Day: April 27, 2008

Mainstream Media: Yes, Our Heads are In Fact Straight Up Our Asses

Trish

The biggest stories on ABC…

…and CNN

I guess it was a slow news day, and that’s why the MSM is focused on Barack Obama and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. There just wasn’t any good competition. Let’s see…

Actual news stories today, from Reuters:

Baghdad Green Zone blasted under cover of storm

Militants bombarded Baghdad’s Green Zone with rockets on Sunday, taking advantage of the cover of a blinding dust storm to launch one of the heaviest strikes in weeks on the fortified compound…

Reuters correspondents heard the missiles whistling overhead and exploding inside the heavily fortified government and diplomatic compound on the west side of the Tigris River in Baghdad…

Karzai escapes assassination bid

Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt on Sunday from an assassination attempt by Taliban fighters who fired guns and rockets at an official celebration near the presidential palace in Kabul.

Fiancee says police acquittal like another death

The fiancee of an unarmed man who was killed in a hail of 50 police bullets said on Saturday the acquittal of three officers charged in his death was like “they killed Sean all over again.”

“That’s what it felt like to us,” said Nicole Paultre Bell in her first public comments about Friday’s verdict…

California wildfire forces 1,000 to evacuate

A wildfire that began along a popular hiking trail forced 1,000 people to evacuate their homes in the hills northeast of Los Angeles on Sunday, officials said.

Middle class taps nest eggs to keep homes

Trapped by rising mortgage payments and falling house values, a growing number of squeezed middle-class homeowners are tapping into their treasured retirement nest eggs to ward off foreclosure…

Apart from being a fresh sign that the housing crisis has spread up the U.S. income ladder, tapping tax-deferred savings accounts like 401(k) plans could have profound effects on taxpayer welfare, social security and employment patterns, economists and financial advisers said.

Yeah, looking at the lightweight competition, I can understand why CNN and ABC had to just churn up some crap with “Obama” in either the headline or the lede. I mean, what else was there to really engage the public? Since the public, is, you know, anything but bitter at being played and manipulated and underestimated by the Bush administration for eight years.

Lupica on Clinton: She Can’t Win and She Won’t Quit

Trish
The woman with the plan

New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica’s sportswriter background is showing but he makes more sense than most of the strictly political pundits.

Through it all, Clinton continues to run on the idea that she is ready “day one” to be President, when she wasn’t ready on day one for a rookie like Obama.

…She is supposed to be the one with the great sweeping plan for America, and she didn’t have one for Obama. Now she is where she is and so is her campaign.

So the Democrats don’t run against John McCain or against the ruling party that has given us this President, the biggest lightweight and most unpopular of anybody’s lifetime. The Democrats don’t run against record disapproval ratings for a Republican President and record foreclosures and record oil and gas prices…They continue to run against each other. The campaign is about the campaign.

The Democrats continue to run against each other. The campaign is about the campaign.

…This system was tailor-made for her by Terry McAuliffe when he was running the Democratic National Committee, before he became Clinton’s boy cheerleader. She had the name, the money, she was favored everywhere; the whole thing was supposed to be like a first-round knockout.

But the candidate who was supposed to have all the answers didn’t have an answer for Obama.

Now she talks about “who would be the best candidate against McCain,” as if only the superdelegates should get to decide, as if she wants this to be selection by committee. As if this is the NCAA basketball tournament.

So they slouch toward Indiana and North Carolina. She can’t win, and won’t quit. Maybe in two weeks. Clearly she and her finger-wagging husband, who makes Richard Nixon look like a model of grace as an ex-President, still can’t believe it ever came to this.

You are allowed to be as cynical as you want about Obama, and ask the same question Clinton asks about why he can’t put her away, even though a much better question is why she didn’t put him away at the start of this.

Will the Democratic Candidate Go Broke Before the General Election?

Trish

The Democratic primary, or as many refer to it, our long national nightmare, will be remembered for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest — literally — is the amount of money spent.

John McCain continues to be the main beneficiary of this wasting of Democratic bucks

Obama and Clinton have spent a combined $110 million on TV ads to this point; we’ve had a race that’s literally gone on since last summer for ad spending,” said Evan Tracey of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group…

“We’re beyond what has been record spending in previous presidential nomination campaigns. John Kerry spent close to $20 million to get the nomination four years ago. Barack Obama’s already approaching $70 million.”

$50 million more than four years ago? In the primary? But wait, it’s not over yet.

Meanwhile, John McCain continues to be the main beneficiary of this wasting of Democratic bucks. The big question is, will Clinton or Obama be able to keep going back to their respective wells of financing? At some point — and $4 per gallon gas might be that point — people just run out of extra money.