If the Los Angeles Times' Tim Rutten is determined to establish himself as one of the nation's worst journalists when it comes to writing on the issues of abortion and Catholicism, he's doing a helluva job. His latest column on the Obama-Notre Dame controversy unfairly characterizes pro-lifers and misrepresents the scandal. Here's how Rutten portrays pro-life Catholics who are protesting President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame:

Some people just won't be happy until the Inquisition has office space again and kindling is being piled up around the local stakes.

Puh-leeze. Rutten is completely ignorant to the fact that those who protest Obama's appearance are simply seeking to uphold what the full body of United States Catholic bishops declared five years ago:

The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.

And if Rutten or anyone else is unclear as to what those "fundamental moral principles" include, the very same document states:

[T]he killing of an unborn child is always intrinsically evil and can never be justified.

Got it?

Let's see if I got this straight: Hundreds of supporters of gay marriage, opponents of California Proposition 8, have picketed a Mexican restaurant in L.A. and shouted vulgarities at innocent customers just because one employee - a daughter of the owner - gave a modest $100 donation in support of the measure protecting traditional marriage. Opponents of Proposition 8 have threatened and harassed several other businesses - including a radio station, a theatre, and a chain of health food stores - because employees gave money in support of Prop 8. Opponents of Prop 8 have knocked a cross from the hands of an elderly woman and stomped on it during a demonstration in Palm Springs. Suspicious white powder has been sent in an envelope to a Mormon temple in Westwood. (Mormons were big supporters of Prop 8.)And the supporters of Proposition 8? Well, their measure - which sought to restore the definition of marriage between only a man and a woman - won in a statewide referendum by a 52 to 48 margin. They simply want judges to respect the vote and uphold its result. So what does the Los Angeles Times' Tim Rutten have to say about all of this? He says in his November 15 column that "both sides" "are going too far" and "need to cool down.""Both sides" "need to cool down"? "Both sides"?

Los Angeles Times's Tim Rutten is at it again. In an op-ed in today's paper (Wed. 8/6/08), Rutten buttresses a new book by author Ron Suskind and asserts that "Vice President Dick Cheney and his inner circle long have insisted" that Iraq was directly connected to the September 11 attacks.Rutten's claim is an easy one to debunk. Here's Vice President Cheney in a Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert a mere five days after the September 11 attacks:

RUSSERT: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation? [Sept. 11 attacks] VICE PRES. CHENEY: No.

Does it get any simpler than "No"?Cheney's words also strike a major blow to a wild accusation in Suskind's new book.

In one of the most egregious examples of MSM bias I've seen lately, Tim Rutten of the L.A.Times has blatantly lied about remarks that Vice President Cheney made at CPAC in a February 8th piece headlined "Bush's message for McCain." Rutten makes the outrageous claim that Cheney said he was "glad the administration had tortured people" during the Conservative Political Action Conference, but a review of the transcript of Cheney's remarks easily shows that this is not what he said at all. Rutten simply reorders the VP's words to get his desired meaning quite despite what was really said.

Here is what Rutten wrote on the 8th:

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Vice President Dick Cheney was addressing the meat-eaters at the Conservative Political Action Conference. He told them that he was glad the administration had tortured people and that he'd do it again: "Would I support those same decisions again today? You're damn right I would."

Don Feder doesn't take Ann Coulter seriously "as an evangelist," but "no one can get the left going like Ann." He captures some stunning Coulter-hatred in the media.

The piece de hysteria (believe me, the competition was stiff) was a column by L.A. Times media critic Tim Rutten, who darkly warned that, "The rails leading to Auschwitz were greased by precisely the opinion Coulter expressed on American television this week." Rutten -- who's saying that evangelizing facilitates genocide -- needs to be kept away from a keyboard, for his own safety.