CBS Condemns Anti-Obama Ad as Proof Campaign Getting 'Nastier' --4/24/2008

1. CBS Condemns Anti-Obama Ad as Proof Campaign Getting 'Nastier'
Anti-Barack Obama ads from Hillary Clinton's campaign didn't concern CBS, but on Wednesday night anchor Harry Smith denounced an accurate ad from the North Carolina Republican Party, pointing out Obama's closeness to Reverend Jeremiah Wright and showing the very same "God Damn America" soundbite the CBS Evening News ran a month earlier, as proof the campaign is getting "nastier." After playing clips of the ad -- the narrator saying "For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor," Wright yelling "Not God Bless America, God [bleep] America!" and the narrator declaring "He's just too extreme for North Carolina" -- Reynolds focused on how "John McCain disowned it." Reynolds used the ad as another chance to resurrect Bill Cunningham (with a "Barack Hussein Obama" clip) as Reynolds rued: "McCain has been down this path before, repeatedly apologizing or rejecting statements from supporters who have questioned Obama's patriotism." McCain's requests, Reynolds lamented, "have not been effective" since the North Carolina Republicans "put their ad on the Internet." Reynolds then highlighted how "Obama said McCain could do more to stop it."

2. Matthews Frets Over Potentially Racist Anti-Obama Ads in NC
During MSNBC's live Tuesday night coverage of Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary, co-anchor Chris Matthews brought up the possibility that the North Carolina Republican Party would run an "overtly racist" campaign against Barack Obama, as the MSNBC host harkened back to the days of Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt: "North Carolina will be interesting, and I think that if the Republican Party goes back to the old trick it did with the days of Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt and running a campaign which is overtly racist, I think that will be a mistake if they do that. I'll wait and see if they do that."

3. Matthews Sees Racism in Anti-Obama Ads, Media Panel Disagrees
On Wednesday night's Hardball, Chris Matthews thought he saw racism in two ads targeted against Barack Obama, but when his media panel full of liberal journalists disagreed he back-pedaled a bit. First up Matthews ran a clip of what he called a "nasty" ad by the North Carolina Republican Party. The Politico's Roger Simon agreed with Matthews that it was "nasty" but said, he wasn't sure it was "unfair." Then Matthews ran an ad hitting Obama for opposing the death penalty in Chicago for gang members. Noting it's from Floyd Brown, who hides under a rock every couple of generations, shows up again with another, another ad against a black candidate or using a black person as the, as the bad guy," Matthews claimed: "It's a giant permission slip to somebody who doesn't want to vote for him to begin with. And it's also a permission slip for the Republican Party to use him as a target throughout the general election." However Simon disagreed with Matthews' implication that it had a racial tinge as he pointed out: "I'm not sure you can say this ad is racially motivated.

4. CBS's Early Show Highlights Environmentalist 'Scuppies'
At the end of Wednesday's Early Show on CBS, co-host Harry Smith introduced a segment on a new group of environmentally-friendly young professionals: "Earth Day, of course, was yesterday, but for many Earth Day is every day, especially for a growing number of Americans of means." Correspondent Priya David went on define this new demographic: "Scuppies, so interesting, that's what the people in this group are called. Scuppies, it's short for Socially Conscious Upwardly Mobile Person, and there are more of them out there than you may realize. They are the new yuppies. Young, upwardly mobile, friends of the Earth." David further explained that: "The term, coined by financial planner Chuck Fallia, refers to green young people who love both money and mother nature." She then went on to contrast today's well-meaning "scuppies" with the greedy "yuppies," or young urban professionals, of the 1980's: "Today's scuppies aren't like the yuppies of the 1980s." She then played a clip of actor Michael Douglas from the movie Wall Street: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good" and added, "Instead, they want to do good."

5. 'Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Improve His Approval Rating'
Letterman's "Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Improve His Approval Rating."

CBS Condemns Anti-Obama Ad as Proof Campaign
Getting 'Nastier'

Anti-Barack Obama ads from Hillary Clinton's campaign didn't concern CBS, but on Wednesday night anchor Harry Smith denounced an accurate ad from the North Carolina Republican Party, pointing out Obama's closeness to Reverend Jeremiah Wright and showing the very same "God Damn America" soundbite the CBS Evening News ran a month earlier, as proof the campaign is getting "nastier."

Smith teased his top story: "The first day of the rest of the campaign, and if you think it can't get nastier." Viewers than saw a clip of the ad, "He's just too extreme for North Carolina," before Smith finished his sentence: "Republicans roll out a new attack ad as the battleground shifts."

After playing clips of the ad -- the narrator saying "For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor," Wright yelling "Not God Bless America, God [bleep] America!" and the narrator declaring "He's just too extreme for North Carolina" -- Reynolds focused on how "John McCain disowned it." Reynolds used the ad as another chance to resurrect Bill Cunningham (with a "Barack Hussein Obama" clip) as Reynolds rued: "McCain has been down this path before, repeatedly apologizing or rejecting statements from supporters who have questioned Obama's patriotism." McCain's requests, Reynolds lamented, "have not been effective" since the North Carolina Republicans "put their ad on the Internet." Reynolds then highlighted how "Obama said McCain could do more to stop it."

The YouTube posting of the ad: www.youtube.com [1]

[This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted newsbusters.org [2] ]

Back in March, the CBS Evening News only aired one Wright clip. The March 18 edition aired Wright's "God Damn America," the very one CBS ran Wednesday night in its story on the "nasty" ad.

Cunningham called Obama "Barack Hussein Obama" at McCain rally in late February and nearly a month later, on the March 20 CBS Evening News, Reynolds reminded viewers of it as he described YouTube video, which interspersed clips of Obama and Wright, as "one of several episodes in which aides, supporters, or surrogates have crossed the line and forced McCain to apologize or take action." See: www.mediaresearch.org [3]

ABC's World News didn't mention the ad Wednesday night, but Andrea Mitchell raised it on the NBC Nightly News, though sans any direct condemnation. Picking up toward the end of the story:

ANDREA MITCHELL: Obama was also under attack today from Republicans in North Carolina where the state GOP prepared an ad criticizing his connection to his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
AD NARRATOR: He's just too extreme for North Carolina.
MITCHELL: John McCain immediately demanded that the North Carolina Republicans kill the ad.
JOHN McCAIN: We called and asked them not to run that message. It's not the message of the Republican Party.
MITCHELL: But McCain did not hesitate to call Obama an elitist for his remarks about people feeling bitter and clinging to their guns and faith.
McCAIN: I think those comments or elitist.
MITCHELL: The exit polls in Pennsylvania also showed that race could be a factor for Obama if he were the nominee. 16 percent of white voters said that race mattered to them and only 54 percent of those voters said that they would support Obama in a general election.

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript for the story on the Wednesday, April 23 CBS Evening News:

HARRY SMITH, IN OPENING TEASER: The first day of the rest of the campaign, and if you think it can't get nastier-
FEMALE NARRATOR IN AD: He's just too extreme for North Carolina.
SMITH: -Republicans roll out a new attack ad as the battleground shifts.
BARACK OBAMA: Now it's up to you, Indiana.
HILLARY CLINTON: The tide is turning.

...

SMITH: Good evening. Katie is on assignment. Hillary Clinton's 10-point win in the Pennsylvania primary has given her campaign new life and new money. Clinton picked up 82 delegates to Barack Obama's 73. But Obama still has a 130-delegate lead nationally. So now it's on to Indiana and North Carolina. Both candidates vowing to campaign till the last vote is counted. But Republicans in North Carolina have made it clear who they think the nominee will be, and they've started taking aim today. Dean Reynolds is with the Obama campaign. Dean?
REYNOLDS: Good evening, Harry. Well, those Republicans gave Barack Obama just a little taste of what they have in store for him if he leads the Democrats into the fall election.
FEMALE NARRATOR IN AD: For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor.
REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Not God Bless America, God [bleep] America!
REYNOLDS: An advertisement from the Republican Party of North Carolina.
FEMALE NARRATOR IN AD: He's just too extreme for North Carolina.
REYNOLDS: For his part, Republican John McCain disowned it.
JOHN MCCAIN CLIP #1: It's not the message of the Republican Party. It's not the message of my campaign.
MCCAIN CLIP #2: I sent them an e-mail again today asking them to pull down that ad.
REYNOLDS: But McCain has been down this path before, repeatedly apologizing or rejecting statements from supporters who have questioned Obama's patriotism.
BILL CUNNINGHAM, CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO HOST: Barack Hussein Obama.
REYNOLDS: But McCain's requests to stop such attacks have not been effective. In North Carolina, the Republicans put their ad on the Internet and say they're going to broadcast it as well. Today Obama said McCain could do more to stop it.
BARACK OBAMA: And I assume that if John McCain thinks that it's an inappropriate ad, that he can get them to pull it down since he's their nominee and standard bearer.
REYNOLDS: The Illinois Senator was stumping in Indiana where polls say he's overtaken Hillary Clinton. While she's defeated him in big states such as Pennsylvania and California, Obama says he runs better against McCain in those states than she does. Besides-
OBAMA: If at the end, we end up having won twice as many states and having the most votes, then we should end up being the nominee.
REYNOLDS: His aides question Clinton's strategy.
DAVID AXELROD, OBAMA CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST: If your only hope is that some disaster will be beset Senator Obama and maybe one that you inflict, then that's damaging to the party.
REYNOLDS: For Obama, one of the positives of this long campaign is the chance to introduce himself directly to more and more voters. Still, he said today the sooner this nomination battle is over, the better.

Matthews Frets Over Potentially Racist
Anti-Obama Ads in NC

During MSNBC's live Tuesday night coverage of Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary, co-anchor Chris Matthews brought up the possibility that the North Carolina Republican Party would run an "overtly racist" campaign against Barack Obama, as the MSNBC host harkened back to the days of Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt: "North Carolina will be interesting, and I think that if the Republican Party goes back to the old trick it did with the days of Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt and running a campaign which is overtly racist, I think that will be a mistake if they do that. I'll wait and see if they do that."

After referring to Obama's relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, co-anchor Keith Olbermann brought up the possibility that John McCain could also be attacked for connections with controversial people: "There is a lot that could be thrown at the Republicans by the Democrats and the past associations of Senator McCain, or even some of the current ones."

Fearing the worst, Matthews continued: "I hope we don't see this kind of thing because this campaign involves a woman, an African-American, and a white American. And the choices among those three should be based on character and ability and the best interests of this country, and we can still get that kind of a campaign done by the end of this year. We can do this. We can do this."

[This item, by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth, was posted Wednesday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [4] ]

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the April 22 MSNBC coverage of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary from 11:21 PM EDT:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: This campaign continues because the Democrats have not yet decided on their nominee. Hillary Clinton has slowed it down again. She's pushed the mute button or whatever button you want to call it. How about the pause button? The pause button, because superdelegates are unlikely to move right now in either direction. I don't buy this notion that somehow they're going to rush to Hillary Clinton. I think they're going to continue to wait and see what happens the next two weeks. We'll be back here again, I assume, in two weeks.
North Carolina will be interesting, and I think that if the Republican Party goes back to the old trick it did with the days of Jesse Helms and Harvey Gantt and running a campaign which is overtly racist, I think that will be a mistake if they do that. I'll wait and see if they do that.
KEITH OLBERMANN: Well, you heard Tim's hint about this, about calling on Democrats to disassociate themselves from Senator Obama due to controversial figures in his past, which one would think has, in addition to backlash against racism in the America of 2008, it also might have some more politically practical backlash. There is a lot that could be thrown at the Republicans by the Democrats and the past associations of Senator McCain, or even some of the current ones.
MATTHEWS: Well, I was fortunate to go to grad school down there. I love that state. I think it's a better state than that. I hope we don't see this kind of thing because this campaign involves a woman, an African-American, and a white American. And the choices among those three should be based on character and ability and the best interests of this country, and we can still get that kind of a campaign done by the end of this year. We can do this. We can do this.
OLBERMANN: Yes, we can.
MATTHEWS: Yes, we can.

Matthews Sees Racism in Anti-Obama Ads,
Media Panel Disagrees

On Wednesday night's Hardball, Chris Matthews thought he saw racism in two ads targeted against Barack Obama, but when his media panel full of liberal journalists disagreed he back-pedaled a bit.

First up Matthews ran a clip of what he called a "nasty" ad by the North Carolina Republican Party. The Politico's Roger Simon agreed with Matthews that it was "nasty" but said, he wasn't sure it was "unfair." Then Matthews ran an ad hitting Obama for opposing the death penalty in Chicago for gang members. Noting it's from Floyd Brown, who hides under a rock every couple of generations, shows up again with another, another ad against a black candidate or using a black person as the, as the bad guy," Matthews claimed: "It's a giant permission slip to somebody who doesn't want to vote for him to begin with. And it's also a permission slip for the Republican Party to use him as a target throughout the general election."

However Simon disagreed with Matthews' implication that it had a racial tinge as he pointed out: "I'm not sure you can say this ad is racially motivated. This is a attack on Barack Obama for a specific vote, not extending the death penalty to gang members or whatever the heck it's about. But it's not, I mean you can't say that every time someone uses Barack Obama's picture in an ad it's racism. I mean the guy is what the guy is."

Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart agreed with Simon on the point as he cheered: "Correct! Bravo Roger!" and later observed: "Just because you criticize Barack Obama doesn't mean that it's racially motivated or should be viewed through a racial lens."

For her part, Salon.com's Joan Walsh thought she spotted "a little bit of racial coding," in the ad but ultimately agreed with Simon as she declared: "I think Roger makes an otherwise good point. I think you know we can go too far in saying anything, any kind of attack on him [Obama]," was racially motivated.

Matthews tried to make his case but seemed to relent to the rest of his panel as he concluded the show this way:

MATTHEWS: You know I get criticized, I get criticized for being over-sensitive to these ads but, you know I just know the country I grew up in and this is an easy target. I'm sorry Jonathan. You don't agree. Go ahead. Disagree with me.
CAPEHART: No, no, I, I, no I agree with Roger and I agree with Joan agreeing with Roger. I think Roger is absolutely right. Just because you criticize Barack Obama doesn't mean that it's racially motivated or should be viewed through a racial lens.
WALSH: Right.
MATTHEWS: Okay, you guys may be right. I may be right. Anyway Roger Si-, I like being right, rather than wrong. Anyway thank your Roger, thank you Joan, thank you Jonathan. Join us again tomorrow night at 5pm and 7pm Eastern for more Hardball.

[This item, by Geoffrey Dickens, was posted Wednesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [5]

The following is a full transcript of the discussion as it occurred on the April 23 edition of Hardball:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well one reason he's been high-flying is to avoid the flak that's coming at him. Here's some more. The North Carolina Republican Party is rolling out this nasty new ad that attacks Barack Obama over Jeremiah Wright. Let's listen and look.

[BEGIN AD CLIP]
NARRATOR: For 20 years Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor.
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: And then wants us to sing "God Bless America?" No, no, no. Not God bless America, God [bleep] damn America!
NARRATOR: Now Beth Perdue and Richard Moore endorse Barack Obama. They should know better. He's just too extreme for North Carolina.
LINDA DAVES, NORTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIRMAN: The North Carolina Republican Party sponsored this ad opposing Beth Perdue and Richard Moore for North Carolina governor.
[END CLIP]

MATTHEWS: [audio problem]...that ad, he's asked them to drop it. What do you think of that ad?
ROGER SIMON, POLITICO: Well it's certainly nasty, I'm not sure it's unfair though. The media having run that clip a million more times than the North Carolina party ever could run that clip. Who's more guilty? What is unfair about the ad is the implication that Barack Obama sat in that pew and heard Jeremiah Wright say those statements. Barack Obama says he never heard it. Blah, blah, blah. But as Jonathan indicated Barack Obama is not past this incident and Jeremiah Wright is gonna come up in the general election, it just is. Just like people clinging to their guns and religion. He better get used to it.
MATTHEWS: Jonathan, John McCain says in a letter to them today, he thinks they ought to pull the ad but they are clearly going their on way on this. They say it's a local issue and they're gonna stick with it.
JONATHAN CAPEHART, WASHINGTON POST: You know I find it very interesting in this, in this regard. He's able to have it both ways in terms of, there's an attack ad on, on Senator Obama. He gets to denounce it. He gets to say, "Take it off the air," and then they get to say, "Well no. We're not going to do it." And by the way every cable network is gonna show it every half-hour on the half-hour-
MATTHEWS: Right.
CAPEHART: -because it's a big story. You know, heck I saw on MSNBC that this ad was out there. I went to the Web site and I, and I watched it. And I told other people and they watched it. It's sort of like-
MATTHEWS: To make your point Jonathan we're gonna show you a worse one of these ads when we come back after the break. All for free. This is one put out by Floyd Brown the inimitable guy who did the Willie Horton ads. We'll be back with that ad when we come back.

...

MATTHEWS: We're back with "The Politics Fix." Let's take a look at this ad now. It's produced by Floyd Brown, he's, of course, the guy who produced the Willie Horton ad back in that '88 campaign. This is for North Carolina. It's an attack ad against, guess who? Barack Obama.

[BEGIN AD CLIP]
NARRATOR: Mike Boyd killed at 15, beaten with bricks after a gang member crashed into his car. Severo Enriquez, just 14-years-old, when he refused to flash a gang sign he was shot five times in the back. They all died in 2001 in Chicago. The "Sun Times," called it "urban terrorism," and demanded action on gang violence. But that same year a Chicago state senator named Barack Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders. Can a man so week in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?
[END CLIP]

MATTHEWS: There you have it Jonathan.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Wow!
MATTHEWS: The first shot.
CAPEHART: All I can, all I can say is he's gonna look back on the, the "cling-bitter," controversy with, you know with fondness. That's a really hard ad. A really hard ad and he's gonna have to have an answer for it whether he likes it or not.
MATTHEWS: Well it's a giant permission slip to somebody who doesn't want to vote for him to begin with. And it's also a permission slip for the Republican Party to use him as a target throughout the general election. Right Joan?
JOAN WALSH, SALON: Yes I mean I think this definitely proves, as Jonathan says, that nothing Hillary has done, to date, is really even a tenth of what's gonna happen to him in the general election. It's not a, it's not a reason not to nominate him because she will have, you know, I can, we can all sit around and write the attack ads on her. It's gonna be a nasty race. The one thing she has is she's faced it before and she's fought back.
MATTHEWS: Well Roger this guy hides under a rock every couple of generations, shows up again with another, another ad against a black candidate-
ROGER SIMON: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: -or using a black person as the, as the bad guy.
SIMON: Although, I gotta say although I'm not a great fan of Brown and, and you know I wrote extensively about the Willie Horton ad when it was used in, in a negative way. I'm not sure you can say this ad is racially motivated.
CAPEHART: Right.
SIMON: This is a attack on Barack Obama for a specific vote, not extending the death penalty to gang members or whatever the heck it's about. But it's not, I mean you can't say that every time someone uses Barack Obama's picture in an ad-
CAPEHART: Correct.
SIMON: -it's racism. I mean the guy is what the guy is.
CAPEHART: Bravo Roger!
SIMON: And he is, you know, and, and there are some unfair ads that are gonna run, you know, not by McCain but by the 527s and others-
WALSH: Right.
SIMON: -but I'm not sure this is one of them.
CAPEHART: Right.
MATTHEWS: Well you wonder whether the, the, the sound and the fury of the urban, the urban theme here doesn't sort of capture him as one of the criminals?
WALSH: Yeah it's got, it's a little racially-coded.
MATTHEWS: Joan that's the way I saw it. It sort of put him on the street corner. It put him on the street corner with the killers.
WALSH: With the gang members, right.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
WALSH: He's, he's soft on gangs, he's soft and you know gangs equal black in this ad. So I thought there was a little bit, a little bit of racial coding but I think Roger makes an otherwise good point. I think, you know we can too far in saying anything'€"
CAPEHART: Right.
WALSH: -any kind of attack on him is ra-
CAPEHART: Right.
MATTHEWS: You know I get criticized, I get criticized for being over-sensitive to these ads but, you know I just know the country I grew up in and this is an easy target. I'm sorry Jonathan. You don't agree. Go ahead. Disagree with me.
CAPEHART: No, no, I, I, no I agree with Roger and I agree with Joan agreeing with Roger. I think Roger is absolutely right. Just because you criticize Barack Obama doesn't mean that it's racially motivated or should be viewed through a racial lens.
WALSH: Right.
MATTHEWS: Okay, you guys may be right. I may be right. Anyway Roger Si-, I like being right, rather than wrong. Anyway thank your Roger, thank you Joan, thank you Jonathan. Join us again tomorrow night at 5pm and 7pm Eastern for more Hardball.

CBS's Early Show Highlights Environmentalist
'Scuppies'

At the end of Wednesday's Early Show on CBS, co-host Harry Smith introduced a segment on a new group of environmentally-friendly young professionals: "Earth Day, of course, was yesterday, but for many Earth Day is every day, especially for a growing number of Americans of means." Correspondent Priya David went on define this new demographic: "Scuppies, so interesting, that's what the people in this group are called. Scuppies, it's short for Socially Conscious Upwardly Mobile Person, and there are more of them out there than you may realize. They are the new yuppies. Young, upwardly mobile, friends of the Earth." David further explained that: "The term, coined by financial planner Chuck Fallia, refers to green young people who love both money and mother nature." She then went on to contrast today's well-meaning "scuppies" with the greedy "yuppies," or young urban professionals, of the 1980's: "Today's scuppies aren't like the yuppies of the 1980s." She then played a clip of actor Michael Douglas from the movie Wall Street: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good" and added, "Instead, they want to do good."

[This item, by Kyle Drennen, was posted Wednesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [6] ]

Throughout the segment, David gave a more complete definition of a scuppie by citing various examples of their "socially conscious" lifestyle: "They buy organic food...Decorate with socially conscious [free trade] furniture...Or buy from flea markets. Their houses are cleaned by organic cleaning services...And landscaped with pesticide-free fertilizer...They eat at restaurants that use fresh, local ingredients...They drive old cars...And no designer pets for scuppies...For scuppies in training, environmentally-friendly diapers."

David concluded her report by describing the elitist nature of the scuppies: "Now you'll see they're not afraid to show off their healthy stock portfolio by spending more money on expensive and environmentally correct clothing, and they're proud to recycle their copy of the Wall Street Journal."

After the segment, Smith wondered if he fit the "scuppie" category, unfortunately he didn't quite make the cut: "You could potentially be a scuppie, Harry. I mean...You might be working the age limit just a little bit."

This story on America's "scuppie" population followed a story on Tuesday's Early Show which highlighted the recent banning of plastic bags at Whole Foods supermarkets. According to correspondent Hattie Kauffman: "Plastic bags may go the way of the dinosaur. Ikea plans to ban them in October. And starting today Whole Foods won't use them."

Kauffman described efforts across the country to ban plastic bags:

KAUFFMAN: Most of the plastic bags are not recycled. They end up cast off on land and in the sea. Whole Foods regional president Michael Bescanson says the plastic ban is coming just in time.
MICHAEL BESCANSON: Unless you're living under a rock, you have to see that we have a problem. There's too many of us, we're overburdening the system. The -- the Earth can't handle it.
KAUFFMAN: Last year San Francisco banned plastic bags in all of the city's larger stores.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I hated the plastic bags. Because then once you get them home, you don't know what to do with them.
KAUFFMAN: The Mayor of Seattle wants to take it a step further, a 20 cent fee for any disposable bag.
GREG NICKELS: The answer to the question, paper or plastic should be neither. Both harm the environment.

Toward the end of the segment, Kauffman mentioned that: "Most shoppers we spoke to approve of the ban."

The ban on plastic bags was also a topic of conversation on NBC's Today on Tuesday, when actor Ed Norton declared that: "Yeah and when, and when China is ahead of us in banning these things [plastic bags], when other countries around the world are banning these things that we, we need to get in line with that and catch up." Check Wednesday's CyberAlert for Norton's comments: www.mediaresearch.org [7]

Here is the full transcript of Wednesday's Early Show segment:

HARRY SMITH: Earth Day, of course, was yesterday, but for many Earth Day is every day, especially for a growing number of Americans of means. CBS News Correspondent Priya David is here to tell us more about them. Good morning.

PRIYA DAVID: Harry, good morning. Scuppies, so interesting, that's what the people in this group are called. Scuppies, it's short for socially conscious upwardly mobile person, and there are more of them out there than you may realize. They are the new yuppies. Young, upwardly mobile, friends of the Earth.
CHARLES FALLIA: This is the person that you see in front of you at Starbucks asking the Barista 'is this free trade coffee?' It's the person at Whole Foods you see with the canvas bags. These are the scuppies.
DAVID: The term, coined by financial planner Chuck Fallia, refers to green young people who love both money and mother nature.
FALLIA: That looks good.
DAVID: Today's scuppies aren't like the yuppies of the 1980s.
MICHAEL DOUGLAS: Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
DAVID: Instead, they want to do good.
CARMEN FALLIA: I've always been eco-minded.
DAVID: They buy organic food.
FALLIA: We have the grass-fed fat free organic milk. The only thing better than organic food, I think, is organic beverage or cocktail. The tables are free trade.
DAVID: Decorate with socially conscious furniture.
FALLIA: We give them a fair wage for it.
DAVID: Or buy from flea markets. Their houses are cleaned by organic cleaning services.
FALLIA: Uses nothing but organic cleaning supplies.
DAVID: And landscaped with pesticide-free fertilizer.
FALLIA: We don't like to have any pesticides in the house, out of the house.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hi. How are you today?
DAVID: They eat at restaurants that use fresh, local ingredients.
WOMAN: All of our produce is all locally grown.
DAVID: They drive old cars.
FALLIA: It's not a hybrid.
DAVID: Even though that old car could be an Audi.
FALLIA: What makes us very scuppy and very environmentally sound is the fact that it's very, very old.
DAVID: And no designer pets for scuppies.
FALLIA: Here you see our pet. Stretch literally followed me home one day in New York City, up to my apartment.
DAVID: For scuppies in training, environmentally-friendly diapers.
CARMEN FALLIA: We're going with the chlorine-free diapers.
DAVID: There are hundreds of businesses that cater to this new group. From dry cleaners to clothing stores to burger joints. Now, the thing about scuppies is they don't want to sacrifice living well for doing good. The Fallia family's other car, for example, is an SUV.
SMITH: Ooh
DAVID: Now, take a look at this picture of a scuppie couple from the scuppie.com web site. Now you'll see they're not afraid to show off their healthy stock portfolio by spending more money on expensive and environmentally correct clothing, and they're proud to recycle their copy of the Wall Street Journal.
RODRIGUEZ: Baby steps, I guess.
DAVID: Absolutely. In those environmentally-friendly diapers.
SMITH: There was a great piece on the Evening News, though, last night talking about some of the companies out west, especially, that give incentives to their employees to buy, for instance, hybrid cars, different kinds of things like that. It's out there.
DAVID: Yup.
SMITH: Any of us -- do you think any of us are scuppies?
DAVID: You could potentially be a scuppie, Harry. I mean-
SMITH: If I ride my bike to work everyday-
DAVID: You might be working the age limit just a little bit.
DAVE PRICE: You just do that to save money.
SMITH: Unbelievable. Thank you so much.

'Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Improve
His Approval Rating'

From the April 23 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Ways George W. Bush Can Improve His Approval Rating." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com [8]

10. Fewer embarrassing gaffes, more humiliating blunders

9. Replace "Hail To The Chief" with Black Sabbath's "Iron Man"

8. Send FEMA to rebuild Knicks

7. Change name to Barack W. Obusha

6. Show America you're not some stiff workaholic by blowing off work sometimes

5. Jump Snake River in rocket powered "Sky-Cycle"

4. Become trapped in an elevator until January 20, 2009

3. Less of this [video of Bush dancing in New Orleans]

2. Ask father for tips on how he achieved his 31% approval rating

1. Hide Cheney's medication

-- Brent Baker