T

he Washington Post’s Ombudsman, Deborah Howell, will wait until tomorrow’s issue - five days after the election - to deal critically with the Post’s efforts to throw the election to Obama. Here’s what she found in her analysis of WaPo’s coverage:

• OpEd pages: 32 favorable pieces on Obama vs 13 favorable McCain pieces, and 58 negative op/eds on McCain vs just 32 on Obama
• More Obama photos (311) than McCain photos (282), with Obama leading McCain in large pictures ,small pictures and color (can I say that) pictures
• More Obama news stories (946) than McCain news stories (786), which she explains in part by the longer Dem primaries, but admits that after the conventions, Obama got 626 stories and McCain got 584

Howell doesn’t analyze the stories’ content, which is unfortunate, but she admits that they were biased towards Obama:

But Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager.

Howell apparently doesn’t think the entire “spread the wealth” meme and various radical associations are worth even bringing up.

What’s WaPo going to do with this information? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Here’s what WaPo political editor Bill Hamilton had to say to Howell about the coverage, and it doesn’t sound like a man who’s the least bit worried about his role in further damaging the credibility of our free press:

“There are a lot of things I wish we’d been able to do in covering this campaign, but we had to make choices about what we felt we were uniquely able to provide our audiences both in Washington and on the Web. I don’t at all discount the importance of issues, but we had a larger purpose, to convey and explain a campaign that our own David Broder described as the most exciting he has ever covered, a narrative that unfolded until the very end. I think our staff rose to the occasion.”

Yeah, but gee Bill, don’t you think the campaign would have been even more interesting if you and your peers had actually, you know, covered it?

S

o they won. Their guy is in and the hated Bushitler and his evil clone McCain’t Help But Bomb People are out. Now is the time for magnanimity from the Obama voters, for gestures of goodwill because, after all, they voted for the man who would walk across the water aisle, the post-partisan candidate, the unruffled, smooth, love ‘em all guy.

Right?

And I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

For the Left’s take on responsible post-election behavior, I give you Evan Handler. First, he can’t help himself. He must re-live the rage:

It’s good! It’s great! It’s all fantastic, and I’m thrilled! Really. I do mean it. But something seems to be escaping our attention amidst the exaltation. In spite of the wars, the lies, the torture, the stacking of the courts, and the rollbacks to civil liberties; in spite of the religious fundamentalism, the fanaticism, and the utter disdain toward the population that’s been expressed; in spite of the Katrina fiasco, the wire tapping, and the raping and pillaging of our economy for corporate gain (not to mention the ridiculousness and horrendous idiocy of the Republican campaign, including the Palin monstrosity) 56 million, 378 thousand, 316 Americans still voted for the other side.

I feel so clean and fresh! It’s HOPE! It’s CHANGE! It’s another paragraph, sorry:

To humanize that just a bit, that means that 56,378,316 individuals waited in line just as long as you did, and worked just as hard as anyone else, to try to make sure that Barack Obama would not become president of the United States. I don’t know about you, but that scares the s*** out of me. It means — for reasons that go way beyond any immediate financial crises — we’re still in very deep trouble.

Evan Handler and his fellow impudent mental imps of intolerance have no room for two points of view and certainly no room for a representative democracy. This guy would be happier if Obama just went ahead and did what they all screamed and ranted about Bush doing - shred the Constitution, declare martial law, and take over the country.

By the way, when’s Bush going to get around to doing that? He’d better hurry.

He knows so much more than the 56,378,316 of us we should just disappear into the dirt and let him go ahead with his superiority complex.  But there’s nothing superior about him.  Being a leftist, Handler (an appropriate name, as you’ll see) can’t make a point without working obscenity into it. This next paragraph is as misogynistic as his Palin-hatred above and it’s pretty graphic, so cover the kiddies’ eyes:

I’ve been spewing a joke around for the two or three weeks leading up to the election. I’ve been saying that, should Obama prevail, every woman who can stomach it should immediately go out, find a Republican man, and give him a blow job. Just make sure to impress upon him that the only reason he’s getting the blow job is in celebration of a Democratic victory. The theory being that, come the next election, when he finds himself alone in a voting cubicle, his dick will point the way toward the Democratic lever. Kind of a reverse Lysistrata effect. Crass, perhaps, but not an insubstantial strategy.

Reminder:  It’s a joke, folks.  He said so himself.  So don’t be ashamed to laugh.  How is it that leftists get away with this sort of chauvinistic and sexist stuff?  Where is NOW?  If he’s been “spewing” this for two or three weeks now, why hasn’t some Leftina flattened him?  How does Handler get away with just putting women up for the dirty work? Is that all they’re good for; sexual favors? Why not the men, Evan? Men too good for that?

My friends, there are somewhere upwards of 62,800,000 people out there who voted the same way as this jerk.  To quote one Evan Handler, we’re still in very deep trouble.

hat-tip:  Jim

A

merican University’s Center for the Study of the American Voter has dispensed with all the rah-rah about this being a huge election.  You know, 10 million new registrants, a high water mark in a New America.  Not so, it found:

Despite lofty predictions by some academics, pundits, and practitioners that voter turnout would reach levels not seen since the turn of the last century, the percentage of eligible citizens casting ballots in the 2008 presidential election stayed at virtually the same relatively high level as it reached in the polarized election of 2004.

… the percentage of Americans who cast ballots for president in this year’s presidential election will reach between 126.5 million and 128.5 million when all votes have been counted by early next month. If this prediction proves accurate, turnout would be at either exactly the same level as in 2004 or, at most, one percentage point higher (or between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent).

This shows a lot.  Big, phony surges in registration don’t lead to big, real surges in turnout.  Obama’s supporters were confident in his victory.  For many, the urge to vote didn’t overcome the fact that It was cold and lousy and lines were long in many precincts.

Republican voting was down 1.3 percent, a sign either of surety Obama would win, dispondency over the McCain selection or worry over the Palin selection.  Or cold, lousy weather and long lines.

Dem voting was up 2.6 percent, clearly attributable to Obama, especially if you look at states with high black populations, like NC and GA, which had record turn-outs.

But most significant is that the Dems increased their votes cast for the seventh straight election.  For a GOP that needs to throw out everything and start anew, one team should be breaking down Dem registration and voter turn-out strategies.  We don’t want to be - indeed can’t be - a new version of ACORN, but we can do better. 

And we have to come up with a candidate that can move the masses.

S

ure, 84% of San Franciscans voted for Obama, and 71% thought Pelosi was doing a fine job.  Not surprisingly, 76% were ready to abandon thousands of years of tradition so gays could marry.  But even so, there were signs of intelligence deep down the SF ballot.

Most significantly, a measure to re-name the city’s Oceanside Water Treatment Plant - you know, the crap-cleaner - after Pres. Bush was overwhelmingly rejected, with almost 70% voting that’s no way to treat a president.  The White House declined comment, but I’m sure they were flushed with enthusiasm.

Also, Babylon by the Bay voters decided by a 57/43 margin that legalizing prostitution probably was not a hot idea.  It looks like being a “sex worker” is still not a mainstream occupation, even in San Francisco.

Still, I think I’ll stay down here in OC … and start gathering signatures to rename our wastewater plant after Gavin Newsome.  I bet I could get more than 30% of OC behind that!

H

ad John McCain pulled off the win, he would have been bouncing all over the stage at the Phoenician with his big grin an his stiff-shouldered thumbs-up, happy in victory, ready to move forward.

That was not the Barack Obama we saw last night in Grant Park. While his speech was, as we’ve come to expect, beautifully written, his smiles were fleeting; his oratory subdued; his gestures tight and controlled.

It was the image of a man who suddenly realizes that his meteoric rise to the top is complete and now, for the first time, it won’t be about campaigning, but about getting real work done - work he’s never done before; work that’s going to be much harder than he ever imagined. Thus, this is the line that may well have been the truest in his entire acceptance speech:

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can’t solve every problem.

It stood in stark contrast to the “Yes we can!” theme of the speech and the can-do image the hasn’t-done-it candidate has projected over the nearly two years he’s been campaigning.

Obama enters office with an accomplished and cut-throat chief of staff, a 79-seat margin in the House and, as of this moment, a 56-41 margin in the Senate. He has every opportunity to drive energy costs up by banning drilling and taxing carbon. It’s in his power to change the tax code so both the do-nothings and the accomplishers get lazier. He can parlay his victory into a powerful force for radical, or at least liberal, social change.

It’s all in his power, and last night he appeared to be completely overwhelmed by it all.

He will gather strength as he pulls his staff together, and the subdued Obama is going to start prodding at limits, pushing America to the left. And as he does, we and the remaining conservatives in Washington are going to have to remember Michelle Malkin’s advice this morning after:

1) Oppose the Democrats’ next stimulus boondoggle.
2) Oppose Obama’s windfall profits tax proposal.
3) Oppose new bailouts for states deep in debt.
4) Oppose new foreclosure prevention measures that will simply provide perverse incentives for borrowers to walk away and delay a needed market correction.
5) No more federal loan guarantees for corporations (especially in light of this).

It’s not going to be a fun ride, but we’re tough and we’ve ridden through this particular wilderness before.

Saddle up, my friends.

W

ith West Coast polls closed, California obviously being called for Obama, Fox News calling the election for Obama and seeing the pick-ups the Dems are getting in Congress, I’m wondering why any Dem would stake out a moderate position in Congress.
If I’m right, the opportunities for Blue Dog Dems and Republicans to work together to thwart a wholesale move of the nation to the left will be few and far between. And that means that America will no longer be a center-right nation, but will become a center-left nation.

The upside: There’s a chance the Dems will steer too left too fast and the GOP will be back in two years with a Newt-esque moment.

I

n Philly, Ground Zero of Election 2008, two black men in Black Panter garb - one “brandishing” a night stick - were found standing at the door of a voting both.  When a white voter approached them, they closed ranks, forcing him to squeeze between them.  They were subsequently asked to leave by police.

Who intimidates voters?  Democrats intimidate voters!

hat-tip: Yid with a Lid

T

he line at the fire station this morning was the longest I’ve seen since I started voting in this precinct in 1992. It could have been that I was there at 7 a.m., eager to vote in this historic election, or it could have been that I was voting in an historic election.

The gal behind me in line was a recent transferee from Chicago. We joked about the rain (the first of the wet season, it started about 4 this morning) and how odd it is for Midwesterners who move here to get used to months without precipitation.

She said she got to vote twice because she’s from Chicago, and got a chuckle out of me.

It grew increasingly obvious that she was a liberal - she mentioned listening to Bill Mahr, she has a Buddhist saying app on her iPod (I showed her my Holy Bible iPod app), she said the vote was so exciting this year that she didn’t get disgusted by it all by the time November rolled around. I told her I never get disgusted; it’s always a thrill.

There was obviously a chasm between us, but we amicably chatted the entire 10 or 15 minutes we were in line, swapping stories, comparing our iPod apps, letting each other know who we would vote for without discussing politics, and giving each other a parting smile as I went forward to my voting booth. A half minute later, she came up beside me and started voting in the machine next door - casting votes that would almost certainly cancel out mine.

And so it was. In some countries we would try to kill each other or deprive the other of the vote. In some countries we would burn down the other’s house or forbid our children from marrying the other’s, or conspire with our allies to send them into poverty.

But not in this country. Not in America. I voted, and she voted too - in an American election, and I’m awfully darn proud.

E

veryone knows it:  The mainstream media has gambled a huge stake in this presidential election.

I recently read that 80 percent of newspaper reporters support Obama; I don’t have a cite for that, so here are a few similar stats, with cites:  WaPo-owned Slate revealed that among its staff Obama was ahead 55-1 over McCain.  Pew found there were nearly twice as many negatively toned McCain stories, and about a third less positively toned McCain stories.  I’ve come up with 102 instances of media bias with one hand tied behind my back; if I were a full time blogger, I have every confidence the tally would have easily passed 400.

And most important, three out of four Americans believe most reporters will not try to offer unbiased coverage during this campaign.

The media figure that if Obama wins, this trashing of their reputation as objective news sources will have been worth it and somehow their actions will be forgiven because they were proved right by the Obama victory. Nothing could be further from the truth.  No matter who is victorious tomorrow, the media will not be the victors; they have willfully turned themselves from the MSM to the MMM:  The Mainly Marginalized Media.

If Obama does win, we would be fools to trust the MSM to report accurately on the actions of the administration, which will only lead to further marginalization of formerly significant news sources.  Faced with continuing and growing frustration with a lack of digging into Obama’s policies and problems, more and more Americans will look elsewhere for their news:  the blogosphere, partisan publications that we can evaluate fairly because they make no bones about their editorial stance, talk radio (as long as the Fairness Doctrine isn’t reinstituted), and whatever big media haven’t marginalized themselves.

If McCain wins, it will be worse for the MMM.  The only thing worse than deliberately trying to manipulate an election is deliberately trying to manipulate an election and losing.  Based our experience with how they responded to Bush’s win in 2000, we cannot expect them to learn new behaviors and repent old ones.  Instead, they’re likely to respond viciously since their egos were caught up with Obama, and subject McCain to even greater levels of negative reporting, which will just suck them further down in public perception, circulation and viewership.

I don’t see NBC/MSNBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, AP and the rest of the yellow blue journalists seeing the light and actively recruiting for political diversity up to the highest levels of their organizations.  As  Bill O’Reilly said, the only thing more important to the media than money is ideology.

Hollyweird apparently learned its lesson this time around.  Sure, most of ‘em are in the tank for Obama and funded him lavishly, but we didn’t see a repeat of the sort of involvement they displayed in 2004.  My guess:  It hurt their earning power, just as it’s hurt the media’s earning power.  But being more practical sorts, Hollyweird dialed it back and largely stayed under the radar.  Cameron Diaz didn’t cry hysterically about rapes in the street if McCain is elected and Alex Baldwin didn’t threaten to move to Canada.

The media exhibited no such restraint, and as a result, only one in four Americans think they’ve been honest and fair in reporting the election.  Three in four don’t trust them.

Faced with this marginalization, media outlets have three choices.  They can stay the course, shrinking until they reach insignificance.  They can recast themselves as partisan players, in the European model.  Or they can recruit for political diversity from bottom to top, honestly recreating themselves as objective sources of news.

Only the latter will keep the media from becoming further marginalized, giving the traditional outlets hope for a future with significance and even profitability.  But I doubt if there are enough qualified conservatives available who would be willing to risk their futures on a profession as risky as journalism, so this option  probably is already foreclosed.

That leaves being stubborn and becoming ever more marginal, or willfully becoming more marginal by declaring sides.  Quite a predicament they’ve gotten themselves into, and for what?  To get a second-rate Democratic candidate for president elected?

They deserve what they get.

Art (both of ‘em:  Okie on the Lam)