Watching the reports from the Middle East, I'm surprised at how coverage shows all the bloodshed, the strife and conflict in Libya, yet the officials of the country insists things are fine and the images shown on the Internet are forgeries or incorrect. It is telling that they claim the protesters are under the influence of outsiders, or drugs, or are just youth being defiant youth. Just like in Egypt, when the Vice President of the country went on air treating the defiant residence like children, telling them to go home and turn off the Internet, the son of Libya’s leader went on television telling his people to go home.

Television in all other parts of the world is showing streets filled with protesters, angry crowds with banners and posters denouncing the ruling government, but if you turn on television in the country you see happy scenes and if anything is told about the protesters, it's brings out people who supposedly are confessing the party line.

The taste of freedom is spreading throughout the region, as country after country, with high unemployment, low wages and little opportunity, calls people out on the streets to demand dignity and justice. Our national news broadcasts, a good third of the half hour broadcasts are devoted to this celebration of freedom on the other side of the world.

It comes as some surprise that in the United States, where we have union workers demonstrating in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and other states, coverage is little. Comparisons have been made between the demonstrations in the Middle East and the demonstrations here, but the coverage is vastly different.

Yes, the cable channels have done a good job of covering the state side demonstrations, devoting many hours to this, but the channels have taken to partisan talking points. While CNN tends to be moderate in coverage, MSNBC has been the Union sounding board, covering the protesters in the streets, the teachers on the verge of losing their jobs, and the Democrats who are in another state to avoid a quorum being formed and the devastating law from being voted on. FoxNews has been the soap box for the conservative side, sometimes distorting images and audio to convey an unreasonable crowd, possibly under the influence of outside agitators who ultimately are out to destroy the fabric that is America.

It has been depressing to watch the national news. Just today, February 25, the CBS Evening news devoted ten minutes to the unrest in the Middle East, covering three specific topics. On the demonstrations in the US the coverage was two minutes, and that is kind of stretching what the coverage actually was because none of it was directly connected to the demonstrations but talked about legislative moves in two states. They spend two minutes, the same amount of time on the US demonstrations, to cover Charlie Sheen and the cancellation of Two and a Half Men because of his antics. Five minutes was spent covering Glee inspired glee clubs in schools. Five minutes covering schools that have jumped on the fad of the moment when many school systems are facing budget cuts and in a greater context, ignoring that conservatives are demonizing programs like chorus because children can't read.

There isn't anything wrong with covering Glee inspired schools choruses, in fact it was kind of inspiring to see students engaged in education, but with the reality of the demonstrations going on, the teachers who are dedicated to helping kids stay in school will not be properly compensated, will be used as a political pawn and will be demonized as elitist by the conservative press.