Huffington Post

It sounds like the rabid rantings of some poor demented shlub posting at the Democratic Underground. Instead, it is Al Gore's former fashion adviser, Naomi Wolf, indulging in sanity-challenged fantasies on her Huffington Post blog. The target of Wolf's derangement is Sarah Palin and it is so over the top that one might suspect Wolf is an agent provocateur working for conservatives in order to discredit the left. Think I'm kidding? Check out this sampling of Wolf's plunge off the political deep end (emphasis mine):

Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

It's been less than a month since Barack Obama has picked Joe Biden to be his running mate and already there are calls from liberals, made desperate by Obama's plunge in the polls, to replace Biden with Hillary Clinton. One such plea comes from Huffington Post blogger Andy Ostroy, described as a "New York City-based political analyst," with a blog entry titled, "Why Replacing Biden With Hillary Makes Perfect Sense for Obama." Here is Ostroy's rationale for one of the biggest flip-flops in political history (emphasis mine):

Sen. Joe Biden's a perfectly appropriate vice presidential running-mate for Sen. Barack Obama. He's got 36 years of Senate experience, is a true intellect, a foreign policy expert, and a genuinely nice guy. But ever since Sen. John McCain added plucky Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to his ticket, the old adage nice guys finish last is beginning to take on new meaning in this year's presidential contest. It's time to dump Biden and replace him with Sen. Hillary Clinton. I don't care how it's done. Campaign chief David Axelrod can figure that out. And the sooner the better. Because I'm starting to think that if Team-Obama doesn't do something dramatic fast, it's gonna lose this election. There's a worrisome shift in momentum and in the polls. The Palin phenomenon, while truly unfathomable to Democrats, has energized McCain's campaign and allowed him like Houdini to snatch Obama's "change" theme right out from under him. It's time to snatch it back.

If you wanted a better understanding of why conservatives always beat liberals in a debate -- and why Barack Obama won't dare be interviewed by Fox News's Sean Hannity -- you to need to see Chuck Norris wipe the floor with Arianna Huffington.

In what almost turned into a free-for-all on Wednesday's "Larry King Live," Norris demonstrated how little Huffington understands about the Iraq war, while proving that liberal elites like her, because of their position, are allowed to say and write whatever they want, regardless of factual inaccuracy, and do so with total impunity.

With that as pretext, prepare yourself for this well-deserved and truly delicious smackdown of one of the nation's foremost, holier-than-thou, liberal media elites (video embedded right):

The latest issue of the media mag American Journalism Review gives a wee hint to the leanings of journalists. A study showed that the No. 1 blog read by political reporters is ... the lefty site http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.

The communications firm Brodeur interviewed 69 political reporters and it showed both HuffPo and DailyKos in the top five ahead of the one conservative site, Townhall.com.

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

I sent the e-mail that follows to Sam Stein of the Huffington Post on Saturday evening, and followed up by resending it on Sunday morning.

I originally promised to call him out in public this morning if he did not respond, but other business matters intervened. I noted this morning that my call-out would occur this afternoon.

Stein has still not responded, so here we are.

________________________________________

Here is the original e-mail sent Saturday:

Mr. Stein,

The following assertions about the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (the VF) that you made in your August 31 report are untrue, and should be corrected:

Your humble correspondent would like to thank Huffington Post blogger, Benjamin R. Barber, for giving him a hearty bellylaugh this morning for conjuring up the image of a traumatized Barack Obama getting "moosed" by Sarah Palin. However, on the way to delivering that comedy line, Barber, who is described in his HuffPo bio as a "democratic theorist" who authored a book (ranked #254,970 on Amazon) with the long winded title of  "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole," provides us with a bunch of other laughs in his blog (emphasis mine):

It seems forever since the Democrats completed their triumphant Convention in Denver with its Obama/Biden/Clinton/Kennedy unity ticket and its intoxicating sense of take-it-to-the-finish line momentum. What happened? Not Sarah Palin. How could a small-time Alaska mayor and first term Governor derail the Obama freight train? No it was not Sarah Palin but the extraordinary reaction to McCain's wildly irresponsible decision to make her his running mate that seems to have paralyzed the Party.

It's never a surprise when Hollywood stars hate on conservatives.

And the stars are certainly coming out to bash Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

What better place to do so than at the fabulous Huffington Post?

Up first was Jamie Lee Curtis with this Wednesday posting (emphasis added, readers are warned to prepare themselves for some truly insipid nonsense):

Conservative blogs led the way in raising questions about Barack Obama's home church, but for months on end the MSM ignored the story until incendiary video of Rev. Jeremiah Wright made the rounds earlier this year and the story was too juicy to ignore.

Not so when it comes to Sarah Palin and her former church, the Wasilla Assemblies of God, as media outlets try to find juicy "controversial" video to prove Palin was poorly vetted.

MSNBC's First Read blog picked up on a Huffington Post item in a September 2 post.:

When I first read Seth Grahame-Smith's July 1 blog in the Huffington Post I had a nice chuckle starting with the title, "All of McCain's Base Belongs to Us; Why It Won't Even Be Close." Grahame-Smith's over the top confidence in the certainty of Barack Obama's election victory was so gloatingly bold as to be quite hilarious in its assertions (emphasis mine):

It's over.

It's mathematically impossible for John McCain to win.

Were the great Tim Russert still with us, he would call the election for Obama at 7pm Eastern time. No, I'm not talking about November 4th -- I mean tonight.

Yup! It was all over as of July 1. However, Grahame-Smith was only getting warmed up:

Is it essential for an extreme liberal to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist?

Whether it's American involvement in taking down the World Trade Center, or war for oil, these folks can't swing a dead cat without hitting some nefarious cabal involving Republicans.

The newest one, floated by Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake fame, is that if Joe Lieberman is John McCain's running mate, and they win only to have the aged McCain die in office, President Lieberman would round up all the bloggers that supported Ned Lamont's senatorial campaign in 2006 and send them to Gitmo.

I kid you not:

Profanity, those taboo words banned from the broadcast airwaves, is a feature of many people's daily lives. It's much less so in the establishment media world. TV and radio broadcasts are legally prohibited from using it, most newspapers have traditionally refrained from its usage.

That's not the case with the Web, where bloggers and readers face no such restrictions. That likely comes as no surprise; what may be surprising, however, is to what degree profanity seems to be a feature more common on one side of the political blogosphere than the other.

Which side is that? For answers, I turned to the search engine Google to see how common swearing is in the right and left blog universes by looking up the late stand-up comic George Carlin's "seven dirty words" in the most popular blog communities.

The results showed that online liberals tend to use profanity a lot more than online conservatives.

It appears something else that isn't tolerated at the ultra-left-leaning website Daily Kos is too much discussion about the extra-marital sexual escapades of Democrats the Netroots hold in high esteem.

At least, this appears to be the case given Saturday's banning of Lee Stranahan, a liberal blogger and video producer who's been writing diaries at DKos since at least April 2007, and has had his work featured at the Huffington Post.

My colleague P.J. Gladnick referenced Stranahan's HuffPo piece about Edwards back on July 27:

So just how upset do you think the leftwing blogosphere is over Barack Obama's latest policy switch on offshore oil drilling? You can get a good idea of the passion generated by this flip flop by noting that the Huffington Post currently has over 4700 comments on this topic. In addition, there is a tidal wave of outrage at both the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos on Obama's apparent reversal on his prior stand of opposition to more offshore oil drilling. The story that the HUffington Post commenters reacted to so overwhelmingly was titled, "Obama Shifts, Says He May Back Offshore Drilling":

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

For the second time in about two weeks, the Huffington Post has published bad health news about a high-ranking conservative media member, and has closed comments on the article likely to prevent its readers from disgracefully applauding the event.

UPDATE at 5:40PM: Comments still closed almost five full hours after the announcement.

On July 12, it was the passing of Tony Snow.

On Monday, it was the announcement that columnist Robert Novak has been diagnosed with a brain tumor:

What do people on the ultra-left hate more: George W. Bush or Fox News?

The question stems from an incident Friday at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin, Texas, when former Democrat Congressman Harold Ford Jr. was booed for saying that he has great respect for his former colleagues at Fox News.

This was so newsworthy that the Huffington Post's Sam Stein actually wrote about it (emphasis added, video of Ford's comments embedded right):

Apparently complacent about criticism from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research that his family's energy use at his Nashville home is more than 19 times greater than the average American household's, Al Gore has committed conspicious energy consumption once again.

In Washington D.C. Thursday to deliver yet another speech warning Americans about global warming caused, Gore believes, by excessive use of fossil fuels, Gore handed yet more evidence to critics who believe he's a hypocrite.

He did so by traveling to his speech in what almost certainly was an unnecessary entourage of three luxury gas-guzzling vehicles -- two Lincoln Town Cars and a Surburban SUV -- one of which was kept idling outside for twenty minutes, apparently to keep the interior cool for the driver, Mrs. Gore and the Gores' adult daughter.

It appears the good folks at the Huffington Post have a firm grasp on the hatefulness of their members, for the article published there on Saturday concerning the passing of Tony Snow is not accepting comments.

I guess Huffington's employees anticipated disgusting remarks about the former White House press secretary, and rather than deal with them on an individual basis chose to prevent them completely.

This seems a good decision considering the disgraceful behavior of HuffPosters in February 2007 when a homicide bomber struck outside a military compound in Afghanistan where Vice President Dick Cheney was staying.

Update at end of post: Netroots on the offensive concerning Snow's demise.

As media gasp over Rev. Jesse Jackson's indelicate remarks concerning presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama's naughty bits, an interesting point was revealed at the Huffington Post: if this had been said about Vice President Cheney, the press would be laughing their heads off.

In the end, the disgust isn't about the language or the imagery; it's about the person it was directed at.

Such was accurately espoused Thursday by Dan Sweeney, an associate editor for South Florida's City Link magazine (emphasis added, minor vulgarity alert):

Is a second phase of Rush Limbaugh's highly-successful "Operation Chaos" in the works?

According to the conservative talk show host, such is possible, and if it ends up coming to pass, will have deliciously been set in motion as a result of a conspiracy theory espoused Monday by the Obama-loving actor Donald Sutherland.

For those that missed it, Kiefer's dad published a blog at the Huffington Post yesterday suggesting there's a Clinton cabal to "demoralize" presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama's base in order to "persuade disenchanted delegates on the floor of the [Democrat National] convention to make a resurgent Hillary Clinton the Party's nominee."

Limbaugh saw this, and wrote me this morning:

A woman, calling into C-Span’s morning show Washington Journal used the c-word as part of her reasoning as to why John McCain shouldn’t be president.  Apparently C-Span does not use the 7-second delay for its live programming, though the host of the show did immediately end the call after the obscene word was uttered.

The call came just before 9:00 a.m. on the July 7th broadcast during the show’s call in segment.  The call in segment allows viewers to voice their opinions on any topic.

Female Caller: I have two points. McCain is really too old for this job. We need somebody that can keep up. And number two. He does not have respect for women. He even called his wife a c---.

Peter Slen: (ends call) Let’s move on. 

For video of this click here, pertinent clip is at 2:54:36.

More anti-war figures are voicing their opinions about contradictory and confusing statements regarding Iraq made Thursday by presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama, and the news is clearly not good for his campaign.

One such concerned party is Tom Hayden, the famed ex-husband of Jane Fonda who, along with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, was part of the Chicago Seven that incited riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Forty years later, Hayden wrote a strong rebuke of Obama's suddenly fluctuating position on the Iraq war that should garner a lot of media attention given its publication at the left-leaning Huffington Post; the title alone should give folks a sense of the tightrope the junior senator from Illinois is walking concerning this issue -- "No Retreat: If you Want to Win, Stop the War! Barack at Risk" (emphasis added throughout):

The media might not be overly concerned with presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama's incessant campaign flip-flops, but the leader of the Netroots, Daily Kos proprietor Markos Moulitsas, is so disturbed by the junior senator's recent changes of heart that he has decided to hold back his financial contribution (file photo).

As NewsBusters has been reporting the past few weeks, this disillusionment with Obama from the ultra-left has been quite vocal of late, and growing.

However, such publicly expressed disheartenment from someone like Moulitsas, coming just weeks after Hillary Clinton's concession, could be quite a problem for the Democrat candidate that media seem to be ignoring; a Google news search identified very little coverage of Kos's 2:05PM post on Tuesday (emphasis added, h/t Hot Air):

The New York Times published an article Monday about the anger some Vietnam veterans feel over the vessel they used to serve on, Swift Boat, now being synonymous with "the nastiest of campaign smears."

In dredging up this issue, Times' writer Kate Zernike not only misrepresented many of the facts surrounding the claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but also completely ignored the mainstream media's role in turning the name of this patrol craft into a political pejorative.

In fact, something the Times conveniently chose not to share with its readers was how one of its own columnists, Frank Rich, wrote one of the earliest and most prominent pieces recharacterizing this nautical term as a smear tactic in his August 21, 2005, article "The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan."

But before we get there, here's what the Times had to say Monday (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer Bingo):

While media gushed over Hill and Barack's kiss and make-up ceremony in Unity, New Hampshire, Friday, a larger story was lurking in the shadows without getting much attention: Bill Clinton is still very angry at the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, and he's not close to calling a ceasefire.

In fact, according to the British Telegraph, the former President is still on a war footing (picture courtesy AP).

With press members itching for a united Democrat party, it will be interesting to see how much attention this gets in the next few days, especially the juicy parts (h/t Hot Air, slight vulgarity alert):

Want more evidence that some of Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama's recent campaign maneuvers aren't going over very well with the ultra-left in this nation?

Take a look at the headline at the front page of the Huffington Post Saturday:

Obama Undercuts His Brand

Readers clicking on the link will find the following opening paragraph to an article bylined "The Huffington Post" (emphasis added):

If you needed any more evidence as to just how far to the left NASA's James Hansen is, consider that on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his highly-controversial testimony to Congress -- wherein he presaged gloom and doom at the hands of the naturally occurring gas carbon dioxide -- he decided to make his global warming case at the ultra-leftwing website the Huffington Post (h/t NBer NL207).

This puts him in the company of such luminaries as Alec Baldwin, John Cusack, Bill Maher, and other Hollywoodans feigning intellectual superiority.

Of course, this comes after being interviewed on the ultra-leftwing National Public Radio.

If this guy's an impartial, unbiased member of the scientific community, so's Rosie O'Donnell!

Frankly, I have absolutely no interest in quoting anything this man has to say. As such, those that can stand it should go here -- with my blessings and condolences.

It seems not everyone in the liberal blogosphere is smitten with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

Take for example Huffington Post editor Rachel Sklar who on Thursday called out the insufferably arrogant and pompous "Countdown" host for naming CBS's Katie Couric his "Worst Person in the World" previously reported by NewsBuster Brad Wilmouth:

Olbermann accused Couric of taking out of "context" comments by NBC correspondent Lee Cowan, who, as he covers the Barack Obama campaign, has said he finds it "hard to be objective," as she, not naming him, suggested he "find another line of work." Olbermann, who has attacked Hillary Clinton on several occasions while being softer on Obama, declared Cowan's reporting to be "utterly objective and accurate," and castigated Couric for "her own promulgation of the nonsense that Senator Clinton was a victim of sexism."

Sklar deliciously objected (h/t TVNewser):

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz put Huffington Post blogger Mayhill Fowler on the front page Monday to illustrate how blogs are changing the nature of campaign coverage, but the funniest part came at the end, as Fowler explained she's much more skeptical and distanced now, like a traditional journalist.

Excuse me? Through exposing both Barack Obama's "bitter clingers" comment and last week's Bill Clinton "scumbag" rant against Todd Purdum, Fowler has shown much more skepticism and distance than the parade of Obama-maniacs in the "objective" media this cycle.

In an e-mail, Fowler says she has come to realize that her presence "flummoxes some longtime journalists -- because suddenly here I am, unpaid but as a consequence with much more freedom to find out what's going on out there, and writing for a new and encroaching media that is a Wild Wild West of lawlessness." But she has also had to reexamine her own beliefs.

"Over time, I've become more like a traditional journalist," Mayhill says. "I'm now much more skeptical and much more distanced."