I like to think most people are tired of this sort of thing. On the other hand, I wanted to think that in 2004 and 2000 as well. (And 1996 and 1992 and 1988 and ...)

On the third hand, judging from the primary, I think Obama's responses to this sort of thing are much better than Kerry's, Gore's, etc.

The broadcast media can effectively circle the wagons and ignore this issue; first, because they are all guilty, and second, because they know the issue is too complex for the average TV-dependent news viewer (i.e., their audience) to grasp.

That second point is bullshit. It's not rocket science. Any competent writer could summarize the cogent points in GG's essay into a 30-second presentation that anyone with an IQ in spitting distance of average could follow. Some folks would care and some would tune it out, but most could understand it.

TV doesn't have to be dumbed down for the masses, it's just safer for the corporate media bottom-line if it is dumbed down. It's a hell of a lot easier for them to sell cars and beer -- and their own shoddy product -- if they don't give their viewers anything to think about. It has squat to do with whether their viewers can think.

The liberal media myth was bolstered by a study (sorry I forget details) that showed that most reporters tended to come down on the "left" side of a few hot-button issues. The fact that other studies (ditto) showed that most editors, publishers, news directors & producers, and -- obviously -- talking heads tend toward the right side is evidently not as important, despite the fact that all of those people have far more influence on the media than do reporters.

If you wanted to manipulate public perception, would you really rather be a reporter ... or would you rather be someone who tells the reporters what stories to cover and how to cover them?

His supposed "quandary" is between being criticized by talking heads for being too polite and not tough enough and making honest statements about Clinton and being criticized by talking heads for being "negative".

Clinton's quandary, meanwhile, is between conceding now and conceding later.

I keep trying to understand the logic behind your idea, if any. Explain to me how it could possibly make sense that the person losing the primary should be the one to run in the general. Particularly given that she started off the primary season as the "presumed Democratic candidate", and her numbers consistently drops in every state she campaigns in.

That's really your idea of what a winning candidate looks like? Someone who's losing? Someone whose campaign goes massively into debt just to keep from collapsing altogether?

This is really the person you want to put up against the Republicans?

... have a liberal bias."

An American tragedy.

To a startlingly large percentage of Americans, anyone who is capable of tying his/her own shoelaces is an elitist.

A no-longer-surprising percentage of Americans think that a large percentage of Americans are idiots, especially if they happen to disagree about something.

Rep. John Duncan certainly sound intentionally ignorant, which counts as idiotic in my book. But I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of people who think that abstinence-only education is a good simply haven't heard about the studies, and/or don't really understand how science works -- whether from poor education or willful misrepresentation of science by corporate interests. I don't consider people like that idiots.

It's not that they can't understand, or even that most of them don't want to understand. It's that they're unintentionally and/or intentionally blocked from having the facts and from having some of the skill sets needed to understand.

It is elitist, I think, to dismiss them for that.

One can aspire to -- and work hard to get into -- a better job without necessarily think one's current job is total shit-work.

I'm in a white collar profession now and glad of it. That doesn't mean that I think my earlier jobs were crap, and are only done by losers.

False dichotomies make convenient political arguments, but not good ones.

... I get the distinct impression that AIPAC et al are not just far to the right of most American Jews, they're also far to the right of most people in Israel. That is, people are painted as anti-Israel/anti-semitic for suggesting things that most Israelis support.

It reminds me, vaguely, of the old-school Irish-American Catholics in Boston, who seem to be more strictly defined by what they see as their Irish Catholic background than most Catholics in Ireland. (Witness the harsh battles a few years ago against GLBT Irish-American groups in the Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade, despite the fact that such groups were welcome in those parades in Ireland.)

Query: How long before the storyline changes to "Obama is a flip-flopping political opportunist who would throw his good friend under a bus"

I half expect all the talking heads to now discover, to their utter amazement, that Rev. Wright was in the Marines:

Obama Publicly Attacks Heroic Veteran and Simple Man of God

- Is This The Final Straw For His Troubled Campaign?

... as only she can:

"No, Mr. O'Reilly, Obama is not a racist, sexist, muslim, America-hating, latte-drinking elitist, best friend of terrorists ... as far as I know."