"I think this guy has a lot more, a lot different motives than religion driving him. And he finally found a way, anyway, to express himself in his end as he died." 

That was how Hardball host Chris Matthews closed a December 15 roundtable discussion segment about Sydney hostage-taker Man Haron Monis. Earlier in the segment, Matthews seemed perplexed as to why Americans would fear a similar incident happening on American soil, arguing that essentially such an incident would be no more or less rare than a school or workplace shooting motivated by non-religious factors.

John Fund at National Review has written about three recent elections that show “Liberals In Retreat,” but only one is domestic: the Colorado gun-rights recall. The other two liberal defeats were in Norway and Australia.

A quick Nexis search demonstrated that ABC, CBS, and NBC all skipped the conservative victories in Norway and Australia -- but all three found time for news briefs in 2007 when Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd was elected in Australia on an anti-Iraq war platform. Meanwhile, lighter-than-air "Good Morning America" on ABC did find "news" Down Under when it came to trickle-down celebrity updates on Michael Jackson's daughter:

A proposed "culturally insensitive" traffic law in New South Wales, Australia, could land Muslim women of good conscience in jail for a year, the Associated Press alerted readers in a July 10 story. Essentially the law requires motorists pulled over by police officers to show their faces so that officers can confirm their identity against a driver's license photo.

Failure to do so could result in a fine and/or jail time.

"A vigorous debate that the proposal has triggered reflects the cultural clashes being ignited by the growing influx of Muslim immigrants and the unease that visible symbols of Islam are causing in predominantly white Christian Australia since 1973 when the government relaxed its immigration policy," the AP preached.

But buried deeper in the article was an explanation of why the bill is being considered in the first place (emphasis mine):

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, focused on remarks he made after 9/11 in which he called Islam "wicked" and "evil" and his lack of apology for those words.

Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, told ABC News on April 22, "This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue."

Australia is and has been, through both Democratic and Republican administrations a staunch and steadfast ally of the United States. The Aussies have fought alongside American forces in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and the U.S. and Australia are partners in a free-trade agreement. Given that, readers of the Washington Post should reasonably expect reporters and editors at the paper to understand the propriety of President Bush hosting former Prime Minister John Howard at Blair House in the closing days of his administration, especially since Howard was in town to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But for some reason, that's asking too much of Post staffer Manuel Roig-Franzia and his editors. Roig-Franzia opened his January 14 below-the-fold Style section front pager by calling Howard "America's most inconvenient houseguest."

The Post writer continued in his second paragraph by reminding readers of a gripe that liberal journalists have been fixated on even as President-elect Obama brushed off the "inconvenience" as no big deal: