But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Jake Tapper - ABC News

I'm not denying that the media as a whole could stand to consider conservative arguments more (just as it could probably cover minorities more)…

But certain things are just facts. When I went to Ohio a week ago to talk to voters there the Republicans we spoke to were dispirited, and many were considering voting for the Democrats. That was borne out yesterday, but at the time I was hammered for liberal bias.

Or you can look at Karl Rove's pre-election spat with National Public Radio's Robert Siegel.

SIEGEL: We're in the home stretch, though, and many would consider you on the optimistic end of realism about -
ROVE: Not that you would be exhibiting a bias ...
SIEGEL: I'm looking at all the same polls that you're looking at every day.
ROVE: No, you're not. No, you're not.
SIEGEL: No, I'm not.
ROVE: No, you're not. You're not. I'm looking at 68 polls a week. You may be looking at four or five public polls a week that talk about attitudes nationally but that do not impact the outcome of -
SIEGEL: I'm looking at main races between - certainly Senate races.
ROVE: Well, like the poll today showing that Corker's ahead in Tennessee, or the poll showing that Allen is pulling away in the Virginia Senate race.
SIEGEL: Leading Webb in Virginia, yeah.
Mr. ROVE: Exactly.
SIEGEL: But you've seen the DeWine race and the Santorum race - I don't want to have you call races.
ROVE: Yeah, I'm looking at all these, Robert, and adding them up, and I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math, I'm entitled to THE math.
SIEGEL: Well, I don't know if we're entitled to our different math, but you're certainly -
ROVE: I said THE math. I said you're entitled to yours.
Uh-huh.
What, pray tell, is "THE math"?
Or George Stephanopoulos's assertion after the Foley scandal that Speaker Dennis Hastert would not be leading Republicans after this election -- this just in, Hastert has told fellow GOP lawmakers he will not run for minority leader when Democrats take control of the House.
There are legitimate conservative arguments to make about the media. But not every time someone reports something that doesn't bode well for Republicans is it bias. Sometimes it's called: reality.

On Friday, we reported that 51-year-old Charles Rust-Tierney, an attorney and former head of the ACLU in Virginia, was arrested and charged in federal court with possessing child pornography. Agents found videos in his home of little girls being violently raped by adults.

We said we'd report back to you today on which news organizations covered the story and which did not. The two biggest left-wing outfits in the country — The New York Times and NBC News —ignored the story entirely. CBS News, CNN, and most of the big city liberal newspapers also failed to cover the Rust-Tierney arrest. ABCnews.com and the Associated Press did cover. And because it happened in their backyard, The Washington Post ran a brief story in its second section, essentially burying the entire thing.

Now the failure of most media outlets to cover this colossal embarrassment to the ACLU contrasts vividly with the coverage of preacher Ted Haggard, which embarrassed conservative Christians. You remember when Haggard was accused of immortality by a male prostitute, the story was all over the place.

"Talking Points" is not surprised that NBC News and The New York Times, who's motto is "all the news that's fit to print" ignored the child porn bust. These news agencies are no longer objective. They exist to push secular progressive agendas and disparage traditional points of view. We proved that over and over again.

Nigeria bribery probe: The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into an alleged $180 million bribe paid by Halliburton and three other companies to the government of Nigeria. The alleged bribe was paid in exchange for awarding a contract to the companies to build a $4 billion natural gas plant in Nigeria's southern delta region. The bribes were paid during the time when Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened its own formal investigation on June 11, 2004. Click here for a chronology of events in the bribery case.


Nigeria bribery probe: The French government is conducting an investigation of the same Nigeria bribery allegations as the U.S. Justice Department. France is also investigating a former Halliburton executive for his role in the scheme. Investigators said $5 million of the bribes intended for Nigeria was deposited into the Swiss bank account of former KBR chairman, Jack Stanley, who retired from the company on December 31, 2003.


The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating a second bribery case involving Nigeria. Halliburton admitted that its employees paid a $2.4 million bribe to a government official of Nigeria for the purpose of receiving favorable tax treatment.


The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating allegations that the Army Corp of Engineers illegally favored Halliburton for contracts by excluding competitors from bidding on war-related work. In particular, the FBI is investigating the Army's $7 billion firefighting contract for Iraqi oil wells, which was awarded to Halliburton without competition in March of 2003. An Army whistleblower told the FBI that the line between government officials and Halliburton had become so blurred that a perception of conflict of interest existed. The conduct appears to have violated specific regulations and calls into question the independence of the contracting process.


The Pentagon admitted that a $7 billion no-bid contract to extinguish oil fires in Iraq was awarded to Halliburton after a "political appointee" from the Bush administration recommended the company for the job. Government policy forbids politicians or their appointees from taking a role in awarding contracts to private corporations. But Vice President Cheney ignored this basic principle when his political appointees were directly involved in awarding a $7 billion contract to Halliburton to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.


The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is investigating the legality of Halliburton's business dealings in Iran, an enemy of the United States. Halliburton sells goods and services to Iranian companies through its Cayman Islands subsidiary. The sales appear to have violated the U.S. trade embargo against trading with Iran. The OFAC referred the case to the Department of Justice, which is conducting a criminal investigation.


The Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice issued a subpoena to a former employee of Halliburton's KBR unit to determine whether the company criminally overcharged for gasoline imported into Iraq. KBR, along with its Kuwaiti subcontractor Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co., allegedly overcharged the government by $61 million, but Democrats in Congress say the overcharges were closer to $167 million. KBR charged the government $2.64 per gallon of gasoline while competitors were importing gasoline for less than half that price.


Four former employees of Halliburton filed a class action lawsuit against their former employer, alleging the company engaged in "systemic" accounting fraud from 1998 to 2001. The former employees say Halliburton overbilled for services, overstated the amounts it was owed by customers and understated amounts it owed to vendors. A former employee in the accounting department said supervisors had told her to do "whatever it took" to make profit statements appear more profitable than was actually the case.


The U.S. Department of Defense is investigating Halliburton's billing system, which it calls "inadequate." Pentagon accountants said they are uncertain as to why Halliburton's KBR unit billed the government for $1.8 billion in work that was apparently never undertaken or completed. The $1.8 billion represents 43 percent of Halliburton's expenditures in the Middle East.


Congressional auditors issued a report that criticized Halliburton for a variety of abuses associated with its troop support and military logistics (LOGCAP) contract. It also criticized the Pentagon for “a pattern of contractor management problems,” including ineffective planning, a poor materials requisition system and inadequate supervision of subcontractors.


The Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) completed a comprehensive review of Halliburton's system for billing the government for meals served to the troops in the Middle East. The DCAA said Halliburton billed the government for 36 percent more meals than was actually served to the troops while an internal KBR report said it had overcharged by 19 percent. In May 2004, the DCAA recommended that the Pentagon refuse to pay Halliburton for the overcharges.


An investigation by the inspector general of the now-disbanded U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) found that Halliburton lost $18.6 million worth of government property in Iraq because of mismanagement. About a third of the government items under Halliburton management in Iraq, including trucks, computers and office furniture have disappeared.


The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Halliburton for possible over billing on government services work done in the Balkans from 1996 through 2000. The charges stem from a General Accounting Office report that found in 1997 that Halliburton billed the Army for questionable expenses for work in the Balkans, including charges of $85.98 per sheet of plywood that cost $14.06. A follow-up report by the GAO in 2000 found inflated costs, including charges for cleaning some offices up to four times a day.


The Army awarded Halliburton a no-bid contract in March 2003 despite a secret Pentagon report which found the company had "significant deficiencies" that could lead to defrauding the government. The Pentagon's report was given to Hearst News Service under the Freedom of Information Act over Halliburton's objections.


The Department of Defense repeatedly warned Halliburton's subsidiary, KBR, that its food and the kitchens where it is prepared are "dirty," NBC News reported. A Pentagon report found that KBR's promises to clean up its food and kitchens "have not been followed through."


The Kuwaiti government has delayed completion of a report on its investigation of the $61 million gasoline overcharge by KBR and its subcontractor, Altanmia. The U.S. embassy in Kuwait publicly stated it will not cooperate with the Kuwaiti government's investigation. Kuwait said its investigation is delayed because the U.S. Army refuses to testify.


The inspector general for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) found that the United States failed to adequately control over $9 billion in international aid, including Halliburton's hotel costs in Kuwait. Halliburton charged the government $2.85 million for hotel costs, even though cheaper housing arrangements were available. For example, one CPA official lived at the Kuwaiti Hilton for almost $700 a night. The inspector general also criticized Halliburton for charging $191,000 a year for laundry services.


The auditing arm of Congress issued a report confirming that the Pentagon had violated procurement law by issuing a "task order" to Halliburton to develop plans for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq. The report, issued by the General Accounting Office (GAO), said the task order violated the law because it was issued under Halliburton's LOGCAP contract, which is not authorized to handle oil fires. LOGCAP is a logistics contract that requires Halliburton to feed the troops, deliver supplies in a war zone and construct military buildings. But there is no authority under LOGCAP to deal with oil well fires. The GAO said Bush administration officials “overstepped the latitude provided by competition laws” when they misused the LOGCAP contract to assign the planning job to Halliburton.


Halliburton settled an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which accused the firm of providing "materially misleading" information to investors during the period when Vice President Dick Cheney was the chief executive officer. The SEC said it settled the case after Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine and to stop "committing or causing future securities law violations."


The International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB), a watchdog established by the United Nations, is investigating the management of Iraqi finances by the now-disbanded U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The IAMB complained that the CPA refuses to release documents on contracts awarded to private firms, including Halliburton. The Bush administration refused numerous IAMB requests for U.S. government reports about the payment of approximately $1.5 billion in Iraqi funds to Halliburton, which is the single largest private recipient of Iraqi oil proceeds.

What GAO Found:

Congress first authorized the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity,
Louisiana Hurricane Protection Project in the Flood Control Act of
1965. The project was to construct a series of control structures,
concrete floodwalls, and levees to provide hurricane protection to
areas around Lake Pontchartrain. The project, when designed, was
expected to take about 13 years to complete and cost about $85 million.
Although federally authorized, it was a joint federal, state, and local
effort.

The original project designs were developed based on the equivalent of
what is now called a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane that might strike
the coastal Louisiana region once in 200-300 years. As GAO reported in
1976 and 1982, since the beginning of the project, the Corps has
encountered project delays and cost increases due to design changes
caused by technical issues, environmental concerns, legal challenges,
and local opposition to portions of the project. As a result, in 1982,
project costs had grown to $757 million and the expected completion
date had slipped to 2008. None of the changes made to the project,
however, are believed to have had any role in the levee breaches
recently experienced as the alternative design selected was expected to
provide the same level of protection. In fact, Corps officials believe
that flooding would have been worse if the original proposed design had
been built. When Hurricane Katrina struck, the project, including about
125 miles of levees, was estimated to be from 60-90 percent complete in
different areas with an estimated completion date for the whole project
of 2015. The floodwalls along the drainage canals that were breached
were complete when the hurricane hit.

A. Levee Planning and Construction History
The system just described grew out of a reevaluation of the protections that had
failed when Hurricane Betsy struck New Orleans in September 1965. Reacting to the
devastating flooding which resulted from that storm, Congress authorized a massive
hurricane protection improvement effort called the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity
Hurricane Protection Project (LPVHPP) to provide hurricane protection to all of the
Greater New Orleans metropolitan area.16 To implement this statute, the Corps of
Engineers carefully studied two major options—the “high level” option and the “barrier”
option.
1. The “High Level” and “Barrier” Options.
The “high level” option consisted simply of raising all of the existing levees and,
where necessary, constructing new levees to a height that would prevent flooding that
could result from the standard project hurricane (SPH), a hypothetical hurricane that was
used to guide Corps levee design and that loosely represented the most extreme hurricane
that would be expected to hit New Orleans every 200 to 300 years.17 Although experts
later determined that the model hurricane could not possibly occur in the real world,18 it
was roughly equivalent to a fast-moving Category Three storm on the Saffir-Simpson
hurricane scale.19 In practice, the high level plan for protection against the SPH would
have resulted in raising the levees from between 9.3 and 13.5 feet above sea level to
between 16 and 18.5 feet above sea level.20 The assumption was, of course, that the
levees would be properly designed and constructed to withstand all storm surges that did
not exceed those levels.
Under the “barrier” option, the Corps would have constructed levees along the far
eastern edge of Lake Pontchartrain where it flows into Lake Borgne and ultimately the
Gulf of Mexico through two relatively narrow channels at the Rigolets pass and Chef
Menteur pass (see figure 2). The Corps would also have constructed structures at the two
passes containing massive gates that would have allowed water to flow back and forth
between the lakes but that would have been closed when hurricanes approached.21
Finally, the Corps would have built a navigation lock, rock dike, and gated flood control
structure at the point at which the Industrial Canal enters Lake Pontchartrain. The gates
would have been closed during hurricanes to prevent water from entering the Industrial
Canal from Lake Pontchartrain.22 The Corps believed that the levees and the barrier
structure would prevent storm surge preceding hurricanes from crossing from Lake
Bourne into Lake Pontchartrain.23 Consequently, the levees bordering the city along
Lake Pontchartrain would be fortified, but not significantly raised as under the alternative
plan. Still, like the high level option, the barrier option was designed to protect against
the SPH.24
2. First Choice: The Barrier Option
The high level option had several drawbacks from the perspective of Corps
officials, including the need to obtain rights of way for additional land near the levees to
allow them to be widened and raised. In addition, the high level plan would not have
prevented the flooding of some industrial areas and potentially developable wetlands
located outside the existing downtown polder between the levees and the lake to the
northeast of the city.25 The Corps therefore decided to implement the barrier option.26
To speed the project along, the Orleans Levee Board financed and constructed portions of
the Industrial Canal floodwalls, and this relatively inexpensive aspect of the project was
virtually completed by 1973.27 Work on the barrier structures and levees running from
New Orleans to the those structures, however, was greatly delayed because landowners
opposed to the project demanded high prices for parcels of property that the Corps
needed in order to construct the levees, forcing the Corps to exercise its power of eminent
domain.28
In 1976, a coalition of local fishermen and an environmental group called Save
Our Wetlands sued the Corps of Engineers alleging that the final environmental impact
statement (FEIS) prepared for the project was inadequate.29 On December 30, 1977, a
federal district court agreed, issuing an injunction that prevented the Corps from
conducting any further work on the barrier project until it had prepared an adequate FEIS.

those levees were designed to be of sufficient height to resist overtopping from the SPH, and Katrina apparently did not generate a storm surge exceeding that height.

A proper hindsight analysis...might also examine
the scenario in which the seagates were not properly closed in anticipation of the
hurricane: Given the numerous instances of official breakdown that occurred as Katrina
and its aftermath actually unfolded, such a possibility is not at all farfetched.

This conclusion, however, does not necessarily lead directly to the ultimate conclusion that the failure to construct the barrier project was not a but-for cause of the flooding of the downtown polder. Even if it is true that a cause of the failure of the outfall canal levees was improper design or improper construction, it is equally [*pg 206] clear that neither of those factors caused the levees to fail in the absence of the storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain. More to the point, it is certainly possible that the storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain would have been much less powerful had barrier gates at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes been in place and closed before Katrina hit. The resulting storm surge may then have lacked sufficient force to breach the outfall canal levees even at their weakest points. Viewed somewhat differently, the barrier project may have provided a critical margin of safety for the overall system that would have prevented the flooding of the downtown polder, allowing for the possibility that the outfall canals would have been negligently constructed or maintained.

A proper hindsight analysis to test this hypothesis would have to estimate the force of the storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain under the assumption that the seagates at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes had been properly designed and constructed and had been properly closed prior to the time that the surge from Hurricane Katrina moved from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Borgne into Lake Pontchartrain. The outcome of this analysis is by no means certain. For example, a spokesperson for the New Orleans division of the Corps acknowledged after Hurricane Katrina that he was not sure "how much [the barrier project] would have prevented anything."106 Other reports suggest that

Corps staff believe that flooding would have been worse if the original proposed design had been built because the storm surge would likely have gone over the top of the barrier and floodgates, flooded Lake Pontchartrain, and gone over the original lower levees planned for the lakefront area as part of the barrier plan.107

It is necessary to go beyond these statements, however, given that Army Corps representatives have obvious reasons for discounting the likelihood that the barrier plan would have performed better than the high level plan. A proper analysis of how the barrier plan would have fared during Katrina would require a complex modeling exercise that would in turn require the analyst to [*pg 207] determine the height of the storm surge at the passes and compare it to the design height of the levees and seagates. As noted previously, the project was designed to withstand the SPH, which in New Orleans was roughly equivalent to a fast-moving Category Three Hurricane.108 Although the media initially reported expert conclusions that Katrina was a Category Four Hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale when the eye passed to the east of New Orleans,109 subsequent analyses of the water levels along the levees have suggested that the storm may have weakened to Category Three status by the time the storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain hit the city.110 The Saffir-Simpson scale, in any event, is based on wind speed and not predicted storm surge levels, and in some circumstances it may be possible for a Category Two storm to produce a storm surge that exceeds that of a Category Three storm.111 Hence, even estimating the height of the storm surge at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes is fraught with uncertainty.

If the storm surge would have exceeded the height of the levees and seagates between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne, then the surge would have entered the lake at an attenuated level and probably at a lower velocity. This alone, however, would not have prevented a surge in Lake Pontchartrain because the strong northeasterly winds produced by the hurricane still would have caused water that was already in the lake to surge against the levees protecting New Orleans. Some of that water would have surged up the ungated outfall canals and that surge would have tested the levees. Whether the seagates would have reduced the surge from Lake Pontchartrain sufficiently to prevent the breach of poorly designed or constructed levees is therefore an exceedingly complex question, the answer to which would require expertise in meteorology, hydrology, engineering, mathematical modeling, and probably other disciplines. Certainly one cannot conclude without a great deal of additional analysis that the barrier project as conceived in the early 1970s -- even if perfectly implemented and executed -- [*pg 208] would have prevented the downtown polder from flooding during Hurricane Katrina.

The senior project manager for the Corps, Al Naomi, now says, “ The levees and control structures in the post- 1965 plan were not big enough to control a surge and protect the city. But the corps is preparing to resurrect the project with bigger levees and a more environmentally friendly control structure. We can design a barrier to both protect human life and protect the environment.

1. The Government Accountability Office found that that none of the changes made to the USACE initial 1965 plan led to the disaster. They note that at least some Corps officials believe that the flooding may have actually been worse if the original barrier plan had been in place.

2. The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness found stated that "the position of the Corps of Engineers is that plans would have provided the same level of protection because they both would have been designed to the same standard – the Standard Project Hurricane – and would not have materially altered the outcome." They cited testimony from Daniel Hitchings, Regional Business Director for the Mississippi Valley Division, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and Director of Task Force Hope.

3. A university study that found that, "Certainly one cannot conclude without a great deal of additional analysis that the barrier project as conceived in the early 1970s -- even if perfectly implemented and executed -- [*pg 208] would have prevented the downtown polder from flooding during Hurricane Katrina".

4. The contention of The Corps senior project manager that, "The levees and control structures in the post- 1965 plan were not big enough to control a surge and protect the city."

5. Numerous confirmations from multiple sources that the SPH that the barrier was designed to protect New Orleans from was actually only the equivolent of a category 3 storm.

those levees were designed to be of sufficient height to resist overtopping from the SPH, and Katrina apparently did not generate a storm surge exceeding that height.

it is certainly possible that the storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain would have been much less powerful had barrier gates at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes been in place and closed before Katrina hit. The resulting storm surge may then have lacked sufficient force to breach the outfall canal levees even at their weakest points. Viewed somewhat differently, the barrier project may have provided a critical margin of safety for the overall system that would have prevented the flooding of the downtown polder, allowing for the possibility that the outfall canals would have been negligently constructed or maintained.

"They really need to re-analyze how to rehabilitate the levees using a current risk-based analysis. That can be easily done, that's what needs to be done. They really have to take all the calculations and weave that into a new design," said Lee Butler, an engineering consultant and former corps computer analyst who found possible deficiencies in the corps' levee designs in a study he did for The Times-Picayune.

For that to happen, though, Congress would have to get involved. Corps project manager Al Naomi said that the current congressional mandate doesn't allow for such variations.

The corps based its levee design on a fictional, meteorologically inaccurate "standard project hurricane" devised in the 1960s, based on characteristics of past storms that had flooded the city. In the 1990s it used computer models to analyze the system. They showed that the levees could protect the city against a fast-moving Category 3 or weaker storm, but could fail if struck by a slow-moving Category 3 storm or something stronger.

But that is a crude way to look at the problem, experts say. The strength categories of the Saffir-Simpson scale used by meteorologists are based on wind speed – not the storm surge flooding that poses the most serious threat to the New Orleans region. Hurricanes come in all sizes and move at different speeds. Some Category 1 or 2 storms can cause more severe flooding than Category 3 storms, for example.

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

"I think the world will breathe a sigh of relief when this president is gone," Clinton said, criticizing Bush for pulling out of various accordings, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

In a story aired May 27 and May 28, CNN removed a gaffe from Barack Obama's Memorial Day salute to fallen heroes. The missing text: "and I see many of them in, in the audience here today".

Barack Obama ditched the campaign trail for the bike trail last weekend, offering onlookers a rare peek into the Democratic nominee's casual-wear closet.

It wasn't a pretty picture: ill-fitting jeans, a tucked-in golf shirt, black-and-white socks and a helmet that could make Michael Dukakis blush.

"Please tell me he isn't wearing dark socks," commented one of many Internet fashionistas who weighed in on Obama's recent ride along Lake Michigan with his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters, Sasha, 7, and Malia, 9.

"Barry is politically correct, wearing a nice helmet," noted another, tongue firmly in cheek.

Consider this headline and subhead from the New York Times website:

Fox Forced to Address Michelle Obama Headline

In referring to the candidate's wife, the network used a slang term that many found offensive.

The Fox "headline" involved (actually a chyron: text that appears on a TV screen) was:

Outraged Liberals: Stop picking on Obama’s baby mama

The Times news story itself (far better written than the headline) explains the meaning of "baby mama.":

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as one “chiefly in African-American usage” that refers to, “The mother of a man’s child, who is not his wife nor (in most cases) his current or exclusive partner.”

"A term that many found offensive"? Who, pray, didn't find it offensive to classify a wife as equivalent to a casual girlfriend who got pregnant, and to do so using a black slang term when the couple involved happens to be black?

But the subhead suggests, to anyone who doesn't click through to the story, that Fox was simply another victim of the politically correct language police: the sort of people who find, or purport to find, the word "niggardly" offensive either because they don't know what it means or because they like to stir up trouble and force other people to apologize. This is the result of the subhead-writer's reluctance to characterize this especially nasty bit of Fox filth as "offensive;" instead, the offense must be projected onto an unnamed "many."

This avoids the headline-writer's seeming to take sides. But it does so at the expense of clarity. The expression was offensive, and was intended offensively. Why not say so?