It appears CBS News's Chief Legal Analyst doesn't agree with his colleague Bob Schieffer that former Vice President Dick Cheney is winning the national security debate with Barack Obama.

Quite the contrary, Andrew Cohen thinks Cheney is still living in "the world of September 11, 2001, a world where hijacked planes are screaming toward their targets, chaos reigns, and anything goes." 

As a result, Cohen wondered in a Friday posting at his CBSNews.com blog "Court Watch" if Cheney is, "as many people say, just a d**k":

President Barack Obama burned roughly 9,000 of jet fuel yesterday, Earth Day, and that only to deliver one speech in Iowa, reports CBS News's Mark Knoller in an April 22 Political Hotsheet blog post.

As if that weren't amusing enough, Knoller notes that the Air Force and the White House wouldn't disclose to Knoller how much fuel the president's plane burns on an average flight, so he had to consult with the manufacturer of the 747, Boeing:

In flying to and from Iowa today, President Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One.

The press office at Andrews AFB wouldn’t give me the fuel consumption numbers for the 747 that serves as Air Force One without the approval of the White House Press Office, which as I write this has yet to be given.

But Boeing says its 747 burns about 5 gallons of fuel per mile. It’s 895 miles from Washington to Des Moines, so a round trip brings the fuel consumption for the fixed-wing portion of the President’s trip to 8,950 gallons. 

The economy is already in rough shape, but some think we should let it go to pot - literally. Pro-legalization advocacy groups are promoting the possibility that legalizing marijuana could provide some economic relief, and the media has eagerly explored the idea.

On April 20, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) aired TV ads calling for marijuana legalization. They ran on CNN, Fox News Channel and were covered by CBS News.

"In the spot, Americans say of the drug, ‘you can tax it, you can regulate it, apply age restrictions...create millions of new jobs ... save our economy,'" Brian Montopoli wrote for CBSNews.com on April 20.

With chatter that this could be a campaign issue in 2010, the new Obama Administration's relaxed policies toward the drug and some people's desperate, try-anything approach to solving the government spending deficits and economic woes, the idea of marijuana legalization is gaining traction with the media.

Sticking up against those ol' playground bullies on the Right, CBS's Katie Couric tells conservatives in a recent blog post to " give the new kids on the block" in the Obama administration "a chance to get their learner's permits first."

Not exactly the wisest choice of words from an Obama-friendly journalist, particularly when a heavy drumbeat of criticism against him in the presidential campaign was that it unwise to trust the presidency to a man who would need "on-the-job training."

From her April 9 Couric & Co. post at CBSNews.com (emphasis mine):

CBS’s Katie Couric, formerly queen of “Today” show sunshine, has written a very anti-gun piece on her blog, Couric & Co. It seems worthwhile to do a point-by-point response, so below, please note that italics are from Couric's blog, and the response is in normal font.

Thirteen people shot dead in Binghamton, New York.

Four people crushed to death near the Georgia-Tennessee state line.

Eight killed at a North Carolina nursing home.

Four more people crushed or burned to death in Polk County, Florida.

Ten murdered across several towns in southern Alabama.

Seventeen people killed in Coalinga, California.

In his newly released book ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ author Mark Levin criticizes the mainstream media for its systematic support of left-wing causes. In chapter 8, entitled "On Enviro-Statism," Levin focuses on the media’s slanted coverage of global warming and points out its confusion on the subject:

In 1975, scientists again raised the specter of global cooling. A famous article appearing in Newsweek magazine, titled "The Cooling World," concluded, "The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down."...In 2008, the same Newsweek that gave weight to the false science of global cooling published an article titled "Global Warming Is a Cause of This Year’s Extreme Weather."

Levin goes on to expose CBS’s Scott Pelley as a diehard global warming advocate:

Consider CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. When asked why his reporting on global warming did not acknowledge the views of skeptics, he replied, "If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier? This isn’t about politics or pseudo-science or conspiracy theory blogs. This is about sound science."

Just how liberal is the mainstream media?

Well, if you do a highly contentious and hostile interview with a Republican political candidate that ends up assisting in that persons defeat at the polls you'll get an award from your colleagues.

Such was obviously the case when CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric was given a "Special Achievement" award earlier this week for her highly-publicized September interviews with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Here's how CBSNews.com reported it Tuesday (h/t "Media Malpractice" documentarian John Ziegler):

Michelle may bring home the bacon, but she sure doesn't fry it up in a pan.

During last year's presidential campaign, the media worked overtime to portray John and Cindy McCain as wealthy private jet junkies with more homes than they can remember, while showcasing Barack and Michelle Obama as just another middle class family with two working parents, one car and freshly paid off student loans. In 2008, a media frenzy whirled around Mrs. McCain's income and the $170,000 she paid household staff in 2006.

On the other hand, Mrs. Obama was defined as an average mom who juggled work and home with extraordinary skill. According to the media, she arranged sleepovers, scoured Target for the perfect wardrobe and served healthy organic dinners. Just like us common folk, right? Well, almost. Those healthy organic dinners were cooked by the Obamas' personal chef, Sam Kass.

Funny how the media didn't mention that on the campaign trail, particularly in all of those syrupy, hagiographic interviews where Michelle discussed her family life, such as this October 17, 2008 CBS "Early Show" segment where she danced around answering reporter Maggie Rodriguez when she asked, “Who cooks at home?” (emphasis mine):

Here's a story you may not have heard as the media have all but ignored outgoing President Bush during the Obama transition.

The Air Force pilot who flew President Bush on 9/11 and ferried the commander-in-chief on secret flights to visit troops in Iraq hails the outgoing president as "definitely a great man" for whom "it's been an honor to fly."

As CBS Radio's Mark Knoller noted in a January 17 story, Air Force Colonel Mark Tillman, commander of the Presidential Airlift Group, is retiring from military service after flying President Bush back home to Texas.:

CBSNews.com greets readers of its World Watch blog today with, "Cubans Look For 'Change' To Believe In."

The blog post by Havana-based Portia Siegelbaum began by insisting that: 

Expectations are almost as high among Cubans as they are among Americans as the countdown to the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama speeds up. 

Of course, far-left rhetoric notwithstanding, the United States is a republic with two major parties and a healthy tradition of freedom of speech and press, whereas Cuba is a totalitarian throwback to the Soviet era.

Yet Siegelbaum failed to note that President Raul Castro is a dictator unanswerable to the call of change from his people.

What's more, the CBS reporter practically laid the entire blame for Cuba's poor economy not on the failures of Communism and dictatorship but the long-standing U.S. embargo:

CBSSports.com columnist Gregg Doyel has had it with all the hero worship, the idolatry, the 'canonization' of the guy:

This one's going to hurt. It's going to hurt you, and it's going to hurt me..... It's directed at those who would beatify the man.... Because he's just a man.

No, he's not referring to President-elect Obama but rather Tim Tebow, the University of Florida quarterback who led the Gators to a national championship on January 8. Yet in his January 13 column, Doyel went from waging a legitimate complaint about excessive hero worship to hashing out liberal talking points regarding the open practice of faith by Christian athletes (emphasis mine, h/t NewsBusters commenter Blonde):

CBS News has found a Greenville, S.C., Roman Catholic priest who has warned any and all of his Obama-voting parishioners to repent of voting for the Illinois Democrat before taking Communion, owing to the president-elect's "stance on abortion."

Yet in reporting the November 14 story on its Web site, CBS News failed to ever mention by name the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), the signing of which Obama famously declared would be a top priority in his presidency.

Catholic clerics worry FOCA could overturn freedom of conscience laws in many states that allow Catholic hospitals to operate without being legally required to perform abortions, a fact left unmentioned in the story.

To answer the question of my headline, no CBS isn't joking. CBS is actually pretending that the Old Media must be "won over" by a President Obama. It makes one wonder just how much more the press can be in love with The One? As multiple studies have shown, the Old Media has been far more in Obama’s corner than not yet now CBS wants to pretend they are skeptical of Obama? Now CBS wants to act as if they will be tough on him unless he appeases them? I know I said CBS was serious with this report, but it still seems like a joke of epic proportions.

Just catch this absurd CBS headline and subhead: How Obama Can Win Over The Media - MarketWatch Media Columnist Explains What Obama Must Do To Become America's "Communicator-In-Chief"... I know, I know. When you've stopped laughing, you can continue on.

Hey, did you know that "when one thinks of voter fraud, one usually associates it with the GOP?" That's what U.S. News's Bonnie Erbe's lead-in is in her online article today picked up by CBS news online. (NOTE: I initially indicated Erbe wrote for CBS. CBS actually picked up Erbe's US News article. I regret the error. -- DS Hube.) In an otherwise balanced story regarding Barack Obama's ties to the group ACORN, Erbe really thinks she's speaking for the "everyman" in her absurd first paragraph:

Hate to say it, but when one thinks of voter fraud, one usually associates it with the GOP, the 2000 election, and the debate over who won Florida. You remember, voting machines that didn't work, long lines to vote in predominantly Democratic districts, and recounts that weren't accurate.

Do you first think of the GOP engaging in voter fraud in Florida back in 2000 when that very term -- "voter fraud" -- is raised? Or, is it largely a ... [mainstream] media creation?

Are newsrooms so slanted toward Barack Obama that they don't even realize it any more, or was an inaccurate headline about Sarah Palin just another example of more pro-Obama media bias?

CBSNews.com couldn't even rewrite a simple headline without putting fake words in Palin's mouth. The news organization revised and punched up a headline for a From The Road blog post in a way that made it seem as if Palin called her own comments about Obama's connection to domestic terrorist William Ayers an “Obama [s]mear,” which she didn't. Nowhere in the linked post did Palin say her statements were a “[s]mear" (thanks to NB reader Al; more screengrabs below the fold).

Advertising Age magazine reports today that CBS News has gotten "[A] Rude Lesson in Citizen Journalism" with its iPhone application. It turns out the "Eyemobile for iPhone" has become a handy vehicle for amateur pornographers to spam the site:

A visit to CBSeyemobile.com turns up a few photos that walk the line of not-safe-for-work, a jarring juxtaposition with CBS's storied news brand.

What's more, Google is advertising on the clips via AdMob.

In what Bob Schieffer of CBS News's "Face the Nation" promoted as the first interview of Sen. Barack Obama following the first presidential debate, “broadcast journalism's most experienced Washington reporter,” according to CBSNews.com, made no effort to critique Obama’s debate answers and performance, but instead led the Democratic candidate into an hour-long bashing of the Republican ticket.

Schieffer’s slant was obvious right out of the gate, emphasizing Obama’s supposed late night work on the bailout.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, it's still very complicated. We should stress this, it still hasn't even been put down on paper, all of it. But I know you were talking with the negotiators through the night last night. What can you tell us about it, and can you support it?

Neither Shieffer nor Obama mentioned the factors leading up to the sub-prime mortgage breakdown over the last 30 years. Instead Obama indicated blame is to be placed on the Bush Administration for all of it. The veteran journalist didn’t question it.

Noting that the National Rifle Association has begun a "Push to Tarnish Obama on Guns," CBSNews.com's Brian Montopoli noted, and rightly so, that Sen. John McCain has not been the strongest advocate of gun rights issues. But while Montopoli brought up McCain's 2004 mushy "C+" grade in his September 23 article, neither Obama's nor Biden's "F" grades by the gun rights group were mentioned in the article.

What's more, Montopoli cited Biden's defense of his running mate, on gun rights issues, yet failed in the article to bring up the NRA's disdain for the gun control-pushing Delaware senator:

Obama's running mate Joe Biden, meanwhile, suggested recently that Republicans will use the issue to scare voters away from the Obama-Biden ticket.

"I guarantee you, Barack Obama ain't taking my shotguns, so don't buy that malarkey," Biden said in Southern Virginia. "Don't buy that malarkey. They're going to start peddling that to you. I got two, if he tries to fool with my Beretta, he's got a problem."

The Delaware senator may well own guns, but that doesn't mean he doesn't think bitter Americans in the hinterlands should be able to cling to theirs. Although Montopoli quoted from the NRA in his article, he conveniently left out anything about the civil right's groups concerns about Biden. From an August 29 statement by the NRA:

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

NewsBusters' primary mission is to expose and combat liberal media bias. That said, every now and then a journalist puts up a patriotic essay or news story that deserves a hearty round of applause.

Such is the case with Dallas-based CBS reporter Hari Sreenivasan, who shared his thoughts on the "Couric & Co." blog after coming back from taking the oath to become an American citizen. Sreenivasan shared that it was in being a journalist that he saw the heart of America (emphasis mine):

The most I've learned about this country and what it means to be an American has been through this craft I've been fortunate enough to practice for a dozen years or so. For work, I've lived in Washington, North Carolina, California, New York, and now Texas. According to the map on my Facebook page, there are probably a half-dozen or so states that I have yet to visit. In the past year and a half or so for CBS, I've been hurled into one disaster aftermath after another, and though it might sound like a political cliché, that is really the easiest place to see the best of America. You don't see it when politicians swoop in for a photo-opportunity; it happens quietly.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) continues to accuse Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of hitting middle-class Americans with a tax increase. The frightening warning: "He wants to tax your health benefits." 

As with any distortion by omission, that leaves out the second half of the proposal: to give you a tax credit as an offset. 

McCain's plan is not a massive middle-class tax hike as Obama portrays it; instead, it's designed to give people a tax credit to put toward choosing their own insurance. 

Kudos to CBS's Wyatt Andrews for his September 15 "Evening News" report (text and video available here) explaining this.

Andrews consulted Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center, who said, "It's mostly a tax break."

A former aide to Hillary Clinton's campaign has told CBS News that the media have been much harder on Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin than the other candidates in the race, and as a result "have growing credibility problems."

In an interview posted at CBSNews.com Friday, Mark Penn eviscerated the press for "going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed" whilst showing no similar interest for those of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or even John McCain.

Readers are warned to strap themselves in tightly, for Penn spoke more plainly about media coverage of this election cycle than most in his party can tolerate (emphasis added, h/t Jennifer Rubin, photo courtesy CBSNews.com):

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

Perhaps it's the pied piper effect, but when Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama speaks, the media follow right along in lockstep.

The word "disaster" can invoke images of the aftermath of hurricanes, tornados or tsunamis. But, on the campaign trail where there are political points to be scored - it's one quarter of a slight economic contraction followed up by two quarters of shallow economic growth, according to Obama.

At an August 19 town hall meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., Obama said an "economic disaster is happening right now." The media ignored the exaggeration. Instead, journalists across the board credited Obama with "sharpening his message."

"Then he started running ads saying oh, Obama's just going to raise your taxes and he'll lead to an economic disaster," Obama told his campaign audience. "Mr. McCain, let me explain to you, the economic disaster is happening right now. Maybe you haven't noticed."

First we had NBC's Andrea Mitchell floating the idea that perhaps John McCain did so well at last night's faith-based forum at the Saddleback Church because he "cheated." Not to be outdone in providing cover for Barack Obama's poor performance, we now have Ryan Corsaro, an assignment editor for the National Desk at CBS News in New York, accusing McCain of not following instructions. Corsaro's liberal bias oozed out in the very title of his CBS News blog entry: "Despite Request, McCain Resorted to Stock Answers at Faith Forum." And in whose opinion did McCain resort to "stock answers?" Why in the very liberal opinion of one Ryan Corsaro who did little to hide his disdain for McCain while providing cover for Obama's evasive answers:

Before moving on from “Barack Obama's Magical Media Tour” of the past week, a look at an Associated Press story so over the top that the Washington Posts's Howard Kurtz on Friday cited it as an example of coverage which “bordered on gushing,” though in this case there really was no “bordered.” In the July 22 dispatch in advance of Obama's arrival in Berlin, “Obamamania in full flight ahead of tour of Europe,” the AP's Matt Moore and Melissa Eddy hailed how Obama's “superstar charisma” will meet “German adoration” with a promise to “redeem” America (as posted by Google, by Yahoo):

Europe is about to give Barack Obama one of the grandest of stages for statesmanship. In this city where John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all made famous speeches, Obama will find himself stepping into perhaps another iconic moment Thursday as his superstar charisma meets German adoration live in shadows of the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. He then travels to Paris and London where he can expect to be greeted with similar adulation.

It's not only Obama's youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic. For Europeans, there have always been two Americas: one of cynicism, big business and bullying aggression, another of freedom, fairness and nothing-is-impossible dynamism.

If President Bush has been seen as the embodiment of that first America, Obama has raised expectations of a chance for the nation to redeem itself in the role that — at various times through history — Europe has loved, respected and relied upon....

On July 16, Andrew Malcolm at the Los Angeles Times's Top of the Ticket Blog wrote the following (bold is mine):

When President Bush ordered the surge in January 2007, (Barack) Obama said: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he acknowledged progress, but maintained his position that political progress was lacking.

This YouTube video (different from the compare/contrast video at the bottom of the LAT's link) shows Obama reciting the lines just quoted.

The LAT Blog notes earlier in its entry that "The parts (of Obama's web site) that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared."

Something else disappeared this week. Team Obama, for all its posturing, probably saw something like this coming -- which explains their web site scrubbing.

Hopefully this event will repeat itself frequently. You have to get all the way to the end of an apparently weekly routine Associated Press report to see it, but there it is:

In a rare self admission, the media admits they are in the tank for Obama. IHT - Media stars will accompany Obama overseas

Senator John McCain’s trip to Iraq last spring was a low-key affair: With his ordinary retinue of reporters following him abroad, the NBC News anchor Brian Williams reported on his arrival in Baghdad from New York, with just two sentences tacked onto the “in other political news” portion of his newscast.

But when Obama heads for Iraq and other locations overseas this summer, Williams is planning to catch up with him in person, as are the other two evening news anchors, Charles Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, who, like Williams, are far along in discussions to interview Obama on successive nights.

And while the anchors are jockeying for interviews with Obama at stops along his route, the regulars on the Obama campaign plane will have new seat mates: star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines who are flocking to catch Obama’s first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive nominee of his party.

If an elected official in the United States, at any level, promises to "rip apart" six year old rape victims, then describe in vivid detail how their lives would be ruined, one would assume such a statement would lead the news. But it did not.

Following up on D.S. Hubes post on the local media coverage, Massachusetts State Representative James Fagan (D) voiced his opposition to Jessica’s law requiring stiff mandatory sentences to child rapists. As a defense attorney, Fagan promised if such a law were in place and victims assume the stand "I’m gonna rip them apart." Fagan continued "I’m going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody."

Remember when the 49ers gold rush happened in Maine? How about when Dan'l Boone explored California? Do you remember when Lee surrendered his Confederate army in Fargo, North Dakota? Well, to those famous places with famous incidents we can add that great Revolutionary War battle of Lexington and Concord... Virginia. At least we can do so in the reckoning of one Jamie Fansworth of the CBS News blog "From the Road" because it seems our friend Farnsworth is a little fuzzy on where some of the most famous battles of the American Revolution were held.