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1. Bush's 'Omission' of Katrina/Gulf Coast Treated as Scandalous A night after CNN anchors fretted about how Katrina and the recovering Gulf region were "thunderously missing" from President Bush's State of the Union address, CBS and NBC picked up the cause. CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric regretted on Wednesday night how "there was not one mention of Katrina, though the suffering and hardship continue." Noting that "there are still 13,000 people living in FEMA trailers," Couric asserted: "Some who lost everything are asking, 'What about us?'" Reporter Armen Keteyian, a veteran of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, featured one New Orleans man who, "like many here, watched the President's speech, his rage rising with every word." Keteyian listed how "there were 5,596 words in the President's speech last night," and insisted that "reaction to the fact that not a single one was either Katrina or Louisiana was felt...all across the Gulf." Kateyian concluded with how "words like 'relief' and 'recovery' now seem as empty to them as last night's presidential address." 2. PBS's Pundits Agree Democrat Webb Eloquent, 'A Star Is Born' Leftists always complain that FNC's Hannity & Colmes is a perpetually uneven match, a game of Strong vs. Weak where Sean Hannity always gets to be more aggressive and that other Colmes fellow is timid. On the PBS NewsHour, the situation is reversed. Mark Shields is the Hannity that always sounds a strong partisan tone, and David Brooks is the timid guy, willing to tone it down for the face time and, as Bill Clinton once put it, "preserve his viability" within the network he's on. After the State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Shields remembered Bill Clinton's 1998 speech as a "rhetorical home run" and really drove home how great that prickly Jim Webb was: "I think that the old line that freshmen should be seen and not heard was totally repealed and revoked." After lauding the Webb speech's eloquence and memorability, Brooks helpfully added: "Mark said 'A star is born.'" 3. SOTU Tradition: Wash Post's Shales Praises Kennedy's Good Looks In his review of Tuesday night's State of the Union address, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales praised the performance of Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, who apparently did a fine job of sitting in his chair and looking senatorial. "He looks so venerable and distinguished by now that it's hard to get a bad picture of him," Shales gushed. "In fact he seems more and more to resemble Claude Rains as a veteran white-haired senator in Frank Capra's classic movie 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.' Life imitating art's imitation of life." Three years ago, Shales was similarly ecstatic at Kennedy's ability to strike a pose. "The best reaction shots were those of Ted Kennedy, whose stature seems to grow right along with his nose year after year after year. Kennedy has now reached a grand moment in the life of a senator; he looks like Hollywood itself cast him in the role," Shales wrote after the 2004 State of the Union. "Kennedy looked great, like he was ready to take his place next to Jefferson on Mount Rushmore. 4. Cheney to Blitzer: 'You're Out of Line' on Inquiry About Daughter On Wednesday's Situation Room on CNN, during an interview with Dick Cheney taped earlier at the Vice President's office, Wolf Blitzer quizzed Cheney about the month-old story of the pregnancy of his lesbian daughter, Mary. Cheney bluntly responded to the CNN anchor: "I think you're out of line with that question." That comment came after Blitzer, who appeared to be attempting to drive a wedge between conservatives and the Vice President, quoted a Focus on the Family statement, from December 6. 5. Walters: 'Hooray' for Pelosi; O'Donnell Urges Impeachment of Bush On Wednesday's The View, the morning after the State of the Union address, Barbara Walters oozed about how it was a "treat to see the first female Speaker of the House" as she hailed Nancy Pelosi with a hearty fist-raised "hooray" while Rosie O'Donnell sang "I am woman, hear me roar," O'Donnell denounced Bush for praising the subway hero when he sends Americans "to die in Iraq," Joy Behar charged that Bush's insistence on the surge in the face of public opposition means the U.S. is "not a democracy anymore" and that led O'Donnell to urge Bush's impeachment. O'Donnell asserted that "someone, I believe, should call for the impeachment of George Bush" so "the world knows that the nation is not standing behind this President's choices, that the nation, a democracy, feels differently than the man who is leading as if it were a dictatorship, and that we represent this country, he does not lead as a monarch." Behar chipped in: "Amen." 6. "Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Boost His Popularity" Letterman's "Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Boost His Popularity." Bush's 'Omission' of Katrina/Gulf Coast Treated as Scandalous A night after CNN anchors fretted about how Katrina and the recovering Gulf region were "thunderously missing" from President Bush's State of the Union address, CBS and NBC picked up the cause. CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric regretted on Wednesday night how "there was not one mention of Katrina, though the suffering and hardship continue." Noting that "there are still 13,000 people living in FEMA trailers," Couric asserted: "Some who lost everything are asking, 'What about us?'" Reporter Armen Keteyian, a veteran of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, featured one New Orleans man who, "like many here, watched the President's speech, his rage rising with every word." Keteyian listed how "there were 5,596 words in the President's speech last night," and insisted that "reaction to the fact that not a single one was either Katrina or Louisiana was felt...all across the Gulf." Kateyian concluded with how "words like 'relief' and 'recovery' now seem as empty to them as last night's presidential address." Leading into an image of a headline in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "New Orleans left out of president's script," as if a local newspaper story should have national import, David Gregory highlighted on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News: "That focus on Iraq, and the political toll it's taken, has led the White House to divert its attention from other priorities -- like rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina. Last night, not a word. The omission was headline news." [This item was posted Wednesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] A Wednesday CyberAlert item, "CNN: Katrina 'Thunderously Missing' from Bush Speech, Gulf Residents 'Upset,'" outlined the distress expressed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper: www.mrc.org The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video for the January 24 CBS Evening News story: Katie Couric: "In his State of the Union Address, President Bush took note of the unrest in Lebanon as well as the suffering in Darfur, but there was not one mention of Katrina, though the suffering and hardship continue. The federal government has spent $80 billion on recovery efforts in the Gulf region, but there are still 13,000 people living in FEMA trailers. And as chief investigative reporter Armen Keteyian reports, some who lost everything are asking, 'What about us?'"
Armen Keteyian: "It sits on a flat gravel mud-soaked lot, the irony of the name ["Mt. Olive Gardens"] not lost on its residents. Seventeen months after Katrina, nearly 200 people uprooted by a hurricane still live in Mt. Olive Gardens, whole families packed into 200 square foot FEMA trailers they now call home."
PBS's Pundits Agree Democrat Webb Eloquent, 'A Star Is Born' Leftists always complain that FNC's Hannity & Colmes is a perpetually uneven match, a game of Strong vs. Weak where Sean Hannity always gets to be more aggressive and that other Colmes fellow is timid. On the PBS NewsHour, the situation is reversed. Mark Shields is the Hannity that always sounds a strong partisan tone, and David Brooks is the timid guy, willing to tone it down for the face time and, as Bill Clinton once put it, "preserve his viability" within the network he's on. After the State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Shields remembered Bill Clinton's 1998 speech as a "rhetorical home run" and really drove home how great that prickly Jim Webb was: "I think that the old line that freshmen should be seen and not heard was totally repealed and revoked." After lauding the Webb speech's eloquence and memorability, Brooks helpfully added: "Mark said 'A star is born.'" [This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Wednesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
After Bush's speech was over, Shields had this impression: Shields would make a lousy newspaper editor. After the Webb address, it became quite apparent that Shields wasn't just pro-Webb. He was fast friends with Webb.
Lehrer: "Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, making the Democratic response. What did you think of that, Mark?" Brooks noted that Webb's position for aggressive withdrawal or "redeployment" was not the unanimous Democrat position, but it was pushed forward by his speech. Lehrer turned it back to Shields:
Lehrer: "Do you agree? The party got pushed forward on Iraq tonight?" Lehrer was either out of time or loved that answer as the last word: "David, Mark, thank you very much."
SOTU Tradition: Wash Post's Shales Praises Kennedy's Good Looks In his review of Tuesday night's State of the Union address, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales praised the performance of Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, who apparently did a fine job of sitting in his chair and looking senatorial. "He looks so venerable and distinguished by now that it's hard to get a bad picture of him," Shales gushed. "In fact he seems more and more to resemble Claude Rains as a veteran white-haired senator in Frank Capra's classic movie 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.' Life imitating art's imitation of life."
The January 24 piece by Shales on the front of the "Style" section: www.washingtonpost.com [This item, by Rich Noyes, was posted Wednesday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] But after the 2002 State of the Union, when Kennedy had the more arduous task of standing to receive a presidential compliment, Shales was less enthusiastic: "As the cherry on the sundae, he [President Bush] acknowledged the help of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and praised him, which brought Kennedy to his feet smiling to the cheers of the crowd. Kennedy looked hale and robust, though one couldn't help notice a certain resemblance to SpongeBob SquarePants, the popular Nickelodeon cartoon character." Oh, and as for the actual speech-giver, Shales was tepid: "George W. Bush flirted with eloquence only at the end of his so-so, nuts-and-bolts State of the Union speech last night....As seen on all the major and minor networks, the speech was workmanlike and the presentation presentable." But that pink, puffy, sleepy Ted Kennedy -- he sure can sit, can't he?
Cheney to Blitzer: 'You're Out of Line' on Inquiry About Daughter On Wednesday's Situation Room on CNN, during an interview with Dick Cheney taped earlier at the Vice President's office, Wolf Blitzer quizzed Cheney about the month-old story of the pregnancy of his lesbian daughter, Mary. Cheney bluntly responded to the CNN anchor: "I think you're out of line with that question." That comment came after Blitzer, who appeared to be attempting to drive a wedge between conservatives and the Vice President, quoted a Focus on the Family statement, from December 6. [This item, by Scott Whitlock, was posted with video late Wednesday afternoon on the MRC blog. The audio/video will be added to the posted version of this CyberAlert. But in the meantime, to listen to the MP3 audio or to watch the Real or Windows Media video, go to: newsbusters.org ] A transcript of the segment in question, which aired at about 5:35pm EST on January 24:
Wolf Blitzer: "Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family: 'Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child.' Do you want to respond to that?"
Walters: 'Hooray' for Pelosi; O'Donnell Urges Impeachment of Bush On Wednesday's The View, the morning after the State of the Union address, Barbara Walters oozed about how it was a "treat to see the first female Speaker of the House" as she hailed Nancy Pelosi with a hearty fist-raised "hooray" while Rosie O'Donnell sang "I am woman, hear me roar," O'Donnell denounced Bush for praising the subway hero when he sends Americans "to die in Iraq," Joy Behar charged that Bush's insistence on the surge in the face of public opposition means the U.S. is "not a democracy anymore" and that led O'Donnell to urge Bush's impeachment. O'Donnell's chastisement of Bush for daring to pay tribute to Wesley Autrey: "I think it's interesting, too, that he wants to hail this hero in New York, who is obviously a great man, who saved a stranger's life. One man's life, worth it. But he sends 20,000 new Americans over to die in Iraq." O'Donnell soon asserted that "someone, I believe, should call for the impeachment of George Bush" so "the world knows that the nation is not standing behind this President's choices, that the nation, a democracy, feels differently than the man who is leading as if it were a dictatorship, and that we represent this country, he does not lead as a monarch." Behar chipped in: "Amen." [This item was posted late Wednesday night, with two video clips, on the MRC's NewsBusters blog. The two audio/video clips, of Walter and O'Donnell gushing over Pelosi and of O'Donnell urging Bush's impeachment, will be added to the posted version of this CyberAlert. But in the meantime, to listen to the MP3 audio or to watch the Real or Windows Media video, go to: newsbusters.org ] The MRC's Brad Wilmouth provided a transcript of the relevant exchanges during the "hot topics" segment of the January 24 edition of the ABC daytime show, The View:
Rosie O'Donnell: "You were watching the State of the Union?" Seconds later:
Joy Behar: "Also, 'In conclusion' was my favorite [tech difficulties] when he said that."
O'Donnell: "I thought it was interesting. I watched it when I got home on TiVo, you know, with the list fast forward button. But I thought it was interesting that he's talking about health care and, you know, where were these ideas six years ago, number one? And number two, had we not spent $800 billion invading Iraq, we could have fixed all the issues he spoke about in the first two hours."
"Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Boost His Popularity" From the January 24 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Boost His Popularity." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com 10. Hang Saddam again 9. Improve focus by removing Playstation 3 from Oval Office 8. Develop steamy "Will they or won't they?" relationship with Nancy Pelosi 7. Make people believe there's a waffle shortage; then when people see waffles in the supermarket, he'll be a hero! 6. Turn weekly radio address into wacky morning zoo 5. Redecorate Oval Office to look like the set of "The View" -- People love "The View"! 4. Resign 3. Convene blue ribbon panel to find out what the hell is wrong with Paula Abdul 2. Nail a heavyset intern 1. Deploy 20,000 troops to put underpants on Britney Spears
-- Brent Baker
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