A lot of funny people aren’t finding a lot funny about these last, venomous throes of the election. Fortunately for the viewing public, they have excellent senses of humor about it.

John Stewart, for instance, doesn’t find it very funny at all that the McCain campaign decided to divide America into the “real,” “pro-Americans” of the small towns, and the rest of us. He devoted a show to the subject; one of his better ones.

And older comedians – from Danny DeVito to Carl Reiner – have put together a spot urging voters to get serious and embrace Obama.

On a yet more serious note, I offer another scaled-down installment of my study of the tectonic shift by GOP mainstays away from the deranged direction of the Party and toward Obama:

No less than 26 of the papers that endorsed Bush in 2004, have endorsed Obama this year – many of them conservative.

The campaign drags on – episodes like McCain accusing Obama of hating on Joe the Plumber merging with episodes like a reporter being kicked at a Palin rally, into a single tarry mass – bringing to mind the image from Yeats’ “Second Coming” of a “rough beast” “slouching” toward The End.

And as things veer increasingly toward the violent, the terrified, the siege mentality, another line from the poem echoes fearfully loud:

” The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

Indeed, there is too much passionate intensity among the racists, brutes and bullies. But do the best lack all conviction?

No. In fact, if anything, this fierce reaping has cast the best into relief, as they’re the ones the worst are pointing fingers at. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Right.

First it was Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist for the flagship of conservative publications, The National Review. Parker made waves recently by roundly criticizing Sarah Palin after the Couric interviews, and being reamed by an alleged “12,000 e-mails” and counting – ranging from declarations that she should have been aborted to denunciations of her as not a “true conservative,” and those are the nice ones, according to her.

So it was with a bit more discretion that libertarian leading light and heir to National Review founder William F. Buckley’s estate, Christopher Buckley, endorsed Obama. In his article, “Sorry, Dad, I’m Voting for Obama,” Buckley writes:

“Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.”

For any unconvinced conservatives out there who’ve soured on Obama, this sage, caustic man’s revolutionary appraisal of the candidate is an indispensable read.

The same can be said for the article about his subsequent denunciation by the right-wing and tense resignation from the magazine his father founded: “Sorry, Dad, I Was Fired”

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance.

Has the modern “conservative” GOP abandoned its conservative roots, and with them, scholarship and intellect? Increasingly this seems so to me. And at the very least, Kathleen Parker argues in her article supporting Buckley’s self-sacrificing stance for his principles, it is separating those who suppress thought from those who champion it even in difficult times:

Radical conservatives are still having an interesting time of it, though these days they are being mutilated by fellow “conservatives.” The well-fed Right now cultivates ignorance as a political strategy and humiliates itself when its brightest sons seek sanctuary in the solitude of personal honor. … Republicans are not short on brainpower — or pride — but they have strayed off course.

How many brightest sons languish in self-exile, or after being swept to the margins? Certainly Frank Schaeffer, pro-life activist, and Douglas Kmiec, conservative legal eminence and acclaimed scholar, come to mind. Both have endorsed Obama as the sole, best hope of reducing abortions available to us, and both have been denounced by the rabble for it – Kmiec even being denied communion one occasion on the basis of that endorsement.

If we can put aside the divisions that old-time partisans have stoked for so long to our disadvantage, more people might see abortion as a product of societal indifference and individual callousness: the former exemplified by economic conditions ranging from inadequate wages to evictions traceable to the subprime fraud; the latter typified by a self-centeredness that sees children as competitors or enemies to personal fulfillment.

And certainly there are the others I have referenced in past posts.

No brightest son better embodies this phenomenon than the man who many expect will, come the end of next week or the week after, capture the news cycle with his endorsement of Obama: Collin Powell.

For many, Powell represents the wise, humble voice that tried to steer the Bush administration away from war and was instead shouted down by the arrogant, self-interested apparatchiks like Rumsfeld, Perle and Wolfowitz. He sullied his reputation for many at the UN, was ignominiously cashiered come the end of Bush’s first time, and as since been out of sight – like an old trophy commemorating the intellectual prudence and moral involvement of the Republican party, now gathering dust.

If all indications are correct, that trophy will soon come crashing down to seal the fate of bullying, gut-based conservatism. I eagerly await that.

The brightest sons and daughters want their party back. With voices like Parker, Buckley and Kmeic, they deserve it.

And all of us deserve a better President than the man who, once as fierce a critic of those “worst” among the right, now fights for them with the “passionate intensity” of desperation.

* UPDATE * The conservative Chicago Tribune just endorsed Obama, their first Democratic Party candidate endorsement in the 161 year history of the paper.

* UPDATE II * In Philadelphia, conservative Talk Radio host Michael Smerconish endorsed Obama on his show today, “for the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago … voting for a Democrat.”

Definitely, definitely check this out. It’s the entirety of the roundtable discussion I mentioned yesterday.

Want to see bipartisanship? Check out George Will and Donna Brazille agreeing vehemently.

Welcome to my world, you two.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5849844

McCain has, since mid-summer, used fear as his leading campaign strategy: Fear of Obama teaching sex-ed to kindergartners, fear of Obama being inexperienced, fear of Obama’s otherness, fear that borders on the obscene in some cases.

Now fear seems to be turning against McCain, as the economy struggles and McCain’s reaction is panicked – from saying he would fire the old-hand SEC Chairman, flailing between announcing fundamental economic strength and crisis, and of late portraying himself as a pro-regulation populist, at the very moment an article in which he suggests deregulating the health care industry like we have the finance industry is hitting the shelves.

This was capably discussed on ‘This Week’ by ABC’s round table panel. None on the panel was as precise in depicting the problem as the conservative party stalwart, George Will.

Take my advice – especially if your values are conservative:

WATCH THIS VIDEO.

I could not embed it, given that ABC carefully guards its Web content. Even YouTube did not have the full, in-context segment yet. But click the link and see. It is well worth a watching.

It underscores what is lately becoming the verdict on the McCain campaign by all quarters: That despite reflexive assumptions about his experience, McCain is not the candidate who reacts calmly, with integrity, to crisis.

The article I cited earlier by Wick Allison, the National Review publisher and protege of William F. Buckley, brilliantly asserts the difference between the two candidates and why those with conservative fundamentals have a solid choice in Barack Obama.

If you have not yet read Allison’s essay, here it is again. Definitely read it.

It explains why, in the words of George Will, John McCain has provided ample evidence to make “some of us” – particularly those on the right – “fearful.”

I have often said that losing this election will be the best thing that happened to the Republican Party in the last 50 years. It would be like an addict “hitting bottom” – the fear-mongering, patriotism-baiting, sound byte slinging, demagoguery dependent, hysteria-feeding, monolithic thinking, avaricious forces that have increasingly poisoned the GOP would be shown no longer to work.

They would have to be purged. An accounting of morals and priorities would take place. Actual values and philosophies would replace the unthinking commercialization of those terms.

We may be seeing its beginnings now, as increasing numbers of conservatives shove aside the mind-numbing, red meat baggage that calculating smear merchants have piled on Obama’s character. They’re ignoring the media branding, going to the facts and using that virtue they so famously hallow – independence. And despite the Reverend Wright distortions, the Muslim knee-jerk terror and the endless, topsy-turvy drivel about Obama being an elitist – despite all the calculated and cold-hearted slander for political purposes – this group of late converts is listening to the man.

Some are liking what they’re hearing. Former Congressman and actual maverick, Wayne Gilchrest, is among them, as he cross the aisle to endorse Obama. A former National Review publisher and William F. Buckley disciple has followed the footsteps of Susan Eisenhower and done this as well.

Others are long-time supporters, like Hagel and Lugar, who have taken up a recent cause: Reacting to John McCain’s seemingly limitless, morally disgusting lies.

Hagel and Lugar both had to defend truth, decency and Obama today when McCain began to spread the lie that the Illinois Senator had a secret meeting with Iraqis to prolong and worsen the war. They informed the media that there was nothing secret about the meeting – a number of US officials, such as ambassador Crocker, were there, and there was nothing insidious or contrary to US policy happening either. Temperatures have since been running hot.

And it is this constant lying that has conservative commentators beginning to protest. So far, it is happening in small numbers, but significant ones nevertheless. Outside the hate-based slop on talk radio, right-wing pundits are beginning to feel the truth is being bent too much for them to support the man appointed to champion their policies.

The Wall Street Journal hit McCain for his assault on the SEC and mischaracterization of it. FOX objected to McCain distorting the words of one of their journalists and threatened action.

Ross Douthat at The Atlantic takes particular issue with the McCain camp’s winging about how Palin needs to be protected from the media. But it is Richard Cohen, a former ardent supporter of McCain like myself, that has the most emphatic and eloquent reaction to McCain’s distortions:

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains — his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that’s all — but just as honorably. No more, though.

“No more” is right. And many on the Right are coming to feel that. It is a hard thing to admit one’s appointed champion is not worthy of one’s values; to denounce him.

But it is necessary for the survival of those values.

From the beginning of the campaign, The Economist has been wary of Barack Obama. This week, it declared that it has definite reason to worry about John McCain.

This is no “Obamaniac” rag. The Economist has dutifully regurgitated its fair share of distortions about the Democratic candidate – claiming he supported post-birth abortion; wringing their hands about Rezko.

But of late, they have been taking McCain to task for distracting from real issues by playing up personality issues and abandoning his past positions in order to cave to the “corporate socialist” faction of the GOP in Executive power. And when he appointed Palin, they cut to the quick.

Their most critical point, as often with The Economist, is found at the end. Here, in entirety, is the article, “The Woman from Nowhere.”

Lexington
The woman from nowhere

Sep 4th 2008
From The Economist print edition
John McCain’s choice of running-mate raises serious questions about his judgment

Illustration by KAL

THE most audacious move of the race so far is also, potentially, the most self-destructive. John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate has set the political atmosphere alight with both enthusiasm and dismay.

Mr McCain has based his campaign on the idea that this is a dangerous world—and that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it. He has also acknowledged that his advanced age—he celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29th—makes his choice of vice-president unusually important. Now he has chosen as his running mate, on the basis of the most cursory vetting, a first-term governor of Alaska.

The reaction from inside the conservative cocoon was at first ecstatic. Conservatives argued that Mrs Palin embodies the “real America”—a moose-hunting hockey mum, married to an oil-worker, who has risen from the local parent-teacher association to governing the geographically largest state in the Union. They praise her as a McCain-style reformer who has taken on her state’s Republican establishment and has a staunch pro-life record (her fifth child has Down’s syndrome). Who better to harpoon the baby-murdering elitists who run the Democratic Party?

Mrs Palin was greeted like the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan by the delegates, furious at her mauling at the hands of the “liberal media”. And she delivered a tub-thumping speech, underlining her record as a reforming governor and advocate of more oil-drilling, and warning her enemies not to underestimate her (“the difference between a hockey mum and a pitbull—lipstick”). But once the cheering and the chanting had died down, serious questions remained.

The political calculations behind Mr McCain’s choice hardly look robust. Mrs Palin is not quite the pork-busting reformer that her supporters claim. She may have become famous as the governor who finally killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere”—the $220m bridge to the sparsely inhabited island of Gravina, Alaska. But she was in favour of the bridge before she was against it (and told local residents that they weren’t “nowhere to her”). As mayor of Wasilla, a metropolis of 9,000 people, she initiated annual trips to Washington, DC, to ask for more earmarks from the state’s congressional delegation, and employed Washington lobbyists to press for more funds for her town.

Nor is Mrs Palin well placed to win over the moderate and independent voters who hold the keys to the White House. Mr McCain’s main political problem is not energising his base; he enjoys more support among Republicans than Mr Obama does among Democrats. His problem is reaching out to swing voters at a time when the number of self-identified Republicans is up to ten points lower than the number of self-identified Democrats. Mr McCain needs to attract roughly 55% of independents and 15% of Democrats to win the election. But it is hard to see how a woman who supports the teaching of creationism rather than contraception, and who is soon to become a 44-year-old grandmother, helps him with soccer moms in the Philadelphia suburbs. A Rasmussen poll found that the Palin pick made 31% of undecided voters less likely to plump for Mr McCain and only 6% more likely.

The moose in the room, of course, is her lack of experience. When Geraldine Ferraro was picked as Walter Mondale’s running-mate, she had served in the House for three terms. Even the hapless Dan Quayle, George Bush senior’s sidekick, had served in the House and Senate for 12 years. Mrs Palin, who has been the governor of a state with a population of 670,000 for less than two years, is the most inexperienced candidate for a mainstream party in modern history.

Inexperienced and Bush-level incurious. She has no record of interest in foreign policy, let alone expertise. She once told an Alaskan magazine: “I’ve been so focused on state government; I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” She obtained an American passport only last summer to visit Alaskan troops in Germany and Kuwait. This not only blunts Mr McCain’s most powerful criticism of Mr Obama. It also raises serious questions about the way he makes decisions.
Vetted for 15 minutes

Mr McCain had met Mrs Palin only once, for a 15-minute chat at the National Governors’ Association meeting, before summoning her to his ranch for her final interview. The New York Times claims that his team arrived in Alaska only on August 28th, a day before the announcement. As a result, his advisers seem to have been gobsmacked by the Palin show that is now playing on the national stage. She has links to the wacky Alaska Independence Party, which wants to secede from the Union. She is on record disagreeing with Mr McCain on global warming, among other issues. The contrast with Mr Obama’s choice of the highly experienced and much-vetted Joe Biden is striking.

Mr McCain’s appointment also raises more general worries about the Republican Party’s fitness for government. Up until the middle of last week Mr McCain was still considering two other candidates whom he has known for decades: Joe Lieberman, a veteran senator, independent Democrat and Iraq war hawk, and Tom Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania (a swing state with 21 Electoral College votes) and the first secretary of homeland security. Mr McCain reluctantly rejected both men because their pro-choice views are anathema to the Christian right.

The Palin appointment is yet more proof of the way that abortion still distorts American politics. This is as true on the left as on the right. But the Republicans seem to have gone furthest in subordinating considerations of competence and merit to pro-life purity. One of the biggest problems with the Bush administration is that it appointed so many incompetents because they were sound on Roe v Wade. Mrs Palin’s elevation suggests that, far from breaking with Mr Bush, Mr McCain is repeating his mistakes.

That point should have profound weight for readers of The Economist here in the United States: That in these critical times, Hail Mary passes to stir up the base with a wedge issue is the kind of pandering desperation that we cannot afford.

The issue of abortion is one that is grim and will surely not be resolved soon. But this only underscores the far greater importance of other issues in this election – for this election finds America not faced by challenges down the road, but by emergencies grappling with it now.

Abortion plays to the emotions of the voter, and it divides. But the most pressing concern we have now is not this long-term issue – it is whether the process of the last eight years should continue.

Should we continue with the same isolationist, belligerent and weak foreign policy – the policy that saw North Korea proliferate nuclear weapons and delivery systems; the policy that saw Russia resurgent; the policy that led to Iraq being so mishandled that it took three years and Petraeus’ defiance of White House order to stay its descent into chaos; the policy that has al-Qaeda stronger now than at the time of 9/11?

Should we continue the same economic policies – the policies that have led to record jobless rates, to record disparity of wealth between upper and middle classes, to lags in wages, to economic incentives that drive industry overseas to India and China while shunning foreign talent coming here, to lose our precious global advantage in the most important struggle of our century – resource management?

Do you want more of the same?

More enemies ascendant while America rages alone like a lunatic on a soapboax. Iran is growing terrifically powerful. Venezuela is conducting military exercises with Russia. South America is going socialist. North Korea now has both American aid /and/ nukes. Russia is unopposed. Darfur is still dying. These things were not inevitable. There is a reason they were not stopped, and the reason is that the same men who advise John McCain and George W. Bush said they should not be.

More decline of the middle class. Corporate money is pouring away from our manufacturing centers into Mexico and Asia. We have the most enormous debt in history, and China owns the lion share of it. We have neglected countless advances in energy technology and science while Europe leapt ahead, almost catching us. We have let so many, many businesses atrophy so that oil prices could soar. So many tax dollars go into corporate tax loopholes, “cost-plus” overcharging and subsidies. These things were not inevitable. There is a reason they were not stopped, and the reason is that the same men who advise John McCain and George W. Bush said they should not be.

More mishandling abroad.

More division here at home.

More wedge and fear politics.

These processes are not inevitable. They are not, like with abortion, long-term struggles.

They are immediate. They are making millions of lives worse rather than better, worldwide. They are costing lives now – as in Iraq and Afghanistan – and setting the field for costing more lives later.

They can be changed now, only now, and only by voting Democrat.

That is what matters now.

Conventions aren’t just about the speeches. That would be like Valium without the Johnny Walker Black Label and Ritalin chaser. And now that I’ve regained consciousness after taking a large dose of John McCain’s accepting his party’s nomination, we can cover the zany circus spinning around the center ring:

By this, of course, I mean revealing Freudian slips!

Dogs who know how to respond to the mainstream media!

Balloon assault!

And the Return of the Son of the Bride of GREEN SCREEN!

The last of which begs the question, how long before John McCain’s campaign attacks him for hating America because he didn’t wear a flag pin last night? Considering how rabid they’ve been in the past, I’m thinking it’ll be any minute now.

Anybody got an hourglass?

John Stewart took the recent Republican punditry pabulum to task for their duplicity and double-standards last night.

This, along with Colbert’s excoriation of the Palin choice as paean of McCain’s lack of political integrity, and the Daily Show exposure of how feckless and fraught with lies the Thompson and Lieberman speeches are, serves as a well-aimed backhand at the people who want to pull the wool over the eyes of this country.

Unfortunately, it seems a lone blow.

Just last night, I was marveling at how CNN and MSNBC both had animated scrolls showing a plethora of facts during the speeches – none of which had any real bearing on the speech.

Why no red text pointing out that Sarah Palin was lying about her position on the Bridge to Nowhere? Why nothing under Guiliani pointing out Obama has not “zero,” but an outstanding one-hundred and fifty pieces of legislation in his brief Senate term, a number of which were drafted by him and are global in effect? Why no fact checking?

As the sagely pajamajournalist remarked, it’s tragic that we need to depend on comedians to keep political discourse honest.

If you’ve not seen it before, this is essential viewing:

The media lives by a perversion of a good, old creed: If they don’t have anything bad to say, they don’t say anything at all. There’s ample evidence in this when it comes to the Convention coverage, culminating in their latest hamstringing non-story against the Dems: “The Greek Temple” story.

First they did all they could to make it seem like Hillary’s repetitively positive support speech was a closet betrayal of Obama:

My assessment of the speech is in line with Mike Huckabee’s – if Hillary had been any more Obama-centric, her people and the media wouldn’t have believed her:

And now, after Bill Clinton’s “Ready, Ready, Ready” speech, the media ran out of gas on its disunity story. It really has no leg to stand on when it comes to skeletons and closets, or on issues. So it decided to pluck a seed from the GOP and heap bullshit on it to make it grow:

The Greek Temple story, to those of you not watching the news today, is that Obama’s speech platform looks like a Greek temple. This, the media says, betrays his presumptuousness, or may cause problems with many voters who think him presumptuous. It is what everybody’s talking about – or, rather, what they decided everyone would.

On Drudge Report, we find no less than three headlines devoted to it, and all three cable news channels have been weaving it into all their coverage, FOX most of all.

I report this in the interest of scoring another fat, dark mark under what is rapidly becoming the central thesis of my political views for the 21st century: The Media Is The Problem.

Clearly, Obama meant to suggest Presidential gravitas by choosing architecture that looks like Washington, DC – Neoclassical. Far be it for him to be majestic; he is, after all, only running to be leader of the free world.

But the media’s obsession with making this aura of something great and noble look like a negative shames the entire process. McCain, in announcing it to be something shameful, is not only being disingenuous, but is also downright perverse. Why shouldn’t we aspire to better? Why shouldn’t we appreciate refinement and glory?

Reagan knew we should, as did Roosevelt and Kennedy. But their efforts would have been mocked and belittled by the media and the McCain camp – decreed out-of-touch, elitist, haughty. And in denying that majesty, they deny us the privilege of that grandeur resonating in us.

Obama himself said it well when speaking of his candidacy: That the excitement and the spectacle was not about him; that the greatness people invested in him was the greatness in themselves, and in America. I believe it. Many believe it. The media despises it.

They and McCain tear it down. And so, by extension, they tear us all down.

The manufactured story about the “Greek Temple” haughtiness shows that if there are no reasons to be ashamed and afraid, they will invent them. In a world informed by the demolition of grand spectacles, all we will have left is disaster.

I woke up from the usual political nightmares today to find an e-mail from a trusted confidant:

I’ve heard and thought more about McCain’s statement re number of houses, and I recommend that you avoid the subject on your blog.

I was thinking of the same. Nevertheless, yesterday’s article had been about how Obama needs to get on the attack with ads, and the housing attack was cited. I read on.

I am really sick of the current iteration of “Gotcha” Politics, especially as advanced by Talk Radio and Cable TV (including MSNBC). If you’re going to play that game, do it the way Tim Russert did: issue-driven, geared toward determining intellectual honesty.

Let’s please focus on substance….This is a critical time in world history, and I’m saddened by the baseness of American discourse.

A co-worker who’s got a good head on his shoulders said something similar about the house ad. Though I should note that he’s somewhat more disposed to the Republicans – and the confidant above is thoroughly a Democrat, albeit a frustrated one – he felt the ad was “humorous” and “petty.” He too said he cared about the issues.

Almost everybody I talk to does.

So, if this model holds true, shouldn’t candidates experience a climb in the polls when they focus not on their opponent, but on the issues?

Recently, John McCain has enjoyed a leap in his polling numbers. Over the past two months, Obama has gone from leading by 6.8 to 1.4! McCain’s favorable ratings have held mighty strong, while Obama’s plummeted an average of 10 points! And battleground states right and left – no pun intended – have been beginning to trend to McCain.

Therefore, given that everyone cares about the issues, and abhors negative, petty, humorous trash, McCain must be talking about the issues while Obama talks about trash.

Let’s review the ads they released over the past month and a half – the period of Obama’s preciptous decline – to see who is staying away from those poisonous “Gotcha” politics. We’ll do the survey week by week.

One Month Ago

Obama Ads: “Sand Dunes” (about McCain and his energy plan), “New Energy” (about his energy plan), “America’s Leadership” (about Obama’s record in the Senate fighting terrorism and partisanship; a Matt Funk Favorite), “Restore” (about Obama’s security policy, and denouncing a McCain ad against him as “misleading”)

McCain Ads: “Jobs for America” (about McCain bringing jobs for America), “Love” (about how McCain was a POW during the summer of love, and loves his country), “God’s Children” (about how hispanics are good Americans, even illegal immigrants), “Troop Funding” (lies about Obama’s record on troops and security; the “misleading” ad above), “Pump” (claims Obama is responsible for gas soaring because of his opposition to gas tax holiday)

Main Media Topic: Obama’s support is fragile (see Jesse Jackson’s nuts and related).

Three Weeks Ago

Obama Ads: “Old Politics” (claims McCain is misleading on “Pump” ad, above; outlines Obama’s energy plan), “Low Road” (about how McCain is being negative in his campaigning, just like the Bush campaign of ’00 and ’04)

McCain Ads: “Celeb” (compared Obama to Paris and Britney, saying he’s an empty celebrity), “The One” (denounces Obama as “messianic” and his followers as zealots)

Main Media Topic: Is Obama a vain celebrity?

Two Weeks Ago

Obama Ads: “Pocket” (notes McCain gets massive contributions from oil companies, gives them big tax breaks), “Low Road Express” (says McCain’s running a negative campaign), “Original” (shows the similarities between McCain and Bush’s record)

McCain Ads: “Broken” (says McCain has fought corruption in both parties), “Family” (claims Obama’s economic plan will ruin your family’s financial future), “Painful” (says Obama is a detached celebrity, while Americans go through tough times)

Main Media Topic: Why won’t Barack fight back?

One Week Ago

Obama Ads: “Fat Cat” (indicates how Obama does not take lobbyist or PAC money), “Book” (illustrates how Bush and McCain have nearly identical policies), “Fix the Economy” (shows how McCain says the economy is good, and how middle class Americans don’t)

McCain Ads: “Recipe”, “Fan Club”, “Taxman”, “Maybe”, “Millions” and “The One – Road to Denver” (all claiming Obama is an out of touch celebrity)

Main Media Topic: Why won’t Barack fight back, since he is losing support?

The data suggests a point contrary to my canny confidants’ – namely, that running negative ads about absolute crap is really, really effective in swaying voters.

McCain attacked right at one of Obama’s chief strengths – and the only one the media spends a lot of time discussing – his charisma. He turned the positive quality of being able to inspire hope and excitement in others into a negative to be feared.

The result has, as those poll numbers show, not been insubstantial. And so I have to respectfully disagree with my confidants on this one: It is talking about the issues that does not work. The media does not pay anywhere near as much attention to that as it does to the kind of feckless nonsense that “Celeb” and its spawn consist of.

Proof of this? Almost no one I talk to knows what Obama’s policies are. In the issue-oriented ads I noted above and in gatherings around the country, he’s been outlining his policies – especially his economic and energy policies. Few I talk to know what they are.

The media instead talks about how Obama is showing weakness by not going after McCain. As the ads above also show, Obama has attacked McCain – but he’s attacked him on the issues. That has nowhere near the resonance of crappy personal attacks, nor does it has their wonderful, toxic ancillary benefit of poisoning whatever the person says.

After “Celeb,” most fence-sitters will be disposed to not believing Obama, regardless of his issue stance. They will, by default, see him as unready, insubstantial and out of touch. This detracts from the power of his issue stances, and adds to McCain’s.

I wish things were different, my dear confidants. But with the lead Op-Ed pieces this Friday being, “Yes We Can Turns To Oops, We May Not,” “Why McCain Is Rising,” “Why Obama Has To Get Mad To Win,” “The Mystery of Obama’s Problems” and “The End of the Fairy Tale,” the media is focusing on other than the issues.

In a perfect world, the media would devote all its time to weighing the empirical truth of each candidate’s statements. It would engage in follow-up, eschew rumor and radicalism, and extol good behavior. In our world, it doesn’t.

It craves ignorance, wanting to keep the audience always wondering, so they’ll stay aggravated and tuned in. It spurns follow-up when it’s off-message, fixates solely on rumor and radicalism, and denigrates good behavior as weak. It hates the kind of campaigns my confidants want, and it will deny the candidate who runs it a voice.

One might argue that Obama’s problem is that during the primary, he set the tone – “Change” – while Hillary was stuck on issues and negative attacks. Now, Obama has tried to address the people who say he’s an empty suit by talking policy, and McCain is setting the tone – “Negativity.”

The solution, then, would be to consistently ignore McCain and to find a positive, inspiring message again. That could be the case after the Democratic Convention, when the VP can be the attack dog and Obama can go back to giving rousing speeches about hope.

Yet two problems with this remain:

One, it doesn’t address the qualms of my confidant, who knows little of Obama’s issues and would just as soon vote McCain, since you know what you’re getting from him. Millions of Americans presumably feel the same.

And two, the media wants a fight. They demand a fight. And now that two months of criticizing Obama for not being aggressive has resulted in the insipid “House Gaffe,” they are sneering at him for being “just like any other politician” while slobbering all over the story of McCain’s senility.

Given these, it’s hard to argue that the Ad War is not best won the Simple Way, by drilling into the American people’s heads that while your candidate may not have great issue positions … at least he’s not the flip-flopping, elitist vanity plate the other guy is.

That is, of course, how the last two elections were won.

Lies. Temper tantrums. Willful ignorance of complexity.

McCain’s not 72 going on 73. He’s 7.

I must remind myself whenever I feel a pang of remorse over denigrating the man I supported in 2000, “He was so much older then, he’s younger than that now.”

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.

In the latest in my increasingly repetitive complaints about media bias, I present you a sigh of relief on my part and the statistical study that inspired it.

This study, released today from The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, one of the leading statistical analysts of media, has been reviewing the the recent content of the three major networks. Its findings were no surprise to me:

…when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

This, when combined with the recent Tyndall report that many McCain supporters have been using as foundation for their gripe of media bias, is what troubles me. Tyndall’s numbers suggested Obama was getting vastly more air time than McCain. Confidants of mine consoled me that the greater air time meant that McCain’s lack of exposure would fatally atrophy his campaign over time.

I was unconvinced, and this study makes me further unconvinced, for if you’re hearing for 72% of a vast amount of time how much a snobby, out-of-touch, vulnerable, presumptuous, you-name-it bum someone is, how does that help their image? It would seem given that kind of content, more air time would hurt, not help, a candidate.

In my ongoing – potentially life-long – diatribe against the media’s unforgiveable mishandling of news, I present the latest installment of stories that should have been sources of shock and dismay at the McCain candidacy, were it not for the almost total lack of coverage.

If you have been tuning in to the news this week, you would know that squeamishness over Obama abounds. From criticism over his allowing his children to be interviewed, to criticism over his regreting interview given the media’s take on it, to the incessant handwringing about the fragility of his public support, to at last the prattling about Jesse Jackson’s off-color, on-mic comments, it’s all bad Obama, all the time.

Meanwhile, McCain is talking about things that actually matter – insofar as they should put anybody with any sense in a position of anxious dread over the possibility of his election.

Credit to the compilation of this list of alarming statements from McCain goes to Max Bergmann, whose excellent piece covers ten of them in detail.

In Bergmann’s order, the incidents are:

* McCain calls social security an “absolute disgrace.” Not the threat to social security; social security:

“Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace and it’s got to be fixed.”

That should take care of the senior vote … if anyone was listening.

* Top McCain campaign economic advisor Phil Gramm said the effects of the recession were all “mental,” and that Americans are complaining because we’ve become a nation of “whiners.”

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline” despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy.

So gas prices, food prices, foreclosure problems; they’re all just mental. Good to hear Gramm’s got solutions for them: Namely, “cheer up.”

This should be a big wake-up call to the illusion that typifies recent GOP economic policies: Economic growth does not necessarily mean everybody profits, only that the rich profit.

* McCain on Iraq: First, permanent bases are the way to go. Next, he claims Maliki didn’t really say what he said. Then, he admits to it, but says dismissively, “Prime Minister Maliki is a politician.”

Meaning, I suppose, that Maliki was just telling the Iraqi people what they want to hear. Well, if the Iraqi people want to hear we’re going to leave, and Iraq is a democracy, and we will respect Iraq’s wishes, what’s McCain’s support for permanent bases and dismissal of a timetable about?

This should bankrupt McCain’s claim to moral foreign policy, but hey, what’s so important about that? Let’s talk about Obama flip-flopping on interviewing his kids.

* McCain claims he’s going to eliminate the defecit within his Presidency. The media transmits this obediently. They do not call this into question by pointing out that other parts of his economic proposals include:

“…a) cut individual and corporate taxes even further, b) extend the Bush tax cuts and c) massively increase defense spending on manpower (200,000 more troops) and d) maintain a long-term sizable military presence in Iraq.”

Nobody asks how he intends to pull off this magic trick. Why worry? More importantly, Obama is losing a little support among Progressives, so he is expected to not kick McCain’s ass as badly in fundraising this month – now there’s a story.

* McCain made a hallmark of his defecit reduction plan “achieving victory in Iraq” – he’s going to use the money we are borrowing for the war to pay down the money we are borrowing.

This should have raised questions about either his honesty or his sanity. Oh well. Got to be objective!

* Speaking of utter mendacity, McCain announced 300 economists had signed a letter supporting his economic agenda, save that they really didn’t.

“…good many of those economists don’t actually support the whole of McCain’s economic agenda. And at least one doesn’t even support McCain for president.”

This goes virtually unmentioned in the mainstream. McCain may lie, but Obama has apologized – what’s more important?

* McCain then implies he wants to kill Iranians by making a joke about how we should export more cigarettes to them. The press reports this as a moment of humor.

* McCain denies he said he was no expert on economics, when in fact it’s well-documented.

* McCain then distorts his record on Vet benefits, and gets upbraided for it by a Vietnam vet. This takes place, like the previous clip, on the only network approaching responsibility in reporting – MSNBC.

* McCain says there’s a glimmer of hope in improving relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan lately. Blogger Pat Barry points out how incorrect this is:

Just what “glimmer” is McCain talking about?? Maybe he’s referring to President Karzai’s remarks last month, which threatened military action in Pakistan if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe McCain is talking about Afghanistan’s allegations that Pakistan’s ISI was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe in McCain’s world you could call that a silver-lining, but in reality-land I’d call it something else.

This is so out of touch, so false-confident, it’s downright insulting. And considering the parties involved, it is dangerous – dangerous to believe it and let that situation continue to spiral, and dangerous to act like it and use it as an excuse to underfund and ignore the troops we send in there.

* The coup de grace comes today from a blog on ABC, mentioning that McCain lied to people in Pittsburgh about having resisted NVA interrogation by telling them the names of the Steelers offensive line rather than his squadron’s names. It was actually the Packers, as he’s written about before.

Maybe this story will stick. It has all the elements of a Hillary-in-Bosnia story: It’s basically lying about human interest fluff; it is contradicted by public record; it sounds dumb enough to be interesting.

I doubt it, though.

And that’s the tragedy of our times: Not that we want for political leadership, or that we’re divided as a nation, or that it’s so hard to figure out the truth.

There are good political leaders. We can come together over common ground. The truth is available with a few key strokes.

The tragedy is that the people who control the information we exchange – who literally decide what most people hear and what they do not – feed on the contrary.

They tear down, they foment division, they obscure the notion of truth, they prop up weak liars like McCain has made himself out to be and ignore actual issues for the sake of tabloid, fast-food news service.

They do this, and if our politicians pander to it, it is because the media not only lets them, but demands it of them.

After reading all of the above, I am certain McCain would be a disaster if elected. Yet I am even more worried, more despondent, given that no matter which candidate is elected, we will never truly be able to change the channel.

New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist and global resident genius, Thomas Friedman, wrote a recent column detailing what the intercepted National Intelligence Estimate of Iran might look like. While tongue in cheek, the piece has some truly brilliant insights.

“Yes, our last I.N.I.E. in 1990 concluded that after the collapse of communism, America was on track to become the world’s sole superpower and most compelling role model for Muslim youth — including our own. We were wrong. We now have “high confidence” that America is on a path of self-destruction.”

The brilliance of Friedman – for those who haven’t read any of his work to have it summarized for them – is that the man thinks not in political terms, but in the ready, clean machinery of economic terms. There is no notion of the idealistic to his argument; power matters, the market matters, even values only have worth so far as they are a commodity. In fact, his observations on what role “values” – as defined by the political dialogue here in America – have are apt as well:

“…at a time when America’s bridges, roads, airports and Internet bandwidth have fallen behind other industrial powers, including China, we believe that the U.S. opposition to higher taxes — and the fact that the primary campaigns have focused largely on gay marriage, flag-burning and whether the Christian Bible is the literal truth — means it is “highly unlikely” that America will arrest its decline…

Our intel analysts are baffled that the leading Democrat, Mrs. Clinton, no longer believes in globalization and the leading Republican, Mr. Huckabee, never believed in evolution.”

Satire is often regarded as the most offensive form of criticism. This is, perhaps, because it is the most unvarnished truth – even the veneer of respect is not afforded to its target. That Mrs. Clinton might run a better “horse race” by dint of her debating tempo or consistency of empty message is not something to be admired, or even considered tolerable; Mr. Huckabee’s mythology is not regarded as quaint. The harm of those attitudes is starkly evident.

As an overall assessment of what the real threats and challenges are, the article is a more clarid assessment than any sober soundbite regurgitated by a network telecast talking head. Here, seen through our enemy’s eyes, the stakes are made clear, the rules defined, and, though a good laugh is the only sure result of reading this article, the call to action is raised loud enough to drown out the sea of useless blathering.