Melanie Morgan

In a heartbeat! 

For all my business buddies out there, here's some important advice: stay on top of the blogosphere.

Rob Neppell, President of Kithbridge, Inc. (a conservative blogger and pal) talks about this growing problem on the Internet and has some practical solutions during an interview with the Fox Business Channel.

This news certainly explains some missing pieces of my past.

Next Tuesday, ABC's Barbara Walters will admit on Oprah Winfrey's show (...and why she didn't do it on her own show 'The View' is a complete mystery to me) that she had a years-long affair with Senator Edward Brooke, a moderate black Republican from Massachusetts.

There are many angles of this story that warrant comment, and will be discussed in the days ahead. 

But it is the time-line that fascinates me.

AP reports that "at the time, the twice-divorced Walters was a rising star in TV news and co-host of NBC's "Today" show, but would soon jump to ABC News, where she has enjoyed unrivaled success. Her affair with Brooke, which never before came to light, had ended before he lost his bid for a third term in 1978."

In 1976, Barbara Walters joined the ABC News team as the first female co-anchor in broadcast history. She was assigned to cover the Republican convention in Kansas City, Missouri where Ronald Reagan lost the nomination to Gerald Ford.

ABC/New York sent Walters to Kansas City to watch, prepare, and meet her future co-anchor Harry Reasoner (a very sexist jerk, I might add.)

She was given an office in a temporary trailor behind the Kemper Arena, cramped quarters that were also shared by Reasoner and Howard K. Smith, one of the original Edward R. Murrow 'boys' who covered World War II and established a stellar career before retiring from ABC News.

Back then, I  was a wet-behind-the-ears intern who lucked into a menial job directing the news crews around the geography of Kansas City (my hometown) eventually working up to personal assistant for Howard K. Smith.

I was dazzled by Barbara Walters appearance, sweeping into the nerve center for the Operations unit in her designer clothes.

 She was, and is, an icon for women broadcasters.

So I cautiously approached her office minutes after her arrival as she de-camped with her personal assistant.

Knocking politely, Walters beckoned me to come in. I stuttered and stammered how thrilled I was to be in her presence and what she meant to me as I was beginning my career.

Walters listened for oh, 10 seconds, and then coldly told me to leave.

Immediately.

Stunned, I backed out, apologizing for interrupting her.

For years I have carried that memory without any context.

Is it possible she was distraught over an illicit love affair with a married black politican? Did that account for her behavior? Or was she simply an elitist from New York who viewed a young woman from Kansas City with contempt?

So, one wonders about icons. Who are they, are why do we invest in them so much?

Barbara Walters crushed me that day, and it affected my choices in future job choices. When Howard K. Smith offered me a job as his personal assistant at the end of the convention, I turned him down. My confidence and optimism was so diminished by my experience with Barbara Walters, I chose to stay behind in the Midwest.

I will never be invited to discuss this on 'The View' or on 'Oprah.'

But it would certainly be an interesting subject to persue.

Girlfriend relationships. They are so important to women. And when they go awry, bitter feelings linger and nasty things happen. So, I took time from my busy schedule to offer some healing words for these two gals.

Dear Nancy and Cindy,

I know there is so much bitterness between you. I wish it were not so. You must set aside your hurt feelings and come together, for the sake of the country, uh, the fractured Democratic/liberal/communist/socialist cabal of America-haters.

I am here to offer my help as a mediator. A counselor, if you will.

I know that you both despise me for my viewpoint that we must support our troops and their mission, but please set aside the fact that I am ideologically "different" from you, and accept my help in the spirit for which it is intended.

Please, take a page from Rodney King. "Can't we all just get along?"

The disgusting, revolting, and horrifying ad put out by the Democrat party, using video of American soldiers being blown up is blowing up in the face of the Democrats.

NewsMax.com has picked up the story.

The firestorm over the Democratic National Committee’s anti-John McCain ad showing actual U.S. soldiers being hit with an IED explosion is not over.

Since Newsmax first reported the troubling ad on Monday, the controversy has been getting wide media coverage, and veterans groups are expressing outrage over the use of the footage depicting a horrific attack on U.S. troops.

As Newsmax reported, the DNC ad’s voice-over castigates McCain for suggesting that the United States may stay in Iraq for “maybe 100” years, then shows an explosive device detonating near two soldiers standing beside a palm tree. The two soldiers disappear in an explosive cloud. The video also shows images of burning vehicles. The DNC ad makes no mention of whether the soldiers survived the blast.

More details are now emerging about the ad and the footage of the soldiers.

According to ABC News, the IED explosion footage is the same film used in Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, a partner at the firm that made the ad, said he bought the footage from Getty Images, which states that the footage was recorded in January 2004.

Fox News’ Neil Cavuto covered the story about the ad Tuesday and also told viewers that the footage appeared in the Moore documentary.

The Republican National Committee sent out a release to “Political Editors” that reported on Vets for Freedom Executive Director Pete Hegseth’s appearance on Fox News’ “Your World” on Tuesday.

Hegseth told Cavuto that the DNC ad is "offensive . . . that's not the kind of word that I use lightly, but when you've got an ad that's showing an American soldier being attacked, potentially injured, and killed, we don't know, and frankly, that film was an enemy propaganda film that was shot. I mean, it's offensive that a political party, that the DNC, would use that in an ad to try to generate . . . any sort of anti-war sentiment or to try to spin Senator McCain's comments about the 100 years."

Hegseth also said the ad "strips away the dignity of the service member, of the Marine or soldier on that street corner that's fighting . . . Think of the family member back home. That may be their son or daughter that's being used in a political ad. I think this will [produce] backlash. I think most Americans don't want to see service members being attacked in political ads."

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Joe Andrews threw Hillary under the bus, and now he's watching for hit-and-run attacks on his character.

(photo courtesy ABCNews.com)

Rush Limbaugh must be having a GREAT day! And supporters, operatives and volunteers for Operation Chaos are chortling, too.