Earlier today, the Joe Scarborough radio show, with Mika Brzezinski, aired a wide-ranging interview with this NewsBuster. 

Highlights:

• Mika justified her nanny-state proposal of a tax on fatty foods by saying eating habits are not a matter of personal choice because others must bear the health care cost.  Finkelstein's response: kill two birds with one stone by getting government out of the health care business.
• Regarding the White House war on Fox News, Finkelstein observed that the White House should know its strategy has backfired when the likes of Helen Thomas and Dan Rather have defended Fox.
• Mark complimented Mika on exposing the 99 44/100ths liberal environment she experienced at CBS, but chided her for denying that the network has an agenda.  A discussion of the MSM media bubble ensues.

Listen to audio here.

Last night's "apology" to Gov. Palin by comedian David Letterman "is slippery and Clintonian" but Gov. Sarah Palin "was right to rise above it and accept it," Media Research Center President Brent Bozell noted in a statement released today. 

While the CBS "Late Show" host issued what many are calling a full and complete apology to Gov. Palin, Mr. Bozell argued it is far from an unequivocal apology:

Letterman's ‘apology' is slippery and Clintonian. He talked about the ‘perception' of his joke three times in his statement. He then goes on to say twice that he was ‘misunderstood.'

There's no perception, no misunderstanding. The public understood exactly what he said - joking about statutory rape - and was outraged. It was David Letterman who misunderstood who was in the audience, as if making a degrading joke about an 18-year-old girl is much more acceptable than taking the cheap shot at her 14-year-old sister. 

Senators John Ensign (R-Nev.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) participated in a blogger conference call on Monday.

On the agenda was President Obama's 2010 budget proposal which Thune cautioned if enacted in its current form would double the federal debt in five years and triple it in ten.

Those interested can listen to this fascinating discussion here (5.9 mb MP3).

Last month NewsBusters introduced readers to John Ziegler, a conservative filmmaker creating a documentary about the astoundingly poor job the press did covering 2008's presidential campaign.

Marvelously entitled "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted," the movie is set for release on February 23.

I chatted with Ziegler earlier in the week about last year's campaign shenanigans and the film. Some of the highlights include (60-minute audio available here):    

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) participated in a blogger conference call Monday to discuss President Obama's stimulus package and its prospects for passage in the Senate.

NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard participated in this discussion, and had an interesting exchange with the Senator concerning current tax receipt projections by the White House and what they suggest about the economy.

Those interested can listen here.

Newsweek's Jon Meacham thinks that Governor Sarah Palin is too much a commoner and too stupid to be allowed to become vice president of the United States of America and apparently his employer agrees with him. The October 13 cover of Newsweek features a close up photo of the Governor with the headline "She's One of the Folks (And that's the problem)," and Meacham writes the accompanying cover story. Be clear about what this means: This is a direct attack on Mr. and Mrs. America. We are all too stupid to be president in the elite opinion of Jon Meacham and Newsweek magazine.

Meacham finds Palin to be incurious, unprepared, and even finds it "dangerous" if she were to become our vice president but he offers us nothing but his opinion to judge by. And it's all because she doesn't measure up to his personal standards. Sadly for Meacham's elitism, however, Palin easily satisfies the standards that the Founding Fathers set as criteria for stepping into the highest office in the land. Curiously, Meacham does not once mention the actual Constitutional requirements to run for office in his entire sarcastic attack on Sarah Palin. Like most of his ilk, the Constitution seems meaningless minutia to him.

Former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift was diplomatic, but her message was clear: because Sarah Palin remains doubtful of getting a fair shake from the MSM, she wants to take her message directly to the American people. Swift, speaking on behalf of the McCain-Palin campaign, made the remark in response to a question from this NewsBuster during the course of a conference call this afternoon.

Swift took the question after making opening remarks in which she said that Governor Palin won last night's debate in part because she was able to connect with Americans as "a person from the middle class who [expressed] the real anxieties that families have about our economy right now." After suggesting that Senator Biden didn't connect as well, Swift added that Biden made a significant number of incorrect statements "that kept the fact-checkers busy."

It was then that NewsBusters had the opportunity to pose its question. Listen to audio here.

Washington Post staff writer Kevin Merida talked to NewsBusters at a rally for John McCain in Fairfax, VA and denied that the media are biased. He asserted, "I think that most journalists are really conscientious about, you know, really looking at all sides of issues and subjects." However, he did hedge that "there's always some bias in media coverage and some, just, not-terrific journalism."

When asked about intense scrutiny into the life of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Merida didn't see an issue of unfair coverage. "...She's somebody new on the scene and she's getting a lot of, you know, scrutiny, like anyone would, I think, in her position, with her background, her resume and, kind of, bursting onto the national scene in this sudden way." Asked specifically about possible double standards, such as when "Today" reporter Amy Robach speculated on September 3 about whether a Vice President Palin will "be shortchanging her kids or will she be shortchanging the country," Merida declined to comment on other media outlets.

[Audio available here.]

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- NewsBusters Editor Matthew Sheffield and Associate Editor Noel Sheppard appeared on the Steve Malzberg Show live from Radio Row at the Republican Convention at 4:30 p.m. EDT today. The topic: Gov. Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican convention and the intensely biased coverage of her nomination.

Introducing Sheffield and Sheppard, Malzberg praised NewsBusters as "one of the greatest Web sites of all time" and said he frequently refers liberal friends to the site for documented evidence of liberal media bias.

A few highlights follow below the fold (video embedded right):

ST. PAUL, Minn. - On Thursday, NewsBusters had a quick chat with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay about the media's coverage of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

After praising Palin for being the "answer for what we've been begging for for over two years," he then spoke both frankly and optimistically about how the press have been attacking the Alaska governor since John McCain first introduced her as his running mate (video embedded right):

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Moments before Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave her history making speech at the Xcel Energy Center Wednesday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told NewsBusters that the left-wing media are trying to destroy her because she represents a threat to their ability to define what a successful, professional woman is in America today.

Offering some of the strongest media criticisms we've encountered at the Republican National Convention, Gingrich painted a picture of exactly what's at stake for the liberal press if Palin is successful in her bid to become the first female vice president in American history, and that people should not underestimate what they are willing to do to prevent that from happening (video embedded right):

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- CNN's John Roberts spent a few minutes chatting with a woman about convention paraphernalia, but had only a few seconds to talk to NewsBusters. (see video at right)

We caught John Roberts on the street outside a security checkpoint for the Republican Convention this morning. Editor Matthew Sheffield asked Roberts for his thoughts on Gov. Sarah Palin's remarks about the liberal media. Roberts dismissed the complaint as a "convenient thing to do." When pressed by Sheffield if Palin is wrong, he didn't answer and continued walking away.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- On Tuesday, NewsBusters caught up with Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight who's appearing in the about to be released comedy "An American Carol."

Amongst other things, he told us:

There are conservatives, quite a lot of them in Hollywood, but they're quiet. 

After we asked him why Hollywood, which used to be filled with a lot of conservatives decades ago changed, he responded (video embedded right):

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- Former United Nations ambassador John Bolton came down strongly Wednesday on how the press have treated Sarah Palin since she was announced as John McCain's running mate last Friday:

I think some of the coverage of Governor Palin has been vile. Period.

Talking to NewsBusters at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, Bolton said (video embedded right):

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- "Hate is a terrible thing, and it has a way of metastisizing in the soul, so I think the better she [Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin] does tonight, the greater the attack" the media will level on John McCain's running mate, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas told NewsBusters in a spot interview on Radio Row at the Republican Convention.

We spoke to Thomas this afternoon on his way from a radio interview and also asked the "Fox News Watch" panelist for his thoughts on MSNBC:

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- Walking around the convention area this afternoon, NewsBusters caught up with Fox News contributor and former Hillary Clinton campaign communications director Howard Wolfson.

Asked about a recent row with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Wolfson declined to "reopen that can of worms."  Queried on the Palin coverage, Wolfson said that "to his credit" Barack Obama hadn't leveled any sexist criticisms of the Alaska governor, but he also added that the thinks the media have been "chastened a little bit" and would ease off.

Below are excerpts of the interview. You can play the embedded video at right.

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) should hope for an open-ended forum for her debate with Obama running mate Sen. Joe Biden, argued pollster Frank Luntz. The better for him to utter the inevitable golden Biden gaffe.

The key to the debate between Biden and Palin is to have it completely open. Becuase Joe Biden for the first 90 seconds is as good as it gets. He always makes the stupid comment at about two minutes and 30 seconds. [laughter]

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- NewsBusters Ken Shepherd and Jacob Lybbert ran into Laura Ingraham at the Republican Convention on September 2. The radio host was in a rush but spoke briefly to NewsBusters.

Ingraham said the bottom line for the media's biased coverage against Palin was that she is pro-life. When we thanked her for taking a few seconds to talk to us, Ingraham praised NewsBusters, saying, "you guys do great work."

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- Defending his colleagues in the media with their "hard vet" of Gov. Sarah Palin, Fox News Channel's Mort Kondracke told NewsBusters that Republicans should have expected the intense media scrutiny of Palin, a selection he said was "Dan Quayle all over again."

NEWSBUSTERS: Do you feel that the media are vetting Sarah Palin to an extent that they didn't vet Obama in his 19 months of running for office?

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- The NewsBusters team caught up with "Morning Joe's" Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Tuesday, and had a nice discussion about how she got the nickname "Bubbles."

For those that have forgotten, last September, Mika mentioned, "I never had a writing section [on my SATs], just bubbles."

This led NB's Mark Finkelstein to nickname her "Bubbles."

As a result, when we bumped into Joe and Mika in what is called "Radio Row," Joe seemed very excited to see us, but Mika was, at the onset, decidedly less so (video embedded right):