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Call me overly suspicious, but the story of 16-year-old Farris Hassan traveling to Iraq on a whim strikes me as unbelievable. The Florida teen of Iraqi descent was all over the news in December when he apparently took off without telling his family and headed to Iraq to see what all the fuss was about. Hassan was able to finance his plane ticket to Kuwait with money he earned trading stocks on the Internet.

All the media coverage portrayed Hassan as a naïve young man who simply wanted to, in his own words, "experience…the same hardships ordinary Iraqis experience everyday." In an essay written by Hassan and e-mailed to his teacher from Kuwait, he seemed to have pro-American views and he spoke passionately about the need to defeat the terrorists in Iraq. He was also interested in a career in journalism and after taking a course in "immersion journalism," he made the decision to go to Iraq. In the process, he found himself smack dab in the middle of a war zone.

Had it not been for coverage provided by the blogosphere (hat tip Malkin), most people would not have known that the trial of the Election Day Slashers had started today. The coverage of the trial to this point is limited to a few local sources such as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

As Michelle Malkin puts it:

"If these dudes were Republicans, their faces would have been all over the news today as their trial on felony counts of vandalism in the Election Day 2004 tire-slashing of more than 20 vehicles rented by Republican campaigners finally got underway"

Indeed, with a witness list that includes the President of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, and Illinois Democrat Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., and seeing how the alleged perps include the son of a Congresswoman (Gwen Moore) and the son of a former Milwaukee Mayor, one would think that such a scandal involving Republicans would be well-known by now.

Here we go again, the liberal media leftist elite have nothing better to do with their time than to attack Pat Robertson again.  This time they are taking issue with  Robertson's  comments regarding Ariel Sharon's health and how Sharon has given away part of the holy land for "peace". 

"God considers this land to be his," Robertson said on his TV program "The 700 Club." "You read the Bible and he says `This is my land,' and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, `No, this is mine."'

Media Matters for America, an extreme left group, has placed the offending video on their website, and  the Anti-Defamation League is outraged at the comments as stated on their website.

Once in a while, it happens. TV serves up human drama in real time. So it was on this morning's Today show, when the bereaved son of one of the Sago miners confronted the governor of West Virginia over allegedly lax safety enforcement in the mine.

Matt Lauer began with a stand-up interview at the disaster site of WV Governor Joe Manchin. Lauer then brought in John Bennett, the adult son of Jim Bennett, one of the miners who died.  Bennett stood at Lauer's other side.

Bennett described the history of violations in the mine. Lauer turned to Manchin to inquire about the violations. Manchin had launched into his response when Bennett took matters into his own hands.

Bennett, wearing the red cap in the photo here, spoke across Lauer directly to Manchin:

Sometimes a story comes along that may look to be something particular, but then turns out not to be.  The story written by Associated Press (AP) journalist Patrick Condon titled: "Sign Tallying Iraq Casualties Causes Stir" is just such a story.

Condon seeks to portray Vietnam veteran Scott Cameron as anything but an anti-war, politically motivated Democrat, who just so happens to have his "modest memorial" to U.S. forces posted in the Campaign office of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Steve Kelley. Kelley's office just also happens to be next door to the Army's military recruiters office.

On tonight's edition of 60 Minutes Dan Rather was supposed to interview Former President Bill Clinton for the "work" his foundation has done for AIDS relief. However, it quickly turned into a fluff piece that promoted his Presidency, how much he accomplished, and his hopes to be the First Husband.

Clinton blames those big bad pharmaceutical industries for charging high prices for medicine that prevents people who are suffering from AIDS to use it. He accuses them of price gouging and thinks that they can "sell them for a lot less and not lose any money". Of course the report does not mention the amount of money and time devoted on researching cures and medicine that will prevent death.

On the subject of AIDS relief failure during his Presidency, Clinton blames Congress:

CLINTON: Well I don't think I could have done more. It was like pulling teeth to get any foreign aid money from Congress when I was there and when they had a President of their own party and they had their core Christian conservative constituents saying okay we want to fight this, and then it became much easier. I wish I could have gotten more but I couldn't have.

Yes, that darn Congress. I don't think Clinton heard what he said. He thinks that Congress withheld on giving money and then some how predicted that a Republican President would be elected in '96 or in '00 and then they would give it. Congress punished millions of people just because Bill Clinton was not of their party? I hope that Bubba does know that not all members of Congress were Republican during his tenure as President.

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One of the entities which has been strongly supportive of that decision, however, is the Boston Globe. The largest media entity in New England, it is referred to in some circles as the "all-gay, all-the-time Boston Globe" because it is clearly an entity with an agenda. Unfortunately for the news consumers in New England, that agenda isn't confined to the editorial pages. I've mentioned it before, a couple of times, on front-page stories that don't warrant the front-page on any news judgement other than mainstreaming same-sex marriage.

A UCLA political scientist conducted a recent study on media bias and came to the conclusion that many of us reached a long time ago. The media tilts left. But the study did produce some unexpected results.

It turns out that PBS’ NewsHour With Jim Lehrer is the most "centrist outlet," while the Drudge Report "leans left." Most readers find the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page to be conservative (with the exception of their stance on illegal immigration, which mirrors that of the far left), but the UCLA study found that the news pages are "even more liberal than The New York Times."

If the Wall Street Journal’s Middle East news coverage is any indication, UCLA knows what it’s talking about. A front page article in the news section of the December 28th issue demonstrates all the usual biases and blind spots of the liberal media when it comes to the Middle East.

Keith Olbermann accuses FOX News host Bill O'Reilly of doing a wrap up of his "rants and distortions" last week, however Olbermann's distortions have been well documented by me and many others at NewsBusters.

Olbermann plays the clip of the O'Reilly saying that the 4am rerun of The Factor beats Countdown 50% of the time. He claims that O'Reilly's viewers aren't bright people and follow him like sheep with a comparison to "800 billion flies". He ended his verbal attack on O'Reilly by calling him "one of those blissful idiots who can rationalize anything".

Keith spends the rest of the segment lambasting another FOX News host, John Gibson. Olbermann lashes Gibson for making what he called a "functionally stupid" mistake when he denied things that were caught on tape about a remark he [Gibson] made about his religion. He then went on to suggest that Gibson should resign.

For kicks: On Tuesday, Dec. 20, O'Reilly had 2,807,000 viewers while Olbermann had 405,000 during the 8pm Eastern hour.

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