"The View" co-host Joy Behar is well on her way to unhinged, if not already there.

Earlier today, NB's Justin McCarthy noted that Behar, in mentioning GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, said that "we all know that the woman is an airhead."

Michelle Malkin noted this evening that Behar also took an uncalled-for cheap shot at those who are involved in an important and growing alternative not only to the public schools, but also to traditional brick-and-mortar classroom education (video is at link):

Behar show(ed) .... her contempt for both homeschooled students and parents: “A lot of them are demented when they’re homeschooled.”

With “Any Regrets?” as the on-screen heading, Katie Couric pressed “independent Democratic” Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to atone for campaigning with unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate John McCain and criticizing eventual winner Barack Obama. Couric's first question in the interview excerpt aired on Wednesday's CBS Evening News: “Do you feel as if you owe President-elect Obama one?” Couric next pushed Lieberman to take back an attack: “You said, on whether Senator Obama is a Marxist, you said quote: 'It's a good question to ask.' Are you sorry you said that?” Couric proceeded to relay another Democratic complaint/aspersion against Lieberman: 

What really irritated -- even enraged -- some Democrats was your speech at the Republican National Convention. Did you understand at the time how nervy that might seem to some Democrats? How inappropriate?

The Denver Post took note of leading state Democrats' objections to the Bush Administration's royalty rates for oil shale development in the state.  Senator Ken Salazar and Governor Ritter's spokesman claimed that setting rates was putting the cart before the horse, as the technologies weren't fully vetted yet:

[Sen.] Salazar's brother, Democratic Rep. John Salazar, was also critical, saying water, energy and the impact of shale development on Colorado towns remain unresolved.

Harris Sherman, director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said it was "irresponsible" to move ahead before officials have a better idea of which technologies will work and what the likely impact will be on towns, air, water and land.

Of course, the Senator and the Governor have been among the most vocal in blocking the creation of a regulatory regime that would permit experimentation on a large enough scale to vet the technologies.  Then again, Mr. Sherman claims that the "right rate" is unknowable, while Sen. Salazar insists that it's too low.  The mutual contradiction here also goes unremarked.

What follows is an excerpt of my November 19 op-ed in the Washington Times. You can find the full article here.

The two stars of the recent election were Barack Obama and "mainstream media" bias. In this media climate, the terms "Republican" and "conservative" have been relegated to epithet status.

My Democratic-leaning friends argue, fairly, I think, that if the media are so biased, why have Republican presidents sat in the Oval Office for nearly 20 of the last 28 years? The answer is that while the media always play a huge role in presidential elections and their aftermaths, they don't play the only role.

"It's one thing to cover the honeymoon and it's another to be in bed with the honeymooners," NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell quipped of the Obama-fawning mainstream media while on the November 19 "Fox & Friends."

"It is a sheer embarassment," the Media Research Center president continued, noting that a network executive he talked to said "there are seasoned professionals, who may be liberals, who are just shocked at what's happened to their industry." [audio available here]

In another segment on the same program, Bozell talked about the media's double standard in reporting on crimes involving immigrants.

Pushing a liberal talking point on America's health insurance "crisis", writer Tina Peng painted American medical tourists headed to Mexico as "refugees from an ailing health care system." Yet nowhere in her November 19 Newsweek Web exclusive did Peng put mention the lengths Mexico goes to encourage its poor citizens illegally in the United States on where to obtain free health care for better care, nor did she note that medical tourism is a huge industry in America.:

On Tuesday’s Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter couldn’t imagine why anyone would see conflict-of-interest troubles if Hillary Clinton becomes Secretary of State while her husband the ex-president has a sprawling international foundation with its mitts in a long list of countries. Alter insisted all of Clinton’s work is "very, very positive. It’s been for great causes around the world." Alison Stewart guest-hosted for Maddow, and pushed the button that started Alter’s Bill-burnishing remarks:

STEWART: Is Bill Clinton a stumbling block for Hillary Clinton getting the Secretary of State gig?

ALTER: You know, I don’t think he really is, unless, for some reason, they just refuse to disclose as much as the Obama people want them to. There’s nothing that's all that terrible here. Most of the money that Clinton has raised, in fact, it's very, very positive. It's been for great causes around the world. Fighting poverty. Fighting AIDS.

Sarah Palin is an airhead proclaims the very dim Joy Behar. The same "View" co-host who blames earthquakes on global warming and just the previous day could not define the term "suffrage," snidely said of Sarah Palin "we all know that the woman is an airhead." Behar then continued to label those Obama critics "unpatriotic" (this of course after she considered dissent in the Bush years "patriotic") [audio excerpt here]

Joy Behar’s comments were sparked by a discussion on recent "Newsweek" and "Time" covers comparing President-elect Obama to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt respectively. Elisabeth Hasselbeck felt it was premature to judge the Obama presidency before he is even inaugurated. Hasselbeck declared it was another example of the media "coddling" Barack Obama has they have done throughout the entire campaign.

Suddenly popular Kathleen Parker is continuing on her new shtick: pretending to be conservative while bashing conservatives. Her latest effort in this gig is this Washington Post column titled, "Giving Up on God." As you can see, it resembles the fake "advice" that liberals often give to Republicans but in this case it is coming from somebody supposedly conservative. So let us now watch Parker with her latest bid to remain popular with the Georgetown party set (emphasis mine):

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I'm bathing in holy water as I type.

During Tuesday evening’s “No Bias, No Bull” program, Washington Post national political correspondent and CNN contributor Dana Milbank implied, perhaps inadvertently, that the incoming Obama adminstration was like the North Vietnamese advancing on Saigon in 1975. Host Campbell Brown asked Milbank about the “backlog of at least 2,000 pardon applications” to the Bush administration before the president leaves office early next year, and he replied, “Yeah -- it sort of has the feeling of the last helicopter off the embassy roof in Saigon.” [audio available here]

Milibank made the remark during his regular “Political Daily Briefing” feature, which aired at the bottom half of the 8 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program. Earlier in the segment, the Post correspondent, as well as Brown, commented on Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman keeping his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Brown stated that “despite supporting John McCain, despite saying some pretty nasty things about Barack Obama on the campaign trail, Senator Joe Lieberman is going to keep his coveted chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.” Milbank agreed with this labeling of some of Lieberman’s past statements about Obama in his reply: “It’s amazing -- looks like a full amnesty for Joe Lieberman. He said some awful things about President-Elect Obama, and now he gets -- I don’t think you could even really call it a slap on the wrist there...”

On Wednesday's "Good Morning America," ABC weatherman and global warming alarmist Sam Champion went on the "hot seat," a week-long segment on the show designed to force the hosts to answer supposedly tough questions sent from viewer e-mail. However, he ended up fielding softballs such as "Sam, are you really a morning person?" Co-host Diane Sawyer did read one challenging question: "We know you're Mr. Eco-Friendly and you do everything right in the green way. But Anita from upstate New York wants to know what's your biggest offense? Anti-green offense?"

After denying being an eco-elitist and asserting, "There's no perfect," Champion admitted, "My biggest offense?...I'm trying to quit using the plastic water bottle. But I don't always have that reusable water bottle with me." Of course, considering that the segment was designed as a "secrets revealed" piece, there were a number of tough questions that Sam Champion could have been asked, but wasn't. For instance, on January 31, 2007, the liberal meteorologist hyperventilated about global warming next to a graphic that screamed, "Will Billions Die from Global Warming? New Details on Thirst and Hunger." Maybe someone could have suggested that was a slight exaggeration?

At the top of Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen declared: "...it may be the hottest ticket in the country right now, a ticket to Barack Obama's inauguration in January. Millions are expected to try and watch the swearing in. But we're going to show you why tickets are almost impossible to get." The 2008 April Fool’s edition of the Media Research Center’s Media Reality Check featured a fictional quote from Early Show co-host Harry Smith: "CBS's Harry Smith sounded like a teenage groupie on the April 1 Early Show: ‘Obama's rock star status is reaching historic levels. His rallies attract more fans than a Hannah Montana concert and seats are impossible to get. Believe me I've tried.’"

Chen later introduced a report on the Obama inauguration by proclaiming: "Inauguration fever is sweeping Washington. The city's mayor believes 3-5 million people may turn out to witness President-elect Obama's swearing-in." However, in the report, correspondent Thalia Assuras talked to Howard Gantman of the Joint Congressional Committee for Inauguration, who predicted a much smaller turnout: "We've printed 240,000 tickets. So that's a minimum, we expect at least that many people. For this event, we could see half a million, some projections have come in for a million or more."

A new poll released Tuesday found that most people believe the media's treatment of the women involved in the presidential campaign this year was highly sexist, and that Sarah Palin was not only treated far worse by the press than Joe Biden, but she was also covered much more harshly than Hillary Clinton.

"The Daily Beast" poll also found that very few women consider themselves to be feminist, with a virtually equal minority wishing that a current or future daughter would become a feminist.

Here are some of the interesting highlights:

Barney Frank favors bailing out the Detroit automakers over letting them go into bankruptcy.  Chief among his concerns is that bankruptcy might "bust" the unions. You know, those organizations whose contract demands have put Detroit on the brink of extinction.

The Massachusetts Dem, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was interviewed by Maggie Rodriguez on today's Early Show. He appeared alongside Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Al.), ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, who favors letting the automakers reorganize under Chapter 11.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Why aren't young men getting married?

Kay S. Hymowitz's "Love in the Time of Darwinism" is stirring a lot of talk in the blogosphere. Her essay explores why young men seem to be shunning marriage -- at least for now -- and some of the possible reasons.

As many of us baby boomers have children either in or about to enter this demographic, it would be interesting to hear from NBers of all ages concerning their view of the current dating and mating world, and what are the causes of the present battle of the sexes.

On Hardball Tuesday, MSNBC host Chris Matthews suggested to Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza that Joe Lieberman really shouldn’t get to keep his committee chairmanship after backing McCain. Metaphorically, Matthews suggested, Lieberman should be executed:

Well you know George Washington, Chris, executed the spy in the, in that case, Benedict Arnold case, Lieutenant Andre, and nobody liked to do it, because he was a good guy but he had to do it to prove his authority. Doesn’t, at some point Barack Obama have to say loyalty counts?

John Andre was hanged in 1780. Matthews went to a break channeling the pain of the left: "I said, to start the show, ‘Unity Bites!’ It does hurt. Nice isn’t always nice. We’ll be right back with Chris Cillizza and Dominic Carter. A lot of people on the left are not happy tonight because there’s too much nice out there. You’re watching Hardball. Only on MSNBC."

Late in the show, Matthews turned to a clip of Newt Gingrich on The O'Reilly Factor talking about the angry protests by gay activists against Proposition 8 in California, as they continue to refuse to accept election results:

Amidst all the sanctimonious do-gooderism and global-warming alarmism that is NBC/Universal's "Green Week," it's good to see that at least one network minion has managed to maintain his sense of humor.

Morning Joe's Willie Geist became something of a sensation with his spoof electioneering for John McCain on the sidewalks of Manhattan's ultra-blue Upper West Side.  In that same spirit, Willie ventured onto the streets of midtown yesterday, asking folks how they were celebrating Green Week, and posing provocative questions. Sample: "Do you think global warming is kinda hogwash? I mean, look how cold it is today."  He got some amusing an