As if Huffington’s book does any such thing, Sawyer wondered: “What if we pulled together in one place all the innovative ideas for creating jobs?” The generous on-screen heading beneath Huffington’s picture: “Change Agent.” After highlighting Huffington’s wish to absolve troubled mortgage-holders of much of their responsibility, Sawyer trumpeted:

Arianna Huffington’s new book is called Third World America, and on her Web site, she’s been gathering innovative solutions to keep that Third World from happening.

The articles posted on the Huffington Post page with “innovative solutions,” a page the ABC segment displayed, sound more like the usual liberal carping: “Work Until You’re Dead? That May Be the Only Option for Many Americans,” “Thousands Crowd Atlanta Area Housing Authority for Section 8 WAITING LIST, Fights Break Out,” “The 10 Highest-Paid CEOs Who Laid Off the Most Workers: Institute for Policy Studies” and “Income Inequality: ‘The Most Profound Change In American Society In Your Lifetime.’”

Huffington hailed: “It’s one person’s idea, like, that’s what I love. It’s like, somebody imagined that, and is making it happen.” Sawyer then showcased an idea that’s failed: “One solution we heard about, Gene Epstein, a self-made millionaire who’s going door to door in Philadelphia, asking every small business to hire one more employee, just for six months. He says if ten percent of businesses do that, one half million people will be employed.” She had to acknowledge, however, he’s “got only one signature.”

Not raised by Sawyer in her friendly session with Huffington – the title’s racial overtones. Imagine if a conservative had written a book warning President Obaam’s policies could turn the U.S. into a “Third World” nation?

From the Tuesday, September 7 ABC World News:

DIANE SAWYER: And finally tonight, what if we pulled together in one place all the innovative ideas for creating jobs? Arianna Huffington has just written a book which begins with some tough statistics about Americans faltering in this economy.

SAWYER TO HUFFINGTON, IN MOCK DISBELIEF: Every 30 seconds, someone goes bankrupt in America. Every 30 seconds?

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Every 30 seconds. And almost three million homes were lost in the last year and about three million or more are expected to be foreclosed in 2010.

SAWYER: Foreclosures on mortgages. You think it should be required that every one be negotiated?

HUFFINGTON: We need to help people in the middle class who are losing their homes.

SAWYER: You don’t think there will be a wave of people shouting, “it’s just not fair, I scraped and saved to make my mortgage payment”?

HUFFINGTON: There’s an awful lot that’s happening that’s not fair. But I feel that’s something that, in the end, is going to have a positive impact on every community in the whole country.

SAWYER: Arianna Huffington’s new book is called Third World America, and on her Web site, she’s been gathering innovative solutions to keep that Third World from happening.

HUFFINGTON: It’s one person’s idea, like, that’s what I love. It’s like, somebody imagined that, and is making it happen.

SAWYER: One solution we heard about, Gene Epstein, a self-made millionaire who’s going door to door in Philadelphia, asking every small business to hire one more employee, just for six months. He says if ten percent of businesses do that, one half million people will be employed.

GENE EPSTEIN, BUSINESSMAN: People will be buying, stocks will be moving, people will start spending the cash that they’ve had in hand, waiting to spend.

SAWYER: So far, he’s undaunted, though he’s got only one signature, a carpet company.

EPSTEIN: Businesses have created what we are in the United States. Why can’t they be the salvation for what we are in the United States?

SAWYER: Just one person, six months. You think you can pay it forward that way?

HUFFINGTON: Yes, I totally believe you can pay it forward. Truth is that democracy’s not a spectator sport. When people take action, it’s the greatest antidote to despair.

SAWYER: The rest of the interview’s on ABCNews.com, and give us your innovative ideas.

Our dear friend Ace of Spades comically wrote Tuesday this reminded him of the sexual tension between Sam and Diane on the hit ’80s sitcom "Cheers."

Hot Air’s Allahpundit noted: 

This feels exactly like a trailer for a Nora Ephron comedy about two TV journalists bantering their way through life. Even the whimsical jazzy soundtrack is Ephron-esque. Is that what they’re going for? The coveted "When Harry Met Sally" demographic? I could be down with that, but if they’re going to try it, I want other conceits from the movie too. Like, they could have Kyra Phillips and John King on occasionally in the Carrie Fisher/Bruno Kirby quirky best-friend roles.

Even worse, I see more of a "Sleepless in Seattle" or "You’ve Got Mail" dynamic. After all, despite oozing with saccharin, "When Harry Met Sally" was a darned good film.

As for the silly giggling noises Parker was making during this promo, I don’t want to have what she’s having.

Exit question: Do you care what either of these people has to say about anything?

The news concerned Federal Judge Royce Lamberth’s refusal of the federal government’s request that he life his August 23 order blocking federal funding for embryonic stem cell research during the appeals process.

Less-informed readers could be excused for believing, at least through first nine of the eleven tortured paragraphs in Holland’s report, that stem cells can only be obtained from human embryos. In Paragraph 10, Holland finally acknowledged the existence of adult stem cells, but then dubiously implied that the litigation was brought solely because the plaintiffs don’t want competition from embryonic research. The AP writer also ignored a fine piece written in early August by wire service colleague Malcolm Ritter (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), who accurately reported that "Adult stem cell research (is) far ahead of embryonic."

What follows are several paragraphs from Holland’s horror, including a ridiculous title falsely implying that no federal funds are going into any kind of stem cell research (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Judge won’t let stem cell money keep flowing

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to lift his order blocking federal funding for some stem cell research, saying that a "parade of horribles" predicted by federal officials would not happen.

Medical researchers value stem cells because they are master cells that can turn into any tissue of the body. Research eventually could lead to cures for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease and other ailments.

The Justice Department argued in court papers last week that stopping the research could cause "irrevocable harm to the millions of extremely sick or injured people who stand to benefit … as well as to the defendants, the scientific community and the taxpayers who have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such research through public funding of projects which will now be forced to shut down and, in many cases, scrapped altogether."

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth rejected that argument in refusing to lift the restraining order he signed after ruling that the argument in a pending lawsuit – that the research violates the intent of a 1996 law prohibiting use of taxpayer dollars in work that destroys a human embryo – was likely to succeed.

… The scientists suing to stop the research "agree that this court’s order does not even address the Bush administration guidelines, or whether NIH could return to those guidelines," Lamberth wrote in his latest order. "The prior guidelines, of course, allowed research only on existing stem cell lines, foreclosing additional destruction of embryos. Plaintiffs also agree that projects previously awarded and funded are not affected by this court’s order."

(Paragraph 10 — Ed.)

… The lawsuit was filed by two scientists who argued that Obama’s expansion jeopardized their ability to win government funding for research using adult stem cells – ones that have already matured to create specific types of tissues – because it will mean extra competition.

Here are a few paragraphs from the report by Malcolm Ritter that Holland ignored:

For all the emotional debate that began about a decade ago on allowing the use of embryonic stem cells, it’s adult stem cells that are in human testing today. An extensive review of stem cell projects and interviews with two dozen experts reveal a wide range of potential treatments.

… Adult stem cells are being studied in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis, heart attacks and diabetes. Some early results suggest stem cells can help some patients avoid leg amputation. Recently, researchers reported that they restored vision to patients whose eyes were damaged by chemicals.

Apart from these efforts, transplants of adult stem cells have become a standard lifesaving therapy for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases.

… in the near term, embryonic stem cells are more likely to pay off as lab tools, for learning about the roots of disease and screening potential drugs.

The fact that so much is being accomplished with adult stem cells further buttresses the correctness of Lamberth’s ruling. It’s reasonable to contend that anything embryonic cells may someday in theory be able to do, adult cells are doing now, with the rest to follow in fairly short order. So why do researchthat involves killing embryos at all?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

It’s quite likely that many of them have been told of Reagan’s firm resolve to win the Cold War. But it’s also likely they haven’t learned about the Reagan budget policies that led to a historic economic recovery. Instead, liberal revisionists are working overtime to assign to the Gipper’s tax cut policies the blame for deficits on his watch. Given the disastrous performance of Barack Obama, it’s time to give this man a serious look once again.

Young Hollywood director and producer Ray Griggs has made a breezy and yet substantive documentary titled “I Want Your Money” that can educate young voters on the differences between Reaganomics and Obamanomics. Some might say that Griggs is trying to become the conservative Michael Moore, but that would be unfair, since Moore’s documentaries often depart from the classification of “nonfiction.” When Moore claims health care is better in Cuba than America, or that Iraq before the Iraq war was a placid kite-flying paradise under Saddam Hussein, serious filmmakers run from him.

Griggs is talking about a real, gripping American disaster: our trillion-dollar deficits under Obama and the ever-increasing weight of the national debt. Conservatives in this film are appalled by the loose spending of George W. Bush and Congress over the last decade, and correctly so. But they know Obama is making those deficit years look like a nursery-school exercise in overspending. What’s emerging now is Tea Party anger, of conservatives who’ve been pushed too hard for too long.

“I Want Your Money” is stuffed with weighty conservative experts – Steve Moore, Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich, Ed Meese, Ken Blackwell, and more. But perhaps the most affecting visuals are the old clips of Ronald Reagan, speaking so clearly about the perils of liberal profligacy. There is Reagan at the convention in Dallas in 1984 joking “We could say they spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors…because the sailors are spending their own money.”

It also has a “BS meter” which goes berserk when Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims that the Democrats will pass the Obama agenda, including ObamaCare, with “no new deficit spending.”

The film not only discusses green-eyeshade budgeting, but the larger philosophical debate between capitalism and socialism. In an animated segment, the Reagan character lectures “Obama” about what kind of productivity you would get in a classroom if everyone was awarded the same grade, no matter how serious the effort: a dramatically reduced work effort from the productive people, while the lazy students would forever be lazy.

It exposes a real contrast between presidents. As experts point out in the film, Ronald Reagan used clarity to teach you about the real world. Barack Obama uses eloquence to hide what he’s doing, because if his real agenda became clear, as it did with ObamaCare, it would be opposed by the majority.

Griggs found a very nice film clip of the late Nobel Prize-winning capitalist economist Milton Friedman speaking to a dark-haired Phil Donahue in 1979. Donahue proclaimed that capitalism was all about greed. Why, Friedman wondered, was it that political self-interest was so much nobler than economic self-interest? A voter born in 1992 has probably never witnessed Milton Friedman’s television work, especially his “Free to Choose” documentary series (also in those paper-stuffed things called books). This kind of exposure could cause a rediscovery, just like this year’s new interest in Friedrich Hayek’s book “Road to Serfdom.”

So how will this film get into theaters, since it’s not one of those left-wing documentaries? A national effort is being organized by Motive Entertainment, the company that promoted the grassroots campaigns for “The Passion of the Christ” and the first “Chronicles of Narnia” movie. In mid-September, they’ll begin organizing private screenings to celebrate Constitution Day on September 17. From there, organizers will prepare for an October 15 theatrical launch in more than 500 theaters from coast to coast.

But this campaign to show box-office appeal won’t be successful without the same grass-roots energy that mobilized the Tea Party protests. The movie trailer on YouTube has more than two million page views. If everyone who watched the trailer would turn out for the whole movie, then theater owners would have no choice but to take notice.

Perhaps, then, Americans will laugh when news anchors (like CNN’s Rick Sanchez) try to describe Obama’s campaign speeches as “Reaganesque.” We can’t even find a Republican who has fully earned that grand adjective, and it certainly doesn’t fit the socialist blather of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Chatting with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s "Countdown" about the Florida pastor that wants to burn Korans on the upcoming ninth anniversary of 9/11, Dean said, "I think the Republican Party has become the party, this really started back with Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, that appeals to hatred."

He continued, "I don’t think the majority of Republicans are haters, but there is a significant hate wing of the Republican Party, including the talk show hosts like Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh and people like that and they don’t dare cross them" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Governor, good evening.

HOWARD DEAN: And the guy with the longest introduction on television.

OLBERMANN: General Petraeus wants this Pastor Jones to cancel the Koran burning. Why aren’t people like Sarah Palin and John Boehner and McConnell and company helping to cut to the nut of this, General Petraeus protect our men and women in uniform?

DEAN: Unfortunately, I think the Republican Party has become the party, this really started back with Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, that appeals to hatred. And I don’t think the majority of Republicans are haters, but there is a significant hate wing of the Republican Party, including the talk show hosts like Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh and people like that and they don’t dare cross them. For a long time we’ve thought that Fox worked for the Republican Party. Now we know that Fox really runs the Republican Party.

Exit question: when people like Dean, Olbermann, and their ilk spew hate, do they have the slightest understanding of how hypocritical it is to accuse others of being haters, or does their seemingly limitless antipathy for their opponents make this impossible?

You might think Ed Schultz would be out of place in a junior high recess yard, but that’s where he’s landed himself with his childish name-calling . . .

On his show this evening, the MSNBC host—demonstrably desperate to pick a fight with his ratings superiors at Fox News—no fewer than four times referred to FNC host Steve Doocy as Steve "Douche-y."

It was an appearance on a Doocy-hosted show by resident FNC legal expert Judge Andrew Napolitano, discussing the Glenn Beck rally, that supplied Schultz the opening to engage in his middle school-worthy mispronunciation.

Check the video to witness Ed in the puerile pits.

Chris Matthews is still getting a thrill up his leg, and even further, when he hears Barack Obama speak, as the MSNBCer, on Monday’s Hardball, announced to the world "I get the same thrill up my leg, all over me," whenever he listens to Obama’s 2004 Democratic convention speech. Matthews also revealed he is really sensitive about how his "thrill" moments are described, as he took offense when a guest inaccurately labeled it a "tingle" as Matthews shot back: "It wasn’t a tingle, up my leg, that’s what right wing fascists say. I got a thrill up my leg. Okay? You’re reading the right wing blogs. Start tuning your station." [audio available here]

Matthews, however, is quite aware that the rest of the country doesn’t share the same all over body thrill he does as he asked his guests, Roger Simon of the Politico and Jim Kessler of Third Way, "Can President Obama stir us again and help his party keep power this November?" 

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the September 7 Hardball:

[5:17pm]

BARACK OBAMA: I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story. That I owe a debt to all of those who came before me and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Wow, that was America’s introduction to Barack Obama in 2004 in his acknowledgment that only in America was his story possible inspired us. And as he battled through the 2008 primaries he retold that story, and it was electric.

OBAMA: My own story tells me that in the United States of America there’s never been anything false about hope, at least not if you’re willing to work for it. Not if you’re willing to struggle for it, not if you’re willing to fight for it. I should not be here today. I should not be here today. I was not born into money or status. I was born to a teenage mom in Hawaii. My father left us when I was two. But my family gave me love. They give me an education. And most of all they gave me hope. Hope, hope that in America, no dream is beyond our grasp. If we reach for it and fight for it and work for it.

MATTHEWS: I get the same thrill up my leg all over me, every time I hear those words. I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen that’s me. He’s talking about my country and nobody does it better. Can President Obama stir us again and help his party keep power this November? Jim Kessler is co-founder and vice president of Third Way, a progressive think tank. Roger Simon, our buddy is chief political columnist for Politico. Gentlemen, with a little bit of sentiment, Roger, try here.

ROGER SIMON, POLITICO: I’m sentimental.

MATTHEWS: Try to stick with me. It seems to me, that what’s thrilled me, and I admitted it so many times, is when he talked about America. He wasn’t saying "I’m going to do this because I’m a big shot and I’m a brain." He said, you know, "I was lucky and also I was fortunate to live in this country and, and we can do things on our own without a lot of help from government and big stuff. On our own we can do things. That’s what your piece is about, isn’t it? He doesn’t talk like that any more.

JIM KESSLER, THIRD WAY: Right. I think it’s hard to talk like that when you’re in the middle of a lot of legislative battles, but if you look back 10.8 percent unemployment, 6.3 percent inflation, decline in GDP, doubling of the deficit over the previous years and presidential approval ratings south of 40 percent, Ronald Reagan, November of 1982, at the exact moment of the midterm elections he held all 54 Republican Senate seats, they lost a couple dozen House seats, which is basically par for the course. It shows you can have an economic environment as bad or worse as what the Democrats and Barack Obama are facing-

MATTHEWS: If?

KESSLER: If, you have to own one thing. You have to own optimism. And that’s what, that’s what President Reagan was selling to the American people. A destination, a vision about success and where America was going.

MATTHEWS: Was that a confidence in themselves or in his program?

KESSLER: I think it was confidence in himself, as a leader, because there was doubts about Reaganomics. Reaganomics hadn’t worked for one moment, at that point, but they understood the destination where he wanted to take this country. And they said, "You know what we’re gonna hitch a ride with this guy. I’m not sure about the program but I know where he wants to take this country" and, you know, he, he, ya hitched a wagon to him. And people stuck, stuck with him.

MATTHEWS: Somebody is giving him other advice here. He’s getting somewhere else because this, they’re talking, "They’re treating me like a dog." This whining almo-, not whining. That’s a knock. But, you know, he’s talking like he’s being put down. He’s not being put down. He’s being criticized.

SIMON: No, he’s the President of the United States. He can’t portray himself as a victim. One other thing that the Republicans had going for them in ‘94 is that the Democrats were fat and sassy and lazy and didn’t see it coming. Also they had a movement leader in Newt Gingrich, and his Contract With America which was more symbolic than real. But people said, "Oh here it is in writing. This is a good deal."

MATTHEWS: Yeah, but only about one-fifth of people knew about that so-called contract. Let me ask you about Jim’s point, about the basic speech he used to give about America. No one questioned Barack Obama’s Americanism when he was running as a candidate. They didn’t talk about his religion. They knew he had an exotic name, Barack Obama. But that was so much like a lot of our names, they’re accidents of our parents or grandparents. It wasn’t who we are. Now the Republicans have tagged him with that, it’s his identity. He is Barack Hussein Obama. That’s who he is, it’s an identity because he doesn’t seem to wow us with his love of country like he used to, that’s my thought.

SIMON: Well I think he’s suffering under the belief that he’s got to something for an encore. You can’t go back to the past. And you saw on the podium the past placard. "Change you can believe in."

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

SIMON: "Change we can believe in. Well now people have the right to say, "Where is the change? Where is it? It didn’t happen."

MATTHEWS: Well it’s a year-and-a-half.

SIMON: People are impatient.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

SIMON: They want to see something.

MATTHEWS: But why did they put up with Reagan for a year-and-a-half of nothing but 11 unemployment, 11 percent unemployment?

SIMON: Reagan, as Barack Obama is, though in different ways, a very magnetic personable figure that people liked and trusted. Barack Obama, as I said, is the same. By Election Day he cannot improve the unemployment figures. But, by Election Day, he can goose up the Democrats. He can make them confident.

MATTHEWS: Yeah okay. Here’s the question. Let’s watch Reagan for a second and then I’m gonna ask you Jim, can a Democrat be turned on the way a Republican can? I know I can. Somewhere in the middle, slightly left but I’m there and I can get it turned on by America as anybody on the right. But maybe, I’m gonna ask you whether Democrats really want to be positive. Here he is, Reagan being positive, maybe talking to the choir. Here he is in January of 1982. Let’s look.

RONALD REAGAN: Don’t let anybody tell you America’s best days are behind her, that the american spirit has been vanquished. We’ve seen the triumph, too often in our lives, to stop believing in it now.

MATTHEWS: Can a Democrat talk like that?

KESSLER: Yes. I mean, look, you talked about that tingle up your leg. I mean you know…

MATTHEWS: It wasn’t a tingle, up my leg, that’s what right wing fascists say. I got a thrill up my leg. Okay? You’re reading the right wing blogs. Start tuning your station.

KESSLER: My, my apologies.

MATTHEWS: No it’s not enough, because you’re reading the wrong stuff. But go ahead, I was just kidding. I can take it. I’m sorry.

A spokesman for the Nation whined to the Daily Caller’s Chris Moody about a supposed "tendency for classes to exclude progressive ideas and viewpoints." Most people who have ever set foot in a classroom are now scratching their heads in confusion.

Moody reported:

"The real idea behind it is to bring the left perspective to issues to make sure students have both left and right available to them," the Nation’s Vice President of Circulation Art Stupar told TheDC. "This is an opportunity for students to view what the progressive left thinks about a particular issue."

The liberal magazine sends online curriculum guides each week to teachers that include experts from the magazine, talking points about current events and suggested discussion topics for the classroom. The guides are a part of the magazine’s "learning packs," which offer educators access to its archives dating back to shortly after the Civil War.

"In this year of economic uncertainty and critical mid-term elections, the corporate-owned media will not be offering lessons about: our rigged political system; the conservative crusade against Muslims; the phony ‘panic’ over debt; vets abandoned by the VA; taxes and the Tea Party and much, much more," read the magazine’s announcement for the new school year, which begins today for many students around the country.

Let’s see. College professors give money to Democrats over Republicans by a greater than 7-1 margin. Ninety-six percent of teachers’ unions political contributions since 1990 have gone to Democrats. And this is the industry the Nation claims is suffering from a tragic deficit of leftist thought.

Of course those numbers are not surprising to anyone who is, you know, paying attention. And those willing to acknowledge reality will not need to look at the NEA’s balance sheet to recognize the sheer absurdity of the premises underlying the Nation’s campaign.

National Review publisher Jack Fowler, who called the Nation’s effort "laughable," clearly has a firm grasp on reality. "We have no outreach to the three conservative professors that there are," he told the DC.

In a September 5 editorial promoting the legalization of RU-486 telemed abortions, the Des Moines Register editorial board had to admit Planned Parenthood of the Heartland is currently committing them illegally.  Read carefully:

… Planned Parenthood of the Heartland has used telemedicine as it was intended: to expand access to legal health services in rural Iowa. The challenge of that smart approach should prompt state leaders to update laws and policies – to give Iowans increased access to health care, including abortion, through the use of technology.

Now it’s up to Iowa leaders to:

- Re-evaluate outdated abortion laws in this state.

The law requiring physicians to perform abortions made sense when all abortions were surgical procedures. But that requirement is called into question now that women are increasingly choosing to take a drug….

Iowa should take a step forward in fostering 21st century medicine – including using it to give women access to a legal medical procedure.

In touting the need for telemed abortions in rural areas, the editorial board did not present a solution for aborting mothers who encounter emergencies in rural areas.

Instead the editorial board ridiculously relied on unsubstantiated data from the fox guarding the hen house to say the hens are safe:

PP says that of the 1,500 women who have used telemedicine for abortions over the past 2 years, none has reported complications.

Yes, let’s take the word of the megaabortion industry committing these abortions to say all is well.

Are you really that gullible, Des Moines Register? Not one complication of 1,500 telemed abortions committed over the course of 2 years? Not one? Planned Parenthood Federation lists 5 possible complications, which I’m copying and pasting:

an allergic reaction to either of the pills

incomplete abortion – part of the pregnancy is left inside the uterus

infection

undetected ectopic pregnancy

very heavy bleeding

(To clarify, by “part of the pregnancy… left inside the uterus,” PP means not to say “part of the baby.”)

So out of 1,500 abortions there has not been one allergic reaction, not one infection, not one ectopic pregnancy found after the fact, and not one case of heavy bleeding? Wow.

I skipped the complication of an “incomplete abortion” because the PP Federation elsewhere states:

Complete abortion will occur in 96–97 percent of women who choose mifepristone. In the small percentage of cases that medication abortion fails, other abortion procedures are required to end the pregnancies.

This means PP of the Heartland, which should have encountered 45-60 incomplete abortions out of 1,500 RU-486 telemed abortions, in actuality encountered not one? Wow again. That’s amazing.

Because if there were any complications or need for surgical abortions in the event of an RU-486 fail, again the question for mothers in rural areas would be, where to go?

Had the Des Moines Register editorial board written this opinion piece for a Journalism 101 class, it would have gotten an F for not checking the obviously biased source of a pretty incredible and unsubstantiated statistic.

And the board had the nerve to call pro-lifers “backward.”

Reporting ABC News President David Westin’s plan to step down at the end of the year, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz noted “some early missteps” during his 13-year tenure, such as “a comment after the Sept. 11 attacks, for which Westin apologized, that journalists should offer no opinion about whether the Pentagon had been a legitimate military target.”

That apology was promoted by an MRC CyberAlert item in October of 2001 which put into play an answer Westin delivered during a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism seminar. Barely six weeks after the 9/11 attack, Westin was remarkably reticent about expressing an opinion, contending that’s improper for a journalist to do so – how quaint:

The Pentagon as a legitimate target? I actually don’t have an opinion on that and it’s important I not have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now….Our job is to determine what is, not what ought to be and when we get into the job of what ought to be I think we’re not doing a service to the American people….As a journalist I feel strongly that’s something that I should not be taking a position on. I’m supposed to figure out what is and what is not, not what ought to be.

After the Monday CyberAlert item was widely picked up (FNC’s Brit Hume, plastered across the DrudgeReport, New York Post, lengthy discussion by Rush Limbaugh) on Wednesday, October 31, 2001 ABC News called to get an e-mail address to send a statement from Westin, which read:

Like all Americans, I was horrified at the loss of life at the Pentagon, as well as in New York and Pennsylvania on September 11. When asked at an interview session at the Columbia Journalism School whether I believed that the Pentagon was a legitimate target for terrorists I responded that, as a journalist, I did not have an opinion. I was wrong. I gave an answer to journalism students to illustrate the broad, academic principle that all journalists should draw a firm line between what they know and what their personal opinion might be. Upon reflection, I realized that my answer did not address the specifics of September 11. Under any interpretation, the attack on the Pentagon was criminal and entirely without justification. I apologize for any harm that my misstatement may have caused.

Monday, October 29 CyberAlert: “Pentagon a Legitimate Target?”

Wednesday, October 31 CyberAlert Extra: “Reacting to CyberAlert Item, ABC News President David Westin Has Apologized and Said ‘I Was Wrong’ for Having ‘No Opinion’ on Whether the Pentagon Was a ‘Legitimate’ Military Target”

A few weeks later, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes recounted in the magazine:

…On October 23, Westin spoke to a class at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Asked if the Pentagon were a legitimate target for attack by America’s enemies, he said, "I actually don’t have an opinion on that…as a journalist I feel strongly that’s something I should not be taking a position on." The comment drew no criticism from the students, which may tell you something about them.

But four days later, the Westin speech was shown on C-SPAN, where Brent Baker of the Media Research Center caught it at 2 A.M. Baker put excerpts in the daily "CyberAlert" he writes for MRC’s website. Rummaging through the Internet, Brit Hume spotted the item and mentioned it on "Special Report" that evening on Fox. Two days later, the New York Post picked it up and the next day so did the Drudge Report. That alerted Rush Limbaugh, who devoted an hour or more to it on his radio show. With Limbaugh’s show still in progress, Baker got a call from ABC. A reply would be e-mailed to him soon for posting on the MRC website. It was a total capitulation. "I was wrong," Westin wrote. "Under any interpretation, the attack on the Pentagon was criminal and entirely without justification."…

Westin’s original October 23 answer, in full:

The Pentagon as a legitimate target? I actually don’t have an opinion on that and it’s important I not have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now. The way I conceive my job running a news organization, and the way I would like all the journalists at ABC News to perceive it, is there is a big difference between a normative position and a positive position. Our job is to determine what is, not what ought to be and when we get into the job of what ought to be I think we’re not doing a service to the American people. I can say the Pentagon got hit, I can say this is what their position is, this is what our position is, but for me to take a position this was right or wrong, I mean, that’s perhaps for me in my private life, perhaps it’s for me dealing with my loved ones, perhaps it’s for my minister at church. But as a journalist I feel strongly that’s something that I should not be taking a position on. I’m supposed to figure out what is and what is not, not what ought to be.