Politico on Press Bias

“Drudge rules our world” pens a “fair assessment”? In the press organ owned by the chair of the Ronald Reagan Library Board of Trustees?

Thanks, but no thanks.

Moderate this.

For those that would disagree with the assessment, please post here an story that you think has been overlooked by the national media Barack Obama.

Further, I would suggest that in a record twenty month campaign process, if the Republicans could not bring forward a story on Barack Obama and get media attention for it, it’s not the media who are to blame.

And that concludes any defense you will find me likely to make about the national media, since it took them so damn long to get off the tire swing in the first place (witness the pathetic “Tire Swing, A Love Story” piece currently up over at Talking Points Memo.)

This discussion has been going on already at Ambers’ place:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/provocation_of_the_day_the_med.php

I’ll repeat what I said there:

The media’s not in the tank for Obama.
If they were, there’d be unprompted stories about Alaska Independence party keynote speeches, G. Gordon Liddy, anti-witchcraft religious services, McCain’s gambling propensities, voter suppression activities, and the like. Plus demands for media access to McCain & especially Palin.
Instead we get wall-to-wall Ayers, ACORN, and Socialism.

Huh. I STILL can’t get moderated, even with by posting a link. Just don’t have the knack, I guess.

Anyway, I forgot to add the primary gist from Ambinder’s commenters:

McCain’s been screwing up. Obama hasn’t been. It’s not bias to report that with “negative” and “positive” articles, it’s TRUTH!!!

McCain is getting hosed in the press because he’s lied, faltered and fumbled his way through the last two months.
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Presenting this as ‘press bias’ is like suggesting there is ‘press bias’ against a football team on a 16-game losing streak. At the risk of being called sexist, it’s not a journalist’s job to put lipstick on this particular pig.
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Hmmm. I think the Politico assessment IS a fair one — and I think it’s what happened back in the Dem primary too. When a campaign starts dropping behind, they start floundering, and the press starts to report on said floundering. As Politico says: “As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.” Ambinder made a similar statement in his vlog “Table” thingy with Sullivan.

OK, that one went into moderation (basically I just agreed with Carney & Politico)… Let’s try another one, a bit off topic: The LA Times piece written by Maeve someone (referenced by Casey & mocked by TPM) is a thing to behold indeed. I guess you’ve got to hand it to McCain — he held a whole bevy of reporters in his sway for a very long time, such that they pine evermore to this day (and even solicit funds?) for a return to their time on the STE — and this one (Maeve) actually gets sick to her stomach when McCain can’t answer a question. There’s something really wrong here, but I’m not sure what can be done.

Sorry, Jay. Still not buying. Note in Joe Bftsplk’s comment all the stories we would have seen if the media were truly in the tank for Obama.
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The study showing that Obama has run more negative ads, for example, seems to have taken any ad of Obama’s that mentions McCain’s name as negative and gives it the same weight as a very nasty ad of McCain’s. For example, Obama saying that McCain’s health policy would include taxing employer benefits would count as negative in the same way as a McCain ad indicating that Obama was BFF with a terrorist who bombed the Pentagon.
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All McCain does is still say bad things about Obama. He cannot say what good things he will do without trashing Obama. OTOH, I’ve wished some Obama surrogates would be a little more forceful in pointing out the lies and misstatements, but even on the teevee they seem to relentless stick to policy differences.

Aren’t you the same guys who claimed that the study showing Obama getting more coverage during the Rev Wright brouhaha proved some sort of bias when the study wasn’t taking into consideration that it was largely negative coverage Obama was getting?
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Politico has as much credibility as you do Jay. Which is to say they have no credibility.

Joe…couldn’t agree more. Reporting on Obama is more positive because he and his campaign are positive. Reporting on Obama doesn’t include criticisms of his gaffs and flip-flops, because he really hasn’t had many. To anybody with an open mind Obama has run a consistent, smart, high-level campaign, and McCain hasn’t. How could reporting have made it otherwise, without lying?

All this and I must say I intended at the beginning to vote for McCain. I am a Vietnam veteran, too, identified with him and admired his willingness–I thought–to confront the right-wing Republicans when he disagreed. He disabused me of those sentiments by his own actions — long before the press even began making an issue of it. Not to mention showing himself to lack the mind and character needed for the job.

how about the Republicans and thier voter bias:
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/28/virginia-trying-to-combat-misinformation-about-election-day/

“What’s more, Obama had more than twice as many positive stories (36 percent) as McCain — and just half the percentage of negative (29 percent).

You call that balanced?”

There is a tweensy bit more here than meets the eye, Jay. To wit:
Now, say you have a skunk. The skunk, in defending itself, squirts McCain with a good hearty stream of stinkola. Obama, standing next to him, steps back to avoid a similar fate.

Ok. Stage set. Bring in the journalists. Bring in the pundits. Take a poll and see which way the news breaks. Will the study reveal:

A. A nearly 100% bias, with all stating that McCain stinks.
B. A fair and balanced overview in which both McCain and Obama stink.
C. The FOX approach. McCain smells like a rose, and Obama stinks, or, it’s all Obama’s fault, or, somehow, the skunk, an unnamed reptile, and Obama have had a freindship in the past and the skunk is Wildlife’s gift to terrorism.

Me, I’m gonna guess A for the sane, and C for the rest of you out there in GOP land.

sorry forgot about the TROLL:convention (:

That’s not a bad article.
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One bad part: “The best evidence of this has been the intense focus on the negative nature of his ads, when it is clear Obama has been similarly negative in spots he airs on radio and in swing states.”
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Obama’s negative ads are generally lists of McCain’s votes and proposals, with footnotes to substantiate their criticism. Whereas McCain is all “Paris Hilton/Bill Ayers/Socialism.” All negatives aren’t equal.
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As for the Palin shopping spree, a pal of mine was shocked when it got coverage in the media, given how much the media followed the McCain camp’s lead on Ayers, lipstick on pigs, Joe the Plumber, etc. But Harris and VandeHei are right– the press isn’t ideological. It just loves peripheral, personality-based, easy-to-report trivia. Generally, that pro-laziness bias favors the GOP, because that party has no rational policy proposals. But sometimes it does not.
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As Slowhand Ted points out, the Miami Dolphins went 1-15 last year because they weren’t any good at football, not because reports of their failures appeared in newspapers and on TV. Ditto the McCain-Palin campaign. Heck, just ask a McCain staffer about how the VP pick went. (For purposes of this analogy, Nick Saban = Sarah Palin).

I’m working on a long blog post about balance in this campaign, which will be part of my discussion this Thursday with Jay Rosen at Virtually Speaking this week. There have been two public editor pieces about this in the Sunday Times, one asserting that the number and negativity of the stories about the two campaigns have been balanced at the time. The second, two weeks later, asserted that no, despite all the mail he’s getting from right wing people, the coverage has not been biased against McCain.
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My point in this long post is VandeHarris’. If the coverage was indeed been balanced then it has been biased. McCain’s campaign has been bad in historic terms. Just last week we had at least 8 incidents that qualifies as campaign disaster. He made a horrible VP pick. He’s been unable to find a message, and and been awful in every public forum he’s appeared in. He is incoherent in person. The policy positions the campaign has adopted are, at best, sketchy, and change from week to week, sometimes from day to day. There was a crisis in the middle of the race. He mishandled it, badly.
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If the coverage of the McCain campaign and of the candidate’s positions have been the same as the Obama campaign, which has to rank with Reagan’s 1980 campaign and Bush’s 2000 campaign as among the best in the postwar period, is equally negative in tone and coverage, then the coverage has been inaccurate.
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One of the things Calme seems to believe (as Deborah Howell seems to in email correspondence we have had) is that both sides are working the refs, seeking bias their favor, or, at least, the elimination of bias in favor of their opponent. This is not so. The criticism from the left is that the media is less concerned about accuracy than it is about presenting a false equivalency between the two parties. We did not want Obama’s cave on FISA covered inaccurately, as a good thing in the party’s and the public interest, even though it is Obama’s position. The right wing, on the other hand, wants McCain’s positions and statements covered positively regardless of their merits, as long as he toes the line (a toeing which is also to be covered positively) on core issues like abortion and immigration. This false equivalence is our beef, not bias.

Its not the medias fault that mcCain isn’t exactly a great story generator. If theres nothing good to say about the guy or his campaign – guess what – the medias not going to whip a positive story out of thier @sses. Well – the F-network does it but thats not really news.

CedarFlute, I think that part of the McCain legend willingness–I thought–to confront the right-wing Republicans when he disagreed. has endured beyond all reality. I’m not sure it was ever as real as the press played it up to be. I just heard last night someone say how wonderful McCain was because he reached across the aisle and they mentioned campaign finance reform. Well, how long ago was that? The more recent example of the immigration bill with Kennedy, he took his name off and said he wouldn’t vote for it.

As citizens we are all so tired of being bamboozled for the last 8 years. The MSM is partially responsible for perpetrating the false and missleading information and non-transparency of the Bush admin. They tend to hype anything that compells the public into watching, listening and reading. (I vow to never forget the media’s incredibly unbalanced coverage of the build up to war in Iraq.) But this time the public is compelled to watch something positive rather than negative, something hopeful rather than fearful. Therefore Obama has been covered more positively.

ivb
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The real problem with the WI Obama as negative study was that it counted raw numbers of ads. Since Obama is running many more ads, he is necessarily running more negative ads. And, yes, the McCain ads are qualitatively more negative and less accurate.
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And, as Dirks pointed out, that bit of study was a make good for a previous study from the same people saying that McCain was running a much more negative campaign.
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False equivalence was demanded from the McCain people at the time.
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It’s hard to know what put my last post into limbo.

Another example is the endless nonsense about Joe the Plumber, now ramped up with McCain lies. If the press were truly in the tank for Obama, someone would have pushed the entire video of the Obama encounter with him which is very different from the phrase.

Oh, and also, this from the article is completely foolish: “But he has benefited from the idea that negative attacks that in a normal campaign would be commonplace in this year would carry an out-of-bounds racial subtext. That’s why Obama’s long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was basically a nonissue in the general election.”
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Um, hello people. Remember March? When that was the single thing the media reported on all month long? It’s old news now, so no one’s talking about it (kinda like the much more recent, much more relevant, finding that Gov. Palin abused her office and broke state ethics laws).
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Also, that might be the single, solitary thing that McCain can claim he didn’t do, if someday he comes back asking for people to act like he has integrity. He called Obama a socialist, implied that he might be a terrorist, lumped him in with overheated accusations toward ACORN to stoke white fear of black people voting, but, AFAIK, he refrained from attacking Rev. Wright. I doubt it’s because of his own crazy pastor problem– GOP slimesters like Schmidt have never been deterred by the glass houses problem in the past.

Is “Obama is a t e r r o r i s t” equivalent to “McCains’ tax cuts favor the wealthy.” No way, in my book.

Just to pile on a little: no doubt stories mentioning Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974 were overwhelmingly negative. That doesn’t prove bias in the least. Nor does any count of positive/negative stories, unless you are willing to make unfounded a priori claims about the underlying events (i.e., that Obama and McCain “objectively warranted” equally positive coverage).

Pork chop sandwich.

I think people like Jay and others look for any technicality that they can exploit to broadcast disinformation.
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I think that people like Jay know what they are doing. They are Soviets, indeed, trying to push the Party message.
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There is a lot to do in the way of political reform, far beyond anything McCain/Feingold covered!

Shouldn’t running a campaign based on hatred and fear result in worse press for John McCain than if he had run on issues?
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According to a website designed to make money via links from Matt Drudge:
No. They construct a false equivalence between Barack Obama saying that John McCain’s ideas are bad and John McCain painting Barack Obama as a Scary Negro.
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According to Jay Carney: I agree with this false equivalence.

pourmecoffe:

It seems everyone has figured out that you have to paraphrase Republican sentiments in order to avoid the Black Hole of Moderation, huh?

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Not bad, as Politico analyses go…On thing stuck out:

The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s researchers found that John McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10 McCain stories were negative.

Considering how poorly the McCain campaign has been performing, it’s no suprise that the tone of media coverage is considered ‘negative’.

What I would love to see is a journalist take the two candidates speeches today and go through them. And analyze how much of the speech each candidate spends on criticizing his opponent vs talking about themselves or the future. I will bet my dwindling 401k that the percentages would mirror the percentages of positive and negative stories written about each candidate. John McCain does not give any lines in his speech without pointing the finger at Obama. Most of the time in misleading and personal terms. This really isnt chess, its checkers.

The question of media bias is significantly more complicated than any ‘side’ would care to admit. I thought the Politico article was pretty good. It was even better when you consider the source.

The problem that the Democrats generally fail to acknowlege is that much of what ends up as news coverage is market driven. And depending on the medium, the coverage is going to track the audience, and not necessarilty the other way around. Network execs are just as capable of reading poll numbers as anyone else. And like it or not, Palin rally attendees represent a significant market segment.

These kinds of stories amuse me. What criteria is used to determine whether something is “negative” versus “positive”? For example, would fact checking a false claim by the McCain camp constitute negative coverage? Would reproducing the transcript of Palin’s disastrous Katie Couric interview be considered “negative” coverage?

Anyone with half a brain cell would conclude that the Obama campaign has been run much better than the McCain Campaign. Simply reporting on the day to day activities of the campaigns would likely result more “negative” coverage for McCain.

According to flawed studies of like the one cited by Carney and his Drudge loving pals at Politico, unless you whitewash the reality of the McCain campaign’s missteps, you are biased. In other words, reality has a liberal bias.

I am still waiting for the Politico, Carney, or any villagers to come clean about the hatchet job they did on Al Gore in 2000?

ivb:
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It looks like that voters are tanking for Obama, too…

Pigs fly.

Or maybe Crist is positioning for the RNC chairmanship, and 2012.

Obama takes the high road. He had an opportuntiy to diss Palin for lack of experience in the last debate and he passed. He’s repeatedly said he wants to focus on issues not distractions. This study proves his positive message has resonated. Yes! suck on that McCain!

I have another thought. I wonder how many times talking about polls would qualify as a negative report against McCain. If so then that just couldnt be avoided because the polls are what they are. It would help if they released the methodology of the study so people can know what are the parameters of a negative story

Obama says that McCain’s tax plan is bad. The ad runs twice (Negative ad)
McCain runs ad saying that Obama wants 5 year olds to play with adult toys with explicit instruction (negative ad) running one time.

Obama therefore is twice as negative as McCain according to studies!

Seems to me Sen. McCain got the velvet glove “good old boy” treatment for months while Sen. Obama was subjected to every insulting and low-brow attack Hillary Clinton could muster.

Then, when McCain started chopping off the hand that fed him – his media pals – they gave him the same scrutiny everybody else was getting, and because he’s always been a spoiled, nepotism-blessed coattail climber, he started whining.

We all know this: the more you whine and throw fireballs at the press, the more the press throws them right back at you.

In McCain’s case, richly deserved. A lot of his “Maverick” record is a tissue of deception and coverup (such as calling his wife the C word, notorious womanizing, excessive gambling, where’s the “moral majority’s” outrage about that?) and deserved to be outed.

Obama is going to win because he’s earned it, fair and square, with a quality race and level-headed intelligence, against two of the worst-run campaigns in Presidential history.

He’s been just political enough to unKerry the opposition, without stooping to the gutter like both Clinton and McCain and Palin have done, repeatedly.

He’s what we’ve been waiting for: a leader with character, intelligence and integrity. And about time!

“And like it or not, Palin rally attendees represent a significant market segment.”
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This explains how “End his life!” is the “equivalent” of “McSame”.
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Pleas excuse the paraphrasing of certain, um, GOP ralliers’ sentiments…

trifecta:
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Real boys playing with real toys, I’m very sad to say:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27399337/

Sorry, Elvis, but it’s a terrible article. It assumes a journalistic obligation to give equal (or at least equivalent) coverage to the proposition that a fire at the orphanage is a good thing.

These people have professionalized press bias complaining. They complain about the press when they’re losing. Invariably. That’s what they do.

You’ve heard of the Chattering Class, the right wing claque should be renamed the Whining Class.

trifecta:
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Here is one of a very serious gun-show accident:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27399337/
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The moderater swallered my last comment…

trifecta:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27399337/
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The moderater ate my last two attempts to post this!

As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.

If false equivalence dies what does the GOP have left?

Echoing a TPM emailer, why IS McCain still trying to rally the base? I saw a clip a bit ago, and I thought of Nader. Is it that he just wants cheers and adulation from a friendly crowd? I know what Obama is doing, switching to a more partisan mode. He’s getting out the vote. But what is McCain doing?

High Sheriffs:
I have tried to post, with text, none of which had any possible keywords that would trigger moderation, a link to a cnn.com article describing the ending of the life of an eight year old boy who played with an Uzi at a gun show.
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Are you trying to censor?

@53-3
I have teenage kids; I’m used to censuring my foul mouth for the sake of appearances.

53_3
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Try to take out any words referring to loss of life

sgw-
Actually, CNN has something close to what you asked for — they’ve got a “fact check” of the candidates’ “closing arguments”. I didn’t count up the results (I’m theoretically employed, after all), but I’ll betcha you can guess which one was more truthful, and which was truthier.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/fact-check-mccains-closing-argument/

Dennis Kucinich was just on CNN with Rick Davis saying Bush is trying to influence the election with that attack in Syria. I AGREE!

If false equivalence dies what does the GOP have left?
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Well, that’s exactly right, PL (aka STD). Jon Stewart interviewed Campbell Brown last night. I was shocked to see her say that it’s not enough, as a journalist, to simply report what both sides say. If one side is stretching the truth, Brown said, the media should report that.
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The “false equivalence” approach has been a huge boon for the GOP in the past 10 years. Gingrich at least put forth policy proposals that you could agree or disagree with. The Bush-Rove-McCain-era GOP doesn’t even bother to pretend that numbers need to add up, or that a plan should exist. They are all marketing, zero policy, all the time.
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In that world, an effort by the media to change the way they report the news, focusing on accuracy instead of political correctness, would absolutely be to the detriment of one of the two parties.

OMG – me too 53_3!! What’s the problem?

Last night I heard a McCain radio ad stating Obama would raise taxes on those making $42,000 or more. Untrue. If an Obama ad pointed out the ‘untruth’, would that also be negative?

Here’s more information regarding The Politico’s founder Frederick J. Ryan Jr. who also is Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation (h/t James, Foolish Literalist). Jay, why is the article from The Politico a fair assessment?

I thought the story Jay linked to was pretty balanced, on the whole. Could have been better, but I was expecting much worse.
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On another topic – please, please, please either pitch the moderatron or at least print a list of verboten letter strings so we can avoid them or at least not be paranoid when posts get sent to purgatory.

I would also argue that one of the main reasons the Republican brand is so damaged is because they still do not accept any responsibility for their errors.

e.g. Bush screw ups 911, Iraq, the Economy, are all Clinton’s fault. The reason the McCain camp is doing poorly, is not because of their lack of a good message or their poorly run campaign. It’s because of the “liberal” media.

As long as Republican’s don’t take responsibility – they will continue to lose elections.

Which one is running the dishonorable campaign, again? And didn’t the MSM insist McCain won all three debates, despite the public decidedly disagreeing? Clintonian victimhood if I ever saw it.

Hey, I finally got moderated!
When do I get my medal?

sgw, I was trying to call your attention to a CNN link that does a fact check on the candidates’ speeches (guess which one’s truthier). It’s not the I’m right vs. you’re wrong tally you’re looking for, but someone with time on his hands could count.

sgwhiteinfla-
It just so happens that CNN did a fact-check on the candidates’ “closing arguments”. You can see who’s negative, who’s forward-looking and who’s full-of-it.
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/fact-check-mccains-closing-argument/
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/fact-check-obamas-closing-argument/

Oh speaking of press bias, let’s harken back to the YKOS ’07 Media Panel:

Questioner: Jay, Time has a lot of conservative columnists, will Time ever employ a liberal one?
Carney: Time has always had conservative columnists and always will.
Questioner:…but will Time ever hire a liberal columnist?
Carney: Time has always had conservative columnists and always will.

Again, let’s go back the Rev Wright era and the study that showed he got more coverage during that time. You all played the rubes at the time because it suited your needs…’See thar! That Obama gettin’ all them there media attenshuns n’ such, taint fair, taint fair at all! Huh….negative coverage? You tryin’ ta tell me jus’ cuz most that coverage was negative again’ Obama that thar ain’t no media bias? Weeeellllll, guess I’ll have to sit a spell and thinkerate on it for a spell I reckon. Shore seems complimicated!. Now, suddenly, the media has new fangled sophistication, able to discern negativity and it’s import, so we get:
“The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s researchers found that John McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10 McCain stories were negative.”

You guys are rubes one minute, hardened and sophisticated reporters the next. Wonder why?

Did you guys see Bill Burton PWN Megyn Kelly yesterday when she was trying to read off of this study saying that FoxNews was the most fair because they had more positive stories of McCain and more negative stories of Obama. Burton smashed her but he didnt point out the problem with her premise. Sometimes if you are the only one doing something that means YOU are doing something wrong. Its like that old saying “if you believe that everybody is crazy but you….”
I personally think they should make FoxNews drop the News part of the name of their channel

A question for Clinton supporters. Do you think she could have run this race as well as Obama has?

Has any one ask Jay Carney why he was on Morning Joe today agreeing with Joe that the press is in the tank for Obama?

sgwhiteinfla-
It just so happens that CNN did a fact-check on the candidates’ “closing arguments”. You can see who’s negative, who’s forward-looking and who’s less than truthful.
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/fact-check-mccains-closing-argument/
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/fact-check-obamas-closing-argument/

pourmecoffee, sg:
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I did exactly that. I went through the message to remove anything that would be remotely offensive. I tried about four different ways of including the link, but it just wasn’t flying.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27399337/

pourmecoffe, sg:
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Just tried to include the link again, without any references whatsoever to life. No keywords, nothing offensive (which is what I tried befor), and I am still N/i> not allowed to post the link.

gysgt,
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Jay is a wuss. He knew for a fact that some of the things Joe Scarborough was saying wasn’t true because he had already posted blogs here about some of the stuff but he just let Joe steamroll him. Jay is not a guy you want with you in a dark alley if some thing were to jump off thats for sure. I think he wasnt ONE MORE RIDE on that tire swing

Do you think she could have run this race as well as Obama has?

I wasn’t a Clinton supporter but if I had to guess, I would say that right around the time when Obama was being told that he needed to be more aggressive and ‘take the gloves off’, she wouldn’t have hesitated and the result now would be a closer race with a less obvious contrast in campaign styles.

I tried to link to the CNN fact-check articles referenced by Joe Bftsplk. I too was moderated… Why is that?

53_3
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They did me like that after I had posted like three links of different stories. Have you tried to just cut and paste the actual story instead of the link?

Clinton would be ahead by 20 points right now.

I don’t think for a moment the MSM is in the tank for Obama. As others have pointed out, they have not covered many stories about McCain and especially Palin. Wright, Ayers and Bittergate got plenty of investigation. Troopergate came and went but Obama’s “scandals” lived on and on.

It’s infuriating for supposedly grownup members of the press to fall in line when Repubs start pushing back with the big old bad librul media crap.

Stories can languish and die at Huffpo and TPM but let Drudge crook his little finger and the MSM follows him down into the sewer.

I get the feeling that the MSM anguishes over the hatred the right has toward them and wrings its collective hands on how to appear “fair and balanced” and yet it ignores the seething fury Dems feel toward many of their members. They seem to think if Dems despise them it means they’re doing a good job.

Weird double standard.

wasnt=wants
I hate not having preview

Elvis- Campbell Brown has been one of the pleasant surprises of this election cycle. Her “Free Sarah Palin” commentary was spot on.

swg-
You know, F@cks News viewers think that Megyn Kelly won that spat.
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I think that a lot of people like the comfort of being told what to think, and F— News caters to them.

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Elvis Elvisberg: They are all marketing, zero policy, all the time.
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Call it ‘Bush-style’ governance; no one cares if the policy is good, workable, or even true…the direction was set, and most of the discussion was about selling the policy to the public. Hopping on the Not-So-Way-Back Machine:

“There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus,” says DiIulio. “What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis”…

…”I heard many, many staff discussions but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions,” he writes. “There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis, and they were even more overworked than the stereotypical nonstop, twenty-hour-a-day White House staff. Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking: discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue.”

Apologies for the longish quote, but it’s relevant. Considering that a lot of the Bush crowd is running McCain’s campaign, it’s no suprise.

Fact-check:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/fact-check-mccains-closing-argument/
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/27/fact-check-obamas-closing-argument/

Clinton would have been ahead by 20 points simply because she is such a known quantity and she’s white. Because Americans are so used to both the MSM and Repubs expressing disdain/hatred towards Hillary, they would ignore it and focus on her message about the economy.

Imo, McCain believed he was going to run against Hillary and thus would not have to focus on any policy issues, just bask in the glow of the MSM fawning that he was sure would happen. The press would do his dirty work while, he, War Hero McCain, appeared bipartisan, funny and cheerful.

However, he would have still been rocked by the economy and eventually would have had to get nasty, as Hillary would have gained enormous traction with her policies. And thus, McCain would have still had to made the decision to get down in the mud.

Sod it. I’ve had a pretty innocuous comment in limbo for forty minutes now. I’m taking my ravings somewhere else.

See you all when/if someone pulls Swampland out of the ditch.

Michael Graham wrote a good op-ed piece about media bias, which stated that only 8% of non-partisan individuals believe the media is fair in their coverage of both candidates. He also provided statistics saying that Obama has received 60-something percent positive or neutral press coverage, while McCain has only received 12 percent. Hmm…

McCain fact-check.
Obama fact-check.

The problem is here is that the press is continually engaged in this “false equivalency” and there is nothing equivalent about saying McCain’s plan is going to tax your health care benefits and Obama palls around with terrorists and wants to institute socialist policies.
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One is undesireable and the other would be fundamentally unAmerican. To suggest that apples and oranges provide the same health benefit is also just as ludicrous.

There are a lot of interesting futures for the Republican party. For instance, a Romney/Jindal ticket is an intellectual powerhouse. They are both analytical fiends whose background and execution are all about a B-school emphasis on metrics and performance. The GOP has to decide whether it is going to wear Dobson/Limbaugh around its neck and at what cost.

southernbell -
The election and polls have nothing to do with race, other than Obama’s race has helped him TREMENDOUSLY throughout this campaign. Tell me honestly. Do you believe that Obama would be so far ahead or have even won the nomination if he were white? Obama has more baggage than the Clintons. He’s not leading by 20 points because he is the MOST partisan left-leaning candidate who has ever run for public office.

Joe B,
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Yeah I noticed on youtube that many Fixed News watchers were trying to say Megyn Kelly won but then I pointed out my reasoning for why Burton won and other than insults nobody could explain why they thought Kelly won.
1. She lost her cool and Burton never did. Best sign of who won an argument
2. Burton was able to advance his argument, that FoxNews is in the tank for McCain but Kelly was not able to advance the story of the bogus interview from 2001
3. Burton also was able to explain Obama’s tax plan at least 3 more times in plain terms where anybody can understand while Kelly was busy trying to explain how the polls say Fixed News is fair and balanced. When you have to justify your program with a poll then you know you have hit rock bottom.
4. After Kelly asked him not to interrupt her, she kept trying to interrupt him which showed her obvious bias.
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Anybody that doesnt think Burton PWNED her is simply delusional and they arent drinking kool aid, they are smoking CRACK!

pourmecoffee
I don’t think Romney can make it. I think one of the main reasons why McCain won the nomination is because of the people voting for him to vote AGAINST Romney. He’s about as disingenuous as Obama.

Just so I’m on record. I don’t think the press is bias. There are exceptions like Fox news certain opinion writers who clearly lean to one side or the other. I think the main problems with the press and journos stem from those attempting to make a name for themselves by sucking up to the right wing. Case in point Mark Halperin, Judith Miller, Tom Brokaw and others.

I have no idea if Romney can make it, but I know this: when the election is over he will be significantly more likely to make it than when it started. He won a lot of friends with his steady performance and party loyalty. His stock is up.

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Well, it looks like the trolls have figured out the new comments section…
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newliberty: …Obama’s race has helped him TREMENDOUSLY throughout this campaign.
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That’s funny, considering that Clinton led Obama among African Americans at one point during the primaries…and discussion about Obama and race ran from ‘is he black enough?’ to ‘is he too black?’ to ‘is he a black nationalist?’
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Do you believe that Obama would be so far ahead or have even won the nomination if he were white?
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Yes. It’s about the ideas and the demeanor, not the color of the skin.
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Obama has more baggage than the Clintons.
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On Bizzaro Earth, yes. Back here on regular Earth? Not so much, and most of it has been ginned up.
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He’s not leading by 20 points because he is the MOST partisan left-leaning candidate who has ever run for public office.
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Hardly. That statement displays a total ignorance of history, especially recent history.

gysgt
Why would anyone want to suck up to the right wing when the Democrats are about to control all branches of government (including the media)?

newliberty,
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Its amazing to me that you would say that Hillary Clinton, you know the wife of former President Clinton that had to admit to the nation that he had o ral relations with Ms Lewinsky has less baggage than Barack Obama. The truth is HRC would have been buried by now because a lot of people even on the left have fickle feelings about her husband and feel he lost the election for Gore somewhat. White water, Vince Foster, Paula Jones, the movie Primary Colors, the maybe underage black girl who maybe was pregnant with Bill’s child story, all of the pardons her husband handed down including TWO of the Weather Underground. And the list goes on and on. The ONLY reason people think Clinton might have been up at this point is because Obama never tried to hit her with the dirt and smears. Its BECAUSE Obama is new to politics that he is up today. He doesnt have to worry about a lot of conflicting votes or conflicting stories. For every radical figure in Obama’s life McCain and HRC has had 5 to 10 times as many. Again we have this false security ONLY because Obama decided not to wallow in the mud. It was and is the right strategy because it draws a much sharper contrast with McCain.

sgw-
I agree with everything you said.
And the viewers still think Megyn won.
I’m hoping that over the next few years, at least SOME folks’ irrational reverence for authority (or let’s way, authoritative speakers (shouters?)) gets transferred from O’Reilly to Obama.

Somewhat OF, but this election has been a parent’s dream. I have two teenage boys and I don’t think we talked about policy more than a sentence or two — but I have spent hours pointing out how Obama’s calm and disciplined pursuit of his goal left everyone else in the dust. From top to bottom (Joe Bide excepted – why not my man Jack Reed?!), the Obama campaign has modeled an amazingly focused determination toward a well-crafted goal that is every parent’s wish for their kids. It has provided, as the candidate himself likes to say, teachable moments. Thanks, O.

g_crush
You don’t even know if I’m voting for Obama or not. But for the undecideds on this board, you might want to think about representing him a little better. I’m just stating facts.

pourme,
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I don’t think Obama gets enough credit for selecting Biden. What was his biggest blind spot before then? Say it with me, NATIONAL SECURITY. So he selects the CHAIRMAN of the Foreign Relations Commitee. Have we heard a whole lot about Obama not being credible on national security since then? Not hardly and the polls show that the gap has narrowed significantly. He also needed lets face it a white guy or gal from a small industrial city or town to make up for the bitter comment and to help him in rural America. Biden fills those roles as well. Because Biden and HRC are good friends Obama knew that by picking him that would help to bridge the gulf between himself and HRC. And that has worked out GREAT. Now yes you have to deal with Biden’s mouth some what but its a pretty good trade off is you ask me. Jack Reed would have been good but I think Biden’s chairmanship put him at the top of the list. Another caveat might have been that because Biden and McCain are so close that McCain might have hesitated to attack Biden as much. We see now that McCain could care less but I think it was a good gamble

I suppose I would also be found guilty of bias if I were to suggest commenters use The Google for the terms: mccain car crash 64.

Waht’s up with this yall?
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Florida Governor Charlie Crist, to the shock and dismay of Florida Republicans, just moved to extend early voting hours, a move likely to widen the Democrats’ lead under a program on which the Obama campaign has intensely focused.

“He just blew Florida for John McCain,” one plugged in Florida Republican just told me.

sgwhiteinfla
Hillary Clinton’s HUSBAND may have pardoned the Weather Underground…but fortunately for her, she chose not to launch her senate campaign from Bill Ayer’s living room.
Of course Bill’s past affairs hurt Al Gore. Bill Clinton was almost impeached for committing perjury. The Republicans used the same Gore=Clinton line that they are using now for McCain and Bush. Although annoying, it works.
Also fortunately for Clinton, we KNOW all of her baggage, and it is acceptable to voters. Obama is riskier and more unelectable. Every day brings a new audio clip or radical association. His voting record doesn’t help either.

I suppose I would also be found guilty of bias if I were to suggest commenters use The Google for the terms: mccain car crash 64.

gunny – great news. Crist has made it clear for some time he had lost interest in McCain. I think he was too busy to appear with him a week or two ago.

Also. An entry for Metaphor of the Day. The Palin Bus had to circle back and pick up the palin press, whose bus had broken down for the second time in 3 days.

I don’t disagree with the tactical reasons you cite in favor of the Biden selection. I just like Jack Reed a whole lot more – his intellect, temperament, policy, and pretty much everything else. Biden’s fine, and I understand why he was chosen. These things aren’t toggle switches.

Newliberty,
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Unfortunately for you there ARE no undecideds on these threads. We all know who we are voting for. And the truth is if some meat head would vote based on something they saw on a blog thread then they arent likely to be the brightest light bulb anyway. Your “facts” are really opinions and you have been called out as such.

Thanks sg…but I AM an undecided voter, and I don’t think people should be called a “troll” because they are questioning the candidates. I’m curious to see what supporters say, in this case, Obama supporters, which I know I’ll find on TIME.

gysgt,
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As a florida resident I can tell you that Crist is a jilted lover right now. He finally did a campaign event with McCain all these weeks after the RNC but he still wont say that Palin is ready to be VP. He came out and said the rumors about ACORN affecting the election here are BUNK. And he changed the opening and closing times because he wants to continue to be the Governer of this great state. He is nobody’s fool trust me and look for him to be a front runner in 2012

For those unfamiliar, click here</a? for a great profile of Reed. I can’t wait for him to take a more active leadership role, whether as a more senior Senator — or as a member of the Obama administration (I’ve even seen his name floated as a potential Secretary of State.)

newliberty,
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You didnt ask any questions, you gave your biased answers to a question. We corrected you. If you look like a troll, you type like a troll, and you react like a troll, then you are likely a troll. There are a million other threads on a million other sites. If this thread makes you vote McCain again Id have to say thats pretty silly. For all you know we are all McCain supporters who are saying stuff to make you hate Obama. But in the end you do what you feel is right for you. In the meantime if you REALLY want to know what someone has to say why don’t you ask a question?

Slowhand Ted:
Have you ever hear or read anything about National Security News Service?
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I know of the National Security Archive at GWU in D.C. and various US govt agencies: National Security Agency; National Security Council; so on.
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But I can’t recall National Security News Service

pourme,
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I like Reed too. I just thought Biden was the better pick. But if they have a Democratic governer in RI ill bet Obama tabs Reed to be in his administration. You know its a testament to the message discipline of the Obama team that nobody has ever come out with a story of how Obama came to pick Biden or even just who made it all the way to the short list. I do hope the story comes out one day after Nov 4th

Politico has begun to give Obama more positive coverage relatively recently. The Harris/Vandenhei team, and assorted cast members are mostly Drudge-offs..in company with old Halperin. Recall that the MSM members of the Base only turned on McCain when he turned on his Jerks. I guess these people deserve one another.

Meanwhile McRepeat is shovelling the usual bull: Obama is measuring the drapes/ Obama is having his inaugural address written up and sundry other “truthies”. And all kinds of Joe This and Josephine That are being harnessed to help push the Republican’s Last Stand. The Maverick is really a sad shadow of himself

Thanks sg…but I AM an undecided voter

hahahaha.

This probably isn’t one of our friends, but it is still funny.

So what is the issue that has you on the fence?

I don’t Hillary wouldn’t have done that well at all. Her campaign ran on just about the same degree of dishonesty that McCain’s did; most of his mud like Ayers and Wright are hand-me-downs from Hillary. A victory for that sort of campaign would’ve subdued many Democrats, including the more noted ones, and forced the new young voters to either quit or defect away from the Democrats.

Many in the black community openly threatened to vote McCain (a so-called “blackout”) had Obama lost (their argument that the Republicans had actually been more multi-ethnic in recent years, mostly because of Bush’s Cabinet). That would’ve been a disaster, especially as far as reaching the “magic 60″.

McCain would’ve also stayed on message better, particularly with the base (“do you REALLY want to see Bill Clinton’s wife win? Is this real change?”). He also would’ve likely stayed frosty during the debates and never lost his coziness with the media.

The economic collapse would’ve also made things equally a nightmare for Hillary as McCain could’ve simply pointed out Bildo’s role in the mess.

Finally, frankly, the Republicans were ready and waiting for Hillary and the Clinton baggage. They were decidedly not ready for someone like Obama and the results show.

Jay, did you really go on Joe and say the MSM was in the tank for Obama?

Typical MSM crap.

Where was all the worry about being in the tank for Newt and his henchmen and the other Repubs during Clinton’s eight years as being president? The press was incredibly negative, not just about Monica but all the “scandals” that the Repubs tried to pin on Bill? Remember Whitewater?

The press only worries about bias when it comes to how “fair” they’re being to Republicans.

The fact that so many on this blog have contempt for the media in general should tell you something.

g-crush. To expand on something you said @ 4:45 .
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When you say “It’s about the ideas and the demeanor, not the color of the skin”, I agree as pertains to the dem nomination. But in the GE, the color of his skin is an important factor -a negative one. Unfortunately, black = scary to many citizens. If Obama were a white man named Bob Smith, I doubt there would be such intensity at McCain/Palin rallies.
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The same mindset that rationalizes “Muslims attacked at 911, therefore, we can retaliate against any Muslim nation” is willing to believe that Obama is dangerous, a secret Muslim, a terrorist, radical, a black-liberation-theologist, unknown, the one -as directed. But if Obama was white, I doubt these themes would stick. Case-in-point: I think that Ayres association has impact, not because Ayres was a criminal, but because he is a domestic TERRORIST –scary black Muslim theme accomplished. Same for Wright, ACORN, wealth redistribution.

Many in the black community openly threatened to vote McCain (a so-called “blackout”) had Obama lost (their argument that the Republicans had actually been more multi-ethnic in recent years, mostly because of Bush’s Cabinet). That would’ve been a disaster, especially as far as reaching the “magic 60″.
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I gotta say that this is nonsense, IMO. I don’t think Clinton would have had any problem bringing the party together than BHO has. I just think we’ve seen an extraordinarily well disciplined campaign from Obama, and that is worth noting.

Jake Tapper dishes the dirt on Sarah.
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In post called Ooooooh, Barracuda!

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http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/

viciousmaniac,
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As a member of the black community that you referenced in your post either I missed that “we will all vote McCain” memo or you are full of shhh it. I agree with some of the other parts of your posts but to say that black people would have voted for McCain just because Obama lost is just plain wrong.

Guys check out this story. McCain just has every attack blow up in his face.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/mccain-funded-work-of-pal_n_138606.html

I guess its links that put us in moderation h e //

I kinda of missed the blackout memo too. How black did you have to be to get that one?

Another republican voting for Obama.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/27/AR2008102702407_pf.html

@sgtwhite – Biden may indeed have been the better pick; again I just like Reed better. However, lately I’ve been thinking that Biden will not enjoy the Vice-Presidency as much as he thought. It’s just my gut feeling, but I don’t think his influence will be as wide-ranging as he’d like and I think that generational and temperamental differences form a slight wall between him and Obama’s closest advisers. I’m not suggesting anything monumental, but I just sense it will be a smaller role than Biden imagined.

pourmecoffee:

Jack Reed reportedly took himself out of contention for the job, and he has also reportedly said he wouldn’t take a job in the administration either (see Mark Ambinder for discussion of potential office holders)

Just as America has lied to itself with defining the “American way of life” and then doubled down on the undefined emotional cliche’ with the statement of “the American dream is non-negotiable”, I believe we have also lived a lie with respect to the media in a couple ways.
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a) We have time and time again talked about the “non-biased” media as if it is made up of alien observers. Somehow they aren’t supposed to be voters, or have an opinion, or react to the positive and negative goings on about them that they pass along to us. Well, actually we have said it is ok for them as long as it is a fire, or tragedy or a feel good story of any kind, long as none of those things happen under the context of a political campaign. This notion is short-sighted, and inevitably incapable of being executed. The best we can hope for is open acknowledgment of their own positions and affiliations and then a full assessment of any issue that allows others to reflect upon it with transparency. To show example, CNN would be an example of left leaning media that makes a good effort to be transparent in that bias, while still providing full throated assessments. Not always mind you, but most of the time. FOX and MSNBC would be examples of failing at that. Far too much “shock jock” in their news and a presentation that doesn’t acknowledge it’s predispositions openly. Mind you again, they are not always poor in this regard, but they a measurably worse (consistently) in this effect than CNN.
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b) Far too often the media gives each side equal air time and representation with the goal of reaching the imaginary goal of “fair and balanced”. Every side of an issue is not equally substantive, and thus each side should not be given equal weight at all times. Just because two people disagree does not mean each side has a rational and constructively supported argument. We’ve all seen the 35 year expert professor in a field on a television split-screen trying to connect the dots for the average viewer in the way they can understand. He is being matched up against a public spokesperson for “don’t you believe it dot com”. They have no real credentials or self-studied data. They spend the entire interview attempting to shout down & marginalize the teacher who obviously has no taste for the public life and would rather be going back to his studies and students. The opposition rants on and on attempting to incite an emotional response from the viewers and/or their would be opponent that detracts away from any reasoned examination of the issue. End result, nothing useful gained other than entertainment. Leading to my third observation.
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c) Journalism long since became assimilated by the entertainment industry. This means quality journalism has been, and shall continue to be for the foreseeable future, the exception and not the norm. That doesn’t only mean the exception as one newspaper over another, or one news channel compared to another. It also means that within the very same organization you will find drastic distinctions from report to report, and yes, reporter to reporter. This makes it very hard to quantify where the good reporting resides, and when. It also almost guarantees that the majority of journalism overall, when all lumped into one assessment, will be continued to be rated as poor. Like most things in life, the motivation behind doing something eventually works it’s way into the quality of the results.
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Now these are not the end all be all causes of our sad state of affairs. Yet, I do believe the combination of those three factors play a significant role in creating both the actual and perceived quality of news we have today.

archimedesncarlsbad (snappy name you have there), I haven’t heard of the National Security News Service before, but obviously Vanity Fair has a pretty wide array of sources and a great deal of money to their name. Between the two organizations, if they wanted to dig a little deeper – find some people who can give contemporary accounts of the story and aftermath – I’m sure they could find some interesting facts.
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I get the feeling that the story is being leaked judiciously by VF and HuffPo, most details kept back as an ace in the hole, should the McCain campaign feel the urge to spring one final October surprise of Obama history.
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It could be that there is no story to tell about McCain and a car accident in 1964, but because the military’s default position is ‘tell them nothing’ that actually helps to fuel suspicions about a possible ‘McCain’s Chappaquiddick’ story being suppressed.
.

Meanwhile Halperin is pushing his Pal Drudge’s sewage.

McCain aides torn between letting Palin be a “scripted robobot” or an “unscripted ignoramus.”
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Do bad we can’t do polls here we could share our thoughts with the campaign.

http://men.style.com/gq/blogs/gqeditors/2008/10/palin-alone-abo.html

gysgt,
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this palin infighting story has taken on a life of its own!
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http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1008/The_Palin_story_goes_onand_on.html?showall

Here’s Scherer and Carney on the Tyndall Report and it’s claims that the MSM was in the tank for Obama:
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/07/24/that_liberal_media/
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/07/22/obama_mccain_and_the_press/

Note there’s not a mention of the qualitative nature of the coverage. No mention that the Wright coverage, which was the majority of the Obama coverage of the time, was hardly beneficial to Obama. Now they’re squawking about this study without a mention of the qualitative nature of the campaigns themselves. Hey Jay there’s been a lot of negative coverage of Ted Stevens…does that mean the MSM is in the tank for Mark Begich? May Time Magazine go the way of the Christian Science Monitor, and may Jay Carney practice coprophagy and shuffle off this mortal coil.

Is there really a meaningful conclusion to be reached on the issue of whether something as ill-defined as “the media” can be certified to be something as ill-defined as “in the tank” for a particular candidate or point of view? To participate in the debate is to embrace teh stupid.

Sg,

I wondered if this will end when Cindy decides to knock Sarah out for dissing her man.

gysgt,
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I had a debate with jayackroyd the other day before this really blew up and I told him then that yes Sarah was good at stabbing people in the back in Alaska but Mccain is a MASTER at burying people. We laid a bet on who whether McCain would destroy Palin’s career to the point where she wouldnt be a viable candidate by 2012. At ths rate I think I will be collecting a steak from jayackroyd in the near future. Notice the NATURE of the leaks now. Talking about how dumb she was and how she is a “whack job”. I think they want people to start looking at her as Michele Bachmann junior. McCain may not ever be the same again if he loses but then again he has almost 30 years in Congress. Palin on the other hand wont see the light of day if they lose next week.

Stuck in moderation but to make a long story short McCain is doing a pre emptive back stah bing on Palin if you ask me. He knows her history.

Jay Carney just posted a piece on Howard Dean’s leadership and vision

Nicole Wallace is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you that FoxNews threw her under the bus!
.

From Ana Marie Cox’s interview with the McCain aide:
.

There’s obviously an organized campaign to lay blame for things at my feet and I’m not going to engage before the campaign ends. I have a very long relationship with Fox News and the notion that someone would call me a coward on the air and accuse me of putting $150,000 on my credit card without a single person calling and checking with me suggests that something is going on.

Where is the report out today that Obama was at an event with the known PLO Terrorist, now Columbia University Professor, Rashid Kalidi? If the MSM is so “fair” in their reporting, then this video would be released immediately by the LA Times. TIME journalists would also call for the release of this video if they had the cajones to speak out. But, I am sure we shall never see this video until it is too late, and Obama is elected President.

pa56independent – It’s canceled out by the event thrown for him by Barbra Streisand. Look it up. It’s in the Torah. Streisand > Kalidi. Next question.

Well pa56independent the MSM would then have to be fair and report that McCain gave this Rashid Kalidi over a half a million dollars:
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/IRIForm9901998.pdf

Assuming Kalidi is as toxic as you infer, what would be worse….being praised by the guy at a party, or giving the guy $500,000? Oops!

Well pa56independent the MSM would then have to be fair and report that McCain gave this Rashid Kalidi over a half a million dollars:
big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/IRIForm9901998.pdf

Assuming Kalidi is as toxic as you infer, what would be worse….being praised by the guy at a party, or giving the guy $500,000? Oops!

Well pa56independent the MSM would then have to be fair and report that McCain gave this Rashid Kalidi over a half a million dollars:
big(dot)assets(dot)huffingtonpost(dot)com/IRIForm9901998(dot)pdf

Assuming Kalidi is as toxic as you infer, what would be worse….being praised by the guy at a party, or giving the guy $500,000? Oops!

Well pa56independent the MSM would then have to be fair and report that McCain gave this Rashid Kalidi over a half a million dollars:
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/IRIForm9901998.pdf

As$uming Kalidi is as toxic as you infer, what would be worse….being praised by the guy at a party, or giving the guy $500,000? Oops!

Well pa56independent the MSM would then have to be fair and report that McCain gave this Rashid Kalidi over a half a million dollars:
big(dot)assets(dot)huffingtonpost(dot)com/IRIForm9901998(dot)pdf

Assuming Kalidi is as toxic as you infer, what would be worse….being praised by the guy at a party, or giving the guy $500,000? Oops!
.

Well pa56independent the MSM would then have to be fair and report that McCain gave this Rashid Kalidi over a half a million dollars:
big(dot)assets(dot)huffingtonpost(dot)com/IRIForm9901998(dot)pdf

As$uming Kalidi is as toxic as you infer, what would be worse….being praised by the guy at a party, or giving the guy $500,000? Oops!

pa56 – Are you a complete moron? Where did you get your information? Independent, verified documentation please – no fevered right-wing hallucinations allowed.

OH NO! I’ve been moderated again! Drat you, pa56!

Test: moron.

Test: fevered.

Test: right-wing.

Test: hallucinations.

Well, now I have NO idea what did it .

It couldn’t possibly have been, Independent, verified documentation, could it?

Ahhh…bingo!

What landed me in the box was,
.

Asking for, you know, when someone says something that sounds just a little bit iffy, and in return someone else asks that person to demonstrate the veracity of his or her claim with sources that would be considered reliable and not beholden to one position or another.

Let’s see if that makes it.

pa56independent – That story is right where it belongs. Nowhere. You just said he was at an event with Columbia University Professor ‘fill in the blank’.
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Now as much as you may hate whoever the ‘blank’ is, the consensus of the general population can only fall into two camps of logical conclusion.
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a) Either A: The University named that allows the person to teach there is tainted, and thereby the Dean, board of directors, and any financial third parties that support it are equally tainted by association. This is basically the camp you apparently belong to. Obama was at an event with him, therefore he condones the man’s past, and anyone else who attended the event does as well. That would make the University in equally poor standing with you as it apparently makes Obama.
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(or)
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b) If a major United States University considers ‘person blank’ to be a non-threat to it’s local community, and more importantly, it’s student staff, then the person is a non-factor. The public nature of a major educational facility (like Columbia University) inherently means there are no ‘secret associations’. Those who associate with the University and it’s public dealings are held at no greater fault than the University and it’s staff for personnel in attendance or involved.

Basically, you cannot have you cake and eat it too. Either the University and all associates of the ‘person blank’ are bad guys (including Obama, the Dean, anyone who chooses to speak at graduation, etc.), or the whole thing is old news, water under the bridge, and a non-factor. Now if the two men are holding a private meeting in a bunker somewhere with secret documents. That is a story. Public engagements involving hundreds or even thousands of people, is not.

Yikes – someone called me a conservative because I said I have no debt – I think they were being derogatory. But I like Obama – what can I do. ……….

http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/28/tell-me-i-am-not-conservative/

Can anyone here tell me if this blog covered the Obama Spanish language ad attacking Mccain? You know, the one in which he took in out-of-context Rush Limbaugh quote from the 1990′s (‘Stupid and unskilled Mexicans’ and “You shut your mouth or you get out!”) and used it in an ad to both distort Mccains immigration policy and paint him as a racist by using quote from a man he has no professional associations with? Was that even criticized here?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178554189155003.html

Bias is in the eye of the beholder and it’s fashionable to claim bias when you’re unhappy with what’s being reported.

Soon we’ll need a new storybook: The Boy Who Cried Bias.

Last Friday, Sarah Palin gave a speech outlining an agenda for special needs kids/individuals. The coverage of this speech was minimal, notwithstanding the fact that it is an important issue that, frankly, gets little to no attention…ever. Instead, the MSM, this website included, remained focused on her clothing. Why?

Joe Biden and several other democratic congressmen are discussing, on the stump, taking away the tax benefit to contributing to 401Ks. They also are hinting at moving 401Ks to government controlled. Where is the coverage? This is a critical issue for many — not just wealthy individuals — many. Where is the coverage?

The LA Times is refusing to give up and/or publish anything related to a videotape of a 2003 party attended by Obama. The party is in honor of a known radical to whom Obama pays tribute. Where is the coverage?

In 2000, the last weekend of the campaign was dominated by coverage of W’s 20 year old DUI. How about the coverage of Obama’s cocaine use? Anywhere? Not that I really care about it, but it seems to me if the story about how much the RNC spent on Palin’s clothes can dominate several news cycles, why has there been no attention paid to, say, how much money Obama blew, literally, on coke?

Most Republicans can admit W has been a disaster. Why can’t Dems admit that their boy is getting a free pass/assist from the MSM?

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newliberty: You don’t even know if I’m voting for Obama or not.
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Correct. Don’t know, don’t care.
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But for the undecideds on this board, you might want to think about representing him a little better.
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Funny; I represent just one person – me.
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I’m just stating facts.
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No, you’re stating your opinion and calling it fact, Libbie.

Um, PA56, you might want to mosey on over to Huffpo and find out about McCain’s own “ties” to Kalidi.

jayackroyd Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
A question for Clinton supporters. Do you think she could have run this race as well as Obama has?
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Well, of course I’m going to answer that! Even though this thread is old…
I think she would have led by 5-10 points from June onwards, not because she has less baggage, or because Obama’s supporters would have more quickly recovered from the loss than her supporters did, or even because she would have been more aggressive. I think her emphasis on policy plans and contrasts, specifically on health care and the economy, would have more quickly moved the focus away from stupid ads towards real issues. (And the Republican’s inability to restrain their gender trashing of their own candidate shows that their ads against HRC would have equaled or perhaps surpassed the Celeb and Ayers ads) Obama spent/wasted a lot of time calmly defending himself from the McCain campaign’s attacks, and he only started leading by significant margins once the economy collapsed and he, along with everyone else, was forced to talk about policy details and contrasts. HRC would have been doing that all through the campaign.
Probably the best clue as to what kind of GE she would have won is her convention speech. Which, BTW, produced better tracking poll results than Obama’s acceptance speech. That speech was serious, policy-oriented, and most importantly, obsessively focused on tying McCain to the unpopular Republican brand.
Basically, I think HRC and Obama would be equal candidates on election day, given the autumn meltdown of the economy and John McCain, But I think if HRC were at the top of the ticket we would have had a more relaxing summer.
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And about press bias… McCain has been getting slightly worse coverage than most Republicans, and Obama has been getting slightly better coverage than most Democrats, but McCain is still getting better coverage in absolute terms. Only HRC and Palin have received significantly worse coverage than “typical” candidates from their respective parties – if the MSM were staffed by working-class white men Obama would be getting worse coverage, and HRC and Palin would be getting better coverage. Such are the dynamics of class, race and gender.

I’ll keep this simple because, apparently, I need to. If there’s no moral equivalency between the two campaigns (there’s not) then simply adding up the positive and negative statements about them tells you nothing about bias.

What has happened to your profession? I’d sure like to know when counting and stenography replaced thoughtful analysis and telling people the truth about what they should.