On yesterday's CNN Newsroom, anchor Susan Roesgen reported on cities ranked by Twitter usage.  Speaking with co-anchor T.J. Holmes, Roesgen introduced colleague Rick Sanchez's name toward the end of the item:

ROESGEN: Yes, Chicago's number three. You know why? Because in this new result, it says that the guy in Chicago who twitters the most, like 12,000 people...

HOLMES: Oh, yes.

ROESGEN: ... he writes about things like what the back of the cab smelled like when he took -- this is why it's insane.

HOLMES: Those are little things.

ROESGEN: OK.

HOLMES: But you're just getting tidbits of information, you're giving people updates about you.

ROESGEN: Yes, well -- OK, Rick Sanchez.

HOLMES: Hey, Rick has a heck of a following with that twittering. Don't insult his viewers.

ROESGEN: Oh, OK. I'm not. Hey, no. I'm just -- anyway.

HOLMES: All right. But San Francisco, it's up in the top five as well. Seattle, Toronto, Atlanta, where we are, and Boston and Austin, Texas, round out the top 10.

ROESGEN: Yes.

HOLMES: We are going to get you on the Twitter thing, Susan...

ROESGEN: We'll see. We'll see.

Now CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez has an ego that's almost as big as Barack Obama's ears.  He's particularly proud of integrating social media such as Twitter and Facebook on his program.  His CNN blog features entries modestly claiming "Who’s the TWITTER KING? C’mon…you have to ask?" and "But we know who started it (using social media) all, right?"

NewsBuster Ken Shepherd took note last month when CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen told Sanchez: "you're CNN's chief twit."  Sanchez thanked her for "the compliment" and then said, "Good Lord."

When Sanchez heard Roesgen's reference to him, he began tweeting about it:

The first tweet: "wow, susan just dissed my using twitter on cnn. im calling in to get on the air. can't believe she still doesn't get it."

His second tweet: "roesgen she said to tj, kiddingly,still that "twitter is people talking about what the back of cabs smell like" what? i called in,but...."

Then finally: "no rick on phoner live... they don't want to play! oh well, i tried"

If Sanchez had been watching his network earlier, he'd have heard Susan Roesgen on CNN Saturday Morning News describe Twitter usage as "Dim, dim, dumb!" and tell co-anchor Holmes she had two "kind of dimwitted Twitter questions" about his interview with Charles Barkley.  And Sanchez should have known that Roesgen wasn't "kiddingly" talking about tweets concerning the smell of the back of cabs.  The Chicago Sun-Times reported on that last Thursday.

Rick must have been profoundly disappointed that he couldn't do a "phoner live" and present his case.  Perhaps it will give him a small taste of what it's like for conservatives whose views have been edited by the mainstream media for so very long. 

On CNN's absurdly named Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull program yesterday, network political analyst Roland Martin again tailored his "facts" to support his liberalism.  He, former Bush staffer Ron Christie, and CNN political analyst Gloria Borger were discussing Attorney General Eric Holder and his America is "a nation of cowards" speech:

MARTIN: Ron, in the Black History Month -- Ron, in the Black History Month speech he gave, he acknowledged yet when you talk about in terms of not reaching the Promised Land in this country right now. White women make 77 cents on the dollar compared to a white male. African-American men, 72 cents, black women, 68 cents, for the exact same job. So don't sit here acting as if somehow we have reached equality when it comes to gender and race. He was simply being honest.

And Martin would have been simply honest if he hadn't claimed women and blacks earn significantly less than white males "for the same exact job."

The Census Bureau figures apparently cited by Martin are, as noted by John Leo in U.S. News & World Report in 2005, "a raw number, not adjusted for comparable jobs and responsibility."

Even the National Committee on Pay Equity doesn't assert wage inequality for identical jobs is a widespread problem, but rather contends it is the result of the types of employment held:

Many women and people of color are still segregated into a small number of jobs such as clerical, service workers, nurses and teachers. These jobs have historically been undervalued and continue to be underpaid to a large extent because of the gender and race of the people who hold them.

Wage disparities exist for many reasons.  Martin's misstatement blurs the discussion.  Then again, that may be why he's so valuable a member of the CNN team.

In The New York Times today appears "The President Is on the Line to Follow Up on Socialism," by Jeff Zeleny.  The article's first three paragraphs:

Less than 90 minutes after Air Force One landed, the telephone rang. President Obama was on the line, wanting to add one more point to a response he gave during an interview with The New York Times.

On a flight from Ohio to Washington on Friday, Mr. Obama was asked whether his domestic policies suggested that he was a socialist, as some conservatives have implied.

“The answer would be no,” he said, laughing for a moment before defending his administration for “making some very tough choices” on the budget.

Obama's protestation aside, the article should have been balanced with an acknowledgment that implications the new president is a socialist are hardly limited to some conservatives.

Less than a decade ago, for example, the Chicago affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed Obama for the state senate.  They admiringly quoted him: "Few are thinking of harnessing the internal productive capacities, both in terms of money and people, that already exist in communities."

At the beginning of last year's primary season, the Communist People's Weekly World printed a letter celebrating an early Obama win:

Happy New Year and congratulations on a job well done. These have been trying times when the hyenas of war have again been turned loose on humanity by a greedy ruling class.

Now, beyond all the optimism I was capable of mustering, Mr. Obama won Iowa!. . .

Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle. Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. .

In August, the same publication carried an editorial written by Sam Webb, chairman of the Communist Party USA.  Webb used the opportunity to give his comrades their marching orders:

In order to advance one iota of a pro-people’s agenda, the people’s movement has to elect Obama and to enlarge the Democratic Party majorities in Congress. Without that everything else is wishful thinking.

Days after the inauguration, Webb addressed a People's Weekly World event held in Cleveland and began:

I was standing on the Washington Mall on Inauguration Day, alongside nearly two million other people on Inauguration Day, and proudly watched the first African American take the oath of office in our nation’s history. That alone made the day deeply memorable, joyful, and historic. But I couldn’t help but think – and I’m sure that millions of others had the same thought – that the transfer of power from Bush to President Obama not only tore down a barrier that once was thought near impenetrable, but also signified the fading away of one era and the beginning of another.

It was hard not to think on that cold day in our nation’s capital that the worst of the past 30 years of right wing extremist rule is behind us and that an era of progressive change is within reach, no longer an idle dream.

Later in his address, Webb observed:

We now have not simply a friend, but a people's advocate in the White House.

Joelle Fishman is the chair of the political action committee of the Communist Party USA.  On the party's Web site she analyzed the election results.  The article started:

Congratulations on an extraordinary history making election!

We can think back with pride to decades of hard work toward our strategic goal of a big enough, broad enough and united enough labor and all-people’s movement that could overcome the ultra-right blockage to all progress. That all people’s movement has come to life, it is dynamic and it has the potential to keep growing.

The election of Barack Obama and a strengthened Congress creates new conditions in our country. There is now the possibility to shift gears and move forward. This new day requires us to further develop our tactics in order to continue to deepen and broaden labor and people’s unity. . .

The tears of joy we all shared as crowds gathered to watch the election results here and throughout the world dramatize the new moment we are in.

Socialists and Communists may argue that Obama isn't radical enough, that he's much too conservative to be deemed a socialist.  Yet their enthusiastic support and words belie that contention.  Not just "some conservatives" have implied Obama is a socialist.  People on the far left have given some might big hints.

CNN anchor Campbell Brown began her No Bias, No Bull program Friday evening with only part of a major story.  Reporting on Barack Obama's stimulus plan "saving" 25 police jobs in Columbus, Ohio, she overlooked an essential fact: the jobs Obama took bows for yesterday may well not be permanent.  She started her broadcast:

CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone.

On a day when the number of Americans out of work reached a 25- year high, President Obama made a visit to a place where he could show just how in fact his stimulus plan really is saving jobs.

Bullet point number one tonight: the president in Columbus, Ohio, where two dozen police cadets whose jobs were saved as a result of the stimulus were sworn in as officers today. It's a story we have been following for some time now. The president insists today the nation is now on the right track.

Later, Brown invited CNN political analyst Roland Martin to expand on the narrative:

BROWN: Our political analyst Roland Martin first brought the Columbus story to our attention and he's joining us tonight from Milwaukee to talk about it.

And, Roland, you heard about the situation from the mayor of Columbus himself. What did he tell you?

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I was in Columbus for several speeches over the court of three weeks. And he called me and he said -- he said, Roland, we're hurting. He said, and we're having to lay off people.

I was listen to the morning radio. And they were talking about the police class. But also what he talked about -- and this is very important -- that Columbus is a diversified economy. It's the state capital of Ohio. The Ohio State University is there.

But also they have a city income tax. So, when you lose jobs, they're losing their biggest source of revenue. So, he said, hey, we had to cut all kinds of different police. And so the police class was so important because you have to maintain public safety to give confidence in companies why they should continue investing.

And so it's a very difficult issue they had to confront that many other cities are confronting as well.

BROWN: Today's announcement, though, Roland, it saves 25 jobs. And I don't mean to undercut that because for those 25 families this is huge. It's great news for Columbus as well.

But for the president to go all the whole way to Columbus to tout 25 jobs, I mean, there are a lot of people who are going to say that's just a drop in the bucket.

MARTIN: Well, here is the deal. Whenever I talk to folks around the country and talk about how to save money, I say, look, you can't save a million bucks unless you start saving $1. And you can't get to 100 bucks unless you get to $10.

So the reality is the only way we're going to build this economy if you build it job by job, one by one. The 25 jobs, frankly, represents a microcosm in terms of how cities are being affected by this economy.

And so to say that, look, the stimulus package was able to affect these 25 jobs, here's what it means with public safety, here's what it means with building confidence, and so it's frankly giving you the example.

Whenever the president does these things, it's all a matter of saying here is an example of what happens when the government does something and has a much broader meaning. So, you are right, it is 25 jobs, but I will tell, you we can't replace any of those jobs unless we build it one by one. And so it may sound small, but in the long term, it all adds up.

Neither Brown nor Martin reported how much Obama's obvious PR stunt cost taxpayers.  If he starts showing up to showcase every two dozen jobs he's "saved," he'll soon have a bigger carbon footprint than Al Gore.

More significantly, neither Brown nor Martin pointed out that the police jobs may well not be permanent.  According to the Associated Press:

The recruits were rehired using money from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program. The stimulus bill included $2 billion for that program, and the money is being delivered to local departments by a predetermined formula.

Breann Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Rep. Pat Tiberi, one of eight Ohio Republicans who voted against the stimulus, noted that the money that saved the recruits' job will run out next year. (Mayor Michael) Coleman hasn't said how he'll pay the officers' salaries after that.

No doubt the mayor will look to Washington for more tax dollars when the time comes.  Maybe Obama can fly back to Columbus to take credit for that joyous example of all the jobs he's "saving."

In the meantime, Campbell Brown and her maternity leave replacement Roland Martin might want to amend their newscast's name.  "No Bias, No Bull, Just Obama Talking Points" seems about right.

On this morning's CNN Newsroom, anchor Heidi Collins gave Barack Obama some cover by characterizing the omnibus spending bill, larded with thousands of earmarks, as left over from the Bush administration:

A controversial $410 billion spending bill hits a snag in the Senate. This is the bill we've been talking about with about $8 billion in earmarks. Republicans and a few Democrats are mad about all that pork barrel spending. That led members from both parties to push President Obama to veto the bill.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid says the measure will be opened up for changes next week in an effort to gain more support. The bill is a hold-over from the last administration.

Collin's reporting comes straight from the Obama playbook.  Last Sunday on "This Week," Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag defended his boss's support for the measure:

"This is last year's business.  We want to just move on.  Let's get this bill done, get it into law and move forward."

Time's Michael Grunwald got it right in explaining why the budget from last year is still pending, and it isn't President Bush's fault:

It was originally drafted last year, but congressional Democrats didn't want to send it to President Bush, so it will only fund the government from April through September.

Paul Kane at The Washington Post points out that the bill is "leftover from last year's congressional agenda."

And the Associated Press reported yesterday on Senator John McCain's attempts to defeat the spending bill:

McCain took aim at the $410 billion spending bill to keep the government running, specifically Obama's willingness to accept thousands of pet projects that it would fund. Orszag, McCain noted, called the so-called earmarks "last year's business."

"Last year's business? Does that mean last year's president will sign this pork barrel bill?" McCain railed from the Senate floor. "It is the president's business. It is the business of the president of the United States."    

No, Heidi, the omnibus bill working its way through Congress isn't a hold-over from the Bush administration.  Your saying so is evidence of what's become increasingly apparent: When it comes to covering up for Obama, the news readers at CNN are shovel ready.

On Tuesday's CNN Newsroom, anchor Rick Sanchez, who's increasingly mimicking MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's off-the-chart liberalism, took a swipe at several Republican governors:

First, let me try and set this up. You have heard the conversation on this newscast and on many other newscasts just a couple of weeks ago. There were many red state Southern governors who were on the record saying we're so angry about this stimulus package, we are so angry about the spending, that we don't want the money. We don't want the money in our states.

You heard that from people like Haley Barbour and Governor Sanford of South Carolina, to a certain extent, from Governor Jindal in Louisiana. What six states, I ask, that resisted the stimulus money are getting for what they're putting into the system now?

In other words, let me rephrase that. How much from every dollar that they get from the government are they giving back or receiving? We have got a brand-new statistic. I want to break this down for you. And these are the six states that we were talking about, six red states.

Let's go to that graphic, if we have it. We are going to start with Mississippi. Look at this. Look at this, all right? Mississippi gets $2.02. That's more than twice what they send to the federal government. In other words, they get twice as much as they put in. The people of Mississippi get more than they are taxed.

Louisiana gets $1.85, Alaska, Sarah Palin, $1.83. Remember, Louisiana was Bobby Jindal. Haley Barbour was the governor of Mississippi who said he was mad because the people of his state were getting cheated. South Carolina's Mark Sanford, his state? They get $1.35, follow me here, $1.35 for every dollar they put into the federal system. So, they're getting more than they're putting in. Idaho, same thing, $1.19. Texas just about breaks even, just an interesting statistic that we thought we would share with you, given the news items that have been coming out for the last week or so.

Sanchez didn't indicate the source of his chart statistics.  I believe I know why.  The data he presented identically match those gathered by the Northeast-Midwest Institute, which describes itself as a "research organization dedicated to economic vitality, environmental quality, and regional equity for Northeast and Midwest states."  The figures compiled by the Institute, and presented by Sanchez as "a brand-new statistic," represent data for Fiscal Year 2005.

Another flaw in Sanchez's presentation was ignoring that Louisiana's governor in FY 2005 was not incumbent Republican Bobby Jindal, but Democrat Kathleen Blanco.  Nor did he mention that some Democratic governors, including John Lynch of New Hampshire and Tennessee's Phil Bredesen, have indicated they may not accept some of the stimulus funding.

In the interest of balance, Sanchez could have pointed out that, according to the same source he used, Democratically-governed states such as New Mexico, West Virginia, and Virginia also received considerably more tax dollars from Washington than they sent.

The similarities between CNN's Sanchez and MSNBC's Olbermann are noteworthy.  On Olbermann's Tuesday, March 3 Countdown program, his three top stories were the ongoing Rush Limbaugh saga, the Republicans-are-hypocrites-on-earmarks claim, and the creation of "an independent Truth Commission on Bush‘s counter-terrorism policies."  On the second story, Olbermann cited "the nonpartisan group, Taxpayers for Common Sense."

The very next day, Sanchez also devoted time to each of those stories.  Doing Olbermann one better, he interviewed the president of the Taxpayers for Common Sense.

I recognize that news is news and cable networks often cover much of the same ground.  Still, I find the pattern remarkable, particularly as Sanchez assumes a more aggressively anti-GOP stance, even going so far as to trot out "brand-new" four-year-old statistics.  

Within hours of CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez bemoaning a purported increase in the number of hate groups, CNN correspondent Kitty Pilgrim provided some much needed network balance by reporting - get ready here - facts.  On Thursday's CNN Newsroom, Rick Sanchez asked a question and then, as usual, provided his own answer:

SANCHEZ: Since the administration of Barack Obama began in this country, has there been a heightened sense of any kind of hate? We first started discovering this last night in one of the interviews we did.

But before we do that, I want to show you something now. I want you to just write down some numbers. These are hate groups in the United States, all right? Let's start with the first year. I think we're going to start with the year 2000 -- 602 hate groups at the time in the United States, as counted by the best resource on this, by the way, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Now let's go to 2007. Uh-oh. It's going up, 888. Now let's go to 2008. Uh-oh. Going up again, 926.

Minutes later, Sanchez interviewed Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

POTOK: Well, as you suggested in your intro, there have been quite a growth over the last eight years.

Until about a year ago, that growth was driven almost entirely by these groups pushing the immigration issue and especially the idea that people with brown skin are kind of coming to destroy our country. In the last year, though, we have seen several other factors come into play, you know, the assent, obviously, of Barack Obama, the announcement by the Census Bureau that whites will lose their majority in this country along about the year 2042, and the crashing economy and worsening unemployment.

All of those things are very much playing into the continued growth of these groups. Frankly, I think we're in a very worrying situation. I think it could get quite a bit worse.

SANCHEZ: Well, what I'm hearing you say is, remember the movie "The Perfect Storm," when everything kind of came together? And you just outlined the three things. You have got the economy. You have got the residue of the nativist rhetoric in this country, and you have Barack Obama, a liberal African-American president, as the leader of our country.

When you put all those three things together, what do you -- what do we have to do? We do we foresee down the line?

POTOK: Well, I think, just as you suggest, it is a kind of a perfect storm of factors that at the very least favors the growth of these groups.

Only a few hours later on Lou Dobbs Tonight, correspondent Kitty Pilgrim provided a different perspective:

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Southern Poverty Law Center says absolutely hate crime -- hate groups in America are growing. They say the debate over immigration, the recession and the election of Barack Obama, the first black president, is animating more hate groups. But the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center today admitted there are no data on the increased recruitment of hate groups.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: It is a kind of perfect storm of factors that at the very least favors the growth of these groups. You know, whether they are actually able to translate all of these things into recruitment, you know, we have yet to see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PILGRIM: Now, we talked to the FBI today about the report. The FBI does not recognize the term "hate group." They told us they do not monitor individuals or groups of individuals based on what they think or they say, or because a group or individual espouses a cause. It's only when a line is crossed and when an act of violence is committed.

Now, by that measure, hate crimes are going down. The FBI uses data collected by state and local law-enforcement agencies, and this is what we've found. In 1995, hate crimes totaled 7,974. In 2007, 12 years later, they totaled 7,624. That's a decline of 4 percent.

Meanwhile, the U.S. population rose 16 percent in that period of time. So, hate crimes are definitely declining, according to the FBI. And it's interesting, Lou, what the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as a hate group. They say it's based on ideology. It's not based on action. If you're included in this group, it's not based on criminality or violence or future...

DOBBS: Define a hate group, according to them.

PILGRIM: They say it's any group that thinks less of some other group, that thinks that they're inferior. That's their broadest definition, based on ideology, and that's how they define it.

DOBBS: Well, you know, that would not be an appropriate (ph) way to look at any group. But at the same time, one wonders how Mark Potok, the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, could say that conditions favor the growth of hate groups, but they have no proof of recruitment. This is -- I mean, that's pretty pitiful, really. And I know a number of news organizations picking up and going with this, because they think it's a ratings-grabber.

PILGRIM: You really have to push this report to say, what are they really saying here. They're including nonviolent groups with violent groups. The definition is so utterly fuzzy on "hate group" that...

DOBBS: Which obviously the FBI, the Justice Department rejects.

PILGRIM: They absolutely do.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, cited by Sanchez as "the best resource on this," is itself an extremely liberal outfit.  Typical is an article on its Website that warns "an array of right-wing foundations and think tanks support efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable."  This dangerous array, we're told, includes the American Enterprise Institute, the Free Congress Foundation, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the John M. Olin Foundation, and David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture.

Rick Sanchez is a dependable liberal.  He can find a reason to criticize America almost every day.  By selectively airing viewer opinions that coincide with his own and repeatedly interviewing other liberals, his program is often flagrantly slanted.

Kudos to Kitty Pilgrim for, unlike Sanchez, getting past the ideological bluster and looking for the truth.  Gee, I hope that doesn't hurt her career in journalism.

It admittedly doesn't come close to her ladies' room rant about her sister-in-law, but CNN Newsroom anchor Kyra Phillips experienced another oops moment Wednesday.  She devoted almost seven minutes to interviewing singer Stevie Wonder.  The musician was awarded the Gershwin Prize, and Wednesday evening would be honored in the White House.  So she let Stevie enthusiastically speak of someone she also deeply admires, Barack Obama:

PHILLIPS:  And as we wrap this up and take it on to the next hour, I know Obama has inspired you tremendously on many different levels. Tell us why.

WONDER: He really echoes the spirits of so many voices that have come before him, talking about bringing us together as a united people of the United States of America. And to live in a time and space where we have a second chance to really make this, again, the great country that we deserve to always be. And I'm just very, very proud to have said to him about five years ago, when he was running for senator, I said, you know, I know that this is what you want to do and this is what your goal is for Illinois. But I really believe that if we pray on this, you'll become the president of the United States. And so we prayed in my studio, at Wonderland Studios. And then here we are in 2009. It's a wonderful thing.

The anchor congratulated Wonder again and then wrapped up her interview:

PHILLIPS: Yes, you are. And he's still got the innocent baby smile. Stevie, great to see you. Come back and see us again, OK?

Wonder, of course, has been blind since birth and sadly won't be able to come back and see Phillips.  (Her comment comes at the 6:37 mark on the YouTube video).

Still, it's understandable how a gal could get befuddled while hearing rapturous praise about The One.  So it's OK, Kyra.  Don't you worry 'bout a thing.     

Americans increasingly see the danger in Barack Obama's scheme to spend our way out of economic difficulty.  So for the mainstream media, it's all hands on deck to bolster confidence in Obama and his decisions.  The dependable Jonathan Alter reports for duty in the March 2 Newsweek, also posted on the magazine's Web site.  Titled "America’s New Shrink: Chin up, everyone. This president is well poised to bring us back from the brink," the article is loaded with happy talk about Obama and his incredible attributes.  A few examples:

. . . Because my take on Obama, based on conversations with him and his team stretching back more than four years and extending into the White House, is that he has a firm grasp of the psychological and substantive challenges of the presidency. Equally important, his 2008 campaign proved that he possesses a superior sense of timing. He knows that now is not the moment to cheerlead, not when the financial players are lying dazed on the field. There will be time for that, when the banks have been "restructured" (see, that sounds better than "nationalized") and the credit starts flowing again.

. . . It's early yet and much can change, but the new president is showing signs of carrying himself in a more naturally confident way, with the right blend of traits. He's bold enough to add a couple of zeroes to the conversation about spending, but humble enough to utter those three most unpresidential words: "I screwed up."

Obama's confidence is the product of an unusual combination of good early parenting by his mother and grandmother and his own search for racial identity. "The earth shook under my feet, ready to crack open at any moment," he writes in "Dreams From My Father" of a moment of painful clarity when he was in high school. His white relatives, he now realized, could never understand him. "I stopped, trying to steady myself, and knew for the first time that I was utterly alone."

After this confusing period, raising himself—and learning who he was—became an enormous source of self-confidence. Faced with fitting in nowhere, he learned to fit in everywhere, or at least make an attempt to understand whatever new context presented itself. One critical inheritance was his mother's anthropological eye (she studied Indonesian culture). This open and nonjudgmental frame of reference—and his own writerly detachment—give him a rare mental buffer zone that is a great asset in the hurly-burly of the presidency.

. . . At a stop in Florida in mid-February, Obama said publicly what he has confided to aides since early in the 2008 campaign: he could be a one-term president. "I'm not going to make any excuses," he told the crowd. "If stuff doesn't work out and people don't feel like I've led the country in the right direction, then you'll have a new president."

This is an inspired psychological game because it doesn't sound like a game. It sounds like real accountability for results. . .

. . . Obama has the chops to sell that approach, starting with his already-proven ability to be the nation's teacher in chief. This was FDR's secret weapon on the radio, and it can be Obama's on TV and the Web. He's the smart, cool instructor, trusted by the class to explain something important even if a little complicated. All that's lacking is a bit more humor and a few catchphrases to simplify the message.

Speaking of simplified messages, the mainstream media inundate us with the view that Obama knows what's best for us and we should all strongly support his policies because - altogether now - if he fails, so does the United States.  Columnist Alter has been in the Obama tank for a while, contending last year, as noted at the time by NewsBuster Senior Editor Tim Graham, that only racism would keep his favorite out of the White House.

Still, the current pro-Obama bias is breathtaking.  But now we don't have to worry.  Our therapist-in-chief, as Newsweek deems him, is doing all the emotional heavy lifting for us.  He will, we are assured, "talk us out of a depression."

Feeling better now?  

Me neither.

We all know that Barack Obama, if he isn't actually divine, at least qualifies as a Superman.  So I guess it's fitting that he's married to a Superwoman.  Or at least that's the impression we get in today's Chicago Sun-Times article "Michelle: Her first month as first lady  THE EAST WING | In just a month, Michelle Obama has put her mark on her new domain, as she embraces an activist agenda."  Authored by Washington Bureau chief Lynn Sweet, the gushing appraisal begins:

It's Friday in the East Wing of the Obama White House, the realm of first lady Michelle Obama.

Many of the cream-colored walls are still bare. The Obama administration, after all, is just one month old.

But there is a growing photo collection in the hallways that charts the increasing activity of the first lady in the last two weeks as she settles in to her new role and starts expanding her portfolio of issues.

The newest item on her non-controversial agenda is healthy living. That's in addition to assisting military families, pushing work-family balance, national service, women's concerns and opening up the White House to the community.

Wow!  Can you imagine one woman accomplishing so very much so quickly?  But the fawning has just begun as Sweet moves on:

In this first month in the White House, Mrs. Obama has:

†Visited five federal agencies on her meet-and-greet tour. Besides Transportation, she has stopped at the Departments of Education, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and Agriculture, where she plugged fruits and vegetables.

†Become more familiar with her new city. She has lunched with Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and Jill Biden, taken in a ballet with the family at the Kennedy Center and visited a community health center.

†Hosted an African-American History Month event at the White House.  "African-American slaves helped to build this house," she said.

†Discussed balancing family and work at a panel aimed at women at Howard University.

†And, of course, continued her key role as mom-in-chief to daughters Malia and Sasha, with an assist from her mother, Marion Robinson.

Now some spoilsports might question why Obama is spending time at so many Federal agencies.  It's not, after all, as though she's the one who was elected president and chief executive of those agencies.  Yet Sweet apparently sees such activism from Obama as positive.

And some grouches may point out that going to two lunches, showing up at a ballet and a community center, hosting an African-American History Month in your home, participating in a Howard University panel, and having your Mom help take care of your daughters doesn't come close to filling out a month.  Especially when you have a staff of 20 to lend a hand.

Lynn Sweet knows better.  So she quotes the first lady's chief of staff, Jackie Norris.  Obama is an "active presence" and "comes in wanting to be value-added and wanting to support the president and the president's agenda."  Thank heaven.  Would we want a first lady who's an inactive presence or - even more worrisome - doesn't insist on being value-added?

Sweet's puff piece is just the latest in a series of slavish Obamamania we've come to expect from the mainstream media.  If Obama's chief of staff ever leaves, Sweet would make an ideal replacement.  She knows an activist, value-added gal when she sees one.   

CNN and The Washington Post had institutional memory lapses today.  On CNN Saturday Morning News, this was the lead story from anchors Betty Nguyen and T.J. Holmes:

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen. We do want to thank you for starting with us. It is the 21st of February, and we do want to begin with some breaking news.

HOLMES: Yes, and kind of a -- a shocker that went through the -- the newsroom this morning.

Yes, you remember that name and you remember that face in all likelihood. That is Chandra Levy, the 24-year-old who went missing some nine years ago now -- eight years ago, more specifically. An arrest, we're being told now, is imminent in this case. This is coming to us from our CNN affiliate out in the Bay Area, KGO. This is one of the most infamous D.C. cold cases out there. Again, some eight years old.

Just a little background on this case. You remember this young lady went missing in D.C. Got a lot of attention for one reason because of her relationship that it came out that she had with Congressman Gary Condit, who is no longer a congressman now. But a relationship that came out.

He was never -- there he is there -- never officially a suspect in the case.

NGUYEN: No.

HOLMES: But that was a reason this case got so much attention. And now, Betty, as we're hearing, an arrest...

NGUYEN: Yes.

HOLMES: ...is imminent in this case.

NGUYEN: The case not only ended Condit's career, but we are learning this morning that there is a suspect, a man who is indeed behind bars at this hour.

The Washington Post's Web site this morning featured the story "Arrest in Chandra Levy Case 'Imminent.'"  The article ended with:

Levy, a 24-year-old intern for the federal Bureau of Prisons, was having an affair with Gary Condit, a married congressman from California, when she vanished. Police focused on Condit rather than Guandique as the case endured a firestorm of world-wide media coverage.

Condit was never charged and lost a reelection bid in 2002. He has long maintained that he had nothing to do with Levy's disappearance and was the victim of overzealous investigators and a media pack.

Neither CNN nor The Washington Post identified Condit as a Democratic congressman.  Had he been a Republican, that affiliation would no doubt have been mentioned.

As we've seen again and again, when members of the GOP get in trouble, the spin is that it's a Republican scandal.  When it's a Democrat who's involved, then the story line is that the scandal involved a politician who just happened to be a Democrat.

The double standard continues to thrive among the mainstream media.

This made my weekend.  Thursday's Chicago Sun-Times reported "Obama beats out Jesus as America's hero."  The article starts:

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Americans named President Obama as their No. 1 hero, followed by Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King, in a new Harris poll.

Others in the top 10, in descending order, were Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Abraham Lincoln, John McCain, John F. Kennedy, Chesley Sullenberger and Mother Teresa.

People were asked whom they admired enough to call their heroes. Those surveyed were not shown a list of people to choose from. The Harris Poll was conducted online among a sample of 2,634 U.S. adults by Harris Interactive.

This question was first asked in a Harris Poll in 2001. In that survey Jesus Christ was the hero mentioned most often, followed by Martin Luther King, Colin Powell, John F. Kennedy and Mother Teresa.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised with the results.  Obama has been sold as a secular God.  In November, NewsBuster Brent Baker documented the opening of a Time Magazine article that began:

“Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope...”

Last month, an actress compared Obama to Jesus.  According to The Hill:

Movie star Susan Sarandon compared President Obama to Jesus. Broadway and film actor Alan Cumming thought of him more like Mahatma Gandhi.

“He is a community organizer like Jesus was,” Sarandon said Tuesday night on the bright blue carpet leading into the Creative Coalition’s 2009 Ball at the Harman Center for the Arts in Chinatown. “And now, we’re a community and he can organize us.”

Last September on CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer, political contributor Donna Brazile spoke of a link between Jesus and her candidate for president:

BLITZER: Let me bring Donna in on the whole issue of being a community organizer. Now we know a lot of those community organizers are in the big urban areas and there are some suggesting that when they -- when the Republicans, whether Giuliani or Sarah Palin went after Obama for being a community organizer there was a racial overtone there. Do you believe that?

BRAZILE: First of all, I don't think they understand the role of a community organizer, often to help people who are in distress, they've lost their jobs, they've lost their homes, they've lost their health care. And for many of us, it's a time honored tradition to give back, especially those who have been rewarded with so much.

The Bible says to whom much is given much is required and it comes out of that tradition. So it was insulting to see both, you know, the governor as well as Mayor Giuliani criticize people. There's some on the Internet now that Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor. And perhaps they should understand the role of a community organizer, do help people in distress.

Days later, CNN reported Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee said on the House floor: "Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus."

Apparently, Americans got the message.  I know that polls like this one have little meaning.  I know that the people who participate in them volunteered to participate, possibly with an agenda in mind.  I know that the results in surveys like this tend to be a reflection of who's been in the news recently.

It still makes me tremble for my country.

In a news story not covered by other major media, the Chicago Sun-Times today reported that the Democratic National Committee still hasn't paid Chicago for November's Obama victory celebration.  "Obama victory bash owes city $1.74 mil." begins:

Chicago has yet to recoup the $1.74 million cost of President Obama's victory celebration in Grant Park -- despite a burgeoning $50.5 million budget shortfall that threatens more layoffs and union concessions.

"The Democratic National Committee has not yet paid us,'' Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city's Office of Budget and Management, said Thursday after questions from the Chicago Sun-Times. "We're reaching out to them this week."

Stacie Paxton, a spokeswoman for the Obama-controlled DNC, explained the reimbursement delay by saying, "We are still looking at various costs and bills.'' She would not say whether parts of the bill are disputed.

The city spent $1 million on police protection for the rally. The Office of Emergency Management and Communications racked up more than $120,000 in expenses, including $19,500 paid to police official Neil Sullivan to quarterback election night logistics.

In late October, Mayor Daley assured that the cash-flush Obama campaign would reimburse the city for every penny spent on the rally. "We have a financial crisis," he said at the time. "The City of Chicago could not afford $2 million on this because we're gonna be laying off people, cutting back. That [cost] would really be unfortunate. . . . It's a huge cost to the City of Chicago.

Days later, Daley was again asked about the debt:

"Yeah. I don't know why you're so negative. ... What is this? He just won for president, and you say, 'He's not gonna pay his bills,' " the mayor said then.

The skepticism that Democrats would timely pay their debt was justified.  No doubt prompted by a press inquiry, Chicago is now - in the jargon so beloved by politicians these days - "reaching out" to the Democratic National Committee.  Maybe the city should try a collection agency.  Or even ask Senator Roland "How'd I Get Here?" Burris for assistance.

The Chicago Sun-Times should be commended for carrying a story most of the mainstream media won't touch.  Don't count on seeing the item on CNN anytime soon.      

Maureen Dowd's New York Times opinion piece yesterday was "Cheney and the Goat Devil."  The mainstream media are reveling in the purported falling out between former President George Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney.  Supposedly the two disagreed over granting Cheney's previous chief of staff, Scooter Libby, a pardon.  Dowd joins in the fun:

There were clues in the last couple of years that W. and Condi were trying to sidle away from Cheney by using the forbidden strategy of diplomacy in dealing with Iran and North Korea, and by cutting loose Rummy.

As one official who worked closely with both W. and Cheney told The New York Daily News’s Tom DeFrank the last week of the administration: “It’s been a long, long time since I’ve heard the president say, ‘Run that by the vice president’s office.’ You used to hear that all the time.”

The clearest sign of disaffection we have is Bush’s refusal to pardon Scooter Libby, the man known as “Cheney’s Cheney,” despite Vice’s tense and emotional pleading. It was his final, too little, too late “You are not the boss of me” spurning of Dick Cheney.

It may seem pointless for W. to worry about his legacy at this juncture, but he clearly did not want to add a Marc Rich blot to all the other gigantic blots on the copybook.

Approximating the Marc Rich case to that of Scooter Libby is akin to comparing Barney Frank to John Wayne.  They have almost nothing in common, something even Dowd may have noticed.

As Time Magazine reported soon after Bill Clinton pardoned Rich, who had been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List:

In 1983, Rich was indicted in federal court of evading more than $48 million in taxes. He was also charged with 51 counts of tax fraud and with running illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis.

Furthermore, Time noted, "Marc Rich's socialite ex-wife has donated an estimated $1 million to Democratic causes, including $70,000 to Hillary Clinton's successful Senate campaign and $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library fund."

In contrast, Scooter Libby greatest crime was at worst lying.  The New York Times reported:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted today of lying to a grand jury and to F.B.I. agents investigating the leak of the identity of a C.I.A. operative in the summer of 2003 amid a fierce public dispute over the war in Iraq.

Senior U.S. News & World Report writer Michael Barone succinctly explained what had transpired in the Libby case:

Libby was a dedicated and hypercompetent public servant who was brought down by a prosecutor investigating a scandal that wasn't a scandal. The investigation purportedly was an attempt to discover who had told Robert Novak that Valerie Plame was a CIA "operative" (Novak's word). But prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knew before the investigation began that the leaker was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. It is astonishing that Armitage and his friend and boss Secretary of State Colin Powell didn't inform Bush of this and allowed two of his top aides, Libby and Karl Rove, to be harassed by Fitzgerald for months and years.

There is no comparison between Marc Rich and Scooter Libby.  Still, had Bush done the unthinkable and actually pardoned Libby, no doubt we'd have heard about it incessantly from the mainstream media for years to come.  You'd think that Scooter Libby had been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List.      
 

Today on The Washington Post's front page appears the article "Back Home in Alaska, Palin Finds Cold Comfort: Scrutiny Has Been Intense Since Election."  Staff writer Michael Leahy reports that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has had a rocky return following her run on last year's Republican national ticket.  Writes Leahy:

A number of factors seem to have contributed to the bumpy homecoming: a residual anger among Democrats for the attack-dog role Palin assumed in the McCain campaign, lingering resentment from Republicans for the part she may have played in McCain's defeat, and a suspicion crossing party lines that the concerns of Alaska, at a time of economic crisis, will now be secondary to her future in national politics.

The claim that Sarah Palin hurt McCain's candidacy has been refuted by various sources including, coincidentally enough, The Washington Post.  Chris Cillizza covers the White House for the newspaper.  Shortly after the election he cited five election myths.  One of them was that McCain made a mistake by selecting Palin as his running mate:

Remember where McCain found himself this past summer. He had won the Republican nomination, but the GOP base clearly felt little buy-in into his campaign. A slew of national polls reflected that energy gap, with Democrats revved up about the election and their candidate and Republicans somewhere between tepid and glum.

Enter Palin, who was embraced with a bear hug by the party's conservative base. All of a sudden, cultural conservatives were thrilled at the chance to put "one of their own" in the White House. In fact, of the 60 percent of voters who told exit pollsters that McCain's choice of Palin was a "factor" in their final decision, the Arizona senator won 56 percent to 43 percent.

For skittish conservatives looking for more evidence that McCain understood their needs and concerns, Palin did the trick. It's hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain -- even to the relatively limited extent that they did -- without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain's loss could have been far worse.

A Rasmussen Reports national survey taken immediately after the election found that 69 percent of Republicans believed Palin helped McCain and 91 percent held a favorable view of the Alaska governor.

Perhaps the Post article, using multiple anonymous sources to buttress its findings, is right in the assessment of difficulties Sarah Palin now encounters back home.  The belief she hurt McCain's chances for the White House, however, doesn't appear to be held by very many Republicans.  So why would lingering resentment be a significant factor?