How do you know that the White House's anti-Fox News campaign has gone seriously wrong? When CNN, let alone Anderson Cooper, begins to compare the Obama and Nixon administrations (video embedded below the fold, h/t Mediaite's Colby Hall).

On last night's "360," Cooper stated that "this White House is starting to look like another White House and the comparison is not flattering." He showed a clip of Sen. Lamar Alexander, documented yesterday by NewsBuster Noel Sheppard, offering a "friendly suggestion" to President Obama.

I have an uneasy feeling only 10 months into the new administration that we're beginning to see the symptoms of this same kind of animus developing in the Obama administration. And as those of use who served in the Nixon administration know, that can get you in a lot of trouble... Don't create an enemies list.

What happens when you have James Carville prodding Larry King to ask a "tough" question of outspoken Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann? You get a glimpse of what is really driving the movement questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama's birthplace.

On CNN's Oct. 7 "Larry King Live," a persistent Carville would not let it go - that Bachmann was a part of the so-called "birther" movement - a tactic to frame her as "nutty."

"Well, first of all, there are seven Republicans in the House that have ‘birther' legislation before in there," Carville said. "And one of the things that people don't like is that politicians get a simple yes or no question and they try to evade it, just like I heard the Congresswoman do. She's known to be very outspoken."

Appearing on CBS’s Sunday Morning, commentator Ben Stein ripped into CNN political analyst James Carville for claiming anti-Obama protestors were "classless": "the elitist anger of the liberal Democrats is boiling over as some ordinary citizens show they don’t like being pushed around....Contempt for the ordinary citizen is just not American and it does not win elections."

Earlier in his commentary, Stein wondered: "I thought the Democrats were the party of the little guys and those who aren’t classy or well born...So now the Democrats are admitting they’re the party of the rich?" He went on to point out that Democrats have "been getting the lion’s share of very large political gifts for years now. The truth is that the Democrats are the fat cats. I’m impressed that Mr. Carville admitted it. I like him more than ever now."

Stein continued: "I was also interested to see that Mr. Carville, a mere lad of 64, same age as I am, has made fun of the age of the tea party attendees." A clip was played of Carville declaring: " I mean they had every old crank in the country out there." Stein observed: "So now the Democrats don’t think the opinions of senior citizens are worth anything more than ridicule?"

Ann Coulter and James Carville went head-to-head on Good Morning America this morning.  Incredibly, James Carville survived.

At least, it sounds incredible until you read the transcript.  A total of nine questions were asked of the two pundits, seven of which went to Coulter.  Carville, on the other hand, was simply allowed to respond to Coulter without questioning - an unfiltered rebuttal, with free airtime provided by ABC.

This, however, was not the most egregious point of controversy.  Carville was allowed, with no challenge from the host, to provide ad-hominem attacks against conservatives – as well as irrelevant, non-sequitur praise for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.  The transcript speaks for itself:

James Carville appeared to plug his new book predicting 40 years of Democratic dominance on the Charlie Rose show on PBS Monday night. Since Carville supported Hillary Clinton in the last round of Democratic primaries, he ended up sounding noticeably less enthusiastic than Rose about President Obama’s power to change things. Rose calmly declared that Obama has given the country "Confidence, a sense of esteem, a sense of feeling young again...a sense of feeling that the democratic values the country believed in are intact." He also suggested "this is a centrist government" and Carville agreed.

But first, Carville knocked any "ism" words coming from right-wing talk show hosts:

CHARLIE ROSE: In terms of policy and your sense of the country, is he on the right track?

ABC's "Good Morning America," which has yet to interview talk show host Mark Levin about his New York Times best selling book on conservatism, featured James Carville on Monday to promote "40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation." Co-host Diane Sawyer recited passages from the Democratic operative's tome, "Let me read what you write here. 'Republicans shouldn't be worried. They should be in agony. They should be throwing up.'"

Sawyer continued to read from Carville's book: "Republicans had better get a better policy on prescription drugs and quickly they're going to need a lot more Prozac." An onscreen graphic highlighted past one-party rule and speculated, "Democrats 1932-1968, Republicans 1968-2008, Democrats 2008-2048?"

Sawyer, to her credit, did challenge the thesis of the book, that Democrats will be in power for decades. She skeptically noted, "But, you know, there's people looking at this who say there's a big hole in this argument. And the big hole is the deficit that is building up, the debt that is building up." The GMA co-host added, "In fact, in ten years, per person in America, $2,700 will be spent just to pay the interest on the debt. Not to pay down the debt, but just to pay the interest." Later, she wondered if Democrats are becoming overly confident.

Two months ago, Time magazine trashed Bernard Goldberg’s book on liberal pro-Obama bias (A Slobbering Love Affair) as a book to "toss" instead of read in their mini-book review featured called The Skimmer. In the latest Time, Andrea Sachs praised the newest James Carville book, titled 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation. It drew a "Skim" command instead of a "Read," but the copy was very promotional:

No one does partisanship better than the Ragin' Cajun. In his latest book, the Louisiana-bred campaign strategist, who recently returned to teach political science at Tulane, takes a victory lap celebrating the Democrats' 2008 electoral trifecta. "The myth of Republican competence and fiscal responsibility is shattered," a victim of the strategic and economic missteps of the Bush years, Carville gleefully notes. If Democrats play their cards right, he argues, they can dominate politics for the next four decades. The key? "To rebuild Americans' trust in government as a force of good." His excitability is infectious, if only to those on the same side of the aisle. ("Let's go out and spank the Republicans again and again," he exhorts readers.)

Spreading the Word

Media Research Center Founder and President and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell issued the following statement on the meteoric rise in the ratings Rush Limbaugh has enjoyed since the inception of the Obama White House and the Democrats' all-out coordinated attack against him.

As announced yesterday, audience numbers surged for Rush-carrying stations across the country, including in several of the nation's largest markets like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston.  Since the orchestrated campaign continued into March, ratings could reach even greater heights for this month.

Bozell:

In January, Politico's John F. Harris exposed a liberal cabal involving telephone calls between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, and CNN's Paul Begala and James Carville.

Since then, Americans on both sides of the aisle have wondered just how far-reaching the political influence of these four is on the mainstream media.

More importantly, just how much is the Obama administration, via its press contacts that worked in the White House before, involved in controlling the message being disseminated?

Consider the following sequence of events involving Stephanopoulos that began with a March 13 press release by the Democratic National Committee: 

The above headline isn't even the half of it.

After the attacks were known to all, James Carville told assembled Washington reporters at a hotel conference room breakfast where he and Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg spoke (photo is from the May 20, 2004 Christian Science Monitor) to "Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!"

The assembled press apparently understood that as something each and every one of them should take to the grave.

Bill Sammon of Fox News has the story (HT Hot Air):

I met up with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos at the National Capital chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals’ Annual Professional Night this evening and asked if he had strategy session conference calls with aides in the White House as reported by Politico’s John F. Harris. 

 Politico's Michael Calderone recently reported that Kerry Smith, ABC News Sr.VP for editorial quality, wrote  that Stephanopoulos "speaks to Mr. Emanuel, a friend he has known for nearly two decades, as a source, just as he speaks to countless sources across the political spectrum each and every day. That is his job as an anchor and reporter and one that he does according to the highest standards."

Have you wondered why there have been so many hit pieces lately about Rush Limbaugh?

Well, new revelations suggest that Democrats began a smear campaign against the conservative talk radio host last October, and now it's really caught steam.

Apparently, the Left feared its message would be muted without having George W. Bush to blame for all the world's problems, and Limbaugh made a nice substitute as the object of their disaffection to distract the public from real issues.

Given White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's connections to key media figures such as ABC's George Stephanopoulos as well as CNN's Paul Begala and James Carville, disseminating the hate was a piece of cake.

As Jonathan Martin reported Wednesday at Politico (photo compilation courtesy Edward Cropper):

Back on January 29, we discussed the daily strategy phone call engineered by Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for friendly TV commentators and "reporters." Politico reported that Emanuel has a daily phone conference call with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, and CNN's James Carville and Paul Begala. With Rush Limbaugh's raucous CPAC address, as he termed it his "first address to the nation," we can see at least one example of what is likely an attack strategy resulting from the Emanuel phone session with a rush to bash Rush the day after the appearance. [Image credit: politico.com]

As soon as the sun rose on the day after Limbaugh's CPAC appearance, three of the four of the phone call participants attacked Limbaugh with the same talking points. It seems obvious that they coordinated their attack together in the Obama secret strategy session. It is amazing that a president's staff can have such power over major media figures without a peep being heard from those that only months ago bashed former presidents over a perceived undue, even "dangerous," control of the media.

Politico reports that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel holds daily chit chat sessions with several Old Media pals every morning to start his day. Apparently Emanuel has for years been involved with daily bull sessions to plan media coverage and ideological strategy with CNN's James Carville and Paul Begala, as well as ABC's George Stephanopoulos, with the occasional participation of pollster Stan Greenberg. But there is one little problem with this daily palling around with mediots these days: Emanuel now works for the White House. [Image credit: politico.com]

As Politico's John Harris notes, "in any given news cycle, it is quite likely that Washington’s prevailing political and media interpretation -- at least on the Democratic side -- is being hatched on these calls." In light of this early morning scheming, one has to wonder where the supposed autonomy of the media is if they are being programed by the Obama White House in off the record, secret and daily conversations? Where is their objectivity if these media mavens are all assisting Emanuel mold and shape the news to further a specific ideological goal?

In last night's post-debate analysis on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, James Carville proclaimed that Barack Obama will be the slam dunk winner of the election in November. However, he followed up by hinting at riots if Obama were to lose. Here is the transcript of the discussion. First David Gergen keeps bringing up the race factor as an excuse for a possible Obama loss (emphasis mine):

On Tuesday's "Good Morning America," co-host Diane Sawyer fondly reminisced with Democratic strategist James Carville about "War Room," the 15-year-old political documentary on the 1992 presidential campaign. Opening the segment with Carville, one of the film's stars, she fawned, "It's become like revisiting a big moment in the Super Bowl. Going back to 1992, when Bill Clinton and a team of strategists in a war room unseated a sitting president."

Later, after playing a clip of Carville as he congratulated the Clinton team for their hard work, Sawyer cooed, "When you look back, can you believe it still? Can you believe it yet?" Oddly, one person who also starred in the film, and is featured on the DVD cover, wasn't cited in the segment. George Stephanopoulos, the former top aide to Bill Clinton-tuned ABC journalist, somehow escaped mention.

Jonathan Alter has had enough of James Carville not being a team player and boosting Sen. Barack Obama and he has a working theory that centers around a cynical, quasi-conspiratorial view of the Carville-Matalin marriage. 

From an August 27 Stumper blog post at the Newsweek Web site.

John McCain is the least popular person at the Democratic convention. But if bad-mouthing by Obama forces is a way to keep score, James Carville, the ragin' Cajun, is a close second.

[...]

Previewing the first night of the Democratic convention on Monday's "Situation Room," host Wolf Blitzer and a network graphic repeatedly identified the announced speakers as liberal. The CNN anchor asserted, "The speaker lineup for tonight, by the way, here at the convention, includes some of the party's most prominent and most liberal members, including the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Ted Kennedy and former President Jimmy Carter."

Blitzer then asked guest James Carville if "...highlighting all these liberals tonight, is that the way these Democrats can reach out to moderates, to independents and say, you know what, it's time for a change?" Carville praised the work of cancer-stricken Senator Ted Kennedy and predicted high emotion. Fellow guest, conservative radio host Bill Bennett, replied, "Oh, it's their party and they can be emotional or cry if they want to or be liberal if they want to."

On Monday's "Good Morning America," the show's co-hosts appeared quite bothered by the "supposed satire" of a New Yorker magazine cover that features a cartoon Michelle Obama as a black militant and Barack Obama in Muslim garb with a picture of Osama bin Laden in the background. And although the issue is obviously meant as a parody and a representation of the liberal view that conservatives are attacking the Illinois senator's patriotism, Cuomo fretted, "Is that the way people see him?"

An ABC graphic for the second segment on the topic, a discussion with Democratic strategist James Carville, featured this warning: "Cover Controversy: Does New Yorker Cover Go Too Far?" In a tease for the subject, co-host Robin Roberts asked, "Did the New Yorker go too far with this week's cover?" Cuomo, making clear his belief that, whatever the satirical intent, the cover wasn't appreciated, opined, "The New Yorker is not even on the stands yet, but this supposed satire has a lot of people talking."

On Wednesday's "Good Morning America," co-host Diane Sawyer appeared worried about the upcoming presidential election and repeatedly grilled Democratic strategist and Clinton supporter James Carville about whether Barack Obama will be able to overcome a tough primary and defeat John McCain in November. Asking a question she would ultimately repeat four times, Sawyer fretted, "Should he be the nominee, will Senator Obama beat John McCain? Is there any doubt in your mind that he'll beat John McCain?"

Apparently Carville's prediction of a victory for the Illinois senator wasn't enough. Sawyer doggedly reiterated, "But you're saying he will win?" After the longtime Clinton strategist stated that Obama will win, but Clinton could be victorious by more, Sawyer quickly rebutted, "So, that's not an argument, really. You do think he would win?" While discussing the Democratic National Committee and its upcoming meeting to decide what will be done with the delegates from Florida and Michigan, the ABC anchor anxiously wondered, "If the decision on Saturday means [Clinton] doesn't have the popular vote on June 3rd, must it be over?"