Lisa Sylvester

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos got into quite a heated debate about the gender wage gap on NBC's Meet the Press.

CNN's Situation Room decided to find out who was right about this controversial issue Monday, and despite going to great lengths to side with Maddow, correspondent Lisa Sylvester grudgingly admitted at the very end of the segment, "It's about 5 cents of a difference, but it still is there, it's still real, and the truth is, men make more than women" (video follows courtesy Mediaite with transcript and commentary):

Seeking to breathe new life into the political damage of unproven sexual harassment charges against him, CNN's Lisa Sylvester presented viewers with a "developing story" in the 4 p.m. hour of The Situation Room entitled "Is Cain the Anti-Women Candidate?"

Sylvester glommed onto "recent controversial comments" Cain has made, such as referring to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as "Princess Nancy," and saying that "tutti-frutti" is the ice cream flavor that would best describe Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

"Some critics see him as the anti-women candidate," Sylvester insisted of Cain, turning to "CNN contributor Donna Brazile" who "says he has a credibility problem with women." Sylvester failed to note that Brazile is a liberal Democratic strategist who contributed to President Obama's campaign this September.

The press routinely flogged itself in the Bill Clinton years for being too quick to acknowledge when women suggested they'd had affairs or been harassed by Clinton. They would have been extremely slow to relay a cheating allegation with no details or proof. So why are national media outlets repeating an unproven adultery allegation....and against a woman? When the guy has a domestic violence record?

Because she's a Republican? In Mark Sanford's South Carolina? Sarah Palin-endorsed South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley has seen an unsubstantiated adultery charge spread by the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Newsday, and CNN, whose Wolf Blitzer ran to the evidence-free story on The Situation Room Monday:

BLITZER: South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, has been the GOP frontrunner, picking up endorsements from Sarah Palin, former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, and many others. But her campaign has suddenly been rocked by allegations of an extra-marital affair -- charges she's strongly denying.

Our Lisa Sylvester has been looking into all of this for us -- Lisa, tell our viewers what's going on.

All this week CNN has been taking a look at “Broken Government” and in some cases the cable channel deviated from the mainstream media norm by providing a critical view of government.

That was the case on Feb. 23 when Wolf Blitzer and Lisa Sylvester scrutinized lavish pension-plan and retirement-packages for government officials during “The Situation Room.”

“Many Americans will spend half a lifetime or more working for the same company only to find little or no safety-net when that job ends,” Blitzer said to begin the report. “Others, especially those on Capitol Hill don’t have that problem.”

One of the latest tactics some global warming alarmists have employed is to compare their activism to struggles of the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s. Actor Edward Norton compared the "symbolic" Earth Hour of March 29 to infamous Selma's "Bloody Sunday" in an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live," and again on NBC's "Today."

But this time, one of the movement's leaders, former Vice President Al Gore, made a similar comparison. Testifying for before a congressional committee on April 24 in Washington, D.C., Gore rated his activism to that of the civil rights movement.

"I believe this legislation has the moral significance equivalent to that of the civil rights legislation of the 1960's and the Marshall Plan of the late 1940's," Gore said. "I am here today to lend my support to one of the most important pieces of legislation ever introduced in the Congress."