DISQUS

Anybody employed at the NYT who shows up for work next Monday is a proven liar. Congratulations to anyone there with any principles - it must be lonely, and you must be desperate for work.

What was your first clue, Chris? Here's the real mystery. How do you get a job where you get paid the big, big bucks to come out and say what anyone with an ounce of brains and honesty has known for years, after you have spent those same years insulting their intelligence and honesty for saying it? Wow. That is some kind of hustle you got going there!!

Lisa Benson gets it...

http://cartoonbox.slate.com/lisabenson/

I think the GOP/Bush old-guard convinced Maverick John to give grudging support for Bush's Iraq war effort in exchange for behind the scenes support for McCain's 2008 Presidential bid.

Wouldn't be surprised if the above was true. Now why don't they double-cross him like he does everyone else?!!

Disconnect? What disconnect... the media and the Dems are supporting their favorite candidate. I mean, do you think McCain is drawing support from the conservative Republicans he shafts every chance he gets? Besides, apparently the Republican party is too stupid to figure out that if you run primaries that allow your opponents to select your nominees for you, they will do so.... duuuuh.

"...the media has some introspection to do..."

Sure,... but of course they'll call it a "victory party" in the internal memos.

Speaking as Republican, we need to keep Hillary and Ken Doll and the e-suit in the race together as long as possible. The reason is that the MSM will only "investigate" (i.e. report) accusations against a Democrat that come from another Democrat. Once the D nominee has been selected, they will be immune to further criticism, and the MSM will turn all its guns on the Republican. All accusations made against the Dem will be reported as "smears", if the are reported at all. All accusations made against the Republican will become the conventional wisdom, to be used as a foundation to the generation of further "scandals".

The MSM has positioned itself to be the biggest influence in American elections, and they aren't going to be influencing them in favor of Republicans, are they? It is unfortunate that the MSM isn't dying fast enough to take them out of the picture for this election, but maybe they will be a corpse by the next one?

BTW, Juan Williams seemed to have actually experienced an orgasm while reporting on Obama's SC win on NPR this morning! At one point he actually began repeating Obama's "Yes, we can!" cheer.

How can a serious political party have such a clown in the "final three?" It's not like the other two are profound statesmen either, unless pandering counts as a policy. I just love reading in the sycophantomedia about how Republicans are so "unimpressed" with their candidates.
Yeah, the Dems must be just salivating over their roster of heavyhitters!

"They put up with the Clintons for 8 years and never uttered a peep."

Oh yes they did. Lots of them. That fact has simply disappeared down the memory hole, like everything else that might reflect badly on a Democrat... that's the MSM's job. "Defending the public's right to know what the media knows is right."

NPR this morning had a piece on the RNC Winter Meeting in DC. Mentioned twice, once at the top of the hour, and once in the lead-in, was the fact that they were having a "leadership" meeting without having picked a "leader", i.e. a nominee for President. Huh? I supposed the Dems have?
I also noted that they got one attendee to whine that in the past they would have known who the nominee was by now - a doubtful proposition, and another to criticise McCain over McCain-Feingold, but worded in a way that implied the problem with it was that it impeded fund-raising.
I wonder how many yards of tape ended up on the editing room floor before they found those two?
Note to Republicans: do not make candid or frank remarks to media. Parse your words carefully. If at all possible, they will be used out of context to make you and your party look bad - that's the media's understanding of their job description.

... Arab honor and pride, what we would call "machismo."

I'll grant that you have a point irishspy. But it is strange how the Dems and the MSM always seem to take AQ boasts at face value, and never mention that "machismo" thing at all in that context, isn't it?

Bill is just relecting true Dem values... since they deserve and expect media adulation, anything less, even even-handedness, is depriving them of their due. That works great until you find that since you are used to being treated gently by the media, you have developed a glass jaw, and no longer know how to fight hard without making an ass of yourself.

"Fred Thompson is the only candidate who has had the temerity to question the 'global warming' madness, yet has received almost no press coverage."

Fred needs to starting ripping not only GW, but the MSM. He is the only R who seems to understand that the three D lightweights they are up against are not the threat (Fred has more Senatorial experience than all of them), the MSM is the threat! You can be sure the smears are already locked and loaded in the MSM vaults, just waiting to become "October surprises". Only by confronting the MSM now and showing how biased it is, can any R hope to avoid being blindsided.

I am tired of non-elected media personalities shaping the issues in our elections... what candidate is going to seek my vote by coming out against them and demanding they be unbiased!?

Without the connivance of the MSM, none of the Democrat candidates would be regarded as remotely qualified. Put an -R after their name and they would disappear into a richly-deserved obscurity.

When is some Republican candidate going to figure it out? They are running against the MSM, not the Dems! The Dems' priorities are hopelessly irrelevant and with their record of being wrong on the war on terror and slandering the military, they have no moral standing from which to criticize the Republicans. But the MSM has ways to elevate D's and denigrate R's, so it is the real opponent Republicans should be worried about.

Besides, I am sick of unelected "anchors", reporters and TV pundits effectively running this country, and I want someone to stand up to them and tell them to go to hell! And I'll wager I'm far, far, from alone in that sentiment!

Almost sounds like the Congresswoman has suspended her disbelief, doesn' t it ? And Hillary is going to regret that snide cheapshot for a loooong time.

"Good news from Iraq doesn't sell papers"?

How can one conclude that, when the MSM has not reported goods news on ANYTHING since Saint Bubba left office? The "business" the MSM is really in is waging a propaganda campaign on American morale, for the purpose of restoring what they see as the natural order of things - a Democrat back in the White House!

Journalism is driven by money? Funny then that the MSM is hemorraging money! Sorry, I am not buying that - money is just a convenient excuse for what they are actually doing, which is lying. Good news will make money just fine, but unfortunately it also can make people happy, which is not the desired outcome now is it?

The MSM is trying to do to America what Regan did to the USSR - spend it out of existence. I think their targetting is slightly off, however, and they are going to bankrupt themselves instead. That cannot happen fast enough for me! A pox on the lying weasels.

Journalism has become a mockery of itself... it is what the media leaves out that is the story.

MSM manipulation is not Republican vacillation. The MSM has been trying to pick the R candidate either: 1. most easily defeated by Hillary, or 2. most like a Democrat. Don't confuse what you read with what Republicans want. The successful R candidate will attack the credibility of the media and position himself as running against them, instead of trying to kiss up to them in a vain effort to get a fair shake.

Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are two of the most dislikable people in American public life today.

One key difference - Rudy fights America's enenies. Hillary, like most Democrats, fights Republicans, even when it helps America's enemies.

CNN deserves the brickbats it will receive for its atrocious research skills.

No, CNN deserves to be outed for the lying bunch of shills they are. It is irrelevant whether the questions were fair or not... or whether a candidate should be able to handle them or not - the issue here is that the national media is clearly shown to be actively working the agenda of one party, and doing so in a covert manner designed to hide that fact!

If you think "fairness" means we have to take every trick lying down to show that we are "better", I think you are emblematic of what the hell is wrong with the Republican Party. I ask again, will we demand accountability of the media by attacking their criminal (yes) practices right out in the open, or will we let them pick our candidate for us, a stalking horse for Hillary?

THAT is the issue!

"Does he really think that the media will allow those statements to go unchallenged?"

Are you serious? Of course he does. And they will. Do you really think there is one shred of interest in today's media to take on the Democrat icons they helped create, or an ounce of courage to do it?

That's so they know whether to keep your answers or chuck them!

While General Petraeus is in DC, maybe he can stop by Senator Clinton's office to receive that personal apology she has offered for the insult ing public remarks she made about a man who is obviously a great leader. Oh, wait...

The very definition of "arrogant authoritarian":

"... you don't need to see the most recent poll to understand that this is an issue that has touched a nerve in the public and we're trying to address that in a thoughtful, modulated way, and then we'll see where we go."

The word "clueless" may apply here, too.

The Democrats and the media have perfected the art of personal destruction. As they scream about their fantasized Bush police state, they are busy applying the tactics of one to their political enemies. They have figured out that it is much easier to destroy their rivals via the media than beat them in elections. To use a sports analogy, when you have the refs in your pocket, you don't even have to pretend to play by the same rules as the losers.