As noted earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yesterday's resignation from CNN by Lou Dobbs was his second during a storied career there. The first was at least partially driven by clear tensions between Dobbs and CNN head Rick Kaplan, a longtime friend of former president Bill Clinton who arrived at the network in 1997.

That Kaplan was driven to protect Clinton, and to risk journalistic integrity while doing so, is virtually beyond dispute. In 1997, as the Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz noted in a 1999 op-ed whose primary purpose was to note the significance of "the demolition of CNN and Time's story charging that U.S. forces used the lethal gas sarin to attack American defectors in Laos," U.S. News reported that Kaplan "issued a warning to CNN journalists to limit the use of words like 'scandal' in relation to stories on the president's fund-raising ventures."

So you can imagine how beside himself Kaplan must have been when Dobbs, then the host of a business and finance show, went after the Chinese nuclear espionage story in 1999 while his other CNN colleagues and the Big 3 networks were attempting to downplay and ignore it. Brent Baker's CyberAlert from March 12 of that year has the details:

The New York Times Caucus blog reported moments ago that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has been censured by the local Republican Party in his home state "for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the wishes of the people of South Carolina."

In essence, he's getting slammed for being what conservatives call a RINO -- Republican in name only.

As the Times' Bernie Becker reported:

A rather stunning Gallup poll was released Wednesday showing Republicans moving ahead of Democrats in which Party registered voters support in next year's Congressional elections.

As Gallup reported in its summary, this is a rare occurrence in the almost sixty years since the polling organization has been tracking generic voter preferences for the House of Representatives.

Given media's downplaying of the significance of last week's election results, it's going to be fascinating to watch how they spin these numbers (h/t Byron York):

CNN’s Candy Crowley neglected to include sound bites from conservatives during a report about Sarah Palin on Tuesday’s American Morning, other than from the former Alaska governor herself. While Crowley did acknowledge the widespread support that Palin has among conservative Republicans, she only used clips from moderate commentator David Frum, Democrat Bill Owens, and colleague Wolf Blitzer.

The CNN senior political correspondent’s report, part of a series on the Republican Party’s future, highlighted how Palin was a “high voltage candidate,” and included five sound bites from the Republican vice presidential nominee. After noting her continued popularity amongst a “loyal following in the GOP” and her active year following the 2008 election, Crowley zeroed-in on the former governor’s weaknesses: “A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found 85 percent of Republicans say Palin agrees with them on their most important issues. But here’s the rub: only 49 percent of independents feel that way. It’s a telling measure of her political reach and its limits, that the Republicans who won governor seats in Virginia and New Jersey this year politely rejected Palin’s offers to campaign for them....Her clout is inside the party.”

Earlier today I had the pleasure of attending the weekly blogger's briefing hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Conservative activist and public relations consultant Craig Shirley was the featured guest, and he spoke about his new book "Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America."

Shirley noted the remarkable parallels between the Republican Party that Reagan and the conservative movement revitalized in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the situation facing conservatives today.

Then as now liberal Democrats claimed the presidency and liberal ideology seemed ascendant following the tenure of Republican presidents who expanded the size and scope of government (Nixon) and/or were inept (Ford). Now as in the late 1970s, it is conservatives standing outside the establishment who can be the revitalizing and reforming force for the GOP and more importantly the country.

During a roughly 30-minute Q&A session, Shirley answered a series of questions from bloggers in attendance, and shared among other things the following observations:

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan anchored a segment on Tuesday’s Morning Meeting that worried about the "far right" and wondered whether "super conservatives" are alienating "GOP centrists." The host hyperbolically spun, "But are the super conservatives of our country careening the GOP toward the edge of irrelevance, leaving centrists Republicans fighting for control of their own party?" Later, his colleague Contessa Brewer inadvertently referred to Florida conservative Marco Rubio as the "great white hope." (Mr. Rubio is Hispanic.) [Audio available here.]

Ignoring the fact that the Republican Party actually won impressive victories in last week’s gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, Brewer then cited liberal columnist Paul Krugman as an expert on the faltering Republican Party. Not identifying Krugman as a leftist, she touted his comparison of the California GOP as an obstructionist "rump" and quoted, "If this happens to the country as a whole, the country could become effectively ungovernable."

As Brewer discussed the Club for Growth and their endorsement of failed Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman in a New York congressional race, MSNBC graphics underlined the liberal alarm. One read, "Are Super Conservatives Alienating GOP Centrists?" Another declared, "Far Right Fights Health Bill." (MSNBC doesn’t often worry about the "far left.") Brewer, who on October 21 confused Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, made another verbal miscue on Tuesday.

The New York Times’s November 5 “Political Points” podcast recited a full 30-second excerpt from Gail Collins’s Wednesday column blaming not Obama, but bad Democratic candidates, for the party’s huge losses in governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey.

The paper’s chief political reporter Adam Nagourney agreed that New Jersey and Virginia weren’t necessarily predictive. Four minutes in, Adam Nagourney emulated Collins by also throwing the two losing Democrats under the bus, while repeatedly warning people not to overstate the results:

Remember that we’re talking about here are two states, not a lot of voters, one congressional district in upstate New York. Micro-wise, one thing we do want to pay attention to here is, and again, don’t overstate this -- independent voters who backed President Obama in Virginia and New Jersey last time went to the Republican gubernatorial candidates this time. Now, does that mean that they didn’t, that they’ll vote for, you know, whoever votes against Obama in 2012, or for Democrats, or Republicans congressional, for Republicans next year? No. I don’t think so.

Coverage of Tuesday's election night took place during prime time, giving cable news partisans the responsibility of tracking and reporting details on the elections. Many observers, fed up with the substandard coverage of the networks' opinion commentators, turned to Twitter for up-to-the-minute coverage.

Election followers on Twitter displayed their discontent towards cable news stations throughout the night. Twitterer Some1ToShoutFor lamented, "I know this isn't a huge election, but you would think CNN would be covering it a little bit."

Another, with the ironic username msnbcwatcher, complained of hyper-partisan Ed Schultz's coverage: "What makes @MSNBC think that Ed Schultz should be on TV more? Is there no 1 else to do election coverage? Wheres @DavidShuster?"

Which party was "embarrassed" by Tuesday night's election results? You may be surprised.

In "Democrats in Congress See Election as Giving New Urgency to Their Agenda," New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse managed, as he often does, to tilt the conversation in a direction favorable to Democrats. 

Thursday's story came in the aftermath of two big Republican wins in New Jersey and Virginia governors' races. Yet Hulse, echoing liberal wishful thinking, portrayed the special congressional race in upstate New York, where Douglas Hoffman, running on the Conservative ballot, came within a few points of beating the Democrat, as an "embarrassing loss."

Blaming election setbacks on a drop in voter enthusiasm, Congressional Democrats said Wednesday that losses in governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey -- and a striking House win in New York -- should give new urgency to their legislative agenda, including a sweeping health care overhaul.

As they assessed the results, Democratic lawmakers and party strategists said their judgment was that voters remained very uneasy about the economy and did not see Democrats producing on the health, energy and national security changes they promised when voters swept them to power only a year ago.

Republicans portrayed the election outcome as a repudiation of Democratic policies and predicted significant Congressional gains next year despite Tuesday's embarrassing loss in a longtime House Republican stronghold in upstate New York.

An openly gay city council candidate is targeted by malicious campaign literature suggesting he may be a pedophile and subsequently loses his bid for alderman.

It's the type of story highlighting bigotry and homophobia that the mainstream media would love to trumpet and it happened just days ago in the 2009 city elections in Annapolis, Md.

Unfortunately for Scott Bowling, he's a Republican in the liberal capital city of Maryland.

Aside from coverage in the Annapolis Capital and the Baltimore Sun's Maryland Politics blog, a Google News search and Nexis searches of the AP wire, major newspapers, and network transcripts revealed no coverage of the story in the mainstream media:

During the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial election, the Washington Post waged a relentless campaign to defeat Republican Bob McDonnell. Starting on Wednesday, after the GOP nominee received almost 59 percent of the vote, the newspaper began dispensing advice: Raise taxes.

On Wednesday, a Post editorial assessed the "lessons" of the election and whined, "We remain skeptical of the flimsy filigree he passed off as a transportation plan, which rejects any fresh taxes to pay for new roads. But by dint of his victory he has earned the right to show it will work." [Emphasis added.]

Even though voters overwhelmingly opposed the higher taxes candidate, Democrat Creigh Deeds, the editorial continued: "Yet it remains true that the two of the most successful, best-respected and most popular of Virginia's governors in the past quarter century...raised taxes to put the state's finances on a surer footing and invest in the long-term health of its roads, bridges, school and public safety."

Today's Metro section front-pager by Washington Post's Amy Gardner -- "McDonnell team rose to challenge in darkest hour" -- reminded me of a line from "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy"

"From deep down in my stomach, with every inch of me, I pure, straight hate you. But g*d***it, do I respect you!" seethes rival TV station anchor Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn) to Burgundy (Will Ferrell).

The Washington Post hatefully threw all it had at making the "thesis issue" a career killer for McDonnell, who went on to win 54 percent of the women's vote in Tuesday election. But looking back, Post staffer Amy Gardner gave readers a look into how the McDonnell campaign hunkered down, stuck with a disciplined message, and thwarted the paper's scheme to "macaca" McDonnell:

CNN contributor Roland Martin made light of Glenn Beck’s emergency appendectomy in a post on his Twitter account late Wednesday night/early Thursday Morning: “Glenn Beck had an appendectomy today. He must have blown a gasket after Hoffman lost the NY-23. Keep crying, Glenn!”

Martin’s lack of sympathy for the conservative talk show host is more than apparent in this first post, but it was further compounded after another Twitter user called him out on it. Jtlol wrote, “Must be part of your ‘fresh perspective for the 21st Century.’ I hope you never need emergency surgery.” The CNN contributor replied, “I had an appendectomy in 2000. Your point?”

So Martin clearly knows the pain of an ailing appendix, but cannot sympathize with Beck because he’s on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Stay classy, Roland!

CBS's Bob Schieffer on Wednesday night offered the hindsight that everyone knew the Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey would lose, they did lose and so the losses mean nothing. “I think what we saw last night were snap shots. I don't think we saw predictors,” Schieffer declared on the CBS Evening News in absolving President Obama of any culpability. “I don't think they told us much except that people are very frustrated out in the country.” And that, apparently, has nothing to do with Obama.

Schieffer recited what happened with remarkable prescience: In Virginia, “they run someone for Governor [Creigh Deeds] who is a rural candidate who's little-known in Northern Virginia and who could not seem to connect with the African-American voters. So he got beat and he got beat bad. Most people thought that was going to happen and it did.” Up Interstate 95 in New Jersey, Governor Jon Corzine “was just so unpopular that I think he just didn't have a chance from the get-go.”

Does the National Journal's Hotline inhabit the same universe as the rest of us?  Democrats lost two-out-of-three among last night's big races.  But in declaring Winners and Losers among non-candidates involved with the campaigns, the only Losers Hotline saw were . . . Republicans and conservatives, with nary a Dem in sight!

Chris Matthews was only too happy to seize on the Hotline hitlist during his Sideshow segment on this evening's Hardball.  Here were Hotline's three Losers:

• Sarah Palin: for jumping into Hoffman's losing cause, whereas McDonell and Christie didn't invite her in and won.
• Pete Sessions: the Chairman of the NRCC, who went 0-2 in special congressional elections.
• Club For Growth: which backed Hoffman.

Hotline's inconsistent logic was glaring . . .

Update/Clarification [Nov. 10]: This issue is muddied a bit by redistricting and its effects on the geography of congressional representation. Swing State Project in June 2009 noted that "Almost two-thirds of the population of the current district (62%) live in territory" in the New York 23rd "that has not elected a Democrat since 1890 or earlier." However, a sizable part of the district (38%) includes parts of counties that as late as 1976 and 1978 voted Democratic in congressional races.

If you've heard it once, you've heard it 1,000 times: the New York 23rd Congressional District (NY-23) has had a Republican incumbent since the 1870s. It's a helpful talking point for mainstream media types bent on portraying the Hoffman loss in the district last night as evidence of how the Republican mainstream has moved away from conservatism.

The only trouble with the talking point is it is patently false and the New York Times can prove it. (h/t EyeBlast.tv's Stephen Gutowski)

From the 1990 obituary for one Samuel Stratton:

How much is a Washington Post endorsement worth? Not a lot, apparently. The Post endorsed 26 candidates in Virginia’s November 4 elections. Only 12 of them won. The liberal newspaper’s picks for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, all Democrats, lost, averaging only 42.4 percent of the vote. Almost 239,000 Virginians voted against the wishes of this establishment news outlet.

The Post lobbied heavily for their gubernatorial candidate, Creigh Deeds (who received only 41.2 percent of the vote), offering a seemingly endless number of stories about Republican Bob McDonnell and a thesis he wrote in 1989. (McDonnell garnered 58.6 percent of the vote.) As for the Virginia House of Democrats, the paper endorsed in 23 races and only 12 won. Adding up all the numbers, the Post's candidates combined for 229,596 votes, compared to 238,854 against, for a 51 to 49 percent defeat.

In the State House, the Post supported just four Republicans. Three of those, in heavily liberal districts, lost. The other one, Thomas D. Rust, has repeatedly bucked his own party. He won.

This afternoon, the Washington Post's Web site offers readers two looks at how the Democrats and the GOP will proceed following the 2009 elections, but, surprise, surprise, the paper only forsees internecine squabbles for the GOP.

"Republicans revel in wins but ideological fissures loom," the headline to Washington Post staffer Philip Rucker and Perry Bacon's news piece filed at 2:30 p.m. EST today. On the other side of the coin, the Post offered an "analysis" piece from Dan Balz published shortly after 10 a.m. today that posits that the "Contests serve as warning to Democrats: It's not 2008 anymore."

Even before delving into the content of the articles, it's clear by the  labeling that the Post sees the GOP's pending "ideological fissures" as a matter of objective news reporting, while the Democratic postmortem is a matter of informed "analysis," not hard news.

For their part, Rucker and Bacon aimed, like others in the mainstream media -- click here, here, and here --  to gin up an ominous narrative for the GOP party-wide from the New York 23rd congressional district saga:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Tuesday night got visibly annoyed with radio host Mark Williams for daring to bring up the Hardball host’s famous assertion that Barack Obama gave him a "thrill" up his leg. After Matthews goaded Williams and suggested he didn’t know the name of the Republican leadership in Congress, Williams paraphrased, "Chris, you're making my legs tingle!"

Matthews, who only seconds before had been smiling as he mocked the host, became flustered: "See, this is- this is. I’m going to- What do you mean? How is your leg? What do you mean? Your leg’s tingling? I don’t get what you mean- what you mean." After Williams repeated himself, Matthews shot back: "What do you mean?" [Audio available here.]

The G.O.P. had two big victories yesterday in off-year elections, winning the race for governor in New Jersey and Virginia for the first time since 1997. The New York Times's coverage was dominated by three themes used to explain away the success of Republicans:

The Republicans won by appearing moderate.

The congressional race in upstate New York revealed deep divisions within the G.O.P.

These off-year elections don't mean much anyway (except when Democrats win).

1) Republicans Won by Moderating:

Even after wins by two conservative Republicans, the Times spin was that moderation had prevailed, arguing that both New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie and Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell won by trimming their social conservative stands.

In a Tuesday web post before returns were in, the paper's chief political reporter Adam Nagourney said that even a win by Virginia conservative McDonnell would be a victory for moderation: