Tim Graham
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At National Review Online today, Byron York wrapped up his coverage of the Yearly Kos convention by noting that one thing was missing in the coverage of Markos Moulitsas, the nation's top foamy-mouthed leftist blogger at the center of the Daily Kos:
Howard Kurtz reviews the latest Ann Coulter publicity salvo in his Monday Media Notes column, but fails to ask: why would the harsh remarks of this mere author be seen by the networks as more earth-shaking then, say, the shrillness of Hillary Clinton? Ann Coulter is not about to run for president, so why are her remarks bigger news than when Hillary opens a rhetorical can of fanny-whack?
In Friday’s Style section, Washington Post reporter (and former Sports columnist) Jennifer Frey lovingly chronicled a feminist event where "the object of affection is a self-described agnostic, socialist single mother from Chile" – new Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. The other stars of the fete were, predictably, Geena Davis and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the South American socialist was all the rage:
Back in December, Brent Bozell warned that group marriage – polygamy – was becoming the rage on television, including this:
MRC's Mike Rule noticed on Friday that CBS "Early Show" co-host Hannah Storm held fast to deeply pessimistic questions in an interview with Sen. John McCain. She began by wondering if Zarqawi's death would have any effect at all:
On Friday, talk show host Laura Ingraham laughed at how MSNBC's Chris Matthews started demoting Zarqawi on Thursday night's "Hardball" as a minor-league threat, a "Triple-A" terrorist instead of a real "World Series" win. MRC's Geoff Dickens passed on the transcript:
Washington Post culture critic Philip Kennicott has filed a series of essays for the Style section about images of the war in Iraq, like the images out of Abu Ghraib. He lowered the boom today on the insensitive louts who framed a picture of dead Zarqawi.
Rick Klein at the Boston Globe reported Thursday that Republicans in the House are proposing a cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) again, which completely failed last spring:
When President Bush spoke live on the networks around 7:30 AM Eastern this morning, NBC News packaged its coverage as a "Special Report," meaning its NBC affiliates in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones that hadn't started airing "Today" yet were showing this segment.
At 7:12 this morning, NBC's Today was already turning the Zarqawi victory into a Republican-Democrat spitting match, inviting on Senator Joe Biden (Democrat from Television, I mean, Delaware).
How on Earth would the networks work in the alleged Marine massacre at Haditha today? Oh, don't worry. Matt Lauer was on that six minutes into the show, MRC's Geoff Dickens reports. Oh, the timing was very political, we at NBC would like to underline:
Air America Radio seemed rather unimpressed by the Zarqawi story out of Iraq this morning. I caught some of the opening minutes of the Stephanie Miller show today. They were playing clips of the Rose Garden Bush remarks and just mocking his accent. "He's extra-twangy today," mocked Miller. The show's impressionist started doing Bush in a William Buckley-esque Connecticut accent, implying the Texas talk is all phony.
Early AP dispatches from the press conference Nouri al-Maliki held this morning to announce the death of Zarqawi said these words were "drawing loud applause from reporters" there.
It's sad that within minutes of announcing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death, the network morning shows were already carrying criticism of the Bush administration. Not only did NBC invite Sen. Joe Biden to attack Bush incompetence (funny day for that!), ABC's Bill Weir reminded the audience that Zarqawi beheaded American Nicholas Berg, and then replayed Berg's left-wing dad saying at the time that he had no desire for his son's killers to be killed.
As the networks robotically followed the New York Daily News and its "Coulter Was Cruel" cover -- probably the best TV day for the Daily News since they put Newt Gingrich in diapers in the mid-90s -- they did not consider that some of the 9-11 widows she mocked were also champions of political trash talk.
The New York Times isn’t the only media outlet to try to find signs of GOP defeat in the midst of Brian Bilbray’s Republican victory in a San Diego special election for Congress. CBS reporter Jerry Bowen carried a sense of Democrat Francine Busby’s moral victory throughout his story on The Early Show this morning. Bowen began:
Several Washington members of the "mainstream" media elite gave the Washington Examiner their picks for what books they'll be reading this summer.
MRC's Geoff Dickens told me that Geraldo Rivera's syndicated program "Rivera At Large" -- which I'm told airs alongside the network evening news shows on some Fox affiliates -- carried a big segment on the 25th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS on June 1. Rivera found one actress who was an angry activist.
In the latest liberal media press release disguised as a news story, Bill Clinton has now provided his own audio tour of the Clinton library, reports Jill Zeman of the Associated Press from Little Rock, and it seems to have a lot of boasting against Republicans of the "you can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me" variety.