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If there was ever any doubt National Public Radio had a political slant, check out the animated video posted on the network's Web site. That should clear up any doubt.

This video dated Nov. 12, 2009 was created by Mark Fiore, a political animator, who NPR reports is described by The Wall Street Journal as "the undisputed guru of the form." The video demonstrates for viewers how to speak "tea bag," which is a term lefties for whatever reason seem to find absolutely hilarious.  (h/t Jesse Hathaway via Bob Parks). Transcript as follows:

Moderator: Finally, learning a new language doesn't have to be hard. You can be fluent in conversational tea bag in just a few short minutes. Lesson one: Don't get distracted by the confusing words of other languages.
Character: I think the public option and the competition it would foster would really -- socialist, socialist.
Moderator: Good, very good. Lesson two: If you're having trouble understanding the words of others or being understood yourself, use teabag's stronger, more descriptive words.
Character: The Nazi, Nazi, Nazi

Video Embedded Below Fold

Fox News Channel and radio talk show host Glenn Beck has quickly risen to be one the most prominent targets of the Left.  Radio Talk King Rush Limbaugh is Liberal Enemy #1; there's a strong case to be made that Beck is now running second.

One of the myriad feeble way's the Left attempts to deal with Beck - or any conservative - is to dismiss him or her as a liar, without any facts to back up said claim and often in the face of overwhelming evidence provided by the conservative in question.

Beck is spending this week on his FNC show revisiting the copious reams of evidence he compiled over the course of the last year - as he laid waste to one liberal nostrum and public official (Czar, if you will) after another. 

And who did Beck choose to have bat lead off in his "Let's Hammer Home the Truth" week?

A 15-second television ad for CNN’s iPhone app uses an instrumental version of the well-known Christian spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

The spot, which has been running for the past weeks, highlights some of the capabilities of the app, shows pairs of hands accessing video clips, weather reports, and CNN live video. A short electric guitar and drums rendition of Christian hymn played as the hands moved across the screen. The slogan, “CNN: In Your Hands,” flashed across the screen at the end of the commercial.

Imagine it being as hard to fire an incompetent airport screener as it is to fire an incompetent teacher.  Think that might have any implications for our safety and security?  Evan Kohlmann apparently doesn't.  In fact, the NBC terrorism consultant thinks opposition to unionizing the employees of the Transportation Safety Administration is "nonsense" and "ridiculous."

Kohlmann made his comments on MSNBC this afternoon in the course of condemning Sen. Jim DeMint for opposing TSA unionization.  The Republican senator from South Carolina has put a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers to head the TSA because of the nominee's apparent intent to unionize the TSA.

David Shuster teed up Kohlmann's tirade [the video bears watching to see just how contemptuous Kohlmann appeared] . . .

The news media constantly misuse extreme weather examples to generate fear of global warming, but when record cold or record snow sets in journalists don't mention the possibility of global cooling trends. While climatologists would say weather isn't necessarily an indication of climate, it has been in the media, but only when the weather could be spun as part of global warming.

In Iowa, temperatures are 30 degrees below normal according to the Des Moines Register. That's a near-record low. Beijing is facing the coldest temperatures in decades according to Australia's The Age.

And in Pichccahuasi, Peru, bitter cold may cause the extinction of communities of alpaca farmers suffering from pneumonia and other respiratory problems. Ironically, that Guardian (U.K.) report called the region an anomaly "in a world growing ever hotter."

Despite such extreme cold around the world, the three networks are not forecasting a period of global cooling. In fact, in the past three months there has been only one mention of "global cooling" on the networks. That was in an NBC "Today" about geo-engineering (manipulating) the global climate to create global cooling to combat global warming. 

How out-of-touch is the D.C. pundit class with the rest country? Look to John McLaughlin for the answer.

During part two of "The McLaughlin Group 2009 Year-End Awards," McLaughlin, who has hosted the program since 1982, declared the concept of freedom, at least from a political standpoint in the United States, is overrated.

"The most overrated is freedom," McLaughlin said. "When faced with economic uncertainty, people don't want freedom. When they can't see their economic future, they want the nanny state."

On Sunday’s This Week, fill-in host Terry Moran, along with Ron Brownstein and Cynthia Tucker, took swipes at Rush Limbaugh for his contention that his good experience at a Honolulu hospital demonstrated the U.S. health system doesn’t need repair. (Friday night NB item “Rush Limbaugh Leaves Hospital ‘Feeling Strong and Rested’”)

After running a clip of Limbaugh from Friday saying “based on what happened to me here, I don't think there's one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine, just dandy,” Moran couldn’t resist pointing out “the delightful irony” that “Hawaii mandates that employers provide health insurance to their employees,” a fact which in no way contradicts Limbaugh’s assessment of the treatment he received.

“What Rush was saying, Limbaugh was saying was great, except for the 47 million people who don't have health insurance and don't have access,” former Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein, now with National Journal, snidely insisted. As he spoke, Washington-based Atlanta Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker chimed in: “And are not as wealthy as he is.”

Bill Kristol has set forth a stinging indictment of the Obama admin's handling of the war on terror. His two-minute monologue on today's Fox News Sunday delineated a devastating bill of particulars:

• It was a mistake to treat Abdul Mutallab as a criminal defendant rather than as an enemy combatant: "Mr. Brennan [Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser who appeared earlier] said to you that we're very worried that there're other Abdul Mutallabs out there. This Abdul Mutallab was there for four months.  He might know who the others are.  He might know their names. Will you let him lawyer up?"
• As to Brennan's claim that there was no "smoking gun" regarding Abdul Mutallab: "He is the smoking gun," going on to detail all the red flags surrounding him. "Frankly, for Mr. Brennan to say, well, no smoking gun, that itself shows a kind of not-serious-about-the-war mentality."

The Weekly Standard editor wasn't through . . .

Diabetic or not, you might want to have a dose of insulin handy while watching this morning's video clip. The Early Show's review of the past year was one sicky-sweet adoration—in overtly religious terms—of Barack Obama.

Harry Smith set the tone with his opening comments:

"Politics, and patriotism and the presidency: it is the place where the secular and the religious merge. One of the sacraments of our national religion is the inauguration.  So it was that as many as two million pilgrims made their way to Washington and the Mall to witness this most sacred event."

Back to the studio for the personal testimonies of the emotional Early Show crew . . .

The Daily Beast’s Tina Brown targeted Rush Limbaugh for ruining 2009, particularly after Obama’s inauguration, on Thursday’s Today show on NBC, blaming him for the “big discord and toxic atmosphere in politics,” and likened him to the “the bad fairy at Sleeping Beauty’s christening” for uttering his famous words about the President, “I hope he fails” [audio clip available here].

Brown slammed the talk show host just hours after he was hospitalized for chest pains. The British-born journalist appeared with commentator Nancy Giles and comedian Andy Borowitz nine minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour for a panel discussion on the past year. Substitute anchor Erin Burnett turned to Brown first and asked, “What do you think was the most important moment of 2009?”

Brown unsurprisingly chose the Obama inauguration, and after gushing over the moment, set her sights on Limbaugh:

MSNBC, "the place for politics" strikes again, this time with character assassination in the name of same-sex marriage.

On the Dec. 29 broadcast of "The Rachel Maddow Show," Maddow took aim at former Bush administration Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, now a Fox News contributor. She noted his prior opposition to same-sex marriage, which according to Maddow's citation of The Atlantic magazine, was done only to win elections.

"In the Karl Rove political playbook, more than one chapter covers the tactic of gay-baiting, which Mr. Rove has used to notorious electoral effect," Maddow said. "To quote a 2004 profile of Mr. Rove in The Atlantic magazine, quote, ‘One constant throughout his career is the prevalence of whisper campaigns against opponents. Often, a Rove campaign questions an opponent's sexual orientation.'"

The Founder and President of the Media Research Center (MRC) and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell again appeared on the Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends to discuss some more of the very many examples of poor reporting culled from Year 2009. 

As we stated on Monday when Bozell first went on the air to discuss same, the MRC's year-end extravaganza - the Best of Notable Quotables - is filled to the brim with the ridiculous and sublime bias of the traditional media from the past annum. 

Bozell and his hosts again reviewed - and laughed vociferously at - a few select examples culled therefrom.

The video of said second discussion can be found at right.

Trying to make sense out of the political analysis offered by MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews can often be a daunting task. And Matthews, a master of failed analogies - recently calling West Point, home of the United States Military Academy "enemy territory" - doesn't give up easily.

On the Dec. 29 broadcast of his MSNBC program, Matthews, who has no qualms with bearing the liberal moniker, took a shot at Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith, who switched parties last week, during his "Sideshow" segment.

"First up, you know this fellow Parker Griffith?" Matthews said. "He is the Democratic congressman, or ex-Democratic congressman, from Alabama who switched last week to the Republican Party."

Rumblin', bumblin', stumblin' . . .

Trying to blame someone—anyone—other than his man Barack Obama for the security meltdown surrounding NWA 253, Ed Schultz ran head-first into history without a helmet tonight.  Seeking to shift some of the onus onto England for not having alerted us about having denied young Umar entry into its country, Ed entertainingly claimed that the UK has probably been "our best ally since the country started."

Um, Ed: "since the country started"?  You mean, like, when we started the country in 1776?  When we declared our independence from, and fought a war against, uh, you know?  That same "best ally" that—more than a third of a century later—we fought the War of 1812 against, in the course of which its forces occupied Washington, DC and burned down the White House?

Now it's true that for many years we have enjoyed a special relationship with the UK, one personified by the warm and respectful dealings between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.  One that was strained, however, when shortly after his inauguration PBO removed the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and sent it back to the Brits.

Before his run-in with American history, Schultz also played the blame-Bush card.

MSNBC reported this afternoon that Max Baucus is "blasting right-wing websites like Drudge and NewsBusters" for suggesting he was drunk on the Senate floor during the health care debate.  See P.J. Gladnick's Bizarre Baucus Behavior on Senate Floor Ignored by MSM.

But MSNBC did the Montana senator no favors:

1. it used his name in the same sentence with a variation on the word "blasted," and
2. what's worse, it played a clip from Baucus', um, tired and emotional floor speech.

View the video and judge for yourself.  

While much of the national media was focused on a Christmas Eve Senate vote to pass health care reform legislation, the Obama administration's Treasury Department was tending to other business that will have serious implications for the U.S. economy. But did anyone notice?

As Zachary Goldfarb reported for The Washington Post on Christmas Day, the Obama Treasury said it would lift the limits on what the federal government could provide in "emergency aid" to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - without seeking permission from Congress. That led CNBC CME Group floor reporter Rick Santelli to ask if anyone noticed and/or realized what was really at stake with this move during the Dec. 29 broadcast of "Squawk Box."

On Tuesday’s Today show, NBC’s Jenna Wolfe singled out Sarah Palin and grouped her with “flabby thighs, cheap men, [and] rude people” as subjects some people chose to ritually “purge” from their minds in an annual event in New York City called “Good Riddance Day.” Participants wrote down their worst memories of 2009 on sheets of paper and fed them into a giant shredding machine to mark the upcoming new year [an audio clip from the report is available here].

The NBC correspondent began her report, which aired 50 minutes into the 7 am hour, by briefly describing the concept of the “Good Riddance Day” event in midtown Manhattan: “It’s the crossroads of the world. People flock here for the shows, the shopping and the shredding? Right smack in the heart of Times Square, they are purging like mad. This is ‘Good Riddance Day,’ where before you ring in the new, you say adios to the old.” She then listed her examples of what people fed into the shredder, highlighting one piece of paper that had the name of the former Alaska governor written on it: “Whatever you hated in ‘09- flabby thighs, cheap men, rude people or Sarah Palin, just write it down and rip it up. The ex’s are the most popular purges.”

Quite the culture war on Morning Joe today . . .

The combatants were Pat Buchanan and Spencer Ackerman of the lefty Washington Independent. The topic was the treatment of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.  Buchanan wanted the budding terrorist classified as an enemy combatant in order to extract the maximum amount of information from him. Ackerman, in ACLU mode, favored having young Umar tried in federal court and given all rights extended to US criminal defendants.

My antennae went up when at the end of their debate, Buchanan saw Ackerman off by wishing him "Merry Christmas."  A bit of Googling reveals that Ackerman, who describes himself as a "very short Jew,"  has recently written of his "deep-seated contempt for white gentile culture."

Joy Behar expressed confusion about the success of Sarah Palin's book because, according to the CNN Headline News/ABC talk show host, a lot of the former governor's "base doesn't even read."

Behar slammed Palin, as well as Glenn Beck, Carrie Prejean and other conservatives  during her "look back at 2009" edition of the "Joy Behar Show" that re-aired over Christmas weekend.

An "esteemed" panel consisting of comedians Sandra Bernhard, Mo Rocca and Dave Attell joined Behar in mocking this year's prominent voices on the right.

If there was ever a textbook example of kissing up to a host in a television interview, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., gave a demonstration on MSNBC's "The Ed Show."

During the Dec. 28 broadcast, Moran, who represents a district that is just a stone's throw away from the U.S. Capitol, encouraged "The Ed Show" host Ed Schultz to keep pushing for the public option as part of health care reform, even though it is losing support as being essential in the U.S. House of Representatives.

"You've got to keep up the pressure, Ed," Moran said. "You know, they pay much more attention to what's said on MSNBC, particularly shows like yours than Fox or something like that. You know that."

UPDATE: Page responds to NewsBusters in Chicago Tribune blog post.

The bitterness toward the tea party movement continues to go on and on.

Case in point - Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, who on the Dec. 27 broadcast of "The McLaughlin Group," deemed it "The Most Defining Political Moment" of 2009, but refused to call it the "tea party." Instead, he granted the movement the preferred name by the left-leaning cable network MSNBC, the "teabaggers" and somehow devised the notion that the movement "asked for" the derogatory name.

"The backlash movement known as the ‘teabaggers,' who kind of asked for that name and now they regret it," Page said.

The Founder and President of the Media Research Center (MRC) and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell appeared this morning on the Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends to discuss some of the very many examples of poor reporting culled from Year 2009. 

The MRC's year-end extravaganza - the Best of Notable Quotables, is filled to the brim with the ridiculous and sublime bias of the traditional media from the past annum. 

Bozell and his hosts reviewed - and laughed vociferously - at a few select examples culled therefrom.

The video of said discussion can be found at right.

And be forewarned - ABC's Bill Weir is the Seagull Whisperer.

 

It took a tough question from Matt Lauer, but after having laughably claimed that "the system worked," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has now conceded the obvious: that the security system that permitted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board NWA 253 with explosives "failed miserably."

On Today and in other interviews this morning, Napolitano attempted to use her own ignorance as a shield.  Each time she was hit with a hard question, her response was to the effect "yeah, we're wondering about that ourselves."  She also continued to point the finger back at George Bush, repeatedly mentioning that the security procedures in place were formulated under the Bush administration.  Whatever happened to "change you can believe in"?

But back to Today, where Lauer laudably asked Napolitano the necessary question: how could she possibly have claimed, as she did yesterday, that the "system worked"?

Interview with Chicago Fire Chief Alden Brown two days after the Great Chicago Fire:

ALDEN BROWN: One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here: the local citizens took appropriate action.  Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 towns and villages in the Chicago area had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred in Chicago.  We instituted new measures on the ground, both in central Chicago and at Mrs. O'Leary's barn, where the fire originated. So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly . . . We have no suggestion that Mrs. O'Leary's cow was improperly inspected, but we want to go through and see.

REPORTER: But if Mrs. O'Leary's cow was properly inspected and yet she started the fire anyway, it doesn't feel that safe.

BROWN: Well, it should.  This was one cow of literally thousands of cows in Chicago.  And she was stopped before any more damage could be done.

OK, to be entirely accurate, that was not a statement by the Chicago Fire Chief of 1871. It was a very close paraphrasing of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's interview with Candy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union this morning [see video].

Pres. Obama should find time in his busy vacation schedule to drop a palm-trees-and-sandy-beaches thank you postcard to NBC.  On this morning's Today, successive network staffers defended the administration's [mis]handling of the Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab matter.

First, terrorism expert Roger Cressey [who usually plays it straight], claimed there wasn't enough information to "connect the dots" and move young Umar from the "watch list" to the "no-fly" list.  Really? The guy's father, a respected international banker, was so concerned about his son's extremist Islamist views that he took the unusual measure of personally contacting the US embassy with a warning.  Dots?  How about a huge, flashing, neon exclamation point!?

Next, John Harwood backhands GOP criticism of the Obama admin's national security policy as "partisan." 

Saturday's Fox Newswatch on FNC highlighted two “winners” in the MRC's “Best Notable Quotables of 2009: The 22nd Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting.” (Posting on NewsBusters) Viewers were treated to Katie Couric pining to Barack Obama: “You're so confident, Mr. President, and so focused. Is your confidence ever shaken? Do you ever wake up and say, damn, this is hard?” FNC host Jon Scott announced “her performance there garnered the Media Research Center's 'Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award for Obsequious Obama Interviews.'” Scott also pointed out how Time magazine's Joe Klein won the “Master of His Domain Award for Obama Puffery” for his cover story on Barack Obama’s first 100 days.

Panelist Rich Lowry of National Review, picking up on Ellis Henican's description of both quotes as “icky,” soon observed they were hardly an aberration: “If you go to the Media Research Center Web site and look at every single video clip from the inauguration” you'll see “every single one of them is icky from every single major media outlet. They were in love with this guy and they still are -- most of them.”

Audio: MP3 clip (45 secs)

There I was, watching the perfectly harmless Meineke Car Care Bowl, when a truly creepy Government Motors commercial for the Chevy Silverado pickup broke out . . .

GM spokesman, and former NFL player, Howie Long is not-so-subtly comparing the stats of the Silverado with an intimidated, younger, Ford F150 owner.

At face value, it seems harmless enough. According to ABC "Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts, every Christmas the show features various "spiritual leaders" to talk about the role of faith in their lives. And this year's Christmas Day broadcast was no exception.

"And now, it is a ‘GMA' tradition on Christmas Day, to talk about the role of faith in all of our lives," Roberts said. "We gathered a group of spiritual leaders from different traditions to talk about the importance of belief, in good times and belief in bad times, too."

Roberts' panel featured Father Edward Beck, an ABC News contributor and author of "Soul Provider: Spiritual Steps to Limitless Love," Francine Rivers, author of "A Lineage of Grace," Pastor Max Lucado of Oak Hill Church in San Antonio and author of "Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear" and Pastor Miles McPherson, of San Diego's Rock Church and author "DO Something!: Make Your Life Count."

In keeping with the tradition of the holidays - the minds at MSNBC, the place for politics if you're of the lefty persuasion, decided rate the top 10 political stories of the decade.

And leading this gang of masters of the political journalism universe was "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, who on the broadcast of his Dec. 24 program, announced that conservative activism, mainly the tea party movement was the eighth biggest story of the decade - but labeled "angry white voters" (emphasis added).

"Welcome back to ‘Hardball' - our number eight political story of the decade, angry whites at town hall meetings across the country," Matthews said. "Lawmakers heard the wrath of angry voters."

We Give It a Solid B+ Yesterday, Media Research Center (MRC) Director of Communications and NewsBusters Contributing Editor sat down with Breitbart.tv's Liz Stephans and Scott Baker to discuss the media not discussing the major rifts that exist between liberals and Democrats and Democrats and Democrats on the health care legislation wending its way fitfully through Congress. 

Please enjoy the view here.

The Jurassic Press is instead putting forward a false sense of bill passage ineveitably, ignoring the myriad soap opera-esque dramas playing out throughout the Left's ideological and political topography.

There are many stories to be told of the various liberal and Democrat factions fighting it out for health care supremacy, if only the media were willing to tell them.

Alas and alack, they are not.