H/t MRC's Jeff Poor. I urge people to read the blog entry that Jackie Seals, the impressive young lady that O'Donnell confronted, has written about her experience.  Not only does it provide fascinating background material about just what a set-up O'Donnell devised, it also catches Norah out in a fib.

As you'll note from an earlier update at the foot of this item, after O'Donnell began catching heat for her stunt, she went back on the air to defend herself.  Among other things, responding to charges she had confronted a young girl, O'Donnell twice claimed that her interview subject "voted in the last election."

Just one problem:  Jackie informs us that she is . . . 17.  Maybe Norah got confused with ACORN voting standards, but 16-year old conservatives [the age she would presumably have been at last year's election] don't go to the polls.

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We all remember how back during the '08 campaign, MSM reporters would challenge people attending Obama rallies with uncomfortable truths about their candidate, along the lines "would you still support him if you knew he had the most liberal voting record in the Senate?" Or not.  I certainly can't remember any MSMer confronting an Obama supporter in such a way.

But let people line up to express their admiration for Sarah Palin . . .

Joe Scarborough was surely right about one thing . . . when he warned that his pronouncement would "enrage conservatives."

The Morning Joe host today proclaimed that comparing Sarah Palin to Howard Dean was an insult . . . to Dean's intelligence.

Joe's jab came in response to an analogy Time's Mark Halperin drew between the excitement Palin creates and that drummed up by Dean's presidential campaign in 2004.

If Hillary Clinton had been any less supportive of the Obama admin's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan, she might have had to quit her Secretary of State job . . .

Clinton damned the decision with faint praise during her Meet The Press appearance today.

Asked by moderator David Gregory where she stood on the matter, her response was the ultra-tepid: "I'm not going to second-guess any decision the Attorney General made." Translation: I'd love to second-guess it. I pretty much just did.  But I'm not about to end my Obama admin career by saying so outright. 

On Friday, this NewsBuster noted how Pres. Obama, questioned at a news conference in Japan, twice refused to say whether he thought the United States' dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was "the right decision."

Yesterday on Fox News Watch, Jim Pinkerton noted the NewsBusters nugget.  The Fox News contributor and New America Foundation fellow observed that PBO's failure had huge implications for America's nuclear deterrent.

Video after the jump of PBO's duck-and-cover at the Tokyo press conference.

Defending the decision of the United States to drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII is not a comfortable thing to do when you're in Japan.  But if you're President of the United States, you must do it. Diplomatically, yes.  With sympathy for the civilian victims, yes.  But you must do it.

But when it came time today for Barack Obama to fulfill that fundamental duty, he failed. The very first reporter [from Fuji TV] called on at the joint press conference with PBO and Japanese PM Hatoyama in Tokyo today put the question to Pres. Obama in blunt and explicit terms:

JAPANESE REPORTER: What is your understanding of the historical meaning of the A-bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  Do you think it was the right decision?

Obama took a deep breath, paused . . . and punted.

Of all the things that might give you comfort in the wake of Nidal Malik Hasan's murderous rampage, where would you rate the news that the military's commitment to "diversity" endures?  Down there, dare I guess?  Ah, but you're probably not part of the MSM elite.

Chrystia Freeland is. And on today's Morning Joe, the Financial Times editor did indeed announce that she was "comforted" by that very fact of the military's unflagging devotion to diversity.

Joe Scarborough countered Chrystia with a tough question.  And--sacré bleu!--Mike Barnicle, not normally an NB fave, made some very blunt and on-target observations . . .

Disclaimer: we're talking politics here, not personal stuff . . .

If there's a bigger sourpuss in Congress than Barney Frank, I wouldn't want to meet him. On MSNBC this evening, the dyspeptic Member from Massachusetts got into it with, of all people, Ed Schultz.  You might think the two libs would make beautiful progressive music together, but what made this spat especially entertaining was that Barney found himself being attacked . . . from the left.

The topic was the billions in bonuses awarded by Wall Street firms that had received TARP money.  Schultz's beef was that Congress blew it by awarding TARP dough without obtaining advance agreement limiting bonus payouts. 

View video here if flash player not visible.

Check out the headline from on the front page of the hard-copy New York City edition of today's New York Times:

The article reports that Nidal Malik Hasan began feeling disgruntled with the Army as far back as 2004.

Let's see, there are 525,948 minutes in a year. If Hasan's been feeling "tension" for about five years, that makes about 2,629,740 tension-filled minutes.  And during that entire period, he only engaged in a homicidal rampage for seven minutes.  I mean, come on, he was only a murderer for some tiny, tiny fraction of 1% of the time!  

Far be it from NewsBusters to support more government social-program spending. Still, my antennae went up when I heard AARP's Nancy LeaMond dismiss a half-trillion in Medicare cuts as mere "scalpel" wielding. LeaMond, AARP Exec. VP, made her blithe statement while defending her organization's endorsement of ObamaCare to Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe today.

Which made me wonder: just who is Nancy LeaMond? Click, Wikipedia, click: whaddayaknow?  Turns out that before coming to AARP, LeaMond was a senior Clinton administration appointee and a top Dem congressional staffer. Surprise, surprise!

Does the National Journal's Hotline inhabit the same universe as the rest of us?  Democrats lost two-out-of-three among last night's big races.  But in declaring Winners and Losers among non-candidates involved with the campaigns, the only Losers Hotline saw were . . . Republicans and conservatives, with nary a Dem in sight!

Chris Matthews was only too happy to seize on the Hotline hitlist during his Sideshow segment on this evening's Hardball.  Here were Hotline's three Losers:

• Sarah Palin: for jumping into Hoffman's losing cause, whereas McDonell and Christie didn't invite her in and won.
• Pete Sessions: the Chairman of the NRCC, who went 0-2 in special congressional elections.
• Club For Growth: which backed Hoffman.

Hotline's inconsistent logic was glaring . . .

UPDATE--Nov. 4 6:35 AM: Mike Was Right

When Mike Allen appeared on Morning Joe today, the very first thing he did was  tweak Joe Scarborough over the 3:1 odds, described below, that Joe had offered to those wanting to bet against Doug Hoffman.  Joe responded that no one, including Allen,  had taken up the bet.  While Allen apparently didn't plunk down any dollars, it must be mentioned that at the end of the original segment, the Politico correspondent did say "we're in" on Scarborough's offer.

So let me acknowledge that in calling the race in the 23rd a toss-up, Mike Allen was right--not ridiculous.  

Looking back, my two cents say the turning point might well have been the under-reported fact that when Hoffman, who does not live in the district, was interviewed by the Watertown newspaper, he demonstrated surprising unfamiliarity with issues important to the district including a major highway proposal and changes to the St. Lawrence Seaway.  Not the kind of thing that gets national headlines, but important to people who live and work in the area.  Candidates everywhere, take note.

The results should also be a rebuke to the New York Republican establishment.  Remember that Dede Scozzafava was foisted on Republicans as their candidate by party chairmen meeting behind closed doors.  If instead there had been a primary, Republicans would almost surely have chosen someone who would have won this race.

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When you're an MSMer, you're an MSMer all the way--even when faced with facts that might make you like, well, ridiculous . . .

Mike Allen, appearing on Morning Joe, has declared the NY-23rd race a "real toss-up" despite a new poll from a respected organization showing Doug Hoffman with a 17-point lead.

The claim by Allen, Politico's chief political correspondent, was so absurd that, on the spot, host Joe Scarborough offered 3:1 odds to Allen and anyone else wanting to place a few kopeks on Dem Bill Owens.

In deciding which Sunday talk shows to focus on, I typically tap into Politico's Sunday talk show tip sheet, which provides a helpful round-up of the Sunday line-up.

Scrolling there today, I came upon the photo you see here.  Of all the innumerable images of the three men, these are the pictures Politico chose to announce the appearance of Joe Lieberman, Rush Limbaugh and David Plouffe on Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press, respectively.

You don't suppose Politico's pic picks might reflect its biases, do you? Let's break it down . . .

If you were a cable TV host whose audience size is obliterated by O'Reilly's, buried by Beck's, hammered by Hannity's and slam-dunked by Susteren's, would you really go around mocking someone else's ratings?

Appparently yes, if you're Ed Schultz. The host of the miniscule MSNBC program went out of his way this evening to belittle the ratings of Dennis Miller's radio show . . .

Schultz's snide comment came during his Psycho Talk segment.

Golf, too?  If there was one sport you'd think might be immune from the liberal slant that has invaded too much of sports reporting, it's golf.  The fairways-and-greens guys are known for generally being Republicans.

But out of the blue [green?] on a Golf Channel show this afternoon, host Brandel Chamblee took a cheap shot at Dick Cheney with a rather nasty hunting reference.

Chamblee, who before retiring from the PGA Tour had one win in 370 career starts, was discussing with co-host Rich Lerner the putting woes of the affable Jason Gore . . .

Earlier today, the Joe Scarborough radio show, with Mika Brzezinski, aired a wide-ranging interview with this NewsBuster. 

Highlights:

• Mika justified her nanny-state proposal of a tax on fatty foods by saying eating habits are not a matter of personal choice because others must bear the health care cost.  Finkelstein's response: kill two birds with one stone by getting government out of the health care business.
• Regarding the White House war on Fox News, Finkelstein observed that the White House should know its strategy has backfired when the likes of Helen Thomas and Dan Rather have defended Fox.
• Mark complimented Mika on exposing the 99 44/100ths liberal environment she experienced at CBS, but chided her for denying that the network has an agenda.  A discussion of the MSM media bubble ensues.

Listen to audio here.

So much for politics ending at the water's edge . . .

Hillary Clinton has gone to Pakistan and bragged of having opposed Pres. Bush during her entire Senate career. Clinton also depicted the difference between Barack Obama and George W. Bush as being "like daylight and dark."  

For good measure, Clinton played the moral equivalency card, declaring "we cannot let a minority of people in both countries determine our relationship."  The Pakistani minority she had in mind is presumably composed of al Qaeda and its sympathizers.  Clinton didn't specify which Americans she would equate with them.

If her Evening News gig doesn't work out, maybe Katie Couric will seek work as a Republican strategerist . . .

Couric dabbled in her possible new profession in her Notebook segment yesterday, offering some carefully considered advice to the GOP.  According to Katie, Republicans should get the focus off Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.  They're nothing but "fringe" elements, "sideshows" that drive people out of the Republican Big Tent.

Mike Allen has dumped on Doug Hoffmann's candidacy.  Again.  Yesterday, as noted here, Allen said Republicans would be "crazy" and "suicidal" to support the conservative in the special congressional election in New York's 23rd CD.   Today, Politico's chief political correspondent has claimed that a Hoffman victory would spell "chaos" in Republican ranks.

And check the video for Mike Barnicle making an elitist crack about the upstate NY district, and Chuck Todd trying to embarrass RNC Chairman Michael Steele . . .

How enraged is Keith Olbermann with Joe Lieberman for announcing that he would filibuster a health care bill that contains a government-control provision?  Enough that, without presenting any evidence whatsoever, the Countdown host has slyly implied that Lieberman might be on the take from insurance companies in his home state of Connecticut.

You had to listen carefully, but Olbermann slipped the scurrilous suggestion into his diatribe against Liebermann on tonight's Countdown.

Here was Olbermann . . .

Where is Tina Fey now that we need her?

Martha Coakley is the front-runner for the Dem nomination for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat.  In a recent debate, asked about her lack of foreign policy experience, the first credential Coakley offered in response was that "I have a sister who lives overseas, and she's been in England and now lives in the Middle East."