In a week that has been chock full of lame claims, it would not be correct to say that the howler propagated by Sharon Thiemer of the Associated Press on Tuesday is the worst. But it's definitely in the upper echelons.

In an item about government bureaucrats' increased volume and increased level of excuse-making for denying Freedom of Information Act requests, Theimer acts as if the guy in charge of the entire enterprise -- that would be President Obama -- has stood by helplessly while things got worse. One can be reasonably assured that the problems described below would not be treated with such kid gloves if a conservative or Republican occupied the Oval Office:

PROMISES, PROMISES: Is gov't more open with Obama?

Federal agencies haven't lived up to President Barack Obama's promise of a more open government, increasing their use of legal exemptions to keep records secret during his first year in office.

MSNBC's David Shuster on Friday attacked conservatives for "targeting" an 11-year-old child who lost his mother and is now lobbying for government-run health care. The liberal anchor sneered, "Is the right sinking to a new low? We'll let you judge for yourself." He then interviewed the young Marcelas Owens and his grandmother, for the second time in ten days.

In case viewers didn't get the slant of the segment, MSNBC's graphic reiterated, "New Low For Right? Conservative Critics Call Owens' Tale a 'Sob Story.'" As the MRC's Tim Graham noted, this story is being heavily pushed by Media Matters and other left-leaning outlets. Shuster did not talk to any conservative voices. (He only played a brief clip of Rush Limbaugh asserting that Democrats are using Owens for their own purposes.)

When the vaccine Gardasil was first introduced, the mainstream media wasted no time falsely touting it as cure for cervical cancer. The dangerous side effects of Gardasil – including death- were also ignored. Even though the side effects are now known, a March 18 article in USA Today by Liz Szabo worried about girls who are not receiving the vaccine.

In “Poorer Girls Not Getting HPV Vaccine for Cervical Cancer,” Szabo was confused in her first sentence and called Gardasil a “cervical cancer vaccine.” Actually Gardasil is not a vaccine for cancer; it’s a vaccine for HPV, which can cause cancer. But HPV is a sexually transmitted disease and, as many conservatives have argued, if a girl is not sexually active and has no plans to be until marriage, Gardacil is an unnecessary risk.

Of course, if Szabo has been paying attention to the mainstream media it’s easy to understand why she was confused. The Culture and Media Institute has reported on many examples of the media calling Gardasil a cancer vaccine. NBC’s “Nightly News” even has a segmented entitled, “Cancer Vaccine Controversy.” CBS’ “The Early Show” stated that the, “top medical breakthrough [of 2006] has to be the cancer vaccine for cervical cancer, Gardasil.”

“An incendiary article from a conservative blogger is being strongly refuted today by its target, a charitable foundation backed by talker Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel,” Brian Maloney reported this afternoon on his Radio Equalizer blog. “Posted yesterday by Debbie Schlussel at her site,” Maloney explained, “the piece accuses Hannity of perpetuating 'a giant con' in promoting his annual Freedom Concerts, which benefit the Freedom Alliance. At issue are both the group's expenses and subsequent charitable contributions, which Schlussel believes are questionable.”

Huffington Post, among others, have hyped Schlussel's allegations, which include, that though the Freedom Alliance promised the money raised would pay for the college tuition of children of fallen soldiers and go to severely wounded war vets, “less than 20% -- and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively -- of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style.” Thus, “Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concerts are just a giant con.”

Maloney's post has the refutation from the Freedom Alliance's Thomas P. Kilgannon.

On Friday's CBS Early Show correspondent Allen Pizzey made the over-the-top declaration that allegations of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church amounted to "a scandal that's threatening to become a plague of biblical proportions." A headline on-screen declared a "Catholic Crisis."

Pizzey was reporting on Pope Benedict XVI's efforts to address the scandal in a soon-to-be published Papal letter, but noted that such a statement "seems unlikely to assuage the anger of victims in parishes ranging from the U.S. to Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Brazil." Pizzey cited one victim of abuse, Andrew Madden, who argued: "I don't think a pastoral letter is the proper context in which to respond to a report about the cover-up of the rape of children."

Madden has made his opinions of the Catholic Church well-known on Twitter. One of his tweets reads: "Actual photo of the Devil at work in the Vatican," with a link to a picture of Pope. In response to another tweeter complimenting him on a recent television appearance, Madden replied: "do my best, but these really are the scum of the earth, I'd never have said that 6 months ago but I truly believe it today."

Democrats will be pointing to this preliminary CBO score as if it is engraved on stone tablets. Republicans will proclaim their respect for the CBO and proceed to argue that its estimates should not be taken too seriously in this instance. This may come as a surprise, but I think the Republican argument is closer to correct. To crow, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that the package is "a triumph for the American people in terms of deficit reduction" is premature at best, delusional at worst.

That's none other than Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus -- no conservative acolyte she -- in an op-ed today entitled in the print edition, "Score one for skepticism."

As Marcus went on to explain, the central flaw in taking the CBO numbers as the gospel truth is that (emphasis mine):

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, for one, does not want blood on his hands from 45,000 Americans who allegedly die every year due to lack of health insurance. And MSNBC's Alex Witt, for one, doesn't think it worth questioning the veracity of that number.

"There are a lot of problems I have with the bill, primarily it doesn't go far enough. I really wish we had the public option in this bill," Nadler said in a March 18 interview on MSNBC.

"There are some other problems with it but bottom line - bottom line - the Harvard Medical School study tells us that 45,000 American per year die for lack of access to health insurance," Nadler said. "A ‘No' vote on this bill is a vote to kill 45,000 American a year. A ‘Yes' vote is a vote to save their lives - everything else is secondary."

On Thursday's Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer engaged newly-elected Republican Scott Brown on his opposition to ObamaCare, and asked him the same question from the left twice in succession: "What's wrong with giving 30 million-plus more Americans access to health insurance?" He also later added, "What's wrong with spending money...if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans?" [audio clips available here; video clips available here]

Blitzer had the Massachusetts senator on just before the bottom of the 5 pm Eastern hour. The anchor first complimented Brown for driving over to the CNN Washington Bureau in his "nice little truck," and immediately asked his slanted question.

After the senator gave his initial answer, Blitzer, seemingly unsatisfied by the response, pressed further, and added another argument from the left: "I guess I should rephrase the question. What's wrong with spending money- the cost, if it winds up costing money, if it winds up raising taxes on  multimillionaires or millionaires, or people even earning more than $250,000 a year- if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans, so they don't have to worry about getting sick- what's wrong with that?"

As conservatives rally opposition to ObamaCare in the waning hours of the health care debate, MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough didn't seem to think the upcoming health care vote is such a big deal. On his show this morning, Scarborough concluded that the outcome of the health care overhaul vote will not have a significant impact on the American health care system.

“People just need to take a deep breath,” insisted Scarborough. “We’re going to be fine. Whichever way it goes, we’re going to be fine.”

Scarborough employed hyperbole to mischaracterize those who argue that ObamaCare is fiscally reckless and a step toward a single-payer health care system.

The mainstream media are carping about Bret Baier's "contentious" interview when in fact "he did nothing unlike what Tim Russert did in all the years that Tim Russert interviewed Republican presidents," argued Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell on today's "Fox & Friends." [MP3 audio available here; WMV format video available here]

Just as the late "Meet the Press" host would push interview subjects to reconcile contradictory positions, Baier asked the same of President Obama, who "showed up [to the Baier interview] prepared to give a speech with his talking points, which is what he always does and always gets away with" when interviewed by other journalists, Bozell noted.

Later in the interview, former Bush White House press secretary Dana Perino noted that Obama currently has a 46 percent approval rating and asked Bozell what the poll numbers would look like if the media were actually tougher on Obama.

"If the press were, not tough on Obama [but] fair, fair with this president... I think among other things, health care would be dead. This whole charade would be dead," Bozell concluded.

Time magazine’s Barbara Kiviat made a shocking discovery: long lasting jobs are created by the private sector and not the government. The cover story for next week, “The Workforce: Where Will Jobs Come From?” described how government funded stimulus only creates short term demand, but credits private sector innovation as the true long term solution to unemployment.

Kiviat got straight to the point and wrote, “The cold truth of the matter, though, is that there's not much Washington can do to gin up permanent jobs on such short notice.” She then described how, “The great American job-creation machine always has been and will continue to be private enterprise.”

On Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez proclaimed: "After more than a year of debate, Democrats say they're on the verge of passing historic health care legislation." And touted the massive legislation as fiscally responsible: "The government says the final version of the bill will cost $940 billion over ten years, but will reduce the projected budget deficit by $138 billion."

In a report that followed, correspondent Nancy Cordes gave a fully positive description of the legislation: "The final bill would extend coverage to 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured. It would close the gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage for seniors by the year 2020 and it would penalize businesses with more than 50 workers if they don't offer insurance."
                
After Cordes's report, Rodriguez spoke with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who praised CBS's adherence to the Democratic Party line: "Maggie, what I think is that we have seen yesterday very important information from the Congressional Budget Office, which as you indicate and Nancy indicated, shows that we are doing exactly what we said we would do."

Les Blumenthal of the McClatchy News Service wrote up another story on 11-year-old Marcelas Owens advocating for the liberal cause of nationalizing health care. But this time, it was an attack on conservative talk show hosts.

The headline at the Tacoma News-Tribune: "Conservatives attack Seattle boy's 'sob story' of mom's death without insurance." The subhead merely repeated: "Health: conservatives lambaste account of death of mom without insurance." (The photo is also McClatchy's.)

Blumenthal went straight to the boy for more sympathy against Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michelle Malkin, with no rebuttal from the conservatives. The reporter robotically went right down a Media Matters for America report, quote by quote, Rush, Glenn, and Michelle.

“It's shaping up to be a great weekend here in Washington,” Washington Post business section columnist Steven Pearlstein proclaimed in a piece in Friday's newspaper, and not because of the “spectacular weather,” but because of the likely “vote in the House that would finally have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world in offering health insurance to all its citizens.”

Pearlstein, a former reporter who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, concluded his column by asserting passage would prove Washington is capable of “solving” a major problem and by indulging in self-congratulatory ruminating about how such success would “restore...trust and confidence in ourselves.” More like trust and confidence by journalists in their own influence. His final paragraph:

Most of all, enacting health-care reform would be a desperately needed victory for a political system teetering on the verge of breakdown. Years of polarization, partisanship and stalemate have led to a widespread and cynical belief that Washington is simply incapable of solving any major problem. Passing a health-care reform bill would restore not only a measure of trust and confidence in our political process but also, more significantly, trust and confidence in ourselves.

A mostly left-wing panel on Friday's Good Morning America forced former Cheers star Kirstie Alley into the role of speaking for the right. Liberal journalist George Stephanopoulos moderated a health care discussion with Democratic operative Donna Brazile and People magazine editor Larry Hackett. Alley surprised the group by opposing Barack Obama's plan for government-run health care. [Video available here. Audio available here.]

Stephanopoulos casually asked the ex-sitcom star, "Are you rooting for this to pass?" After Alley firmly replied, "No," the surprised host blurted, "No? Why not?" The actress explained, "Because, we don't have one trillion dollars! We can pretend like we do. But, we're in this huge debt and we don't have a trillion dollars." Alley continued, "You know, I think that I would rather have a tax credit for being well and sort of rewarded for being well."

Stephanopoulos quickly recovered and moved into his default mode, defending the White House: "Actually, some of that, I think there are credits there to encourage wellness inside the bill."

Adopting the tone of an anxious car salesman, Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Friday yet again pressed pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak on what it would take to get him to vote yes on health care. Over the course of two interviews, Stephanopoulos has offered eight questions designed to figure out what the Representative needs to support the legislation.

Speaking of a brief chat between Stupak and Barack Obama, Stephanopoulos wondered, "Did he say anything to change your mind that could move you from no to yes?" The host later implored, "What more do you need?" At various points, the two seemed to be having separate conversations.

At one point, the former Democratic operative turned journalist hopefully opined, "Congressman, I have to say, this is more openness to working this out than I've seen from you in weeks. What's changing here?" But, Stupak shot back: "Nothing, George. If they had the vote today, I'm still a no vote."

For a moment on yesterday's CNN Newsroom, it looked like anchor Ali Velshi was again expressing his deep affection for President Barack Obama's stimulus plan.  Velshi, who last month sang "Happy birthday, dear stimulus," asked correspondent Josh Levs "Do you love the stimulus bill?"  But then Ali thought better and backed up:

VELSHI: You have, after weeks and weeks of working on this, do you have stimulus Stockholm syndrome? Do you love the stimulus bill?

LEVS: You know --

VELSHI: I don't mean that as a political judgment as to whether he thinks it was a good idea, but do you just love the bill and the language and --

LEVS: You learn to love it. You learn to appreciate it.

VELSHI: Yes. You do.

LEVS: I mean, it has really changed our economy, and yes, my mind is a little bit too swimming with it.

VELSHI: But I must be clear, that was not meant to mean that he politically thinks that it's right or wrong.

Rosie O'Donnell made two things clear yesterday: an article written by the Culture & Media Institute's Colleen Raezler got under her skin, and Rosie is clueless about NewsBusters. [Audio available here.]

Raezler penned a piece on O'Donnell's recent comments on the "QuiverFull" movement, in which the radio host called the movement "even scarier" because it is made up of conservative Christians. O'Donnell noticed the article, and had this to say on her March 18 XM "Rosie Radio" show:

There's a lot of posts about the QuiverFull movement. Remember ... I was saying how [girlfriend] Tracy loves the Duggars? ...This is this crazy woman, Colleen Razier [sic], some Christian something. [Rosie reads from the NewsBusters post.] Oh, God ... I just wanna say, Colleen, why don't you come on the show and chat with me face to face, little Colleen Razier [sic] from the NewsBusters evangelical Christian media blog [sic] ... Those people are weird.  

NewsBusters is evangelical Christian? Who knew?

Although he did far better than his colleagues Wolf Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien, CNN's Anderson Cooper actually lost to famed pot smoker Cheech Marin on Celebrity Jeopardy Thursday.

"That's right, I lost to Cheech Marin," Cooper told his 360 viewers last night.

"Cheech of 'Cheech and Chong' fame, pot-smoking star of blunt-burning films like 'Up in Smoke,' 'Next Smoke' and 'Still Smoking,'" the CNN host continued.

"He not only beat me; he crushed me" (video embedded below the fold with transcript and commentary):

While a vote on health care reform legislation appears to be imminent, should it pass it could have broader economic implications, even if the bill itself won't take effect for some time.

As CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer predicted - if it passes, get ready to see a sell-off on Wall Street. Cramer appeared on CNBC's March 18 "The Kudlow Report," with his former broadcast partner Larry Kudlow. Kudlow asked Cramer to elaborate on his theory ObamaCare could send the financial markets reeling or "topple the stock market," as Kudlow described it.

"First, it is the single biggest impediment to the stock market going higher," Cramer said. "And a lot of this has to do with what's not being talked about enough with how it's going to be paid and also about what it will do to small business formation. This bill is a disaster for both."

On Thursday’s Joy Behar Show on CNN Headline News, host Behar cheered on guest Kathy Griffin as she recounted confronting Representative Michele Bachmann and calling the Minnesota Republican a "bigot" as the left-wing actress and comedian recently lobbied Congress for an end to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on gays in the military. After Griffin repeated a story about storming out of a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee while calling Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss "cuckoo pants," Behar brought up Bachmann: "What about Michele Bachmann? She`s a piece of work, that one. What happened with her? I mean, give me a break. She makes Sarah Palin look like a brain trust."

After cracking that Bachmann is "one of the bigger crazies," and that she "makes Sarah Palin look like a genius," Griffin recalled meeting Bachmann: "I said, ‘Congressman Bachmann, are you naturally a bigot or do you just legislate that way?’"

When Behar exclaimed, "Oh!" Griffin asked: "Was that too far?" prompting Behar to effuse, "I love it!"

Griffin finished her story of confronting Bachmann and concluded that "it was sort of a great fun moment for a comedian."

The left-wing actress also recalled the story of her and Levi Johnston traveling to Sarah Palin's home in Wasilla, Alaska, in an unsuccessful attempt to include a sequence with Palin in Griffin's television show on Bravo, "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List." 

It's gooey enough that Newsweek awarded Michelle Obama its cover story this week, titled "Feed Your Children Well: My Fight Against Childhood Obesity." On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams added to the popularity-boosting effort by determining that she is not anti-Twinkie:  

BRIAN WILLIAMS: On the same subject, first lady Michelle Obama today continued her campaign against childhood obesity in this country. She's on the cover of Newsweek this week, as you may know. And today the magazine's editor Jon Meacham asked her, in fighting the obesity epidemic, would she go so far as to put warning labels on products like Twinkies and Froot Loops?

MICHELLE OBAMA:  That strikes me as extreme because, you know, a Twinkie is not a cigarette. You know? And what, you know, what parents need is just information about what's in the Twinkie and, `How much of this can we eat?' It's not that we can't have a Twinkie, you know? And our kids would be pretty upset.

“Democrats used the word 'giddy' to describe their reaction when they got the cost estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO),” NBC's Kelly O'Donnell relayed Thursday night, but she could have been talking about CBS's Katie Couric and Nancy Cordes who  shared the giddiness in touting the CBO numbers, favorable to Democratic spin on the health bill, without any caveats or reservations -- yet with a dose of exaggeration.

“The price tag certified,” Couric trumpeted in teasing the CBS Evening News before leading with how the CBO “put out a report that may help win over some Democrats,” reciting: “It says the plan, which would cost $940 billion over 10 years, would reduce the deficit over that same period by $138 billion.” She then cited a claim CBO didn't make: “It would cut the deficit over 20 years by more than $1 trillion.”

Cordes pegged  $1.3 trillion as “the amount by which the final health care bill would reduce the deficit over the next 20 years,” bucking up the CBO's credibility: “That's according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which is trusted by both parties as the authority on budget matters.”

As the Media Research Center's latest Media Reality Check details, over the past year, the media have served as cheerleaders for ObamaCare, praising the proposed legislation, while continually slamming its critics.

As Congress moves closer to a final vote on the bill in the coming days, it's a good time to take a look back at the friendly spin that has dominated the airwaves in support of it, as well as the harsh attacks that have been launched against its opponents.  

Here is a video compilation with just a sampling of some of the slanted coverage from the past 12 months.

In a bizarre choice, ABC News President David Westin has decided to make Christiane Amanpour, CNN's New York City-based international affairs correspondent, the host of ABC's Washington, DC-based This Week -- thus passing over many qualified ABC journalists in favor of replacing a Bill Clinton operative with the wife of an operative for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Amanpour is married to Jamie Rubin, Assistant Secretary of State for public affairs during the Clinton administration and an adviser in 2007-08 for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. (Of course, until early January, the show was hosted by George Stephanopoulos, a 1992 Clinton campaign operative and subsequently a top Clinton White House adviser.)

At 3:28 PM EDT today, TV Newser reported Amanpour accepted the slot and that Jake Tapper will helm This Week until she takes over in August. Do Sunday morning interview show viewers really desire more international news from someone unfamiliar with domestic politics?

A quick perusal through the MRC's Notable Quotables archive confirms her standard liberal outlook on the world:

She told Hillary Clinton “a lot of the women that I meet from traveling overseas are very impressed by you and admire your dignity,” scolded Mikhail Gorbachev by raising how he's been “criticized heavily by those who say you opened a pandora's box,” argued the press was “muzzled” and not tough enough on President George W. Bush, warned of scary “totalitarian” Christians and, quite oddly juxtaposed French President Nicolas Sarkozy's criticism of rioters with his welcoming of Barack Obama. Plus, she justified awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize: “He’s obviously done something very significant” since the U.S. now has a “new relationship with the rest of the world.”

Nonetheless, last year she insisted: “Nobody knows my biases.”