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Annotations & Elucidations

Who’s Controversial Now?

Our top story’s headline is misleading and is an excellent example of media bias. The abstinence-only speaker invited to a Henrico County high school is not causing controversy. She was invited and people may or may not attend. No student or parent said a word. It is 10 teachers and two outside groups — radical pro-abortion and homosexual advocacy organizations — who got wind of it and raised a stink. So, who’s being controversial?

On another front, Governor Tim Kaine now is staking his legacy to pre-K. It will be anything but that, but what’s amazing is that even as he shuns the liberal tag, he takes credit for a large expansion of government in the face of a backlash to that philosophy. Accordingly, Delegate Kirk Cox (R-66, Colonial Heights), the majority whip and senior member of the Appropriations Committee, broached eliminating it today on a Richmond radio station. Good for him.

Nationally, James Pethokoukis of Reuters uncovers a backdoor method Congressional Democrats and President Obama hope to raise taxes by three trillion dollars! It’s a very short, but revealing, read. Also of note, the Washington Post published a lengthy feature on Family Foundation friend Bishop Harry Jackson, who has become, perhaps, the nation’s leading defender of traditional marriage. Very much worth the read.

Finally, in news that must horrify liberals (other than an abstinence-only speaker at a high school) a CNN poll has found that 61 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funded abortion, 51 percent oppose allowing insurance policies to cover abortions, and — sit down for this liberals — between 63 and 73 percent oppose legal abortions under any circumstance except for the 2 percent of abortions done each year in the cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life is endangered. No wonder they’re reduced to protesting abstinence speakers.

News:

Abstinence-only speaker stirs controversy (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Virginia budget outlook poor; shortfall could grow (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Va. might have to cut $2.9 billion more by ‘12 (Washington Post)

Kaine cites pre-K success during his term (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Hamilton case ignites calls to overhaul ethics rules (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Allen tax plan backed by Crusade (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Analysis:

Is Obama planning a $3 trillion income tax increase? (James Pethokoukis/Political Risk Blog Reuters.com)

National:

CNN Poll: 61% Oppose Tax-Funded Abortions, 63%  Oppose All or Most Abortions (LifeNews.com)

Internal Results of CNN/Opinion Research Poll on Abortion, Health Care (CNN/Opinion Research)

Seeking to put asunder (Washington Post)

D.C. vote on gay marriage denied (Washington Times)

AP Turns Heads for Devoting 11 Reporters to Palin Book ‘Fact Check’ (FoxNews.com)

Suppose a “journalist” wrote a book featuring a candidate she was covering. How objective do you think her coverage would be? Not very. At least you could avoid reading or watching her reports. But what if she was chosen to moderate a debate — in this case, the vice presidential debate — where she already has shown open scorn for one of the candidates? Not very fair — and it wouldn’t, couldn’t happen in America, despite how openly biased the Mainstream Media is. That’s just one step too far.

Oh yeah? Thing on this: Gwen Ifill of PBS never disclosed to the Commission on Presidential Debates that she was writing a book about a new generation of black politicians, featuring Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama (and highlighting only Democrat pols), when they selected her to moderate tomorrow night’s vice presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin. The news broke today only because of people like syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin (read here).

Another good commentary on “moderator-gate” comes from digitaljournal.com, although it posted Ifill’s video plug of the book. (I viewed it for you. Nothing important, so skip it).  Bob Unruh of WorldNetDaily wrote a great report as well (click here). 

Ifill, of course, should recuse herself. Her book, which hits the bookstores on inauguration day, can only benefit from an Obama victory. Liberal columnists are countering that now Ifill will have to be fair because everyone is on to her. Right. So why wasn’t this exposed before so we could all get excited about how fair she is? Then explain how she was hoping to get away with it and why liberals aren’t raising basic ethical complaints.

No, none of that matters apparently. Forget all the pre-debate hype. That the moderator will have a massive conflict of interest, if not outright bias, and that no one is doing anything about it, is all you need to know before tomorrow night’s big show.

Not only are extreme liberals cracking up over each other on issues of birth control vs. the environment, they are whacking at each other on the most biased “news” channel ever to hit a satellite dish. If the Clinton-Obama rivalry is as bad as manifested this week on the air, live, between their MSNBC leftist-talking-point-memorizing-hack-proxies, there may be untold problems on that side of the aisle that are well beyond anyone’s comprehension. Talk about dysfunction. Laugh out loud as you read The Politico’s account of it all, here.