Wednesday’s "The Situation Room" featured three anti-war grassroots websites during a short segment, without including any from the opposing viewpoint. Host Wolf Blitzer introduced the segment by talking about the anti-war protests marking the 5-year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. "Hundreds of anti-war protesters gathered in Washington for this, the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq. At least 31 people were arrested today, according to the organizers. Protests are also happening across the country, and many of them are being organized online."

Blitzer brought in CNN Internet reported Abbi Tatton, who described the websites and the groups behind them. "[I]t’s a coalition of groups organizing and publicizing the protests today on this website, ‘5 Years Too Many,’ and they’ve been updating with pictures of the protests -- these from Washington -- throughout the day. The goal: to disrupt business as usual..."

Barack Obama has been endorsed by The Nation magazine and MoveOn.org, and his most celebrated California voter is Markos Moulitsas, the purveyor of the hard-left Daily Kos blog. He’s promising to meet with dictators (Cuban, Iranian, North Korean) without preconditions. He’s taken a dramatic step to the hard left. But in his appearance on CNN’s Larry King Live on Wednesday night, comedian Jon Stewart tried to push the strange idea that Obama was a base-spurning maverick like John McCain, that they’re running "outside of traditional dogma." He was mocking how conservatives dislike McCain because they want rigid obedience to their party line:

The fallout continues from yesterday's New York Times hit piece on John McCain. The paper itself doesn't seem eager to put up a fight as network news broadcasts, liberal bloggers, journalism professors, and the general public are questioning the Times's journalistic standards.

Yesterday's inflammatory story, which used anonymous sources to forward nine-year-old allegations from his first presidential run suggesting an improper relationship by John McCain with a female telecommunications lobbyist, received prominent front-page placement; today's follow-up on McCain's press conference was relegated to page 20 -- Elisabeth Bumiller's "McCain Disputes That Aides Warned Him About Ties to Lobbyist."

Washington Post "Reliable Source" gossips Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts chronicled the jokes at Thursday night’s Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, including the ones at the expense of the liberal media:

Sen. Mitch McConnell dryly scores with his line about the Dem race between "a New York senator who was born in Illinois, and an Illinois senator who was apparently born in a manger." Sen. John Cornyn makes his point more sharply, noting that the New York Times declined to attend this year. "Their table didn't go to waste. They just donated it to MoveOn.org at a discount." An "ohhhhhh" fills the room, followed by a lone hiss...

For once, Nancy Pelosi gets into the sassy, hazing spirit of these things. "I knew I had arrived in Washington when Helen Thomas played me in a skit at Gridiron. Remember that?" she coos. "I do." She blows a kiss to the veteran correspondent -- but zings: "That was Italian." (Get it? Kiss of death!)

NewsBusters readers should recall that in September, as many in Congress condemned the "General Betray Us" advertisement placed in the New York Times by George Soros's MoveOn.org, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said on the Senate floor:

Now, all of America understands MoveOn.org and other groups like it are called the nutroots of our society. These people are nuts and they don't care who they hurt, they don't care who they smear they don't care who they libel.

On Wednesday, during a conference call with bloggers, Hatch once again lashed out at these far-left leaning entities that are unduly influencing Democrats in order to block key legislation concerning FISA (27-minute audio available here):

There’s one little three-syllable word that has been left out of most of the Democratic primary coverage on the TV: "liberal." We’re constantly told by anchors and reporters how the Republican contenders are fighting over the "conservative" vote and who’s more "conservative," and that’s true. But exactly the same fight is taking place on the left side, with the Clintons trying to suggest Barack Obama’s not sufficiently liberal (he praised Ronald Reagan!) and Obama trying to take Hillary’s Iraq war vote and turn her into Rumsfeld in a black pantsuit.

But the news media cannot routinely bring themselves to say that word, "liberal." Obama landed a major victory in the who’s-more-liberal sweepstakes. He’s been endorsed by MoveOn.org, the screechy hard-left group that distinguished itself last year by taking out newspaper ads denouncing our commander in Iraq as "General Betray Us."

ABC anchor David Muir asked Barack Obama about some of his liberal positions in a pre-recorded interview, which was shown on World News Saturday, in which Muir asked about the Democratic Senator's support for drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, and about being endorsed by "liberal legend" Ted Kennedy and MoveOn.org. The ABC anchor also brought up the New York Times' evaluation of Obama's economic policies as being "more left than the Clinton administration's." Muir: "Does that offer red meat for the Republicans, that you could possibly be more left than Hillary Clinton?" (Transcript follows)

Left wing think tank hatchet reporting

The Establishment Media's Weapon of Choice

Behold the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), who on Wednesday made headlines across the nation with their report -- co-authored with the Fund for Independence in Journalism (FIJ) -- entitled "Iraq - The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War".

The Establishment Media hailed the study's lead "finding" -- 935 false statements by Bush Administration officials in the two-year period leading up to the launch of the War. The Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and -- of course -- the New York Times were all exhilarated to once again climb aboard the "Bush Lied - People Died" Express.

Remember that highly controversial study published in the journal Lancet in 2006 claiming that 650,000 Iraqi citizens have died since the start of the war in March 2003?

Well, according to an article published in England's Sunday Times, antiwar activist and MoveOn.org founder George Soros was partially responsible for the funding.

I'm sure this will be front-page, headline news for all of America's press outlets in the coming days, aren't you?

While you ponder, here are the facts according to the Times (emphasis added):

As a long-time occasional reader of the satirical newspaper The Onion, I couldn't help but notice a leftward drift to its humor. Now I see why:

Lots of people on the right think that the liberal group MoveOn.org is a joke. Well, now they’ll have a bit more ammo in their argument.

The powerful liberal activist group has wooed Peter Koechley away from the satirical newspaper The Onion, where he was managing editor.

In an e-mail blast that went out on Thursday, Koechley refers to “MoveOn, where I now work.”

Well, the New York Times certainly can't be accused of excessive free market idolization. Peter Goodman breaks off from his gloomy economic assessments to cheer for regulation in Sunday's Week in Review story "The Free Market: A False Idol After All?"

In Goodman's telling, there is no question mark, stating the argument against the free market in simplistic liberal terms, right down to echoing the Reagan-era pejorative of "trickle down economics."

On Friday's "Countdown," viewers were treated to a retrospective of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann's series of "Special Comment" attacks on conservatives, featuring four of his favorites from the year 2007. An announcer teased the show glorifying Olbermann while intermixing complimentary quotes from various media with clips of Olbermann reading his "Special Comments." The announcer read a quote from "Playboy" calling the MSNBC host the "truth teller in chief," and a quote from the "Akron Beacon Journal" claiming that he is "the one journalist actually working to save the democracy." Among the quotes from Olbermann featured in the teaser was the MSNBC host's charge that "the presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush." (Transcript follows)

As NewsBusters reported Friday, television network NBC has decided not to run ads thanking and supporting America's troops stationed overseas during the holidays.

*****Update: Drudge is reporting that NBC has capitulated due to "pressure from outraged viewers." Stay tuned...

The sticking point according to NBC's head of standards and policies Alan Wurtzel was that Freedom's Watch "insisted that the spot contain the URL address of its Web site."

Yet, such didn't seem to be a problem a few years ago when MoveOn.org created an antiwar ad entitled "How Many More" that, according to the organization's website, ran during NBC's "Today" show (video available here, h/t NB reader Blair Lovern):

The October 16 edition of "Fox and Friends" featured conservative talk trailblazer Rush Limbaugh to discuss Harry Reid’s and 40 other Senate Democrats’ smear of Limbaugh. The radio talk show host called the letter "the smear of a private citizen...based on a total lie."

Video (4:21): Real (3.19) and Windows (2.66 MB), or MP3 audio (1.98).

In response, Rush is now auctioning the letter on E-Bay to raise money for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, which provides scholarships for children of Marines and federal law enforcement officials killed in the line of duty. Rush noted he will match the final bid to go to the same charity. He asked Reid and the other 40 Democrats to do the same. As of this morning, he has "not heard from them."

Wired magazine's Sarah Lai Stirland is reporting that liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is reversing course after it was lambasted for censorship for pushing Google to censor anti-MoveOn.org ads by Maine Senator Susan Collins' (R) campaign.:

The left-leaning political advocacy group, MoveOn.org, is backing down in a flap over the use of its name in online advertisements, permitting an influential Republican senator to criticize the organization in a reelection ad on Google's search engine.

"We don't want to support a policy that denies people freedom of expression," says Jennifer Lindenauer, MoveOn.org's communications director.

In retrospect it seems less and less surprising that Google ever agreed to the Communist Chinese government's demands on censorship (see here and here). It seems the Internet giant and Democratic campaign contribution engine is banning anti-MoveOn.org ads (h/t Malkin):

Last Sunday, NewsBusters introduced readers to Media Matters for America, the left-wing organization behind the recent smear campaigns against conservative personalities Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.

In the days that followed, although news outlets and leading Democrats continued to reference articles written by this shadowy group, few details were offered about the organization behind them, and virtually nothing was shared concerning its founder, David Brock, who in a short period of time a decade ago remarkably went from a staunch enemy of the Clintons to one of their strongest supporters.

As National Review's Jonah Goldberg wrote in Sunday's New York Post, "Brock was once a right-wing hatchet man, penning a book, ‘The Real Anita Hill,' and some articles in the American Spectator on the Clintons that for a time earned him considerable notoriety on the right and hatred on the left."

Despite the influence Media Matters currently has with the mainstream media, Brock's extraordinary political metamorphosis ten years ago, though obviously a journalist's dream, has received little recent attention from press representatives typically clamoring for such juicy dish (emphasis added throughout):

While MSNBC's Keith Olbermann can hardly contain his glee at smacking around Rush Limbaugh over the taken-out-of-context "phony soldier" remark, it's notable that Olbermann himself essentially smeared Gen. David Petreaus as a phony at best and a traitor at the worst well before the Iraq war commander ever gave his assessment before Congress.

Indeed, before MoveOn.org issued the infamously juvenile "Betray Us" ad, Olbermann's minions plastered "Will Petreaus Betray Us?" in on-screen graphics during his August 16 program. [See also YouTube video appended at bottom of post]

Chatting with guest and liberal journalist Jonathan Alter on that program, Olbermann trashed the Petreaus report as a "ghost-written" concoction of the Bush White House, bound to be replete with partisan spin. Alter agreed, saying Petreaus has always been a "political" general, although he backtracked a bit to also say Petreaus was a "straight-shooter."