I like Pat Buchanan. I do. He's wise, funny and charming.  But every so often . . .

Like tonight. If Buchanan wants to criticize Israel's conduct of the current war, and its treatment of the Palestinians, so be it. But in doing so, is it really necessary to employ terms associated with the Nazis?  Appearing on "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," Buchanan accused Israel of carrying out a "blitzkrieg" against Gaza and turning it into a "concentration camp."

View video here.

On Thursday night's "Hardball," Chris Matthews played several clips from documentarian John Zeigler's interview with Sarah Palin, in which the former GOP VP candidate criticized Katie Couric and the press as a whole for bias against her but his guest, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, dismissed Palin's charges as "So lame," and called her "a Nixonian Nanook of the North."

The following exchanges were aired on the January 8, edition of "Hardball":

First up, after Matthews aired a clip of Palin criticizing the McCain campaign for forcing her to conduct continuing interviews with Couric, Alter called the Alaskan governor: "So lame."

CHRIS MATTHEWS: There ought to be a law against politicians blaming their handlers. What do you think Jonathan?

JONATHAN ALTER, NEWSWEEK: Yeah this was just so lame, Chris. I mean why didn't it go well the first day? It wasn't because Katie Couric was asking awful questions. Her questions were very straight, no spin on the ball. The problem was Sarah Palin couldn't answer the questions in a way that showed the knowledge that is required to be Vice President and quite possibly President. So if she had decided not to go back for the rest of the interview she would have been conceding that she simply wasn't qualified to be Vice President if she couldn't answer Katie's questions.

While Time's Tim Padgett insists that at its 50-year anniversary the Castro Revolution in Cuba "deserves its due," Huber Matos might agree, but for entirely different reasons. After all, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

Matos, who fought alongside the brothers Castro to overthrow Fulgencio Batista, has long felt that the Castros betrayed the Cuban people by imposing a dictatorship, not restoring a democracy as they led him and other non-Communist revolutionaries to believe.

Matos now resides in south Florida and sat down for an interview with Miami Herald's Luisa Yanez to share his thoughts:

The conservative movement lost a great intellectual voice on Thursday. The Reverend Richard John Neuhaus died due to complications from cancer at the age of 72. Neuhaus, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of New York, was a well-known pro-life advocate, and founded First Things in 1990, a periodical focused on advancing “a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.”

We thought you might be interested in the tribute which Peter Wehner, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote on National Review Online’s Corner. It is excerpted below:

...[We] have lost one of America's leading public intellectuals, a man of profound wisdom and learning, and a great champion for the unborn. It was Father Neuhaus, along with his dear, long-time friend George Weigel and just a handful of others like Michael Novak, who not only championed the pro-life cause for so many years, but who gave the rest of us both the grounding and the vocabulary to speak on this issue.

"Good Morning America" on Thursday highlighted 1982 as the year Chris Cuomo, the future news anchor of the program, would see his Democratic dad become governor of New York. The segment was part of a new series on the years that most changed the lives its ABC's hosts. The piece never mentioned the fact that Mario Cuomo was a liberal or a Democrat. (And while older viewers might likely know that, some younger Americans wouldn't.)

At the same time, the segment vaguely reveled in the accomplishments of the governor. "My father would expose all of us to remarkable history," the news anchor explained before a clip of Mario Cuomo at the 1984 Democratic National Convention played. After recounting the difficulties of being the son of a governor, Cuomo added, "...My father, my family, had been given an amazing opportunity to do what he told us mattered most, to help others."

In the final half hour of Thursday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Bianca Solorzano reported on an increase in the teen pregnancy rate, using Bristol Palin as an example: "Teen pregnancy was on the RNC platform this year, literally, as Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was about to give birth. Jamie Lynne Spears made headlines at 16, not for her acting, but the grown-up, real-life role of becoming a teen mom. These famous faces front a growing problem." A graphic appeared on screen declaring: "Teen Pregnancy: The Growing Crisis."

Later, Solorzano explained: "After more than a decade of progress, experts fear we've been lulled into a false sense of security. And have stopped pouring resources into prevention." A clip of the movie ‘Juno’ was then played, after which Solorzano exclaimed: "And unlike the comedy 'Juno,' there's nothing funny about the nation's growing number of teenage mothers."

With a liberal Democrat coming to power, the New York Times has evidently gotten over the false fear of "big cuts" in Medicare it displayed when Republicans tried to trim the program back in 1995.

Thursday's lead story by Jeff Zeleny and John Harwood, "Obama Promises Bid To Overhaul Retiree Spending," characterized the president-elect's stated willingness to tackle huge entitlement programs Social Security and Medicare in mostly positive terms. The reporters described Obama's vague proposal as an "overhauling," an "approach to rein in Social Security and Medicare," and an "effort to cut back the rates of growth of the two programs."

President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be "a central part" of his administration's efforts to contain federal spending, signaling for the first time that he would wade into the thorny politics of entitlement programs.

Bill Ayers isn’t the only communist insurgent who’s greeted warmly by the national media. Tuesday’s edition of National Public Radio’s black-oriented talk show News & Notes carried an interview with Frank Wilderson, a rare American accepted into the armed insurgent wing of the African National Congress. The show’s host, former Newsweek writer Farai Chideya, tried to assist Wilderson in explaining how Nelson Mandela looked like a sellout to the South African Communist Party. "We were insurgents for an ethical reorganization of civil society and political economy. And in this day and age it's too easy to mark that kind of activity as a pure terrorist activity," he complained.

In a news report that sounded like an Obama campaign commercial, CBS Early Show correspondent Kelly Wallace declared: "Facing the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Obama Administration is asking for the biggest stimulus plan in history. An estimated $775 billion to prop up a very sick economy." In the report, Wallace cited Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for Global Insight, who exclaimed: "We really need something big, bold, and swift to kick start the U.S. economy. And I think the Obama plan looks like it meets almost all those criteria."

Wallace ran through some of the key talking points of the plan: "Roughly $300 billion of that relief money will go directly to tax cuts for 95% of American workers...For businesses, a proposed $100 billion in tax incentives and refunds to jump start job creation...Of the 3.2 million jobs that the Obama Administration says will be saved or created, a million will come from a $25 billion investment in infrastructure...while making a long-term investment in renewable energy and other green initiatives." Wallace concluded her report: "Obama is confident he can get his stimulus plan passed within two weeks of taking office. Some economists believe the sooner, the better."

When president-elect Barack Obama appointed Carol Browner to be his "energy czar" back in December, the conservative blogosphere was buzzing about her being a member of Socialist International, "the worldwide organisation of social democratic, socialist and labour parties."

At the time, she was fourth on the website's list of members in the "Commission for a Sustainable World Society."

Not any longer, although it still is cached by Google (h/t Steven Milloy):

Queen Latifah, host of last night's 35th annual People's Choice Awards ceremony on CBS, kicked things off by telling the audience "This past year we have all seen what the power of the people can do...I have one important question for these good people up front.  And just so you know, the correct answer tonight is yes, we can!  Say it with me now everybody!" 

 It's awards season, when Hollywood pats itself on the back while championing liberal causes under the guise of acceptance speeches, so Latifah's enthusiasm for president-elect Barack Obama's campaign phrase shouldn't come as much of a surprise.  In light of the fact that none of the winners or even the nominees contained overtly political themes, other celebrities, including Ellen DeGeneres who has been outspoken in her opposition to California's Proposition 8, managed to avoid mentioning politics and controversial issues. 

But Latifah and Britsh actor Hugh Laurie just couldn't help themselves. 

On Saturday, NewsBusters asked:

Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine seeing an article at the liberal website the Huffington Post that not only refuted the anthropogenic global warming myth, but also asked Nobel Laureate Al Gore to apologize for the climate hysteria he's caused?

Apparently, neither could the website's founder, as Arianna Huffington has now gone on the record as saying, "It was an error in judgment" publishing Harold Ambler's "Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted." "I would not have posted it." 

So reported the environmental blog Grist Wednesday:

Documentarian John Ziegler has posted at Andrew Breitbart's new website Big Hollywood a fabulous video of an interview he did Monday with Gov. Sarah Palin (embedded right).

In it, Palin answers -- with her characteristically delicious candor! -- how she felt about the media's coverage of her family, as well as the Katie Couric interview and Tina Fey's parodies.

In his article about his meeting with Palin, Ziegler offered his own castigation of the press's abysmal performance during the 2008 presidential campaign:

Updated below: In late 2001, "Punisher" storyline had threat against President Bush's life.

Spider-Man will swing to the rescue at the Obama inauguration in the Marvel comics universe, USA Today's David Colton reported in a January 8 story for the newspaper's Life section. Colton's story sought to portray the move not merely as a money-maker for Marvel but part of a storied tradition of graphic novel artists of including the commander-in-chief in comic book cameos:

In a growing world of Barack Obama collectibles, one item soon may be swinging above the rest.

On Jan. 14, Marvel Comics is releasing a special issue of Amazing Spider-Man #583 with Obama depicted on the cover. Inside are five pages of the two teaming up and even a fist-bump between Spidey and the new president.

On Thursday’s Newsroom program, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta indirectly compared the Obama family to the pregnant Virgin Mary and St. Joseph looking for a place to stay in Bethlehem during a report about the unavailability of the Blair House: “...[I]t’s still not clear why there wasn’t enough room at the inn for the Obamas. The 70,000 square foot complex is actually bigger than the White House. There are 119 rooms, 14 guest bedrooms, 35 bathrooms, four dining rooms, dry cleaning facilities, an exercise room, and a fully-equipped hair salon.” Acosta also played clips from two sympathetic liberals who bewailed the situation.

Acosta began his report by presenting the lack of accommodations at the presidential guest house as a “Washington mystery.” He then played his first clip from Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University who unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2006. The on-screen graphic described Lichtman, who ran on anti-war, pro-abortion platform in the primary, as merely a “presidential historian.”

Proving that no Barack Obama imagery is too embarrassing, the hosts of "Good Morning America" on Thursday highlighted a sculpture of the President-elect made entirely out of crayons. After mentioning artist Herb Williams, news anchor Chris Cuomo enthused, "He does something amazing. He created a statue of Obama out of all crayons."

The GMA crew then proceeded to talk about all the details of how one makes crayon statues of Obama. As pictures and video appeared onscreen, Cuomo explained, "He took the crayons. And glues them in there. Look, there's his process. This is what he does."