2008 Presidential

What was the refrain so often hurled at the right by the "good hearted" and "more civilized" left when Chelsea Clinton was brought into the campaign discussion in the 1990s? Didn't they all solemnly shake their heads in disgust over those eeevil Conservatives who were attacking the president's kid? Didn't they scold the right saying that a candidate's children should never be an issue? Well, apparently the New York Times has abandoned that genteel notion.

I sure remember the left wagging their fingers in the nation's face over this point repeatedly, don't you?

Yes, here we have, in Saturday's edition of the New York Times, an article dragging Rudy Giuliani's recently strained relationship with his two children into the public debate on his candidacy. Here we have the bastion of leftism trying to get at a candidate through his children in stark contrast to the tsk, tsking that the left indulged in during the Clinton years.

Did Maureen really mean to call Hillary "feral"? As in: "a domestic animal that has returned to the wild and lives without human attention"? Is there something about Hillary that brought to Dowd's mind the famed razorback from the senator's erstwhile state of Arkansas? In any case, we'll take Maureen at her word. In Where’s His Right Hook? this morning, Dowd describes Barack Obama as being "bullied" by "the feral Hillary." Yikes.

Dowd reports on a recent interview with Obama, to whom she variously refers as "Obambi" and "Barry," and lets us know she found herself, sitting across from him, feeling like the "nun [in the "Bells of St. Mary"] who teaches a schoolboy who’s being bullied how to box." So Obama brings out the protective nun in Dowd. I don't recall a woman ever mentioning that she felt like a nun in Bill Clinton's presence.

Dowd clearly has her doubts as to whether Obama has the requisite toughness as either candidate or leader:

I seem to be detecting a trend. There's a current in the MSM that fears Rudy Giuliani, perhaps sensing he might be best positioned to defeat the Dem candidate. Such folks console themselves by clinging to the belief that the GOP won't nominate Rudy, or at least won't avidly support him if he is the candidate, given his liberal positions on some issues.

This evening's Hardball offered a perfect example of the phenomenon in the person of Craig Crawford. Time and again, the MSNBC analyst returned to the theme:

View video here.

• "Getting onto the social conservative stuff: abortion, gay rights, etc., [Rudy at CPAC] did make the case that I'm 80% with you, better than most marriages, a pretty good line, but at the end of the day, they're important issues to these people, and I just really wonder, the more they learn about him, and just how liberal he really is on those issues, I think it's going to matter to them."
• "Maybe I've just covered these social conservatives and these Republican races for too long to believe they're suddenly going to forget about that stuff, no matter how much they like Giuliani otherwise."
• "I think if Giuliani wins this nomination, and he well could, social conservative voters are not going to play in the general election, and that's going to help Democrats."
• "I really do believe a lot of these [socially conservative] voters and a lot of these groups are losing interest in politics."
• "I don't think they've heard all the details of his personal life, and the judges [the liberal ones in NYC Rudy appointed] we're talking about."

Jim Vandehei, ex of WaPo, now with Politico.com, was dubious of Crawford's notion: "I think that the conventional wisdom must be wrong, this idea that once conservatives get to know Giuliani's record. I mean, how can they not know his record? Everybody's talking about it."

In January, when Barack Obama made the mere announcement of a presidential exploratory committee, the Los Angeles Times trumpeted the news with a headline, color photo, and text box on the top of its front page. (See the image here.)

So how did the Times cover Sen. John McCain's big announcement Wednesday night (2/28/07) on David Letterman's Late Show? The announcement was buried the next day on the bottom of page A14 within a modest, 485-word article about McCain's fundraising. The article is called, "California titans join McCain's campaign team" (Thu. March 1, 2007), and the "coverage" of the announcement covers a measly 31 words.

How slow was the news this morning? Bianca Solorzano, the CBS reporter covering the Anna Nicole Smith funeral in Nassau, the Bahamas was reduced to chatting with a local florist. Turns out Anna's favorite color was pink. Who knew? Solorzano also scored an exclusive with a fellow supervising the placing of crowd control barricades at the cemetery.

But along the way, co-host Tracy Smith [who normally works the weekend show], did pose a pertinent question when Obama tried to sneak an answer by her that was so disingenuous it might have made Bill Clinton blush. Smith mentioned that this weekend, both Obama and Hillary will go to Selma, Alabama for the commemoration of the civil rights marches of 1965. Barack actually had the chutzpah to claim "well, I think this weekend is actually not about politics. To me, it represents some of the best moments in American history where ordinary people stood up to injustice."

"The View’s" Joy Behar demonstrated again this week that the ladies of the ABC program are committed leftists, determined to spread propaganda. Co-host Behar made this point clear when she slandered the Bush administration as "murderers."

On the Al Gore front, "Today" co-anchor Meredith Vieira proclaimed the former Vice President to be the "coolest guy" at last Sunday’s Oscars. "The Washington Post," meanwhile, one-upped the NBC host and wondered if the potential 2008 candidate is "America’s coolest ex-Vice President ever." [Emphasis added]

"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric blogged on the subject of Gore, referring to him as a "secular saint."

Obama's white ancestors owned slaves. So says the research of William Addams Reitwiesner, "who works at the Library of Congress and practices genealogy in his spare time", and who is featured in this morning's edition of the Baltimore Sun.

Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.

But an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now: it appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and Census records.

While reading this, my very first thought had me wondering how well this will sit with the Obama-isn't-black-enough contingent?

It didn't take long in the story to get the issue addressed.

Late Night with David Letterman hasn't aired since August of 1993, when Letterman moved his show to CBS, where it was re-named Late Show with David Letterman. But in reporting on Thursday's CBS Evening News about how John McCain announced on Letterman's show Wednesday night that he is running for President, Couric led into a clip of McCain by relating: “John McCain is in. As first reported here last night, the Senator made it official during the taping of Late Night with David Letterman.”

The Late Night show title remains the property of Couric's employer for nearly two decades ending last year, NBC, with Conan O'Brien's name attached for the past 13-plus years -- as in Late Night with Conan O'Brien. BTW: CNN's Anderson Cooper will be one of O'Brien's guests Thursday night and ABC's Bob Woodruff will be on the Late Show with David Letterman.

After some very controversial remarks on Wednesday’s edition of The View comedian and neoconservative Dennis Miller appeared on Thursday. After discussing John McCain’s announcement and the recent feud between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Miller joked about Nancy Pelosi’s rapidly blinking eyes, leading Barbara Walters to defend her as "terrific." Miller also debated Rosie O’Donnell on the finer points of the Patriot Act. The exchanges are below.

Joy Behar: "How about Nancy Pelosi, what do you think of her?"

Dennis Miller: "Well, listen. If they pick her as the VP, I’m not going to be able to watch State of the Unions. Because if she is back there like, with the blink- it looks like she was signaling the Carpathia that she hit an iceberg or something."

Explaining how Hillary Clinton isn't as popular with African-American voters as Bill was, MSNBC's Chris Matthews pointed to the former president's verbal skills as one of the reasons why when he proclaimed: "There are times when he sounds like Jesus in the temple." Matthews made that observation during a discussion with the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson where both cited Bill Clinton's performance at Coretta Scott King's funeral as a prime example of Slick Willie's oratory abilities. The following exchange took place about 30 minutes into last night's Hardball: 

Eugene Robinson: "I mean, it's the one memorable speech from, from that funeral."

It was “Miller Time” again on the “O’Reilly Factor” Wednesday night, and though the boys got off to a slow start, they finished quite strong.

This increasingly popular Fox News segment featuring comedian Dennis Miller and host Bill O'Reilly focused on the Oscars, Al Gore, the New York Times, and the recent virtually unreported ACLU controversy.

With that in mind, here are some of the highlights for your viewing and entertainment pleasure (video available here courtesy of our friend Ms Underestimated):

What is it about the New York Times where they can't stay above their talking points even when trying to interest the people in a higher level of political discussion and debate?

The Times was bemoaning the current sad state of political discourse amongst political candidates today (and rightfully so, I might add) in a story reporting the interesting extended debate between Newt Gingrich and ex-Senator Mario Cuomo sponsored by New York's Cooper Union Hall, the great room in which Abraham Lincoln first came to national prominence prior to his running for president of the United States.

A Democratic senator has just announced his presidential candidacy. On the next morning's "Fox & Friends," a Fox News reporter who recently denied that Fox has any conservative leanings or that Sean Hannity is a conservative narrates a segment on the announcement. To analyze the Democrat's candidacy, she plays clips of two reporters, one from the National Review and the other from the Weekly Standard. Host Brian Kilmeade follows, schmoozing about the senator's prospects with a former senior aide to a conservative Republican governor.

Total lack of balance! Couldn't Fox News have found at least one Democrat to discuss a Democrat's candidacy? Outrageous, isn't it? Well, yes, it would be. Except it didn't happen. But the mirror-image did. Here's how this morning's "Today" covered John McCain's announcement of his candidacy on last night's Letterman:

Andrea Mitchell, who recently denied that NBC has any liberal bias

Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite was in San Jose last week to give a speech at the Commonwealth Club. Before he did, he gave an interview to the local CBS affiliate’s Hank Plante (video available here).

In fairness, Cronkite seemed very tired, and a little out of sorts. However, there were several moments during the interview when Cronkite forget simple things – like who the former tyrant and leader of Iraq was – and another when he stated that Barack Obama is in his twenties. Honestly.

With that in mind, here were some of the more interesting highlights first with his opinion of the Iraq war:

ABC Nightline co-host Terry Moran helped expose the anti-Christian prejudice of John Edwards’ official campaign bloggers (who’ve since quit the campaign), asking three weeks ago on his ABCNews.com blog whether Edwards condoned “hate speech” by refusing to fire the pair. But Moran himself failed to mention the controversy in a two-segment profile of Edwards on Monday’s Nightline.

Back on February 6, Moran listed some examples of the hostile anti-Christian views espoused by Edwards’ campaign blogger Amanda Marcotte on her own personal site and suggested the issue reflected poorly on Edwards himself:

Questions: What, if anything, does it tell us about Edwards that he's joined up with this blogger? Is Edwards' association with a person who has written these things a legitimate issue for voters, as they wonder--among other things--whom he might appoint to high office if he's elected?

Who's cooler: Al Gore or Clint Eastwood? A fistful of dollars in my book says it's Dirty Harry. But a leading MSM light voted for Al over Eastwood and every other guy at the Oscars. Could that suggest that an MSM campaign for an Al Gore presidential run has begun?

This morning's "Today" devoted a big six-minute segment to the prospect of a Gore candidacy. Andrea Mitchell declared Al "suddenly cool." Not bad, but not close to Meredith Vieira, who proclaimed that Gore was "definitely the coolest guy in the room" at the Oscars. I didn't watch a minute of it, but thought I'd check the nominee list to see just who else was in that room. Here are just some of the nominees in the house that Meredith found didn't measure up to Al: Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter O'Toole, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy and Mark Wahlberg. Then there was the aforementioned Clint Eastwood, who presented an award. Not to mention Jack Nicholson, who was also on hand.

Perhaps all you need to know about Al is that Jimmy Carter is a big fan. Carter popped up in a video clip to remind Gore that he "could do infinitely more as incumbent of the White House than he can as a maker of movies, even ones that get Oscars."

View video here.

CBS and ABC on Monday night celebrated the Academy Award for the documentary narrated by Al Gore and promoted the cause of those who hope he uses it as a “springboard” for a presidential run. For her lead, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric paired how the “Oscar win puts Al Gore's global warming message on center stage" with how “environmentalism may be reaching critical mass” as evidenced by how “the largest private equity buyout in corporate history” -- of the TXU utility -- shows that the “Wall Street mantra of 'greed is good' has been replaced by 'green is good.'” Gloria Borger Borger soon trumpeted how Gore is playing his Oscar “for all it's worth because now he's not just another defeated presidential candidate. He's an Oscar-winning environmental evangelist” and, she oozed, “on stage last night...Gore was on top of the world. Not only has he spread the word about global warming, he's helped change the political climate, too.”

ABC put “Gore's Moment” up on the screen graphic before reporter Bill Weir touted how “a bigger, looser Al Gore now roams red carpets in Ralph Lauren, gives Grammys to Red Hot Chili Peppers and has Oscar credibility" -- as if a bunch of Hollywood liberals awarding a liberal movie starring a liberal politician somehow gives that politician any more credibility.
Weir also championed how Gore's “global warming slide show has made $45 million and counting at the box office. Live versions sell out red state arenas faster than rock stars. And he's up for the Nobel Peace Prize. Which leads to the question, will he run again?"

As I type this, there's a minor skirmish being fought within the Democratic Party over the plan of Nevada Democrats' plan to give Fox News Channel the rights to broadcast a presidential campaign debate scheduled for next August in Reno.

Predictably, the moonbats at Moveon.org are outraged and up to their usual online petitioning:

The battle between the Nevada Democratic Party and online liberal activists continues to rage, with MoveOn.org saying Friday it had collected 135,000 signatures on a petition asking the party to dissociate itself from the Fox News cable channel.

"Hopefully, they're getting the hint," MoveOn.org Civic Action spokesman Adam Green said.

But the party, which is partnering with Fox News to broadcast a Democratic presidential debate Aug. 14 in Reno, wasn't backing down.

If, as I am, you're stuck in a seemingly endless winter, here's something to bring a sunny smile to your lips, courtesy of that one-man cavalcade of mirth, Paul Krugman. The New York Times columnist this morning blames the election of George Bush in 2000 on -- ready? -- the MSM! Yes, according to Krugman, Bush

"got within chad-and-butterfly range of the White House because the public, enthusiastically encouraged by many in the news media, treated the presidential election like a high school popularity contest. The successful candidate received kid-gloves treatment — and a free pass on the fuzzy math of his policy proposals — because he seemed like a fun guy to hang out with, while the unsuccessful candidate was subjected to sniggering mockery over his clothing and his mannerisms."

Without a hint of balance, Robert Kuttner of the Boston Globe thinks he has it all figured out -- 20 months before the election -- that the GOP candidates cannot win, while the Dems are the right ticket as he tries Taking stock of the 2008 field.

Naturally, his is another gusher for Barack Obama. But, he starts his piece in one way or another ripping each and every one of the GOP candidates, or those who would vote for them, before saying how "strong" the Dems field of candidates is.

Here are the results of his analyzing of the GOP field:

Is it just coincidence that a story has appeared touting the fact that Al Sharpton is the descendant of slaves, ones owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond to boot? Or could this be the unofficial kick-off of the Sharpton presidential campaign, with a major boost from the reverend's hometown newspaper?

Let's put these three stories together:

On January 17, a story appears reporting: "civil rights activist Al Sharpton said Monday he is seriously considering a run for president. " And why is Sharpton running? "If we're talking about the urban agenda, can you tell me anybody else in the field who's representing that right now?" Translation: Obama might be preparing to announce, but he's not addressing African-American issues.

Three weeks later, on the day Barack Obama announces his candidacy, a story appears in which Al Sharpton declares “just because you’re our color doesn’t make you our kind.” Translation: Barack Obama is not an authentic African-American.

And now, just two weeks after Obama's announcement, a story bursts out of the Daily News declaring that Sharpton's ancestors were slaves owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond.

A truly shocking discussion transpired on Sunday’s “The Chris Matthews Show” that conceivably has grave implications for the presidential aspirations of Hillary Clinton.

Before getting to the guts, the gist of this surprising conversation between host Chris Matthews and former CBS anchorman Dan Rather was how farcical the current move by Senate Democrats to “repeal the 2002 resolution for war” is. Furthermore, though it is a dangerous tactic for the left, the person most negatively impacted could be Sen. Clinton who “has to be careful to not come across as a chickenhawk.”

Adding to the surprising nature of this segment, Matthews actually began the discussion by comically mocking Democrats for this new strategy (Hot Air has video available here):

If NBC wants to support the effort of Joe Biden and Carl Levin to adopt a new resolution undercutting the 2002 version that authorized President Bush to go to war against Iraq, let it put Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann out there to make the case. But please don't misrepresent to the public what that 2002 resolution [full text here] said.

On this morning's "Today," NBC reporter John Yang asserted the following:

"That 2002 measure allowed the president to go after weapons of mass destruction and topple Saddam Hussein. There were no weapons and Saddam's been executed."

View video here.

Whether intentionally or not, Yang misrepresented the scope of what the 2002 resolution authorized the president to do. Here is the verbatim text of the section of the 2002 resolution setting for the the authorization:

It seems campy to say, “Only in Hollywood,” but CNN suggested Friday that Al Gore might announce his candidacy for president at the Academy Awards on Sunday.

During the 4PM EST installment of “The Situation Room,” Bill Schneider perfectly set up the ideal liberal fantasy (somewhat similar video available here):

It's Academy Awards night. Best documentary feature is up. And the Oscar is favored to go to "An Inconvenient Truth," starring Al Gore… Lawrence Bender and the film's other producers come up to accept the Oscar with Gore. The audience roars its approval. This is liberal Hollywood. Gore speaks.

The video then cut to Martin Kaplan, who is the director of the Norman Lear Center:

On last night's Hardball, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams unintentionally slammed Chris Matthews on his own show. Discussing Walter Cronkite's famous declaration of U.S defeat in Vietnam, Williams claimed it was a watershed moment because the former CBS anchor had earned the "credibility" of his viewers but warned today's anchors can't have the same effect because: "People do Cronkite-esque statements on topics every day now. On, on cable, you can see one an hour." Williams was probably referencing Matthews' competitors but as any regular viewer of Hardball knows the charge is easily applied to his NBC colleague as Matthews is constantly making his own "Cronkite-esqe" declarations of U.S. defeat in Iraq.

Hey NBC your double-standards are showing! On last night's Hardball, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams was in awe of the Clinton spin machine as he called them "pros" and "good leakers" but MSNBC correspondent David Shuster labeled Dick Cheney's behavior in the Scooter Libby leak case as "ruthless," and "obsessed."

First up Hardball host, Chris Matthews, asked Williams for his take on Hillary Clinton's rapid defense in her David Geffen-fueled spat with Barack Obama. Williams, seemed to admire the Clinton machine's prowess in both past and current crises, as he admitted: "They were pros politically. They were good leakers. They were good attackers, and they were good defenders. Hillary Rodham Clinton has some pros working for her. We've had some experience with them, all of us in this business have."

The New York Times has published a story scolding Rudy Guiliani for arranging only friendly campaign stops, pointedly carping how he is "Seeing Only Softballs".

Stepping to the Plate, Giuliani Is Seeing Only Softballs

SPARTANBURG, S.C., Feb. 21 -- In a swing through South Carolina this week, Rudolph W. Giuliani chose to campaign at a fire house, which is a little like Derek Jeter meeting with Yankees fans -- a most unlikely forum for hostility, or even much skepticism.

It is curious to me why anyone would expect a candidate to open themselves up to any venues that would present "hostility" this many months away from the elections?

Are the "Clinton haters" mellowing? That’s the not-so-benign question NBC reporter David Gregory asked on the subject of whether conservative ire for Hillary Clinton has lessened. (Can you imagine a segment on "Bush haters?")

Fellow NBC alum Chris Matthews, perhaps offering an explanation for the media’s fawning over Barack Obama, explained that the Illinois Senator appeals to the "young at heart."

This week, CNN provided yet another example as to why "fair and balanced" wouldn’t be a good promotional phrase for them. Correspondent Bill Schneider asserted that African Americans don’t vote for the GOP because of a "perception of racism."

It's interesting how some network TV reporter blogs show more interest in examining liberals than the network news product does. In his Media Reality Check yesterday, Rich Noyes reported that the networks have yet to touch the controversy over the anti-religious bloggers John Edwards hired for his presidential campaign website, and yet ABC Nightline anchor Terry Moran really got the ball rolling in the blogosphere on the story when he asked if a Republican would be ignored with smash-mouth bloggers like that.

Moran's blog now features a post on the liberalism of Hollywood. Moran says what Jake Tapper didn't quite say in his report on the political importance of Tinseltown...as a Democratic power center: "Hollywood money is a crucial factor for any Democrat who seriously wants to be president. You simply cannot get the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party--and you cannot win the White House as a Democrat--without the money-raising muscle of Hollywood." Do the top producers snip lines like this, lines of simple common sense?