Wolf Blitzer, on Friday’s "The Situation Room," conducted a softball interview of Arianna Huffington, helping her to promote her new book, "Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe," and asking her for her take on the three presidential candidates. He failed to identify her "Huffington Post" website, "one of the most popular websites," as he put it, as a liberal stomping ground, and basically sucked up to her during the entire segment. "I read ‘Huffington Post.’ I read your blog on Huffington Post all the time." Also, "You've really created an enormous success with HuffingtonPost.com, in part because everyone there seems to be blunt, honest. They don't hedge."

Blitzer’s gentle treatment of Huffington could be put into the context of what happened two days later. The Fishbowl DC blog exposed that on Sunday night, Blitzer himself appeared at Huffington’s "Right Is Wrong" book release party, which major Democratic contributor Beth Dozoretz held at her home [see picture above, via Fishbowl DC].

I'm no medical doctor or psychiatrist, but I believe there's a disturbing condition sweeping the left-wing blogosphere, closely related to the well-documented malady of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Call it Limbaugh Derangement Syndrome if you will, and I will.

What else do you call it when a lib blogger compares the radio talk show host to agitators of Rwandan genocide? From Jeffrey Feldman's May 7 blog over at Huffington Post (emphasis mine; h/t NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez):

The right-wing pundit's 'orders' to his Republican listeners have been clear: vote in the Democratic primaries as a coordinated tactic for sewing [sic] division in the opposition party. The goal of such 'chaos,' Limbaugh has stated explicitly, is to foment hatred between different parts of the Democratic Party leading, ultimately, to street riots during the Denver convention.

The ongoing incident raises a serious question:

Shortly after reporting on her Web site that GOP presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain did not vote for George W. Bush in 2000, Arianna Huffington continued to denigrate the presumptive Republican nominee before a Washington, D.C., audience.

"Actually, you know what I think - the more I think of it, John McCain should not be allowed to hold sharp scissors," Huffington said. "[Y]ou know he wants to make the tax cuts permanent. He wants bigger corporate tax cuts. You know, it's an endless process. You know it's basically, exactly what this country does not need. It's expanding and deepening the last eight years."

Earlier, Huffington had charged that the media are playing "Pontius Pilate" when dealing with the issue of global warming.

Scott Whitlock mentioned that ABC allowed Arianna Huffington to plug her book Thursday on GMA. But Charlie Gibson failed to perform any self-defense on Huffington’s frontal attack on what she calls in her book "The Pontius Pilate Press." (Is Obama the Christ in this scenario? Conservatives are the crucifiers?) Scott noted Gibson merely began: "You think they've taken on the media as well or taken over the media as well. But, basically, you feel that this country has been captured by the more extreme wing of the Republican Party?" So, ABC’s morning show hasn't interviewed Brent Bozell in this century about liberal bias, but they’re putting up no defense to the charge that ABC is an extreme-right-wing GOP subsidiary.

Huffington is making a very bold claim right now, that the media are addicted to fairness and balance, which is wrong, since liberals are right and the "discredited" Right is wrong, so conservatives should be left on the cutting-room floor. They need to engineer conservative "disappearance from the stage":

On Thursday's "Good Morning America," guest host Charles Gibson featured far-left author and creator of the Huffington Post Web site Arianna Huffington to promote her angry new book about "lunatic fringe" conservatives. Gibson, who was a moderator in the April ABC debate that liberals have decried as unfair to Barack Obama, brought up some of the issues mentioned in the debate, such as the senator's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin.

Speaking of Republicans, he asserted, "They owned, have owned, the, quote, 'issue of patriotism' for some time now." Taking Gibson's cue, and, at the same time, launching an attack on media outlets that supposedly are unfair to liberals, Huffington used the same qualifier: "But the media have helped them own the, quote, issue of patriotism." And although Gibson did occasionally challenge the conservative-turned liberal, he also let her get away with contradictions. As already noted, Huffington chided the media for focusing on alleged distractions, such as flag pins and Reverend Jeremiah Wright's controversial statements. However, in the same segment she frothed over the "lunatic fringe" who "basically, don't believe in evolution but believe in torture."

Friday's 20/20 aired a piece on liberal columnist Arianna Huffington in which ABC host John Stossel got to challenge Huffington's views on issues like welfare, OSHA regulations, and the "lunatic fringe" of the Republican party. When Stossel took her to task for living in a $7 million home that is "burning more carbon than 100 people in the Third World" even while she is part of the "war on global warming," Huffington responded: "There is no question that the fact that I'm living in a big house, I occasionally travel on private planes, all those things are a contradiction. I'm not setting myself up as some paragon who only goes around on a bicycle and lives by candlelight." (Transcript follows)

Thursday's "Good Morning America" featured a group of liberals talking about whether the press favored one liberal over another liberal and several leftist journalists were cited as proof. Specifically, co-host Diane Sawyer continued the program's self flagellation over whether the media is biased in favor of Barack Obama and against Hillary Clinton.

The ABC anchor discussed the issue with Arianna Huffington, editor of the extremely liberal Huffington Post web page. But, in a perfect example of actual bias, the GMA host never mentioned either Ms. Huffington or her site's leftist affiliation. Instead, Sawyer breathlessly worried about the Clinton campaign's charges that the media have been unfair. In an intro, she fretted, "And we turn the tables on ourselves. Have all of us in the media used boxing gloves on Clinton and kid gloves on Obama? Have we been unfair?" Co-host Robin Roberts also teased the segment as a brave example of self examination: "The media. Too tough on Clinton? Not tough enough on Obama? We'll take up that debate."

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington made some irresponsible misrepresentations on Tuesday's "Countdown" of a seemingly innocent statement by Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

At the end of the article, the following question was posed: Does anybody believe Olbermann and/or Huffington will apologize for their erroneous defamation of Giuliani?

Well, sports fans, we now have our answer, for in their own way, Keith and Arianna perfectly demonstrated how liberals apologize when they make a mistake insulting conservatives: continue insulting them.

For instance, on Friday's "Countdown," Olbermann actually did apologize for the error, but then immediately began his "Worst Person in the World" segment giving all three dishonors to Giuliani. I kid you not (portions of LexisNexis transcript follow, video available here):

Honestly, there are times when I wonder if liberal media members are just addle-minded, or so obsessed with their political agenda that fabricating news seems acceptable to them.

Either must have been the case when the Associated Press, followed by the leftwing entourage of Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington, completely misrepresented a rather innocent statement by Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, and in so doing, cast doubt on their veracity as journalists.

In fact, and as difficult as it may seem, the three entities mistook the name "Assad" for "Osama."

Nice job of fact-checking, guys!

Sadly, this all began Monday with the following Associated Press article (emphasis added, h/t Hot Air):

In a Tuesday online posting on the New York Times website, Katharine Seelye enthused about "Campaign Coverage That Is Raw and Fresh" from two new journalism sites -- staffed almost exclusively by liberals.

"We're taking a look today at two new Web ventures that could help change how politics is covered. One, OffTheBus.net, is all of three months old, which these days makes it practically establishment. The other, Scoop08.com, is so new it hasn't even started yet. It's a national daily online newspaper by and for college and high school students and is preparing to go live on Sunday. That makes it the newest entry in the field and therefore the one with most of its ideals still intact."

But the two sites are staffed almost exclusively by liberal and Democratic activists -- what kind of change is that?

Here's the first clue of the political slant of the new ventures:

On Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," host Hannah Storm exclaimed that Fred Thompson "has received a lot of criticism...for being underwhelming so far out on the campaign trail." This just hours before Thompson’s participation in his first GOP debate.

The segment began with a report by Nancy Cordes who observed that Thompson’s "...been trying to keep expectations low."Storm then invited on guests Arianna Huffington and Michael Smerconish for political analysis, both of whom bashed Thompson. Smerconish began the attack:

Well, unfortunately, I think the delivery probably matters over substance in this case because he is getting a reputation on the stump so far as being a bit of a dolt. Somebody needs to light a fire under his fanny.

Huffington brought her ususal class to the argument:

And then there are all these stumbles, you know, on the issues too. It wasn't just a matter of being underwhelming in terms of passion and energy...You know, he didn't know much about the Everglades in Florida...he didn't know much about Terri Schiavo. And he thought Hezbollah was in Afghanistan. You know, these are kind of major problems, especially after all these years with George W. Bush. People want a little more competence in the sense of the grasp of the issues.

Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center and Senior Editor of the MRC's NewsBusters, appeared Friday night on the Fox News Channel’s "The O’Reilly Factor" to discuss the MRC's Special Report, "Huffington’s House of Horrors: A Compendium of Far-Left Flame-Throwing, Name-Calling, and Attack-Dogging."

After the jump: The full text of Alec Baldwin's fantasy about killing Dick Cheney by dropping Osama bin Laden's corpse on him and John Cusack's Bush is “human scum” supported by “flag-sucking half wits” quote, both of which Bill O'Reilly and Graham recited on the September 14 program.

Video clip (5:10): Real (3.9 MB) or Windows Media (3.3 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.8 MB)

On his Thursday night radio show, Mark Levin laid into MSNBC's Joe Scarborough over a Thursday morning interview with Arianna Huffington. (He calls the host "the Morning Schmo.") Scarborough had no answer for Huffington when she stoutly defended the MoveOn.org ad bashing Gen. David Petraeus. She added: "And again and again, despite the administration's best efforts to present him as this figure beyond reproach, we see that he's playing politics. He's playing politics with soldiers' lives in Iraq."

Levin found it disgusting that Huffington can sit in her luxury home and sip Chardonnay while Gen. Petraeus and his troops have their boots on the ground on the front lines every day sacrificing for the country. Here's the exchange from MSNBC:

Don't look for Arianna Huffington to be sitting down to a chummy luncheon with Hillary Clinton anytime soon. Huffington has been no fan of Clinton for some time, considering her insufficiently, and inauthentically, anti-war. But on today's "Morning Joe," Huffington took her animus to another level, accusing Hillary of an ultimate Dem sin: "swiftboating" an opponent, namely Barack Obama.

HUFFINGTON POST FOUNDER ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: After the CNN debate, I think it was ridiculous the way she and her campaign attacked Obama for saying he would engage in diplomatic talks with dictators. That is sort of a classic example of swiftboating your opponent. Like the equivalent of what Republicans do anytime Democrats call for troop withdrawal and they are talking about "cutting and running" or "precipitous withdrawal" or any of the clever little phrases.

View video here.