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In an appearance on the March 27 Fox & Friends, BMI's Dan Gainor discussed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's brief, lucrative tenure on the board of Freddie Mac.

New reporting by the Chicago Tribune has updated the story BMI chronicled during the Obama transition of how Emanuel made more than $300,000 advising the Government Sponsored Enterprise at the very time it was engaged in unethical and illegal behavior. The mainstream print and broadcast media have mostly ignored Emanuel’s Freddie Mac history, as well has Barney Frank’s Fannie Mae connections because “very obviously they have an agenda,” Gainor said.

CNBC has been a hotbed for commentary - both left and right, from Rick Santelli's call for a tea party on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to the hiring of former Democratic Committee Chairman Howard Dean as a CNBC contributor.      

This time, one of the hosts on CNBC's March 26 "Power Lunch" dropped an expletive during President Barack Obama's online town hall meeting as the network broke away from their coverage (h/t Breitbart.tv):

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: One last point I want to make and I know I'm not suppose to talk this long ...

UNIDENTIFIED CNBC HOST: Bull****.

Want a little populist outrage?  There's nothing like hearing it from a multi-millionaire advertising mogul with a spot on CNBC.

Donny Deutsch, the host of "The Big Idea," a show the network has shelved, explained to viewers on the March 25 broadcast of "CNBC Reports" he wants measures put in place to keep prevent people he regards as "idiots" from making $10 million a year.

"The issue is even now, with the new asset program, basically if it works, the taxpayer's taking up all the risk," Deutsch said. "God forbid it doesn't work, taxpayers are really going to take it on the chin. And let's say we get it right and the banks are lending again and everything is fine again - what is now put in place on Wall Street to make sure idiots are not getting paid $10 million a year?"

You too can save the planet from the effects of carbon emissions by participating in the symbolic gesture of turning off one light switch at a time for Earth Hour on March 28.

That's the message from actor Edward Norton, the official U.S. ambassador for Earth Hour 2009, who appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" on March 25. As Norton explained, this is a symbolic event for which everyone turns out their lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time on March 29. And this act will encourage world political leaders to cap or tax carbon emissions through the legislative process by demonstrating "global unity."

"You're right. The act of turning out the lights for an hour - is, it's not an act of conservation," Norton said. "It's not, um, meant to say that, ‘By doing this, we're going to solve the problem.' I think it's a symbolic act of global unity, of highlighting the number of people who do think this is one of the central issues of our time and motivating our leaders to take, um, purposeful and aggressive action on this issue."

It is one thing - as Rush Limbaugh has been vilified for - to say you have a desire for the president to fail, but what about accusing the president of wanting his own policies to fail?

That's what Fox News Channel's Dick Morris said on the March 25 broadcast of "Your World with Neil Cavuto." According to Morris, those who are criticizing Obama for his spending, including Daniel Hannan, who represents South East England for the Conservative Party, made famous by a YouTube video eviscerating Keynesian politics, are missing the point. Obama wants to worsen the economic conditions to expand the powers of government according to Morris.

"We are confusing in analyzing the bank bailout and in what Hannan, the other guest you had on - the British Parliamentarian, had on, was also confusing - means with ends," Morris said. "He said, for example that more spending won't solve the recession. Obama doesn't want it to. He wants the recession to permit him to do more spending, and in terms of this bank package, he knows that the public-private partnership isn't going to work. He's doing his best to kill it by all these comments."

Has the federal government exceeded, or is it on the verge of exceeding its constitutional authority with the recent series of events connected to rescuing an ailing banking system?

Although Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., was ridiculed for raising that question in a congressional hearing on March 24, conservative talk show host, constitutional lawyer and legal commentator Mark Levin, told Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on March 24 that government was indeed exceeding the constitution. According to Levin, there is nothing in the Constitution that would allow the Obama administration to expand the government's ability to seize non-banking financial institutions as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has proposed.

"It's unbelievable," Levin said. "There is no constitutional authority for this. I thought the American people like capitalism. I mean look, we luxuriated in this society as a result of the market system."

Talk about unintended consequences. All this populist anger ginned up by congressional Democrats, the media and the Obama administration is going to hinder the Treasury Department's strategy to rescue the banking system.

Paul Krugman, the liberal New York Times columnist and winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics explained to Bloomberg News on March 24 that this is just what is happening.

According to Krugman, the backlash caused by bailed-out American International Group (AIG)  compensation debacle and efforts by Congress to limit other expenditures - private jets, office redecorations, salaries, etc. - is causing otherwise healthy financial institutions to shy away from accepting and keeping Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money from the federal government.

It had been one of the many points of contention against CNBC by the left-wing attack machine - that "The Kudlow Report" host Larry Kudlow was using his show as a platform to make a run at the U.S. Senate in 2010 against Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.

Well, they're going to have to find another way to try to marginalize Kudlow, as they have with other CNBC personalities. Kudlow announced on his March 24 broadcast that he would not seek a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2010.

The CNBC host explained he was approached by the Republican Party to be a candidate, but said he never considered it "a serious proposition."

"Alright folks, tonight - I want to talk to you for a quick moment about me," Kudlow said. "Several weeks ago, I was approached by the Republican Party to consider a run for the U.S. Senate in the great state of Connecticut. It was a flattering conversation and one that I thought about, but to me it was never really a serious proposition."

Could this be another case of a chastened CNBC succumbing to criticism from the left to improve its image?

Just a day after CNBC named former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean a CNBC contributor, an uncharacteristically soft-spoken CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, appeared on NBC's March 24 "Today" along with CNBC "Squawk on the Street" co-host and "Street Signs" host Erin Burnett. In a tone similar to the apologetic one he had earlier this month on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," he complimented President Barack Obama's rhetoric toward high executive compensation.

"We have to put the shareholders somewhere in the equation," Cramer said. "When these CEOs make so much money, it hurts the shareholders. We have to be pro-shareholder. The president has become pro-shareholder."

Is CNBC caving to its critics on the left?

It might appear so now that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, also the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, was officially named a CNBC contributor on the March 23 "Squawk Box" by co-host Joe Kernen.

"Joining us for the next two hours, former DNC chair and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who is as of today a CNBC contributor," Kernen said.

CNBC had also named Tony Fratto, a former Bush administration Deputy Press Secretary as a contributor to the chagrin of some on the left. Kernen remarked Dean's status as a contributor was an effort to show the network was "balanced."

The Media Research Center's annual “DisHonors Awards,” held Thursday night, furnished MSNBC's Keith Olbermann with comments to ridicule, but his rants exposed his own hypocrisy. As Brit Hume accepted our “William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence” he thanked the MRC for providing information he could use, leading Olbermann to denounce Hume at the top of Friday's Countdown: “Brit Hume's dumbfounding admission. He was fed a buffet of daily talking points by an ultra-conservative media site and quote 'we certainly made tremendous use of it.'”

As if Olbermann doesn't graze a “buffet of daily talking points” from an “ultra-liberal media site.” The headline over a post earlier in the day on Media Matters' “County Fair” blog: “Accepting Buckley award, Fox's Hume thanked Media Research Center 'for the tremendous amount of material' they 'provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report.'” Unlike Olbermann, however, Hume almost always credited the MRC so viewers were informed of his source.

Before subsequently reading the Hume quote verbatim as transcribed by Media Matters, Olbermann charged “Brit Hume admits that for years he's been reading daily talking points, from a lunatic-fringe right wing Web site, on the news” and that Hume “made an admission at a DC dinner last night as startling as if he had confessed to making up the news out of whole cloth or reading it off a ouija board.”

For the second day in a row, CNBC "Squawk on the Street" co-host Mark Haines took on a Democratic congressman over the issue that American International Group (AIG) paid out too much in bonuses for a company that received federal bailout money.

On March 19, Haines took on alleged tax cheat Charles Rangel, questioning whether or not he should be dictating tax policy while the House Ethics Committee investigates him for his tax problems.  On CNBC's March 20 "Squawk on the Street," Haines took on Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif. on the issue.

Sherman contended the 90-percent tax on bonuses exceeding $250,000 that the House passed 328-93 didn't go far enough. He said a government receivership would have been the proper way to handle AIG, and not the bailout method the federal government employed. 

One of the highlights of the evening last night at the 2009 Media Research Center Gala and DisHonors Awards for yours truly was radio host Mark Levin, who served as an awards presenter.

With stinging humor, Mr. Levin zinged journalists and liberal pundits left and right -- or should I say lefter? -- so I took the liberty of taking some of the best lines and editing it down to a nearly 4-minute long video.

Click the embedded video at right to enjoy. An audio version is available here.

Andrew Breitbart, the founding editor of the conservative Big Hollywood blog, described MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews as a reality TV star trying to keep his short-lived 1990s celebrity status alive.

BREITBART: Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann are basically Gary Busey and Jeff Conway.

[...]

BREITBART: My friend's a Beverly Hills psychiatrist who deals with the neuroses of the stars every single day. And he called me up after the thrill up the leg thing, and he said, "Andrew, that's a common side effect of a double dose of lithium."

[laughter]

Last night Fox New Channel's Brit Hume became the third recipient of the Media Research Center's William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence.

MRC President Brent Bozell heralded Hume as "a pioneer of sorts, a journalist who recognized how the lock-step liberalism of his colleagues was damaging the profession he loved."

"Recently, a top ABC correspondent told me that letting Brit Hume leave that network was the biggest mistake it ever made," Bozell added.

You can watch Hume's acceptance speech embedded at right.  Below is a transcript of Hume's acceptance speech:

As if out to prove our point about media bias, the Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers seized on a one-liner by Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher made last night at the MRC Gala and DisHonors Awards. Wurzelbacher, accepting the "Obamagasm Award" on behalf of ABC's Bill Weir, made a crack playing off the orgasmic delight that Chris Matthews and others in the media expressed after watching then-candidate Obama deliver rousing campaign speeches.

"God, all this love and everything in the room - I'm horny," Akers quoted Wurzelbacher, before going on to insist that no one in the whole room, especially at her table, understood why he said that.

The Media Research Center (MRC) today proudly announces that HBO's Bill Maher is the "Winner" of Quote of the Year for tastelessly suggesting that Sarah Palin's teenage daughter Bristol was the actual birth mother of her infant son, Trig. Maher was selected by the more than 800 attendees of the MRC's annual DisHonors Awards Gala, held last night at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Maher-- winner of the Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin -- beat out MSNBC's Chris Matthews (the Media Messiah Award), CNN founder Ted Turner (the Dan Rather Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis) and ABC's Bill Weir (the Obamagasm Award).

This morning, MSNBC’s Alex Witt was in full damage control mode, working whatever apologist explanations she could find into her reluctant coverage of last night's teleprompter-free “Tonight Show” appearance by the president. [audio available here]

Obama was doing quite well at staying on message, when he made the following comment in reaction to Jay Leno's question about his infamous lack of bowling ability:

JAY LENO: I imagine the bowling alley has been burned and closed down.

President BARACK OBAMA: No, I've been practicing.

LENO: Really?

OBAMA: I bowled a 129. I had –

LENO: Oh, no, that's very good. Yeah. That's very good, Mr. President.

OBAMA: This is sort of like Special Olympics or something.

We hope Chris Matthews isn't too jealous of Bill Weir. Conquering fierce competition, the ABC reporter pulled out a victory last night in the "Obamagasm Award" at the MRC's DisHonors Awards. [audio available here]

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell chatted about the ceremony this morning on "Fox & Friends."

JULIET HUDDY, co-host: There's something called the Obamagasm Award. Who won that and explain the significance of that award?

BRENT BOZELL, MRC President: Well, the Obamagasm Award is given to that reporter who has swooned the most, and I mean there are all manner of descriptors --

BRIAN KILMEADE, co-host: Tough category here!

BOZELL: for the media's coverage.

STEVE DOOCY, co-host: Exactly right. Brent, we've got the clip, let's look at Bill Weir of ABC.

In the wake of the American International Group (AIG) bonus controversy, some have called the plans of congressional leaders to tax those bonuses at a rate of 90-100 percent "legislating with a vengeance."

However, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., insists that doing this is a necessity, despite the premise that retroactively taxing anything is a dangerous precedent. In an interview with CNBC "Squawk on the Street" co-hosts Mark Haines and Erin Burnett on March 19, he explained different rules apply in these extraordinary circumstances.

"When you violate the public trust, different rules apply - the same thing we have in charitable organizations, 501(c)3 when they have excessive payment in certain areas that we're able to penalize them for," Rangel said.

But Haines, referring to a Sept. 9, 2008 New York Times article that alleges Rangel hasn't paid taxes on some of properties, questioned the New York congressman's moral authority.

Liberal "View" co-host Joy Behar appeared on Thursday's edition of "Good Morning America" to promote her new children's book "SheetzuCacaPoopoo," an allegory for Barack Obama's rise to power. According to Behar, the illustrated tale the book is really about the new President. She explained to GMA co-anchor Robin Roberts, "The dog- Max is in trouble. They send him to obedience school, okay? When he's in obedience school is when he becomes Barack. He becomes a community organizer."

As a somewhat incredulous Roberts watched, Behar continued, "And he organizes the big dogs around the little dogs. 'Cause at first, the big dogs, also known as the Republicans, don't like him. See?" With no spoiler alerts, Behar concluded, "And so, he finds ways, pragmatically, to help the big dogs...And so, he becomes popular. And everybody loves each other. " [audio available here]

While there has been a lot of outrage over taxpayer money being used to fund $165 million in bonuses paid out to American International Group (AIG) executives propagated by the media, Fox Business "Happy Hour" co-host Cody Willard suggested the bailout money is going to something far worse - terrorism, specifically al-Qaida.

On March 18, The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the money the U.S. government paid out to AIG might be benefiting hedge funds that bet on a failing housing market. According to the report, investment banks like Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) sold financial instruments to hedge funds betting defaults would increase.

"AIG bailout funds terrorism," Willard said. "This is what it's all about guys, it's the most politically well-connected. AIG aid is not going just to AIG shareholders, but more of the point is that it's going to Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and these other banks, whose customers are yes - these giant hedge funds."

Is President Barack Obama's administration showing hints it is losing confidence in Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner? CNBC's Larry Kudlow said the signs are suggesting as much.

The host of "The Kudlow Report" said in an appearance with CNBC On-Air Editor Charlie Gasparino on his March 17 broadcast that a statement put out earlier today by the administration, and placed at the top of the Drudge Report, hinted this was the beginning of the end for Geithner.

"You know, statements out of the blue - statements like this are what I call a real bad leading indicator that Geithner's time, days may be numbered," Kudlow said. "It may not happen in the next week, but it may happen."

The statement was made in relation to the Treasury Department's handling of the brouhaha surrounding the $165 million in bonuses paid out to American International Group (AIG) executives, even though they were recipients of bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The anger and outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to American International Group (AIG) executives has many upset and outraged, but it also has some scratching their head wondering where that same emotion is over the entire government spending/bailout culture that has encapsulated Washington, D.C.

Earlier on March 17, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli suggested on CNBC's "Squawk Box" some of this outrage could be purely political. However, liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz said on MSNBC's March 17 "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," host by David Shuster, this "outrage" is welcomed by President Barack Obama.

"David, I think the Obama administration wants this public outrage," Schultz said. "It's an issue of timing right now. They couldn't have stopped the money to AIG."

Since his now-famous Chicago Tea Party outburst from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in February, CNBC's Rick Santelli had seemingly disappeared from the spotlight.

However, on CNBC's March 17 "Squawk Box," Santelli, using similar theatrics, noted that the Obama administration as been very concerned about $165 million in bonuses paid out to American International Group (AIG) executives, even though they were recipients of bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

"Well, I mean it seems as though the administration really hit this one head on. They're not happy about it, right?" Santelli said.

In a speech on March 16, President Barack Obama called it an "outrage" and said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pursuing "legal avenues" to block the bonuses. In Santelli's view, Obama seemed to be worrying about millions, instead of the billions and trillions.

Former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's daughter Meghan has four words of advice for conservative radio host Laura Ingraham: "Kiss my fat ass!" [h/t Jeff Poor]

Appearing on the March 16 edition of "The View," The Daily Beast columnist told the gals of "The View" that she was annoyed with Ingraham for recently making a joke about her weight.

McCain: Why are we so obsessed with weight? Why? And I know specifically for me, this is so, you know I'm a pop culture junkie, but when Tyra Banks went on her show in her bathing suit and said, "Kiss my fat ass," that's what I feel like right now. I'm like, "kiss my fat ass!"

All the current outrage and attention to bonuses paid out to employees of institutions that received federal bailout money is misplaced, according to an analyst that appeared on CNBC Asia on March 16. 

The media is making much of the news that American International Group (AIG) executives are receiving compensation in the form of bonuses. But Kirby Daley, senior strategist at the Newedge Group explained how the focus was in the wrong place. Although some say allowing Lehman Brothers to fail in September 2008 was a mistake, it prevented the problem of taxpayer money being used for executive compensation.

"I'm not so sure that was a mistake," Daley said. "And what I mean by that is, look I had dozens of friends there. It's very painful and to see an institution like that go down, one that I have followed for years - it hurts."

The lesson according to Daley - either allow the institutions to have the same fate as Lehman Brothers, or just outright nationalize them.

Alexandra Pelosi's HBO documentary, Right America: Feeling Wronged -- Some Voices from the Campaign Trail, certainly caricatured McCain-Palin voters as a bunch of redneck racists, but it also showed how conservatives see the media as the enemy, and featured a short clip of a fun Hank Williams Jr. song take-off against the “left wing liberal media.”  

In the 45-minute production, which will re-run several times over the next week or so (HBO's schedule for it), Pelosi showed a snippet of Hank Williams Jr. singing these lyrics at a McCain-Palin rally in Ft. Wayne, Indiana:

The left wing liberal media have always been a real close-knit family.

But most of the American people don't believe them anyway, you see.

What's a little salt on the wound after a seemingly humiliating performance by CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer on Comedy Central's March 12 "The Daily Show?" At least that's the way White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs acted when he took the opportunity to comment on last night's "Daily Show" during his March 13 press briefing.

Gibbs was asked what he thought of the interview, where "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart called CNBC "disingenuous at best and criminal at worst." Gibbs apparently appreciated Stewart's hyperbolic attacks on CNBC and Cramer.

"The president and I talked earlier in the day yesterday about watching it," Gibbs said. "I forgot to e-mail him to remind him it was on, so I don't know if he's seen it. I enjoyed it thoroughly."

Gibbs praised "The Daily Show" host for handling an "uncomfortable" situation and took a jab at CNBC's decision not to post it on CNBC.com.

It was supposed to be a moment of high drama - when Comedy Central "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart faced off with CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.  But it wasn't a fight, it was more of a beating. The "comedian," as Cramer recently called him, repeatedly bashed the financial network and its star host in a segment called "Brawl Street."

The week-long feud began when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli canceled his scheduled appearance on the March 5 "The Daily Show," which led to a scathing attack on the entire CNBC network, and Cramer taking a few jabs in return. Finally, the "Mad Money" host sat down for an interview with Stewart on his March 12 broadcast. Initially, Cramer was apologetic for his the way the entire financial crisis had gone down from a media point-of-view.

"I think that everyone could have come in under criticism because we all should have seen it more," Cramer said. "I mean, admittedly, this is a terrible one and everybody got it wrong. I got a lot of things wrong, because I think it was a one in a million shot."