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For a panel that airs their opinion nationally on regular basis, it is reasonable to expect them to understand basic political terms. Unfortunately, current “View” co-hosts do not. On the November 18 edition of “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg cited an “Advocate” cover headline reading “Gay is the New Black.” Reading the teleprompter, Whoopi stated “some people don’t agree with comparing this to black suffrage,” paused and, in a puzzled state, admitted “I don’t even understand what that word is, suffrage.” [audio available here]

For the record, and to offer Whoopi Goldberg some free elementary school education, the term suffrage according to “Merriam-Webster,” is defined as “the right of voting.”

Sherri Shepherd, who lacks basic information in geography and history, revealed her ignorance in civics and vocabulary. Sherri clumsily tried to define it as “I guess it’s when black people had to, you know, they didn’t want to die for being black.” The other two co-hosts in attendance, Joy Behar (who previously taught English) and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, did not speak up to offer a definition.

At 78, Larry Eagleburger hasn't lost his fastball.  Since leaving government, he might actually have added some MPH.  Appearing on MSNBC this afternoon, the former Secretary of State in George H.W.'s administration warmed up with some rough words for Barack Obama and Christopher Hitchens . . .  then absolutely rubbished Bill Richardson.

Andrea Mitchell had invited Eagleburger on to assess the list of potential Secretary of State nominees.  While he wasn't wildly enthusiatic about Hillary, she was his pick among those under serious consideration. When Mitchell suggested that Bill Clinton's foreign policy experience might prove useful, Eagleburger unloaded on Obama's lack of experience..

Now that the election is over and President-elect Barack Obama successfully defeated Sen. John McCain, unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers has decided to break his silence and cash-in by promoting his books.

Although he described himself as "an unwitting and unwilling participant thrust up on stage" for the 2008 presidential election, he demonstrated his opportunistic traits by appearing at the All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 17 to promote his books "City Kids, City Schools: More Reports from the Front Row" and "City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row." He criticized his portrayal by the media, calling it a "dishonest narrative."

Repent, all ye owners of Suburbans, thou drivers of Explorers.  Mend thy ways, ye Escalade-loving louts!  Take heed of the warning the prophet Mika has vouchsafed unto you: greedy thou art; verily, destroyers of the environment be thee!

Oy.  Mika Brzezinski was on quite a roll this morning.  On the one hand, free-marketers would find much to agree with in Mika's arguments.  As noted here yesterday, whereas Joe Scarborough has been vigorously advocating a federal rescue of Detroit, Brzezinski favors bankruptcy over bailout. But Mika couldn't help muddling her message, delivering a jeremiad against Detroit for producing larger vehicles and Americans for buying them, actually condemning the latter as "greedy."

View video here.

William Ayers spoke to a Washington, D.C. audience tonight about his views on the American education system. The Ayers speech included slams towards Fox News and Governor Sarah Palin.

 The event was full of mostly supporters given the amount of loud applause he received. A true question and answer session never really occurred, as audience members were required to write their questions on note cards for pre-screening. Knowing organizers would only choose softball questions, I confronted Ayers with Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney.

I asked Ayers about the dedication to Robert Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan in his 1974 book Prairie Fire. The video is uploaded at Eyeblast.tv:

Victoria's Secret, the well-known lingerie retailer, is being sued by a woman who claims the company's bra had formaldehyde in it and made her "utterly sick." ABC's "Good Morning America" ran a segment Nov. 11 focusing on that 37-year-old Ohio woman, Roberta Ritter.

"Victoria's Secret - certainly one of the world's most recognizable brands," anchor Diane Sawyer said. "And this morning, though, there are questions about what some of the bras might have in them. And did they cause a reaction?"

ABC's Andrea Canning warned viewers "some women say they've experienced very uncomfortable symptoms from the bras like rashes and hives, even permanent scarring ... but the bras are still on the shelves." 

Forget Al Gore's measly 20-foot sea level rise from "An Inconvenient Truth."  That's small potatoes compared to the kind of catastrophe Meredith Vieira was talking about last night.  Kicking off NBC's Global Alarmism Green Week during the halftime of Sunday Night Football, Vieira raised the spectre of the seas rising . . . 200 feet!  Al imagined much of Manhattan under water, but if Meredith's scenario comes true, we're near to talking Manhattan, Kansas By The Sea! [H/t reader Mick L.]

Just one little problem:  Meredith's talk of 200 feet exaggerates the increase predicted by scientists by . . . literally hundreds of times.

Is MSNBC being rewarded for having backed Obama?  That's what Jim Pinkerton suggests.  On this evening's Fox News Watch, the columnist and New America Foundation fellow cited the news that GE Capital, a subsidiary of MSNBC's parent company GE, has received a $139 billion government loan guarantee.

Host Jon Scott opened this evening's show opened with a clip of Chris Matthews [in a story that NB was first to report], saying that he saw as his "job" making the Obama presidency a success.  Pinkerton unloaded.

In the name of gender equality, the Today show plumped this morning for government regulation forcing health care insurers to charge men and women the same for individual policies even though women cost insurers more because of greater use of services.  Hasn't the financial crisis taught the MSM anything about the danger of government meddling in markets? No.

Insurers wind up paying out more in claims under women's policies than men's.  Under the circumstances, charging women the same as men would make as much sense as FedEx charging a flat shipping fee no matter how big the box.  But that didn't stop NBC medical editor Nancy Snyderman and Today weekend co-host Amy Robach from decrying the unfairness of it all this morning.  Their solution? More government, of course.  They want legislation to force insurers to charge the sexes the same.

View video here.

By definition, projection is revealing of what lurks in a person's heart and mind.  Arianna Huffington projected tonight, and what she revealed wasn't pretty.  So much so, that even her liberal host hastened to diassociate herself from the HuffPo editor.  Huffington, grossly misquoting Grover Norquist's famous line about doing away with government, added an infanticidal twist.

Huffington was a guest on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show. The two shed crocodile tears about the diminished state of the Republican party.  It was in suggesting that, of all things, she and Maddow should head up a Marshall Plan to save the GOP that Huffington engaged in that ugly bit of projection.

So what exactly is the government doing with your money? Fox Business Network's Alexis Glick would like to know.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced Nov. 12 he would be redirecting the $700 billion bailout to focus on propping up financial institutions instead of buying troubled mortgage assets, which was the original intent of the rescue plan.

Glick, the host of FBN's "Money for Breakfast," told the CBS's "The Early Show" Nov 13 that the Treasury Department's move away from the original plan to buy up troubled mortgages "does not make sense" and was "actually pretty outrageous":

[T]he markets responded to that yesterday ... Look, the original intent of this Troubled Asset Relief Program was to purchase troubled assets. And I think the marketplace started to adjust several weeks ago when we started to see the size and magnitude of the capital injections.

Remember back during the campaign, when the Obama folks and their MSM cohorts adamantly denied that their man was a liberal?  That National Journal study that ranked him the most liberal senator?  Nonsense! Very misleading.  After all, this is the man who doesn't believe in a red America and a blue America, but in the United States of America. Someone with a history of reaching across partisan lines [even if no good examples were handy at the moment].

So . . . remember all that? Well, forget it.  Now that Obama is safely
ensconced in his Office of the President-Elect, the MSM can let the
[ill-concealed to many of us] cat out of the bag: yes, he's a liberal. Big time!  In fact, Obama is nothing less than the second coming of the biggest American liberal icon of all time: FDR!  Rick Stengel announced the news on today's Morning Joe.

Perhaps Luke Russert should drop his NBC gig as youth-vote specialist and become a full-time Republican consultant.  The son of the late Meet The Press host didn't hesitate this evening to share his advice to the GOP, which can be summarized in two words: go left.

The 23-year old Russert dropped his pearls of electoral wisdom while chatting with the hard-working Mika Brzezinski, guest-hosting for David Gregory on this evening's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after co-anchoring Morning Joe at the crack of dawn.

View video here.

On Wednesday's "Today" show, Matt Lauer played a portion of his interview with Sarah Palin in Alaska where he asked Palin if his former "Today" co-anchor, Katie Couric, was "unfair," during her pre-election interview, to which Palin responded she found some of the questions, "a little bit annoying."

The following exchange was aired on the November 12, edition of the "Today" show (audio available here):

MATT LAUER: More now of our interview with Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin. Virtually unknown before John McCain picked her as his running mate, Palin founder herself under an intense media spotlight. I asked Governor Palin about one of her first interviews during the campaign with Katie Couric, where she stumbled over a number of questions. And I asked her if seeing the clips from that interview, hurt her confidence.

It's not like Barack Obama is a socialist or anything. It's just that Thomas Friedman wants him to put a "government master" in charge of the country's biggest manufacturing sector. Friedman made his modest proposal in his New York Times column of today, and expanded on it during a Morning Joe appearance. [H/t reader Tom.]

Video also available here.

I've got three easy reasons why Friedman's idea won't work.

If Morning Joe seems every-so-slightly less up-to-date, there's a reason for it. The show is now seven seconds behind the times. A tape delay has been instituted in the wake of Joe Scarborough's unintentional dropping of an f-bomb two days ago.

B&C reported the change yesterday, and NewsBuster Ken Shepherd discussed it here.  The Morning Joe crew had fun with the move on today's show. Coming back from its first break, the show aired tape [via Jimmy Kimmel Live] of CNN's Rick Sanchez coming back from a break of his own.  With a screen over his shoulder reading "Transition to Power," Sanchez said: "We welcome you black.  Uh, welcome you back."  Point made: Joe's not the only cable TV guy capable of an embarrassing slip 'o the tongue.

The crew proceeded to a light-hearted discussion of the move to tape delay, with executive producer Chris Licht proudly displaying his finger poised on the red button.

View video here.

The next presidential election might be four years off, but it's never too early to sow dissension in Republican ranks.  So would appear to be David Shuster's creed. Interviewing Bobby Jindal this evening, Shuster was clearly more interested in luring the brilliant Louisiana governor into a fight with Sarah Palin than in exploring the substance.

Jindal was way too savvy and diplomatic to fall for Shuster's transparent ploy, but that didn't stop Shuster—sitting in for David Gregory as host of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—from repeatedly trying.

This is the debut video in an occasional series called "Softball Spotlight," which will showcase the softball questions that Barack Obama-loving reporters ask the future president. E-mail your tips to me: dglover-at-mediaresearch-dot-org. Or upload your own videos to Eyeblast.tv.

NBC reporter Lee Cowan was quite infatuated with Democrat Barack Obama on the campaign trail.

Cowan went so far as to confess on camera with NBC anchor Brian Williams that "it's almost hard to remain objective" because Obama is so "infectious." Weeks later in an NBC print promotional, Cowan acknowledged that "my knees quaked a bit" when he learned that he was being tasked with covering Obama.

What's gotten into the NBC/MSNBC water?  Chris Matthews's verbal miscue on this evening's Hardball makes a triple-header of gaffes on the family of networks today.  As we've noted, Joe Scarborough kicked off the slip parade, unintentionally dropping an f-bomb on Morning Joe.  About an hour later on Today, Meredith Vieira stumbled into asking Matt Lauer a question that invoked the uncomfortable subject of his rocky marital history.  And now, discussing Sarah Palin's political future, Matthews committed the same stumble that an unscrupulous staffer claims the vice-presidential candidate made: calling Africa a country. [H/t anonymous reader.]

Matthews made his mistake in the course of posing a question to Larry Persily, a former member of Palin's gubernatorial staff.

With General Motors in serious trouble, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., are making a push for the government to intervene and rescue the auto giant as they did with AIG. However, Francesco Guerrera, U.S. editor for the Financial Times, isn't so sure a GM failure would be as bad as some are letting on.

Guerrera appeared on CNBC's Nov. 10 "Power Lunch" to weigh the pros and cons of the newly revised AIG (NYSE:AIG) rescue package. He was asked if this type of government intervention should be offered for General Motors (NYSE:GM).

"That's what they say," Guerrera said. "I'm not sure I buy that.  I think there'll be a lot of job losses if GM fails, but there's nothing systemic in the sense that if AIG goes or if, you know, one of the other banks goes - there'll be a ripple effect throughout not just the U.S. economy, but global financial markets. I don't see how you can make the systemic risk argument for a car company."

"Rachel Maddow is the smartest person on TV," proclaims The Advocate magazine in a cover story on the newly christened MSNBC pundit and Air America Radio host.

That being the case, Maddow ought to know better than make some of the claims she does -- at least when it comes to politics, economics and American history.

Most recent example: Maddow's interview on Nov. 5 with former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee and their discussion of the Republican Party's future --

The term “Fairness Doctrine” – applied to liberals’ efforts to require talk radio to offer balanced views – harkens to Soviet propaganda, according to Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor.

“It’s one of the great misnomers of our time. It’s, you know, ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ almost like a Soviet term,” Gainor said on “Fox & Friends Weekend” Nov. 9. “It should be Censorship Doctrine. That’s what they’re trying to do.”

“They’re trying to clamp down on radio because the left and the media control every other facet of where we get our information: entertainment media, print media, you know you’ve got TV, you’ve got NPR, you’ve got Air America,” Gainor said. “The one thing they don’t control, the one way Americans get their information is talk radio.”

Several high-profile Democrats in Congress have expressed interest in revisiting the so-called Fairness Doctrine – although President-elect Obama has said he opposes it.

Mike Barnicle, come on up here and accept this morning's Lanny Davis Award for shameless defense of the indefensible.  You've earned it.  Not merely did the Morning Joe panelist excuse Barack Obama's nasty jab at Nancy Reagan, he actually claimed that we need more of those kind of "jokes" from our presidents.

Joe Scarborough began the discussion by asserting that whereas mayors, governors and other lesser officials can get away with what Obama said about the former First Lady, it is unbecoming in the mouth of a president. The Morning Joe host also suggested that had George W. Bush made a comparable crack about a beloved Dem First Lady, the New York Times would have taken him harshly to task. Leaping to Obama's defense, the former Boston Globe columnist didn't merely don the wetsuit: Barnicle went full bathysphere.

Message to Scott McClellan: when your guy's gaffe merits a screaming headline at Drudge [see after the jump] about how he's had to apologize for what he said, he's messed up. Big time.  But that didn't stop Pres. Bush's former press secretary—turned Soros-paid scrivener—from going on TV and proclaiming that Obama turned in a flawless performance in his debut presser today as president-elect.

McClellan appeared on MSNBC's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," David Gregory's post-election vehicle taking the place of "Race for the White House."  In an odd bit of balance, McClellan, who endorsed Obama, was on with former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart.  Mika Brzezinski guest-hosted for Gregory.  Lockhart went first, and predictably proclaimed that Obama "made no mistakes" in his press conference today.  No prize for candor, but what do you expect?  Then it was McClellan's turn, and he went into parrot paradigm [with no offense to the baby red-front macaw I'm bringing home tomorrow].

Media Research Center Director of Communications and NewsBusters.org Contributing Editor Seton Motley appeared on today's Your World with Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel to discuss radical leftist Henry Rivera, President-elect Barack Obama's appointee to oversee the Administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) transition process, and its implications for the future of free speech in America.

Many members of the Democratic Party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have stated their desire for a return of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, more rightly called the Censorship Doctrine for it would force conservative talk radio hosts off the air. 

But no Congressional action is required to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. All the Obama Administration has to do is make one appointment to the FCC, turning a 3-2 Republican FCC majority into a 3-2 Democratic one, and it can again be reinstated.  Republican Robert McDowell's term ends in June 2009.

You might not be thrilled by the election of Barack Obama, but look on the bright side: it's made life a lot easier for Maya Angelou when she hangs out with her European friends.  Asked by Andrea Mitchell during MSNBC's 1 PM hour what was going through her mind as the results rolled in, the poet mentioned, among other things:

I realized, almost within the minute, I don't have to apologize for my country when I'm abroad.  I can say: "I belong to a great country." And the Europeans who say: aren't you glad to be here in France where we don't have the racism you live under?  Aren't you glad you're here in Britain, where we don't have -- I mean, I've been on the defensive so long.  This time I can say: "I am an American: look at us, look at what we've just achieved."

At the end of Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, an emotional Harry Smith declared: "I don't know how else to say this -- I grew up in a household that was not racially neutral. I grew up in a household where racial epithets were used commonly and with vigor. To see the difference in this country, in a country that I grew up in, so many people have said this is not something they thought they would ever see in their lifetime, and I wept tears of joy last night." Co-host Julie Chen observed: "You have tears in your eyes right now, Harry." [audio available here]

Prior to that admission, Smith interviewed poet Maya Angelou and asked: "Who were you thinking about last night as you watched the coverage?" Angelou replied: "All of us. All of those who went before, who paid dearly. And all of us today, all of us. I'm so proud, I'm filled -- I can hardly talk without weeping -- I'm so filled with pride for my country. What do you say? We are growing up." Angelou later added: "And he is inclusive, as opposed to exclusive. I know that he knows he is the president of every black person, every white person, he's the president of the bigots and he must remember that." Smith added: "He said in his acceptance speech, ‘for those of you who voted against me, I hear you too.’" Angelou replied: "Yes, exactly. That's what I mean...We will be together. This is what he dreams, he envisions it."

Appearing on MSNBC shortly after 1 p.m. EST with anchor Andrea Mitchell, The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein rebuked House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) for drawing a legitimate criticism of President-elect Obama's choice of what he described as the "sharp-elbowed" Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) as his White House chief-of-staff (see video embedded at right, transcript is below page break).

Mitchell dismissed as "warfare" and Brownstein hit as "reflexive partisanship" Boehner's rather mild statement:

This is an ironic choice for a President-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil, and govern from the center.

But it's not just Republican partisans who are noting Emanuel's hard-nosed, partisan politics. As the Reuters news wire noted in a November 5 article, "Emanuel would bring [a] tough edge to White House job":

NBC political analyst Chuck Todd offered the Quote of the Day in the first few minutes of Today on Thursday, comparing incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to the legendary American generals Patton and MacArthur [audio excerpt here]:

President Clinton chose a childhood friend to be his chief-of-staff, Mack McLarty. What did that mean? That chief-of-staff never knew how to tell the President no. Never was a sort of behind-the-scenes guy. In Rahm Emanuel Obama knows he's getting Douglas MacArthur, or General Patton. A guy who's a field general, who will keep all of the, keep everything running on time, the trains running on time and will go after Congress.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, and CNBC's Jim Cramer has a drastic measure that probably won't sit well with border enforcement proponents.

On Nov. 5 the host of CNBC's "Mad Money" detailed for his audience how he would save the economy serving under Democratic President-elect Barack Obama - under the facetious assumption he could be SEC chairman, Federal Reserve chairman and Treasury secretary.

Cramer's plan involves the government bailing out the big three U.S. automakers - General Motors (NYSE:GM), Chrysler (NYSE:DAI) and Ford (NYSE:F) - with a plan similar to the bailout of American International Group (NYSE:AIG), which was rescued earlier this year. Cramer would also give tax breaks to private enterprises that aid in the country's transition from petroleum-based fuels to natural gas.