It was a hot night of hard-left talk on PBS’s Tavis Smiley show on Thursday night, when Smiley’s guest was radical Pacifica Radio anchorwoman Amy Goodman. The host of the daily Democracy Now program was decrying how American liberties have disappeared under George W. Bush, and Smiley wasn’t asking hostile questions, but softballs: "How do you explain how this Patriot Act has, in fact, crushed so many people? Crushed people, threatened people, put people at all types of unease?" Smiley never named one.

Goodman played up how awful it was, with Big Bad Bush crushing librarians and booksellers: "It is a very big problem. It was written before 9/11; it was just passed after 9/11, and that's the big problem. I travel around the country and we support independent bookstores all over. It's not only the librarians; it's the independent booksellers who also fall under the purview of the Patriot Act. It says that they and the librarians have to hand over information."

Eric Lichtblau, who covers the Justice Department for the New York Times, has an article up on Slate's front page , adapted from his upcoming book "Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice," accusing the Bush administration of lying to him about its anti-terrorist surveillance programs.

You may remember that Lichtblau and Times colleague James Risen, broke the news about the classified National Security Agency's wiretapping program in December 2005, ignoring pleas from the White House. Six months later those same two reporters, in an even more egregious revelation of classified information, revealed classified details about SWIFT, a U.S.-instigated international bank surveillance program.

Describing a tense pre-publication meeting in the White House, Lichtblau basically admitted the paper's bias against Vice President Dick Cheney:

The US media seems to think that their job description includes deciding what information is and is not legal to leak and print- never mind that we elect Presidents, Senators and Representatives to do this, not members of the scribbling class. This arrogance and complete lack of care for their fellow Americans was famously demonstrated in the NSA and SWIFT banking exposes by the New York Times resident anti-Americans, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau.

However, these are not the only such cases. Recently, Risen has once again exposed classified data with the aid of hidden law-breakers in the government. In this case, Risen exposed a CIA-Mossad operation to destabilize Iran. Risen has been subpoenaed by a federal court to reveal who gave him this data, but predictably, he sees his mission of aiding America's enemies and assisting said enemies to kill American citizens as more important that assisting the government to uphold laws about leaking sensitive information. And equally predictably, the rest of the mainstream media is rallying to his defense. Haaretz, an Israeli news source, reported on the topic today, casting Risen in the role of victim.

What follows is coverage of the February 28 presidential news conference. I focused mostly on the questions posited by the media. Video of the most biased questions should be posted shortly thereafter. [Update: White House transcript available here.]

Bottom line: Most of the really biased questions came down on the economy, particularly with regard to gas prices. Other than that and a question by Bill Plante about FISA immunity for telecom companies, most of the questions were fine, although the reporters often tried to draw Bush into handicapping the 2008 presidential contest or commenting on how his policies affect Sen. John McCain's chances:

Americans will be in far greater danger of a terrorist attack after midnight Saturday due to House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.), deciding to leave town for a break rather than vote on a surveillance bill that cleared the Senate Tuesday.

Sadly, the good folks at the Associated Press don't seem concerned, for instead of painting an accurate picture of this truly abysmal delay tactic by the left, the wire service chose to defend Pelosi and the Democrats while conveniently ignoring some key facts.

As reported moments ago (emphasis added throughout):

On Thursday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann delivered his latest "Special Comment" rant against President Bush, this time attacking him for threatening to veto an extension of the Protect America Act unless it includes provisions to give immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies who have cooperated with government surveillance in the past.

Calling the President a "liar" who was "slinging crap" and using "a form of terrorism against his own people" to gain support, Olbermann accused President Bush of fascism: "If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend. You're a fascist! Get them to print you a T-shirt with fascist on it! What else is this but fascism?" (Transcript follows)

It's never too late, apparently, for the Washington Post to make room on its op-ed page for a gratuitous display of Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS), at least a comparatively mild case. On Saturday, more than two months after the December 2 Kennedy Center Honors and more than six weeks after they aired on CBS on December 26, the paper carried a piece from honoree Leon Fleisher, a pianist and conductor, about how “unhappy” he remains “that I was required to attend a White House reception on the afternoon of the gala” given “I am horrified by many of President Bush's policies.” Fleisher, who was honored along with Brian Wilson, Steve Martin, Diana Ross and Martin Scorsese, bared his angst in a column titled “My White House Dilemma.” He “wrestled” with the “dilemma” of going to the White House because:

In the past seven years, Bush administration policies have amounted to a systematic shredding of our nation's Constitution -- the illegal war it initiated and perpetuates; the torturing of prisoners; the espousing of "values" that include a careful defense of the "rights" of embryos but show a profligate disregard for the lives of flesh-and-blood human beings; and the flagrant dismantling of environmental protections. These, among many other depressing policies, have left us weak and shamed at home and in the world.

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):

On Thursday's Countdown show shortly before 9:00 p.m., just an hour before hosting a special Countdown to discuss CNN's Democratic debate from that night, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann delivered his latest "Special Comment," this time attacking President Bush for threatening to veto a new FISA law if Congress refuses to include liability protection for telecom companies that have assisted in surveillance in the war on terrorism, arguing that Bush would be endangering Americans by delaying the bill's passage. The MSNBC host, who once scolded public figures who use Nazi references, made his own latest invocation of Nazi Germany, as he compared the telecoms to the Krupp family who were convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg.

Despite what former President Bill Clinton and most Democrats think, Fox News's Chris Wallace really is the epitome of fair and balanced.

In case you had any doubt, his interview Thursday with WOR radio's Steve Malzberg was a perfect example of why Wallace is the most impartial of all the Sunday talk show hosts.

To give you an idea of just how unbiased he is, during this extraordinary segment, Wallace strongly disagreed with Rush Limbaugh's recent remarks concerning Hillary Clinton's aging appearance, and actually came to her defense.

Later, Wallace supported media's questions concerning Mitt Romney being a Mormon even though Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) belief in this faith is totally ignored.

On the flipside, Wallace ridiculed MSNBC's David Shuster for some of his recent comments about Fox News, and mocked those that find water-boarding so deplorable.

Here are some of the highlights of this absolutely spectacular interview (15-minute audio available here, readers are cautioned to prepare themselves for an almost astounding level of candor from someone regularly depicted as a GOP mouthpiece):

Times Executive Editor Bill Keller delivered the Hugo Young Memorial Lecture in London last week, sponsored by the liberal Guardian newspaper, and said some things to his journalistic friends he might not have felt comfortable telling a more general audience.

In remarks reminiscent of those made a year and a half ago in a college commencement speech by his boss, Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Keller unleashed his liberalism, denouncing talk radio and Karl Rove.

Marshall University psychology professor W. Joseph Wyatt should probably stick to psychology as oposed to attempting media analysis. However, he has decided to write an op-ed in the Huntington, West Viriginia Herald Dispatch claiming that media bias is a myth. Professor Wyatt begins by claiming that,

However, a 2002 Gallup poll showed that slightly more than a third of journalists describe themselves as Democrats, meaning that the vast majority are something else, and unlikely to be liberal.

Unfortunately for the good professor, a 2007 Gallup poll as reported in the American Journalist actually found that,

When it came to the subject of party affiliation, 36% of the journalists said they were Democrats in 2002 compared with 44% in 1992.

Apparently the media is only interested in secret surveillance programs when they are conducted by the United States government against enemies of this country. When similar measures are used by the City of New York to track employees, the press collectively yawns. Based on cell-phone GPS tracking records, administrative Judge Tynia Richard in New York has recommended that a city employee be fired for leaving work early. Fair enough. However, there are a few questions I would like to raise in regards to this decicion. Firstly, the employee in question, one Mark Halpin, was issued a city phone without being told that it contained a GPS system that would be used to track his movements. This sounds suspiciously like covert surveillance to me. Secondly, it turns out that Halpin often showed up for for work as many as two hours earlier than his shift began. However, the judge did not take that into account. According to the New York Post,

Halpin questioned the reliability of the data and argued that his privacy was invaded, since officials tracked him when he wasn't at work.

Joe Scarborough prides himself on being an independent thinker. Apparently that extends to not uttering a peep of protest, and indeed tending to concur, when a left-wing guest flatly accuses the Bush administration of using Nazi tactics to suppress democracy.

At about 7:45 A.M. EDT today, Naomi Wolf was a guest on "Morning Joe," there to promote her new book, the pretentiously-entitled The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot. The operating thesis of this alarmist screed is that the Bush administration represents a clear and present danger to democracy.

View video here.

Melanie Morgan might not have a profile as high as some other pundits on the right, but she is emerging, in my book, as one of conservatism's most fearless and articulate advocates.

Last month, I noted an epic dust-up on "Hardball" between talk radio host Morgan and feminist Naomi Wolf. On today's show, the two again clashed. Last time around, I suggested that Wolf might be America's most passive-aggressive woman. Today, she showed herself to be one of its most alarmist. The topic was the controversy over the extent to which Alberto Gonzales [at the time Pres. Bush's White House counsel] pressured a then-hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft into approving the extension of the anti-terror wiretap program.

View video here.

Morgan was unapologetic.

MELANIE MORGAN: Anbody that doesn't get what a truly dangerous world we live in should just take a look at this wireless wiretapping program. It was a valuable program and it still is. And if there was pressure applied by Gonzales, then good! . . . We needed that program and I'm really glad that if there was pressure applied, it kept it in place, because otherwise, Americans could die.

Wolf's response was a case study in breathless, alarmist, deconstruction-speak.

NAOMI WOLF: What's scary to me about listening to Melanie and various people at the White House is how Orwell [bonus points for Orwellian allusion] describes people who want to close down an open society don't just lie, they make lies the ground of the discourse. There's this extraordinary fudging [demerit for use of everyday word; consider "circumvention" next time] of reality, not just to change the record, but to disorient us [seems to have worked on Naomi].

In December 2005, the New York Times broke the story of the National Security Agency's monitoring of communications between people in America and terror suspects overseas. Many say the revelations hurt the anti-terrorist program. Over the weekend, the House and Senate passed, by surprisingly bipartisan votes, changes to the terrorist surveillance measure that left many liberals angry at the Democratic Congress's betrayal of civil liberties.

The Times seems rather disappointed in the Democrats as well.

Reporter Jim Rutenberg's Tuesday "news analysis," "Wielding the Threat of Terrorism, Bush Outmaneuvers the Democrats," gave Bush his due as a political wizard, but his tone betrayed frustration.

Anybody who reads Web forums dedicated to current events is familiar with the phenomenom of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) in which leftwingers rant wildly about the supposed crimes of the EVIL Bush regime. Most of the time those postings can be written off as just another case of the left having mental problems handling the fact that they do not control the executive branch of government. However, we might now have a case in which BDS has the positive effect of actually causing a high level government leaker of super secret information to expose himself. The story about the alleged leaker to the press of the FISA (Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act) program details was written up in the August 13 Newsweek article, Looking For a Leaker:

On Wednesday's The Situation Room, CNN host Wolf Blitzer, while interviewing Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison about his recent trip to Iraq, asked the Congressman about his recent controversial remarks comparing President Bush to Hitler, words that could be interpreted as a suggestion that Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks, and comments that have received little media coverage. Blitzer gave Ellison the chance to "explain exactly what you did mean," and asked if the Congressman agreed that the "comparison of Bush and Hitler" was "inappropriate." (Transcript follows)