MSNBC’s David Shuster isn’t impressed with the intelligence of the American people – and even said so on a liberal talk-radio show. On the nationally syndicated Stephanie Miller show on Thursday morning, Shuster blamed the election returns on the "fact" that the ignorant public can’t focus on more than one issue at a time:

SHUSTER: You can make an argument, and I think there is a point to be made where in this environment, where the economy is having some trouble, and where a lot of people don’t have jobs that should, the extent people see Washington focused on things other than jobs, like health care or like immigration, or card check, whatever it is.

Even though I would argue, no, Washington can focus on a lot of things at once, but for whatever reason the public can’t. And so to the extent that the public sees Washington only consumed with these other issues, they’re not concerned about jobs, the public is a little anxious about that and that showed up in the polling. I don’t think that’s a direct impact on Obama at all.

Remember the case of the Census worker who was found hanging from a tree with the word ‘fed' scrawled across his chest?  You remember - he died at the hands of right-wing commentators and anti-government tea partiers.  He was killed because of an overwhelming case of right-wing paranoia.  He was murdered by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News.

Keep this quiet though...

While the death of Bill Sparkman was a media sensation for pushing anti-conservative sentiments just a couple of months ago, it is receiving little to no coverage currently.  Why?  Because, as investigators have recently speculated, there is a possibility that he died by his own hands. 

Well, that just doesn't make for interesting news at the so-called legitimate news organizations. 

As the AP states,

"The strange case attracted national attention when it first came to light, prompting worries that it may be a sign of increased anger toward the federal government in the first year of Barack Obama's presidency."

Prompting worries from whom?  The unhinged left wishing to create sensational accusations?  Check. The list follows:

The Chicago way indeed.

Listen to a caller to Ed Schultz's radio show on Tuesday for an example of how liberals were unhinged by the offyear elections before results were even announced (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: John in Chicago, you're on the Ed Schultz show, thanks for calling.

CALLER:  Ed, I am out of my mind with anger and frustration. We gotta tell these Democrats to sack up and grow a pair because this is not what I voted for, I know it's not what you voted for, I know it's not what any of my progressive friends voted for. The difference between the progressives of the '60s, the peace and love, and the progressives of today is that we are gun-totin', we are angry and we're not afraid to take a punch. These Democrats are pissed, they are angry because the Democrats, those weak-ass, water-filled, pantywaist Democrats in Washington, they're not willing to not even take a punch! They're afraid they're going to get hit and they're going to bleed.

Rosie O'Donnell returns to the media today, but in quite a step down the media ladder from national TV prominence -- with a daily two-hour show on XM and Sirius satellite radio she'll host from her Nyack, New York home. “Rosie Radio is a radio show that is compelling, intriguing, unpredictable, and thought-provoking,” the radio service proclaims of the program which will air three times a day on the “XM Sirius Stars” channel (XM 155 and Sirius 102) which also carries shows hosted by Barbara Walters, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Depak Chopra, Judith Regan and Bill Bradley.

O'Donnell's as angry as ever, offering up this vitriol, in the guise of praising President Obama for earning the Nobel Peace Prize, in an interview with USA Today published last week: “But the fact of the matter is, the world stood up in unison and gratitude and said, thank you, perhaps the beacon of light and hope that America has been for 200 years is once again lit. It was diminished criminally by the last administration.”

Earlier today, the Joe Scarborough radio show, with Mika Brzezinski, aired a wide-ranging interview with this NewsBuster. 

Highlights:

• Mika justified her nanny-state proposal of a tax on fatty foods by saying eating habits are not a matter of personal choice because others must bear the health care cost.  Finkelstein's response: kill two birds with one stone by getting government out of the health care business.
• Regarding the White House war on Fox News, Finkelstein observed that the White House should know its strategy has backfired when the likes of Helen Thomas and Dan Rather have defended Fox.
• Mark complimented Mika on exposing the 99 44/100ths liberal environment she experienced at CBS, but chided her for denying that the network has an agenda.  A discussion of the MSM media bubble ensues.

Listen to audio here.

Congressman King's insistence for an apology yesterday is exactly what we have been calling on the media to do since they first misrepresented the fictitious, racist quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh. Rep. King set the record straight, exposing the outright fabrications and distortions attributed to Limbaugh. [see our "Tell the Truth" Web page detailing the media's smears of Limbaugh] 

He was absolutely correct to hold the NFL accountable for caving to pressure from the left-wing extremists out to destroy a conservative leader - as well as the media who were complicit in these attempts.

The Congressman aptly noted that if the parsing of words was the real reason the NFL forbade Rush from placing a bid for the Rams, then they must hold all NFL owners to the same level of scrutiny.  For starters, Miami Dolphins owners Fergie and J-Lo should be among the first disqualified given the disturbing, violent and pornographic lyrics they publicly perform on a regular basis.

We offer our thanks and commendation to Rep. King for having the backbone to say enough is enough and call out the NFL for their cowardly hypocrisy.  We need more Congressmen like him to herald the truth for those who refuse to acknowledge it."  

Recently a lot of hubbub had been made about the possibility that the peaceful tea party protests and some conservative voices would stir up emotions that could lead to violence. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was even one of those sounding that alarm.

But what has gone unsaid by those same voices has been the possibility of violence against those who might take a position antithetical to that of the left.

Case in point: CNN's Lou Dobbs. Dobbs, who has been the target of a smear campaign by the left-wing noise machine, told his radio audience on Oct. 26 that his home had been shot at three weeks earlier. (Unabbreviated audio available here)

Emboldened by his keen sense of omniscience, left-wing radio host Ed Schultz argued with a caller who dared criticize Schultz's command of the facts.

"There isn't anything I say on television or radio that I can't back up," Schultz claimed on Friday (click here for audio). "Anything."

All of his next radio show later, on Monday, Schultz demonstrated the flimsiness of this boast when he tossed out an assertion just as dubious, about Tim Pawlenty (here for audio) --

SCHULTZ:  This is a guy who was a governor in Minnesota where a bridge fell down and killed 13 people and he didn't want to build another one. I mean, this guy, he didn't, he was against, they hadn't raised a sales tax on gas in that state in some 25 years. And he was against that. And the extra money was going to go to infrastructure because the people of Minnesota wanted to make sure that they had better roads and bridges and they took it upon themselves and of course they had enough votes for an override.

There's little doubt that at hand is an ongoing effort by the Obama White House to marginalize the Fox News Channel - especially after the administration attempted to leave Fox out of the White House pool last week. That is something conservative columnist Cal Thomas said is eerily comparable to Cold War tactics of the old Soviet Union.

On the Fox News Channel's Oct. 24 "Fox News Watch," Thomas alluded to an Oct. 21 column he wrote, which he compared what the Soviets did with radio signals that penetrated the Iron Curtain to deliver a message of freedom from Western Europe - they jammed them.

"I wrote a column on this, this week - if I can promote myself and my own column," Thomas said. "I likened it to what happened during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union especially tried to jam the signals of the Voice of America and Radio Europe, other entities that were trying to pump truth into the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries, the so-called captive nations."

Pres. Obama has described Fox News as "operating basically as a talk-radio format" rather than as a "news outlet."

When NBC's Savannah Guthrie raised [in a segment of her extended interview of the president aired on Today this morning] the issue of White House attacks on Fox News, PBO first tried to play the statesman, resorting to the old dodge about "the American people" being more interested in jobs and the situation in Afghanistan.

But when politely pressed, PBO didn't hesitate to fustigate Fox.

CNN’s Carol Costello again omitted the liberal source of a statistic she touted during a report on Wednesday’s American Morning, that 91% of talk radio is apparently conservative. Costello also pushed the left-wing aim of localism in radio programming, playing three soundbites in favor of the proposal, versus two against it.

Near the end of her report, which aired at the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour, the CNN correspondent cited ultra-left talker Randi Rhodes (all three clip in favor of localism came from Rhodes), who “says millions of Americans get their political talk from AM radio -- 91 percent of which is conservative.” Costello didn’t cite the source of the figure, which comes from a 2007 report by two liberal organizations -- the Center for American Progress and Free Press -- and co-authored by Mark Lloyd, who is now the FCC’s “chief diversity officer.” The correspondent touted the figure as well during a report on Monday’s American Morning, where she claimed that it came from “Talkers” magazine. The figure itself is misleading because, as MRC’s Culture and Media Institute pointed out, the CAP report ignored “non-commercial radio,” such as NPR and other public radio networks.

Paul Krugman attacked the authors of the soon-to-be-released book SuperFreakonomics today for their audacious attempts to question the left's conventional wisdom on global climate change. He then touted the danger of attacking conservatives, and contended that liberal-bashing has always been the safer political and professional move.

I have a theory here, although it may not be the whole story: it’s about careerism. Annoying conservatives is dangerous [his emphasis]: they take names, hold grudges, and all too often find ways to take people who annoy them down... [Conservatives] snub anyone who breaks the unwritten rule and mocks those who must not be offended.

Annoying liberals, on the other hand, feels transgressive but has historically been safe. The rules may be changing (as [SuperFreakonomics authors Stephen] Dubner and [Steven] Levitt are in the process of finding out), but it’s been that way for a long time.

Once again, the nightly train wreck known as CNN Headline News "The Joy Behar Show" took another jab at conservatism, particularly Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Only this time, Behar threw in a couple of old standbys for whom lefties are fixated upon assaulting - former President George W. Bush and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Behar, on her Oct. 17 CNN HLN program, suggested to radio show talk host and former child-star actor Danny Bonaduce there was a trend - that people who have had struggles with chemical addictions are now outspoken, particularly those on the right that Behar disagrees with.

"Do you see a trend? Rush Limbaugh, Oxycontin. Glenn Beck, alcoholic, Danny Bonaduce, alcoholic ... and George Bush, ex-alcoholic," Behar said.

What do leftist documentary maker Robert Greenwald, Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson, and Daily Beast contributor Max Blumenthal have in common?

They all peddled malicious, false quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh and are unrepentant about furthering false information regarding the talk show host.

NewsBusters parent company the Media Research Center has a new Web site complete with video and/or screenshots of these and others in the media furthering the phony quotes.

Yesterday evening, Fox News Channel's Molly Henneberg filed a story on how some media outlets fell for unsubstantiated quotes attributed to radio talk show legend Rush Limbaugh.

NewsBusters's own Tim Graham was featured briefly in Henneberg's "Special Report" story.

We've included a transcribed portion below:

Yesterday CNN's Rick Sanchez was set to go on air and issue an apology for running an unverified quote attributed to Rush Limbaugh. Breaking news of the now-infamous "balloon boy" intervened, and Sanchez was unable to deliver his apology.

It came to the attention of the NewsBusters staff that Sanchez plans on issuing a correction today on-air, reading  the following statement:

"CNN and MSNBC were given ample opportunity to come clean, but both are continuing to masquerade malicious lies [against Rush Limbaugh] as credible," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell said in a statement today.

Yesterday, Bozell promised to report back publicly with how CNN and MSNBC responded to his challenge to put up – or shut up – proof that Rush Limbaugh actually stated the racist quote that both cable networks attributed to him as fact, or to immediately retract and apologize for their participation in spreading an outlandish lie. 

Talk show giant Limbaugh denied having ever stated, “Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.” Further, it has been established that this was a fabrication pushed through the Internet, intentionally designed to destroy Mr. Limbaugh’s reputation at a time he is attempting to purchase a professional football team.

In addition to this public call to action, Mr. Bozell overnighted letters to CNN President Jonathan Klein and MSNBC President Phil Griffin to ensure both took the matter seriously. Both CNN and MSNBC failed to respond appropriately.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell today demanded that CNN and MSNBC prove that radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh uttered a racist quote they have attributed to him as fact after Limbaugh publicly denied having ever said, “Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark” on his nationally syndicated airwaves. 

"CNN and MSNBC must immediately and publicly source when Limbaugh uttered this phrase. He has unequivocally denied it. Now it is up to the same news media that reported it as fact to prove that it was, indeed, stated," NewsBusters Publisher Bozell insisted in a statement, arguing that if the charges are undocumentable, the offending networks are "100% guilty of character assassination."

The accusations against Limbaugh came in the wake of reports the radio talk show host is part of a group bidding for ownership of the St. Louis Rams NFL franchise. The full Bozell statement is appended below the page break:

Since the Iraq-Vietnam analogy they were so fond of citing no longer holds water, liberals have switched to applying the threadbare comparison to the war in Afghanistan.

In the process, an observer will occasionally hear things from left of center he's rarely heard before.

For example, on Ed Schultz's radio show Oct. 9, John Nichols of The Nation magazine had this to say about the dilemma facing Obama in Afghanistan (click here for audio) -- 

NICHOLS: So the real reason he should be drawing down in Afghanistan is because it's - a - bad - place - to - be. 

SCHULTZ: Have we ever escalated the 96th month into a conflict?

Is NFL Players Association Chief DeMaurice Smith being forthright when he contends he wants to protect the sport from "discrimination and hatred" as he has claims, or is he engaging in partisan hackery, with the benefit of having the ear of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell? If you look at Smith's past, you might come to that conclusion.

As NewsBusters Noel Sheppard pointed out Sunday, ESPN's Chris Mortensen shared Smith's concerns on the network's Web site Oct. 11 based on an e-mail Smith had sent which said the following:

"I've spoken to the Commissioner [Roger Goodell] and I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages," Smith wrote. "But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred."