Inside Politics

Meredith’s megaphone

Uh-oh. NBC’s morning hostess Katie Couric has her liberal leanings — but will her replacement be worse? The network has hired ABC’s Meredith Vieira to replace Mrs. Couric in September when she leaves “Today” to go play anchorwoman over on CBS.

NBC made the announcement yesterday, a day after Miss Couric said she would leave “Today.”

“I’m very honored that NBC has asked me to co-host the ‘Today’ show,” Miss Vieira said on her program “The View” to a long burst of applause from her co-hosts and the in-studio audience.

Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center was not happy.

“NBC promises to poison Americans’ mornings with liberal bias by hiring Meredith Vieira,” he said yesterday. “She is not bashful about her disgust of the Bush administration and her anti-war stance. She even declared in 2004 that ‘everything’s been built on lies. Everything. I mean the entire pretext for war.’ How can NBC consider her a credible journalist when she spouts anti-war propaganda?”

“Today” quite possibly could remain a feel-good forum for liberals, feministas and the blame-America-first crowd.

“Ms. Vieira is a megaphone for the liberal cause and will continue the drumbeat of unbalanced reporting in the mornings over at NBC. At a time when trust in the news media is at an all-time low, NBC continues to turn a deaf ear to their own prejudices,” Mr. Bozell concluded.

Raise up Old Glory

Things have gotten so touchy in schools out West that students are now prohibited from wearing camouflage-patterned clothing because such sartorial persuasions constitute a “political statement.”

Officials fear youngsters might think cammies are a sign that the wearer supports U.S. troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile, schools in Longmont, Colo., Apache Junction, Ariz., and Oceanside, Calif., have banned the display of national flags — including Old Glory — to “prevent violence” between Anglo and Hispanic students. That has irked Jack Wheeler, publisher of To the Point News, an online conservative news site.

“When American schools prohibit the display of American flags by their students, you know political correctness has become truly pathological,” Mr. Wheeler said. “What we need now is a civil rights movement for American citizens. This will require acts of civil disobedience. Students in any school with a ban on displaying the American flag should be encouraged to disobey the ban, and should take to court any school administrator who punishes them.”

Mr. Wheeler added, “Anyone who doesn’t like to see the American flag and prefers another country’s flag should go to live in that other country. Mexicans need to be happy with Mexico. If they don’t like their country the way it is, they need to stay there and change it.”

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