Former Secretary of State Colin Powell apparently can't do a television interview anymore without going after conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Unfortunately, Sunday wasn't any different.

Appearing with John King on CNN's "State of the Union," Powell couldn't resist referring to Limbaugh in a question about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

AP writer Douglass Daniel was enjoying the moderate Republican (and Obama Republican) response to conservatives on the Sunday talk shows. His story began:

Moderate Republicans to conservative Republicans: Turn down the volume — especially on Rush Limbaugh — and open your minds. The party's future might be at stake.

Such warnings about the GOP's right wing, along with finger wagging about a "shrill" and "judgmental" tone, marked the moderate response in the latest back-and-forth within the Republican Party.

Those words turned out to be former governor Tom Ridge’s on CNN’s State of the Union. (That's funny -- they were also Barack Obama's words to congressional Republicans.) Daniel also quoted Obamacan Colin Powell, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove, but led his story with the Ridge attack on Rush Limbaugh:

ABC and CBS, which two weeks ago gave short-shrift to Dick Cheney choosing Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell as the better representative of the Republican Party (brief anchor-read items), both led Sunday night with Powell push back against Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. “Colin Powell hitting back at Dick Cheney and other Republican critics, saying he's still a member of the party, a party he says has to change,” ABC anchor Dan Harris teased Sunday's World News. On CBS, Russ Mitchell announced: “Tonight, Colin Powell versus Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. The former Secretary of State defends his Republican credentials.”

In the lead CBS Evening News story, Kimberly Dozier made Powell's case, reporting how on Sunday's Face the Nation “he said the criticism he faces points to what's wrong with his party” and “he pointed out the party's recent poor track record, losing the presidency by ten million votes and losing a majority in Congress.” Dozier had noted that Powell endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain last year, but failed to suggest any hypocrisy in then fretting about the Republican candidate, the most liberal since Gerald Ford, losing or then complaining the party is too conservative. Instead, Dozier proceeded to highlight how “moderate Republicans worry that the party is perceived as embracing only a few narrow issues -- anti-abortion, anti-tax and pro-gun rights.”

It seems a metaphysical certitude that in the wake of Colin Powell's appearance on "Face the Nation" Sunday, most media outlets will pay great attention to the former Secretary of State's response to what Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh have said about his questionable Party allegiance.

Here are some of the early headlines:

• Powell Still a Republican, Despite Party Differences -- New York Times
• Powell to Republicans: Listen to moderates, too -- Associated Press
• Powell Takes on Cheney, Limbaugh in Battle for Republican Party -- Bloomberg

Unfortunately, in their fascination with conflict, the press could miss the most interesting part of this interview when Powell defended what George W. Bush did after the 9/11 attacks (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 12:20):

It’s uncommon for newspapers to hype Sunday morning TV interviews in advance, especially if presidents aren’t involved. But Saturday’s Washington Post carries this page 3 story: "In TV Appearance, Powell Plans to Answer Right-Wing Critics." Reporters Michael D. Shear and Perry Bacon Jr. play up a GOP feud: "Under intense fire from the right, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is preparing to answer his Republican critics this weekend in a television appearance that is likely to add fuel to his long-standing feud with top conservatives in his party."

Message to liberal Post readers: the conservatives are going to get thrashed tomorrow on CBS's Face the Nation, so don’t miss it.

Shear and Bacon didn't tell readers that this "feud" was fueled by the liberal media, by CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, who asked former vice president Dick Cheney whether Powell or Rush Limbaugh was a better voice for Republicans. They only explained "Rush Limbaugh and former vice president Richard B. Cheney have attacked Powell in recent days as a traitor to his party."

Three CNN personalities and one regular commentator on Monday’s No Bias, No Bull program all tried to get Republicans Bay Buchanan and Kevin Madden to disown former Vice President Dick Cheney, and agree with some unnamed Republicans who call for him to “just shut up.” Host Roland Martin characterized Cheney’s multiple media appearances recently as “turning into a big problem for the family of Republicans” and that “some Republicans wish the former V.P. would just shut up.”

Correspondent Jessica Yellin and Drew Griffin saw no good in the politician’s media tour, with Yellin labeling Cheney “one of the least popular figures in the Republican Party, aside from Rush Limbaugh.” She asked Buchanan, “Why is it good for him to speak out as such an unpopular guy?” TruTV’s Lisa Bloom agreed with the unnamed Republicans: “I think a lot of Republicans probably wish Cheney was secured in an undisclosed location right about now.”

To Bob Schieffer's astonishment, when he wrapped up his Sunday interview by asking former Vice President Dick Cheney where he comes down between Rush Limbaugh and Colin Powell who both say the Republican Party would be “better off” without the other, Cheney declared: “I'd go with Rush Limbaugh.”  

Cheney related on CBS's Face the Nation how “my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican.” Schieffer was surprised: “So you think that he's not a Republican?” Cheney explained: “I just noted he endorsed the Democratic candidate for President this time, Barack Obama. I assume that that's some indication of his loyalty and his interests.” To which an astounded Schieffer pressed Cheney to reaffirm his choice: “And you said you take Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell?” Cheney confirmed his preference.

Rush Limbaugh has no problem following black conservatives. But you’d never know it, were you to read the Black Entertainment Television website.

Posted by the amorphous BET.com Staff, the following kneecapping was posted today:

Rush Limbaugh has a problem with leading Black Republicans. In recent weeks, he’s blasted his own party’s chairman, calling Michael Steele “gutless” and too weak to challenge President Obama. And now, the acid-tongued shock jock is hurling barbs at perhaps the most respected Black Republican in America, telling his estimated 20 million listeners to his radio show that former Secretary of State Colin Powell is really a Democrat in a GOP costume.

First of all, Rush Limbaugh, while generally seen as a Republican, is first and foremost a conservative. For Limbaugh, the party is simply an instrument to implement a philosophy - understanding this about conservatives would cause partisans everywhere to understand Limbaugh’s politics much better.

But the inability to understand the difference is not the only problem with this BET article.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has once again bashed conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh as well as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin while going a step further this time by piling on the GOP.

Following up on last December's acrimonious interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, Powell told corporate security executives Monday, "The Republican Party is in deep trouble" adding "I think what Rush [Limbaugh] does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without." 

As CongressDaily reported Tuesday, that's not all that's bothering Powell:

On Friday’s The Situation Room on CNN, Jack Cafferty used his regular "Cafferty File" segment to attack Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives, citing Colin Powell’s recent words criticizing Limbaugh’s role in speaking for Republicans. After he quoted Powell’s remarks, Cafferty clarified that Powell was "talking about that gasbag Limbaugh," and posed the question for viewers: "Should Republicans stop listening to Rush Limbaugh?" Later in the program, all the viewer emails he read were harshly critical of Limbaugh, with one even comparing him and Sean Hannity to the Ku Klux Klan. Cafferty, reading email: "Connie in Chicago: ‘Yes! Limbaugh is a far-right agitator of the worst sort with a 1950's mentality of what values 21st century America should reflect. I expect him and other like-minded Sean Hannitys of the world to step out of their closet and display their white sheets and dunce caps. Limbaugh is a bad joke.’"

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was interviewed Sunday afternoon by CNN's Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria asked Powell about his thoughts on the Military's 1993 Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask about one social issue that you were associated with, which was "don't ask, don't tell," the policy toward gay people being in the military openly. Do you feel like the country has moved to a place where we could reevaluate "don't ask, don't tell"?

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell will be featured on CNN's "GPS" program Sunday, and during the interview with Fareed Zakaria, Powell bashes Rush Limbaugh, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and Joe the Plumber.

Powell also had negative things to say about the Republican Party in general.

As reported by CNN's Political Ticker Thursday (partial video of the interview embedded below the fold):

Lefty talk show host Ed Schultz was delighted by Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama, but not all his listeners were so enthused. This led to an eyebrow-raiser of a remark by Schultz during his Oct. 20 broadcast:

Now many of you have sent emails saying, oh Ed, who cares about this, (Powell) went in front of the UN and said there were no WMD. Well, that was an administration's, he was, you know, doing his job and he could have said no to it, that's true, but at the time they thought they had 'em. (emphasis added) And he was the mouthpiece for the administration and the country's position on WMD at that time. Look, it was a mistake, we've all learned a lot since then.

Operative word highlighted above -- "they." (MP3 Audio Here)

Back in 1964, Lyndon Johnson and his hatchet man Bill Moyers made the infamous "Daisy" ad charging Barry Goldwater would cause a nuclear war, and it became a massive media story. Reportedly the ad ran only once and yet everyone came to know about it, thanks to the press. In 1976 and again in 1980 the Democrats worked overtime suggesting the election of Ronald Reagan would trigger a military calamity, so much so that in their 1980 debate, Reagan joked that Jimmy Carter was cartooning him as a "mad bomber." The media couldn’t get enough of that narrative, either.

So what happens when a vice presidential candidate makes the gaffe to end all gaffes and declares that his own running mate will trigger an international crisis? In the Year of The One, it’s yet another controversy that is virtually ignored by a national press corps that has become an institutional embarrassment.

After seven weeks of the news media deriding Sarah Palin, Brian Williams and Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday night seemed to delight in emphasizing how, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which led the NBC Nightly News, Palin is hurting McCain as Obama surges ahead. And Williams touted Colin Powell's Sunday endorsement of Barack Obama as “the shot heard 'round the world.” After reciting how the survey of registered voters put Obama up by ten points, 52 to 42 percent, Williams asserted: “Perhaps more dangerous for the GOP ticket, most of those polled do not believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be President, by a margin of 55 percent to 40 percent.”

However, take a look at the PDF of the full poll, which did not pose the same question about Obama, and you learn that despite the media's pounding the public perception of her qualifications has been remarkably consistent across three NBC/WSJ surveys (see question 29d) with more considering her unqualified than qualified not anything new: 40 percent called her “qualified” in the September 19-22 poll, 41 percent replied qualified in the poll conducted October 4-5 and she returned to 40 percent in this new survey. Meanwhile, “not qualified” grew only slightly, from 49 to 50 to the current 55 percent which Williams treated as big news.

CNN contributor Roland Martin used an unoriginal line to attack Rush Limbaugh on Monday’s Election Center program. Host Campbell Brown wanted Martin, a Barack Obama supporter, to comment on something the talk radio host had said about Colin Powell’s endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate: "Rush Limbaugh said today, this is about race. That's all it's about." Martin’s response: "I think I will quote Al Franken when talking about Rush Limbaugh -- is a stupid, fat idiot."

Martin made the comment during a panel discussion with Brown, CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger, and Kevin Madden, the former spokesman for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, in which the four of them discussed the Powell endorsement of Obama. After his cliched attack, the CNN contributor accused Limbaugh, as well as Pat Buchanan and George Will, of disregarding Powell’s record and simplifying his endorsement to a matter of skin color: "Colin Powell gave one of the most thoughtful, meticulous endorsements of any candidate, and laid it all out very methodically, and it is an insult for people like Rush Limbaugh and Buchanan and Will and others to somehow say, oh, it's only because he's black."

As NewsBusters previously reported, the same broadcast networks that two years ago could not get enough of the Mark Foley scandal, are offering little to no coverage of Foley’s successor, Tim Mahoney, now embroiled in a sex scandal of his own. The networks on October 21 completely ignored the news that Congressman Mahoney’s wife is now filing for divorce. Fox News’ "Fox and Friends" only provided a brief news read. After co-host Brian Kilmeade read the brief, Steve Doocy editorialized "I think [the Foley] scandal got more ink, didn’t it?"

In related news, Mark Foley himself recently announced his endorsement for Barack Obama. Though Obama won over another Republican, it’s a safe assumption it will not receive the same news coverage as Colin Powell.

Update: Mark Foley issued a statement denying his support for Obama:

Shades of McCain from an unlikely corner . . .

When at the beginning of the current financial mess John McCain declared that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong," he was roundly lambasted by the MSM, while the Obama campaign called his statement "an enormous mistake."

So, should we expect the liberal media and the Obama campaign to go after Barney Frank . . . now that he has said something remarkably similar? Discussing the markets with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC this afternoon, Frank declared: "I think it's clear that the fundamentals are better than the psychology."

View video here.

On Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer talked to Washington Post reporter Dan Balz about Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama and Balz argued: "Well I think it's obviously significant. I don't think endorsements ultimately mean that much, but there are two, I think, important things that happened with his endorsement of Senator Obama...the criticism of McCain for picking Governor Palin as his running mate, he said explicitly he did not think she was ready. This is something that is beginning to become almost a chorus in some parts of the Republican Party."

On Monday’s CBS Early Show, Schieffer offered almost identical analysis of Powell’s endorsement: "Well, I've never thought endorsements are game-changers but this just adds to the good news that Barack Obama's been getting lately...what Colin Powell said yesterday and why it was so riveting to hear him, he was saying aloud what a lot of Republicans are saying privately, I think, or at least what I've heard some Republicans tell me. They think the pick of Sarah Palin reflects on John McCain's judgment, they think the campaign has turned too nasty and is not inclusive."

"Good Morning America" journalists celebrated the endorsement of Senator Barack Obama by former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday's program. An ABC graphic for reporter John Berman's segment did not hold back. It asked, "Obama's Best Weekend Ever? Powell and Donors Boost Obama." Co-host Diane Sawyer teased the story by announcing, "This morning, Senator Obama's banner weekend: Record breaking crowds, cash and the endorsement heard around the world." [audio excerpt here]

Introducing Berman, Sawyer called Powell's endorsement, which occurred on Sunday's "Meet the Press," a "booster rocket." Berman also highlighted the fact that Obama's campaign has a "bank account that swelled by a record-shattering $150 million." Of course there was no mention of the influence of money in politics or the Democratic presidential candidate's now broken pledge to take public financing.