From windy Washington, D.C., to sunny Palm Beach, Florida, the liberal print media are refusing to note the liberal bent of an interest group vocal in the health care debate.

The March 26 edition of the Palm Beach Post -- a broadsheet notorious to conservatives for its unbalanced treatment of Rush Limbaugh -- featured not one but two articles which pushed government-run universal health care. In both of them, the Post asserted that Floridians are dying daily due to a lack of health care coverage.

The source for the Post’s assertion was a recent study by the liberal group Families USA. Not surprisingly, the Post described the organization as simply a “nonpartisan” group that advocates for “comprehensive health care” while conveniently leaving out the group’s liberal tendencies, its support of socialist-style universal healthcare and that its political allies include liberal Democratic politicians such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)

I have never seen, from a supposedly serious media establishment, a more hate filled rant against a particular state in this great country than this screed against Florida in the Washington Post. Granted, writer Libby Copeland has spewed hate filled rants in the past, but this one is particularly mean-spirited. Copeland seems to hate the elderly who've moved to Florida, she hates the business community there, appears to scoff at the asylum seekers from Cuba that settled there, and claims that all dreams die there. And what does it all boil down to? Al Gore's loss in the 2000 election, naturally! At this rate, I'd suggest she not vacation in Florida in the near future after this slam on everything Sunshine State.

Ostensibly, Copeland is using the fact that Florida is seemingly the end of Rudy Giuliani's road to the White House as the excuse for her evisceration of the state. According to Copeland, dreams are dashed in Florida just like Rudy's were. She warns us to "Beware of the Sunshine State, Where It's Easy To Get Burned," and thinks that Florida's good days are behind her, stranded in the 1970's, "since those were the good days for Florida."

My friend Cam Edwards proclaimed he was going on a "rant" on Friday night on his radio show "Cam & Company" (on Sirius satellite radio and at nranews.com) about the latest example of the national media ignoring stories of armed self-defense. While the networks were charmed by the story of 14-year-old Michael Six fending off a burglar with a baseball bat in Arizona, there was this eyebrow-raising story from the Orlando Sentinel:

An armed citizen surprised four men who robbed him at gunpoint last week.

After being ordered to his knees, Russel Olofson warned the men that "they should think about it," according to an Orlando police report released this week.

A private investigator with military training, Olofson, 24, told police the robbers snatched his cell phone and a wallet containing his concealed-weapon permit shortly before 10 p.m. Friday outside Ridge Club Apartments.

Reuters injected bias into this December 24 article about 40 missing Cuban “migrants” who never arrived in America after being smuggled out of Cuba. The article minimized Castro's oppression and faulted the US for the Cubans' flight.

The wire service began by deliberately mischaracterizing the Cubans as “migrants” instead of calling them “refugees” or even “passengers.” Labeling them “migrants” ignores Cuba's political and economic straitjacket, and more importantly links Cuban refugees to the issue of illegal immigration.

The media are beginning to call everyone who comes to America with the intent to stay, “migrants,” whether here legally or not, which erases any distinctions. People who are anti-illegal immigration often support Cuban refugees remaining in the US, and linking the two issues can reduce opposition to illegal immigration.

While explaining why the Cubans risked their lives coming to the US, Reuters ignored Castro's totalitarian regime (bold mine throughout):

Previously in NewsBusters, PJ Gladnick and I have blogged about South Florida newspapers, such as the Miami Herald, that have left out disgraced former Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne's political affiliation. Jenne is a Democrat, and a gun control-friendly one at that (more on that after the page break).

It appears Jenne's party registration remains under lock and key at the Herald. Here's reporter Wanda J. DeMarzo's short December 6 story on Jenne being sent to a prison camp in Georgia:

Another newspaper in the Sunshine State is failing to cast light on the Democratic Party affiliation of a disgraced former sheriff.

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel did the same thing in September, as NewsBuster P.J. Gladnick reported then. Now it's the Miami Herald's turn. And it's not like there weren't enough reporters working the November 16 story to unearth former Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne's Democratic party affiliation. Three other Herald staffers joined writer Jay Weaver in spinning a gauzy story of how, "The powerful, not so powerful support Jenne.":

They ranged from Broward's most politically influential to a rehabilitated crack addict.

They crowded into a federal courtroom Friday morning to speak on behalf of former Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne, who will be sentenced on charges of fraud and income tax evasion.

It appears that Editor & Publisher felt the need to get in front of some really bad news in the newspaper business. In fact, the sampling of numbers reported previews a report that will apparently be worse than others I have tracked (previous posts here, here, and here):

According to industry sources speaking to E&P, daily circulation for reporting papers in the six-month FAS-FAX period ending September is down about 2.5% while Sunday is expected to fall 3.5%. Those types of declines -- in the 2% and 3% range -- have been occurring as far back as the March 2005 period.

Was the left-wing student who tried to shout out extremist questions to senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) before being forcibly removed by police just pulling a publicity stunt?

That allegation is coming out as police reports of the Kerry speech say that the tasered student seemed to have his eye out for publicity:

The Florida Division of Law Enforcement will investigate Monday's arrest of Andrew Meyer, said University of Florida President J. Bernard Machen. Machen called the incident "regretful for us." [...]

"You will take my question because I have been listening to your crap for two hours," Meyer told Kerry, according to the police report of the incident.

He then turned to a woman and said "Are you taping this? Do you have this? You ready?" the report said. [...]

(h/t Dan Gainor)

Campaigning for the loyalty of young voters can be tricky, so holding a fundraiser in a Miami night club can't hurt (although it didn't help then-Florida gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno in 2002). But holding one in a night club that hosts "Striptease Sundays" is just asking for media scrutiny, although I doubt it will be a big row for Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

But at least MSNBC noticed the gaffe (see screencap at right) at about 10:42 in the August 26 edition of MSNBC Live.

Video (0:47): Real (1.28 MB) or Windows (1.43), plus MP3 (342 kB).

Shorter clip (0:27): Real (750 kB) or Windows (817 kB), plus MP3 (183 kB)

On Tuesday’s edition of "Nightline," anchor Martin Bashir interviewed businessman Tom Monaghan, founder of a new Catholic university in Florida and also a community called Ave Maria that will be based around Catholic values. Bashir parroted criticism that the town has "been described as a Catholic Jonestown, a kind of Catholic Iran, where individual rights and liberties are curtailed."

Earlier in the segment, Bashir asserted that the community, which will encourage traditional values but be open to all, has "been called a Disney World for Catholics, a country club Christianity."

On Saturday’s "Early Show," host Jeff Glor framed a political headline in a way that portrays President Bush as criminally uncaring. The story was about a seven year old Orlando boy who wrote a letter to the president, pleading for him to do something to make his community safer.

Jeff Glor (Host): "And one seven year old boy's cry for help has gone as far as Capitol Hill and the White House."

Santiago Valera: (Video) "Dear Mr. President, hello, sir, my name is Santiago Santana Valera...."

Glor: "In a letter to the president, Santiago describes the shooting death of his aunt and his fear of even playing outside in Orlando, Florida now. His words were read this week on the House floor by his congressman. It led to the passage of a bill to beef up police departments nationwide. President Bush is expected to veto that legislation."

Glor offered no specifics about the bill nor did he provide any explanation as to why the president is expected to veto it. Rather, from the framing of the story, the president is portrayed as something of a heartless monster, inexplicably denying the impassioned pleas of a scared child. According to spokesman Blair Jones, the administration has spent 2.5 billion dollars on the issue since 2001.

For a more complete report on this story follow the link.

So let's see, a Democratic former North Carolina state House Speaker gets sentenced to prison for five years and fined $50,000 for bribery. The Associated Press covers the story and doesn't give readers his party affiliation until the 6th paragraph.

But a Florida Republican state legislator is only arrested for solicitation of oral sex from an undercover male police officer, and his party affiliation is rendered in the second paragraph of the AP story.

That doesn't seem to square with the AP Stylebook, which says party affiliation mention should be tested by relevance to the story and that in some stories "[p]arty affiliation is pointless."

Unless there's some bias there. Perish the thought.

In an interview published today in the Tampa Tribune, Meredith Vieira talks about how wonderful her two jobs are, co-hosting NBC's "Today" and hosting the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." In particular, she loves the "switching gears" aspect of the stories she covers on "Today":

She says 'Today' is a great challenge 'because you can go from reporting on the presidential pardon of Scooter Libby to grilling hamburgers outside on the patio - from one kind of grilling to another - and I love that. Switching gears makes it so much fun.'

Presidential pardon? Pardon me? President Bush did not pardon Libby, he commuted his sentence. There is a huge difference between a pardon and a commutation. The felony conviction is still on his record, along with the huge fine he was ordered to pay, and he still faces the possibility of having his law license revoked. The only difference is that Libby won't have to serve jail time. And while the White House says a full pardon has not been ruled out, it hasn't happened yet.

James Taranto really passed on a lulu of a quote today. It comes from a book review by Michael Browning of the Palm Beach Post, reviewing Stephen O'Shea's book Sea of Faith on medieval clashes between Christianity and Islam:

Instead, for every Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi we can show a Bill O'Reilly, an Ann Coulter, a Rush Limbaugh, a Glenn Beck and a Sean Hannity. Idiocy parades unashamed in the streets on both sides of the war on terror.

After hearing that Sami Al-Arian confessed to a dirty laundry list of terrorism related activities, I was eager to see how the liberal St. Petersburg Times would handle the story. Today they posted an editorial about "The Real Al-Arian," writing about all the horrible things he has done and lies he told. But is that an accurate account of the role the Times played in defending him? Maybe when you consider it is a newspaper that employs a former ACLU director as a columnist and has a Huffinton Post contributor for a reporter and an F.B.I. wiretap exposing a Times reporter acting as Al-Arian's media coach.

With the benefit of this hindsight, hindsight that the rest of us had little problem seeing in foresight, let's take a look at some past quotes. One has to wonder why a huge newspaper with vast resources couldn't see what the rest of us saw so easily.

Robyn Blumner: "...[USF President] Genshaft's stated intention to fire tenured computer science professor Sami Al-Arian due to the swirl of controversy over his activist Islamist views. Here Genshaft cannot deflect blame for besmirching the university's reputation. She made the call, and it's once again the wrong one for academic freedom and free speech...