New ABC Anchor Elizabeth Vargas: Long Trail of Liberal Bias

New ABC "World News Tonight" anchor Elizabeth Vargas has long been a team player on the liberal-bias teams at ABC and NBC. One of her most unforgettable stints -- displaying ABC's cultural bias, not political bias -- was a one-hour special highlighting the "legends" behind the novel "The DaVinci Code," and novelist Dan Brown's claims that in our nonfiction world, the Catholic Church has tried to strangle the "truth" that Jesus Christ had sex with Mary Magdalene and she took their son to France after the Crucifixion. Brent Bozell described it here. Here's a few other samples of Vargas bias over the last decade:

Democrat Governor’s Law Now Alito’s Idea: "On World News Tonight, President Bush’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court. Conservatives are thrilled, liberals incensed. He once said a woman should tell her husband before she gets an abortion." — ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas introducing the October 31, 2005 World News Tonight. (Alito found Pennsylvania’s law under Democratic Gov. Bob Casey, which included a spousal-notification requirement, was reasonable.)

Tax Cuts Belong to Non-Taxpayers: "Today millions of middle-class Americans will begin receiving the $400 per child payments, but many poor Americans will get nothing. Missing out on the tax credit in the mail this weekend: military families and their loved, one million children." – ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas introducing a July 26, 2003 World News Tonight/Saturday story. Lower-income families who won’t receive the tax credit do not owe any federal income taxes, but Democrats highlighted the need for them to receive a "tax cut" anyway.

Senate Slowness on Subsidies Can Kill: "Prescription drugs: The Senate kills a plan to help senior citizens afford them. Americans are putting their lives at risk to save money on medicine." – ABC substitute anchor Elizabeth Vargas, promoting an upcoming story on the July 31, 2002 World News Tonight.

Tax Cut is Money "Evaporating Into Thin Air": "Gambling with the federal budget surplus. Billions of dollars evaporate into thin air. Is your Social Security money at risk?" -- Substitute anchor Elizabeth Vargas’s tease at the top of the August 22, 2001 World News Tonight.

Federal Regulation for Six Flags: "More trouble at the nation's amusement parks, two dozen people injured. Why won't Congress let the government regulate those parks?" -- ABC's Elizabeth Vargas, previewing an upcoming story on the July 31, 2001 World News Tonight.

Walk the Plank, You Pro-Choice Knaves: "The Republican Party platform committee has forced abortion rights advocates to walk the plank, the abortion plank. The committee handed Robert Dole a defeat, by turning down language endorsing tolerance of abortion rights supporters." -- ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas, August 6, 1996 Good Morning America. (The platform endorsed a "diversity of views" as a "source of strength.")

Lamar Alexander on the Far Right: "You have been known in the past as a moderate Republican, but some of your views could be considered by some to be extreme. For example, you would shut down the U.S. Education Department. You would shut down welfare and Medicaid for the poor, eventually. Aren't you just advocating shifting some enormous problems to states that may not be well-equipped to deal with them?" -- Today substitute host Elizabeth Vargas to Lamar Alexander, February 28, 1995. (Note how Vargas translates moving welfare and Medicaid to the states into a "shutdown.")