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Give the guy a break, he deserves it. That was Katie Couric's message a week ago in her Notebook blog entry about President Obama's 49th birthday (emphasis mine):The job has aged him, as it did his predecessors. Dr. Michael Roizen at the Cleveland Clinic stated constant stress can age the Commander in Chief two years for every one year in office.So I guess that means he's really turning 50.…

In a sympathetic story devoid of critics on Tuesday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Wyatt Andrews described Congressman Charles Rangel's rant over being charged with numerous ethics violations this way: "In an emotional and raw defense against 13 ethics charges, Charles Rangel mixed small doses of contrition...into a speech of political defiance."Andrews's report featured only sound bites of…

It may well be Dan Rather's finest hour. Make that his finest five seconds.The disgraced former "Evening News" anchor apparently has a brief cameo in "Skyline," an alien invasion flick landing in theaters on November 12. Rather isn't the only liberal journalist featured in the film. Self-described socialist and sometime "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" guest host Lawrence O'Donnell is also…

Sean Hannity on his radio program Wednesday wished NewsBusters a Happy 5th Anniversary.As he talked to a caller about his Freedom Alliance, he thanked NewsBusters for helping to debunk smears against him and his charitable organization.Moments later, he expressed his gratitude for NewsBusters' efforts in "challenging the mainstream Obama-mania media" (audio follows with transcript):

The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded $126,000 over the past two years to a University of Washington study that established "web-based sex diaries" for gay males as young as 16.By the time the grants end in 2011, taxpayers will have spent more than $250,000 for the study."The study's second aim is to…

CNN's Rick Sanchez bizarrely wondered on Tuesday's Rick List whether investigating the funding behind the planned mosque near Ground Zero would lead to investigations into Catholic and/or Mormon funding: "If you start going into who is giving money...you've got to go to Rome and start asking where the money is going into Rome....and you have to go the Mormons and ask...what are they doing with…

If you’re not interested in having Will Ferrell lecture you on the evils of capitalism this coming weekend and would instead prefer to cozy up at home before the warm glow of plasma with a cold one in one hand a Redbox receipt in the other, here are five fairly new-to-DVD flicks that won’t leave you feeling sucker punched. 1. The Road: Director John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s…

“The nation's largest federal worker union is taking to the airwaves to defend rank and file federal workers against growing anti-government sentiments,” the Washington Post's “Federal Eye” blogger Ed O'Keefe reported Tuesday, the same day Rush Limbaugh picked up on a USA Today story, “Federal pay tops private workers: Compensation gap doubled in decade.” O'Keefe explained: “The American…

For approaching ten years, America's media have depicted the tax cuts implemented by former President George W. Bush as almost exclusively favoring the rich.This dishonest characterization has picked up steam recently as these tax cuts are about to expire, and the tax-loving press have campaigned for their departure as if a plague on the society.For his part, President Obama is advocating the…

Earlier today, NB's Lachlan Markey covered Bill O'Reilly's interview with the Fox Business Channel's Charles Gasparino.In that interview, Gasparino confirmed what the New York Post reported in April of last year, namely that "GE Execs Encouraged CNBC Staff to Go Easy on Obama."The suits at GE, including Chairman Jeff Inmelt, had a clear motivation for encouraging their reporters to lighten up,…

Paul Wiseman breaks media taboo and highlights GSEs as 'No.1 problem' with housing market.

Vanity Fair's national editor Todd Purdum has a long piece in the most recent issue (in the print edition only, as far as I can tell) bemoaning what he argues are the new and unique challenges facing the Obama administration, including the state of the news media. Purdum's opinions on the state of the news business boil down to a call for the press's continuing political uniformity.He offers a…

Jon Stewart landed both his jokey feet on the Ground Zero Mosque controversy on The Daily Show Tuesday night. He mocked conservatives for having no respect for freedom of religion. This, from Comedy Central? The network that mocks Jesus and Christians relentlessly, but censors whenever the radical Muslims threaten them? Yes. Stewart was arguing for the “greatness” of Islam, that it should be…

Democratic Senator Michael Bennet got his own live spot on Wednesday's Today show to make his pitch to Colorado voters, but his Republican opponent only got a brief soundbite, that came after a clip of him that put him in a negative, even sexist light. While Today co-anchor Ann Curry chatted live with Bennet in the first half hour, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell only gave Republican candidate Ken Buck a…