As both Palin and McCain continue to repeat, again and again, the baldfaced “Bridge to Nowhere” lie, I checked the major news outlets: only one, CBS, had a story on the bridge lie on their front pages. Everyone else had stories about McCain and Palin getting big crowds (I thought that was a “celebrity” thing) and enjoying their post-convention poll bounce. A few other major news sources–including, surprisingly, Fox–have stories in their databases fact-checking the claim (MSNCB and CNN don’t show such a story after a cursory search), but none feature the story–a story which should be a big one, because McCain and Palin continue to repeat it, often, even after it has been wholly discredited and shown up for an outright lie–and the McCain campaign is even basing their major theme–“a pair of mavericks”–on this claim.

Stumble it!

I thought that this time there would be a chance of some light being cast: an article which promised a “fact check” on whether the charges against McCain and lobbyists were true. The piece started out OK, but quickly started making unnecessary equivocations.

The first is limiting the attention only to “top advisors,” ignoring the fact that the campaign hires dozens of other lobbyists at all levels of the campaign.

The second comes when the article stresses McCain’s BS line about how none are “currently registered,” a distinction without a real difference, as the New York Times pointed out. For example, one lobbyist who is mentioned, Randy Scheunemann, received payments from Georgia just months earlier despite being currently “unregistered”; additionally, while Scheunemann is unregistered, the firm from which he is on a “leave of absence” is still highly active. In short, “none are currently registered” is a false front meaning that they made some changes on paper to make it look like they aren’t lobbying–but they obviously are.

However, the kicker comes in the end of the article, when the author makes the same old stupid argument of equivalency:

But the bottom line is, both sides have ties to lobbyists, meaning whomever wins will have a hard time backing up the rhetoric about change and shaking up Washington.

“Both sides”? True in a technical sense, but wildly inaccurate in a quantitative and qualitative sense. Saying that “both sides have ties to lobbyists” is like saying “both sides have candidates of advanced years.” In the case of one candidate, the statement is barely true; in the case of the other, it is far more strongly the case than is made to appear.

The Liberal Media™ at work again, remaining ever-vigilant.

Update: Steve Benen points out another example of CNN equivocating and refusing to do the most fundamental tasks of journalism, this time on the “bridge to nowhere” lying issue.

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I thought so. I recall that the networks pulled back to pundits yakking and failed to show John Kerry’s speech at the Democratic convention–but when I was flipping through channels here and hit CNN, they were showing the Republicans airing a “Country First” video–not even a speech, but a canned video which was purely for promo purposes–without comment.

But that’s the Liberal Media™ for you.

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The latest inanity from the AP:

John McCain and Barack Obama share common ground on a surprising selection of issues where the age-old Republican-Democratic divide doesn’t cut it anymore.

Both want the United States to join the campaign against global warming in earnest. Both want to cut taxes for the middle class.

Yeah, Obama and McCain are pretty similar… just like Bush and Gore were pretty similar. Does the media ever tire of this old turn-off-the-voters whopper?

Let’s set aside the environmental “earnestness” issue for the moment. As for “cutting taxes for the middle class,” I guess that depends on what the “middle class” is; if you take McCain’s definition, that you’re not rich unless you make $5 million a year, then yeah, I guess you could say that McCain wants to enrich the “middle class.”

However, most views of the middle class are not quite as stratospheric as McCain’s bizarre view suggests. A common range is quoted as $25,000 to $100,000, with the actual middle 20% of the country making between $40,000 and $95,000. The mean annual income for the U.S. in 2005 was $33,000.

By these measures, McCain and Obama are not on the same page. At the $33,000 level, Obama wants to give tax cuts eight times bigger than McCain. McCain’s tax cuts are meager for the poor and only grow as incomes grow, and up to $112,000, McCain still doesn’t give as much as Obama. Only when you go above $112,000–arguably the “upper middle class”–does McCain even begin to out-give Obama. But McCain does not even double what Obama offers until after $250,000, where Obama ends his tax cuts.

If you were able to go through the $25,000 to $100,000 range and compare each plan’s averages, then you’d find that while both “want to cut taxes for the middle class,” one of them wants to do it a lot more than the other one. Painting them as “similar” on this is like saying that they are “similar” on abortion rights because neither likes the ideas of abortion per se. Everyone has “similarities” on just about every issue; what is key is whether the similarities outweigh the differences. Here, they don’t.

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Is it because they’re terrified of the prospect of reporting anything negative about a man who was a POW?

Don’t laugh or scoff; remember, the media played into the Iraq War because they were terrified of being seen as anything less than 200% patriotic. And we have Tom Brokaw now announcing that Democrats can’t “rough up” John McCain since he was a POW. Even though every major Democrat prefaces their criticism of McCain by stating that he is (a) a good man, (b) a war hero, and (c) a patriot, and the criticism is not of his war record, but of his political policies and actions.

If Brokaw’s statement is a window into the mindset of the media, then that explains a lot. That they perhaps have fallen, hook, line, and sinker, for the McCain suggestion that any criticism of McCain is blasphemy because you are besmirching a man who lived in a prison cell in Hanoi for five and a half years.

Which, of course, is pretty ludicrous. Not just because if it were a Democrat who went through that then Republicans would have no problem swift-boating him as a liar and a traitor, and not just because Democrats already prostate themselves to McCain’s war-herodom every time they make any criticism about him. It’s mostly ludicrous because the idea simply has no logic to it. We’re talking about electing a president who will determine the country’s fate for the next four years here, not choosing a Senator-of-the-Month who just gets his photo on the wall. This is not just about image.

So when a venerated news anchor says that McCain’s POW history makes any difference when criticizing his policies, you become aware of a disturbing mindset: McCain can get away with just about anything and the media won’t report on it.

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From Kevin Drum at his new digs:

Was Chuck Todd even watching the same speech as me? Yeah, Biden flubbed a couple of lines in a minor way, but jeez. Even seen through the lens of my political speech autism (hereafter PSA) I thought it was a pretty moving performance. And Marian thought he was great, which counts as my “woman in the street” opinion since she’s not a political junkie like everyone else I know.

And then Brokaw followed up by saying that the convention sagged today compared to Monday and Tuesday? Did I hear that right? He must have been watching a different bunch of speeches too. Between Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Joe Biden, I thought this was by far the best night so far.

I thought the same thing. Yeah, Biden could have expected a crowd response and worked the crowd’s willingness to chant in response, but in truth, the beginning of his speech almost brought me to tears, it was that moving. Clinton was great, Kerry was great.

I am beginning to think that the anchors and pundits won’t be happy unless they find some way of disapproving or noting something negative about any given day of the Democratic Convention. After Brokaw’s comment the other night about how McCain never re-invented himself, that he panned this very good night for the Dems is unsurprising. According to some, Kerry’s speech wasn’t even broadcast.

Here’s a prediction and a bet: most nights of the Republican Convention, the anchors and pundits will give glowing reviews, about how McCain and his surrogates are revitalizing the party and the race. Any takers?

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I don’t think Lieberman will be the Veep choice for McCain. Why not? Too much foreplay in the press, too much noise that seems to come from inside the campaign that Lieberman is seriously being considered. They know full well that choosing Lieberman wouldn’t impress the left- or center-leaning enough (a turncoat is rarely popular to anyone but those they turn to), and it would really tick off their base, turning way too many people away from the polls on election day.

So why the buzz? Because they want to give the image of a centrist maverick, while still being reassuringly hard-right for the base. It’s only because of the Liberal Media’s™ tireless campaigning for McCain that anyone believes that he is a (1) straight-talking (2) centrist (3) maverick who (4) has not reinvented himself (shame, shame, Brokaw). All 180 degrees away from the truth, but the media loves an image, however false. That, and the constant hammering of Obama has allowed an ineffectual, flip-flopping, gaffe-ridden old charlatan even in the polls with a strong, young, charismatic Democratic candidate.

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Ever wonder how McCain gets the press on his side? Apparently it’s not too hard–just barbecue some ribs and let them all cavort at your luxury residence in Sedona. Watch this video narrated by McCain’s daughter and tell me if you agree that it’s appropriate for journalists to be partying with a candidate they also happen to be giving huge breaks to in their reporting.

Isn’t it just precious that they gave Cindy flowers? How sweet.

By the way, the Sedona property has five houses on it. Does that Mean McCain owns eleven homes instead of just seven? Apparently, McCain’s trying to push the “four houses” count by claiming that four of them are ones “that actually could be considered houses they could use.” Yeah, that sounds a lot better–they own so many homes that seven go unused. That’s not elitist at all.

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I tried watching it again today, this time podcasts, two or three different shows, and I just couldn’t take it. It was just one hit job on Obama after another, one set of headlines giving better coverage to McCain after another. When it got to the point where the reporters on Cooper’s 360 show were trying to show Obama as a corrupt, cutthroat Chicago ballbuster and they used his line of “nobody questions my patriotism” as an example of “nothing illegal,” but showcasing his “brass knuckles politics”… I just got ill listening to it. The tissue-thin connections and blatantly politicized innuendo could easily have been written by the McCain campaign.

The more I watch the U.S. political news media, the less I wonder why John McCain is keeping up or even gaining in the polls.

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The latest nugget from the McCain campaign, after NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell does nothing but report objective facts:

In a letter to NBC News president Steve Capus, Davis said that the network’s “level of objectivity … has fallen so low that reporters are now giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain.” He requested a meeting with Capus to discuss news standards and objectivity.

“We are concerned that your news division is following MSNBC’s lead in abandoning nonpartisan coverage of the presidential race,” Davis wrote.

So, I suppose that the McCain campaign has held Fox News’ feet to the fire, then? No? Gee, I wonder why not.

MSNBC, which features partisan shows on both sides of the spectrum, even at its worst still cannot compete with Fox in sheer depth and volume of partisan “reporting.” To claim NBC News is even close to either one in terms of being partisan, much less partisan against McCain, is pretty absurd. Mitchell just said that “McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama,” a statement which was 100% correct, and deserved to be noted.

The McCain campaign is now demanding that NBC execs meet with them so McCain’s people can browbeat them in person and dictate how they report the news. Of course, this request has almost no chance of being honored and McCain’s people know this, just as they surely must know that their accusations are completely ludicrous. The entire idea behind this line of attack is purely a “working the refs” tactic, painting the media as being anti-McCain (when the opposite is true) so McCain looks better. If they can trick the public into believing this, then whenever people hear a story about McCain which is not good, they’ll believe it’s not true; when they hear a story which is good, they’ll believe that it’s actually better. This is nothing new, it’s the whole strategy behind the “liberal media” uber-lie. It would be laughable if only it were not working so well.

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After complaining that Obama was “presumptuous” (read: “uppity”) simply to be giving a speech in Berlin, saying that Obama was acting like he was already president, McCain is now acting as if he’s president in terms of his claims and actions in the Georgia crisis, saying that he talks daily with Georgia’s leader, and sending his top surrogates over there to act like McCain White House officials handling the situation. But he’s not being presumptuous! No sirree. He’s just being massively hypocritical, that’s all.

Or maybe he’s just trying as hard as he can to divert attention away from the fact that a top McCain campaign (his chief foreign policy advisor) official is a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government. Tell me, is there any McCain campaign official who is not still currently a paid lobbyist for some party of interest in currently relevant affairs? And when exactly will the media start reporting on this? How many crises have to come up where McCain’s campaign officials are knee-deep in monied conflicts of interest before the press thinks it’s worthwhile reporting that John “Campaign Finance Reform” McCain is neck-deep in lobbyists? Or, for that matter, that McCain is channelling neocon foreign policy?

Sorry, for a second there I was under the impression that the U.S. media had some chance of covering the election with even a pretense of objectivity. My mistake.

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In case you were still not decided on who is getting better breaks from the media, well, aside from the fact that you should really be paying closer attention, all you have to do is look at this story. McCain, drawn in to the “Buffalo Chip’s annual Tribute to American Veterans and Active Duty Servicemen” without (presumably) knowing the activities they usually hold, volunteered his wife Cindy for their “beauty contest”:

I was looking at the Sturgis schedule, and noticed that you had a beauty pageant, so I encouraged Cindy to compete. I told her [that] with a little luck, she could be the only woman to serve as both the First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.

The problem: the “Miss Buffalo Chip” contest is topless, and occasionally, bottomless as well.

So far, according to Google News, this story has only been mentioned in a few news blogs, but not any main sites (though ABC is currently offering the link to its blog story on the contest on its front news page). The LA Times mentions the incident deep in a story, but did not pick up on the nature of the contest. As I and others have pointed out many times before, there is an obvious disparity here: if Obama had done this–offered up Michelle for a nude contest, no matter that it was unknowingly–we’d be seeing is slathered all over the media, 24/7, for quite some time, with questions of appropriateness sprayed at Michelle and no end to the jokes.

But if you think that’s too frivolous (hey, that’s mostly what the news media does nowadays, frivolous), then how about energy plans? The media has jumped all over Obama for “shifting” his energy policy, even though he clearly stated from the start that he maintained his policy but, with the emergence of a new plan offered in Congress, would accept compromises including drilling if it meant achieving the important goals. Which is what you’re supposed to do as a good politician and leader–accept compromises in order to get the job done.

Why is this an example of media bias? Well, the media had no such rush to judgment about John McCain when, in late June, he made offshore drilling a centerpiece of his campaign and a cudgel with which to beat Obama over the head. They should have, because just a month before, in late May, McCain was still fully opposed to offshore drilling (a stance he has held for many years), saying:

With [offshore drilling], which would take years to develop, you would only postpone or temporarily relieve our dependency on fossil fuels. We are going to have to go to alternative energy. [Audio here]

But today?

And I noticed that it’s confusing now the information from Senator Obama as to whether he actually supports offshore drilling or not. The fact is, we have to drill here, and we have to drill now, and we have to drill immediately. And it has to be done as quickly as possible. And I believe that it’s vital that we move forward with that, regardless of what we do on other energy issues.

So, we have McCain doing a complete, unabashed 180-degree turn within a month, and the media barely blinks; but Obama saying that his position is unchanged but he’d be willing to compromise to get the job done, and he’s “shifting.”

The topless contest and the oil drilling are just two examples of what has been a few months of non-stop examples of absolute bias in reporting–hell, more than just a few months. Remember when John McCain broke the law? Not a peep out of the media, even though he is still in constant violation of federal law with every dollar he spends. But when Obama made the completely legal move of opting out of public financing? There was a media storm over the issue.

Just browse the news from each week over the past several months, and you’ll see a multitude of other examples of bias in reporting, from the media’s failure to cover McCain’s dozens of outrageous and sometimes sudden flip-flops and flip-flop-flips and double-triple somersaults, while immediately jumping on Obama for even minor revisions in policy. Or examples like months of non-stop replaying of the “God Damn America” clip while ignoring statements made by preachers McCain desperately sought out to receive endorsements of–or how about the “liberal” CBS “accidentally” re-editing a McCain interview, cutting a massively embarrassing gaffe which they should have highlighted as a major “get,” and splicing in clips from two other answers to make it seem like McCain didn’t gaffe?

Print this out, along with the associated links. The next time anyone within earshot even questions who the media is favoring, just unpocket the printout and hand it to them, shaking your head slowly and sadly.

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Here’s a fresh headline out of the New York Times:

McCain Goes Negative, Worrying Some in G.O.P.

SPARKS, Nev. — In recent days Senator John McCain has charged that Senator Barack Obama “would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign,” tarred him as “Dr. No” on energy policy and run advertisements calling him responsible for high gas prices.

The old happy warrior side of Mr. McCain has been eclipsed a bit lately by a much more aggressive, and more negative, Mr. McCain who hammers Mr. Obama repeatedly on policy differences, experience and trustworthiness.

“In recent days”? Where has this reported been? Does he publish a new story only once every three months? McCain has gone negative on Obama since day one, he was negative since before Obama won against Hillary. But he really laid into Obama since the wrap-up of the nomination, going negative immediately.

McCain started in early June by claiming Obama didn’t know squat about Iraq, challenging Obama to the Middle East trip (oops); in that attack, he accused Obama of being so wrong he’d lose the war, hand victory to Iran, and waste U.S. soldiers’ lives. Then he ripped Obama as being another Jimmy Carter. Then he accused Obama of being a serial tax-hiker who would raise everybody’s taxes. Then he seared Obama for not taking public financing. Then he faked indignation after Wes Clark spent five minutes calling McCain a hero but suggested that getting shot down is not experience which qualifies you as president, attacking the Obama campaign for “swiftboating” McCain.

And then McCain got nasty.

He linked Obama to Fidel Castro, echoing the attack that Obama was the poster boy for Hamas. He chimed in on Bush’s claim that Obama was an “appeaser,” generally blasting Obama for being clueless on foreign policy. He accused Obama of bailing on his Senate responsibilities, and of voting against funding for the troops (Obama voted for more funding more often than McCain did). He even released an attack ad when Obama used a version of the presidential seal (something a lot of Republican candidates do).

He attacked Obama two weeks ago, saying that Obama had no ideas about energy policy, calling Obama “Dr. No.” He later incredibly blamed Obama for higher gas prices, acting as if Obama’s opposition to increased offshore drilling (which McCain himself opposed just a few months back before he flip-flopped) was the reason prices are high at the pump. He accused Obama of flip-flopping on Iraq, when Obama was in fact being consistent (this just before McCain flip-flopped and adopted Obama’s plan). He accused Obama of deliberately trying to lose the Iraq War in order to win the election. He had the chance to publish a foreign policy piece in the NYT, which actually had the good judgment not to run it, as it was little more than an extended attack against Obama, and not a foreign policy piece, which had been asked for. After whining about Obama’s trip to Iraq for about a week, he then released a horrifically false ad claiming that Obama snubbed wounded soldiers because the press wasn’t around, and “went to the gym” instead (showing footage of Obama in a gym… with soldiers). And now, McCain is attacking Obama for being popular, likening him to self-centered celebrities like Britney Spears.

McCain’s ads have been getting nastier and uglier, but recent ads have been relatively negative, not contrastively. If McCain had any positive ads, it’s easy to forget as they were drowned out by all the negative ads. So, why is the NYT publishing a story that seems to suggest that McCain has only started getting negative in the past week or two?

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I’m still pretty blind to media focus in some ways back in the U.S. in that if it’s not highlighted in media coverage or part of the shows I’m catching on podcast, I don’t often see it; could someone tell me, what is the general reaction to McCain’s petty whining about Obama’s trip, especially in regards to the latest series of vicious attacks claiming Obama only visits troops if there are cameras around?

It’s been made pretty clear that Obama canceled the trip because Pentagon officials told his campaign that not only were reporters and cameras unwelcome, but that no visit could be allowed if campaign staff were present, and Obama decided that the visit would just look too much like a campaign event whether cameras were present or not. It has also been made clear that Obama has made several visits to wounded soldiers without cameras (like he did quietly just a month ago, with the most recent visit being the day before in Baghdad), and that McCain has canceled similar visits for similar reasons, just as recently as April (“We follow the rules” was a good enough excuse when he did it).

And yet McCain continues to run slimy attack ads claiming that Obama only wanted to use the troops as a PR backdrop, as if he doesn’t give a damn about the troops (tell us again, McCain, about how you fought tooth and nail to kill the new G.I. bill because it was “too generous”?). This after repeatedly claiming that Obama wanted to lose the Iraq War in order to win the campaign, just one step short of calling Obama a traitor outright.

Now, we all have seen unmistakable proof that the media is actively covering for McCain, but really–how far does McCain have to go, how outrageous do his lies and attacks have to become before enough dissent filters through the media wall protecting him to make an impact on public perception?

Also, why hasn’t the media focused on the fact that McCain’s campaign has been strongly negative since day one? They usually make a big deal of such things, but not this time, for some strange reason….

And though it could be the boost from Obama’s overseas trip, maybe it could be McCain’s implosion which has caused Obama to shoot ahead in the daily tracking polls.

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I saw this interview on a CNN podcast, actually. McCain claimed he could get bin Laden, and Blitzer went only so far as to ask him how; McCain replied:

I’m not going to telegraph a lot of the things that I’m going to do because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But, look, I know the area, I have been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden — or put it this way, bring him to justice…We will do it, I know how to do it.

The obvious question after that was, “if you know how to capture bin Laden, Senator, then why haven’t you told the current president how to do so, or if you have, why hasn’t he put your plan into motion?”

Naturally, Blitzer didn’t ask that. Instead, he asked McCain to dance his victory dance and simply presume bin Laden has been captured, so “what do you do with him?” Then Blitzer sped ahead to talk about a “new controversy” about Obama, putting them on the “defensive,” with the word “SNUB” big in the subtitle, pronouncing “Doesn’t meet with wounded troops.”

Not in the podcast: McCain saying that he approved of the 16-month time table for withdrawal, which was the biggest story of the day. They edited that part out.

Don’tcha just love the Liberal Media™?

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Not only did Maliki endorse Obama’s Iraq strategy if not Obama himself, not only was it not a mistranslation, not only has Maliki been saying the same basic thing for the past two weeks, not only did Maliki and his office repeat the endorsement of Obama’s plan after meeting with the candidate, but aside from all this, it looks like Maliki’s office approved of the original Spiegel interview in the first place, verifying that Spiegel’s translation was perfectly fine.

Not that it matters. The Liberal Media™ have the phoney-baloney “correction” from a Maliki staffer who was pressured by the U.S. into make a statement which, though nebulous, cast even the slightest shred of doubt about Maliki’s endorsement of a withdrawal of US troops by 2010. So, despite the overwhelming evidence that Maliki’s position is in support of Obama, the official view in the US media is that it “could have been” (read: was) a “mistranslation”–and most Americans, if asked, would probably report having received that impression. Which is all McCain needed to defuse what would otherwise have been an unmitigated disaster for his campaign–thanks to the complicity of the US media which, according to McCain, are “favoring” Obama.

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John McCain said that he knows, better apparently than Maliki himself, what Maliki and the Iraqis want. Forget the multiple times Maliki has said he wants almost exactly what Obama is proposing. Forget the fact that Maliki has made a few more trips to Iraq than McCain and so maybe knows a bit more about what Iraq–not to mention Maliki himself–wants. No sirree, McCain has made so many PR jaunts to Iraq, has been babysat by enough G.I.s and has done enough P.R. photoshoots with Iraqi officials that he knows what Maliki and the Iraqis want better then they do themselves.

After all, he’s the expert: he knows that there’s a very hard struggle going on along the Iraqi-Pakistan border. I believe that will be the venue of his next Middle East trip, in fact.

Meanwhile, here’s a concise summary of how the media glosses over McCain’s “expertise.” After all, the man is solid–he never flip-flops.

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Sometimes it is really easy to get depressed about how brazenly the media bias shows through, as if they’re not really trying to hide it any more. When the report came out from Spiegel about his support of Obama’s plan, there was virtual silence–it took hours for U.S. media outliets to start reporting on the story, despite the fact that the White House inadvertently sent out a media alert (intended to be only in-house) to all the major news services concerning the story.

And yet, media stories only started to come out in force when the U.S. government goaded a rather strange “correction” from the Maliki government. It is now common knowledge that the White House had to specifically prod the Iraqis to make the statement, and the fact that it was released through a U.S. military news outlet made that all too clear. The statement itself claimed a “mistranslation,” though the nature of such a mistranslation was never provided, and could have meant that the substance of Maliki’s statement was correct but some side details were incorrectly stated.

Never mind all that–when the U.S. media started playing the story in earnest, it was on the theme of “Maliki: Mistranslated?” rather than reporting his support for Obama’s plan. And now that he New York Times has the tape and has given their own translation, the media will almost certainly (a) have moved on, as a pro-Obama story holds little interest for the close dog race they desire, and/or (b) will focus on differing word choice between the two translations as if it confirmed a “mistranslation,” despite the fact that the NYT translations comes out with Maliki saying essentially the same thing.

Watching ABC News’ webcast last night was one example of coloring the story rather blatantly. They used the bogus “mistranslation” claim as they focus of the story and report it as something potentially bad for Obama, showing the large title “LOST IN TRANSLATION?” throughout the whole story.

This is a media which has forgiven Bush fifty or so Watergate-level scandals… a media which ignores dozens of McCain flip-flops, some being complete reversals within days or weeks, usually with juicy videotape to exemplify a blatant flip-flop… a media which has completely ignored the undeniable, fully-evidenced fact that John McCain is and has been for months in direct violation of campaign finance law, and that the Bush White House fired the only FEC commissioner with the guts to say anything about it… this is the media which ignores Phil Gramm calling Americans “whiners” but covers Obama’s “bitter” statement for months, which calls even the slightest policy shifts by Obama “flip flops” outright.

You know very well that had Maliki made a statement repudiating Obama’s plan, calling it a “mistake,” then we would now be in Day Two of a month-long media frenzy about how Obama doesn’t know from foreign policy. Instead, we have both McCain and Bush copying Obama’s foreign policy, adopting it themselves but calling it different names (I mean, really, “time horizon”? How dumb do you have to be to not see through that?), and yet the media pretty much ignores it–instead, we get ABC calling Bush’s Obama-mirroring timeline plan “exactly what Bush wanted,” as if that’s what Bush was trying for all along, and how it’s not what Obama has been pushing for more than a year now.

Like I said, it’s rather depressing. One can only imagine that on a level playing field, where both candidates accomplishments and embarrassments were given equal play, Obama would be ahead by double digits in every poll. That he’s still ahead at all in this media environment is nothing short of a miracle.

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Naturally, this came out in the lefty blogs, and was virtually absent from the MSM sites for several hours:

Iraq Leader Maliki Supports Obama’s Withdrawal Plans

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Barack Obama’s 16 timeframe for a withdrawal from Iraq is the right one.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports US presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded “as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned.” He then continued: “US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

This is a HUGE story; the Bush administration’s own man in charge of Iraq has voiced support for Obama’s plan, repudiating McCain, who said that he would honor Maliki’s wishes were he to ask for a withdrawal:

Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world.

A McCain spokesman said as much just a few weeks ago:

John McCain has always been clear that American forces operate in Iraq only with the consent of that country’s democratically elected government.

So, that’s that, right? Maliki was elected, he supports Obama’s plan, and as McCain has also said that being on the ground in Iraq is the ultimate credibility, you can’t get much more credible than the Iraqi PM. Right? McCain? McCain?

“His domestic politics require him to be for us getting out,” said a senior McCain campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The military says ‘conditions based’ and Maliki said ‘conditions based’ yesterday in the joint statement with Bush. Regardless, voters care about [the] military, not about Iraqi leaders.”

Ah, I see. He’s just saying it to please the voters, but really he backs McCain, trust us!

Actually, the question here is, where is the MSM? Reluctant to print this breaking story for several hours, their coverage in print has been muted. This is a huge, major, ground-breaking blow to McCain and a big, unambiguous boost for Obama on a topic which is McCain’s strongest area, an area he’s been blasting Obama on relentlessly.

I just watched CNN’s top headlines: not a single mention of Maliki. They mentioned Obama in Afghanistan, but not this story. I also saw the start of their main political show, This Week in Politics, and their top story is the economy, no mention of Iraq. This is rather mind-boggling, even after factoring in the MSM’s willingness to shill for McCain.

Just last night, I was watching the web edition of ABC news, and they were playing the weaselly-worded “Time Horizon” as being a “victory for Bush,” as if it weren’t a plainly obvious and evasive way of saying “timetable” or “time line,” and effectively switching to Obama’s position while trying not to look like it.

And now, reports are coming out saying that Maliki was “misunderstood and mistranslated”; a Maliki spokesman said that Maliki’s statement had not been “as not conveyed accurately regarding the vision of Senator Barack Obama, U.S. presidential candidate, on the timeframe for U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq,” and gave this incredibly nebulous statement:

Al-Dabbagh explained that Mr. al-Maliki confirmed the existence of an Iraqi vision stems from the reality with regard to Iraq security needs, as the positive developments of the security situation and the improvement witnessed in Iraqi cities makes the subject of U.S. forces’ withdrawal within prospects, horizons and timetables agreed upon and in the light of the continuing positive developments on the ground, and security that came within the Strategic Plan for Cooperation which was laid and developed by Mr. Maliki and President George Bush. The Iraqi government appreciates and values the efforts of all the friends who continue to support and supporting Iraqi security forces.

Al-Dabbagh underscored that the statements made by the head of the ministerial council (Prime Minister al-Maliki) or any of the members of the Iraqi government should not be understood as support to any U.S. presidential candidates.

Hmm… first of all, the source was the U.S. military’s press office, a strange place for the Iraqi PM’s office to release a statement. Second, I don’t see where the mistranslation could occur in a statement like this:

“SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?

Maliki: As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.

SPIEGEL: Is this an endorsement for the US presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?

Maliki: Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business. But it’s the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that’s where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.”

The spokesman quoted by the U.S. military site did not specify what the specific “mistranslation” error was, and we’ll probably get the direct text in the original language from Spiegel soon enough. At first glance, I would say that this is little more than emergency damage control–get a loyal flunky to make a statement that can then be used to give some sort of credible argument that what happened didn’t actually happen.

It will be interesting to see how this story develops. But one McCain ally seems to have it quintessentially boiled down to just a few words:

Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, “We’re fucked.”

Stumble it!

Americans are making less while working harder than ever, when they can find the work, that is. Bush’s tax cuts have gone mostly to the rich, and what scraps the middle and lower classes have been tossed have been wholly eaten up by other costs–just the price of gas alone has eaten up every non-gazillionaire tax cut, many times over. We’re hemorrhaging jobs, suffering from fuel-driven inflation, and Americans are hurting–bad.

So what does John McCain’s chief economic advisor have to say to Americans?

“You’re all whiners!! This isn’t a recession! You’re just imagining it!”

And sadly, that characterization is not an exaggeration:

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” Gramm was quoted as saying.

He goes on to say that the United States has “never been more dominant” and has “benefited greatly” from globalization.

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “Misery sells newspapers,” [Former Senator Phil] Gramm added. “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”

If Americans were just reading about it in the newspaper, then things wouldn’t be so bad. The trouble is, most Americans are living this horror show of an economy. Perhaps Gramm, living large as he is, simply has no clue as to what actual Americans experience.

Now, the question has already come up: Obama caught hell for a full month or more for saying that some Americans are “bitter.” Now McCain’s top advisor has called all Americans “whiners” who don’t know what their own economic conditions are like.

Is this far enough from McCain that the media might actually give it some air time? Somehow I doubt it. But you can be certain of the fact that if an Obama surrogate had said this, it’s be “Breaking News” 24/7 for the next week or more.

The McCain Campaign reaction?

A McCain official said: “Phil Gramm’s comments are not representative of John McCain’s views.”

Um, then you shouldn’t be hiring this guy to be McCain’s chief economic advisor then, dude.

Stumble it!