The media thinks we’re all morons

Stories like this are exactly why the mainstream media has become a joke: Stolen Climate E-Mails Cause A Ruckus In Congress : NPR.

That headline is ridiculous, and so is the story. The real story here is not that emails were “stolen”, especially since the best evidence indicates that they were leaked. And since all these files were the target of multiple FOI requests by scientists trying to dig into the research, for years, but denied every step of the way, an unbiased observer might conclude that this information was really public for all intents and purposes, anyway, and should have been available years ago. Plus, I thought the media loved using FOI requests to bring down the powerful and the arrogant? Yet now they don’t even want to mention it without using loaded words like “stolen”. So very, very odd!

And the real fallout from the real story is much, much more than a “ruckus”; use of the word ruckus frames it as a bunch of spoiled brats arguing about who touched who first. The real story with the “stolen emails” is that the credibility of the IPCC–what was still left of it, anyway–is gone.

AP style

Rich at threedonia.com writes about an AP article and putting the least important piece of the story at the end:

They ran a nineteen paragraph, 703 word story yesterday. When do the writers first mention Hasan’s terrorist connections? In paragraph nineteen (aka: the last paragraph), after 649 words of the story (aka: after 92% of the story has been written), we finally get this:

“The FBI learned late last year of Hasan’s repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. President Barack Obama already has ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies.”

This then, according to AP’s own stylebook, is the least important part of the Hasan story. Hasan’s terrorist connections (though we note that AP reporters Anne Gearan and Pauline Jelinek scrupulously avoid the use of the “T-word”) are deemed less important than: Army personnel policies, Army mental health services, suicide rates in the Army, the formation of an investigative panel and making the questionable point that Hasan opened fire on “mostly unarmed soldiers and civilians” (emphasis added) – among other things.

Right on, Rich. The AP “style” plus their biases and irresponsibility continues to push people away with a world view that many readers not only detect, but reject absolutely.

In fact, I believe that one major factor in the decline of newspapers is that industry’s near-complete dependence on the AP for non-local news. Life is too short to read anti-American lies and spin every damn day. More and more people have probably said, like I have, “why do I need this in my life?” I started skipping AP stories routinely about 3 years ago.

The WSJ, on the other hand, is doing just fine. They don’t use the AP, as far as I know.

I hear news types whining constantly about the Internet, and how valuable their role in our society is, and on and on. I never hear any of them say “you know, maybe the monolithic biased content was a problem since only 40% of the country sides with us”.

 

Links and Aggravation

I really don’t know what the hell is going on with our country any more. I read all of these stories in ONE DAY …

Does Obama Believe in Human Rights? – When it suits him. And just in his speeches. Bret Stephens lists the failures: the Berlin Wall, China, Sudan, Iran, Burma. Quoted:

It takes a remarkable presumption of good faith, or perhaps stupidity, to imagine that the Burmas or Sudans of the world would reciprocate Mr. Obama’s engagement except to seek their own advantage. … It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicism—or perhaps cowardice—to treat human rights as something that “interferes” with America’s purposes in the world, rather than as the very thing that ought to define them.

Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast – Humans Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein: “As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics.” Finally, a sane voice in a human rights group.

What Singapore Can Teach the White House – Universal health care with individual responsibility seems to be working in Singapore. We aren’t following that model.

A Survival Strategy for Free Enterprise Over the Long Term – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has rolled over on fighting a carbon tax: “what we need is a carbon tax.” No, we don’t. In fact, that is exactly what we don’t need. Are you freaking kidding me? A business group endorsing a tax on economic activity? This is the stupidest public comment I’ve heard in … hours.

Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals – And now we see why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has rolled over on fighting a carbon tax: “The MSNBC blast against the chamber appears to dovetail with what the Politico newspaper reports is a White House and Democratic effort “to marginalize” the business organization.”.

What the Limbaugh Quote Hoax Really Tells Us – Frankly, the demonization of conservatives really needs to stop. It’s become tedious. And frankly, it makes the Left look vapid, paranoid, and venal. Is that what they want?

John Madden has a few TVs for watching football

… WOW …

Ten flat-screen TVs, nine of them 63″, with one huge screen in the middle. Comfy chairs. Dark room.

This is pretty much the ideal football-watching environment.

So let’s see, to have the John Madden setup at my house, I only need … ten more flat-screen TVs!

Free Opinions, and Worth Every Penny

Phil Simms has long been one of my favorite color analysts on football, and it’s because of plain-spoken common sense like this (on the criticism of Jay Cutler last week by Jim Mora, Sr., and Mike Martz):

“The critical comments, the overanalyzation of everything, Week 1, there is no other way to describe it except that it is out of control. That’s all I can say. All I am reading is body language, `I can see this,’ or `I can see that,’ ‘I can just tell.’ I’m telling you, I wish I could go on and do the game today and do commentary on that because it is absurd.”

“Out of control” and “absurd” are exactly right.

What is it with people today? Everybody’s a critic.

I hadn’t realized that ex-football-coaches have enough expertise in reading body language to cast public criticism at players for not showing us the right post-game moves that send out the recommended degree of contrition.

Seriously, this is the stupidest thing I’ve heard since the idea of our government fining people thousands of dollars for not having health insurance. And that is a pretty high bar to clear.

More Simms:

“The players don’t listen don’t listen to all the talk radio, read all the articles and watch ESPN around the clock where we have 40 guys analyzing every throw Jay Cutler makes,” Simms said. “If I have to hear one more time, `Oh, you don’t throw across the field.’ That’s another cliche that needs to be blown up because Jay Cutler has thrown across his body 300 times already in his career and he has hit about 100 big plays out of it. Is he going to make mistakes? Sure.

“Someone could say, `Well, hey, he could have a bad day again today.’ No kidding. It is the Pittsburgh Steelers. It won’t be a walk in the park. I’ll make judgment after about eight weeks, maybe at the end of the season. I feel pretty secure in saying his talent and who he is will come through. His talent is tremendous, absolutely one of the top five most talented quarterbacks in the NFL.”

Phil Simms won’t suffer fools gladly, and I love that about him. Especially in comparison to so many TV and media “personalities” who are both too impressed with themselves, and afraid of their own shadows.

Weather Dorks and Rock Bands … Sure, Why Not?

There are some things that you just never expect to see in your lifetime.

The Cubs winning a World Series. Sensible politics in Washington. Being able to lose that last 15 pounds. A picture of Cheap Trick hanging with WGN weatherman Tom Skilling.

Oops, scratch that last one, because here it is.

Cheap Trick played live on WGN this morning: “I Want You to Want Me”, awesome as it ever was.

That Rick Nielsen, he can play guitar a little bit, eh? Funny, too. Watch the video.

This is Just Bizarre. And When I Say Bizarre, I Mean B-I-Z-A-R-R-E

Former WSCR sports radio personality Mike North was fired Friday from his Internet radio startup chicagosportswebio.com, along with his wife BeBe and another man. They were fired for inquiring about recent bounced checks for some of the employees, including broadcasting legend Chet Coppock.

Hold on, it hasn’t even begun to get weird yet.

Yesterday, the CEO of the company, David Hernandez, who is also the prime investor in North’s show “Monsters in the Morning” on Comcast SportsNet, called a meeting and announced the company was still in good shape, and that he would make good on the bad checks. He left and said he’d be back at 1:30. He never returned.

Then the employees learned Hernandez is being sued by the SEC for running a Ponzi scheme with his companies NextStep Financial and NextStep Medical Services (the prime sponsor of “Monsters” on Comcast).

Last night, Hernandez’ wife — also named in the SEC suit — reported him missing to the Downers Grove police.

Hernandez, as it turns out, declared bankruptcy three times in the last 5 years, and served time in jail in the late 90s.

So now chicagosportswebio.com is probably kaput, though Coppock plans on one more broadcast today at 3:00. THAT ought to be interesting.

And the future of “Monsters”, without its prime sponsor, is up in the air as well.

I always kind of wondered about the sponsorship deal with NextStep and “Monsters”. Seemed a little too good to be true: a single company sponsoring a TV show? When does that ever happen?

Never, apparently.

Related:

• Mike North Era at “The Score” is Over

Letterman Finally Offers Real Apology to Palins

Good for Dave. He seems to understand why this was a problem for many people, and he also seems contrite about it. And it’s been accepted, so we can all move on now.

Frankly, I always thought he was better than this, better than the raging loon we’ve been seeing on TV these last eight years or so. Maybe he’s been sucked in by all the other raging loons that inhabit that strange city.

But I’m still not sure people “get” what this is all about.

I think the accepted storyline in the eyes of at least some people is “Letterman made fun of touchy conservatives who then threatened a boycott like a bunch of spoiled children, so he finally had to give in and apologize”.

In truth, the takeaway from this is that Letterman made a joke about conservatives that he would never make about liberals, and he did this because conservatives aren’t viewed as fully human in the eyes of the media establishment, so you can get away with it. They aren’t real people, so who cares?

It’s pandering to the audience they clearly prefer, and nothing more.

“Tolerance: It’s Just a Word We Like to Throw Around!”

The climate that allows it to happen in the first place has to change. And until it does, nothing is really changed.

My earlier post is here: So . . . This is Where We Are Today? Really?

Deadspin Confuses It’s Readership with That of “The New Yorker”

This is just too rich.

A post at Deadspin laments the death of a literary sports magazine.

Not a sports ‘n boobs site. A literary sports magazine. As if there was a market for such a thing in the first place.

It even links to an essay in the magazine by David Foster Wallace, a writer of some intellectual repute who committed suicide a few months ago. I had never heard of him, for whatever that’s worth. I checked out of that intellectual literary world a long time ago. A little too prissy and impressed with itself.

And I do like Deadspin, most of the time. But let’s be honest: it is a cesspool of sports blogs. Snark on every post, sex whenever possible, taking the low road at every chance.

It’s not where you go when you want literary nourishment.

Yes, it is funny. “Married With Children” was funny too, in a very crude way. It also wasn’t high art, and it didn’t pretend it’s viewership wanted that, either.

And now that some hoity-toity New York sports magazine called “Play”—that few people outside that world ever heard of—goes under, this is supposed to cause Deadspin Nation to have a good cry, while they presumably enjoy a fine Bordeaux and a $24 cigar. In the study, surrounded by thousands of books, and wearing a smoking jacket. While waiting for Muffy and Biff to come back from prep school.

That is just about the funniest thing I’ve heard in weeks.

That giant sucking sound? Son, that’s what we used to call ‘The Economist’.

Too bad.

Used to be a nice magazine. As in, “intelligent”, “well-informed”, “fairly centrist”, “not as loony as Newsweek”. I’ve bought it a few times, and subscribed for a while.

Seems to have turned into just another in a long line of “Big Government is Good For You” media shills.  Soon lining a bird-cage near you!

Statism. It even sounds ugly, and the meaning is uglier:

stat-ism [stey-tiz-uh m] -
1. the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.

Because that’s always worked so well before!

I’ve got a crazy idea. How about another magazine that advocates for—hold on, this is pretty revolutionary—more individual liberty!

Not less Liberty. More Liberty. M-O-R-E.

More Liberty, both economic and personal.

Free markets and free people. I’ve heard it works pretty well.

Sam Smith Interview

Ed Sherman interviews former Chicago Tribune sportswriter Sam Smith about his new gig writing for bulls.com. Sherman also used to write for the Tribune; I imagine both are pretty happy to be out of there now, with the current financial state of that newspaper.

Sam covered the Bulls for years, including the Jordan era, and is a nationally known basketball writer. His gig with the Bulls is somewhat revolutionary in the sportswriting world: exclusive content provided by an old-school journalist for a team website.

They discuss the potential conflicts of interest, It’s pretty interesting stuff. Read the whole thing.

A quote from Sam about the failures of newspapers:

… [The Bulls] treat me well because they know me from covering them and the league for 25 years. That’s where my credibility and relationships come from. It’s what newspapers have forgotten. It’s not who you work for, but what you do.

A Good Rule for Sportswriters: Stay Away from Politics. Or, Learn to Use a Search Engine. Either Way.

Hey, look! A sportswriter has stepped in it again, by writing about politics. Riffing on Bush, and slobbering all over Obama. Like we can’t already get *that* from the rest of the paper.

I’m starting to think sportswriters aren’t real well-informed.  Srsly!

Rick Telander, sportswriter, informs us that Obama is a Renaissance Man for the ages, and Bush is a drooling moron.

Plus, Obama plays pick-up basketball! How awesome is that? Coolest. President. Ever!

Mr. Telander knows what he’s talking about, too; seems Obama is a voracious reader, and has even read Telander’s Heaven is a Playground, a book about … pick-up basketball. Which means he is open-minded, and also great presidential material. Bask in the reflection of his awesomeness.

Bush, meanwhile, suffers from countless infirmities, such as not playing pick up basketball, and a “lack of inquisitiveness”.  The bad news for Telander:  Bush is a voracious reader too; he read 186 books in the last three years.

186 books.  That is a lot of frigging books.

Dan McNeil Era at ESPN1000 is Over

Dan McNeil out at ESPN 1000:

Dan McNeil’s tempestuous run at WMVP-AM 1000 came to an abrupt, uncharacteristically quiet end after his Friday afternoon broadcast, the station confirmed.

Sources say that no specific incident precipitated WMVP’s decision not to pick up the option on the final year of McNeil’s contract, reportedly worth more than $600,000 annually, but the cumulative effect of past run-ins, self-inflicted controversy and suspensions may have played a role.

McNeil remains under contract to WMVP into May but will remain off the air. Replacing him alongside John Jurkovic and Harry Teinowitz for the foreseeable future will be Carmen DeFalco, who has had a variety of roles at the station, including backing up McNeil.

“We’re looking to try some new things in the afternoon, and given the economic climate, we feel like this is the right time to do it,” WMVP boss Jim Pastor, who is regional general manager for ESPN Radio, said in a prepared statement. “Mac’s played a big part in ESPN 1000’s success. This afternoon I thanked him for that and wished him well in the future.”

Like I posted in my comment at that post on the Tribune’s Tower Ticker blog, I suspect this is more about $$$ than about disciplinary issues, even though the comment from his former boss seems to say that as well — as we’ve all seen before, the incentive to be truthful at such times is approaching zero.

I liked their show, and Mac. They have a nice blend of approachability and humor, and don’t act like arrogant twits, like their counterparts at WSCR-670.

But the radio business is changing rapidly under our feet, just like all other forms of entertainment and media. Over the last 6+ months, McNeil is the second highly-paid and high-profile sports radio personality in the Chicago market — after Mike North was shown the door in June — to be told “bye, and thanks, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out”.

I’m sure McNeil will surface somewhere; it’ll be interesting to watch what happens.

As for Mike North, he went over to TV, doing a morning show called “Monsters in the Morning” on Comcast Sports Net Chicago, which just started this past Monday.

Content Has Been De-Valued by the Internets®

And that is a major reason why the advertising model isn’t working any more for “the media”, whether it be newspapers, TV, movies, the music industry, book publishers, etc.

There. I’ve figured all this out now. You can all thank me by sending a check for $50 to … oh, wait, too late, I’ve published this on the damn Internets®! For free! What a moron.

Of course, I’m far from the first to dig deeply into all this, but I’ve been thinking about it alot the last few months. And as one who is trying to build a freelance writing career, I have to think about, and understand at a basic level, the concept of content and how it is delivered. What is the value of content in a market where “information wants to be free”?

And here’s what I’ve come up with. Content-producers like newspapers and TV networks are suppliers in an economic market, governed by the rules of economic markets. That content used to be more controlled, and therefore precious and rare, and so by definition, more valuable. Newspapers controlled what we read, and how much they allowed us to read. TV controlled the news that we saw, and how much of it we were allowed to see, and all the TV shows, and the stars that were on them, and the writers that wrote for them; and since there were only 3 networks, the supply was extremely limited compared to today’s 300 or more channels on satellite, cable, etc. Same for movies, music, books, etc.

All of these industries were in the business, whether they realized it or not, of restricting the availability of the content they provided, in order to prop up its value. And this is because rather than charging the end consumer for that content, they used ratings to drive ad revenue to fund the whole thing. And ratings depend on having just a few delivery channels, so that the audience doesn’t get too fragmented. Once you add hundreds more delivery channels, (or millions, in the case of the Internet), the whole model won’t work any more.

Suddenly, they had to compete with content providers who weren’t protecting revenue streams, all driven by the Internets®, and the audience became fragmented, and the bottom fell out.

They thought they were providing content, but as we’ve seen over the last few years, with the decline in movie viewership, TV ratings, newspaper circulation and ad rates, etc., providing content and relying on advertising to fund it is a suckers game when the market is saturated. So their business model relied on restricting content more than providing it.

Your SEC: “Massive Fraud? $50,000,000,000? Huh. How Did We Miss That for, Like, TWENTY Years?”

Ever since reading a biography of Joseph Kennedy about 10 years ago, I’ve always wondered just how much protection is actually provided by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This is because Kennedy, who made his initial fortune on Wall Street via insider trading (which wasn’t yet illegal), was the first Chairman of the SEC. His appointment by FDR was regarded by some as the fox guarding the hen house, but there is also some logic to that, if the fox in question decides to become suddenly scrupulous.

Whatever else we can say about him, Joseph Kennedy was not scrupulous. But contrary to type, at least according to Business Week, he did a very good job at SEC, and cleaned it up, by striking a fine balance between “force and persuasion”.

Well, maybe the SEC could use his help once again.

When a few business journalists can uncover an obvious scam in a day or two, by looking at client statements and checking them against market activity for a given day, one may well ask, what exactly is the SEC doing?  Hanging out on Facebook all day?

Reliably Clueless, Part II

The New York Times takes a story with one source, and spins it as “combat veteran goes psycho”.

Yet again.

You have to admire their tenacity, if not their brains.

Once again, let’s stick with the facts: the idea that combat veterans return as whack jobs is wrong.

In fact, an entire book was written about sloppy, biased, factually unsupported, and libelous media coverage of military veterans: Stolen Valor, by B. G. Burkett. My summary of it is here.

Maybe journalists should crawl out of their shells once in a while, and learn something true and useful, so they could start writing articles about the military that are based on facts, instead of emotions and narratives.

Yeah, that is sooooo going to happen.

And My Endorsement Is …

Well, it’s not so much an endorsement as it is a criticism of the press for using post-modern narratives in place of, you know, doing journalism. Which allows them to decide for us which facts are relevant, and which are not, in covering a presidential campaign, and to build their narratives appropriately.

It’s an essay I wrote today called “The First Post-Modern Presidential Candidate”.

Apparently, the Entire World Has Officially Lost It’s Mind

OK, now this is just stupid:

BARACK OBAMA is poised to win at least one election by a landslide. Voters in The Economist’s Global Electoral College favour the Democratic candidate over his Republican rival, John McCain, by a hefty margin of more than four to one. Some 50,000 readers around the world are expected to have cast a vote by the close of polls at the end of the day on November 1st, with more than 40,000 votes going to Mr Obama. As candidates collect delegates according to the countries won (just as America’s electoral-college system allocates delegates by state), Mr Obama’s victory will be all the more comprehensive: he will claim over 9,000 delegates, compared with a paltry few hundred for Mr McCain.

Wow. 50,000 votes? Why that’s almost equal to the population of the suburb I live in!

Various patterns have become clear during the course of voting. Candidates did best when they picked up backing from heavily populated countries with large tallies of delegates. Mr Obama quickly scooped support from readers in China, India, most of Europe, as well as from the United States itself. In many cases Mr Obama won the support of an overwhelming share of voters: in more than 40 countries he claims the support of 90% (or more) of those who voted.

I thought they hired smart people at The Economist. First of all, the fact that foreigners support a candidate for U.S. president just might be a reliable indicator that Americans — you know, the people who can actually vote in the election — should stay as far away from that candidate as possible.

Nations have competing interests, and voters are supposed to take that into account.  But maybe after decades of being lectured about U.N. supremacy and how we’re “citizens of the world”, too many people have bought into that silliness.

Americans should vote for who they want to lead their country in a world filled with other nations who are actively trying to grab the power that we’ve had for decades.  Even if it means annoying some Europeans, Chinese, or whoever else.  That’s kind of the point:  for an American citizen to care about the opinions of foreigners re: who leads our country, whose interests are you putting first?  Or, is just about being that naive?  Because it seems like it’s one or the other.  Maybe both.

Imagine in the past a similar news story on FDR, or JFK, or Lincoln, Washington, Reagan, or anybody else.  The entire concept is ridiculous, but there are now enough people in the media who buy into the ridiculous that we get stories like this day after day, in media outlet after media outlet.

And call me crazy, but there is no way that McCain loses by a 4-1 margin in the popular vote. News flash: the readership of The Economist is a bit on the liberal side. Seriously! So their poll is both biased and  self-sampling.  Good work!

This election is causing too many people to get all goofy and sideways. Especially in the media.

Hey, whatever floats your boat.  But credibility is earned over a long time. How exactly do you attempt to reclaim that credibility when this is all over?

How to Destroy Your Credibility and Trust, Media Edition

Orson Scott Card, in a must-read essay, takes the media to task about all the things they don’t cover re: the Obama campaign.

This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

[...]

Isn’t there a story here? Doesn’t journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren’t you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. “Housing-gate,” no doubt. Or “Fannie-gate.”

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled “Do Facts Matter?” ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): “Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury.”

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was … the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was … the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It’s not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let’s follow the money … right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate’s campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an “adviser” to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama’s people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn’t listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

Read the whole thing.

Note that this is not a partisan issue. Facts are facts. It’s not about whether one likes Obama, or plans to vote for him, or likes McCain, or plans to vote for him.

It’s about establishing what happened in the past, to get us to where we are today. So that maybe, in the future, an educated voting public could put pressure on Congress to avoid future crap-ola like this?

But because the media likes Obama, and believes facts don’t really matter, we are being lied to, on a regular basis. Pause to consider the irony: journalists believe facts don’t really matter anymore.

Do not fall for lies.

But maybe the journalists are right. Maybe facts don’t matter; maybe they have done such a good job of pushing narratives and suppressing information they don’t like that we’ve become, largely, a nation of sheep with no ability to filter out bullshit in our news stories.

This is what noted Education Professor Bill Ayers wanted, you know. A nation of people both dulled by lack of factual knowledge, but energized by a vague need for “change” that just so happens to include Marxist, post-modern ideas at its core.

What a nice coincidence for them.

I am Joe

It sure is curious how the media is more interested in Joe the Plumber’s background than in Obama’s.

Put this episode at the top of the list of Examples Why Jeff Detests the Mainstream Media. You can’t do the bidding of the Obama campaign and still pretend to be objective.

Joe is not running for office. Obama is running for office. This is a pretty clear distinction.

Well, guess what? I am Joe. A very large chunk of the country is people like Joe, believe it or not. And when you attack Joe — a normal guy, asking the questions of a presidential candidate that many of us are wondering about too — then you attack us as well. And we don’t appreciate it.