But I do often make a living as a transcriptionist. I can't tell you how long I spent poring over one sentence in a recording yesterday to make sure that every word syllable and stressor was correct. Indeed, much different than our press corps., who are only copying down what is said by the most powerful people in a given room.

If you really want to see bad stenography in that vein, then check out the NYT's reporting on Bush and the Israeli-Palestine conflict this week. Starting with this article on Sunday. It was literally as if the writer called Condi and asked her what she wanted written down. So there were just amazing grafs like this:

[Rice]was so blindsided by the [Hamas] victory that she was startled when she saw a crawl of words on her television screen while exercising on her elliptical trainer the morning after the election: “In wake of Hamas victory, Palestinian cabinet resigns.”

“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not right,’” Ms. Rice recalled. When the crawl continued, she got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department.

“I said, ‘What happened in the Palestinian elections?’” Ms. Rice recalled. “And they said, ‘Oh, Hamas won.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, Hamas won?’”

That's it. There was little doubt that Hamas would win by anyone who knew anything about those elections, including USAID which vainly injected a last minute transfusion of cash for the unpopular FATAH, all to no avail. Really a press release would have been more critical

If you really want to see bad stenography in that vein, then check out the NYT's reporting on Bush and the Israeli-Palestine conflict this week. Starting with this article on Sunday. It was literally as if the writer called Condi and asked her what she wanted written down. So there were just amazing grafs like this:

[Rice]was so blindsided by the [Hamas] victory that she was startled when she saw a crawl of words on her television screen while exercising on her elliptical trainer the morning after the election: “In wake of Hamas victory, Palestinian cabinet resigns.”

“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not right,’” Ms. Rice recalled. When the crawl continued, she got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department.

“I said, ‘What happened in the Palestinian elections?’” Ms. Rice recalled. “And they said, ‘Oh, Hamas won.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, Hamas won?’”

That's it. There was little doubt that Hamas would win by anyone who knew anything about those elections, including USAID which vainly injected a last minute transfusion of cash for the unpopular FATAH, all to no avail. I especially like the part about the eliptical trainer. I don't think there's any mistake that this reads like a Newt Gingrich novel or a scene from a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. You can almost see Condi covered in a fine gleem of sweat in her tight spandex two piece towleing off and calling the state department; and yes, strangley, the guy on the other end of the line looks a lot like Fred Thompson.

I think the Qatar story remains legless for a number of reasons. The most obvious is, of course, that Qatar is not considered to be an enemy of the US, its not on a terroist list, the US has very friendly relations with the country. Thus Qatar remains a non story for the same reason it always has; our enemies are the enemies our leaders tell us they are, regardless of the facts. Likewise, the fact that Bernie Kerik was taking money from Israeli businessmen when he was considered for an appointment for Homeland Security should also be raising ears, but in fact is not even covered here in Salon.

The fact that this needs to be pointed out to journalists at this point is a good sign, since not everyone has given up on good reporting yet.

Really, the difference between a hijab and a burka is like the difference between a pair of shorts and a priest's frock. The "I know, I Know" thing really bothered me. WHo put together the video. Why didn't you just add an image of black people eating watermelon and Asians cooking a dog. Oh, I know, I know they don't really do that. But whatever.

Most of my letters here have negative centers of gravity, but I just want to issue an unconditional hurray for this. This is just truly a Christmas/Eid/Hannukay/Kawanza, etc. Miracle.....

The grinch in me, however, will note that the NYT article is buried deep onpage A25

I think there's no doubt about Glen's analysis. But Huckabee reminds me of the President in the Dead Zone, and I do think that Edwards' populist re-birth is mostly bs. Could they hang with the biggest phonies? Ghoulie, Clinton, Romney? Not on the same level, but they still are mostly full of sh&^^%. The candidate trailing my enemy is not my friend.

On another note, I applaud your inclusion of Obama in this league of front running corporate-owned BS artists. There is a sense among progressives that Obama, by virtue of his color, is beyond reproach and even I want to like him. But he's not even honest about his background; i.e., yes he has dark skinned but he was mostly raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii, hardly the Chicago inner city son he often portrays himself as.

I wouldn't care a jot about that, actually, if he had just been honest. Obama could have easily run as a racial uniter--a man who understood the transnational, the african-american, and the white experience, while not being exclusively a member of any group. But like everything else in this campaign, truth is a liability, even when its a better story.