For the last few days various groups like MoveOn.org, and the folks at Huffington Post, DailyKos and DemocraticUnderground have been beating the drum of a new theme to attempt to undermine the McCain campaign among the media. The newest claim from the extreme left is that McCain's focus on the Obama/Ayers connection is responsible for fostering "threats" and "violence" to be ginned up among Republicans at McCain rallies. The left is pushing the idea that McCain is inciting riots and "hate" among GOP voters and they are pushing this theme in an email campaign to the main Old Media outlets.

On October 9, for instance, I got no less than 25 emails "alerting" me to a particular Huffington Post jeremiad that is amusing in its replication of the same behavior it pretends to condemn. In this childish bloviation the HuffPo writer uses as much name calling, guilt by association, and bald faced lies as he claims to be refuting from McCain. But, the germ of the argument is that McCain is inciting violence.

"Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans; U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers," reads the headline and subhead for an ABCNews.com "Blotter" post by Brian Ross.

Written with fellow ABC staffers Vic Walter and Anna Schechter, Ross's October 9 post aimed to make National Security Agency phone monitoring of calls into and out of Baghdad out to be little more than a voyeuristic game of listening in on Americans talk dirty to each other:

"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."

Did you happen to catch the candidate who handled her heckler with grace, poise, and dignity? It’s created quite a buzz in the media…

The Boston Globe spoke of her ‘snappy comeback.’ The Consortium for Independent Journalism reveled in ‘her deft reaction.’ MSNBC reported from the scene that there was ‘roaring cheers and applause from the stunned crowd.’ USA Today remarked about her ‘deadpanning.’ The New York Times noted that ‘Her words were drowned out by a cheering, now-standing crowd.’

Yes, the media was all sorts of in love with the quick retort to a crazed heckler.

But, if you thought that was in response to Sarah Palin’s excellent handling of an anti-war heckler, you’d be sadly, mistaken. Rather, those were all quotes in response to Hillary’s handling of the ‘Iron My Shirt!’ incident, nearly a year ago. It was all the MSM rage once upon a time.

Granted the focus of today's news is overwhelmingly on the bailout and the presidential race, but there is also big news on how Americans are now seeing the war effort. The pendulum has swung from despair to hopeful belief and this is important news that impinges on the elections.

Rasmussen released new data on September 30 that shows that more Americans are now viewing the war as a success and a growing number think that things will get even better in the near future. This is the highest support that Rasmussen has seen since they began to report on this issue. Curiously, news of the war has completely dropped off the radar of the Old Media.

Today’s version of our exercise, in which we dissect the media’s attempts at interjecting bias into a simple headline, may stun some of you.

The shocking aspect? The Washington Post didn’t partake in the liberal doctoring of the headline. Let’s take a look…

The Pentagon just released a report entitled ‘Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,’ which highlights a decline in violence in the country in 2008.

Surprisingly enough, the WaPo ran this headline:

Violence Declines Further in Iraq

While positive news in a Post headline is a bit hard to believe, they did include the following sub-headline, managing to interject that ol’ liberal pessimism we’re more accustomed to:

Pentagon Report Cites Factors That Could Rekindle Attacks

That said, we have to give them some credit for combining the positive and negative into one headline, making it less biased than their competitors. Observe…

In her October 1 ABCNews.com story, "Should Candidates' Sons Serve on the Frontline?", Emily Friedman explored the potential problems that could arise with the sons of presidential candidate John McCain and vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin serving on the front lines in armed conflict:

While Biden, 39, and Palin, 19, are just ordinary troops today, on Nov. 5, the day after the election, one of them will also be the son of the vice president of the United States of America.

A protective Secret Service detail will arrive soon after, along with the "Prince Harry question": Should they stay like any other soldier, or will they have become too tempting a target that endangers them and the other soldiers in their units? Should they be reassigned?

Amid all the false media hubub about Sarah Palin being an alleged "book banner" comes much more serious news about the British publisher of "Jewel of Medina," a book about the child-bride of Islamic prophet Mohammed has been set afire:

Three men arrested in north London on suspicion of terrorism continue to be questioned by police. They are suspected of attempting to set fire to a publisher's office in Lonsdale Square, Islington.

The publisher, Gibson House, is due to release a controversial novel about the Prophet Muhammad and his child bride, entitled "The Jewel of the Medina."

**UPDATE - 09/28/08 PM**

Barack Obama played the "me too" game during the Friday debates on September 26 after Senator John McCain mentioned that he was wearing a bracelet with the name of Cpl. Matthew Stanley, a resident of New Hampshire and a soldier that lost his life in Iraq in 2006. Obama said that he too had a bracelet. After fumbling and straining to remember the name, he revealed that his had the name of Sergeant Ryan David Jopek of Merrill, Wisconsin.

Shockingly, however, Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son's name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family.

Since Friday’s presidential debate, all three major broadcast networks have highlighted one of Barack Obama’s more commanding moments when he charged that John McCain was wrong in some of his pre-Iraq war predictions, but the media have so far ignored Obama’s incorrect assertion that "there was no Al-Qaeda" presence in Iraq before America’s invasion in 2003. Before the 2003 invasion, various news sources – some American, some from other countries – were already citing the governments of various countries as they reported that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, not only was already in Iraq plotting attacks to be carried out in Europe, but that he already had an association with Osama bin Laden and had spent time in Afghanistan. But during Friday’s debate, Senator Obama asserted: "Now, keep in mind that we have four times the number of troops in Iraq, where nobody had anything to do with 9/11 before we went in, where, in fact, there was no Al-Qaeda before we went in, but we have four times more troops there than we do in Afghanistan."

By contrast, ABC, CBS, and NBC have all played the following soundbite of Obama from the debate which is more favorable to the Illinois Democrat: "John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003. And, at the time, when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy, you said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shia and Sunni. And you were wrong."

Notably, back in January 2003 and again in March 2004, the NBC Nightly News relayed claims that the Bush administration had "passed up several opportunities to take [Zarqawi] out well before the Iraq war began." The below was first posted on February 29 of this year, and lists some of the relevant reporting on Zarqawi from various sources and countries:

It's good to know that Team Obama is up to date on the latest news from Iraq. Since the media are so eager to report the “lies” and gaffes by Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin, will they cover the mistake Democrat Joe Biden, the man known as a “Gaffe Machine," made on Wednesday, September 24?

Biden's tough-talking Cincinatti, Ohio foreign policy speech was designed to boost Obama's credibility on the War on Terror and foster confidence in the Illinois Senator's ability to handle international issues. The Dem veep pick discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and attempted to talk down McCain's positions while portraying Obama as the true expert.

In the process, Biden laid the bluster on thick and appeared to either be dishonest or unable to keep up with the news--or both--by claiming “... the surge is over, and the political reconciliation it was supposed to produce has not materialized." (transcript)

Unfortunately for Biden, news broke that same day about Iraq's “major step toward national reconciliation." CNN wrote (all emphasis mine):

Back on September 10 in a visit to Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden seemed to hint that al Qaeda forced down a helicopter he was traveling in when he was visiting Afghanistan in February of 2008. He made the claim again on September 22 in a campaign stop at the National Guard Association. The truth, however, is not exactly what Biden may be trying to allege. Thus far, only ABC's Jake Tapper is exposing the ruse for what it is, a misleading tale pumped up to make his Afghanistan visit seem more menacing than it really was.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that on September 10 Biden told a Chicago audience a harrowing tale about his helicopter ride.

Keith Olbermann is a man of little integrity. Yet from a journalistic aspect, he does exude an air of intelligence, and is a very well spoken, albeit lame, excuse for an anchor.

Olbermann, who clearly and cleverly picks descriptive terms from a vast ranging vocabulary to convey his thoughts, has placed one well thought out phrase in his recent ‘Special Comment’ piece on Countdown: Republicans Hijacked 9/11.

As well crafted as his words are, there is little doubt that Olbermann intentionally used the word ‘hijacked’ for the title of this segment.

Such choice wording at a time when the nation is mourning the seventh anniversary of the attack on America is appalling, even by Olbermann and MSNBC standards. And simply demoting him from the networks election coverage, more a symbolic gesture of their attempts to offer ‘candid analysis,’ is simply no longer enough.

This is to say, not reality at all.

What is the first step in the main stream media’s handbook of liberal bias?  Why, alter the headline to fit your agenda, of course.

In textbook MSM form, liberal news outlets have been altering the planned Tuesday announcement by President Bush that 8,000 troops in Iraq will be home by February. 

Allow me to demonstrate…

Just after the bottom half of the 8 pm Eastern hour of CNN’s coverage of the Republican convention, as Oklahoma Congresswoman Mary Fallin began an introduction of a video presentation about Islamist attacks on the U.S. over the past decades, host Wolf Blitzer gave a bit of a warning about the content of the video: "Let's listen to Congresswoman Mary Fallin of Oklahoma. She's going to make the case why Republicans are better in protecting us than Democrats, and that will lead into a video. It's provocative. There will be images of 9/11 and towers going down. It will raise controversy. We're going to show to it you because it's part of this convention. But let's listen to this Congresswoman from Oklahoma speak first."

Nine minutes later, after Fallin had finished her introduction and the video concluded, Blitzer began a short discussion with correspondent John King, co-host Campbell Brown, and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos about the video’s content. Brown charged that Republicans were playing on fear: "But that message though, has been fear, I mean, as a message at this convention."

It was more like 10 AM than 3 AM. Somewhere, a phone was ringing, to announce the news that John McCain had selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. And the immediate response of Barack Obama's operation was intemperate and inappropriate. Obama found himself apologizing, calling the reaction "hair trigger." He and Biden subsequently made the more gracious kind of comment that should have been offered in the first place. Senators get to "revise and extend" their remarks when they've said something dumb on the floor. That's not always the case for presidents. A "hair trigger" reaction to a real crisis could have disastrous consequences.

Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton snidely when the news broke:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same

Compare and contrast with the gracious, statesmanlike ad McCain aired on the day of Obama's acceptance speech. Obama eventually realized that his campaign's intemperate reaction was out of line. According to the AP, Obama "blamed the mixed messages about McCain's choice, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on campaign aides with a "hair trigger."

Some how, the Old Media has missed the good news on Iraq. On August 27, the Rasmussen polling organization published a poll that showed American confidence is at its highest level ever in support of the War on Terror since they've begun tracking in January of 2004. This poll got little notice by the Old Media, of course, but it illustrates an issue that McCain should exploit to his benefit -- especially after Obama's acceptance speech last night.

Rasmussen found that Fifty-four percent of American voters now think that the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq and forty-eight percent think the situation will get even better in the next six months. Further, Rasmussen reports that this turn around in public opinion has been sharp when just last year only twenty-seven percent thought things were going to get better in Iraq.

Ominously for the Obama campaign, the poll also found that sixty-two percent of men agree that the U.S. is winning the War on Terror while forty-six percent of women do. Less than a quarter of women now think the terrorists are winning with just fourteen percent of men feel that way.This growing support augers against Obama's continued anti-war stance.

It all points to two salient facts: the surge worked and we've won the war in Iraq. And people are starting to notice.... not that the media is.

"Obama Campaign Wages Fight Against Conservative Group's Ads" is the third story from New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg in five days that attacks an anti-Obama ad from the American Issues Project that questions the ties between Obama and homegrown terrorist Bill Ayers, cofounder of the Weathermen, the group that tried to blow up the U.S. Capitol in 1971.

In each story, Rutenberg appears far more worked up about the legality of the ads than in the underlying facts of Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist turned professor of education in Chicago. The first 10 paragraphs of Rutenberg's online filing Wednesday are devoted to the back-and-forth machinations, again questioning the group's funding whil