If you haven't gotten your daily dose of left-wing crazy, strap yourself in.

On CNN Headline News Oct. 22 broadcast of "The Joy Behar Show," left-wing author and conspiracy theorist Gore Vidal shared his thoughts about President Barack Obama. He said he thought the 44th President of the United States might be a little overqualified - at least as far as his intelligence.

"I like him," Vidal said. "I wish he knew more about the United States. I was for Hillary at the beginning on the grounds she knew how to be president. Having sort of done the job as a spouse. And then I realized, you know, he's too intelligent for the job."

To the Washington Post editorial board, restrictive campaign finance measures are perfectly valid, constitutional exercises in protecting the public, but heaven forbid a state lawmaker would want to prevent the taxpayer-subsidized screening of porn on public college campuses.

In "Rated XXX," the Post's editorial board today declared obscene a mild measure aimed at preventing -- but not banning -- porn on campus.

You may recall that earlier this year, a student committee that selects films for screening at the University of Maryland's Hoff Theater picked a XXX skin flick as part of its repertoire. Following scrutiny by legislators, University of Maryland administrators forbade the ticketed screening of the entire film, although a student group was permitted to screen a small portion of the film as part of a panel discussion on obscenity and free speech.

Watching Associated Press reports evolve, or as is all too often the case, devolve, can be a revealing exercise.

Example: What happened between 8 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Saturday that would have caused the Associated Press and writer Nancy Benac to water down the headline and opening paragraphs of their story about the Obama-Gates-Crowley situation from this ....

.... to this? (after the jump)

You want a blatant example of the Old Media's over-the-top, gobsmacked love affair with Obama? Well, one would be hard pressed not to see Time Magazine's latest piece by Nancy Gibbs as a perfect example of the media ignoring all ills and of projecting only what is wonderful onto the dearly beloved as this piece represents. The lionization of Obama is bad enough, but the selective memory of the writer is even more appalling.

Writer Gibbs begins her column trying to "place" Barack Obama in a "cultural map." Most famous people are remembered for a certain place that formed their inner core, of course, and Gibbs tries to pinpoint that place for several presidents including Obama. She pegs Ronald Reagan to Hollywood, Clinton to Hot Springs and W. to Texas. But where does she place Obama?

On May 22 of 2009, the Liberty University College Democrats were widely reported to have been shut down by the school’s administration.  These reports came across a broad spectrum of media – a search of LexisNexis for the terms “College Democrats” and “Liberty University” from May 20 through today turns up 72 results.  Among these results are 35 newspaper articles (among them, the Washington Post and L.A. Times),13 newswires or press releases (including one from the Associated Press), and even two mentions on MSNBC, a 24-hour cable news network.  

Ratings aside, a local college club getting face time on a cable news network is quite a feat.

On June 4, 2009, FoxNews.com reported that a nascent Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) was banned from administration approval at a community college in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

 According to LexisNexis, FoxNews.com is the only news entity to report on this so far.

According to the article:

If the cheers of Columbia University's Class of 2009 are any indication, the future of journalism will be looking for a federal bailout.

Washington Times correspondent Christina Bellantoni live-tweeted today's event, noting the remarks from university president Lee Bollinger appealing for more government-owned media outlets. Bollinger also received "big cheers" for his call for increased spending on public broadcasting.

Here are the relevant tweets from Bellantoni's feed in reverse chronological order (emphasis mine):

President Obama delivered the commencement address at Notre Dame on Sunday, amid protests that the nation's preeminent Catholic college shouldn't be honoring a pro-choice president who even supports the gruesome procedure of partial-birth abortion.

Monday's front-page New York Times story, "At Notre Dame, Obama Calls for Civil Tone in Abortion Debate," by Peter Baker and Susan Saulny, began by giving Obama credit for good intentions that resulted in a favorable response from his audience:

President Obama directly confronted America's deep divide over abortion on Sunday as he appealed to partisans on each side to find ways to respect one another's basic decency and even work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

As anti-abortion demonstrators protested outside and a few hecklers shouted inside, Mr. Obama used a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame to call for more "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words" in a debate that has polarized the country for decades. The audience at this Roman Catholic institution cheered his message and drowned out protesters, some of whom called him a "baby killer."

Monday's print version is toned down from the original filing Sunday afternoon at nytimes.com. That story, credited to Peter Baker alone, had a headline with a more defensive thrust -- "At Notre Dame, Obama Defends His Abortion Stance." That filing (no longer available at nytimes.com, but you can read it here for now) also included this paragraph:

Update #2 (16:15 EDT): Greg Hengler of Townhall.com has video of the interview mentioned in my first update. He notes that while Brewer is hot under the collar, the student she talked to didn't seem to care that Obama was not receiving an honorary degree tonight.

Update (14:45 EDT): A few minutes ago Brewer pressed an ASU student for his thoughts on Obama not receiving an honorary doctorate. As usual, she was quite irate at the perceived snub.

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer is bound and determined to maintain a grudge on behalf of President Obama against a university at which he's honored to give the Class of 2009 commencement speech this evening.

Today, via her Twitter account, Brewer picked up on her televised rant from early April [video below page break] about how Arizona State University is neglecting to give President Obama an honorary degree when he delivers the commencement speech there this evening:

Tonight the Pres. gives commencement speech at ASU. I'm still shocked ASU won't give him an honorary degree. Seems rude & illogical.

As NewsBusters contributor Jeff Poor noted on April 10:

Last Friday, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer expressed her shock and disbelief that Arizona State University would not award President Barack Obama an honorary degree since he was their commencement speaker.

However, over the weekend, the University announced it would instead name "their most important scholarship" after Obama - instead of awarding the president an honorary degree.

"Here's the statement from ASU President Michael Crow: ‘We never felt an honorary degree was the only or event the best means of honoring his tremendous service to our country,'" Brewer said. "‘Naming the scholarship program after President Obama that will affect the lives of thousands of students is an honor befitting, not only the president's exceptional achievements, but also his value as an individual.'"

That didn't impress Brewer, responding on MSNBC in a segment on April 13. "Whoop-dee-do! That's my reaction," Brewer said

It's not often during midday cable news broadcasting you get to see raw emotion from one or two of the hosts. However, when President Barack Obama gets snubbed, there are exceptions to the rule.

On MSNBC on April 10, co-hosts Contessa Brewer and Carlos Watson put their disapproval on display for viewers to see while reporting a decision by Arizona State University not to award Obama an honorary degree for speaking at the school's commencement next month.

"In other news, President Obama will be giving the commencement address at Arizona State University on May 13^th. But the president will not be getting an honorary degree according to the school. Here's why, quote, ‘While President Obama has already achieved remarkable success including becoming the first African-American president, his greatest work is yet to come. We will be delighted to consider him for an honorary degree once he leaves office at the end of the presidency.'"

The University of Maryland -- my alma mater, for full disclosure -- has made national headlines this week with a pirate-themed porn flick originally scheduled for a full-length screening last Saturday at the campus theater. Under pressure from state legislators, campus officials backed down, yet a student group stepped in the gap, pledging to screen the film in a lecture hall yesterday evening.

Only 30 minutes of the feature-length "Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge" were screened last night by a group of students running for election in the school's student government, but it was coupled with a panel discussion on freedom of speech, featuring an ACLU representative and some campus college professors.

Covering the story, Tirza Austin of the student newspaper The Diamondback noted that even in the "fraction of the film" screened, "the segment was still explicit and included two different sets of threesomes - one with 'Devil Stick Willy' and two blondes in corsets."

But that wasn't enough for the Diamondback's editors, who included a link to video of the panel discussion AND film screening.

Former professor Ward Churchill, who infamously likened some 9-11 victims to Nazis in an essay written on September 12, 2001, won a civil trial on a technicality yesterday, winning $1 in damages for having been unjustly dismissed from his teaching position at the University of Colorado.

In a Friday New York Times story from Denver, Kirk Johnson and Katharine Seelye team up to cover the trial of Churchill, who was fired for plagiarism in his scholarly work as a consequence of scrutiny after public attention was focused on his essay calling the "technocratic corps" murdered in the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns" who had it coming.

The verdict by the panel of four women and two men -- none of whom wished to be interviewed by reporters, court officials said -- seemed unlikely to resolve the larger debate surrounding Mr. Churchill that was engendered by the case. Is Mr. Churchill, as his supporters contend, a torchbearer for the right to hold unpopular political views? Or is he unpatriotic or -- as his harshest critics contend -- an outright collaborator with the nation's enemies at a time of war?

The jury seemed at least partly undecided on what to think about the man at the center of the fight, whose essay made him a polarizing national figure.

The Times is far too kind. We can safely assume that someone who applauds the death of American citizens for the crime of being American citizens is by definition "unpatriotic." Churchill's statements were only "polarizing" in the sense that he and a few fellow left-wing extremists believed them, while the rest of the country was suitably disgusted.

It seems that deciding which college is best for gay students goes beyond the usual questions of affordable or not, private or public, close to home or far away, and Big Ten or Big East. It also involves finding out which colleges are considered most sensitive to LGBT concerns.

This week's "My Story" section in Newsweek focused on the plight of freelance journalist Julie Halpert's lesbian daughter as she narrowed down her college choices. Halpert also managed to imply that police officers and Marines are homophobes in her exploration of the topic.

Halpert used unfortunate incidents that LBGT high school students experienced as a way to illustrate the need for LGBT-tailored policies in colleges. She highlighted 25-year-old Jacob Weldon, "who became estranged from his parents during his senior year in high school after he told his father, a police officer and former Marine, that he was gay. (He's now reconciled with him.)" Halpert continued, "Growing up in a conservative town in Texas, he became accustomed to having "fag" scrawled across his windshield."

On Monday evening, CNN’s Roland Martin began his eight-week run as fill-in anchor for Campbell Brown on her Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull program, who took maternity leave with the upcoming arrival of her unborn baby. As the show began, he gave an “opening statement” of sorts as to how he hoped to anchor the program: “I’m not going to bother with the silly notion of who’s a liberal or a conservative on this show. I voted for Obama and also for George H.W. Bush -- Republicans and Democrats. On some issues, I might be called a liberal -- on others, a conservative. I judge people based on the issues, and refuse to be pigeonholed and wedded to the ridiculous notion of ideology. Our goal on this show is very simple, that is to speak truth to power, no matter the party or the person.”

Despite this attempt to portray his self as a non-partisan, Martin’s record on CNN betrays his left-wing leanings. He has bashed pro-lifers as being “hateful” and dismissed them as not caring about babies once they are born. He slammed John McCain’s voting record on the Iraq war, and used the cliched “fat idiot” insult against Rush Limbaugh. He was a cheerleader for both Barack and Michelle Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Martin advised Barack Obama to emphasize his liberal credentials. He also accused conservative critics of Michelle Obama of being “crazy folks on the right” (who also don’t like strong women apparently), and hit “idiot Democrats” when she was accused of using the term “whitey.”

Given this track record, it’s no surprise that the anchor did his best to obscure the issues concerning President Barack Obama’s upcoming commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame. He moderated a panel discussion with Bill Donohue of the Catholic League and Father Jim Martin of America magazine, a Catholic publication which regularly dissents from Church teaching. He teamed up with the liberal Catholic priest to incorrectly give the impression that the Catholic Church’s opposition to the death penalty rises to the same level as its opposition to abortion.

Both MSNBC’s David Shuster and CNN’s Rick Sanchez pulled their scoop straight from Media Matters’ blog, and focused on Newt Gingrich’s Twitter comments criticizing President Obama’s upcoming commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, instead of the controversy over the speech itself. Shuster targeted the former Speaker of the House during the “Hypocrisy Watch” segment on Tuesday’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue program, saying that Gingrich was “already telling Notre Dame what to do,” even though he wasn’t Catholic yet and had gone through two divorces.
                                    
Almost a day later on Wednesday’s Newsroom program on CNN, Sanchez devoted a whole segment to Gingrich’s Tweet, and also brought up the divorce issue: “Newt Gingrich couldn’t resist taking a shot at President Obama. He seems to infer that the president shouldn’t talk to a Catholic university because of quote, ‘values.’ Should Newt Gingrich, thrice married, go there? Really?”

Major media began shielding Barack Obama from criticism early in the presidential primaries. It's no surprise, then, when they continue to do so today. However, the media's collective, instinctive tone-deafness in regard to grassroots activities continues to stun and amaze.

NewsBusters has so far noted several grassroots efforts that have been ignored – despite similar left-leaning efforts getting fantastic coverage. For example, there was Noel Sheppard's initial entry on the Chicago Tea Parties, and the tiny amount of coverage they received. Then, there was Warner Todd Huston, noting the San Francisco Chronicle's preferential treatment of an anti-Wall Street protest. For the magnum opus, however, we turn to the entire mainstream media's blind eye – pointed squarely at the University of Notre Dame.

On a Friday night, where can you look to find a little anti-religious media bias? No other than MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show."

In her "Ms. Information" segment, Maddow engaged in a rant about Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., opposition to language in the stimulus bill that could forbid the practice of religion in institutions of higher learning where stimulus funds are used, as a Feb. 3 story by the Culture & Media Institute pointed out.

Maddow explained how this provision had been in the bill for over 40 years, then played a portion of DeMint's speech on her Feb. 6 MSNBC show.

"Student's can't meet together in their dorms, if that dorm has been repaired with this federal money and have a prayer group or a Bible study," DeMint said in the clip Maddow played. "[S]omeone is so hostile to religion that they're willing to stand in the schoolhouse door like the infamous George Wallace to deny people of faith from entering any campus building renovated by this bill. This cannot stand."

If you were to construct, from everything you know about the species, a stereotypical, liberal member of the MSM, Jennifer Siebens would be it. Recently, Ms. Siebens gave an interview to the student newspaper--the Oberlin Review--at her alma mater, Oberlin College. In it, she revealed her admiration for the radical movements of the '60's and current infatuation with President Barack Obama.

Yes, I know, a natural and common transition.

On her love of Oberlin College and the '60's era hippy love fest, Siebens had this to say:

"For an illegal immigrant, getting into UCLA was the easy part," lamented the headline for a Groundhog Day article by Los Angeles Times's Jason Song.

"A San Pedro girl's undocumented status means no financial aid. Money is tight, classes are tough, and just getting to campus takes 2 1/2 hours," reads the subheader for Song's February 2 Column One story.

Yes, despite the national and state economies in recession and California in a major budget crunch, the L.A. Times has the chutzpah to lament the obstacles to a taxpayer-subsidized college education for an illegal immigrant.

It seems considering legal immigrants and American citizens the victims of the high social and governmental costs of illegal immigration just isn't in Song's liberal hymnal. Apparently Song's aim was to paint one Karina De La Cruz as a downtrodden Cinderella in need of a beneficent fairy godmother (emphasis mine):

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer could be going out of business.  And the culprit is . . . capitalism.  That's Pilgrim's Complaint. Tim Pilgrim, that is.  The professor of journalism at Western Washington University was quoted today in the P-I's article about its own pending demise. The P-I's parent company, the Hearst Corp., has put the paper up for sale, and prospects aren't good for finding a buyer.

But not to fear.  Prof. Pilgrim has a solution: 

[Pilgrim] suggested that the P-I staff buy the paper and run it at a lesser profit than Hearst requires -- perhaps assisted by a wealthy patron such as Bill Gates or Paul Allen.