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Michael Medved has hurled the ultimate insult at Rush Limbaugh -- that he's acting like a liberal. According to Medved, Rush is thinking with his emotions, not his mind, when it comes to his criticism of of John McCain.

McCain supporter Medved appeared on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show this evening.

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It’s apparently okay to buy unnecessary and expensive electronics at a discount – even if you’ve lost your job and money is “tight.”

After all, the Super Bowl is Sunday.

CNN’s January 30 “American Morning” mentioned retailers were cutting prices to get customers to purchase more, but no one during the broadcast had a problem with one unemployed woman buying one of those fancy televisions.

“Veronica McNeil has two kids,” said "American Morning" anchor Alina Cho. “She recently lost her job. Her husband’s an ironworker and the family is feeling the pinch.”

Can a picture be worth a thousand tears? Behold Chris Matthews in the depths of despair, contemplating the prospect that Obama-the-dreamer has lost to Hillary the machine candidate.

Schmoozing with Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on today's Morning Joe, Matthews had analogized Obama to Mozart the genius while casting Hillary in the role of the workmanlike but uninspired Salieri.

View video here.

Covering Hillary's tricked-up "victory" event for a Dem Florida primary that was not supposed to be contested, even MSNBC co-anchor Keith Olbermann eventually got bored and pulled away.

But before he did, the junior senator from New York began to lay out her plans for America. Though sheer ennui eventually drove MSNBC off, the network hung in for enough of Clinton's "victory" speech to give us a taste for what might rightly be called "Hillary's Manifesto."

Warning: remove small children and sensitive pets from room before viewing video here.

Can you remember where you were at any point during the four years of the Jimmy Carter presidency?

Most people who were alive don't look favorably toward the economic situation during those years. But MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, who was gainfully employed as a member of the Carter administration, might look back a little fondly.

When he criticized President George W. Bush about the economy following his State of the Union address on January 28, he may have just neglected to remember what the economy was like back then. That didn't stop him from taking a shot at the Republican president.

It isn't home foreclosures, high gas prices or even the stock market being used to show the economy is heading for hell in a hand basket.

No, this time the culprit is "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun," otherwise known as the Big Mac. And ABC's Bianna Golodryga asks, "If Americans are saying goodbye to fast food, could we be saying hello to a recession?"

"According to the latest figures, America may no longer be the ‘fast food nation' that it once was," Golodryga said on the January 29 "Good Morning America." "And, it has nothing to do with going on a health diet, but everything to do with going on a spending diet."

In Joy Behar’s fantasy world, an automatic tax increase for nearly all income taxpayers are simply "taking back tax cuts to the rich." And if one calls it a tax increase, one is engaging in "double speak." On the January 29 edition of "The View," the co-hosts chatted about President Bush’s last State of the Union and co-host Joy Behar added this comment on the president’s tax hike veto pledge.

Video (45 secs): Windows (2.64 MB), plus MP3 audio (325 kB).

"There was one point where he says, you know, ‘no- we will not-’ basically he’s saying we’re not going to take back our tax cuts to the rich. Which he interprets as ‘tax increases.’ Just because you’re taking it back, he says it’s an increase. See that double speak I don’t care for."

At the top of Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith described Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama yesterday in biblical terms: "In the civic religion that is Democratic politics, the most treasured covenant was passed to the young Senator from Illinois."

Video (25 secs): Windows (1.55 MB), plus MP3 audio (177 kB)

Smith teased the segment by excitedly proclaiming that "Ted and Caroline set to hit the campaign trail after they announce the heir to Camelot." Smith went on to claim that "It feels like the '60s are back," to which co-host Julie Chen replied: "I think it's safe to say no matter what your party affiliation, you have to admit that no one gives a speech like a Kennedy."

I'm measuring my words carefully. Harry Smith has raised the possibility that Barack Obama's life could be in danger.

The Early Show anchor interviewed Ted Kennedy this morning in the wake of his endorsement of Obama yesterday. Smith's initial broaching of the subject of danger to Obama was very cryptic:

HARRY SMITH: When you see that enthusiasm [for Obama] though, and when you see the generational change that seems to be taking place before our eyes, does it make you at all fearful?

It was supposed to be a bad day in the American stock markets according to CBS's "The Early Show." Guess what - they were wrong.

"Hong Kong's Hang Seng market was down more than 4 percent," Julie Chen said on the January 28 "The Early Show." "Tokyo's Nikkei index off about 4 percent. Wall Street may have a rough morning in advance of President Bush's final State of the Union address tonight. We'll be watching the markets throughout the morning."

Assuming American markets will follow the lead of any other international markets is an iffy proposition, as indicated by the performance on Wall Street today. After the gloomy forecast from "The Early Show" for the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) finished in positive territory on January 28 - at the highs of the day, up more than 176 points. The NASDAQ and S&P 500 also finished in positive territory, both up more than 23 points.

In a class-warfare driven media, where the "haves" are often pitted against "have-nots," you would think an outgoing CEO giving up $37.5 million in pay would be celebrated.

Not quite. CNN's "American Morning" didn't think it was quite good enough when Countrywide Financial's Angelo Mozilo forfeited $37.5 million in severance pay because he said he felt it was the "right thing to do."

"It's another disconnect with Main Street," "American Morning" anchor Kiran Chetry said Jan. 28, 2008. "Because most people don't get rewarded when things go wrong at their job, and this is what we see with these CEOs."

"Over and over and over again," CNN's personal finance editor Gerri Willis added.

Joy Behar, a noted Bush hater, took the moral high ground to denounce hatred against Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. On the January 28 edition of "The View," Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama was the discussion topic. Behar then scolded those who exhibit hatred towards the Massachusetts Senator as well as Senator Clinton claiming Kennedy "is hated by a lot of Republicans just like Hillary Clinton is hated. The hatred that goes through on both sides is horrible."

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Before Behar casts stones, she may want to consider some of the hateful comments she has made on "The View." Maybe she will exhibit another double standard as she previously denounced a personal attack on Senator Clinton but defended her own personal attacks on President Bush because she "doesn’t like him."

Harry Smith won't be up on the platform with Ted Kennedy today endorsing Barack Obama. But he might be there in spirit, after having absolutely unloaded on Bill Clinton's on this morning's Early Show. The CBS anchor made the stunning suggestion that when it comes to matters racial, Bill Clinton may have perpetrated a fraud on African-Americans.

Smith's guest was "diversity expert" Joe Watson and you might have expected Watson [who FWIW impressed me favorably] to carry the anti-Bill ball. But ultimately it was Smith who offered the single most damning suggestion. The CBS host began by playing the clip of Bill's by-now infamous words from the weekend, writing off the Obama victory in South Carolina by pointing out that Jesse Jackson had won there twice in the 80s.

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Takeaway exchange from John McCain's Meet The Press appearance today.

TIM RUSSERT: If the Senate passed your bill, S-1433, the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, would you as president sign it?

JOHN MCCAIN: Yeah, but the lesson is that it isn't going to come, it isn't going to come. The lesson is they want the borders secured first.

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Carl Bernstein isn't just, on the basis of his Watergate-busting fame, a liberal icon. He's also a certified Hillary Clinton expert, having devoted years to researching and writing a definitive biography of her, A Woman in Charge. So his comments tonight on Hillary's graceless reaction to her stunning defeat at the hands of Barack Obama carry special weight, and are likely to reverberate through Dem circles. Here's Bernstein's brutal take, appearing on CNN .

CARL BERNSTEIN: One of the worst nights of Hillary Clinton's life. She had a chance at the end of the evening to be magnanimous, to say something about where her campaign is going to go. Instead she was shopworn, tired; it's exactly what they don't need, the Clinton campaign, and she's going to have an uphill fight from here in.

View the video here, not only to hear Bernstein's remarks, but to watch a Hillary acknowledge Obama's victory only in passing while spending most of the same sentence speaking of primaries to come.

Count Craig Crawford as a dissenting voice in the media storm blaming the Clintons for the injection of race into the Dem primaries. The Congressional Quarterly columnist and MSNBC political analyst offered his unconventional wisdom on a special Saturday edition of Morning Joe today.

CRAIG CRAWFORD: I never understood exactly what Bill Clinton said that was supposed to interject race, actually. I know he was arguing at arm's length with Obama about the war and some other issues. It wasn't clear to me -- I mean the most direct reference to race I saw in this campaign was interjected by the media after New Hampshire trying to say that for some reason Obama lost New Hampshire because of racism. I never followed that one either.

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You've probably heard about the French trader who has managed to stash away $7 billion before going on the lam. What's the big deal with sticking it to some French bank for $7 billion?

This $7-billion loss by the French bank Societe Generale (SocGen) (EPA:GLE) might have caused the sharp plunge in some European stock markets on January 21 - which spurred the Federal Reserve to make an unprecedented emergency 75-basis-point rate cut on January 22.

One economist drew a correlation between the SocGen scandal and the Fed's decision to make the emergency rate cut.

Living in the DC area, Chris Matthews has surely been stuck in traffic more than once behind someone sporting the classic NRA bumper sticker: "If Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns." Was Chris was listening too intently to NPR to consider the the truth of that pithy aphorism? You might think so, considering his anti-gun rant that seemed to assume that criminals, rather than law-abiding citizens, will obey restrictions on gun ownership.

On this evening's Hardball, riffing off Mitt Romney's Second Amendment defense during last night's GOP debate, Chris took aim at National Review's Deroy Murdock, a Giuliani backer.

View video here.

Nothing like going on the air and reporting the government is going to give you a check for x dollars - depending on your income - to please your viewers. But reporting about it as if there were no strings attached isn't straightforward.

However, the glowing reception the $150-billion taxpayer-funded stimulus plan got from each of the network newscasts gave that impression last night.

"Cash is on the way," ABC's "World News" anchor Charles Gibson said. "The check is in the mail, or it will be to 117 million Americans. The president and congressional leaders reached agreement on a $150-billion economic stimulus package today. When passed by Congress, the package will result in the distribution of $100 billion to individuals and families. And it will mean businesses will get $50 billion in tax breaks."

Be careful where you shop for groceries, for behind every canned soup display may be lurking "Today" show host Matt Lauer, ready to corner you on camera and demand to know whether you're using plastic, paper, or "environmentally-friendly" canvas bags.

That's what Lauer did for a January 25 segment to wrap up the four-day "Today Goes Green" series, which showed the hosts carpooling to work (once), changing one light bulb in one of their homes, and canceling unwanted catalog subscriptions online.

But for the grand finale, Lauer got in the face of the American grocery shopper in a segment filmed in a New York City Food Emporium. He pestered shoppers with tidbits about the environmental destruction caused by plastic and paper grocery bags.

"I'm on the prowl for victims, converts in our growing movement," Lauer said shamelessly, as if bothering people while they're shopping is cute. "Do you have any idea how many plastic bags you accumulate in the average month?" he asked one unsuspecting female shopper.

Ten days after ESPN sportscaster Dana Jacobson's "F*** Jesus" outburst, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann made a dopey crack that made light of the Christian belief that Jesus was resurrected in an immortal body from the dead.

The remark came at the end of his "World's Best Persons" feature on the January 21 program as Olbermann relayed the story of one Feliberto Carrasco of Chile, who awoke from an apparently deep slumber in a casket at a wake being held for the presumed-to-be-dead elderly gentleman.

Quipped Olbermann as he eased into a commercial break, "So do I have the etiquette correct here, does Mr. Carrasco get his own religion now, or what happens? Is there a vote?"

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Last year, the Washington Post let itself be so badly misled by a "study" on military recruiting from a far-left think tank that WaPo ombudsman Deborah Powell felt obliged to write a lengthy column about the matter, diplomatically taking her paper to task for failing to "tell the full story."

So when the same think tank came out with another recruiting study this year, surely WaPo would take it with a large grain of salt, right? Think again.

Exactly 20 years ago tonight, January 25, 1988, millions of Americans saw one newsman’s liberal agenda laid bare, as CBS anchor Dan Rather attempted to ambush then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, in a live TV interview on his CBS Evening News. But Bush held his own during the on-air confrontation, and the lasting effect was to reveal how Rather was driven by his personal biases, at one point lecturing the Vice President: “You’ve made us hypocrites in the face of the world.”

Shorter Video (0:31): Windows (1.00 MB), plus MP3 audio (155 kB). Full interview (9:15) Windows (5.81 MB), plus MP3 audio (2.72 kB)

The biggest news out of last night's GOP debate could be the hit taken by John McCain's reputation for straight talk.

For whatever reason, McCain chose to deny the undeniable: that on more than one occasion he has admitted not understanding the economy as well as he should. When the debate ended it took MSNBC no time to document the record. And a bit later, in the post-debate coffee klatsch, Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman unloaded on the Arizona senator for his fudging.

View video here.

In a verbal tussle with Fox Business Network host Liz Claman January 24, Business & Media Institute Managing Editor Amy Menefee explained that conservatives are just looking for some balance from the media.

"You get upset when the media is skeptical about certain things and you say that that's un-American," Claman said. "Yet when we're not skeptical you're saying now, ‘Why aren't you skeptical?' Which is it?"

"Well from our perspective ... we just want to hear all the economic sides that are out there which means economists who are talking about, you know, other opportunities, other options," Menefee said about the media coverage of the economic stimulus package. "And there are plenty of economists out there right now who are saying this is not going to do much good."

Worried about finding employment after losing your job because of this gosh-awful recession we're having? Oh, you haven't lost your job yet? Yeah, we aren't actually having a recession yet, but that's just details.

But the show must go on, and so goes the January 23 "CBS Evening News."

"It's a bumpy ride for the American worker as well. As the economy slows the unemployment rate is rising," anchor Katie Couric said. "About 7.6 million Americans are now unemployed. That's a million more than a year ago. So what should you do if you lose your job? [CBS correspondent] Kelly Cobiella looks at some strategies for job seekers for whom this economic downturn is really hitting home."

A woman has the hots for former President Bill Clinton, "The View’s" Joy Behar. Discussing the former president’s recent confrontation with a CNN reporter, Behar announced she still has "the hots for the guy" and "women respond" to a man notorious for sexual indiscretions.

Video (1:12): Windows (2.25 MB) or MP3 audio (538 kB)

Sherri Shepherd and right of center co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck added Bill Clinton is "very charming" and "extremely charismatic." Whoopi Goldberg told the story of her mother’s star struck meeting adding Clinton has "got it" "that just grabs somebody."

The woman who got her big break on network TV thanks to the firing of Don Imus now apparently wants another host to lose his job over some tasteless remarks.

Morning Joe is the show that took over MSNBC's early-morning time slot after Imus was bounced for his offensive observations about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Mika Brzezinski, a regular member of the Morning Joe crew, has now left little doubt she would like to see John Gibson fired for the callous comments about the death of actor Heath Ledger the Fox News host made on his radio show.

View video.

CNN’s Jack Cafferty, on Wednesday’s "The Situation Room," unsurprisingly heralded the study by the Center for Public Integrity that Bush Administration officials made hundreds of false statements in the lead-up to the Iraq war. He did not mention, however, the Center’s funding by various left-wing individuals and foundations, most notably George Soros.

Cafferty, who commented on the study during his regular "Cafferty File" segment eight minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program, bluntly referred to the supposed "false statements" made by these officials as "lies." He also repeated a line from the study that the "lies" "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." With that last phrase, one cannot doubt the political leanings of these "nonprofit journalism groups," as Cafferty referred to them.

"I like how you think, senator," cooed "Late Show" host David Letterman in agreement with John Edwards's charge that "most of what" Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly says "is crap."

Letterman had asked the former senator about his "feud" with O'Reilly over Edwards's charge that the Bush administration is failing to care for military veterans to the extent that hundreds of thousands are winding up homeless.

The exchange came in a jovial January 22 interview in which Edwards joked about having Letterman as his running mate, or at the very least as a celebrity endorser a la Oprah Winfrey.

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