"The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis," the Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Smith reported on the front page of Thursday's paper. A set of "coordinated attacks in each of the nations' three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse," Smith noted, citing "people familiar with the [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] research."

A development like this is quite newsworthy and a topic that makes for good TV news, yet the broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- completely ignored the item both on the March 13 evening newscasts and the March 14 morning news programs. By contrast, they found air time for rather frivolous stories such as:

To the liberal media, there is nothing sweeter than a Republican who attacks other Republicans. And ever since he left the George W. Bush administration, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has been willing to do just that, loudly and publicly.

Powell appeared on Friday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC to discuss education, but Mitchell eventually steered the conversation in a juicier direction. She asked about Powell’s past criticism of his own party: “You've been quoted -- you said that there's a dark vein of intolerance in your Republican Party.”  Powell took that as an opportunity to rip the GOP as racist and xenophobic:

Nothing warms the hearts of the liberal media more than a Republican who criticizes other Republicans. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, when MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe called retired General Colin Powell a “national treasure” on Friday’s Morning Joe.

The entire Morning Joe panel was praising the former secretary of state for speaking out against North Carolina’s strict new voter ID law in Raleigh recently – and in front of Governor Pat McCrory (R), no less. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson lamented Powell as a sort of voice crying out in the GOP wilderness:

In an interview with Florida Senator Marco Rubio on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory hyped: "The political problem the party faces, Republicans face, among minority communities, is so large if you look at the results from the 2012 election." Gregory then introduced a clip of Colin Powell ranting over a supposed "dark vein of intolerance" in the GOP during a January appearance on the program. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Following the sound bite from Powell, Gregory pressed Rubio: "Do you agree with that? And do you think that these [Republican] efforts on immigration [reform] are enough to overcome it?" Rubio rejected Powell's attack: "Well first of all, I don't agree that the Republican Party is characterized by intolerance or looking down on anybody."

In an exchange with former Secretary of State and prominent Obama supporter Colin Powell during NBC's live inauguration coverage on Monday, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams urged Powell to go after Republicans: "General, there's just flat-out hatred out there, too. There's nastiness out there in the land. There's nastiness between these two parties....Let's especially go to the Republican Party....What do they do to widen, if it is in their interest, widen their doorway to membership, to entry?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]