras would leave, they didn’t talk to each other. I’ve never seen them sleep in the same bedroom.’"

After Wallace’s report, Rodriguez briefly mentioned: "And when we talked last April, he made similar claims to me and Sarah Palin said he’s lying, he just wants publicity, he just wants his little moment in the spotlight...my guess would be she would probably say something along those lines." Co-host Harry Smith then turned to Rodriguez and asked: "Because you’ve met him, you’ve interviewed him. Does he seem like – seem credible to you?" Rodriguez simply replied: "I don’t know. How could I possibly answer that?"

The Washington Post continued to attack Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell on Thursday, highlighting the Republican’s 1989 thesis three times and bringing the paper’s grand total to nine articles in five days. The Post, which recycled George Allen’s "macaca" moment 112 times in the 2006 campaign, featured this headline in the Metro section: "McDonnell's Thesis Is Relevant, Deeds Says: 1989 Paper Highlights Candidates' Differences, Senator Says." [Emphasis added.]

So, the Democratic candidate for governor wants to hype a 20-year-old master’s thesis on the family structure and that automatically makes it news for the Post? Staff reporters Rosalind S. Helderman and Anita Kumar used the Metro section article to parrot comments from the Creigh Deeds campaign on the importance of the thesis:

Once again, one of the masters of the universe trotted out on MSNBC has discovered the cure to one of society's ills - more Obama.

Daily Voice editor and CNBC contributor Keith Boykin waved off the reservations of some parents about President Barack Obama addressing their children in the classroom. Boykin appeared on MSNBC on Sept. 3 in a segment about the classroom controversy and added his insightful commentary on the matter.

"So much of the debate about President Obama has been politicized in an effort by some to delegitimize his presidency," Boykin said. "This is clearly much ado about nothing. We're talking about the President of the United States speaking to school kids. Why wouldn't schools want this to happen? That's why our kids are so dumb today, because they don't want to have basic common sense in the classroom."

CNN’s Carol Costello report on Thursday’s American Morning about the end of abstinence-only sex education in North Carolina leaned to the left in the featured sound bites. Three clips came from those who endorsed “comprehensive” sex education, including one who worked for an organization that promotes abortion overseas, as opposed to only one clip from a conservative who favored the old program.

Costello’s report, which came just before the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour, was part of a week-long series about “Educating America.” The CNN correspondent began with a car analogy to describe the transition to the more liberal sex ed program: “You know, it’s sort of like going from zero to 100 miles per hour. School districts, like some in North Carolina, have not taught kids about how to use birth control or how to control sexually-transmitted diseases- or prevent them, I should say- and now they’re trying to come up with a more comprehensive sex education class. It’s challenging.”

"U.K. Docs Worry Patients Dying Prematurely," reads a headline featured this afternoon in CBSNews.com's Top News menu. The link brings readers to a CBS/AP story with the same headline.

But when one reads through the article, it becomes clear the matter at hand may have some bearing over a controversial issue in America's current health care reform debate (emphasis mine):

A group of British doctors who treat the terminally ill said they were worried that some are dying prematurely because of guidelines on dealing with patients in their final hours.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph newspaper Thursday, six palliative care specialists said the "tick-box approach to the management of death" could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anthony Stevens-Arroyo, the "Catholic America" blogger for the Newsweek-Washington Post "On Faith" blog, lauded the "most Catholic" section of the Ted Kennedy funeral Mass: the grandkids asking for nationalized health care.

The overt political statements came from the mouths of children who paraded before the microphones at the Prayer of the Faithful. Each petition was worded with quotes from a Kennedy speech. The most political asked us to pray that health care be recognized as a "right, not a privilege." Yet that petition was also the most Catholic, echoing passionate statements from popes and bishops to "take back our government" and make it an instrument of Catholic obligations to make God's Kingdom come. (Emphasis his.)

I don't know which pope or bishop the man is quoting here. But this is not the silliest blog post he’s written on liberalism and Catholicism being nearly synonymous. Check out this recent one: Is It A Sin to Listen to Rush? This was his answer:

The September 7 edition of Time magazine features a brief article up front on "A Brief History of the U.S. Deficit." Writer Claire Suddath claims that the quadrupling of the deficit under Obama is somehow a good news/bad news story:

The good news is that the Obama Administration has scaled back its estimate of this year's budget deficit to an estimated $1.58 trillion (down from $1.84 trillion in May). The bad news is that this is by far the largest budget shortfall in U.S. history — nearly $900 billion more than last year's deficit — and it accounts for 11.2% of GDP, the largest percentage since 1945.

But the "brief history" really goes off the tracks when Suddath recycles every liberal Time magazine myth about fiscal policy in the last two decades of the 20th century:

President Ronald Reagan's economic and foreign policies — tax cuts combined with substantial increases in Cold War-era defense spending — led to a string of deficits that averaged $206 billion a year between 1983 and 1992. An economic boom and increased tax revenue under President Bill Clinton reversed the trend, and in 1998 the U.S. notched its first budget surplus in nearly 20 years.

On yesterday's The Situation Room, CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger spoke with host Suzanne Malveaux about polling done on ObamaCare:

MALVEAUX: Gloria, I want to start off with you.

One thing that the polls were showing is that most Americans, they support this idea of this public option, but they also believe that the president wants the government to take over the health care system.
Well, how does that -- how do you make sense of that?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, in fact, 53 percent believe that Obama wants to take over the health care system, and 42 percent say no. And I think what this shows is that the Republican PR about President Obama being big government, big deficit, big spender, has really taken hold over the congressional recess. People believe that he wants big government.   

What Borger is missing here is that the principal reason Americans view Obama as a big government, big deficit, big spending liberal is because he is.  "Republican PR" might emphasize that simple truth, but the facts speak for themselves and many Americans would have arrived at the same conclusion regardless.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/09/truther-czar-obamas-green-czar-van.html

Hmmm...the plot doth thicken.  I found this in my never-ending, or so it seems, quest for information, and immediately thought of NB as the perfect place to put it.

Please to enjoy.  Van Jones is an enemy of the United States of America, as are so many of Obama's buddies, and I really have nothing to say about him.  He has said enough about hisself already that shows his true colors.

Anyhoos, again, please to enjoy.

A country boy can survive the Obama administration. Just ask Hank Williams, Jr.

The country music artist --  best known to millions of Americans regardless of their musical taste for his "Are You Ready For Some Football?" theme to Monday Night Football -- was profiled yesterday by Bill Lynch of the Charleston [W.V.] Gazette (h/t my NB colleague Tim Graham).

Lynch spent a considerable portion of his profile focused on Williams's politics, including his upcoming gig at a Labor Day TEA Party:

On Thursday’s Good Morning America, for the third time in two years, Sam Champion interviewed an extreme environmentalist who shunned toilet paper for a year as part of a project to be carbon neutral. Colin Beavan, also known as "No Impact Man," appeared on the show to promote a new documentary and book on his experience. This time, however, Champion downplayed the bizarre elements of Beavan’s life.

The host made no mention of the fact that, in addition to not using amenities such as elevators, cars and electricity, Beavan also stopped partaking in the practice of using toilet paper. (This aspect was noted on ABCNews.com.) Champion did refer to the project as a "year-long experiment in living extreme green." But, the ABC weatherman skipped any discussion of the left-wing nature of Beavan's life. The full title of the environmentalist’s book is "No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process." [Emphasis added] (The book title did appear briefly as an on-screen graphic.)

"We're no longer a Christian nation." - President Barack Obama, June 2007
 
"America has been arrogant." - President Barack Obama
 
"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals."- President Barack Obama
 
"You might say that America is a Muslim nation."- President Barack Obama, Egypt 2009
 
Thinking about these and other statements made by the man who wears the title of president. I keep wondering what country he believes he's president of.

Move over Al Gore, NBC's Meredith Vieira and Natalie Morales have discovered the new face of global warming and it's a glacier. In the latest bit of goofy global warming nonsense Morales reported, on Thursday's "Today", that a photographer in Norway caught a picture of "what appears to be a face crying a river of tears as a glacier melts into the sea." To which "Today" co-host Vieira exclaimed, "That's gonna be the new image of global warming, right there." [audio available here]

The following exchange was aired on the September 3, "Today" show:

As Barack Obama prepares a nationwide broadcast to America's students next Tuesday, it has been revealed that Democrats complained in 1991 when then President George H. W. Bush broadcast a speech from a Northwest Washington junior high school.

In fact, the House Majority leader at the time, Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students."

Such was reported by the Washington Post on October 3, 1991 (h/t KY3 Political Notebook via Chuck Todd):

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: terminal patients made to die prematurely in England!

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death. Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away. But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn. As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

As costs skyrocket under a public plan, isn't this inevitable? 

You have a healthcare rally with opposing sides. Someone from one side bites the finger off an elderly man from the other side. You and I both know which side did the biting, but can the media just come out and say "Moonbat Bites Man"? Of course not. See if you can even follow the multi-paragraph description of the event.

A witness from the scene says a man was walking through the anti-reform group to get to the pro-reform side when he got into an altercation with the 65-year-old, who opposes health care reform.

The 65-year-old was apparently aggressive and hit the other man, who then retaliated by biting off his attacker's pinky, according to Karoli from DrumsnWhistles.

The single eyewitness account coming from a Moveon.Org blogger. Of course. So beware protestors, if you act "aggressive" -- whatever that means -- when an Obama thug decides to go through you rather than around you, there is potential for the 'side of rational logic' to go Mike Tyson on your digits. We are unable to determine if under ObamaCare's Complete Lives System this elderly man would qualify for finger-reattachment surgery.

What would Jesus do? Well, Ed Schultz thinks he knows - that is on health care reform at least.

Schultz, on his Sept. 2 MSNBC program, "The ED Show" told viewers he believed Jesus would vote for a government public option. That, he said, was to the dismay of some on religious right, or what he used the pejorative "Bible thumpers" to describe.

"Now, I have been referring to the health care reform deal as the real moral issue of our time," Schultz said. "I believe Jesus would vote yes for a public option, but some Bible thumpers don't see me eye to eye on this one."

Schultz later elaborated on his statement, likening "fixing health care" to a moral obligation.