Numbers like Mark Nickolas discovered are why whenever I hear the term “liberal biased media” these days, I get another white hair. They prove the media’s not liberal, or ideological, or even sensible.

They are merely deliberately stupid, arrogantly untruthful, gluttonous, sycophantic greedheads who have the interests of a fight promoter and the morals of a gulag commandant.

For the numbers show that even compared to Karl Rove and parties with an ideological bias, the media is harsher in its estimate of Obama’s appeal and abilities: That the polls of Zogby and the like compile to show Obama 127 electoral votes ahead, Rove at 77 ahead, the Cook Political Report at 66 ahead - and all of these are far larger than the most preferenntial media outlet, CNN, which has Obama at only 32 ahead.

Most channels and print media figures hover around 28 by Nickolas’ discovery; the Washington Post even goes so far with poll gymnatics to put McCain ahead by 6 EV.

The media is, for the time, wrong. The professionals, after all, are getting far different numbers than the ones that illustrate the campaigns as a tooth-and-nail death match that could swing either way (so stay tuned!).

But the media tells people what’s true and what they should feel about it. People react accordingly. And so the question becomes how long before the self-fulfilling prophecy of a tight race is born out, and the media - as they did with Iraq - coaxes the public to embrace the disaster they’ve dreamt up.