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The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Obama “sought to redirect some of the political blame for the botched rollout of the federal health insurance exchange to Republicans, characterizing GOP lawmakers as rooting for the law’s failure.” But Post reporters Philip Rucker and Sandhya Somashekhar never found a Republican to rebut. Everyone quoted in the story was a member of Team Obama.

“One of the problems we’ve had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure,” Obama said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council meeting in Washington. Obama echoed Rush Limbaugh, who said during the Iraq War in the Bush years that Sen. Harry Reid and other Democrats were “invested in defeat.” Obama could blame a “toxic” political atmosphere, and somehow that didn’t include anything he said or any of his lies about Obamacare:

Former President George W. Bush was Jay Leno’s guest on NBC’s Tonight Show Tuesday.

When Leno mentioned that President Obama is getting all the late night jokes now, Bush marvelously responded, “Better him than me” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

For general discussion and comment...

Comedians often aim their jokes at conservatives, but not this time. Comedian Jim Norton attacked Al Sharpton, host of MSNBC’s “Politics Nation,” and his network for hypocritically promoting racial and homophobic vitriol.

Norton criticized Sharpton and MSNBC while on Nov. 19’s HuffPostLive. He claimed that MSNBC exhibits a double standard where they accept certain offensive behavior by individuals such as Sharpton, but censor contributors like Alec Baldwin. He also attributed a similar hypocrisy to Hollywood’s conception of political correctness.

Norton, known for his popular radio show "Opie & Anthony," slammed Sharpton, saying he’s “been an absolute pig for many years, and he gets away with it because everyone’s afraid just to tell him exactly what a complete a**hole he is.”

One hundred fifty years after President Lincoln foresaw a "new birth of freedom" in his Gettysburg Address, the folks at MSNBC are busy celebrating abortion.

From Chris Jansing to Thomas Roberts, to liberal darling Alex Wagner, the all-liberal network has chosen November 19 as the newest abortion day at the “Lean Forward” network. Perhaps the most obnoxious abortion segment on MSNBC on November 19 was during Now w/ Alex Wagner, where the MSNBC host featured liberal comic Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show, to promote Monday's online abortion fundraiser for the women of Texas and a new campaign she was calling “From V To Shining V,” the "v" presumably standing for "vagina." [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]

Race and class comments spell network fodder any day – except when the topic comes to “white suburban moms.”

When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan blamed “white suburban moms” for opposition to the new Common Core school standards on Nov. 15, only CBS’ “This Morning” covered the story – devoting a total of 19 seconds to the controversy. Host Charlie Rose cited The Washington Post in the Nov. 19 report, and noted Duncan’s “apologizing” for the remarks that “sparked outrage on social media.”

Joe Scarborough is out with a new book again lecturing conservatives on the best road forward. Here's the first sign it should be ignored (just like the previous ones): it will be reviewed in The New York Times, while Mark Levin's truly important, best-selling books are not.

It's the same formula for the Scarborough TV tour: an appearance next to Barbara Walters on ABC's "The View," spots on "CBS This Morning" and "Charlie Rose" on PBS. The liberal media really want Scarborough to tell Republicans what to do. And why not? Might that be because their recommendations are similar?

Never one to let facts get in the way of the proabort narrative, Mark Sherman at the Associated Press characterized today's 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Texas's abortion law to stand while on appeal as one rendered by "the court's conservative majority."

Really? Anthony Kennedy is one of the justices in the critical "Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which reaffirmed in principle (though without many details) the Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the right to abortion under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." That's hardly "conservative," though Sherman at least applied the "liberal" label to the four dissenters. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine):

NewsBusters recently reported that in the first week of November, Fox News nearly doubled the combined prime time viewers of CNN and MSNBC.

Continuing its momentum from a recently revamped evening lineup, Fox significantly more than doubled the combined prime time viewers of its rivals Monday.

How's this for intellectual diversity? The panel on Monday's AC360 Later included three NYC liberals and was unanimous in support of same-sex marriage. The topic was the spat between Liz and Mary Cheney.

"I don't think you can actually respect somebody to whom you want to deny the most basic rights," declared The Daily Beast's Peter Beinart, who also teaches journalism at the City University of New York. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Appearing as a guest on Monday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, syndicated columnist Cynthia Tucker charged that Republicans "pandered" to "bigot" and "homophobes" in the 2004 presidential election, and later threw in the word "racists" as well, as she and host Al Sharpton responded to Wyoming Republican Senate candidate Liz Cheney's dispute with sister Mary over the same-sex marriage issue. Tucker began:

Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist has an excellent post today deconstructing how the liberal Texas Tribune website served as an uncritical PR agent for a Texas couple -- Marni Evan and John Lockhart -- who lamented how a new Texas law pushed them to seek an abortion out-of-state

In "Planned Parenthood's Abortion Theater," Hemingway notes how (emphasis mine):

The Lean Forward network took a half-hearted stab at being fair and balanced on Tuesday. During the 11 a.m. hour, Thomas Roberts invited on two women to discuss the vote to ban abortions after 20 weeks in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Representing the obvious pro-abortion side was frequent MSNBC contributor Irin Carmon.

Representing what Roberts called “the church side” was Sara Hutchinson of, wait for it... Catholics for Choice, a pro-choice lobby group. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Criticism continues to pour in for MSNBC’s Martin Bashir over his disgraceful comments about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin last Friday.

Appearing on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom Tuesday, media analyst Howard Kurtz called them “sad, pathetic, and disgusting” saying that Bashir is a “practitioner” of “the politics of vitriol and destruction” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BREAKING: A large majority of regular tavern patrons say they drink at least occasionally, according to a new report. What’s more, many of those that do say alcohol helps them relax and overcome social inhibitions.

Stupid report? Yep. Nearly as dumb as the one a recent Huffington Post “Women” article touted.

Since TransCanada proposed building the Keystone XL Pipeline in 2009, liberal actors, environmentalists, and the media have attacked the plan. Four years later, the media continue to work against the company that proposed building it, TransCanada and this time they had help.

On Nov.12, CBS “Evening News” did a segment on repairs being made by TransCanada to the recently built section of the Keystone Pipeline. That story was essentially a copycat summary of a report released that day from the anti-pipeline group, Public Citizen. CBS not only relied on the group as its only experts in the matter, but also interviewed the same farmer and former TransCanada employee cited in the group’s report.

When conservatives appear on MSM shows, they regularly get raked over the coals. Frustratingly, the conservative guests rarely call their interviewers out for their obvious lefty bias.

So it was refreshing to see Republican Congressman Chaffetz of Utah refuse to let Luke Russert's liberal slant slide. In the guise of a question, Russert, subbing for Andrea Mitchell on her MSNBC show today, confronted Chaffetz with a contentious bit of editorializing against the "Ted Cruz, Mike Lee rabbit hole." Chaffetz called Russert on it: "That was a loaded question there, Luke!" View the video after the jump.

The "About" page at the Florida Family Policy Council (FPPC) tells us that it "is one of 38 other state based policy council around the country which are associated with Focus on the Family," and that its mission is "to strengthen Florida’s families through public policy education, issue research, and grassroots advocacy." It claims that is basis for public argument is "using good research, sound arguments and articulate presentations to make the case for pro-life, pro-family values in the public square."

FPPC opposes same-sex marriage. According to the Associated Press and AP reporter Brendan Farrington, in a Sunday story (HT Twitchy) carried at the Miami Herald which seems not to have appeared at the wire service's national site, that means the FPPC is "anti-gay":

Given the multiple media comparisons being made between President Obama’s handling of ObamaCare and President Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, it was bound to happen that someone on MSNBC would go nuclear and chalk up 9/11 to be George W. Bush's fault.

Speaking to MSNBC host Ed Schultz on November 18, radio host Mike Papantonio MSNBC leapt at the opportunity to slam the nation's 43rd chief executive, arguing that:

3,000 Americans were murdered, because the Republican administration didn't have the discipline or the good sense to read a presidential briefing.[MP3 audio here. See video after break.]

Despite a running time of four hours, NBC's Today show on Tuesday skipped a blistering poll for Barack Obama and the latest news about the disastrous rollout of the President's health care law. Yet, the morning show managed five minutes for discussing the new TV special from singer John Rich and three minutes on table etiquette for Thanksgiving. Not exactly pressing topics. In contrast, both ABC's Good Morning America and CBS This Morning covered the current wave of bad news.

An ABC News/Washington Post survey found Obama's approval rating at just 42 percent, what Jon Karl referred to as "the lowest job approval we have ever seen" for his presidency. GMA's George Stephanopoulos conceded that these are "brutal numbers." Karl even relayed this result: "We asked voters if they can have a mulligan on the 2012 presidential election, who they would vote for? A plurality now say they would vote for Romney over Obama." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] The journalists also focused on what the administration knew in advance of the impending ObamaCare collapse.

Chris Plante at WMAL Radio in Washington reported on his show Tuesday that President Obama joined a cast of 61 "noted lawmakers, politicians, news anchors and celebrities, including every living President, in reciting the Gettysburg Address" for PBS star Ken Burns, who made "The Civil War" documentary series.

Everyone else delivered the address as Lincoln had written it, including the phrase, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." But in his version of the address, President Obama omitted the words "under God." (Video below, at about 1:35.) Will the networks notice this gaffe?

On Friday night's Piers Morgan Live, Obama donor Harvey Weinstein excused President Obama's insurance lie as a "mistake" and called America "embarrassing" for not having "health care" and "a gun law."

"[T]his is the only the country in the world where we don't have health care. Countries embarrass us around the world. And this is the only country in the world, we don't have a gun law. I watched you, you know, talk about that. You know, quite frankly it's embarrassing. Obama is not embarrassing. The country is embarrassing," Weinstein ranted on CNN. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Has the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare even made Whoopi Goldberg lose confidence in the President she adores?

On NBC’s Tonight Show Monday, The View co-host said, “I don't understand how a four-year-old can upload videos and put a whole website together and these guys can't do jack” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the wake of the disgusting comments MSNBC's Martin Bashir made about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin Friday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin had some important observations regarding the incident Monday.

"MSNBC, ladies and gentlemen, is a hateful, vile, character assassinating outlet" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

I don't want to go overboard here, but most of the print establishment press deserves a bit of grudging credit in the Arne Duncan "white suburban moms" controvery.

Most of them aren't characterizing the gutless attempt by Barack Obama's education secretary to back away from his spiteful, condescending, bigoted comment Friday as an apology — because it wasn't. In a Monday post at the Department of Educations's Homeroom blog (how courageous — not), Duncan only admitted that "I used some clumsy phrasing that I regret," and that "I singled out one group of parents when my aim was to say that we need to communicate better to all groups," while repeating many of the tired lies which have accompanied Common Core's imposition from its inception. There was no admission of wrongdoing, and nothing resembling an "I'm sorry." Predictably, Stephanie Simon at the Politico was among those who considered Duncan's dumbness an apology (links are in original; bolds are mine throughout this post):

After my animated description of President Obama's strangely listless conference call of yesterday, my wonderful wife encouraged me to be kind.  

So let me say something sympathetic about Donny Deutsch. Sure, he's a member of the Manhattan/Hamptons liberal axis.  But I sense he's more of a old-fashioned Dem, someone, for example, who embraces American exceptionalism.  So when on today's Morning Joe the adman admitted that the Obamacare failure might set back progressive government for an entire generation, it's noteworthy. Adding to liberal heartburn, Howard Fineman later said  "I sort of agree with Donny" and that Obamacare could be a "huge disaster for Democrats."  View the video after the jump.

On the front of Tuesday's Style section of The Washington Post is an article titled "Hallowed ground, restored to its roots." The Post assigned gardening writer Adrian Higgins, who wrote of an "elaborate celebration of the 150th anniversary of the president's original remarks" at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863. But nowhere in the 25-paragraph story about clearing the landscape is there any notion that Barack Obama, who has routinely compared himself to Lincoln, refused to attend.

George Condon of National Journal was the latest to report on the snub: "Instead of going to Gettysburg, he will go to the Four Seasons Hotel to address The Wall Street Journal CEO Council's annual meeting and talk about the economy. In his place, he has dispatched little-known Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to the ceremonies." Spokesman Jay Carney offered nothing to reporters: