For some mysterious reason, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams augmented his tour of Afghanistan with an interview with The Huffington Post, where most bloggers think of the American presence as comparable to cancer, or maggots. One spot in his interview with Danny Shea suggested that the Americans weren't so welcome in Afghanistan:

SHEA: There's all this talk of making the cities more secure. Is there any sense that the people in the cities want the foreign troops there?

WILLIAMS: Whereas some of the locals in Iraq (depending on the circumstances) will often be comforted to see U.S. dismounted infantry patrols, (in ways they were not until fairly recently) and will ask them for help and to stay with them, the situation here in Afghanistan is different. The two societies are vastly different.

It is not helped by the fact that U.S. forces often take a very aggressive posture -- arriving in small towns in massive armored vehicles with machine gun turrets, each infantryman with his hands on his M-4 rifle in front of him...and often on the trigger with the safety off.

Every time the White House has a new enemy, left-wing Web-based media outlets take up the cause to defend the Obama administration.

Earlier this year when CNBC personalities criticized the Obama administration, the Huffington Post and other components of the left-wing noise machine watched every word said on the financial network - an effort that has since petered out. The Huffington Post also asked readers to supply reports to undermine the credibility of the tea party protests that were critical of the Obama administration.

So it should come as no surprise that the Huffington Post is making a call for all hands on deck to aid the White House with its latest feud with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Huffington Post now wants to know who gives money to the Chamber of Commerce.

Just from the title of today's Huffington Post cover story, Leaderless: Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama's Support, you can see that they have pretty much given up on counting on Barack Obama demonstrating leadership in the fight to pass ObamaCare. Here are Huffington Post correspondents Sam Stein and Ryan Grim registering their disgust with Obama in a grim story:

President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.

The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama's presidential campaign. The man who ran on the "Audacity of Hope" has now taken a more conservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own party in an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Now tantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up.

So who are they hoping will be their hero to save the day? Since it's not Obama, they are now placing their hopes upon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who is actually more like Al Capp's gloomy figure of Joe Btfsplk, who carries his bad luck with him as a perpetual raincloud over his head (illustration below the fold), than Mighty Mouse.

Earlier today, the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack reported that the Huffington Post had asked author Jack Huberman to document quotes allegedly from Rush Limbaugh declaring that slavery “had its merits” and that the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. deserved the Medal of Honor.

The quotes were widely cited as real by several sports writers and on CNN and MSNBC in the past week as proof that Limbaugh was a racist who did not deserve to own part of the St. Louis Rams football team. But the Huffington Post has now removed them, saying the author has not been able to substantiate them.

[UPDATE: CNN's Rick Sanchez also, apologizes, sort of, via Twitter: "our bad."]

This editor’s note appeared early this evening on the 2006 blog by the liberal Huberman, who was pitching his then-new book, 101 People Who Are REALLY Screwing America:

The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack has a fine run-down of CNN’s use of the discredited claim that Rush Limbaugh once said of slavery “it had its merits.” McCormack also reports that the Huffington Post, which originally ran the quote (and another preposterous quote about Limbaugh saying that MLK assassin James Earl Ray deserved “the Congressional Medal of Honor”) in a 2006 post by left-wing author Jack Huberman, might pull the quotes from their Web site as early as today.

McCormack contacted the Huffington Post, and was told by a spokeswoman that “now that the issue has been raised,” Huberman has now been asked to back up the quote. “When a question of accuracy is raised with us, we give our bloggers 24 hours to either back up the claim or correct the record. If not, we remove the post.”

McCormack, playing off the fact that CNN’s Rick Sanchez has yet to retract the statement, says: “So around 6:00 p.m. tonight we'll get to find out whether the Huffington Post has higher editorial standards than CNN.”

This Saturday, October 10, President Obama will be the keynote speaker at a Human Rights Campaign awards ceremony and fundraiser. He'll be the first president in history to participate in a gay activist campaign event outside of the White House. (In June 1999, President Clinton had invited HRC along with other gay activist groups to the White House to celebrate "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.")

But all is not right between the president and some of his most reliable supporters.

On the campaign trail, Obama offered plenty to the gay lobby, promising to end "Don't Ask - Don't Tell" and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Back in March he went so far as to name HRC's Harry Knox to the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Knox is an anti-Catholic bigot who has repeatedly attacked the Pope and the Church, and even called the Knights of Columbus "foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression."

As NewsBusters' Ken Shepherd noted in an October 5 post, some conservatives have undertaken an online Conservative Bible Project to rid the Good Book of "translational bias" and correct the "lack of precision" in both original and translational language. As Shepherd also noted, Time Magazine's Amy Sullivan wasted no time heaping derision on the effort.

Unsurprisingly, others on the left have joined the fun. Harpers Magazine titled a blog post on the project, "From the Department of Self-Parody." "Lo and behold, the Bible has gotten too liberal," wrote Rachel Weiner at the Huffington Post. "And it needs a little editing."

And the hooting could be heard in many of the lesser precincts of the left-wing blogosphere - most of it a variation on Weiner's sneer: "Yes, even scripture is not orthodox enough for the modern conservative."

It's not too often where both a prominent conservative and a prominent liberal would deviate from their ideological consensus on a particular issue.

However, the news of the day - Chicago being beaten out by Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games is one such instance. MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, who identifies himself as a conservative, said he was glad President Barack Obama gave it shot in an Oct. 2 post on the Huffington Post.

Ironically, the editor of the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, who is identified as a progressive, said on NBC's Oct. 2 "The Jay Leno Show" that Obama shouldn't have gone to Copenhagen - but not for the reason a lot of critics are suggesting.

Something wildly unexpected happened the other day: film director Roman Polanski was taken into custody in Switzerland for his rape of a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in 1977. The grand jury transcript is stomach-turning. His victim, Samantha Gailey, said the director plied her with champagne and drugs and asked her to remove her clothes for pictures in a hot tub. Polanski then had sex with her despite her resistance and requests to be taken home. He pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of sex with a minor, but fearing a prison term, he fled the country.

Now something utterly expected is happening: morally bankrupt libertines in Hollywood and other artistic banana republics are rushing to Polanski’s defense.

Welcome to the world of Roman Polanski, Child Rapist/Victim.

Has-been actress Debra Winger joined the first line of ludicrous defense, since she was president of the jury of the Zurich Film Festival, where Polanski was headed to receive a lifetime achievement award when he was apprehended. Let’s hope Winger is never allowed to serve on a real jury. She simply doesn’t care about Polanski’s guilt. He is a filmmaker and an artist, and for this crowd anything and everything goes.

The New York Times announced today that it would appoint an editor to monitor 'opinion media'. In an attempt to respond to criticism that it has been too slow to pick up on stories first reported by conservative blogs and talk show hosts, the Times acknowledged poor coverage, but denied a political agenda.

The self-proclaimed 'paper of record' was extremely slow in picking up on two recent stories. The first, the 'trutherism' of former White House Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, was initially reported by Pajamas Media, and later by Glenn Beck on his Fox News talk show. The Times did not cover the story until after Jones had resigned.

Later, the Times neglected to report on the undercover sting operation that exposed ACORN for offering assistance in a bogus child prostitution ring. The Times reported on Congress's votes to de-fund ACORN, but neglected to mention the sting operation that inspired the votes.

Some liberals are using the death of a Census Bureau worker in rural Kentucky to bolster their wild claims that criticism of Obama is sparking political violence. But evidence is lacking, speculation is rampant, and left wing accusers are coming up short in their efforts to portray opposition to the president as somehow dangerous.

"This is the kind of violent event that emerges from a culture of paranoia and unsubstantiated attacks," writes Allison Kilkenny, a Huffington Post contributor and liberal radio host who, according to her bio, "makes sh***y world news funny." She was referring to the probable murder (authorities have not officially ruled it a homicide) of Bill Sparkman, whose body was found with the word 'Fed' carved into his chest.

'Fed', by Kilkenny's account, "has taken on a derogatory meaning in right-wing circles where fear and paranoia reign supreme... Such paranoia and anger isn't contained in the woods of Kentucky. The problem is systematic."

Over the last several weeks, no one has been the target of the left-wing media and blogosphere more than Fox News host Glenn Beck, even more so than his radio host counterpart Rush Limbaugh.

Although conservatives have decried the daily ad hominem attacks, some voices on the left are starting to realize that's not an effective strategy for championing their cause, especially when it comes to the hot-button issue of the day, health care.

And that is really starting to bother Air America host Lionel - that is the daily repetitive nature of attacking Glenn Beck and/or Rush Limbaugh by giving a litany of complaints about what they said, as he laid out in a nearly three-minute tirade on his September 14 Air America radio show.

Who would have thought Karl Marx would rear his ugly head at the US Open. But some liberals just could not help attributing Serena Williams's match-ending outburst in her semifinal match against Kim Clijsters to class warfare.

Here's what happened. Williams supposedly foot-faulted on her second serve to put Clijsters one point away from the match. Rather than challenging the call or sucking it up and moving on--as any respectable tennis player would--she threw a tantrum, and told the line judge she was going to "shove this ball down your f***ing throat." There are also reports of her uttering some 'motherf***ers' afterward.

She lost the point, and was penalized another, giving Clijsters the match. This was her second outburst of the match. After losing the first set, Williams smashed the frame of her racquet on the court. These outbursts would be unacceptable at any level of play, let alone in Arthur Ashe Stadium during the US Open.

With each passing day, it becomes clear the liberal media are imploding along with the man they corruptly put in the White House.

Today's example: according to Arianna Huffington, Glenn Beck has done Van Jones a big favor by putting so much pressure on Barack Obama's "green jobs czar" that he was forced to resign in disgrace.

Honestly, only a liberal media member could spin someone's resignation in such a distorted fashion.

But that's exactly what the proprietor of the Huffington Post did Monday evening in a piece entitled "Thank You, Glenn Beck!":

Outraged advocates of same-sex marriage have forced the Washington Post into an apology for running a features piece last week that portrayed an opponent as more than an evil, bigoted, hatemongering fundamentalist.

The profile examined Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, one of the groups that lobbied for Proposition 8, the hotly-contested California State ballot initiative that explicitly defined marriage as between and man and a woman, overturning a State Supreme Court decision to the contrary.

Pundits on the left called the features piece, written by Monica Hesse—who says she is a bisexual and has had romantic relationships with women in the past—“absurd,” “bizarre,” and “accusatory and belittling.”

Arianna Huffington's liberal gossip site the Huffington Post has been vigorously defending green jobs czar and 9/11 "truther" Van Jones.

It turns out that Jones was Huffington's grassroots political director when she ran for governor in the 2003 recall election. In fact, Jones, a self-described "communist," thought Huffington was so wonderful he was part of the effort to draft her to run for office.

A San Francisco Chronicle article from Sept. 5, 2003 described Jones as Huffington's "grassroots director."

A piece of advice to liberals who wish to pay tribute to Ted Kennedy: don't mention his name in the same sentence as the word "bridge" since it will undermine whatever else you write. Unfortunately for Alec Baldwin, that is exactly what he did in his Huffington Post tribute to the deceased senator:

Don't name a bridge after Ted.

Yes, Baldwin did write a lot more about Ted Kennedy in his tribute but that one sentence alone pretty much overwhelms whatever else he wrote. However, to be fair to Alec, let us look at some of the rest of his tribute which almost everyone will forget because of his incredibly poor choice of words above:

The Huffington Post explains that "Melissa Lafsky is the deputy web editor at Discover magazine, where she writes the Reality Base blog. She was previously the editor of the New York Times's Freakonomics blog, and is a former associate editor at HuffPo's Eat The Press." So she's a major-media-certified pundit when she wrote about Chappaquiddick drowning victim Mary Jo Kopechne on Arianna's pages today:  

Mary Jo wasn't a right-wing talking point or a negative campaign slogan. She was a dedicated civil rights activist and political talent with a bright future....We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don't know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.

Still, ignorance doesn't preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.

Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it.

The announcement of Sen. Ted Kennedy's death came at 2 a.m. Eastern on Aug. 26 and a little over 15 hours later, two prominent liberal voices were scheming as to how the president and other Democratic leaders could use his passing to advance a political agenda.

Huffington Post editor Arianna Huffington appeared on MSNBC host Ed Schultz's Aug. 26 program and was asked by Schultz if it somehow could be used to push "real reform" for health care.

"The passing of Ted Kennedy - could this be a rallying cry for progressives to carry this fight through and to see real reform and health care in this country?" Schultz said. "Because, of course, I think everybody on the left knows that this was his passion, this was his cause."

If you want to understand how the left-wing views opposition to ObamaCare, look no further than MSNBC's Aug. 12 "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

According to Huffington Post editor and co-founder Arianna Huffington and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, nobody could possibly oppose health care/health insurance reform on the merits of the legislation or for ideological or philosophical reasons. There must be something nefarious occurring.

At a town hall meeting on Aug. 12, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, voiced his opposition to H.R. 3200 and other forms of legislation that would dramatically change health care, which he felt would be for the worse. This was too much for Huffington, who called Grassley a liar.