Vinny Fiore's blog

On CBS and "Face The Nation" Sunday, host Bob Schieffer had an interesting exchange with his guest, Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney, who will rarely do Sunday morning interviews, was again pressed with questions of his almost expected and impending "resignation."

Also reported in a story titled "White House Shake-Up Isn't Needed, Says Cheney" by Douglass K. Daniel for the Associated Press (AP) as well, it seems the media fascination and obvious distress with the vice president's unabashed conservative views continue.

Last night's 78th Oscar presentation was the lowest rated show in the last 20 years, failing to break the 40-million mark in viewership. Why? Well, aside from the Hollywood-left’s love affair with anything that cast George W. Bush in the worse possible light, the reason is as plain as the botox in Jennifer Lopez’ lips:

The rather obvious and politically -charged "social message" that Hollywood attempted to swamp the American movie-goer with just didn’t entertain, and didn't sell tickets.

Not to be outdone by their liberal brethren in the printed press and TV mediums, AOL has once again loaded the web site's home page with another "We hate Bush, too!" headline, followed by those ever-present yet predictable AOL poll questions.

Centering around the recent political upheaval of the impending sale (6.8 billion dollars) and takeover of the operation of 6 American ports by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Dubai Ports World specifically, today's AOL Home page hopefully asks : "Is His Power Fading Away?" placed alongside a head-drooping and cryptic silhouette of what can only be President Bush. The sentence below then reads: “Bush Faces More Challenges," whereupon clicking on it brings one to a battery of poll questions in a section that AOL calls "The Daily Pulse"

Don't let the title of the article by Washington Post staff writer Dan Balz fool you. Though the title reads: "Bush's Midterm Challenge--Rebuilding Public Support May Bolster GOP Candidates," one comes away after reading the piece thankful that the elections are not till November.

Still, one cannot help but feel anything but optimistic if one depended on such as the mainstream media for its cues.

Balz opens the piece in typical Bush-bashing fashion, a hallmark of liberal writers and observers, stating that the State of the Union Address to be given by the president on Tuesday is "eagerly anticipated by Democrats and fraught with worries for Republicans, whose hopes in November may depend in large part on how successfully Bush can turn around his troubled presidency."

     On Thursday, angry liberal readers of the Washington Post forced the ombudsmen of the paper, Deborah Howell, to shut it down.  In her Sunday column, written on 1/15, Howell wrote that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties," prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog. 

     So much for our open-minded, elitist friends on the left, who are all to glad to once again enact another episode of "Do as I say, and not as I do."  This is the same bunch that screams for openness and truth in media reporting, but only IF it hurts the GOP.

In a somewhat sad but, unfortunately, true article, the UK Guardian Unlimited ran a story written by the Guardian's Jamie Wilson Titled: "Stars turn backs on America's troops in Iraq". 

Wilson goes on to directly charge that today’s Hollywood elites cite "danger" as well as an "anti-war stance" as to what keeps celebrities away. Wilson also cited, perhaps a bit too distressingly, that the "Show now depends on Christian hip-hop groups."

Washington Post staff writer Jonathan Weisman had the lead story on page A01 of the paper: "Patriot Act Extension Is Reduced To a Month," with the subheading being "House Action Overcomes Senate's Longer Reprieve"

It is entirely reasonable to believe that Mr. Weisman's copy would be on the renewal of the Patriot Act itself, and the many different paths it took to get where it wound up. That would be the logical progression of thought, but alas, this is the Washington Post, one of America's foremost liberal organs.

Almost immediately into the story titled "Mexico Retaliates for Border Wall Plan," written by Associated Press staff writer Mark Stevenson, it easy to see where the AP's sympathies lie, and that is squarely with law-breaking illegal aliens, or what the AP calls "migrants" or "migrant workers."

The piece is an out and out condemnation of the House of Representatives recent bill that passed just last week that will employ tough new immigration deterrents, among them a 700-mile security fence, and an end to the 50,000 per-year diversity visa lottery.

In its usual over-the-top manner, the New York Times has once again treated the destruction of New Orleans due to ravages of Hurricane Katrina as a product of the Bush administration.

The Times's Sunday lead editorial, "Death of an American City," waits until two-thirds of the way down the article to place blame on something other than the federal government: the local and state government officials who run New Orleans and Louisiana. The Times neglects to mention that it is Democrats who primarily run the government in both New Orleans and the State house.

On Friday, talks ended in Canada in regard to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in rock-star fashion as former U.S. President Bill Clinton hit the podium--unofficially.

Still, one is hard-pressed not to imagine the press over at Agence France-Presse (AFP), the self-proclaimed "world's oldest news organization," wetting themselves as you read the breathless and unambiguous copy they wrote regarding Clinton's "show-stealing appearance."

With The recent Iraq election turning out to be better than anyone had expected, the Associated Press has decided to do its best to drag everyone back down to reality. The only problem here for the AP is the reality they seek to push is their own.

One only has to go to the line under the headline of the story, "Iraq Constitution Seems Headed for Approval" to begin to see the AP's attempt to downplay any good whatsoever coming out of Iraq.

In Sunday's Washington Post, journalist Brian Faler provides what can only be described as a fawning push-piece aimed at exciting the liberal activist and elite--both state and nation-wide.

In a piece titled : "Dean Camp's Tactics Applied to Colorado," Faler contends that what Howard Dean started in his aborted presidential run in 2003/2004--namely huge Internet participation--local activist will now continue, as they start web sites to organize liberal activists.

In the article, Faler highlights a Colorado-based progressive site called ProgressNowAction.org, in which he says: "The goal is to create a go-to site for Colorado activists -- a sort of online hub for everyone from environmentalists to abortion rights advocates to those concerned about the direction of their school boards. The group hopes liberals will use the site (ProgressNowAction) to find each other, organize and meet people working on other issues. In the process, it hopes to assemble a statewide network of activists and, ultimately, give Democrats a new and easily replicated model for local political organizing."

Mark Silva, national correspondent who covers the White House for the Chicago Tribune, essentially wrote a 750-worded epithet titled "Hard Times Wear on Bush," that sounded more in sync with the giving of "last rites" than what a national news correspondent would write. 

Reporting about Bush's first formal news conference since May 31, Silva opens this way: "Stepping out from the Oval Office on an overcast morning, President Bush appeared browbeaten. He sounded wistful about his party's political fortunes and even his own."

"Browbeaten" and "wistful" being not nearly enough for Mr. Silva, he continues to pile-on with more negativity from events that have nothing to do with what the president called this formal news conference for, namely to talk about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers:

Washington Post Staff Writer Dan Balz can hardly seem to contain himself while writing a post-Hurricane Katrina analysis that covers everything from President Bush's sagging poll numbers, to "the fabric of an already divided society." As mentioned today by Newsbusters own Clay Waters, the mainstream media--like the N Y Times--are offering up these "news analysis" stories without any real analysis aside from essentially blaming Bush.

Balz, though, seems to revel in his analysis, engaging in a bit of shadenfruede. Balz starts this way: "The main text of President Bush's nationally televised address last night was the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, but the clear subtext was the rebuilding of a presidency that is now at its lowest point ever, confronted by huge and simultaneous challenges at home and abroad -- and facing a country divided along partisan and racial lines."

Reuters News Service left little to the imagination of its readers as to who they believe is responsible for the death's associated with Hurricane Katrina. The story, "New Orleans collects dead as officials dodge blame" reads more like an opinion piece than it does a news report.

The opening paragraph is about as sneering and partisan as I have ever seen: "New Orleans began the gruesome task of collecting its thousands of dead on Sunday as the Bush administration tried to save face after its botched rescue plans left the city at the mercy of Hurricane Katrina."

In today's Washington Post on page A04, staff reporters R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker penned this headline: "Library Missing Roberts File"

The headline, and the first paragraph, were seemingly written to set the tone of possible file theft by the Bush Administration:

"A file folder containing papers from Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s work on affirmative action more than 20 years ago disappeared from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library after its review by two lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department in July, according to officials at the library and the National Archives and Records Administration."

Senators Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy wasted little time in calling for investigations.

Above the fold of today's New York Times was a story by Times reporter Philip Shenon that one would have thought was a news report on Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff's recent troubles. Abramoff was indicted on fraud charges in relation to his involvement in purchasing a fleet of gambling boats in 2000.

It took Mr. Shenon a mere 5 words before Jack Abramoff became of secondary nature to the story: "Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful Republican lobbyist involved in ethics allegations facing Representative Tom DeLay, was indicted in Florida on Thursday on unrelated fraud charges involving his purchase of a fleet of gambling boats from a businessman who was slain amid bitter wrangling over the sale."