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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)

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doubt if coal is going to decide this election, but the people in America’s coal mining states are suddenly reading a lot about Barack Obama’s truly stated (as opposed to campaign-stated) position on their economic lifeblood:

Coal Official Calls Obama Comments ”Unbelievable,” chirps the headline in the West Virginia record today.  About 40,000 West Virginians employed in the coal industry probably shared Chris Hamilton’s beliefs:

The senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association called Obama’s comments “unbelievable.”

“His comments are unfortunate,” Chris Hamilton said Sunday, “and really reflect a very uninformed voice and perspective to coal specifically and energy generally.”

Hamilton noted other times Obama and vice presidential candidate Joe Biden have made seemingly anti-coal statements.

“In Ohio recently, when Joe Biden said ‘not here’ about building coal-fired power plants — this is exactly what will happen,” Hamilton said. “Financing won’t be directed here. It will all go aboard for plants elsewhere in the world. The United Sates is importing more coal today from Indonesia, South Africa and Colombia than we ever have.

“If we’re going to create a situation where coal-fired power plants are at that much of a disadvantage, there will be new ones built. But as Biden said, just not here.”

There are 15,000 miners in Kentucky (and probably 45,000 total employment), 3,600 miners/10,800 total employment in Ohio, and 1,000/3,000 in Montana.

Support-killing stuff like this is not the sort of thing a carefully run political campaign should be generating at this point – and we’ve all read ad nauseum how beautifully run the Obama campaign is.  But that’s just more of the media whitewashing; in fact, the campaign has been a horror show of uncontrolled blades slashing away, creating a thousand cuts that are bleeding support away from Obama.

The Machete Cuts

The recent “redistributing the wealth” comments made in an impromtu conversation with Joe the Plumber has done long and sustained damage to the campaign.  The McCain campaign was flailing at the time, unfocused and slipping, and Obama’s few short sentences on wealth redistribution gave McCain new purpose and the electorate new fear.

The eagerness of Obama’s answer, “I would,” which sounded sort of “Gee, you betcha I would, Sir!,” when he was asked if he would meet with terror supporting despots without preconditions crystallized voter concerns about his lack of experience on foreign policy.  He has been unable to put these words back in his mouth.

The selection of Joe Biden as his VP nominee and the passing over of Hillary Clinton earned Obama the ongoing displeasure of the PUMA faction.  Will they be an election-turning factor?  Probably not, but enough will turn to McCain/Palin that it definitely constitutes a machete cut.

Obama’s protest that he never heard Rev. Jeremiah Wright say anything anti-American or anti-Semitic in 20 years of pew-sitting opened the door to subsequent, persistent questions about Obama’s radical associations and raised questions about his true feelings towards our country.  If McCain loses, a big chunk of the blame will go to his decision not to exploit Obama’s association with Rev. Wright.

The campaign’s attacks on Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, complete with Star Chamber investigations, belittling jokes and no efforts to call off the dogs in the name of civil campaigning, have caused many to fear Obama’s commitment to first amendment freedoms, his feelings about the working class, and his regard for women.

The Painful Nicks

Michelle Obama’s statement that her husband’s campaign made her proud to be American for the first time in her adult life furthered the questions about the Obamas patriotism raised by Jeremiah Wright.

There’s a series of radical relationship cuts that together probably equal a machete cut in combined blood loss.  Following the Jeremiah Wright revelations came Ayres, Khalidi, Farrakhan (that’s Michelle and Mrs. F. in the photo), Phlegar. The New Party and a seemingly countless stream of questionable associations.  What other presidential candidate has ever had a nefarious assemblage like this?

Rural Americans and those of us who hold them up as the nation’s backbone will not forget Obama’s characterization of them as bitterly “clinging to their bibles and guns.”

Obama’s $800,000 payment to an ACORN affiliate, followed up by widespread ACORN voter registration fraud game Obama the look of an old-school Chicago politician who has the cemeteries voting – twice – to ensure election victories.  It’s a story that remains alive today:

ACORN’s second line of defense has been that fraudulent registrations can’t turn into fraudulent votes, as if the felony of polluting voter lists was somehow not all that serious. But that defense goes only a short distance. “How would you know if people using fake names had cast votes in states without strict ID laws?” says GOP Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who this year won a major Supreme Court case upholding his state’s photo identification law. “It’s almost impossible to detect and once the fraudulent voter leaves the precinct or casts an absentee ballot, that vote is thrown in with other secret ballots there’s no way to trace it.”

Joe Biden’s continuing gaffes, including saying that Hillary Clinton is more qualified to be VP, has continued to cast doubt on Obama’s abilities to select a good staff.

The Obama presidential seal – unveiled then quickly disappeared – showed Obama to be an impulsive egomaniac without a spine to back his convictions.

The campaign’s inability to establish what constitutes middle income has made it look buffoonish and has caused more and more people to worry about Obama’s tax plan.  $250,000?  $200,000?  $150,000?  $140,000?  All have been cited by Obama, Biden or campaign surrogates.

Obama’s laisse faire detachment from the economic crisis – “Call me if you need me” – struck many outside the media as troubling.

The Berlin chapter of the Obama campaign would have derailed lesser campaigns.  First he tried to mimick JFK by asking to speak at the Brandenberg Gate, then went to the gym instead of visiting injured soldiers, and finally, his speech before adoring European big-state advocates turned off many Americans.

Obama’s support from and shady real estate deal with Tony Rezko was an early warning that this was just another Chicago pol.  Obama appears to have dodged any late-campaign revelations, since Rezko’s final sentence – and the information he gave to secure a lesser one – have not yet been released.

The Khalidi tape, although still kept under wraps by that paragon of hard-wimping journalism, the LA Times, raised questions about Obama’s true feelings towards Israel in the final days of the campaign.

The comment by Obama at Rick Warren’s presidential forum that abortion was “above his pay grade” was in sharp conflict with his voting record and showed him to lack presidential timber.  Nothing is above the president’s pay grade.

Telling American labor voters he would recast NAFTA then telling Canadians not to worry raises questions not only about his trade policy but also his fundamental honesty.

Obama’s position on raiding Pakistan – making it a campaign promise of sorts – gave John McCain pleny of fodder to question his foreign policy smarts.

In his O’Reilly interview, Obama looked like a fool because he steadfastly refused to admit he was wrong on the surge, even while admitting the surge was successful.

His inability to contain the revolutionary enthusiasm of his staff led to embarassing moments like the national exposure of this image of a Che poster in an Obama field office.

Obama campaigned for Raila Odinga for president of Kenya (possibly using authorized funds to do so).  Odinga signed a memorandum of understanding with Kenyan Islamists to impose Sharia law on Kenya, and masterminded a revolt that killed thousands when he was defeated.

Obama lied about campaign financing, saying he would take public financing until it suited his purposes to reverse himself, wholly unconcerned about being caught in a flagrant lie.

I excused this error, but Obama did say there were 57 states, a Dan Quayle Spells Potatoe moment.

While calling for increased use of troops there, Obama accused American troops of air-raiding villagers in Afghanistan.  He made it sound deliberate; such instances are rare and the result of intelligence errors.

The Obama campaign has refused to put standard credit card fraud security checks on its Web site.

The Obama campaign has fully supported freezing out free speech by inciting its supporters to on-the-phone rioting against radio stations that air programming critical of Obama.  Fairness doctrine, anyone?

And while we’re on the subject of fascistic dreams, he also  called for a taxpayer-funded “civilian security force.”  What?!

Late in the campaign, Obama kicked journalists off his plane because their papers had editorialized against him.  It’s his right, but that doesn’t make it right.

While he’s quick to take other people’s money to help the poor his constituents, he has been unwilling to use his own money to help his relatives in Kenya.

The candidate created a largely unnecessary hullabaloo by stopping wearing his flag lapel pin.  No one was pressuring him to do so (that we know of), so he walked into a controversy.

Furthering this patriotism-questioning faux pas, the campaign apparently dumped flags after their convention, and cancelled the National Anthem at at least one rally.

And that’s just off the top of my head.  I’m sure I’ve left out slashes, nicks and puncture wounds aplenty.  Please help via the comments window and I’ll add them up here in the post.

Even with all this, Obama still hasn’t bled out.  He still shows leads in the polls and is projecting a lot of confidence.  Had any other campaign suffered through this knife-storm, that wouldn’t be the case.  Blame it in part on a highly forgiving media, in part on fear of being called “racist” for saying anything critical of Obama (a fear he has subtly flamed), and on the good natured good will America extends to him in its understandable desire to change our history by electing a black president.

But reading through all this, is that the change to our history we want?  Obama will bring much more to the presidency than the color of his skin.  In fact, the color of his skin is the least worrisome thing about him, failing to even move the needle.

It’s the color of his soul (dark), his ego (very bright) and his politics (pink-o), as reflected in all of the above, that raises so much fear.

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n this week’s Sunday Scan, I’ve looked at how the news media, which has had an unusually large role in this election, is handling the last big readership day before the election.  You’ll see what The LA Times, the SF Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and the New York Times chose to feature – or not feature – at the culmination of their reprehensibly pro-Obama election coverage.

New York Times: Living On The Edge Of One Sided Seats

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he NYT’s pre-election Sunday feature is The Year of Living on the Edge of Our Seats, a title that implies a nail-biting story line of two conflicting sides. But this nail-biter only has one side: Obama.

In the 39-paragraph story, 19 paragraphs are neutral, either mentioning both candidates or neither of them. Twenty mention Obama.

Math experts: How many paragraphs mentioned McCain? Correct. Zero.

The edge of the seat to the NYT is all about how Obama threaded the needle to defeat his Dem primary opponents and position himself against the candidate they describe as, should he win, “the oldest American ever to win a first term,” vs. Obama who is, of course, “the first black-American” who would be president.

Here’s a typical Obama passage:

Think back. When Mr. Obama took the stage in Iowa after his victory in the state’s caucuses last January, he was not yet the favorite for the Democratic nomination, and he was a long way from becoming the general-election frontrunner.

In videotape from that night, you can see and sense an astonishment and exhilaration — in him, around him — that seem almost quaint just 10 months later.

“They said this day would never come,” he tells a euphoric Iowa crowd, and not just his eyes but the whole of him twinkles, gleams. “They said our sights were set too high.”

While he’s talking specifically about himself and his campaign troops, it’s impossible not to hear in his words a statement about all minorities in America, for whom the week-by-week, month-by-month advance of his candidacy would hold an especially powerful message.

Shall we interject a little race into the campaign? And shall we interject a little GOP-bashing?

How will some younger voters react if Mr. McCain prevails? Or some older ones if Mr. Obama does? In recent weeks, the ire and ugly catcalls of some supporters of the McCain-Palin ticket have suggested a division in this election that goes well beyond tax policy or Iraq strategy.

What of the calls of “Rape Palin!” that broke out at an Obama rally without so much as a “Tsk, tsk” from The One? Or what about Palin hanging in effigy, a bit of misogyny that didn’t merit BHO’s attention?

In short, the article is the perfect exclamation point on a political season that showed the NYT and its MMM brethren (that’s”Mainly Marginalized Media”) to become vile house organs for Obama, content to co-opt any journalistic ethics that are clinging to survival in order to influence the election. Continue Reading »

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s Obama’s economic plan going to generate jobs and fix the economy? Let’s ask the people in the companies that create the jobs, the companies that are the economy.

Chief Executive Magazine polled its readers – the men and women who run America’s corporations, and 751 responded:

By a four-to-one margin CEOs support Senator John McCain over his rival, Senator Barack Obama. More to the point, a thundering 74 percent majority say they fear the consequences of an Obama presidency, compared to only 19 percent who fear a McCain presidency.

Or, for the reading-impaired:

The CEOs scored neither of the candidates a single A in any of their policy initiatives, but on the key areas of economic, foreign and defense policy, they barely passed Obama – D+ in all three – while McCain got two B’s and a B+. Obama never scored higher than McCain on policy, but the CEOs gave them tie scores – C+ – on both energy and economic policy.

In general the CEOs feel American business has atrophied with over-regulation and failure to deal with issues like health care, so they sing the Obama mantra about needing change … just not his brand of change:

Many look to John McCain and hope that this self-described political maverick may yet shake up established thinking and not give into the tired policies of the past.

Left unsaid in that quote is the feeling that for all his talk of change, the CEOs see Obama as nothing more but the same old Dem politics of regulation, taxation and kow-towing to labor bosses.

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“Joe the Plumber may get his license after all.” – Pollster John Zogby

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n the final days of the campaign, the numbers are closing, with Zogby – who skewed toward Kerry in 2004 – summarizing his most recent results with the quote above, and:

“Is McCain making a move? The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama today, 48% to 47%. He is beginning to cut into Obama’s lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all. “Obama’s lead among women declined, and it looks like it is occurring because McCain is solidifying the support of conservative women, which is something we saw last time McCain picked up in the polls. If McCain has a good day tomorrow, we will eliminate Obama’s good day three days ago, and we could really see some tightening in this rolling average. But for now, hold on.”

Independents = the wiggle room in a tight election. They were leaning Obama before, now they’re leaning McCain.

Blue collar voters = the target of Obama’s tax cuts, and they’re not buying it. They are worried about their jobs and are wary of the disruption Obama’s economic plan will cause – and lots of them dream of being rich one day and don’t like Obama’s disincentives.

Investors = McCain’s on the right side of what’s become the critical question of the campaign: Who do you trust to fix the economy.

Men = Is anyone surprised? Anyone? Anyone?

Women = We’ll forgive any conservative women that were leaning towards Obama. Welcome back; we’re sorry for your terrible experience.

If McCain has a good day tomorrow = The media is full of stories on Obama’s aunt’s illegal status, bringing the long dormant immigration issue back. Good for McCain.

Ah! The gut-wrenching angst of an incredibly close and important campaign!

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t’s a simple, short video with a straightforward message and a powerful close, challenging Obama’s ability to lead our country in this unfriendly world.

What do you suppose it means that over 12 million people have viewed it?

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rica Jong – remember her? – has added her voice to the shrill chorus predicting, and by predicting, promoting, riots in the streets if the American democratic process were to result in someone other than Obama getting elected.

Her interview with an Italian rag, Corriere della Sera, was picked up and translated by blogger Il Foglio, and it’s choice:

“If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it’s not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets.”

Apparently Jong is militarily ignorant, like the rest of the celebrity left.  We won’t need troops from Iraq; we’ve got more than enough troops and National Guard (and civilian militia) handy to put down any  insurrection by revolutionary Obama supporters.  What is it with these people?  They holler for troop withdrawals and go into paranoid conniptions when troops are withdrawn.  Positively scary.

But they’re so darn pathetic:

“My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can’t cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves.”

“My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium.”

Oh, poor baby.  Somebody give them a government hand … a nice strong one to massage all the tension out of their boo-hoo ailing backs.

Of course the assumption they all make is that the GOP will somehow steal the election.

Hey, Erica!  Ever heard of ACORN?

hat-tip: The Observer and Jim

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ou might think Barack Obama’s sitting pretty with the endorsements of Hamas, Castro, Michael Moore, Galloway, Gaddafi (almost), the House of Saud and the much sought after Donatella Versace nod, but something was missing.  Where was al-Qaeda? Why were they taking so long?

Finally, the wait is over, says Reuters:

An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be “humiliated,” without endorsing a party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to an Internet video posting.

“O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him,” Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.

Libi, a top al Qaeda commander believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, called for God’s wrath to be brought against Bush equating him with past tyrants in history.

Barry Glib would be quick to point out that his name is mentioned nowhere in the quote, but how is he going to deny that he’s compared McCain to Bush throughout the campaign?  How else to degrade, humiliate and defy Bush and the Republicans - and to make al-Qaeda happy – than to vote for Big O?

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Of Course The LA Times Can Hold Khalidi Tape – WaPo

The editorial writers at the Washington Post have completely dispensed with debate. No longer is there a pretense from them that facts are needed to prove their position; no longer are efforts required to rebut the other side. When it comes to Obama, no debate is needed. He wins, the other guy loses. ‘Nuff said.

This time, it’s today’s editorial, none too subtly named An ‘Idiot Wind’ (how nice of them to put quotes around ‘idiot’). It attacks the McCain campaign for discussing the association between Obama and Rashid Khalidi, and the sequestered LA Times tape. Here’s what WaPo has to say about the latter:

To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.

That’s it. Certainly, WaPo could rightly argue that breaking a promise to a source is a ludicrous proposition, but to say that the tape contains nothing damning even though they’ve never seen it – now that’s ludicrous! It the sort of thing someone covering their ears and screaming “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” would do.

Hmmm.

And of the questions McCain has raised about Khalidi and Obama?

We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that “I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over.” That’s good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign’s increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.

Now shut up. Your concerns have been settled for you by those who know more than you.

Media Bias 2008 covers pro-Obama media bias. 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.

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ou can’t make this stuff up. In a less secular day, what happened in Parliament yesterday would have been likened to lightening snuffing out a false prophet. From the UK Register:

Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.

Despite the snow, despite 2008 being a year without a summer in England, despite the fact that polling conducted even before the current economic crisis and the non-summer shows 60 per cent of Brits now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more than half think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say,” despite the fact that it’s gotten steadily cooler for 11 years now, Parliament pushed on, its upper lift stiffened in Churchillian resolve:

In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.

The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c. 46) “requiring the directors’ report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible” by 2012.

Folks, greenie dreamies aside, you can’t reduce carbon emissions by 85% in 42 years without (1) spending hundreds of billions – you choose, pounds or dollars, it won’t matter, it’ll still be hundreds of billions and (2) savaging what’s left of the British economy. But who cares, chaps? Push on!

The US Senate has Senator James Inhofe, but in the Commons, there wasn’t an out-and-out sceptic to be found. It was 90 minutes before anyone broke the liturgy of virtue. When Peter Lilley, in amazement, asked why there hadn’t been a cost/benefit analysis made of such a major change in policy, he was told to shut up by the Deputy Speaker.

Will America be next? Both candidates profess their allegiance to the global warming god. But McCain’s reversal on offshore drilling during the energy crisis and his selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, hints that he will show more flexibility than the doctrinaire Mr. O.

hat-tip: Jim

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