Howard Kurtz recently interviewed former President Jimmy Carter on CNN’s Reliable Sources. Unless there is some significant portion of the interviewing missing from the video, it has to do down as one of the most glaring oversights in the history of media navel gazing, or perhaps it was an intended slap at ABC.

“I came in at a time when the press was in the post-Watergate period, and when two reporters in ‘The Washington Post’ had become famous because they had revealed some secrets that had brought down the Nixon administration. And when I got there, shortly thereafter, I think a lot of the reporters were looking for something within my administration that might be scandalous or put them in the headlines as very notable investigative reporters.”

It’s incomprehensible to me that a serious media analyst could re-visit the Carter years media-wise and never once mention the man and network that launched a show that went on to span three decades after bringing down the Carter administration almost single-handedly.

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Rep. Andre Carson wants to change the subject.  I don’t blame him.

On April 13, 2010 he told AP reporter Jesse Washington, “I think we need to move toward a dialogue that explores why this kind of divisive and reprehensible language is still making it into our political debate.”

The “divisive and reprehensible language” that Rep. Carson is referring to is his claim that while he left the Cannon office building on March 20 with Rep. John Lewis, they were verbally assaulted by health care protesters hurling the “N-word” at them.  He said the scene was so hostile he “expected rocks to come” when he was coming out of Cannon.

I wanted to see the evidence. I wanted the truth. In the course of our search we have actually uncovered further video evidence that casts serious doubt on Rep.Carson’s claims:

Now this story is much more important than the accusation of fifteen racists among the thousands of protesters that day.  This is now about the accusers.

It’s not just that Congressmen Carson’s accusation of an extraordinary racist verbal assault by the tea party participants on March 20 doesn’t appear to have occurred, it’s that the accusers have now gone into the bunker and, having raised the incendiary subject, are doing everything they can to avoid the discussion.  Why? What’s changed? (more…)

In the past, I have claimed that the mainstream media is in bed with the Obama Administration.  This time, I mean it literally.

According to the New York Post, Obama budget boss Peter Orszag is engaged to ABC correspondent Bianna Golodryga.  Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Claire Milonas, gave birth to his illegitimate child on November 17.  Orszag is already a two-time father by his first wife (they are divorced, naturally).

Bianna Golodryga and Peter Orszag

The media is treating this whole story as a seedy morality play starring an incredibly nerdy Director of OMB.  But even though it now appears that Orszag was spreading his seed just as profligately as taxpayer money, that isn’t the real story.

The real story here is actually Bianna Golodryga and the extremely cozy relationship that sometimes develops between reporters and their sources.

Golodryga, according to her profile at ABCNews.com, covers “the economy and business beat for all of the network’s programs, including World News Tonight, Good Morning America Weekend, and Nightline… Golodryga reported extensively on the housing and credit crisis as well as the collapse of Bear Stearns.” (more…)