Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Saturday said the Senate shouldn't "focus on a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while."

This comment was directed at Washington Post columnist David Broder whose article to be published Sunday and already available online was harshly criticial of the healthcare bills in both chambers of Congress.

Given Broder's well-known stance as a left-leaning writer, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) referred to the piece in his opening remarks to Saturday's healthcare legislation debate noting that the Post's "distinguished senior columnist, certainly not a political conservative, expresses his reservation as a citizen about the steps that we could be about to take."

This led Reid to make his disparaging remark moments later (video embedded below the fold, relevant sections at 1:00 and 8:45):

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went on the Senate floor to call out the Obama administration for using a federal agency to squelch mailings by health insurance company Humana, warning customers of proposed cuts to the Medicare Advantage program under Democratic health care reform proposals.

But Wednesday's New York Times's print edition skipped the Humana speech suppression completely. Instead the paper contented itself with a story on its health care blog, "Prescriptions." A health care story considered more newsworthy that did make the print edition: A profile of comedian Will Ferrell's parody ad defending health insurance executives, generously headlined "Adding Humor to Debate."

The Times finally brought up the controversy in print on Thursday, working it into three paragraphs near the end of Robert Pear's front-page profile of Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, "Senator Tries to Allay Fears on Health Overhaul." Even then, the Times emphasized excuses for the Democrats' behavior, sandwiching Sen. McConnell's free speech complaint between an explanation from administration officials and an attack on Humana by a Democratic senator.

The New York Times's health care priorities were on display in Wednesday's paper. While a parody ad by liberal comedian Will Ferrell and left-wing MoveOn.org was considered newsworthy, suppression of free speech by the Obama administration was left out.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky went on the Senate floor Tuesday and called out the Obama administration for using a federal agency to squelch mailings by insurance company Humana. The mailings to beneficiaries warned them of possible cuts to the Medicare Advantage program under Obama-care.

A post on the New York Times's health care blog "Prescriptions" Tuesday afternoon by David Herszenhorn, "Senate Republican Leader Accuses Democrats of Muzzling Critics," quoted McConnell extensively on this suppression of free speech. Still Herszenhorn couldn't help getting in a political dig:

In a sign of escalating tension on Capitol Hill, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, accused Democrats and the Obama administration on Tuesday of trying to muzzle critics of their proposed health care legislation.

Most of the viewer responses that CNN’s Jack Cafferty read during one of his “Cafferty File” segments on Monday’s Situation Room agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Steny Hoyer’s “un-American” label against anti-ObamaCare protesters. Though he surprisingly remained neutral when he presented the issue, all but one of the responses sided with the two Democratic leaders.

Cafferty devoted his 5 pm Eastern “Question of the Hour” to Pelosi and Hoyer’s USA Today editorial which ran in Monday’s edition. He summarized their talking points, and then read an excerpt from Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s response. His question to the CNN viewers: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Steny Hoyer call the town hall protests against health care reform ‘un-American.’ Are they?”

Ten minutes before the top of the 6 pm Eastern hour, Cafferty returned with his selected viewer responses. Only one response disagreed with the Democrats’ “un-American” label, but this particular example raised a chuckle out of the CNN commentator (who earlier this year compared Pelosi to Mao Zedong).

CNN correspondent Suzanne Malveaux made an apparent Freudian slip in response to a sound bite on health care reform from Senator Mitch McConnell on Monday’s American Morning. Malveaux initially labeled McConnell’s remark, in which the Senate Minority Leader cracked that the “only thing bipartisan about the measures so far is the opposition to them,” as a “snippy little phrase there” [audio clip from the segment available here].

The correspondent filed a report just after the beginning of the 6 am Eastern hour about the Obama’s administration and Democratic leaders’ efforts to get their health care “reform” package passed in Congress. Malveaux stated that “obviously, in public, there’s a lot of confidence. You heard Nancy Pelosi. You talk to White House aides....In an e-mail that I got this morning, however, one of the top White House aides was saying, look, this is a time when it’s important that the president look credible- look viable, still in this debate, and that the one thing that they are trying to get across to folks is that he is still a player in this, that he has not lost his political capital, despite the fact that he...did not get what he wanted this time around.”

On July 6, CNN’s American Morning may have positioned themselves as a fly in the White House’s public health-care ointment.  In a story on Senator Mitch McConnell’s recent comments regarding Canadian national health care, CNN traveled to Canada to investigate whether this vision of long queues in health care was warranted.  In investigating, however, CNN neglected to ask an important question of their own story, regarding the possible rationing of the healthcare of cancer patients.

The hospital singled out for Senator McConnell’s rhetorical wrath is Kingston General in Ontario, Canada.  CNN’s Dana Bash traveled there under guise of inquiring whether McConnell’s view of Kingston was accurate.

Senator MITCH MCCONNELL: Knee replacements. Well, at Kingston General, the average wait is about 340 days.

BASH: Zelt's response, McConnell is exaggerating.

DR. DAVID ZELT, Chief-of-staff, KINGSTON GEN. HOSPITAL: Average time to get a knee replacement here is 91 days.

This may prove to be an accurate assessment.  Oddly, however, this seems to be almost an afterthought in Bash’s report – choosing instead to highlight two anecdotes within Canadian health care.

Apparently feeling some heat about its decision to not allow any Republicans to participate in its primetime ObamaCare infomercial Wednesday evening, ABC decided at the last minute to invite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and RNC Chairman Michael Steele on Thursday's "Good Morning America."

Unfortunately, both McConnell and Steele, having been given less than 24 hours notice, were not available, and the RNC suggested "GMA" contact Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wi.), one of the GOP's leading voices on healthcare in the House.

Although Ryan was available, and did speak with Sawyer Thursday morning, the "GMA" co-host still felt the need to tell viewers McConnell and Steele declined her invitation (video embedded right):

Gender and sexual orientation matter more than judicial philosophy and experience, at least according to the CBS "Early Show" on May 14.

The morning news program focused its discussion of only two of the potential Supreme Court nominees - two openly gay women.

Co-anchor Julie Chen announced the story saying, "Washington is all a buzz over the two openly gay women under consideration." Senior White House correspondent Bill Plante's story followed, which he began by asking "Is America ready for a gay Supreme Court justice?"

MSNBC's David Shuster appears to now sadly be taking tips from colleague Keith Olbermann, for on Wednesday the "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" host did a segment bashing Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) the text of which appears to be taken directly from a Daily Kos posting.

Even more absurd, both Shuster and the DKer conveniently cherry picked a statement made by McConnell back in 2006 that when put in the context of what was occurring on Capitol Hill at the time makes those pointing fingers look tremendously foolish.

Isn't it marvelous the far left have their own television network to funnel misinformation through?

But don't take my word for it. Let's first look at the video and transcript:

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: 

CRITICAL UPDATE at end of post: AUC's founder and former president is now the communications director of the DNC.

On Sunday's "This Week," ABC's George Stephanopoulus played an advertisment created by a far-left political organization to bash the Republican Party and his guest Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Maybe even worse, the group responsible for this recent attack, Americans United for Change, targeted the Kentucky Senator for his position on the Iraq war back in March 2007. 

As ABC's Chief Washington Correspondent, it seems hard to believe Stephanopoulos was ignorant of the political leanings of this group or its past opposition to his guest.

Regardless, after introducing McConnell, and allowing the Senate minority leader to offer his views concerning the 2010 budget recently proposed by President Obama, Stephanopoulos went on the attack himself:

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann branded Rush Limbaugh as the "extreme right," and made an analogy between Barack Obama talking about trying to divide jihadists from Muslim moderates during his inauguration, and the President's current efforts to isolate Limbaugh from other conservatives. Hosting  Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter as guest, Olbermann began: "In his inaugural address, the President essentially tried to create a wedge between those who are reasonable and those who are not. Of course, he was talking about the Muslim world. Is it possible in this different context that he’s trying to do the same as he seeks bipartisanship with the Republicans, sort of, you know, separate, Mullah Limbaugh from the herd?"

Inspiring laughter from Olbermann, Alter’s opening act was to take a jab at Limbaugh’s past addiction to Oxycontin in distinguishing him from the Islamic mullahs: "Yes, I do think that`s what [Obama is] doing, although the mullahs don`t send their maid out into the parking lot to score drugs for them, so I`m not sure about the comparison."

There was a rather extraordinary confrontation on the Senate floor Thursday involving offshore oil drilling that got very little press coverage.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) tried to get Democrats to vote on a measure that would open up such drilling if the price of gasoline reached a certain level.

Although the "bidding" eventually reached $10 a gallon, Colorado's Ken Salazar continually objected.

As reported by the Salt Lake Tribune Friday (video embedded right):

As media digest the recent John McCain sex scandal allegations by the New York Times, one side of the story seems destined to get ignored: one of the four co-authors took money from a liberal activist group to fund a hit piece about Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) in 2006.

Before becoming an investigative reporter for the Times, Pulitzer Prize winner Marilyn W. Thompson was editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.

As Howard Kurtz reported in October 2006, Thompson was in the middle of what one might call a pay for play hit piece against that state's leading Republican figure (emphasis added):

Washington Post "Reliable Source" gossips Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts chronicled the jokes at Thursday night’s Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, including the ones at the expense of the liberal media:

Sen. Mitch McConnell dryly scores with his line about the Dem race between "a New York senator who was born in Illinois, and an Illinois senator who was apparently born in a manger." Sen. John Cornyn makes his point more sharply, noting that the New York Times declined to attend this year. "Their table didn't go to waste. They just donated it to MoveOn.org at a discount." An "ohhhhhh" fills the room, followed by a lone hiss...

For once, Nancy Pelosi gets into the sassy, hazing spirit of these things. "I knew I had arrived in Washington when Helen Thomas played me in a skit at Gridiron. Remember that?" she coos. "I do." She blows a kiss to the veteran correspondent -- but zings: "That was Italian." (Get it? Kiss of death!)

As NewsBusters reported, CNN aired an advertisement on Monday for its "Nancy Grace" program on Headline News in which a picture of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) was highlighted in a promo about this fall's "incredible crime stories".

Amazingly, the esteemed Senator from Kentucky was sandwiched between shots of convicted Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, OJ Simpson, and other high-profile crime figures of 2007.

NewsBusters has been informed that after a number of CNN producers were sent our article on this subject, a senior CNN official contacted McConnell's office to apologize for the incident.

Apparently, the ad is being immediately pulled, and a full internal investigation is being launched concerning the matter.

What's going on at CNN?

On Monday, the "most trusted name in news" ran an advertisement for its Headline News program "Nancy Grace" dealing with "incredible crime stories" this fall.

In the fast-moving montage, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Kent.) picture was spliced in between what appears to be convicted dog abuser Michael Vick and missing Bolingbrook, Illinois, resident Stacy Peterson. A picture of her husband Drew, who is implicated in her disappearance, followed, with a final shot of OJ Simpson.

Here's the transcript of this highly curious ad (video available here):

Despite, or perhaps because of the S-CHIP stalemate in Washington, liberal media outlets including the New York Times, Think Progress and now the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky continue to somewhat sinisterly flame one aspect of the S-CHIP story at the urging of Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) staffer Matt Miller, even though the narrative they've woven isn't at all supported by the facts.

I've obtained a copy of one of allegedly many emails Miller has used to try and gin up buzz around a false story targeted at the Republican Leader. And as you'll see below, it seems the liberal media likes its gin.

From: Matthew Miller ******@dscc.org
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 4:11 PM
To: Matthew Miller
Subject: KY Station Asks: Did McConnell mislead public?

In case you missed it, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported this morning that Senator Mitch McConnell’s office played a key role in spreading false information about a 12-year old boy who receives health insurance from the SCHIP program. Now Kentucky television station WHAS is reporting that McConnell appears to have misled the public when he denied any involvement in the story on Friday. McConnell is now caught between his public statement denying any role in spreading the story, and his spokesman’s admission that he did.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have said she saw evidence of climate change in a recent trip to Greenland, but leave it to CNN to press her and other Democrats from the left for not doing enough to stop greenhouse gas emissions "in their own backyard." Both "American Morning" and "The Situation Room" on Tuesday featured CNN congressional correspondent Andrea Koppel's segment on how the heating and cooling power supplied to the U.S. Capitol building comes from the Capitol Power Plant, which is half-fueled by coal, and emits "tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases into the air." The blame for these emissions is placed on the politics of Senators Robert Byrd and Mitch McConnell, both of whom come from "two of the biggest coal-producing states."

Koppel interviewed two people for her segment, both of whom have left-wing affiliations. The first was Pelosi's chief administrative officer for the House, Dan Beard, who talked about the massive environmental advantage of switching to compact fluorescent bulbs. The second, Frank O'Donnell of the group Clean Air Watch, was given two sound bites in the segment. O'Donnell compared Senators Byrd and McConnell to a famous television mobster. "It's as if Tony Soprano had a seat in the Senate. They're saying this plant must stay alive. It must keep burning coal, even though it is causing pollution and global warming."

Alright, class. Imagine you're a reporter in the mainstream media and you want to write a formulaic profile of a conservative legislator but don't know how.

It's easy if you follow the simple steps I've written down below. For our purposes today, I'm illustrating from the March 6 Politico profile of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

First, start with some praise about said leader's legislative prowess: