Media

This is pretty tough talk from Mark Halperin over at The Page:

Top Obama strategist Tommy Vietor unable to defend lie-filled Obama advertisements.

When do you suppose the last time he used such strong language to describe Republican dishonesty?

Doesn't the Washington Post editorial board know what the morning after pill even is?

In their Sunday editorial, they repeatedly equate birth control and abortion.  What is that about?

Here's a piece from Fired Up! Missouri where I take Governor Matt Blunt to task for doing the same thing. 

And in case they actually don't know the difference between the morning after pill and an abortion, here's some good information.

Today's NY Times has a profile piece on Mississippi's lobbyist-turned-Governor Haley Barbour which recounts the ways in which Barbour's lobbying acumen --honed during his years as one of K Street's heavyest hitters-- has aided him in his dealings with the Federal government since his election to office.  The profile also provides Barbour a national soapbox from which to reinforce popular farcical myths upon which Republicans rely to misdirect American voters.  

Stuart Rothenberg, a reliably right-leaning national elections analyst, uses his column this week in Roll Call (subscription only) to list his picks for the ten most endangered U.S. House members of the 2006 cycle.  It says volumes about the current political landscape and the way it is shaping up disastrously for the national GOP that 9 of Rothenberg's 10 most vulnerable are Republicans.  

Rothenberg's Top Ten are listed below, ordered by his assessment of most endangered.  (Commentary following each entry is mine.)

Check out this piece by Jay Rosen, a NYU Journalism professor, about the view of Bush White House on the role of the press.

It's a long piece, but worth getting through. 

Via Romenesko. 

I am glad that the press is making Scott McClellan's life miserable on the story of Vice President Cheney shooting his hunting partner in the face.

Almost certainly, the entire White House communications operation is lying, most probably because Cheney was drunk at the time of the shooting.  If not that, then there was some other embarassing reason why the White House has hidden information and stonewalled on this.

Clearly that's part of the reason why David Gregory of NBC keeps pressing McClellan on details, something journalists used to do frequently when they knew they were being lied to or stonewalled.  Here's a bit on their back and forth yesterday.

Just why did Wolf Blitzer feel the need to take on the role of Chief GOP Apologist today?

C&L has the video. 

Crooks and Liars has more video of Chris Matthews displaying his man-crush on the Bush administration.

The most bizarre part of it is how morally agnostic all the pundits on the segment are.  "What Bush is doing is probably wrong, but boy aren't they clever in how they do it."

They feel so smug and smart when they make fun of Democrats for fighting on principle, and then point out how utterly futile their effort is, because those Republicans sure are clever.

Tim Russert can dish it out, but he sure can't take it.   He is fairly catching some heat for some of his recent work, and instead of dealing with it on the merits, he uses GOP-style tactics of counterattacking his opponents.

Right now, he has his PR operation attacking Arianna Huffington.  The worst part is, Russert knows the dirt he's dishing is a lie.  Huffington told him so personally.  Shame on him.

Drop by the OpenLetterToTimRussert site, and let him know what you think about his tactics.