I was at the gym tonight, where my only viewing options from 5:30 to 6 were the NBC Nightly News and the CBS Evening News. CBS was slightly more directly in front of me, so that’s who I went with.

One of the main stories was on terrorism. Katie Couric displayed a poll showing 66% of Americans believing a terrorist attack on the U.S. was likely. This led into Where America Stands: Terrorism (you can read the story online). Everything seemed to going pretty normally until reporter Lara Logan got to this part:

There is no simple solution to America’s security in the 21st century, but Brennan believes, it begins with decimating al Qaeda’s leadership.

“We’re going to continue to relentlessly pursue Osama Bin Laden and Zawahiri and all the others at the senior leadership ranks,” Brennan said. “We do need to decapitate that organization and we will.”

This administration has certainly been trying. It has conducted more Predator missile strikes (61) inside Pakistan under Obama than President Bush did (48) during his entire presidency.

As the closed-captioning transcriber got midway through that last sentence, he or she stopped suddenly. When the transcription resumed, instead of completing that sentence, the caption read “— OPINION —” and the live transcription didn’t resume until the subject had moved on. A verifiable fact — one which arguably makes Obama look “tougher” on terrorism than Bush — was stricken from the transcript and replaced with an “Opinion” tag.

I called the KMTV newsroom to ask where the closed captioning originates. I was told that the transcription comes with the national feed. So somebody out there is taking it upon themselves to screen information in the CBS Evening News broadcasts. (Oddly enough, this vigilant speed-typist’s alarm was not triggered by Mitch McConnell’s suggestion earlier in the broadcast that the country’s deficit and debt problems are the result of the policies of the past 12 months.)

For all the commentators pretending to be serious about healthcare reform while urging Democrats seek bipartisan support, here’s NPR:

And so far at least, the idea of scaling back and reaching out to Republicans doesn’t seem likely to pay off. At least not while Republicans like House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio smell electoral blood in the water.

“Listen, our goal is to stop this monstrosity,” Boehner said. “And we’re working with our members so that we don’t find ourselves in a position where they’re able to pick off a few of our members and to get this bill passed. “

This largely echoes what Mitch McConnell was boasting about last year:

“…Our side didn’t go in the tank and make this a bipartisan bill. We showed that our opposition has a pulse.”

I keep being reminded of Karen Tumulty’s story from last spring:

When Barack Obama informed congressional Republicans last month that he would support a controversial parliamentary move to protect health-care reform from a filibuster in the Senate, they were furious. That meant the bill could pass with a simple majority of 51 votes, eliminating the need for any GOP support. Where, they demanded, was the bipartisanship the President had promised? So, right there in the Cabinet Room, the President put a proposal on the table, according to two people who were present. Obama said he was willing to curb malpractice awards, a move long sought by Republicans that is certain to bring strong opposition from the trial lawyers who fund the Democratic Party.

What, he wanted to know, did the Republicans have to offer in return?

Nothing, it turned out. Republicans were unprepared to make any concessions, if they had any to make.

Republicans had no interest in cooperating when Obama and the idea of healthcare reform were both very popular. They decided instead for a strategy of total opposition, misinformation and deception, with the idea that if they could stop Democrats from accomplishing anything, the electorate would turn against the party in power and reward the Republicans. This is working. Why on Earth would they change course now and hand Democrats any kind of legislative victory?

Simply put, arguing that Democrats need to reach out and be more bipartisan suggests you’re either being dishonest or you haven’t been paying any attention. I’ll let you pick.

Just got this call. I’m sitting at my desk now so I figured I’d take notes. I’ll update this as more good stuff comes up.

6:43 – Right now there’s a super freakout caller claiming folks in Washington are trying to pass secret laws to put people in jail for Ron Paul bumper stickers. He refers to “the constitution given by God.” He said people in Washington say “If you’re for the constitution, you’re a terrorist. That’s why I moved to Nebraska.” Terry assures the caller that he’s a Constitutionalist.

6:44 – Caller asks what Terry has done to be bipartisan since Obama was elected. Terry says no bipartisanship was allowed on healthcare reform. Caller goes off on the widely accepted conclusion that bipartisanship rests exclusively with Democrats.

Terry: “I’m not going to sell out my principles on a single-payer healthcare system.”

6:47 – Caller asks what’s wrong with single-payer. “When you let the government take over it, I think you’ll find out that the private sector was doing (healthcare) better.” Terry talks about his healthcare bill, claims Anthony Weiner said Terry’s bill was the way to go and then voted against it.

Caller is being pretty aggressive, but Terry is handling her pretty well.

6:49 – Caller talking about Haiti just said the country’s population is 9,000.
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Jeff Koterba had a cartoon run in the Iowa edition of Tuesday’s Omaha World Herald that was changed before any of the Nebraska papers were printed. There’s no sign of it on Omaha.com either, but you can see the cartoon at cagle.com (for now, at least).

I emailed Koterba, asking if he could tell me anything about the disappearance.

“Concerns were raised as to how the cartoon might be interpreted so my editor pulled it,” he said.

I was a little puzzled about the skin tone of the characters Harry Reid is depicted as speaking to. In the version of the cartoon linked to above, the men appear to have light-colored skin that’s not much darker than cartoon Harry’s. This seems to be at odds with Reid’s words. I thought this might possibly be a play off his comments about Obama being sort of light-skinned (not having the exact wording in front of me, that’s my best attempt at a paraphrase), or it could just be something as simple as a technical ink-color reproduction issue.

“Gosh, I meant for them to be gangsta rappers,” he told me. “So yes, perhaps the version you’re looking at there is an issue with poor color reproduction.” While he didn’t specifically identify the race, I think the implication is that since they’re supposed to be “gangsta rappers,” they were intended to be black.

Mystery solved.