Further hints that the media coverage is shifting

As I leafed through our little local paper this Sunday, I was struck, not once, but three times by articles containing headlines, quotes, or analysis unfavorable to Bush.

Now, granted, Norman OK is a college town.  But it will never be mistaken for Madison or Austin or Ann Arbor.  And the paper serves a wide rural readership.

Here's what I saw:

1)  -  "Bush plan would need up to five million jobs"

President bush has set himself up for the greatest job-creation success in U.S. history, but it will be hard to achieve.

The U.S. economy would need to add between 3.6 million and 5 million new jobs betwen now and the end of the year to meet the administration's official job growth forecasts, not the 2.6 million figure cited Monday by the White House.

...Only once in its history has the U.S. economy added as many as 5 million jobs in a 12-month period:  in 1941, when millions of unemployed Americans left their Hooverville shacks for the factories to build the ships, tanks, planes and bombs that Britain was using against Hitler.

Now, this was not new to any of who saw posts by Brad DeLong here and here, or by Billmon here and here.  But I never expected to see a discussion in the local paper.  The article (bylined from CBS MarketWatch) uses the unfavorable term "bandied" to refer to the White House's forecast.

2) -  "Drilling for gas in Rockies irritates land owners" (AP)

...complaints are cropping up around the Rockies, which last fall were described by the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as "ground zero" in the Bush administration's drive to increase domestic energy development.

The plan has run into unusually broad opposition in western Colorado, from relatively new arrivals...to veteran landowners who remember when the region's oil shale industry went bust in 1982.  Even commisioners in revenue-starved rural counties say energy companies are running roughshod over local rights.

Again, this isn't news.  There has been a steady stream of stories detailing how Bush's nakedly predatory environmental policies are ticking off  groups of sportsmen who historically tend to vote Republican.  It's not what I saw, it's where I saw it.

3) - "Gay marriage gets right-wing backing" (AP)

In the battle over same-sex marriage, liberals have been front and center, pushing to give gays and lesbians the right to wed.

But there is at least a small block of conservatives who are on the same page, often for different reasons:  they're loath to tinker with a constitution, for one, or they want to see more people - gay or straight - make committments.

Again, this isn't news to most Kos readers.  But how many locals had their gaze caught by the headline cited (rather than some version of "liberal perverts on the coasts queue up to defile the sacrament of marriage"), and, for the first time, actually encountered the conservative arguments against the proposed constitutional amendment, or read of David Brooks'  "...praising the virtues of fidelity.  'we shouldn't just allow gay marriage.  We should insist on gay marriage.' "

This gives me a little more hope.  I've suspected that our Alien Shrubbery would not succumb to a single scandal, but to a death of a thousand cuts, as their arrogant over-reaching pared off voters, one issue at a time, among both principled conservatives and swing voters.

(Although, I admit to harboring fantasies of some very damaging revelation coming out, perhaps from the 9-11 panel, just shortly before the Republican convention on the 9-11 anniversary...)