Mainstream media’s limited reporting on the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been obvious.  You might think that CNN, the self-styled “Most Trusted Name in News," would pay more attention to a case involving over 250 criminal counts, including ones for first-degree murder. 

You’d be wrong.  Today, CNN’s Newsroom occupied six hours of air time.  The Gosnell trial was mentioned only twice.  Anchor Wolf Blitzer reported:

In Philadelphia, the 72-year-old abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell is awaiting his fate. He's accused of first degree murder for allegedly killing babies born alive during late term abortions. Jurors are now in their fifth day of deliberating after not reaching a verdict Friday. 

That was it.   Threee sentences.  On an earlier segment, anchor Ashleigh Banfield had a short discussion with CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin on how Gosnell’s jury “wanted some more definition to first-degree murder, third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and malice, and infanticide as well.”

BANFIELD: That's a tough case. You said it, a lot of paperwork, just in the jury forms and the number of charges. So five days, nothing, honestly. We should probably hunker down and you should get a hotel room for a long time. 

(LAUGHTER)

In contrast, CNN Newsroom today did eight stories on the Jodi Arias trial.  For those keeping count, Arias’s name was mentioned 44 times.  Gosnell’s twice.

Media bias?  What media bias?  Surely not at the “Most Trusted Name in News.”  

On CNN’s Situation Room today, anchor Wolf Blitzer spoke of the 1995-1996 Federal government shutdown:

BLITZER: Yes, I would be shocked if there were a government shutdown. The Republicans lived through that back in the '90s and it didn't exactly work out well for them. I would be shocked if they went down that road and the president went down that road right now. I'm sure they will work that out.

So how bad was the political fallout for Republicans?  That year the GOP nominated the uninspiring Sen. Bob Dole as their presidential nominee.  Despite such a lackluster top of the ticket, House losses were only in the single digits.  As former Speaker Newt Gingrich has noted “it was the first time in 68 years that Republicans were reelected to a House majority - and the first time that had ever happened with a Democrat winning the presidency.”  On the Senate side, the GOP picked up two seats.

Liberals routinely cite the shutdown as an example of why Republicans should do absolutely everything, including casting aside principle and embracing Obamanomics, to avoid a replay.  After all, the political damage to them was so terribly dreadful and liberals certainly wouldn’t want that to happen again.  Right, Wolf?

While some in the mainstream media harp on the purportedly horrendous effects of possible across-the-board spending cuts on March 1, there is also an effort to distance President Barack Obama from responsibility.  An example of this is on CNN, which has shown more than once today a report on the sequester by chief business correspondent Ali Velshi.  An excerpt:

VELSHI: The forced budget cuts were created during the 2011 debt ceiling debacle. They were passed by Congress and signed by the White House.

So “the White House” signs bills into law?  That’s funny.   On August 2, 2011, the day the Budget Control Act became law, Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer told his audience:

Happening now, President Obama signs a bill to raise the debt limit, avoiding an economic debt crisis for now.

At CNN, when an economic debt crisis is avoided, it’s the achievement of President Obama.  But when the network’s Chicken Littles see the sky beginning to fall, simply “the White House” may be partially responsible.  

Chicago hasn’t had a Republican mayor in over 80 years.  Democrats have controlled the Illinois governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature for more than a decade, with Democrats ruling the Illinois House for 28 of the last 30 years.  No matter, Chicago violence is the fault of Republicans.  We learned that this morning on CNN Newsroom when anchor Carol Costello asked her “Talk Back” guests about Retired Lt. General Russel Honore’s suggestion to use National Guard troops to curb murders in Chicago.  Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman astutely pinpointed the reason for Chicago’s carnage:

And let's be very clear about what's happening in Washington today and why it's undermining the city of Chicago, because there's a mindset now in our government, in Washington, from the Republican members of Congress, that sequestration is an acceptable way of doing business, that we can in fact engage in these massive irresponsible cuts that no one thinks is a logical approach to budgeting. 

And that undermines law enforcement in our cities; it undermines so many education opportunities for our younger people and it does in fact -- in fact create an impoverished class of our society that leads to abuse, leads to violence and leads to more Chicagos. 

That’s right.  It’s the GOP’s “mindset” that’s to blame.  Yet sequestration can’t be responsible for the 506 Chicago murders last year, when condemning Republicans for his own proposal was still a gleam in Barack Obama’s eye. 

Anchor Costello allowed Zimmerman’s absurd charge to go by with nothing but a weak “I don't think you can leave Democrats out of that one.”  How’s that for setting the record straight for those low information voters CNN caters to? 

No Republican need lend a hand in undermining the city of Chicago.  Its uninterrupted Democrat control is doing just that. 

On FOX Chicago News at Nine this evening, station legal analyst Larry Yellen reported on “John Wayne Gacy speaks: FOX 32 uncovers never-before-heard tapes.”  Yellen noted:

The part-time clown and one-time precinct captain killed 33 young men between 1972 and 1978--most of them by strangulation, hiding many of their bodies in the crawl space of his Northwest Side home.

What the legal analyst didn’t mention is that Gacy was a Democratic precinct captain.  In 1978, he even managed to have his photo taken with First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

Maybe Yellen thinks the serial killer's political affiliation is irrelevant.  But would that have been true were Gacy a Republican? 

After CNN televised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Congressional testimony on the Benghazi attack, on the 5 pm segment of The Situation Room Wolf Blitzer provided some analysis, including an interview with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).  Then Blitzer announced there was breaking news.  He turned to CNN national correspondent Jim Acosta, who reported that Beyonce had - hold onto your remote here - lip-synced "The Star Spangled Banner" at President Obama's inauguration Monday:

BLITZER: All right. We've got some breaking news coming in on Beyonce and the lip-sync scandal that's being called. Definitive information now being learned by Jim Acosta. 

Jim, what are you learning? 

JIM ACOSTA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we can tell you that inaugural official who asked not to be identified told me just a short time ago that pop star Beyonce lip-synced her performance on Inauguration Day, saying, quote, "She did not sing live." 

 That official told CNN a prerecording of the artist's rendition of the national anthem was played instead. So what was heard by spectators and viewers was the sound of that recording, according to this official.

Acosta provided more details, with Blitzer interjecting observations such as "Say what you will, though, she does have a beautiful voice" as well as "And she wasn't lip-synching somebody else's voice. This was her voice, her own recording."  Ending the report with a promise that Acosta would "have much more" on the story in the next hour, Blitzer then teased:

The stars partied late into the night with the president and the first lady. And an exclusive White House after-party up next. You won't want to miss what went on behind closed doors.

Benghazi, Schmenghazi, CNN knows what's genuinely important to its viewers.  Why waste time airing stale criticisms of the Obama administration's bumbling on Benghazi when there's real news to report?  Stop the presses at "The Most Trusted Name in News."       

With this week's inauguration, several media stories recounted past inaugural addresses. One oration prominently featured and applauded was the speech given by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

On CNN's Web site, it was listed as one of "The six best inaugural addresses."  U.S. News & World Report's site included it as one of "The 5 Best Inaugural Addresses," noting that it set "the benchmark against which subsequent addresses have been measured."  Just in case readers missed it, the following day the same site carried the story "What Obama Can Learn From the Greatest Inaugural Addresses," this time declaring part of Kennedy's speech "poetry."  At The Washington Post, The Fix counted it as part of  "The 10 most famous inaugural addresses."  Politico claimed it "ranks alongside Lincoln’s two for pure eloquence."   

All articles cited the best known line spoken by Kennedy that day: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country."  

Yet none of the glowing articles noted that JFK's soaring rhetoric of sacrifice didn't align with his agenda.  Nine days after becoming president, Kennedy gave his first State of the Union address.  It was peppered with things that he thought the country can do for us, or at least some of us.  He called on Washington to extend unemployment compensation, establish a food stamp program, expand the services of U.S. Employment Offices, stimulate housing and construction, raise the minimum wage, offer tax incentives for plant investment, increase the development of natural resources, and encourage price stability.  And all that was in just one paragraph.  

In the golden age of Camelot, we had a Democrat president who viewed government intervention as the solution to many problems.  In this he was similar to Barack Hussein Obama.   Little wonder the media recall him so fondly, if not fully.

"A lot has changed in just four years" is the headline of a piece written by Carol Marin, political columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.  In it, she writes:

Unemployment in 2008 was 6.7 percent. Today it’s 7.9 percent

The federal deficit was $1 trillion. It still is.

And later:

Sarah Palin was running for vice president and she could see Russia from her house. Presumably she still can.

The award-winning journalist has her facts wrong.  According to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in 2008 was 5.8 percent.  The Congressional Budget Office reported the Fiscal Year 2008 budget deficit was $455
billion.  Oh, and it was comedian Tina Fey, not the real Sarah Palin, who said she could see Russia from her house.  Even Snopes.com got that right.

Funny, isn't it, how often mainstream media types make mistakes that just coincidentally damage Republican credibility?  Voters relying on Marin may conclude that economic conditions under President Barack Obama aren't much worse than under his predecessor.

Marin's headline is right: A lot has changed in just four years. And much of it isn't good.  When will the fact checkers start checking their own facts?

It's probably a pretty safe bet to say that we're much keener on Obama than on Romney, just because he seems far more in line with general British politics than Romney. Things like Obamacare are very much in line with the kind of health care system we have in the U.K.

Just in case readers missed the point, page 17 includes "Europe: Not a swing continent," a dispatch from Henry Chu, the Los Angeles Times's London bureau chief.  That article notes:

A survey of seven European nations, including longtime U.S. allies Britain and France, has found that Obama would win more than 90% of the vote if the respondents could cast ballots in Tuesday’s race.

Old Europe has a heritage of autocrats, dictators, welfare statism and forced redistribution of wealth.  Many Europeans, propelled in some cases by envy, hold an antipathy for America and what it represents.

Given all that, it's to be expected that a majority of polled Europeans would be attracted to a candidate advocating a command economy while he finds fault with free enterprise, not to mention his own country.

So while Obama has difficulty maintaining a 50 percent approval rating here, the mainstream media point to how well he does among foreigners.  If only those darn Americans were as smart.  Since they aren't, they have to be reminded with two stories on the same topic in the same newspaper on the same day.     

Lynn Sweet, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, covers the final presidential debate in "Sweet: Obama in command in campaign’s last clash" on the newspaper's Web site.  In the piece she writes:

As soon as Romney pledged not to cut military spending (incorrectly implying that was an Obama proposal — something he has done before) Obama pounced, portraying Romney as woefully uninformed about how a modern military measures its strike force.

In her enthusiasm, Sweet overlooked one thing: Obama does intend to cut defense sending.  Who says so?  Well, President Barack Obama for one.  From his July 15, 2011 press conference:

". . .I’ve said that in addition to the $400 billion that we’ve already cut from defense spending, we’re willing to look for hundreds of billions more."

Additionally, in his proposed Fiscal Year 2013 budget, Obama's own Office of Management and Budget shows (Page 103) that total national defense spending in FY 2011 was $717 billion while estimating it will be $566 in FY 2014.

On Sunday's CNN Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz spoke of President Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the
Democratic National Convention:

Bob Cusack, Obama gave a pretty good speech overall. The media acted like it was terrible. And it seems to me that perhaps we have set a standard for him that (if) he doesn't he doesn't hit the stratosphere, he has somehow failed.

The media acted like it was terrible?  Kurtz must not have been watching CNN immediately after Obama's speech.  Observed CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer: "Anderson, he clearly still has that oratorical skill that he's always had over these many years." CNN chief national correspondent John King opined: "I think a very smart, well-crafted speech, both strategically and tactically."  CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said, ". . .I thought it was a very strong speech."

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper noted: "Although it certainly wasn't a speech full of soaring rhetoric like some of his speeches four years ago. Some of it comparing sort of to a State of the Union almost in terms of kind of going down a checklist."

Saying that a speech isn't filled with soaring rhetoric isn't the same as saying it's terrible.

Kurtz need not be concerned that if Obama "doesn't hit the stratosphere, he has somehow failed" in the eyes of the mainstream media.  He's always been their hero and will continue to be.  At least until Election Day.     

Last night on WGN-TV's News at Nine program, anchor Jackie Bange began a story:

A guidance counselor at Rich Central High School in south suburban Olympia Fields is on administrative leave after publishing a somewhat racy book he wrote that focuses on sex and women.

What constitutes somewhat racy at the station calling itself "Chicago's Very Own"?  Part of the answer is in an article appearing on the Chicago Sun-Times's Web site.  Written by Casey Toner, it reports on Bryan Craig's book titled "It's Her Fault."  Some excerpts:

“The easiest kill for a man is through the young lady with low self-esteem,” Craig wrote in the book. “Of course some will feel this is taking advantage, and yes it is. The ultimate goal for a man is to do all he can to eventually be able to commit and submit to a woman’s power.”

All men and women should be sexually promiscuous before getting married, Craig wrote. He describes in graphic detail what he perceives to be the difference in the color and texture of vaginas of women from various races and ethnicities. Based on his observations, he espouses his theory about “why Latin women have more children.”

And later:

“From that moment forward, I vowed to never be put in that situation, and to mind-f--- every woman I could,” Craig wrote.

He then describes a method that allows women to juggle five different partners at once. He describes the strategy as “the A through E:” your admirer, your ultimate admirer, your counselor, your sexual release, your ideal.

In the final chapter, Craig encourages readers to enter the “wonderful world of submissiveness.”

Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey didn't like "2016: Obama's America," a movie that's surprised many with its box office appeal.  In a review on the Los Angeles Times's Web site titled "'2016: Obama's America' goes by the book,'" Sharkey is
sharply critical, writing that the movie doesn't demystify President Barack Obama, but rather "does more to illuminate its filmmaker, Dinesh D'Souza, and his ego instead."  Moreover, "it's intent on laying out the arguments of a man who has given the same lecture countless times."

I have to wonder how seriously Sharkey approached the movie.  She misquotes a tag line, saying that it's "Love him, hate him, now you know him," when in fact it's "Love him, hate him, you don't know him."  She praises career leftist Michael Moore for his supposed objectivity:

But Moore's work and the genre itself come with an implicit understanding that whatever truths emerge, they were ultimately forged by the process, not set in stone beforehand.

She compares the new film unfavorably to Moore's work:

That "2016" was built on a book is one of its fundamental weaknesses, its course determined before the first frame was shot.

She ends her review by citing a particular scene, writing that it's "merely another piece of heavy-handed drama conjured up by the filmmakers — nothing more, nothing less."

As good a filmmaker as Moore is, he's not bad as a stand-up
either.

The documentary is in its own way an activist love letter for a different time, one he feels passionately we should reclaim. . .

There are heartbreaking vignettes of foreclosed families.

And there is the trademark Moore confrontational fun: the filmmaker wrapping Citibank, Chase, et al. in yellow crime scene tape, trying to make a citizen's arrest of their boards of directors.

The film gets tougher and tougher as it goes along with his hometown priests, among others, denouncing capitalism as not just a failed economic system, but as an evil that must be eradicated.

After a standing, cheering ovation as the final credits rolled, more than half the audience stayed for the Q&A after.

Was he angry over the deification of President Regan? He was.

I must have missed when "President Regan" was in the White House.  Reviews are by nature subjective.  But couldn't the LA Times have found an analyst who's not an unabashed fan girl for Michael Moore to report on a conservative movie?

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, anchor Ashleigh Banfield didn't begin her program with news that unemployment in 44 states has worsened, a story that CNN's Web site reported.  No, she devoted the first 12 minutes of her program to a real burning issue:  Mitt Romney's tax returns.

She spoke of President Barack Obama's offer to accept five years of GOP candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns and demand no more.  The offer is as big a joke as Vice President Joe Biden, yet Banfield discussed it with CNN political
editor Paul Steinhauser and Reuters columnist David Cay Johnston.  Banfield injected her own theory:

BANFIELD: OK. What's critical here and I was getting the political side of this with Paul Steinhauser, these five years that the Democrats are offering in return of letting go of the demand for 10.

Within the five years, falls the year 2009 and that was the year the Obama administration granted a first-of-its-kind amnesty to wealthy Americans, promising not to publicize their names or go after them with felonies if they'd been hiding money offshore, if they just came forward and paid a big penalty and paid some of the back taxes.

So, give me a bit of a feel for this amnesty program and how successful it's been and what about -- what would have happened to you if you didn't take advantage of it?

And later:

BANFIELD: But I do want to ask you, if there is something back after 2009, say, before we have the 2011 and -- or, excuse me, '10 and '11 returns of the Romneys, if there is something with regard to amnesty, does it actually show up and what does it mean about the person that took advantage of the amnesty?

Amnesty? Felonies?  Hiding money offshore?  Sounds like Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid might be moonlighting as a writer for the news readers at CNN.  Banfield used the word "amnesty" nine times, not that she's accusing Romney of anything:

BANFIELD: All right, so, I want to let you know and I'm going to repeat this again. We do not know anything about whether the Romneys have taken any advantage of any kind of amnesty program.

There have been three offerings of the amnesty program, 2009, 2010 and 2011. No, 2009, 2001, 2012. So, we do not know and that is extraordinarily important.

She then noted that "we" asked the Romney campaign about the 2009 amnesty program, but hadn't received a response.  In her painstaking effort to be totally fair, though, she acknowledged the question had only been asked "within the last couple of hours."  Banfield didn't mention if they had asked Romney if he's stopped beating his wife, but she may have.

Obviously, Obama can't run on his record.  His only hope is to divert attention from his epic failures.  The Ashleigh Banfields of the mainstream media are more than happy to lend a hand.  

USA Today's Web site features an Associated Press report with the headline "Housing starts, jobless claims in good shape."  For the many readers who just scan headlines, that sounds encouraging.  Yet by the second paragraph the article notes "that construction of single-family homes and apartments dipped 1.1% in July compared with June. . ."  And by the third paragraph:

Housing has been making a modest comeback this year. But even with the gains, the rate of construction and the level of permits remain only about half the 1.5 million annual rate considered healthy.

And what of those jobless claims that are in such good shape?

In a separate report, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits edged up slightly last week but remained at a level consistent with modest gains in hiring, the government said.

Housing starts are down, jobless claims are up, but they're both in good shape.  Not quite as miraculous as when the rise of the oceans begins to slow and our planet begins to heal, but heck, it's only his first term.

In the Age of Obama, the economy shows consistent strength and even improvement.  No matter what the statistics actually
reflect.