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...who pulled President-elect Obama's books from a Catholic school library? "Hey, at least he didn't burn them!" goes the punchline.

Wocka, wocka, wocka!

That was Dallas Morning News religion blogger Bruce Tomaso's take on a Missouri Catholic priest's decision to yank Obama's tomes from the shelves of St. John LaLande Catholic School's library (see screencap at right).

Tomaso noted that Fr. Ron Elliott describes himself as "very pro-life" but that after reviewing the books in question "he didn't find anything objectionable" and will hence return the books to the shelves "in February or March" as Elliott noted, "after the dust kind of settles."

At that point Tomaso couldn't refuse the impulse to add an editorial quip:

The MSM has been too reverential towards George W. Bush.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  The only thing more absurd than that assertion was Arianna Huffington's willingness to accept it as a fact in answering a question. Here was the exchange between Huffington and Choire Sicha, writing for the LA Times, in today's "Sunday Conversation" feature [emphasis added]:

CHOIRE SICHA: It was only recently that this spell of reverence for Bush lifted. Why'd it take so long?

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: I think it took so long because there is something about the conventional wisdom that is very addictive to members of the press. They don't want to diverge from it too far.

The conversation later provided another rib-tickler from the HuffPo hostess [emphasis added]:

The idea of “Rest In Peace” is something that will never be extended to a conservative on a liberal web forum like DemocraticUnderground.com. The day it was announced Paul Weyrich had passed away, the vitriol was let loose on DU.  This is not the first time this site has pulled this kind of nonsense.  William F. Buckley received his share of cheap shots from DU after his passing.

 While a poster tries to remind the DU mob that “pi*sing on the guy’s grave is unseemly. Remember Paul Wellstone,” The pleading poster is promptly shut down with the reply, “Not if the only thing he did right was to die.”

Other than a few gracious token statements, the rest of the thread is chock full of hate. These DU posters said the following about Weyrich's passing:

WinkyDink: There IS a God.

UpInArms: I'm putting on my dancing shoes. Weyrich's prolly sitting next to RayGun by the fire right now

While the media are fixated on the ire gay activists are directing at the president-elect for selecting Prop 8 proponent Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Obama inaugural, I've noticed little attention given to the fact that the man selected to give the benediction is pretty much the polar opposite of Warren on some key doctrinal matters related to homosexuality.

Rev. Joseph Lowery, a liberal United Methodist minister, has mostly been referred to in the media in connection to his work in co-founding the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the key organizations in the civil rights movement. Yet freezing Lowery in time as an icon of the 1960s civil rights era doesn't do justice to his status as a vocal clerical advocate of same-sex marriage and openly gay clergy.

Reports Cathy Lynn Grossman of the USA Today Faith & Reason blog:

Barack Obama doesn't mind a fight with gay activists over selecting Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration because the President-elect is bound and determined to govern as a centrist.

That according to ABCNews.com's Rick Klein as posted to The Note blog (emphases mine):

President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration has ignited a firestorm of criticism from the gay-rights community, where Warren is considered something of a sworn enemy.

Yet Obama’s response to a question about his selection of Warren seems to confirm one perception: that this is a fight that the president-elect isn’t necessarily sorry to be having.

It's hardly a secret that Chicago public schools chief executive Arne Duncan was the architect behind a failed plan to open a "gay-friendly" high school in the Windy City. But for some reason Washington Post staffer Maria Glod decided to keep that skeleton in the closet, leaving the fact out completely from her page A3 December 17 story, "Education Pick Is Called 'Down-to-Earth' Leader."

Glod set out in her 22-paragraph article to portray Duncan as an education reformed well-respected by both Democrats and Republicans and even garnering begrudging respect and even some allies among teachers unions and school bureaucrats who were at first wary of him.

The controvery over the proposed Social Justice Solidarity High School -- which was scrapped in a November 18 school board vote -- was completely left unmentioned although as Brad Haynes of the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog reported yesterday:

"I will say that when I started [at MSNBC] in 2003, nobody spoke to me for six months. I was a strange man in a strange land," Joe Scarborough is reported to have told Time magazine.

TVNewser's Steve Krakauer noted today that in an upcoming 10 Questions feature the "Morning Joe" host will share his thoughts about his network, which he sees, "right now" to be "a free marketplace of ideas where everybody's invited and opinions clash."

Scarborough added that "as long as I'm fair, I don't think there's a problem at all." There's no word, however, on if Scarborough thinks fairness is strived at by his colleagues Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.

Liberal-leaning Chicago Tribune columnist and blogger Eric Zorn is tired of politicians -- Democratic and Republican -- declaring that Gov. Rod Blagojevich's arrest was a "sad day" for Illinois.

The sad day, rather, was Wednesday, when Blago returned to work:

[I]n statement after statement, our gloomy pols were keening as though a great leader had fallen or an important factory had closed.

Perhaps this was their acknowledgment of the severity of the charges and the depths of the alleged betrayal of the people. Perhaps they felt it would be undignified to pump their fists and say "Yessssss!" as many of the rest of us did.

But look. There have been many sad days in Illinois political history.

The days when elected officials have pocketed kickbacks, payoffs and bribes, for instance.

Newsweek is hardly the only MSM publication that is clueless about the Christian faith. The New York Times is also reliably feckless when it comes to reporting on what makes biblically orthodox Christians tick.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler took the Gray Lady to task last Friday for its reporting on the recnet formation of a new coalition of Anglican churches that have broken off from the liberal Episcopal Church USA over concerns of doctrinal liberalism.

In "It's About Theology, Not Territory," the Baptist theologian and pastor lamented that Laurie Goodstein's December 3 story on the formation of the Anglican Church in North America painted the dispute in a way to portray the liberal ECUSA as an aggrieved victim of dogmatic conservatives. By contrast, Mohler points to a lack of doctrinal clarity in the Anglican Communion being the fertile ground by which liberals were able to erode the boundaries of historic, orthodox Christian teaching and thus threaten the unity of the church around the Gospel of Jesus Christ (emphasis mine):

During a discussion with co-host Maggie Rodriguez on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, liberal blogger Arianna Huffington, remarked that: "The problem with Sarah Palin was not anything to do with her being a woman. It had to do with her antediluvian views on creationism, her lack of curiosity, her lack of interest in the world around her."

The segment was about an open mic gaffe by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who said of Arizona Governor and Obama’s Homeland Security secretary nominee Janet Napolitano: "Janet's perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect." Rodriguez turned to Huffington and asked: "So what did you think about Governor Rendell's comment. Did you think it was sexist?" Huffington vigorously defended Napolitano: "I think that is really...an illusion about a woman's life. Like Janet Napolitano has a very rich life. I mean, she plays tennis twice a week and nobody in her staff can interfere with that sacred time. She actually climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. She goes river rafting. She loves movies and the opera."

However, Rodriguez observed: "You talked a lot about perceptions of women, especially women in politics, during the campaign, when Sarah Palin was in the news. And on your blog you openly criticized her." Huffington offered no defense of Palin: "Well, I thought that Sarah Palin, in a way, summed up what happens when you're not curious. When you're not interested in what is going on in the world. Because my problem with her was really her response to Katie Couric, when she was asked 'what do you read?' and she couldn't give an answer."

During the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry tried to overcome the dubious distinction of being, per the National Journal, the most liberal senator.  His attempts to deny the obvious led to a memorable exchange with NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller [transcript after jump] in which he famously fended off the liberal label as a "laughable characterization."

But four years later, having lost the presidency and just this week failed in his bid to become Secretary of State, perhaps Kerry calculates he has nothing left to lose.  Writing at the Huffington Post, he's letting his liberal flag, or progressive pennant, to be precise, fly.

Appearing on the November 24 "Fox & Friends," MRC Director of Communications Seton Motley reacted to left-wing bloggers critical of President-elect Obama for choosing center-left, rather than far-left staffers for his presidential transition team. [audio available here]:

GRETCHEN CARLSON, co-host, "Fox & Friends": Alright, Seton, so a lot of these people on the Left say, "Oh, wait a minute, Barack! You were supposed to choose people who feel exactly like we do on the issues." And in essence, he's chosen a lot of centrists. Will we now see the blogosphere really light up now with the ultra-left viewpoints?

Practically rubbing his hands in glee, Time magazine's Joe Klein exulted yesterday over Michigan Rep. John Dingell (D) losing out to the more liberal Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) for control of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Apparently Klein is happy that under Waxman the committee will succeed in decreasing both domestic energy and commerce with fresh, strict regulations on America's automakers. From his Nov. 20 Swampland blog post at Time.com:

Is comedian, radio talk show host and blogger Roseanne Barr angling for the ambassadorship to Israel? After all, she has a simple solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict:

ISRAEL MUST CONCEDE

ALL TERRITORY PRE 1967 AND JERUSALEM TOO, TO A THREE WAY SPLIT UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND VATICAN CONTROL IN ORDER TO AVOID WW3!!!

But wait a minute. The Vatican is administered by the Roman Catholic Church, of which Barr is decidedly not a fan. Indeed, she considers the Roman church, along with black voters and Mormons to be an enemy of the Constitution and every gay and lesbian person in California:

DailyKos and DemocraticUndergroud types are starting to get a bit miffed at their messiah. So far, no one from their ranks has been given the nod to take a spot on Obama's staff or to fill his cabinet openings. The "progressives" are noticing, too, that far from bringing a "new" wave of politics to Washington, so far Obama is bringing back the age of Clinton. Instead of Washington becoming Obamopolis, it is a re-birthed Clintonville that is rising like a phoenix from the ashes.

It is certainly too early to claim that Barack Obama is going to be a centrist president like the far lefties fear. After all, he hasn't even taken office yet. But, one thing that can be said, when evaluating his pick of staffers and cabinet positions thus far, he sure ain't the candidate of "change" he claimed to be when he was a candidate. Obama has picked no one "new," no one "different," and no one "forward looking." So far, every choice he's made has either been an old Clintonite or another of those old politicos from the 90s that have been on the outside looking in since the year 2000.

By definition, projection is revealing of what lurks in a person's heart and mind.  Arianna Huffington projected tonight, and what she revealed wasn't pretty.  So much so, that even her liberal host hastened to diassociate herself from the HuffPo editor.  Huffington, grossly misquoting Grover Norquist's famous line about doing away with government, added an infanticidal twist.

Huffington was a guest on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show. The two shed crocodile tears about the diminished state of the Republican party.  It was in suggesting that, of all things, she and Maddow should head up a Marshall Plan to save the GOP that Huffington engaged in that ugly bit of projection.

Comedian, radio talk show host and blogger Roseanne Barr has a special place she wants to send Californians -- including blacks, Catholics, and Mormons -- who voted for Proposition 8. Too bad they'd have to time travel at least 17 years back in time to get there.

Picking up her never-ending screed against those she considers enemies of well, humanity, Barr wished to be able to send voters in favor of the California constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman to the now-defunct Soviet Union:

From her November 13 blog entry entitled, "boycott these hateful anti american donors to 8" [sic]:

On his November 10 Huffington Post, Nicholas Graham and nearly every commenter thereafter, purposefully distorted what Governor Palin said about prayer and the 2012 presidential race. The universal misconstruction of Palin's comments was that she was "praying to become president" in 2012 and that somehow God was speaking directly to her. But reality is she did not say that at all.

Graham offhandedly claimed that Palin said that she was waiting "for a sign from God" as to whether she would run in 2012. Further distorting her comments, he claimed she was "confident God would show the way to the White House." But, once again, she said neither of these things. In fact, what she actually said is rhetoric that is pretty much in accord with what even elected presidents have said at one time or another.

Unfortunately, we have arrived at a time when the default position for Democrats as a party is to despise religion even if individually they consider themselves religious. They consider any expression of religious sentiment whatsoever to be an example of "extremism," and "bigotry" against others. Well, at least the second any Republican expresses a religious sentiment, that is. When anyone from their side does it, they wink, nod and assume that their politician is just lying and merely trying to get elected and doesn't really mean it -- which is still an expression of a hatred for religion when all is said and done.

In response to an accidental dropping of the F-bomb by "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough yesterday, MSNBC opted to put the program on a delay, reports TVNewser's Chris Ariens in a November 11 post:

Insiders tell us that beginning today, Morning Joe will air on a slight delay. Yesterday, host Joe Scarborough sort of forgot he was on live TV and said, "They don't go around flipping people off or screaming 'Fuck You' at the top of their lungs," when describing how members of Pres.-elect Obama's inner circle work. The delay will allow producers to "drop" the audio so expletives aren't heard over the airwaves.

This is not new for MSNBC morning TV. When I worked there, Imus in the Morning always aired on a seven-second delay.

Update/Related Blog: Brian Maloney has a great post at Radio Equalizer, noting that Barr is a liberal radio talk show host, and asking where the outrage is on the Left about her arguably racist rant.

Not content with stopping at her anti-Catholic, anti-Mormon, and anti-Semitic November 6 screed, comedian Roseanne Barr has decided to direct fire against African-Americans for voting in large numbers to pass Proposition 8, the ballot initiative in California which amends the Golden State's constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

In a November 10 post to her blog, Barr scolded the 70 percent of California's blacks who voted for Prop 8 that they have conspired to "destroy" the Constitution and have made "a mockery" of marriage.:

They showed themselves every inch as bigoted and ignorant as their white christian right wing counterpartners who voted for mccain-palin and bush-cheney

The Mormon and Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues should be forced to register with the IRS as political action committees because they have "crossed the line between church and state" and "hate our country" and want nothing less than the "complete overthrow of the us [sic] government."

So bellows leftist comedian Roseanne Barr in a November 6 blog post, citing support for Proposition 8, conservative sexual ethics, and support for the state of Israel as her reasons respectively.

First and foremost Barr flamed against the Mormon church in a post urging her readers to rally in protest outside the Mormon temple in Los Angeles:

Joe Klein has noted the passing of Sen. Barack Obama's maternal grandmother in a November 3 blog post at Time magazine's Swampland blog. While most journalists and political pundits would say a kind word or two and express condolences for the Illinois senator on the passing of his grandmother, Klein used the occasion to heap praises upon Obama and exult in his imminent apotheosis.

What follows is the complete text. I'm posting this at about dinner time, so you've been forewarned to not eat on a full stomach (emphases mine):

It's hard to tell whether this is a reaction to "It's about time!" complaints that would tend to come from the center-right, or to "How dare you!" protests from the left (my money is on the latter), but pollster John Zogby took an unprofessional turn in his Saturday report (to be replaced in 24-48 hours) that was released in the wee hours this morning.

The substantive news is that Barack Obama is ahead 5.7% in Zogby's three-day rolling average. Obama came in 10 points ahead in one-day Saturday polling (52-42, after trailing John McCain 48-47 on Friday (weekend polling bias, anyone?).

But it's what Zogby wrote in his third paragraph before showing the daily rolling-average results that was the attention-getter (bold is mine):

There really are no words, though I suppose we'll manage to find some.  Wonkette, which bills itself as "the DC Gossip," and is the creation of Ana Marie Cox, now gone on to bigger things at Time, has this photograph up of Trig Palin, dressed for Halloween as an elephant and being held in the loving embrace of one of his sisters. [H/t Damian at Conservathink.]

Wonkette appends its comment, suggesting—and there really is no way to sugar coat it—that given the choice Trig would rather have been aborted:

Two days ago I noted the downplayed coverage the Washington Post devoted to a Fairfax County, Va., registrar tossing aside military absentee ballots. Rokey Suleman II, a Democrat who had previously lived in Ohio and unsuccessfully ran for officer there, was alone among Old Dominion registrars in throwing aside military absentee ballots for lack of witness signatures and addresses.

While the mainstream media were not concerned, conservative blogs, RedState chief among them, led the charge to pressure Suleman to back down.

A few moments ago I received an e-mail from RedState Editor Erick Erickson declaring victory, noting that the Fairfax County Board of Elections has overruled Suleman (emphases Erickson's):

"Her politics of fear and division . . . must be wholly rejected on Tuesday."  Bob Cesca, The Mandatory Rejection of Sarah Palin, HuffPo 10-29-08

For a guy who calls for the rejection of the "politics of fear and division," Bob Cesca has an odd way of showing it.  His HuffPo column is one long, headfirst dive into the ugly politics he purports to decry.  Cesca hurls insult after distortion not merely at Sarah Palin, but more importantly, at the Americans who support her.  Among other things, Cesca-the-rejector-of-division calls Sarah Palin's supporters "easily-led gomers."

Read along, as we excerpt from Cesca's cesspit [emphasis added]:

I may have found the real reason Sen. Barack Obama was hesitant to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor." Fear of flunking the "Great American Culture Quiz."

From an October 29 blog post by Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet:

RALEIGH, N.C.--Barack Obama seemed to mix up black television sitcoms "Sanford and Son" and "The Jeffersons" in a speech Wednesday, where he was making the point that if Social Security had ever been privatized--as Republicans tried to do a few years ago, folks invested in the stock market would have been whacked with giant losses because of the economic meltdown.

"Can you imagine if you had your Social Security invested in the stock market these last two weeks, these last two months.

You wouldn't need Social Security. You'd be having a, ya know like Sanford and Sons, 'I'm coming Weezy."

Blogger Patrick "Patterico" Frey yesterday devoted a blog post to the difference between how the media are reporting a thwarted assassination attempt against President Bush versus the recent arrest of some skinheads plotting harm to Sen. Barack Obama.

Patterico noted that the Bush conspirators were farther along in their plans than the skinheads targeting Obama, and yet there was no discernible mainstream media attention to the plot, wherein the principal conspirator pleaded guilty and was slapped with a 5-year sentence:

Guest blogger DRJ earlier posted about the alleged assassination plot against Barack Obama. As I always say when charges are made, charges are just charges, and have to be proved by the prosecution. But if these charges can be proved, then these men should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But it got me thinking: this story is being reported everywhere, including in my beloved Los Angeles Times. I suspect it will be on front pages everywhere tomorrow morning.

But remember when I posted in July of this year about an attempted plot against President Bush?

The leftwing blogosphere went into full panic mode Saturday as a result of a tough interview Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden had with a Florida anchorwoman two days ago (video embedded right).

As my colleague P. J. Gladnick previously reported, Barbara West of the ABC TV affiliate WFTV in Orlando gave Biden quite a grilling Thursday.

Yet, despite the obviously favorable and well-documented treatment Barack Obama and his running mate have received from the press during this campaign, Netroots members were shocked and appalled with how Biden was questioned.

Katharine Zaleski, the Senior News Editor at the Huffington Post, published the following Saturday (emphasis added):

Mary Mapes is in gloat over-drive.  Dan Rather's erstwhile producer, the woman behind Memogate, is beside herself with joy at what she sees as the impending death of the conservative blogosphere.  

It's her expectation that Barack Obama will win the presidency that has Mapes so hopeful.  Annotated excerpts from her HuffPo column, The Monster is Dying [emphasis added]: