Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

In answer to your rhetorical question:  Yes. 

Of course, Dan Rather seems a little bit confused over who he is supposed to back:  http://showhype.com/video/dan_rather_calls_obama_osama_bin_laden/

Well, I take that back.  Katie Couric has decided to try to ask tough questions.  You go Katiegirl! 

Couric: But talking microcosmically, did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops ... help the situation in Iraq?
Obama: Katie, as … you’ve asked me three different times, and I have said repeatedly that there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence. There’s no doubt.

Couric: But yet you’re saying … given what you know now, you still wouldn’t support it … so I’m just trying to understand this.

Obama: Because … it’s pretty straightforward. By us putting $10 billion to $12 billion a month, $200 billion, that’s money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan. That money also could have been used to shore up a declining economic situation in the United States. That money could have been applied to having a serious energy security plan so that we were reducing our demand on oil, which is helping to fund the insurgents in many countries. So those are all factors that would be taken into consideration in my decision-- to deal with a specific tactic or strategy inside of Iraq.

Couric: And I really don’t mean to belabor this, Senator, because I’m really, I’m trying … to figure out your position. Do you think the level of security in Iraq …

Obama: Yes.

Couric … would exist today without the surge?

Obama: Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation. So this is all hypotheticals. What I can say is that there’s no doubt that our U.S. troops have contributed to a reduction of violence in Iraq. I said that-- not just today, not just yesterday, but I’ve said that-- previously. What that doesn’t change is that we’ve got to have a different strategic approach if we’re going to make America as safe as possible.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/obama_ spars_with_couric_over_s.php

Poor John McCain. After years of having the media in his pocket, they finally find someone else who is more interesting to cover. Might it be, perhaps, that Obama is the more interesting, exciting and charismatic person, and that more people are interested in him and his ideas than in McCain and his? Used to be that it was conservatives who complained that liberals were whiners. Oh, how the times change.

Reminds me of an old Kurt Vonnegut story. We simply MUST do something so that Obama is less interesting, less articulate, less able.  Let’s replace the protagonist’s name with Senator Obama’s name in the below passage from good ol’ Kurt:

“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”

A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.

The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.

And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.

“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”

The media has decided to cover Barack Hussein Obama because the media covers the left. The media has always been to the left and always will be to the left.

Suprisingly, the media is known for calling out corrupt politicians in the making. However, in this case, they are bringing out corrupt politicians in the making.

Might it be, perhaps, that Obama is the more interesting, exciting and charismatic person, and that more people are interested in him and his ideas than in McCain and his?

That’s very much in the eye of the beholder.

Obama’s “interesting”? Okay, he’s bi-racial. We’ve known that forever. First black [insert noun here]. Other than that superficial quality, how’s he any different than any other mainstream Democrat?

“Exciting”? All the hopechangeyeswecan stuff gets old fast. Substance, please.

“Charismatic”? Only if you’re a white lame-o who wants to prove how un-racist you are because you have a hip black friend.

Now because the press is filled with white lame-os who want to prove how un-racist they are because they have black friends, yes, Obama fascinates them. Hence the coverage.

The media only liked John McCain to “balance” their stories with Democrats.  The believe that you need two sides to every story—so they got the Democratic side and the Republican side (from the most un-Republican Republican). 

The media only liked McCain when he helped make the case for Democrats.  That is impossible during this election.

"Might it be, perhaps, that Obama is the more interesting, exciting and charismatic person, and that more people are interested in him and his ideas than in McCain and his?”

Well, according to the polls, only about 5% more people are more interested in Obama than McCain.  That slim margin doesn’t account for the extreme disparity in coverage. What you are looking at are media preferences, not public preferences. 

But that is nothing new, and other Republicans have managed to even the score once the holidays are over and the campaign starts in earnest.

It’s pretty apparent to me that the MSM types see their primary function as protecting Baroque Obozo from his own gaffes,stupidity and his utter lack of any real comprehensive knowledge about American history and its culture....they know that ‘hopey-changey’ is really just so much horsey-crappy and they’re doing their dead level best to prevent the American voters of fully realizing that....Obozo is gradually morphing into the ‘Seinfeld candidate’...a campaign sitcom about nothing....not that there’s anything wrong with THAT!

As a poster above pointed out, the media only “liked” McCain because he wasn’t the GOP nominee.  Every time they praised McCain it was a thinly veiled gibe for nominating GW Bush - “Oh, look, they could have had McCain h as their nominee, a man with a CHANCE to win the election.  Stupid Republicans, what COULD they have been thinking???” Now that McCain *is* the nominee, they’ve dropped the pretense of being “concerned” for the GOP and are showing their true colors.  You don’t even hear a pro-forma defense of their “neutrality” from them anymore.

Americans don’t like being unfair.  Unfairness is supposed to be by happenstance not by massive (self aware) collusion.

I may be in the minority, but this will backfire on both the press, but more importantly on Obama.

Obama more interesting in ‘08?

Kerry more interesting in ‘04?

Gore more interesting in ‘00?

Is there a pattern here?

"But what seems indisputably true—to quote another dazzling young Democrat who received disproportionately favorable media attention, John Kennedy—is this: “Life is unfair.””

Life IS indeed unfair, but the press shouldn’t be.  It clearly is, though, and yet the MSM wonders why people are switching over to alternate sources. 

Still, I would love to see the MSM run with the life isn’t fair theme.  Immagine a new slogan for the NYT: “Life isn’t fair, so we don’t have to be either”.

Obama is an ignorant and dangerous twit. Without a script, he is so inarticulate he makes Bush sound like Reagan. This will all backfire bigtime on the MessiUH and the MSM.

Oh, the gnashing of teeth come November! And we thought PEST ‘04 was a pestilence. Ha!

"The media has always been to the left and always will be to the left.”

Yeah, I remember how they went after Bush in the build up to Iraq.  They were so mean! So biased! They gave almost all the airtime and most of the column inches to obsessively covering those who argued against the war.  The right hardly had the opportunity to make its case! Darn-dang media creeps.

Try reading some of Bob Somerby’s work for an alternative view of press bias. My opinion is that the problem with the press is not liberal bias but their incompetence.

“What you are looking at are media preferences, not public preferences.”

So, let’s allow the market to decide, eh?  Isn’t that the conservative mantra? If you are right about the media, then shouldn’t it self correct over time? (Oh, yeah. That’s what’s happening as newspapers fail and TV news become ever more of a joke). But it is so much more fin to whine! Wa wa wa wa! The media is to blame! Or then again, maybe the Republicans and extreme conservatism simply are not working to well right now. But we must not say it, because that’s bias. 

“how’s he [Obama] any different than any other mainstream Democrat?”

I know, I know, they’re all socialist Marxists out to overthrow America. You really crack me up. You have so drunk the Kool-Aid. Can you not even IMAGINE why the American public, after giving conservative Republicans the Presidency and, for a while there, both Houses of Congress, a majority of state leg’s and governorships, no longer buys your big bag of BS. The conservative revolution is over. In case you have not noticed, IT FAILED!

And, Obama? No different than any other mainstream Democrat? How, exactly, is Bush different from the caricature of the left so constantly peddled by the right these past 40 years?  His administration looks corrupt through and through (Clinton! Beat you to it!); he has created a bigger government, spent more money, and pursued (ineptly, I’d add) an interventionist foreign policy. His response to the current mortgage has been pure socialism: cushion individuals and financial institutions from their own poor decisions for the Common Good (we can let the system fail!)

But at least they are not Democrats! We all know they’re the whiner, socialist, big government, and financially reckless folks who will kill the American dream.

“[the press sees its] primary function as protecting Baroque Obozo from his own gaffes”

Obama’s gaffs! You are listening to too much Rush. He’s been beating that drum for months now. But, um, have you noticed any the coverage of McCain’s errors of late? Like his ignorance of basic geography? His inability to remember the difference between Sunni and Shia? No? Me either.

“only about 5% more people are more interested in Obama than McCain”

5%? I’ll take it. And when was the last time McCain drew 20,000 supporters to a rally? He did it twice last year in my humble Texas town.

So much more to say, so late. Time go bed.

Obama’s gaffes? Just read the transcript of his discussion with Couric. It’s full of holes you could drive a truck through. Just one: If the US reduces its dependence on oil (while the rest of the world is pushing demand for oil to unprecedented levels) how will that stop oil money “helping to fund the insurgents in many countries”? Which countries does he mean? Another: “$200 billion, that’s money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan.” What would be the point of putting them in Afghanistan if Iraq was imploding in violence, which it would have been if the US reduced its role to “putting pressure on the Iraqis to achieve a political solution”. What kind of pressure could achieve a political solution? What would the Obama Plan have done if such a solution was not achievable via “pressure”? The man is a gasbag and a fool.

Obama ‘08!

Osama ‘09!

"Life is unfair”....ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah, that is a good one.  Why I can hear DeeDee Meyers - Obama’s new press secretary - now.. “Ms. Meyers, what of the poor hardworking illegal immigrants who only.."[interrupting] Meyers: “Hey!  You call yourself a journalist?  Remember - LIFE IS UNFAIR!  Ha HA. Next question.""Q: Well, what of the people suffering from the poor economy who are having their homes foreclosed when..” Meyers:  “Hey hey hey!  Wake up out there!  I SAID ... Life is Unfair! [muttering to herself]<What a bunch of G-damn whiners>”

Gee Snart, who would have thought that you could take the most effective literary attack on affirmative action ever written and proclaim that it justifies Obama worship. The press is so far in bed with the Obama campaign that Michelle could sue for alienation of affection.

Snart, to think I think of Harrison Bergeron as a story of Political Correctness gone too far and we all know the right is fond of political correctness.  Oh wait, it is the Left that loves political correctness.  The left that believes people willing to work harder to earn more should be punished.  After they come for the workers, they will come for the smart people, after all it is unfair for someone to be smarter than someone else.  And after the smart people they will come for the good looking people, after all it is unfair for someone to get breaks based on their looks.

I can not believe you used this, this as something to defend Obama.  The most effective short story refutation of the last 3 decades of Leftists wants.  Amazing.  Maybe you should read that story again and really, just really try to understand what it is about.

The main conceit here is that the MSM thinks they can win elections. What did that Newsweek guy say, they’d deliver 15 percentage points to Kerry? This is based on an assumption that the Average Joe in flyover country would actually give a shite how their MSM/elite “betters” wanted them to vote.

This kind of press fawning is counterproductive for two reasons: 1) the people see through it; and 2) it makes the Dem candidate way over confident. Sayonara Obama.

Obama: Katie, as … you’ve asked me three different times

That’s a bitch move right there.  Obama gets kind of nasty when challenged, doesn’t he? That worries me as much as anything else.

As far as the “republicans are whiners about the media” argument, this story is about a DEM talking about the media.  It’s only news when a Dem does it because it’s surprising.  Republicans are just stating the facts.

It is little surprise that Obama appeals to the scribbling classes: he’s really one of them in his worldview and in his appeal to emotion rather than real accomplishment as the measure of his worth ("Change You Can Believe In!").

Ken and James: I don’t think that you are going to break through on Snart here.  Self-awareness just doesn’t seem to be his strong point.

Giddy, emotional utopians always have that snarky “everything makes my point and you guys are all just stupid and blind” confidence that just shines through in Snart’s posts.  He’s finished thinking so illustrations of the problems in his logic will fall on deaf ears.

"I can not believe you used this, this as something to defend Obama.  The most effective short story refutation of the last 3 decades of Leftists wants.  Amazing.  Maybe you should read that story again and really, just really try to understand what it is about.”

Snap!  The irony was intended.  You conservatives have become that about which you have complained so much. You whine and complain and blame others for the failure of your own ideas to win the debate. Not only that, but with Bush’s spending, corruption, incompetent foreign policy and socialist approach to the economy, you have no real leg to stand on anymore. To quote from another modern literary masterwork, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

As for Obama, he’s going to win, and win big. Both houses will swing towards the democrats. They’ll no doubt quickly blow it by over reaching and wussyness, buy my point is that “it’s the media’s fault” is already getting old. Maybe if you guys started looking in the mirror you would start to see why America has moved on.

‘“everything makes my point and you guys are all just stupid and blind”’

Yeah, that sums up my critique of how the right, in its final hours, has become a caricature of what it used to be against. “He disagrees with us on X, he is ______. (pick one: stupid, close minded, a utopianist, soft in the middle, or a Marxist out to overthrow America!) No need to think about anything anymore for you guys, as it is all identity politics to you.  Right = good.  Left = bad.  Media = bias. Rush told me so.

I can’t stand either of them.

Senators make lousy candidates...too much baggage.  McCain is heavy with it.

Obama has so little baggage that he is supremely qualified to be a community activist for six square blocks in Chicago.

However, Obama is making McCain (spit) look Presidential.

Doomed either way.

TRAINER!

That was SOOOOOO good I spat coffee out my nose.

PERFECTLY SAID SIR!

Drive on!

Rhetorical rule of thumb: a snart snap isn’t a snappy retort.

It sounds like the Obama campaign theme- I said something that sounded incredibly stupid, but it was actually . . .  ironic.

Atta boy, AlphGeek. Keep it personal and avoid engaging with any arguments.  Explain me this: why would any thinking American, after four years of Bush, have any faith at all in Republicans or conservativism? It’s become economic socialism, expansionist foreign policy, big government, corruption. Other than “social issues” (read, Gays are bad too!), whatcha got? No wonder all you guys (with a couple of exceptions) are only able to preach to each other about what a moron I am.

With Obama beclowning himself more every day, it looks like he will be destroyed my that most cruel and deadly of political weapons- ridicule.

He’s quickly turning into a joke, outdoing Dukakis and Quayle by an order of magnitude.

Democrats have one chance left, if they want to avoid being completely humiliated. The convention is their last chance. Think of a way to make it work: Hillary!

Fair or not, without access to all information for the electorate, there is no democracy. It is that simple, but I know our leftards will not be able to understand it.

What I find extremely ironic is that one of the leftards uses a story from Vonnegut in support of a candidate who aboslutely believes that inequality in talent and achievement should be “redressed” by government. Of course, as leftards, they are blind to irony.

Let me edit the story just slightly for the leftards.

““Rush Limbaugh, age fifty-something,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to elect Republicans. He is a genius and not covered by the fairness doctrine, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.” “

Correction to the above: After /seven/ years of Bush, explain me why . . .

Moptop, I already addressed the irony issue. And if you think Rush is a genius, then the left has nothing to worry about. You are so blinded by your own need to be “politically correct” on the right that you can not see that everyone who is not still drinking the kool aid has seen for some time now. Rush will continue to fade into oblivion.

It’s not just the left who are upset with the state of the country and sick of the right. To you guys, anyone who disagrees with any single point that you personally hold as conservative is automatically labeled “A leftard” and imputed with all sorts of silly motives and beliefs. But you might try reading the American Conservative or even George Will on occasion.

Although Bainbridge is usually a worthy read, the hoi polloi hangin’ below the fold are the best thing to happen to the left in a long time. Keep it up!  You persuasively show that the conservative movement has at its core one remaining purpose: to attack the left.

The left can be understood if you examine that most basic and holy ideal of modern liberals:

“If we don’t win, we don’t eat.”

This alone explains 90% of the worshipful admiration of Obama by the media.  Whatever else he is - an empty suit, a nobody with no executive experience, a pompous little poseur in way over his head, etc., etc. - he’s what they’ve got.  In fact, being a blank makes him even more suitable because they can project any of their hopes, ambitions - delusions - on him w/o fear of contradiction.  There’s nothing in his background to, say, suggest he WON’T legalize drugs, so voting for him means they can shoot up w/o fear of arrest.  Or legalize homosexual marriage, or dismantle the US military, or allow them to turn the US into a socialist paradise, and so on.  By not specifying what he means by “change” - and he probably doesn’t mean anything at all - they can imagine that change to involve whatever their pet project de jour to be.  In any event they’re just rational enough to understand getting a Republican elected doesn’t get them anywhere.

So, someone knocks down snart’s arguments and his next comment just brings up new stuff to knock down.  It’s rather like Obama himself - “No, I’m not going to answer your question.  I’m going to just bring up a new point.”

"So, someone knocks down snart’s arguments and his next comment just brings up new stuff to knock down.”

Uh, I’ve said the same things since my first post: The far right has become a caricature of its former self. It has become what it used to critique about the left: knee jerk political correctness, big spending, socialist economics, interventionist, blaming the system for its own weaknesses.

As for knocking down my arguments, the only thing most of the above posters have done is engage in Ad Hominem arguments. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo, you’are a leftard is not “knocking down my arguments. I have responded to a few of the substantive responses to what I have been saying, but all that you guys have to say in return is to attack my person.

The point of my initial post was related to the claim that the media is not covering Obama’s gaffs. I asked, what about McCain’s? If they are not covering McCain’s many gaffs, then there is not really a pro Obama bias.

Silence from you guys.

As for the suggestion that I do not understand “Harrison Bergeron,” I argued that the irony was intended to point out that many of the right’s current problems with the media, and much else about the contemporary conservative Republican movement, is little different, in terms of spending, foreign policy, or big government than what they right used to critique about the left.

Silence AGAIN.

If I defend against an Ad Hominem argument I am not changing the topic. I am just waiting for you guys to actually start using your great intellects to make a decent argument that the Republican right has not now become the very thing it used to be against.

Waiting, waiting, waiting . . .