Each Saturday, the Washington Post prints an "On Faith" page in the Metro section. Part of the feature is a "From the panel" digest with a few excerpts from opinion leaders from various faiths and theological schools of thought. "On Faith" editors select a sampling of the panelists for the print digest but direct readers to the "On Faith" Web page for more opinions.

Well today, the panel discussion topic was the role of "end-of-life counseling" in health care reform. The Post had space to print but four panelists, and surprise, surprise, they were all for "end-of-life counseling" as an integral part of federal health care reform.

One panelist, Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics, even took it upon himself to slam the "shameful" "political deception" of "Sarah Palin, the Christian Right and many Republicans who have tried to sabotage healt-care reform with the canard of 'death panels.'"

Yet not all On Faith panelists were in agreement with this sentiment, such as conservative evangelical Christian Chuck Colson, who was not excerpted in print but made an excellent conservative case in his post on the On Faith page, published yesterday at 9:36 a.m. EST:

A Newsweek.com article on Tuesday celebrated historic speeches by U.S. Presidents at the Berlin Wall, somehow ignoring the fact that Barack Obama has decided not to go to Germany to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism. At the same time, the piece, by Anita Kirpalani, pretended that President Obama has made such a trip.

The article, entitled, "Ich Bin Ein Speechmaker: Historic speeches by visiting American presidents have left an outsize footprint on Berlin," listed visits by John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Obama’s entry insisted, "President: Barack Obama- Date: July 24, 2008." This was prior to his election and was only in the city of Berlin, not at the wall. The article notes these facts. So, why list him as President when he wasn't? The rest of the piece is vague on this point.

In a case of trying to find liberal angles on a tragic shooting, switching the focus of blame and judgment from the mass murderer to the military, Newsweek's Andrew Bast asked on the magazine's blog The Human Condition: "Is Fort Hood A Harbinger? Nidal Malik Hasan May Be A Symptom of a Military On the Brink."

So the shooting is the Pentagon's fault? And they may inspire more shootings to come? Newsweek is going there:

Details remained murky, but at least 13 are dead and 30 wounded in a killing spree that may momentarily remind us of a reality that most Americans can readily forget: soldiers and their families are living, and bending, under a harrowing and unrelenting stress that will not let up anytime soon. And the U.S. military could well be reaching a breaking point as the president decides to send more troops into Afghanistan.

It’s almost humorous to watch Bast write "details remain murky," but I’m going to venture forth and start spinning the MoveOn.org anti-war line:

As readers of Cal Thomas’s latest syndicated column already know, the Media Research Center is releasing a new report today on the media’s coverage of communism, timed to coincide with the 20 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Monday. Sad to say, but before, during and after those momentous events two decades ago, many in the liberal media continuously whitewashed the true nature of communism, or suggested free-market capitalism was somehow worse.

For our report, Better Off Red?, Scott Whitlock and I combed through the MRC’s archives; the quotes (and 19 audio/video clips) we pulled together show some liberal journalists utterly failed to accurately depict communism as one of the worst evils of the 20th century, and often aimed their fire at those who were fighting communism rather than those who were perpetuating it. The full report has more than 70 quotes; here's a sample from the Executive Summary:

■ Before it collapsed, these journalists insisted those enslaved by communism actually feared capitalism more. "Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy," CBS anchor Dan Rather asserted in 1987.

TVNewswer reported Monday that Katie Couric “will sit down this afternoon for an exclusive interview with former Vice President Al Gore in advance of the release of his new book, Our Choice, to be released tomorrow. Portions of the interview will air tonight on the CBS Evening News.” Full title of his latest left-wing tract, 'Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.' Don't count on Couric, however, to challenge any of Gore's premises since she's been more interested in trumpeting his cause.

Back in March and May of 2007, Couric celebrated “a lot of excitement on Capitol Hill. A movie star showed up to testify before Congress -- a movie star named Al Gore” and hailed: “He was once called 'Mr. Stiff.' Now he's known as 'The Goreacle,' the new Al Gore.” With “Gore 2.0” on screen, Couric set up the subsequent tribute by asserting that “no one's getting more attention than the latest edition of Al Gore.”

(Meanwhile, this week's Newsweek cover champions: “The Thinking Man's Thinking Man: Al Gore's New Plan for the Planet.” See cover image below the jump.)

An Oct. 28 Newsweek article made another attempt to discredit sex ed that teaches teens to wait for sexual activity until marriage. The abstinence movement already faces dire straights since President Obama cut its federal funding from the 2010 budget. Newsweek must be hoping to bury it.  

Despite a September vote by the Senate Finance Committee that could restore the funding, Newsweek reporter Sarah Kilff maintained that the federal government has wasted money on abstinence education because the programs are ineffective.

Kliff noted that $1.5 billion of the funding for abstinence education programs came from the federal government and reported, "As funding grew, so did a body of research showing that abstinence didn't change the sexual behaviors of students; pregnancy and STD rates did not go down, the age of initial activity did not go up."

But Kliff ignored the fact that the federal government spent $12 on comprehensive sex education programs for every $1 it spent on abstinence programs.

"Al Gore's views on climate change are advancing as rapidly as the phenomenon itself."

Such was Newsweek science editor Sharon Begley's sub-headline of her proselytizing piece "The Evolution Of An Eco-Prophet."

Fortunately for the Goracle's loyal followers, Begley didn't ask him how the planet could possibly have cooled the past eleven years despite his warnings about the plague "carbon dioxide."

As for all those powerful hurricanes Prophet Al hath foretold, tropical cyclone activity has been at 30-year lows for the last three years.

Even New York Times environmental writer and true believer Andrew Revkin recently noticed that Arctic ice levels have actually been on the rise lately.

But Begley, although being a "science editor," wasn't concerned about anything so mundane as -- ahem -- science in this article. Heavens no.

'Twas much more important to tell parishioners how the eco-prophet looked:

Steve Waldman, the "founding soul of Beliefnet" and a former Newsweek reporter and US News & World Report editor is now spinning through the revolving door into the Obama FCC, reports Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today:

Steven Waldman, founder, editor and leading political blogger of Beliefnet.com, the nation's top Internet spirituality site, is leaving for a post in the Obama administration.

He's posted a farewell letter on his blog calling this "the most difficult (and surreal) post I've had to write" as he departs to become senior adviser to new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski.

Grossman's brief October 28 Faith & Reason blog post failed to mention Waldman's stint in the Clinton administration, but then again Waldman's Beliefnet blogger bio page also leaves out his work as senior advisor to the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service -- the bureaucracy that runs AmeriCorps -- during the Clinton administration.

Penning the lead story for the “Yes He Can (But He Sure Hasn't Yet)” Newsweek cover, “A Liberal's Survival Guide,” Anna Quindlen defended President Obama from liberal complaints he's not enacting liberal policies fast enough as she explained that he's “saddled” by the “incremental” constitutional structure, but she fretted: “Universal health care is the area in which the gap between what's needed and what's likely is most glaring, and the limitations of the president's power most apparent.” Not hesitating to share her opinion, Quindlen despaired:

It is dispiriting to watch the cheerleaders of American exceptionalism pound their chests and insist that our citizens do not need the kind of system that virtually every other developed nation finds workable....

As elected officials posture and temporize, families are bankrupted by health-care costs and forgo treatment they can't afford. Statistical measures of the national health, from life expectancy to infant mortality, continue to be substandard. And because we have that system of checks and balances, in which movement usually happens slowly and sporadically, a great need for sweeping reform may be met with a jury-rigged bill neither sufficiently deep nor broad, which perhaps someday will give way to a better one, and then eventually a truly good one.

It's bad enough that the new design of Newsweek came with blatant cover-story campaigning for Joe Biden. Then in the next edition, when it was time for Letters to the Editor, was there any chance of an anti-Biden message being published? No.

In the October 26 edition, there were only four pro-Biden letters hailing his "valiant voice of sanity." But here's where it gets funny: Newsweek ran a chart of its reader mail. Of the letters on the Biden cover, it said 25 percent were positive, 25 percent were neutral, and 50 percent were critical.

Not one of them was worthy? It's like Newsweek is saying: "Stop criticizing our heroes. We're not going to publishing your critical letters anyway."

In fact, this issue ran only seven letters: four for Biden, two criticizing Newsweek for allowing Christopher Hitchens to lament Obama's Nobel Prize, and one generic attack on "the right wing media."

In an October 20 The Gaggle blog post, Newsweek's David A. Graham sought to explain to readers why the New York 23rd Congressional District special election on November 3 "is more important than" the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races.

Graham portrayed the race -- pitting liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava against Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman and Democratic candidate Bill Owens -- as a bellwether fight for the soul of the Republican Party. Graham noted Scozzafava's socially liberal stances, implying that conservative ire over her nomination tothe GOP ticket in the special election was based solely on the ire of social conservatives.

Yet nowhere in his blog post did Graham explain that economic conservatives and libertarian-leaning Republicans worry Scozzafava is truly a Republican-in-name-only (RINO) on economic matters as well, given her ties to ACORN.

As Human Events reporter John Gizzi noted a month ago (emphasis mine):

Last week’s Newsweek starkly illustrated on its cover again just how much it’s rooting for the perpetual Obama-Biden campaign. Next to a picture of firm, smiling Vice President Biden were the words "WHY JOE IS NO JOKE: From Afghanistan to Health Care, a Vice President to be Reckoned With." It looked so much like a campaign sign, readers might have been unsure whether to read it or nail to a piece of wood and post it in the front yard.

Inside were several pictures of Joe Cool – Biden in sunglasses rocking the tarmac at the Atlantic City airport. The headline of the article was "An Inconvenient Truth Teller: From Health-Care Reform to Afghanistan, Joe Biden Has Bucked Obama – As Only a Good Veep Can."

This is not the way Newsweek saw Dick Cheney, obviously. In February of 2006, they made a cover story out of the Cheney hunting accident.

The Biden cover story by Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas insists that Biden is getting over his gaffe-prone ways, not that they were "damaging" – what with the media trying hard to ignore them, unlike the Dan Quayles of the world. Biden was never a buffoon:

Can you say "bitter"? That's the vibe Slate.com Editor-in-Chief Jacob Weisberg gave off in an Oct. 17 column, which will appear in the Oct. 26 issue of Newsweek, about Fox News headlined "The O'Garbage Factor."

Weisberg, who once diagnosed former President George W. Bush with a learning disability, contends the Fox News Channel goes beyond just making liberal media elitist like himself cringe - it's actually un-American. Weisberg alluded to the recent rift between the White House and the Fox News Channel.

He contended, with an almost-overdone effort to be self-righteous and snarky, that the analysis of the feud, done on a recent broadcast of "The O'Reilly Factor," was all just too slanted for his tastes. He went along with the left-wing noise machine's notion that Bill O'Reilly, who isn't exactly a Reagan Republican, is some sort of tool of the right-wing.

Last fall, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel remarked, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before." 

That quote has become part of a rallying cry for conservatives, that those currently in power are trying to create the perception of a crisis to force things through the legislative process that couldn't be done otherwise. That has been dismissed by those on the left as fear-mongering and the party in power is acting in good faith based on what their constituents want.

But on MSNBC's Oct. 14 "Countdown," Newsweek senior Washington correspondent Howard Fineman found fault with President Barack Obama's administration for not living up to Emanuel's expectations. On Oct. 14, the Senate Judiciary Committee toyed with the idea of stripping health insurance providers of their antitrust exemption and "Countdown" Keith Olbermann suggested members of Congress hold that exemption over insurance companies' heads to force them to go along with the Senate's idea of health insurance reform.

Newsweek has clearly sided against the social conservatives on the gay agenda. When he published a cover on "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage" last December, editor Jon Meacham dared conservatives to protest, since it was useless: "History and demographics are on the side of those who favor inclusion over exclusion."

Nevertheless, Newsweek is still pushing the gay agenda on its website, touting a link to how an "Evangelical Explains Why He’s for Gay Rights."

Brent Childers, executive director of a group called Faith in America founded by gay furniture magnate Mitchell Gold, was the author. Strangely for a group with this name, their mission statement proclaims: "Our organization is not a religious organization. It does not take a theologian or religious background to understand that religion-based bigotry and prejudice brings condemnation, discrimination and violence to bear on its victims."

Childers wrote for Newsweek that he was marching in Washington this weekend at the "National Equality March" to proclaim his version of Christianity, where "Christ’s voice" is found urging acceptance of the gay lifestyle:

Newsweek has a blog called “The Gaggle.”  I’ll skip the tired jokes about how I didn’t know either, and just get to the main point: Ben Adler and Daniel Stone, writers for this blog, are defending the Nobel Prize Committee’s choice of President Barack Obama as the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

As you can see, not much is needed in the way of extra humor.

Here are the reasons they give for President Obama’s worthiness:

Proving yet again how out of touch the publication can be, the October 12 issue of Newsweek seriously asked the question: "Was Russia Better Off Red?" The "Back Story" page of the magazine featured a graphic comparing life under communism to now and bizarrely asserted: "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has seen an increase in oligarchs and Louis Vuitton outlets. But by many other measures, Russians are worse off."

Yes, despite the fact that 20 million people were murdered in Soviet Russia, this unsigned feature in Newsweek contrasted the crime rate under communism, the number of hospitals and the total number of cinemas (among other factors) to those in the country today. Sadly, there are only 1,510 movie theaters today. Under the brutal repression of communism, however, there were 2,337.

(JPG image, via a scan, that matches the full size of the Newsweek page and so is readable.)

It goes without saying the Obama-loving media will be in full damage control mode this weekend trying to spin Friday's announcement that Chicago will not be the host of the 2016 Olympics, but this one has to take the cake:

Losing the Olympics Bid Is Good for Obama

Such was the headline of an article posted at Newsweek's "The Gaggle" blog Friday.

The author, Katie Connolly, is a political correspondent for Newsweek, and she actually elaborated on this premise (h/t Hot Air):

Is Newsweek even pretending to be a news magazine (or news site) any more? On their Gaggle blog, political writer Katie Connolly decried Sen. Orrin Hatch for reinstating federal funding for abstinence-only sex education: "I've been trying to think of a measured way to riff on this, but instead I'll be frank. It's an absolute waste of money." Newsweek doesn't favor a "measured" take these days. But Connolly’s conclusion about “pointless moralizing” really cranks up the editorializing:

Let's face it. Teenagers are going to have sex. They always have, they always will. Sure there will be a decent number of teens who choose to abstain and they should feel supported in that decision, but there will still be a large chunk of teenagers doing the dirty. Making them stop is a fools errand. It's about as likely a seeing the Pope in a speedo. It's like asking the Queen to declare her hatred for corgis. It's not going to happen. Sex education policies should take into account this basic reality and tailor programs that broadly educate teens about their choices, abstinence included. Policies should be set up to work. Anything else is just pointless moralizing.

There's a side of America that scares Frenchmen, French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand was quoted by Time magazine Paris-based writer Bruce Crumley, and it's the side of American determination that doesn't let a 32-year-old rape case die, even if the perpetrator is an elderly survivor of the Holocaust.

Seeking to explain the "cultural divide" that's as "wide as the Atlantic" between America and Europe, Crumley noted that Europeans are "shocked and dismayed that an internationally acclaimed artist" such as Roman Polanski "could be jailed for such an old offense."

Of course, at no point did Crumley cite any public opinion polls with empirical data to back up his argument about the U.S.-European cultural divide on pursuing fugitives who jump bail after drugging and anally raping 13-year-old girls.

No, instead, Crumley turned to an American author (and journalist) living in France to bolster his argument about European sentiment on Polanski: