Rap star Kanye West bashed former President George W. Bush on Saturday while apologizing to country singer Taylor Swift for his appalling behavior at last year's MTV Video Awards.

Our story begins with West making a fool of himself - again! - when he interrupted Swift last September during her acceptance speech for best female music video of 2009 (right).

With the 2010 Awards quickly approaching, West must have felt it necessary to make amends.

As People.com reported moments ago, West took to Twitter early Saturday morning issuing a bizarre stream of consciousness apology:

"I wrote a song for Taylor Swift that's so beautiful and I want her to have it," he said on his Twitter Saturday morning. "If she won't take it then I'll perform it for her."

West's actual Twitter account doesn't show any of these tweets. However, the People links do indicate the activity being reported suggesting West has since taken them down:

Nearly a year since he first apologized to Swift, the hip-hop artist is still offering up I'm sorries, calling her "justa lil girl with dreams like the rest of us" on his Twitter.

"She deserves the apology more than anyone," he Tweeted, before thanking the creators of Twitter for making a public platform for expression.

"We're both artist[s] and the media and managers are trying to get between us. Everyone wants to capitalize off this [in] some way." 

Maybe even more delicious, MTV.com reported some other tweets People missed:

Expounding on the backlash he received, he wrote, "If you Google a--hole my face may very well pop up 2 pages into the search. ... There are people who don't dislike me ... they absolutely hate me. People tweeted that they wish I was dead ... No listen. They wanted me to die, people. I carry that."

I was indeed hoping his face would appear in such a Google search. Unfortunately, no. But I digress:

Kanye went on to say that the media vilified him. He alluded to his claim during a 2005 NBC telethon for Hurricane Katrina that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," as a point for which the media was looking to pay him back. He noted that in the VMA aftermath, the media played the race card and turned it into an angry black man versus innocent white girl issue.

"Even though the NBC telethon was widely praised y'all didn't think they was just gone let me get away with that did y'all???!!!" he questioned, rhetorically. "The media has successfully diminished the 'receptive' audience of... KANYE WEST. ...taking a 15 second blip the media have successfully painted the image of the 'ANGRY BLACK MAN.' The King Kong theory. With the help of strong will, a lack of empathy, a lil alcohol and extremely distasteful & bad timing ... I became George Bush over night."

I was wondering when he'd take to bashing Bush. For those that have forgotten, this was West during the aforementioned Hurricane Katrina telethon in September 2005:

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food. And you know that it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV, because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before I've even given a donation. So now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help with the set up the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way, and they have given them permission to go down and shoot us...George Bush doesn't care about black people.

Makes one wonder how much alcohol and "extremely distasteful & bad timing" it took for West to again make an "a--hole" of himself.

Actually, it should now be apparent that this isn't that difficult for him. 

The following headline appeared at Time.com shortly after the release of Friday's jobs report:

What's Good About Rising Unemployment

What should jump out at the eagle-eyed reader is that headline didn't end with a question mark.

Time senior writer Stephen Gandel was actually making the case that the rising unemployment rate was good news.

Watch just how far a liberal media member is willing to go today to make economic data look favorable for the Party currently in power, and imagine the unlikelihood of such a thing happening if a Republican was in the White House (h/t Rusty Weiss):

The unemployment rate, probably the most famous of economic gauges, may actually be a very bad indicator of how healthy the economy is. [...]

The unemployment rate peaked in late 2009 at just above 10% and has been mostly falling ever since. But the hiring numbers, or less firing numbers, have only been improving recently. So what was going on? The unemployment rate tracks not just how many people have jobs, but how many people are looking for jobs. And, up until August, the number of people looking for jobs was dropping rapidly.

Really? And just how did Gandel reach that conclusion?

Here is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' table of folks 16 and over currently out of the labor force but wanting a job now:

As is plainly visible, the number of folks out of the labor force but wanting work has been fluctuating between 5.61 million and 6.31 million since last August. It did experience a large drop in May, but has pretty much been rising since and is now basically where it was in April and January.

As such, claiming that "up until August, the number of people looking for jobs was dropping rapidly" is utter nonsense not supported by the data. In fact, this number is basically right back to where it was last September.

With that in mind, let's continue:

When people give up looking for work, essentially giving up on the economy, that indicates a really bad drop in confidence, something a recovery feeds on. So the reason the unemployment rate was rising has less to do with more people getting jobs, and more to do with fewer people looking.

Is this really a senior writer? 

Let's walk through that last sentence again: "So the reason the unemployment rate was rising has less to do with more people getting jobs..."

Huh? The unemployment rate is a simple arithmetic equation whereby the number of people unemployed is divided by the number of people considered part of the labor force. 

Using data just released Friday, there are currently 14.86 million people considered unemployed. The labor force is 154.11 million. This produces an unemployment rate of 9.64 percent.

Now, when people get jobs, the number considered unemployed declines reducing the numerator and therefore decreasing the unemployment rate.

As such, to claim rising unemployment has less to do with more people getting jobs makes absolutely no sense.

On the other hand, the final part of that sentence "and more to do with fewer people looking" needs to be addressed.

"Discouraged workers" - those out of the labor force but wanting a job - can have a huge impact on the unemployment rate.

The way these numbers are calculated, you are only considered unemployed and part of the labor force if you're actively looking for work. As such, when folks give up their search, it reduces the number of unemployed and the labor force by an equal amount.

Once again going back to simple arithmetic, a decrease in the numerator and denominator by an equal amount results in a lower ratio.

2 divided by 3 equals .67; 1 divided by 2 equals .5.

With this in mind, the unemployment rate can decline simply by discouraged job seekers ending their search. This has happened a number of times in the past few years.

Conversely, discouraged workers re-entering the labor force can cause the unemployment rate to rise. An increase in the numerator and denominator by equal amounts produces a higher result.

Gandel claimed this is what happened last month:

According to today's report, 550,000 people entered the workforce in August. That's a huge jump of new people looking for work, either because they haven't worked before or because they decided that this was the month to get back off the couch and start looking. With that many people entering the workforce, the fact that the unemployment number only rose 0.1% is quite a good thing. In fact, more than half of those people who began looking for work in August, or 290,000, landed a job in August. 

I agree that this this could be good news, but not necessarily for the same reason.

To make the case that the big jump in the labor force in August was even partially due to discouraged workers starting to look for work again goes against the data as the number of people out of the labor force and wanting work now increased by 86,000.

It goes without saying that if this huge increase in the labor force was caused by discouraged workers re-entering it, the number of discouraged workers wanting work should have declined.

But that's not what happened.

Instead, it appears the August data might have been confounded by seasonalities and the associated adjustments.

As employment watchers are painfully aware, there are seasonal changes in the jobs market that make for wild shifts in the numbers depending on the month.

The summer is a particularly volatile period with teachers out of work, students taking part-time jobs, and graduates getting full-time positions.

To smooth out the data, the Labor Department makes adjustments to the raw figures each month; the headline numbers are always "seasonally adjusted."

However, these manipulations at times present a peculiar picture of the labor market. As Gandel correctly pointed out:

It is possible that coming at the end of the summer an uptick in people looking for work is not as positive as it appears. This is the time of year, after two hot months, when recent graduates start to actually think about their future and send out resumes. And you can image many other out of work people deciding to take off looking for a job in the summer. In August, with the summer ending, some of those people started looking again in earnest.

Exactly. As such, the uptick in the labor force might have had little to do with discouraged workers beginning a new search as he suggested earlier. 

In fact, the unadjusted data actually showed a 600,000 decline in the labor force as well as an almost 400,000 decrease in the number of people unemployed.

This means the August data could easily be confounded by seasonalities and their related adjustments thereby offering a fuzzy picture about what any of this means going forward.

This is not to say Friday's report wasn't better than expected.

Over the past couple of weeks, signs had been pointing to a much worse economic conditions leading analysts to ratchet down their estimates for these numbers. As a result, what the BLS released Friday was certainly better than the gloomiest predictions out there.

But, calling this clearly mixed bag "good news" should be left to the administration and the Party currently controlling Congress and not so depicted by a so-called journalist.  

This seems especially true given that these exact same numbers would certainly not have been reported with such optimism when George W. Bush was in the White House.

Or have you forgotten the media's favorite economic term during his presidency "jobless recovery?"

For almost two years, Sarah Palin has been complaining about media members making things up about her.

On Friday, one finally admitted it.

As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, Vanity Fair's October issue has a hit piece on its cover about the former Alaska governor that Palin-hating press members have been predictably fawning and gushing over.

Now, the Associated Press is reporting that the author, Michael Joseph Gross, has admitted making a mistake in his piece:

Reporter Michael Joseph Gross describes Palin's youngest son, Trig, being pushed in a stroller by his older sister, Piper, before a rally in May in the Kansas City suburb of Independence.

"When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008," according to the article. "Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage."

Later in his piece, Gross described Piper joining Sarah on stage to "allow Palin to make a public display of maternal affection." 

Unfortunately, as Politico's Ben Smith reported Thursday, that was a different Down syndrome baby:

Trig wasn't at the event, according to its organizer, Karladine Graves, a 61-year-old Kansas City physician, who, in 2009, founded one of the wave of new local conservative groups, this one called Preserving American Liberty. The "woman, perhaps a nanny," was the boy's mother, St. Louis talk radio host Gina Loudon, according to Graves.

But it gets worse according to the AP:

The mother of that child, conservative activist Gina Loudon, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that she told Gross during the rally that the child in the stroller was her son, not Palin's. She said she tried to make it clear because the two children look a lot alike.

"I told him that. And he ignored it," Loudon said. "It's not even like he didn't fact check - he just ignored facts."

Now, Gross has admitted it:

Gross said in a written statement sent to The Associated Press that he was mistaken.

"Trig was with his mother the next day in Wichita (Kan.), but the child in Independence was someone else, and I regret the error," he said.

He regrets the error?

No he doesn't. He regrets getting caught, for as Smith wrote Thursday, this has been a modus operandi for dishonest media members like Gross for two years:

[T]he Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin is so emblematic of much that's wrong about the way she's covered that it's worth returning to, and I've learned that the its long wind-up is based on fundamental confusion about which of Palin's children was at an event in Kansas City.

Palin almost never talks to neutral media outlets, leaving her - as critics accurately note - subject to none of the questions, challenges  and reality checks that the political press puts regularly to almost every other national political figure. She takes a lot of heat for this, deservedly.

But with the hunger for information about her, and the traffic she drives, the press sometimes compensates by printing such thinly sourced, badly reported nonsense about her that it's hard to imagine it making it into a serious magazine like Vanity Fair if it concerned any other figure. Of course, this might not happen if she spoke to reporters, but that's no excuse.

Yeah it is, Ben, for what's the point of talking to the press if they're going to just make stuff up?

Of course, this is the kind of yellow journalism by "impotent, limp, gutless reporters" Palin ridiculed while chatting with Sean Hannity Wednesday, and is why it's difficult to believe any of the nonsense about her in the media.

Vanity Fair should be so proud of itself. 

What follows indicates that at least one limit has been found to the establishment press's willingness to serve as this government's official apologists.

Not surprisingly, it relates to Iraq. The press obviously and bitterly opposed the war from the start, to the point of doctoring photographs, making stuff up, pretending that its sources knew what they were talking about when they didn't, and ignoring enemy atrocities and Saddam Hussein's mass graves for years, while often having their journalistic failures and biases exposed by milbloggers and bloggers. So if one were to have guessed ahead of time where a clear break might occur, Iraq would have been a leading choice.

That break comes in an AP email to staff from "Standards Editor" Tom Kent. He must have or at least should have known that its contents would get out. Jim Romenesko at Poynter Online (HT Legal Insurrection) appears to have posted it first, about 16 hours after Kent hit the "send" button:

Subject: Standards Center guidance: The situation in Iraq

Colleagues,

... we should be correct and consistent in our description of what the situation in Iraq is. This guidance summarizes the situation and suggests wording to use and avoid.

To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months. Iraqi security forces are still fighting Sunni and al-Qaida insurgents. Many Iraqis remain very concerned for their country's future despite a dramatic improvement in security, the economy and living conditions in many areas.

As for U.S. involvement, it also goes too far to say that the U.S. part in the conflict in Iraq is over. President Obama said Monday night that "the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country."

However, 50,000 American troops remain in country. Our own reporting on the ground confirms that some of these troops, especially some 4,500 special operations forces, continue to be directly engaged in military operations. These troops are accompanying Iraqi soldiers into battle with militant groups and may well fire and be fired on.

... Our stories about Iraq should make clear that U.S. troops remain involved in combat operations alongside Iraqi forces, although U.S. officials say the American combat mission has formally ended. We can also say the United States has ended its major combat role in Iraq, or that it has transferred military authority to Iraqi forces. We can add that beyond U.S. boots on the ground, Iraq is expected to need U.S. air power and other military support for years to control its own air space and to deter possible attack from abroad.

Unless there is balancing language, our content should not refer to the end of combat in Iraq, or the end of U.S. military involvement. Nor should it say flat-out (since we can't predict the future) that the United States is at the end of its military role.

Tom

William Jacobsen's reaction at Legal Insurrection: "AP Calls Obama A Liar."

Well, it's clear that AP is asserting that Obama is at least not telling the truth in this instance. Whether it becomes a more global assertion about the President himself based on the plethora of dishonesty the wire service is still willing to swallow from this President and his apparatchiks on domestic as well as foreign policy matters remains to be seen.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: George W. Bush talks about Patriot Golf Day:

Thoughts?

Newsweek has once again gone over the top in their support of Barack Obama, but at least the cover reflects that Obama's popularity is collapsing. It's called the "The Making of a Terrorist-Coddling, Warmongering, Wall Street-Loving, Socialistic, Godless, Muslim President." There's an asterisk that leads to the note "who isn't actually any of these things."

Perhaps to be true to their fanboy image, they should just leave that Obama photo on their logo every week. Liberals hate the cover already. Take Michael Shaw on The Huffington Post: "So, the question is, how much more is this desperate-to-stay-in-business "news" publication going to pander to the haters and the far-right crazies as we hurtle through the mid-term sprint?"

The cover story by Jonathan Alter comes with the whining subhead "Obama’s enemies have painted him as an alien threat. Can he fight the flight from facts?"

His enemies—and even some of his ostensible allies—have been busy for three years painting Obama as some kind of alien threat. His name, race, exotic upbringing, and determination to reach out to moderate Muslims have given those who would delegitimize him a fresh palette of dark colors. The caricatures are almost comical, as the president himself recognizes. “Some folks say, ‘Well, you know, he’s not as cool as he was,’?” Obama said at a May fundraiser in California. “?‘When they had all the posters around and everything.’ Now I’ve got a Hitler mustache on the posters. That’s quite a change.”

Our maddening times demand that the truth be forthrightly stated at the outset, and not just that the president has nothing in common with the führer beyond the possession of a dog. The outlandish stories about Barack Hussein Obama are simply false: he wasn’t born outside the United States (the tabloid “proof” has been debunked as a crude forgery); he has never been a Muslim (he was raised by an atheist and became a practicing Christian in his 20s); his policies are not “socialist” (he explicitly rejected advice to nationalize the banks and wants the government out of General Motors and Chrysler as quickly as possible); he is not a “warmonger” (he promised in 2008 to withdraw from Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan and has done so); he is neither a coddler of terrorists (he has already ordered the killing of more “high value” Qaeda targets in 18 months than his predecessor did in eight years), nor a coddler of Wall Street (his financial-reform package, while watered down, was the most vigorous since the New Deal), nor an enemy of American business (he and the Chamber of Commerce favor tax credits for small business that were stymied by the GOP to deprive him of a victory). And that’s just the short list of lies. 

 "We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War....If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974." -- Newsweek's Jonathan Alter in a "Web-exclusive commentary" posted on December 19, 2005 on the Newsweek website.

 "In the words of one of his [Ayatollah Sistani’s] aides, ‘the representation of our Sunni brethren in the coming government must be effective, regardless of the results of the elections.’ As an Iraqi politician said to me, ‘There are currently two Grand Ayatollahs running Iraq: Sistani and Bush. Most of us feel that Sistani is the more rational.’" -- Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria in a column published in the magazine’s January 24, 2005 edition.

"[Russia’s Vladimir Putin is] the only one of those leaders who goes in there [the G8 summit] with a commanding popularity among his own people, because he is perceived to be an effective dictator. What we have in this country is a dictator who’s ineffective." -- Newsweek contributing editor Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group, July 15, 2006.

I wish they would look into their souls a little bit, is that if they convey over and over again that the president of the United States is weak, what does that do? It emboldens the terrorists. And I don`t say that lightly. But think of -- think of terrorists overseas and -- or at home, who might be plotting an attack. If they think that the president is weak, which he is not. He`s manifestly not. He's killed twice as many of them [as Bush].

The blame for this extends from Fox News and the Republican leadership, to the peculiar psychology of resentment in public opinion, to the ham-handed political response of the Obama White House. Whatever the cause, if smash-mouth tactics are validated by huge GOP gains in the midterm elections, then Big Lie politics may be with us for good.

In some ways, it has always been with us, going back to the 18th-century calumny of James Callender against John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. More recently, the Rev. Jerry Falwell sponsored a film that falsely accused President Clinton of ordering murders and dealing drugs.

What’s changed about politics as a contact sport is the reach of the lies. With the exception of Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic “radio priest” of the 1930s, reactionaries haven’t generally had big audiences. But now the cranks who once could do little more than write ranting letters to the editor on the red ribbons of their typewriters (loaded with exclamation points and in all caps, of course) can spread their venom virally, with the help of right-wing billionaires underwriting their organizations. And while the cable network they watch, Fox News, might not actively promote the idea that the president is a foreign-born Muslim, it does little to knock it down. Fox often covers Obama’s place of birth and religion more as matters of opinion than of fact.

Translation: Fox News may not spread lies all the time, but they're clearly not doing enough to please the White House by sounding exactly like Newsweek. Again, this is a terrible standard for Alter to claim for Newsweek. It's quite easy to recall how Newsweek would do anything to smear a Republican. In 1991, Alter and Clift endorsed a Kitty Kelley standard of truth for Republican presidents: if a mere fraction of anonymously sourced nastiness about the Reagans was true, the Reagans were a historical nightmare: 

 "If privacy ends where hypocrisy begins, Kitty Kelley's steamy expose of Nancy Reagan is a contribution to contemporary history." -- Newsweek Washington reporter Eleanor Clift, April 15.

"If even a small fraction of the material amassed and borrowed here turns out to be true, Ronald Reagan and his wife had to be among the most hypocritical people ever to live in the White House. Anyone who vaguely followed the events of his administration already knew that. But millions of others still don't. While Kitty Kelley's sensationalism may undermine their ability to find and believe the truth, her popularity may encourage them to explore more of the real history of that era without her." -- Newsweek media reporter Jonathan Alter, April 22 issue.

In short, the idea that Newsweek has any ground at all to stand on in the "flight from facts" narrative, or "smearing a president" narrative, is ludicrous. Look at the facts. Newsweek's take on the facts is transparently partisan. Any objective media watcher would say it's at least as partisan as Alter thinks Fox News is.

Children today are often so voracious and versed in the latest communications technology that they make their parents feel like Miles Standish and Betsy Ross. Three-fourths of young people between 12 and 17 now own cell phones, reports the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  And get this: 87 percent of those who send text messages told researchers that they sleep with or next to their phones. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, and one in three send more than 100, or more than 3,000 texts a month. By contrast, only 30 percent of teenagers talk on those caveman “land line” phones.

But all this cell-phone (not to mention Internet) usage carries new risks – even new crimes.

Last year, the hot trend was sexting – teenagers sending each other lascivious messages (and often nude or semi-nude photographs). If a teenaged boy received a nude photo of a friend and e-mailed it to buddies or posted it on a Facebook or MySpace page, there was the very real possibility of being prosecuted for distributing child pornography.

Now there’s a new and related crime in the court houses. It’s called “sextortion.”

Federal prosecutors and child safety advocates are warning of an upswing in online sexual blackmail. Associated Press cited a case in Indianapolis where three teenage girls with a webcam yielded to online peer pressure to flash their breasts. A week later, one Indiana girl started getting threatening e-mails that her topless image would be sent to her friends on MySpace unless she posed for more explicit photos – and even videos – for him. This girl complied with his blackmail threats twice – and then the police and federal officials stepped in and indicted a 19-year-old male in Maryland.

The victims might not even be in high school yet. The New Haven Register reported police received a complaint last November involving topless photos taken via webcam of a Conneticut girl “under 15 years old.” A 17-year-old Canadian boy was arrested in Montreal for threatening to post pictures he took over a webcam connection, demanding the young girl perform sex acts in front of the camera or he would post her topless picture on Facebook.

Young men are now facing years in prison for this “sextortion.” In Alabama, Jonathan Vance, 24, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April after he confessed to sending threatening e-mails extorting nude photos from more than 50 young women in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Missouri. In Wisconsin, 18-year-old Anthony Stancl deceitfully posed as a girl on Facebook to trick high school classmates into sending him nude photos, which he then used to extort girls for sex. He received a 15-year sentence.

In California, federal officials say one 31-year-old man even stooped to remotely activating some girls' webcams without their knowledge and recorded them undressing or having sex.

Teenagers are obviously more vulnerable to blackmail because most parents would be shocked to learn their children are flashing their private parts on cell phones or Internet sites. One survey found 20 percent of teenagers and 33 percent of young adults aged 20 to 26 said they had sent or posted nude or semi-nude photos of themselves. AP quoted attorney Parry Aftab to sum it all up about this growing trend of online exhibitionism: "Kids are putting their head in the lion's mouth every time they do this.”

How sad it is for teens today. Innocence is gone. It’s impossible to avoid the omnipresence of sex in our popular culture, especially youth culture. It’s one thing for teenagers to feel like they’re sexually hyperactive. It’s another for every executive making TV shows, movies, and pop songs to multiply that thought endlessly to enrich themselves. 

Even sexting is a trendy TV topic. Last season on the hit Fox show “Glee,” one cheerleader boasted to another that her sex texts were impossibly hot, as if this kind of cellular titillation is what every cool cheerleader should be doing. 

The entertainment industry – including the social-media websites – are forcing parents to develop a whole new sophistication, telling children that they should never submit to posing for anything that they wouldn’t want parents, teachers, and ministers to see on the Internet. 

This “sextortion” trend is nastier than mere sexting, because one momentary mistake by an otherwise moral child can lead her down a path from bending to peer pressure to involuntarily becoming an online sex slave. One mistake.

Nationally syndicated liberal radio host Thom Hartmann is no Keith Olbermann -- he's not allergic to conservatives on his show. But that doesn't mean he's kind, or even fair. Focus on the Family has a new "True Tolerance" campaign focused on stopping school bullying -- against everyone -- but without programs that promote moral acceptance of homosexuality. FOTF's Candi Cushman appeared on CNN this week to debate this, but Anderson Cooper wasn't half as rough as Hartmann on Thursday afternoon. He mentioned that gay teens are much more likely to attempt suicide than straight teens and then just asked Cushman, point blank: "How many more children will have to die before you guys back off?"

This, in itself, is a form of bullying. You must accept left-wing lesson plans formulated by Obama "safe schools" czar Kevin Jennings and his group GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) or you favor gay teen suicide. Like a typical liberal, Hartmann wants the liberal, secular worldview on sexuality taught because it's based on "science" and the opposing conservative view is infected by religion, which must not be allowed to inform a viewpoint anywhere in a public school. He lectured Cushman:

The reason why I don't want your viewpoints promoted in school is, a) they're not based in science, they're based in religion, and I believe in a separation of church and state, and b) taken to the extreme, maybe not yours but many of the people in your movement, what they do is they cause more kids to commit suicide...I think that you and the work that you're doing and the people who you're associated with are creating an environment that is killing our children. 

Hartmann has provided yet another example of how liberal talk radio is not a reasonable or civil space to discuss and debate issues. It's far too often a forum for mudslinging of the most vicious kind.

The Labor Department announced the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a point, to 9.6 percent in August so, as the AP noted, it “has exceeded 9 percent for 16 straight months,” while the economy lost 54,000 jobs. Yet, without avoiding the dire numbers, ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find a “mixed picture,” “mixed bag” or even a “silver lining” for President Obama and Democrats two months before election day.

“It's a mixed picture here, but it's giving some encouragement to those who are out there looking, some who are hanging onto their jobs and their businesses by a thread,” Brian Williams insisted on Friday's NBC Nightly News. On the CBS Evening News, fill-on anchor Erica Hill saw “a bit of a mixed bag” before Anthony Mason asserted that “weak as the job numbers were, they were better than Wall Street expected” and he touted: “With American businesses creating 67,000 jobs in August, the private sector has now added jobs for eight straight months.”

Over on ABC, fill-in anchor David Muir elevated Obama's spin, teasing World News: “More jobs lost and the President, just today, taking the Republicans on. Are they standing in the way?” He introduced the subsequent story: “This country lost another 54,000 jobs in August, and the President today took on the Republicans, saying they're the ones blocking help for small business.”

In a lengthy set up leading into a report from Jake Tapper, Muir trumpeted:

But some economists say there is still a silver lining in these new numbers, because if you take away the 115,000 temporary government jobs – those Census jobs we knew were going away -- a slightly different picture emerges. The crucial private sector actually adding 67,000 workers in August, health care and construction leading the way. And that comes after the private sector added 107,000 in July, 61,000 in June...

Nice that Muir realizes the private sector is “crucial”!
 
Earlier today, from Julia Seymour of the MRC's Business & Media Institute: “CNN's 'Glass One-Quarter Full' Spin: Emphasize Private Job Gains”

David Muir, on the Friday, September 3 ABC World News:

We do turn now to the political storm brewing in Washington over the new jobs numbers out today. This country lost another 54,000 jobs in August, and the President today took on the Republicans, saying they're the ones blocking help for small business. That, in a moment, but first, the numbers.

Word that the nation's employers cut another 54,000 jobs in August, marks the third month in a row that this country has seen a net loss of jobs. But some economists say there is still a silver lining in these new numbers, because if you take away the 115,000 temporary government jobs – those Census jobs we knew were going away -- a slightly different picture emerges. The crucial private sector actually adding 67,000 workers in August, health care and construction leading the way. And that comes after the private sector added 107,000 in July, 61,000 in June. It's growth, but still not the number of private sector jobs needed to keep one the nearly 15 million Americans still looking for work.

And as I mentioned, the President was quick today to frame the numbers his way and so lets turn right now to Jake Tapper.

CBS Evening News:

ERICA HILL: Back home, a new sign the economic recovery will be a long, slow journey. Today the Labor Department reported private businesses added 67,000 jobs in August, but overall the economy lost jobs as the Census Bureau laid off more temporary workers. And the unemployment rate inched up to a tenth of a point, a tenth of a point, rather, to 9.6 percent. Wall Street was encouraged by the news that businesses are hiring, though. The Dow jumped 128 points today for its first positive close week in a month. Anthony Mason is our senior business correspondent. So overall, Anthony, it's a bit of a mixed bag?

ANTHONY MASON: Yeah Erica, weak as the job numbers were, they were better than Wall Street expected and seemed to give investors confidence the economy can avoid a double-dip recession. With American businesses creating 67,000 jobs in August, the private sector has now added jobs for eight straight months...

Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News:

Turning to the U.S. economy and the latest reading on the job market for August. Employers cut 54,000 workers from their payrolls, less than what analysts had predicted. The unemployment rate ticked up a notch: 9.6 percent now as discouraged workers restarted their job search. It's a mixed picture here, but it's giving some encouragement to those who are out there looking, some who are hanging onto their jobs and their businesses by a thread...

Chris Matthews must really be getting tired of watching the man that used to give him tingles up his leg continue to get crushed in the polls, for on Friday he recommended a serious shakeup in the Obama administration.

First, he want's Defense Secretary Robert Gates to be replaced by Hillary Clinton.

"With her at the Pentagon, he would forge confidence in Middle East policy," said the "Hardball" host.

But the real surprise was Matthews calling for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to either replace Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner or Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Let me finish with tonight with a plan to strengthen America's ability to solve its problems. It's tough and it's water tight. President Obama has many strengths as this country's head of state. He's clear minded, gifted in intellect, artful in presenting issues and his vision of leadership. However, these past two years have been a shakedown cruise. We have seen the weaknesses in this ship of state. It's come time to shake up.

This president needs to put a firm Democratic brand on his defense policy. He was smart to keep Robert Gates in the Pentagon, but Gates is a holdover from the Bush era. There's no real connection between what the country voted for in 2008 and what we're getting in terms of security policy. Obama needs to bridge that gap, and he needs to pick a Democratic ally as defense chief. That Democratic ally is Hillary Clinton. With her at the Pentagon, he would forge confidence in Middle East policy. Friends of Israel would know we have someone in charge of America's military forces who has an instinctive concern for the Jewish state. A proven track record of support, it will help get the deal cooked over there and getting that deal is the very stuff of American greatness.

Now to the tough one, the economy. There's one person in this country with a track record, the communications pizzazz to help make, carry out and market the historic recovery program still needed. His name is Michael Bloomberg. Look, you can say this is outlandish that he would never take the job at Treasury or as White House chief of staff, but there is a precedent. James Baker. He made Reagan a success and Barack Obama needs a Jim Baker, someone to focus the energies of this administration on economic reconstruction, period. Someone to lay down the same strong chain of command on domestic policy that Hillary Clinton will define on the national security front. This is the answer. Enough of the solo act. President Obama needs to build a team, a phalanx, a political policy power that takes his idealism and makes it deliver in strength abroad, jobs and renewed economic confidence at home.

Makes you wonder what's happened to Matthews since Tuesday.

After all, on that evening's "Hardball," he called Obama "almost pluperfect."

How can someone so spectacular on Tuesday need a shakeup in his administration three days later?