In a 4-3 decision today the Connecticut Supreme Court decided that civil unions for same-sex partners were not equivalent to marriage and as such ordered the state to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples applying for them.

In reporting the decision, ABCNews.com put the story in the top headlines rotation with the following teaser:

Conn. Gives Blessing to Gay Marriages; State Supreme Court ruling paves way for same-sex marriages to start next month.

The people of the state of Connecticut DID give their blessing to civil unions in 2005, but never through the legislative process to same-sex marriage. As such, the state’s highest court disregarded the expressed will of the people for the rights and privileges of domestic partnerships in order to push a social agenda the elected legislature has never approved.

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While several media outlets (think ABC, for one) have tried to pry open a gap of disagreement between Cindy McCain and John McCain on abortion, to name just one issue, here’s one thing Larry King didn’t try on Michelle Obama on Wednesday: do you and Barack differ on some issues? Why not? Mrs. Obama has often suggested her husband needs her correction. But guess what? Larry King thought that was a great question for daughter Meghan McCain when she appeared on September 15:  

KING: There has to be areas, especially young girl living in New York, going to Columbia, where she disagrees with her father. What are they? That’s fair, open game.

M. MCCAIN: I mean, there’s lots of issues that I disagree with my father, but there’s a lot of issues that I agree as well. I never really feel comfortable coming out and saying what exact issues, because I’m not the one running. And I think it’s important to support him and what he’s doing. That’s really it.

KING: One might guess you’d be for choice.

M. MCCAIN: Pardon me?

KING: Choice.

M. MCCAIN: I don’t want to talk about that stuff if that’s OK. I would rather stick to my book and the campaign.

It was even on screen: DO MEGHAN, DAD AGREE ON ISSUES? This came right after the graphic: MEGHAN: "OBSESSED" WITH PALIN.

The interview was mostly soft and friendly, devoted to discussing her children’s book on her dad’s life and how she likes the campaign trail and her blogging for the McCain website. But the double standard is showing.

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In a heavily amateurish move, ABCNews.com attributed a dip in an already sinking Dow to President Bush’s speech on the economy with a top headline story in its home page rotation.

"Dow-ner: Bush Speaks, Stocks Drop; Friday address marks 10th time Bush has recently spoken on volatile markets," the teaser headline read.

The story in question took the skilled labor of a grand total of four ABCNews staffers, chief among them Martha Raddatz. In her lede she noted the Dow dropped 107 points in the course of the seven minutes President Bush spoke from the White House on the ongoing financial crisis.

But it seems Raddatz, along with Lisa Chinn, Jon Garcia and Kate Barrett wrote too soon. The market rebounded from its deepest losses earlier in the day to close down only 128 points.

What’s more, the Dow’s has been firmtly entrenched on a downward slide since the Friday that Congress passed and President Bush signed a Wall Street bailout deal. The free-fall on Wall Street despite concerted government action should raise questions by journalists about the wisdom and necessity of the bailout in the first place.

But why report the news objectively when you’re dedicated to bashing Republicans and boosting the Obama ticket.

Perhaps that’s why Newsweek rushed to also assign a down arrow in its daily "Conventional Wisdom" feature to President Bush:

"DOWN: Amid jittery markets, his speeches don’t seem to help."

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William Ayers, then and now.

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All three morning shows on Friday skipped an exclusive Washington Times report which asserted that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama attempted to delay an agreement by the Bush administration to maintain a military presence in Iraq.

Writing in the October 10 edition of the Times, Barbara Slavin explained, "Iraqi leaders purported to The Times that Mr. Obama urged Baghdad to delay an agreement with Mr. Bush until next year when a new president will be in office - a charge the Democratic campaign denies." ABC’s "Good Morning America," NBC’s "Today" and CBS’s "Early Show" all skipped any mention of this story.

Slavin, who is the paper’s assistant managing editor for world and national security, goes on to write:

Mr. Obama spoke June 16 to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari when he was in Washington, according to both the Iraqi Embassy in Washington and the Obama campaign. Both said the conversation was at Mr. Zebari’s request and took place on the phone because Mr. Obama was traveling.

However, the two sides differ over what Mr. Obama said.

"In the conversation, the senator urged Iraq to delay the [memorandum of understanding] between Iraq and the United States until the new administration was in place," said Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq’s ambassador to the United States.

[Emphasis added.] Considering the intense scrutiny over the so-called October Surprise allegations that the 1980 Ronald Reagan campaign attempted to delay the release of American hostages in Iran in order to help boost the candidate’s chances in the presidential election, it will be interesting to see how the mainstream media react to serious charges against a Democrat. (Those allegations against Reagan were thoroughly discredited in two separate congressional investigations.)

See the Washington Times article for more on the subject.

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This week alone, the Dow Jones dropped nearly 1,100 points, and while Senator Barack Obama has issued statements on the matter reiterating many points about what he would do as president, John McCain is rather mum on the issue.

As countless thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans are losing their retirement savings, the McCain campaign is operating on radio silence. Must be part of McCain’s “if we keep talking about the economy, we lose” so let’s “turn the page on the financial crisis” strategy.

John McCain would rather lose your life savings than lose an election.

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The liberal news media has subjected Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to intense scrutiny concerning her overall pro-life view on abortion, among other issues. On the other hand, they have been all but silent on Barack Obama’s intensely liberal record on abortion issue, particularly his support of partial-birth abortion and his opposition to legislation that would have protected infant abortion survivors from dying of neglect.

In MRC’s October 9 Media Reality Check, "Media Silence on Abortion Aids Radical Obama," Rich Noyes and I outlined how the news media have been out to lunch on examining Barack Obama’s radical pro-abortion stance during the Democratic campaign for the presidential nomination. The report found that the network evening newscasts "barely mentioned Obama’s pro-abortion stance during the primaries — from the launch of his candidacy in January 2007 through the end of the primaries in June 2008, just six out of 1,289 network evening news stories about Obama (0.46%) mentioned his position on abortion; none discussed it in any detail." The media as a whole also punted on Obama’s August 16, 2008 attack on pro-lifers, who in his view, were "lying" about his record as an Illinois state senator of opposing legislation, identical to a federal law, which would have protected infant survivors of abortion. Only a day later, Obama’s own campaign backtracked and admitted that he had indeed voted against this legislation.

The Media Reality Check described how "Obama’s stance protecting partial birth abortions puts him to the left of many liberal Democrats — 17 out of 47 Democratic Senators, including Obama’s running-mate Joe Biden, voted to outlaw such abortions in 2003, a position backed by 75% of the public, according to a 2007 Pew survey." Only three network evening news stories mentioned how Obama supports such procedures, "including an April 21, 2007 CBS Evening News story briefly noting Obama’s condemnation of the Supreme Court for upholding the federal law banning such abortions."

During the August 16, 2008 interview with CBN’s David Brody, Obama went on the offensive against pro-life critics who, for many months, had been decrying his opposition to the Illinois Born-Alive Infant Protection Act during his tenure as an Illinois state statue: "I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying. I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely, fully in support of the federal bill. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level."

But the now-U.S. senator had indeed opposed the state legislation repeatedly. The Infant Protection Act, proposed by Republican state senator Patrick O’Malley in 2001, aimed to grant legal protections to premature infants who had survived abortions. Obama first voted against the Act that year when it came before the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, and later voted "present" when the full Senate voted on it. In 2002, he voted no when it came before the Judiciary Committee again, and instead of voting "present" when the full Senate voted on it for a second time, he voted against it.

During the floor debate over the bill in 2001, Obama stated the legislation was "probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny." In response to this line of criticism, Senator O’Malley amended his bill that year to include language that would make it identical to the federal act which had been unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate in 2002 (Obama’s running mate Joe Biden was a member of the Senate at the time). By this point, Obama had become the chair of the Health & Human Services Committee. Obama voted initially to approve this amendment, but then voted against the amended version of the Act. So much for the "constitutional scrutiny" argument [for detailed information on Obama’s four votes on the Infant Protection act, see the outline on Jill Stanek’s website].

The day after Obama’s "lying" statement about pro-lifers, the now-defunct New York Sun reported that the Illinois senator’s campaign finally told the truth about his votes against the Infant Protection Act: "His campaign yesterday [August 17, 2008] acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law." However, as the Reality Check recounted, the media still ran to Obama’s defense, even after his own campaign had backtracked: "A CNN ‘fact check’ on that day’s [August 20, 2008] Situation Room refused to conclude that Obama had unfairly attacked his critics as liars. ‘Looking at the bills, the language is similar, but the Obama camp says…there were concerns about undermining Illinois abortion law,’ reporter Mary Snow delicately suggested."

If Obama becomes the next president, passing state-level legislation related to abortion won’t matter much anyway, since, during a speech to Planned Parenthood in 2007, he said that the "the first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," which would overturn most, if not all federal, state, and local laws which regulate abortions. That is the true extent of Obama’s support for abortion, and as they have done in the past, there has been little to no coverage of this radical abortion stance from the mainstream news media.

For one more example of the media’s bias on this issue, see the August 14, 2008 CyberAlert, "CNN’s One-Sided Take on SD Abortion Bill, Avoids Obama’s Votes."

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Who you gonna call to fix the economy? Kids.

The Dow dropped 5,585 points since its high a year ago, banks have been afraid to lend and the government bought billions in toxic mortgage-backed securities. So CBS’s "The Early Show" went to some top finance experts to explain what was happening to viewers, right? Nope, they went to kids, Oct. 10.

Weatherman Dave Price talked to fifth graders in Arlington, Va., about the credit crisis, exclaiming, "You wouldn’t believe how much they know, sometimes we ought to listen to them and their solutions."

"What one thing does your mom waste money on?" Price asked one student.

"Mmm, smokes, I guess," a fifth grade girl from Glebe Elementary School replied.

With sound financial commentary like that Price just dug deeper, asking, "How many Miley Cyrus tickets do you think you could buy with $700 billion?"

"Probably either ten or a hundred," the same girl said.

"You know what? With math skills like that, you could be the next Treasury Secretary," Price said.

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In preparation for a report on the investigation into whether Sarah Palin fired Alaska’s public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, for personal reasons, on Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez declared: "Palin on the hot seat. Alaska lawmakers set to release a report today on the Troopergate investigation. We’ll go live to Alaska for the latest details on the potentially explosive report." Co-host Julie Chen later introduced the segment by explaining: "The McCain-Palin ticket is bracing for what could be an embarrassing report. Lawmakers in Alaska are expected to release the results of an investigation into possible abuse of power by Governor Sarah Palin in the so-called Troopergate inquiry."

Correspondent John Blackstone reported: "Well, when the Troopergate report is released later today, it will show that since Sarah Palin became governor, her husband Todd repeatedly and frequently had conversations with government officials, all aimed at having their former brother-in-law, state trooper [Mike Wooten], thrown off the force." Blackstone never made mention of charges made against Wooten that he threatened to shoot Palin’s father, tasered his ten-year-old stepson, or was caught drinking on duty. The closest Blackstone came was to quote the man Palin fired: "Although the trooper has a disciplinary record, [former public safety commissioner Walt] Monegan said in a phone interview last night, he’s not a bad cop."

Blackstone also explained that "…in a sworn statement, [Todd] Palin admits: ‘I talked to many people in the Palin administration about Mike Wooten, a trooper divorced from Sarah Palin’s sister. I warned about the threat this guy was to me and my family.’" Blackstone again turned to Monegan to refute such claims: "Monegan calls Todd Palin’s view of trooper Wooten distorted."

Following the report, co-host Maggie Rodriguez talked about the issue with Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer and wondered: "I’d like to ask you about Troopergate. Do you think that this will be just another distraction from the important issue of the economy or something that could really have an impact on this election?" Calling the upcoming report "potentially explosive" certainly made it sound like more than a "distraction." In addition, on September 17, Rodriguez reported on the controversy and proclaimed: "…why it could haunt her on the campaign trail."

Schieffer replied to Rodriguez: "…out on the campaign trail, you know, both of these candidates are making all these charges, one way or another, but it all comes back, it all seems like such small potatoes." Rodriguez added: "We’ve seen so much nastiness this week in the campaigns and you ask voters and it’s a turn-off. You’re right. All they want to hear about and talk about is the economy. So do you think that we’ll see those negative ads and all those controversies fade, that the campaigns will both finally say ‘we got to focus solely on the economy?’" While both agreed that the Palin Troopergate story was a distraction from important issues, they both seemed to suggest the same was true of Barack Obama’s connection to Bill Ayers. Considering the Early Show’s failure to ever offer a single complete story on the Obama-Ayers connection while devoting two full stories to Troopergate, it is interesting that now they claim both are distractions.

Here is the full transcript of the segment:

7:00AM TEASER:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Palin on the hot seat. Alaska lawmakers set to release a report today on the Troopergate investigation. We’ll go live to Alaska for the latest details on the potentially explosive report.

7:02AM TEASER:

RODRIGUEZ: This morning we’re also awaiting the release of the official report on Sarah Palin’s Troopergate investigation. As you know, she is accused of trying to have this trooper, who’d once been married to her sister, fired for personal reasons. Ahead this morning, we’ll go live to Alaska and we’ll talk about the possible political implications.

7:09AM SEGMENT:

JULIE CHEN: The McCain-Palin ticket is bracing for what could be an embarrassing report. Lawmakers in Alaska are expected to release the results of an investigation into possible abuse of power by Governor Sarah Palin in the so-called Troopergate inquiry. The New York Times reports today that Palin, her husband, and her administration repeatedly pressed for a state trooper’s dismissal. CBS News correspondent John Blackstone is in Anchorage with the story. John, good morning.

JOHN BLACKSTONE: Hey, good morning, Julie. Well, when the Troopergate report is released later today, it will show that since Sarah Palin became governor, her husband Todd repeatedly and frequently had conversations with government officials, all aimed at having their former brother-in-law, state trooper, thrown off the force. Since Sarah Palin became candidate for vice president, Todd Palin has resisted testifying in the Troopergate investigation. But in a sworn statement, Palin admits: ‘I talked to many people in the Palin administration about Mike Wooten, a trooper divorced from Sarah Palin’s sister. I warned about the threat this guy was to me and my family.’ In the affidavit, Todd Palin says I repeatedly expressed my frustration about Wooten.’ It all contradicts the impression Palin gave last summer of making a single complaint about Wooten.

TODD PALIN: Just the one time. You know, just letting them know that — the public’s concern and our concerns.

BLACKSTONE: At the same time, Governor Palin denied those concerns had anything to do with her firing of Wooten’s boss, Walt Monegan, the commissioner of public safety.

SARAH PALIN: But absolutely no pressure ever put on Commissioner Monegan to hire or fire anybody at any time.

BLACKSTONE: Monegan, though, says he believes he was fired because of Wooten. Although the trooper has a disciplinary record, Monegan said in a phone interview last night, he’s not a bad cop.

WALT MONEGAN: Nobody likes to work with a dirty cop, no one.

BLACKSTONE: Monegan calls Todd Palin’s view of trooper Wooten distorted.

MONEGAN: Todd is — the fact that he says he’s been campaigning to talk to just about anybody or everybody about Wooten speaks to the level of his passion or maybe in this case, obsession, in the case.

BLACKSTONE: Now Todd Palin insists there was nothing improper in his conversations. He says Sarah Palin wasn’t involved. In fact, he claims that she told him to stop talking about Trooper Wooten. Julie.

CHEN: We’ll see what the report says today. CBS’s John Blackstone in Anchorage, thanks John. Maggie.

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Joining us now is Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of Face the Nation. Bob, good morning to you.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Good morning, Maggie.

RODRIGUEZ: I’d like to ask you about Troopergate. Do you think that this will be just another distraction from the important issue of the economy or something that could really have an impact on this election?

SCHIEFFER: It’s very difficult to say. This — this economic situation is so overwhelming, Maggie. It’s all anybody is talking about. And out on the campaign trail, you know, both of these candidates are making all these charges, one way or another, but it all comes back, it all seems like such small potatoes when you come back to this — to this situation that we’re seeing developing in these financial markets. I think the issue in this campaign, all anybody is talking about, is this economy. I think that’s what’s going to have the overwhelming impact. The other things might be minor, minor questions that will come up along the way, but I don’t see this campaign getting off this economic — the economic questions here.

RODRIGUEZ: We’ve seen so much nastiness this week in the campaigns and you ask voters and it’s a turn-off. You’re right. All they want to hear about and talk about is the economy. So do you think that we’ll see those negative ads and all those controversies fade, that the campaigns will both finally say ‘we got to focus solely on the economy?’

SCHIEFFER: There is no question, Maggie, that the McCain would like to change the subject. From the moment that this economic situation developed, John McCain began to go down in the polls in some of these very key states like Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida. He would like to make this election a referendum on Barack Obama, Barack Obama’s character, Barack Obama’s experience. But I think, again, it’s going to be very difficult to get peoples minds focused on that with this economic situation the way it is. This thing is just overwhelming, Maggie. We’ve never seen anything quite like this.

RODRIGUEZ: So true. I know that you’re preparing for two things, Face the Nation this weekend, and to host the last presidential debate next week. Can you give us a taste of what you’re planning for both?

SCHIEFFER: Well, for the debate, I’m really going to try to get them to answer the questions. I’m going to be very specific. I’m going to try to get them to follow-up. We’ll have about ten-minute segments, about 8 or 9 10-minute segments. I hope we can stay on each issue until we can get down and find out where they really come out on these things. I’m going to try to get them to ask the follow-up questions, if they don’t, then I’ll bore in. On Face the Nation, coming up Sunday, we’re going to have Governor Bill Ritter, Democrat out in Colorado. Most people on both sides say that unless Governor Ritter — unless John McCain can carry Colorado, he will not be able to get to the White House. We’ll talk to him. Lindsey Graham, who of course is Senator McCain’s main man in the Senate, will be with us and also Doug Wilder, the former Governor of Virginia, we’ll have another Republican along the way from one of those key states.

RODRIGUEZ: Alright, Bob Schieffer. Always appreciate you being on with us. Thank you

SCHIEFFER: Thank you, Maggie.

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The Albany Times Union reports today that Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) “last name is spelled ‘Osama’ on hundreds of absentee ballots mailed out this week to voters in Rensselaer County,” New York. Both Democratic and Republican county election officials insist the error was a “honest mistake” and a “typo,” but the paper notes that “the letters ’s’ and ‘b’ are not exactly keyboard neighbors.” During the Democratic primary, Obama’s first name was misspelled on approximately 2000 absentee ballots in Florida.

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