The slogan attached to NPR gabber Diane Rehm’s show is “one of her guests is always you.” Based on Rehm’s interview of Elise Labott, senior State Department producer for CNN, reality isn’t quite as welcome as you are. Consider this exchange between Rehm and Labott:

Rehm: “We do wonder whether there’s human involvement in all of these eruptions, earthquakes, storms –“

Labbot: “And how much global warming has a role in it. You know we’ve seen a lot of wacky weather but that’s just a microcosm for what’s happening around the world and how much climate change is contributing to earthquakes and volcanic ash – it’s a really good question.”

Actually, that’s the opposite of a good question. It’s an idiotic question. It’s a question that demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that mainstream media personalities are about as qualified to opine on scientific topics as Roman Polanski is to weigh in on sex education programs. (more…)

Coolest video ever:

This is San Francisco on April 14, 1906, the city of William Randolph Hearst and the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Morning Call, the Daily Evening Bulletin, of Jack London and Frank Norris, of the Palace Hotel, of men in bowler hats and three-piece suits, of streetcars, cable cars, horse-drawn wagons, bicycles, of newsboys in caps and great department stores lining Market Street and there — at the very end the road, the Embarcadero and Ferry Building.

Four days later, at 5:12 a.m., the city changed:

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MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann broke from his self-described pattern of not offering commentary, and called for an end to the media’s self-imposed editorial silence concerning the U.S. government’s response to a terrible natural disaster.

Okay, it was a different disaster during a different administration. But did you hear what he said? A week into the Hurricane Katrina recovery he declared that,

But now, at last, it has stopped getting exponentially worse…and having given our leaders what we now know is the week or so they need to get their acts together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned should come to an end.

As the chaos of recovery efforts in and around New Orleans became the big story, old media commentators fired barrages of harsh rhetoric toward President Bush and members of his administration directly involved with disaster relief. Never mind what part of that criticism was justified, and what part was driven by political preferences. It was a blend. (more…)