As reported earlier by Noel Sheppard, the drive-by media that previously downplayed Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos has changed it's tune now that Barack Obama's campaign is blaming the Limbaugh effect for keeping Hillary Clinton in the race.

Too bad for Keith Olberman and MSNBC because they apparently missed the memo; instead choosing to do a segment refuting the effect altogether. Last night Olbermann openly mocked Rush Limbaugh alongside his sidekick Chris Matthews who was honking in the background with giddy joy at the prospect of Limbaugh's failure. (video at Webloggin)

The mainstream media types appear to have turned on Hillary Clinton as of late, with the BBC likening her to the knife wielding Alex Forest played by Glen Close in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction. (all emphasis mine throughout)

The candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton refuses to die. She has been compared to the Duracell battery bunny that keeps on shuffling when others, powered by lesser fuel cells, have ground to a halt.

Less kindly she has been likened to Glenn Close in the film "Fatal Attraction", who is supposed to have been drowned in the bathtub but then comes back in one last terrifying moment, wielding a carving knife.

While some might be tempted to see this as some sort of breakthrough I am sad to report that this isn't the case. More often than not when the press goes bad on one liberal politician it is because they have found a replacement that is more liberal, or minimally, more likable. Today that person is Barack Obama as demonstrated handily by the Barack love fest in the same BBC article.

Over the years I have come to expect that atheists and secular humanists would take advantage of the anonymity provided by the internet to further their world view at the expense of those that lead a life based on faith in God. With little exception unmoderated discussion boards, internet based news outlets and blogs that bear any sign of religious content end up attracting those who seek validation by attacking the faithful.

However I did not expect the partially moderated discussion boards at Amazon.com to be one of those places. How wrong I was.

For those who have nothing better to do than listen to themselves supposedly wax philosophic about how "God is both the murderer and the murdered" or ponder the question, "Is masturbating allowed?" then Amazon.com is the place for you.

Thank heavens. Pope Benedict XVI has finally stepped off of Shepherd One onto American soil to begin a six day visit that is sure to be everything the American left hopes to make it out to be. The media is working overtime to resurrect old wounds, create some new controversies and repeat liberal talking points that so perfectly judges a man as only the selective memory of liberal hypocrisy has the ability to do.

And just in time too. What better way to take the pressure off of Barack Obama’s Rev. JeremiahWright controversy than to reignite the flames of the Catholic Church priest sex scandal? Finally, a target has appeared that is worthy of the left’s criticism and utter disdain. If only he had visited 2 or 3 weeks back.

I had at one time thought that the mainstream media had been pretty well represented by articles filled with your typical leftist anti-Christian/anti-Pope Benedict slant. To see examples of such bias we need only stop by the magnifying glass of Wikipedia. Their archive and discussion pages are unique in the way in which they channel common themes that circulate in the public realm of the left; a sort of lib-cyclopedia if you will.

The Associated Press launched a farcical defense of Hillary Clinton’s discredited account of a “health care horror story” that involved a pregnant woman who died weeks after losing her baby. The article, Clinton’s Tale Part Truth, Part Errors, by Charles Babington (or is it Babblington?) is a classic journey down Libsteria Lane where no good lie goes undefended.

The AP one-ups the Hillary Clinton spin by ending their article with their own activist tainted lie as is often the case with mainstream media protectionists of candidates that have been granted most favored party status. (all emphasis mine throughout)

Clinton erred in telling audiences that the Ohio woman lacked insurance when seeking help for her troubled pregnancy. But according to Casto’s account, Bachtel’s medical tragedy began with circumstances very close to the essence of Clinton’s now-abandoned account: the lack of insurance created a $100 barrier to needed medical attention close to home.

The Associated Press editors tasked in-house "writer" Phillip Elliott to write an article that dispels the "rumors and outright lies" concerning Barack Obama and the perception that Mr. Obama's support of Israel is questionable. The product of that task is what you'd expect from any number of left leaning story tellers in the mainstream media who write about Obama as opposed to journalists, reporters and political observers that actually take the time to research, study and honestly discuss that which they have found.

Elliott took no time setting up the Obama defense from the first sentence, stating that "Barack Obama has a solid Senate record in support of Israel". The rest of the article is essentially an exercise in repetition; repackaging the most often repeated excuses in defense of a man that inexplicably spent 20 years in a church listening to the controversial and dogmatic sermons of his pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright honored noted Jew hater Louis Farrakhan and traveled with the Nation of Islam leader to visit Libya's Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. You know Qadhafi, he's the megalomaniacal leader of Libya that instituted Sharia Law and expelled most all the Jews from his country while simultaneously destroying all their cemeteries. A real humanitarian and man of the people, IN HELL!

You seriously have to question why the mainstream media feels compelled to hire activists to pose as reporters in their precious newspapers.

I contemplated taking the higher road in this article and setting emotion aside. But I feel compelled to call it like it is. Why should I or anyone else sit idly by while feckless reporters such as Abdon M. Pallash of the Chicago Sun Times use the power of an irresponsible press to push their one sided agenda as if it was news?

Here's how I see it. Vice President Cheney visited the Great Lakes Naval base last night to give a graduation speech to 4000 sailors who have decided that they wanted to be part of the greatest military in the world despite the fanatical antics of anti-war Berkeley types and their supporters in the press. Given that American soldiers have repeatedly been branded by the mainstream media in the false context of cold blooded killers, who are depressed and too stupid to get a real job you would imagine that these recruits decided the press was full of it and that a military career was the path they wanted to take anyway.

As reported by NewsBusters earlier, Michelle Obama debased America by characterizing it as a mean nation of "cynics, sloths, and complacents". Although this sort of talk is becoming a theme for Michelle-O she wasn't the first Obama to call America mean. A similar sentiment was echoed by Barack Obama in 1995 as he tried to rally the African-American vote for his Senate run after the Million Man March.

"This doesn't suggest that the need to look inward emphasized by the march isn't important, and that these African-American tribal affinities aren't legitimate. These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."

"But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build." (t.t. - all emphasis mine)

Unless you were paying very close attention you likely missed the change in a recent Politico headline from "Obama support soft among Catholics" to "Obama slow to gain among Catholics".

The change itself may seem innocent enough until you learn that it was done in response to the furiously angry efforts by the Obama campaign to change the perception of Politico readers in advance of yesterday's primaries in Catholic rich Ohio and Texas.

The title to this article is exactly how I'd write it if I were a political hack trying to drum up a faux controversy for use by other political hacks in the mainstream media. Which is exactly what Sam Stein of the Huffington Post did on February 12th as he broke out the yellowkid journalistic mold for a fantasy leftist hack attack on John McCain headlined in giant font, McCain Received $100,000 From Firm Of Abramoff Notoriety.

Before I comment further on the idiocy of Stein's assertions it is only fair that I mention that there is nothing in his article that isn't true just as there isn't anything untrue in mine here. Barack Obama did in fact receive over $80,000 from the same firm that Stein tries to hang John McCain with. In addition both John McCain and Barack Obama were eclipsed by the $162,450 amount received by Hillary Clinton from employees of the same jaded firm.

In a July 12th NewsBusters article I noted that the Chicago Sun-Times made a move to revitalize their diminishing subscription numbers by turning back time and returning to its liberal roots. That sentiment was captured by Cheryl L. Reed in a statement she made after being promoted from the paper's book editor to the new editorial page editor.

We are returning to our liberal, working-class roots, a position that pits us squarely opposite the Chicago Tribune -- that Republican, George Bush-touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue. We're rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush's war in Iraq.

The mainstream media turned a deaf ear to Canada's conservative government as they withdrew support for a United Nations led anti-racism conference on charges that the conference itself is a "a systematic promotion of hatred and bigotry". One Canadian official called the U.N. Durban II conference a "gong show" as Ottawa withdrew all support in protest of the escalating rhetoric against Israel. This of course comes as no surprise considering that the United Nations, in all its limited wisdom, elected Libya to chair the conference, Cuba as the vice chair and named Iran to the organizing committee. (h/t Girl on the Right)

Last week ABC News broke the deafening silence on reporting Barack Obama's ties to indicted fixer and political influence peddler Antoin “Tony” Rezko. The rare coverage was reported here on Newsbusters and repeated across the blogosphere as people on both sides of the political spectrum reacted. (I put together a montage of the scant television coverage here).

But all is back to normal now that the dust has cleared. Not only did most of the media gloss over this ever evolving story but nearly all of them took a pass on the Sun Times latest revelation that Barack Obama has surfaced as an "unnamed political candidate" in a federal indictment against Rezko on corruption charges.

Yesterday Newsbuster writer Seton Motley wrote a couple of articles about the blatant liberal bias that stinks up syndicated feeds and news reports coming out of the Associated Press.

As a testimony to the truthfulness of Motley's articles I perused the headlines from the rapidly changing AP RSS feed of their top political news and found that the tone of the teasers were less than ingratiating toward Republicans. The feeds at the time of this writing were full of adjectival editorializing that had a tendency to associate Republicans with negative phrases and words that connote a scrambling uphill path to victory. Where the Democratic race was being characterized as "tight" the Republican race was being characterized as "chaotic" and "uncertain".

Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. appeared on WLS Radio in Chicago yesterday morning to discuss the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. During the interview Jackson launched in criticism of this years' Democratic party primary process and the media's coverage of Hillary Clinton. (short audio clip here, full interview here.)

Representative Jackson was specifically critical of the mainstream media for allowing Bill Clinton a platform from which to attack Obama while Hillary Clinton "is sitting around somewhere in a Deli", talking to voters and having "sensitive moments". Jackson concluded the criticism with a blunt "the media just needs to tell him [Bill Clinton] to butt out!"

Chris Wallace and Mike Huckabee campaign chairman Ed Rollins got into it a bit during an interview on Fox News after the announcement that Huckabee took Iowa. During the exchange Wallace had asked Rollins about a blog article that appeared on Townhall.com where Rollins was allegedly overheard bad mouthing Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani.

The blog article must have hit a sore spot as Rollins became defensive in explaining his comments that appeared in the blog entry while confirming that he did indeed say some of the things that were attributed to him. (video at Webloggin)

Wallace took the opportunity to follow up on that answer in an exchange where Rollins became agitated, calling Wallace and the rest of the Washington press corps "wise men", with a final swipe that "all the wisdom doesn't live in the press corps."

The mainstream media is once again reporting the story of New York banker and ex-GOP voter Jeff Volk who claims to have been rescued by Hillary Clinton from the harrowing conditions of a New Orleans Hotel during Hurricane Katrina. Only now the details of that ordeal have evolved as have a few other elements of the story that the mainstream media seems to have glossed over in their rush to report about a defecting GOP voter.

Few of the reports indicate that Mr. Volk was a Hillary Clinton fundraiser that raised nearly $100,000 for Senator Clinton's re-election campaign in 2006, that the Clinton campaign released a video featuring statements by Mr. Volk in support of Hillary Clinton or that Mr. Volk's political contribution records tell a slightly different picture than that being reported in the press today. Less surprising is the fact that the latest version of Volk's story differs markedly from the original WaPO report.

Editor & Publisher editor Greg Mitchell is hot on the trail with a year long E&P tribute to local newspapers that are covering "the shocking number of suicides among U.S. troops in Iraq or after they return home". At first I figured this was a strange tribute to be making, especially considering that Mitchell didn't bother to present any facts when implying that the war is to blame for such tragic deaths. Instead Mitchell follows it up with an AP story about the apparent suicide of Army veteran Tyler Curtis and presents this incident as further proof to bolster the claim.

NEW YORK For the past year, E&P has paid tribute to local newspapers, sometimes quite small ones, that have covered extremely sensitive and revealing stories that previously gained little attention: the shocking number of suicides among U.S. troops in Iraq or after they return home. Recent studies suggest the figure, once in the hundreds, is now in the thousands.

Fox TV's The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet ran a segment this morning that promoted the Rutgers University Sex, ETC. site for teens. Unfortunately I was not able to watch the program so I can not comment on the specifics of the segment but I can provide some background on the site that should have every parent concerned about the effort to circumvent parental involvement in teaching their teens, and yes, pre-teen children about sex within the context of a parent's perspective.

The first item you may not be surprised to learn is that while the site runs under the subtext of "a website by teens for teens" that it is heavily influenced by adults with a particular agenda. Adults such as Nora Gelperin who is the training coordinator for the Network for Family Life Education based out of Rutgers University. The organization has been renamed to the more child friendly name of Answer and has been the recipient of government sponsored earmarks for the New Jersey Teen to Teen education project.

The mainstream media has glommed onto another narrative courtesy of activists within the State Department who object to “the potential” assignment to a post in Iraq. Opponents within the State Department and their union representatives have characterized the staffing assignments as being “forced” to take a position that is a “potential death sentence”.

“It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment,” Mr. Croddy said. “I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?”

Headline writers in the MSM newsrooms are more than happy to run with this lead despite the fact that Foreign Service Employees in the State Department are required to accept assignment on a worldwide basis at the discretion of the department officials per their employment agreement.