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Say you're the editor of a major U.S. city's newspaper and that sources in the national security community have informed your reporters that waterboarding was a crucial tactic in making a terrorist detainee spill his guts with information that, when followed up by authorities, thwarted a planned terrorist attack on same major U.S. city.

You would probably run the story on the front page with a banner headline to that effect, but at the very least you'd make sure that fact was reported in your paper's coverage.

That is, of course, unless you're the ideologically leftward, politically correct editors at the Los Angeles Times. Patterico has details in an April 27 post at his blog:

"World News Saturday" anchor David Muir appeared on the Media Bistro's "Morning Media Menu" podcast on Friday and asserted that the fact that online journalists are now eligible to compete for a Pulitzer Prize might increase the professionalism of bloggers and could, in the future, "give [online reporting] more weight, more credence and people will know that what they're reading isn't simply one version of events or an opinion." One wonders if Muir is referring to such paragons of journalistic integrity as his ABC colleague Bill Weir, who on the January 20 "World News," marveled that "even the seagulls must have been awed" by the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Muir (see file photo above), who was talking to podcast hosts Steve Krakauer and Rebecca Fox, added that the possibility of being awarded such a prestigious journalistic prize could elevate online reporting to "be at the level of journalism that we know is being, you know, fact checked and, and, worthy, worthy of a Pulitzer in the end." On the April 4 "World News" Muir himself said of Obama's G-20 international summit, "...Other heads of state are seemingly trying to get close to the head of the class, or the cool kid in the class, if you will, President Obama." Would that be an example of simply stating "one version of events?"

It's likely a tired story to many by now, nearly a week after the Miss USA pageant and the controversy that ensued over Miss USA runner-up, Miss California Carrie Prejean's answer to a question from same-sex marriage activist and gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who was judging the event. However, it took CNN host and Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz to ask Hilton some of the pertinent questions surrounding his curious rage over her answer.

Hilton appeared on CNN's April 26 "Reliable Sources" and justified some of his vitriolic insults hurled at Prejean by saying that was just part of the vernacular he uses on his Web site. He didn't address the point some have made that his use of misogynist language might have been as equally or more offensive than how he perceived Prejean's answer at the Miss USA pageant.

"I was very angry," Hilton said. "And it's almost insulting to me that people expect me not to be outraged, when I am told I am a second-class citizen and shouldn't deserve the same rights that heterosexuals get."

The attacks on Miss California Carrie Prejean have gotten so bad that even same-sex marriage champion and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking notice.

Prejean, the runner-up of last Sunday's Miss USA pageant, has been the target of reports from the Hollywood media intelligentsia after her feud with gossip blogger Perez Hilton for the stance she took on same-sex marriage. And Newsom, who had just announced his intentions to run for governor of California, has noticed.

"I want to challenge her on her point-of-view," Newsom said in an appearance at Sapphire Energy, a bio-tech company, which aired on NBC's San Francisco affiliate on April 23. "She challenged me on my point-of-view and she spoke her conscience. What more can you ask? I speak my conscience, she should speak hers. So, I think she's being a little unfairly maligned."

Garry Trudeau, the leftist author/artist of the comic strip Doonesbury, gave an interview about Twitter to the Mediabistro blog WebNewser, where he displayed his snooty distaste for "populist pandering" to the little people. When asked if any TV news stars were particularly annoying on Twitter, he unfurled a general pet peeve instead: asking for "obvious or inane" interview questions from the public. Without irony, Trudeau suggested journalists were like pilots or surgeons:

Not in particular (hey, I like TV news folks -- married one! [longtime NBC liberal Jane Pauley]), but in general the most baffling are the reporters who solicit their followers for questions before interviews. Please. You're supposed to be professionals. Do pilots and surgeons ask for suggestions?

If you can't think of a few good questions, you and your producer are in the wrong business. It's not about getting fresh, out-of-the-bubble perspectives, as they would argue: most questions sent in are obvious or inane. It's really about flattering the followers, populist pandering.

This is rich territory for Trudeau to trudge upon, considering some of Jane Pauley’s inane questions. (To Hillary Clinton, 1992: "You prepared Chelsea: Bad things may be said about Daddy. Was Chelsea at all prepared for bad things being said about Mommy?" And: "What do you not do perfectly?")

Is Donald Trump angry at Miss California Carrie Prejean? Or is it just another trumped up charge from the liberal media?

The April 22 episode of "Access Hollywood" teased viewers that Miss California was under a serious threat of losing her crown - since she was late for a meeting with Donald Trump, the organizer of the Miss USA pageant in which Prejean was the runner-up, and that her position on same-sex marriage somehow contradicted what Miss California's position was supposed to be.

"New and serious trouble for Miss California you will only find out here," "Access Hollywood" co-host Nancy O'Dell announced in the show's teaser.

(Video embedded below the fold)

President Barack Obama burned roughly 9,000 of jet fuel yesterday, Earth Day, and that only to deliver one speech in Iowa, reports CBS News's Mark Knoller in an April 22 Political Hotsheet blog post.

As if that weren't amusing enough, Knoller notes that the Air Force and the White House wouldn't disclose to Knoller how much fuel the president's plane burns on an average flight, so he had to consult with the manufacturer of the 747, Boeing:

In flying to and from Iowa today, President Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One.

The press office at Andrews AFB wouldn’t give me the fuel consumption numbers for the 747 that serves as Air Force One without the approval of the White House Press Office, which as I write this has yet to be given.

But Boeing says its 747 burns about 5 gallons of fuel per mile. It’s 895 miles from Washington to Des Moines, so a round trip brings the fuel consumption for the fixed-wing portion of the President’s trip to 8,950 gallons. 

Well, that's one vote for Meghan McCain for Republican Party chairman. Too bad it's from a radical feminist columnist and blogger who insists that abortion is a "good decision" in the midst of a recession.

That's right, US News & World Report contributing editor Bonnie Erbe hacked out a short blog yesterday -- appropriately on 4/20, as if to answer the question, "What exactly is she smoking?" -- in which she praises the Daily Beast columnist and daughter of the Arizona Sen. John McCain as the future of the GOP:

Although Meghan McCain can sometimes come off a bit, shall we say, different, she gave a speech at the Log Cabin Republicans meeting this weekend that shows she has a brain and represents the views of lots and lots of young people and young members of the GOP.

[...]

Let's get this straight [pardon the pun]: A beauty contest contestant with a conservative view on same-sex marriage upsets an openly gay blogger with her answer to his question about her thoughts on the issue. Yet in reporting the story, ABCNews.com paints her as the bad guy for offending the celebrity judge, while failing to mention that a majority of said beauty queen's fellow Californians agree with her views.

Welcome to the saga of Carrie Prejean, Miss California, whom ABCNews.com describes as having "floored" gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who went on to "skewer" the Miss USA runner-up for her honest answer in an angry video blog entry.

What caused celebrity judge Hilton to seethe so? Only Prejean's honest, politely-delivered answer. Quotes ABCNews.com's Luchina Fisher:

One hundred forty-four years after his assassination, Chicago Tribune religion blogger Manya Brachear hacked out an 11-paragraph post on how "Lincoln's death had sacred significance," according to some historians and Lincoln biographers.

"Harold Holzer, co-chair of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, said the Good Friday assassination earned Lincoln a permanent place in American mythology," Brachear noted in her April 14 post, before quoting Holzer's argument at length.

But no Lincoln story in the mainstream media is complete without an Obama tie-in, and Brachear made sure to deliver, again quoting Holzer:

So says MacsMind (via Flopping Aces via Minority Report via Jeff Emanuel at RedState).

MacsMind's post is in response to an all-too-predictable gusher delivered by Democratic operative disguised as Associated Press reporter Jennifer Loven on April 7 (bold is mine):

Cheered wildly by U.S. troops, President Barack Obama flew unannounced into Iraq on Tuesday and promptly declared it was time for Iraqis to "take responsibility for their country" after America's commitment of six years and thousands of lives.

"You have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country," the president said as he made a brief inspection of a war he opposed as candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief. "That is an extraordinary achievement."

MacsMind contends that the troop contingent was contrived, based on an e-mail he says he received "from a sergeant that was there." The corresponding sergeant also dropped a telltale clue (in bold):

Former CBSer and current media critic Bernie Goldberg issued a strong warning to conservatives on Monday: don't behave like the left did when Bush was president -- avoid Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Following in David Horowitz's footsteps, Goldberg told Fox News's Sean Hannity:

You remember when liberals wouldn't give George Bush credit for anything? If he came up with a cure for cancer, they wouldn't have given him credit for that, and I'm sorry, Sean, I see that on the right now.

Such was the beginning of a fascinating discussion between Goldberg and Hannity Monday evening concerning whether or not it was wrong for the Obama administration to take credit for Captain Richard Phillips's rescue from Somali pirates Sunday (video embedded below the fold with full transcript, h/t Hot Air):

Sticking up against those ol' playground bullies on the Right, CBS's Katie Couric tells conservatives in a recent blog post to " give the new kids on the block" in the Obama administration "a chance to get their learner's permits first."

Not exactly the wisest choice of words from an Obama-friendly journalist, particularly when a heavy drumbeat of criticism against him in the presidential campaign was that it unwise to trust the presidency to a man who would need "on-the-job training."

From her April 9 Couric & Co. post at CBSNews.com (emphasis mine):

President Barack Obama was "crisp and decisive" but also lucky in his handling of the Maersk Alabama hostage crisis, exults Time magazine's Joe Klein [depicted in NewsBusters screen cap/file photo at right] in an April 13 Swampland blog post.

Klein added that had the Navy SEAL snipers failed in hitting their targets, Republicans and second-guessing journalists would probably push the Obama administration to escalate matters to tackle a non-existent pirate "threat":

But it could easily have gone wrong, through no fault of the President and the SEALs--a gust of wind, whatever...and then the Administration would have had to waste all sorts of energy on damage control, fending off the second-guessers--Republicans and, all too often, people like me--and perhaps overreacting to the pirate "threat" as a result. Presidencies are, sadly, built or crippled on such quirks of fate.

"Dr. Laura Schlessinger is an Elitist, a Hypocrite, and Flat Out Wrong," reads abortion monger Bonnie Erbe's April 10 blog headline.

The PBS "To the Contrary" host and contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report launched into a four-paragraph attack on the author and conservative radio host, and as usual, she not only breathed left-wing fire at a conservative target, she was factually inaccurate (paragraph breaks removed, emphasis mine):

George W. Bush has said nothing negative about his media-worshiped successor in the Oval Office. Yet that doesn't stop the liberal mainstream media for mocking the former president out of the blue -- while ignoring Obama gaffes -- for events that happened on his watch years ago.

The latest example, Time's Amy Sullivan, on the magazine's Swampland blog today entitled, "Quote of the Day":

Silvio Berlusconi on the 17,000 Italians left homeless by the Abruzzo earthquake:

They should see it like a weekend of camping.

George W. Bush is just kicking himself for not using that little gem in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Same-sex marriage proponents have finally won a victory yesterday the old-fashioned and constitutionally legitimate way: through legislative action. On April 7, state legislators overrided a veto by Gov. Jim Douglas (R), making Vermont the fourth state with legalized same-sex marriage and the first through the consent of the governed as expressed through their legislature.

It didn't take long for USA Today religion blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman to seize yesterday's win for gay activists as an occasion to repeat a left-wing talking point. Grossman concluded her April 7 blog post by asking readers:

Should you be able to vote on who loves whom or how they live together?

Of course the loaded question automatically puts proponents of traditional marriage on the defensive. Legislate love? How un-American! 

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Moulitsas was less concerned about the four Oakland police officers killed just miles from his home two weeks ago.

Shortly before Markos Moulitsas blamed Glenn Beck for instigating the senseless shooting of three Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, police officers on Saturday, the proprietor of the far-left website Daily Kos said that conservatives would rather shoot cops than organize to win the next election. 

He also wrote during the same Twitter discussion, "With no Veep to shoot people, folks are taking things into their own hands."

Such was revealed Sunday by a self-proclaimed Daily Kos diarist named Tommy Christopher who was so disgusted by these comments he has actually resigned his membership (h/t Hot Air via ConservaThink):

Ever notice the media love to report stories about people fighting the power, unless, of course, the power happens to be something the media favor?

A March 31 New York Times article about Cuba's Havana Biennial art festival highlighted several artists whose political statements were in line with the anti-American, communist outlook of the island's regime, while ignoring prominent Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who risked her freedom to protest government oppression.

During an open mic session at the festival, the award-winning Generacion Y blogger criticized Cuban policy and the lack of free expression. However, the Times did not mention her pro-free speech performance art or even cover it in a separate piece. Instead, most of the artists the paper described railed against the usual evils, such as capitalism, America and the bourgeoisie.

Afterwards, the government issued a condemnation that singled out Sanchez for “staging a provocation against the Cuban Revolution.” Fortunately, on Wednesday, Reuters reported the controversy:

The mainstream media has found little of alarm in the story, but conservative bloggers including musician Charlie Daniels have taken heed of the Obama administration's changes to the terminology the U.S. government uses to describe the war on terrorism. For example, "terrorism" will now be referred to as "man-caused disasters" and the Global War on Terror will now be referred to as "Overseas Contingency Operation."

Daniels, who performed at the 2003 Media Research Center Gala, pulls no punches in his March 27 post, where demonstrates the absurdity of the politically correct language deployed by the Obama administration:

Another episode of MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," another angry rant about a conservative disagreeing with liberal agenda - how predictable.

On the March 26 broadcast of "Countdown," Olbermann set his sights on Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, for suggesting that nature adapts to a changing climate - even when the changes predate the theory that man possessed the ability to change the climate.

"But our winner - Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas, back for another round of denying climate change," Olbermann said.

Olbermann quoted Barton in a March 25 hearing, leaving out passages in which Barton cited examples of how mankind has adapted to changing climate throughout history (full video here of statement).

Mainstream media journalists delighted in joining left-wing bloggers in mocking President George W. Bush over his penchant for verbal miscues, often when speaking off-the-cuff. Of course, President Bush wasn't too prickly on this point and on occasion made self-deprecating jokes about his penchant for mangling the English language.

Yet when it comes to right-of-center bloggers playfully mocking President Barack Obama's dependence on the teleprompter, don't expect most journalists to yuk it up with conservatives.

Witness Time magazine reporter Michael Scherer's March 25 blog post with some thoughts on the president's second prime-time news conference:

                       

Photo via Newsweek's "The Gaggle" blog.

A leading HIV researcher -- and self-described liberal -- defends what the pope has said recently about condoms and AIDS.

I won't hold my breath for the secular mainstream media to notice, but that's what Christianity Today magazine reported on March 20 with its publication of an e-mail interview between deputy managing editor Tim Morgan and the director of Harvard's AIDS Prevention Research Project, Edward C. Green:

[Morgan]: Is Pope Benedict being criticized unfairly for his comments about HIV and condoms?

[Dr. Green]: This is hard for a liberal like me to admit, but yes, it's unfair because in fact, the best evidence we have supports his comments — at least his major comments, the ones I have seen.

Green went on to say that, at least as far as African countries are concerned, Pope Benedict is correct that condom promotion doesn't lessen the AIDS problem (emphases mine):

"Sex! Sex! Sex! Is that all church leaders talk about?" huffed the title of USA Today religion blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman's March 23 post.

The "Faith & Reason" blogger lamented that "[s]ummer meeting season looms for many of the nation's leading Protestant denominations and that means the culture warriors are manning the battle stations on sexuality issues." Of course there are two sides to the culture war on sexual ethics in American Protestant Christianity, but Grossman's conclusion made clear her complaint was mostly, if not entirely, with conservatives, who stand on the defensive end of assaults by liberal Christians:

How would it affect your life, your spirituality, if the gay couple next door were married by a pastor, priest or rabbi? If your church were served by gay and straight people? Can you share a pew with someone who sees these issues differently?

And that's where Grossman is off the mark. These fights over gay, lesbian, and transgendered clergy are not by and large about the laity praying in the pews but about the higher moral standards on sex expected for the clergy.

If you needed some good news to brighten your Saturday evening, this could be it: ABC's George Stephanopoulos believes Democrats have abandoned their goal of enacting a carbon cap and trade program this year.

For those unfamiliar, this is a scheme backed by global warming alarmists such as Nobel Laureate Al Gore designed to place prohibitive taxes on emitters of that dastardly carbon dioxide.

Most rational economists not under Gore's influence believe such a plan would have a devastating effect on our economy, and would likely force companies to continue exporting manufacturing jobs to countries like China and India which don't have such business unfriendly practices.

Fortunately, according to Stephanopoulos, this idea has been scrapped for the time being (h/t Hot Air): 

As if out to prove our point about media bias, the Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers seized on a one-liner by Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher made last night at the MRC Gala and DisHonors Awards. Wurzelbacher, accepting the "Obamagasm Award" on behalf of ABC's Bill Weir, made a crack playing off the orgasmic delight that Chris Matthews and others in the media expressed after watching then-candidate Obama deliver rousing campaign speeches.

"God, all this love and everything in the room - I'm horny," Akers quoted Wurzelbacher, before going on to insist that no one in the whole room, especially at her table, understood why he said that.

Former President George W. Bush is a "classy guy" who might "mature into a proper elder statesman" some day.

That's the verdict of NBC and Wonkette contributor Sara K. Smith in her March 18 article about how Bush refused to publicly criticize his successor to the presidency when given the chance at a Q&A session following at a luncheon in Canada. (h/t Twitter tipster @Thatcher):

The one thing he has not been doing, thank goodness, is following Dick Cheney's lead and attempting to inject himself into public affairs again. When asked today to comment on President Obama's performance in office, Bush said, "I'm not going to spend my time criticizing him. [...] He deserves my silence."

An Associated Press account noted that President Bush also said, "I love my country a lot more than I love politics.... I think it is essential that he be helped in office." Smith left those lines out of her story.

President Obama may need to call out Israel on its compromised "moral standing" in the world, Time's Joe Klein [file photo at right] argues in a March 17 Swampland blog post.

So what does Klein see as Israel's sin? Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu's choice of the hawkish Avigdor Lieberman for foreign secretary.

Lieberman's campaign for prime minister was distinguished by his call for a loyalty pledge that citizens would have to sign in order to vote in Israeli elections:

Jeff Goldberg on Avigdor Lieberman. I second the motion--and add this: I suspect that President Obama is going to have to say something about Israel's selection of a politician who has frequently made racist noises as its Foreign Minister. He should be very clear that this severely compromises Israel's moral standing in the world.

[...]

Josh Brahm of Right to Life of Central California has done the definitive dissection of the comprehensive media failure in reporting on President Obama's recent Executive Order (EO) allowing federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Brahm's "9 Things the Media Messed Up About the Obama Stem Cell Story" (HT to an e-mail from LifeNews.com) is an exceptional magnum opus that must be read in its entirety to be fully appreciated. It identifies each of the nine errors, links to well over 40 specific instances of media bias and/or ignorance, and tell us why those errors are significant. I thought I was reasonably knowledgeable in this subject area until I read Brahm's work.

(CNS News has reported that the EO will apparently not going into effect until October 1 or later, because the supplemental appropriations bill he just signed [but apparently didn't read] "explicilty bans federal funding of any 'research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.'" That fact doesn't change the correctness of Brahm's "9 Things.")

Here are the nine items (absolutely no substitute for reading the whole thing), accompanied by brief quotes from Brahm's article: