With world leaders meeting in Japan for the G8 Summit, conventional wisdom would suggest high commodity prices - which are having a detrimental effect on world economy - would be the focus.

But that wasn't so on the July 6 broadcast of "NBC Nightly News." Instead of reporting on what are seemingly more pressing issues, the segment about the summit highlighted "green" efforts from the host country.

"Mr. Bush is to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao this week on the sidelines of the G8 Summit - where leaders will talk about soaring gas and food prices and the thorny issue of climate change," Yang said. "Officials want to build momentum toward next year's deadline for a global agreement to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change."

President George W. Bush in April announced his support for establishing federal emissions reduction targets with a goal of stopping greenhouse gas emission growth by 2025. That wasn't enough for "Nightly News," which still managed to find a global warming alarmist with anti-Bush sentiments to bash his efforts.

From the Downfalls of Centrist Labeling Department: An MRC colleague E-mails his amazement at the Washington Post's World News section: "The head of China is a middle-of-the-roader according to Sunday’s Post. I guess a middle-of-the-road totalitarian dictator."

The headline to Edward Cody's piece on Hu Jintao and the current Communist Party's National Congress was "Hu Set for Second Term at China's Helm: Political Middle-of-the-Roader Has Limited Reform Efforts to Economic Sphere." The story goes from page A-20 across to page A-21, where the headline is "Hu Poised for Five More Years Steering China on Centrist Track."

Using the same ideological labels for communist countries that you try to use in Western democracies is inherently frustrating. It's not like Hu Jintao is leading China on a Clinton-style Third Way corporate-liberal program, where Jesse Jackson would be denouncing his allies in "Communists for the Leisure Class."