T

erry Trippany, the new Watcher of Weasels, is working on a new Web site which will be up and running shortly. In the interim, he’s compiled this week’s nominations from the Watcher’s Council, which appears to be more of the same high quality Web-thinkin’.

Council

1. The Glittering Eye – The 2008 Beijing Olympics

2. Soccer Dad – Charm city charm offensive

3. Bookworm Room – The AP shows surprising honesty when it comes to Joe Biden

4. The Razor – Russia – The New Cold War

5. Joshua Pundit – Biden Off More Than He Can Chew

6. Wolf Howling – What Does Joe Biden Offer To Obama?

7. Colossus of Rhodey – NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Thinks Joe Biden is ‘Not Part of Washington’

8. Rhymes With Right – Not Every POW Supports McCain

9. Cheat-Seeking Missiles – North Coast – Day 5: Bookworm Revealed!

Non-Council

1. Paragraph Farmer – Remaking Grease in Denver

2. Pajamas Media/Belmont Club – Unity

3. Kirby Mountain – Puttin’ the Boone (Pickens) in Boondoggle

4. Seraphic Secret – The Terrorist is Still Dead

5. Telegraph UK – Gavin Menzies: mad as a snake – or a visionary?

6. Michael Totten/Middle East Journal – The Truth About Russia In Georgia

7. Powerline Blog – Energy Policy For The Ignorant

8. Media Backspin – Gadi Evron on Cyber Warfare

9. Boston.com Olympics Blog – You’re Not Supposed to See This

Council members will digest and mull all this good stuff, and vote for winners Thursday evening. Terry will post the results, which you’ll see here, on Friday morning.

No Comments yet »

“To achieve Olympic glory for the motherland is the sacred mission assigned by the Communist Party central.” – Liu Peng, Chinese Sports Minister

C

hina, a country that doesn’t offer its citizens health care, job safety, environmental protection or retirement benefits anywhere near those of advanced nations, spent $41 billion on the Olympics, netting 51 gold medals for its efforts.

While the US won the most medals, China won more gold – a glorious accomplishment, but one that came at a huge price to the athletes. In an article that is anything but full of surprises, the LA Times tells us:

The only mother on China’s team, Xian Dongmei, told reporters after she won her gold medal in judo that she had not seen her 18-month-old daughter in one year, monitoring the girl’s growth only by webcam. Another gold medalist, weightlifter Cao Lei, was kept in such seclusion training for the Olympics that she wasn’t told her mother was dying. She found out only after she had missed the funeral.

Chen Ruolin, a 15-year-old diver, was ordered to skip dinner for one year to keep her body sharp as a razor slicing into the water. The girl weighs 66 pounds. …

“You have no control over your own life. Coaches are with you all the time. People are always watching you, the doctors, even the chefs in the cafeteria. You have no choice but to train so as not to let the others down,” gymnast Chen Yibing told Chinese reporters last week after winning a gold medal on the rings. He said he could count the amount of time he’d spent with his parents “by hours . . . very few hours.”

There are certainly more stories like these, that show China for what it is: A land where 1.3 billion people are all servants to the will of the state. The American athletes who come from a country where the state is (miraculously) still the servant of the people had a very different Olympic experience.

The contrast couldn’t be greater than between the Chinese and U.S. athletes. In their post-match interviews, the Americans rambled on about their parents, their siblings, their pets, their hobbies. They repeatedly used the word fun.

Behind the visual glory of the Olympics, the real China showed through. Proud, powerful, for sure – but with a massive population used to being forced to do whatever the state asks of them, and ready to sacrifice for the Party’s glory.

Thank God the goal here was merely Olympic gold. Think what they could do if the goal were something more globally significant. Like, oh, California.

No Comments yet »

I

n securing the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama pulled off the political miracle of our lifetime. He beat the Clinton machine, covered up his radical roots with a false empty suit, ran away from this paltry record, and kept the rhetoric soaring enough to dazzle the special delegates and steal the nomination.

Most people get this, and realize that the man is not as grand as his image, that he’s a poll who just barely pulled off an unexpected win. That’s why most people are getting more and more turned off to Obama/messiah imagery, and it’s why Obama’s world tour hurt him in the polls – particularly the grandiose Berlin speech.

But people who realize this aren’t Obama, and they’re not Obama insiders. Barack, Michelle and the senior campaign staff appear blind to the criticism that Obama is playing too grand a hand, that he is acting too much like president and not enough like a candidate acting presidential.

They could pull back the imagery and rhetoric now that Hillary’s done with and the nomination is in hand. But they don’t get it. They don’t see it. In fact, they’re so oblivious to the public’s negative reaction to their “The One”-engendering imagery that they’re out to trump it tomorrow night when BO speaks to the multitudes again. Reuters reports that we need to batten the hatches; another flood of Obama the One symbolism is headed our way:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple. …

Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington’s Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party’s nomination for president.

He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.

The show should provide a striking image for the millions of Americans watching on television as Obama delivers a speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination.

Yes, it sounds like it certainly will provide a striking image. We can spend the speech wondering if Obama things (a) he is a god, (b) his is already president or (c) all of the above.

His campaign has seen how effectively the McCain camp has been able to repackage Obama’s own grandstanding to hurt him. They’ve seen how the Berlin imagery, packaged with Paris and Brittney, singlehandedly stopped their juggernaut in its tracks. But they are so caught up in the Grand Mystique that they simply can’t dial it back, they can’t reinvent their candidate as someone more human.

So tomorrow night the McCain campaign should get a free truckload of new visuals it can show to raise even more doubts about this strange Dem concoction of a candidate, allowing them to launch a new ridiculing ad just as McCain announces his VP choice, thereby minimizing any convention bounce for Obama.

If you ever needed a case study in why vanity is a sin, you’re looking at it.

1 Comment »

Dissecting Hillary

The NBC/MSNBC bunch watched Hillary’s Aug. 26 convention speech with one desire: Put the Clintons to pasture and move on a unified party behind their man Obama. And to their view, Hillary delivered:

Former President Bill Clinton’s mythic political skills face a major test when he takes the rostrum at the Democratic convention Wednesday, looking past his disappointment — some say anger — to speak in support of Barack Obama, the man who ended Hillary Rodham Clinton’s run for the White House.

Hillary Clinton passed the same test Tuesday night with a soaring rhetorical paean to her own historic run to be America’s first woman commander in chief and a convincing call for her still-angry backers to unify behind Obama, whose victory would make him the first black U.S. president.

Mission accomplished. Or was it? The Washington Post has its own Obama torch, but even it was able to report on Hillary’s speech with less bias than the peacock network:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most loyal delegates came to the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night looking for direction. They listened, rapt, to a 20-minute speech that many proclaimed the best she had ever delivered, hoping her words could somehow unwind a year of tension in the Democratic Party. But when Clinton stepped off the stage and the standing ovation faded into silence, many of her supporters were left with a sobering realization: Even a tremendous speech couldn’t erase their frustrations.

That’s a pretty easy story to report: Find a Clinton supporter and ask a question. Maureen Doud went a bit further and hunted up a wonk:

“What is that feeling in the air?” I asked him.

“Submerged hate,” he promptly replied.

There were a lot of bitter Clinton associates, fund-raisers and supporters wandering the halls, spewing vindictiveness, complaining of slights, scheming about Hillary’s roll call and plotting trouble, with some in the Clinton coterie dissing Obama by planning early departures, before the nominee even speaks.

But the NBC bunch didn’t want to muss up their perfect Obama convention with nagging little details like that, so they didn’t bother to ask the question; they just reported the fait acompli as they saw it.

Media Bias 2008 covers pro-Obama media bias in the presidential campaign. Items are listed from most recent to oldest; the numbering reflects this and is not a ranking. Send Media Bias 2008 examples via “comments”‘ below, or to email2laer [@] yahoo [dot] com.

No Comments yet »

“Suppose for example you’re a voter. And you’ve got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don’t think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver. For whom would you vote?” – Bill Clinton in Denver today

I

think the right answer is “Hillary,” but I’m open to other interpretations.

Gosh, the way things are going, Clinton night at the convention might actually, against all odds, turn out to be interesting.

The Hill, from which the quote comes, provided this clarifying bit of additional info:

Then, perhaps mindful of how his off-the-cuff remarks might be taken, Clinton added after a pause: “This has nothing to do with what’s going on now.”

Not to worry. Clinton insider Paul Begala said of his boss, “He’s totally for Barack.” Concerned that perhaps that wasn’t convincing enough, he added, “He’s totally for Barack.” Just for reference, check out Could You Repeat That?

1 Comment »

I

‘m in a rush this morning, so for something new at C-SM, eyes right. Media Bias #38, on WaPo’s coverage of Michelle Obama’s speech, was posted late last night and Media Bias #37, on the NYT’s anti-success hit piece on Cindy McCain’s wealth, was posted a bit earlier in the evening.

No Comments yet »

We’ll Expect The Same For Cindy

There is only one word for it: a gush-fest. The Washington Post’s coverage of Michelle Obama’s speech at the Dem convention has redefined journalistic over the top-ism:

Monday night, Michelle took the stage for herself, not just to reaffirm how wonderful her husband is, and what a fine president he would make, but also to redefine herself. But before mounting the podium, she gathered herself backstage in a holding room near the lockers of Denver’s professional hockey team. Big moments demand big performances, and she seemed determined not to let the occasion rattle her, but to soar above it.

And how did she do at her big moment? How was her big performance? The reporter, Kevin Merida, followed standard journalistic processes and found someone to do his deepest, most heart-felt gushing for him:

Some delegates and convention-goers seemed mesmerized by Michelle’s performance.

“Oh, my God, do you believe it?” said Marsha Campbell, a Denver elementary school teacher, her hands cupped over her mouth. “I think she’s one of the most dynamic women I’ve ever listened to. Not only is she dynamic, she’s smart, down to earth. I think she is the perfect reflection of what every woman in America would like to be.”

“Some” is the key word here. How many people did Merida talk to before he found someone as sold out to Obama as Campbell? We’ll never know – the beauty of big-city newspaperin’.

But wait! Wasn’t there some hissy-fit by the conservatives some time back about Michelle discounting every greatness of America that happened to occur before The One came on the scene? Don’t worry – Merida’s got it covered:

She also has been stunned by some of the hits on her image.

“Hits on her image?” How about “criticism for comments many deemed to be deeply un-American?”

Unwittingly, she has occasionally given her opponents some delicious sound bites to feast on and circulate, most notably when she said back in February: “For the first in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Unwittingly? How exactly did the reporter know it was unwittingly?

Most of the folks in her orbit understood what she meant — the “hope” part was the key phrase, “hope” and “change” being the language associated with her husband’s candidacy.

I guess I’m not in her orbit since I still don’t get it.

Well, we can all just hope that when Cindy McCain gets her moment in the spotlight, WaPo will assign the story to Marida. He seems to be an expert in praising speeches by candidates’ wives, so we should expect a similar gush-fest out of him in St. Paul, right?

No Comments yet »

A Crooked Little Man With A Crooked Little House

The NY Times’ Aug. 22 “expose”‘ on Cindy McCain’s finances – basically a criticism of anyone who comes from a family that has succeeded in business – and its Aug. 21 The Board opinion piece John McCain’s Housing Crisis covers the fact that the McCains own about ten homes, most of them investments.

Some samples, first from the “expose:”

Far more of Mrs. McCain’s money is invested in real estate. With Sharon Harper, a close friend, Mrs. McCain has stakes in three office complexes. At the Brophy College Preparatory School, where the McCains’ two sons went to high school, the Harper Balcony sits just over the McCain Colonnade.

Mrs. McCain owns 10 homes, including rental properties.

There are the condominium in the Crystal City section of Arlington; two in an oceanfront tower in Coronado; her father’s condo in the La Jolla section of San Diego; a $4.7 million condo atop one of Phoenix’s newest luxury towers; another unit on its fourth floor; and a $700,000 townhouse nearby.

Then there are Mrs. McCain’s vacation homes outside Sedona. In 1985, a Hensley entity bought the first, along Oak Creek. In 1996, Mrs. McCain bought an adjacent home for $750,000.

And from the opinion blog:

Here’s the presidential campaign soundbite of the moment:

When asked by the Politico Web site on Wednesday how many houses he and his wife own, John McCain responded: “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you.”

Nothing in either piece even begins to hint that anything illegal was involved in the acquisition of any of these homes, because they were acquired the old fashioned way – by earning money and spending it. The only crime exposed was success in business.

Yet for all its hard-hitting investigative journalism, the NYT couldn’t find a way to mention the only candidate in the race who acquired a home under very curious circumstances from a man who has been convicted of various bribery and corruption charges.

Media Bias 2008 covers pro-Obama media bias in the presidential campaign. Items are listed from most recent to oldest; the numbering reflects this and is not a ranking. Send Media Bias 2008 examples via “comments”‘ below, or to email2laer [@] yahoo [dot] com.

No Comments yet »

T

his news today from one of McClatchy’s premier rags, The Sacramento Bee:

The Bee offered voluntary buyouts to the majority of its full-time employees today and hinted that another round of layoffs is possible as well.

The buyouts represent the latest round of cost cutting at The Bee, which is facing a big slump in advertising revenue. Two months ago the newspaper eliminated 86 jobs as part of an across-the-board layoff ordered by its parent, The McClatchy Co. of Sacramento. McClatchy imposed a companywide wage freeze two weeks ago.

But Bee executives said today they needed to make more cuts. The economic downturn has deepened and The Bee, like the rest of the newspaper industry, continues to struggle with the migration of business to the Internet and other media.

Some cheer the demise of the MSM; I am not one of them, especially regarding papers like the SacBee, which are the newspapers of record for the states they serve. I hope that most of those offered buyouts are useless hacks, no longer needed ad sales people and the like, but when you’re talking about a full-time employee at the Bee, you just might be talking about reporters with years of experience and tough savvy who cover state government like no one else.

Who is going to replace the MSM, for all its faults? What bloggers are ready to step up and cover the governor, the legislature and dozens of state bureaucracies? Exactly none. I don’t care how noble the bloggers are in their intentions, they won’t receive the deference provided to journalists, they don’t have the same protections, and they definitely lack the resources the MSM had in their prime.

Of course, I’m part of the problem. I subscribe to nothing now except the on-line WSJ. I read the SacBee just about every day, but I give them nothing for their efforts to report the news and make it available to me. And I don’t look at their on-line ads, either.

With the newspapers in trouble and the blogs not yet ready to pick up the ball, do we really face the prospect of having to rely on broadcast news for coverage of state government? If so, we’re doomed.

2 Comments »

B

ill’s stewing. He wanted to give a big, broad speech (not a big broad speech, if you catch the difference), but the Obama camp has told him to stick to the theme of the evening, “Securing America’s Future,” and talk about foreign policy. Sez Politico:

While Bill Clinton remains angry about how he and his wife were treated by both Obama backers and the news media — and he is particularly resentful at what he sees as unfair allegations that he tried to exploit racial divisions for political advantage — he has made the decision that he will put forward a positive face for Obama’s benefit at Denver.

It is harder to do that when the topic is foreign policy and national security, which lends itself to restrained, rather than boisterous, partisan rhetoric.

“That puts him in a terrible bind, because you can’t give a ringing endorsement when you’re talking about foreign policy,” a longtime Clinton adviser said.

Help me understand this. Isn’t all the Bushitler, WMD, War on Terror in quotes stuff nothing if not boisterous, partisan rhetoric? What’s the bind? Any speaker capable of even a minor barn-burner, and Clinton is much more than that, should be able to get the Dem convention to break into zombie-like chants of “Obama! Obama! Obama!” just by mentioning GOP foreign policy. You know, taking on terrorism, promoting democracy, all that stuff the Dems hate so.

But the same former Clinton adviser quoted above did say something I find utterly above reproach:

“Obviously, the hard thing to talk about with Obama is commander in chief, of all his many talents.”

Yup. Because he has no commander in chief talents. Teleprompter-reader in chief. Looking pretty in chief. Saying a lot of words that say nothing in chief. But not commander in chief?  No, the Clinton guys have that right; no way.

No Comments yet »