Why let facts get in the way of a good liberal meme?

Paul Farhi sure didn't when he panned Oscar-nominated movie "The Blind Side" during a special "Hardball on Hollywood" segment with Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff and host Chris Matthews on the February 2 program.

The Washington Post media critic slammed the Best Picture-nominated drama -- based on a true story -- as just another movie in which the white characters' guilt is assauged by helping a black guy (video embedded at right; an MP3 audio clip is available here):

PAUL FARHI, Washington Post: The problem is that the black character is basically a prop to make the white people feel better about themselves, and that's been the major criticism. It's also the "magic negro," in other words, the idea that a black character will emerge to provide wisdom for the white people involved in the movie.

Chris Matthews demanded Republicans be punished for their, as he put it on Tuesday's Hardball, opposition to "everything that tries to solve the country's problems." During a discussion about White House strategy, Game Change co-author John Heilemann suggested to the MSNBC host that Barack Obama should make "Republicans pay for their intransigence," which prompted Matthews to question how best to target Republicans -- specifically Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn --who "pompously" laugh at the President, while opposing, "everything that tries to solve the country's problems?"

The following exchange was aired on the February 2 edition of Hardball:

Has the Obama administration compromised national security by leaking the fact that it's obtaining actionable intelligence from Umar Mutallab?  On this afternoon's Hardball, Justice Department correspondent Pete Williams reported the breaking news that Obama admin officials have told him that the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Mutallab, is providing actionable, fresh intelligence.

Williams stated that officials told him the intelligence is "very valuable and still current" and that the government is "aggressively chasing down" the leads obtained.  

The left is up in arms over the Supreme Court's recent decision in "Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission". But few voices have been louder than those emanating from the echo chamber at MSNBC. It seems that the cable network's talking heads feel that their parent company, General Electric, deserves a special exemption to what should be a blanket ban on unrestricted corporate speech.

First a bit of background for those unfamiliar with the Supreme Court decision. The court struck down in a 5-4 ruling a ban on corporate (or union) spending on political speech specifically endorsing or attacking a candidate for office within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. It ruled that the ban violated the First Amendment.

Few liberals seemed to notice that in attacking corporate speech they were also effectively undermining their own employers, media corporations who employs them for the express purpose of engaging in political speech. Surely Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would defend MSNBC's right to speak (and spend) freely without interference from the federal government--especially in the run-up to an election when free speech is most important and must be protected.

If someone's going to play speech police, one might think it would be wise to make sure her own house was in order prior to hurling charges. But, for Arianna Huffington, editor of The Huffington Post, there are two sets of rules.

Huffington, in an appearance on HLN's Feb. 2 "The Joy Behar Show," defended a Jan. 12 post by the Huffington Post's TV-Radio critic Bill Mann, which he called the network "a malignant tumor on the body politic."

"Yes, well, first of all, there's a big distinction between who your anchors are, who are your employees and what they are saying and what your bloggers are saying," Huffington said. "And in our case, of course, what he said, what our blogger he was quoting said, was started by Roger, because he never called him a tumor. He said Fox was a tumor, on American society, which is a legitimate view that many people hold."

Want proof low taxes work? Just take a look at the state of New Hampshire, as MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough astutely pointed out.

On the Feb. 2 broadcast of his MSNBC program, Scarborough interviewed Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Shaheen's home state was hosting a jobs town hall put on by President Barack Obama and Scarborough used the occasion for a teachable moment.

"Now, usually none of us would celebrate unemployment rates of 7 percent," Scarborough said. "But that is not only well below the national average, but your neighbor, Rhode Island, to the south of you now sitting with a 13 percent unemployment rate. What's New Hampshire doing right?"

[Originally posted January 28; reposted Feb. 2, 2010. Visit TVTownhall.com to register]

At 8 p.m. Eastern next Tuesday, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell will unite with seven of the nation's top conservative organizations - collectively representing more than 15 million Americans - to hold their own State of the Union Address in a live webcast expected to draw one of the largest viewerships in webcast history.

The February 2 "Voice of the People" event -- to be hosted by Herman Cain at http://www.tvtownhall.com -- is designed to give the American people a chance to respond to the President's address and declare their views and concerns of where the country is headed.

"The President made it clear last night that he is not interested in the will of the people, who are sick and tired of being ignored by their elected officials and lied to by the ‘news' media," Bozell argued in a statement released today.

For more information, click here or read more after the page break:

ABC on Tuesday devoted a fourth day of interviews to the John Edwards sex scandal and still failed to identify the ex-vice presidential nominee as a Democrat. After 67 minutes of coverage on two programs, the network has highlighted most of the salacious details of the Senator’s story, all while avoiding the D-word.

Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday talked to former Edwards aide Andrew Young and his wife, Cheri. Interviews with Mr. Young, who falsely claimed to be the father of what turned out to be Edwards’ love child, also appeared on Monday and Saturday.

On Monday, former Democratic operative turned journalist Stephanopoulos did not react well to Young's assertion that the campaign believed "all of the viable candidates had some type of skeleton in their closet." Stephanopoulos fretted, "That is a very serious charge." When Young tried to backpedal, the host complained, "You just said it."

Historically, there are two kinds of White House reporters: those that confront officials with the strongest critique and demand a response (think ABC’s Sam Donaldson, who dogged Bill Clinton in the late 1990s just as he had Ronald Reagan in the 1980s); and those who see their job as simply repeating the White House spin of the day.

Reporting this morning on the Obama administration’s push for another $100 billion in spending, supposedly for “job growth,” NBC’s Savannah Guthrie fell into the second category. Rather than amplify the growing chorus of critics who argue that we can’t afford more massive spending when the previous “stimulus” was so expensive and ineffective, Guthrie on NBC’s Today saluted the President for making a “judgment call” that “all economists” could support:

This is a budget where the President makes a judgment call. He's asking for $100 billion to spur job growth, things like tax cuts for small business, tax breaks to increase wages. And he's doing this knowing that it will drive up the deficit, certainly even more in the short term, but all economists agree the real way to get a chunk out of the deficit is to increase hiring.

The gubernatorial race in Illinois is heating up. Conservative Republican candidate  Adam Andrzejewski has, according to some reports, surged from relative obscurity to within 2 points of the lead for the GOP nomination. And last week Andrzejewski was endorsed by Lech Walesa, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and former President of Poland.

If you live in the Chicago area, however, may be unaware that such an important historical and political figure was just in your town, endorsing a candidate for governor of your state. The only local television coverage the endorsement event received was from Chicago's ABC News station, which showed Walesa and Andrzejewski on stage while covering a Tea Party rally at the event, but never even mentioned the former president by name (see video below the fold).

The only print coverage in local newspapers the event garnered was from the Tribune, which ran a 113-word AP story, and the Sun-Times, which mentioned Walesa in a 2-sentence caption, right below a blurb headlined "Family of boy found hanged sues schools" and above one headlined "New Schools Expo today". So the latter paper decided the death of a child in a local suburb was more important than a political endorsement from a man at least partially responsible for the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. The former decided it couldn't spare a reporter for such a monumental figure (h/t Founding Bloggers and Race 4 2012).

It's Groundhog's day again and for the 99th time Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow - six more weeks of winter. Phil and his shadow have been around since 1887 - a 123-year-old American tradition - but if PETA has it's way, this year will be the end of Phil's career. According to its official blog, it's time for Phil to retire and replace him with "an electronic groundhog."

"Phil is forced to be on display year round at the local library and is denied the ability to prepare for and enter yearly hibernation," the blog said. "Add to that the displeasure of large, screaming crowds, flashing lights of cameras, and human handling."

PETA's statement, however, hasn't been met with much enthusiasm. Most of the comments on their blog page were either critical or humorous.

In the 8:30AM ET half hour on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased an upcoming animal segment: “...we have some visitors to the studio of the animal variety. Some of them are cute and cuddly....But they’re all in trouble due to climate change and you’re going to see these animals from the San Diego Zoo and hear about their precarious situation ahead this morning.”

Rodriguez later introduced the segment by declaring that “climate change is affecting some of the world’s most beautiful animals.” She spoke with senior animal keeper at the San Diego Zoo, Rick Schwartz, who brought out the first guest, an arctic fox. Rodriguez asked him: “How is this animal in danger now?” Schwartz explained:

Well, the problem that we’re having up in the north, mainly with the polar bears. There’s not enough ice forming up there, so the time for them to hunt for their food is being diminished.... If the polar bears can’t hunt and bring food out in the winter time for the arctic fox, we’re going to see them probably –  either their numbers decreasing also or possibly moving south and interfering with other species that would rely on the foods that they would be using.

Rob Stein of The Washington Post rehashed a two-year-old study about teen pregnancy rates on Jan. 26 in order to criticize funding for abstinence programs. Little did he know that he'd have to eat his words just a few days later.

On Feb. 2, Stein wrote another abstinence-centered article, but this time with a very different theme. The headline read: "Abstinence only programs might work, study says."

A "landmark study" released one day earlier found that abstinence-only programs not only work but have considerably better results than their "safe-sex" counterparts, Stein reported.

"Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity," Stein said, summarizing the study which found that over 60 percent of sixth- and seventh-graders who completed an abstinence-focused program delayed having sex during the study's two-year span.

The sub-heading of Andew Young's new book about the John Edwards campaign sells the author short. It describes him as "an insider." In fact, Young was the campaign staffer chosen to take the fall for Edwards by claiming the child the former Senator fathered with campaign photographer Rielle Hunter was in fact his.

In the book, titled "The Politician", Young offers a first hand account of the sordid affair between Edwards and Hunter. Perhaps the most striking element of the story, however, is the media's non-coverage of one of the biggest scandals in recent American politics.

After the National Enquirer uncovered the story, the campaign made preparations for the media onslaught that was surely on the horizon. The key element of the campaign's cover-up was setting up Young as the fall-guy. Edwards told him, by Young's account, "No offense, but the press doesn't give a sh*t about you. They want me. But if we give them a story they can understand, a story about two staffers, they'll go away."

Former New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines returned to the pages of the paper Monday with an op-ed, "The Counter Revolution," on the lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, N.C. in 1960, a seminal event in the civil rights movement. But Raines also took nasty partisan jabs at modern-day conservatism, as represented by Republican President Ronald Reagan, and Fox News, suggesting each would have been on the wrong side of civil rights history. (Never mind that the segregationist South was dominated by the Democratic Party.)

Raines served as executive editor of the Times from September 2001 until being pushed out in June 2003, felled by the journalistic malpractice committed by a young reporter he supported, Jayson Blair, and by his personal callousness and autocratic management style, and his propensity for playing favorites like Blair.

He reigned over an activist liberal paper which embarrassed itself on quixotic liberal crusades like forcing the Augusta National Golf Club (host of the Masters golf tournament) to admit women.

Raines covered the civil rights movement in the '60s and '70s, experience that gives him valuable historical background. But what should have been a stirring tale was ruined by Raines's usual nasty partisan poking at Republicans and Fox News, and his attempts to link modern-day conservatism to the Jim Crow '60s, as enforced by  white segregationist Democrats in the "Solid South."

MSNBC’s David Shuster on Tuesday used a poll by the liberal website Daily Kos to assert that "most Republicans" don’t believe Barack Obama was born in America and, thus, are birthers. Shuster marveled, "...As the Democrats try to talk about working with Republicans, given those numbers of Republican supporters, how is that possible?" [Audio available here.]

Citing a survey that also claims 23 percent of self-identified Republicans want to secede from the union, Shuster quizzed Andy Barr from Politico as to the poll’s meaning. After Shuster correctly noted, "It is a documented fact. The President was born in Hawaii," he used this one poll to declare, "And most Republicans aren't sure, don't believe it; there you have it."

So, one poll, by a left-wing website (in conjunction with the firm Research 2000), is enough for MSNBC to assert that 58 percent of GOPers subscribe to a bizarre conspiracy? A Rasmussen poll from May of 2007 found that 61 percent of Democrats either believed that George Bush knew about the 9/11 terror attack in advance or aren’t sure. Does that mean that "most Democrats" are Truthers?

Quoting from the film A Few Good Men, on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked openly gay Army Lieutenant Dan Choi if the U.S. military was prepared for the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy to be overturned by the Obama administration: “Older members of the military are not very interested in seeing this policy changed at all....Do you think the military can handle the truth?”

The policy, created by Bill Clinton’s administration in 1993, allows homosexuals to serve in the military as long as they do not publically come out. Choi, who is facing discharge from the Army for doing just that, replied to Smith’s movie reference: “Well, I think that there are some people in the military that might have grown up in a different era, and they have fear, obviously, with the change they might think that it’s too difficult for them....Don’t assume that because you might be uncomfortable or certain people might be uncomfortable that that translates to unprofessional or lack of discipline.”

Smith began the segment by proclaiming “the beginning of the end” of the policy as Defense Secretary Robert Gates began to reexamine it. A headline on-screen read: “Do Ask, Do Tell? Pentagon Plan To Be Unveiled Today.”

Just how little confidence is there in the ability of the Barack Obama administration to fight terrorism? So little that even liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is now mocking the pathetic efforts of this administration in his latest column:

There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is not the message sent to America's critics but the message sent to Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up? 

Forget six more weeks of winter. It's possible Hell has frozen over.

In the Groundhog Day edition of the Washington Post, liberal, pro-choice sports columnist Sally Jenkins took direct aim at the National Organization for Women (NOW) for its campaign to keep a pro-life ad featuring Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother from airing during Sunday's Super Bowl.

Jenkins slammed NOW, mocking it as one of the few "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep" (DOLL) that is coming off more "pro-abortion" than pro-choice with its anti-Tebow crusade (emphasis mine):

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: a spirited defense of the Tebow ad from...the Washington Post?

I'll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won't endear me to the "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep," otherwise known as DOLL, but I'll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on...

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Does anyone else find it troubling that "femenist" organizations call for "tolerance" while demanding the suppression of speech?

Slate's William Saletan must hate happy endings. At least that's what you'd think after reading "The Invisible Dead." No, that's not the title of some new horror best-seller - it's the headline of his article about football star Tim Tebow's pro-life ad.

In it, Saletan argued that the Tebows were "lucky" and went on to expose the "grisly truth about the Super Bowl abortion ad." That "truth" was the idea that dangerous pregnancies carried to term often kill the baby and the mother.

"On Sunday, we won't see all the women who chose life and found death. We'll just see the Tebows, because they're alive and happy to talk about it," Saletan wrote.

The most surreal moment of Arianna Huffington’s attack on Roger Ailes on ABC's This Week on Sunday was her denunciation of Fox News for embracing what liberal historian Richard Hofstadter called "the paranoid style in American politics," which she insisted "is dangerous when there is real pain out there."

Paranoid Style could be a regular section title for The Huffington Post. In our 2007 special report, "Huffington’s House of Horrors," we made a long list of vicious and hateful writings that Arianna approved for publication about George W. Bush and his administration.

– On the Fourth of July, 2006, actor Alec Baldwin cooked up a double-murder fantasy. After dispatching Osama bin Laden with a box-cutter and hurling his corpse off a high balcony, "in the final stroke of luck, Bin Laden lands on Dick Cheney. God bless America."

Poor Barack Obama.  In becoming president he inherited the "hollow prize" of the United States of America.  That was the astounding theory suggested this morning by Melissa Harris-Lacewell.

The Princeton professor of politics and African-American studies bemoaned the president's predicament on Morning Joe today.  Apparently this "hollow prize" theory is in vogue in certain circles, used to decry the plight of African-Americans who only rise to powerful political positions in "hollow prize" places like Detroit.

Anna Quindlen supposedly retired her Newsweek column. But editor Jon Meacham brought her back to lecture the country this week. On the cover are the words "Anna Quindlen’s Advice for America: Let’s Grow Up, People!" But it is Quindlen in her piece that might seem, to borrow from Peter Jennings, to be having a two-year-old temper tantrum. There’s the denial about Scott Brown’s win:

In fact, the Senate election results in Massachusetts, in which a Republican seized the seat held by Ted Kennedy for almost half a century and threw the Democratic Party into a monumental tizzy, was a classic toss-the-bums-out event, neither specific nor illuminating.

That's a strange summary, since there was no incumbent "bum" holding the seat to toss out. (Seat-warming Paul Kirk doesn't count.) There’s the demand that liberals should really be ignoring the polls right now:

Once again some members of the media have taken to branding Rush Limbaugh a racist, offering backhanded compliments and genuine surprise that a black woman could have won the Miss America contest whilst he served as judge.

As Boyce Watkins lamented in his Black Voices article, (emphasis mine throughout):

"This week, Rush Limbaugh was standing in front of a talented black woman who was trying to become Miss America. I am not sure if Rush voted for her or not, but the black woman was able to win.  Caressa Cameron, a 22-year old from Virginia Commonwealth University, was crowned Saturday night as the winner of the 2010 Miss America pageant."

Watkins, himself a fervent anti-conservative from the Al Sharpton School of race baiting, was merely voicing what many in the media are thinking - a black woman won despite the presence of Limbaugh.

Take NBC Washington for example, who explains that Rush was indeed charmed by Ms. Cameron, saying that she won simply because she: