it isn't just you - everyone smells it

Rasmussen Reports:

Just 17% of voters nationwide believe that most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of election campaigns. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that four times as many—68%--believe most reporters try to help the candidate that they want to win.

The perception that reporters are advocates rather than observers is held by 82% of Republicans, 56% of Democrats, and 69% of voters not affiliated with either major party. The skepticism about reporters cuts across income, racial, gender, and age barriers.

This is the world changing.

This is where we choose how and where we get our news - what sources we think we can trust, and what it means.

This is us not having the options we'd like. What will we do for solutions?

If anything is ever going to change, it's going to be us doing it. Not the media. Not the politicians. It starts with us.

We all hate not having a reliable news media. What are we going to do about it?

Oh, and as if we didn't already know this:

Voters have little doubt as to who is benefitting from the media coverage this year—Barack Obama. Fifty-four percent (54%) say Obama has gotten the best coverage so far. Twenty-two percent (22%) say McCain has received the most favorable coverage while 14% say that Hillary got the best treatment.

At the other extreme, 43% say Clinton received the worst treatment from the media. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say the media was roughest on McCain and only 15% thought the media coverage was most unfair to Obama.

right wing talking points

Both sides have heard it. Republican talking points - in the mouths of Democrats.

The latest is amusing:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Barack Obama - as quoted by Rush Limbaugh.

Sounds like a Republican trick to me. People are still making the argument that X is right/wrong because the Republicans say this or that - and everyone knows that truth = the opposite of whatever Republicans (or Fox News) says!

Guess it's time for more co-evolution. Learn how to tell truth from fiction. Know what you believe. Learn to think critically. Don't make it so easy for them to play games with peoples' heads.

(and, no, I'm not saying anything specific about Obama's latest gaffe - if it really happened, it is funny and stupid and we should all have a laugh. But this is getting ridiculous; people are trying to rely on where the media stands on this or that issue to determine what a 'real' progressive 'ought' to think about something. Wake up! You can't do that! It is a lazy man's shortcut and it says something really ugly about progressives - who think they are so smart - when such an obvious tactic has caused such widespread disarray. You cannot know which side the media is on, because they are playing games with your reality. They are expecting you to guess what is going on and they are confusing the signals. Stop falling for it! The one thing you can know about Rush Limbaugh is that he was not kidding when he said his goal was to create chaos in the Democratic camp.)

gimme comes with an "or else"

via Tennessee Guerrilla Women

"There is no way the super-delegates can take this away from Barack Obama. There will be race riots in the street."

Okay, this is a pretty shockingly irresponsible statement. It's true that throughout the course of Obama's campaign, MSNBC pundits have promoted the network's beloved Democratic candidate by making numerous veiled threats of race riots in the streets, but this is the first time I've heard the threat stated so explicitly. My initial reaction was the thought that Hillary would surely drop out of the race now. I mean surely even the all-powerful Evil Hillary wouldn't want to be responsible for causing race riots in the street.

After that thought, I wondered what kind of person would demean and insult not only the entire African-American population, but also the very concept of democracy itself, by speaking so approvingly, and thereby promoting, violence in the streets?

So I googled Michelle Bernard. And, yep, she is that kind of person. Michelle Bernard is the CEO of the rabidly conservative anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum - a group with strong ties to the Bush Administration....

~snip

...MSNBC, we hardly knew you.

Go read the rest and check out the links. Like this one*:

Rush Limbaugh predicted on January 28—shortly after the South Carolina primary and before Super Tuesday—that Clinton ads would make Obama "appear darker than he is," alluding to Time magazine's infamous O.J. Simpson cover. He even repeatedly likened Bill Clinton to the notorious public-safety commissioner and Klansman Bull Connor, branding the ex-president "Bull Clinton."

Declaring that he knows the Clintons "like every square inch of my glorious naked body," Limbaugh predicted that they were "going to pit" Hispanics and blacks against each other. "The message is going to be: 'Hispanics, don't let them take me out, and don't let them—those black people—marginalize you.' "

Or this one:

The IWF, like many such groups, is founded as a non-partisan 501(c)(3) group. As such, the group does not endorse candidates. But it does promote a range of conservative causes.

All that is well and good—and Michelle Bernard is the group’s CEO. Which leads us to a puzzling question: As a major conservative, why is Bernard appearing on Hardball so often—to gush about Obama?

As if anyone didn't already know which candidate "the Establishment" wants us to vote for.

____________________________________

*Sorry about that bit about Rush and how well he knows his - ahem - naked body. (I know - I'll have nightmares too.)

nefarious goings-on

The LA Times suggests the row with Rev. Wright might be Hillary's fault.

It seems a Hillary supporter was definitely involved the event organization. That means they have a legitimate excuse to use the word "nefarious" to describe the inherent deceitfulness of Clintons:

It won't take very much at all for Obama supporters to see in Wright's carefully arranged Washington event that was so damaging to Obama the strategic, nefarious manipulation of the Clintons.

There's something sort of infuriating - and sort of comical - about them trying to make Rev. Wright somehow be something...Hillary should be ashamed of?

Looking at today's politics page, though, I suppose they think they are generous to even mention Hillary's existence. I count over a dozen Obama headlines and a few brief mentions to the two of them - Obama and Hillary - down at the bottom of the page.

They do, however, provide full coverage of any/all donors and superdelegates who defect to Obama.

Which is still better than the NY Times, apparently. Am I missing it, or did they forget to include pro-Hillary bloggers in among the "liberal" (pro-Obama) and conservative bloggers, in their coverage of what is being said "out there"?