Double Standards

Nancy Pelosi had an audience with the Pope earlier today at the Vatican.Life Site News (HT Gateway Pundit via Michelle Malkin) covered what the Vatican had to say about that meeting:Pope Rebukes Pelosi, Tells Her Catholic Legislators Obligated to Protect LifeThe Vatican Press Office released a note this morning detailing part of the conversation which Pope Benedict XVI had with Nancy Pelosi, the…

The Wall Street Journal's editorialists noted something last week ("Obama's Press List"; HT to Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters) about the extemporaneous speech-impaired President Obama's February press briefing: About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House…

Here's the relative tempest in a teapot that happened on Thursday: Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe made an unusual request for his speech today at the National Press Club: he wanted it off the record. ..... Politico editor-in-chief John Harris said that after hearing of Plouffe’s request, and decision not to reverse course, he backed out from moderating the lunch-time event. Harris…

The battle between New London, Connecticut and the residents of its Fort Trumbull neighborhood began in 1998 when the City decided that it would redevelop the area for ultimate ownership by others and, if necessary, take the residents' properties for that "public purpose" -- not for "public use" (i.e., roads, bridges, schools, etc.), as the Fifth Amendment clearly intended. Susette Kelo and other…

This "Name That Party" situation has many of the usual elements. There are several stories about two Democratic judges involved in criminal behavior in Pennsylvania, and, with one exception, they "somehow" don't get around to identifying their party. But this saga is different for two reasons: The crimes to which the judges have pleaded guilty involve "thousands" of juveniles. In one lonely…

A month ago, I noted a comment by Chicago Sun-Times writer Carol Marin who was mildly complaining that President Obama never goes before the press without having a list of pre-approved journalists upon whom he'll call during a press conference. She offhandedly quipped that in the press corps, "most of us don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before…

The Washington Times and New York Daily News, among other news outlets, have reported that, as a member of Congress, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel received rent-free accommodations from Representative Rosa DeLauro for five years, raising the question of whether Emanuel properly complied with gift rules for House members and whether he should have paid taxes on the imputed income of the…

The Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers, aka "The Sleuth," has (Tom) Delay Derangement Syndrome (DDS), and she's got it bad. Akers's DDS outbreak occurred as she reported on the plan by the Obama Administration to have the director of the Census Bureau report to the White House instead of the Director of the Commerce Department. (On Thursday evening, after my original post [at NewsBusters; at…

"Sarah Palin Makes New Enemy: Ashley Judd," reads a February 5, 2009 AP headline.But in truth, there's hardly anything new about the controversy in question save for a celebrity chiming in to resurrect the issue of aerial wolf hunts in Alaska:It's not the first time Defenders of Wildlife has targeted Palin. Last fall, when Palin was John McCain's running mate, it ran ads in several states…

I suspect most readers' first reaction to this will be, "There's no way George W. Bush would ever have gotten this level of sympathy from an Associated Press writer."You see, poor Barack Obama was having a hard time and getting stressed out after his first two weeks on the job. So he "escaped" with his wife to a Washington, DC public school.The Associated Press's ever-sympathetic (or, I should…

Don't like the notion of Wall Street employees receiving bonuses? Shoot the messenger - as Adam Green at The Huffington Post has done. In a Feb. 2 post on The Huffington Post, Green said it was bad form for CNBC "Street Signs" host Erin Burnett to even think about considering the other side of the anti-Wall Street bonus argument, since some Wall Street banks received TARP funds, courtesy of the…

ABC has apparently never heard that phrase, "There are two sides to every story." On Feb. 1, "World News Sunday" helped shamed former-pastor Ted Haggard take shots at the Christian conservatives who he says "shunned him." Reporter Dan Harris introduced the piece by qualifying Haggard as a former "insider, a powerful pastor at the highest levels of the Christian conservative movement."…

Sleep a little, miss a lot. As noted Friday evening (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), Jake Tapper at ABC's Political Punch blog revealed that former South Dakota senator Tom Daschle, Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, had failed to pay over $100,000 in federal income taxes for 2005, 2006, and 2007, because he did not originally report the "the services of (a free)…