During tonight’s Democratic debate in Philadelphia, moderator George Stephanopoulos echoed the talking points of conservative talk show host Sean Hannity. Stephanopoulos asked Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) if his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, “loves America,” questioned him about his flagless lapel, and asked about his alleged ‘connections’ to former Weather Undergound member Bill Ayers.

Stephanopoulos cribbed his questions directly from Hannity. According to the Daily Kos, Stephanopoulos appeared on Hannity’s radio show on Tuesday and took note of Hannity’s suggested questions.

Hannity asked George what kinds of questions they’ll be asking at the debate tomorrow and they discussed a few things. When Hannity asked about the first question below about Ayers and whether George had plans to ask such a question, George replied, “Well, I’m taking notes now Sean.” It did actually sound like he was pausing to take notes. And Hannity continued to feed him more:

1) Ask Obama about his relationship with Ayers and WeatherUnderground and Axelrod’s comments, “They’re friendly”

2) Ask Obama why he attended the Million Man March

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Stephanopoulos has a history of contributing to right-wing smear campaigns.

UPDATE II: On Sunday, Hannity showcased “The Real Barack Obama” series on Hannity’s America. The show featured an ‘investigation’ into “Obama’s association with the self-admitted terrorist, William Ayers.”

Analyzing tonight’s State of the Union address, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams suggested that “Bush’s tears” (at the mention of “men and women fighting overseas” during the speech) refocused the nation on the war on terror and the challenges of a post-9/11 world.

During his coverage of President Bush’s State of the Union address MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews suggested that Bush’s speech would help presidential contender Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). “I tell you, tonight was a John McCain speech, in many ways,” Matthews said, citing the president’s emphasis on earmark reform and ’success’ in Iraq.

UPDATE: In an interview with McCain, Matthews suggested that McCain is the only candidate who supports earmark reform and an an aggressive war on terror.

“The President gave your speech tonight…he talked about earmarks….terrorism…it was your speech, Senator.“

According to a recent study released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) received only 7% of political coverage from January 6-11, “less than one-fifth of what Hillary earned, and less than one-forth of that accorded to Obama.”

Tonight, during CNN’s post-debate special, “Race and Politics,” Anderson Cooper manifested this trend when he stated that black voters would have to choose between presidential contenders Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) when voting for president. After a few moments, Cooper remembered that Edwards was in the race and added his name to the list. “I guess I have to remember to be inclusive,” Anderson chuckled, to the delight of his panel.

In today’s New York Times, reporters David Kirkpatrick and Michael Powell erroneously characterize Mike Huckabee–who believes that his candidacy is divinely inspired– as a moderately religious politician who walks a fine line between “pulpit and podium.”

For the most part, Kirkpatrick and Powell ignore Huckabee’s numerous attempts to blend personal religious conviction with public policy and quote evangelical sources who marvel at Huckabee’s ability to downplay the role of religion in his conception of government.

Some evangelical observers say they marvel at Mr. Huckabee’s knack for making even the most conservative tenets of orthodox Southern Baptist faith, about creation, the accuracy of the Bible or gender roles, sound downright moderate when he is speaking in television interviews or at public debates.

Kirkpatrick and Powell also fail to correct the record about Huckabee’s disingenuous explanation for why he signed his name to a 1998 Southern Baptist Convention statement which suggested that a wife is subordinate to her husband. Huckabee has argued that “‘the position required no subordination at all.’ It meant, he said, both husbands and wives ‘mutually showing their affection and submission as unto the Lord.’”

But according to Richard Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, “the statement says that while the husband and wife are equal before God, ‘the wife does not get veto power over the husband’s decision.’

“Somebody has to be in charge,” Land explained. “The Bible says the husband is in charge.” While the husband should “solicit his wife’s views,” ultimately “he is going to make the decision.” The reason, Land said, is that Southern Baptists believe that “God holds the husband accountable for the household.”

In their article, Kirkpatrick and Powell reprint Huckabee’s dodge and quote an evangelical leader who called Huckabee’s explanation “masterful.”

The two reporters also assert, rather ironically, that Huckabee “has indeed made an art of escaping politically delicate questions about theology.” In reality, by downplaying Huckabee’s strong religious convictions and his views about the role of religion in public life, Kirkpatrick and Powell misrepresent Huckabee as a more moderate politician. The former governor has often crossed the line between “pulpit and podium.”

Consider the following:

- In an interview with Beliefnet.com, Huckabee “clarified his view that the Constitution should be amended to be brought in line with God’s will — and he directly equated homosexuality with bestiality.”

- Huckabee has close connections to Christian Reconstructionists.

- In in Des Moines, Huckabee told bloggers who supported his candidacy that they were “doing the Lord’s work.”

- “At a Republican Governors Association Dinner speech in 2004, Huckabee had a mock three-minute telephone conversation with God. During that time, Huckabee said that “we kind of think you’d hang in there with us, Lord, we really do.”

- “In 1997, Huckabee claimed that Jesus would have agreed with him on supporting the death penalty.”

Yesterday, during a discussion about the Congressional Black Caucus on MSNBC’s Tucker, radio talk show host Bill Press called long time political pundit and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan a “white supremacist.”
Buchanan’s long history of racism has been well documented by the media watchdog group FAIR. Here is a sampling:

- In his 1988 autobiography, “Right from the Beginning,” on race relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s: “There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The ‘negroes’ of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours.”

- In a 1990 column that attempted to justify apartheid in South Africa, he denounced the notion that “white rule of a black majority is inherently wrong. Where did we get that idea? The Founding Fathers did not believe this.”

- A 1989 column referred admiringly to the apartheid regime as the “Boer Republic”: “Why are Americans collaborating in a UN conspiracy to ruin her with sanctions?“

In an article describing MSNBC’s supposed ‘left-leaning’ programming tilt, the New York Times suggests that despite courting controversial talk show host Rosie O’Donnell to host a prime time show, business considerations could preclude General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, from moving ‘too far’ left.

Having a prime-time lineup that tilts ever more demonstrably to the left could be risky for General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, which is subject to legislation and regulation far afield of the cable landscape.

This isn’t the first time General Electric has allowed business interests to influence programming. In February 2003, “MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue’s talkshow after an internal memo argued that he would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.”

He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration’s motives.” The report warned that the Donahue show could be “a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”

In October 2004, Donahue revealed that MSNBC executives required the show “have two conservatives on for every liberal. I [Donahue] was counted as two liberals.”

On Wednesday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity argued that Halloween was a “liberal holiday” because “we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout.” From Media Matters:

On the October 31 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that “Halloween is a liberal holiday” and “is teaching our kids to be liberals.” Hannity explained that “we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout.” Co-host Alan Colmes responded by asking if that meant that Christmas is a “liberal holiday.” Colmes asserted that Halloween represents “the act of giving,” and asked: “Isn’t that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?” Hannity replied: “Not to teach your kids to beg for a handout.” [Watch the video here.]

But on the September 9, 2007 edition of Fox News’ Hannity’s America, Hannity made the opposite argument. A little more than a month ago, Hannity argued that in their quest to ’secularize America,’ liberals wanted to “get rid” of Halloween.

There’s a lot to learn from liberal Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, in terms of it’s not working in terms of helping economic activity for poor Americans or the poor people of Massachusetts. So it’s failing in that respect. Poverty is growing there for people.

But also a lot of what happens in Massachusetts when you start with it’s no longer a Christmas tree it’s a Hollywood tree get rid of Valentine’s Day and Halloween is removed, et cetera. We wish you a Merry Christmas to we wish you a swinging holiday. I don’t know how to quite take that.

After tonight’s Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia, MSNBC analyst and Newsweek editor Howard Fineman, who has previously claimed that American voters find male candidates “reassuring,” observed:

Hillary glaring at these other guys, I thought that was significant.

For a presidential candidate to be frustrated by political attacks is certainly not unusual. But unfortunately, rather than comment on the substantive differences between the Democratic contenders, the mainstream media remains obsessed with superficial appraisals of body language and fashion. 

Talking Points Memo is reporting that Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for Attorney General, is still refusing to label water boarding illegal, despite indications that the refusal could sink his nomination. From the AP:

President Bush’s nominee for attorney general told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that he does not know whether waterboarding is illegal. He pledged to study the matter and to reverse any Justice Department finding that endorses a practice that violates the law or the Constitution.

Mukasey should look to history for guidance. According to a 2005 ABC News report, “water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago” and in 1901, during the Spanish-American war.

“The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army,” recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College.

Earlier in 1901, the United States had taken a similar stand against water boarding during the Spanish-American War when an Army major was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for water boarding an insurgent in the Philippines.

Similarly, in 1947 “the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.” Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

Despite being historically ignorant, Mukasey’s indecision leaves the United States on the wrong side of international law. Just today, a new U.N. report on human rights expressed concern about “enhanced interrogation techniques reportedly used by the CIA,” saying that under international law, “there are no circumstances in which cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment may be justified.”

According to Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, the administration’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” is not without international repercussions.

[Other countries] say why are you criticising us if the US, the most democratic country with the oldest history of human rights, if they are torturing you should first go there. It has a negative effect because the US is a very powerful and important country and many other countries take the US as a model.

Unfortunately, Mukasey’s refusal to outlaw water boarding will continue this trend. As Andrew Sullivan points out: “In seven years, the US has gone from being a beacon of human rights to an enabler and legitimizer of torture in regimes not even Cheney would find savory.”