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Well, it's not perfect, but it's a start — and it's certainly a far cry from what President Obama is now willing to admit.

In his report Tuesday on the congressional hearing for John Koskinen, Obama's nominee to be the next IRS Commissioner, Stephen Ohlemacher of the Associated Press wrote that Koskinen "told senators Tuesday he will work to restore public trust in the agency in the wake of the tea party scandal even as the IRS takes on new responsibilities administering the president's health care law." That's a remarkable admission, given that the word "scandal" does not appear in Koskinen's prepared remarks, and of course given that Obama's current opinion of what is better described as the "IRS conservative targeting scandal" is that it isn't one ("they’ve got a list, and suddenly everybody’s outraged"). As nice as it is that he used the "S-word," Ohlemacher's dispatch still contained serious oversights, including his failure to cite the change in Obama's public stance since May and his contention that no one outside the IRS knew of its targeting efforts until then.

On Tuesday's All In on MSNBC, during a discussion of the federal budget and spending on poverty programs, host Chris Hayes suggesting reducing unemployment by having the government hire workers as he jokingly suggested having another census because unemployment dropped the last time census workers were hired.

After guest Tom Colocchio of Food Policy Action called for more "job training programs so they can actually get back to work," Hayes jumped in:

Urging his viewers to "get your tapes rolling at home" to record his prediction, that great Nostradamus of MSNBC predicted on his Wednesday, December 11 program that come March 1, five million people would be signed up for ObamaCare.

"I mean, if we have got 3 million people who have been on to it already, where are we going to be in April?!" the MSNBC host pondered aloud, referring to the total number of visitors to the HealthCare.gov website. "This baby is going to be off the chart!" Dr. Schultz thundered as he gave his prognosis [WATCH video below page break; LISTEN to mp3 audio here]:

Polls have not been kind to President Obama or his health care law lately, and MSNBC has had no choice but to acknowledge that fact. However, on Wednesday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, NBC News political director Chuck Todd desperately fished for a silver lining in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll numbers on ObamaCare.

Todd told Mitchell that health care was the key to the president turning around his own low approval ratings. While acknowledging that 50 percent of poll respondents said ObamaCare is a bad idea, Todd found a faint ray of sunshine for supporters of the law. He told the host:

"The journalistic bond between The Post and MSNBC just grew a bit stronger, as the paper’s opinion section announced that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will be writing a monthly column."

So began Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple's announcement Wednesday concerning the addition of the perilously liberal Maddow to the Post opinion page.

CNN's Piers Morgan admitted that he is fighting U.S. gun laws despite it being "not my country" and "not my constitution."

In an interview with TV Newser, the CNN host explained, "It's not my country, it's not my constitution, but I'm a resident here, and I'm therefore governed by the same constitutional rights as anybody else." He also went on another mini-gun control rant on Tuesday night:

On Tuesday's All In show on MSNBC, during a discussion of Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman's primary challenge to Senator John Cornyn, MSNBC political analyst Howard Fineman asserted that, "if you don't make outrageous statements," the Tea Party movement will not consider you to be "serious."

Referring to some of Stockman's more controversial statements, Fineman reacted:

Time magazine's left-leaning reasons for choosing Pope Francis its 2013 Person of the Year were apparent in the cover story written by Howard Chua-Eoan and Elizabeth Dias. Chua-Eoan and Dias trumpeted how supposedly, "in a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church...above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors." The two later underlined that the Pope's "vision is of a pastoral—not a doctrinaire—church."

Despite their emulation of the Norwegian Nobel Committee's reasoning for giving President Obama the Peace Prize in 2009 – to nudge along liberal "progress" and hoping that "somehow" doctrines will change – the writers grudgingly acknowledged that the Bishop of Rome doesn't sound like he will bring the change that the left hopes for:

Once again, the folks at MSNBC have whitewashed the bloody history of a Communist dictator in order to provide political cover for President Obama. Following video of President Obama shaking hands with Cuban dictator Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, the folks at the Lean Forward network jumped to President Obama’s defense.

Appearing on his daily MSNBC show on December 11, host Thomas Roberts mocked the controversy over the handshake while calling Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) decision to walk out during Raul Castro’s speech a “a stunt to make some attention and some news about himself." Cruz, is the son of a Cuban immigrant and doubtless found the notion of Raul Castro speaking deeply offensive.

Time's editor Nancy Gibbs -- who, last we checked, was a woman -- announced today that Pope Francis would be honored as the magazine's 2013 Person of the Year. This, of course, is the perfect excuse for the sort of folks who get their knickers twisted over these sorts of things to complain that, yet again, a man was named for the honor. As insult to injury for left-wing feminists, the man in question holds an office which only men can exercise, not to mention that Francis affirms the male-only priesthood is a settled matter.

For some of the predictable outrage, we turn to Mashable Associate Managing Editor Amanda Wills, who, at least, did refrain from making any swipes at the Church for its stance on women priests (emphases mine):

After Brian Williams touted President Obama's handshake with Cuban dictator Raul Castro as "one of the better moments" at Tuesday's memorial service for Nelson Mandela, correspondent Lester Holt went further on Wednesday's NBC Today, hailing the encounter as "a true Mandela moment." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

A sound bite followed of Democratic Congressman John Lewis gushing: "It's the power of Nelson Mandela to bring President Barack Obama together and Raul Castro together here in South Africa." Prior to Williams on Tuesday, Holt had similarly declared that "the measure of Mandela [was] so great" that "America's presidents shared a stage" with Castro.

Remember all those promises that racism would end if Barack Obama became president?

Perfectly demonstrating the absurdity was Slate culture blogger Aisha Harris Tuesday actually making the case that it's racist for Santa Claus to be an old white man, and that he should be replaced by a penguin:

The New York Times is including all the Happy Talk That’s Fit to Print. Their latest poll came with the headline “Obama Sees a Rebound In His Approval Rating.” One might think it’s getting close to 50 percent.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Allison Kopicki wrote, “President Obama’s approval ratings, which hit his all-time low last month, have returned to where they were before the rollout of the health care law’s enrollment process.” Talk about your faint praise: Obama’s back up to 42 percent, compared to 43 percent in September....where it was right before the 2010 midterm elections.

ABC's Good Morning America provided the most positive spin it could from new Obama approval numbers, declaring that "he has stopped the free-fall" and reporting only the two least negative disapproval ratings for the President.

"And meanwhile, the President getting some new polls out this morning that show he may have stopped the bleeding from that botched rollout of the ObamaCare website," reported co-host George Stephanopoulos. ABC failed to mention Obama's 50 percent disapproval, just vaguely noting "his disapproval rating still higher than his approval rating."

Jay Leno took another shot at the President Tuesday night.

Early in his opening monologue, the NBC Tonight Show host commented about Kanye West wanting to be the Obama of clothing saying, “To achieve his goal, he's designing fashion nobody wants and offering it on a website that doesn't work” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):