US News

News Photogs Flock to Obama's White House
By Brent Baker | April 4, 2009 | 4:15 PM EDT

The Obama White House is serving as a convenient new employer for members of the media as news outlets downsize, but would they have felt so comfortable coming aboard a GOP President's staff? The latest hires: Three news photographers -- from Time magazine, Cox Newspapers and U.S. News & World Report magazine -- are joining the team of photographers snapping pictures at events and meetings in and around the White House complex.

The chief White House photographer, Pete Souza, “announced the hires to PDN,” DCRTV.com reported Thursday in picking up the item from the week before on the Photo District News site. Souza had already tapped photographers from the McClatchy-Tribune News Service and the Associated Press.

The March 24 PDNonline post, “Time Magazine's Top Photo Editor Exits for White House,” relayed the names of those leaving DC press corps slots for the Obama administration:

U.S. News' Bonnie Erbe Argues Abortion is a 'Good Decision' in a Recession
By Colleen Raezler | April 2, 2009 | 11:06 AM EDT

Bonnie ErbeGet an abortion.

In her April 1 blog post, Bonnie Erbe, contributing editor to U.S. News and World Report and host of PBS' "To the Contrary," gave that advice to pregnant moms who are wondering how to raise a child on a strained budget.

It wasn't a tasteless April Fool's Day joke. She's serious.

Erbe keyed her argument around the situation of an unwed, pregnant mother of three who walked an hour to a medical center to abort her wanted pregnancy after her boyfriend lost his job. This mother was featured in a March 25 Associated Press article about the increased demand for contraception and abortions in these uncertain economic times. She called the mother's choice "a good decision."

In Erbe's world, it is "sad" the woman had to walk to the center because she didn't have the bus fare, "terrible that her boyfriend lost his job," and "heart-wrenching that she fell to tears in the doctor's office." As for the abortion itself, she wrote:

But in the long run, can we not agree that an unwed couple's decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy? It's actually a fact-based, rational decision that in the end benefits the three children they already have and society as well.

Bonnie Erbe's Own Personal PETA-friendly Jesus
By Ken Shepherd | March 31, 2009 | 2:44 PM EDT

Bonnie Erbe PBS "To the Contrary" host, staunch feminist, and Pope-basher Bonnie Erbe has now taken to preaching vegetarianism on the Thomas Jefferson Street blog at US News & World Report. Fortunately for everyone, Erbe wouldn't dream of joining vegan supermodels in skin-bearing protest. All the same, she threw out this ridiculous claim to Christian readers in a March 27 post:

Even if you believe in the Christian god, there is ample evidence that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian.

Of course, the Bible records that the resurrected Jesus not only ate but on one occasion personally prepared a tasty breakfast of broiled fish for his disciples. Perhaps that's why Erbe hedged her bets by adding:

US News's Erbe: Opponents of Obama Speech at Notre Dame 'Closed-Minded'
By Matthew Balan | March 27, 2009 | 3:24 PM EDT
Bonnie Urbe, PBS HostJust over a week after blasting Pope Benedict XVI as being “horrifically ignorant” on the issue of HIV/AIDS (and thus exposing her own ignorance on the matter), US News & World Report contributor editor and PBS host Bonnie Erbe (at right, courtesy of Zap2it) labeled Catholics who object to President Barack Obama’s upcoming commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame as “closed-minded, atavistic types.” She also wrote in her Friday blog post on US News's website that the Catholic Church was “at its worst when it tries to reinvigorate the Spanish Inquisition and fight against such things as women’s reproductive rights and gay rights.”

Erbe began by expressing her glee at the opportunity to write about this: “The controversy over Notre Dame University’s invitation to President Obama to deliver this year’s commencement address is too tempting for me not to join, so here goes.” Not to nitpick Bonnie, but you got the name of the institution wrong. Notre Dame University is in Lebanon. The Catholic school in South Bend, Indiana is the University of Notre Dame. The difference does matter.
U.S. News Column: Obama's Post-Partisan Washington Failure GOP's Fault
By Warner Todd Huston | March 20, 2009 | 5:20 AM EDT

Two March 19 editorials on Obama's failure to create post-partisanship in D.C., both from lefties, can't be farther apart from each other in their conclusions. Marc Dunkelman's in U.S. News blames everyone but Obama for the failure to invent that mythic bipartisan Washington while Mort Kondracke's Real Clear Politics piece lays the fault squarely at Obama's door step.But, the differences in the two are not just in conclusion but in the journey it took to get there. Sadly, the journey the Dunkelman piece took to get to its conclusion went through Obamamania, into the Obamagobsmacked tunnel, then it took The One turnpike, and ended up parked squarely in Obama's southern port... if you know what I mean? In other words, it was based solely on a sycophantic love affair with the Obammessiah instead of on solid political analysis.

PBS's Erbe: Pope Benedict 'Horrifically Ignorant'
By Ken Shepherd | March 18, 2009 | 5:47 PM EDT

Hell hath no fury like a feminist writer directing a hissy fit at the pope.

Bonnie Erbe -- the US News & World Report contributing editor and PBS "To the Contrary" host who argued that Bristol Palin is more "mature" than her abstinence education-advocating mother -- finds the pope "horrifically ignorant" when it comes to HIV/AIDS.

What exactly did the pontiff say that set Erbe off? Try, "AIDS cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms," hardly a controversial, implausible statement, but one that, to Erbe, showed the pope has "no sympathy" for women in Africa.

Yet in the midst of her sermon, Erbe showed it was she herself who was woefully misinformed:

USNews's Erbe: Bristol Palin Has More Maturity than Mother
By Ken Shepherd | March 13, 2009 | 1:24 PM EDT

Bonnie Erbe[Update: Erbe appears to be factually inaccurate, to say the least. Reader Tim Lindell passed on an L.A. Times article from last year noting that in a 2006 debate, Palin called herself "pro-contraception" and added that "kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues."]

With the writing style and gravitas worthy of a high school newspaper columnist, PBS "To the Contrary" host and US News & World Report columnist Bonnie Erbe slammed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in her March 12 column, pitting her against her daughter Bristol who "displays a lot more personal maturity and decision-making ability than her mother" as evidenced by the breaking off of her engagement with boyfriend Levi Johnston.

Although Erbe is not a relationship expert or couples therapist, she plays one on the Internet (emphases mine):

[T]he youthful pair never looked like a loving couple. They looked like what they were: two sexually active teens who happened to "hook up" but had nothing beyond that in common. Besides, who wants to marry the son of a woman who's brought up on drug charges?

[...]

USNews Columnist: Dems 'Must' Keep Census Political -- 'Gerrymander and Gender-mander Away!'
By Warner Todd Huston | March 10, 2009 | 10:34 AM EDT

Bonnie Erbe, a columnist and blogger for U.S.News and World Report, is keen to make sure that Democrats continue to cheat on re-districting as much as possible. She is insisting that Democrats not fall for a bi-partisan or a fair approach to re-districting and says that the Census should stay "politicized" because, after all, it’s Democrats in power now! So, as far as she is concerned, the Democrats should "gerrymander away" and absolutely demands that the Census should be politicized.

Erbe writes that she wants to "gender-mander" the Census for "feminist leaders" and wants to make sure that "hispanics and Latinos" aren't "under-counted." She claims the Census is "part of the spoils of victory" and wants her lefties to be able to wield that power. She says that the Democrats should "spare us the theatrics of trying to look nonpartisan." So, the Dems should continue to cynically use the Census merely for partisan political purposes.

So much for the new tone in Washington, eh?

PBS's Erbe: Dems Must 'Gerrymander Away', Politicize Upcoming Census
By Ken Shepherd | March 3, 2009 | 5:04 PM EST

Taxpayer-subsidized journalist Bonnie Erbe has some advice for Democrats: use the 2010 Census and subsequent redistricting to your maximum advantage to gerrymander and "gender-mander" the Congress chock full of left-wing constituencies.

Writes the PBS "To the Contrary" host on a March 3 post at her Jefferson Street blog at US News & World Report (emphasis mine):

Depoliticize the Census? Surely they jest! Taking politics out of the Census is like taking milk out of the cow or coal out of Newcastle or diamonds out of Tiffany. Politics is the lifeblood of the Census—without politics, there is no Census.

The Census is part of the spoils of victory for whichever party controls the White House at the turn of each decade. Gerrymandering—using Census data to create voting districts that artificially lean toward one end of the political spectrum or the other—is as uniquely an American tradition as Thanksgiving. The thought of trying to depoliticize the census is, well, decidedly un-American.

US News Writer Claims Palin Supporters Smearing Gov. Jindal as 'Secret Muslim'
By Warner Todd Huston | February 25, 2009 | 3:42 AM EST

One has to wonder about the thought process of some people. Dan Gilgoff, Faith reporter with U.S. News and World Report and Huffington Post writer, is a perfect example of what I am talking about. After a February 23 posting on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's Catholic faith, Gilgoff followed up the next day with a post claiming that Sarah Palin fans were smearing Jindal over his supposedly "secret Muslim" faith. Where did Gilgoff get such a ridiculous idea? Why, from just two commenters that posted on his entry of the 23rd, that's where.

That's right, just two people claiming in the comments section of his U.S. News post that Jindal was a secret Muslim was enough for Dan Gilgoff to decide that Sarah Palin's entire support base is smearing Bobby Jindal as a secret Muslim. Just two people. Two nuts is enough for U.S. News and World Report to slander Sarah Palin and all her followers as crazy, racist, hatemongers.

US News/PBS's Erbe: 'Forced' Ultrasound Before Abortion an 'Invasive Attack'
By Ken Shepherd | February 18, 2009 | 1:33 PM EST

Bonnie Erbe pic via PBS Web siteIf the right to an abortion is really about about a woman's choice, then it logically follows that a fully-informed choice is a proper concern for public policy makers on the state level.

But don't tell that to pro-choice liberal journalist Bonnie Erbe. The US News & World Report contributing editor unleashed her fury at "Antiabortion Fanatics' New Invasive Attack: The Forced Ultrasound" in a February 12 blog post.

Oozing contempt from every pore, the PBS "To the Contrary" host slammed as "fanatics" conservative lawmakers in 11 states who "are considering bills that would offer or require ultrasounds before a woman gets an abortion."

Erbe insisted she was not mad at "average, conservative, pro-life voters," but those average joes are the very folks who elect the state legislators considering these laws. Indeed, it is often "average" pro-life conservatives who run for and win state legislative seats only to face fierce, well-organized and well-financed opposition to abortion reduction measures by radical pro-choice lobbies.

Taxpayer-financed Journalist: Arrest Bush!
By Ken Shepherd | January 15, 2009 | 10:26 AM EST

"Lying" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, holding detainees at Gitmo, and prosecuting the saintly matron of all things domestic, Martha Stewart. Those are just three reasons taxpayer-financed journalist Bonnie Erbe finds for filing criminal charges on outgoing President George W. Bush and his dastardly underlings.

The PBS "To the Contrary" host and U.S. News and World Report contributor shared her thoughts in a January 13 entry on her Thomas Jefferson Street blog:

I understand the politics of letting bygones be bygones. But Bush has so thoroughly destroyed this country and encouraged such heretofore unimaginable abuses of office (lying about weapons of mass destruction to lead the country into an unnecessary war; the firings and politicization of the attorneys general; the prosecution of active Democrat Martha Stewart for relatively minor stock abuses while permitting subprime lenders and GOP donors to swindle billions from the economy; the abuses at Guantánamo; and the list goes on and on and on) that to act as if this never happened is to encourage future abuse.

Bush's behavior, and that of his subordinates, should be punished so future presidents and their appointees will not feel free to mimic it with impunity.

But wait, there's more.