No matter how much money any government - federal, state or local - puts into public education, it's never enough in some people's eyes.

A July 1 "NBC Nightly News" segment detailed a new use of tax payer dollars in one of the worst performing, financially struggling school systems in the country - the Washington, D.C. public school system. They are paying school children with taxpayer funds, part of a social experiment to improve school participation at the middle school level.

"Keeping the exuberant sixth graders of Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson in line on a sunny Friday is a challenge for principal Brian Betts," former "Nightly News" anchor-turned-correspondent Tom Brokaw explained. "But this is not an assembly, it's payday. It's called Capital Gains - paying students for good grades, behavior and attendance, part of the massive restructuring of the D.C. schools by a 38-year-old Korean-American woman, who as chancellor, wants to transform what is by many measures the worst-performing public school system in the U.S."

Broadcasting & Cable magazine reports President Obama has named two NBC News veterans to the selection panel for the White House Fellows program, which will select new Fellows in the coming week:

Tom Brokaw, now a special correspondent for NBC News, and John Hockenberry of Public Radio International and formerly with NBC and ABC, join a distinguished panel that includes General Wesley Clark, Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, and former Senator Tom Daschle to pick young people to work "at the highest levels of government" and to participate in an education program and complete public service activities.

The commission can choose between 12 and 19 fellows from a pool of 30 candidates winnowed from over a thousand who initially applied.

**Video Below The Fold**

The folks at Powerline realized the implications of an outrageous news clip featuring NBC's Tom Brokaw conducting an interview with the Obammessiah. Apparently, this hard news journalist thought he'd get deep and ask a pertinent question about Israel, the Palestinians, and just what it might be that the Jews can learn from Obama's visit to Buchenwald and how they should treat Palestinians and stuff about Nazis or something.

Seriously, what sort of historical ignorance does it take for someone to ask what Jews can learn about Buchenwald from a guy that has never visited the place before now, never had any intimate or even cultural connection to it, and wasn't even alive when it was a Nazi terror to the Jewish world? I mean, is Brokaw insinuating that the Jews did not learn anything from their own "visit" to Buchenwald?

Hmm, I wonder what's changed?

Former ad man turned pundit Donny Deutsch has proclaimed that "positivity" is the new in thing for the media—"the new black" as he puts it.

Deutsch appeared with Tom Brokaw on today's Morning Joe.  The former NBC anchor was touting his new USA Network series, "American Character Along Highway 50," featuring encounters with "real Americans" he meets on the road.

That set Deutsch off on his paean to positivity.

Thursday night, as my colleague Brent Baker noted, ABC and NBC fretted that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor might not adhere to a strict liberal orthodoxy on abortion. NBC reporter Pete Williams said Sotomayor’s views on abortion were a “mystery,” while ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg declared “both sides in the contentious debate want to know more.”

On Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent Wyatt Andrews sounded the same alarm: “Pro-abortion rights groups worried aloud today that the President — who promised an abortion rights nominee — never asked Sotomayor, who is Catholic, where she stands.”

On Thursday’s Today, co-host Matt Lauer opened the show by demanding to know “Where does she stand? Liberal activists voicing concerns over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and her stance on abortion. This morning, they’re demanding to know if she’s pro-choice or pro-life — and why President Obama never asked.”

But this isn’t the first time the networks have channeled the worries of liberal pro-abortion groups about a Democratic President’s Supreme Court nominee.

The national unemployment rate is 8.9 percent and even higher in places like Cambridge, Md. So you might find it strange to see NBC advocating an expansion of legal migrant labor when so many Americans are struggling.

Nonetheless, former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw did just that in the first part of a new series called "American Character." The former anchor will travel U.S. Highway 50 from coast to coast to report on people struggling in this economy. On "Nightly News" May 27, Brokaw visited a crab picking house in Cambridge, Md. that's suffering from a shortage of workers.

"Jack Brooks runs J.M. Clayton's, one of the oldest crab processors in the area," Brokaw said. "He's got all the crabs he can handle. What he doesn't have, even in this brutal economy, is enough workers to pick them."

During his Saturday, May 16, commencement speech at Fordham University, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw fretted that the "vital signs" of "Mother Earth" have "taken a turn for the worse," as he cited global warming as a problem this year's graduating class would need to help solve. He also used the term "economic justice," a term commonly invoked by the Left, as he called on graduates to "restore economic justice." Brokaw: "We need you to celebrate one another in a common cause of restoring economic justice and true value, advancing racial and religious tolerance, creating a healthier planet."

Early in his speech, Brokaw referred to the current economic problems that largely originated in the financial sector as he argued that "the economic model that has defined your lives was, in too many ways, a house of cards," and referred to "greed and avarice" in that sector, before he more optimistically praised America as a relatively more prosperous place than the rest of the world. Brokaw: "America remains a land of unparalleled economic opportunities with a standard of living that even in these constricted circumstances is well beyond the hope of hundreds of millions in less developed countries."

Update: Brokaw also spoke at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, on May 17, and made similar comments.

On Friday’s Hannity show on FNC, host Sean Hannity challenged former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw to speak out in response to Janeane Garofalo’s recent tirade on MSNBC host Keith Olbermann’s Countdown show on Thursday, a screed which seemed to have Olbermann’s approval as he appeared to agree with her accusations of racism against Tax Day Tea Party participants.

During a discussion with FNC’s Kimberly Guilfoyle and conservative columnist S.E. Cupp, Hannity addressed Brokaw as he introduced the clip: "I want to address this specifically to Tom Brokaw. Tom Brokaw, are you proud of this?"

Then played a portion of Garofalo’s comments:

JANEANE GAROFALO CLIP #1: You know, there is for more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying. It sounds right to them, and then it doesn't make sense, which – let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about.

KEITH OLBERMANN: That's right.

GAROFALO: They don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging red necks.

Barack Obama’s inauguration was hardly a triumph of media objectivity, with reporters competing to see who could be the most adoring of the new Messiah-President. As always, the latest edition of MRC’s bi-weekly Notable Quotables newsletter has the most obnoxious liberal media quotes from the last two weeks.

Here’s a sneak peek at a few of the quotes that are contained in the January 26 edition; to see the whole set, you can sign up for the free e-mail newsletter or visit www.MRC.org on Monday (the whole package should be posted by Monday afternoon).

A Day When Even the Seagulls Were Awed

“We know that wind can make a cold day feel colder, but can national pride make a freezing day feel warmer? It seems to be the case because regardless of the final crowd number estimates, never have so many people shivered so long with such joy. From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity.”
— ABC’s Bill Weir on World News, January 20.

Sitting in a Washington bar with the Morning Joe crew on MSNBC Tuesday morning, former NBC anchor grew emotional remembering the 1960s. "I get very emotional. It has been hard for me to walk through the streets. And I think that the day is going to be very emotional." Brokaw even grew bold enough to tell the "bigots and rednecks" he met in the Sixties "when we were evolving as a country" to suffer through the Obama inauguration: "Take this. You know?"

The Morning Joe crew was discussing how Barack Obama was so different than past administrations in their lack of drama and in-fighting:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: As I was explaining to my wife, as my conservative brethren continued to beat me up, 'Why do you say, you know -- this guy is not going to be a leftist, how do you know he will not?' -- I said because of the people he is surrounds himself with. They are steady people. They are professional. A lot of ugliness you have seen in White Houses over the past 16 years, absent with this group.

The truly historic moment of the first African-American to be sworn-in as President cannot, nor should not, go without some comment but to the degree NBC News' anchors and reporters were willing to share their personal feelings, on air, about the moment was a bit remarkable for purported objective journalists.

During NBC News' live coverage on Tuesday of Barack Obama's Inauguration, Meredith Vieira observed: "I think the hardest thing is, is not getting emotional because it is such an emotional morning, you just want to, you want to laugh, you want to cry," and later claimed she was "blissful."

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted, repeatedly, that their panel, which included Tom Brokaw and Lester Holt broke down: "Lester and I were remarking that 'No Drama Obama,' kept it together, none of the rest of us did."

The following exchanges occurred during NBC News' January 20, live coverage of the Obama Inauguration: 

Reflecting on the mood of the crowd at Barack Obama's Inauguration, NBC's Tom Brokaw likened it to when he was present for the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. During NBC's live coverage of Obama's swearing-in on Tuesday, Brokaw declared, "It reminds me of the Velvet Revolution," and while Brokaw noted "a communist regime," was not being overthrown he pointed out, "an unpopular president is leaving and people have been waiting for this moment." [audio available here]

The following Brokaw blurb was aired at around 10:02am EST on NBC's January 20 pre-Inaugural speech coverage:

As Dick Cheney was literally rolled out of office, in a wheelchair due to a packing accident, Tom Brokaw had one final kick out the door for the Vice President as he compared him to Dr. Strangelove, the mad scientist title character from the film of the same name. During NBC News' live coverage of Tuesday's Inaugural ceremonies Brokaw made the following observation of Cheney as he was being ushered towards Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony at about 11:32am EST:

TOM BROKAW: It's unfortunate for Vice President Cheney to have had this accident obviously, because there will be those who don't like him, who will be writing tomorrow that he had a Dr. Strangelove appearance as he appeared today in his wheelchair. It's not something he’ll be happy about going out in a wheelchair because he prides himself on his robustness.

NBC News personalities were clear on Sunday’s Meet the Press that Barack Obama needs to bring the fiscal "pain" and sacrifice to the voters with higher taxes. In his interview with incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, host David Gregory suggested Obama’s middle-class tax cut promises should be abandoned in the current state of affairs: "Is that the responsible thing to do on top of the debt burden that we talked about, on top of the deficit I just outlined?"

In the roundtable segment, Tom Brokaw agreed it was time for "pain" and time for an end to "ideological food fights" with Obama now that "even Republicans are cheering him on." New White House reporter Chuck Todd added that Obama’s latest speech on a stimulus plan was dry and weak, since "it didn't ask for any sacrifice from the country."

On Wednesday’s Today show, NBC News principals Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and Tom Brokaw all gushed over Hillary Clinton’s testimony in front of a Senate panel for her confirmation as Secretary of State. During an interview of Senator John Kerry, Lauer asked, “Did you see any area, Senator, where she didn’t show, I guess, a complete mastery of the issues?” In the following segment, Vieira and Brokaw lauded how “smart and well-prepared” the former First Lady appeared to be. “She’s the kind of woman I would like to sit next to in class,” Brokaw indicated. “She’s so smart,” Vieira added.

The NBC morning program’s coverage of Clinton’s hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began with correspondent Andrea Mitchell briefly mentioning during a report that the “only controversy [was] over possible conflicts of interest with foreign donors to her husband’s charities.” This was followed by a clip where Republican Senator Richard Lugar raised the issue and the outgoing New York Senator responded to his point. Mitchell concluded her report by stating that “no one questioned Bill Clinton’s good works -- only the possibility of undo foreign influence on his wife. Clinton says that she and her husband are already doing more than the ethics rules or the law require, and support for her confirmation is so overwhelming that her senate colleagues are holding a farewell party for her today.”

The new moderator of Meet the Press is a good fit on The Olbermann Network

Editor's Note: This first appeared this morning in Human Events.

More Than Mere Shouting Distance From Objectivity

Tom Brokaw's last performance as fill-in moderator of NBC's premier news show, Meet the Press, included a pretty blatant Leftist query.  Interviewing President-elect Barack Obama, southpaw Brokaw uncorked a wild one on energy:

"Let's talk for a moment about consumer responsibility when it comes to the auto industry.  As soon as gas prices began to drop, consumers moved back to the larger cars once again, the SUVs and the big gas consumers.  Why not take this opportunity to put a tax on gasoline, bump it back up to $4.00 a gallon - where people are prepared to pay for that - and use that revenue for alternative energy and as a signal to consumers that these days are gone.  We're not going to have gasoline that you can just fill-up for $20 anymore."

Brokaw's last stand as MTP host served as the perfect lead-in to his final official MTP duty -- introducing his permanent successor, longtime NBC and MSNBC White House reporter David Gregory.

If you needed any more proof that liberal media members don't give a darn about the state of the economy or the American people, and instead just want to raise taxes, you got it Sunday when Tom Brokaw advocated gas prices, which have plummeted recently, be kept at $4 a gallon with government keeping the added cost.

Coming just two days after it was announced that America lost over 500,000 jobs in November, Brokaw, in what could be his last performance as "Meet the Press" host, actually asked Barack Obama why taxes shouldn't be dramatically raised on gasoline with revenues to be spent on alternative energy, and to send a signal that folks won't be able to "just fill up [their] tank for 20 bucks anymore."  

This came in response to president-elect uttering another disturbingly socialist statement that should make clearer his spread the wealth motives (video embedded below the fold with relevant section at 6:00, readers are encouraged to review Mark Finkelstein's earlier piece on this subject, file photo):

Given the flap that ensued when he famously told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to "spread the wealth," I figured Barack Obama wouldn't be making such a suggestion again anytime soon.  I figured wrong.

Pres.-elect Obama to Tom Brokaw on today's Meet The Press:

I think the important principle, because sometimes when we start talking about taxes, and I say I want a more balanced tax code, people think, well, that's class warfare. No.  It turns out that our economy grows best when the benefits of the economy are most widely spread.  And that has been true historically.

As CNN founder Ted Turner appeared as a guest on Sunday's Meet the Press, after NBC host Tom Brokaw expressed concerns about trying to deal with Vladimir Putin's Russia after what happened when President Carter tried to deal with former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Turner compared the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan to America's invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Iraq invasion "naked aggression" by the United States. Turner even tried to argue that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was more defensible than America's invasion of Afghanistan because "at least it's on the border of the former Soviet Union." When NBC host Tom Brokaw took him to task for trying to "justify" the USSR's actions, Turner responded, "Why can't I try and justify it?" Turner also contended that the old Soviet KGB was "an honorable place to work" like America's FBI, and claimed that it gave Soviet citizens "an opportunity to do something important and worthwhile."

TED TURNER: Well, we invaded Afghanistan, too, and it’s a lot further, at least it’s on the border of the Soviet Union, or the former Soviet Union or Russia. A lot of these countries have changed names several times.

TOM BROKAW: But, Ted, don’t try to go there in terms of justifying that. I mean, it was, the fact is that the Russians, it was a naked aggression.

TURNER: Why can’t I try and justify it?

BROKAW: Well, it was naked aggression on the part of the Russians at the time.

TURNER: Well, going into Iraq was naked aggression on the part of the United States.

Though given a perfect opportunity to do so, Tom Brokaw on Sunday chose not to discuss the similarities between Franklin D. Roosevelt's refusal to work with President Herbert Hoover on solving the Depression before he was inaugurated in March 1933 and president-elect Barack Obama doing the same thing today with George W. Bush.

For those not familiar with the historical reference, the financial crisis at the time of the 1932 elections was so bad that banks were failing on almost a daily basis. As a result, Hoover felt the country couldn't wait until March when inaugurations used to take place to hear what Roosevelt's plan was to solve these problems, and wanted FDR and his economic team to come to the White House in order to work some things out together.

Sadly, Roosevelt refused, and although he claimed it was so that his hands wouldn't be tied once he officially became president, some historians feel FDR's delay was designed to allow the crisis to deepen so that it would become easier for him to get his policy proposals passed.

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," the fact that President Bush wants to work with Obama and his team concerning the financial crisis surfaced in discussion with former Reagan treasury secretary James Baker and former Clinton commerce secretary Bill Daley. Unfortunately, Brokaw chose not to address this seemingly-important historical comparison and precedent (video embedded below the fold, relevant section begins at 6:15, file photo):

Tom Brokaw: talk show host or DNC enforcer?  Barack Obama and Harry Reid were willing to let bygones be bygones, letting Joe Lieberman keep his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship. 

But Lieberman's professed "regret" for statements he made in the course of supporting John McCain for president wasn't good enough for Brokaw.  Interviewing the senator on Meet The Press today, Brokaw pointedly observed that he hadn't heard the word "apology" for Lieberman's lèse majesté.  Brokaw broached the subject by asserting Lieberman needed to be held "accountable."

The Obama-lovin' was in full bloom on Wednesday's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" when interim "Meet the Press" host Tom Brokaw actually said, "I don't remember this level of excitement for a new president since 1960 when Jack Kennedy was elected President of the United States."

Now, in fairness, as I was born in 1960, I don't know what kind of excitement existed for JFK after that November's election was concluded.

However, as Ronald Wilson Reagan beat Jimmy Carter by a far greater margin -- popular and electoral votes -- in 1980 than Kennedy beat Richard M. Nixon twenty years prior, this comment by Brokaw seems to be the typical liberal media member's revisionist view of history (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 24:11, h/t TVNewser):

**Video Below the Fold**

The co-chair of Barack Obama's Transition Team, Valerie Jarrett, appeared on Meet the Press this weekend and used, shall we say, an interesting word to described what she thinks Barack Obama will be doing in January when he's officially sworn into office. She told Tom Brokaw that Obama will be ready to "rule" on day one. It's a word that reflects the worst fears that people have for Obama the "arrogant," the "messiah," that imagines he's here to "rule" instead of govern.

Jarret told Brokaw that "given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one."

In a Thursday night appearance on the PBS show Charlie Rose, it was revealed that the Democratic ticket could have been Obama-Brokaw. Rose reported: "I think it was Caroline Kennedy who said that when they have the short [running mate] list for Barack Obama, there was a name down there somewhere?" Tom Brokaw replied: "My name was on it." Rose pestered Brokaw to go into public service after his latest NBC stint ends: "There comes a time, you are reminding me of a conceited anchorman who once said to raise your right hand to enlist." Brokaw didn’t utterly reject the idea of serving a new administration: "I understand the need to step up from time to time, and if the right opportunity came along, I would certainly be willing to take a good, hard look at that."

Rose also curiously worried that a President Obama might end up being a very cautious centrist: "What do you make of him? Tell me what you see there. Because I was talking to a friend of mine, and he said, I see someone who is clearly aspirational, someone who is clearly bright, someone who is clearly ambitious in the best sense of that, but who is clearly cautious, and in the end, he may very well be a man of the center."

Tom Brokaw appeared on NBC’s Today and CNN’s American Morning on Monday to promote the pro-Obama effect of Colin Powell’s endorsement on Meet the Press. On both networks, Brokaw insisted "Colin Powell is one of the most admired and respected men, not just in this country, but around the world. And he has this gold plated military and national security resume." But he was more effusive on CNN, declaring that President Obama would be proof that America's made "giant steps" since Martin Luther King, but John McCain might still be an obstacle to historic transformation with his "guerrilla warfare" on the campaign trail. Brokaw’s praise unfurled as CNN anchor Kiran Chetry described Obama as the "culmination" of King's dream:

Whether it's an example of the host's bias or incompetence, potentially one of the most amazing aspects of Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Sunday's "Meet the Press" was that Tom Brokaw didn't ask the former Secretary of State about the success of the surge in Iraq or the Democrat presidential candidate's opposition to this winning military strategy.

Given Powell's critical position in garnering support for the Iraq War, as well as his involvement in Desert Storm many years ago, it should have been essential to any interview dealing with his endorsement of either candidate how he feels the 2007 increase in troops has worked, and what the Senatorial vote on this strategy by his candidate of choice says about that person's foreign policy acumen.

Despite this logic, a full examination of the transcript and video of this almost 30-minute interview identified absolutely no reference to the surge whatsoever, and no questions posed to the former Secretary of State concerning the wisdom of Sen. Obama's position on it.

The absence of this subject was made even more absurd given the following exchange between Brokaw and Powell (photo courtesy MSNBC.com):

Not many people still ooze over former tyrant Mikhail Gorbachev as a historical giant who liberated the inhabitants of the Soviet Union. But former NBC anchor and current Meet the Press host Tom Brokaw still does. From a chat at the women’s-news site Wow-o-Wow.com:

From Dabney: Who did you find most interesting to interview during your career? Why?

Tom Brokaw: Mikhail Gorbachev. I was the first journalist to interview him and I was deeply impressed by his intelligence and visions as he went about the daunting task of undoing the political and economic oppressions of the Soviet Union. He will be a giant in future history books.

Brokaw has been consistent in his everlasting adoration of the man who undemocratically ruled the USSR from 1985 to 1991. His 1996 interview with Gorbachev on MSNBC -- then a brand-new channel -- was a feast of fawning. This is the beginning and end:

"Meet the Press" interim moderator Tom Brokaw sits on the board of a liberal foundation that has given radical left-wing group ACORN $821,000 and that in turn is funded by liberal uber-donor George Soros, research reveals.

Conservatives have long considered Brokaw's political views to be somewhere on the left, but these revelations raise new questions about the former NBC News anchor's objectivity.

Here are the facts.

Brokaw sits on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charity that, according to its website, targets poverty in New York City by applying "sound investment principles to philanthropy." The foundation awarded ACORN a $456,000 grant in 2003 and a $365,000 grant in 2004. Brokaw does not appear to have played a role in the grants because he didn't become a member of the board until 2005 according to the guidestar.org database, but these are nevertheless the left-wing circles in which he travels.

On Monday's "Today" show NBC's Tom Brokaw buried the McCain campaign and predicted doom for the GOP, as he declared: "It looks like we're in for a big turn of the wheel. That the Democrats are about to reclaim their power." The former anchor of NBC Nightly News and moderator of the last presidential debate was prompted by "Today" anchor Meredith Vieira to make the following prediction:

This all reminds me of 1968, when after having the Democrats in control since 1932, the Republicans then took over in 1968 and effectively, they have had a grip on this country politically since that time, for 40 years now. It looks like we're in for a big turn of the wheel. That the Democrats are about to reclaim their power, because the McCain campaign is dysfunctional, to put it bluntly, and that's, those are the words of Bill Kristol and a lot of other people. They can't quite decide who they are, whether the McCain mavericks or the Bush Republicans or the neo-cons.

The following is the complete transcript of the Brokaw segment on the October 13, edition of the "Today" show:

Tom Brokaw hit a "home run" in moderating the October 7 presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, earning a "tip of the hat" from MRC President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell for presenting a balanced agenda of debate questions.

Appearing on the October 8 "Fox & Friends," Bozell noted that of the 18 questions asked at the Belmont University-hosted debate, former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw allowed 14 neutral questions and two each of conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning questions.

Asked about MSNBC's Chris Matthews calling Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), "debonair," however, the MRC president proclaimed that the "Hardball" host was "an embarrassment as a journalist."

"If he [Matthews] were to put an Obama button on... I'd have more respect for him, really. I don't have any respect for somebody who is as shameless as he or that sidekick Keith Olbermann," Bozell added.