by UT's contingent of brilliant posters, but I'll report something that I encountered yesterday (Monday) when I was in a Portland, OR, hotel for several hours and just as an experiment, I turned on CNN. This would have been in the morning, from say 9 or 10am till noon or so, and then again in the evening from 6 or 7p till about 9p or so.

Jeremiah Wright wasn't the main story, he was the ONLY story (well except for a few very brief segements here and there about some windstorms in Virginia, or Maryland, or someplace like that. I don't know.) Anyway, it was All Jeremiah Wright, Destroyer of Campaign Obama, All the Time, with panel after panel of rotating talking heads explaining in the greatest possible detail -- but they were all saying the same thing as if they were all reading from the same teleprompter -- that Wright's Press Club appearance had completely destroyed any chance Obama ever had, yadda, yadda, it was the most narcissistic and selfish performance in the history of Negroes going before an audience, he shoulda been humble, instead he was Snarky and Contemptuous and Awful, and Obama has to pay.

On and on and on and on, I haven't seen anything like it since the Media conspired to take down Howard Dean after he dared to make that crack about breaking up the media conglomerates. Wright was savaged by almost every anchor (even Anderson who said he wasn't going to do it, did it) and by almost every single talking head. Apparently the word went out: Wright dissed the Media (Big Time), so he is to be destroyed, and Obama, whom most of the Media like, is to be destroyed along with him for not denouncing him vehemently enough.

The only time I see cable news is when I'm in hotels, and I generally don't look at more than a few minutes of it even then. Yesterday, I sat through hours of the same relentless story, over and over and over again, with no more than one dissenting voice permitted to defend Wright or Obama in any given segment. And then only tepidly.

It was obvious Wright has touched a very raw Media nerve, and they were reacting in a kind of paranoid rage to protect themselves. Just as they have done in the past when they felt some public figure was threatening their "place" in the firmament.

They're very vulnerable. If there were any solidarity by people like us, let alone by the Dems, instead of the constant tendency to line up to offer additional denunciations... ah, but that's still a pipe dream.

Solidarity? Never!

I just won tix to see Diane Reeves

For her sake I completely forgive Minnie Ripperton. All the damage Minnie did to my head was repaired the first time I heard Diane Reeves do it. Not to mention the damage to the song, besides what it inflicts on itself.

@Green Job

""His littering South Carolina with brochures about what a committed Cbristian he is"

That's the only item on your list that is actual pandering. I'll give you that one. But please heed the meaning of the word.

To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses"

Thanks for making me smile.

Not interested in a "debate" with a RWA distortionist. Go back to the Freeperistas where you belong.

Actually shooting missiles into Pakistan (and killing folks, but that's their problem for being there in the first place, rith?) without official Pakistani permission is already SOP for the spooks & other freaks running around in those border areas. Do they give a shit about the repercussions? I rather doubt it. "According to the principles of jus ad bellum, as codified in the U.N. charter, one nation can attack another only in self-defense. That doesn't mean you can launch a full-scale attack in response to a tiny incursion." But since when does the U.S., or Israel, give a rat's ass about international law?? In other words, if a law doesn't work in your advantage, screw it. If it does work in your advantage, scream bloody murder . . . .

I guess Obama is just adhering the status quo.

http://www.slate.com/id/2134396/

"The Jeremiah Wright controversy and the hoopla surrounding it tell me that the realities of African-American history and culture are not really American. The African-American story is not an American story. That African-Americans are downright un-American and have to prove, according to people like Peggy Noonan, how American we are, when the white candidates have already had their Americanness vetted simply for having white skin."

Great comment—no sarcasm html missing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24369365/

'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Monday, April 28

MATTHEWS: Let me give you the problem, a way of putting it in perhaps literary terms. It‘s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Just a minute. Who was the bad guy? Dr. Jekyll was the good guy.

Mr. Hyde was the bad guy, right?

LIZZA: I will trust you on that. I don‘t...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I think so.

So, every time you have a problem with Barack, because you don‘t really know him and he seems a little foreign to you, you think of—you think of him as both these guys. They‘re different faces of the same guy.

Jeremiah Wright, to a lot of people, is Barack Obama. They have become the same Chicago character running for president.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: One is the good doctor. The other one is the monster that shows up at night.

LIZZA: Look, I think there‘s a danger of that happening.

But, as a journalist—or, as journalists, I think it‘s our responsibility to make it clear.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: OK, carve it apart. Separate the two. Try.

from the "Hardball with Chris Matthews" show on MSNBC TV

http://nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30wed1.html

It was the most forthright repudiation of an out-of-control supporter that we can remember. We would like to say that it will finally take the racial charge out of this campaign. We’re not that naïve.

It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation’s history, but prominent African-Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden.

Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright. Mr. McCain has not tried hard enough to stop a race-baiting commercial — complete with video of Mr. Wright — that is being run against Mr. Obama in North Carolina.

If Mr. Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee, we fear that there will be many more such commercials. And Mr. Obama will have to repudiate Mr. Wright’s outbursts many more times.

- - NYTimes editorial board, 4/30/08