Imagine a partnership between the owners of the Titanic and the Hindenburg, and you've pretty much got the brilliance behind Newsweek's newly-announced alliance with Air America.

"[G]iven the respective ratings, it’s an outstanding business decision. Clearly, Newsweek wanted a radio partner whose listenership mirrors their readership -- minimal and declining rapidly," quipped Media Research Center President Brent Bozell in a statement released today.

The announced radio partnership comes the same week Newsweek used its cover art and the accompanying story to bash conservative radio talk icon Rush Limbaugh, the ideological nemesis of his ratings-challenged competition at Air America. 

"The 'News' in Newsweek has always been a joke," but now the weekly magazine's partnership with the "uber-liberal" Air America radio network "removes all doubt," added the NewsBusters publisher, reacting to news that Air America will syndicate "Newsweek On Air" on its stations. 

MRC President Brent Bozell offered some words of consolation to author Ann Coulter in a statement Tuesday morning on the rumors of NBC News banning Coulter from their airwaves:

"Ann, as a veteran ban-ee from NBC, I can well attest to the fact that you will, in fact, survive this ordeal. I can also tell you that they’re not very good at banning people, however. During a two-year period while I was banned from MSNBC, on three separate occasions I was invited to go on that network and each time had to remind them of my banishment. Be patient with them, Ann, and gentle, for they know not what they’re doing.

"As for NBC, I have only one question: Have you lost your collective mind? Every broadcast network, yours included, is bleeding to death, your audiences abandoning you by the millions. The biggest body leaving is conservatives who correctly see you as having abandoned any pretense of objectivity in favor of a leftist political agenda. And how do you respond? By banning one of the best-known conservative voices in America. This is your commitment to political balance and the very idea of free speech, and the reason why, when the last of you leaves the building, you need to remember to turn out the lights."

Spreading the Word

Media Research Center Founder and President L. Brent Bozell, III today demanded the press report on damning new evidence of Illinois Democratic Senator and Presidential nominee Barack Obama's radical views on how we need to "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution" because it "doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf."  In tearing away from the Constitution, Sen. Obama says he seeks to achieve "social justice" through "redistributive change."

In the 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview, the audio of which has just surfaced, Sen. Obama laments that "the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society."

The media have refused to report on or obfuscated what has now become a series of comments from Sen. Obama that indicate a radical outlook on America, wealth redistribution and the courts.  He famously told "Joe the Plumber" (Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) that we need to "spread the wealth around."  On his nominees for the courts, he said "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom.  The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Brent Bozell:

Spreading the Word

It has been a horrendous year for the media's credibility, and Hastings's statements only make it worse.  "If (it) sounds like I had some trouble being ‘objective,' I did. Objectivity is a fallacy. In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren't just covering a story, they're a part of it-influencing outcomes, setting expectations, framing candidates-and despite what they tell themselves, it's impossible to both be a part of the action and report on it objectively."  

Hastings is utterly derisive of both former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Senator and Presidential nominee John McCain, both of whom he covered during the Republican primary.  He in fact dreamed repeatedly of doing Giuliani harm as some sort of warped civic duty.

Spreading the Word

Rather pointed out "... (C)ertainly if Sarah Palin had said this it would be above the fold in most newspapers today... (I)f Sarah Palin had said this, the newspapers would have jumped all over it and so would have the major television outlets."

Spotty is an understatement.