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Amazing. The AP puts everything over the wire ... well, almost everythng.

Realizing we don't yet know all the details, apparently the AP has decided to not put the story of a Muslim cab driver running down two students after a religious dispute over the wire. Why might that be? They can't all be writing about Anna Nicole Smith?

Liberated by her firing-qua-resignation, ex-John Edwards blogger Amanda Marcotte has reverted to form: using vulgarity to insult her political opponents. On a whim I thought I'd check in at Marcotte's site, Pandagon, and wasn't surprised to find her slurring Michelle Malkin, with shots at Ann Coulter and the two leading conservative women's organizations thrown in for good measure.

Marcotte decided to respond to an inquiry from a poster she labelled a troll who had written: "does it bother you that one of the major architects of your demise was herself a strong woman, Michelle Malkin?"

That set Marcotte off on this tirade that included these gems of logic and literary flair [editing mine; unexpurgated vulgarity in the original]:

• "I do want to address this false premise that someone like Malkin is a 'strong woman' Women who kow-tow to male dominance by aggressively attacking women who actually do rebel against oppression can expect to have sexist men blow this particular 'strong woman' smoke up their --- all the time. It means nothing. To the degree that these men mean it, they are mistaking a------ry for strength."

Retired anchors Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather (and a pile of other liberal media bigwigs) recently made time for a book party Bill Clinton threw in New York for his old defense secretary Bill Cohen and his wife Janet Langhart. Mark Shanahan reported the shindig for The Boston Globe:

Held on the third floor of the historic Russian Tea Room, the exclusive affair was hosted by former president Bill Clinton to celebrate the couple's new book, "Love in Black and White." Guests included former news anchors Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw, CBS president Leslie Moonves , "Primary Colors" author Joe Klein, First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, cultural critic Michael Eric Dyson, Newsweek's [International Editor/ABC pundit] Fareed Zakaria, "Inside Edition" anchor Deborah Norville , and MTV creator Robert Pittman. (Michael Douglas and his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones,couldn't make it but sent a bouquet of flowers.)...

Discuss, debate, descant.

On the Friday edition of "The Situation Room," CNN political analyst Donna Brazile slammed 2008 presidential candidate John McCain as "cowardly" for his decision to skip the Senate’s non-binding vote on President Bush’s troop surge plan in Iraq. Brazile, who discussed the issue with host Wolf Blitzer and conservative commentator William Bennett, described the Arizona Senator’s decision as "an insult." She then proceeded to label the Vietnam veteran, who spent five and a half years in the "Hanoi Hilton" prison camp, as "cowardly" for not returning to Washington on Saturday for the vote:

Donna Brazile: "I think it's an insult not to come and show up for a vote. This is a very important debate. And, for Senator McCain, who has been a staunch supporter of the President's plan, he should come and put up or shut up. But to -- to run away from the debate, and to say that this is meaningless is -- is -- is, in my judgment, cowardly."

Last Tuesday, in a blog suggesting the PBS Frontline documentary on 'News War' would be biased, I added: "Suffice it to say PBS has not contacted the news watchers at the MRC." Frontline executive editor Louis Wiley protested that they had. I asked our publicists, and they located an e-mail from April, requesting a 90-minute interview with MRC president Brent Bozell, which was refused. I was not aware of the request, and I was incorrect. Here is the e-mail I received from Wiley of PBS:

As our producer Arun Rath said, we had wanted to interview O'Reilly and Limbaugh in person to ask them questions about this topic, but they turned us down. It didn't, however, stop us from doing our best to represent their views as our commitment to professionalism requires.

When it came time to pass an anti-war resolution, the Democrats were no better than a bunch of timid pre-teens on Halloween. That was the view Matt Lauer expressed in a colloquy with Tim Russert on this morning's "Today."

Lauer: "The Democrats in the Senate failed to pass this vote so they could even debate this Iraq strategy and there's even some who are talking about possibly bringing up the idea of revoking the 2002 authorization to go to war. If they can't pass a kind of symbolic vote, how do they ever have the kind of strength to do something more serious?"

Russert agreed that "it's going to be very difficult."

Matt wasn't done: "Looking at what happened in the House . . . over the weekend, basically the House did pass this resolution saying they oppose the surge in troops, but put yourself in the position of Joe and Mary Smith, living somewhere across this country right now, and you've watched these politicians for more than a month talk about passing a symbolic vote. Does it amount to little more than them ringing someone's doorbell and running away?"

View video here.

(As heard on the Rush Limbaugh Show, Feb 20th, 2007)

A very interesting piece by Louis Chude-Sokei is featured in the L.A.Times today, titled Redefining 'Black' and centered upon the question of Barack Obama's relative "blackness".

Some of you may have noticed that Barack is not getting the automatic support from African American leaders that many assumed he would get since throwing his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination for the presidency and Mr. Chude-Sokei makes an effort to inform us as to why this might be true. Unfortunately, while it has a few good points it misses the mark in too many ways.

The main point, according to Chude-Sokei, is that Obama isn't "black enough" to get the support of the standing Black American leadership because of his White/Hawaiian/African (meaning NOT African American, but real African) heritage.

Clearly, network anchors have much more sensitive skins than President Bush. Reporters insult him to his face, suggest he's concocting wars with fake intelligence, and insist he's incapable of admitting any mistakes. But to gain access to Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer, apparently you have to arrive with pom-poms and a pleated skirt.

Howard Kurtz interviewed ABC's Diane Sawyer about her disgustingly sympathetic 2007 Axis of Evil tour of interviewing the dictators of Iran and Syria for Monday's "Media Notes" column in The Washington Post. The piece read more like a press release for ABC than a news article. Take this line: "Just as industry insiders are wondering whether she is ready to abandon the predawn grind, Sawyer embarks on a one-woman diplomatic mission that has the business buzzing."

It might actually be worth the price of admission to Paul Krugman's column this morning to observe the amusing manner in which the New York Times columnist wriggles around in a trap of his own making regarding Hillary's vote to authorize the Iraq war. On the one hand, he wants her to apologize for it, and so must criticize her for not doing so. On the other, he hastens to make the limits of his criticism perfectly clear. He's not lumping her in with those awful, intransigent Republicans. Certainly not. Krugman wouldn't want to damage the presumptive Dem candidate . . . nor bring down The Wrath of the Clinton upon his hoary head.

And so Krugman spends most of his column, the ostensible purpose of which is to lament Hillary's inflexibility, lambasting Republicans for their unbending nature, all the while being careful to observe that Hillary is, well, perhaps a teeny bit like them -- but not too much, mind you!

• President Bush and VP Cheney are "pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes."
• "Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle."
• "George Bush . . . suffer[s] from an infallibility complex."
• "Dick Cheney is a 'megalomaniac.'"
• "Senator John McCain . . . appears to share the Bush administration’s habit of rewriting history to preserve an appearance of infallibility."
• "As for Rudy Giuliani, there are so many examples of his inability to accept criticism that it’s hard to choose."

But when it comes to Hillary, well:

A new study just released by the University of Oregon indicates that despite all of the attention given to global warming by the media and pols like Al Gore, most people believe that solving the problem is a low priority (emphasis mine throughout):

Most Americans believe global warming is real but a moderate and distant risk. While they strongly support policies like investing in renewable energy, higher fuel economy standards and international treaties, they strongly oppose carbon taxes on energy sources that put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

How deliciously refreshing. The study in question was done by Anthony Leiserowitz, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Oregon, and had some rather fascinating conclusions:

A February 11, 2007, front-page article by Stephanie Simon in the Los Angeles Times discounts the possible link between induced abortion and breast cancer (ABC). Simon also promulgated the questionable claim that crisis pregnancy centers (CPC's) "gave misleading information" in an undercover investigation conducted by abortion supporter Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) last year. Finally, the story also downplayed Planned Parenthood's role as the nation's leading abortion provider.

Although the focus of the article is the funding of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, Simon wrote:

U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), an abortion rights supporter, last year asked undercover investigators to contact 23 crisis pregnancy centers; 20 gave misleading information, such as exaggerating the risk of abortion, he reported. In Austin, the diocese hands out a booklet — approved by the state — that suggests a link between abortion and breast cancer, though the National Cancer Institute has found no such connection.

Since Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) became the media’s antiwar darling, he has been allowed to say virtually anything he wants with total impunity. Ignoring rules of engagement that clearly don't apply to him, FNC’s Brit Hume finally took the congressman to task on the most recent installment of “Fox News Sunday.”

During the panel discussion, host Chris Wallace played a video clip of a recent statement by Murtha concerning Iraq. Hume took issue with the congressman's views, and said what many on the right have been waiting for since the media unjustly crowned this man as a voice of reason concerning all things military (video available here):

In a statement obtained by this NewsBuster, a senior Bush administration official has disputed a New York Times article, Jailed 2 Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans that suggests that the review process for detainees held by the U.S. military in Iraq is inadequate. The Times story is anecdotal, telling the story of Laith al-Ani, an Iraqi Sunni who was released by U.S. authorities last month. According to the Times story, "people like Mr. Ani . . . are being held without charge and without access to tribunals where their cases are reviewed."

Without responding to the specifics of Mr. Ani's case, the senior Bush administration official told me that "the facts of our detention system belie the themes of this article. We follow well-established standards of review that go well above and beyond what the law requires. And we do so in the face of a ruthless and determined enemy."

He offered the following overview of the review process:

When a left-leaning newspaper reviews a new comedy show on the Fox News Channel, you shouldn’t expect raves. As a result, when Tom Shales of the Washington Post says that “The ½ Hour News Hour,” which previews Sunday evening, “isn’t terrible,” one has to take this as being about as glowing an assessment as humanly possible.

In fact, as difficult as it might have been for Shales to admit, he actually liked parts of the program, and surprisingly didn't seem too ashamed to say so in mixed company (emphasis mine throughout, h/t Hot Air):

How can a movie studio get its film promoted on the front page of the Los Angeles Times for free? Easy. Make a film about an abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Yesterday (Saturday, February 17, 2007), starting on the front page, the Times devoted a plenteous 1,526 words to an article by Gina Piccalo, "A pedophile priest, in his own words."

Although the Times presents it as a legitimate news article, it weakly disguises the fact that the article is simply a promotion piece for the film, Deliver Us From Evil. Check out the opening sentence from the article:

"Deliver Us From Evil," a documentary about pedophile priest Oliver O'Grady and his devastating California legacy, has earned its filmmaker multiple awards and an Oscar nomination.

A sickeningly common theme asserted by media members around the country is that Iraq is “Bush’s war,” and that Democrats who voted for the resolution in October 2002 have no responsibility because they were supposedly misled by a president from a different political party.

Well, a fascinating event transpired on Sunday’s “Chris Matthews Show” as one high-ranking media member – the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward – fervently refuted this disingenuous media myth. And, maybe more shocking, CBS’s Gloria Borger agreed with him.

The panel was discussing the recent nonbinding resolutions voted on in Congress, when Bob Woodward said something that few in the media would dare utter with cameras rolling:

Brent Bozell's culture column this week centers on those Hollywood sore thumbs called Walden Media, who have made family-friendly and faith-friendly films. Brent told me it was a "V-8 idea," a slap-your-forehead business proposition to serve an underserved market of religious families with children. The new Walden project is the movie "Amazing Grace," as Brent explained:

It is a sad reality: Very few adults, and virtually no child can recognize the name William Wilberforce, the man Abraham Lincoln claimed was known to “every school boy” in America in 1858. Then there’s this: “Amazing Grace” is the most recognizable hymn in the land – but how many people can tell you its origin? To the rescue comes Walden again, with the movie “Amazing Grace,” which tells the true, and beautiful story of William Wilberforce, the brilliant British orator and parliamentarian who fought relentlessly to ban the slave trade in Great Britain and who ultimately succeeded, against all odds, decades before the United States fought a bloody civil war to do the same.

An interesting online survey was recently conducted in Australia, and it showed how large an impact the media have on children’s views. Even more cautionary was how the press's unchecked global warming hysteria is having a potentially dire impact on youngsters.

As reported by the Daily Telegraph: “THE state of the environment is one of the most troubling issues concerning children today, according to a new national survey.”

The article eerily continued (emphasis mine):

More than 2000 children across Australia participated in the online study, which found a fear of friends and family dying topped the list of worries for young people.

This was followed closely by their concern about the planet with global warming, trees being cut down and the drought featuring strongly.

The methodology used was potentially even more ominous:

Sometimes it’s better to stay in bed and not bother reading the newspaper or watching the political talk shows. This Sunday sadly started out that way as I unfortunately happened upon a Los Angeles Times front-page article entitled “GOP Activists Circling Clinton's Campaign.”

Frankly, the author and the paper’s editors should be ashamed of themselves for placing such biased tripe so prominently in a Sunday edition.

Alas, there it was in all its glory, basically talking about a proverbial vast right-wing conspiracy to derail Hillary Clinton’s presidential hopes (emphasis mine throughout):

When's the last time you saw an MSMer dispute a politician on the tenets of his own faith? It happened today on Good Morning America when George Stephanopoulos challenged Mitt Romney's depiction of a tenet of Mormonism.

Weekend GMA host Kate Snow noted to the "This Week" host that at a Mitt Romney event Friday someone called out to the candidate that he didn't "know the Lord." Snow asked George to what extent Romney's Mormonism might be a "big hurdle" for him.

Stephanopoulos: "Polls certainly show that it is. He faces a lot of skepticism from evangelical Christians. When I spoke with him, I asked him how Muslims might perceive the Mormon belief that Jesus will return to the United States and reign personally here for a thousand years."

GMA then rolled a clip of Romney saying the following: "Our belief is just like it says in the Bible, that the Messiah will come to Jerusalem, stand on the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives will be a place where there's a great gathering, and so forth. It's the same as the other Christian tradition."

Stephanopoulos: "Actually, we checked in with a Mormon spokesman who said that's not exactly true. They believe the New Jerusalem is here in the United States, in Missouri, and that's where Jesus is going to come."

View video here.

Ken Shepherd mentioned the Michelle Malkin profile on the front of Friday's Style section in The Washington Post. You have to give credit to Howard Kurtz for being fair-minded enough to give a conservative blogger that much attention. It was tough but fair. Your complaint, then, would be that liberals don't get tough but fair. They get goo.

What stood out to me on Friday were the headlines in Style. Michelle's was "A Hard Right Punch: Michelle Malkin's Conservative Fight Has Others Coming Out Swinging."

But what's right above that on the page, the top story? A story on Al Gore's Chicken Little concerts, with the headline: "'Live Earth' Concerts To Tackle Hot Topic: Al Gore's Musical Call To Action." Notice the lack of labels, no hot "liberal" topic, no musical call to "liberal" action?

Actual caption:

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow walks by a pile of snow at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007, on his way to give his daily briefing.

Would you be proud of yourself if your works were commemorated for helping put in power a murderous Communist who has killed thousands upon thousands of his own people over a 40 some year reign of terror?

Cuba's tyrant in chief, Fidel Castro, is so honoring the New York Times writer who made Fidel into a mythic "man of the people", Herbert Matthews. A plaque honoring this foolish, naive writer Matthews, was unveiled on Saturday in the Sierra Maestra mountains.

When the fights against the Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista began in the late 1950s, Fidel Castro was just one of several guerrilla fighters trying to vie for followers and publicity. Castro was just a nut in the wilderness with few followers, though, until Herbert Matthews and the New York Times came along.

Neal Gabler called Media Research Center "liars" on this evening's Fox News Watch. The accusation against NewsBusters' parent organization came in the course of a discussion of media coverage of Mitt Romney's announcement of his presidential candidacy.

View video here.

Conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton observed: "I don't think [the media] like Romney. I don't think they really want a Republican to win, and they're using his Mormonism as one way to get at him."

Gabler: "Who's this 'they' you're talking about? This strange 'they' that doesn't want Romney to win?"

Pinkerton: "I can answer that question for Neal. Thank you for asking. Media Research Center counted up the minutes and seconds . . . "

Gabler, interrupting: "A conservative organization?"

Pinkerton: "Yes. They counted up the minutes that CBS News had devoted to Barack Obama's announcement and to Romney's. And the ratio was 54:1. Fifty-four Obama. One Romney."

Gabler: "Figures don't lie, as my father used to say. Liars do figure."

At the Fox News site, an AP story entitled Senate Gridlocked on Iraq Troop Buildup has as its first paragraph of copy:

The vote was 56-34. That was six short of the 60 needed to advance the measure, which is identical to a nonbinding resolution that Democrats pushed through the House on Friday.

Back when I was in high school, 60 minus six equalled 54, not 56. I begin to ask myself, is AP truly biased, or is their staff so uneducated that they are unable to formulate a cogent thought?

When the Air Pelosi brouhaha arose in the last few weeks, the first story that came to my bias-obsessed brain was the Air Sununu scandal in 1991, a crusade led by The Washington Post. The White House chief of staff John Sununu (father of the current senator) drew great controversy for his use of government jets and then, a government limo trip to a stamp auction. Comparison to other scandals, including congressional travel, came in our newsletter MediaWatch. Consider the comparison of the Post's investigative vigor:

Air Pelosi, 2007: One story on A-15, headlined "Pelosi Catches Nonstop Flights Home," a header designed for yawns, 272 words.

Air Sununu, 1991: 25 stories in 68 days (April 21-June 27), eleven on Page 1.

As Congress debates nonbinding resolutions to rebuke President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq, and Democrat candidates for president move further and further to the left on this issue, an immutable fact about the press is becoming more and more apparent: no media outlet dares to completely challenge Hillary Clinton concerning her October 2002 vote in favor of the war resolution.

A fine example of what should be asked of the junior senator from New York occurred on Friday’s “Real Time” when host Bill Maher posed the following to John Edwards (video available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated, forward to 4:30):

Don’t you find it comical when supposedly tolerant, antiwar Hollywoodans feel the need to hurl childish epithets at their political opponents as they’re feigning moral superiority?

Such was certainly the case Friday when actor Tim Robbins published a scathing article about President Bush and the remaining percentage of Americans that still support the war in Iraq.

Maybe even more ironic was the title, “Our Better Adult,” and the assertion by Robbins that he and his ilk are the mature ones in America as he callously insulted the most powerful man in the world thusly (emphasis mine throughout):

So here we are again. A new year faces us, a clear message has been sent to Washington - and some might say the world - by the people of the United States. Get out of Iraq. And the idiot drunk of a president says, "I hear you."

Yes, Tim, that’s certainly behaving like a better adult. Yet, that was just the beginning of his vitriolic attack:

Because the other one got full.