Blogs

I really shouldn’t have eaten breakfast before reading a preview of the New York Times Magazine’s upcoming piece “Al Gore Has Big Plans” (h/t Dan Gainor).

After all, it’s one thing when sycophants like Sheryl Crow, Laurie David, and Leonardo DiCaprio gush over the former vice president in a manner akin to teenyboppers within earshot of Sean or David Cassidy.

But when such fawning superlatives like “prophetic status” and “intellectual mastery” are employed by a big-time journalist such as James Traub to describe a politician, uncoordinated peristalsis in one’s bowels could cause an embarrassing event without warning.

As such, the reader is cautioned to peruse the following quotes from this disgraceful article with as empty a stomach as humanly possible (emphasis added throughout):

Brent Bozell's culture column this week deals with Opie & Anthony's sick XM shock-jock routine about raping Condoleezza Rice (and raping Laura Bush "to death.") You may not be shocked, but Al Sharpton made no attempt to express his outrage at the XM sickos in defense of this black woman, despite how this routine is so much worse than the Don Imus "ho" comment (video is here):

Rev. Al Sharpton showed up to debate May 15 on the CNN Headline News program “Showbiz Tonight.” But he didn’t say a single word against Opie and Anthony or one word in defense of Condi Rice. He insisted that the Imus gaffe was much more offensive! “I think that these cases are different than Imus. Imus was a repeat offender that stood out, in a different situation...Imus’s situation cannot be compared to other arguments” about free speech, he said.

Better strap yourself in for a dose of alternate reality, for a rock legend has actually come out against Al Gore’s upcoming concerts to promote global warming hysteria.

Can’t be, you say?

Well, Britain’s The Sun reported Saturday (h/t Glenn Reynolds):

THE WHO's ROGER DALTRY [sic] has blasted the big Wembley gig Gore is organising to raise awareness of global warming.

Shocked? There’s much more, although readers should be cautioned about imminent vulgarity in the quotes (emphasis added throughout):

The Formerly Mainstream Media is favorably transfixed on the proposed immigration "reforms" being whipped through Congress -- legislation that opponents characterize as "amnesty."

"Somehow," they have managed to virtually ignore immigration-related legislation that has actually become law in Oklahoma.

Perhaps it's because Oklahoma's reforms have nothing to do with "amnesty," and everything to do with enforcement.

Specifically, from a May 8 Associated Press story on the bill's passage:

Governor Henry today signed a sweeping immigration reform bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the Oklahoma Legislature, but described it as a stopgap measure until the federal government takes action on the issue.

Among other things, the bill contains employment, labor law and civil rights provisions to protect citizens and legal immigrants who lose their jobs at companies that employ illegal immigrants to perform the same or similar work.

Beginning in November, public agencies will be required to use a program that screens Social Security numbers to make sure they are real and that they match up with a job applicant's name.

A One News Now story provided more detail. It also makes it clear that the sponsor of the legislation believes that the states have more power to enforce immigration law than the "it's the Feds' problem" types would like us to believe (bold is mine):

"Fire Also Can’t Burn Wood"

After Rosie O’Donnell leaves "The View" next month, where will Americans go for bizarre 9/11 conspiracy theories? On Monday, the comedienne reiterated her theory that fire couldn’t possibly melt steel. The ABC host also agreed that she has a "cult personality." A few days later, O’Donnell was at it again, comparing the United States to terrorists. Liberal co-host Joy Behar also found a Republican presidential candidate she can finally embrace...Congressman Ron Paul. 

"Vote Obama ‘08: Unless You’re a Racist"

"This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos displayed his usual high level of objectivity when he assumed that the only racists who would have a problem with Obama are Republicans (and they wouldn’t vote for a Democrat anyway). Yes, it’s a good thing that liberals don’t use cheap generalizations.

Although the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court ruling almost two years ago caused an outpouring of outrage that still resonates nationwide, what has happened in New London itself in the wake of the decision has, with rare exception, received relatively little coverage outside of the state of Connecticut or, in a few instances, New England.

It isn't as if there haven't been many noteworthy developments after the decision was handed down. To start, here is a rundown of events that ultimately led to last summer's settlement:

• Within a month of the decision, the New London Development Corporation (NLDC) notified the Kelo holdouts that since they had been living on land that they didn't own during the duration of the lawsuit, they were liable for back rents during that entire time, in some cases amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This outrage, originally noted in local Connecticut weekly whose article link is no longer available, got no national attention until bloggers took note of it (here, here, and here, to name a few) and percolated it to the higher levels of the blogosphere (examples here [f-bomb warning] and here). Even then, Old Media, with few exceptions, one of them being this USA Today editorial, gave this shocking example of bureaucratic chutzpah little notice.

On May 4, Bill Maher appeared on the PBS talk show Charlie Rose to denounce Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Speaking of being greeted as liberators, Maher said America will get back its global reputation almost instantly once Bush is gone and the Carter-Clinton people are back in charge of foreign policy:

CHARLIE ROSE: Now, we`re at a low ebb in terms of our respect around the world. In your judgment, and people you talk to -- Madeleine Albright and the whole range of people -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, who come there [to Maher's show in L.A.], how long does it take, if there`s a change in administration -- which there clearly will be -- and if it is somebody that has the same belief that you do, will it take to get America back?

BILL MAHER: Quickly.

CHARLIE ROSE: That`s what I think.

For weekend discussion...

As the clock ticks down on the Bush administration, the leftwing blogosphere is becoming ever more infected with impeachment fever to often comedic effect. In just the past week there have been almost 5 dozen Daily Kos threads on the topic of impeachment alone. Most of these impeachment threads lack the vital element of legal grounds for impeachment so the leftwing nutroots have to be very creative to justify this course of action. The latest of the leftwing grounds for impeachment is a real doozy: Bush did NOT lie. I kid you not. When Bush was asked by a reporter if he sent his chief of staff and legal counsel to ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room in March 2004 to sign a reauthorization of an electronic surveillance program, he anwered that it was an important program. And now the nutroots are running with the notion that Bush's non-lie is grounds for impeachment as can be seen in many of the comments in this Daily Kos thread,  WE GOT HIM!!!

See update at foot: life imitates NewsBusters.

This is the first step. We can and must complete this legislation sooner rather than later. We all know that

this issue can be caught up in extracurricular politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible. -- Sen. John McCain [R-AZ], May 17th.

Now is probably the last window for action on comprehensive reform before presidential politics thwart any rational debate. -- Boston Globe editorial, May 19th.

That the Boston Globe would want to ram through the amnesty-based immigration bill comes as no surprise. But what does it say about Republican presidential hopeful John McCain that the Globe's entreaty tracks McCain's so closely?

Hugh Hewtt has described the operative sentiment as "a repulsive attitude of contempt towards the voters who elected the senators."

The “Weekly Standard” profiled libertarian-leaning conservative and political commentator turned documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney, whose new documentary about the leftist ideological indoctrination and pervasive political correctness in the US higher education system is called “Indoctrinate U”. Saturday May 19, CSPAN ran a segment about his film on the network’s “Washington Journal”, but CSPAN posts footage of the shows online (when they have it up, I'll post it. His spot is at the two-hour mark). You can see a clip of his film on YouTube as well as the film's website, Indoctrinate-U.com.

“Indoctrinate U” focuses on the pervasive trampling of free speech and thought on college campuses and traces the modern history of free expression on campuses from the ‘60s through today. The doc covers personal stories like “the Kafka-esque nightmare faced by Steve Hinkle, a student at California Polytechnic, who the school attempted to sanction for placing a flier in the university's multicultural center announcing a speech by conservative African-American author, Mason Weaver.” It also features a professor who “excitedly tells the camera ‘whiteness is a form of racial oppression…treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity’.”

The “Weekly Standard” highlighted what the documentary covers (my emphasis throughout):

Tim Russert was Jon Stewart’s guest on The Daily Show Tuesday night. The main course on Stewart’s menu of questions: Bush-bashing. Don’t the Bush people have an “open contempt for democracy” when they don’t submit to the All-Powerful Russert on Meet the Press? How do they “get away with their belligerence?” And when David Gregory dances behind Karl Rove at the White House correspondents dinner, why doesn’t he lean in with a microphone and assert “you lied to everybody!”

Stewart made his "open contempt for democracy" outburst after Russert complained he hasn't interviewed President Bush since 2004, Vice President Cheney since last September, and didn't interview Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in the last three years of his tenure. But Bush has submitted to plenty of other interviews (including with NBC anchors Brian Williams and Matt Lauer) not to mention press conferences. The same goes for Rumsfeld. Russert insisted to Stewart that our leaders "cannot make tough decisions unless you're willing to answer tough questions." But when has Russert submitted to a tough, adversarial TV interview about his role in the Plame-Wilson war on the White House? Never.

Here’s a disturbingly inconvenient truth: Students at Roger Williams University in Briston, Rhode Island, were forced to watch Al Gore’s global warming schlockumentary if they wished to graduate.

Think I’m kidding?

As reported by Young America’s Foundation (h/t NBer Dahlia Travers. Also, please watch the following video of Fox News’ Neil Cavuto interviewing one of these students on the May 9 “Your World”):

For a news division that prides itself on being hard-hitting, there's nothing less hard-hitting than a special where CBS News touts itself as the Historic Oasis of Truth and Fairness. That's coming again tonight with a special remembering Walter Cronkite on his 90th birthday. Most companies don't put their slobbery internal tributes up for a nation to watch, but CBS News keeps trying to live down Memogate and other embarrassments in partisan excess by playing up Cronkite. (To see a more critical look at Cronkite and his excesses, check out our Walter Cronkite Profile in Bias page.)

MRC's Justin McCarthy noticed a big promo segment on Friday's Early Show. The only honorees were Bill Clinton, George Clooney, Robin Williams and a slew of TV news buddies -- like Diane Sawyer cooing "I think he is the most wonderful combination of a certain steel of integrity but absolute humanity," and Katie Couric having a diva moment: "If I knew the answer to what made Walter Cronkite Walter Cronkite, I'd be running all three networks and every cable channel, too." The morning clip read like this: 

Bob Knight, Director of the Culture and Media Institute offers these thoughts on the media's treatment of the death of Rev. Jerry Falwell.

In many of his talks to Liberty University students, the Rev. Jerry Falwell emphasized the importance of “finishing well.”

On Tuesday, May 15, he was at the top of his game when he unexpectedly died in the college office where he was planning more expansions of the fast-growing university that he founded in 1971.

The Rev. Falwell did a lot of things well, ticking off liberals right up to the end. How else would he have garnered the kind of tribute from a major newspaper’s religion writer that was headlined, “Sigh of relief over Falwell death.”

To make sure no one mistook her, Chicago Sun-Times Religion Writer Cathleen Falsani’s May 18 column explains her reaction to the news about Dr. Falwell on May 15.

On Friday, both CBS and ABC skewed their coverage of the Senate’s immigration bill to the left. Neither network featured a conservative talking head that opposed the legislation, instead "The Early Show" and "Good Morning America" simply referred to the "critics" who believe the bill would amount to amnesty for those who came to the country illegally. However, while both networks also interviewed Senator Ted Kennedy, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer actually pressed the liberal legislator with several conservative points.

GMA used flowery language to discuss the Senate’s action, describing the legislation as "landmark." Co-host Sawyer asserted, "It was a historic day to see Republicans and Democrats coming forward on something together." ABC even queried illegal aliens as to what they think of the Senate’s action:

Diane Sawyer: "Everyone taking sides. [sic] But sometimes it’s good to hear the voices from the people who are at the center of the debate. And some of these illegal 12 million have been phoning in to Talk Back, which is our website. Here's one woman who partially hid her face."

Thanks to the right blogosphere, the media's virtual embargo on the gruesome murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, the young white Tennessee couple who were gangraped and killed by a group of black criminals, has finally begun to break. Fox News reported the story yesterday.  Hot Air has the video.

The air continues to seep out of the global warming consensus balloon, ladies and gentlemen.

Meet Augie Auer, the former University of Wyoming professor of atmospheric science turned New Zealand meteorologist who isn’t buying what soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his band of not so merry global warming alarmists are selling.

As reported by the New Zealand Timaru Herald (emphasis added throughout):

Original caption:

"Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (R) [sic] appears on CNN's Larry King Live in New York April 19, 2007."

Outgoing "View" co-host Rosie O’Donnell made racist and anti-Catholic slurs during her tenure on the show. On the May 18 edition, she can now add a sexist comment to her resume. In the context of a book about a male nanny, Barbara Walters asked the co-hosts if they would like a male nanny. Rosie responded likewise.

ROSIE O’DONNELL: No, I wouldn't.

WALTERS: Not even--You would not want a male nanny?

O’DONNELL: No question about it.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Maybe not for a daughter.

WALTERS: Really?

O’DONNELL: Nope. Not even for a son.

Her reasoning? Rosie applied the same argument proponents of racial profiling use noting, "the vast majority of people who sexually abuse children are male." But the vast majority of men would never sexually abuse children.

Here is a story that should make every parent proud, even those on the left side of the aisle.

A high school student up in Portland, Maine, created a website for extra credit in her Honors Earth Sciences class. Called “Ponder the Maunder,” fifteen-year-old Kristen Byrnes took on the subject of global warming, and was eventually asked to examine the veracity of Al Gore's schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In her piece, Byrnes quickly demonstrated what few in the media, especially Gore sycophants Laurie David, Sheryl Crow, and Leonardo DiCaprio, were able to grasp about this farcical film (emphasis added throughout):

As gas prices are on a springtime upswing and the summer driving season is upon us, NewsBusters and the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute have documented the media's persistent hype about gas prices.

But if the media really want a story about an economy running on fumes, they need look no further than Zimbabwe, where socialistic thuggery has resulted in a starving nation bedeviled with 3,700 percent annual inflation and electricity rationing.

Oh, things weren't always this bad. This time last year it was only at 1,000 percent inflation in Zimbabwe, and that's over 100 times worse than the single-digit "stagflation" that then-CNN contributor Andy Serwer feared just five months before the 2006 midterms.

One of the claassic D.C. quotes quipped about “a billion here and a billion there.” It referred to money. We aren’t supposed to be so cavalier when we’re talking about a million here and a million there and we mean human lives.

But that was the way The Washington Post treated the 100th birthday story of environmentalist “icon” Rachel Carson. Carson wrote the book “Silent Spring” and set in motion the banning of DDT that cost millions of lives needlessly.

The Post celebrated Carson’s birthday by barely mentioning that her actions “have remained controversial” and ignoring that the World Health Organization now embraces using DDT.

As Mark Finkelstein noted, (following the well-worn formula of "trash Bush, get a book deal, and be excerpted lovingly by Time magazine and interviewed on 60 Minutes") former Bush faith-initiative aide David Kuo is again milking the conservative-trashing formula after Jerry Falwell's death. On National Public Radio's evening newscast All Things Considered on Wednesday night, Kuo continued his attack line that Falwell harmed the cause of Jesus and social conservatism:

Yesterday, a friend from Los Angeles called. The person is successful, known, part of the entertainment industry. Jerry Falwell is, my friend said, the reason I can't call myself a Christian in Hollywood. He is what everyone thinks to that when they hear the word Christian. That may well be Jerry Falwell's most enduring and most troubling legacy. Jerry Falwell almost single-handedly blurred the line between Jesus and conservative politics to the detriment of both.

Here are some Friday Ted Kennedy jokes:

"Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my gun has."

Shortly before Rose Kennedy passed away, she was having tea with neighbors when, out of the blue, she asked, "I wonder how Jackie's doing?"

"Rose," a neighbor said gently, "Jackie died some time ago."

"Oh, no!" Rose cried.

"Was Teddy driving?"
--
"More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than have died at Gitmo."

"Hey Teddy, What if I'm pregnant?" "Don't worry Mary Jo, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

A television program came out strongly against the war on terror and the war in Iraq Thursday evening, but Katie, Charlie, Brian, and Wolf weren’t involved.

Video (1:42): Real (1.23 MB) or Windows (1.04 MB), plus MP3 (1.12 MB).

In this instance, it was NBC’s hit series “ER,” and the show – about doctors, nurses, and patients in a hospital emergency room if you couldn’t guess – didn’t wait very long to take a jab at the White House (h/t NBer SpinyNorman).

In fact, the episode began with the staff being informed by desk clerk Frank Martin: “Homeland Security raised our threat level to orange this morning.”

Leading character Dr. Neela Rasgotra asked, “Well what does that mean exactly?”

Dr. Gregory Pratt quipped as he was walking by:

It might not be surprising for liberal blog commenters or talk-radio callers to denounce Rev. Jerry Falwell upon his death, but it's a little more surprising when it comes to a professed Christian who's religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Cathleen Falsani reflected on her first reaction about hearing Falwell was "relief" and compared him to gangster TV character Tony Soprano:

Knowing I didn't have a deadline to meet that day, my first thoughts were not of what to say or write.

In fact, my very first thought upon hearing of the Rev. Falwell's passing was: Good.

And I didn't mean "good" in a oh-good-he's-gone-home-to-be-with-the-Lord kind of way. I meant "good" as in "Ding-dong, the witch is dead."

Blogging at the "Couric & Co." blog, CBS producer Ward Sloane admitted that many journalists who covered the Gipper were wrong about the 40th President's political and policy acumen. Noting a new book that reveals entries from Reagan's journal, Sloane made it sound like the media were only echoing a large swath of the American electorate:

The fact is that many Americans and -- not surprisingly to some of you reading this blog -- many members of the mainstream press believed that Ronald Reagan was aloof and disconnected from the events that marked his presidency. Historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited the diaries at the invitation of Nancy Reagan, says they show Reagan to be exactly the opposite.

If the AP didn’t write about it, it didn’t happen, right? In an article about a topic I blogged earlier in the week here at Newsbusters, the AP also reported it, but with a different angle. The Primary Source, a conservative newspaper at Boston’s Tufts University was charged with harassment and creating a hostile environment on campus by publishing what the paper called political parody; they were found guilty of the charges by a disciplinary panel. The catch is, the AP worded it in a way that only reported half the story and ignored the paper's other harassment complaint that the panel was judging-at the same time-a fact-based satire of Islam.

Does L.A. Times columnist Rosa Brooks think 9-11 was "fictional and entirely implausible"? I ask, because in The GOP's Torture Enthusiasts today, that's how she describes a similar scenario that Brit Hume sketched during this past Tuesday's GOP presidential debate.

In inviting the candidates to discuss their views on interrogation during this past Tuesday's get together, debate moderator and Fox News DC Bureau managing editor Brit Hume said the following:

The questions in this round will be premised on a fictional, but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it. Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.

Brooks sniffed at the scenario, calling it "the kind that most intelligence experts consider fictional and entirely implausible."