Bush's inside baseball team
William Kristol, editor of the conservative flagship the Weekly Standard, had nothing but high praise for President Bush's high-flying inaugural speech.

"Informed by Strauss and inspired by Paine, appealing to Lincoln and alluding to Truman, beginning with the Constitution and ending with the Declaration, with Biblical phrases echoing throughout -- George W. Bush's Second Inaugural was a powerful and subtle speech," Kristol pronounced.

"It will also prove to be a historic speech," he went on. "Less than three and a half years after 9/11, Bush's Second Inaugural moves American foreign policy beyond the war on terror to the larger struggle against tyranny."

It appears Kristol was pleased with his own handiwork -- he helped put the speech together. From the Washington Post:

"The planning of Bush's second inaugural address began a few days after the Nov. 2 election with the president telling advisers he wanted a speech about 'freedom' and 'liberty.' That led to the broadly ambitious speech that has ignited a vigorous debate. The process included consultation with a number of outside experts, Kristol among them."

Both Kristol and columnist Charles Krauthammer -- who also served as a consultant -- appeared on Fox News Channel's live Inauguration Day coverage and praised the address ("revolutionary," Krauthammer dubbed it), without disclosing their roles in its inception. Watchdog group Media Matters for America has more from the Bush insider playbook here.

NBC: A bad case of Fox News envy?
Now that Brian Williams has replaced Tom Brokaw as NBC's man in the chair, will the "Nightly News" veer to the right? Turns out Williams is a big fan of Rush Limbaugh's; in a recent Q&A with C-SPAN's Brian Lamb, Williams heaped praise on the right-wing radio icon, crediting him, among other things, with "giving birth to the Fox News Channel." Williams also propagated the long-running conservative claim of a liberal bias in the mainstream media:

"LAMB: I mean, how do you -- so much the conservative media criticize anchors living in New York City and in Connecticut for being isolated and never paying attention to their thought. How do you -- do you ever listen to the Limbaugh show or any of that stuff?

"WILLIAMS: Oh, often, often, and I'm one of the few in a very select group that Rush has allowed on when I've called in from the car. I do listen to Rush. I listen to it from a radio in my office or depending on my day, if I'm in the car, I will listen to Rush and he will tell you I've been listening for years. I think it's my duty to listen to Rush. I think Rush has actually yet to get the credit he is due because his audience for so many years felt they were in the wilderness of this country. No one was talking to them. They would look at mainstream media and they'd hear sentences like the following: Conservative firebrand Newt Gingrich today accused Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy

"Well, what's wrong with that sentence? My friend Brit Hume -- we covered the White House together, always would call reporters on this. Where's the appellation for Ted Kennedy in that sentence, you members of the perhaps unintentionally liberal media? Why aren't you calling Kennedy something if you're going to label Newt Gingrich a conservative firebrand? That's what Rush did. Rush said to millions of Americans, you have a home. Come with me. For three hours a day you can listen and hear the likeminded calling in from across the country and I'll read to you things perhaps you didn't see that are out there. I think Rush gave birth to the Fox news channel. I think Rush helped to give birth to a movement. I think he played his part in the contract with America. So I hope he gets his due as a broadcaster."

The AARP terrorist
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was a lonely voice of opposition in the wilderness of Condi Rice's Senate confirmation hearings last week. Her unabashed attack against Bush's nominee for secretary of state with respect to the administration's Iraq policy prompted Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly to shower Boxer with a series of attacks, many of them fact-challenged. Media Matters has a comprehensive list; one of the most intriguing items is O'Reilly's ripping Boxer for, of all things, supporting the Aviation Security Act.

Apparently the liberal California lawmaker has a soft spot for brutalizing senior citizens.

"O'REILLY: She sponsored a bill, the Aviation Security Act, where they shake you down to get on a plane. She likes that. 'Let's shake everybody down. Let's get granny, turn her upside down and hold her by the ankles.' She's big on that. So, she was the sponsor of that. Next time you go in and some pinhead grabs your crotch, thank Barbara Boxer for that. Okay?"

As Media Matters points out, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, the former Democratic senator from South Carolina, was the lead sponsor and putative author of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, while Boxer was merely one of 30 cosponsors of the bill -- a list also comprising numerous Republicans, including Sen. John Warner of Virginia, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.

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