- South Carolina newspaper endorses Huntsman the same day news breaks that he planned to drop out and endorse Romney.

- Wherein RT/ Russia Today / Komrade Kommuniqué doesn’t deny that they are financed and controlled by the Kremlin. They also don’t deny that they made up quotes and attributed them to Dana Loesch. Also, Everything Loesch Tweets becomes their headline news. I love the Internet. I also love that Big Journalism ceremoniously spanked their entire network in one post.

(And also, they were attacked not because they linked to audio taken of her show, but because they misrepresented her remarks. Please note that Prime Minister Putin did not sanction Komrade Kommuniqué to inform you of that.)

- Litigious bullies Righthaven slammed in court, again.

- ICYDK: No, MMfA has not written about Bill Maher and his comments on the Marines. They’re hoping this all blows over before you notice.

- Politico:

CNN touts itself as the one network without a dog in any ideological fight. But in the current media climate, where commentary is king, the center is a hard place to win ratings. Despite growth in 2011, CNN remains in third placebehind the other two networks for primetime, in part because CNN can’t be relied upon to consistently satisfy conservative or liberal appetites. CNN’s response to that challenge has been to go wide rather than long, hiring voices from farther afield on the ideological spectrum rather than building up a team of independent analysts to run a conversation down the middle.

Loesch was clearly highlighting the absurdity of the response to the Marines, which is why, after her remark, she asked, “is that harsh to say?!” as a furious response to those calling for the heads of the four Marines. Of course, this is consistently omitted. CNN has done a lot of shifting to present viewers with diverse thought and their strategy is causing many folks to reconsider the network when they once flipped past it. To be honest, I didn’t start watching the network until Erick Erickson announced that he was joining and I began tuning in regularly when the network announced the hiring of Loesch and Will Cain. Further honesty: I wanted to see how the network went to town on them, whether or not they were brought in just to serve as scratching posts and token conservatives, but I was surprised, pleasantly so. Such was the diverse thought that I watched each of the CNN debates (only one of Fox’s, which was last night’s) and during the caucuses and recent primary, kept it on CNN. Granted, my mind isn’t completely made up on CNN but I feel that they’ve been making some genuine moves to increase the scope of their audience. I hope conservatives support that and I also hope that conservatives recognize that the network has consistently stood by Erickson and Loesch throughout the regular tantrums from MSNBC sympathizers like Media Matters and Mediaite.

(more…)

- Time Magazine lists as its biggest story of the year … Occupy Wall Street. Seriously.

Time Magazine serves up its year-end list, Occupy-style.

The Occupy movement has remained leaderless, amorphous and spontaneous — demonstrators carry signs advocating everything from financial reform to healthcare reform to a ban on fracking — it’s still unclear what sort of real lasting political effect the movement can have. But the sheer persistence of the occupations, galvanized by incidents of heavy-handed policing in New York and California that shocked the nation, have given the protesters’ appeals for economic justice a weight that may play a real role in the upcoming presidential election.

Really? Just the other day:

A German reporter asked Browne if he thought the Occupy movement needed its own song. “You don’t need a new song for the movement,” he said. “It’s got plenty of songs. It just needs people to show up and sing.”

He’s right. But where are they?

A lefty WaPo blogger just blew Time’s story there. The movement is already dead and there weren’t enough of them to accomplish anything in the first place.

(more…)

- Apparently, calling your viewers “bastards” may affect your ratings.

- The DNC attacks Jake Tapper for not being a lapdog.

- Mitt Romney complains to Bret Baier that Baier’s questions were “overlyaggressive.”

If Romney thinks Baier is “too aggressive,” wait until he gets a load of the Iranians. Sheesh.

- Apple TV is coming:

Apple analyst Gene Munster just reiterated his belief that Apple is going to launch a TV next year.
He made the comments at our IGNITION: Future of Media conference this morning.
In fact, Gene is so sure an Apple TV is coming that he told anyone in the audience who is thinking of buying a TV to wait, because Apple’s is going to be awesome.

- More on Gingrich vs WaPo.

(more…)

President Obama agreed to a FOX News interview in the 11th hour of his big push toward a healthcare bill in order to reach FOX’s audience of Democrats and Independents. A few of us wondered if the network would, in appreciation for the President temporarily lifting his embargo of FOX, stage a milk toast interview and lob softball questions. After all, when FOX’s Bill “I’m lookin’ out for the folks” O’Reilly finally landed an interview with candidate Obama, it was an innocuous non-event.

But in this latest FOX interview, Bret Baier showed us how a genuine professional TV journalist works.

It was clearly the President’s intent to filibuster most of the approximately 15 minutes devoted to the healthcare bill, repeating all the same talking points we’ve heard ad nauseum for a year. Obama never intended to directly answer Baier’s questions. That strategy was, to use a favorite word of his administration, transparent. (more…)

So…  what did you think? Or “deem?” Or…?

As the Poet said:

Of Man’s Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav’nly Muse,that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos…

Fox videos linked here and here.

Extra points if you can explain the “Hawaiian earthquake.”

Bonus question: will this interview — already being widely panned — turn out to be the thing that sinks “health-care reform”?