Who knew that Sue Ann Nivens’ alter ego*, The Kitchen Guy, is also acting as interim news director for Max Media’s KFBB these days?

All pretense of journalistic ethics was abandoned last week when the obviously biased news show dug up a personal photo of a Republican candidate from deep in her Face Book albums in order to provide visual contrast against the Democrat candidate in a feature on the race.

My buddy Tom over at Rockin’ on the Right Side postulated that perhaps it was some kind of “Bring Your Kids to Work Day” that resulted in the embarrassingly biased video clip used in a story designed to glorify the Democrat candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Nay, not so. The tasteless, tacky, petty, and juvenile attempt to skew a story for political advantage was so heavy-handed that no semblance of innocent naiveté can be ascribed to the piece.

What, pray tell, motivated this obnoxious bit of yellow journalism? I started with a little background search on the news director, Jim Gray – aka “The Kitchen Guy”:

“Chef Jim is well-known as the star of the weekly TV series, “Kitchen Guy.” His experience in television isn’t just limited to his culinary career; he also worked as a news anchor for an NBC affiliate and in the White House press corps for a financial newswire.

And what do you know – he lives in Missoula and has contributed exclusively to democrat candidates in the past and again this year. [You can look this up yourself. It’s public record.]

What do you think are the chances that the interim news editor, with years of news experience, just happened to choose that particular photo because it was the only one he could find in the public domain? Yeah – Slim and None, ’cause Fat just left.

In his lame response to the Welch campaign, Gray offered this excuse, “This was the only photo we could find of Ms. Welch, as we had no file video of her and we had a deadline crunch.”

A simple Google search took less than a half a second to return almost 20,000 images, several on the first page that were from Sandy’s campaign media kit – which Mr. Kitchen Guy obviously and deliberately chose not to use. Until KFBB’s gratuitous use of the Halloween picture, it would have taken several minutes to search Sandy’s personal FB account to find the album containing that shot. I know – I did the search. Deadline crunch??? That story smells like three-day-old fish in the kitchen garbage. Phewee!!!!

Apparently though, someone at the station had enough sense to realize just how far over the line the piece was and a more appropriate picture was edited in for the later program. Kudos for that.

However, for those of you who thought it was only the print media in Montana that leans left, let me assure you – liberal media bias is alive and well in TV-land too, and it’s a recipe for a dish that leaves Montana voters sick.

Word to the wise – when partaking of the entrees served up by the LSM, be it national or local, it always pays to remember that the quality of the ingredients will determine the edibility of the stew.

*Although Sue Ann presented an image of a sweet, perfect wife and homemaker on-screen, she was actually sardonic, man-obsessed, and very competitive… Always with her trademark dimpled smile, she was cruel and snide toward people she did not like or considered a threat.

And he isn’t a very good debater, either. I am speaking about Steve Bullock, Democrat candidate for governor of the great state of Montana. Last night he and Republican candidate Rick Hill met in the first of several debates to be held over the course of the next few weeks.

The debate started at approximately 7 p.m. By 7:15 it was obvious why Steve took a powder last month and canceled the debate that was to have been sponsored by the contractors’ association. He just isn’t ready for the pros. He was so anchored to the lectern he could hardly move his eyebrows, and he was so stiff members of his staff were worried that a CSI crew would have to be called to determine time of his demise. It turned out that part of the problem was that he was so ill-prepared that he had to sneak an illicit binder of notes and prepared responses onto the lectern so he would be able to read his talking points. Evidently, this was in violation of the agreed upon rules that called for both candidates to respond to the questions without notes or written remarks.

Wow. First, he cancels a scheduled event at practically the last minute and then he cheats to get through the second one. But it gets better – even with his notes and prepared talking points, he still couldn’t win a point. What is that old saying — winners never cheat and cheaters never win?? Yeah, that one.

The rout began with the first question – which was designed to give Steve a first possession touchdown – about whether or not the candidates supported the state employee pay raise that Governor BS and Eric Feaver negotiated last year and the legislature turned down. Given that the venue was Helena, it was a no-brainer that neither candidate was going to come out opposing pay raises and Steve didn’t disappoint with his boilerplate response about how hardworking state employees deserved more money – not even a first down with that play. But Rick grabbed the ball and made it to the end zone by reminding the audience that the real problem with the governor’s proposal was that he completely ignored the legislature when agreeing to the terms. Negotiating 101 – make sure that the guy who has the checkbook is included in the discussion! Rick – 7, Steve – 0.

Same thing happened on the next few questions – Steve would read his canned response and turn the ball over to Rick who ran it all the way back for the score.

Then each candidate got to ask the other a question. Oh, oh – the gotcha moments! The audience sucked all the air out of the universe as Steve focused his laser-like stare on his…notes… and attempted to tackle Rick behind the line of scrimmage with an accusatory inquiry about his support for a 1997 bill that – HORRORS!!! lowered tax rates for the rich!!!! With a tiny smile and a quick glance at the audience, Rick, metaphorically speaking, mowed right over Steve on his way to the end zone – as he explained that, yes, he had supported the bill that President Clinton referenced during his speech at the Democratic National Convention as the crowning achievement of his presidency. Poor Steve. Didn’t even see that one coming. The cleat marks on his face were visible clear up in the balcony.

The rest of the evening was more of the same. Steve played to his fans who cheered and groaned – sometimes literally, despite admonitions to remain quiet – with the usual unimaginative partisan pablum. Then Rick would provide the facts, figures, background, and pertinent details that carried the ball into the end zone. On resource development, property tax relief, education, Montana’s business climate, medical marijuana, and several other issues – Rick took it over the goal line every time. By the end of the evening, Steve looked like a seventh-round rookie QB after the first game against the Super Bowl champs.

There are supposed to be seven more debates. Steve may decide that avoidance therapy is his only hope. By now he should at least understand that he doesn’t have the experience, intellect, or speaking skills to win a debate against Rick Hill – even if he, uh, shall we say, cheats.

Last night’s performance was a battle of wits – unfortunately Steve came unarmed.

From the good folks over at the Treehouse:

Guest post by Loki

Well the Democrats finished their convention last week. Nothing new, the media fawned, Biden bloviated (and lied), and Bill nominated Obama for President. I was highly disappointed. I had hoped Bill would pull a last minute coup and throw Obama under the bus and nominate Hillary. Well a fellow can dream can’t he?

There was one minor surprise with the venue move to the smaller auditorium. It was funny watching the media and the DNC try to spin that one like a top. I thought President Obama could stop the storms just like he can stop the rise of the oceans.

But the best part was watching the DNC panic over the changes in their platform over the capital of Israel and God. They goofed… they let everyone in the country know where they really stand. President Obama couldn’t have that and demanded a change. Then in front of the world they ignored their own members and changed the platform to a raucous of boos. Imagine that. They booed adding God and Jerusalem back into their platform.

Their excuse was it was a big misunderstanding, a minor oversight. The media bought it and carried the DNC spin story. Glossed it over. I can imagine the stories from the media would that have happened to the RNC if they had done something similar. We would still be having man-in-the-street stories and interviews of women and children on the hatred of Republicans.

But we now have it on tape. We need to keep drumming this into the public. This is not the first time the Democrats have hidden their true hatred of Catholics and Jews. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton’s known hatred of Jews is documented. The ACLU’s attacks on religion are well known. We have to keep repeating the story.

The DNC is actually the party of hatred. They have deceived minorities that they support them but it is all a lie. They just require the minority vote. And they are happy to use our tax money to support minority programs to buy the minority vote.

Today President Obama declined to meet Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu because he was too busy campaigning and he had to meet David Letterman. And yet Obama still repeats the lie that he supports Israel. He is only interested in getting re-elected.

Ed NOTE:

Pretty much says it all.