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On December 18, 2010, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric posted a video on her blog, Couric & Co., calling on Congress to pass tougher legislation to combat underage sex trafficking. However, what she failed to reveal to online viewers was that only two weeks earlier she attended a party at the Manhattan townhouse of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender accused of trafficking underage girls. (h/t BigJournalism.com)

Couric and other media figures, including ABC Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos, were apparently at the event to speak with Britain's Prince Andrew about the upcoming royal wedding. As the New York Post reported on December 6: "Andrew regaled a bevy of media heavyweights at billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's Upper East Side townhouse the other night when he told of the royal family's joy over Prince William's upcoming wedding to Kate Middleton – and the glamorous guests asked for invitations."

As it turns out, mainstream media outlets that lauded President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech as "downright Reaganesque" might be on to something.

While ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC exalted the commander-in-chief, at least one observer charged the Democratic president with crafting a speech that was "tantamount to plagiarism."

In a column on the U.S. News site, presidential scholar Alvin Felzenberg accused Obama of borrowing lines and ideas from other speeches and claiming them as his own.

The media seems to take an exceptional interest in Senator Lisa Murkowski when she’s uttering liberal talking points on ‘compromise’ or when she’s blasting Sarah Palin as being ‘not worldly enough’ for the office of the Presidency. 

Case in point, as NewsBuster Brad Wilmouth pointed out, CBS recently highlighted Murkowski’s claim that she believes Palin lacks the ‘intellectual curiosity’ to run in 2012.  And the rest of the main stream media ran with it, as reports on the ‘intellectual curiosity’ slap began cropping up at MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC News, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, etc.

Then of course, there is the Anchorage Daily News (ADN), who’s seemingly made a living in coming to Murkowski’s aid.  In fact, it wasn’t long ago that they were reporting on a Republican letter urging Tea Party candidate, Joe Miller, to start answering questions about his background, and offered their own editorial suggesting that personal matters are indeed fair game in an election.

The November 9 episode of Glee titled “Never Been Kissed” was quite the show stopper – unless you’re the media. The unexpected homosexual kiss between male high school students was nothing short of jaw-dropping, and yet the liberal media were “ho hum” on the controversy.

Glee’s stereotypical jock character Karofsky, who has been bullying the openly gay character Kurt all season, in a moment of passion, planted a kiss on Kurt in last night’s episode.  Kurt, played by actor Chris Colfer has been heralded as nothing short of a superhero for his sensitive portrayal of the difficult high school experience of gay high school students.

What exactly were CBS and the Associated Press's intentions by creating this picture published at CBSNews.com Wednesday (h/t Creative Minority Report via Ace):

Yesterday San Francisco supervisors held a hearing to consider enacting a law that would ban restaurants in the city from giving away toys in kids meals that are deemed unhealthy.

Noting the debate in a September 27 "Notebook" post at her Couric & Co. blog, the "Evening News" anchor followed the typical liberal media bias recipe for stories like these.

First Katie presented the struggle as one between good government and greedy corporations:

CNN's Jessica Yellin, a one-time "prominent feminist activist," helped forward the talking points of the pro-abortion lobby by devoting part of a segment on Tuesday's Rick's List to EMILY List's new anti-Sarah Palin ad. Yellin aired their left-wing accusations against the Republican and her endorsed candidates without providing the other side and/or fact-checking them [audio clips available here].

Anchor Rick Sanchez introduced the issue by bringing up the Republican's recent "mamma grizzly" ad: "It seemed like a very effective ad that Sarah Palin had put out. I mean, professionally speaking, it was very clean, very well put together- the whole 'grizzly mom' ad that everyone was talking about- and, apparently, there's some blowback on this now. What is that?"

Wednesday evening, Brent Baker at NewsBusters noted that two of the Big Three television networks failed to tag Dan Rostenkowsi, the former long-time congressman from Chicago who was ousted from his seat in 1994 over corruption charges and ended doing prison time, as a Democrat. Rostenkowski (RIP), who was 82, died yesterday.

At the five major wire services whose reports I reviewed -- The Associated Press, Reuters, UPI, AFP, and the business-oriented Bloomberg News -- Rosty's Democratic affiliation made at least one appearance. But the prominence and directness of those appearances varied widely.

Not surprisingly, the Associated Press and writer Don Babwin did the worst job of identifying Rosty's party, waiting until the eleventh paragraph to directly tag him (the eighth paragraph contains a generic reference to the "Chicago Democratic machine"), and poured it on the thickest when referring to the supposedly beloved bygone days of bipartisanship:

Give the guy a break, he deserves it. That was Katie Couric's message a week ago in her Notebook blog entry about President Obama's 49th birthday (emphasis mine):

The job has aged him, as it did his predecessors. Dr. Michael Roizen at the Cleveland Clinic stated constant stress can age the Commander in Chief two years for every one year in office.

So I guess that means he's really turning 50.

President Obama has enough stress to last a lifetime... and as he blows out his birthday candles, war, recession and a giant oil spill won't magically disappear.

But I hope he's able to take a break tonight, forget his troubles and spend time doing something he loves.

But as Paul Bedard of USNews.com noted in an August 11 blog Washington Whispers blog post, Obama has not exactly been lacking in the R&R department:

As President Obama travels to Michigan to visit General Motors and Chrysler assembly lines, the media assembly line continues mass-producing bias.

On July 30, both ABC and CBS ran stories on their websites promoting President Obama's trip to Michigan to "let you know the Detroit Big Three are in the black again." Both networks' stories claimed the "unpopular auto industry bailout has turned into an economic good-news story."

"Analysts say there is no doubt the bailout rescued these companies," ABC reported.

CBS ignored criticism of the bailouts, while ABC buried opposition from Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., in the 27th paragraph after support from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Treasury Secretary Advisor Ron Bloom, and White House Council on Automotive and Community Workers head Ed Montgomery.

CNBC.com's Jeff Cox needs to brush up on his financial history.

He believes that George W. Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts affected only the highest-earning taxpayers, i.e., those who gross $250,000 a year of more. He's wrong.

Here's part of what Cox posted this morning (erroneous statement is bolded; HT to Mark Levin in his Thursday broadcast):

Letting Bush Tax Cuts Die Would Kill Recovery: Analysts

The nascent US economic recovery would be halted in 2011 if Congress fails to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, analysts at Deutsche Bank said.

The cuts were enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush and covered those earning more than $250,000, but they are set to expire at the end of this year.

"The last day of school shouldn't mean last call for lunch."

That's how CBS's Katie Couric melodramatically concluded her June 25 "Notebook" item on her CBSNews.com Couric & Co. blog.

The "Evening News" anchor pointed to a report by the liberal Center for American Progress -- without, of course, noting the group's leftward bent -- that found "that nearly 20 million children get free or reduced-price lunch at school. But only one in six of them will receive subsidized meals this summer."

Couric concluded from this that "[n]early one in four children is at risk for hunger" over the summer and called "essential" a bill before Congress to "improve access to summer meals."

Of course nowhere in her Notebook item did Couric weigh whether this might be a matter better left to state and local governments -- especially when the federal government is drowning in red ink -- or better yet, to parents themselves.

As pathetic as Joe Biden's thin-skinned "Why do you have to be such a smart-a**" comment to a Milwaukee-area custard shop manager was yesterday (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), it wasn't even the Vice President's worst Wisconsin Saturday moment.

A far worse moment, in terms of familiarity with the truth, occurred as Biden rewrote history and unilaterally revised economic growth upward in a speech to Democrats in support of Senator Russ Feingold's reelection.

In a CBS News online report by Stephanie Condon that I suspect will not make it to the airwaves Biden was dour and downbeat, while misstating economic reality:

Biden: We Can't Recover All the Jobs Lost

Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."

"[Carly Fiorina's] position on taxation would deprive women of childcare."

The Hyde Amendment "penalizes poor women terribly."

"You can't be a feminist who says other women can't" have an abortion.

These are just some of the outrageous statements left-wing feminist Gloria Steinem made during an interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric on the latest installment of "@katiecouric," which was posted to the CBSNews.com Web site on June 23.

Couric's responses to the "godmother of the modern women's movement's" absurd claims ranged from silent agreement to reflexive endorsement.
            
Although the former Playboy Bunny railed against the legislation that banned federal funding of abortion, Couric responded approvingly – "right!" – and changed the subject to the hockey mom every liberal feminist loves to hate:

Saturday demonstrated a staggering disparity in how media view those involved in the Gulf Coast oil spill cleanup.

While news outlets heaped scorn upon beleaguered BP CEO Tony Hayward for attending a yacht race in England Saturday, there was no such anger shown towards President Obama and Vice President Biden for going golfing.

In fact, as this Reuters piece illustrated, despite what our Commander-in-Chief was doing, it was perfectly acceptable for his administration to criticize Hayward's recreational exploits on his day off (h/t Hot Air headlines):

Something about the soccer World Cup brings out the missionary in the mainstream media, and every four years they strive to bring the good news of "the beautiful game" to the ignorant American masses.

This year is no different. The 2010 World Cup is set to begin in South Africa on June 11. More than just covering the month-long event, the media are already doing their best to hype it, overstating its popularity in the United States and its potential appeal to U.S. sports fans. From Time magazine dedicating an entire issue to "The Global Game," to CBS's helpful "The World Cup Guide for Americans," the public is being brow-beaten to catch "World Cup Fever."

And while soccer partisans may try (mostly unsuccessfully) to score on point-by-point comparisons to baseball or football, the most compelling argument many media outlets can muster is, "The rest of the world loves it. We should too."

The liberal media have always been uncomfortable with "American exceptionalism" - the belief that the United States is unique among nations, a leader and a force for good. And they are no happier with America's rejection of soccer than with its rejection of socialism.

Hence Americans are "xenophobic," "isolated" and lacking in understanding for other nations and their passion for "the planetary pastime," as Time magazine put it. But, they are confident, as America becomes more Hispanic, the nation will have to give in and adopt the immigrants' game. On the other hand, the media assure the public that soccer is already "America's Game," and Americans are enthusiastically anticipating the World Cup, even though the numbers don't bear that contention out.

So, every four years they return with renewed determination to force soccer's square peg in the round hole of American culture.

At the end of a joint press conference between President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Wenesday, CBS White House correspondent Chip Reid attempted to ask Obama a question about Tuesday's electoral results but was given the brush off for the second time in a week.

Later that afternoon, Reid described the incident on CBSNews.com's Political Hotsheet blog: "As he [Obama] and President Calderon turned to walk back toward the Oval Office I asked, loudly enough for him to hear, if he had any comment on the elections. No response. I then shouted 'Do you have any plans for a real press conference?' No response, not that I expected one."

On Monday, the President refused to answer a question from Reid moments after signing the "Press Freedom Act" into law.

CBS morning and evening news broadcasts have ignored both the Monday and Wednesday snubs by Obama, with Reid only making his displeasure known online.

On Monday, President Obama signed into law the "Press Freedom Act," but refused to answer a question from CBS White House correspondent Chip Reid at the conclusion of the signing ceremony. While Reid described the ironic incident on the CBSNews.com Political Hotsheet blog, neither Monday's Evening News nor Tuesday's Early Show mentioned the President's dodge.  

On the CBS blog, Reid described the purpose of the law, which "expands the State Department's annual human rights reports to include a description of press freedoms in each country." He then noted how "It seemed a good opportunity to showcase press freedom in this country....So after he signed the bill, and as the press 'wranglers' began aggressively herding us out of the room, I asked if he still has confidence in BP. He ignored the question."

Reid also pointed out that Obama "has not held a prime-time White House news conference in many months, despite much pleading from pundits and members of the media." However, not much of that "pleading" has been featured on CBS broadcasts.

Update below: Reid discusses the incident. 

On Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer asked columnist Kathleen Parker about her views on the tea party: "the rhetoric that's coming out from the right side, especially from the tea party....you think it may be dangerous." Parker replied: "this heated rhetoric and some of these words...that are pretty loaded, 'reload,' 'targeting'...there's a danger there."

Parker, syndicated with the Washington Post Writers Group, claimed she was not casting negative aspersions on the whole political movement: "I'm not saying the tea party people are violent or racist or any of that....I'm not saying that the tea partiers are bad people or dangerous," but warned: "I just think we have to be very vigilant....and be extremely careful, because I do think there is a lot of anger and it could become something else."

Schieffer brought up internet journalism as a possible source of some of the "dangerous" anger: "some of this really nasty rhetoric that shows up on the Internet....the only vehicle to deliver news that has no editor....And that is the added factor to the volatility of this stuff and where it goes." Parker agreed, and moments after warning of tea party extremism, made this comparison: "It's, sort of, like terrorism. You know, we don't know where to aim our bombs, so we can't go after a country because there are – you know, there's no one place to focus on it. And it's the same thing with – with the Internet. You can't really – you don't know who to go after."

There's a new CBS News poll getting a lot of attention the past few days claiming that more Americans believe their taxes are fair today than did in 1997.

Unfortunately, the coverage ignores why this likely is the case: the percentage of Americans that don't pay taxes has doubled since 1997.

As such, it makes sense that more folks feel their taxes are fair.

Such logic wasn't included in CBSNews.com's article on the poll's findings:

A recent article from CBS Healthwatch contributor Kelli Stacy revealed new findings from a study done by University of Kentucky researchers indicating that less than 20 percent of young adults believe "Oral contract with partner's genitals" constitutes "sex."

In 1991 a similar survey found that approximately 40 percent of young adults considered oral sex as "sex," Stacy noted. Researchers attribute the shift in sex-conceptualization to the Monica Lewinsky affair.

"Researchers point to former President Clinton's infamous statement, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman,' as the pivotal turning point in society's changing views about oral sex," Stacy said. "The attitude shift has been dubbed the ‘Clinton-Lewinsky' effect."

A sculptor in San Francisco makes urinals in the likeness of former President George W. Bush, and two American media outlets actually reported it last week.

This disgusting story appears to have first surfaced Monday on CBS's San Francisco affiliate KPIX.

The following day, CBS News felt it necessary to share this vulgar farce with Americans from coast to coast by publishing the segment at its website (video embedded below the fold):

On Friday, CBSNews.com's blog Political Hotsheet ran a gushing article that amounted to free advertising for the left's new gimmick of coffee parties.

Aside from the friendly tone and complete lack of criticism, the most astounding part was when writer Stephanie Condon remarked that many issues discussed at a Coffee Party could just as well have come from a TEA party.

Condon's article began with the oh-so-innocent headline "Is The "Coffee Party" The Next Big Thing?" The opening paragraph ran like something right from a brochure:

Let's see... The author of the bizarre solution to avoid a direct vote in the House of Representatives on the Senate ObamaCare bill is Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. Yet, to call it a "Slaughter Solution" is somehow an unfair Republican tactic. Such is the assertion of Brian Montopoli at the CBS Political Hotsheet:

The Republican Party already has plenty of evocative phrases with which to hammer the health care reform effort: "Government takeover," "ram down our throats," "job-killing monstrosity."

Now House Republican Leader John Boehner's office has come up with perhaps the most striking entry yet: "Slaughter Solution."

"Maybe it's time for the House ethics committee to find a new name."

So actually began an article at CBSNews.com's Political Hotsheet blog Tuesday entitled "Ethics Committee Clears Seven, But Questions Persist":

Last week, the bipartisan committee, known formally as the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, cleared seven lawmakers who had been accused of trading millions in federal dollars for campaign contributions.

The exoneration came despite a report from a separate group, the Office of Congressional Ethics, that found defense contractors that received the federal money (which came in the form of earmarks) believed their contributions were directly tied to federal money coming their way.

After discussing some of the contradictory actions taken by both groups last week, the piece took an even more surprising turn (h/t Ed Morrissey):

"I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing." - Joe Biden, 2005

Few Americans would be shocked to hear that members of Congress are not always consistent, and occasionally outright hypocritical. Very often, however, the liberal media attempts to downplay Democratic double standards and highlight Republican ones.

Each recent change in the congressional majority, it seems has brought calls from the newly dominant party for an end to the filibuster. This Democratic majority is no different.

When noting rhetorical inconsistencies, however, the mainstream media has jumped at the chance to note that Republicans, now using the filibuster as a potential means to block Democratic health care legislation, were ardent advocates of majoritarianism in the Senate only a few years ago (as demonstrated in the video below the fold).

The CBS News website Friday not only published a video of a tree carved into the shape of a penis, but someone deemed it important enough to put it at the site's recommended videos list.

The story was originally broadcast by Phoenix, Arizona, ABC affiliate KNXV, and was about a man in Tempe whose friends played a joke on him.

Days later, CBS's Phoenix affiliate KPHO apparently aired an edited version of the segment now available at CBSNews.com.

According to the blurb at YouTube, "[Adam Starr] says he asked some friends to help him out, but a mix of alcohol and chainsaws created what some consider an explicit carving" (video embedded below the fold with commentary, h/t Story Balloon):

The popular chain coffee shop, Starbucks, is known for a lot of things, but up until recently guns were not one of them. Some patrons of the Seattle-based coffee shop have recently started exercising their rights to carrying guns while they enjoy a cup of coffee. While the Starbucks customers have been expressing their right to bear arms, as allowed by the Second Amendment, there has been some resistant to Starbucks.

Liliana Segura, of AlterNet, painted a bleak picture and wrote, “So you're at your neighborhood Starbucks, maybe with your kids, and you notice a man sitting at the next table with a revolver strapped to his waist. The man next to him has a pistol. In fact, you realize as you look around, there's a table full of gun-toting customers just a few feet away, sipping coffee and doing nothing to conceal their deadly weapons. Aside from steering clear -- or else getting the hell out of there – what can an unarmed citizen do?”

Well, not much. (Except maybe relax and consider that the establishment you’re in is at the moment quite safe from armed robbery and other violent crime. Go ahead, buy Junior another triple mocha latte.) Thing is, Starbucks does “not have a corporate policy regarding customers and weapons,” according to a spokesman. Segura explained that some states, such as California, have an “open gun” policy and many people in California are gathering at Starbucks to openly exercise their rights.

On Tuesday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric and White House reporter Chip Reid cast President Obama’s push for “bipartisanship” in a favorable light, with Obama “working hard,” “following through on a promise” and “open to ideas from Republicans.” But in an item posted on CBSNews.com, Reid’s fellow CBS White House correspondent, Mark Knoller – who has covered every President since Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s – was far more skeptical: “When a sitting President calls for bipartisanship by the opposition – he really means surrender.”

Knoller’s blog, with the jaundiced headline: “Obama Says Bipartisanshp, But What He Wants Is GOP Surrender,” was posted at roughly the same time the CBS Evening News was airing on the East Coast. [Here in Washington, D.C., the CBS affiliate WUSA-TV pre-empted the Evening News in favor of local weather coverage, but I was able to view the entire February 9 broadcast at CBSNews.com.]

Knoller painted the President as motivated by frustration: “His top legislative priorities are going nowhere and he’s searching for a way to get them out of lockup.” After recounting past Presidents’ tactical demands for bipartisanship, Knoller outlined the political motive: