A written transcript for the Alaskan media call is available here:

Through the Looking Glass With Sarah Palin.

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/through-the-looking-glass-with-sarah-palin/

I always tend to read either the McClatchy ADN site first or Mudflats when I'm looking for a way through any muck coming out of our first babe contender.

Somehow their being closer to the story just seems to work better for me.

So?

...out Cheney the Angler.

To this very day, Cheney insists that Iraq has/had WMD. He's never said otherwise.

Glenn, great post.

The entire McCain campaign strategy has been one of using gimmicks and lies to keep the waters as muddied as possible so that people and the media remain lost and confused. That sort of thing allows him to focus more on personalities and narratives, which was Schmidt's plan all along. "Hey, if we can't tell what's going on, we should probably vote for the old white POW instead of the new, skinny black fellow with the weird middle name."

At the convention, because it was obvious that maintaining the status quo in DC was a losing proposition, McCain suddenly portrayed himself as the reformer and the agent of change, not Obama.

The pointless lipstick-on-a-pig schtick was an attempt to divert the debate from issues and to cause the Democrats to issue an apology for seeming sexist--a trap that they didn't fall into, thankfully. The "suspension" of his campaign was a prank designed to make us think he was actually doing something worthwhile back in DC.

And much of the response to critiques of McCain and Palin inciting their crowds has been nothing more than accusations that the Democrats have done the same thing. That old devil false equivalency walks on solid ground in today's media, unfortunately.

Honestly, given the horrible choice that Palin turned out to be, and the ineptitude of McCain in addressing the crumbling economy, Schmidt and Davis have to be ecstatic that they are only 10 or so points down in the polls, and only 180 electoral votes behind.

***

And speaking of Glenn's takedown of Dan Balz's love of false equivalency, the startling thing is that, although what Glenn wrote was dead on, it wasn't as if there aren't thousands of us out here who could have bitchslapped Balz the same way.

What I just don't savvy is how Balz could be so far off the mark, making arguments that can't live up to an honest debate. The guy is a writer for the Washington Post. That might not entail as much respect as it used to, but still, it should count for something--he should have at least a bit of political sense about him.

Are these "journalists" and pundits merely duplicitous or are they flat-out stupid? Do they think we don't have at our fingertips the power of the Internet to either prove or disprove their claims? Do they think we live in caves and eat grubs?

Via dailykos, this Chris Bowers' observation:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9018

How the WaPo characterizes the presidential race in various states, when presenting poll results:

Quote:

The Washington Post maintains a webpage titled "Political Landscape 2008." This webpage has been updated recently enough to reflect Obama's 13.8% polling lead in Pennsylvania, a trend that uses polls released as recently as Wednesday. On this webpage, the Washington Post collects recent polling data, and then declares a state to either be a "battleground," or leaning toward one party or the other. Here are some of their polling averages and diagnoses:

Obama +13.8%: Battleground state (PA)

Obama +10.4%: Battleground state (NH)

Obama +10.0%: Battleground state (NJ)

Obama +9.5%: Battleground state (IA)

Obama +9.0%: Battleground state (OR)

Obama +8.2%: Battleground state (MN)

Obama +8.2%: Battleground state (MI)

Obama +8.8%: Battleground state (WI)

Obama +7.3%: Battleground state (NM)

McCain +6.8%: Leaning Republican (GA)

Obama +5.1%: Battleground state (VA)

Obama +4.0%: Battleground state (CO)

McCain +3.8%: Leaning Republican (IN)

Obama +3.5%: Battleground state (OH)

Obama +3.1%: Battleground state (FL)

Obama +3.0%: Battleground state (NV)

McCain +2.2%: Leaning Republican (WV)

Notice anything wrong with this list?

toss crapper.

That pretty much covers it.

Even the newbiest of newbies ought to catch that one. :-)

Seeing the discussion between Farnsworth and Glenn, I went back and looked both at my Oxdown Diary post and then at the CNN.com article I linked in it. Here is the Palin quote as I copied it from the CNN.com story as it existed yesterday just before my post which is time-stamped 7:50 am (FDL blogs are on Pacific time, so this was just before 11 am in the East):

"If you read the report, you will see that there was nothing unlawful," Palin said as she emerged from her hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The reason that I wrote my post was that the quote as it was attributed to Palin at the time does not indicate that she is restricting her statement only to the firing of Monegan. It reads as if she is speaking of the report in its entirety.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I went to the story as it exists now on CNN.com. Here is the current version of the passage:

"If you read the report, you will see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member," Palin said as boarded her campaign bus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The story now indicates that it was "updated" at 11:15 am EDT yesterday.

Gosh, that little "update" sure changes the whole meaning of the story, doesn't it? And I think it contributes to the problem Farnsworth was pointing out. I did not "edit" Palin's quote as I pasted it into the post, I just used what CNN.com had in their story at the time.

That change should also be taken in mind along with the fact that for what I recall as a couple of hours Friday night, CNN.com kept up their headline stating that the report found that Palin broke no laws. The timing of the appearance of the headline and its correction could be traced somewhat by following the comment thread at Emptywheel if anyone wants to check on what the timelag was, but it sure seemed like a long time as we were reading and discussing the report on that thread.