I was searching through all my daily blog reading goodness today when I was caught quite off guard by a number of articles over at the Huffington Post. Now, I'm all for dissenting ideas and whatnot, but I usually feel more or less sure that HuffPost is going to have some agreeable and often funny blogs about everything going on. But today was a little different...
It started with Huffpost being the first to jump on Obama's apparent heckling at the Western Wall:
Before he left Israel, Barack Obama made an predawn visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. But his trip to the Jewish holy site was marred by heckling:
One man at the Wall began screaming: "Obama, Jerusalem is our land! Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale!"
Yeah. One guy. That's being marred by heckling? C'mooon....
I mean I guess technically it is being heckled, but that's not my point. The point is that nobody else had even picked up that story and HuffPost had to show the gigantic headline of: OBAMA HECKLED AT WESTERN WALL. Now every other news outlet is using the same exact wording to try and make Obama look like an asshole.
Not a big deal? Maybe. But there was more...
Next up is an piece from Robert Sheer where he claims:
Barack Obama is betraying his promise of change and is in danger of becoming just another political hack.
Yes, just like former maverick John McCain, who has refashioned himself as a mindless rubber stamp for the most inane policies of the miserably failed Bush administration. Both candidates are embracing, rather than challenging, the fundamental irrationality of Bush's "war on terror," which substitutes hysteria for rational analysis in appraising the dangers the country faces.
That one was from yesterday, but still, two shots in one day?
This seemed to me to be disturbing enough in and of itself. HuffPost, the bastion of the fuckin' "liberal blogosphere" and they had two articles in a day pushing conservative talking points. But that still wasn't the end. After that, there was Jason Linkins LiveBlog From Germany:
Obama credits Berlin for starting the whole wall-tearing down craze. The fall of the Berlin Wall "brought new hope," but it also allowed terrorists to come through those walls. The 9/11 terrorists trained in Hamburg, after all, he says. That's sure to be a happy thought for the Germans. Also, the polar icecaps are melting, which means people will need to build new walls called "levees."
The Germans have gathered in a group that looks like many thousands, probably because the Decemberists are playing.
Many thousands? That's understatin' it. Maybe this article was snark, but I just don't know....
And, I also read some other very negative LiveBlog where the woman talked about Germany's utter lack of enthusiasm, said the speech was a total misstep, says it paled in comparison to other big speeches. She basically made it seem like 200,000 people showed up to be bored of their asses and yawn at some American schmuck. I unfortunately can't find that particular article, but I'll update if I do....
UPDATE: Link to Mayhill Fowler's Blog (thanks for the heads up y'all)
ps. This is my first diary, hope I didn't screw it up too bad!