Obama Reads Bush’s Letter from FOD Team

Hat Tip: Funny or Die.com

Zeleny & Baker: Hyping a Scandal without Proof

In their latest NYT article, Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny write about the Obama camp’s handling of the Blagojevich scandal and their potential involvement in it. This particular bit is pretty choice:

Republicans have raised questions about Mr. Obama’s refusal to say more and about his past ties with the main characters. Even if Mr. Obama remains untouched by the investigation, it shines a light on the corrupt politics of the state he emerged from and takes attention away from the agenda of change he would rather emphasize.

And then they go on to quote Clinton hack-artist Lanny Davis of all people. For what? Wisdom?

The only reason this would take attention away from his agenda is because hype seeking reporters, frustrated in their inability to get new information due to the media saturation of the story, are now reduced to talking about a hypothetical but unsubstantiated instance of some kind of wrongdoing.

Does the fact that the lead investigator, Patrick Fitzgerald, has definitively stated that President-elect Obama was in no way involved in Blagojevich’s shenanigans?

Hardly. Not when you got newspapers to sell and you are facing potential lay-offs.

Halperin.. Continued: Greg Mitchell

Greg Mitchell sounds off as well:

Halperin is so terrified of offending McCain’s team that he recently gave each of them an overall grade of “B” or higher for their campaign work — even though they led him to defeat (in a rout), helped him make the disastrous Palin pick, left much of his reputation in tatters and took much of his party down with him. Other than that: Good work, guys. As I asked after those grades came out, where was Halperin when I needed him as one of my teachers back in high school?…

And who can forget Halperin’s lengthy post at his site back in February when he listed 16 things that “McCain can do” in taking on Obama that the vanquished Hillary Clinton could not. The list included “6. Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama” and “11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.” …

Halperin Continued…

The usually astute Josh Marshall has this observation:

Toward the end of the campaign, basically in September, McCain took a series of steps that began to crack his credibility and reputation. He and his campaign told a series of falsehoods that were so outside the bounds even by the normal standards of political lying and took a number of steps that where so erratic and reckless (Palin, campaign suspension, etc.) that the nature of his coverage finally began to change.

McCain did that. Halperin should stop complaining, put some limits on pandering to the curdled resentment of the right.

Follow-Up to the Earlier Post on Mark Halperin

John Cole makes an excellent point:

“If there was a journalist out there who you wanted to talk to about media bias, would you start with Mark Halperin? Listening to Mark Halperin discuss media bias is like listening to Michael Brown opine on the benefits of good disaster relief. Halperin, you will remember, is the deep thinker who informed us all that McCain’s inability to explain how many houses he owned was… bad news for team Obama.

Was Howard Kurtz unavailable for comment? What about Brent Bozell? And really, being insufficiently hostile to Obama was the media’s biggest failure the past seven years? Really?”

Mark Halperin’s Shite Must Taste Good, Because He’s Got His Head Up His Ass

“It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war,” Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”

Time Magazine’s professional hack, Mark Halperin, seems to think the bias was so extreme. It is quite clear that the esteemed Mr. Halperin has thought these things through:

• The endless attention the media paid to the “Celebrity” ad campaign conducted by former Cheney operative-cum McCain campaign manager, Steve Schmidt… including in one famous ad, repeated shots of white, single women fawning over Mr. Obama.
• The constant playing and replaying of the nutjob Reverand Wright on almost all news shows and making Mr. Obama have to defend or be responsible for any comments made.
• The endless airtime given to the charges of “palling around” with William Ayres when in fact a significant relationship did not exist.
• The initial gushing by the media over Sarah Palin and its sidelining of the abuse-of-power charges until she crashed and burned on her own via videotape with Katie Couric.
• The portrayal of Obama as potentially being “too other” or “too exotic” (as per ABC’s Kookie Roberts) for the general public (i.e. Real Americans).

Now, is this also the same media that let the Swift Boat Veteran’s for “Truth” go unchecked until after the election?

Is it the same media that bought into the fear-mongering and fake Orange/Red/Whatever terror alerts that went up repeatedly in the months leading up to the re-election of the stellar George W. Bush?

The same media that failed to add up the numbers of George W. Bush’s economic policies?

Weapons of mass destruction anyone?

My, my. What a biased media.

Dubay Fired

Well, it seemed only a matter of time before Jeff Dubay of Twin Cities’ KFAN radio got the axe. It goes without saying.., if you are going to do that sort of stuff, be smart enough to do it at home. The radio-life alone must not have given him satisfaction in life. I really hope he can turn his life around.

Then again, if you are not just a local radio boob, but rather a nationally syndicated gas bag with millions in ad revenue, well, then, LIFE IS JUST GRAND.

The Numbers Man

Photo: Melissa Ann Pinney

Many of you probably guessed that I am a huge fan of Nate Silver’s election website, FiveThirtyEight.com. The latest issue of New York Magazine profiles its founder, Nate Silver. It is an interesting read. Silver was also one of the founders of the baseball projection outfit, Baseball Prospectus. They are the ones who predicted at the beginning of this season, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays would win 90 games. People thought this was ludicrous because they lost 96 last year. Well.., they won 97 this year. And now they will be appearing in the World Series for the first time.

Nate Silver’s projection model currently has Barack Obama winning the electoral college 344 to 194. We will see if his electoral projection skills match his baseball wits.

Quote of the Day: Brian Beutler

“CNN just asked an interesting question. I’m paraphrasing, but it went something like “What worthwhile things would you do if you had $4.5 million to spend.” They’re referring, of course, to Barack Obama’s daily advertising costs, which the McCain camp is trying to turn into some sort of scandal. Personally, if I had access to $4.5 million a day between now and Nov. 4, I’d hoard it all away, so that by the end I could be almost half as rich as Cindy McCain.

But liberals have been asking a different version of this question for a long time. What could you do with $10 billion a month if you weren’t spending it on a useless and failed war effort in Iraq? CNN never thought that one was worth elevating.”

-Brian Beutler, 10.17.08

David Frum’s Applebee’s Moment

A couple of days ago on the Rachel Maddow show, writer David Frum criticized Stephen Colbert for making fun of an inaccuracy by David Brooks:

“A few days ago, Colbert scoffed at my friend David Brooks for referring to the “salad bar” at Applebee’s – when Applebee’s doesn’t feature salad bars. An error – how ridiculous! But conscious fabrication? I guess that’s OK, so long as it’s done in the sacred name of comedy.”

That is the whole point!!

Colbert was making fun of a David Brooks statement criticizing Senator Obama for not understanding the “Average American” who uses the salad bar at Applebee’s and feeding into the out of touch elitist image.

Is there no irony lost on Mr. Frum that David Brooks only exposed HIMSELF as the out of touch elitist? It’s amazing how some of these writers like Brooks and Noonan continue to speak for “Middle America” and “Real Americans” but their deserved success has removed them so far from the very people that they pretend to be experts about. Come on!

Quite Possibly One of the Funniest Daily Shows

Quote of the Day: Kathleen Parker

“I’m sure it is coincidence that, upon the Palin column’s publication, a conservative organization canceled a speech I was scheduled to deliver in a few days. If I were as paranoid as the conspiracy theorists are, I might wonder whether I was being punished for speaking incorrectly.

Unfortunately, that’s the way one begins to think when party loyalty is given a higher value than loyalty to bedrock principles.” – Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist on the outrage she encountered after writing that Palin should withdraw from the ticket.

Jason Linkins Calls Out “Reporter” Halperin

Jason Linkins rightly calls out Mark Halperin’s The Page as nothing more than an Internet schilling scheme by going to ridiculous lengths in generating page-clicks. Quote:

“So, look, forget the fact that McCain is pulling out of Michigan. Here’s the news that matters to Mark Halperin. You can “Earn a Stable 15% yearly!” and “Protect your portfolio” by investing in “Medical Imaging Ctr-Min $25k inv” by going to DirectInvestingGroup.com. Evolution Solar is an “emerging green energy growth stock investment” that you can learn more about here. A good credit score is 700. Wanna know yours…for FREE? Go to www.creditreportamerica.com. And at CDW, they are “always there for your technology needs.”

FULL POST HERE.