A Joke, You Would Hope

I honestly just laughed out loud when reading this "news story" from Politico. This has to be a joke, but its not. I tracked the article down after reading about it on HuffPo and MediaMatters.
Summarizing it for you would not even do it justice, take a look.

This is like reporting for middle-schoolers.

Party in the WH

With nearly 8,000 noncareer political jobs to fill, President-elect Obama says, he doesn't care about party affiliation.
Well, according to Politico, the online applciation is complete with the question, what party are you affiliated with?
Seems suspect, huh.
The site where the application is hosted reads,

“We ask this for reporting purposes and because some appointments require bipartisan representation,”

Perhaps...
So far there have been over 300,000 applicants, but experts say they will probably get passed over:

“Recommendations are coming from state party chairs and county party chairs and the truth of the matter is: they pick people out of those who supported them, who worked for them,” he said. Obama “was the Democratic candidate for president, so most of the people he appoints are going to be Democrats.”

It's only the beginning....

This pretty much sum's it up, from Politico:

Picking the people was the easy part.

President-elect Obama and his new national security team will now turn to a world full of vexing, linked problems on every continent, and tricky, early choices. From the speed of withdrawal from Iraq to the speed of investment in Afghanistan, from Kashmir to Moscow, Obama will make some of his most important choices early.

Obama chooses Body over Soul....

Politico's Jonathan Martin, is reporting on the unimaginable.....Gasp, Obama has not been to church, in not 1, not 2 but 3 weeks!

Why? He has been busy going to the gym instead. Is pumping Iron his new form of worship? Hmm, according to Politico the reason they have not attended church is...

Because they have a great deal of respect for places of worship, they do not want to draw unwelcome or inappropriate attention to a church not used to the attention their attendance would draw

08' Election: Radio Smears Not Solely Reserved for Obama

Media Matters is reporting on the nation's conservative radio hosts (aka Rush Limbaugh inc.. ) and their coverage during the 2008 election. From their study it appears they were equal opportunity smear spreaders going after groups such as women, minorities and even children with disabilities. MM says the "smear ran the gamut." Check out the full list of smears they have compiled.

Attacking politicians is one thing, but groups with little access to defend themselves or are unwillingly attacked (such as children with autism) provides little to intelligent public debate. Conservative radio hosts have a huge influence on millions of Americans and they should remember this as journalists and as public commentators.

Some Excerpts, as per MM :

Michael Savage:

[Y]ou turn on the cable news, they're covering again a missing child. Not a missing country but a missing child. ... We hear about the rape of a woman, but not about the rape of the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty is crying, she's been raped and disheveled -- raped and disheveled by illegal aliens.

Chris Baker:

While discussing Palin's assertion that Obama was "palling around with terrorists" on the October 6 broadcast of his radio show, Baker called Obama a "little bitch" who "won't even stand up to a smoking-hot chick from Alaska.

Is Axelrod the New Rove?

Politico's Kenneth Vogel takes a look at the prospect of Axelrod joining the Obama White House and what that will mean for his wallet. Axelrod's consulting firms are estimated to generate millions anually. A job for him in the White House would be a paltry $200k.

However buried half way through the article, RNC chairman Mike Duncan raises a curious question:

“People need to be looking at Axelrod the same way that they looked at Karl Rove,” Duncan said, a comparison likely to sound like fingernails on a chalkboard for many Democrats, for whom Rove was a favorite boogeyman. “The same kinds of questions that were asked about Rove need to be asked about Mr. Axelrod.”

I concur with Duncan, we must ask questions of Axelrod...but if they are asked in the same fashion they were with Rove, it looks like he will have a long political career.

Hey, and if all else fails you can always become a pundit

When Your to Blame...Blame Someone Else

Doing what he does best, fear mongering, here is what Limbaugh had to say about the current economic crisis and Obama:

"The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen," Limbaugh told his radio audience of 15 million to 20 million on Thursday. "Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression."

Thats right Rush, President Bush, his endless war and woeful economic policies are not to blame.
He goes on to talk about how under Obama there will be greater government control including the takeover of 401(k) retirement plans.

I smell a sore loser.......

And a lier....

"So the Fox-man simply created a new persona for Emanuel as, you guessed it, "one of the hardest left-wing radicals on the left."

Eh, interesting because Rahm Emanuel is known to veer towards the center.

McCain Already Back on the Campaign Trail

It has been a little over a week since Sen. John McCain lost the presidency and yes it is true, he is already back to campaigning.
But not for himself.

McCain is heading to Georgia tomorrow to campaign for Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who is in a runoff election against Democrat Jim Martin.

Meanwhile, two other senate races remain hotly contested, Arizona and Minnesota.

Mitt Romney has reportedly donated $5k to Rep. Norm Coleman's recount fund against Dem. Al Franken, in a race that has narrowed to a 204 voter disparity.

Center-Right May Not be Right After All

In the past two weeks we have been bombarded by the overwhleming claim, which as bordered on a statement of fact, by the media that we are a center-right country. News media types have even gone as far as claiming that Obama himself is a conservative.

Media Matters is citing a poll that says otherwise:

Democracy Corps polled 2,000 voters November 4-5 and posed several questions as direct contrasts between a conservative approach and a progressive approach, some of which were directly drawn from the arguments made by Obama and McCain.

The results of the poll showed strong support from the public on the not-so-conservative politcies articulated by Obama.

Palin On Obama

Politico is reporting that in a new interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Sarah Palin had the following kind words to say about President-elect Obama:

And I do have faith in this new administration that they are going to
look out for America's finest, those in uniform, who are protecting us and our
freedoms.

CNN Obsessed with Technology

Has anyone else noticed that the anchors of CNN are borderline obsessed with talking about all the new technology being used during the broadcasts.

First it was the hologram, Wolf Blitzers love affair numero uno. Then this morning after a rather bland and uninformative medical report with Dr. Gupta, John Roberts kept gushing over the cool "magical board" he used to fill viewers in. I have never seen so much excitement over a touch-screen monitor before......

The tech stuff seems to be more important then the news they cover while using it...

Back to Blogging

I took a little post-election break from blogging......needed a blogosphere vacay from all the madness...but now I am back.

Arianna Huff...Declares a Winner?

Who is the winner of the 2008 election?
And the drum-roll please....
Uh, the Internet?

HuffPost's co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington is declaring that the winner of the 2008 election may not be a partisan politician after all. But rather, the Internet. In many ways she successfully argues that the main battlefield for the election and dissemination of information has largely taken place on the Internet.

This blog, like millions of others have started up in reaction and as a forum to express opinions on a race whose importance is undisputed.

Huff's prediction for the election: How we will follow the election results...

For real time results, however, the Internet will be the go-to destination. A host of websites, starting with HuffPost, will make it possible for you to choose how and when you want to follow the results -- whether you want to follow them state-by-state and county-by-county or jump between the presidential race and hotly contested Senate and House showdowns. And do it interactively.

Morning News Shows

On Morning Joe: The entire cast and guests talk about how much Obama supporters really love him, as opposed to just like him. {Insert Regan comparisons here}

On FOX:

They talk about voter Fraud, calling ACORN one of the biggest scandals of the election. Not true, but it is their favorite topic.
Also they introduce Karl Rove as a guy who knows a lot about elections. And of course how to win an election in your favor {cough, 2000 and 2004}, how about those voter frauds?

Political Humor from Iraq

Say hello to my little friend. (Illustrated by Qassem H.J.)

This political cartoon is published on NYT from a newspaper artist working in Iraq. The picture corresponds with the paper 's week long look at Iraqi's feelings towards the continued (and drawn-out) presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.

I thought I'd take a break to blog about something other then the election for a moment...

Uncle Sam has never looked so patriotic.

Obama v. McCain: Web Presence 2.0

A study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism takes a look at McCain and Obama's web presence. The Study found that the candidates official campaign sites are" quite advanced beyond anything" seen in any other elections. Some interesting data they recovered is quite revealing, beyond face value.

• Obama’s site links to mainstream media news stories about his candidacy more frequently than does McCain’s, which tends to bypass the mainstream media and link in its “news” section instead to campaign-generated press releases. That has ebbed somewhat recently, as the site has begun linking to news stories about Palin.

• The word “change”—the motto of the Obama campaign—is now less prominent on the information pages of the Obama site than on McCain’s. On the Republican’s site “change” is among the top 20 most frequently used words.

• The Obama Web site provides far more text than McCain’s, by virtue of the extensive archive of Obama’s speeches (in August alone, 50,676 words on Obama’s Web site versus 21,021 on McCain’s). If you take speeches by both candidates out of the mix, Obama’s site still features more words than McCain’s, but they are closer.

• The McCain campaign has fully integrated his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin—both textually and visually—into the Web site’s home page, while the Obama home page denotes his vice presidential pick, Joe Biden, much less prominently.

Palin in 2012?

Politico's Roger Simon speculates whether Sarah Palin will win in 2012. That is of course pending McCain losing, or wining and not wanting to run for a second term.

Greg Mueller, a senior presidential aide to Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes says he can see how

Sarah Palin as the economic populist and traditional American values candidates will be very appealing by the time we get to 2012.

Why is she thinking so far ahead of her VP Slot, the article pointedly remarks on some problems between Palin and McCain:

The discomfort between the two can be palpable. Chuck Todd, the NBC News political director, was in the room when Brian Williams interviewed Palin and McCain recently. “There was a tenseness,” Todd said later. “When you see the two of them together, the chemistry is just not there. You do wonder, is John McCain starting to blame her for things? Blaming himself? Is she blaming him?

I am guessing one and three. John McCain is blaming Palin for demonstrating her inexperience and lack of knowledge. And Palin is blaming McCain for running what she views as a bad campaign — a campaign that did not go after Barack Obama over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and did not exploit Obama’s statement about how small-town people “cling” to guns and religion — and for never picking a clear message that had any traction with voters.

With exactly one week until the election, speculation over four years from now has already begun.....

Say It Aint So: Narratives Do Not Dominate This Week's News Stories

According to The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, For the Week of October 20-26, talk of the likes of 'Joe the Plumber' and 'Lipstick on a Pig' were virtually absent from media coverage. Even Biden's gaffe about Obama being tested by an international crisis was all but absent from the dialogue. The report goes on to say:

Indeed, no single narrative dominated last week’s coverage. The top storyline, the fight over battleground states, accounted for 10% of the campaign newshole from Oct. 20-26, according to the Campaign Coverage Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project For Excellence in Journalism. That’s the lowest level of coverage for any leading weekly narrative since the general election campaign began in early June.

	Percent of Campaign Newshole
Swing State Strategy	9.6%
Economy as an Issue	8.2
McCain v. Obama Polls	6.1
Colin Powell Endorses Obama	5.9
Campaign Fundraising	4.6
Obama Visits his Grandmother	4.1
Foreign Policy	3.8
Total Number of Campaign Stories = 649

Smear Creator Given Platform to Spread More on FOX

Politico's Michael Calderone reports on lasts Tuesdays debate on FOX where Sean Hannity and and Robert Gibbs battled over Obama's associations to 'radicals.' Gibbs fired back at Hannity for having Andy Martin on the show to slander the Dem on his anti-Obama special, "Obama & Friends: The History of Radicalism."

Well after appearing on the show NYT reporter Jim Rutenburg did some digging and his findings about Andy Martin were revealed on the front page of the paper in article entitled "The Man Behind the Whispers":

An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.

Well as it happens to be, he is also the man who has been one of the leaders in spreading smears and lies about Obama.

Politico ran an update yesterday that Fox's VP Bill Shine spoke to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, and is no longer defending the usage of "journalist" Andy Martin on the Hannity Special:

Shine told Kurtz. "We obviously didn't do enough research on who the guest was.

This is stunning, FOX news is apologizing and admitting they were wrong for having a fear mongering guest on....imagine if they did that more often..they would have no more guests.

Memo from the Editor: No Political Commentary Until Nov. 5th

The editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune sent out an office Memo to staff requesting that all columnists stay away from Political Commentary until after the November 5th election. According to Media Matters, editor Nancy Barnes felt it would be best if journalists
"refrain[ed] from partisan political commentary in their columns ... at least until after the election." And that columnists would "'stand down' on the kind of column that's an overtly partisan take."

The office-wide memo came a day after newspaper columnist Katherine Kersten wrote a highly critical article about Al Franken, who is running for US Senate. Kersten's article claimed that Franken was anti-Christian, specifically anti-Catholic. This is Questionable considering Franken is Jewish, and less then 1% of the state shares his faith. In addition he has been married to a Catholic for over 30 years.

Even lower is the way Kresten tried to prove that he is anti-Catholic, by pulling bits and pieces from his decades long career as a comedian and a satirist. In fact the article itself was titled, "Vulgar mockery of Christians: Is this what we want in a U.S. senator?"

Kresten took his comedy out of context and the results were not very funny, essentially accusing him of hatred and intolerance.

What Media Matters is apt to point out is that dailies like the Star Tribune have a huge influence on the electorate, and words such as these could effect the election and the way people perceive the candidate.

Even more interesting is that in the past the paper has been accused of bias, according to Media Matters:

Like lots of major dailies, the Strib has been buffeted in recent years by staff cutbacks and accusations of a liberal bias. It seems that the effects of both are on display in the Franken/Coleman campaign.

Newsroom cutbacks make it more difficult to provide smart, in-depth election coverage. Perhaps more telling at the Strib, though, has been the long-running war conservatives have waged against the paper, led by bloggers such as Ed Morrissey, Hugh Hewitt, and those at Power Line.

Even more questionable is the ban of more editorials, according to Media Matters:

Adding to the irony (or the double standard; take your pick) was the fact that Please, people, no partisanship memo was distributed the very same day the Star Tribune printed a front-page article about GOP operative Jeff Larson, who found himself at the center of the Sarah Palin shopping spree scandal. (It was Larson's credit card that got burned up by Neiman Marcus to the tune of $75,000, courtesy of the Palin camp.)

Larson just happens to be one of the closest and most-connected Minnesota political allies of Franken's Republican opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman. But rather than present the story as an embarrassment to Coleman, the Strib's article about Larson was a valentine, complete with "Clark Kent" in the headline.

While this may have been the editor's decision to make, I think there are some questionable journalistic practices going on at this paper. How can you possibly say, no more editorials on the election, in such an important election cycle?