Garry Trudeau

NBC may have lowered itself to an "exclusive" interview with author Joe McGinniss today -- something they did NOT do in 1993 when McGinniss drew universal condemnation for a sleazy Ted Kennedy biography titled The Last Brother. But Garry Trudeau has devoted almost a week now to spreading McGinniss gossip in his Doonesbury comic strips, with all the worst charges: she slept with NBA star Glen Rice, she fired all her "dark-skinned" employees, she wore push-up bras to get what she wanted, and she was an airhead who wanted to shop all day.

This tabloid sleaze is not new for Trudeau: twenty years ago, he devoted his strip to recounting allegations made by a prisoner named Brett Kimberlin (also known as "The Speedway Bomber") who claimed he sold Vice President Dan Quayle marijuana in the 1970s. Trudeau didn't care that Kimberlin was convicted of perjury in 1974 for lying about -- drugs. Notice how Trudeau's strips again have a misogynist anti-Palin flavor:

When it comes to debasing conservative women, is there nothing considered off-limits by the liberal media?

Consider Sunday's Doonesbury which joked about the bra sizes of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann:

Newspaper readers probably had raised eyebrows on Christmas Day if they saw Doonesbury's comic strip for this sacred day. A female social worker is chatting with a female soldier and asking her if she gets support out in the field. They have this exchange:

SOLDIER: Yes, ma'am, I talk to our chaplain.

SOCIAL WORKER: Good. A chaplain can be a good resource.

SOLDIER: Mine yells at God a lot. 

SOCIAL WORKER: He deserves it. In my extremely humble opinion.

Garry Trudeau, the leftist author/artist of the comic strip Doonesbury, gave an interview about Twitter to the Mediabistro blog WebNewser, where he displayed his snooty distaste for "populist pandering" to the little people. When asked if any TV news stars were particularly annoying on Twitter, he unfurled a general pet peeve instead: asking for "obvious or inane" interview questions from the public. Without irony, Trudeau suggested journalists were like pilots or surgeons:

Not in particular (hey, I like TV news folks -- married one! [longtime NBC liberal Jane Pauley]), but in general the most baffling are the reporters who solicit their followers for questions before interviews. Please. You're supposed to be professionals. Do pilots and surgeons ask for suggestions?

If you can't think of a few good questions, you and your producer are in the wrong business. It's not about getting fresh, out-of-the-bubble perspectives, as they would argue: most questions sent in are obvious or inane. It's really about flattering the followers, populist pandering.

This is rich territory for Trudeau to trudge upon, considering some of Jane Pauley’s inane questions. (To Hillary Clinton, 1992: "You prepared Chelsea: Bad things may be said about Daddy. Was Chelsea at all prepared for bad things being said about Mommy?" And: "What do you not do perfectly?")

How insulated is the MSM? In how much of a liberal cocoon does it exist? For an answer, consider the vile cartoon displayed here.  My guess is that the great majority of NewsBusters readers are familiar with it.  But John Harwood—of the New York Times and CNBC—has never seen it.

That became clear on today's Morning Joe. The topic was the TV comedy world's double-standard, in which Republicans are regularly skewered but the laff factory suddenly shuts down when it comes to mocking Barack.  A New York Times article on the matter was the jumping off point, and Joe Scarborough had a field day ridiculing lefty comedians' hypocrisy in piously claiming to "speak truth to power."  The truth, said Scarborough, is that the comedians lay off Obama not because there's nothing funny about him, but because they're "in the tank" for the Dem candidate.

Towards the end of the segment came this stunning exchange:

View video here.