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Washington Post reporter and author of "God's Harvard," Hanna Rosin, admitted in an October 15 blog post that she disagrees politically with most evangelical Christians and that she thinks that the religious views informing their political ideology and activism is downright unhealthy for democracy.

Posting an entry in a "blogalogue" at Beliefnet.com, Rosin offered these reflections on conservative evangelical Christians and their participation in politics (emphasis mine):

This week marks the unhappy milestone of Black Monday for Wall Street, which had some journalists warning “it could” happen again. Even if it doesn’t, the media hammered home the prospect of a possible recession.

"Can it happen again? It could," said CBS correspondent Alexis Christoforous on "Evening News" October 14.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average nosedived Oct. 19, 1987, when panicked selling cost investors 22.6 percent in one day of panicked selling. But do investors in 2007 need to be worried about another crash?

Want to know why Nobel Laureate Al Gore likely doesn't want to debate any of the myriad of scientists and politicians that have challenged him to such a tête-à-tête regarding his manmade global warming theories?

Could it possibly be because Gore was a terrible science student, and clearly never excelled at anything relating to what folks in Norway and in the media consider him to be so expert at?

The following was reported by the Washington Post on March 18, 2000 -- and conveniently ignored by media ever since Gore began lecturing the world about subjects he practically flunked as a student! -- in an article marvelously titled "Gore's Grades Belie Image of Studiousness" (h/t NBer dscott, and tangentially Greenie Watch):

Last night on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took CNN's marketing team to task, pointing out the hypocrisy of putting a "six foot square poster in each of the 2.3 million copies of today's the USA Today. That's 13.8 million square feet of ‘Planetary Peril.'" Planet in Peril a program airing next week on CNN. Colbert who could barely keep himself from laughing went on to say,

"Now the paper is recycled but hopefully that glossy ink isn't going to biodegrade anytime soon, so awareness of this threat is going to be around for centuries. Brilliant marketing CNN, you have strategically insured the planet will still be in peril by the time your special airs next week."

Video (1:17): Real (2.10 MB) and Windows (4.60 MB), plus MP3 audio (598 kB).

It's bad enough that NBC News is spending hours of coverage devoted, strictly to the global warming cause but now they're even squeezing their green indoctrination into stories on tween stress. On Wednesday's "Today" show Ann curry highlighted some of the reasons kids today are more stressed than ever and cited "climate change" as one of them.

The following occurred in the 9am half-hour of the October 17, "Today" show:

Ann Curry: " Feeling a little stressed out these days? Well you're not the only one. A new report out says that today's tweens, that's children between the ages of 7 and 11, may be feeling more stress than ever. It may not be a surprise when you consider some of the reasons why. From the senseless violence in the news-"

Unidentified boy: "Sometimes stuff happens around school and stuff and people start stuff."

On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough declared, "Al Gore wins." Referencing a story in the New York Times on how global warming is dividing the 2008 GOP field, the former Republican congressman predicted that by the next election, all candidates would adopt Gore's agenda. He conceded, "Yeah. We called him an idiot in 1992, we Republicans, and about 16 years later, we agree with him."

Liberal co-host Mika Brzezinski, the daughter of Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was only too happy to pile on. In addition to calling Republicans "slow" for dismissing global warming, she claimed it "takes you guys a while" to come around. Scarborough could only reply, "You know what the good thing about being a Republican is? Never having to say you're sorry."

Radio Disney is bleeping "God" from ad copy for the upcoming movie "The Ten Commandments."

Seriously.

The folks at Liberty Counsel sent out notices on Monday and Tuesday of this week letting people know about a copy of an email they had in which a Radio Disney representative was advising a media buyer to delete the words "chosen by God" in ad copy for the movie "The Ten Commandments" which opens on October 19. To see the email, and also the petition that Liberty Counsel has to get Radio Disney to reconsider this decision you can click here.

Hardly surprising, I suppose, but "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie "Who made us the boss of them?" Couric has passed judgment on the SCHIP fight between Congress and President Bush, invoking a playground analogy to hit President Bush and the Democratic Congress for "playing politics" instead of working to "put children first."

Said Couric in an October 16 vlog at her online Notebook:

Both sides are using this issue to score points when they need to get out of the sandbox, act like adults, and agree on a compromise.

That's vintage Couric, alright. As NewsBusters editor Brent Baker wrote on Sept. 24, 2006:

In an effort to kill it forever, Representative Mike Pence (R-Ind.) is attempting to force a vote on the floor of the House today over the future of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine." Yesterday, Pence secured House passage of the "Free Flow of Information Act" to protect the press and is now launching an effort to nix the ability of the executive branch from re-instituting the woefully unfair "Fairness Doctrine," a relic from the 1980s that deserves to remain dead and buried.

Using a somewhat arcane House rule called a "discharge Petition," Pence and Rep. Greg Walden (R- Ore.) are attempting to defy the House majority and force a vote on the measure. A "discharge petition" would need the support of 218 members of the House to force a vote and Pence already has 201 names pledged to support him. He needs only 17 Democrats to join the effort and Pence can defeat the efforts of Nancy Pelosi to block the attempt.

What is a divorced father with a devout Evangelical Christian daughter to do when his anti-religious beliefs come between his daughter and his visitation? If you are mainstream media advice columnist from Slate.com he should discuss his views about science and homosexuality; even though he never mentioned that he had such views.

In addition to furthering her "open minded" views on religion and homosexuality the columnist quips with the typical broad brushed generalization of how rude these religious people can really be; “I get a disturbing number of letters from nonreligious relatives of religiously raised children saying that the kids have been warning them of eternal damnation, and even threatening to stop seeing them, unless the relatives repent their Godless ways. Isn't it rather devilish, however, to raise children to be rude, and cruel, to loving family members?”

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on an NBC-owned station, the network is getting ready to bombard citizens with a weeklong manmade global warming propaganda blitzkrieg that's destined to make Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his Norwegian sycophants smile like a polar bear that's just bagged a juicy seal.

It appears the good folks at NBC didn't feel they lost enough money -- and good will! -- pushing this absurd issue down citizens' throats during July's failed "Live Earth" concerts.

Be that as it may, this campaign, cleverly called "Green is Universal" - I guess they couldn't think of anything better that rhymes with "Reading is Fundamental!" - is "part of the company's ‘Get On Board' effort to improve the environment by reducing greenhouse gases, raising awareness about green issues and accelerating change in the media and entertainment industry."

Hmmm. Take out that nonsense about GHGs and green issues, and that sounds like NewsBusters' goal!

As reported by Multichannel News (emphasis added to enhance comedic value):

It took 15 years to become official, but Carole Simpson has now confirmed what we always suspected: she's a Clinton backer. Readers will recall that during the 1992 campaign, the then ABC News anchor moderated a presidential debate in which she made life uncomfortable for Bush 41, notably with her snide "who would like to begin, the 'education president?'" poke.

According to this Boston Globe article, back in 2003 Simpson was "eased out" of her anchor chair in favor of Elizabeth Vargas. Simpson has now taken a teaching position at Emerson College in Boston, and last night turned up at a Clinton campaign stop in Salem, New Hampshire, where she proceeded to endorse Hillary's presidential bid. Here's how "First Read," a frequently-updated analysis of the day's political news from the NBC News political unit, reported it [emphasis added]:

After the "Today" show aired yet another portion of Matt Lauer's prime time interview with Larry Craig and his wife, NBC's Meredith Vieira asked Tim Russert to analyze the ramifications the Craig scandal could have on Republicans in '08 and noted that the Democrats had "been quiet so far." The "Meet the Press" host responded by highlighting the obvious harm the Craig scandal could have on the GOP but observed the Democrats felt "it's best left unspoken." Of course that's easy for the Democrats to do when NBC News is doing all the speaking about Craig for them. So far "Today" has buttressed Lauer's Tuesday night prime time special with four segments on Craig in the past two days alone.

The following is the relevant exchange from the October 17, "Today" show:

OVERVIEW: An underappreciated accomplishment of the past six years has been the continued reduction in the number of people on welfare.

The welfare caseload, after declining dramatically in the first four years after Welfare Reform was enacted, might have been expected to level off, or even rise slightly with overall population growth, after the initial impact of the 1996 law wore off.

After all, the reduction in the number of welfare recipients during the 1990s was stunning. From a peak of over 14 million in 1994, and over 12.5 million at the end of 1996 (over 4.5 million families) when the new took effect, the number of those receiving welfare came tumbling down to about 5.5 million by the end of 2000 — a decline of nearly 2 million per year.

I’m not sure that anyone expected the numbers to steadily fall after the first four years of reform, but that is exactly what has happened. Here are the details for families and recipients on welfare as of the end of each calendar year beginning with the turn of the century (000s omitted):

"Good Morning America" co-host Diane Sawyer hosted a serious debate on Wednesday about whether Maine middle school students, children as young as 11, should have access to birth control pills. The ABC program engaged in a classic example of labeling bias with a graphic that identified talk show host Glenn Beck as a "conservative commentator." In contrast, Sawyer referred to the other guest, Logan Levkoff, not as a liberal, but simply a "sexual educator." This is despite the fact that the "educator" advocated not only for birth control for 11-year-olds, but wouldn't rule out giving it to elementary-aged children. Additionally, Levkoff has blogged about her distaste for President Bush and joy that the Democrats won Congress in 2006.

Despite a few tough questions to Levkoff, Sawyer clearly sympathized with her position. After explaining that a middle school in Portland is considering distributing the pill as well as the patch, she opened the debate by lecturing Beck: "You may not like it. You may want parents to go in and take care of their own children and make sure that they're not sexually active that young, but it's happening. It's happening." When Beck asserted that state law made sex under the age of 14 a crime, the GMA host retorted, "Well, but that's a legislative issue, what about these actual girls?"

As NewsBusters previously documented, most of the mainstream media highlighted General Ricardo Sanchez’s criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War, but ignored his criticism of the media’s coverage. The one exception, of course, is Fox News.

Retired Colonel and Fox News Military Analyst David Hunt appeared on the October 17 edition of "Fox and Friends" to discuss Sanchez’s remarks. Although Hunt conceded Sanchez "is the wrong guy to be doing this" due to the Abu Ghraib scandal, he believes that "he’s right."

"Would the media laugh at a nude chocolate Mohammed?"

So asks Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion editor Frank Lockwood with the headline to a October 16 blog post hitting fellow journalists for a double standard in reporting insults to religious faith.

Reacting with disdain towards a flippant Associated Press article about a confectionery rendering of a naked Jesus Christ, Lockwood answers with a resounding no:

Can you imagine the national media laughing it up about an anatomically-correct chocolate Mohammed, on display in Manhattan with his genitals on display? They'd be too afraid to print the pictures. They don't have the nerve to print artistic renderings of the Prophet with his clothes on!

What determines an economic crisis? Sweater sales.

ABC's "Good Morning America" began its broadcast October 17 with a report that might be confused with one of the signs of the Apocalypse. But have no fear, Bianna Golodryga clued in viewers to some red flags to see if the economy is in "crisis".

Video (0:57): Real (1.55 MB) and Windows (3.34 MB), or MP3 audio (442 kB).

"When you give or get practical gifts, stuff that you need instead of the stuff you want for your birthday or holiday. When sweater sales go up, watch out."

Tuesday’s "The Situation Room" featured two segments with aging rockers who voiced their opposition to Bush administration policies - the first with Crosby and Nash (but not Stills), and the second with Paul Simon. In the first segment, CNN correspondent Carol Costello interviewed the two hippie icons, who compared the Bush administration to a "junta." In the second, host Wolf Blitzer asked Simon about his opposition to President Bush’s veto of the expanded SCHIP program.

Both the Crosby/Nash segment and the Simon segment aired in the 5 pm Eastern hour of "The Situation Room." While Crosby and Nash used fiery rhetoric against Bush, Simon used subdued language. All three wore coats and business shirts, compared to the "rocker garb" of their youth.

Costello interviewed Crosby and Nash at Washington National Cathedral, where the two were to perform at a "peace concert." In their rant against President Bush, Crosby and Nash completed each other’s thoughts, as if they were telepathically-linked.

For general debate and discussion UNLESS you've just had 14 Ketel One Bloody Marys. In that case, please WALK SAFELY home, and sleep it off!

It's time for yet another edition of Name That Party! According to NBC station WKYC, Ohio State Representative Matt Barrett was giving a lecture to some high school students when he inserted a memory stick and showed them a nude picture. Guess which party he belongs to?

As reported here in NewsBusters yesterday, liberals immediately began blaming conservatives for the supposed mugging of Air America talk show host Randi Rhodes on a New York street. After much blame cast in the leftwing blogosphere against evil rightwing muggers as the culprits, it turned out that there was no mugging in the first place. Supposedly it was just an accident.

He might be a middle-aged white guy from the Mountain West, but Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) suddenly understands the travails of people stopped for "DWB": driving while black. In the course of his interview with Matt Lauer, aired last night and excerpted on this morning's "Today," Craig tried to play the profiling card.

MATT LAUER: The fact that these motions seemed to replicate a well-established sequence of signals for soliciting anonymous sex, it's a coincidence?

View video here.

In Time's 'Verbatim' section on page 21 this week, our democratically elected government is scolded by a former dictator of the former Soviet Union as he visited post-Katrina New Orleans:

'If things haven't changed by our next visit, we may have to announce a revolution.'

-- MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, former Soviet leader, on the slow recovery efforts in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward

Time left out a quote that followed, according to AP: "No matter the flooding and the hurricane, the red tape and bureaucracy survive," he said. Time doesn't ponder how long it might take the Russian government (or took the old U.S.S.R.) to dig out of disasters -- like Chernobyl. But they were always deeply impressed by Gorbachev, who they named "Man of the Decade" at the end of the 1980s, in an oh-so-obvious snub of Ronald Reagan.

The SCHIP Federal healthcare program debate is based on quite serious and substantive issues. The GOP doesn't want this Federal welfare program to be expanded to include families that can easily afford their own health insurance (families earning $83,000 a year for instance) and Democrats want to expand this program to include far more families than the legislation ever covered previously. But, if one were to read Reuters coverage of this Congressional fight, one would come away imagining that the only issue is that the Dems want to "back kids' health care" and Republicans don't. What does their headline say to you? "Democrats dare Republicans to back kids' health." It certainly sets the debate on the Democrat's terms, doesn't it?

ABC anchor Charles Gibson twice pushed reluctant guest expert Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor's, to agree that high oil prices and the housing “crisis” will soon lead to a recession. On Tuesday's World News, Gibson outlined: “So, the housing crisis, the Treasury Secretary says it's a significant risk to the economy, the Fed Chairman says it's a significant drag on the economy, we have oil prices over $80 a barrel. Sam, isn't that a classic formula for a recession?” Stovall replied that “what I think is encouraging investors is the pro-activeness of the Fed and government officials by making sure that they get ahead of the curve and fend off the recession.” But Gibson was undeterred from his pessimistic assumptions and pressed again about whether the economy is “really broad-based enough to endure this kind of oil price hike and this kind of housing crisis and not have a recession?” Stovall maintained that oil and housing have impacted the economy, yet “our feeling is we'll probably...get away unscathed.”

McClatchy Newspapers is taking a somewhat ghoulish, pessimistically-toned look at the poor souls who suffer from our success in Iraq: undertakers. That's right, with less people dying, business is slow for Iraqi undertakers, report Jay Price and Qasim Zein in their October 16 article (accessed via Yahoo News), "As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch.":

NAJAF, Iraq — At what's believed to be the world's largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn't good.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

[...]

The burials aren't expensive, usually $200 or less, but many people draw their income from them.

[...]

The NBC Nightly News on Tuesday night became the first broadcast network evening newscast to highlight the first Medal of Honor award since Vietnam for a member of the Navy, announced last week, to Lieutenant Michael Murphy, a SEAL killed in combat in Afghanistan in June of 2005. “His story is already the stuff of legend,” anchor Brian Williams related before Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski recounted Murphy's heroism: How during a battle with Taliban fighters “Murphy stepped out into the line of fire to make a satellite call for help.” A survivor recalled that Murphy “took two rounds to the back and dropped down on that rock and sat back up, picked the phone back up and started talking again.” Standing by a memorial in Brookhaven, New York, Miklaszewski explained that in addition to the memorial, “they've named a park and post office after him. Monuments not only to what he did as a Navy SEAL, but to who he was as a man.”

Miklaszewski got out of the way and allowed his story to end with two moving tributes from Murphy's parents. Maureen, his mother, revealed: “I miss him. I'm glad that he got the medal because other people will know what a great guy that he was.” Dan, Michael's father, got the last word, a desire for appreciation: “While I'm crying inside and my heart's breaking, my chest is puffed out and I'm saying, my son, this is what he did and I hope the country appreciates it and realizes it.” To that, Williams certainly spoke for many viewers: “Here, here.”

The MSM's McCain mania of 2000, the hysteria of the Straight Talk Express, might be history. But some of the liberal media's infatuation with John McCain clearly lives on. It was on display during today's "Hardball" in Chris Matthews's friendly, respectful interview of McCain. The most telling point came as Matthews suggested that compromising his principles exacts a psychic cost from McCain, whereas Mitt Romney does so without problem. Matthews began by teeing up a very comfortable question for the Senator from Arizona.

View video here.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: On the questions of who's the real Republican, now the issue has come up here with Romney saying he's from the Republican wing of the Republican party. He stole the phrase obviously from Howard Dean, when he was "the Democratic wing of the Democratic party." Is that a fair claim?

On Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," host Hannah Storm interviewed Democratic Senator Joe Biden and when the subject turned to recent success in Iraq, Storm summed things up in this question to the presidential candidate:

And let's talk about this report in "The Washington Post," that says some of the generals are considering declaring victory in Iraq over Al Qaeda. Now, does it matter if they do or don't? Is this just a matter of semantics?

Storm’s astute observation of what is being fought for in Iraq is as wise as John Edwards assertion that the "War on Terror" is just a "bumper-sticker slogan." Or, it could be compared to actress Cate Blanchett’s analysis of military leaders that she shared in an interview with Harry Smith in the 8am hour about her new movie "Elizabeth: The Golden Age": "And when you think about that moment when she arrived in front of the troops, I mean, where was Bush after 9/11? And here you had a female monarch, arriving at the battle scene."

After Biden responded by saying, "I hope the administration stops this malarkey about that the war in Iraq is about Al Qaeda," instead of challenging such a statement, Storm concurred, "And Al Qaeda wasn't there before the war in Iraq. They've been a presence since then."