On this afternoon's CNN Newsroom, anchor Rick Sanchez briefly updated his audience on Rush Limbaugh's medical condition.  He completed his comments with "We wish him well."  Sanchez's good wishes didn't square with the Twitter messages that crawled at the bottom of the screen for his entire program.

Here is a sampling of the tweets he aired:

rush is an excuse for people to be vicariously racist. I have nothing good to say about him except "gotta love karma"  

Rick can we get some answers on if rush's insur. will pay for his hospital stay if it is found out drugs were a part of this

I don't like to wish bad luck on people, but a 2010 without Rush's mouth going off would be fine with me

under yr new health plan Rush may pay higher premiums cuz of weight. Time to hit the treadmill and lose the weight Rush

May rush be worked on by a liberal democrat, feminist doctor who is pro gun control :)

Rush shld take this opportunity, being a New Year, 2 reflect on his treatment of ppl who disagree w/him. His ways R is wrong  

Rush: I hope it's nothing serious; just something that will keep him off the air for the next 40 or so years :)

re Rush, ummm. . .I have to go try that old saying, "if u can't say anything nice, dont say anything at all" lol (biting my tongue)

I'm not fond of Rush L. but I wish him the best. Maybe he will be a little kinder. . . nah

Can't you just feel the love?  Liberals like Sanchez often characterize conservatives as mean-spirited.  Mean-spirited is the ultimate epithet in the liberal lexicon. It's the adjective that they never tire of using, of ascribing to anyone who doesn't share their views. For decades we've been subjected to its wearisome reiteration.

If Sanchez truly wished Rush well, he could have provided some balance to those mean-spirited comments.  He didn't.  Then again, judging by their spiteful observations, many of his viewers wouldn't want him to.    
 

Numerous police visits to his home, reported gunshots and screaming, attempted burglaries, loud arguments, reported assaults, whispers about having sex with young men.  North Carolina state senator R.C. Soles certainly leads an interesting life.  Soles is the Democratic caucus chairman in the Senate, but you wouldn't know that by reading today's dispatch from the Associated Press. 

"No re-election bid for NC pol who shot intruder" begins:

North Carolina's longest-serving state senator won't seek re-election next year as he faces possible criminal charges over a shooting at his home in August.

Sen. R.C. Soles said in a statement Wednesday he won't seek a 22nd consecutive term. He was first elected to the General Assembly in 1968, more than four decades ago.

State prosecutors announced this month they plan to seek an assault charge against the 75-year-old after a grand jury found probable cause he acted criminally when he shot a former law client.

The article makes no mention that Soles is a Democrat.  The News & Observer did, however, in a story earlier this month that also noted:

Records show police were called to Soles' house and law office at least 40 times in the past four years. Some calls were routine, such as burglar alarms going off. But dozens involved circumstances such as neighbors hearing gunshots and screams, attempted burglaries, loud arguments, reported assaults and complaints of young people on mopeds circling Soles' house. During a two-week period in September of last year, police were called to Soles' house seven times.

The young men who hang around Soles' law office and home have long fueled whispers in Tabor City, but Soles adamantly denies having sexual relations with any of them. Soles and Cheshire have said Soles has generously given to his clients after they are released from the criminal justice system, hoping to help them transition to a successful life.

If a Republican had been involved in all this, my guess is party affiliation would be included in all news stories about him.  Just a guess.

On CNN's American Morning today, anchor John Roberts talked with correspondent Jim Acosta about "the politics" of terrorism.  Part of the exchange:

ACOSTA: There is plenty punting going on in Washington, John. Hearings on the Detroit scare are planned for early next month, and the top Republican on that committee has already said there should have been a big red flag next to the suspect's name, and there are plenty of other issues, such as Guantanamo. Republicans are saying the president should shelve his plan to close Guantanamo at this point, John.

ROBERTS: So, shelve Guantanamo, but, at the same time, the president is trying to get some of his key appointments filled. They're being held up. And some of the key appointments that are still vacant are ones that are absolutely essential when it comes to maintaining security at our airports and on our jetliners.

ACOSTA: That's right. Those men and women at the airport wearing the blue shirts that say TSA, they don't have a full-time, permanent boss at this point. The temporary head of the TSA is a holdover from the Bush administration and, right now, the - the current appointee from the Obama administration to take the head of the TSA, a man by the name of Erroll Southers, he is still waiting to - to get his appointment confirmed. He is currently the assistant chief for the LAX Police Department, the Los Angeles International Airport out there in California, and his duties are head of Intelligence and Homeland Security. But, at this point, that nomination is on hold by Jim DeMint, the very conservative Senator from South Carolina. He's opposed to unionizing - fully unionizing the TSA, something that Southers apparently wants to do.

Oh, OK.  "Absolutely essential" appointments are held up, one being the chief of the Transportation Security Administration blocked by "the very conservative Senator from South Carolina."

What Roberts and Acosta failed to report was that Barack Obama's selection for the post, Erroll Southers, was, according to the Library of Congress's Web site, nominated by Obama barely three months ago, on September 17.  Moreover, the nomination wasn't reported out of the Democratic-controlled Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs until November 19.  That isn't a great deal of time in a Senate where nominations can - and have - languished for years.

Additionally, it isn't as though the Republican senator's hold couldn't be broken with a modicum of effort.   In today's "Republican senator DeMint holds up nomination for TSA chief" by Margaret Talev of McClatchy Newspapers and appearing on the Washington Post's Web site, she notes:

DeMint's objection creates a procedural hurdle that will probably take at least three days of debate and test votes to overcome.

It took Obama almost eight months to nominate someone to the TSA post.  It would take possibly as few as three days for the Democrats to push it through the Senate.  Yet somehow it's all that "very conservative" Senator DeMint's fault.  Heck, maybe he's personally responsible for the Christmas terrorist attempt.  

CNN's American Morning is increasingly popular among those of us who like to start our day with a laugh.

On CNN Newsroom today, anchor Rick Sanchez talked about terrorism with Octavia Nasr, CNN senior editor for Arab Affairs:

SANCHEZ: And good, good, good, good, good, good. You see, this is a point that I'm trying to make, Octavia.

The terrorists weren't in Iraq. We know that now. There was really a small band of them along with the mujahedeen which became al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as we know. But we have known for 10 years now that these really bad terrorists, the guys we really should have been going after a long time ago, are in Yemen. We knew that a long time ago.

The assertion that Iraq was terrorist-free prior to our intervention has become an article of faith for liberals like alleged journalist Sanchez.  Yet it conflicts with evidence, including evidence many liberals once found compelling.  The Clinton State Department, for example, reported on Patterns of Global Terrorism 1999.  Among its findings:

Iraq continued to plan and sponsor international terrorism in 1999. Although Baghdad focused
primarily on the anti-regime opposition both at home and abroad, it continued to provide
safehaven and support to various terrorist groups. . .

Iraq continued to provide safehaven to a variety of Palestinian rejectionist groups, including the
Abu Nidal organization, the Arab Liberation Front (ALF), and the former head of the nowdefunct
15 May Organization, Abu Ibrahim, who masterminded several bombings of US aircraft.
Iraq provided bases, weapons, and protection to the MEK, an Iranian terrorist group that
opposes the current Iranian regime. In 1999, MEK cadre based in Iraq assassinated or attempted
to assassinate several high-ranking Iranian Government officials, including Brigadier General Ali
Sayyad Shirazi, Deputy Chief of Iran’s Joint Staff, who was killed in Tehran on 10 April.

As quoted in the Congressional Record, in 1992 Senator Al Gore (D-TN) said Saddam Hussein "had already conducted extensive terrorism activities, and (President George) Bush looked the other way."

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) claimed Hussein "has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. . ."

Sanchez ignores liberals he usually sides with.  He says there weren't terrorists in Iraq.  Or maybe there were, but it was merely a small band.  I have to wonder: Is he auditioning for MSNBC?

Former president Jimmy Carter is doing one terrific job.  So reports the Associated Press today in its "Carter finds happiness in foreign missions."  According to the article:

Since leaving the White House, he's logged millions of miles and visited dozens of countries on missions to wipe out diseases, mediate conflicts, advocate for human rights and monitor elections. He's built a legacy that few, if any, American ex-presidents can match.

Writer Greg Bluestein found a few observers to comment on the wonders of Mr. Jimmy:

Walter Mondale, his vice president, says that Carter took the political heat up front "so we could all be better off." Andrew Young, Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, says it might take a few more decades for historians to realize the impact of Carter's term in office.

"It took 100 years to understand Jefferson. It took 100 years for people outside the North to understand Lincoln. And it's got to take at least 50 years to understand Carter," says Young.

And Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University history professor who has written a book about Carter, says Carter's presidency may be more fondly remembered overseas than at home.

"Pick the country - they view him as one of the most successful presidents," said Brinkley. "He has helped America's image around the world because he's been able to make everyone trust him. And he earns that trust because he's honest"

Before buying into this effort to rehabilitate the reputation of - until Barack Obama came along - the worst president in many decades, we may want to reflect on Carter's post-presidency.  The late New York Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan had Carter's number in 1980: "Being unable to distinguish between our friends and our enemies, Carter has adopted our enemies' view of the world."  When the first President Bush asked for United Nations action in the Persian Gulf, Carter wrote to world leaders trying to block it.  Even Carter later admitted his effort "was not appropriate perhaps."  According to ABC News earlier this year:

In the 90s (President Bill) Clinton was said to resent some of Carter’s freelance diplomacy.

In a 1998 Time Magazine piece, Lance Morrow wrote of Carter:

Some of his Lone Ranger work has taken him dangerously close to the neighborhood of what we used to call treason.

Long proclaiming his unswerving devotion to human rights, Carter has over the years cozied up to the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Yasser Arafat.  National Review Online's Jay Nordlinger observed in 2002:

While in North Korea, Carter lauded Kim Il Sung, one of the most complete and destructive dictators in history. Said Carter, "I find him to be vigorous, intelligent,...and in charge of the decisions about this country" (well, he was absolute ruler). He said, "I don't see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation." Pyongyang, he observed, was a "bustling city," where shoppers "pack the department stores," reminding him of the "Wal-Mart in Americus, Georgia."

The Associated Press is correct in one point:  Carter's established quite a legacy for himself.  But it's far from an admirable one and, if we're fortunate, other former presidents won't try to match it.

How does someone qualify for description as an "eminent politician" by the New York Times?  Being very, very liberal seems to help.

Today on its Web site, the newspaper reports "Percy Sutton, Eminent Politician, Dies at 89."  Mr. Sutton maintained a long list of liberal bona fides.  In a book last year he was quoted:

"I like the fact that my family was a family of protesters. I like the fact that some of them were Communists."

He also spoke of his satisfaction of "being in jail with Stokely Carmichael and other revolutionaries."  In the December 14, 1972 issue of Jet Magazine (page 32), Sutton acknowledged it would be nice to be mayor, but "I don't think that New Yorkers are ready for a person with my liberal views and for someone with the color of my skin."

The New York Times covers some of lawyer Sutton's more notorious associations: He represented Malcolm X and later his daughter when she was accused of hiring a man to kill Louis Farrakhan.  Sutton helped pay some of the slander damages owed by Al Sharpton in the Tawana Brawley case.  When Mike Tyson left prison and came back to Harlem, Sutton was there to welcome him.

The newspaper advises readers that Sutton "displayed fierce intelligence and exquisite polish in becoming one of the nation’s most prominent black political and business leaders."  He invariably applied that "fierce intelligence" to very liberal causes.  No wonder the mainstream media view him as eminent.     

On CNN's American Morning today, anchor Carol Costello advanced a theory on who's responsible for the Let's Make a Deal environment permeating the Senate as it stumbles to completion of a health care bill.  Here is part of her exchange with CNN political analyst and GOP strategist Ed Rollins:

COSTELLO: Might (the) Republicans blame in part themselves for this, because none of them were going to vote? Didn't they sort of force Senator Reid's hand in making some of these sweetheart deals?

ROLLINS: Senator Reid could have made a sweetheart deal with the Republicans months ago. They could have knocked down walls and let insurance companies deal across state lines. There are a lot of things that Republicans...

COSTELLO: But the public option is out --

Yes, if only those intransigent Senate Republicans has been more accommodating, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, expanded Medicare coverage to “individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17," and other special considerations wouldn't have been necessary.

Costello ignores that the public option is far from the only objection Republicans have to the Senate bill.  There's the feature of mandating Americans buy insurance.  There are the projected expenditures and savings figures that are as patently bogus as the shovel ready jobs number "Sheriff" Joe Biden spouts.  There's the problem that, other than the sweetheart deals, details on the plan and its implementation are as thin as a certain former community organizer's résumé.

And that's just for starters.  Yet Costello wonders if Republican senators might be blaming themselves for the travesty.  If only they'd set aside their principles, Democrats might not have been reduced to such flagrant bribery.

Sure, Carol, we believe that.

Anchoring CNN Tonight, correspondent Erica Hill reported the findings of a new poll:

While Democrats and the president may be cheering the bill's passage, a majority of Americans still oppose the Senate plan. According to a CNN Opinion Research Corporation poll, 56 percent say they are against the measure. Now that's a slight shift actually in favor of the plan from a weeks ago. When as you can see opposition was as high as 61 percent, 42 percent support the plan, that number also up at six points.

And when asked for the effect the health care bill would have on their own family, 34 percent of respondents thought it would change things for the better, 37 percent thought it would make things worst. While 39 percent said it would have no effect. And when you figure the sampling error, almost works out to even across the board.

The responses to the second question total 110 percent, an unlikely result.  Unless, of course, the poll were taken in Chicago by federally funded ACORN operatives.  That doesn't appear to be the case.  The actual poll question (#23) and results:

Thinking about the health care and health insurance that is available to you and your immediate family, do you think the proposals in the Senate bill would change things for the better, change things for the worse, or not make any real changes at all?
Dec. 16-20, 2009
Change things for the better 22%
Change things for the worse 37%
No change 39%
No opinion 2%

So more than three out of four respondents think that the Senate plan will either have no effect or change things for the worse for their own families.  Only slightly more than one out of five persons polled believe the Senate bill will make it better.  Hill was completely wrong in concluding the result "almost works out to even across the board."

It's likely the erroneous number came from replies to another question in the survey, one that asked respondents about the impact on "most Americans" rather than their own families.  That larger number could be attributable to the barrage of mainstream media stories highlighting people seemingly hurt by the current system.  

No, I don't think Erica Hill intentionally misrepresented her network's findings.  It's interesting, however, that neither she nor her script writer nor anyone else at CNN caught the error, especially since the graphic (I believe) reflected the correct numbers.  Could it be because they'd expect more public support for the Senate's health care plan?  

Will CNN correct the record for its viewers?  It is, after all, the most trusted name in news.  

On its Web site, GQ Magazine asks the burning question, "Has the Capital Gotten Cooler Under Obama?"  The magazine says yes and no.  But when it comes to Barack Obama and Co., you'll be relieved to know that the answer is a resounding YES!!  In a slide show, we learn that Obama is "our best-dressed prez since JFK. When he goes tieless, Ahmadinejad should take notice."  On Obama in jeans, "the loose fit seems presidential."  

Also lookin' good to GQ is Joe Biden: "The veep has terrific style. He deftly mixes colors and patterns with his shirts and ties, and his superb Hickey Freeman suits fit impeccably."  Senator John Kerry (D-MA) "looks best when dressing like the patrician he is. Super 180s suits and Hermès ties—senators ought to look senatorial."  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is "groovier than his usual banker attire would suggest. . .  He goes for cool detail, like green ties on Saint Paddy's. And he has a thing for Panama hats."  Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) has "a sharp eye for detail and a suave color sense."

Representative John Conyers (D-MI) is a "clotheshorse" who is "a lifetime sartorial achiever."  Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) "can match sartorial splendor with Sean Combs and purples with Prince. . . "  We're told of Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY): "The dapper former roommate of Jon Stewart could almost pass for European."  And who wouldn't want to pass for European?  When it comes to speechwriter Jon Favreau, "Obama's golden boy of letters epitomizes style's new wave in D.C."

Even Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, not ostensibly a slave to fashion, qualifies for some gushing:

The sec of the interior ought to wear forty-liter hats and string ties. As a Coloradan, he's got the right, and the cabinet should somewhat resemble the Village People, don't you think?

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, by contrast, just doesn't make the cut: "The Republican Party czar looks suitably stiff in that boxy high-cut jacket."  Representative John Boehner gets the full GQ treatment:

The minority leader just looks vain. His radioactive tan appears sprayed on, his bronze hair never strays, and his ties glow in W Hotel colors against his white button-downs. Oh, and it's pronounced bay-ner, not . . ..

Representative Aaron Schock (R-IL), characterized by GQ as the "GOP's only hope for youthful charisma" gets slapped: "Though, looking at him, we can't help but think of James Bond's quip that the Windsor knot is the sign of a cad."

Only last month, the magazine named Obama its "Leader of the Year."  His administration and approval ratings might be crumbling, but at least at GQ, the news for him is always good.     

The Obama Administration isn't the only government-funded entity campaigning against Fox News.  "NPR reporter pressured over Fox role" headlines an article by Josh Gerstein on Politico's Web site.  It begins:

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.

According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Richard Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.

At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.

NPR’s focus on Liasson’s work as a commentator on Fox’s “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.

One source said the White House’s criticism of Fox was raised during the discussions with Liasson. However, an NPR spokeswoman told POLITICO that the Obama administration’s attempts to discourage other news outlets from treating Fox as a peer had no impact on any internal discussions at NPR.

Later in the article, an NPR spokeswoman is quoted:

"There’s no relationship between the White House’s criticism of Fox and any discussions about Fox that we’re having.”

Liasson has appeared on Fox News for a dozen years.  Has the concern over her relationship with  Fox News been building over all this time and did it take this long for NPR executives to take action?  And possibly a bigger question: When did NPR become so concerned about media bias?    

And they say a woman scorned can be merciless.  Eric Burns once served as the host of Fox News Watch.  It's reasonable to assume he won't be working there again any time soon.  In a December 2 Huffington Post article, "If I Still Worked at Fox News...," he describes it as "the right-wing partial-news-but-mostly-opinion network."

A great deal of his bile, however, is directed at Glenn Beck:

Actually, Beck is a problem of taste as well as ethics. He laughs and cries; he pouts and giggles; he makes funny faces and grins like a cartoon character; he makes earnest faces yet insists he is a clown; he cavorts like a victim of St. Vitus's Dance. His means of communicating are, in other words, so wide-ranging as to suggest derangement as much as versatility.

He is Huey Long without the political office.

He is Father Coughlin without the dour expression.

He is John Birch without the Society.

He is an embarrassment to all true conservatives, men and women who believe sincerely, thoughtfully and sensibly that the role of government in American life should be limited.

Of course, Beck does not call himself a conservative; he is, rather, a libertarian, which may be defined as a conservative-squared, a person who wants the feds to collect no money in taxes, spend no money on programs, but make available all services that the libertarian deems necessary for his own convenience and safety.

Along the way, Burns gets in a few jabs at Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and even MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.  He praises CNN's Campbell Brown, who "every night. . . stages an exhibition. . . of honorable pugnacity."  He admires Jane Hall, who left Fox "for other reasons as well, but Beck was a particular source of embarrassment to her."

Burns ponders if, were he still at Fox, he would have been as principled as Hall.  He concludes he'd have kept taking a check from the network, but would be "searching avidly for other employment."

Fortunately for Eric, he never faced that dilemma.  He was fired by Fox News almost two years ago, a fact overlooked in his piece.

Want some sour grapes with that whine, Eric?

On CNN Saturday Morning News today, anchors Betty Nguyen and T.J. Holmes reported on a U.S. senator who nominated his girlfriend to serve as a federal prosecutor earlier this year:

HOLMES: Well, it is something -a player, a name that a lot of people normally might not know a whole lot about, from a state that most people don't know a whole lot about. He's been important in the health care debate.

NGUYEN: That is true.

HOLMES: Senator Max Baucus, out of Montana, he is a key player on a Senate committee that has been putting together some health care legislation. News coming out that he actually nominated his current girlfriend for a U.S. attorney position, while the two were involved. They are both divorced here. So that is not an issue and not accused of breaking up each other marriages.

NGUYEN: Yes, there was no affair or anything like that at all.

HOLMES: Nothing like that.

NGUYEN: The question lies in the fact, should he have been able to screen the applicants, she being one of them, and go ahead and nominate her for the position?

HOLMES: Of course, she did not. They decided that once the process moved along and they gotten more involved in their relationship that she should withdrawal her name. So she didn't get the position. She now works at the Justice Department. But it is raising, just a few questions about what you should be able to do, a person in power, as far as trying to have influence, or nominate someone you are romantically involved with.

NGUYEN: And should it have gone even that far? Because she was down to like, what, three applicants?

HOLMES: The final three.

NGUYEN: Yes, the final three applicants. Let us know what you think about that. Go to our Facebook and Twitter sites. As well as our CNN blog, you can reach out to us several ways. We do want to hear from you. We will be reading your responses today. Let us know what you think.

Neither anchor told viewers  that Baucus is a Democrat.  If he were a Republican, would that fact have been deemed newsworthy?  We all know the answer to that.    

On August 28, CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez shared disturbing information with his viewers:

A CNN source with very close to the U.S. Secret Service confirmed to me today that threats on the life of the president of the United States have now risen by as much as 400 percent since his inauguration, 400 percent death threats against Barack Obama -- quote -- "in this environment" go far beyond anything the Secret Service has seen with any other president.

This "confirmed" information, of course, was eagerly picked up by sites like Daily Kos and Racism Review.

On September 16, Sanchez started backing off from his earlier statement in this exchange with the always objective CNN political analyst Roland Martin:

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think he (former President Jimmy Carter) is obviously painting a broad brush, but what he's realizing is that you do have elements of race when you talk about the level of criticism, when you talk about the viciousness, if you will, in some of the things that are being said, when you look at comments being made at rallies, when you look at posters, things along those lines, the stuff you're seeing online, all kind of different responses, when you see the kind of hateful language being targeted to the first lady.

You got Tammy Bruce calling her trash. You got people who say he hates white people and white culture. And, so, not only that -- reports show a 400 percent increase in terms of threats against this president. Now, explain to me what's the difference between him...

SANCHEZ: By the way, by the way, by the way, just let me -- just as a caveat, I checked on that, and the Secret Service has told me that that figure has been exaggerated. We did a reporting. But, nonetheless...

MARTIN: So, what's the number?

SANCHEZ: But it does appear to be up.

MARTIN: Absolutely.

OK, so according to Sanchez, threats against Obama are up.  Maybe not 400 percent, but up.  Until now.

On today's CNN Newsroom, Sanchez was forced to change his story once more, and tried to wash his hands of any role he played in disseminating bogus information.  He began with a video clip of Washington, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton today questioning the head of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan.

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), WASHINGTON, D.C. DELEGATE: It is well known and in the press over and over again that this president has received far more death threats than any president in the history of the United States, an alarming number of death threats.

I'm not going to ask you for the details on that. But here we had the first state dinner, not of just any old president, but of the first African-American president. Was there any attempt to increase security given all you know, which is much more than we know, about threats to this president of the United States?

SULLIVAN: Ma'am, no matter who the president is...

NORTON: I'm asking about this president. And my question is very specific. Given death threats to this president, was there any attempt to increase the security at this event, yes or no?

SULLIVAN: Ma'am, I can't talk about that.

I would be more -- number one, I will address the threats. I have heard a number out there that the threat is up by 400 percent. I'm not sure where that number...

NORTON: Is it up at all? We're not asking for the threat number.

SULLIVAN: Well, I would -- I think it can answer you, ma'am. It isn't at 400 percent. And I'm not sure where that number came from, but I can...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't hear, gentlemen.

NORTON: Please don't assign to me a number in my question. I just asked you if the threats were up. Are the threats up or not, Mr. Sullivan?

SULLIVAN: They are not. The threats right now in the inappropriate interest that we're seeing is the same level as it has been for the previous two presidents at this point.

NORTON: This is very comforting news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Comforting, indeed. Did you hear that? That was the head of the U.S. Secret Service answering a question that we have been asking for months on this newscast. Are assassination threats against the president of the United States up 400 percent?

We have heard that number tossed around again and again. We have seen it written, we have asked the Secret Service. And they would not give us a direct answer as well. Today, they did.

The answer is no. Threats against this president are about the same, you heard, as they were for two immediate predecessors of this president. And, as you heard Delegate Norton say, that is comforting news.

Sanchez has indeed "heard that number tossed around again and again."  And he's one who tossed it, although he doesn't even now admit it.  He's just patiently been waiting for a direct answer, don't you know?

The theme that Barack Obama is in greater danger than other presidents because of American racism is a popular one throughout the mainstream media. Don't people like Rick Sanchez just hate it when facts get in the way?

On yesterday's CNN Newsroom, anchor Kyra Phillips shifted to "Bad Boys" mode:

Lenders, lenders -- what you gonna do when they come for you? Call it an early Christmas present for people on the edge of losing their homes. The Obama administration cracking down on mortgage companies.

We'll tell you about it.

After the break:

PHILLIPS: Well, from your health (ph) to your home, the foreclosure crisis shows no signs of letting up, so the Obama administration is trying to fight back.

Personal Finance Editor Gerri Willis joining us live from New York.

So, Gerri, new hope for struggling homeowners?

To her credit, Willis was considerably more restrained:

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Well, we'll see, Kyra. You know, lots of changes announced today to the Making Home Affordable program. And as you know, this is the program the administration has put into place to change those mortgages that people had so much trouble with during the mortgage meltdown.

Unfortunately, it's really not helping a lot of people right now. It's scheduled to help four million. It's helping less than two percent of those people right now. So here are the changes they're putting in place.

And after reporting the details:

WILLIS: The administration here trying to make some changes to it, tweaks to it here and there, to make it more effective. But the devil's in the details.

We'll be watching these reports monthly to see how many people they're helping and if more Americans are really getting assistance. But some interesting changes, Kyra. More stick, less carrot.

Gerri's cautiousness is justified.  When Obama announced his plan in Mesa last February, the New York Times reported:

“This plan will not save every home, but it will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild,” Mr. Obama told a crowd here, in one of the communities hardest hit by the housing crisis.

Millions of families?  Not according to the the Congressional Oversight Panel's October report, "An Assessment of Foreclosure Mitigation Efforts after Six Months."  The liberal Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch.org summarized:

To no one's surprise, the Congressional Oversight Panel released a report in October showing that these programs are failing. Fewer than 2,000 of the 500,000 loan modifications then in progress had become permanent under the program, and only a handful lowered the principle. The pace of the Treasury Department programs is so slow that most people are being foreclosed upon before they are even able to apply.

Yet to Kyra Phillips, fiddling at the margins of yet another failed Obama experiment is "an early Christmas present" and "the Obama administration is trying to fight back."  Bah, humbug! 

"Unemployed, Underemployed Look to Jobs Summit for Help" is posted on ABC News's Web site today.  Authored by senior Washington correspondent John Cochran, the piece is notable in that nothing in it supports the headline.  Cochran notes:

Boosting confidence is at the top of President Obama's list at the Jobs Summit he is scheduled to host on Thursday. The invitation list includes business leaders, mayors, academics, and experts from the green jobs sector.

They will consider many proposals to boost the economy including:

More stimulus money for construction projects;

rewards for firms that hire more workers;

more steps to ease credit;

extending unemployment benefits through 2010.

But where are the unemployed and underemployed people who are looking to Obama's meeting for help?  Only two individuals are quoted in the article.  One is a man who's taken a temporary job after being laid off.  He's grateful for the chance, but understandably says "my focus remains to become a fulltime employee as soon as possible."

The other is the chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, who disagrees with those who "argue that enough has already been spent to try to jumpstart the economy."  He says, "We need to bring those deficits down, but that's not something we need to do in the near term."

Perhaps there are some naive unemployed folks who are looking to Obama's "jobs summit" for help.  If so, however, ABC News doesn't identify a single one of them.