Liberal journalists are forever trying to dismiss the idea that when conservative candidates win, the voters who sent them to Washington sent them for conservative goals -- to restrain relentless government growth. In Thursday's Washington Post, columnist David Broder declared, in the face of all evidence, that the defining campaign of 2010 was....the egocentric write-in campaign of moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. It was not the year of the Tea Party, or repealing ObamaCare. It was the year that the voters said they wanted non-ideological bipartisanship. He quoted her interview with the PBS NewsHour: 

"I think that's what voters are looking for. I don't think that most are looking for somebody that is going to follow the litmus test of one party or another, and never deviate from it. I think they want us to think, and I think they want us to work cooperatively together. So, that's my pledge to all Alaskans, regardless of whether you are the most conservative Republican or the most liberal Democrat, I'm going to try to find a way that we can find common ground to help the state and to help our country."

National Public Radio often has "news judgment" that coincides with the agenda of liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. So it's not surprising that they greeted Thanksgiving by highlighting that President Obama is nicer to turkeys than to human lawbreakers on Wednesday night's All Things Considered:

MARY LOUISE KELLY, substitute anchor: Now, presidents have been pardoning humans for much longer than they've been pardoning turkeys. But as White House correspondent Ari Shapiro reports, with this president, the turkeys are winning so far.

ARI SHAPIRO: As of today, President Obama's tally of pardons is as follows: turkeys, four; humans, zero.

On Monday's Democracy Now broadcast, taxpayer-subsidized Pacifica Radio anchor Amy Goodman promoted a newspaper column in the Daily Telegraph by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, suggesting that George W. Bush should be arrested if he lands in Great Britain on his book tour, much like former Chilean dictator Agosto Pinochet, put under house arrest in London in 1998:

It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us his memoirs, but if I were his PR people I would urge caution. As book tours go, this one would be an absolute corker. It is not just that every European capital would be brought to a standstill, as book-signings turned into anti-war riots. The real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.

One moment he might be holding forth to a great perspiring tent at Hay-on-Wye. The next moment, click, some embarrassed member of the Welsh constabulary could walk on stage, place some handcuffs on the former leader of the Free World, and take him away to be charged. Of course, we are told this scenario is unlikely. Dubya is the former leader of a friendly power, with whom this country is determined to have good relations. But that is what torture-authorising Augusto Pinochet thought. And unlike Pinochet, Mr Bush is making no bones about what he has done.

The Daily Kos could not let the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination pass without making comparisons between the "far right" greeting JFK received in Dallas in 1963 and the greeting President Obama receives from the Tea Parties today. The blogger with the handle "Devtob" claimed some Texans cheered the death of Kennedy in the "nut country," and presumes today's Texans would cheer Obama's death:

Dallas was also the site, in 1961, of the National Indignation Convention, which Rick Perlstein relates to the tea partiers of today:

Thousands of delegates from 90 cities packed a National Indignation Convention in Dallas, a 1961 version of today's tea parties; a keynote speaker turned to the master of ceremonies after his introduction and remarked as the audience roared: "Tom Anderson here has turned moderate! All he wants to do is impeach (Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl) Warren. I'm for hanging him!"

The New York Times has a funny way of defining protests as "news" or "not news" depending on who is being protested. For example, they've entirely ignored the March for Life against abortion in Washington in 2008 and 2009 (and in 2010, gave it part of a sentence). But in Monday's paper, they openly worried that a left-wing protest is dwindling in popularity. They sent Times writer Kim Severson and a photographer to Columbus, Georgia for a protest against a U.S Army training center for Latin American military leaders. The headline was "A Protest Dwindles, If Not Its Passion: Activists Once Flocked to Fort Benning. Now It Seems More Like a Straggle."

The story stood at the top of the National section on page A14 with a large color photograph (about six inches high, nine inches across) of leftists marching with large circular flower signs. Severson began with wistful memories of a larger protest:

COLUMBUS, Ga. — The annual November protest here at the gates of Fort Benning used to really be something.  

Fox News is promoting tonight's interview with Sarah Palin on Hannity. She's declared she will not "waste" her time with the CBS anchor who drew all kinds of praise and even awards for pummeling Palin in 2008 (after going all cuddly with "close-talking, free-wheeling, ice-cream eating" Joe Biden). Hannity asked: "Would you even do another interview with Katie Couric?" Palin said she would like to be more open with journalistic professionals, but left Couric out of that category:

As for doing an interview though, with a reporter who already has such a bias against whatever it is that I would come out and say, why waste my time? No. I want to clean up the state, that is so sorry today, of journalism. And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism – who, what, when, where, and why of reporting. I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation that the public has, for truth to be reported, and then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us. So, a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will no doubt spin and gin up whatever it is that I have to say to create controversy? I swear to you, I will not waste my time with her.

Cam Edwards of NRANews.com reported on Friday night that there's a really under-reported story out there. President Obama nominated a new head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives -- a local ATF agent from Chicago that's drawing serious opposition from gun-rights groups. Patrik Jonsson of The Christian Science Monitor is one of the few news reporters to notice:

ATF special agent Andrew Traver, who last year let a TV reporter fire an AK-47 from her hip to demonstrate the weapon's lethality, is set to become America's chief firearms inspector. But Mr. Traver, currently the Chicago ATF chief, faces a tough nomination battle as gun-rights groups amass their forces in opposition.

Mike Allen at Politico reported Time magazine assembled a strange (some would say "diverse") panel at the Time & Life Building in New York to discuss their annual Person of the Year cover story.  Time editor Richard Stengel picked hip-hop musican Wyclef Jean, Google's Marissa Mayer, Democrat consultant Joe Trippi and Ground Zero mosque developer Daisy Khan. Oh, and to add so-called Republicans to this left-tilting panel, Stengel brought on that mega-watt intellectual....Meghan McCain. 

In a discussion led by TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel, McCain suggested the Tea Party or Glenn Beck. She ruled out Christine O’Donnell, saying she is “in no way qualified to do anything.” Mayer talked about first discovering the idea of a personal computer on TIME’s cover at the end of 1982, “Machine of the Year: The Computer Moves In.” She then suggested Steve Jobs of Apple. Khan said that Mayor Michael Bloomberg could be Person of the Year, for his support of Park 51. Jean said that Haitians should be honored as “people of the year.” Trippi nominated Nancy Pelosi, who Jean supported later as well by saying that the cover of TIME should “represent legacy … Pelosi does that.”

The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce held their seventh annual Business and Leadership Conference in Washington from Thursday to Saturday. One of the "Manager Level" corporate sponsors was The Washington Post. The Post didn't just fund it. They participated. On Friday afternoon, the program touted their Communities of Color Business Initiative, with speaker Jonathan Capehart (page 18 of the program):

MSNBC contributor and Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart will lead a discussion among business owners and professionals of color about their experiences in the marketplace and how the LGBT business community can help break down barriers empower diverse businesses. Roundtable attendees are encouraged to share stories of success and challenge and bring ideas that will help the NGLCC grow the CCBI.

The keynote speaker for the conference was Obama's Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke. There's no question that what the Post is funding here is a socially liberal advocacy group: