Incidentally, where is Elizabeth Brackett who, when the Republicans (Newt Gingrich? Rush Limbaugh?) stole Congress in '94, Ms. Brackett, on the NewsHour while Lehrer was enjoying the holidays, 'splained how Republican talk shows replaced the estimable Tom Foley with the irreparable Mr. Gingrich. We need her back in action!

Elizabeth Brackett on the Lehrer NewsHour broke one major story (while Jim Lehrer was away) after the 1994 election in which the Honorable Tom Foley the Democratic Speaker of the House was defeated by George Nethercutt and the budding Republican radio talk show armada in Spokane, Washington (Lehrer limited her appearances on the NewsHour in retaliation) - Sidney Blumenthaul's excellent The Clinton Wars details the endless and meticulous effort to undermine the Clinton presidency.

Led by propagandist Rush Limbaugh, the Republican RightWing used a corrupt national radio spectrum to overthrow a legitimate Democratic House, that of William Jefferson Clinton and Spokane's Tom Foley. And when Jim Lehrer's Elizabeth Brackett revealed same on a later NewsHour, Lehrer dropped her from his program for several years. The world knows the actual truth, thanks to Sid Blumenthal's scrupulously documented eight hundred and twenty-two page true reality check - "The Clinton Wars". And it is remarkably predictive of today's challenge to the Obama presidency and to desperately needed health care reform!

The combined pro-Republican bias of the networks and the radio talk shows, as Elizabeth Brackett demonstrated in 1994, is not new, but it has proved to have no boundaries, even in the aftermath of 9/11, which George W. Bush's arrogance (he refused to consider or credit the numerous warnings from out-going Clinton/Gore aides) had facilitated. In fact, incredibly, in the last month of 2001 Tim Russert had guests Laura Bush, Rudy Giulliani and Roman Catholic Bishop-now Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick promoting Bush's stolen 2000 presidential election as "Divine Intervention". Although Laura Bush demurred, the other three approved, and a week or so later Jewish American John Donald Imus Jr. and his sidekick Charles touted the "special" Meet the Press as the finest television ever!