I think most in the MSM have sunk so far into advocacy that they do believe they are acting with integrity. One thing missing from most journalists is an understanding of people not like them - that's why they think attacking Joe Wurzelbacher is a good idea. Likewise, they can't see why anyone would object to Bill Ayers, who did some things nearly 40 years ago, water under the bridge, model citizen today. Hey, some of us smoked pot and wore tie-dye, some of us blew up buildings and killed cops. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.

Witness the bemused articles about that strange mystic land Alaska from the metrosexual media - or think about their shock the first time they went to Crawford, TX. Or consider the regular as clockwork stories that show up around Christmas and Easter along the lines of "Who was this Jesus guy, anyway, and does he still matter today?"

The fact is, most major journalists are not writing for flyover country, and would probably smile indulgently if one suggested they might be making themselves irrelevant. They would counter that it's flyover country that's irrelevant. So why be concerned with what those Wal-Mart shopping rubes think of them?

Also from the column --

Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.) [emph added]

Stupid Americans.

"they do believe they are acting with integrity"

Steve, you are absolutely right. One of the reasons for this is that although they (the MSM) see themselves as members of "the elite" they are not in fact very smart. I actually went to high school with Pinch Sulzberger. Trust me, if he hadn't inherited his job he wouldn't have gotten as far in journalism as Jimmy Olsen.

I love this! Speaking of honest reporters - read this that a dissenting voice at the Denver Post wrote. The Post endorsed Obama . . this guy didn't

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_10741575

The problem isn't what the MSM prints, the problem is that Americans after having been given many choices, choose MSM as their source of news.

I admire Orson Scott Card and had been a proponent locally of journalistic ethical reform. Every time I would discuss the need for self-regulation and the structuring of a professional accreditation body for journalists when working with someone from the field, I'd realize again why reform would never happen: they don't have the intellectual capacity to recognize the need, let alone the method to get there.

J-schools have been recruiting advocacy-oriented "world changers" since the very early 1970s when the Ayers types shifted into universities and found J-schools to be both the most attractive and possessing the lowest entry standards. For nearly 40 years, the overwhelming majority of their product has been incapable of correctly interpreting ethics. As a Fortune 500 governance, risk & compliance professional, I'm consistently fascinated with alternate ethical models (a discovery method we employ in assessing executive behavior to identify factors that affect risk taking dynamics and related governance and compliance issues). I'm used to encountering numerous forms of rationalization, like the "we just have to gun it this one time (again) to make our numbers... our unit is down in numbers and we'll lose our jobs, so yea, we have to cut some corners and ignore a few rules - it's for the greater good. We’ll go back to following the rules *after* we get back on track and hit our numbers."

Journalists, on the other hand, are a serious mess. Whether it's an underlying problem with never living your own life and always reporting another's or simply the fact that the field attracts mindless advocates and causes students with a clue about ethics to change to a different major, so many I've encountered are so seriously messed up that they've developed an unbalanced need to please an ideological cause they associate with. More importantly, the lack any internal reference point to assess their presentation to evaluate for objectivity (I could digress further on how many j-schools now preach that objectivity is an elusive myth but won't).

That their product is advocacy and marketing for the political machine they seek to be recognized and accepted by is no surprise and we will never reform the current lot. Alternate collaborative media, where the exchange and clashing of ideas is actually welcome and programmed thought found distasteful, is where we need to continue to focus our efforts. Try this today: show 2-3 coworkers every day some of the top blogs where ideas are truly explored and objectivity found through the clashing process. Read the Wiki on Milton's Areopagita: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica

The Society of Professional Journalists has a code of ethics found at
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

Obviously, few journalists have read it and fewer still follow it. The first block is entitled, "Seek Truth and Report It."

There's one other thing you can do that makes a significant difference: volunteer and work in your local school districts. I understand we all here it said and it seems like a lot of work for little gain, but it truly has a significant impact in opening young minds and starving the Marxist university beast of unprepared minds to feed upon.

In my case, I got back into high school debate coaching which I juggle with a hectic professional career and have found it to be a great path to instilling critical thinking in otherwise under-developed minds. Too little in our K-12 programs teaches applied learning and ignores any development and awareness of the learning process itself. In policy debate for instance, we teach a concept called clash - where the opposing debaters must get past their canned speeches and prepared briefs and attack the other debater's arguments. Clash discovers truth, as it goes (something Milton advocated in Areopagitica). Clash, skeptical analysis of cited evidence (useful for destroying an opponent's argument when they refer to global warming junk from Newsweek), attacking argument links (which the MSM constantly fumbles over) and other argumentation theories are powerful foundations for fighting progressivism's mindless paradigm.

In the day-to-day coaching of these students, I've had several who blindly supported Obama profess shock and surprise that their critical-thinking coach doesn't love the Great One. When I challenge them to critically explain why they support him using what we've learned in debate, they often have a shocking realization: they don't have a factual, evidence-supported foundation. Each pro-Obama issue taken to its root is found to be unanchored, resting solely on faith in the Great One as preached by the Church of the MSM.

So get engaged in your school district. If you know debate, I can guarantee your help is always welcome - debate has seen huge hits in funding since the 1990s and money shifted to speech (persuading and aspiring to be Hollywood like and even has pro-MSM activities like “radio news delivery” and government-admiring student congress events, not developing critical reasoning ability). Many large districts have saddled the new english teacher with debate duty (to which they have no qualification), so volunteers are readily able to come in and rescue the ailing programs. If you know business or another profession, get out there and help protect a few young minds from being consumed!

My intel out the newsrooms is that there is not anything that could really be called "liberal bias", but instead there is a clear "Democrat bias"

In respected occupations, violating the code of conduct of that profession results in the loss of license to perform that work. Only in politics and journalism is pissing on ethics a secure path to success. Leeches, sucking our life's blood and injecting sickness into America's body politic. Do they have room at Gitmo for some of these enemies-of-the-people?

There is so much supposition and BS in this piece that it's difficult to know where to start.

But let's begin with the John Edwards canard. People on the right cite this over and over as an example of the media's leftward bias. It's true that reports of Edwards' infidelity were out months before Edwards finally admitted it publicly. And it's true that none of the mainstream media outlets covered the story.

But it had nothing to do with Edwards being a Democrat. It had to do with the source - The National Enquirer. Do you really think the NYT or WaPo should have used the Enquirer as a source for a charge about marital infidelity? Really?

Because if you do, then we have to ask why those same papers aren't printing stories about Sarah Palin's alleged affair with her husband's business partner, as is currently being reported in the Enquirer. Is it some rightward bias that makes the Times reluctant to print stories of the affair? Is the Post protecting a GOP politician because they're trying to cover something up?

Come on, people. Use your heads.

Card writes about savage attacks on Palin's daughter? Where? Someone please point me to a savage attack made in the MSM against Palin's daughter. I read left-leaning media every day and not once have I seen any attack, not even a mild rebuke, against this young girl. Please, one source, that's all I ask.

Questions have been raised about how the GOP would have responded had this been an Obama daughter. You don't have to look any farther than Fox referring to Michelle Obama as Barack's "baby mama," a term implying unwed motherhood, to guess how that would go.

And it's true that Orson Scott Card is a Democrat, but he is hardly a liberal. He loves George Bush and describes himself as a Tony Blair Democrat because he doesn't agree with anyone to the left of Zell Miller.

From Card's column: Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

This, my friends, is an opinion. Notice, Card offers nothing to support his argument. He just puts it out there and because you agree with his opinion, you take it as fact. And then you ask why the MSM doesn't print this fact.

I support Card's right to make his case, but this doesn't do it any more than me saying George Bush is illiterate (which I don't believe, by the way) without offering any evidence. It would be just an opinion.

I know I won't change any minds here. You will continue to sccream about liberal bias in the media. But don't read something like this piece by Card as proof, because it ain't there.

Read critically and keep an open mind and don't swallow bushwa just because it fits your preconceptions. It does your cause no favors.

David, if there is any fair reading of the coverage of Fannie/Freddie which was government OF the Democrats, BY the Democrats and FOR the Democrats that doesn't demonstrate a collusive relationship between Dem and Press I would love to hear it. If there is any other explanation for the ignoring of ACORN's efforts at vote fraud than that it hurts ACORN council Barack Obama I am all ears. If there is any reasonable explanation of a reporter fabricating death threats at McCain rallies that doesn't make that hullabaloo over an obvious lie an inkind campaign contribution from the Pressies to Obama, please, let's hear it. Simple fact is the press is going to lie while the Obots do the cheating and The One does the stealing. This election is being stolen right in front of our eyes the same way Young Barry stole the caucuses. One would think it was an army of invisible men threatening grannies in Texas for there bold support of Hillary Clinton as they were and remain invisible to the press. The press is not in the tank, there is no tank. There is no division; no barrier. There is ONE unitary operation that supports the Potemkin village that is Barry's campaign of malicious slander, thuggery and deceit. There is no separation of press and party. They will tell any lie and suppress any fact necessary or even marginally helpful to the annointment of this racist, fascist, witless example of the noisome fruit of Affirmative Action as experienced through the Chicago Daley Machine. As the geniuses of journalism like to say, they have only their credibility for sale. Business is not good. One might say there is no market price for that product which only means that they do not like that price. Perhaps they could get a bailout.

The article is well worth a full read.

I had to go back to it,however, when reading David's comment, because I thought the bulk of the article was on the media being activist by not reporting on the obvious Fanniemac connections to specific democrats (including Obama) and Dem party policy...

I heard so many conflicting claims about the financial crisis that I read a lot of different reports and found this to be the most even-handed and credible:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/700_billion_blame_game.html

But I'm open to honest debate. I just don't think anyone, and I mean anyone, who blames this all on one party and one effort, is being honest. That's the problem I had with Card's piece. He conveniently leaves out some facts that make the GOP equally culpable.

Check it out.

As for megapotamus's conviction that there are no honest brokers in this, I disagree. For every reporter who made up a "kill him," I can point to a dozen others who spin things another way - like Sue Schmidt at the Post; Judith Miller, formerly at the NYT and now with Fox; Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Post; and Nedra Pickler of the AP. Every one of them have had numerous incidents of being blatantly in the tank for the right.

Is there bias? I can't say it doesn't exist. But this column of Card's had about as much fact in it as one of Olbermann's Special Comments.

No one is pure. That's why I encourage everyone to read widely and keep an open mind. For instance, I thought Phil Gramm was responsible for this mess, but I read and found out he's not. So, I had to change my mind.

I still think he's an opportunistic weasel, but for Enron and the S&Ls, not this debacle.

Again, read a lot and read widely. Be skeptical and read critically. If you do, you'll see that Card is being a political hack here, no more and no less.

And usinkorea, I appreciate the open-minded response. Thanks.

David:

What qualifies Barack Hussein Obama to be President of the United States? What has he done to prove he can handle the job? Why haven't the media asked him the questions about his past? He has no public record of consequence. How can a voter make an informed decision to vote for Obama without factual information about the man?

If you believe he should be the commander in chief of the most powerful military on the planet, the leader of the free world, the CEO of the world's largest enterprise - the US government with a budget of $2.6 trillion, what evidence can you cite that makes you believe it.

I know he has no military experience and he has never run a real company. He used drugs and admitted it - a fact that would keep him from a commission in the military. He squandered $110 M of public & private on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge with no success. Until Emil Jones, Jr. took over the Illinois Senate, Obama had done zero in six years as a state senator.

I was a plebe at the Naval Academy when the Soviets decided to "test" JFK - a US Naval officer with combat experience, representative and two term senator. It was frightening. Who will test Obama? Can we afford to have this inexperienced young man in the Oval Office. What do you know that I do not?

I know John McCain and he has my vote.

It's not too late.

Yea it is. Media credibility numbers have sunk to unrecoverable lows.

It boils down to one question: If I knew as much about Obama as I now know about Palin, would I vote for Obama? What is Barry hiding and why? Until those questions are answered, Obama has no standing whatsoever. Besides, I really LIKE Sarah.

Tonto,

What do you really know about Palin? She's given variations of one speech that other people wrote for her. She won't hold a press conference or sit for an interview with anyone who is not on her side. What is she trying to hide?

I'm not dismissing her, I just don't know what she's accomplished. The things I do know, don't make me feel very comfortable with her as McCain's VP.

On the other hand, you know that Obama worked his backside off, taking student loans, graduated from Harvard (he didn't tell them he was a minority until after he'd been accepted, which speaks volumes about his character) and instead of opting for a clerk position with a Federal judge, or a high-paying job on Wall Street, he committed himself to helping unemployed steel workers for 12 grand a year.

And in the past year he's run a successful, multi-million dollar enterprise with discipline and vision. My God, his name is Barack Hussein Obama and he's black and he's still close to winning an election against a bona fide war hero. You don't do that just be being a media darling. He's done a whole lot of somethings right to get to this point, like him or hate him.

We know these things.

We also know that people, especially politicians, often find themselves working with less-than-savory characters. I was once in the same room with Ann Coulter, but please don't hold that against me.

What is Barry hiding? I don't know that he's hiding anything, but you obviously know better.

And yes, Sarah is hot and would probably be a hoot to go hunting with, I'll give you that. But CINC material?

As someone is famous for saying, Thanks but no thanks.

You don't know what Sarah's accomplished, David? Tell me, what rock have you been living under the past few months?

She went from city council member of Wasilla to mayor--defeating a 3-term incumbent, by the way--and then ran for Lt. Gov, and lost. However, she caught the eye of the victorious candidate, Frank Murkowski, who offered her several positions, including appearing on a short list of people to take Murkowski's vacated US Senate seat. She finally accepted a position on Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, as chairwoman.

She later resigned that position in protest over the Murkowski administration's lack of action regarding ethics complaints about another commissioner--and that commissioner later pled guilty and paid a $12,000 fine.

She then ran for governor of Alaska against the very man who put her on the Oil and Gas Commission, Frank Murkowski, and won.

Now, here's the interesting part. Murkowski, who she disagreed with over the ethics complaint, and whom she defeated, is a Republican. And the commissioner who was the focus of the ethics complaint (who admitted he had broken the law, as I said before), Randy Ruedrich, is also a Republican... in fact, he'd been state Republican Party chairman before joining the Oil and Gas Commission.

Therefore, Palin has a long history of fighting for what's right, both against Democrats and Republicans. Can you show me even ONE time when Barack Obama has bucked the Democratic party?

Oh, by the way, here's my sources for that backgrounder on Sarah:

http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/background/story/510447.html (Part 1)

http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/background/story/217384.html (Part 2)

CCG,

Those are fine bona fides and impressive, but hardly what I would call a long history of fighting for what's right. But I'll give her credit where it's due.

As for Obama fighting against his party, he voted for the FISA bill against a lot of us in his party. I didn't like it and I called his office to tell him so.

His change on public financing, while smart and practical, wasn't something I agreed with.

I think Hillary's health care plan was better than his and her resume was certainly more impressive.

But I'm still voting for him because I believe he's a better leader and more capable of leading us out of this ditch we're in than McCain.

I'm OK if you don't agree. That's fine. But saying he has no accomplishments just isn't true. He's done more with his life than I've done with mine and some people would say I've done all right.

You know, it's all right if you support your guy without tearing down the other guy. That's what I've chosen to do with McCain. I don't have to say terrible things about him to make my decision look better. I just wish others here would grant your neighbors who disagree, good Americans all, the same respect.

What do you really know about Palin? She's given variations of one speech that other people wrote for her. She won't hold a press conference or sit for an interview with anyone who is not on her side. What is she trying to hide?

What community-based reality are you hiding in? As the campaign enters the home stretch, Palin has had more press availability than the other three candidates.

As for your claims about Obama... David I'm sorry to say this, but your flaly being dishonest, though it pains me to call you out as a liar.

On the other hand, you know that Obama worked his backside off, taking student loans, graduated from Harvard (he didn't tell them he was a minority until after he'd been accepted, which speaks volumes about his character) and instead of opting for a clerk position with a Federal judge, or a high-paying job on Wall Street, he committed himself to helping unemployed steel workers for 12 grand a year.

Barack Obama has does his level best to obscure his entire undergraduate career at both Occidental and Columbia. He won't reveal his transcripts, reveal the names of his roommates and friends, or even confirm the names of his college friends when they've been found. what is he trying to hide? As Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were "just people in in that neighborhood" in Manhattan--and Dohrn did 7 months in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury about the Brinks armored car robery that left two police officers and a Brinks guard dead just 22 miles way--at that same time, that is very relevant. Did Barack meet his mentor Ayers when his wife was still an active terrorist? We don't know, and your Messiah won't answer any questions about those entire years of his life.

Healso left a minimal footprint at Harvard, other than single tedious bit of scholarship at the law review that does not appear to come from the same author as that man who wrote both his books, those books, that once again, have a style, reading level, and use of language that matches that of Ayers, not Obama.

As for his time working with the poor, we all know that is where he first attempted to apply the radicalism he learned in college, and where he first ingratiated himself with ACORN. Yes, he's been that dirty, for that long.

And in the past year he's run a successful, multi-million dollar enterprise with discipline and vision.

No, he hasn't. David Axelrod is his campaign manager. Obama does not have any idea of how his campaign money is spent on a day-to-day basis, or how it is allocated. You're simply making this up.

My God, his name is Barack Hussein Obama and he's black and he's still close to winning an election against a bona fide war hero. You don't do that just be being a media darling. He's done a whole lot of somethings right to get to this point, like him or hate him.

Fair or foul, Bush is a two-term incumbent and an unpopular one at that, presiding over a faltering economy. Obama has captured the imagination and devotion of millions, some simply because of his skin color, some because of his rhetoric, and some because he's simply something new. Obama also has more than a half trillion--$500,000,000--spending advantage over McCain. A block of wood should have a 20-point lead with these tremendous advantages, and yet Barack's lead is slipping, and in some polls, is already at a statistical dead heat.

Only a complete neophyte could squander all these advantages, but Obama certainly has, and he now seems to be fading with two weeks to go.

We also know that people, especially politicians, often find themselves working with less-than-savory characters. I was once in the same room with Ann Coulter, but please don't hold that against me.

You have got to be kidding me.

Obama was in Wright's racist cult over 20 years, and considered him his mentor.. He also called lynching advocate and Farrakhan fan Pfleger his mentor and "moral compass" of 22 years. his most direct poltical influence and the "guy who sent him" in the corrupt underworld of Chicago politics is terrorist Bill Ayers, which he has known and worked with for a minimum of 21 years, and perhaps as long as 27 years if they knew each other at Columbia. Then there is Rezko, and the PLO supporter what's-his-name, etc, etc, etc.

Obama has spent decades surrounding himself with those who hate all those things most American's hold dear. Unless you shacked up with Coulter for 20 years because of a shared ideology, your comparison is a false one.

But then, everything about Obama is based on lies and spin, so why should your tale about the man be any different?

Excuse me, David, where did I say he has no accomplishments?

Accusing me of saying something someone else said is hardly intelligent or mature debate.

While you're talking about showing others respect, perhaps you could respect others enough to at least pay attention to whom says what?

OK,

When I start being attacked and being called a liar instead of just wrong, or misguided or ill-informed, that's when I say good night, gentlemen.

David's arguments just don't hold water in any scenario where the media is expected to fulfill an oversight role (ala the Fourth Estate). In any governance oversight role, we are less concerned about the assessor issuing false positives (bogus claims of findings) than we are with them having false negatives (overlooking real findings that should be reported).

That's where Card is dead on. The media is committing its most egregious crimes through what it is not reporting. It'd be like your external accountants looking at the books, seeing evidence of crime after crime, smiling and reporting they saw nothing (Worldcom anyone? Should we send Pinch to share a cell with Ebbers?). Who cares if in their massive effort to overlook crimes, they made a few false claims and smear some innocent people in a manner of misdirection. That's the side show that only idiots get wrapped up into.

The journalism industry is dead. Card is dead on. Now we need to pee on their grave and move on to making their replacement more effective.

When did I use the word liar, David? I said that you needed to pay attention to whom says what. That would seem to be closer to "ill-informed" or "mistaken" than "liar."

Methinks someone is being a bit sensitive tonight. Could it be that you're upset about being shown that you're wrong about something?

Please excuse David. He's blinded by the melanin, like so many others.

Deep down the 0bama supporters know their man would have accomplished nothing in a strict meritocracy, and it drives them insane. Hence the constant misdirection whenever someone scrutinizes the him. They NEED to keep their quasi-mythological portrait of 0bama intact. 0bama support is akin to a religious experience, not politics, and its disciples don't take kindly to blasphemy about their prophet.

David is, at least, a man out of time. If he objects to falsities pointed out in his assertions on tone, complaining that he is called a liar (when no one has done so) he should go to the video tape on any Rep administration. His list of horribles is, as always, unilluminated. I am familiar with the supposed rap on Judith Miller. It is bunkum. We await details on the remainder. But if he appeals to us on the basis that even our most noxious opponenents are "good Americans all" he's just out to lunch. Anti-Americans are NOT good Americans. If there had ever been the merest nod towards civility from the Dems in the last thirty years I might be hesitant to say that.

What do you really know about Palin? She's given variations of one speech that other people wrote for her. She won't hold a press conference or sit for an interview with anyone who is not on her side. What is she trying to hide?

Are you just not paying attention, David?

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/20/politics/fromtheroad/entry4531447.shtml

http://tinyurl.com/5hudyb

Orson Scott Card is a great writer. I wish our journalists had half his integrity.

David came on this blog and said things that most of the people on this blog disagree with, he did not deserve to be attacked, he made soem very poingant arguments and did not try to hide his identity when posting....respect...Card is a nut by the way....have you read Ender's Game?, one of the greatest Science Fiction Novel's ever, and I mean ever, but you'd have to be a little crazy and a lot brilliant to write it. As far as Obama and his supporters, I agree, the guy obviously has some gifts that were bestowed upon him to lead people, convince people, inspire poeple and organize people into doing great things. otherwise, he would have lost to Hilary. Things for CY's post that are inappropriate: and save it CY, I know for a fact you are going to accuse me of being a communist, or anti-american or dissect my post to get back at me, save it....

*"Wright's racist cult", there is no cult, there is an all-black church congregation in Illinois, and many members don't like white people, probably for good reason....as many of them, especially older ones have been victims of racism in thier lifetimes. Wright is a twice decorated Marine, yeah he is a nut, but this is not a racist cult. I think their a plenty of Black people who do not white people, I strongly disagree that Obama is one of them.

*The half a billion dollar advantage is out of context and simply not true, please post better and more factual research. Obama has 164 cash on hand, McCain has 132, those are the numbers, lets not get into it....this also does not take into account the extra Money Obama had to spend to beat Hillary.

*So David Axelrod is brilliant and Obama is nitwit? Karl Rove was brilliant and Bush was stupid? Where are we going with this? Who signs Axelrod's checks, sorry, Obama has been incredible leading organization, if just by recognizing who the man to do it was.

*McCain's trancripts have not been released either, it is uncommon for Presidents to release undergraduate grades. We know he worked in NYC for a year after Columbia before moving to Chicago, and really who cares? McCain was in the bottom 5 in class of almost 900, Bush was mediocre at best, non-issue not buying it...

*Your assertion about Palin is ludicrous. No Press conferences, NONE!!! People world about her capacity to take tough questions. Sorry man, but she is pretty bad....If the running mates were reversed what would you think.....

Can you say 5 things bad about McCain and 5 good about Obama? I can. I can say 5 things I like about McCain, and an addition 5 things I don't like about Obama, then another 5 comparisons where I pick McCain over Obama.....still going with Obama, becasue I am objective and honest and not a person with Neocon blinders on

Paul, here's your reality check.

Trinity United Church, pastored by Jeremiah Wright, preached Black Liberation Theology, created by James Cone in the 1960s by applying the philosophies espoused by the Black Panthers and Malcolm X to go up against what he called "the white mans' religion," Christianity.

It is based upon black supremacy and Marxist liberation theology that was prevalent in South America. How cultish is it? They believe if God isn't "black" then he must be killed. That's a cult in any Christian's book, and not just mine. A Catholic Cardinal some years ago thought liberation theology was such a heresy that he excommunicated those priests who practiced it. That Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, is now Pope Benedict XVI.

The half billion advantage is of course true; Obama's campaign has raised more than $600 million directly, including $150 million last month. McCain, by accepting public financing, is limited to $84 million for the entire campaign, though the RNC has some cash that it spreads around as well. Apples-to-apples, the more-than half-trillion Obama advantage is accurate.

Signing Axelrod's checks is just about all Obama has done, other than read a teleprompter. Other than that, I fail to see how interviewing for a job is proof of competency for that job, which is at the core of your inane argument.

McCain was well known as a crappy student, and he hasn't built up his campaign based upon his academic success. His transcripts don't matter. Barack Obama, however, has played the Ivy League education to the hilt as a significant part of his qualifications since he has no leadership experience, and when you don't have the experience, and boast of your educational background, you owe us your transcripts.

As for Palin's recent press availability compared to Biden, Obama, and McCain, is is an absolute fact:

But the candidate who has been criticized for having a bunker mentality when it came to the national media can now lay legitimate claim to being more accessible than either Joe Biden or Barack Obama.

In the past two days alone, Palin has answered questions from her national press corps on three separate occasions. On Saturday, she held another plane availability, and on Sunday, she offered an impromptu press conference on the tarmac upon landing in Colorado Springs. A few minutes later, she answered even more questions from reporters during an off-the-record stop at a local ice cream shop.

By contrast, Biden hasn't held a press conference in more than a month, and Obama hasn't taken questions from his full traveling press corps since the end of September. John McCain—who spent most of the primary season holding what seemed like one, never-ending media availability—hasn't done one since Sept. 23.

We are unlikely to hear from Paul again, the driveby is the prefered assault technique here. His bald assertions of Barry's yumminess are de riguer and old news to anyone older than 12 but Paul, no one "attacked" David. There is no foundation to his views as there is none for yours. The infantile among us cannot stand to have that said. To take just the first instance, CYs foundation for calling Trinity a racist cult is the many racist and anti-American public declarations by Wright and others (let's not forget Farrakhan) who speak in and run that church and other racist outfits. The foundation for Barry being a racist is his twenty year devotion to this parrish and this man in particular. The counter argument is, no, Barry is not a racist although he practiced a racist religion for twenty years only giving it up when it was exposed. And he never heard any of that "whitey" stuff anyhow. That is no counterfactual argument. It is no argument at all just a declaration of intentional ignorance. Let it all be exposed and decent people will decide for themselves but if you are white you must know that Barry and the Obots hate you and want to take your money and put it in their pockets. Barry hates you, Paul, if you are white. And if you are black but NOT an Obot he REALLY hates you and his minions will visit violence upon you. Don't believe it? Wait.

Oh, and if you want to see a REAL attack, check any instance of a lefty blog sighting anyone to the right of Walter Mondale and get back to us.