Morris can read the polls, now he doesn't want to be seen as a complete idiot for suggesting that Obama would lose.

If the polls shift back to McCain, so will Morris's opinions about McCain's tactics/antics.

Somehow they still have all this credibility, while those who were right are still ignored.

I am tired of it. Dick Morris is a good example of what's so bad about "political analysis," specifically that they all have an agenda and are willing to distort the facts however they need to, to make their points. Politicians do it, and pundits do it. But then, this has long been the case.

What seems different to me is the media's willing participation in the process. After each debate they go to what they themselves term "the spin room," or "spin alley." I mean, if you know you're only going to hear half-truths and wildly distorted partisan viewpoints, why even bother to go there? It's as though they just announce they're going to bring us, the viewers, the latest lies from both parties.

I just shut my TV off. I don't bother. I don't even want to hear Charles Gibson, George Stephanopoulos or Diane Sawyer express their opinions. I can form my own.

We've reached a point where we mistake the spin for the substance. Rather than covering issues and disseminating facts, we've substituted opinions about facts for the real thing.

Oh, it just makes me tired.

Asshole extraordinaire.

"A potent reflection of our predominant political culture is the fact that people like Dick Morris can not only exist, but thrive within it.

In this political petri dish, all of our little culture warriors are boinking each other. The warm glow of the teevee rivets them into myopia. People like Morris can only exist within it.

Bring 'em out into the daylight, though...

The epic ugliness of the McCain campaign is even more remarkable in that it seems to me to be doomed for a basic and well-understood reason: it is simply too late to make going negative effective.

The fundamental requirement for a negative campaign to work is that you have to define your opponent before he or she does it. Obama has already effectively defined himself -- the first debate really sealed that deal. You don't get a second chance to make a first impression and all that.

The McCainiacs have to be kicking themselves -- they thought that the "success" of the surge would turn their biggest liability into a decisive plus. In fact, all the surge has done is demote the Iraq issue in the minds of voters. People have already made up their minds that McCain's worst issue is the one that is most important to them. Had they seen it coming, the McCain team would likely have run a very different campaign. But their inability to see things coming is what the election is really about, isn't it?

Unless bin Laden gives McCain a helluva present in the form of an October Surprise, I don't see how anything McCain can do now will erase this lead.

Maybe overt racism will work; it has been a while since anyone has gone there this hard. I guess we are going to find out, because, yes, they'll go there.

According to Dick Morris a little more than a year ago.

But c'mon, we all know why Fox retains Morris - no-one does the anti-Clinton routine more reliably and hysterically.

I see a difference between being blatantly wrong about the reasoning for entering a war and being blatantly wrong about predicting public opinion on a political move. Anyone could make a wrong guess about how McCain's canceling of his campaign would turn out and there aren't any real consequences about having predicted wrong. I really don't care if political commentators predict poll numbers inaccurately. That's part of the nature of political commenting.

I do care if the evidence and reasoning justifying a war is wrong.

What seems different to me is the media's willing participation in the process. After each debate they go to what they themselves term "the spin room," or "spin alley." I mean, if you know you're only going to hear half-truths and wildly distorted partisan viewpoints, why even bother to go there? It's as though they just announce they're going to bring us, the viewers, the latest lies from both parties.

What's worse is that they allow -- or even encourage -- an atmosphere of false equivalence. There's little to no effort to find out what parts of what they're being told is truth, spin, or outright lies ... and no effort to make it clear whether there's more of the latter by one side or another. It's all political analysis, and no factual analysis, presumably because it's cheaper (and faster) to do the former than the latter.

(And perhaps because factual analysis would be a risky precedent by MediaCorp. Someone might suggest they do the same thing for corporate spin.)

~

For life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis. -- e.e. cummings.

~

In a eye blink the curtain is up,

the stage blaze, for the vast drama

of ourselves -- Hermon Wouk.

~

parenthesis- [lamentable. a coalition of "ugly" pundit mouthpieces. foul, a ill-government]

O STUMPS AS JOHN TRUMPS

"John McCain once again reshaped the dimensions of the race by suspending his campaign and calling for postponement of tomorrow’s debate....Obama has miscalculated."

-- Dick Morris 9.25.2008

THERE’S STILL TIME, JOHN MCCAIN

"(McCain)'s failure to do much of anything in Washington, after teasing the whole country and riveting its attention on him by suspending his campaign, has let the voters down — and they are turning away from McCain."

-- Dick Morris 10.1.2008

Right, right! ..... what?

The Cubs should do well in the post-season.

The Cubs haven't been doing so well in the post-season.

The Cubs were eliminated by the Dodgers in the post-season.

Only a fool expected the Cubs to do well in the post-season.

The Cubs were the worst team in baseball history, ever.

I endorse this message, which is totally self-consistent.