Obama started selling his product... and people started buying.  His marketing and product quality are far superior that his competitor's.  And the "consumers" are voting with thier dollars.  Suck on that Charlie Gibson...

ON THIS DATE:

1342 - Bilbo Baggins returns to his home at Bag End, (Shire Reconning)

1868 - Arkansas re-enters the United States (after seceding before the war between the states)

COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!

Quote:
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
-- Mark Twain

FROM THE CHURCH OF INEFFABLE STUPIDITY:

[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]

Over the last eight weeks as the Presidential "journalism" coverage increased I’ve watched with growing dismay a corresponding ineptness and base incompetence in the political reporting.  A New York Times reporter absurdly states Jewish voters have been drifting to the right while there zero evidence of it, while a few days later another New York Times reporter cites harm from polling margin of error, but without citing the margin or even the base result if the poll.  A USA Today reporter cannot inform the reader of a 20-10 Republican/Democrat ratio for veteran House candidates until 267 words into the story when the title in fact stated the ratio was the story, while Saturday a San Francisco Chronicle reporter blamed Michelle Obama for being the victim of racism.

The 'who could have known' defense

When, years from now, hindsight-benefited historians look back on the primary elections of 2008, especially during the weeks in April and early May, one thing will appear crystal clear: flag lapel pins didn’t matter.

Nor did bowling scores, nor renegade reverends, nor harsh adjectives used to describe the mood of small-town Americans harshly abandoned by big corporations, and the big government that served them.

No, flag lapel pins did not matter to voters, who agreed with and voted for the man who was not afraid to campaign in the patriotic nude, the man who eschewed the venerable American flag pin in favor of letting his words and deeds demonstrate his patriotism, rather than a two-cent chunk of recycled Chinese metal with a fresh paint job.

If there were any remaining doubts about the bias displayed by ABC News' Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos in the now infamous April 16, 2008 Democratic Presidential Campaign debate, they can now be put to rest.

Two days before the Indiana and NC primaries on May 6, 2008, ABC News will air a town hall meeting for presidential candidate; Hillary Rodham Clinton. The program will be hosted by a close associate of Senator Clinton and former top aide to President Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos.  

The April 16th Democratic debate was widely criticized and described by many viewers as shoddy and inferior journalism. The first half of program was considered tabloid and tawdry and lacking journalistic merit.

The debate last week was a travesty.  One of the ways I decided to speak up to that travesty was to go to Burbank and protest the evil mouse.  Another way I decided to object was to send letters and e-mails to all the parties involved.  It just so happens Little Man George has a MySpace account that he or one of his minions monitors.

In his classic baseball book Ball Four, former MLB pitcher Jim Bouton entitled the Appendix to the book "Tell Your Statistics to Shut Up."  While Bouton was reflecting his frustration with his obtuse Seattle Pilots (now Milwaukee Brewers) manager, I have always loved that title as a reflection of the attitude of those who refuse to accept the truth, even when it is presented to them in irrefutable black and white.

I use the title now to present the statistical truth which refutes the lies of George W. Bush, John McCain, Charles Gibson and other right-wingers regarding Capital Gains, the Stock Market, and Ordinary Americans.

Read more.

In the wake of Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous' abominable performance in the ABC Democratic debate Wednesday, I created a list of 10 debate questions John McCain will never be asked.  (The Real McCain author Cliff Schecter subsequently featured my Perrspectives list over at The Huffington Post, AmericaBlog and Crooks and Liars.)

Now, as it turns out, this Sunday's guest on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolous is none other than Arizona Senator and Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

More than ever it is obvious that Obama will be the nominee. All Hillary can do is weaken Obama and help McCain and the Republicans. And she has been doing all that she can to achieve precisely that. We are told that this tough primary stretch will help the party in the general election. According to the latest Clintonian tall tale, Hillary is helping by "toughening up" Obama. Just what Barack needs. Thanks Hill. Way to take one for the team.

Let the record reflect that the "Gibsonopolous fiasco" was a political kitchen fire started by the negative campaign arsonists over in Hillaryland. Their reputations continue to sink lower and lower. The whole stable full of campaign bad boys....Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson, James Carvlle....and of course Bill "The Big Dog" Clinton....are now joined by the latest Hillary hatchet-man George Stephanopolous. It is disappointing to say the least, and makes us all feel like we all got played when we supported the Clintons in the 90's. Hillary's negative "kitchen sink" campaign could have been designed by the original "turdblossom" himself, M.C. Rove.

George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson's moderation of Wednesday evening's Democratic Presidential Debate on ABC has been widely criticized for channeling Karl Rove's politics of personal destruction and condemned for propagating the toxicity of right-wing Conservative tactics against Democratic candidates.

However, as Glen Greenwald of Salon.com pointed out, "not everyone was displeased with Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos' conduct of the debate.To the contrary, two constituencies which frequently work in harmony are quite impressed and very pleased with the whole spectacle -- right-wing noise machine members and establishment journalists."

I'm usual not in my car when Malloy's show is on Sirius Left at night so I rarely listen to him.  But Thursday I happened to jump in my car for a 10 minute drive home and I turned on TalkLeft just as his show was starting.  I ended up sitting outside of my building and listening for an hour an half to the entire debate breakdown.  

Like many Americans I was completely disgusted with ABC and its corporate master Disney.  The presidential debate held on April 16th was not just an embarrassment to the journalistic profession, but in my opinion a crass attempt to hijack the discourse of American politics by injecting some of the most puerile asinine idiotic ideas imaginable.  Does your pastor love America?  What kind of jewelry do you wear to show your patriotism?  Do you recognize the sound of sniper fire and why did you take your daughter to hear it? Who the hell is William Ayers?  Answer yes or no!  Submit to ABC defining your campaign!  That kind of attitude, the attention on things that simply do not matter is what got us into adventures like Iraq, and our mortgage lending crisis.  Like Howard Beale said from the movie Network I and my wife became mad as hell and we were not going to take it anymore!  We decided to let the men from Mouse know it.

This is classic, and absolutely hilarious.

23/6.com has posted this video that condenses Wednesday's "debate" into one minute of sheer nonsense (instead of the 90 minutes of sheer nonsense that it in fact was).

After sludging through that pseudo-journalistic ambush and reading scads and scads of analysis (I measured them: there were at least 4,000 scads...honest!), I needed someone to put the whole thing in its simplest possible perspective.

And here is a link to the aforementioned perspective:

http://video.236.com/...

Are Democrats really going to subscribe to another American Idol election?  I think Tuesday may tell us a lot about the answer to that question.

Absorbing the events of the past week or two ("bitter" wars, the High School Senior Class President debate on ABC, and the ensuing punditry), it sort of dawned on me that despite all the talk about this general election finally being the one about the ISSUES, it really won't be.  Nope, we can expect the 2008 General Election to be yet another beauty pageant.  Forget about the 100-200 million people in this country who are hurting right now.

Charles Gibson and George Clintonopolos' questions during the ABC debate just made me shake my head in disgust.  Not because I felt they were unfair to Obama, but because it showed me what we can expect the focus to be during the general election.  It brought back foul memories of Gore's 2000 debate sigh issue, and the 2004 Kerry/Edwards gaffes on the Cheney Lesbian Daughter issue.  Did either have real bearing on how Gore or Kerry would serve our nation as President?  Of course not.  But arguably, I think those two moments were the turning points of those elections.

UPDATE AT END OF DIARY

First, I would imagine everyone has read some variation of the Nash McCabe story.  I think the McClatchy report is the best; it's posted HERE.

Second, it's impossible to not be completely sympathetic to her plight.  I grew up in a single mother, living paycheck-to-paycheck household.  It's an incredible strain; and terribly difficult to break the cycle.

Third, I think Nash McCabe perfectly encapsulates the larger point that Barack Obama was attempting to make with his "bitter" comments.  

When looking at Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's policies, there is very little difference between them. Both have highly similar economic policies, health plan policies, and military policies including moving troops out of Iraq.

This leaves one substantive issue to debate - how are the policies going to implemented. Hillary Clinton has said she will "fight" for the policies; and Barack Obama has said he will "change" politics in Washington. Neither have discussed what the differences are between "fight" and "change." I don't know and I wish someone would tell me.

This leaves the candidates arguing about attacks on each other; be the attack on a pastor or honesty. That is why Gibson and Stephanopoulos chose to ask questions about these attack issues as opposed to other more important issues.

It seems that no major media outlets caught George Stephanopoulos' substantive gaffe on Iran.