Culture/Society

NPR obviously thought the case of Monsignor William Lynn, "the highest ranking Catholic official in the U.S. to be criminally tried for covering up child sex abuse by priests," was newsworthy, as they devoted four and a half minutes to the story on Thursday's All Things Considered. Meanwhile, the public radio network has yet to cover the Monday filing of 12 major lawsuits against ObamaCare's contraception/abortifacient mandate by Catholic dioceses and organizations on the air.

Correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty's report aired mere minutes before the CBS Evening News led with the Lynn case. On Friday, Media Research Center president Brent Bozell took both CBS and NPR to task for playing up the story, while remaining completely silent on the pro-religious freedom litigation.

CBS This Morning stood out as the only Big Three network morning show on Thursday to cover a conservative group's allegation that the Obama administration gave a movie director and writer "special access to government officials involved in the commando operation that killed Osama bin Laden," as reported by Reuters on Wednesday. ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today ignored the story.

Correspondent Chip Reid outlined that "the documents...obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group...reveal that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal...met with top national security officials; gained access to Seal Team 6; and visited the CIA."

The Big Three networks' evening newscasts have all but punted so far on the 12 lawsuits filed on Monday against the Obama administration, challenging the abortifacient/birth control mandate which is part of ObamaCare. However, CBS actually followed up on their exclusive interview of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan on the regulation on Tuesday's CBS This Morning.

Correspondent Norah O'Donnell confronted Press Secretary Jay Carney during the Tuesday White House press briefing over Dolan's sharp critique of the mandate on the morning newscast: "He [Dolan] said that it's a 'strait-jacketing' and 'handcuffing exemption.'...Is that what the President is doing...strait-jacketing and hand-cuffing religious institutions?" O'Donnell's question didn't make it on the air on Tuesday's CBS Evening News or Wednesday's CBS This Morning, even after Carney evaded directly answering her question.

During a panel discussion on Tuesday's NBC Today about new French President Francois Hollande having a girlfriend, advertising executive Donny Deutsch insisted Americans would soon accept the same: "I think we're ready for it....the culture that grew up on the internet, that is not going to keep prisoner candidates or people because they've had some personal mishaps, infidelities. I think the rest of the world has grown up, we're going to eventually get there." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

The New York Times apparently wants us to believe that it has done its journalistic duty by issuing a "correction," the text of which will follow the jump, to an especially odious May 12 op-ed ("Fables of Wealth") written by William Deresiewicz.

The author, who describes himself as "An essayist, critic and the author of 'A Jane Austen Education,'" originally claimed, as quoted at the Media Research Center's TimesWatch, that "A recent study found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are 'clinical psychopaths' ... (The proportion at large is 1 percent.)." Uh, not exactly (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Summer is approaching, and wedding season is kicking into high gear. And the Huffington Post is celebrating by declaring war on marriage (of the traditional variety, it has no problem with gay marriage), arguing that monogamy is impossible and that cheating is desirable.

The Huffington Post has developed an obsession with cheating, and has spurned the very concept of monogamy. Contributors “condemn the expectation of monogamy,” argue that “marriage forces love into a single, finite, unforgiving, inflexible model,” and complain that “monogamy is failing men.” 

ESPN's Grantland website jumped on the bash Manny Pacquiao bandwagon on Thursday by giving a platform to a homosexual activist, who predictably trashed the Catholic Church as she took the Filipino boxing sensation to task for defending traditional marriage.

Writer Laurel Fantauzzo ripped the "the Church's cruel, untrue dictates about me," and promised if he didn't "evolve" like President Obama, "I'll simply have to sigh wearily and turn away from you, the way I've turned away from all of the idiotic bigots I've come across in my life, carrying a cross or a heavy book or a Constitution."

Appearing on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Thursday to discuss the passing of disco singer Donna Summer, contributor Toure unleashed a viscous rant against those who didn't care for the music genre: "...there was a homophobic, and to a certain extent racist, response against disco....from large group of fans who wanted to proclaim the resurgence of white male power, of rock 'n roll and punk..." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Toure began launching his absurd attack by cheering disco as "all about gay exuberance and joy." He then condemned those who criticized it: "I have never seen a movement in America to crush a musical genre in the way that the sort of almost organized anti-disco movement rose up....it reminds me of the discussion around marriage equality, that, 'You can't have this for yourself, you can't have equality, you can't be out and normalized in the public. You must be in the closest and quiet about what you love.'"

During the Today's Professionals panel discussion on Thursday's NBC Today, NBC chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman cheered the latest cover of Newsweek magazine that proclaimed President Obama to be "The First Gay President": "[Newsweek editor-in-chief] Tina Brown has revolutionized how provocative and how much you can push magazine covers. And when magazines frankly aren't selling, she's shown that you can uptick sales by what's on a cover."

In a bizarre attempt to make Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wearing a hoodie at a recent Wall Street meeting into a racial issue, on Thursday's NBC Today, attorney and panelist Star Jones decried the supposed "hypocrisy" of it all: "...when we talk about Mark Zuckerberg, rich white guy, wearing a hoodie, we call him brainy and self-confident....But when a young black kid walks down the street in a hoodie, that's ghetto." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Moments later, she made it clear that she was referring to Florida teen shooting victim Trayvon Martin: "...what I'm saying to you is, is you're having a discussion about an article of clothing where two months ago, that article of clothing was looked at as negative."

Ben Maller skewered Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao as a "homophobic boxing superstar" and a "bigoted boxer" in a Wednesday post on ThePostgame.com, an online magazine of Yahoo! Sports. Pacquiao had criticized the redefinition of marriage in a Friday interview: "It [marriage] should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of old."

Maller, who is also a talk radio host for Fox Sports Radio, also trumpeted that the boxer, "long a darling of Madison Avenue, figures to lose a number of endorsements and fans over his intolerant, bullheaded position."

On September 11, 2001, thousands of Americans died in an attack that was planned and trained for in Taliban controlled Afghanistan. The same Taliban that sheltered Al Qaeda governed Afghanistan as a 7th Century theocracy where women were hidden under burqas and homosexuals were executed by having stone walls toppled on them.  They were removed and kept from power at the cost of thousands of U.S. and NATO lives. Americans are still dying there while the Taliban burn down schools for girls and splash acid in the faces of women who don’t cover them.

But boy, can those guys compose a couplet! In June, an anthology of poems written by Taliban soldiers will be published and available for sale in America.

After grilling Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom on a variety of topics on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry wrapped up the interview by portraying Mitt Romney's support of traditional marriage as behind the times: "...there's a Gallup poll now that shows an increasing support by Americans for relationships between same-sexes. I'm wondering, do you believe that on this issue Mitt Romney is on the wrong side of history?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Curry prefaced her left-wing question by noting how President Obama "is painting gay marriages as an expansion of human rights." In a prior report, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd touted how during a New York campaign fudraising swing, the President experienced "an embrace of enthusiastic donors happy with his new gay marriage stance....firing up his liberal base as he basked in the glow of a friendly audience..."

Psycho-capitalism? The overwhelmingly liberal readership of the New York Times is predictably eating up a charged story in the increasingly pretentious and hard-left Sunday Review section, "Capitalists And Other Psychopaths," by left-wing essayist William Deresiewicz, a critic who often writes for The Nation. Bringing the article to life is a cartoon of two men with painted smiles torturing ants with a magnifying glass. The text box: "Rich people are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law. No surprise."

As of Monday afternoon it was the paper's second-most read and e-mailed story (behind a more substantive Times magazine cover story on diagnosing children as psychopaths), as liberal readers ironically used tools honed and perfected by capitalists to spread a tale -- published by a capitalist organization, the New York Times Company, with revenues of $2.3 billion in 2011 -- of the utter wickedness of capitalists.

On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, American Conservative Union president Al Cardenas squared off against a group of left-wing pundits on the subject of President Obama announcing his support for gay marriage. The liberal bloc of guests included MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and Washington Post columnists Jonathan Capehart and Kathleen Parker. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Parker cheered Obama's use of the word "evolving" to describe his flip-flop on gay marriage: "I think that's the perfect word to describe this conversation because the American people are evolving on this issue. And increasingly they're coming on the side of same-sex marriage being the right side of history..."

The headline at the Associated Press's Sunday morning story primarily about GOP presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney's commencement address at Liberty University ("Romney urges grads to honor family commitments") was at least acceptable. It went downhill from there, betraying what appear to be deeply-held biases held by writers Kasie Hunt and Rachel Zoll against Republicans, conservatives, and Christians -- up to and including a "red meat" reference in what the Administration's Press will probably still claim is an objective report.

Apart from the self-evident bias, Hunt and Zoll failed to grasp the fundamental concept that a commencement speech is not a political stump speech. It is supposed to be a chance for the speaker, at least one who isn't a self-absorbed narcissist, to inform, inspire and advise graduates on what awaits them in the real world and how they should generally consider carrying out the rest of their lives. That, to the AP pair's apparent disappointment and astonishment, is what Romney did. Their opening six paragraphs plus a few selected others come after the jump, with prejudicial verbiage in bold, followed by several paragraphs from Romney's speech which Hunt and Zoll, if they they had been there to report a story instead of serving as Team Obama apparatchiks, would have noted:

President Barack Obama's allegedly "historic" support for same-sex "marriage" apparently has "prehistoric" roots -- at least as "history" is seen by the establishment press, which has acted as if all relevant history relating to Barack Obama began with his 2004 Democratic convention speech.

A Friday Los Angeles Times puff piece ("President Obama's influence on gay marriage will be tested") on the potential impact of President Barack Obama's decision to publicly support same-sex "marriage" -- supposedly for the first time -- caused blogger and longtime LAT nemesis Patterico to remind readers that Obama was a proponent of same-sex marriage without qualification during those "prehistoric" times -- in 1996 (links are in original):

Thursday's CBS Evening News and Friday's CBS This Morning spotlighted the Washington Post's reporting on the accusation that Mitt Romney supposedly bullied a high school classmate almost 50 years ago. Evening News anchor Scott Pelley trumpeted how "what [Romney] said about it today made it relevant again." Political director John Dickerson touted how "the reporting of the story seems pretty solid."

Correspondent Jan Crawford reported on the Romney issue on the evening and morning newscasts. During the Thursday report, Crawford highlighted how one former classmate of Romney's labeled the alleged incident an "assault and battery." The following morning, she did contrast the allegation with President Obama's admitted drug use during his high school years and President Clinton claiming he tried marijuana, but "didn't inhale."

This morning (saved here at host for future reference), Philip Elliott and Kasie Hunt at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, demonstrated how apparatchik propagandists work.

In their recast of reality, it's Mitt Romney whose presidential campaign has been focused on gay rights, not Barack Obama, his administration, his campaign, and the lapdog establishment press which have been obsessed with it for days. As to the 5,400-word hit piece prepared by Jason Horowitz and published in the Washington Post on early Thursday which portrayed an incident Romney says he does not recall during which he allegedly forcibly cut a classmate's hair against his will with the assistance of others -- It's "a news report" about which there are no stated doubts (there are lots of' em). Samples of the AP pair's misdirection and opportunism follow (bolds are mine):

Obama booster Gayle King attacked conservative Dennis Prager on Thursday's CBS This Morning for his opposition to same-sex "marriage." King channeled the left by equating such opposition to opposing desegregation: "You recently wrote...that you can be against same-sex marriage and not be anti-gay...it's sort of like saying to a black person...I want you to sit at the back of the bus, but I'm not anti-black." [audio available here; video clip below the jump]

The morning show slanted in general towards the cultural left by bringing on three supporters of same-sex "marriage" or civil unions: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; Chris Hughes, the publisher of The New Republic; and Max Mutchnick, co-creator of the TV show "Will and Grace," which was recently cited by Vice President Joe Biden as he announced his support of the redefinition of marriage on Sunday's Meet The Press. Hughes and Mutchnick are both open homosexuals.

Part 1 of 2.

Dan Savage is a bully. How ironic, since he heads the most high-profile anti-bullying campaign the United States. But for Savage, it only gets better if you support a rabidly liberal, “anything goes” lifestyle.

Savage recently garnered media attention for his offensive remarks about Christians, but in reality this is old news. The liberal media and Obama administration love to portray Dan Savage as the anti-bullying savior, but the real Dan Savage has been a repulsive and twisted creature for years. Just read any of his five books.

To get reaction to President Obama's flip-flop on gay marriage, Thursday's NBC Today brought on openly gay left-wing MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who quickly attacked Republicans on the issue: "It's a very, very conservative Republican Party on this issue....Mitt Romney, who wants to roll back gay rights nationwide."

Co-host Ann Curry helped Maddow along by asking series of questions from the left:  "...[Obama's] leaving it to the states, there's no movement to do something federally, in terms of making a change, I mean, what actually changes?....Is it clear, though, that this will not satisfy gay marriage activists?...that there's going to be an increase in their demands to push this further forward? Have it be on the platforms for the Democratic Party?"

If the people who run the Washington Post Company need an archetypal example of why their newspaper publishing segment is in so much financial trouble (as found here: a $22.6 million first-quarter 2012 loss following on the heels of an $18.2 million loss for all of 2011) and is bleeding customers (per the Audit Board of Circulations, the paper's daily and Sunday circulation dropped by 7.8% and 15.7%, respectively, during the year ended March 31), they only need wonder why the paper's editors tasked Jason Horowitz, with help from Julie Tate, to produce what turned into a 5,400-word writeup ("Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents") on Mitt Romney's high school years in the mid-1960s which appeared Thursday.

One can tell by the headline alone that it's an attempt at a hit piece. Horowitz led with the most damning incident he could find, and somehow gave it anti-homosexual overtones:

In a panel discussion on Thursday's NBC Today about President Obama announcing his support for gay marriage on Wednesday, co-host Savannah Guthrie confessed to the group of all liberal pundits: "...so many people in the media seem to uniformly support same-sex marriage." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

That fact was made blatantly obvious by the discussion that preceded Guthrie's admission. The panel featured openly gay CNBC host Suze Orman, who voiced her support of the President's move: "Yeah, part of me is like, 'What took you so long, President Obama?' This is something that should have been done, in my opinion anyway – obviously, I would think that – a long time ago."

Touting new recommendations from an Institute of Medicine panel on obesity on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, science correspondent Robert Bazell proclaimed to viewers: "...a sea change in how we perceive obesity. No longer a question of individual responsibility, but a need to change what's called an 'obesity-promoting environment.' Calling on corporations, government and individuals to act."

At the top of the broadcast, anchor Brian Williams sounded the alarm: "Weight of the nation. An American health crisis out of control, and tonight a reality check on what it might take to turn things around." Later teasing the upcoming story, he declared: "Getting past the question of will power, what's really to blame for a nation of exploding waistlines? Tonight, there is a surprising new answer."