[Updated 2009-04-21 16:02:29] All three morning shows skipped an exclusive story broken in Tuesday's Washington Times that explained how Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in January to send "$25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms."

ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS's "Early Show" and NBC's "Today" completely avoided discussing the piece by the Times' Chuck Neubauer. On the "Today" show, correspondent Amy Robach found time to mention that Feinstein had pressed President Obama not to make a final decision on prosecuting CIA employees who used harsh interrogation tactics, but ignored this potential scandal. GMA spent time on discussing dwarf rabbits with Jack Hanna, while the "Early Show" featured a segment on co-host Julie Chen's pregnancy.

In his article, Neubauer explained:

Quick quiz for you. The number one enemy of solar and wind energy projects in the Mojave desert is a) Big Business b) Dick Cheney c) a Republican "cabal" d) environmentalists, with the political backing of  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Of course, the answer is d).

But here's, perhaps, the surprising part. The Los Angeles Times has the story (emphasis mine) in its March 25 paper:

While the media talking heads are still gabbing about the greatness of President Obama’s inauguration, few, if any, are mentioning the purple inauguration ticket holders, who were stuffed thru Washington D.C.’s 3rd street tunnel hoping to see the Obama inauguration. 

A Facebook group titled “Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom” is for individuals who attempted to attend the inauguration with purple tickets and their January 20th horror stories (h/t American Thinker Larrey Anderson).  Here are a few from this morning.  (my emphasis throughout:)

A poster at 1:32am wrote:

Perhaps what infuriates me most is the ongoing denial of the scale of the problem. My personal estimate is that as many as 40,000 ticket holders were trapped in the tunnel (I was one of them). My brother-in-law and I are both Californians, and Feinstein will be hearing from us.

During her screed last night about Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., MSNBC's Rachel Maddow made an unintentionally revealing comment --

Accountability -- every one of us who lived through the Bush administration has a measure of it as an American. Those of us who lived through it as Americans who were also members of the United States Senate, we have a big measure of it to contend with.

Yes, mon ami -- "we."

Last I checked, Maddow fulminates at MSNBC and Air America Radio but has not been elected nor appointed to the US Senate. Then again, Maddow is not a duly designated spokeswoman for the incoming Obama administration either, but this doesn't prevent her from acting as such.

Barack Obama nominates someone to head the CIA whose major qualification is his inexperience. Even Democrats are dismayed.  John Travolta's son, sadly, died. So in its crucial first half-hour this morning, the Early Show naturally devotes almost five minutes to the Travolta story while ignoring the controversy surrounding Leon Panetta's appointment.  Far from revealing that even senior Dems like Senators Feinstein and Rockefeller have signalled their displeasure over the naming of Panetta, CBS' Chip Reid painted the pick as a sign of how Obama is briskly taking charge.  Here was the sum total of the Early Show's discussion of the matter:

CHIP REID: He may not be Commander-in-Chief just yet.  But Mr. Obama is wasting no time, on Monday picking former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA, and retired Admiral Dennis Blair to be director of national intelligence.

Barack Obama’s transition team has tapped former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, a longtime proponent of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," to head the team looking for the man or woman who will soon give Democrats a 3-to-2 advantage on the Federal Communications Commission. [CORRECTION ADDED, 11/14]

It’s another troubling sign that Democrats are serious about trying to reinstate the long-defunct FCC regulation, which can more aptly be described as the "Censorship Doctrine" because of its chilling effect on free speech. In effect from 1949 to 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was an obstacle to open discussion of public policy issues on the radio; its removal in the Reagan years spawned the robust talk radio marketplace of ideas now enjoyed by millions.

While talk radio hosts often warned during the campaign that free speech could be trampled by an all-Democratic majority, the broadcast networks have failed to react to this dangerous threat to the First Amendment. A review shows the broadcast networks — whose affiliates could also be regulated — have failed to run even a single story mentioning the push for a new Fairness Doctrine.

Does the media treat Democrats and Republicans differently when stories of their various peccadillos reach the Press? Well, in actuality, the question is essentially a moot point. There are stories today on the NewsBusters front page testifying to said bias. However, in Yahoo! News' choice of front-page stories today, we can see yet another example of this bias.

After the Supreme Court decided that a resident of Washington D.C. has a Constitutional right to own a firearm for self-defense in the home, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California stated: "I believe the people of this great country will be less safe because of it." 1

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is one of the country's leading gun control organizations. Brady's President Paul Helmke had this to say after the Supreme Court decision: "Our fight to enact sensible gun laws will be undiminished by the Supreme Court's decision in the Heller case." 2

But what exactly qualifies as "sensible," according to Helmke? And is there any way to determine whether reduced restrictions on gun ownership makes us less safe?

For many years, the Brady Campaign has released an annual "report card," grading each state on its level of "sensible" gun laws. States with higher grades (e.g. "A") were obviously more "sensible," according to Brady; states rated "F" were apparently considered "non-sensible." 3

If the Ethics Bill just approved by Congress had passed this time last year, a media hell-bent on giving Democrats control of that governmental branch would have lambasted the legislation as an election year stunt by Republicans desperately trying to distance themselves from their own culture of corruption.

Yet, twelve months later, with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) at the helm, it seems a metaphysical certitude Katie, Charlie, and Brian will hail this bill's passage as a crowning achievement of Democrats that vowed to clean up Washington.

In fact, you can already see the self-congratulations in the Associated Press article written shortly after the votes were counted (emphasis added throughout):

On June 22, all three networks covered the Senate bill mandating higher automobile fuel efficiency. NBC's "Today" only ran an anchor brief on the story, but ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS's "The Early Show" both ran short stories on the news.

On "Good Morning America" David Kerley spun it in a positive fashion hypothesizing the bill "should save you some money." They then played the clip of Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) hailing passage of the bill implying the United States will be less dependent on Middle Eastern oil. GMA did play a clip of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner stating "we think there are ways to do it that are smarter," but there was no mention of the potential increased danger of automobile accidents as documented by the CATO Institute.

Chris Matthews is not a liberal. Andrea Mitchell has told us so. Yet there are times when our fervent belief in that tenet is strained. Such as on this afternoon's "Hardball," when the only two moments from last night's GOP debate that Matthews singled out for praise were when candidates adopted liberal positions: McCain opposing torture and Rudy sticking up for abortion.

View video here.

Excerpts follow.

MSNBC HOST CHRIS MATTHEWS: Last night in Columbia, South Carolina, the two GOP frontrunners showed profiles in courage: McCain opposing torture, Giuliani defending abortion rights. . . Here's Senator McCain on the issue of torture last night; I was very taken with these words . . . You know, I don't offer strong opinions all the time on this show [of course not], I usually bow to the guests. But I am so taken with that . . . I know he scored, Chuck [NBC political director Todd] no points last night but he scored one with me . . . Anybody's who's ever been in uniform is against torture, and it's the pencil necks, if you will, the armchair generals who always like wars a lot except when they or their family members might be in those wars.

As gas prices hit all-time highs – not adjusted for inflation, of course – it appears that the media are missing a fabulous opportunity to rightly or wrongly blame the problem on President Bush.

Since press representatives rarely pass up such a chance, one has to wonder what’s causing this peculiar oversight.

An article published Monday by Reuters might give us a clue.

Astonishingly, though it didn’t go far enough to identify the real culprit for the recent price rise, Reuters did indeed point a finger at an extraordinarily unlikely target (emphasis added):

Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is involved in a scandal that so far the media has completely ignored. David Keene reports:

Anyone who knows much about real power in Congress knows that almost every member of the House and Senate lusts after a seat on the Appropriations Committee and hopes one day to achieve the status of Cardinal. The Cardinals, of course, are the folks who chair the various Appropriations Committee subcommittees and literally control the billions of dollars that pass through their hands.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband.

If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption.