It seems that on July fourth, The New York Times saw fit to smirk at both American patriotism and Christianity. A recent Times article about the erection of a giant, though strategically altered, replica of the Statue of Liberty by a showman of a Memphis pastor presented a perfect example of the ridicule and disdain with which the Times views Christianity and American patriotism, both. In Memphis, Tennessee, writer Shalia Dewan could barely hide her sarcasm and distaste for the patriotism and the muscular Christianity espoused by Pastor Alton R. Williams in her coverage of the unveiling of the 72-foot-tall statue.

Tellingly, the entire top third of Dewan's piece is filled with mockery, mischacterization, inapt comparison and quote after quote from Pastor Williams' detractors. It isn't until the initial ridicule is over that writer Dewan finally gives the pastor room to explain what his purpose and principle is in creating the odd pean to Lady Liberty.

Today's dispatch from the Associated Press about the Chinese Communist government's attempt to require that a state-developed program called "Green Dam Youth Escort" be installed on all new personal computers sold in that country is all too typical of the awful reporting on this potentially frightening development. 

I will refer to Green Dam Youth Escort as "the GD software" for the balance of this post. Many readers will find this abbreviation particularly appropriate once they fully understand everything the GD software could potentially do. 

The latest news about the GD software is that the government has delayed what was to be a July 1 installation requirement, but that it intends to go forward with that mandate at some point. In the meantime, for reasons not fully vetted, many PC makers have begun shipping units with the GD software either already installed or included on an accompanying CD.

Considering the gravity of what the Chinese Communist government is trying to do to its people, worldwide media coverage of the GD software has been much lighter than justified. Somehow, what may happen to the free speech and free expression rights of 1.3 billion people isn't anywhere near as important as what's happening in connection with an entertainer who has been dead for a week.

Here are key paragraphs from Joe McDonald's AP story, as carried at USA Today (bolds after title are mine:

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of media attention the networks have given to Michael Jackson? You're not alone, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, and that fact puzzles MSNBC contributor Touré.

Touré and David Wilson of TheGrid.com appeared on the July 2 broadcast of Nancy Snyderman's MSNBC's show "Dr. Nancy" to examine the premise that Michael Jackson's death was getting too much attention. Snyderman cited statics from the Pew Research Center for People & Press July 1 poll about the Jackson coverage.

"And of course, the Jackson coverage raises a question," Snyderman said. "Has the media been spending too much time covering the Michael Jackson story? Certainly, it's something you can't get away from right now. A new poll by the Pew Research Center shows that 64 percent of people surveyed think that the coverage of the Jackson story is excessive. Three percent think, too little, 29 percent just about right."

No matter how much money any government - federal, state or local - puts into public education, it's never enough in some people's eyes.

A July 1 "NBC Nightly News" segment detailed a new use of tax payer dollars in one of the worst performing, financially struggling school systems in the country - the Washington, D.C. public school system. They are paying school children with taxpayer funds, part of a social experiment to improve school participation at the middle school level.

"Keeping the exuberant sixth graders of Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson in line on a sunny Friday is a challenge for principal Brian Betts," former "Nightly News" anchor-turned-correspondent Tom Brokaw explained. "But this is not an assembly, it's payday. It's called Capital Gains - paying students for good grades, behavior and attendance, part of the massive restructuring of the D.C. schools by a 38-year-old Korean-American woman, who as chancellor, wants to transform what is by many measures the worst-performing public school system in the U.S."

In a June 28 "The Seeker" blog post asking, "[s]hould gay flocks have their own churches," Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear failed to find a conservative, orthodox Christians or Jews to level a warning about the incompatibility of homosexuality and those faith traditions.

"Three area churches who cater to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians are marching in today's Gay Pride parade," Brachear noted in opening her 16-paragraph post. "Should gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender flocks have their own sanctuaries? Or does the concept of a LGBT congregation encourage an isolation within faith communities that defies the very purpose of assembling for worship?"

Brachear then went on to cite a Christian pastor and a Jewish rabbi to defend their gay-oriented congregations. Both cited the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in defense of their sexually-oriented ecclesiology.

Yet despite the Trib's insistence in her profile that "Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear embodies the journalist’s quest for truth and the personal search for Truth--with a capital T," the so-called Seeker failed to consult religious conservatives among Jewish and Christian traditions in the Windy City who would rebuke the practice of homosexuality as incompatible with the teachings of those faiths.

[Update, 8 pm Eastern: Screen capture, video link to interview added.]

CNN anchor Kyra Phillips sympathized with an outed homosexual army officer on Tuesday’s Newsroom program. Phillips questioned Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach about his recent meeting with President Obama, and asked, “What else did you tell him, because I know this has weighed heavily on your heart for a very long time....What did he tell you that gives you...hope...that he is going to get rid of this?” [video of interview available here]

The anchor’s interview with Fehrenbach occurred a day after he attended a “celebrating LGBT Pride Month” event at the White House. He was the guest of the homosexual activist group the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which presses for the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy (as Rachel Maddow announced on her MSNBC show a week earlier), and is promoting a petition on the lieutenant colonel’s behalf. After noting the officer’s career and “nine medals for bravery as a combat pilot,” Phillips began with an enthusiastic question: “So there you were- every chance to say everything you ever wanted...to the president about the situation that you are fighting for, which is your job, and to get rid of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ How did you make your way to the president for a one-on-one?”

What is it with fast food chains and off-color advertising? First Burger King came out with a highly suggestive ad for a sandwich, now Hardees suggests we buy an order of ”Biscuit-icles.”

The fast food restaurant had added a new item to their breakfast menu, Cinnamon Sugar Biscuit Holes. But Hardees found it a “challenge” to name its new product so they enlisted the help of their patrons. While the search continues Hardees released an ad in which consumers were asked to name the product after tasting it. The ad features many of them – and the paid pitchman – offering inappropriate alternative names for Biscuit Holes.

Marking the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riot in New York City on Sunday, CBS’s Anthony Mason declared: "A night of violence that led to a new day for human rights... Stonewall triggered the modern gay rights movement."

Filling in for Sunday Morning host Charles Osgood, Mason explained: "...it was around 2:00 that morning that young gay patrons started fighting back against police raiding a New York City bar called the Stonewall Inn. Police accused the bar of selling liquor without a license but gays charged the raid was harassment." He went on to tout the progress made since the riot: "By the 25th anniversary of Stonewall in 1994, things had changed so much that New York City was hosting the gay games...In the years since then, six states have legalized same-sex marriage. Legislation is pending that would make New York the seventh."

Mason concluded the brief story by describing the ongoing struggle: "Not that gay rights groups believe their job is done. Among other goals, they're still fighting to overturn the military's ban on openly gay service members. Today, as in years past, gay pride parades will be held in New York and many other cities across the land. Marking the distance the campaign has already traveled from that turbulent night outside the Stonewall Inn."

Teasing an upcoming interview with actress Megan Fox on Tuesday’s Early Show, co-host Harry Smith gushed: "...this woman has jumped from virtual unknown to Hollywood A-lister. It doesn’t hurt she is one of the most beautiful women on the planet...And a very nice young person."

Smith failed to make any mention of the "Transformers" star’s controversial comments in a June 5 interview, in which she wished the villainous robots in the movie could "...just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America." Fox, a self-described bisexual, made the comments while talking with "Total Film UK."

Fellow co-host Maggie Rodriguez similarly fawned over Fox: "Harry already got the chance to meet her and I said ‘how is she?’ You sounded like Tony the Tiger...‘She’s great.’ A lot of people are saying, you know, she’s the new ‘it girl,’ the new Angelina Jolie."

“Bruno,” a controversial movie about a gay Austrian fashionista is set to debut in the United States on July 10, but the film has already garnered an abundance of media attention due to its over-the-top portrayal of homosexuals. On June 29, MSNBC’s “Morning Meeting” featured a segment the was nothing short of a promotion for the film.

 “Bruno” stars Sacha Baron Cohen, best known for his controversial 2006 film “Borat,” as well as for his recent MTV Movie Award stunt in which he in character as Bruno, dropped into the theater on a harness and exposed his bare back side to rapper Eminem.

In an interview with Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on Sunday, CBS’s Bob Schieffer wondered: "Do you think that Republicans now should sort of shift the emphasis, though, from stressing social and family values and shift to more – to economic issues and be a party of economic conservatives rather than putting so much emphasis on these social issues?"

Schieffer began the Face the Nation interview by asking Barbour about the sex scandal involving South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford: "How much damage has it done to a Republican Party that is already on the ropes?...Your chances in 2012? This is the party that’s called itself the party of family values and so on and so forth. You’re going through a series of scandals now. This is not the first. Just like in the past, Democrats – we have seen Democrats involved in things like this. What does this do to the image of the party and how you try to project yourself and present yourself as a party, Governor?"

When Sam Tanenhaus came on board the New York Times Book Review in 2004 he was accused of being conservative, but one would be hard-pressed to convict him based on the available evidence during his tenure -- "the emptiness of free-market liturgy," anyone?

Besides having a thin, forced, and familiar feel, Tanenhaus's latest essay for the Times Week in Review, "Sound of Silence: The Culture Wars Take a Break," managed to portray Obama's opposition to gay marriage (which would normally make him a villain or at least hypocritical in the Times's eyes) as a Clintonian-style tactical victory against conservatives, absent of any the usual anti-gay taint the paper brings to bear on the matter.

The culture wars may not have ended, but on some fronts the combat has gotten rather quiet. For instance, family values.

True, David Letterman's awkward joke about a daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska prompted denunciations of the "media elite" (though it also boosted Mr. Letterman's ratings).

While much of the country has been captivated by the passing of pop star Michael Jackson, the scandal of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and turmoil in Iran and Iraq, business news has fallen off the front pages. 

That was the observation CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer made on the June 26 broadcast of "Street Signs." Cramer noted that the front page of the June 26 New York Times was entirely devoid of business news.

"Remember when business was on the front page?" Cramer said. "We were on the front page for awhile. It was really frightening. It's still off - our whole, our whole - the whole stock market, the economy, we're all off the front page. We're no longer important because lovers, this guy Sanford - I'm not that familiar with his story. Those two people in Pennsylvania that were on the ‘Today' show and all those others."

Twisted Hollywood and its twisted parade of tastemakers known as television critics are forever in search of another "black comedy," and if audiences don’t embrace one, then they can always make another one. Showtime didn’t succeed with "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," so now they’re trying a different brand of prostitute. "Nurse Jackie" is an addict who has daily sex at noon with her hospital pharmacist in exchange for Oxycontin and other drugs. She’s married and a mother of two little girls. She is a filthy degenerate.

And the critics love it. Matt Roush of TV Guide calls it "a perfect companion piece to the increasingly twisted ‘Weeds,’" as it "straddles the worlds of drama and comedy with confidence and gutsy gusto." For those who don’t waste their money on Showtime, "Weeds" is a "comedy" where a suburban housewife is a drug dealer pushing marijuana instead of Avon.

There is no doubt these two shows are a match in blackness.

I am wondering when the euthanasia folks are going to start touting this one? I mean, it sure seemed to me as if the most caring, most civil, most intelligent president evah just said that healthcare could be cheaper if we don't give old folks and the infirm the full measure of care they now get. It appeared that Obama said we should just let them die or suffer because they aren't worth the effort. Imagine if Bush had said something like this? The left wouldn't have hesitated to call him any manner of names. Oddly, though, the Old Media have not had so much as a raised eyebrow over his statements on Wednesday.

Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that "evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve" the patient's health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?"

But who is it that will present the "evidence" that will "show" that further care is futile? Are we to believe that Obama expects individual doctors will make that decision in his bold new government controlled healthcare future? If he is trying to make that claim it is a flat out untruth and he knows it.

CNN’s Ali Velshi, during a segment on Thursday’s Newsroom program, ignored all the past sex scandals involving Democrats in recent years as he focused on “another sex scandal involving a leading Republican.” When his guest, Tony Blankley, tried to counter with how these scandals are being used to try to get the GOP to abandon social issues, Velshi tried hard to brush this aside.

The segment with Blankley, which aired at the end of the 3 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program, began with Velshi recapping the details about the most recent Republican sex scandal involving South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and how legislators in the state were proceeding with possible impeachment of the executive. He then introduced his main point for the segment: “Okay, I’m going to say it- another sex scandal involving a leading Republican- this is the second in two weeks. It’s hardly helping the party to resurrect its image.”

After introducing his guest, Velshi referred to his point and asked, “I wasn’t the first guy to say that. You’ve heard this a lot in the last few days. You heard it before Mark Sanford. What’s going on with the Republicans and scandals?” Blankley first rebuked Sanford and any Republican who had been caught in marital infidelity. He continued by making his point about the push to give up on family values: “As far as the party is concerned, although there’s hypocrisy when one of its members or two or seven of its members breach the standards it advocates, you can’t give up your values. The party believes in supporting families. You have programs that do that.”

SIRIUS XM Radio announced on June 25 that Rosie O’Donnell will host a daily talk show beginning this fall. Rosie Radio “will blend her many passions and interests - an eclectic mix of humor, pop culture and serious conversation.” The talk show will be featured on XM 155 “SIRIUS XM Stars.” Given her history of making outlandish statements it’s quite hard to believe anyone gave O’Donnell a talk show.

During her time as a co-host on “The View” O’Donnell said some controversial and downright weird things. In 2006 she stated that “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” The same year she also proclaimed, “Don't fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers.”  

Call this a teachable moment, but even with ABC's best-laid plans to kickstart the debate about health care reform and not allow the "Prescription for America" special to become an "infomercial," as many have complained - the president spent more than twice as much time as his questioners vaguely answering or not answering the questions asked of him. But the network consistently presented the event as part of the need to fix a "broken system." When asked, every one of the 164 hand-picked audience members said they felt that health care needed to be changed.

President Barack Obama appeared on the ABC network in a town hall format broadcasted from the White House on two separate programs on June 24 - an hour-long primetime special during the 10 p.m. Eastern Time hour and later on the "Nightline" program that aired during the 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time hour.

Should be interesting next time Joe Scarborough runs into the likes of Ed Schultz . . .

The Morning Joe host today slammed the hypocrisy of cable news hosts, specifically including some at MSNBC, for taking "unbridled glee" in Mark Sanford's disgrace.

Scarborough didn't name names, but he almost surely had Schultz, among others, in mind.  As I reported here, on his show last evening Schultz absolutely revelled in Sanford's distress, boasting "I have no mercy here" and using the most mocking of tones to describe the circumstances.  Was Joe also alluding to Keith Olbermann, who had considerable fun at Sanford's expense last night?

Here was Joe's statement of this morning . . .

With the very first question of its prime time special, Questions for the President: Prescription for America, ABC set the tone that essentially confirmed for viewers that the president was right in his desire to radically remake America's healthcare system. As the infomercial began, "moderator" Charles Gibson asked a seminal question of the doctors and other participants that were about to hear the president speak: "How many of you agree with the president that we need to change our healthcare system?" Naturally they all raised their hands.

Imagine that? This handpicked crowd all agreed with ABC and Obama that "change" was paramount. Surprised? Hardly.

So, as the viewer is introduced to the infomercial, they start off with the unanimous affirmation that the president is right, radical changes have to be made. The premise is set and even the sharp questions to the president later in the show are blunted by the assumption that some major change is needed. And since the president is the only person allowed to offer any plan during this ABC special, the further assumption promulgated is that he is the one that must affect that change.

For viewers of this healthcare infomercial, Obama wins thanks to an assist by ABC. The viewer is deftly led to the desired conclusion.

Can food taste too good? Yes, if you're New York Times health columnist Tara Parker-Pope. Her Tuesday "Well" column for the Times is currently the #1 most emailed article on nytimes.com, and is an interview with former Food and Drug Administration head (and over-zealous banner of orange juice and silicon-gel breast implants) David Kessler on his new book, with the typically scolding title, "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite."

A Times headline writer took the same hectoring cue, eschewing personal responsibility for what people eat and blaming it all on food industry mind control: "How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains." Parker-Pope, via Kessler, actually comes out against food manufacturers for making their products tastes good.

As head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David A. Kessler served two presidents and battled Congress and Big Tobacco. But the Harvard-educated pediatrician discovered he was helpless against the forces of a chocolate chip cookie.

Froma Harrop may have once been called Heartland Institute's "favorite lefty" journalist, but lefty she is and her use of a lopsided New York Times poll to urge President Obama to "act fast" on a government healthcare policy is a perfect example of that.

With her June 23 article, Harrop was frustrated that Obama was not "stepping on the gas" to institute publicly funded healthcare and she wondered why he is dragging his feet when "85 percent of Americans want 'fundamental changes' in American healthcare." This factoid she gleans from a very flawed NYT poll that is so badly skewed to the left that it is amazing anyone takes it seriously.

Harrop makes no bones about the fact that she wants a nationalized healthcare policy to be forced on the nation and she also doesn't think that anyone needs to listen to Republicans, effectively disenfranchising the roughly half of the American electorate that votes that way. Amazingly, Harrop is supposed to be a "financial reporter," yet she still wants this disastrously expensive, jobs killing, cost spiraling sort of plan anyway. This doesn't say much about her grasp of economics.

When you consider that the entire reason anyone knows Jon and Kate Gosselin is that their reality show is about their life with eight young children, you would assume that, when the couple announced they were divorcing, the media would spare some attention for the effect on those children.

However, following the public announcement from the stars of “Jon & Kate Plus Eight,” that they were splitting, the June 23 “Today Show” wasn’t much concerned about the well-being of the Gosselin kids. NBC preferred to focus on the Jon and Kate themselves and the ratings of the show. The report didn’t mention the what the divorce (and the continuation of the show) would mean for the children.  

In an interview with President Obama on Friday, CBS’s Harry Smith asked the "father-in-chief" about growing up without his own father: "In this fatherless world, where did you learn to love?" [audio available here]

The first part of the interview, which aired on Father’s Day on CBS’s Sunday Morning, focused on Obama’s role as "First Dad" as Smith declared: "Maybe it was on election night when we first realized not only would there be a new president but also a new first family. A family with young children...Along with the role of commander-in-chief and leader of the free world, Barack Obama would be First Dad. So, yes, there would be a swing set and, yes, there would be a dog." Sappy piano music was played in the background as a montage of Obama family photos scrolled across the screen.

Throughout the fawning profile, Smith described a young Barack Obama without a father: "He is everything his own father was not...In his first book, ‘Dreams From My Father,’ Barack Obama speaks about both the cultivated myth of his father and the cold, hard truth that he was absent by choice." At that point Smith asked: "In this fatherless world, where did you learn to love?" Obama replied: "Where I learned, I think, to be a father, was looking at some people that I respected...And it just reminded me that, you know, whatever the hardships, whatever the obstacles, you can be a good dad."

Smith then held up the president as role model to all fathers: "Your whole life is under a microscope now and believe it or not every parent in the country is watching your every move as a parent. Are you aware of that scrutiny?...The First Couple has made being present in their children's lives a top priority. The world can wait til’ after Sasha and Malia's soccer or basketball game."

Over a video montage of frivolous novelty weddings (drive-through, undersea, and "Elvis as pastor" nuptials) NBC's Lee Cowan asserted that that the institution of marriage is going down hill in a hurry.  In the "Today" show's "Today's Relationships" segment on June 22, Cowan did find one bright spot. The only people standing for a responsible, serious understanding of matrimony it seems, are homosexuals. Proponents of same-sex marriage Cowan said, "are still willing to fight for the very institution; defining marriage as a source of a national debate right now."

Cowan explained how, when it comes to relationships and marriage, "rekindling seems unnatural and plenty get so bored with marriage, it seems more like a sexless routine than a romance." Yet he did mention, with a hint of incredulity and with the tagline "The Case Against Marriage" floating on the screen underneath him, how "despite the bad wrap" marriage divorce rates are on the decline . People are investing more and more on marriage help books, but not for the children, their love. or morality. The reason is that, "divorce is painful."

The reader might be warned that reading this San Francisco Chronicle Father's Day piece serves as a most perfect emetic. In fact, it's a wonder that writer Jennifer Weiss could type with all those stars in her eyes. Her Father's Day adulation of Obama is so over-the-top that Obama suddenly becomes the "father of our country," and is determined to have "super-dad status."

The most offensive part of this piece is, of course, the aforementioned assigning to Obama of the role of "father of our country." There is only one father of our country and that is George Washington, war hero and first president. No other president is the father of our country, nor can they be so even rhetorically. Yet, in its zeal to be an effusive Obamaton, here is the SFChron reassigning the role from the true father of our country to Obama.

Pornography is no longer a poison creeping into the crevices of our popular culture. It is part of the very fabric. One sensation at a recent Apple conference for new and developing applications in San Francisco was the "i-Porn bikini girls" advertising free X-rated films for your i-Phone. It sounds like a whole new reason to fear people using their mobile phone while they drive.

Free porn sites are all over the Internet now, with zero restrictions or minimal electronic barriers against curious children who might be in for a very crude shock within seconds, just with the still photos on the home page. Even the most mainstream of video sites are inundated with pornography and its promoters. YouTube touts itself as the world’s most popular portal for Internet videos. It has become so big it’s even promoting a new technology called YouTube XL to put its videos directly on your big-screen TV.

A new study by Matthew Philbin and Dan Gainor of the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) found that YouTube is stuffed with porn videos.

Two reports on CNN’s Situation Room on Wednesday about President Obama’s extension of benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees and the campaign to overturn Proposition 8 in California featured only left-wing sound bites, and none from conservative opponents of homosexual activists.

The first report from correspondent Dan Lothian, which aired just after the beginning of the 4 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program, included clips from a homosexual federal employee and his “husband” who was afflicted with pancreatic cancer, as well as Joe Solmonese of the liberal Human Rights Campaign. Over an hour later, Jessica Yellin’s report on Proposition 8 opponents’ efforts to overturn the ballot initiative which made same-sex “marriage” illegal again, featured two leaders from California “progressive” organizations, the Courage Campaign, and Equality California.

On June 17, FNC’s “O’Reilly Factor” focused a “Viewer Warning” segment on the Culture & Media Institute’s new Special Report: “Blue Tube: Four Reasons to Keep Your Kids Away From YouTube.”

“A new study by the Media Research Center – a conservative group, but an accurate group – indicates that pornographic content is available to kids on YouTube pretty much all the time,” host Bill O’Reilly said.

Amanda Carpenter of the Washington Times, “The Factor’s” regular Internet correspondent, explained some of the study findings. “If you put in a search term like ‘porn,’ into the YouTube site,” she said, “you’ll come up with 330,000 different hits. And, while the Web site says it warns … it bans, excuse me … explicit pornography, there are tons of things out there that resemble, you know, soft-core type of porn, girls stripping, allusions to lesbianism, fetishes. And they say its porn – they advertise it as porn. Other pornographers put links to their own real sites that are pornographic.”

O’Reilly asked about the lack of safeguards that the CMI study uncovered. “So say a 12-year-old wants to see this stuff,” he said. “All they have to do is lie about their age, right?”

Some attention has been paid to the fact that the microblogging service Twitter had decided to push off its scheduled maintenance Tuesday morning as the situation in Iran became steadily more embroiled in conflict. As it happened, Twitter was a major source of information coming out of that repressed society as news was happening. Twitter had, though, scheduled a few hours down time just when Iran was at a peak of activity. So, in order to keep the flow of communication to the outside world flowing, Twitter announced it would not turn off its service until Iran calmed down.

This is pretty interesting news, that a mere social networking site was so deeply involved in momentous news of the day and that it became so relied upon by people hungry for news and interested in discussing a major democratic movement is definitely a new thing. It is especially interesting because the U.S. media so badly fell down on its job of reporting activities in Iran making Twitter a vital tool for communication. But what was even more interesting was that Obama's State Department tried to claim credit for Twitter's decision to stay in operation during the day. Worse, the Old Media seemed to swallow the State Department's claims whole.