I guess when you've got column inches to fill, you'll grab at anything.

Appearing in the LA Times' online edition under the headline

Obama's path to presidency is far from clear

is the following mind-reeling observation:

Okay, so I had one repost request. That's popular enough for me. :)

Maybe I missed something -- that can happen. In real life, things can sometimes occur that are unexpected. But this seems almost surreal:

_____

Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

___

The other day the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed about political blogs, looking at who reads them, how effective they are, and what their potential is to generate political change. There were no earth-shattering revelations in this piece, but one thing did catch my eye:

To determine just how polarized blog readers are, we constructed a measure of political ideology by drawing on blog readers' attitudes toward stem cell research, abortion, the Iraq war, the minimum wage and capital gains tax cuts. Using this measure, we then arrayed respondents from left to right. Here's what we found.

Readers of liberal blogs were clustered at the far left...

What does "the far left" mean?  Here's the attitudes of Americans as a whole on these issues:

Iraq War:

Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war in Iraq?

Favor    Oppose    Unsure    

  30            68            2

If you had to choose, would you rather see the next president keep the same number of troops in Iraq that are currently stationed there, or would you rather see the next president remove most U.S. troops in Iraq within a few months of taking office?

Keep Same    Remove Most    Unsure

    33                  64                   3

Stem Cell research:

There is a type of medical research that involves using special cells, called embryonic stem cells, that might be used in the future to treat or cure many diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, and spinal cord injury. It involves using human embryos discarded from fertility clinics that no longer need them. Some people say that using human embryos for research is wrong. Do you favor or oppose using discarded embryos to conduct stem cell research to try to find cures for the diseases I mentioned?

Favor    Oppose    Unsure

  73           19            8

Abortion:

Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?

Legal:  All   Most   Illegal:  Most   All   Unsure

          19    38                   24      13       6

Minimum wage:

Do you favor or oppose an increase in the minimum wage?

Favor    Oppose    Unsure

  80          18            2

We reflect the majority opinion of this country on pretty much every issue, yet the media continues to pretend that we're the far left, the lunatic fringe. They're still unwilling to admit the obvious...we are the mainstream.

Crossposted to ePluribus Media, DailyKos, Docudharma and Below Boston

Maybe I missed something -- that can happen. In real life, things can sometimes occur that are unexpected. But this seems almost surreal:

_____

Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

___

California Senator Diane Feinstein, supposedly a "liberal voice", proved once again yesterday that her primary allegiances lie with the rich and the powerful and not with her constituents, justice or the Constitution.

Despite a mountain of calls, faxes and e-mails urging her not to do so, she never wavered from her position of flat-out support for telecom immunity and support of the massively flawed FISA bill which now provides the current administration further legal cover for its illegal wiretapping activities.

Similarly, Ms. Feinstein's support (along with that of Sen. Charles Schumer of NY) was largely instrumental in winning approval of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, replacing the disastrous Alberto Gonzales.  And it is becoming increasingly clear how well that has worked out.   Via dday at Digby's Hullabaloo, a review today of just how forthright Mr. Mukasey has been in his actions as AG.....and then a look at Sen. Feinstein's views on the man she helped put in office:

I guess I was naive.  The morning after John McCain came out with his stupendously non-sensical pledge to eliminate the deficit by "winning" the war in Iraq (because, you know, when I stop going further into debt, my debt starts paying itself off!), I saw an article in my virtual copy of the L.A. Times attacking a candidate for creating economic proposals that don't add up.

And guess who that candidate is?

Barack Obama, of course.

In the past, we've complained about reporters giving false credence to, say, fringe climate change deniers in an effort to provide an untruthful balance.  But I guess that when it comes to John McCain, no balance need apply, despite the obvious potential for its inclusion.

More below the fold.

Can someone explain to me why America Coming Together (ACT), which in the past has been associated with Progressive Democratic Candidates and Causes, is suddenly a mirror site of the John McCain official campaign website http://www.johnmccain.com/?

Los Angeles -- So much for the "Big State Theory" spun by the Clintonistas, Obama now leads McCain by 7 points in the biggest of big states, while Clinton's edge is within the 3-4 point margin of error in the new KTLA/Los Angeles Times poll.

Obama, the Illinois senator who has inched close to his party's nomination, would defeat McCain by seven points if the election were held today. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose fortunes have faltered since her Feb. 5 drubbing of Obama in California, would eke out only a three-point victory, the poll found.

The American media loves them some John McCain.

So says this gem of an article by Peter Hart at Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting (FAIR). The Press Corps’ Unshakeable Crush on McCain, whose title I borrowed for this diary, is the most comprehensive and well-researched piece I have found in exposing the media's unconditional swooning over John McCain, Maverick.

You knew it all the time, but you ain't gonna believe some of the stuff you're about to read below the fold.

According to the L.A. Times, Obama's PA campaign might be lost, if he doesn't pay the "Street Money" required to get-out-the-vote.

Currently, the race to the bottom amongst the few remaining pro-Clinton blogs is between Larry Johnson's NO QUARTER (now receiving an influx of traffic from places like Free Republic) and, in a bit of an upset, Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left, who used to be a principled, progressive blogger.

The rightwing Neocon smear below the fold.

With the official resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer now out of the way, it appears that the establishment media can get back to reporting on what by all accounts clearly matters most in this scandal: the sex.

"Do not ask why the old days were better than the present; for that is a foolish question" (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

Let's check in with Townhall contributor Burt Prelutsky. I mean, why not? Come on.

Most 12-step programs start out by requiring that people have to understand that they’re powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a Power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity. Far be it from me to suggest that I am that Power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls. Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much.

I defy anyone to find me a more ham-fisted paragraph than this. Incidentally, Prelutsky used to write for the Los Angeles Times back in the day...

Think the Bush Administration is done trying open new fronts in using scare tactics in the service of war profiteering?  Think again.

In yet another display of mindboggling display of fearmongering coupled with greed, the Bush Administration is now now telling Europe that it needs to buy American missile defense systems--or else.  From the Los Angeles Times:

From the LA Times tonight:

Toxicologist Deborah Rice was appointed chair of an EPA scientific panel reviewing the chemical a year ago. Federal records show she was removed from the panel in August after the American Chemistry Council, the lobbying group for chemical manufacturers, complained to a top-ranking EPA official that she was biased.

Rice, an award-winning former EPA scientist who now works at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, has studied low doses of deca and reported neurological effects in lab animals. Last February, around the time the EPA panel was convened, Rice testified before the Maine Legislature in support of a state ban on the compound because scientific evidence shows it is toxic and accumulating in the environment and people.

There's an important opinion piece in the LA Times this morning about the growing support in Latino populations for Barack Obama.

It was hard not to notice that, in the Chesapeake Primary last Tuesday, Obama won the Latino vote in Virginia 54-46, and won them in Maryland as well.

More below the fold:

In a blog post that has been endlessly recirculated today, LA Times reporter/blogger Andrew Malcolm, trumpeted the following headline:

Breaking News: Pro-Clinton push poll erupts in California

The problem? If you read his story, none of his headline is true. Great job LA Times.

Media Whore* Malcolm tells the breaking(!!!) story of a Clinton(!!!) erupting push poll(!!!).

Not a whole lot out on this yet.  L.A. Times is reporting that Independents are receiving push polling calls for Clinton.

Link to article here:  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/breaking-news-p.html