media

This does not surprise me at all.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

And yet the media have been wringing their hands over John McCain's whining about all the attention Barack Obama is getting.

Yes, John McCain's friend and campaign advisor Phil Gramm was right: This is a "nation of whiners" -- except the whiners are the McCain campaign and their supporters.

When John McCain draws 200,000 (voluntary) listeners -- that's three football stadiums' worth of people -- I would expect him to get some camera time.

But I would also like to see the news media wake up to how they've been giving John McCain a free pass on a number of issues. Where is the critical view of McCain's qualifications? Does flying in a plane and getting shot down really qualify him to be President? Or even give him the advantage on strategic foreign policy? When McCain claims "I know how to win wars," on what basis?

Instead, they keep giving him uncritical time while he slings some of the wildest charges, including the claim that Barack Obama is a traitor who would deliberately lose a war for political gain.

I guess it's to be expected, considering that -- as Sam Donaldson says -- journalists aren't interested in the truth.

[T]he reason political reporters are there is not to speak truth to power. Today's truth is tomorrow's falsity. But to make those who say we have the truth-- the politicians--explain it.

That isn't journalism, it's stenography. No wonder we ended up in Iraq. The media didn't have to check facts, they just had to make sure the microphone was on.

Have an opinion? So does everybody. In America, we take having an opinion a fact and expressing that opinion a right.

Except John McCain.

Now we’ve got the cables. We’ve got talk radio. We’ve got the bloggers. I hate the bloggers. We’ve got all kinds of sources of information.

And apparently he doesn't like it when us little people -- you know, those of us who haven't been entrenched in Washington D.C. power for decades, those of us who aren't married to multi-millionaires, those of us who dare question John McCain's qualifications -- speak out.

Okay, I exaggerated. John McCain hates only 26% of Americans.

Okay, maybe McCain misspoke again. How many passes does he need? Because as we've seen, the mainstream media just love to give John McCain passes. Witness how they hyperventilated in defending McCain against any question that McCain's Vietnam experience "flying in a plane" does not in itself qualify him to be president. (Note that the phrase was made by CBSs sputtering Bob Schieffer when challenging Wesley Clark.) McCain loves the press for loving him.

Bloggers are less likely to give John McCain, or any presidential candidate, a free pass. Maybe that's why McCain hates us so much?

Since the bedwetting conservatives are getting so stimulated by stirring up nonsense like "Barack Obama is a Muslim" and a "terrorist"....

http://www.moremuslimthanobama.com/moremuslimthanobama/

Too funnny!

Angry sentiments like Caryl Rivers' may be understandable, in a sense....

Does anyone wonder why women who support Hillary Clinton for president get (excuse the vernacular) PO'd at some of our fellow Democrats?

It's because very time we turn around, someone is dissing our candidate in ways that infuriate us. He (or she) is using sexist, insulting language about the first woman to mount a viable run for the presidency, in ways that, to say the least, we do not appreciate.

While many of us see Barack Obama as an exciting, able and worthy candidate, and will gladly vote for him if he is the nominee, we do not see the same respect given to Hillary Clinton.

But Hillary Clinton's problem is Hillary Clinton -- or, I should say, the absence of a sense of who Hillary Clinton really is.

When I didn't know much about her, back in 1996, I was something of a Hillary fan. I was looking for a button or bumper sticker that said, "12 more years! Bill in '96, Hillary in '00".

When Hillary ran for Senate, I was a supporter. I would have voted for her, had I still been living in New York.

But then something changed. I saw her numerous times on CSPAN, speaking here and there, and at least 90% of the time I was left cold, feeling like I wasn't getting a real sense of what she really believed. She started to project that focus-group-tested persona that hid all but the carefully constructed image.

And then there was the war, and how she claimed to "take responsibility for her vote" for the war -- without really taking responsibility at all, beyond just claiming she took responsibility. No apology. No remorse. Just self-righteousness.

And then all the strange votes and political positions she took, such as banning flag "desecration" and giving $10k to forced-pregnancy advocate Casey's campaign and on and on.

Even so, when she finally announced her run, I was hopeful. Her online announcement was, well, okay. At least she seemed like she was trying to be authentic. But she obviously did not "get" the netroots. Her top-down campaign of a few big donors and cultivating of lobbyist money was disconcerting.

Then she failed to clinch it all by Super Tuesday. Then we started to see many different Hillary Clintons. There was the A-student-who-has-all-the-answers Hillary Clinton. Then there was the teary-cares-so-much Hillary Clinton. Then there was the scolding Barack-has-to-answer-for-his-behavior Hillary Clinton. Then there was the I'm-honored-to-be-here-with-you-Barack Hillary Clinton. Then there was the Barack-cannot-be-trusted-to-be-ready Hillary Clinton. And then there's the Karl Rove-like rhetoric.

And now we get the "Stay the Course" Hillary Clinton.

And all this points up how Hillary Clinton is the DLC representative, and the way she's campaigning seems to be more about her control over the Party rather than gaining the nomination.

Is Hillary the victim of mean media coverage? Certainly in some ways. But even more, Hillary is the victim of Hillary. She has been her own undoing.

I don't like Hillary Clinton for many reasons, mainly: her slippery non-positions on some issues, her demagoguery on other issues (even when I might agree), her "taking responsibility" for her support of the war on Iraq while not taking any responsibility, and the smarmy tone of her campaign more worthy of a Rove than a progressive.

Yet this kind of misogynistic crap:

“Nixon in a pant suit” is an anti-Hillary meme that Andrew Sullivan, longtime stalwart of Tricky Dick’s party, has successfully propagated. And James Wolcott, with presumably better intentions, has followed, um, suit.

Google this:

hillary pantsuit OR “pant suit” OR “pantsuits” OR “pant suits”

By last count, there are over 300,000 web pages referencing this candidate and garment choice.

What does this fixation with “pant suits” mean?

Indeed. A loaded phrase. Because women aren't supposed to wear pants. Or, maybe, do other things men do?

Watching the news online, it was clear what the debate story was today:

Washington Post television critic Tom Shales, in an April 17 article headlined "In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC," described the debate as "another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances." Shales added that the debate "dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia" and "seemed slanted against Obama."

Time magazine's Michael Grunwald, in an April 17 article headlined "The Democrats Play Trivial Pursuit," wrote, "Obama's memoir dripped with contempt for modern gotcha politics, for a campaign culture obsessed with substantively irrelevant but supposedly symbolic gaffes," and added, "Last night at the National Constitution Center, at a Democratic debate that was hyped by ABC as a discussion of serious constitutional issues, America got to see exactly what Obama was complaining about."

In an April 16 article on Editor & Publisher's website, Greg Mitchell wrote, "In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame."

You don't need to go to Daily Kos to find cries of assent to these assessments.

Greg Mitchell writes on HuffPo:

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin -- while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former '60s radical -- a question that came out of right-wing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but was delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopoulos. This approach led to a claim that Clinton's husband pardoned two other '60s radicals. And so on. The travesty continued.

More time was spent on all of this than segments on getting out of Iraq and keeping people from losing their homes and -- you name it. Gibson only got excited complaining that someone might raise his capital gains tax.

The Philly Enquirer's poll has, at the time of this writing, about half of all views rating the questions as "terrible, a waste of time."

Even ABC admitted that the heat was on. As MSNBC noted:

By midafternoon Thursday, more than 15,600 comments were posted on ABC News' Web site, the tone overwhelmingly negative....

..."Why not have Paris Hilton moderate next time?" one poster wrote. One man repeated the word "bad" 48 times. A sampling found opinion was running against the network about 8-to-1.

Did the message sink into the skulls of Gibson and Stephanopoulos?

"The questions were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant," Stephanopoulos told The Associated Press. "We wanted to focus at first on the issues that were not focused on during the last debates."

The criticism comes with the territory, he said. "It's one more sign of how engaged people are over this election," he said.

Engaged on a higher level than ABC was willing to present, apparently.

It didn't help to learn that presumably George Stephanopoulos was throwing questions seeded by right-wing commentators.

But watch the NewsHour, and the story is all about the petty issues.

LINDA DOUGLASS: Well, certainly they expected the questions on Reverend Wright. Certainly they expected the questions on the statements that he made about small-town America being economically depressed and turning to guns and religion. They expected all of that.

But it was the relentlessness of it, the fact that they didn't get into health care, or gas prices, or college tuition, or whatever in the beginning that I think took them aback. They were prepared for many other kinds of questions.

And you could see that Obama himself was becoming irritated. But the one thing you can't do in a situation like this, if you are the candidate who feels aggrieved by how the moderators handled you, the one thing you cannot do is blame the press for the questions they ask. That never works as a tactic.

Enough about armchair quarterbacking. What about the facts?

MARGARET WARNER: So, Brooks, in defending himself, based on your analysis, did Obama stretch the truth in any way?

BROOKS JACKSON, FactCheck.org: Well, yes. One of the things for which we're criticizing him is that he said that, in regard to that lapel pin, the American flag lapel pin, he said, "I never said that I had refused to wear it."

Well, in fact, less than a year ago in Iowa, he told a TV interviewer that after 9/11 he had decided not to wear the pin because it had become, in his view, a substitute for true patriotism, which is upsetting a lot of people and being talked about.

So he's engaging in a little bit of rewriting his own history.

You really have to see the video where Brooks Jackson and Linda Douglass smirk with self-satisfied pride over their easy proclaimations as "the facts."

And then:

MARGARET WARNER: And, Dan, do the Obama people feel that some of these issues that were brought up last night, these personal issues or things he said or associations he's had, do they think they're really invalid or do they actually think these are potential vulnerabilities?

DAN BALZ: Well, I think they certainly recognize that the controversy over Reverend Wright is likely to be a problem in the general election. I think at this point they think they have weathered most of these in the nomination battle.

All of the polling that came out over the last few days shows no particular damage from the comments he made at the San Francisco fundraiser about how small-town Americans are bitter about their situation and cling to guns and religion and things like that.

I think they believe that -- I mean, I know they were quite worried when that erupted. I think they think that that has not been a serious problem.

Again, the Old Media are stuck in their Old Story. Even when they are the story. Even in the face of criticism, they insist upon focusing on trivia rather than on things that matter.

Lapel pins? Who "loves America more"? Puhleez! I'd have expected more from the NewsHour, but they were as lazy as ABC. Something to remember during the next pledge break.

Greg Mitchell tries to claim in Editor & Publisher that many major papers five years ago were in fact against the war on Iraq.

You may be surprised to learn that, precisely five years ago, at least one-third of the top newspapers in this country came out against President Bush taking us to war at that time. Many of the papers may have fumbled the WMD coverage, and only timidly raised questions about the need for war, but when push came to shove five years ago they wanted to wait longer to move against Saddam, or not move at all....

...Once equivocal editorial pages got straight to the point. "This war crowns a period of terrible diplomatic failure," The New York Times argued, "Washington's worst in at least a generation. The Bush administration now presides over unprecedented American might. What it risks squandering is not Americans' power, but an essential part of our glory."

Other papers were even more blunt. The Sun of Baltimore, consistently one of the most passionate dissenters on the war, began their editorial with the sentence, "This war is wrong. It is wrong as a matter of principle, but, more importantly, it is wrong as a matter of practical policy."

USA Today asked Bush to finally disclose risks, costs, and democratic government estimates for Iraq while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wondered "what 'the peaceful entry' of 280,000 troops would look like." The Arizona Republic in Phoenix said that Bush and his "coalition of the willing," with prodding by the French, "have left the United Nations in tatters."

Well editorial pages are certainly where people turn to first, right? Never mind the war-fostering headlines on the front pages. Never mind the lazy absence of any meaningful fact-checking on Administration claims.

Never mind ignoring the sometimes massive anti-war demonstrations in New York and elsewhere.

No, the editors clucked and tutted and therefore should get a pass on their crappy coverage.

Any wonder why newspapers are still in trouble and mistrusted by so many?

Americans who are not Republicans are enemies of America.

That's the message throughout the latest swift-boat smears on Barack Obama, faithfully passed on by our mainstream media, whose measure of accuracy seems to stop at the lips of anyone opening his mouth.

Conservative Republican consultant Keith Appell, who worked with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said Obama's opposition to the war will create a "striking contrast between McCain the war hero and Obama the poster child for the anti-war movement."

"If you are McCain, you want to play up the decorated war hero, loves his country, served his country," Appell said. "You want to play those themes up as much as possible, especially in comparison to Obama and his role in the anti-war movement."

Of course, these same partisans excused George W. Bush's and Dick Cheney's draft dodging, and attacked 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry for being unpatriotic, even though he, too, was a decorated war veteran.

But John Kerry was not a Republican, therefore not a true "patriot" according to the swifties. And that's at the heart of it.

The Conservative Patriotism of the "reinvented" Republican Party is defined thus: Party. Duty. Expedience.

Oh, honor and country may be on the list somewhere, retained for rhetorical purposes. And let's not forget Fire and Brimstone to keep the fear hormone levels high.

So no matter who the Democratic nominee is, he or she could not possibly be a "patriot" because he or she will not put the Republican Party's interests ahead of the nation's.

Thus Barack Obama is attacked with lies, such as that he's a Muslim or he refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Last summer, Obama was photographed by Time magazine at an event in Iowa standing with his hands folded....

It has been repeatedly reported that the moment came during the Pledge of Allegiance, but that's not the case.

Don't let truth get in the way of a good swift-boating.

The silliness of swiftie thinking is outweighed only by their utter contempt for non-Party members and their deep pockets from which they pay for expression of that contempt.

Of course, the swifties don't care about the truth. At least so it seems from their vitriolic television campaigns. To them, Obama is already guilty for being a non-Republican, so petty things like truth or honor don't figure into their mantra. (Only weak "liberals" are interested in truth or honor, and thus want to undermine America.)

And so the onslaught continues, even getting to the point of making pin-wearing a measure of patriotism.

"First he kicked his American flag pin to the curb. Now Barack Obama has a new round of patriotism problems. Wait until you hear what the White House hopeful didn't do during the singing of the national anthem," said Steve Doocy, co-host of "Fox and Friends" on the Fox News Channel.

"He felt it OK to come out of the closet as the domestic insurgent he is," former radio host Mark Williams said on Fox.

I never knew wearing an American flag pin was a prerequisite for patriotism.

Things the swifties approve of? Probably the cheap "patriotism" demonstrated in the grit-stained flags pasted onto the backsides of their cars, the sweat-stained flag t-shirts, and let's not forget the American flag underwear, red, white, blue and ready for skid-marks.

Actual respect for the flag does not even enter their minds.

The flag should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle or of a railroad train or a boat....

The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery....

The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way....

The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard....

Registered Republican voters not part of the hate brigade must really be in despair. Even Ronald Reagan wasn't this hateful, attacking Americans as enemies of America. It's amazing that some people actually believe the swiftie tripe, but the peddlers push it hard enough, and in enough of their bought-and-paid-for broadcast outlets, that maybe it's not surprising. The Big Lie is a tried and proven technique. Joseph Goebbels must be a true inspiration to the conservative propagandists. After all, didn't the Nazi's do well with rhetorical campaigns pitting German against German? They were quite effective at it, you have to admit.

He had been institutionalized for mental health ... by his own parents.

He was on mind-alterning prescription medication.

He pushed his girlfriend around, part of his "abusive" behavior.

He had a history of cutting himself.

He bought all four of his guns at one shop -- two of them just a few days before.

But what was the AP lead?

Steven Kazmierczak had the look of a boyish graduate student — except for the disturbing tattoos that covered his arms.

Yeah. Tattoos are the issue here. Right.

Let's also note that he had a computer (uh-oh) and was apparently drinking large quantities of energy drinks. He also played chess. (Ooooooh!)

He had served in the Army for six months (and current status not quite clear). He also "served as an officer in two student groups dedicated to promoting understanding of the criminal justice system."

He was also known to watch Oprah on weekday afternoons. (Okay, that part is made up. But those tattoos -- obviously that's where the story lies.)

I've always had very low tolerance for the talkbox channels. I never watch them, except maybe when I'm in a hotel, offline, and desperate for any timely news. The two exceptions are (1) This Week with George Stephanopolous, whose "round table" has the most entertaining, low-key horserace discussion (and whose A-B-C-D format makes it easy to TiVo past the nonsense blah-blah interviews), and (2) when there's an interesting political or news event happening. This year's campaign coverage, though, has really brought into high relief the 6 Rules of Bobbleheaded Punditry:

1. Keep talking. Whatever you do, keep talking. Don't pause. Especially when you finish a sentence. In fact, take all periods out of your copy.
2. Sound like you know what you're talking about. Use a quiet, authoritative tone. Remember Rule #1. Pauses betray an apparent uncertainty or may reveal your lack of ideas.
3. Look like you know what you're talking about. Alternately frown thoughtfully and raise your eyebrows occasionally for emphasis. If at a table, lean forward and tip your head slightly forward, forearms on the table. If standing, keep your elbows at your side but move your hands up and down, keeping time with your words. Extra points for coordinating with your eyebrows. If possible, hold a clipboard. (See Wolf Blitzer.)
4. Throw out a Factoid or a Spin Turd.
   • Factoid. It doesn't matter how accurate or relevant it is. We like factoids.
   • Spin Turd. (Advanced pundits only.) Make an outrageous claim that sticks to an undesired candidate. Note: These should be well rehearsed, easy on the tongue, and, whenever possible, coordinated with the Corporate Media Talking Points Committee. The extra work can pay off: Pundits adept at throwing out spin turds can enjoy fabulous careers in punditry. (See Ann Coulter.)

   Use of factoids combined with spin turds can prove very lucrative to the talented pundit.

5. Remember the names of the other bobbleheads. If you don't seem like part of the family or club, you come off as an outsider, and what could an outsider possibly know?
6. Don't pick your nose. Really really really. And whatever you do, don't eat the boogers. Wait until the commercial break. You never know when the camera might be on you.
7. Optional: Know what you're talking about. Caveat: While this can help with regards to bookings on PBS or NPR (though it's certainly not required for those buyers, either), it can get you into serious hot water with the big money market, including FoxNews. Use knowledge with extreme caution.

There you have it: The 6 Rules that can lead to a successful career as a well-paid Bobblehead.

Any others I may have missed?