I hope those who clicked on this diary didn't expect to see the actual context of Obama's prayer. For those who did, I apologize.

The purpose of this diary is not to reveal the prayer.  It is merely a way for me to briefly express my disgust at those who decided to make the prayer public.  As a Jew, I am personally offended when I hear that someone had the nerve to reveal a private relationship between a man and God to the press.

Unfortunately, I had to find out the news through the FOX website.  I refused to read the prayer out of respect (yes, FOX published it too), but I'm afraid other media outlets will not have that kind of respect.

So yeah, this is a headline we will probably be seeing for a couple of days.

Fox News Poll: Do You Have A Neighbor Who Says Obama "Scares Them"?

THAT SCARES THEM?

Well, Faux News is at it again....PUSH POLLING!!!!

I love FOX News. They remind me of Pravda: if reality doesn't conform to your desires, lie or distract the public from it with something outrageous. Or both, if you can help it.

Hence, I guess, this screenshot. I took this several minutes after Obama wrapped up today's Berlin speech.

Fox today does is part to help the Republicans by parroting McCain's attacks on Senator Obama, and reminding people we still have the other President in office. On the Live Desk today, Fox ran a couple of stories back to back which illustrate the desperation of Republicans to appear important, both results are pure propaganda brought to you by an hucksters pretending to be real journalists, at Fox News.

This is my first diary.  Reading the Kos post about the KS woman who felt hopeless and the diary about WV, I thought I'd share my perceptions re: neighbors and friends here in KY.  I'm not much of a writer, but I wanted to try to share my perceptions for what their worth.

I've been watching FOX over the last few days regarding Obama's trip. Their main strategy seems like it's going to be, "Don't believe anything you hear from anyone in MSM, but us.  It's ALL liberal bias. Don't listen to anyone, but us. We are fair and balanced.  Don't let those elitist lefties make fools of you."  Living in KY, I think the faux-news' message may just work, again, unless we can learn to actually stand beside and with one another.  

John McCain is complaining that the Media is in love with Barack Obama.

http://www.politico.com/...

The McCain campaign is picking up where Saturday Night Live left off: Guilting reporters for purportedly being soft on Barack Obama.

They've begun a contest on their website under the headline: "The Media is in LOVE with Barack"

"Pick the best song for their devotion," they ask readers, offering the same compilation video of TV news clips gushing over the Democratic candidate set to two different love ballads.

Asked why they are engaging in media-bashing, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers replied: "Love for 'The One' is in the air."

Yes, I know this has been written up before and commented on.

Here for example.

But I thought that I needed to comment on it.

I kept thinking about it and getting more pissed by it, and so once I woke up I knew what I had to do, I had to diary about it.

So please forgive me for writing another diary on this topic.

<more after the break>

Bayh is not my first choice for VP, but if Obama thinks he is the best person for the job than I will trust his judgment.

Weirdo Greta Van Susteren, who rode OJ's coattails to fame in the '90s, if memory serves, simply could not accept the Netroots' characterization of Fox reporting as opinion.  She was so upset, in fact, that she immediately set about a poorly worded complaint.

The title of her piece is What do you think? Netroots Nation Hypocrites? or am I wrong? to which the answers, at least in my case, are 1) Many things; 2) No; and 3) Yes.  But let's take a moment to assess what she said yesterday on the "Greta Wire:"

On Your World with Neil Cavuto today guest host Cheryl Casone ran a nice puff piece on McCain talking to himself at a GM plant, but when it came to the subject of Obama, Casone pointed out Sen Obama has 300 foreign policy advisers, where McCain has 75. Having no difficulty finding an distinguished expert on foreign policy to read from the script:

At he beginning of the show Studio B with Shepard Smith today, with the chyron of "WHAT ELSE JESSE JACKSON SAID ON THAT FNC TAPE" Smith began with "Jesse Jacksons other remark's about Barack Obama, what you have heard so far is just the beginning."

Andrea Tantaros, who recently tried to slime Barack Obama as a "fancy lad," is referred to as a "Republican strategist" by both Fox and MSNBC. So I decided to look into what passes for Republican strategy these days, and it’s pretty funny.

Tantaros’ previous experience apparently consisted of spokespersoning for the unsuccessful William Weld race in New York and both of Jeanine Pirro’s flameouts. (Did Tantaros have anything to do with Pirro’s do you have page 10  moment?) Prior to that, her most newsworthy mark was made as conservative columnist for her college newspaper, Lehigh’s The Brown and White. The New York Observer caught some of her more choice lines in one column :

"...Mrs. Clinton realizes that her time as first lady is coming to a close and this power-hungry monster..."

"...Mrs. Clinton is a power-hungry congenital liar..."

"Whitewater. This was the Clinton`s real-estate scam in Arkansas that ended up costing us taxpayers $69 million and White House Deputy Vincent Foster's life."

In defense of the New Yorker Cover:

Yes, it's provocative, arguably in poor taste, and possibly to likely detrimental to the Obama campaign. But in some ways, I kind of like the New Yorker Cover.  Here's why:

I saw this cover and my knee jerk reaction, which I emailed to someone was, "this seems pretty twisted, almost hard to believe, but I'm not totally sure yet. Whaddya think?"

Then I caught the diary breaking it on here, with some 2000 plus comments, most of them, understandably, outraged.

One comment in particular was compelling. It was a pretty strong, well composed letter to the New Yorker, by someone who was African American (as Obama is, half -- I refuse to go with this societal crap that if one is half black half white one is more "black" than white. It's inane, and perpetuates racism in a major way) --  who clearly has a view on the subject that I can not possibly fully fathom, as to how he/she felt its underlying racism.  

You cannot call this satire because, in my thinking, there has to be some element of truth for satire to work. What is the truth in that cover illustration? It is a distortion, an attack, unexpected one at that from an unexpected source.

Please, keep talking about the New Yorker Obama cartoon - but on one condition.

Never forget to point out that the racist and xenophobic lies, insinuations and smears that the cartoon satirizes are real; they exist; and they have long been streaming out of the conservative, right-wing and McCain-friendly media.

Jesse Jackson called Obama a

"Ni**er and a half breed" & F*ckin half breed Ni**er

(amongst other terrible things) on Fox TV last week, according to James Mtume, co-host (along with fellow co-host Bob Slade, Judge Bob Pickett, and guest Felipe Luciano) of the Open Line Show on WRKS, KISS FM in NYC, at 10:20am Sunday morning.

Yes! That's what he reported!

Now for those who don't know. OPEN LINE, is a highly rated Sun morning Community/black affairs show. All the big politicians (including our Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, but not Hillary Clinton, go figure), media personalities, progressive blacks/Latinos and activist appear on this dynamic show.

As you can imagine, this top rated shows host are totally in tune with the black community, its activist, entertainers, politicians and various personalities, in the nations largest media market. They've interviewed all of them, and they in return, seek to be on the show, when anyone of them wamts to speak directly to the black community in NY. If anybody has that contact, they would!

As I sit here in Iraq I find that I have become totally disgusted with the media as well as many of our elected officials. Of course there are rules that we as soldiers are supposed to follow pertaining to speaking out against the actions of elected officials......but enough is enough!!!!!!!

For some reason -- maybe because it's summer in Arizona; maybe because I'm having a mini-midlife crisis -- I'm re-reading a lot of books I liked in high school and freshman college. This includes the novels of Ayn Rand and Kurt Vonnegut, an odd couple by any yardstick.