The International Herald Tribune website--sister site of NYTimes.com--will soon shut down, citing "growth" opportunities. Forbes's James Erik Abels reports:

The Times told staff in an internal e-mail Tuesday that the paper's flagship Web site will soon become host to news from sister paper the International Herald Tribune and that the Tribune's site will be shuttered. The move will require "hard decisions about jobs at the IHT," and the company is now looking to "reassign or relocate people," according to the memo.

Privately, IHT employees may lose their jobs, but publicly, this is about "growth."

Taking liberal media audacity to higher levels, John Heilemann would have you believe that the loss of support from liberal journalists is itself evidence the wheels are falling off the McCain campaign.  Heilemann recently wrote about a "shift" in the attitudes and opininos of the media away from John McCain and towards Barack Obama. His examples are, well, typical.

Jonathan Alter, Joe Klein, Richard Cohen, David Ignatius, Jacob Weisberg: all former McCain admirers now turned brutal critics. Equally if not more damaging, the shift has been just as pronounced, if less operatic, among straight-news reporters. Suddenly, McCain is no longer being portrayed as a straight-talking, truth-telling maverick but as a liar, a fraud, and an opportunist with acute anger-management issues.

By a show of hands, how many of you knew these guys were, as Heilemann reports, "former McCain admirers?"

This morning, Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, appeared on Fox News's Fox & Friends to answer a few questions about tonight's vice presidential debate between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Delaware Senator Joe Biden.

Grabbing the headlines the past few days has been the news that Gwen Ifill, debate moderator, has written a book subtitled "The Age of Obama" which is set to be released on the day of the inauguration of the next president in January. A win by Barack Obama could positively impact book sales and have caused some to question the impartiality of Ifill.

The wording may be a tad nuanced, the referenced two-bit dictator from a different country, but the idea behind the following jokes involving Barack Obama and the race card seems too similar for mere happenstance.

Judge for yourself.

On September 19, conservative blogger Jim Treacher wrote the following fictious exchange between "President" Obama and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that seems eerily similar to the one presented on the most recent installment of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" (video embedded right, relevant section at 3:30):

The New York Times is going the way of MSNBC. I suspect they're going to find that appealing to the Angry Left is not a successful business model.

Rather than investigate the campaign donations paid out to Senators Dodd, Clinton, and specifically, Barack Obama, by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the NYT focused instead on McCain aide Rick Davis's employment by the consulting firm, Davis & Manafort.

First NPR and now PBS; the publicly funded media outlets are revealing their respective bias in different ways, but the net result is the same: they favor Barack Obama over John McCain.

Now available on PBS's NOW segment webpage (not to be confused with the National Organization for Women, subject of my post yesterday) is a poll about Governor Sarah Palin. It asks:

Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States?

Lazy journalism at NPR typically causes a return to their default position: liberal bias. Such was the case yesterday. In the morning edition, NPR reported on the recent and unsurprising announcement that NOW--the National Organization For Women, an ideological & partisan group--would endorse Barack Obama.

Rarely does the National Organization For Women endorse a presidential candidate. On Tuesday, the group announced it is endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Kim Gandy, president of NOW, talks with Renee Montagne about why the organization is endorsing Obama.

John McCain's early love affair with the press has been well-chronicled. He was a "maverick" most loved because he went against his own party--best loved, in fact, when he produced legislation like McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform.

As Rich Lowry points out, they liked him for more than just that, they liked him because he gave them such extensive access.

Since 2000, John McCain had thrived on his irrepressible chattiness with the press, talking about anything reporters wanted for as long as they would listen. The press loved the access and avoided “gotcha” coverage, letting McCain explain any seeming gaffes. The arrangement worked beautifully for both sides — until McCain became the Republican presidential nominee.

What if you could download a program that would scan, magically, any article written anywhere and expose the spin, bias, and misinformation? Would that interest you?

This is what a new program--SpinSpotter--coming to you from Seattle, WA, purports to do. Business Week reports:

The application's algorithms work off six key tenets of spin and bias, which the company derived from both the guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code Of Ethics and input from an advisory board composed of journalism luminaries.

At long last, the soon-to-be erstwhile Democratic mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, pleaded guilty and will resign as mayor. The Detroit Free Press reports all of the salacious details--except the singular detail that Kilpatrick is a Democrat.

In a courtroom this morning, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstructing justice by committing perjury. He will spend four months in jail, pay up to $1 million in restitution, and serve five years' probation. [...]

As Fox News prepares to interview Barack Obama tomorrow night, during prime time, TV journalist Michael Wolff details a meeting between Barack Obama, Fox News president Roger Ailes, and News Corporation president Rupert Murdoch in which the Fox execs promised to lay off the Democratic presidential candidate.

According to Wolff's telling, this was more than a mere tete-à-tete, this was a full-on diplomatic meeting (initiated at Murdoch's request), conducted only after preparation and with preconditions from the Obama campaign.

The apparent purpose? To smooth things over in the event that Obama defeats John McCain:

I think I've got it now. These are the MSM rules when dealing with the personal lives of national candidates and/or members of their family:

Given the chance to publicly embarrass and humiliate a Republican candidate's 17 year old daughter, do it.

If it's a moralizing former Democratic candidate for president, well, leave that to the National Enquirer.

Today, to head off the many tawdry rumors being passed back and forth between the Daily Kos diarists and their MSM fellow travelers, the McCain camp announced that Governor Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant.

Jason Mattera is the leader in the humor clubhouse this election cycle. 

At the recently concluded Democratic Convention, Mattera "[put] on his orange jumpsuit to petition DNC protesters in support of Netflix and MSNBC (and Jihad Olympics!) for the deprived Gitmo detainees." You see, this is the perfect way to poke fun at people--like Recreate 68--who take themselves way too seriously.

The funniest moments? I agree with Michelle, who posted the footage at Hot Air:

the eco-conscious couple’s reaction when Jason suggests the ultimate carbon footprint solution. Hackysack with Little John Edwards. And: Jason’s got some mad ballroom dancing skillz

This is a favorite meme of the left. In fact, apart from Ace's parody of the same, I've never seen a "lifelong Democrat" claim to be, for the first time ever (!) voting Republican in an election. Probably because it's lame and fools no one.

It certainly won't keep them from trying. Over and over and over again.

The latest example is  "lifelong Republican," Tony Dean. Courtesy the Buckeye Firearms Association,

A "lifelong Republican" that is "switching parties to head a Sportsmen for Obama group"? This is an interesting claim, given that Dean was mentioned by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in 2003 as a possible Democratic candidate for Congress who endorsed Democrat Senator Tim Johnson for reelection just a year earlier.

In my short time here at NewsBusters, I've pounded away at the left's obsession with celebrities and especially their outsized role in Obama's campaign--going so far as to "advise" the candidate. You won't see any of that from the celebrities supporting John McCain. They're happy to keep their involvement to voice-overs for campaign ads and donations.

The Weekly Standard reports on a recent meeting of Hollywood conservatives, attended by such luminaries as James Caan and Robert Duvall of The Godfather fame and Jerry Bruckheimer, Dean Cain, and Angie Harmon.

If it was a good night for John McCain, it was an even better night for Hollywood's long-closeted conservative community. Many of those in attendance are members of the Friends of Abe, an informal group of entertainment-industry conservatives--part social club and part support group--founded by actor Gary Sinise. They have been meeting quietly at out-of-the-way diners and bars in and around Los Angeles for four years expanding their membership by word of mouth.

Walking out of the meeting, Duvall and Caan were asked about their support for McCain. Duvall said, "he's an American hero. He's got character. He's been around. The other guy? I just don't know."

Wild swings in polling results have been an ongoing big story this election cycle. The LAT, as Dave Pierre pointed out a week ago, experienced a huge shift in their polling away from their man, Barack Obama, and were left scrambling to come up with a solution. But the LAT is not alone. Last month, P.J. Gladnick highlighted a similarly drastic shift in the Newsweek poll.

What, then, are we to conclude from this polling data? Are Newsweek and the LAT biased in favor of Barack Obama and other Democrats?

Pollster.com sought to answer that question by running regression analysis on every last bit of polling data they could get their hands on. They found clear divergence in the polling data away from their trend line. Not surprisingly, the results showed polls slightly skewed in favor of both candidates. Pollster.com's, Charles Franklin, chooses to refer to these differences as "house effects" rather than bias.

As the city of Denver prepares for this week's Democratic convention, numerous Hollywood celebs are planning to attend in support of Barack Obama and to advocate for pet issues. Gushes Variety,

When Barack Obama accepts the nomination before some 75,000 people at a Denver stadium on Thursday, he'll be surrounded by a contingent of average Americans from all walks of life --- just not Hollywood performers, musicians and other famous figures who have so publicly championed his candidacy.

So what, exactly, will be the role of celebrity during the week of the Democratic National Convention?