On CBS’s Sunday Morning, New York Daily News Washington correspondent James Meek related President Obama’s visit to the graves of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead at Arlington National Cemetery: “Now, cynics may say this was just an Obama photo-op. But they weren’t there looking him in the eye. I saw a man fully carrying the heavy burden of command on a weighty day.”

In an article Meeks wrote for the Daily News on Thursday, he used harsher terms to denounce any “cynics” critical of Obama’s visit: “If they’d been standing in my boots looking him in the eye, they would have surely choked on their bile. His presence in Section 60 convinced me that he now carries the heavy burden of command.” To use such a personal experience to promote the current administration and attack critics seems rather cynical.   

In the Sunday Morning piece, Meek almost poetically described the President’s appearance at the section of the cemetery reserved for Iraq and Afghanistan war dead: “I was in Section 60 that morning when he made an unscheduled stop before huddling with his war council on sending more GIs into harm’s way. In a bone-chilling drizzle, he and the First Lady walked through the rows of gleaming white headstones. I saw the President embrace grieving widows, mothers, and battle buddies tending to the graves of loved ones. He asked about each one.”

Okay boys and girls. A bluebook exam question for you. What is the big excitement all about in the New York 23rd CD race that has captured the attention of the political world for the past week? I'll give you a really strong hint in the form of this observation from yesterday's Washington Post: "It is now a two-person race between Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens with Scozzafava fading badly."

Hmm. So you would think that any recent news story about that race would have to at least include a mention of the Conservative challenger Doug Hoffman who has surged to the lead in a couple of recent polls as the Republican, Dede Scozzafava, plunged to last place. Well, in the world of the New York Daily News, Doug Hoffman doesn't even exist. At least not in this story yesterday by Elizabeth Benjamin. She writes The Daily Politics but her article appears to be The Daily Politics of an alternate universe in which the contest in the 23rd CD is strictly between Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens. Here is her story about New York governor David Paterson endorsing Owens and how this affects the campaigns of both the Democrat and Republican candidates but not a certain person whose candidacy dare not speak its name...at least not by Benjamin in this article:

After participating in a smear campaign that removed Rush Limbaugh from possible ownership of the St. Louis Rams, Al Sharpton is threatening the conservative talk radio host with a defamation lawsuit for his op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal Saturday.

In the article titled "The Race Card, Football and Me," Limbaugh wrote:

In 1998 Mr. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay $65,000 for falsely accusing a New York prosecutor of rape in the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. He also played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews "diamond merchants") and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot.

According to CNN, Sharpton isn't happy about this:

Ever since CNN HLN's "Joy Behar Show" has splashed on the scene, it has become little more than a show dedicated to bashing conservative, specifically former CNN HLN host, now Fox News host Glenn Beck.  

The Oct. 15 broadcast of host Joy Behar's show was no different. First it tackled the issues of the day, like Arianna Huffington's take on whether or not Vice President Joe Biden should resign based on what President Barack Obama does in Afghanistan. Then Behar and her two guests, actor and left-wing activist Richard Belzer and New York Daily News Columnist Liz Benjamin discussed Rush Limbaugh's failed effort to buy a stake in the NFL's St. Louis Rams and the feud between Fox News and the White House.

Behar made suggestion Limbaugh represents himself as someone who is not "in the mainstream" because he argued on his Oct. 14 show the backlash was in part generated by liberal activists threatened by the notion Limbaugh could be considered to be in the mainstream. That notion was one which Belzer lashed out at and called Limbaugh and Fox News host Glenn Beck "fascist stooges" (emphasis added):

"Shop Sold Guns to Pa., Va. Tech Shooters" blares the headline for an August 7 Associated Press story carried on Time.com.

But Time's headline for the accompanying AP story is woefully inaccurate and worse, deceptive. Pittsburgh fitness center shooter George Sodini, whom police say purchased his firearms legally, did not purchase them from online accessories dealer TGSCOM, Inc.

The same story accessed at Google has a more accurate headline,  "Pa. gunman used same Web store as Va. Tech shooter."

Here's the story as carried on Time.com:

While conservatives like National Review’s Kathryn Lopez were unimpressed by President Obama describing the shooting of student protester Neda Soltan in Iran as merely a "problem" – like having to stand in line for concert tickets? – the New York Daily News supinely painted Obama as emotionally distressed: "DEATH THAT BROKE HIS HEART," screamed their front page headline.

Inside, reporter Helen Kennedy at least acknowledged that Obama had toughened his rhetoric, contrary to his odd insistence at yesterday’s press conference that he’s been absolutely consistent in his Iran rhetoric:

President Obama dramatically toughened his criticism of Iran's crackdown on election protesters Tuesday, paying emotional tribute to slain student Neda Soltan and declaring the U.S. "appalled and outraged" by the violence.

"I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost," he said.

An interesting twist in last week's arrest of four Muslim men charged with plotting to bomb New York synagogues was reported Monday: the younger brother of one had a deadly liver disease that Medicaid wouldn't cover.

Makes you wonder if this revelation will be used by media to advance President Obama's universal healthcare plans.

Consider the following opening paragraphs of a New York Daily News article published Monday entitled "Terror Plotter David Williams Did it For Me, says Sick Brother Lord McWilliams":

The Drudge Report has the latest candidate for the Omission Watch, especially considering how much the networks have displayed their white-hot love for Michelle Obama. The First Lady had the political cluelessness to wear $540 sneakers out on a mission to help the poor! From the New York Daily News:

While volunteering Wednesday at a D.C. food bank, the First Lady sported her usual J. Crew cardigan, a pair of utilitarian capri pants and, on her feet, a sneaky splurge: trainers that go for $540.

That's right: These sneakers -- suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps - are made by French design house Lanvin, one of fashion's hottest labels....

It's likely Michelle got hers through Ikram, the Chicago retailer that often outfits her.

"They're shoes," the First Lady's reps sniffed when curious reporters inquired about the fancy footwear.

From Editor & Publisher yesterday (bold is mine):

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released this morning the spring figures for the six months ending March 31, 2009, showing that the largest metros continue to shed daily and Sunday circulation -- now at a record rate.

According to ABC, for 395 newspapers reporting this spring, daily circulation fell 7% to 34,439,713 copies, compared with the same March period in 2008. On Sunday, for 557 newspapers, circulation was down 5.3% to 42,082,707. These averages do not include 84 newspapers with circulations below 50,000 due to a change in publishing frequency.

Below is a chart showing the specifics for the top 25, including percentage losses for the past four years and during the past year (current year source: Editor & Publisher):

During a 6-minute segment on the Saturday Early Show on CBS, co-host Erica Hill spoke with liberal journalists Mort Zuckerman, editor in chief of U.S. News and World Report, and Steven Kornacki of the New York Observer, about the future of the Republican Party. Republican strategist and CNN contributor Leslie Sanchez was also part of the panel discussion, but was only allowed 44 seconds to speak during the segment, frequently being cut off by Hill, Zuckerman, and Kornacki.

Zuckerman described the future of the GOP this way: "Obama's popularity is surging and the support for the Republican Party is declining, in part because if there is any symbol of the Republican Party, it was Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana, speaking after President Obama, and articulating a philosophy that was so completely discredited under the Bush administration that it's hard to imagine that they think they're going to do anything other than consolidate their support in a very small number of arch-conservative districts in the United States."

Kornacki shared a similar view, suggesting Republicans give up on conservative principles and simply follow Democratic Party ideals: "Republicans in Congress, the Republicans on talk radio, on Fox News, Republicans who are dominating the party and driving the philosophy of their party right now and they are denying reality...2008 was a revolt against the excesses of the Reagan philosophy, and the Republicans right now seem to be saying...'we got to click our shoes together three times, repeat our favorite Reagan catch phrase and poof, we're going to be good again.' It's not going to work. The public is looking for people who want government to take a leading, active, and aggressive role. Republicans aren't even speaking to that."

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama attempted to enter the Oval Office via a panel of windows he mistook for a door.

Will media ridicule him for this innocent mistake much as they did George W. Bush when he tried exiting a meeting with reporters in Beijing back in November 2005?

Before we examine the former president's treatment, the Daily News reported Wednesday (h/t NBer Prester John):

Today on the New York Daily News's Web site appear a picture and story of President Obama having trouble getting back into the White House.  The article begins:

It looks like President Obama hasn't gotten acquainted to his White House surroundings. On the way back to the Oval Office Tuesday, the President approached a paned window, instead of the actual door -- located a few feet to his right.

Doors didn't open automatically for Obama’s predecessor either. While making a hasty exit from a 2005 press conference in Beijing, former President George W. Bush tugged on the handles of a door, only to find it locked.

Bush laughed off the blunder, but the pictures still live on as part of Bush's lame duck legacy. However, there was little note taken of Obama's rookie mistake.

The New York Daily News has reported on a crazed woman passenger who bit a driver over the unavailability of a hybrid bus. However, if the Daily News had investigated the background of the upset passenger, Shelia Bolar, they would have found out that she was every bit as qualified to deliver an Obama inaugural poem as was Elizabeth Alexander who is credited by many for delivering the worst inauguration poem ever. First the Daily News story about how Shelia Bolar has come to our attention:

Going green was a cause she could really sink her teeth into.

The frantic passenger who bit a veteran driver's arm was upset that his bus wasn't a hybrid, he said Thursday.

Shortly before Election Day 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that the far-left-leaning activist group ACORN gave crack cocaine to one of its Ohio workers in 2004 "in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey."

Years later, when a conservative analyst mentioned it on television, H-I-L-A-R-I-T-Y ensued in the liberal media echo chamber at the conservative's expense.

The butt of the jokes this time was my colleague and NewsBusters contributor Matthew Vadum who during his appearance on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" last Thursday had the audacity to say (video available here):

It is no surprise the media is going full throttle on the racism issue in this final week of the campaign. There seems to be concern among liberals that usual democratic voters will pull the lever for John McCain. NY Daily News writer Denis Hamill wrote an article today illustrating his concern that his white liberal contemporaries were defecting to McCain. Hamill emphasizes in each example that these  Democrats are voting McCain because of Obama's race. (my emphasis added):

But we're nervous. We're Jewish and I spoke to my parents down in Florida today. They're voting for McCain."

"Because he's white," said the wife. "Same with my parents."

"They just won't vote for a black man," the guy said. "And they're Democrats! Never voted Republican before!"

If it were an isolated incident, I wouldn't mind.

But the woman at my table added that the only one of her three sons who was a registered Democrat was voting for McCain because he was white.

And I've been hearing stuff like that for the past few months. What I hear banging around Queens is not, of course, a scientific survey. It's anecdotal. But after a while you feel a disturbing vibe.

"Most of the guys at my law firm are voting for McCain," said a lawyer I know. "Not for any specific issue. Because he's white. No, make that because he's not black. It's scary because these are educated people."

He said his own wife was voting for McCain for the same reason. And she's a teacher.

Other educated white people have told me that "it's too soon" for a black man to be president. Or, "I thought it would happen in my kids' lifetimes, not mine."

And this is in Queens, the most ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse county in America, in "liberal" New York City.

Make it a trio of mindreaders at NBC/MSNBC.  As noted here, yesterday Howard Fineman and David Shuster went Carnac on us, emphatically declaring that Barack Obama didn't have Sarah Palin in mind with his lipstick line.  On this morning's Today, Andrea Mitchell joined her network stablemates [no pun intended!] in delving into Barack's brain and assuring us he meant no harm.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Barack Obama has been a punching-bag [aww] for a barrage of criticism from the McCain campaign.  Charges that he slurred Sarah Palin when he said this about McCain and his change argument [cut to clip of Obama's lipstick line]. He was clearly talking about McCain, not Palin.

Well, guess that wraps it up.  But wait. Over at Morning Joe, the group wasn't so forgiving, opining that Obama either did know, or should have known, the implications  of what he was saying.  Mika Brzezinski herself took the first shot.

It seems like the rumors, innuendo and smears thrown by the left against Governor Sarah Palin and her family will never stop. Apparently, the newest lie being casually thrown about by the DemocraticUnderground and the National Enquirer is that Palin's soldier son Track was involved as an unidentified vandal of Wasilla school buses in 2005. Worse, the rumormongers are denigrating Track's patriotism for joining the military and claiming that he was somehow "forced" to join to avoid prosecution. Naturally, they haven't a shred of proof. Fortunately, the New York Daily News has quickly debunked this lie.

In a DU posting from September 2, it was claimed that a "non-disclosed judicial source" said that Track Palin was an "unidentified minor" involved in tire slashings of a fleet of school buses in Wasilla in December of 2005. A 2005 report says that several teens had been found "deflating tires in 44 First Student buses, breaking mirrors and unplugging 110 buses from their engine-block heaters, which caused the buses not to start in subzero weather on Nov. 29."

Your humble correspondent is thinking of writing a story about Democrat voters who are insulted by vice-presidential nominee, Joe Biden. And I think I know just the place to find such Democrat voters---at a John McCain rally in Ohio. Just to save time and effort, I'm not even going to find out if the people I interview are even Democrats so I won't specifically identify them as such even though the headline for my story will read, "Joe Biden excites, insults swing-state Democrat voters."

Does that sound ridiculous to you? Well, guess what? That is exactly what New York Daily News staff writers, Michael McCauliff and Celeste Katz, did in reverse with their article, "Sarah Palin excites, insults swing-state Republican voters." I guess the crack investigative team of McCauliff and Katz figured that the best place to find Republican voters would be at an Obama rally (emphasis mine):

If only John Edwards had a better sense of humor. Perhaps those pesky sexual trysts would not have ruined his political career.

At least, that’s the advice being given by Elizabeth Benjamin of the New York Daily News.

In the article, Benjamin hails the comedic styling of Governor David Paterson of New York, who made an off color joke about his past affairs with several women. The headline says it all:

Truth has set Gov. David Paterson free - to joke about sins

The implication in this piece is that had Edwards, or even Bill Clinton himself, simply been forthright with their affairs, then they too would be free to make light of them.

Forty-five years ago, the great Martin Luther King graced us with his vision of racial equality, and words that will live on forever as a symbol of his struggles towards unity. In 1963, King delivered his ‘I have a dream' speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a speech that still resonates today as a testament to his will and courage.

Now, forty-five years later, Barack Obama stands on the precipice of accepting his party's nomination for the presidency by delivering an equally unforgettable, charismatic, and courageous speech.

At least, that's what Stanley Crouch of the Daily News says others would like you to believe:

Thursday, Barack Obama, the son of a black man and white woman, will give a speech that many say has the potential to achieve the same level of gravity, ascendant courage and timeless charisma contained in King's speech.