It's not exactly an earth shattering scandal but CNN did get caught in a bit of a fib when they declared they were the first to use hologram technology in a broadcast featuring Wolf Blitzer interviewing a Jessica Yellin "hologram" on election day.

I put "hologram" in quotes because a perturbed Don Reisinger of CNET News declared that it was false advertising since CNN wasn't using a real hologram.  CNN soon backed down from their hologram claim in the face of not only criticism but mockery from the other networks.

I suppose the best way to respond is by humor as you can see in this video of Anderson Cooper 360 which features a clip of Jay Leno presenting a "hologram" attacking Wolf Blitzer. It sure made your humble correspondent break out laughing. Here is a transcript of the interchange on the "hologram" controversy between Anderson Cooper and Erica Hill:

On Thursday’s Anderson Cooper 360 program, CNN senior political analyst David Gergen followed the liberal talking points about how Joe the Plumber’s real first name is Samuel and how he doesn’t have a plumbing license. When host Anderson Cooper asked if John McCain benefitted from the attention on the Ohio laborer, Gergen replied, "Well, I think he was for a while. But I -- when we found out he was Sam the non-plumber, it changed a little bit." Gergen went on to treat Joe Wurzelbacher, who works with plumbing, as if he worked as a McCain campaign surrogate: "...I don't understand why the McCain team didn't vet the guy before they made such a -- you know, made such a focus on him on national television. I can guarantee you that the George W. Bush campaign, you know, which ran a highly disciplined campaign, would have vetted and would have known before he went out there about... his personal status."

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):

During a report on Monday’s Anderson Cooper 360 program, CNN investigative correspondent Drew Griffin presented many of the missing details about the relationship between Barack Obama and left-wing terrorist William Ayers that two earlier "Truth Squad" reports on the network on Sunday and Monday omitted. Griffin stated that despite the spin of the Obama campaign and their mainstream media supporters, "...the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said."

Host Anderson Cooper introduced Griffin’s report, which began 19 minutes into the 10 pm Eastern hour, as one of the CNN program’s "Keeping Them Honest" features. Oddly, a on-screen graphic that read "The Dow Plunges," which had nothing to do with the subject of the segment, ran during its entirety. The correspondent began by repeating Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn’s background in the Weather Underground, "an anti-Vietnam War group that bombed federal buildings, including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon." He then gave Obama’s early characterization of his relationship with the 1960's radical, that the Democrat "confirmed... that he knew Ayers, and, when pressed, said they served on a charitable foundation board together, and Obama condemned Ayers' support of violence."

Update's Update: I have been assured by IT that we are FINALLY ready to go with this.

The American people in poll after poll and in greater and growing numbers are railing against the egregious liberal bias of the press. And nowhere are the media more horrendously slanted than in their coverage of the presidential campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. They are (to say the least) very, very sweet on him.

The MRC has put together this college basketball tournament-style bracket event, the Sweet-On-Obama Sixteen Media Bias Tournament, so that you, the angered members of the media’s audience can vote for who gives Sen. Obama the most loving and fawning coverage of all.

What is it with Democrats and their grotesque slurs upon the intelligence of their political rivals?  Last week it was Charles Rangel calling Sarah Palin "disabled."  Tonight on CNN, Paul Begala called President Bush "a high-functioning moron."

Begala was on an Anderson Cooper-led panel with Republican Ed Rollins and CNN's Gloria Borger to discuss the state of the possible federal financial bailout.  Cooper took the first shot at the president, analogizing his performance in this crisis to that during Hurricane Katrina.

ANDERSON COOPER: Watching the president last night give that speech, it was like watching him in Jackson Square in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I mean, he did not seem to be there.

Do you think the recent stock market collapse or troubles in the banking system are good news?

Well, according to CNN's Candy Crowley, the Obama campaign does.

On Monday's "Anderson Cooper 360," after CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said "what happened over the weekend with the economy and the bottom falling out of the financial markets...is the opportunity for Obama to seize the momentum back on his side," Crowley actually said, "[J]ust as foreclosures were showing up on B-17, or in the real estate section, along comes this horrific headline out of Wall Street...I mean, this is what they wanted."

I kid you not. The transcript of this disgraceful exchange follows (video embedded right, h/t Steve Malzberg):

CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman’s report detailing the abortion stances of the four major presidential and vice-presidential candidates on Wednesday’s Anderson Cooper 360 program gave a fairly neutral portrayal of how "Biden and Obama both favor abortion rights" and how "Palin and McCain are both anti-abortion," despite Tuchman describing how Palin is "considered fervently anti-abortion." However, host Anderson Cooper, in his introduction to Tuchman’s report, gave no reaction or labeling as he mentioned South Carolina Democratic Chairwoman Carol Fowler’s slam against Palin, that John McCain picked her because she "hadn’t had an abortion," other than stating, "Just the mention of that word [abortion] stirs up intense emotions for a lot of voters."

One reason Barack Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate is that Obama's advisers  “think the press loves Biden and so the press will sort of go easy on him on the past gaffes and when he's contradicted Obama,” CNN's Jessica Yellin revealed minutes before midnight Friday night, just an hour ahead of CNN and other media outlets reporting Joe Biden was, indeed, Barack Obama's pick.

Speaking by phone with anchor John King, Yellin recounted that “if it is Joe Biden” what “one of Barack Obama's close advisers” who “was a strong advocate of Biden” told her were the arguments in his favor, ending with how the media “loves” him:

[T]he reasons they think Biden would be strong is because, one, he's a great attack dog, in the view of this person. He's beloved in Pennsylvania where they think that they need to do well, and this advisor thinks that Biden can truly help to deliver that state. And in their view, they think the press loves Biden and so the press will sort of go easy on him on the past gaffes and when he's contradicted Obama. I'm not so sure on that last point, but that is at least one view close to the Obama camp.

Anderson Cooper’s “news” broadcast last night was among the more lopsided I have seen in some time.

I decided to count the number of positive and negative statements and characterizations about Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama made during Cooper’s lead package, which was about Monday’s back-and-forth on energy.

During the segment, which lasted roughly ten minutes, Cooper and his guests generated a net favorable perception of Democrat Sen. Barack Obama and net unfavorable perception of Republican Sen. John McCain. Specifically, Obama received five total positive mentions and four total negative mentions. Sen. McCain did not fare as well, however. He received a total of eleven negative mentions and only four positive mentions.

Video below the fold:

Over the course of two programs on Tuesday evening, CNN political analyst Roland Martin unhesitatingly ran to the defense of Barack Obama against the recent criticism of Dr. James Dobson, who characterized the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate of "distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology" in a 2006 speech. On the "Election Center" program, Martin tried to deny Dobson’s influence in the American evangelical community: " I think we're doing the nation a disservice by calling James Dobson an evangelical leader." Then on "Anderson Cooper 360," he accused Dobson and other evangelicals of wanting to "tear down Obama, the person who is talking about faith..."

[Update, 10:30 am EDT Thursday: Martin's title at CNN is now political analyst, not contributor, according to an e-mail we received earlier this morning. This must be a very recent development, as Mr. Martin was referred to as "contributor" as late as June 17.]

CNN contributor Roland Martin, when asked on Tuesday’s "Anderson Cooper 360" if Michelle Obama was being held to a different standard than other presidential candidates’ wives, unequivocally placed the blame on conservative men. "No, I think what you have is you've got some weak men on the conservative side who, frankly, don't like strong women. I mean, we saw the exact same thing take place for Hillary Clinton back in 1992.... All of a sudden... Michelle Obama is this angry black woman, when in fact, she's an accomplished woman, a mother, a wife. And so, they are trying to define her in that way, because they don't want to deal with the reality."

Campbell Brown, filling in for Anderson Cooper, led CNN's 10 PM EDT hour Monday evening by letting viewers in on her excitement over Al Gore's endorsement of Barack Obama earlier in the evening: “Tonight, everybody, he blew the roof off the joint. Al Gore, one of the last big-name Democrats, getting behind Barack Obama in a big way, making a speech that could have won him the White House if he'd been making this kind of speech eight years ago.” In highlights of the speech CNN soon aired, Gore charged: “After eight years in which our Constitution has been dishonored and disrespected, we need change!”

Turning to a panel of CNN's Candy Crowley and Gloria Borger as well as David Gergen, Brown, who jumped to CNN from NBC last year, yearned: “Do you think there is any chance that we might see an Obama-Gore ticket?” Not dampened by doubts he would want the VP slot, Brown pressed Gergen on another role for Gore and then conceded she sounded like “I want it just too badly.” The exchange:

BROWN: Even if it was pitched to him perhaps as an opportunity to kind of be, I think it was James Carville who suggested it, energy czar, you know, to expand the role, the traditional role of Vice President, and to make the issues that he cares most passionately about center stage for him and let him take those issues and run with it?

GERGEN: Not going to happen, Campbell.

BROWN: Do I sound like I want it just too badly here, David? It's a good story.

CNN contributor Roland Martin, a known Barack Obama sympathizer, surprisingly isn’t buying the argument that conservatives/Republicans are behind the rumored Michelle Obama "whitey" comment. During a segment on Thursday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," substitute anchor Campbell Brown asked Martin, "Republicans have made it clear, pretty much, that Michelle is fair game here. Are you surprised by the intensity of the attacks?" He replied, "I'm not surprised by it, but I think, also, we can't blame Republicans for everything. It's these idiot Democrats that started some of this stuff."

CNN senior political analyst (and former Clinton adviser) David Gergen, responding to Todd Purdum’s recent Vanity Fair article on Bill Clinton during a segment on Monday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," acknowledged that the former President "does have a temper, and he goes off like Mount Vesuvius," but then went on to criticize Purdum’s article, that it "does not give enough weight to what he has done in the non-profit sector," specifically referring to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Clinton had called Purdum a "scumbag," "sleazy," and a "really dishonest reporter." He also accused the Vanity Fair editor of trying to "nail Hillary for Obama. It's the most biased press coverage in history."

CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin, during a segment on Wednesday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," accused her former bosses -- presumably those at MSNBC, where she worked prior to joining ABC in July 2003 -- of pressuring her to run positive stories about the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq: "When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation... and my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president's approval ratings... the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the President."

[Yellin repeated her "patriotic fever" line in a clarification posted Thursday at CNN's AC360 blog.]