-By Warner Todd Huston

No one should be surprised, but journalists -- you know, those fair, balanced and unbiased professionals -- give more of their political donations to Democrats than they do Republicans. Not by just a little, either. By a 15 to 1 margin.

Brit Hume has a small bit on his Political Grapevine about political donations and he mentions an IBD editorial on the money trail. The piece is by William Tate (a better version of Tate's piece is at Americanthinker.com) and it shows a whopping bias towards the Democrats in donations from our fourth estate (or is that fifth column?).

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq Op-Ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen, but true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money.

Of the journalists investigated, 235 gave more than $225,000 to Democrats while only 20 gave a mere $16,000 to Republicans. It was even more lopsided where it concerns the presidential candidates. People employed by major media organizations gave a 20 to 1 majority of donations to Barack Obama.

Of course, the fact that the media gives their support to the left is unsurprising, but it does call into question their ability to be the unbiased professionals they claim to be.

One is the overwhelming nature of the above statistics. Given the pack mentality among journalists and, just like any pack, the tendency to follow the leader -- in this case, Big Media -- and since Big Media is centered in some of the bluest of blue parts of the country, it is highly likely that the media elite reflects the same, or an even greater, liberal bias.

Well, we of course get it here on the blog. But it is quite interesting to see all the evidence of the money trail that Tate takes the time to track down. Kudos to Mr. Tate. Go on over to Americanthinker.com and read the whole thing.

(Photo credit: extras.journalnow.com - Graph credit: Investor's Business Daily)

-By Warner Todd Huston

I do believe that liberals in this country have their tin foils hats on way too tight these days. At least, it's easy to think that over the new national conspiracy theory that lefties are all balled up over lately. You see, it is being imagined in the dim, dark recesses of the left's collective consciousness that cable company Comcast is out to silence them.

Apparently, Comcast has come down from their circling black helicopters and decided to target the left by moving MSNBC from their basic cable package to their more expensive premium services. This will, you see, "marginalize outspoken liberal voices" like Keith Olbermann.

It couldn't be that Comcast is just trying to make more cash by moving popular channels to their ever expanding digital service in preparation for when the whole country goes digital, right? It has to be some deep, dark, anti-left conspiracy by an eeeevil corporate monster, it must be supposed.

Wild-eyed lefties from Portland, Oregon to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania are calling foul over Comcast's billing change and it's all because, they imagine, Comcast is out to destroy them.

Cue the dramatic music.

Just look at this specious conspiracy "reasoning":

On local talk radio, the suspicion is that Comcast is engaging in a back-door rate increase that disproportionately affects Democrats during an important election year. Because MSNBC caters to liberal voices in ways that Fox and CNN don't, moving it to a more expensive tier is suspect.

It has been said that liberalism is a mental disease. Well, this new leftie symptom sure doesn't help dispel that claim as a definite possibility. Either liberals have too much time on their hands -- probably spending too much time on welfare and not at work -- or it really is a mental disorder that leaves them prone to wild flights of fantasy?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently, Bild, a newspaper in Germany, hires 14-year-old, starry-eyed, fan-girls as reporters instead of serious grownups. Or, at least one would be excused in thinking this reporter was a rock-star struck teeny bopper upon reading her gushingly immature account of having an exercise work out with Barack Obama on the German leg of his trip. This report is so obsequious, so saccharine, that it is painful to read. The whole incident is really banal and uneventful in retrospect, but this reporter builds it into orgasmic proportions showing how the press, even in Europe, have allowed hero worship to overtake even the tiniest shred of journalistic integrity.

Judith Bonesky's breathless account so overplays reality that it is sickening. Even the title shows that the writer was acting like a goofy child unable to restrain her boundless enthusiasm. Like a teenaged, Hannah Montana fan, Bonesky blurts out excitedly, "I worked out with Obama!" -- yes, even with an exclamation point at the end. So much for objective, dispassionate reporting.

The excitable girl became all tingly in hotel a gym in which Barack began his work out session. The subtitle informs us that little Judy Bonesky "met Barack all alone – in the gym!" and that she has an "incredible account of... meeting" Barack. Then Bonesky writes that a "man in a suit" approached her in the gym and mentioned that Obama would soon arrive to start his work out. And, guess what? Bonesky happily says, "half past four and he actually arrives! " (be prepared for a lot of exclamation points in this over emoted report.)

The man of eloquence and high flown feats of rhetoric overwhelmed young Bonesky with his pithy and erudite salutation upon entering the gym.

"Hi, how’s it going?“ asks Obama in his deep voice. My heart beats. "Very good, and you?" I say. Obama replies: "Very good, thank you!"

Sigh. Isn't he dreamy? Do you see how her "heart beats"?

Then she noted that not only did Obama lift a 16 kilo weight, he moved on to the 32 kilo weight.

He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side. Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.

Yes, more exclamation points... oh, and the bold was in her original, not my addition. Hard to believe, I know, but true.

But, wait. It got even more "incredible." Barack actually said some more incredibly, incredible and smart stuff to the gape mouthed girl. After this trembling, fangirl asked if she could take a photo of him Obama opened that gorgeous mouth and let the whisper of the angels descend onto her poor, unworthy, mortal ears.

"Of Course!" he answers, before asking my name and coming over to stand next to me.

Gosh. He said "of course!" to her. So, smart and intelligent and stuff. She'll never wash her ears again.

Then the piece de resistance:

“My name’s Judith” I reply. "I’m Barack Obama, nice to meet you!” he says, and puts his arm across my shoulder. I put my arm around his hip – wow, he didn’t even sweat! WHAT A MAN!

Yes, "he didn't even sweat! What a man!" (more exclamation points) And we can say of Judy Bonesky, what a sycophant! (that time I used my own exclamation point!!)

Has there ever been a more overwrought report? If so, I'd like to see it.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember when McCain said that he had visited all 57 States during his campaign? Then there was the time that McCain said "Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." Oh, and what about the time that McCain said "10,000 people died" in the Kansas tornadoes (death toll really 12). Crazy stuff, eh? Wait, let's not forget when McCain said that Arkansas was a "nearby" state to Kentucky. Man was that a major flub showing a complete lack of knowledge of simple geography.

Hmm, wait a minute. I might be making a flub myself, here. Didn't Obama make all those gaffes (and many, many more)? Why, yes, he did. So, why, amidst an ever growing list of Obama flubs and gaffes, did the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz just pen a story titled "Is McCain's Age Showing? Tongues Wag Over Flubs"? It's as if the Obamessiah has spoken in flawless, if not mellifluous, English with nary a gaffe uttered throughout the campaign.

"We interrupt the nonstop coverage of Barack Obama's overseas trip," Kurtz writes, "to bring you some breaking whispers about John McCain."

He has been making a series of verbal slips -- invariably described as "gaffes" -- that are starting to ricochet from liberal blogs to the mainstream media. And fairly or not, some critics are suggesting the 71-year-old Republican candidate is showing his age.

Well, Kurtz doesn't exactly say so explicitly, but his piece pointedly reveals the utter lack of introspection as well as simple fairness evinced by the squaller of the leftist blogosphere and their old media lapdogs. The left is certain that McCain is getting a pass.

As Obama's list of gaffes grows, his are dismissed while the left spares no efforts to report any slip of the tongue by John McCain and then to ascribe it to senility. Yet, as Obama makes gaffe after gaffe the press blows off his mistakes as merely that of a "tired" candidate tuckered out from this exhausting campaign.

But that used up McCain, why he's just too old.

Politico catalogued the errors on its Web site yesterday, saying: "McCain's mistakes raise a serious, if uncomfortable question: Are the gaffes the result of his age? And what could that mean in the Oval Office?"

The question is fair, says veteran analyst Charlie Cook of National Journal. "People wonder if McCain is kind of like a pitcher seven or eight years past his prime and misses a few here and there," he says. "When you're about to turn 72, people are going to be watching to see if you're slipping."

So, McCain is senile and Obama... well, he just needs a nice nap.

The press is doing their level best to gin up McCain's flubs but are correspondingly dismissive of Obama's as Kurtz reveals. Obama's constant gaffes are being called "minor misstatements," and are only made because he is so, so tired. Why one liberal commentator even thinks that Obama is so tired that "his hair has grown grayer since he began campaigning." They are each of them bending over backwards to excuse Obama's gaffes while unbendingly calling McCain's a result of some mental problem!

Well, there are great lists on the Internet of the flubs and gaffes from both candidates, so you decide what those gaffes can be blamed on. As to the left, unsurprisingly they can only see McCain's. Good thing the left is so much more "fair" and "balanced" than the rest of us, eh?

But, there is one lingering question that hangs over this whole business. If McCain's gaffes are a result of his being old and tired, how is it they can use being "tired" as an excuse to paper over the mistakes of the supposedly virile and vital Obama? And if Obama's are ascribed to mere exhaustion then why can't we say that McCain is just as tired? After all, McCain is an 71-year-old man. Is Obama so weak that he tires as easily as a man of such advanced years as McCain?

The left's excuse making is weak indeed. Weak and tired.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bloomberg News is acting as if they know how "many Muslims around the world" feel about Barack Obama. In Bloomberg's considered opinion, Obama is "just an American with a Muslim middle name" and won't "advance" the "interests" of Muslims. The main point that Bloomberg seems to be trying to sell is that Barack Obama's Muslim past will not make him tend to bow to world-wide Muslim sentiment. Bloomberg is obviously doing their best to prop up the Obama campaign by trying to allay fears that Obama will be a disaster on foreign policy. This is a perfect example of agenda journalism disguised as news.

So, how do the folks at Bloomberg know what the world's Muslims think about Barack Obama? Is it polls? Did they conduct extensive interviews or research on how Muslims feel about Obama? No, it seems more like Bloomberg's opinion is loosely based on the opinions of the three Muslims they quote and a broad interpretation of one poll on Obama and one on Muslim opinion of the US in general. It seems a rather wild leap in logic from the "evidence" they present to assume that they have a firm grasp on the opinion about Obama of all the world's Muslims.

Bloomberg gives us the doubt about Obama's effectiveness for implementing policy favorable to Muslims exhibited by a 24-year-old Palestinian medical student named Wessam al-Ghoul. We are also treated to the disappointment that University of Toulouse (France) professor Habib Samarkandi had over a recent Obama foreign policy speech and similar disappointment from Egyptian writer Atef Ghamri. These three men represents Bloomberg's extensive interviews.

Wow. Three guys to represent all of Islam! That was conclusive, and all encompassing "proof," eh?

To buttress that amazing testimony, Bloomberg gives us a few polls, too.

There are 24 countries in the Arab world, which has a combined population of 325 million. A March-April 2008 Pew Research poll taken in 24 Arab and non-Arab countries showed that in the Arab nations of Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, confidence in Obama ranged from 23 percent in Jordan to one in three in Lebanon. About a quarter felt similarly about McCain.

First of all, it is doubtful that the largest number of the world's Muslims have ever even heard of Barack Obama. Secondly, Bloomberg offers no specifics on what this poll asked the respondents so the conclusion they draw for their story isn't really provable. To believe the story, it must be taken for granted that Bloomberg is correct because no evidence to assess their analysis is offered.

That was one poll. Bloomberg offered a second one as well.

A March 2008 Zogby poll of 4,000 people in Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Jordan found that Arab opinion of the U.S. was at its lowest since 2002, with unfavorable ratings ranging from 80 percent in Egypt and Jordan to 71 percent in the UAE and Morocco.

This poll is meaningless in context with the subject of how Arabs feel about Barack Obama, however, as it has nothing to do with Obama but is instead a poll on opinions of current US policy. Yet, this poll is given to buttress the "proof" that Americans shouldn't fear an Obama presidency.

Still, despite all the covering that Bloomberg is doing for Obama in this piece, they added one little bit at the end that almost contradicts their entire flacking enterprise. They quote Karim Makdisi, a professor of political science of the American University in Beirut, as saying that Muslims still would vote Obama if they had a say in the US elections.

"It is clear that if people in the Arab world could vote, they would vote for Obama, certainly to ensure McCain doesn't become president, but also because there is a faint hope that maybe he doesn't represent empty words," Makdisi said.

So, Bloomberg, let me get this straight. Muslims don't imagine that Obama will do them any good at all, yet they would still vote for him imagining that he will do them some good? That factoid sure doesn't really ally any fears that Barack Obama will be good for the American people, now does it?

I say, look to whom America's enemies support and you'll find the worst candidate for America's interests.

(Photo credit: dailymail.co.uk)

-By Warner Todd Huston Just a quick note to mention to all that I was quoted in the San Francisco chronicle in a story titled 'Obamamania' in Europe a sign of strong world interest in U.S. election, affairs, by Joe Garofoli. Check it out. I am mentioned and quoted at the tail of the story.

-By Warner Todd Huston

For a little humorous break from the world of hard news, we have the embarrassing story of the Valley News that serves Vermont and New Hampshire misspelling its own name on the front page of the July 21 issue.

The big oopsie was followed on July 22 with an egg-on-the-face, editor's note apologizing to the readers for this ridiculous mistake.

Editor's Note - Readers may have noticed that the Valley News misspelled its own name on yesterday's front page. Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold them accountable for their mistakes, let us say for the record: We sure feel silly.

Gosh darn it but don't they look silly? Still, it's great that they took the gaffe in good humor. After all, with a mistake that absurd, what else could you do?

You can find this amusing little tale on a favorite website called Regret the Error, by Craig Silverman, a site that tracks amusing little gaffes of media entities all across the world.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again MSNBC president Phil Griffin is claiming that his cable outlet is not liberal on purpose. (I know what you're saying, if you believe that he has a bridge to sell you) In an interview with a TV reviewer for the Kansas City Star, Griffin once again made the claim that the extreme leftward tilt that MSNBC has taken over the last few years was a complete accident and that they aren't "tied to ideology" like Fox News is. Griffin also attacked Fox News saying that, "you can't trust a word they say."

It all started when Aaron Barnhart of the Star asked Griffin for his reaction to statements made by Fox News executive John Moody who said that MSNBC only gained their current market share because of the "messianic ranting" of its anchors, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. This set Griffin off at the outset of the interview.

"Look," said Griffin. "I totally respect Fox News and what they did. But it's totally cynical. For them to say that is outrageous. They saw an opportunity years ago to create an ideological channel. And they did. I give them total credit. I tip my hat to them. They scored. But it was ideological and opportunistic. It was a business plan.

Ah, but you see, MSNBC is different. Their ideological tilt was purely an accident... so it doesn't count.

"We didn't do that. We go out and hire the best people that we can and give them freedom. Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann were arguing in point-of-view programs against the war when the war was popular. This wasn't a business decision. .... We're not tied to ideology the way they are. We're still NBC News, best newsgathering organization in the world, we have a couple of point-of-view people, but we have a variety of opinions you don't see elsewhere.

Griffin's spin is an Olympics worthy back flip as any look at their programming reveals. But, his main point is a meaningless distinction in the long run. Fox News may have set out from the beginning to fill the rightward niche market, it is true. It is also true that MSNBC didn't start up with the direct intentions to be the extreme left version of Fox News... after all, there was no Fox News at the time. MSNBC beat Fox News to air by four months or so. Certainly it wasn't MSNBC's initial "business plan" to become the Pravda of cable news. But, the end result is still the same. They did become that.

That they didn't start out with that business plan is meaningless in the final analysis. The truth is that they have, indeed, turned to that business plan to save their perennially third placed cable outlet's bacon in the ratings game. They have similarly found their niche -- and a considerably smaller one if ratings are any indication -- just as Fox News has. That they didn't launch their cable channel in 1996 for that particular reason is not very relevant to the facts as they now stand.

And, this new turn to the far left really did see MSNBC tap into a market niche. They are the darlings of the nutrooters and have cashed in rather handsomely as a result. But for Griffin to then say, "we're not tied to ideology the way they are," referring to Fox News, is an absurdity. Of course MSNBC is wholly tied to the leftist line ideologically. If they abandoned it now they would lose all their newfound ratings and most likely disappear from the TV altogether.

Still, Griffin is sticking to his story no matter how unbelievable it is.

"What they are trying to do is play a game here," Griffin continued. "THEY made the business decision to create an ideological network. We didn't. They were the ones that got in bed with the Bush Administration, so that most of the time, where did the Bush Administration officials come out and make their points? Fox News. We didn't. You brought it up, but it's a great story because you can't trust a word they say.

... and a nice homage to his viewer's Bush Derangement Syndrome, too. Nice touch Philly.

But this wide-eyed shock from Griffin that people think MSNBC is an ideologically driven organization is not new. He has been peddling this same faux shock for a while, now.

Back in November of 2007, Griffin was selling the same line to The New York Times when he told them that the obvious drift left wasn't a conscious plan. "There isn't a dogma we're putting through," he told the Times, "there is a ‘Go for it.'"

But, doesn't it become "dogma" the second you decide that your policy will be "go for it"?

Anyway, despite what he keeps claiming, the reality of the programming speaks louder than Phil Griffin's protestations.

-By Warner Todd Huston

I'm sure by now we are all aware of the Netroots Nation conference that happened in Austin, Texas last weekend. Well, did you know that without Al Gore it wouldn't have happened? That's right, since Al Gore invented the Internet... I know, I know, that is the old Al Gore joke where he famously claimed that he invented the World Wide Web. Everyone knows that AL Gore had little to do with the Internet, of course. But at least one person, obviously one rather easy to bamboozle, still thinks Al Gore did invent the Internet. In fact she thinks he invented all the technology inherent in that Internet. And she is currently the Speaker of the House of Representatives, sadly enough.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attended the Nutrooters gathering and, as reported in the Houston Chronicle, let loose with this gem while introducing Al Gore to those assembled: "Without him, there would be no Netroots Nation. There wouldn't be the technology."

Huh? Without Al Gore "there wouldn't be the technology" to have an Internet based gathering like Netroots Nation?

She has to be kidding, right?

Nancy, um, I'd like to help you out, babe. See, Al Gore didn't invent the Internet and he is NOT responsible for any of the technology that is connected with it. Not a single line of code did he write, not one piece of hardware was created by the former VP and current global warming snake oil salesman.

Now, of course we jest about Al Gore claiming to have invented the internet. After all, Gore never really said he invented the Internet. What he said, instead, was that it wouldn't have existed if it weren't for his deft hand at legislation.

His exact quote to Wolf Blitzer was:

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Self serving, half truth that it is, he wasn't really saying he invented the Internet. But he was saying it exists because of his loving legislative care, and even with that he is still not exactly telling the truth. The Internet existed before Al Gore's legislative efforts, we all know.

But don't let the cat out of the bag for Speaker Pelosi. It might ruin her hero worship of the great pretender, Al Gore.

(H/T Doug Clifton)

(Photo credit: kingston.house.gov)

-By Warner Todd Huston

In 1999 a handsome, earnest young man named Ahmad Batebi defied Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran. His photo caused an instant sensation and became a symbol of the flower of Iran standing ready to oppose the oppression of the Iranian religious regime.

Batebi, 31, became an icon after he was photographed as a handsome young student waving the blood-stained shirt of a fallen demonstrator during mass protests against Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, and clerical rule in 1999. With his long hair and bandana, he embodied the new spirit of defiance in Iran.

Naturally, he was apprehended by his oppressors and imprisoned under a 15-year prison sentence. While in prison he was beaten with metal cables, suspended by his arms from the ceiling for hours and was constantly with execution. It was demanded that he disclaim his treasonous actions on Iranian TV. Batebi refused.

The price of his defiance can be seen in the deep scars on his shoulders and arms — and other parts of his body hidden by clothing. In prison he was repeatedly blindfolded, beaten and deprived of sleep. Pulling up the sleeves of his T-shirt, he said: “I don’t know what they used to cut me, but they put salt in the wounds to stop me falling asleep.”

Fortunately, Ahmad Batebi found help among the Kurdish underground in Iran and he was able to make his escape to find refuge in America. It is reported that his pursuers chased him from Iran all the way into Iraq and issued the threat that they would eventually get him.

Ahmad Batebi was lucky to have escaped. Thousands of his compatriots have not been so lucky. They languish in prisons deep in Iran being tortured and murdered daily by order of the Ayatollahs.

These are the people Barack Obama imagines he can charm into becoming civilized humans.

Beyond a doubt Barack Obama can't wait to get into the White House so that he can put into action his kindler, gentler foreign policy ideas. As he said in the debates earlier this year, he'd talk to tin pot dictators, murderers and oppressors "without preconditions." He said this, of course, to the shock of anyone even a little familiar with foreign policy, not to mention human nature.

Apparently, Barack Obama imagines that the glint in his eye and the flash of his pearly whites is quite enough to send any terrorist leader to his nearest Mosque to supplicate himself in abject apology for ever defying the will of the Obamessiah.

Now there was once another fellow in history that felt this way -- though with Hitler and his Nazis instead of the Islamofascists we face today. His name was Neville Chamberlain and he became the most disgraced Prime Minister that Britain ever had... and that's really saying something. The only thing this foolish little man is remembered for is what he told the world after he got back from a visit with Hitler. At Heston Airport Chamberlain addressed the gathered throngs of Britains eager to see what he had found in Germany. He told them, "I believe it is peace in our time." That was in September of 1938. Hitler Invaded Poland only one year later in 1939 and WWII began.

Neville Chamberlain's "peace" cost the world around 72 million lives.

What will Barack Obama's arrogance and naiveté cost us?

(Photo credit: www.iranalmanac.com)

-By Warner Todd Huston

Someone peed in Lance Ulanoff's pocket protector and it must have been a Republican, because Ulanoff, one of PCMag.com's chief geeks, unloaded on the "tech illiterate" John McCain in a July 16th article, insisting that McCain isn't "tech savvy enough to run this country."

Ulanoff is filled with all sorts of assumptions and with faux indignation that John McCain dares run for president even though he has admitted that he doesn't know a whole lot about computers. Naturally, Ulanoff begins with the left's favorite talking point du jour, that McCain is too old.

John McCain, the oldest presidential candidate this nation has ever had, has now proven, by his own admission, that he's not tech savvy enough to run this country.

So, what is uber geek Ulanoff's reason that McCain isn't able to lead this country in a "tech" age? Why its because McCain says he can't use a computer that's why. Oh, and he's old... let's not forget that

McCain recently admitted to The New York Times that he currently has other people go online to get him the information he needs, adding that he's working on mastering the technology. According to the Times, McCain uses "his wife, and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online." McCain actually said that these people "go on for me."

Then the clincher from McCain: "I don't e-mail. I've never felt the particular need to e-mail."

Well, just before writing this, I looked the Constitution over to see where the e-mail requirement was. Funny thing is, I couldn't find it.

Ulanoff's main reason seems to be that a president that can't even operate a computer can't understand issues of Net neutraility and Internet policy and, therefore, won't have enough knowledge to make decisions in those areas. This, of course, assumes that a president knows all of human knowledge once he ascends to office and doesn't need aides and advisors to help him learn about and make decisions on important issues while in office.

Oh, and don't forget, McCain's too old.

But, let's face reality about computers and the president, any president. Thanks to the over use of the attack dogs called "special prosecutors," and the overweening interference of the Executive Branch by Congress, no president is even going to bother using e-mail and computers very much.

Last May, Bush even claimed that he looks forward to using e-mail to contact friends and family again after he leaves office. In a report on the president's remarks, a New York Times blog reported that "Mr. Bush stopped e-mailing when he entered the White House, citing security worries, and the Oval Office does not have a computer in it."

So, here we have in the presidency of the United States of America a job where using a computer is not only unnecessary, it is specifically eschewed because of the danger it represents.

So, if McCain won't even have to use a computer while in office (and that is because the left would use it to attack him), then why is it such a requirement that he be "tech savvy"?

If Ulanoff wants a president to use a computer, he might want to get Congress to stop looking for every excuse it can find to "get" the president so that a future president might find it safe enough while in office to use one in this "tech savvy" world in which we live.

So, let me say this to Ulanoff. You are too "politically illiterate" to assess if McCain is suitable enough to fill the oval office. Your opinion is uninformed and unimportant. But thanks for stopping by. McCain might be less than computer literate, but that skill is not in any way a requirement to be a qualified candidate for president of the US.

Oh, but McCain's old, too. Did Ulanoff mention that?

(Photo credit: www.gamesandmobile.com)

-By Warner Todd Huston Another indictment against the so-called "sanctuary city." A woman suffers her entire family murdered by an illegal alien and known convict because San Francisco shields illegals from Federal deportation. A husband and two sons are murdered over this illegal scumbag's "road rage."

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just as I finish a piece laughing at DailyKos for claiming that it is conservatives that feel they have to "create their own alternate reality" because of their "rigid ideology," I find a story out of The Austin American-Statesman where the DailyKos forced that paper to pull a story that had a mildly satirical take on last weekend's Netroots Nation conference in Texas. Apparently, the DailyKos folks didn't like The Austin American-Statesman's "reality" so the Kossacks flooded the paper with their insistence on creating a new one.

The original article by the Statesman's Patrick Beach knocked the nutrooters for the so-called "surprise" Gore visit, said it turned into a "faint-in," and that their general feeling was "terribly self-confirming," among other snippy comments... fun, but snippy. The general tone of the piece was that of amusement at how seriously the nutrooters took themselves. And, even more galling to said nutrooters, this story was the front page editorial of Sunday's edition. (Original, Google cached version of Beach's piece.)

This did not sit well with the nutrooters in question.

So, in the true spirit of "tolerance," respect for "freedom of speech," and an interest in a "free press," the denizens of the DailyKos whipped themselves up into a frenzy of complaints. The din was so loud that the compliant folks at the Austin American-Statesman acquiesced to the demands for retribution. The Statesman pulled the piece from their website and made abject, groveling apologies to the folks at the DailyKos.

Instead of Patrick Beach's mildly amusing editorial, we get this message:

Editor's note: Netroots Nation story

Readers expect front-page stories to speak directly and clearly about events and issues. Eliminating the possibility of misunderstanding from our work is a critical part of our daily newsroom routine. When we communicate in a way that could be misinterpreted, we fail to meet our standards.

Our front-page story Sunday about the Netroots Nation convention included doses of irony and exaggeration. It made assertions (that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might find herself at home politically in Beijing, for example) and characterizations ("marauding liberals" was one) meant to amuse. For many readers, we failed.

In trying for a humorous take on the Netroots phenomenon without labeling it something other than a straightforward news story, we compromised our standards.

-- Fred Zipp, editor

Oopsie. Looks like the Statesman didn't want their customer base upset? But, kudos to the Statesman for realizing that only far left, extremists patronize their rag and for bowing to their customers' desires, just the same.

But, there is more to the story. Not only were the whirling Dervishes of the DailyKos responsible for quashing the free media, but another member of that media was the one that started the newspaper burning efforts.

Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher, billed as "America's oldest journal covering the newspaper industry," decided to launch a nutrooter attack on the Austin American-Statesman.

Well, I thought I would perform a public service and let some of the convention attendees know about all this -- few are fans of dead-tree media -- so I posted a summary on my diary at DailyKos (the popular blog that founded Netroots). The “Kossacks” as they are known could do what they wanted with it, if anything. Within a few minutes, so many people were reading and recommending my post that it shot to near the top of the DailyKos “diaries” for the day. It also got picked up at some other popular blogs.

Many commenters promised to write letters to the editor. Some of them were Austinites who claimed they knew people at the local paper and might actually work their magic on them.

Well, so much for professional courtesy! Anything goes when the hard-left ideological line has been crossed to the right, eh?

But, now, remember, folks. The left is far more "civilized," far more "tolerant," and much nicer than those mean ol' conservatives. Remember?

Here is Beach's full article for posterity because that cached page probably won't stay available forever.

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Name-dropping Al Gore and his call for a switch to clean, renewable energy within 10 years was enough to pull whoops of approval from the 2,000 or 3,000 marauding liberals gathered for Netroots Nation at the Austin Convention Center on Saturday morning.

So when the former vice president and Nobel Prize co-winner made a surprise -- and cleverly scripted -- appearance during U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's talk, it looked like the conference might turn into a faint-in.

Talk that Pelosi (who is arguably so left-leaning that her parenthetical should be D-Beijing) would have a Very Special Guest had been buzzing about the conference of liberal bloggers, pols and media types since it began Thursday (it concludes today). But it wasn't clear to attendees that something was afoot until a schedule change handed out Saturday morning indicated the speaker's talk would last 45 minutes longer than previously indicated.

Not that Gore's appearance was necessary to whip up the troops.

From the beginning, it was clear these people were convinced the electoral map would be repainted with a brush sopping with blue paint come November.

The believers will tell you it's morning, that they smell the napalm. And it smells like, oh, yes, victory.

It didn't seem to matter that the conservative and much smaller Defending the American Dream Summit -- featuring syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr -- was going on in Austin at the same time. That was miles from downtown, so there was little chance for a rumble.

With the current administration's low approval rating, a charismatic presumptive Democratic nominee and a Republican opponent some in the GOP have been reluctant to even air-kiss, the energy was palpable and, like the political blogosphere, terribly self-confirming.

They went to panels about how the presidential election would be won house by house, block by block. They staged mock media interviews and critiqued themselves, and showed films ("Crawford") and Internet videos ("Harry Potter and Dark Lord Waldemart"). They attended panels on the war, health care, online social networks, volunteer organizing and expanding the networking power of something called an "Internet."

There was even one panel Friday featuring Princeton economics professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (wearing, as if to galvanize stereotype, what appeared to be Birkenstocks) that was essentially about how the media weren't liberal enough.

As they say, only in Austin.

Filmmaker Paul Stekler, who teaches film production and politics at the University of Texas, said:"As you have greater democratization (through the use of technology to distribute one's message), you also have a greater degree of what's called confirmation bias. We live in a very different and weird world in terms of dissemination of information right now."

Indeed, you couldn't find anybody who disagreed that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were "two ignoramuses," a label hurled by Parag Mehta, the Democratic National Committee's director of training.

Big names? Got 'em. There was Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the Daily Kos political blog, who hatched the idea a few years ago to get his like-minded pals together and who, in a Friday lunchtime keynote with Harold Ford Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, seemed amazed at what the notion had unleashed.

"We're going to keep growing; we're going to keep pushing for an unapologetic Democratic Party," Moulitsas said.

Then there was John Dean, the former Nixon White House counsel who has made a second career of railing against what he considers right-wing excesses the way recovering alcoholics preach against strong drink.

"I have deep fear of my former tribe, and what they might do particularly in the law," Dean said, before going on to refer to former Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani as "Richard Nixon on crystal meth."

It's plinking bass in a barrel to paint liberals as overly intellectual types incapable of having fun unless reading Noam Chomsky counts, and it sure does for them. And there were a handful of colorful characters, including some men from Cedar Creek who looked like bikers and represented the Warrior Wolf Society, which they described as "a group of pagan warriors with wolf totem spirit," and a guy in a Bush mask and clothing with prison stripes.

But for the most part, these were serious-minded people, and decorum prevailed.

When a few people had the temerity to shout at Pelosi and Gore, they got shushed as mercilessly as they would have at a Nanci Griffith concert.

The no fun thing? Maybe it's because, as Democrats, they're not used to having it.

The incredible imploding presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry were used as textbook examples of what not to do. As political ad man John Rowley put it, he's been in the business for 15 years and only the last two have been good in terms of the political tide. Still, he said, "We've got to get ready for the day when we're not swimming downstream."

In other words, what a pendulum does is swing. But technology is power, and the left has been quicker to adopt it. As Gore put it Saturday morning:

"You are at the cutting edge of a new era of history. You will look back many years from now and tell your grandchildren about coming here to Austin, Texas, and about the first two meetings of Netroots Nation, and you will tell them that this was the beginning of an effort that was the start to reclaim the integrity of American democracy."

That is exactly what Joe Trippi had in mind. It was the one-time Howard Dean campaign aide who saw, perhaps a little too early and a little too enthusiastically, the transformative power of the Web. As he walked from one place to another Friday afternoon, he got stopped every 20 feet or so by people who knew him or at least knew of his ideas. And this is what they had wrought; this is what he had predicted.

"It's amazing," Trippi said. "I knew it was going to happen, but I'm still blown away that it happened."

pbeach@statesman.com; 445-3603

**UPDATE**

The Austin American-Statesman has re-posted the Beach article on the Netroots Nation conference. It is now marked as "commentary," which it obviously always was.

( H/T kristinn from FreeRepublic.com)

-By Warner Todd Huston

Many of us have taken to calling the media establishment the "MSM," or "Mainstream Media." But is that a fair and properly descriptive monicker to bestow upon them? A New York Times Blogger pondered that very question on July 21 in a "The Caucus" blog entry -- one that was a barely disguised effort to highlight and advertise the opinion of one Markos Moulitsas of the DailyKos.

Still, regardless of the origin of the question, it is an interesting point to ponder. With the failing of newspapers country wide, with the ever falling audience that the big three TV networks are seeing for their news product, and with the corresponding rise of the Internet as a news source, is the old media still properly to be called "mainstream"? Does it still represent the most common way that America gets its news, thereby deserving of the term "mainstream"?

Katherine Q. Seelye of "The Caucus" Blog quotes Kos laughably to the effect of Kos taking the occasion to flatter himself and his nutrooter compatriots that they are they mainstream.

We, on the other hand, are firmly on the mainstream on just about every major issue facing our country, and our numbers are growing. We aren't outside the mainstream, we are representatives of the mainstream, and the country is embracing what we're selling.

Hardly. But he should get high points for his comedy stylings.

To prove his wild claim, Kos cites some stats that shows that people admitting to being Republican have fallen in numbers. But this is of recent origin and can hardly be assumed to be a permanent aspect of how Americans see themselves, at least not any more than conservatives can assume they've won the debate over ideology because many of today's issues are followed along, or leaning toward their principles in the rhetoric of the national debate (Abortion, 2nd Amendment, tax policy, etc.).

Still, Kos' delusional and grandiose assessment aside, the question remains: if the old press is no longer "mainstream," what are they?

Kos himself offers "traditional media" which I find unsatisfactory for the very reason he finds "MSM" unacceptable. Kos says that calling the old media "MSM" might assume in contrast that Internet news sources are "fringe" sources and that the old media is more mainstream. But his replacement term, that of "traditional media," does no better at defining terms. After all, if Kos thinks "Mainstream Media" is not a good term because it casts Internet news as outside the ordinary, how does "traditional" fit any better under the same logic? The opposite of traditional is untraditional, it should be pointed out. But, Kos does have a point. If the regular, old fashioned media is no longer the dominant form of news, then shouldn't we hang them with a name that better fits their lowered status?

There actually are some better terms we could be using. "Left-Wing Media," or LWM, is a good, derisory one. I've already called them "old media" in this piece and that one fits as well and I favor that one, as it happens. Conversely, I already call Internet news the "new media," so it is a natural fit to call TV and newspapers the "old media."

Whatever we call them, it should be something that befits their less than supreme status.

And now we can deal with Kos' last bit of foolishness proving what sort of blinkered guy he really is.

The right wing needs to co-opt or destroy the traditional media because, quite frankly, reality isn't a friend of conservative ideology. The last thing they need is anyone reporting "the truth". Instead, they need to create their own alternate reality to justify their beliefs. And any bit of reality that doesn't conform to their rigid conservative ideology is "liberal".

This from the website that attempted to destroy Joe Leiberman because he wasn't sufficiently "liberal" enough? This from the side of the political aisle that sponsors extremist groups like Media Matters? This from the party that created the Clinton attack machine in the 90s?

This silliness proves that Markos Moulitsas is not only insufferably unable to see past his own hate-filled ideology, he is a man of little ability to grow as a person. He will wallow in his hate unwilling, if not completely unable, to look inside himself, see his foibles and excesses, and make of himself a better person.

The ancients used to say that one must know oneself, that a life unexamined was one not worth living. We call it introspection. But whatever it is, Markos Moulitsas doesn't seem to possess it. And anyone who blindly marches forward in life never looking inward is a small man, indeed.

(Photo credit: http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com)