Recall that North Carolina teacher, now suspended without pay, who upbraided a student for daring to, as she put it, “disrespect” the President of the United States in her classroom.  She had told her class that it was “criminal to slander a president”:

“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she says of former President Bush. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”

Oh, really, where does it say that in the Constitution?

Nobody, points out blogger Rhymes with Right, himself a teacher,

. . . was arrested for saying bad things about George W. Bush. In fact those who did so became cultural heroes — don’t you remember that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” and that Cindy Sheehan was treated as some sort of demigod by those opposed to Bush and his policies?

Yes, even in the dark days when that supposed fascist reigned in Washington, people remained free to criticize the president and were often celebrated for doing so.

I wonder how many of those same people will criticize the North Carolina teacher for criticizing a student who engaged, to borrow an expression they might like, in “the highest form of patriotism.”

Given the small size of CNN’s primetime audience, I wondered last week whether we should fret too much about the “news” network’s bias.  Still, it does make good sport to take note of their bias.

Last night and again this afternoon, while catching CNN during the cardio portion of my workout, I once again found the network exploring an issue raised by the Obama campaign (though, this time, with surprising even-handedness).  Still, they were covering the specific topic the Democrats wanted to discuss, Mitt Romney’s record at Bain, rather than the broader inquiry we should be making — into Obama’s record in Washington.

Last week, I recall seeing lengthy discussion at CNN of Mitt Romney’s adolescent antics.  And that week, the Romney campaign wanted to talk about the debt the federal government has racked up since Obama took office.  Did CNN cover that story with any depth?

This got me wondering whether or not CNN chooses (more readily) to cover those issues the Obama campaign wishes to discuss and downplay those issues pushed by his likely Republican opponent.

I will not have time today to investigate this hypothesis as I’m about to rush out to hear one of the few grownups in Washington speak at the sacred shrine of freedom in Simi Valley.  As time allows this week, I will try to check the CNN website to see if their programs tend to follow Obama administration talking points.

Over at Breitbart.com, John Nolte wonders what conservatives should do given the readiness of the legacy media to investigate the private lives of certain individuals who put Obama’s record in the spotlight or support his opponent:

So desperate is the media to Palace Guard for their Precious One that everyday Americans who dare ask Obama a question he flubs, appear in a Romney campaign ad, or donate to a pro-Romney super PAC, are now considered fair game.

But if this is the new MSM standard, what are those of us in New Media to do? In a perfect world we wouldn’t be faced with this question because in a perfect world the media has integrity and would never even consider attacking and intimidating private citizens.

Read the whole thing.

Should conservatives now start investigating the private lives of these journalists?

No, not their personal lives, but should at least inquire into their ideological affiliation.  They do seem to be working in tandem with the Obama campaign.

We should at leas be asking them to indicate whether or not they have communicated and/or collaborated with that campaign, the Democratic party, its various auxiliaries and allies — and should investigate to the best of our abilities their ties to such outfits.

“Isn’t it fair,” asks Jim Geraghty on Friday, “considering the poor job the press did in examining much of” Barack Obama’s life, to ask if the Democrat “is just a fundamentally different man than the image that was presented to the country in 2008?”

Interesting how so many of our friends in the legacy media back then didn’t spend much time investigating the image of the candidate produced by his campaign.

Since we are perhaps the leading gay conservative blog, I supposed we’re supposed to chime in on the latest Newsweek cover story, given its gay theme and that is written by a prominent gay ex-conservative (still billed by some as a conservative).

I hate to disappoint our readers.  I have no intention of reading the cover story.  There are only so many hours in the day.  And, well, when it comes to Obama, Andrew Sullivan has become remarkably predictable.

Andrew once offered a fresh and unique insight into gay culture and American politics.  Now he just offers the party line.

Indeed, so goofy is he for Obama that he accords him an honor he once bestowed upon Abraham Lincoln.  In October 2010, he held that Abraham Lincoln was gay. And since Lincoln served roughly a century before Obama was born, that would make Obama the second gay president.

To call Obama a “gay president” is to ignore the first two years of his administration when he dragged his feet on repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT) and neglected to push Congress to act on DOMA repeal or civil union recognition.  A gay president would have made those issues a priority and would not have needed energetic left-of-center bloggers to spur him on.  Eventually, he did do the right thing on DADT — but only after considerable pressure from those bloggers.  He didn’t do much, if anything, to advance federal recognition of same-sex unions.

With that in mind, I have little interest in reading a piece by Andrew on Obama.  He sees the president not as he is, but as he would like the Democrat to be.

And reading Andrew Sullivan today is like returning to a beloved restaurant only to learn that they have taken all your favorite dishes off the menu and replaced them with the fare served at a chain restaurant, say Arby’s.

At Ace of Spades, Maetenloch offers a somewhat snarky spin, contending that “at this point“: (more…)

“In an interview during his Senate race” in 2004, reported Lois Romano of the Washington Post in 2007, “Obama said he admitted using drugs because he thought it was important for ‘young people who are already in circumstances that are far more difficult than mine to know that you can make mistakes and still recover.’”

Now, to be sure, Mitt Romney grew up under far more fortunate circumstances than Mr. Obama, but one wonders that if the legacy media had investigated something troubling in that latter’s past, they would have spun it as the Democrat spun his cocaine use.

Mitt Romney may or may not have given his high school classmate a haircut (in a bullying manner).  He has long since stopped pulling adolescent pranks.  Given his stable marriage and an adulthood filled with abundant acts of kindness for individual in need, Mitt Romney has quite obviously become a better person these past 47 years.  So too has Barack Obama since his high school years.

Had the Washington Post bothered to report Mr. Obama’s adolescent antics, one wonders if they would have covered it as they covered his cocaine use, stressing his ability to recover from mistakes — and casting his process of maturing as an example for young people to follow.

All too many left-of-center gays have long had a crush on Barack Obama because of that (D) after his name.  And they’ve just been looking for a reason to justify their love.

And in the past twenty-four hours, our gay peers have been exulting all over Facebook how wonderful Obama is while the heads of various gay organizations call the moment historic.  ”Where Were You When Obama Made History?” gushes the National Center for Lesbian Rights Kate Kendell:

Where were you when you first heard?

I was in front of Lincoln Center (I’m in New York City this week for a meeting with other LGBT civil rights attorneys from across the country) when NCLR Deputy Director Arcelia Hurtado screamed, “He did it!”

I turned around and said, “What?” To which she replied, “Obama came out in support of marriage!” We both screamed and hugged, teary eyed. The New Yorkers walking past us didn’t care. But we knew that this was a historic and indelible moment.

At the end of her e-mail and blog post, Kate helpfully includes a button encouraging people to Donate to her outfit. A couple years back, she used her 9/11 letter to rant against right-wingers.

History?  History?  All we get is a man making a statement.  And despite the office he holds, he is putting forward no actual policies that might effect real change.  These people are just so googly-eyed about empty words from a man who specializes in such rhetoric.  Guess that’s the way it is when your schoolgirl crush blows you a kiss.

Some folks just seem to need validation from the government.  And alas, sometimes it seems that’s what the gay marriage movement is all about.  (Yet, through the writings of Jonathan Rauch as well as from the experiences of myriad gay couples, we know it’s about more than just a piece of paper or an anodyne word from a pandering politician.)

It doesn’t matter what he does or hasn’t done; it does matter that he likes us.

. . .  some folks respond by attacking Republicans instead of defending Obama*.

*or his policies.

FROM THE COMMENTS: Budding Economist and I have had similar experiences as indicated when he asks, “The second question is, why are we accused of being political for merely offering a rebuttal of the original, political comment?”

I have decided to avoid posting political pieces on Facebook, but have chosen to respond to friends’ political Facebook posts and sometimes get skewered not for the comment of my response, but for politicizing things. . . .

MORE FROM THE COMMENTS:  dot has also had similar experiences:

What bugs me is that if you make a polite rebuttal to whatever lib talking point they have posted, then are hit with a personal character attack instead of a response to your rebuttal. It’s just really annoying.

Bugs me too.

You can almost see the president pulling the trigger himself. . .

UPDATE: Here’s why I changed the title:

The White House approves of the Republican congressional campaign committee’s plan to sell a photograph of President Bush — taken hours after the September 11 attacks — to raise money for the GOP, a move Democrats call “nothing short of grotesque.”The White House photograph shows Bush aboard Air Force One, talking to Vice President Dick Cheney on the afternoon of September 11.

UPDATE: But, there’s this from the Washington Post:

President Bush’s day-old reelection advertising campaign generated criticism and controversy yesterday, as relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes charged that television commercials using images from the attacks were exploiting the tragedy for political gain.

Earlier today, Jim Hoft linked yet another video showing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dodging — and not directly answering — a reporter’s question.  Carney does this because he know he can get away with it.  His former colleagues and friends in the legacy media just won’t hold his feet to the fire.

Watch again the video I posted yesterday:

Simply put, he doesn’t answer Brett Baier’s question about the failure of the Democratic Senate to pass a budget, but instead resorting to cheap, dishonest and partisan attacks on Republicans.  Had a Republican in his position attempted this, he would earn the opprobrium of the White House press corps.  But, Carney knows he can get away with this because when it comes to covering Obama, this corps has been remarkably complacent, cooperating with rather than questioning such communicators.

And still the president lectures them: (more…)

As further evidence of the pro-administration bias of the Huffington Post, take a gander at this article they featured yesterday in their latest headlines: Olympia Snowe Gives Obama A ‘Failing’ Grade Because He Didn’t Talk To Her Enough.

They make the outgoing Maine Republican appear to be a whiny, self-important Senator, failing the president only because he wouldn’t talk to her.  Even the condescending opening line makes her seem petty, “Olympia Snowe, having decided to quit the Senate, has apparently not yet reached the stage where you quietly go away and leave everybody alone.”  (For commentary on the Senator, he turns to left-wing pundits.)

In his eagerness to note, as he put it, “the strangeness of a centrist senator”, writer Jason Linkins misses the real point of Mrs. Snowe’s lament–what her commentary reveals about Barack Obama:  the post-partisan politician’s not making an effort to work with even the most liberal Republicans.

Remember, as a candidate, the Democrat presented himself as a new kind of politician who was going to bridge the partisan divide and reach out to Republicans.  If he wasn’t talking to one of the most liberal Republican Senators, one of the two (the third would become a Democrat a few months later) to vote for his “stimulus,” then he probably wasn’t reaching out to Republicans less willing to compromise with a liberal Democratic president. (more…)

Those of us who still use AOL for e-mail have a regular window into liberal media bias. Whenever I send e-mails, the internet services company provides links to several “news” articles (a good number little more than liberal blog posts); yesterday was no exception.

They linked an article which was basically just an administration press release filtered through a left-wing blogress. The Huffington Post headlined the piece, “Newt Gingrich’s Trayvon Martin Comments Were ‘Reprehensible,’ David Plouffe Says“. Note how they lead off with the notion of the comments being reprehensible, with the name of the person as if an afterthought.

Mr. Plouffe is, as the article informs us, “President Barack Obama’s Senior Adviser”. Since when do such an advisor’s comments about a man vying for his boss’s job merit so much attention?  It’s just not newsworthy.  Maybe it might be if the reporter covered Mr. Gingrich’s reaction, but nowhere does Miss Terkel allow the former Speaker to respond to Mr. Plouffe’s criticism, nor even indicate that she sought his reaction. (In a most helpful update, she does inform us that Plouffe also “criticized former Sen. Rick Santorum’s reaction to Obama’s comments on the Martin shooting.”)

Now, there is nothing wrong with a left-wing blogress repeating White House talking points. She may well share the administration’s outlook — and has every right to express her opinion.  But her opinion is not news.

That AOL features this piece as “news” shows that their decision to purchase the Huffington Post has prevented the internet company from becoming an unbiased source of news.

It’s the deficit spending.

When I first heard that Mitt Romney had made this comment, I thought he was referencing the trouble young people have had finding jobs in this Obama economy, but then I took a listen. Interesting how he makes the comment, hesitates, then explains that young people should be concerned about the debt accumulated by this president and his party to pay for benefits to his generation, debt on which they’ll have to pay interest.

(H/t: Gateway Pundit.)

In 2008, many young people backed Obama not because of the particular policies he espoused, but because of the image he projected. Now that they’ve seen that his record in office has burdened their generation more than any other, perhaps they’ll have a change of heart this fall.

One can only hope for such a change.

Look no further than Davis Guggenheim.  As you may know this film maker provided an important public service when he, as Ace put it,

wrote, narrated, and “starred” in Waiting for Superman, the documentary that devastates the Teachers Unions and current system of government schools for dooming children to poor educations and poorer lives, and takes as its heroes the charter school and private school people trying to fight the corrupt system.

You would think that this guy would sing the praises of politicians working to create alternatives for underprivileged schoolchildren and condemn those in the pocket of said unions.  Logically then, he couldn’t possibly support Obama because not only did “the nation’s largest teachers union” endorse said Democrat, it announced its support a “year earlier than usual“.  (Pretty enthusiastic they.)  Not just that, the president’s most recent “budget proposal includes no new funding for a private school voucher program for District of Columbia students.”  (The movie lamented the limited availability of such vouchers.)

Instead of criticizing Obama for standing with one of the institutions standing in the way of real education reform, Mr. Guggenhim claims he “can’t find a single fault with Obama“, indeed produces a slick documentary for the president’s reelection campaign, lamenting that the only negative was that Obama had “too many accomplishments” and he had “17 minutes to put them all in there.”

Seems that his enthusiasm for Obama is based not on the incumbent’s record, but on something entirely different.   The facts just don’t matter to those eager to celebrate this Democrat.

Or, maybe as Ace puts it, Davis Guggenheim is about to “denounce his name-making movie Waiting for Superman as fundamentally false?”

If, back in 2008, our legacy media had taken the time to look into Sarah Palin’s actual record in Alaska politics, three names of corrupt politicians would forever be associated with her, Frank Murkowski, Greg Renkes and Randy Ruedrich.  And the reason we would associate their names with hers was not because she turned a blind eye to their double-dealing, but because she exposed it.

She stood up against corruption in her own party.  Each of those men is a Republican.  As she put it in her post yesterday on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government:

Barack Obama and I both served in political office in states with a serious corruption problem. Though there is a big difference between serving as the CEO of a city, then a state, and regulating domestic energy resources, and being a liberal Community Organizer, bear with me on the comparison. The difference between my record and Barack Obama’s is that I fought the corrupt political machine my entire career (and I have twenty years of scars to prove it) on the local, state, and national level. But Obama didn’t fight the corruption he encountered. He went along with it to advance his career.

Read the whole thing.

And yet our friends in the legacy media bought into the claim that that career Chicago poll was some new kind of politician.  They neither asked nor looked for any evidence to buttress his claims.

Sarah Palin, by contrast, had a real record of reform.  It’s just that some journalists thought her tanning bed of greater interest.

But, we’ve been through this before.  That said, it serves as an important reminder about necessary battlefield preparation for the coming presidential contest.

NB:  Tweaked the title to make it less clunky

When last night I saw the video that the late Andrew Breitbart had so hyped, I was a bit disappointed.  There was nothing new there.  We already knew that when he was a student, the president had some radical associations.

What was telling, however, was not the video of Obama himself, but the video of Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree showing the video who admitted that, “We hid this throughout the 2008 campaign. I don’t care if they find it now.”

“It’s video,” John Nolte observes (referring to the clip from Obama’s Harvard years), “no one would’ve seen, had Andrew Breitbart not decided it was time—finally!– to vet the sitting President of the United States. (For the record, this is only a portion of what Breitbart found.)”  And that’s the point.  No one would have seen the video if people outside the legacy media went rooting around for stories about Obama’s past.

In 2008, 0ur friends in the legacy media showed considerable curiosity in John McCain’s running mate, then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, dispatching countless reporters to the Last Frontier to root out the smallest detail of her personal and professional life.  By contrast, when Barack Obama catapulted onto the political scene, they did not show a similar curiosity, spending little time investigating Obama’s background.  They relied on Obama’s campaign to supply the narrative of the Democrat’s life. (more…)

Of all the liberal notions about Barack Obama, perhaps the most specious is that of his bipartisanship.  When House Democrats crafted his “stimulus,” they didn’t consult with Republicans.  Indeed, when one Republican objected to some of its provisions, he rebuked him by saying simply, “I won.”

Earlier this week, Noam Scheiber articulated the liberal notion in a post at the New Republic’s blog, quoting Mark Schmitt, once of The American Prospect, who put it thusly:

[P]erhaps we are being too literal in believing that “hope” and bipartisanship are things that Obama naively believes are present and possible, when in fact they are a tactic…

One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith [conservative] opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows.

Is this guy kidding himself?  It’s members of this conservative opposition who are putting forward solutions to our nation’s problem, as per this post today on Hot Air about a proposal to reform Medicare authored by Republicans Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Richard Burr (N.C.):

Coburn said it best when he explained to The Washington Times why they decided to release the plan in an election year, when it’s unlikely to actually go anywhere: “All of us in Congress are running around fixing everything except our biggest problem. If you don’t start fixing Medicare, you can’t save it.”

If the president were truly interesting in seeking bipartisan solutions, he would call these two men to his office and talk to them about their proposal.  He and Coburn became friends while serving together in the Senate.  And he would have called Paul Ryan last year when he put forward a plan to reform Medicare as part of a budget proposal to scale back federal spending.

But, as Michael Barone reports, though he wondered if his aides had looked at the proposals, he didn’t make any effort to contact the Republican leader himself: (more…)

By a margin of greater than 2-to-1 in 2008, voters under 30 backed Barack Obama over John McCain. Investors Business Daily offer up the grim statistics:

The unemployment rate among 18-to-24 year olds was 16.3% at the end of last year, compared with 8.8% for the rest of the working-age population. That gap in unemployment rates, the Pew study notes, is “the widest in recorded history.”

Meanwhile, the share of this population that’s managed to find work has fallen to 54.3% — the lowest level since 1948, the first year the government started collecting such data.

And they’re just getting started. Default rates on student loans have climbed. Many twentysomethings have taken unpaid work. Others have returned home to live with their parents.

(H/t Instapundit.)

One wonders what the president’s image would be if the legacy media weren’t covering for him.  ”The broadcast network evening and morning” newscasts  have yet to cover the administration’s plan to force Catholic charities and hospitals “to cover sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception without a co-pay” in their health insurance plans.

And lthough “NBC News did manage to cover Michelle Obama’s appearance on Ellen” last Thursday, Mark Hemingway reports that not a single national news program covered Attorney General Eric Holder’s congressional testimony on the Fast & Furious gunrunning scandal.  ”Nor did it make the front page of the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, or USA Today the following day.”

Instead of pressing the president on these issues, when interviewing President Obama before the Super Bowl, the Today Show’s Matt Lauer, served up, as the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard put it, “this gem“:

Mitt Romney is the guy who’s running for your job. He may eventually become the nominee. He’s a guy who’s been incredibly successful in his life and career. He’s made a lot of money. It’s not a crime. It’s part of the American Dream. Do you think though that Mitt Romney can identify with the middle class and the underclass in this country.

Seems Matt Lauer relishes playing Obama’s megaphone.