Peter Wehner:

Time magazine must be enormously proud of the civil tone and the rigorous quality of arguments advanced by one of its most prominent figures.

Wehner notes one of the dangers of MSM blogging:

Wouldn't you know it? In my recent exchanges with Joe Klein, I made the point that blogging was harming Klein because it allowed his unfiltered rage to make its way into print (so to speak), thereby embarrassing him and Time magazine. Klein responded with a blog post offering... more unfiltered rage.

I sense a pattern developing.

On the other hand, at least it allows the rest of a chance to see what's behind all the increasingly sclerotic claims of "objectivity", "fairness," and other legacy media reflexive arguments left over from the mid-20th century.

Matthew Sheffield has an interesting observation at Newsbusters. He notes that "non-ideological points are pretty much the only type of criticism that you'll see the establishment liberal press allow to be made against Democratic presidential candidates. Republicans, meanwhile, can be criticized at a personal level and on a policy level":

Think back: In 2004, George W. Bush was portrayed by Big Media as an arrogant, stupid, warmonger peddling reckless tax cut. In contrast, John Kerry was portrayed as a high-falutin' rich kid who was being dogged by false charges of insufficient patriotism. (Right-leaning arguments against a Democrat are always spurious.)

In 2000, Bush was portrayed as an ignorant doofus who wouldn't have gotten anywhere without his daddy's status. On the ideological side, he was a stupid isolationist with a fetish for tax cuts and destroying Social Security. Al Gore, meanwhile was just a robotic arrogant jerk.

Go further back and the trend still holds. Bob Dole was an old desperate sell-out pandering to the far right, Bill Clinton was just a philanderer who wasn't sufficiently liberal. George H. W. Bush, meanwhile was basically the same as Dole with the added horror of being the legatee of the fiend Ronald Reagan.

You have to go back to 1988 with Michael Dukakis to find a Democrat who encountered widespread criticism in Big Media for his ideology. That is a pretty sad fact.

And even there, I'm not sure how critical the response was from Big Media. On the one hand, the exceedingly establishment liberal Saturday Night Live's "Dukakis After Dark sketch" in 1988 (now apparently embargoed on Hulu or YouTube) had a great line from Jon Lovitz, who played Dukakis:

Well, thanks for coming to the party. That just about does it for the campaign. You know, I think the one thing that really hurt us is the fact that Reaganomics works. It really does. I mean, aren't you better off than you were eight years ago? I know I am. How about the rest of you? [ looks at his guests, who shake their heads in agreement ] I wish you weren't, but you are. You are better off. And there's no denying it. Well, I'd like to thank my guests - my running-mate, Lloyd Bentsen, who'd asked me to remind you he's still on the ballot down in Texas; Jane Fonda; Daniel Ortega; an, of course, my good friend Ted Kennedy. Good night.

But the title of the equally establishment history of the campaign by Jules Witcover and Jack Germond, Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars? The Trivial Pursuit of the Presidency 1988, tells you exactly how the authors thought that Dukakis was beaten, through symbolism, and not ideology.

But beyond that, I'd say that Matthew is spot-on. The media's cognitive dissonance in 2004 over the response to the early-1970s reserve activities of the two major candidates--"lying" Swift Vets, versus "fake but accurate" TANG documents illustrates Sheffield's Law perfectly.

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line writes that "Obama Removes his mask": "It's not even quite August yet and he's still ahead in the polls, but Barack Obama has played the race card, claiming that he expects Republicans to inject race into the campaign.":

It seems clear, therefore, that the race card has become a permanent part of Obama's hand, a wild card to be played whenever the spirit, or the circumstances, so moves him.

What does Obama's latest play tell us about the current circumstances? I think it tells us that, despite Obama's presidential preening, he senses he may be in trouble. The "world tour" bounce appears to have been a short-hop only, and his pretentiousness is beginning to grate even on some in the MSM. The McCain campaign is ridiculing Obama as a celebrity and little more. There's enough truth in this suggestion to make the candidate uncomfortable. He doesn't feel he can ignore the attack, but he also cannot respond with "I am too a man of substance who deserves my celebrity." Hence the whining; hence the race card.

But for maximum effectiveness, you only get to play this card once--use it repeatedly, and it increasingly seems like crying wolf. And firing it in late July, when nobody but us wonks is paying much attention to the presidential race seems like a rookie error. Which plays right into the McCain camp's hands when the media takes the bait, as Ace writes:

Obama's attempts to mau-mau (am I allowed to say that?) the press may or may not be successful; but some reporters aren't buying the Obama camp's preferred practice of crying racism at the drop of a hat.

But it definitely won't work with the broader public. So Obama's game here is a dangerous one for him. White people bitterly cling to their resentment that they can't say boo without being accused of being closet, or out and proud, racists. If Obama thinks he's actually going to persuade the middle by claiming that you don't vote for him, you must be a racist, he's in a for a bad surprise.

This worked in the primary, because all liberals are required to pretend that every single cry of racism is valid. Not so among the bitter, clingy folks.

Exactly.

The dark horse third-party Burge '08 ticket focuses on two key issues of the day, both of which, I think, are succinctly summed up by the above headline.

And while he approaches the second issue only grudgingly (note the divisive "Internet hat pundit" attack aimed at us, though clearly an implied shot at the entire fourth estate--or maybe just the Stetson company--I'll get back to you), we're quite proud of our efforts in getting Mr. Burge on the record regarding the latter issue. You're welcome, gentle reader; you're welcome!

CAIR targets Abercrombie & Fitch, the onetime clothing retailer turned porn shop.

Lindsey Graham weighs in on McCain's new ad:

Well, one thing's for sure. If you embark upon a world tour, and you decide to make a campaign speech in a foreign country in front of 200,000 Germans, and you act like you're already president, people may notice.

And that's what this is about: that he chose to go to Germany and do something I've never known a candidate to do before. You know, he orchestrated the press conference with the French president. He said something, yesterday, basically, that he embodies everything good about America. Well, you know, it's good to have self-confidence. But you can, maybe, go too far.

The whole ad is about the idea of fame without portfolio. Paris Hilton is famous for being famous. She draws a crowd for no apparent reason. Well, I think he has, you know--in Senator Obama's case, is the effort to be commander in chief and the leader of the free world about portfolio?

He is a celebrity, no question about it. Somebody asked me about Germany. I said, "There goes Germany. We're going to have to get to 270 without Germany." (LAUGHTER)

But this is a hysteria around a personality that's attractive, but when you look under the hood, there's not a whole lot there. So fame without portfolio is, sort of, fashionable. But leadership without experience is dangerous.

Indeed.^TM Meanwhile, leftwing author Rick Perlstein (H/T: OJ) stumbles into another element of Obama's stagecraft that the ad highlights. He's got the title right, though he's far from the first to notice Obama's eschatology.

Update: Ross Douthat adds:

Comparing the "Celeb" ad to stills from Leni Riefenstahl's work, Perlstein writes: "I actually wonder if the Republicans had a crew on the scene to capture just the right angles; for instance, the identical camera placement shooting the speaker over the shoulder at stage right." If he actually wonders that, I fear for his sanity. Here's a tip for liberals: If your candidate is going to stage enormous rallies in front of tens of thousands of chanting Germans (with monuments to Prussian military might in the background) in the middle of his Presidential campaign, it isn't the GOP's fault if the footage comes out looking a little like Hitler at Nuremberg.

A rock concert has to resemble the poster, or it risks being false advertising.

Martin Eisenstad writes, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems that the new McCain ad criticizing Obama for being a celebrity has ruffled some unintended feathers":

I, for one, quite liked the ad, but I hear whispers from the inner campaign staff that the phone was burning off the hook today with calls from Paris Hilton's grandfather, William Barron Hilton (co-chair of the Hilton Hotel empire), furious that the McCain ad drew an unflattering comparison between Obama and his own granddaughter.

It seems that the elder Hilton has donated $18,400 to the McCain campaign, and $35,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the last couple of years. (Paris's father, Rick Hilton, has given an additional $6,900 to the McCain campaign. Suffice it to say, he's none too pleased either.)

Apparently, the elder Hiltons had breathed a sigh of relief that Paris was starting to get her act together since hitting rock bottom with her stay in jail last year, when all of a sudden the McCain ad compares her unfavorably to Britney Spears and Barack Obama.

Somehow, I think all of the players will survive this moment--they can meet here for cocktails afterward!

Deceiver.com has a screencap and a link to Reille Hunter's Website, which is a hoot:

Looks like there are two Americas: the America where not-John-Edwards'-babymama Rielle Hunter has erased her web site from existence, and the America where someone else has put it right back up.

Actually, it's not America--the URL is the Egyptian mirror site for the San Francisco-based Internet Archive Wayback machine, but still, click over for the graphics, stay for the sweet, new age chakra!

(Via the crystalline blogging of Australia's Tim Blair.)

Update: Welcome Deceiver readers! Take a look around; hopefully you'll like some of what you see.

Late Update (8/8/08): Edwards begins to come clean--er, so to speak--click here for details.

This is absolutely horrific--and naturally, because everyone is unarmed, nobody fights back:

Breitbart.tv video: Man Decapitates Fellow Passenger Aboard Greyhound Bus.

(I'm not embedding this, as it only seems to auto-play.)

Update: More details here.

Scott Whitlock writes, "The hosts and correspondents on Thursday's 'Good Morning America' did not hold back in expressing their displeasure over a new John McCain ad that depicts Barack Obama as a celebrity and compares him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton":

Co-host Diane Sawyer hyperbolically derided the spot as a "political nuclear attack" and asserted that the campaign is taking "a strange new turn."

GMA news anchor Chris Cuomo seemed equally flummoxed. He opened the show by asserting, "Some odd campaign news today. There's a round of new campaign commercials that really have us scratching our heads here." A bewildered Sawyer agreed: "What sort of committee meeting do you have where you say, 'Let's use Britney!' 'Let's use Paris!' Yes, that'll be a blow!" In a second segment, former Clinton aide-turned journalist George Stephanopoulos claimed the commercial could be seen as "angry, cranky, too negative" and McCain himself might be viewed as "a bit of a whiner given the fact that most polls that he is behind."

At one point, Sawyer queried, "Will it read as sour grapes and boomerang?" The entire tone of the morning show's coverage seemed desperately out of touch. It seems obvious that McCain was attempting to, in a not-so subtle way, depict the Obama campaign as superficial and not ready for prime time. And since the Arizona senator must deal with a media who both fawns and defends Obama, how can such attack ads be surprising?

You know you're over the target when you start receiving flak. The local San Jose CBS station led with the story last night; their teaser ad also hyped it as if it was some sort of out-of-bounds attack. But the danger of a politician acting like a rock star is that he sets himself up to be treated like one by his opponent. Jann Wenner's wildest fantasies to the contrary, we don't elect rock stars, we just buy their records.

Related: Leave Barack Alone! And Robert Stacy McCain has some thoughts that are worth reading as well:

If Obama starts sliding in the polls, he's going to be like a guy at the steering wheel of a vanload of backseat drivers, with the MSM geniuses endlessly second-guessing his every move, and the likes of Keith Olbermann and David Gregory wondering aloud what the hell is wrong with his campaign. There is nothing more beautiful to behold than the sight of Conventional Wisdom crumbling at it's first collision with reality.

Robert notes that "The grumbling from the MSM's backseat drivers has already begun."

Meanwhile, Rachel Lucas blames "beer goggles", and Confederate Yankee explores the inevitable result of too much drinking: the next day's hangover.

Matthew Balan writes:

After Barack Obama's more-than-enthusiastic greeting by many attendees at the UNITY convention for minority journalists in Chicago on Sunday, some in the media have expressed outrage that some have now questioned their objectivity, despite the appalled reactions from some of their own peers to the display and the live video shown on CNN [above].

April Yee wrote on Andrew Romano's blog on Newsweek.com on Monday about the question of whether minority journalists can cover the Illinois senator objectively. She quoted Ernest Suggs of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who objected to this question even coming up in the first place: "That mindset needs to change.... It is offensive that because we have the same color or the same agenda, our journalistic ethics and responsibilities go out the window."

Indeed--I'd say you're living up to your responsibilities just fine.

So can you immanentize the eschaton through the Force?

"I am the father of our Star Wars movie world--the filmed entertainment, the features and now the animated film and television series," (George Lucas) says. "And I'm going to do a live-action television series. Those are all things I am very involved in: I set them up and I train the people and I go through them all. I'm the father; that's my work. Then we have the licensing group, which does the games, toys and books, and all that other stuff. I call that the son--and the son does pretty much what he wants." He laughs. "Once in a while, they ask a question like 'Can we kill off Yoda?', things like that, but it's very loose.

"Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans. They have created their own world. I worry about the father's world. The son and holy ghost can go their own way."

Pretty biblical stuff from a guy whose original idea was to portray communist North Vietnam in a favorable light...

Betsy Newmark writes, "Apparently, under Iowa law, dancing naked on a stage is legal because it can be considered an expression of art."

I realize that while all politics is local, when a man becomes a presidential nominee, he must take a national, at times global perspective; and thus has little time to study hometown issues.

But the question must be asked nonetheless: where does Iowa's most famous son, Dave Burge, aka Iowahawk, currently heading up the maverick's maverick presidential ticket, Burge-Goldstein 2008, stand on this critical issue?

Update: Steven Den Beste responds via email: "As close to the stage as possible, of course!"

Heh, indeed.^TM

Back in 2004, Mark Steyn noted that the famously hard-partying John Kerry had his sensitive troubadour side as well:

The time: last month; the place: MTV. The interviewer asks: ''Well, we know that you were into rock 'n' roll when you were in high school, and we know that you play the guitar now. Are there any trends out there in music, or even in popular culture in general, that have piqued your interest?''

''Oh sure. I follow and I'm interested,'' says John Kerry. ''I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important . . . I'm still listening because I know that it's a reflection of the street and it's a reflection of life.''

Steyn dubbed Kerry's "America's first flip-flopper hip-hopper"--sad to say, he's not the last.

Remember the bad old days of Kremlinology, when analysts would study who was airbrushed out of Soviet photos to see who was out of power?

Greg Pollowitz notices--for some reason known only to the L.A. Times and don't you dare read anything into it--a curious update of the photos of potential veep candidates by the Times.

Mickey Kaus's ongoing victory lap takes him to the virtual studios of PJM Political this week.

John McCain? No--Osama bin Laden!

Osama bin Laden wanted to introduce himself to America with an ABC television interview months before al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa, the interviewer testified on Tuesday.

Former ABC correspondent John Miller, testifying at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, also recalled comparing bin Laden with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt as he made small talk during filming of the May 28, 1998, interview at an Afghanistan mountain hideout.

It was a rare opportunity for an American journalist, and Miller detailed a movie-thriller route to get to bin Laden, complete with multiple plane flights in Pakistan, a nighttime border crossing into Afghanistan, and muzzle flashes from automatic weapons at an al Qaeda checkpoint.

"You are like the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt," Miller, who is now the chief FBI spokesman, told bin Laden in a selection of the interview tape screened for the trial of bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan.

Michael Moore and Brian Williams could not be reached for comment.

Nice little career you got there, Mr. Voight! Shame if something were to...happen...to it...

Update: Related thoughts from Mickey Kaus.

Currently on Drudge:

EARTHQUAKE HITS LOS ANGELES... PRELIM MAG 5.8... FELT IN DOWNTOWN, WEST L.A., SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, ORANGE COUNTY.. DEVELOPING...

Earthquake map of California here.

Very preliminary AP report notes, "The late Tuesday morning jolt was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and slightly in Las Vegas."

More from CNN:

A magnitude-5.8 earthquake has struck just east of Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake's epicenter was about 2 miles southwest of Chino Hills and about 5 miles southeast of Diamond Bar, the USGS said. Chino Hills is about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

The center was about 7.6 miles deep. In general, earthquakes centered closer to the Earth's surface produce stronger shaking and can cause more damage than those further underground.

A 5.8 magnitude quake is considered by the USGS to be "moderate," which can cause slight damage to buildings and others structures. About 500 can happen globally each year, the survey says.

CNN's Ed Lavandera was at Disneyland with his family and felt the temblor. He said the shaking lasted about 5 seconds.

More detailed AP report here.

Tim MacMahon of the Dallas Morning News, who's out in Southern California to follow the Cowboys' training camp loses it: "EARTHQUAKE!!!"

Update: 12:30 PM PDT: Welcome Instapundit readers.

More from AP:

In Orange County, about 2000 detectives were attending [a] gang conference at a Marriott hotel in Anaheim when a violent jolt shook the main conference room.

Mike Willever, who was at the hotel, said, "First we heard the ceiling shaking, then the chandelier started to shake, then there was a sudden movement of the floor."

Chris Watkins, from San Diego, said he previously felt several earthquakes, but "that was one of the worst ones."

Delegates and guests at a cluster of hotels near the Disneyland resort spilled into the streets immediately after the quake.

Update: 2:06 PM PDT News video at Hot Air; Ed Morissey notes that the quake has been revised slightly downward to 5.4 on the Richter Scale, adding:

I'm a native Angeleno, and I know what a 5.4 quake means... mostly nothing. If it had occurred on the Whittier-Newport fault or under LA, it might have caused some damage, but this quake's epicenter was in Chino Hills--at least 60 miles out of LA to the east. What's in Chino Hills? Mostly dairies and farms, with a smallish bedroom community. At best, we're talking about making some cows nauseous.

My Remy Martin 1738 didn't budge from the shelf during a 5.6 magnitude quake near San Jose last October, though as Duane Patterson suggests, "For those dairy farmers that inhabit much of Chino Hills, plates might make a fine Christmas gift. Yes, the cows are fine, too."

Fans of Mike Myer's Dieter character and his techno-Brechtian goof Sprockets will get a chuckle out of this, but as Allahpundit notes, I'm not sure how well it will play back in the Sudetenland Peoria:

85-year old Alaskan GOP Sen. Ted Stevens indicted by federal grand jury.

In that Orwellian L.A. Times sense of the word, of course.

Last night, when I was wading through background material about John Edwards for my interview today with Mickey Kaus for this week's PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio, I noticed something odd about Edwards' Wikipedia profile--there's no mention of a rather high-profile scandal that's orbiting directly above him, which seems pretty odd; Wikipedia pages are rather notorious for often being the first to be updated when news or a scandal breaks. And they definitely have news of Bob Novak's health scare, which broke earlier today. And today, instead of silence, there's this at the top of Edwards' profile there.

So why the Edwards embargo?

(Oh--did I mention I'm interviewing Kaus on Edwards this week? Tune in here on Wednesday; it will be more informative than this interview, I assure you.)

Victor Davis Hanson: "Why Do Europeans Love Obama? Let us count the ways"...

As a follow-up to our previous post on Orson Bean, John Gibson, in a clip posted at Johnny Dollar's Place, looks at the calm, nuanced reaction of the left to the news of Bob Novak's brain tumor. Novak was a JFK and LBJ-supporting liberal who made the journey right in the 1970s.

Andrew Breitbart's latest Washington Times column on the new Hollywood Blacklist features several quotes from his father-in-law, the great Orson Bean:

"When the blacklist hit, I saw actors walk across the street to avoid me. The doorman at 485 Madison Avenue (former CBS headquarters) turned his back as I walked by. But I never felt hated by the ring-wing blacklisters. They just felt we were terribly wrong," he said.

"These days, the left doesn't just disagree with right-wingers--they hate them."

Maybe that's why there's been historically much more of a outflow amongst intellectuals from port to starboard since the mid-1950s. As Jonah Goldberg noted in early 2001, many ex-communists followed Bean's path to the right--or at the least back to the center:

If you count normal, non-pointy headed people, millions. Generation after generation of the Left's best minds have decided they like things over here more. Many if not most of National Review's founding editors were former Communists. The very word "neoconservative" was coined as an epithet by the socialist Michael Harrington to describe all of his friends who were heading for the exits to conservatism. It's not just the older generation. Every decade we get a new wave of writers and scholars who have come in from the rain, Christina Hoff Sommers, Michael Kelly, Andrew Ferguson, Charles Murray, just to name a few. Hell, I don't even act surprised anymore when I meet conservatives who say "I used to be a Communist." It's almost a cliche.

Which might also help to explain Glenn Reynolds' quote from a year later:

As the old saying has it, the left looks for heretics and the right looks for converts, and both find what they're looking for. The effect is no doubt subliminal, but people who treat you like crap are, over time, less persuasive than people who don't. If people on the Left are so unhappy about how many former allies are changing their views, perhaps they should examine how those allies are treated.

We touched upon the original blacklist, and Hollywood's eternal Mobius Loop-style reminiscences of it in a recent edition of our Silicon Graffiti video blog:

Rich Lowry writes that "If elected, Barack Obama might make history in more ways than one. He will be the country's first black president, but also--perhaps as consequentially--could be its first transnational president":

Transnational progressivism is closely allied to multiculturalism. Both share a hostility to American exceptionalism and seek to rein it in, by imposing global rules on the U.S. and by transcending its traditional culture (as defined by history, symbols and language). Obama, who for so long painfully sought an identity and initially found it in a black-nationalist church, clearly has affinities running in this direction.

Consider his gaffes: The world won't stand for us driving and eating and air-conditioning our homes as we please. We should worry less about immigrants learning English and more about teaching our kids Spanish. Gun-owning, Bible-believing people in rural areas are bitter. The flag pin is an inadequate symbol of patriotism. When Obama briefly auditioned his own presidential seal, "e pluribus unum" got bumped.

These are all hints of Obama's instincts, but he knows he has to check them. He has restored a flag pin to his lapel, ditched the fake seal and in Berlin was careful to declare himself also "a proud citizen of the United States" and defend America's global leadership. He'd be wise to do more. In November, the world doesn't have a vote.

What--it's not a question on that global test I heard so much about four years ago?

And even beyond that, has Jon Voight just thrown his Hollywood career under the bus in one fell swoop?

Philip Terzian and Jennifer Rubin suggest that "Barack Obama bears a striking resemblance to Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential race", as Rubin writes:

Dewey was an accomplished prosecutor for one.) Terzian makes a strong argument, although he doesn't mention a telling incident from the 1948 campaign. Dewey was speaking from a train when it unexpectedly began to back up. Dewey cracked that the engineer "should probably be shot at sunrise, but we'll let him off this time since no one was hurt." Truman pounced and made much of Dewey's contempt for the working man.

The lesson of that: voters don't like it when you overlook or take for granted folks like them. And what's more, little incidents reveal grace and personal character, leaving a lasting impression on average voters. That is why Obama's soldier snubbing gaffe and the parade of excuses may last longer than the trip photos. It revealed a lack of good sense and an obsession with his own image and needs above those of others, in this case some of the people most deserving of our respect and affection. The reason for the cancellation--that he could not bring campaign entourage and cameras--is the nub of the matter. For Obama, it is all about the show.

And that's why McCain, whose only hope may be an appeal to ordinary voters' sense of decency and common sense, is right to make an issue of it.

Which may explain this.

This just in: he may be Dick Cheney; he may be George W. Bush. He may simply be just another billionaire masked vigilante in a full-body black PVC suit. But the new Batman movie--now with 2/3rds more Michael Mann-esque neo-noir atmosphere!--seriously rocks.

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, they're looking at a "Peaceful Bicycle Advocacy Group Attempting to Persuade a Motorist to Abandon His Gas-Guzzling Ways...By beating the s*** out of him and trashing his car."

Paging Mr. O'Rourke...Mr. P.J. O'Rourke to the white courtesy phone please.

Robert Stacy McCain writes, "Blogging sucks: Women, minorities hardest hit:"

If there's anything in the world I hate, it's women reporters writing "Oh, we're so oppressed" stories in the New York Times:

[M]any women at the conference were becoming very Katie Couric about their belief that they are not taken as seriously as their male counterparts at, say, Daily Kos, a political blog site. Nor, they said, were they making much money, even though corporations seem to be making money from them. . . .

Yet, when Techcult, a technology Web site, recently listed its top 100 Web celebrities, only 11 of them were women. Last year, Forbes.com ran a similar list, naming 3 women on its list of 25.

"It's disheartening and frustrating," said Allison Blass, a BlogHer attendee. . . .

Ladies, please: If your blog sucks, it's not because of some patriarchal conspiracy, OK? And as for making money, you could almost certainly fit into my living room every independent blogger who earns a full-time living off blogging. Generally speaking, bloggers either have some other job to support their blogging habit, or else they're "blogging for the man" (e.g., the Atlantic Monthly bloggers, the Gawker cartel, etc.).

I wrote my rebuttal to this legacy media perennial three years ago; and it's not as though the Times itself is in the black, as Thomas Lifson and I discussed this week on PJM Political.

(Via Dr. Helen.)

Mickey Kaus wonders if the Obama-worshiping media will help toss John Edwards under the bus for him:

Will the Pro-Obama Bias Turn Anti-Edwards? At this point, does Barack Obama want John Edwards to even show up in Denver, much less give a prime time speech? Even if the Love-Child saga progresses no further than it already has, an Edwards Denver appearance will inevitably be accompanied by renewed speculation about his seemingly scandalous and politically toxic behavior. Obama's in what looks like a surprisingly close race. He doesn't need to carry Edwards' baggage. He needs a positive convention. And Obama has previously shown a willingness to bury troublesome associates without much fuss (ask Jim Johnson).

If you're an Obama strategist, mightn't you conclude that the best thing for your candidate would be if the press weighs in quickly and definitively concludes that Edwards is guilty, with the result that he and his whole sordid story go away until after November?

Glenn Reynolds suggests, "If so, just pass the word and the L.A. Times will be all over the story. With memos to bloggers encouraging them to cover it!"

Heh, Indeed.^TM

Meanwhile, if Edwards is increasingly likely to be out as Obama's veep nominee, Michael Costello proposes a viable replacement. His wide stance on the issues will certainly get the media's toes-a-tappin'!

Douglas MacKinnon compares and contrasts two hypothetical candidates for the White House:

Over the last few weeks, I ran a very basic resume poll. I knew the only way this poll would work would be to talk to people outside of the egotistical, out-of-touch bubble that is our nation's capital. To get an honest reaction, I'd have to talk with average Americans who are more concerned about real life and the welfare of their families, than the names, education, wealth, or accomplishments of those who seek their support.

My premise was very simple. You have two people who are being considered to run your county, head up your local school board and manage your police force. Based on the background and experience listed below, who would you choose?

Candidate A: Middle-aged. Studied overseas. Attended two different colleges in the U.S. before getting a degree. Went on to get a law degree. Worked community affairs in his adopted home city. Was elected to local office. Served in local politics for just over six years. Got elected to a federal state-wide office. Has one real year of experience in that job.

Candidate B: Middle-aged. Went to college and got a degree. Served in the National Guard for six years. Became a sergeant. While in the National Guard, earned a law degree. Became an investigator for a consumer-protection division. Was elected to a federal office. Was re-elected to a federal office. Was elected to a federal statewide office. Was re-elected to a federal state-wide office. Served in the executive branch for four years.

Either in person or over the phone, I showed or recited exactly as written above, the background of these two candidates to voters who don't follow politics very closely. I ended up speaking with twenty different people from diverse backgrounds.

To be sure, some of those I spoke with rightfully said, "In reality, I'd need to know a lot more than you're giving me." Accepting that caveat, all 20 people picked Candidate B. Candidate B is Dan Quayle.

Candidate A is Barack Obama.

MacKinnon writes, "The final poll will be taken on Nov. 4. Most of the people won't be fooled." Maybe--but unforced errors along the way such as this aren't helping Candidate A's opponent gain traction.

Sounding a bit like the Bud Lite "Real Men of Genius" commercials, The Columbia Journalism Review salutes you--the men of...Real Journalism!

Today's front-page piece in The New York Times about Congressman Charlie Rangel's rent-control boondoggle--he has four rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan, including one that serves as a campaign office--is a clear illustration of what separates a real journalist from the thousands of pretenders who take great pleasure in denigrating the embattled MSM.

The very existence of the piece makes the case. We don't typically find such stories on blogs, in part because most "citizen journalists" don't have a professional journalist's DNA. They too often pursue personal agendas, or partisan ones. There is evidence that this is changing--the citizen journalists at places like Off the Bus and the Chi-Town Daily News strive for journalism that is intellectually honest--and that is a welcome change indeed. Journalism--however flawed--is built upon the ideas that public servants should be held to a higher standard, that the powerful must be checked when they abuse that power, that the public has a right to information that the powerful would rather keep hidden.

Except of course, when gatekeepers are perfectly happy to keep things quiet:

From: "Pierce, Tony"

Date: July 24, 2008 10:54:41 AM PDT

To: [XXX]

Subject: john Edwards [sic]

Hey bloggers,

There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified.

If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don't hesitate to ask [sic]

Keep rockin, [sic]

Tony

(Found via Steve Boriss.)

As a kid, I was never very good at building model airplanes (particularly when it came time to paint and detail them), and thus, a key career path is no longer open to me: minister of Iranian propaganda:

Here's a photo of the pilot. But really, isn't Iran's copying photos from the latest Revell catalog more or less on a par with this?

At least in this geographical context. But Scott Johnson of Power Line quotes a key passage from Obama's "Sermon to the Germans", and Rush Limbaugh's response. First, Obama:

People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time. I know my country has not perfected itself. (cheers) At times we struggle to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people, we've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

Here's an excerpt of Rush's take:

"We haven't perfected ourselves." You know, that's a key phrase, by the way, is one of the things that drives liberalism is the fact that they think people and institutions can be perfected. They think they can be perfect.

Obama's discussing the use of government to achieve the perfection of man in Germany? Now that's audacity.

BigMouthFrog looks at the audacity of symbolism, then and now.

Update: "Because When Germans Call a Charismatic Political Leader a Messiah, Good Things Happen." Heh.^TM

England's Daily Mail reports, "Genocidal Napoleon was as barbaric as Hitler, historian claims."

Why, there's a direct line from the French Revolution to the unending bloodshed of the 20th century? Somebody should write a book about that!

AP checks in on the two-minute hate in DC:

"I am really astonished at the mood in this room," commented one witness, George Mason University School of Law professor Jeremy Rabkin.

"The tone of these deliberations is slightly demented," Rabkin said. "You should all remind yourselves that the rest of the country is not necessarily in this same bubble in which people think it is reasonable to describe the president as if he were Caligula."

Nahh, they'd be pretty cool with him.

"Hi, Nancy! Do you really want to play chicken over energy policy?"

Let me just note something here, Madam Speaker: you have twenty or so seats that were ours in 2006. Every single one of those seats is held by a freshman Representative who will have to go home in August and campaign. Do you really want to send them out there to explain to their constituents why gas prices have doubled under their watch? Because we're planning to bring up the topic, in precisely the ways that you really, really don't want us to. And there's no reason whatsoever to assume that the above 20 point deficit can't be shrunk. A lot.

So let's dance.

Moe Lane

Nancy's response--at least for the moment--is summarized by this bumper sticker.

Jason Maoz of Commentary asks, "Whatever Happened to Liberal Humor?"

Fire up the Tardis--with or without Barry behind the wheel: We answered that one two and a half years ago, three years ago--and five years ago!

(H/T: KS)

Related: "Best. Headline. Ever."

Back in 2003, we linked to a Washington Times article in which their journalist reported that the TSA's slogan was "Dominate, Intimidate, Control"; Annie Jacobsen writes that you can add "And Seek Payback" to their mission statement:

Last March, in a report ironically called "Keeping Them Honest," Drew Griffin revealed that of the 28,000 daily commercial flights, fewer than 1% are guarded by federal air marshals. Further, Griffin interviewed rank and file who revealed that morale was so low that colleagues were leaving the service in disgust. Thinner than ever on numbers, the TSA was now fast-tracking airport screeners to carry weapons on planes. Many of these screeners lacked any law enforcement experience, military training, or college degrees.

Drew Griffin's report embarrassed the TSA. So instead of merely addressing the problem on which he reported, TSA put its resources into trying to find out who spoke to Drew Griffin.

Obviously, this is a department that will go far under President Obama.

Related: "Video: Nightmare at 20,000 feet."